Randoms (30 page)

I watched as the Phandic ships surrounded the
Dependable
and opened fire. The
Dependable
's shields held, but it did not fire back as it tried to retreat, to force its way out of the confrontation. The Phandic ships kept firing, but all the
Dependable
did was evade. Why wasn't the captain firing back? There was nowhere for her to go. She zipped and doubled back and broke hard to port, then starboard. I could imagine Captain Qwlessl on the bridge, issuing orders, that intense look in her massive eyes as she tried to reason her way out of the impossible. Maybe she didn't fire because she knew it would do no good against the Phandic ships. Maybe after everything that had happened, she wanted to show them that the Confederation did not automatically turn to violence.

Whatever her reasons, they did not help her. Two more Phandic ships emerged from tunnel apertures and blocked the
Dependable
's path. Then the Phandic ships unleashed the missiles. I didn't have to count them, or even read the text on the screen, to know how many were fired. There were ten. And then a flash of light, and the
Dependable
was gone.

The screen was now showing images of the
Dependable
's crew. I watched as the familiar faces flashed on the screen. My friend Urch. Ystip the gamer. Captain Qwlessl. All of them dead because they had defended me, because I had refused to stand and face the punishment the Phandic Empire was so desperate to unleash.

“We need to go, mate,” Steve was saying, pulling on me.

I snapped out of my sadness and saw that it was now me on some of the screens. They were talking about me. Trillions of
beings, all over the Confederation, were looking at my picture and deciding that this either was or wasn't all my fault. I had no idea which way the majority would swing, but this was one vote Tamret couldn't hack.

I let Steve and Tamret pull me away. Steve was muttering, “This is really bad,” over and over again. Tamret was whispering to me, telling me she was so sorry about my friends. And then the drow girl was in front of us, and she was pointing. Maybe she was mad because Tamret had sent her packing, and maybe she was just an idiot whose opinion changed with the wind, and maybe she was outraged that a Confederation ship, full of Confederation heroes, had been destroyed because I would not give the Phandic Empire what it wanted.

“It's him!” she shouted. “It's Ezekiel Reynolds! He's the one who caused all of this!”

I let Steve and Tamret pull me along, but I felt all their eyes on me, I felt their hate, the hundreds of beings on the commons, the thousands on the ships, and from across the stars the millions and millions and millions who now blamed me for everything bad that had happened that day and everything bad that was to come.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

S
teve and Tamret stayed with me for a long time, but eventually I sent them away. I wanted to be alone. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, while Charles lay on his own bed, holding his data bracelet in both hands and reading news updates. Every once in a while he would tell me about some latest development or opinion, but I didn't want to hear it. My friends were dead because my enemies wanted to hurt me. If I had turned myself in, they would be alive and I would be dead. There were no should-haves, no mistakes I'd made that I wished I could undo, but I felt miserable and furious and helpless.

I heard Charles say, “Everyone thinks the Confederation has no choice but to declare open war.”

“And you think it's my fault?”

“It's human nature—or sentient nature, I suppose,” he said. “People want someone to blame. That doesn't make it your fault.”

“Do you think I should have turned myself in to the Phandic Empire?”

“You could have. But the Phandic Empire might have chosen not to kill the Ganari and attack the
Dependable
. They did those things. Not you.”

I grunted. I appreciated the pep talk, but I wasn't in the mood for it, and I was still not ready to let him off the hook for his weeks of being unpleasant.

A few hours later there was a knock at our door. Charles answered and saw Tamret and Hluh standing outside. Tamret pushed past him and came into the room. “Get out,” she said to Charles. “I need to talk to Zeke.”

“This is my room,” he said.

“Fine. Let's go, Zeke. We need Steve anyhow.”

We got Steve, and then Tamret led us all into the classroom, which was empty now. We took seats facing one another, and I waited to hear what she had to say. My heart was pounding. I knew it wasn't going to be good news.

“We've learned something,” Hluh said. “Something huge. Tamret did some amazing work.”

“It was your idea,” Tamret told her. “I would have had no idea where to look if you hadn't suggested it.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, trying to shake off the grief long enough to concentrate. “Are you two actually friends for real?”

Tamret stared at me. “Is that a problem?”

I held up my hands in surrender. “No, but I officially give up trying to understand anything about anyone.”

“Smart move,” Tamret said. “So, Hluh had the idea of looking into how we were selected. We knew the randoms weren't random, but we still didn't know how we were chosen.”

“I'm not really in the mood for this right now,” I said.

“This isn't about moods,” Hluh said. “It's important.”

“Please listen, Zeke,” Tamret said, her voice now gentle.

