Nova (16 page)

20
I TAKE OFF AS IF
an entire cadre of PsyCorp was after me. My legs fly over the grass, eating up the ground as though the beat of my legs could overtake the tick of my clock, but that menacing instrument just keeps going.

*00:01:20*

*00:01:19*

Behind me, I hear Michael yelling my name, his feet pounding against the walk as he tries to catch up to me. I lengthen my stride, opening up the distance between us even farther. Before long his voice starts to fade—no surprise there. Even without my head start, he wouldn’t have been able to catch me. Good! The farther away I can get from Michael, the better.

I slow slightly as I fly out of the park, my panicked mind only now stopping to wonder where I’m going. With a sinking feeling, I realize there’s nowhere
to
go. Not on this station. Despair pours through me as I think of Michael, blown to pieces by the very girl he just kissed!
Think!
Where can I possibly go that will put Michael out of my reach?

An airlock immediately comes to mind. Even if the vacuum of space doesn’t stop my clock, at least I would be off the station. Only I don’t know of any airlocks in the habitat ring, and I highly doubt I could find one in the—

*00:00:53*

—fifty-three seconds I have left.

I jerk my head around, looking for a solution, and catch sight of the SlipStream station up ahead. Good enough! My body is already heading in that direction before I even make up my mind to go there. Those tunnels are reinforced, aren’t they? Maybe they’ll help shield the rest of the station from the force of my blast. If nothing else, they’ll take me farther away from Michael. My chit is vibrating like mad now—no doubt Michael, wanting to know why the hell I ran off like a vaccin’ banshee just moments after we kissed!

I ignore it and head into the station, pushing past the people on the platform and slipping into the walking tunnel bordering the train tracks. Even once in the passage I don’t slow down, though my heart is practically beating out of my chest and my lungs are screaming with exhaustion. Instead I run harder, pumping my arms to get every last bit of speed out of myself. How much time do I have left now?

*00:00:41*

Forty-one seconds. Make them count.

I push every other thought out of my mind, tuck my head down, and just run.

I’m only twenty meters from the far end of the passage when my foot stomps on a loose shoelace. My ankle rolls and I go flying, smashing into the tunnel floor and sliding forward on my face. The force is enough to knock the wind out of me, and all I can do is lie there, eyes squeezed shut as I wait for the end.

It doesn’t come.

After the longest wait—
surely it must have been forty-one seconds by now!
—I dare to glance at my clock.

*00:00:41*

If my face wasn’t currently smashed into the floor, my jaw would have dropped to my feet. I was so focused on getting away from Michael that my clock stopped, and I didn’t even notice! Indeed, now that I think about it, I realize my symptoms are gone, the sparkles dimmed and the stretchy feeling nearly vanished. How long, then, was I sprinting like a lunatic through the station while my clock sat still and complacent in my head?

A snort pops out of my mouth as I suddenly picture how I must have looked to all the regular station dwellers, calmly going about their business while some blonde-haired psycho sprinted past them like the Hounds of Orion were on her tail. A chuckle follows and then suddenly I’m laughing, great belly laughs oozing out of my mouth in a torrent that can’t be stopped.

I heave myself over onto my side and just lie there, laughing and laughing until my sides ache and my stomach hurts, and even then I can’t seem to stop, one laugh turning over into the next until finally one morphs into a sob instead, and then I’m just crying—crying and crying as if the world really did end, right here on my face in this cold tunnel, and with it, the one person left in the galaxy whose life means anything to me.

One minute and seventeen seconds. That’s how much time I lost when Michael kissed me.

Even wrapped up in my white blanket on my cot in the cargo bay, the realization makes me shiver. To lose so much time in a single instance, without even a warning! Now even I can’t deny the truth that’s been staring me in the face ever since I first lost seconds on that SlipStream.

It’s not a matter of
if
I’ll go Nova, but
when.

