Nomad (15 page)

“Maybe,” he admitted. Back home he always played card games with Frankie, and sometimes Frankie needed to win. Gabe was used to cheating on a friend's behalf.

“Stop it,” Nadia insisted. “Play the game. Pick another card.”

They played the game, first tense and cautious with each other, and then finally relaxed and laughing. Every right answer
felt
like magic, even if it was really just random luck. And it did seem to be random luck. All three of them guessed the correct number
sometimes
—but usually not.

“I don't seem to be psychic,” Nadia said, self-mocking and clearly disappointed underneath. “I don't feel like I have extra-special powers of Machinae speech, either.”

Purple Envoy scootched through the doorway.

“Be patient,” it said with the deep and grumbly voice that it always used with Nadia. “Your brain is still trying
to understand its new shape. But it does seem to be working, I'm deeply relieved to say. I'm also relieved to report that Captain Mumwat is suited and mobile again. He was pleasant company, but I didn't otherwise enjoy my time serving as a fishbowl. The nutrient fluid had an unfortunate taste.”

Gabe jumped up, thrilled to see his envoy. Then he sat down again, because it used that other voice. It spoke as
Nadia's
envoy, her friend and mentor, and not his own. He gathered up the cards and put them away.

Purple Envoy cleared its throat. “The Khelone ship has docked. They are waiting for you, Nadia. Time to say good-byes again.”

“Feels like we just did,” Nadia said. She poked the Envoy's sock-puppet face with one finger.

“It does,” the Envoy agreed, “though it was forty years ago for me.”

“Sorry about that,” Nadia said. “I'll try not to lose any more decades this time. And I'm glad you gave my job to Fuentes. You picked a good one.”

Gabe's morale improved instantly.

“I always do,” the Envoy said. “Safe travels, Nadia.”

“No such thing,” she said. “Remember?”

“Instead there's trust,” Gabe added.

“Very true,” said the Envoy. “I'm glad you both listened.”

Nadia Antonovna Kollontai held out one hand to her colleagues. Gabe took it. So did Kaen. This led to an awkward jumble of fifteen fingers.

“It was an honor to serve with you both,” Nadia said before she let go.

*  *  *  *

The ambassadors traveled through Night by train car and corridor. Gabe walked with his jump bag on his back, his great-grandfather's cane sword in his hand, and the Envoy oozing at his feet. He looked around and tried to etch every visual detail into his memory; Night and Day above each other with the sun burning between them, Kaen of every species in the streets outside, and the honor guards who lined the corridors between the train stations and the docking bays. Many of the guards were human, but not all. Those with hands carried bright shields and shock spears. Hypnotic colors decorated each shield. Gabe found them distracting. That was probably the point.
Look at my shield!
he thought.
Don't notice the spear, not until after I zap you with it.

Nadia left them to board the Khelone ship that waited for her. She had already said her good-byes, and offered no more of them.

I hope this works
, Gabe thought as he watched her go.
You left our world and lost it to try this. I hope you don't lose
any more decades when you try again. And if you can read my mind, then I hope you hear this now. Good luck.

If she heard him, she did not react.

Gabe followed Kaen to her own shuttlecraft.

The phosphorescent wall lanterns of the welcoming airlock grew bright as they entered. This time the room did not stand empty. Two more soldiers, both bandaged, stepped forward to greet them—the same two who had fought the Outlast during Nadia's entanglement. The man had a bandaged throat, and said nothing. The woman spoke.

“Gabriel Sandro Fuentes, ambassador of our shared planet of origin, go in peace. More peace than you found here. Speak well of us wherever you go, but tell no one where we are, or where we are going.”

Gabe tried to sound official. “Be welcome in this system, and go in peace when you leave for other suns.” That sounded silly in his own ears rather than grandly important, but neither one of the adults laughed at him. Instead they stood at either side of the airlock, guarding one last passage through
Calendar
.

Kaen opened a storage locker in the wall. “Your old suit is here,” she said. “But you're welcome to trade it for one of ours. Ours are less . . . bulky.”

