Linked (21 page)

It was no good. Even if she did forget everything, it would all still be there, all the horrible ugly truth, like a disease waiting to break out. And right now . . . She took a breath that shuddered through her teeth. Right now Lin was waiting for her to come back, waiting for Elissa to tell her they were saved.

Flightpad number eighteen was at the end of a row, a long way from the busy, brightly lit central area where te, you know?”

commercial flights took off, carrying tourists and business-people across the star system.

Terrified of something going wrong, of missing takeoff, Elissa had made sure she and Lin had set off with plenty of time to spare, with the result that they’d arrived more than half an hour before the time Cadan had said, and had to wait in the enclosed shelter for waiting passengers, reading the flickering, endlessly repeating safety notices on the walls.

Nearby on the flightpad the sleek squid-shape of the spaceship gleamed, first in the setting sun, then, as the rusty golden light drained out of the sky, in the glare of the colorless spaceport lights. It was already tilted into launch position, the dark figures of the maintenance crew darting in and out around it.

Lin sat, knees up to her chest, on one of the benches in the waiting area. She was biting the edge of her thumbnail.

Elissa had tried to sit, but she couldn’t. She stood by the window, trying not to bite any of her own nails. The window was reinforced, as one of the safety notices kept informing her, to withstand mega-high temperatures, explosion shock waves, and flying metal shards. The air that filled the shelter came through pollution filters that removed all but the most infinitesimal percentage of airborne pollutants.

It’s a shame I’m not worried about any of those things
.

She peered through the patchwork of bright lights and gathering dusk to try to make out the figures of the maintenance crew. She’d known goods transports didn’t use the little two-man ships Bruce and Cadan had done most of their training in, but all the same she hadn’t expected this one to be so big, or to require so many crew members. She’d somehow—vaguely, stupidly—thought that she and Lin would have to
deal with meeting Cadan and a copilot, and maybe one or two more crew. Not seven, eight . . . ten and more strangers who might want to know about them, might be curious, might pay enough attention to notice that, despite the hair and makeup, they were far too identical to be just friends.

Another figure detached itself from the shadows around the spaceship, came across the no-man’s-land between the flightpad and the shelter.

Elissa jerked upright. “Lin—”

“I know.” Lin unknotted herself and bent to pick up the bag Elissa had bought for her earlier. The edge of her thumb showed red and sore.

As Elissa glanced down to pick up her bag, she noticed her own fingernails. Every one of them was bitten down to the quick.

The door whooshed open and Cadan stepped in. He looked freshly showered, his face shaved smooth, and he was wearing the familiar dark blue SFI jacket, but with the silver gleam of a pilot’s bar pinned to the shoulder.

“We’re boarding passengers now. If you’d like to step across for security checks?” His voice held none of the sympathy that had made her feel so guilty that afternoon. It was crisp, authoritative, what she’d always thought of as Cadan’s “watch the world spin around me” voice.

They followed him out into no-man’s-land, past the sign warning of the penalties if you passed it unaccompanied by authorized personnel. A hot, dusty wind blew Elissa’s hair across her face, filled her nostrils with the scent of rocket fuel. Away across the plateau, beyond the perimeter of the spaceport, there was the drainage ditch where she’d found Lin. An instant toward w thoughtof disorientation hit her, a feeling that this
couldn’t really be happening, it
couldn’t
, not to
her
, Elissa Ivory. Then the sensation vanished, leaving behind a loneliness so intense, it was like a cold blanket dropping over her.

They came into the shadow cast by the looming spaceship, which was held in position by landing arms that created its squidlike appearance. Elissa pulled her hoodie closer around her, an attempt at comfort. She’d been on a ship twice before, on a family vacation and on a school trip, but those times she’d departed straight from the central spaceport area, surrounded by soothing indoor lights, the cheerful busyness of embarking tourists.

Beside her Lin reached out and put a hand on Elissa’s arm. Elissa glanced at her, anxious, wondering if Lin was finding this as intimidating as she was. Lin’s face was tight with the same tension Elissa was trying to hide, but when her eyes met Elissa’s, she smiled. Elissa’s hoodie hadn’t provided any sort of comfort. Lin’s smile, weirdly, suddenly did.

Then they came under the huge silver curve of the spaceship itself, its entrance gaping directly in front of them. Lin’s eyes left Elissa’s, and her head tilted back. “The
Phoenix,”
she read. “That’s its name?”

Cadan glanced at her. “Her name. Ships are feminine.”

Lin’s gaze went back to him, a fascinated smile growing on her face. “Really?”

“Yes.” His eyebrows rose a little, but Elissa couldn’t tell if it was in impatience or just amusement. She prickled, waiting for him to say something—how many times had he and Bruce taken pains to point out when she’d gotten their terminology wrong?—but all he did was gesture to the entrance. “This way.”

It took them straight into the cargo hold, a cold echoing
space with steps running up all the sides and metal walkways cutting back and forth overhead. Cadan led the way up a long flight of stairs and along a walkway that followed the inner contour of the ship’s wall, then into a corridor lit with bluish strip lights at its edges, curving away in front of them. The position of the ship meant that the floor sloped gently downward, then, as the corridor took them around the far side of the ship and up onto the next level, more steeply upward. Doors dilated to let them through, then snapped shut behind them, isolating each section of the ship—one of the many safety functions that Bruce and Cadan had found so very impressive when they’d first learned about them.

“The passenger areas are lit with amber lights,” Cadan said over his shoulder. “For your own safety I’m going to ask you to make sure you stay within those areas.”

Around them, a hum began, a vibration that went through the walls and the floor, raising the hairs on Elissa’s skin.

“What’s that?” said Lin.

“We’re running a test on the engines. You’ll feel it less in the passenger area.”

