Skye Object 3270a (5 page)

Zia ambushed them at an intersection near the restaurant. She slid out of a side street just after they had passed. Then she tapped Skye on the shoulder, making her jump. “Hey. It's just me.”

“And that's the problem.”

Zia grinned. Then her gaze shifted expectantly to Devi. “Hi.”

“Hello.” Devi's brown cheeks grew a little flushed.

Skye felt suddenly angry. She didn't want to introduce them . . . but that would look pretty stupid, wouldn't it? So what if Zia was a flirt. It didn't mean anything.

“Zia, this is Devi Hand.”

Her eyes got wide. For a few seconds she looked frightened, as if she were imagining him as a real person. Then her grin slowly slid back into place. “You're not real.”

“Sorry.”

Zia laughed. “Well I'm not.”

A commotion erupted in the street below. Skye turned to look, happy for any distraction.

From where they stood, the street curved down and to the right, diving into a cluster of two story buildings with restaurants on balconies that overlooked the street. Ados ducked and darted aside, some of them laughing, others shouting threats and obscenities. “What is it?” Zia asked. But Skye could see no reason for the furor. Not at first.

Then a black spot no more than a couple of centimeters long shot across the luminous white street, moving almost faster than her eye could track. A moment later she heard the harsh
buzz
of tiny mechanical wings furiously drumming the air. “It's a camera bee.”

“Sooth,” Zia said.

Devi added, “It looks like it's gone crazy.”

The bee darted back and forth above the glowing street, diving recklessly into groups of ados, slipping past their swatting hands, doubling back to buzz their noses, sending some of the more timid youths screaming for cover. Camera bees were handled by remote operators . . . so who was handling this one?

“Look out!” Devi yelped, as the bee darted in their direction, bearing down on them with buzzing wings. Zia shrieked and dove aside, while Devi ducked, a split second before the bee blazed past him, almost grazing his ear.

Jem rose to the defense. Balancing on Devi's shoulder, the dokey stood on its hind legs and growled at the bee, as if challenging it to come back.

It did.

It zipped to a stop, flipped over and darted toward them again—only this time it was aimed at Skye.

She glared at it, silently swearing that she would not be made the butt of any dumb ado joke. No one was going to laugh at her for jumping out of the way.

As the camera bee bore down on her, Skye stood her ground.

Zia was picking herself up from the luminous street. “Oh no,” she muttered. “You're not playing chicken?”

Ord was getting nervous too. “Bad thing, Skye,” it murmured. “Leave. Leave now. Please Skye?”

She didn't answer. Ord stopped talking too. It crouched on her shoulder, perfectly still as the bee zoomed down on them. Then, a moment before it should have hit her or darted aside, Ord's tentacle shot into its path . . . and the bee disappeared, the buzz of its wings instantly silenced.

Skye flinched. Had Ord whacked it out of the air? She looked down, expecting to see it skittering across the ground, but there was no sign of it. “Where . . . ?”

Ord unrolled its tentacle, and the thumb-sized bee tumbled to the illuminated street, its wings motionless, and probably broken.

Jem leaped off Devi's shoulder to sniff and growl at the little machine. Nudging the dokey aside, Devi leaned down to pick up the camera bee. He held it up to his eye. “If we get the ID number, we can find out who it belongs to.”

Watching him, Skye had a sudden urge to laugh. “It would be pretty funny if the camera was still on.”

Devi's eyebrows rose. “Say hi,” he suggested, shoving it in her face. She shrieked and slapped his hand away . . .

. . . just as a deep voice boomed up the street. “Hey Skye!”

Her eyes widened. She whirled around, telling herself it was not him. It couldn't be. Not Buyu. She'd already had the misfortune of running into him once today. She couldn't have crossed paths with him again. Not twice in one day.

But a single glance down the street was enough to assure her that this was indeed the worst of days, for there was Buyu, forcing his ungraceful way through the crowd, receiving many hearty pats on the back—along with a few dirty looks—as he passed. “Skye!” he called again. “Sorry about the camera bee. I was doing some stunts with it, but it got out of control.”

“Buyu,” Zia sniffed. “So it was him.”

