"Is that you?"

"Sorry?"

"Minerva! For God's sake, Anosova. Anosooooovaaaaa!"

Minerva turned on her stool to see Veta over at the door of the pub, hands cupped around her mouth as she shouted.

"Uh, hang on. Sorry," Min said, then rose and went over. "Veta, why on Io are you shouting like that?"

"Because the three times over the last two hours I came over to talk to you, you completely ignored me," Veta said, smirking as she drew her scarf around her neck. "And the last four times I called your name you didn't so much as blink. If the shouting didn't work, I was going to try a pitcher of water."

"It hasn't even been an hour yet-" Min said, turning to point out the clock and then realizing that the pub was nearly completely empty, and the clock was significantly past where she thought it had been just a few minutes ago.

"Uh huh. We've had dinner, dessert, drowned all our sorrows in vodka, and now we're going back to the inn. Are you coming?" She looked around Minerva's shoulder toward the bar with a smirk. "And if you are, are you coming alone?"

Drunken singing drew their attention and Veta looked out the door, toward where Mike and Geny were singing the Martian anthem, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders as they swayed and puffed thick clouds of white from their mouths.

"I'll be along in just a few minutes," Min said. "I just want to settle my tab."

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Veta asked with a wink.

"Very funny."

"Just remember, our tickets are at seven on the dot. That's only six hours from now." Another loud bout of singing floated in through the door and Veta rolled her eyes. "We were worried Mike couldn't handle his vodka and it turns out that the lightweight was really Geny all along. Let me get these two off the street. I'll see you in the morning."

"I'll be at the inn in half an hour, at the latest," Min told her.

"Whatever you say," Veta said, pulling open the door.

"Sorry about that," Min said as she went back to her seat, her companion giving her a small smile and passing over a new glass.

"Last one, for the road?" she said.

"Ah, you twisted my arm." Min picked up the glass and took a sip. "You were telling me about the Pechora?"

"Indeed I was," her companion said. A few minutes later, the barman cleared his throat, and Min looked over at him.

"Closing time, ladies. Got to chase you out."

She stared at him, stunned a moment, before looking back at the clock. Somehow, yet another hour had managed to vanish in those few short minutes. They were the only two customers left in the pub.

"Damn, I need to get back," Minerva said, rising and digging out her wallet again to pay for their drinks.

As the barkeep took the djenii toward the register, Minerva looked at the woman who had somehow stolen the entire night. "It was wonderful to meet you," she said, then laughed a little. "I will hear no end of this when they realize what time I came back in."

"They will tease you?" the redhead asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Will they suggest something scandalous? That we perhaps spent the night together?"

"Yeah," Minerva said. "They can be pretty-"

She paused as the redhead caught hold of her hand, rising off her stool. "Well then, Private Anasova, I have a suggestion."

"Do you? What's that?"

"If they're going to tease you for your scandalous behavior, you may as well enjoy being scandalous."

Min felt the grin wanting to break out again. "It's late, and very cold," she said. "My inn is a good fifteen minutes' walk."

"Ah, but my room is just upstairs."

"Upstairs, outside, I don't care what you do, so long as you make yourselves scarce so I can finish closing up," the barkeep said, holding out Minerva's change. The hand in hers tightened a little, warm and soft.

Cold alone outside, or warm and soft right here? Decisions, decisions…

"Keep the change," Min said absently, and as the redhead started to draw her along, she followed without hesitation. "Are you sure this is no trouble?"

A doorway was just beyond the end of the bar, a set of stairs leading upward just through it. A sign on the wall beside it read GUESTS WHO HAVE RENTED LODGINGS AND EMPLOYEES ONLY PAST THIS POINT.

"It's right up here," she replied, with a gentle smile. "It's no trouble at all."

Min knew she was going to get an earful the next morning, when they realized she'd never come back to the inn.

Let them, she thought. It was a very good point, after all. She was going to get ribbed one way or the other, might as well earn the ribbing.

The room was small and cozy, but the bed was more than large enough. Min fell asleep listening to the wind outside, fingers twined in warm red hair, and trying to think of a single occasion before in her entire life she'd been quite so tired, and quite so happy.

It was still dark when a soft kiss to her temple woke her up. Min looked up at the shadow of her companion, already up and dressed.

"I've got to go," the redhead said gently.

"Yeah," Minerva said, pushing herself up a little. "You won't be back here tonight?"

