Glow (7 page)

“All the boys are here,” Seth said. He’d come back without Kieran noticing. “Arthur Dietrich is sealing off the central bunker right now.”

“See if we can pick up the transmission between those two shuttles,” Kieran barked.

“Don’t yell—” Seth’s voice broke, but he mastered himself and sat in front of his father’s monitor. His fingers flew over the display in front of him, and Kieran could hear Harvard’s quietly enraged voice.

“… we could have shared our knowledge. You didn’t have to—”

“We had all the knowledge you had.” It was a man’s voice, someone Kieran didn’t recognize. He sounded as though he was pleading. “It was too late for us.”

“We would have helped you, if you’d been honest.”

“What’re they talking about?” Seth whispered, but Kieran shushed him.

“We
tried
!” the man insisted. “We begged your Captain to rendezvous with us, but he refused!”

“I’m sure Captain Jones was only trying to protect our ship,” Harvard said.

“That’s what
we’re
doing! We can’t let ourselves go extinct!”

Kieran watched as the enemy OneMan detached from the hull of the Empyrean and sped toward the rogue shuttle craft.

“What did he do?” Seth asked ominously.

Suddenly the Empyrean rocked with an explosion. Kieran’s vid screen flashed a brilliant light, and he shielded his eyes. A deep rumble moved through the ship.

“Oh God,” Seth cried as he flipped through screens to assess damage.

The enemy sped off toward the New Horizon. Harvard’s shuttle joined in pursuit, along with the three OneMen from the Empyrean.

“Where are they going?” Seth asked, his usual guarded manner completely unraveled.

“I don’t know,” Kieran said.

Kieran watched his com console, unable to breathe until a text message flashed to life on the Central Command computer: “On blkout. Stay on crse. Will rndzvous.”

“They’re going to try to catch up to the New Horizon. They’re trying to rescue the girls,” Kieran said.

“On blackout?” Seth read pensively.

“Their only chance is to surprise the other crew,” Kieran explained. “To do that, they have to cease all communication with us.”

Seth nodded, sullen. He didn’t like having things explained to him, Kieran could see. Usually Seth was the one who did the explaining.

An alarm suddenly screamed through the ship. Kieran jumped in his seat.

Huge red letters showed up on Kieran’s monitor, flashing urgently: “MELTDOWN.”

Radiation was flooding the engine room. And there was nothing Kieran could do about it.

PART TWO

CAPTIVES

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

—William Shakespeare

ON THE SHUTTLE

The shuttle lurched as it left the Empyrean, then settled into a smooth flight. To Waverly, used to the immense farming bays of her home, the shuttle felt asphyxiating and small. Passenger seats lined the walls, and the one hundred and thirty girls sat facing the center of the room, staring out the portholes and looking fearfully at one another.

Waverly felt sick to her stomach from the zero gravity. She was strapped in, but she couldn’t feel the weight of her body, and with her palm she kept touching the seat underneath her, making sure it was still there. She had a strange feeling of nonexistence, as if she’d left her body behind and were floating above these frightening people.

She should have listened to Seth. She should have run away.

“I’m still alive,” Waverly told herself. She knew it because she could feel Felicity’s leg next to her own. She wanted to reach out and touch her friend, hold her hand the way they’d done as little girls. That wasn’t so long ago, but Felicity seemed very far from her now, so Waverly kept to herself. She didn’t want to
be
this scared, so she didn’t want to
act
scared.

The red-faced woman who had started the shooting floated at the head of the cabin, strapped into a harness that hooked to the wall, holding her weapon to her chest. She kept her smallish eyes trained on the girls, but something about her was unsteady, and every so often she sniffed. Waverly thought she might be crying, but such a monster should not be capable of tears.

Waverly nudged Felicity. Even that small motion sent an ache radiating through her core. She was very weak.

“What?” Felicity whispered, barely audibly.

“We outnumber them,” Waverly said softly. The single sentence used up all her breath, and she was panting before she could finish. “Maybe we can take over the shuttle.”

“They have guns.”

“If they get us aboard the New Horizon, we’ll never get away.”