Ord saw him coming too, and hissed. Skye had never seen the little robot flee anything before, but it picked that moment to slip off her shoulder.

Apparently, Jem had been waiting for just such an opportunity. As soon as Ord touched the ground, the purple and gold dokey launched itself at the robot.

“Look out!” Skye yelled, as the dokey landed on Ord's head.

Jem's fox-like muzzle darted down, biting a chunk of tissue from the base of one of Ord's tentacles. Zia yelped. Devi roared, “Jem! Stop it. Stop it!”

The startled dokey sprang to the right. Ord saw its chance, and streaked to the left, but as soon as the golden robot moved, the dokey darted after it. Skye yelled and dove for Jem, trying to grab him, but the dokey was too low to the ground, or she was too tall. All she got was a pinch of the loose skin and silky fur behind his neck before Jem slid free.

Skye stumbled after him, off-balance and almost falling down, suddenly aware of Buyu only a step away. She watched him reach down to snatch Ord up with hands as fast as anything she had ever seen.

Then, triumphantly holding the little robot in two hands, far above the reach of the frustrated dokey, Buyu whirled around—

—and Skye crashed into his upraised elbow.

A hot, black explosion of pain clouded her awareness. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the gleaming street, leaning forward with her hand pressed against her nose while blood dripped out between her fingers. Apparently Ord had once again escaped Buyu, because the little robot was on the ground beside her, one tentacle patting her cheek, the other tapping at the drops of blood glowing a bright ruby red against the light of the street. “Poor Skye. So sad. Nasty, nasty accident. It will fix, Skye.”

Then suddenly everybody was all over her with the poor-Skye routine. Zia crouched beside her. “Poor Skye. You never were too graceful. Let's get a look at that nose . . .”

“You okay?” Devi muttered. He scowled at the bright blood droplets in the street, as if he'd never seen blood before. Or maybe he just hadn't seen that much blood before.

Buyu sat down beside her with a thud. His wide, round face looked devastated. “Skye, I'm sorry. I'm just a clumsy fool. I—”

“Itz jus a bloody noz!” she snapped. “It'll figs in a minute.”

But blood was still dripping between her fingers. This was crazy. Like everyone else in Silk, her body carried an army of Makers, tiny nanomachines that should quickly repair any trivial wounds. She'd had a bloody nose before, but it hadn't bled for more than a second or two.

Devi knelt in front of her. Jem was once again perched on his shoulder, and once again he was suspiciously eyeing Ord. Skye shifted her leg to block the robot from the dokey's view. “That should have stopped bleeding by now,” Devi said, frowning in concern.

“Well i' hazn't! Give i' a minute.”

Her nose felt swollen to three times its normal size. So la di da, she must be looking great just now. A big bloody nose and snot mixed in with the blood. She finally let Zia pull her hands away, and instantly her worst suspicions were confirmed. “Yuck! What a mess. Maybe you should wash your face.”

“You thig so?”

Ord raised a tentacle to her nose. She heard a hiss, and felt a cool mist. The bleeding stopped almost immediately, but now her nose felt stuffed with jelled blood.
Zeme dust
.

“You okay?” Devi said, as she clambered to her feet.

“Oh sure. Nothig' wrong here.”

“I—”

“Don't mind Miss Nasty,” Zia told him. “A little water will wash that temper right off. Get us a table, will you? We'll be back in a minute.”

“D
id you really find him on a dark rooftop?” Zia asked, as she held a wet towel to Skye's face.

Skye snatched the towel away. “Let me do that!”

She sat in a swivel chair, staring at her projection in an image wall mounted above the ready-room's countertop. The bloodstains on her dress had flaked away, ejected by Makers in the fabric, but her nose looked like a rotten plum, just before the fruit flies started hatching out. It might take an hour for her body's Makers to heal the damage. Or it might take longer.

Why had her nose kept bleeding like that? As a kid, she'd earned a bloody nose once or twice, but it had never bled more than a drop or two. She dabbed at her face, determined to think about something else. “I hope Devi waits for us.”

“You're worried he'll take off?” Zia asked.

Skye raised an eyebrow. “Considering his introduction to us . . . who could blame him?”