"No. We'll be in Stockholm this evening, I'm afraid. I left my contact, on the dresser. I should be in and settled by about nine o'clock Moscow time, if you wanted to call?"

"I'd like that," Minerva said. She sat up and caught hold of her companion's arm gently as she turned to go, and kissed her as she turned back. "Good luck out there."

A light, lingering touch to her cheek, then a soft "I'll speak with you tonight."

Then she was gone.


"Oh, look who it is!" Geny said as Min stepped aboard the boat. Mike, wearing dark glasses and wincing, peered over. "I take it you finally placed her face?"

"Very funny," Minerva said, then swatted Mike's arm as he opened his mouth. "If you say 'under your ass' I'm going to hurt you."

"I was just going to vomit," Mike said blearily. "Who are you again?"

"He tied more than a few on last night," Geny told her. "Which you'd know, if you hadn't been oblivious to the universe."

"The way I heard it, you were deeper into your cups than Mike," she said, and looked around. The sun was nearly up, the river and the harbor lost in thick mist. The sound of other boats, voices, echoed everywhere, disembodied in the gloom. The cold of the night before seemed to have grown sharper teeth, and she huddled down in her coat a bit as she looked around. "Where's Veta?"

"Right behind you," Veta said, plucking a coffee from a tray and passing one to her. "When does she go?"

"She should already be out there," Min said.

"She's got to be a special kind of crazy, I'll tell you," Geny said. "I grew up here and I would never in a million-"

The boat's foghorn blatted, the sound almost an explosion in the mist. Mike moaned and clapped his hands to his ears, mouthing something that Min couldn't hear but looked to be 'kill me now!'

"Of course she's a special kind of crazy," Veta said, not missing a beat as she handed a coffee to Geny. "She spent the night with Min, didn't she?"

"You don't know that," Minerva said, and when Veta gave her a look, she returned a grin and sipped at the coffee in her hand. Beneath their feet, the vibrations of the engines grew a little stronger, the vessel starting to pull out away from the dock.

"So, do we get details or not?" Geny asked. Min ignored him, looking toward the bow where the fog was nearly as thick as whipped cream. A dozen revelers getting a very early start on Arrival were gathered there, already hooting and waving noisemakers.

"Not," Minerva said. "Is it safe with this mist?"

"Don't worry about it," Veta told her. "This is usual this time of year. Everyone has everyone else on positioning, and there are collision failsafes from stem to stern."

"This was a really, really bad idea," Mike said. He was still hanging on the railing, looking more and more like he was going to live up to his claim and empty his breakfast over the side.

"This was a wonderful idea," Veta said, handing him the last coffee. "Getting plastered last night as much as you did, that was the bad idea. Come on, Min. If he gets sick I'm going to get sick too."

Clutching their coffees, the two women wandered toward the bow, finding places at the railing not yet clogged with tourists. Below them, the water was a dark slate grey, edged with white foam. The occasional thin chunk of ice bobbed here and there like tiny toy boats. Min sipped at her coffee as Veta teased her a bit about the previous night, and pretended to ignore her. This only got Veta going more, but when a smile began to appear on Min's face she paused.

"What are you grinning about?" she asked.

"Were you aware that Geny has been trying to hook up with you since Salzburg?"

"Oh GOD, don't I know it?" Veta said, leaning on the rail and watching the water- about the only thing that could be seen. "And don't change the subject. I was teasing you. You don't get to tease me back."

"Privilege of my superior rank," Min said, and Veta laughed.

"God you will be insufferable if you ever get even the tiniest promotion," she said.

"So, Geny?"

"Oh, don't. I have no interest in Geny. His ideas of how to charm his way into a girl's heart come from the stone age."

"That's a pity. It was such a wonderful vision."

"Vision?"

"Yes. I had a vision of you and Geny, settled down in Croatia somewhere, in a nice two story-"

"Oh please!"

"-cave. I'm sure you'd have all the finest furs."

"I could use some furs right about now," Veta said, hugging her coat closer and shivering. "I do have to agree with Geny on one point. Your new girlfriend is definitely a special kind of crazy. She's on this route, isn't she?"

"I think so."

From another boat, a phantom half seen toward their port, a flash of blue, then yellow lit up the fog a moment before the sharp snap and crackle of some fireworks. Min laughed as the tourists around them hooted and waved and spun their noisemakers.

