Heart of the Nebula (19 page)

She reached up as if to touch them, but the
glass was cold against her fingertips, making her shiver. For all
the countless stars and worlds out there, they offered cold comfort
in the depths of space. Thousands of them all around her, yet none
close enough to give any warmth.

Just like people.

Her stomach growled, reminding her how long
it had been since she’d eaten. She tried to ignore it, but after
gorging herself for the past few days, hunger seemed like an
unbearable torture. Clutching her stomach and moaning softly, she
managed to hold out for a little less than two hours before she
could no longer resist.

She cautiously opened the door and glanced
in both directions before stepping out into the empty corridor. The
ever-present hum of the ventilation systems punctuated the silence,
but otherwise the ship seemed empty. Since the lights hadn’t
dimmed, however, she knew that it was still upshift, which meant
that the others were still awake. Probably they were in some kind
of meeting—and since she didn’t hear any talking, that probably
meant that no one was at the bar in the observation room.

She hurried down the corridor and crept
hastily down the stairs. Her stomach ached so much that she didn’t
notice James and Lars until she was almost in front of them. For a
second she froze, torn between running for cover and continuing on
her way. Since they’d already seen her, however, there was no sense
in running, so she took a deep breath and pretended to ignore
them.

“
Hello there,” said James,
shattering any chance of that. “Hungry?”

“
A little,” she mumbled.
She walked up to the bar and began stabbing her way through the
menu on the table-screen.

“
Here—care to sit down with
us?”

Kyla hesitated for a moment, glancing at the
two men out of the corner of her eye. All she wanted was to take
some food and get out, but the request seemed harmless enough.

“
Can’t stay long,” she
mumbled as she sat down across the table from him.

“
Why? Got somewhere to
go?”

“
No.
Just—can’t.”

“
If it’s the Hameji you’re
worried about, you can relax,” said James. “We’re far enough out
that there’s no way they could catch us. From here on out, it’s a
smooth flight all the way home.”

“
Right,” she said, sinking
further into her chair. “Home.”

He looked at her funny for a moment, then
shrugged. “Well, we’ve got a while before we get there. Since we’re
flying on our own jump drives now, it’ll take us almost a month to
get back.”

“
A month?”

“
Yeah. We can’t take the
starlanes, since the Hameji will be watching them. They can’t watch
all of the space between here and Karduna, though, so as long as we
stay in deep space, we should be clear.”

The prospect of an extra month of travel
gave Kyla little comfort if she was just going to end up where she
had started. Not for the first time, she wished that James had
never found her.

They sat in silence for about a minute.
James kept eying her, as if struggling to find something to say,
but Lars only stared out the window at the myriad stars. He seemed
even more melancholic than she did, which surprised her. These
people had everything she would never have—plenty of food, plenty
of money, a comfortable place to sleep, a beautiful starship,
people who cared about them. What did they have to be sad
about?

“
Hey,” she said, looking at
Lars. “What’s your problem?”

“
My problem?” asked
James.

“
No, his. What’s the matter
with you?”

Lars turned and regarded her coolly. “Do you
know why we came out here?”

“
No,” she admitted, though
she vaguely remembered them telling her before. “Why?”

“
We came out here for the
people like you—the ones who are poor and starving. We wanted to
change things, so that you wouldn’t have to run away. We had a
dream to make all our worlds safe and prosperous, just like the
days before the Hameji, but now, that dream is gone. The Hameji
massacred it with the conference.”

His words took Kyla aback. There was a
strength of conviction in his voice, a charismatic fervor that
nearly entranced her. At the same time, what could he know about
the poor and starving people below decks? He wore the simple
working-class clothes of a merchanter, but he was surrounded by
more wealth and luxury than she’d ever known. Blood rushed to her
cheeks, and she clenched her fists in rage.

“
What makes you think you
know me?” she asked, surprising herself with her own
forcefulness.

“
Whoa, calm down there,”
said James. “He didn’t mean anything by—”

“
No, that’s all right,”
said Lars, stopping him. “She has a right to know why I think I can
speak for her.” He looked Kyla in the eye, his gaze surprisingly
gentle. “The truth is, I can’t. Only you can speak for yourself. So
please, speak your mind. Tell us about the change that you want to
see.”

Of all the things that Lars could have said,
nothing was quite so effective at deflating her rage and anger. She
blinked a few times before she realized that he was serious—that he
really wanted to listen.

“
I just want a chance to
start over,” she said softly. “You rich people don’t know what it’s
like on the lower decks. When my mother died, life became a living
hell.”

“
Why didn’t you just go to
child services?” James asked.

Kyla glared at him. “I’d rather go work in a
brothel—at least there, I’d get paid.”

“
She’s got a point,” said
Lars. “Social services reform has been far too long in coming. Some
of the abuses of the system would make your skin crawl, though I
was under the impression that they were isolated incidents. Perhaps
I was wrong.”

“
You people are wrong about
a lot of things,” Kyla said, her anger starting to rise again. “You
sit here in luxury, feasting on wine and animal-grown food, and you
think you’re doing something to help the rest of us.”

“
Hey, that isn’t fair,”
said James. “I’m a soldier—I put my life on the line with every
mission. You think you’re starving now? I’d like to see how long
you’d make it without any supply convoys.”

“
Oh, yeah? And I’d like to
see how long you’d last as a girl in the underworld.”

Lars sighed. “Please, let’s not fight. We
aren’t enemies here. Kyla, you said you want a chance to start
over, and we want you to as well. We’re trying to help
you—imperfectly, of course, but as best we can. And not just you,
but everyone else like you.”