At one time, it wouldn’t have mattered to me. I cared for no one on this station, and no one on this station cared for me. If anything, I would have felt impatience waiting for my time to come. Things are different now. Michael, Taylor, Teal, Kaeti. What war effort, no matter how great, could possibly be worth their lives? None that I can think of.

My chit vibrates to signal an incoming link. Michael. Again.

With a sigh, I shut it off. I
can’t
talk to him. It was hard enough coming up with an explanation for my crazy behavior the first time. If I have to tell the story one more time, it will probably all fall apart like a house of holo cards.

He was waiting for me when I got back to the cargo bay. Smart Michael—he knew I’d have to come back eventually. When I saw him there, I almost turned around and ran straight out again. I would have, except that in my heart I knew Michael deserved better. Maybe I couldn’t give him better, but at least I could give him an explanation. Of sorts.

“Didn’t you hear me say ‘Race you!’ before I left?” I asked at his incredulous inquiry, trying to brazen it out as best as I could. He didn’t buy it for a second though. Michael may be overly trusting, but he’s not a deficient.

“Well, you see . . . It’s just that . . .” I said, drawing out the words as my brain scrambled for a better lie. “The truth is I thought I saw someone.”

“Someone?”

“A . . . an officer, I mean. You see, a few weeks ago PsyCorp pulled me into their offices. They were upset because they found out I’d been visiting the habitat ring even though us refugees aren’t supposed to be there.”

Michael’s face cleared a little, but his expression still showed skepticism. “That’s why you took off without saying a word, because of some officer?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t tell you this, but it’s the same officer that broke up this fight I was in.”

“You were in a
fight?
”

“It was no big deal, just this other refugee from the bay, but the officer was really mad about us fighting. He said if he caught us again, he was going to have us brain-drained by PsyCorp. When I saw him in the park I guess I just kind of vacced out a little. I’m
really
sorry,” I rushed to add. “It wasn’t you, I just didn’t want to get into trouble again. Plus, I knew if the officer caught me, you’d find out about the fight and everything else, and I guess I just didn’t want you to know. Please forgive me, Michael.”

Michael just stared at me for the longest time, and then finally shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s the craziest truth I’ve ever heard or the lamest lie, but I forgive you.” He laughed. “As if I could ever stay mad at you. Just say something next time, okay?”

He leaned in to kiss me before he left, and I turned my head at the last minute to give him my cheek. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell the rejection stung. Still, I knew better than to offer him anything more. One more kiss and I probably
would
have blown the station.

A flicker of a smile passes over my lips. In a way, that’s kind of a compliment, not that Michael will ever know it.

My amusement passes quickly, sobered by the depressing realization that I can
never
kiss Michael again. It’s too dangerous. In fact, just being on the station is dangerous, with my clock poised to start again at any moment and me with no way to deactivate it. Once again, I bemoan the fact that my makers didn’t include an instruction manual for my head, even as I acknowledge the horrible resolution I’ve been trying
not
to think about all night.

I have to leave. It’s the only way Michael will be safe from me.

The only problem is that I have nowhere to go. The obvious solution is to simply let the military ship me off to wherever they decided to send us Aurorans. The people around me would still be in danger, but unless I go off and live on some uninhabited rock on the edge of the galaxy that will be a risk wherever I go. At least Michael and his family would be safe, and that’s what really matters to me.

I consider the solution for several minutes, and then reject it. The rumors of the convoy are just that—rumors. While I have no doubt the military will resettle us eventually, I have no idea when that will be. It could be in a week or it could be in a month. I can’t afford to wait that long; it’s too risky. I
have
to get off this station as soon as possible. Could I buy passage on one of the outgoing liners somewhere?

Activating my chit, I link into the NSol and check the transit boards. Even the cheapest passage is out of my price range, and with a sigh I shut it off again. What am I going to do?

For a brief second, I consider coming clean. Lifting down to Level Eleven, walking into PsyCorp, and announcing to all and sundry that I’m not Lia Johansen at all, but a Tellurian bomb who could explode at any minute. Boy, wouldn’t Rowan sure be surprised! It would almost be worth it to see the look on his face when he realized just
what
he let onto the station.