"I'm starting to suspect we're a special kind of crazy too," Veta said, looking at her. "Whose idea was it to be out here on a boat at the ass crack of dawn in the freezing cold during leave? We could have spent Arrival in the Bahamas, or on Venus, or-"

"It was your idea," Min said, taking another sip of her coffee. There was another flash of color in the mist, this one red. The tourists began to hoot and clap again, but Min lowered her cup and frowned.

There was no crackle of fireworks this time, and the red wasn't fading.

"Oh yeah," Veta said. "I must have had a concussion."

Min barely heard her, trying to see through the mist. Something was splashing. A voice called something she didn't make out. That nonstop flare of red.

"Shit, Min!" Veta gasped as Min half shoved her coffee into her friend's hand. The top popped off and steaming brown spilled all down Veta's front. Min rushed past her, toward the other railing, tearing off her coat as she went, then ripping off her boots.

The cheers of the tourists were starting to turn into confusion, pointed fingers. The bell kept ringing madly. The splashing had stopped.

"Out of the way," Min said, pushing people away from the railing before she was up and over it.

The water of the Neve closed over her in thousands of razor blades, a shock and a pain that threatened to steal her breath away. Down here, below the boats and the mist and far away from the morning sun, the water was an endless hell. Not one of flames and light, but of darkness and cold beyond human belief.

She tore her way through the dark, swimming as hard as she was able. Something else splashed nearby, muffled. There was a rain of silver bubbles, and then a shaky lance of light- someone had dropped a skim drone into the water. Min heard it whir as it swept past her, and she hurried after it, following its light.

Her lungs ached, and she had lost most feeling in her limbs. The skim drone was pulling ahead, and she saw the river bottom for a moment in its cone of light and then…

She pulled harder, gritting her teeth. Her lungs screamed at her.

Breathe! You need to breathe!

No! I breathe and I die!


The warmth of a pub, the laugh of voices as Min shook her head. "I know it's kind of your thing, and I don't judge but- you're really going to swim across the Neve? It's literally freezing outside. Isn't that dangerous?"

"I've done it before. Not quite this cold, but pretty close. I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I couldn't make it. I've been doing extreme swims since I was a child. Death hasn't found me yet."

"Let's hope that stays true," Min said. "You're far braver than I am."

"Oh, I don't know about that."


Breathe, and die.

Breathe, and die.

The skim drone had found its target. It was much too small to pull her to the surface. All it could do was mark her position for rescue. Min urged some more life out of a body that felt like ancient stone.

The swimmer was still alive. She was struggling sluggishly, legs kicking in weak, ineffectual jerks as she tried to claw her way upward. As Min passed the skim drone, she was spotted.

Red hair that looked black in the gloom floated around her head. Terrified, half conscious eyes found hers, and a hand reached out toward her. The eyes lit with a frantic hope.

Min reached out and caught that hand, and then the dying woman caught her. Her nails tore at the side of Min's neck as she literally tried to claw her way upward using Min as a rope. Min tried to restrain her but the swimmer was in a blank instinctual frenzy, one that Min could feel rising in her chest as well.

BREATHE! AIR! UP! AIR! BREATHE!

Breathe, and you die!

Breathe, and you die!

Don't breathe, and you die!

Min's bare feet hit the silt of the river bottom. A hand hit her face hard enough to black her eye, though she was so numb now she didn't feel it. Managing to pin an arm underneath hers Min pushed off as hard as she could toward the surface, but the motion was weak and she only rose a few inches before her feet hit bottom again. The swimmer wasn't really fighting any more, half clinging to Min. Her movements felt spastic, reflexive. All of Min's being was screaming at her to breathe. To let go and to swim up and to breathe.

Breathe, and you die!

The light of the skim drone was fading away, the light in the world fading away. She tried to push off the bottom again, tried to haul the swimmer upward, but she was dead weight.

They were both dead weight. Min wasn't even sure that her legs had moved, that any signal had made it through from her brain to her muscles. Even the cold seemed to be going away, a distant throb of no import.

She was sagging back down again, and the swimmer's head bobbed forward against her chest as they started to settle toward the bottom.

I can't breathe, she thought lazily. If I breathe, I'll die. It's so cold, and I can't breathe.

The world had narrowed down to a thread. For a moment, she thought the light from the skim drone had gotten brighter. She thought that something else moved through that water. The last thing she saw was the redhead's face, pale and blue and painfully beautiful as it seemed to float away from her.

Then, nothing more.