“But we’ll be alive.”

Waverly tried to think of a response, but spasms seized the muscles between her ribs, and she bent over, wincing. She felt Felicity’s hand on her back, and the girl whispered through her hair, “Shut up and be still. You’re too sick to do anything.”

Waverly’s entire being cried out against this. There had to be something they could do,
something
to stop this terrible thing from happening. But the more upset she felt, the weaker her limbs, the more frantic her heartbeat, the less clear her head. She slumped against Felicity, who put an arm around her, and she concentrated on the other girl’s heartbeat, listening to its steadiness, willing her own heart to slow its wild pace.

The door to the cockpit slid open. The girls shrank from it.

Into the room stepped a plump woman of middle years, her gray hair swept into a bun on top of her head. The woman had kind gray eyes and a serene smile. She held out her hands as if to embrace all the girls in the room. For a moment, Waverly wondered how the woman was able to stand on the floor in zero gravity, but then she saw she was wearing magnetic grav boots. Everyone else aboard the shuttle seemed discomfited by the zero gravity, but this woman’s feet were planted firmly on the ground.

“Girls, I’m Anne Mather, and I’m here to help you. You’ve been through a great deal, and I’m so sorry for what happened.”

“You’re
sorry
?” Samantha Stapleton yelled. “You
killed
people!”

“
Killed?
Oh, my my my!” cried the woman. She lifted Samantha’s chin until the girl glared up at her. “No, dear. I’m so sorry you misunderstood! No one was killed in our rescue mission! Some people were stunned with our tranquilizers, but I assure you, they’ll wake up safe and sound.”

Many of the girls straightened in their seats, hopeful eyes fastened on this comforting, motherly woman. “My mom’s going to be okay?” Melissa Dickinson asked from beneath frayed mousy hair.

“I assure you, she is fine, dear.”

Melissa collapsed against the girl next to her, crying with relief.

Laura Martin raised her skinny arm and cleared her throat. Waverly thought how absurd it was that already the girls were acting as though this were a normal class and this woman a normal teacher. They were badly shaken and willing to cling to any bit of normalcy. “This was a rescue mission? Rescue from what?”

“You didn’t know?” the woman said, her voice full of love. “Sweethearts, there was an air lock malfunction that caused an explosive decompression. We tried to fix it from the outside, but when that failed, we knew we had to get you girls off the ship as fast as we could!”

Waverly saw that some of the girls were eating this up. Finally, here was a trustworthy adult who would put everything to rights. But it didn’t work on everyone. Samantha seethed at the woman, looking capable of choking her to death. Sarah Hodges, a short, athletic girl whose favorite sport was tormenting teachers, shook her head in open defiance.

“As soon as we know that the Empyrean is safe for you,” the woman said, “we’ll return you to your parents.”

“I saw the whole thing,” Waverly said as loudly as she could, but only the girls nearby heard. “They fell down so fast. Like they were dead.”

The woman put a clammy palm to Waverly’s cheek. Her eyes were dove-wing blue, her smile gentle and loving, her skin milky despite her age, her gray hair thick and silky looking. Waverly
wanted
to like her. She wanted to believe her. She almost did, except for the slow, determined way the woman spoke. “Dear, we injected them with a powerful drug that acted very quickly. It must have frightened you to see them fall down that way, but I assure you, they’ll be fine, as long as they can repair the Empyrean.”

“But
why
did you shoot them?” It was Sarah who had spoken. Stubborn Sarah, who always had to challenge teachers, slowing down lessons and making things difficult. But here, in this terrifying setting, Waverly liked Sarah’s defiance. “
Why
did you drug them?”

“There was a panic,” the woman explained. “The people were trying to board the shuttle, but we had to keep them off. This shuttle has a specific capacity, girls. Too many aboard this ship would have meant death for us all.”

“Why did you take only the girls?” Waverly asked, barely able to make herself heard. She was getting weaker by the minute.

“We wanted to get the boys aboard a second shuttle,” the woman said regretfully. “But after the riot in the shuttle bay, we can’t risk more of our crew. It seems safer for everyone to avoid a mob, don’t you think?”