Until they brain-drained me or shoved me out an airlock or shut me up in a lab somewhere to study me, that is. If at all possible, I’d prefer to save Michael
without
getting dissected or dying.

With a sigh of frustration, I collapse back on my pillow. Waiting for the military to move is starting to look like my only real option. In the meantime, I’ll just have to be super careful not to do anything that might jump-start my clock. No taking the SlipStream, no riding the lift unless absolutely necessary, no kissing Michael. In fact, I probably shouldn’t even see him again. I can link him to say goodbye.

Ha! Like Michael would let me cut all ties with him just like that. He would just keep coming back to the bay until I gave in. Besides, the idea of staying on the station and
not
seeing Michael seems like the worst sort of torture I could imagine.

My mind circles back around to the idea of getting off the station. Maybe if I talked to Rowan, he could arrange for me to get sent away sooner. It wouldn’t have to be a military transport; anything would do at this point. A passenger liner, a courier ship, a cargo hauler.

An idea flashes into my brain, and I sit bolt upright on my cot. Reactivating my chit, I pull up the NSol and link the first trans-link company I can find. A bored-looking woman comes onto the screen.

“Starcom Intergalactic, how may I assist you?”

“I’d like to make an interplanetary call, please.”

21
“IS THAT JOB OFFER STILL OPEN?”

After a ten second lag, Kerr blinks in surprise. “Well, hello to you, too,” she says, and I realize I didn’t even say hi first. Luckily, Kerr doesn’t seem offended by my shortness. She leans back in her chair and gives me a considering look.

“So what’s up, kid? Did you finally realize your lifelong ambition to work on a freighter, or are you just sick of station life?”

I shrug, being a bomb poised to blow up not seeming to fall under either option. “It’s time to move on,” I answer at last.

“Fair enough. You know, I was about your age when I started on the freighters.”

“You were?”

“Yep. I was fifteen. Bored, reckless, eager to get off the dirt-poor colony where I was born and go, well, anywhere really. My milicreds ran out on this hole of a station—Kendriss Station. It was little more than a refueling stop for haulers, not like New Sol at all. It was either starve or get a job. Luckily one of the freighters passing through was short-handed enough to take on a scrub of a girl like me, and here I am, twenty-odd years later with a ship of my own and a crew of fourteen under my command.”

“Wow,” I say, and I mean it. It sounds like Kerr didn’t have much more than I do now when she started out. I wonder if that’s why she offered to help me—because I remind her of herself at my age. “You must have worked really hard.”

“You better believe it, kid. You will too if you’re really serious about doing this. A first-run contract on a freighter is no walk on the moon. You pretty much get stuck with all the slag jobs—the hard stuff, the boring stuff, the gross stuff no one else wants to do. The pay is terrible, the hours are worse, privacy is pretty much non-existent.”

“Then why do it? I mean, if you don’t have to?”

“Because in all the galaxy, there’s no better way to see the stars.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want.”

Well, that’s not strictly true, but it’s what I have to do, which seems close enough. Kerr’s job offer all those weeks ago, barely marked at the time, now seems like a lifesaver. A way to get off the station and away from Michael. I do feel a pang of guilt at signing on under false pretenses, but I remind myself that this way any loss of life if—
when
—I go Nova will be minimal. A freighter crew of fifteen is nothing compared to a station or a colony of hundreds or even thousands. Whatever my original mission was, I want no part of it now. None of the people on this station deserve to die, no matter which side of the war they happen to be on.

Kerr nods and glances at her tip-pad. “All right then. I’m currently on a run out on the eastern fringes, but I should be back in your area in a four-square or so.”

“Four weeks!” The words blurt out of my mouth when her answer reaches me. “That’s too late!”

“Too late? Hey, if you’re in some sort of trouble with station security, I can’t help you.”

I take one look at Kerr’s hard eyes and rapidly shake my head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just, there’s this boy . . .” I stop, unsure how to describe the urgency of my situation without actually describing the situation.