Gabe gladly traded the orange cosmonaut suit for
Kaen craftsmanship. Once suited up and helmeted, Kaen and Gabe climbed down into the shuttlecraft. The Envoy followed. It used its puppetlike mouth to catch each ladder rung as it went down.

“I'm surprised the captains aren't sending any soldiers along with us,” Gabe said once the airlock closed behind them.

“Quiet that thought!” Kaen said quickly. “Don't speak it aloud, or it might still happen. We don't need anyone looming over us and having loud opinions. This craft is protection enough.”

They settled into the back of the shuttle. Kaen steered the ship with gestures and with buttons on her bracelet. Gabe felt heavier as they launched, and then all sense of weight left him. He watched the projected images of fleet ships as they flew. He watched the flying saucer of the
Calendar
disappear behind them as they left the ice cave and Ceres behind.

“So where are we going, exactly?” Kaen asked as she set a course inward, toward the sun. “I'll take you down to the surface of the old homeworld, as promised. But planets are large. I assume you want me to bring you somewhere specific.”

“I do,” Gabe said. “Two places, if you're willing to take on the extra travel. We need to land in the place where
I'm from, but where I've never actually been, and pick up one more passenger.”

“Who?” Kaen asked.

“My dad,” Gabe told her.

He tried to explain his family's complicated circumstances, but the words
father
and
citizenship
both translated strangely. Families had very different shapes aboard
Calendar
. Kaen's uncles—her mother's brothers, specifically—were closer kin than her father. She usually lived at her uncle's farm in Day whenever she left the pyramid in Night. And while the fleet did have formal rules for individuals traveling between the ships, or for inviting new ships and civilizations to travel with them, such rules and guidelines sounded far more flexible than U.S. immigration law.

“I don't understand,” said Kaen. “I hear your words, and I know what the words themselves mean, but I
still
don't understand. Migration is a fundamental right. Life moves. It travels from world to world, either in fleets of ships or as bacteria inside comets.
You
seem to know that already. You offered us sanctuary. You know what hospitality means between nomads. But your world doesn't.”

“It's your world too,” Gabe insisted.

“No,” said Kaen. “I don't think it is.” She tapped her
bracelet. A projection of the Earth enlarged to take up most of the shuttle. “Show me where we're going.”

Gabe watched the world turn under him. Night covered the Americas. He pointed to a large and sprawling glow of city lights in southwestern Mexico. “Here.”

Kaen seemed surprised. “Our ancestors left from that same part of the world.”

“I know,” Gabe said. “I kinda figured that out already.”

*  *  *  *

They passed quickly through the solar system, over the Earth, and into thickening layers of atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean. Then Kaen steered them eastward, over the water, over the beaches and mountains of Central America, until the shuttle finally hovered above the bright lights of Guadalajara.

“Is this it?” Kaen asked. “Is this the City in the Valley of Stones?”

The projection covered the shuttlecraft floor. Kaen and Gabe loomed above Guadalajara like kaiju.

“I think so,” Gabe said.

“It's almost as large as
Calendar
,” said Kaen. “How will we find your uncle here?”

“Father,” Gabe corrected. “He'll be at my grandparents' house. I have the address. He made sure all our jump bags included a full list of family contact info.” He dug out
the address book and paged through the entries. “Okay, here. The Fuentes family home. I don't know where this is, exactly. I wish I could google the address first to find out exactly where it is, but my phone isn't fancy enough.”

Kaen tapped her bracelet. The projection shifted to include street names. Gabe even saw a little Google logo glowing in the corner.

“Your shuttle can read our Internet?” he asked, extremely surprised.

“Of course,” she said. “It's just a trick of translation. And we are very good at translation.” She glanced at his address book, and pushed more buttons. One house glowed.

“That's it?” Gabe asked.

“That's it,” she answered. “But I don't see a workable landing site anywhere near. We'll have to leave the craft in the western hills, here, and then use a local vehicle to get closer.”

“Okay,” said Gabe. “We should be able to catch a bus. And a stealthy landing would probably be best.”

“So we shouldn't expect a formal and ceremonial welcome for this world's absent ambassador?” Kaen asked.

“No,” Gabe admitted. “The world didn't notice when I left it.”