“It occurred to me that maybe not everyone on the selection committee was necessarily involved,” Hluh said. “Maybe some of them thought you were random, and some were behind the intentional selection. I thought if I could trace the choices to a being or beings, it would tell me something.”

“That is clever,” Steve agreed. “And what did you find out?”

“Of the four randoms, three names were changed
after
the selection committee went missing. Three out of four of you weren't even approved by the selection committee.”

“Wait,” I said. “So which one of us was originally part of the list?” Then I understood. “It was the Ganari, wasn't it? That's why the shuttle was destroyed.”

“Wrong again,” said Hluh. “It was you.”

I felt my hands gripping the side of the chair, as if I might fall over. “Me?” How could it be me? Was it really true that of all the randoms, I was the only one who really was random? And why did that make me feel so weird? Did I need to be special? Ever since leaving Earth, I'd felt like I was at the center of everything, and now it looked like I wasn't important at all. It was a stupid way to feel, but there it was.

“So, me and you,” Steve said, pointing at Tamret, “and that Ganari were all picked later. You said you know who did it?”

Tamret nodded. “Yeah, and this is the insane part. The being who hacked into the system and changed the names of the original randoms—it was Dr. Roop.”

•   •   •

I couldn't keep up with all of this. “Dr. Roop is behind some kind of conspiracy?”

“It looks that way,” said Hluh. “Tell him the rest.”

“Dr. Roop picked the three of us. He's the one who wanted three randoms with some kind of criminal experience. He tossed the other three, which means he made a deliberate decision to keep you, Zeke. And the crazy part is, I think he wanted us to find out. Actually, he wanted
you
to find out, Zeke.”

“What?” You can always count on me to ask the really insightful questions.

“I know it sounds crazy, but the password protecting the file, which I exposed when I cracked it, was an anagram of your name in Former letters.”

“Which means what?” I asked.

“It's a message,” Hluh said. “From him to you. I think he's saying that this information is a secret, but he doesn't want it to be a secret to you.”

“If Dr. Roop wants us to know something, why doesn't he come out and tell us?” Steve asked.

“I don't know,” Tamret said.

“Maybe he can't,” Hluh suggested. “Maybe he's afraid he's being monitored.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “We've had private conversations before.”

“Maybe he wants us to figure it out for ourselves,” Tamret said.

That made no sense. If there was important information we needed to have, he would tell us. Wouldn't he? I wished I could make the pieces fit together, because I was suddenly feeling like the one being in authority on Confederation Central was no longer someone I could trust.

•   •   •

Dr. Roop canceled our classes for the next few days. As sad as I was about the death of Captain Qwlessl, I knew he must have been devastated. During those days I tried to keep earning points, but the hostile stares I received in the game room made me uncomfortable, and I lacked the concentration I needed for the flight sim. My heart wasn't in it. Nayana said,
perhaps self-servingly, that the crew of the
Dependable
would have wanted Earth to succeed, and I suspected she was right, but I was going to need some time.

There was a memorial service for the crew of the
Dependable
, and thousands of beings went. I wanted to go too, but Dr. Roop said I needed to stay away, and I knew he was right. If I was there, people would be so busy blaming me they would forget they were there to honor the beings who had died.

I found myself wishing I could talk to my mother. I don't think I understood until then just how much Captain Qwlessl's looking after me had allowed me to set aside my worries about my mom. Now the captain was gone, and my mother was impossibly far away, her condition a complete mystery to me. Maybe she had already started to deteriorate. Maybe she would be in a wheelchair, or worse, by the time I got home. I didn't want to think about it, but it started to seem less and less likely we were going to be able to get Earth into the Confederation, and that meant that all the time I was leaving her on her own was for nothing.

Mostly I spent time with Steve and Tamret, or sat by myself, or even hung out with Charles. Now that Ms. Price's mandated freeze-out was over, Charles acted like he desperately wanted to be my friend. He tried to give me space, but he also made it clear that he was ready to talk to me if I wanted.

He started to grow on me during those days, about the things that made no sense to me: the Phandic need for revenge, the plots within the Confederation, all of it. I didn't tell him about Dr. Roop—I wasn't ready to go that far—but I wanted to hear what he thought of the rest. This stuff concerned him, too. Most of all, he was smart, and he might see something that I couldn't.

“I just can't figure it out,” I said, at night maybe five days after the
Dependable
was destroyed. “It's like everyone is playing a deep game, and I can't see it.”

Charles sat up quickly. “You're right. You are precisely correct. That is exactly what is happening.”

“Okay,” I said, squinting as I tried to figure out why he was so excited about this. “I'm glad you agree. I guess.”

“I do agree. Get up. We need to go.”