Kerr’s face remains blank as she waits for my response. Then, to my surprise, she bursts out laughing. “A boy? Ha! I should’ve known it was something like that. Teenagers!” When her amusement finally peters out, she goes serious once again. “Look, kid—there’s no way I’m getting there any faster, but I suppose if you’re that desperate to get off the station, I could hit up some of my contacts, see if anyone near New Sol is looking to hire on.”

I nod swiftly in agreement.

“If I vouch for you though,” she continues, “you better work your tail off. No slacking around for a two-square only to decide you miss your boyfriend and want to come back.”

Now my own eyes go hard. “Once I leave, I’m not coming back. Ever.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.” With that, Kerr cuts the com.

I link off the Starcom Intergalactic site and deactivate my chit. I called Kerr; it’s done. Now I just have to hope she comes through for me.

Before it’s too late.

There’s blood on my pillow when I wake the next morning. Eyes on the red stain, I lift my hand to my face. My nose bled while I was sleeping; I can feel the dried remnants crusted in my nostrils and on my cheek. I carefully blow out the thickest of the clots into a tissue and immediately regret it. Without the blockage, the sour-and-sweet smell is more piercing than ever.

I clean up in the hygiene units and then go to my locker for a change of clothes. Without thinking, I choose one of Teal’s outfits, start to close up the drawer, and stop.

What am I doing?

These clothes aren’t for me. They’re for another Lia, the one who watched teen holos with Teal and helped Taylor in the kitchen and kissed Michael in the park. That Lia can’t exist anymore. The new Lia is a freighter grunt, the sort of person suited for grungy shipsuits and frayed bandannas, not short skirts and cute tops. Dropping the clothes back into the locker, I reluctantly wriggle into one of my jumpsuits.

As soon as I put it on, I want to take it off again. It’s been weeks since I wore one of my jumpsuits; I’d forgotten how unflattering the baggy garments are. The one I’m wearing is the one I malfunctioned in. I can tell because of the gray stains on the collar and chest, still indelibly etched in the fabric despite repeated washings and even Taylor’s best efforts. I sigh as I imagine Michael seeing me in it, then remind myself I’m not supposed to see him anymore.

As if my thoughts have summoned him, my chit starts vibrating. I’m tempted to shut it off, but I know if I do he’ll just keep linking until I finally answer. Instead I pick up, keeping it on audio-only so he can’t see my attire. I keep the conversation short, evading his questions and putting him off when he talks about meeting him again. By the time he hangs up, I feel terrible. So terrible, I’m tempted to throw off this stupid jumpsuit, put on my best outfit, and go see him. More than tempted, actually. I’m halfway out of my jumpsuit before I come to my senses.

Pulling out my original box, I start throwing things in—the clothes, the pillow and blanket, the frilly toiletries, the reader. It’s time to get rid of all this stuff before it makes me completely forget who I really am.
What
I really am.

She’s still asleep when I reach her cot, sprawled on her back, one arm hanging off the bed and a small pool of spittle at the corner of her mouth. I slam the box to the ground with a loud thud, taking a sort of maniacal delight when she bolts upright with a start.

“Huh? Whah?” Shar looks around dazedly, stopping when she finally notices me looming over her.

“You want my stuff?” I kick the box into the leg of her cot, and she jumps. “There! It’s yours.”

“What in a black hole . . . ?”

I don’t stick around long enough to hear Shar’s befuddled questions let alone answer them. Giving my stuff away to her was hard enough; the last thing I want to do is explain it. Besides, better to let her sweat it out, wondering if I booby-trapped the box somehow, than explain that I gave it to her because I figured she was the one person I wouldn’t stoop to begging it back from. It still rankles, though, giving away my precious things to my worst enemy.

Worst enemy. A bitter laugh chuffs from my throat as I realize the truth. Shar is no longer my worst enemy, not by a long shot. No.
I
am.