“Good,” said Kaen. “Then we won't have to deal with the extra attention. I really don't mind spending time
away from the captains.” She gestured slowly and steered them into the surrounding mountains. “The world is turning back around to face sunlight now. Almost morning. Strange to see night and day switch places with each other.”

*  *  *  *

One stolen and sinuous mining craft followed the ambassadors.

It had burrowed deep into ice and up through the surface of Ceres to leave undetected. Now it sped down gravity's slope toward the sun and the third planet.

The craft carried a single passenger, a single Outlast. He had sabotaged the artificial sun and remained far from the fight, still hidden, still waiting.

Now he studied the stars until he knew their relative positions, knew where this system turned inside a small spur of a spiral arm.

He knew where he was.

In that same moment every Outlast warship also knew.

Nadia Antonovna Kollontai climbed aboard the waiting Khelone ship. If an honor guard stood watch to either side, she did not notice them.
Barnacle's
airlock squeezed itself shut behind her.

The inside walls were smooth and curved, like the interior of a seashell. A Khelone ship was a living thing. The very first forms of life swam through space without stars or planets, when space itself was still warm and the stars had yet to pull themselves together. Then space gradually cooled, the stars grew bright and hot, and most life learned how to cluster there. But some adapted to the cold and never bothered to settle down in solar systems. Some living things remained nomadic, swimming through space, becoming their own ships. The Khelone, both the ships and their pilots, descended directly from those first forms of life that refused to hold still.

Nadia took in a breath that smelled leathery and familiar. She reached out and touched the smooth walls of the passageway, remembering what they looked like: opalescent, with light pulsing through them in rhythms more complex than breath or heartbeat. She remembered, but she couldn't see it happen.

“Hi,
Barnacle
,” she said.

The wall grew briefly warm under her hand.

“I'm going to go looking for Rem,” she said. “Help me find him. Warm means closer, and cold means farther away. Warm also means yes. Good plan?”

She felt another flash of warmth.

“Here we go.”

Nadia climbed through the spiraling shape of the shell and into the central chamber. She recognized it by the way sound bounced away from the smooth dome overhead. She could also hear Rem tap against the floor with his toes and fingers, communicating with the ship. The tapping stopped.

“Welcome back aboard,” said Rem.

He still sounded like Yuri Gagarin. He would have looked like Yuri Gagarin if Nadia could still make visual sense of his translated appearance. But he did not sound welcoming.

Nadia guessed why. “They brought the Outlast prisoner aboard, didn't they?”

“Yes,” Rem told her. “One of those creepy, aloof, genocidal, territory-gobbling things is here. Along with two guards. The aquatic one is good company, and
Barnacle
might even agree to flood a single cabin so she can swim around without that big, galumphing suit of hers, but the beaked one struts, preens, and glares. I do not like having them aboard.
Barnacle
and I never agreed to take on more passengers. We certainly never agreed to transport
an Outlast
. Do you know how many Khelone clusters the Outlast have killed? You don't. You can't. Because no one does. We've lost count. And we've had to change all of our old migration patterns to avoid Outlast territory—our
ancient
migration patterns. Gone now. All of the trail markings gone. We used to drop bread crumbs, little food packets to mark our routes. They'd stay fresh, preserved in the vacuum. Each ship would put special care into crafting bread crumbs. We'd code the flavors with information—velocity, intentions, destinations, maps, all sorts of important data. It's a gift, the most important gift. A bread crumb is hospitality and hello to whoever passes that way next, which might happen soon afterward or a thousand generations later. If you explore new territory, somewhere the Khelone have never been before, then you leave the first set of crumbs behind. If you find an old one and eat it, then you always respond by leaving
another in its place. That kept the routes steady and consistent. That maintained our long history. But then the Outlast figured out how to use the crumbs to track us down, or else leave deadly traps along our routes. They're killing us, and they're killing the oldest known historical records. We've stopped making new crumbs. The few I've found lately are coded with instructions for silence.
Whoever gets this, please savor it and do not drop another.
” Rem paused for breath. “And now we have an Outlast on board. This makes me so very unhappy.”