Jacq watched Nick from the shadows just beyond the light of his campfire, drawn by the savory scent of fried proteins. Derbish reached into a box with one bare hand and tossed a fistful of moving black shapes into a pan held in the other. The pan sizzled, sending up little wafts of steam where it broke the campfire smoke.
"It's a delicate balance," Derbish explained, shifting the mix around in the pan with a stick. "Some of them eat each other, some eat other's eggs, and those that don't eat each other eat the excrement of those that do -- and all of them -fuck-. So long as you keep them in the right proportions..." He separated the pan's contents with his makeshift spatula. "They eat, shit, and breed in a continuous cycle, so we Dustborn can continue eating, shitting, and breeding." He gingerly pinched at the pan's contents, plucking out a large blob covered in spindly protrusions and popping it into his mouth. The crunch of his chewing seemed to echo off the canyon walls.
Nick reached for the pan next, hovering for a moment before selecting a smaller blob of spindles. He tapped at his knee as he chewed, head turned to the side. He swallowed with a shiver and shake of his head, but his hand ceased its anxious tapping.
"Surprised?" Derbish grinned.
"In a few too many ways." Nick bit his lip. "But I don't hate it."
"Welp." Derbish slapped his knees and stood. "You know where the fire is, and you know where the farm is. There's a little stream down the passage on the right." He jerked his thumb towards the cave, then turned and headed inside.
"Jacq!"
She jumped as Nick turned toward the voice. "Jacq?"
Jacq turned as well. "Smells good, yeah?"
Jarett approached from the wreck, arms swinging like a runner though his was only slightly faster than a walk. He placed a hand on her shoulder, panting, "Leru was about to bite my head off. How did you leave the ship without me or Hep noticing?"
She waved her arms slowly out beside her. "I'm a ghost. I go through walls."
He smiled, head falling as he caught his breath, then patted her shoulder. "I'll take your word for it. Come on."
"Actually, Jarett," Nick called from behind her, "bring Hep and Leru out here -- Dinner's ready."
Shortly after, the crew was gathered around the fire -- Despite the oppressive sun a few hours before, the temperature had dropped alarmingly close to freezing. They ate straight from the pan in a crunchy chorus.
Jarett grabbed the largest shape he could find, whimpering quietly when it became apparent he wasn't going to be able to finish it in one bite -- The thing was as long as his palm, half as wide, and though it was mostly flat circles, lines poked straight out of its sides.
Jacq and Hep sat quietly on their stones, munching steadily without complaint while Leru picked at her spindly meal with the same determined expression she'd had on Perseverance.
The food was greasy and crispy like breaded darkwhite fried in a vat, but tasted sweeter, and was almost liquidy on the inside.
As the fire began to die down, Leru excused herself to retrieve the last few mattresses from the crew quarters. Jarett excused himself to help, and Hep stood to leave with them, though he wandered around the outside of the ship rather than climb back inside. Jacq remained, staring into the darkness on the other side of the coals -- She felt like she'd just had a tremendously interesting thought, but it hung at the edges of her mind like waking from a dream.
"How was dinner?"
Jacq's head whirled to Nick. She turned to the remaining insects in the pan, felt around her mouth with her tongue. "Oh, no…"
Nick laughed, "Don't be so dramatic."
She shook her head with a shiver. "It… it tasted… the crunch -- so many legs!"
Nick's laugh died down to a chuckle, "It beats decades-old strained vegetables and unidentifiable protein bars."
Jacq compared her memory of the meals on Perseverance to the bugs, noting a particular lack of film or aftertaste from the evening's meal. Her gaze shifted slowly to her palm; It was pink again, but her eyes went wide as the dying flames cast shadows over it. She realized there was a gap in her memory -- not time she couldn't remember, but time remembered… differently, as if she'd been someone else for an hour or two.
Nick sighed. "I suppose we should talk about your little… adventure."
"I did drugs."
Nick wagged his head left and right. "It's more like you were drugged, just… by yourself, snooping around in other people's things." He looked at her sideways, shifting the coals with Derbish's stick.
"I-I'm addicted now. Am I addicted?" She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. "When do the withdrawals start?"
Nick burst out laughing, rocking back and forth on his stone. "I haven't met someone this- ahem… Educated, in a long time."
She narrowed her eyes, turning back to the withering coals. "I suppose it makes sense that an addict wouldn't take this seriously."
"Jacq." Nick turned on his stone to face her, half a meter away. "Say I'm an addict -- I've been doing ink for the last dozen standard years, off and on. Do I seem at all worried about withdrawal?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She took the stick from him and poked at the coals, sending embers dancing up into the darkness. "You don't seem to care much for your own well-being."
Nick frowned, watching her draw shapes in the ashes. "To be honest, I don't feel like I have enough control over my well-being to justify worry."
Jacq snorted, "At some point you made the choice to get on that rusty old ship. At some point you made the choices that made the enemies who threw you down here. At some point, you have to take responsibility for your decisions."
"Three-thousand dead, six-thousand injurred."
She turned to see him staring into the coals, jaw set.
"That's what I was arrested for," he added in the ensuing silence.
Her mouth fell open, stick buried in the dwindling flame.
"Someone flew a small cargo craft into an apartment building, brought the whole thing straight down. Supposedly, the authorities found ties to a political movement I'd started a standard before." He clenched his jaw. "Supposedly, they'd found evidence I'd ordered them to do it -- like we had- or I even could-" He took a deep, ragged breath, and reached for the stick. He gently pulled it from her hands, lifting it from the coals to stare at the flames dancing on its end. "There was no trial; I was indentured right out of my holding cell, had this interface shoved into my brain, and had the translator bugged so I could only speak and hear when and what they wanted me to." He blew out the fire, watching the smoke twist up from the stick's charred end before turning to her.
"What would happen if you spoke?"
Nick closed his eyes with increasing intensity, lowering the stick to his forehead as the muscles in his neck pulled taut. He touched the smoldering end to his forehead, breathing through his teeth. After an alarming number of seconds he jerked the stick away, pointing the coal-smudged burn on his forehead towards the sky -- it looked rather average at a glance, but staring at it revealed repeating patterns of stars. Finally, with a shiver, he turned back to her. "Which of those decisions brought me here?"
It seemed obvious -- provided he hadn't actually ordered the attack that he'd been blamed for, the only decision he'd made had been to lead a political movement. If that were the case, he would indeed be somewhat responsible for the actions taken in the organization's name, whether he'd ordered them or not. He didn't seem to believe the attack had been made by someone from his organization, however. "I don't have all the information…"
"Take your time figuring it out. I'll just be here while you do." His eyelids drooped as he turned back to the coals. "Not having all the information didn't stop them, anyway." He turned back to the coals. "I lived in that building."