Only the youngest girls seemed satisfied by this. The older ones seemed merely shocked into silence. Sarah and Samantha stared angrily at the floor. Sarah looked pale beneath her many brown freckles, and her reddish hair hung in her eyes. Samantha’s expression was murderous. Felicity’s gaze had gone blank. She sat ramrod straight, as though she were being evaluated for poise, her eyes on her graceful fingers, which were woven in her lap. She’d retreated to a haven inside herself. But many of the girls looked relieved. The woman had come in with a comforting story, and they were clinging to it, hoping, willing it to be true.

“Girls, I’m needed in the cockpit,” the woman said. “If you need anything, you just ask for Auntie Anne, and I’ll come right away, all right? As soon as we get you aboard the New Horizon, we’ll get you some nice food and something soothing to drink. You’ll be safe and sound.”

The woman gave them such a warm, inviting smile, some of the girls actually smiled back. Then she turned and walked back to the cockpit, and the door slipped closed behind her.

Waverly saw that any hope of defiance, of overcoming the shuttle crew, was over. Anne Mather’s story had worked beautifully. There would be no revolt. There
could
be no revolt. The other girls would not cooperate with one because most of them wanted to believe the story even more than Waverly did.

Waverly felt her breathing slow. She leaned her aching body against Felicity, finally giving in to her pain and exhaustion. She closed her eyes and, in spite of her fear, slept.

THE NEW HORIZON

“Wake up.”

At first, the voice seemed to form out of the air around Waverly. As she came to herself, she heard with great relief the profound humming she’d heard her entire life—the familiar drone of the Empyrean’s engines. She was safe back home. She felt a hand at the back of her neck and edged her eyes open. In the dim light, she made out the rounded features of a woman in her fifties. She had raw, pink skin, light brown hair touched with gray, and solemn hazel eyes. A stranger.

Waverly released a strangled whimper. She wasn’t aboard the Empyrean at all. They’d taken her and all the girls to the New Horizon.

“Try a sip of this, honey,” the woman said. Waverly opened her mouth to receive an aromatic broth of chicken and parsley. “You’ve had quite a time,” the woman said. Waverly heard a spoon slide against an earthenware bowl, and it was held to her lips. The broth was warm and delicious. As she swallowed, Waverly realized that she was ravenously hungry. “That good?” the woman asked gently.

Something in the way the woman touched her, cared for her, spoke to her so gently, made Waverly feel precious. She nodded, disturbed by this weird intimacy.

The way the ship vibrated, the sound of the engines, the smell of the pollen from the corn crop, the oval shape of the portholes, and the view of the nebula that glowed outside like an eerie shroud: Everything was identical to the Empyrean. It was home, and not home.

“What happened to me?” she croaked.

The woman put the spoon in Waverly’s hand, then collapsed into a chair near the bed. She seemed very tired, and she moved as if each of her limbs weighed a hundred pounds. It was the same exhaustion Waverly had noticed in the men who’d taken them from the auditorium. Was everyone on the New Horizon sick?

“I’m your nurse,” the woman said. “My name’s Magda.”

“Where are the girls?” Waverly asked between spoonfuls.

“They’re safe.”

Waverly hated how the woman didn’t
quite
answer her questions.

“We’re aboard the New Horizon?”

“The Empyrean was further compromised after our rescue operation.” The controlled way she spoke made Waverly think that she was reciting from memory. “We had to bring you aboard.”

“Where are we?” Waverly craned her neck to look out the porthole. “Where’s the Empyrean?”

“It can’t be seen from here. We had to put some distance between us and your ship, honey. Just to be safe.”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t safe anymore.”

“Why did you take only the girls?”

“A little at a time, okay?” the woman said, indicating the spoon Waverly held, though it seemed the woman was talking about information: not too much at once.

The broth felt like a healing elixir, and Waverly swallowed it eagerly in spite of herself. If she were stronger, she’d go on a hunger strike, demand to be taken back to her mother. But Waverly wasn’t strong. Her fingers were shaking, her legs ached, and her throat was agonizingly dry, no matter how much broth she swallowed.