“Go where?” I asked, not really caring.

“To the girls' room. To see Nayana. We need her.”

“For what?”

“You have hit upon it exactly, Zeke. This is an elaborate game, a strategic game, and we can only see some of the board and some of the pieces. We need someone who can help us see the whole thing.”

Nayana. Chess. Maybe she could help, but I wasn't quite ready to swallow my pride and ask. “I don't know.”

“You can never have too many friends,” Charles said.

“You can if you don't trust them.”

He shook his head. “Zeke, you saved our lives, and we treated you unforgivably. Please let us make amends. Please trust us.”

“Why should I?”

“If you don't believe it's because we want to do the right thing, then at least believe it is in our own best interests. The Phands now hate humans. They hate Earth. No one in the Confederation trusts us. We are in this together whether we wish it or not.”

I believed he meant that. I got out of bed.

•   •   •

Mi Sun opened the door to her room and smiled at Charles, like they were really good friends, the kind of friends who didn't always need to say a whole lot to understand each other. Like me and Tamret, maybe. I didn't know they'd become close. I didn't know much about these people, and now they wanted me to trust them. I still wasn't sure if I should.

Nayana had been lying on her bed and looking at her data bracelet, but now she looked over at me and blinked irritably. “Why is everyone in my room?” she said by way of greeting.

“You are going to help us figure out what the Phands are up to,” Charles said.

“Not with that attitude I'm not,” Nayana said.

“Yes, you are,” Mi Sun said. “Just stop being such a princess.”

“I don't like to be ordered around,” Nayana said. “My time is valuable.”

“This was a bad idea,” I said. “I'll figure it out on my own.”

“Wait.” She sighed and sat up. “Fine. I'll help you, but only because I'm nice. And because I think there'll be experience points in it. For me.”

•   •   •

“Okay, to figure out the strategy, we need to see the pieces,” Nayana said.

The four of us sat on the floor in a circle while Nayana busily typed on her projected keyboard.

“The Phandic Empire and the Confederation,” I said.

She snorted. “Those are the players. The pieces, the ones that count, are us, the initiate species: humans, Ish-hi, Rarels. Let's see what they look like.” She programmed in some data, and hovering in the air before us she projected a three-dimensional
map of a big chunk of the galaxy, highlighting the Phandic Empire and the Confederation and the locations of our three home worlds.

The two big territories spread out in weird blobs and at sharp angles, looping in and out and spiraling off in different directions, approaching, but never touching. The map showed Phandic territory as yellow, Confederation space as green. Earth, Ish-hi, and Rarel were all in the black space between. All three were lodged snugly between borders.

“Interesting,” I said. “Can we see Ganar?”

Nayana highlighted it, and we could see it much farther galactic south of Earth, much farther outside the border territory. It was easily the most distant world from the heart of either the Confederation or the Phandic Empire.

Nayana bit her lower lip. “Maybe this piece wasn't important, and that's why it was taken out of play.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “They tried to destroy us as well.”

“Unless they didn't,” Mi Sun said.

I glowered at her.

“I'm not taking their side,” she said, “but what if they weren't actually looking to destroy the
Dependable
? What if they were looking to disable the ship and capture us? It's possible.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But why? Why would they want us alive and the Ganari dead?”

“Let's consider what was said at your hearing,” Charles said. “The Phandic ambassador claimed that our worlds were chosen not because they are good fits for the Confederation, but because we are violent species, which perhaps the Confederation needs.”

“What do we know about the Ganari?” I asked. “Are they
bloodthirsty barbarians like us, or are they more chill?”

“Looking it up,” Mi Sun said, tapping her data bracelet to call up her own keyboard. “You guys keep going.”

“If we are a more violent species than the Confederation norm,” said Charles, “and our worlds are in space between the two sides, doesn't that suggest we were more apt to be annexed by the Phands than the Confederation?”

“So the Confederation grabs us first?” I said. “They want tougher citizens to help balance the scales. Maybe use us as cannon fodder since we're on the borders.”

Charles nodded. “It makes sense.”

“Yes it does,” Mi Sun said. “According to what I'm reading about the Ganari, they are omnivores and complex thinkers. They have their history of war, but no worse than the rest of us for most of their history. Then, a few hundred years ago, during their industrial age, all major global violence ended. They started resolving conflicts with a series of extremely intricate strategy games. As a result, their national leaders are selected for their intelligence and insight.”

“So they're a more traditional pick,” Nayana said, “but a tactical one. They could be of real use in helping the Confederation choose a strategy, so the Phands take the Ganari out of play. They keep the rest of us because they think we're not as smart and they can recruit us to their side. So maybe they were going to capture us—to convince us to defect.”