The day passes slowly. Since I have to take the lift up to eat anyway, I stay in the Blue Lounge for the rest of the day. I watch the viewer until I’m completely bored out of my mind, and then I watch some more. Sitting in one place seems the safest way to spend my time. There’s nothing more about Tiersten, but one of the news stations does a story about the ongoing negotiations between the Celestial Expanse and the Tellurian Alliance. Apparently the talks are going well, and the first in-person summit between the two sides is scheduled for only six days from now. The news reporter hints that the summit may even be taking place on New Earth, allowing the Celestians to finally take their first steps ever onto the planet, though of course nothing official has been declared yet.

I frown at the news. A summit meeting in only
six days?
After three years of bitter war, how could they possibly come to an agreement in just a matter of weeks? I can see how the Celestians might go for it, if they believe they’ll be getting New Earth at last, but I find it hard to believe the Tellurians would give up the planet so easily. Unless they’ve booby-trapped it as surely as Shar believes I’ve rigged the box. Maybe there’s a secret armada on New Earth just waiting for the Celestians to come. Or worse—a whole army of mes.

I envision a whole planet full of Lia Johansens, all wired to blow, and I shiver.
God, I hope that’s not the case!

It’s late, almost midnight, when I return to the bay. As I approach my cot, I know immediately Michael’s been here. A single red rose sits on my pillow. I pick it up and hold it to my nose, wishing I could actually smell it.

“He waited over three hours.”

The elderly woman who sleeps near me is still awake, watching me from the warmth of her blankets. She props herself up on an elbow. “I told him I would pass on his gift, but he insisted on waiting. The officers finally kicked him out when they turned the lights down.”

Michael waited for me? My eyes go suspiciously moist, and I rub my sleeve against my face.

“You’d better get up early tomorrow if you want to continue avoiding him,” the woman adds shrewdly.

I nod, not trusting my ability to speak, and go get ready for bed. I’m just finishing in the hygiene unit when my link vibrates. Kerr.

“You’re in luck,” she says without preamble. “A friend of a friend has a cousin who’s currently docked on New Sol. They’d only planned on stopping for a day to refuel but got delayed by last minute repairs. The captain says they’ll be shoving off in three days. There’s a berth, if you want it.”

“I’ll take it.”

Kerr raises an eyebrow. “Just like that, no questions asked? You must be desperate.” I shrug, neither denying nor confirming. She nods at last. “Well, I looked over the contract on your behalf, and the pay isn’t great, but it’s comparable to what a first-timer of your age and experience could expect. Word among the freighter circuit is that Captain Standish is a tough master, but a fair one. Work hard and you should be fine.”

I nod, touched that she would go to so much trouble on my behalf. “Thanks, Captain Kerr.”

“What’s with all this captain stuff? On the day you come work for me, you can call me captain. Until then, it’s just Marissa.”

“Thanks, Marissa,” I agree, even as I inwardly swear never to work for her. The last thing I want to do is put her in danger. Her being so far away suddenly seems like the biggest stroke of luck.

“Well, Godspeed, kid. Send me a link sometime and let me know how it all works out.” Marissa goes to cut the com and stops. “Look, it’s not my place to pry into your affairs, I know that, but if ever I saw someone with unfinished business, it’s you. I don’t know what’s going on with you and this boy, and I don’t want to, but finish it before you go. Break up with him, speak your piece to him, whatever it is you need to do. Because if you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

I continue to think about her words even after she links me the job details and signs off. If only I could tell Michael everything. If only there was some way to make him understand why I have to go. But how do I explain a mission I don’t even understand myself? How do I explain what I am to him without losing his regard forever?

I can’t.

The dreams come again when next I sleep. The prison camp, the doctor, the military commander, the woman with the sunken cheeks, now joined by a man who looks just as sick. Their images mix and blur in my head; their voices shout in a chaotic jumble. In my dream, I hold my hands over my ears and beg for them to stop. Anything, if they would just let me alone. The voices suddenly go dead, but for one voice, a man’s voice.

We’ll stop
,
he says,
when you go Nova.