Ivo found her waiting by the water reclamation barrels, alone, at the hour when the camp turned inward to cook and rest.
Dr.
Smith smiled.
The kind of smile that said she’d been patient, and now her patience had paid.
“Ivo.” She said it like a greeting between old friends.
“I was hoping we’d have a chance to talk. Just the two of us.”
He stopped three meters out.
Left his hands where she could see them.
“Dr. Smith.”
“Oh, don’t do that. Don’t go stiff on me.” She gestured at the barrel beside her, an invitation.
“Sit. I only want to help.”
He didn’t sit.
Didn’t move closer.
Her smile widened a fraction.
“Cautious. I appreciate that. Careful boys always have the most to lose.”
The water burbled behind her, slow and mechanical.
Somewhere past the tents a child laughed, high and unbothered.
The sound made the silence between them sharper.
“I’ve been watching you,” Smith said.
Casual.
Conversational.
“A habit of mine. Noticing things. The little inconsistencies people leave behind when they’re working very hard to be unremarkable.”
Ivo said nothing.
“You’re good at it, I’ll give you that. Quiet. Useful. Never quite in the way, never quite asking for anything. But then there are the fevers. The nosebleeds. That tremor in your hand after you carried something heavy.” She tilted her head.
“Judy’s noticed too, hasn’t she? She keeps looking at you like a case she hasn’t solved.”
The Line sat cold and still beneath his ribs.
He kept his breathing even.
“And then there’s the timing,” Smith continued.
“The beam that moved when it shouldn’t have. The tools that work better after you’ve touched them. The metal that finds its way into your pocket.” She paused.
Let it settle.
“You have an edge, don’t you? A trick. A gift that makes you more than the stowaway everyone’s too polite to ask about.”
He met her eyes.
Hers were warm, sympathetic, utterly empty of mercy.
“I don’t know what you think you saw”
“Oh, Ivo. Please.” She laughed, soft and disappointed.
“Don’t insult me with denials. I’m not here to expose you. I’m here because we’re the same, you and I. Two people who weren’t supposed to be on this ship, doing whatever it takes to stay.”
The water kept burbling.
His molars ached.
“There it is.” She straightened.
Folded her hands in her lap like a teacher pleased with a student.
“I want what anyone wants. Safety. A place I can’t be thrown off when the math gets tight. And you, Ivo you’re very good at making yourself indispensable. I’d like to learn from that. And perhaps, from time to time, I’d like your help with small things. Practical things.”
“In exchange for what.”
“In exchange for my discretion.” Her voice stayed warm.
The threat underneath it was colder than vacuum.
“I won’t ask what you are. I won’t share my observations with Maureen, or John, or that very dedicated medic who keeps running your blood work. You’ll stay useful, I’ll stay quiet, and we’ll both get to Alpha Centauri with our secrets intact.”
An alliance, she called it.
It had the shape of a knife instead one she’d hold over him every time she needed a favor, a lie, a door opened or a question left unasked.
“And if I say no?”
Smith sighed.
Looked genuinely sad.
“Then I’ll have to protect myself. A quiet word here. A concern there. ‘I’m worried about Ivo, he’s been so unwell, and I saw him do something strange with the salvage, do you think he’s safe to have around the children?’ Maureen Robinson is a practical woman. She’ll do the math. You know she will.”
The hunger sat beneath his tongue, flat and attentive.
The cable he’d eaten.
The parts he’d moved.
The rescue he’d bought with his body and hadn’t been able to explain every secret a thread she could pull until the whole fabric came apart, and him standing in the wreckage with nothing left to trade.
Don’s advice surfaced, unbidden.
Pick one person to stop lying to.
Smith wasn’t that person.
“You’re not Dr. Smith,” he said.
Her smile didn’t falter.
But something behind it stopped moving, the way a held breath stops a chest.
“I’m sorry?”
“Not her. I don’t know who you are. But that name fits you the same way mine fits me.” He kept his voice flat.
Factual.
Let her hear the same cold she’d used on him.
“So if you want to talk about secrets, let’s talk about both of ours.”
The silence stretched.
Somewhere a tent flap rustled.
The burble of the water was the only sound between them.
Then Smith laughed.
Quiet.
Delighted.
Real.
Smoothed her jacket.
Looked at him with an expression that split the difference between respect and pity and landed squarely on satisfaction.
“You’re right. Of course you’re right. And now we both know, don’t we? Which means we both have a knife. The question is whether we’re smart enough not to use them.”
He said nothing.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” She stepped closer.
He didn’t step back.
“You’ll help me when I ask. Small things. Nothing that hurts anyone you care about. And I’ll keep your secret, and you’ll keep mine, and we’ll be two very careful people who understand each other.”
“And if you ask for something I won’t do?”
“Then we’ll revisit this conversation. With fewer smiles.” She stopped an arm’s length away.
Her voice dropped, warm and almost gentle.
“But you will, Ivo. Because the difference between us the only difference is that you still think there’s a version of this where you’re the good one.”
She reached out.
Patted his shoulder once a teacher dismissing a student.
“I’ll enjoy watching you learn there isn’t.”
She walked past him, back toward the lit tents and the voices and the family she’d stolen her way into.
Her footsteps were light.
Unbothered.
Ivo stayed by the barrels.
Let the cold settle into him, let the ache in his teeth fade to nothing while the camp noise thinned and the first stars pricked through the haze overhead.
He’d named what she was and handed her the exact same knife she’d handed him.
She’d walked away smiling anyway.
That was the part he couldn’t get past.
He’d do what she asked, small favors sized to look harmless, because refusing cost more than the family he’d bled to stay beside was worth losing.
Judy’s face rose behind his eyes how she’d studied him after the rescue, after the blood work, after the question she hadn’t asked yet but would.
One person.
Just one.
He would.
Judy.
But first he had to survive the lie he’d just agreed to keep.
Debbie wandered past, pecking at gravel.
She looked up at him, curious and fearless, and went back to her search.
The Line was silent.
The night was coming.
Ivo walked back toward the supply tent, carrying a knife he couldn’t use against a woman holding the same.
The détente would hold.
It had to.
Because the only thing worse than being owned was being thrown away, and Smith knew it, and so did he.