Okay. So he was grumpy. At least that bit of info was accurate. “I came to talk to you. I have something you might find interesting.” I pulled out the test score paper, sliding it across the table to him.

“You don’t have anything I want to see.” He pushed it back to me.

I slid it back at him. “Please. Just give me a chance. I need—”

“You don’t need anything from me.” He leaned forward. “No one with half a brain would even take that damned test. The fact that you did shows me you’re stupider than most. Or maybe just gullible as all hell.” He crumpled the paper in his fist and threw it at me.

I barely managed to catch the wadded up paper before it smacked me in the face.

“I’m saving your life here. You can thank me or not. I don’t really give a shit.”

I wanted to be annoyed and frustrated, but I couldn’t be. Carl had a good point—I’d said almost the same thing to Roan a million times—but this was my best shot at survival. It was pathetic that this was what my life had come to. I knew that, but I was desperate. I wouldn’t take no from him.

I took the crumpled-up paper and smoothed it down on the table, leaving it between Carl and me. “I won’t survive the work detail that I’m on. I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors, but I’m the one on ice-down duty on the planet’s surface. I’ve nearly died every day I’ve been out there and, trust me, if I stay out there, I will die. I’ve been denied transfers multiple times already. You’re my one shot at living.”

He finally looked at me.

“I need the mining gig. I need it badly, and quickly. The odds are much better for me doing twenty runs, than lasting another week out there on the surface.”

He sat there, quietly considering me. He took a slow breath, which made me think that I was getting through to him, even though the expression on his face hadn’t changed. It was something.

“Just look at my scores, please. I know I can do this, and even if I can’t, blowing up on the moon is better than slowly boiling to death out there. It would be a mercy.”

He pressed his lips together and started shaking his head.

I wasn’t sure what else I could say, but I had to say something. I was desperate. I had to make Carl accept me as a miner. “I don’t know what you need to hear, but I—”