“
I don’t know,” she said,
shaking her head. “Sometimes it seems like you people just don’t
care.”

“
But we do care,” said
James. “We care enough to die for you, if that’s what it takes. It
seems to me that you just don’t know how much we care.”

Maybe.

“
I don’t need your help,”
Kyla muttered. “I can get along fine on my own.”

“
On the contrary,” said
Lars. “We all depend on each other: you and me on James to defend
us, James and you on me for the proper oversight to protect our
freedoms, and us on you to build a stable society. Without each
other, everything would fall apart, and we’d all be left with
nothing.”

Just like when my mother
died?
Though the words were unspoken, they
hurt Kyla like a knife she’d plunged into her own chest. If she
didn’t have anyone, she’d rather go to a place where her memories
wouldn’t haunt her. And even if she did…

“
Look,” said James, “how
old are you?”

“
Sixteen.”

“
Sixteen? Good. That’s old
enough to find work, even as a minor.”

“
Why?” she asked. “What
does that have to do with anything?”

“
It gives you a chance at
that new start you said you’re looking for. When we get back to the
station, I’ll apply for temporary guardianship over you. That ought
to keep you out of child services long enough to get your feet back
on the floor. And in two years when you’re eighteen, you’ll be an
adult, free to come and go as you please. How does that
sound?”

Kyla eyes widened, and she frowned in a
failed attempt to hide her own shock. “Why would you do that?”

James rose to his feet as the serving bot
came out with her food. “Because I care.”

With that, he left. The spider-like serving
bot laid a steaming hot plate of beans in front of her, while
across the table Lars chuckled.

“
You’ll find that James
will go to great lengths not to lose an argument. He’s a man of his
word, though—you can trust that he means what he says.”

“
Maybe,” Kyla muttered,
still stung. Even so, she didn’t know if she was ready to trust
anyone.

Chapter 10

“
Attention passengers and crew,” Captain Jarvis’s voice came
over the
Freedom Star’s
speakers. “We are preparing to make the final
jump in just a few moments. Our estimated time to arrival at the
Colony is approximately forty-five standard minutes. Stand
by.”

Sara held her breath and closed her eyes as
the universe began to spin around her. For a brief moment, she felt
as if she were falling, or perhaps collapsing in on herself. The
moment soon passed, though, and she opened her eyes to find herself
staring out at a disk-shaped station amid a cluster of
asteroids.

Home,
she thought, her heart practically leaping out of her
chest.
Home at last.

“
We’ve done it,” said
James, grinning from ear to ear. For a moment, he looked as if he
wanted to hug her, but with Lars, Sterling, and all the other
passengers seated around them, he let out a loud victory whoop
instead.

All around the crowded
observation deck of the
Freedom
Star,
everyone took up the cheer. One of
the crew popped a bottle of champagne, and the foam sprayed out all
over as if they were at a wedding. Even Lars, who had been sullen
and withdrawn ever since they’d left Gaia Nova, was
smiling.

James put one arm around him and another
around Sterling, pulling them both close. “It sure is good to be
back, isn’t it?” he said, glancing over at Sara with a smile in his
eyes.

“
Yeah,” said Lars. “It sure
is.”

“
Though you have to admit,
it has been like a free month of leave,” said Sterling. “When are
we going to get another chance to fly on a ship like
this?”

“
For all
I care, never,” said James. “No offense, Sara, but I’d take a good
gunboat over the
Freedom
Star
any day.”

“
None taken,” she said.
Their eyes met, and for a moment, it seemed like he had something
else he wanted to tell her. But then, he either clammed up or
thought better of it, because he turned and led the others off to
celebrate.

Just as long as you keep
your promise not to tell anyone,
she
thought to herself. She would have to tell her father immediately,
so that they could contain the damage if James didn’t keep his
word. That meant admitting to her father that her mission was less
than a perfect success, a disappointment too small to warrant a
reprimand but too large to completely ignore. As if she needed any
more of those.

Don’t get too comfortable,
James.
With everything he knew, their
paths were bound to cross again very, very soon.

* * * * *

Kyla’s hands trembled, and her empty stomach
felt as if a swarm of flies was trying to get out. She paced the
small but cozy space of her quarters. Not long, and the comfortable
luxury bedroom would be replaced by a real prison cell, with a
retractable slab for a bed and electrified bars for a window.

A gentle rumbling sounded through the floors
and walls, followed by the distant groan of machinery. That was
probably the sound of them docking with the station, returning to
the hell that she’d vowed to leave behind. Unable to wait any
longer, she palmed open the door and stuck her head out.

“
Oh, hi there,” said
Sterling, sitting on the chair just outside her door. “Can I help
you with anything?”

You can help me get the
hell out of here,
Kyla thought silently.
She considered making a dash for it, but even if she did get past
Sterling, there was still the airlock to deal with—and it would be
a lot harder to escape through that than to escape from her
quarters. She slunk back inside and palmed the door
shut.

Once inside, she fell on her bed and
screamed into her pillow. Everything she’d gone through to get away
from the Colony was a waste. She was a criminal now, and a caught
one at that. The money she’d saved up for the smuggler, the sexual
favors she’d done for him to make up the difference—all of it had
been wasted.

Too soon, the door chime rung. Kyla took a
deep breath and lay perfectly still, not bothering to answer it. A
few seconds later, the door hissed open, and heavy footsteps
sounded on the floor.

“
Kyla.”

It was James. She looked up and saw him
flanked by two armed men with dark blue helmets and wristbands.
They stared at her dispassionately, the way a person would gaze at
a robot that was behaving erratically. Kyla swallowed.