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Korvo closes the hatch to the ship’s primary electronics panel carefully. He takes his time aligning the locks. He activates them slowly. He runs a gentle hand over the hatch, as if he’s stroking the delicate wires and wafer thin circuits directly. Behind the hatch is a nest of advanced extraterrestrial technology that cannot be easily repaired or replaced.
Korvo punches the hatch hard.
“Goddammit Terry,” Korvo snaps. An orange light blinks into surprised life next to the hatch. “Do you know how long it’s going to take for the ship’s heating system to recalibrate?”
“Twenty minutes,” Terry answers confidently. “Fifteen if I ask it nicely.”
“Try twenty hours. That’s right, twenty hours.”
“Oh, no,” Terry says, as he struggles to understand what he should be alarmed about as well as what he should be feeling guilty for. “That’s…wow. That’s terrible. They were so young and talented. They had their whole lives ahead of them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about man!” Terry throws his arms up. “All I did was use the oven to cook dinner, and then you dragged us all up here into the ship and told us the house is out of bounds. You're also up my ass in a way I would describe as ‘very not good’ if it was possible for you to go up there. Which it’s literally not. But you know what I mean."
“You hooked the stove’s power supply up to the ship’s supply. The two are incompatible.”
“I thought it would cook the food quicker.”
“The two are in. Com. Pat. Ible."
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Oh I don’t know Terry; perhaps by using the modicum of common sense that didn’t have the motivation to leave you?”
“Perhaps if you cooked dinner once in a while you’d be as frustrated with its slow cooking speed as I am. But since you don’t…”
“The ship’s power supply had to be rebooted,” Korvo continues, “and is now offline for twenty hours. The house’s power supply is also offline for twenty hours. The oven has become a radioactive Death Appliance and has turned the kitchen and the rest of the house into a Death Zone, which means everywhere except the ship is out of bounds for twenty hours.”
Korvo flicks the orange mild emergency alarm with a finger. “The ship’s power supply obviously takes precedence over everything else. Which means we have no electricity for twenty hours. Which means no heating, no air conditioning, no television.”
“But I love all of those things!” Terry says.
“Me too,” Yumulack says. “This is so lame. I don’t want to stay inside the ship with everyone.”
“Tough shit,” Korvo tells him. "The temperature in the ship will decrease as a result of the repairs being made to it, but it won't fall to a dangerous level."
"Can't we just, oh I don't know, jump out of the ship and reintegrate into society that way?"
"No. The temperature gauge on the ship’s primary heating condenser is a needy little bitch, and it has to be monitored constantly. We all have to do our part and take turns watching it. See this straight red line? See this dial? We may have to adjust the dial one tenth of a degree up or one quarter-fifteenth of a degree down in order to maintain red line equilibrium and keep the recalibration process on track.” Korvo gives the temperature gauge a slow, thorough, and not completely annoyed look up and down. He feels a prickling at the back of his neck. “God damn it Tempy, you know how to keep a man on his toes. You know how to get someone’s skin damp.”
“What?” Yumulack says, his voice creeping towards horrified as his body creeps towards the window.
“I said I’ve drawn up a roster to monitor the temperature gauge,” Korvo snaps. He pushes a button on the control panel, which activates the internal window guards. They slam down and lock into place. “And because Terry is responsible for our predicament, he’s on duty first. And you’re on Terry watch duty first.”
“I’m on what?” Yumyulack says.
“He’s on what?” Terry says.
“Start monitoring!”
Terry and Yumyulack slink off to the corner of the ship where the temperature gauge is. They look at each other. Terry looks at the gauge. He gives it a thumbs up. He gives Yumyulack a thumbs up. Yumyulack rolls his eyes.
“Eyes on Terry!” Korvo snaps.
“This is shit,“ Yumyulack whines. “Why do I have to do this? What possible point is there to this?”
“Hmm,” Korvo muses, as he strokes his chin, “you clearly can’t be trusted to monitor Terry properly. Which means I’ll have to monitor you.” Korvo sits on the floor of the ship with his back to the wall. He stares unblinkingly at Yumyulack.