Zia laughed. “Me, for one. I won't apologize for being exciting company.”

“He knows a lot about astronomy.”

“I guess, if he sells his articles to the newsfeed.”

“I think he knows something about my lifeboat.”

“He told you that?”

“He just said that we should talk.”

Skye dabbed at her nose again, but there was nothing to be done with it. It was as clean as it was going to get, and it would fix when her Makers fixed it. She sighed, feeling sorely tempted to just sit in the ready room for an hour. Instead she tossed the towel into the recycle and got to her feet.

Ord had been hanging spiderlike in a corner of the ceiling. Now it stirred, lowering itself on one stretching tentacle, while it kept a grip on the ceiling with the tentacle's suction cup tip. “Good Skye. All ready? Time to go to the monkey house, yes?”

Skye glared at the robot. She hated going to the medical center and Ord knew it. At the monkey house, the doctors always wanted to know what you were thinking and how you were feeling, as if feeling bad from time to time was a crime. Skye had spent a good part of her childhood in their company. “It's time to eat, Ord, and if you report a simple bloody nose to the monkey house, I'll turn you in to city authority and have you decommissioned.”

Zia aimed a playful kick at the robot. “So turn the little creep in, I say. Ord's more trouble than it's worth.”

Ord dodged her foot, scuttling across the floor toward Skye, its limbs rattling on the hard tiles. “Poor Skye. Bad news. The monkey house—”

Skye stomped her foot, suddenly terrified Ord
would
report her bloody nose . . . and then she'd have to turn it in, wouldn't she? Because she had said she would. “Just be quiet, Ord! Okay? Don't bother me about the monkey house. I mean it.”

Ord whispered, “Please listen, Skye. It's not—”

Zia scooped up the robot. Before it could melt out of her hands she lobbed it back up into the ceiling corner where it stuck, looking like shiny putty. “Hang out there for awhile, Ord. Okay?” Then she jerked Skye's arm and they darted laughing out the door.

Of course when Skye glanced back, the robot was already sliding down the wall.

As they made their way through the crowd at the Subtle Virus, Skye held her head high, handing out dirty looks to anyone who seemed even a little inclined to comment on the condition of her nose.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally spotted Devi waving to catch their attention. He had found a table in a quiet alcove—not an easy accomplishment, given the noise level in the tavern. He stood up, and she saw that his purple dokey had fallen asleep on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Skye took a seat in the U-shaped booth while Devi turned expectantly to Zia. She gave him a coy smile. “Where are you going to sit?” she asked.

Devi looked perplexed. “Oh. I don't know. Here, I guess.” He sat down next to Skye. Jem still slept, his monkey paws clasping the fabric of Devi's shirt.

Zia smiled sweetly. “Good. And I'll sit next to you.”

Skye rolled her eyes. The Virus might be subtle, but Zia was not. Skye had to scoot all the way around to the other side of the table. Devi followed after her, while Zia sat on his other side.

“I . . . never saw anybody bleed like that,” Devi said. “You're sure you—”

“I'm fine,” Skye insisted.

Zia added, “She's not from around here, you know.”

Skye hadn't thought about that. It was true that people from different worlds really could be different under the skin. Centuries of genetic engineering had produced people who could breathe under water, people who had flexible bones, people who were adapted to frozen worlds, people whose moods oozed onto the air in chemical packets that could change the mood of anyone around them . . . at least according to city library. In Silk, people were more or less classic human and Skye was no exception. She had never seemed any different from Zia . . . until now.

She told herself it didn't mean anything.

Devi saw it differently. “Maybe you should get the monkey house to check it out, just in case.”

“In case of what?” Skye snapped. “I'm fine.” She sat up a little straighter, looking around the tavern for a roving chef. “I'm also hungry. Did you order anything yet?”

Devi's expression was suddenly guarded, the way it had been when he was talking to his mother. “No. Buyu went to find his favorite chef.”

At the Subtle Virus, the preparation of each meal was a work of art, performed for all the guests to see, and the chefs vied with one another to earn the greatest acclaim—but Skye was more concerned with Devi's reaction, than with which chef might serve them . . . until she realized what he had said. “Buyu's here?” she blurted in surprise.