Lin ran a hand along the wall as she passed. Her face was intent, fascinated.

They climbed a short flight of stairs, and the strip lights turned amber. Cadan gave a quick sideways nod. “That’s the way to the dining area. There are nutri-machines in your cabin, but they’re prepacks only—there’s no link to fresh suppliese, you know?”

His voice didn’t sound as if they really were welcome. Irritation prickled along Elissa’s spine as she looked at the uncreased back of his jacket, at his tidily cropped hair.

As he swung up the next flight of stairs, she caught a glimpse of his face. He looked the way he had in the cadet accommodation, as if he owned everywhere he walked, everything he touched.

You’re not even the real captain. You’re only in charge of this flight for a few days, then you’re back to being a cadet
.

The irritation sparked into words. “What’s wrong with the real captain?” she said.

He glanced back at her. “The real captain?”

“Well, you’re only pilot for the duration. This ship—it’s not yours, is it?”

Cadan paused, his hand halfway up to a door panel. His voice was a little stiff as he answered. “This is an SFI-owned ship. She has no captain permanently attached. The captain is whoever is in charge for any particular flight. So right now, I
am
the real captain.” He hesitated. “Bruce and I must have explained that kind of thing to you years ago?”

She shrugged. “You told me an
awful lot
of things, Cadan.” Without quite meaning it to, her voice hovered on the edge of outright rudeness.

Cadan’s eyes met hers with an icy little jolt. Then he looked away and touched the door panel to open the door. “This is your cabin. I’ll take security details and payment here.” His eyes flicked briefly to Elissa’s. “As part of my
captain’s
role.”

He couldn’t just win a point; he had to win it
again
, driving home that he was—
always
—the expert, that she was nothing but some stupid little schoolgirl with no specialist knowledge of anything ever.

She looked away and around the cabin. It wasn’t quite as tiny as the pod-motel, but, barring a window, it had all the same kind of facilities. Bunk beds, toilet, shower cubicle, nutri-machine with a newsscreen above it. Except of course it wasn’t a newsscreen—it was for ship information and announcements only.

Cadan touched the screen to wake it and tapped in a code. “Elissa, I’ll take your details first.”

She handed him the morph-card, the now-familiar tension twisting through her. She’d had a horrible moment earlier when she’d realized she could no longer use a fake name on the card, not if she was showing it to Cadan. But if she used her real name, would it spark a security alert, like the known aliases of terrorists and interplanetary criminals did?

She’d come up with a solution she was pretty sure would work, but she’d had no way of pretesting it. As she watched him slide the morph-card through the scanner below the screen, all her muscles tightened as if they were trying to tie themselves into knots.

Her name flashed up on the screen. . No negotiation with pirates., c
Ellissa Layne Ivory
. A difference of just two letters from her real name: enough to slip under the system’s detection, but not enough to catch Cadan’s attention as a name that wasn’t hers. She hoped.

If it does catch his attention, if he starts asking me questions like he did in his room, if he does it in front of Lin
 . . . Her muscles tightened further, in a painful jerk that made her stomach cramp. She was back on the shaking staircase, watching that awful smile spread on Lin’s face.
If something goes wrong now and she feels trapped
 . . .

Cadan tapped the screen, then drew the card out and gave it back to her. Elissa took it in a suddenly clammy hand, not
daring to meet his eyes, in case he saw the relief in hers.
It worked. I did it.

“Ms.—?” He was holding out his hand for Lin’s card now.

“Lynette May.” They’d gone over Lin’s new name a million times before they’d left the motel, and now her voice sounded natural, convincing.

Cadan slotted her card into the machine, waited for her name to appear, then tapped the screen to bring up a menu. “And you’re paying the full amount?”

The full amount blinked onto the screen. Phantom money, dead leaves disguised as gold. Elissa swallowed, refusing to think about it.

“Yes.” Lin’s voice was calm and cheerful. They’d rehearsed this, too. What they hadn’t rehearsed was how it would feel to do it for real, to look at those numbers on the screen and know they should read nothing but zero. Elissa looked away, folding her arms across herself.
I can’t help it. I don’t have a choice
.

“Thank you, Ms. May.”

Lin took the card, her smile wide and bright.

It doesn’t make any difference to her. Practicing cheating someone, doing it for real . . . it’s all the same to her
.

“Okay.” Cadan stepped back into the doorway. “We’ll be taking off within the hour. The passenger lounge has a viewing window if you’re interested. You’ll find it on the plan. Please take some time to read through the full safety procedures first. Breakfast will be served at oh-eight-hundred. Shall I tell the chef you’ll be joining the crew for that meal?”

Elissa stopped herself from throwing Lin an anxious glance. They were on the ship for just two days. It wouldn’t do them any harm to stay in their cabin, get their meals from
the nutri-machine.
Keep Lin out of the way of as many people as possible
. “No, thanks,” she said. “We’ll just eat here.”

“That’s your choice, certainly.” Elissa looked up at Cadan, and his eyebrows were raised again, as if he were mocking her. “But I can assure you, you’ll find much better food if you join the crew.”

As if she didn’t know that. “No, thank you.” Again her voice came out too abrupt to be courteous. It wasn’t really deliberate this time, instead born out of fatigue and overfrayed patience, but it was too late to fix it.

Cadan’s eyebrows went up farther, and his eyes were suddenly cold. “Suit had seen her looking worseeming to yourself, Elissa. Ms. May, it was a pleasure to meet you.” The door snapped shut behind him.

Elissa sank onto the edge of the bottom bunk. Her knees were kind of shaky. With tiredness, of course. It wasn’t like she cared if she’d offended Cadan. He was transport, that was all. She didn’t even need to see him again till she and Lin left the ship.