Yumyulack mutters something under his breath. Terry nods in understanding. He puts a hand on Yumyulack’s back.
“So does that mean I get to monitor you?” Jesse pipes up. She hasn’t said anything since the oven turned radioactive and Korvo had shepherded them all upstairs to the ship. Her arms are wrapped around herself. She’s shivering.
“It certainly does not,” Korvo answers her, his attention on Yumyulack, whose attention is on Terry, whose attention is on the temperature gauge. “I’m Team Leader,” he says, as if that answers any other question she might have the audacity to be forming.
Twenty long minutes pass. The Watch shifts are almost over.
“Well,” Korvo says to Jesse, who’s sitting on the floor next to him, “that wasn’t terrible. We haven’t burned to death. Or been radioactively poisoned. Or starved to death. Terry’s talking shit about me not making dinner by the way, in case you were wondering. Which I’m sure you were. I made dinner soon after we crashed here, after the emergency rations ran out. And shut up if you say it was takeout, I know it was. Fuck me I’m an excellent Team Leader: no-one’s dead, everyone’s working, and no-one’s talking except for me. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?” Korvo waits for an appropriately complimentary answer. “Does it?”
There’s no response.
“Dammit Jesse, the least you could do is throw yourself on the ground and worship the ground I’ve walked on. Is that too much to ask?” Korvo peels his eyes away from the sulking pair of Terry and Yumulack and looks at her for the first time since the monitoring work began.
Korvo’s eyes widen. “What the hell? Jesse, what- what are you doing? Are you OK?”
Jesse’s healthy green skin has turned vomit yellow. She’s sitting with her knees up to her ears, her arms wrapped tight around them. Her entire body is rigid and shaking.
“Oh yeah,” Jesse stutters out through chattering teeth, “I’m fine. Just peachy. Just really fucking fine, thanks for finally asking Korvo.”
Korvo looks at her in horror. “Are you…cold?” he asks.
Despite being nearly debilitated by the cold, Jesse gives Korvo a look that skewers his heart. “With brains like that I can see why they made you Team Leader.”
“But…” Korvo stutters, “it’s not that cold in here. It’s…Terry; what’s the temperature?”
Terry squints at the temperature gauge. “It’s three rectangles, one square, and half a circle. We’re cooking with gas now! Except not literally, because that will blow us up.”
“What’s the temperature in the room, moron?”
“Did you ever think to specify that Korvo? Did you? I’m not a mind reader. I failed that class at the Academy three times, as you well know.” Terry’s eyes water with the memory of his repeated failures. He covers his eyes with his hands.
Yumyulack pats Terry on the back. He glares at Korvo. “Why’d you have to bring that shit up again?”
Korvo rubs the back of his neck. “Terry I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to draw attention to your repeated and robust academic failures. Even though I made no mention of it whatsoever and you’re the one who brought it up.”
Korvo glances around the enclosed space of their crashed ship, as if an answer will suddenly reveal itself. “Terry,” he says, “what’s the-”
“It’s really fucking cold,” Yumulack answers. Terry’s face is still buried in his hands. “It’s like, well below freezing in here. It’s not good for us.”
Korvo looks around at everyone. Except for Jesse, they’re all fine.
“But I don’t feel cold,” Korvo thinks out loud.
“Good for you,” Terry mumbles.
Korvo thinks rapidly. He looks at everyone again: Terry is sobbing into his hands, Yumulack looks bored as fuck, Jesse’s one hard shiver away from passing out, his legs are covered by his robe that’s spreading out on the floor like a-
That’s it. His robe is keeping him warm.
“I’m warm and comfortable and not suffering because I’m wearing my robe,” Korvo says to everyone.
Yumulack shakes his head. “Just rub it in some more why don’t you Korvo. I’m sure that’s exactly what Jesse wants to hear.”
Further analysis spills out of Korvo’s mouth. “You don’t feel the cold because of your suit,” he tells Yumulack. “It’s got similar properties to our robes, and modulates your body’s temperature depending on the external temperature. When I removed the weapons from it I-”
“Fuck you again for that.”
