Page 12 (1/2)
“What kind of probleh he was from the settlements near Mariner Valley, he didn’t have the relaxed, drawling accent of that part of Mars Hutch’s voice buzzed like a radio on just the wrong frequency
“It’s not bad,” Leelee said, leaping to his defense “It’s not bad, right, David? Not really a problem Inconvenience maybe”
“Inconvenience,” David echoed
The silence was uncoht out fro on to the next He was half a head taller than Hutch, but he couldn’t seeher than the thin man’s sternum In two months, David would be sixteen, but he felt about six Hutch’s es and corridors This one had been a storage hole froeneration of settlements The walls were the polished stone of Mars covered with a clear insulative ceraht was a construction lantern, the burning white of the LED softened and made ruddy by Leelee’s paisley silk scarf draped over it They sat on metal crates in the cold Hutch scratched at the scars on his wrist
“Don’t let it choke you, little man,” Hutch said It was an old joke between them—David’s faenetics and growing up at barely over a third of Terran g, David was over two y “Just say what it is You got a bad batch, right?”
“No, nothing like that The batch is fine It’s just my aunt Bobbie’s come to live with us for a while She’s always at the place noays Anytiet home, she’s there”
Hutch frowned and tilted his head Leelee put her ar herself close to the ed her back but not off
“She knows you’re cooking?”
“She doesn’t know anything,” David said “She just lifts weights and watches video feeds all day”
“Lifts weights?” Hutch asked
There was an undercurrent of auts unknot He risked a glance at the thin man’s tea-brown eyes
“She used to be a Marine”
“Used to be?”
“So weird happened She sort of quit”
“So not a Marine anymore And nohat is she?”
“Just a fking inconvenience,” David said He took a little joy in the profanity Hell and dae tolerated in the Draper house Fuck would have gotten him yelled at Worse than that would be unthinkable “The batch is fine But it’s going to be harder to get the next one done I can’t do any of the prep work at home now”