“-enhanced the environmental systems in it. You can survive extreme heat and extreme cold now. So show some fucking gratitude.”
Korvo looks at Terry. Terry’s stopped crying, but he’s still covering his face with his hands. He sniffs.
“And Terry has natural temperature regulation. It’s how he can get away with wearing shorts and a t-shirt everywhere. He’s clearly got mutated and unnatural genes, and I’ll be fucked as to how that all works. I’ll experiment on him later.”
“You hear that Terry?” Yumulack says to Terry, “you’re a freak. A big special freak. Not even the Great Korvo can figure you out.” Terry sniffs again. It sounds like a happy sniff. He nods his head.
Korvo looks at Jesse. She’s not wearing her robe. She’s not wearing a special suit. She’s not a freak of nature. She’s a young replicant in a horribly cold space wearing a sleeveless dress. She’s sitting on the floor as well, but the cold is soaking through her dress and skin; it’s not being absorbed and re-directed and dispersed like his robe is doing for him.
Korvo thinks about what he can do. He thinks about what he should do. It only takes him a second.
He undoes his robe. He pulls his arms out of the sleeves. The cold immediately bites into him with sharp teeth, straight through his bare skin. He wishes he’d worn a long-sleeved shirt instead of the amusing t-shirt he’d opted for. He looks down at what's written on it: 'A lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.' He wants to rip it off and stuff it down Terry’s throat. But it's too cold for him to remove the few layers he has left. He tries not to think about how Jesse’s been feeling. Fucking Terry, making them suffer like this.
Korvo shrugs his robe off and gathers it up from the floor. Cold needles shoot up into his legs. Terrys going to suffer for this, Korvo swears he will. Insulting Terry and imagining all the punishments he’ll inflict on him is stoking his anger nicely, and is helping to deflect his attention away from the cold and how much he wants to put his robe back on and wrap it around himself even tighter and get off of this hell-hole of a planet.
Korvo holds his bunched up robe in one hand. He kisses it. And with his other hand he reaches across to Jesse and grabs the back of her neck. He picks her up. Jesse doesn’t move. She’s frozen in position. Korvo pivots her around and dumps her on the floor in front of him.
He puts his robe around her.
Korvo hears a gasp coming from the direction of the temperature gauge. He looks up, primed to tell Terry to get back to work and finish his shift. Terry is looking straight at him.
“Oh Korvy,” Terry says, fresh water welling up in his eyes, “look at what you’re doing.”
Korvo immediately forgets what he was going to give Terry shit for. He arranges his robes underneath Jesse. He wraps it methodically around her, so that it covers every part of her body except for her head. He tucks in the loose ends.
“I’m maintaining a mission asset,” Korvo snaps, his face heating up. “If she freezes to death it will take her longer to regenerate. And she needs to pull her weight repairing the ship. Do you hear that Jesse? Stop dicking around with friends and hobbies and read an engine recalibration manual for once in your life.”
Korvo wraps his arms around Jesse. She immediately leans back into his chest. Warmth permeates Korvo from every direction, not just the physical kind.
Terry bursts into tears.
“Your life partner’s crying like a little bitch,” Jesse says, her voice rapidly returning to normal.
“Your biological creator needs to stop making a fool of himself and get back to work,” Korvo agrees. His eyes are locked onto Terry’s.
“Ms Frankie said that crying in front of someone else is for the moronic weak willed,” Jesse says.
Korvo hugs her tighter. “Your teacher couldn't even make it to seven orgasms before her central nervous system waved a white flag in my face. She’s the weak one. Ignore her.”
Korvo feels Jesse close her eyes. She relaxes into him.
“Why is he making so much noise?” Korvo asks Jesse.
“You know why.”
Korvo hopes he’s not smiling at Terry, but he suspects he is. He tries to rearrange his face. He closes his eyes. He rests his chin on Jesse’s shoulder. He’s never felt so warm in his life. He feels his smile spread back onto his face.
Terry cries louder.