Devi didn't need to answer, because Buyu's voice boomed out from behind her. “Hey Skye, are you okay?”

He dropped onto the only empty space on the U-shaped bench, which of course was right beside her. He leaned over to gawk at her face, until she felt a flush rising up her neck. “Buyu, quit staring at me!”

“I'm sorry, Skye.” His voice was softer than she had ever heard it before. As he looked down at the table the bell on the end of his nose ring tinkled, but somehow it wasn't funny anymore.
Buyu was sad
. Skye stared at him for several seconds, shocked at this conclusion. She didn't think she'd ever seen him sad before.

She was pretty sure she didn't like it. She would have to be nice to him, wouldn't she? If he was sad.

“I'm fine,” she said yet again, putting on her best smile. “I'm organic. I heal. At least if I'm fed. Did you find a chef?”

“Carlisle's coming to our table—” He held up his hand to stifle her objection. “He's expensive, I know, but only because he's the best chef in the Subtle Virus. Don't worry. I'm paying for it. It's just a way to say I'm sorry.”

“You already said that,” Zia pointed out. “Then again, I've been hearing about Carlisle for weeks.”

A roar went up at the door, loud enough to wake Jem. The dokey raised its head, blinking and yawning. Skye looked too, to see a buoyant crowd pushing into the tavern, bearing two ado boys on their shoulders. Both were well-grown and fully muscled; they might have been anywhere from twenty to a hundred years old. Amid cheers of congratulations, they were set on their feet in the middle of the restaurant. A central table was rapidly cleared. When the two took their seats a wall of admirers closed in around them, and Skye could see nothing more.

“Who are they?” Zia asked.

Buyu answered. “The last two citizens picked for Captain Naveh's planetary expedition.”

Skye felt a hollow spot open up deep inside. “Buyu, that's what you wanted to do.”

He shrugged. Obviously he had not been picked. He didn't complain about it, though. He didn't say a word.

“Next time that'll be you celebrating,” Skye said.

Devi shook his head. His eyes were hard and bright with anger. Jem caught his mood, growling softly deep in his throat. “Don't count on it,” Devi said. “We're the last in line for everything. Almost everybody is older than we are, and that means they're more experienced, more knowledgeable, better trained—and with better connections.”

“It was a fair competition,” Buyu said. “I just didn't score as well.”

Devi's anger only deepened as he glared at the raucous crowd. “I'll bet they're almost real. Ninety-eight, at least.”

“You can't know that,” Zia said.

Ord chose that moment to reappear. Its gold tentacle slid onto the table top. The tip flattened in a suction grip, the tentacle contracted, and Ord's little round head appeared over the table's outer edge. Jem leaped onto the table top, but Devi's hand immediately landed on the dokey's back. “No, Jem.”

Ord eyed the dokey. Then it turned its blank gaze on Skye. “Please listen, Skye,” it whispered. “Please listen. Bad news—”

“Ord,” Zia interrupted. “See those two ados at the central table. The ones talking to— Hey, that's Carlisle!”

The crowd had opened up as an ado in an apron and a chef's red-stenciled headband pushed a cart up to the table. Skye studied him. So this was the famous Carlisle.

Buyu chuckled softly. Almost grimly. “I guess we wait.”

Zia's smile had gone away. Leaning close to Ord, she nodded at the central table. “Those two ados, Ord. Check city library. Tell us how old they are.”

Ord's head spun briefly around, to follow Zia's gaze. Then the robot slid all the way onto the table top while Devi held onto Jem. “98.6 years and 99.1 years.”

Devi nodded in satisfaction. “I told you. Buyu, by the time you get on an exploration team, there won't be a square centimeter of the planet that hasn't been tromped through and analyzed.”

“Don't tell him that!” Zia said as she shoved Ord back off the table with a firm hand. “He's got a chance. Everybody's got a chance. Buyu trains hard.”

Buyu shook his head, setting his nose bell tinkling. “I'm not good enough. You saw how I messed up with that camera bee. I was using a touch screen to guide it, but my hands are too big and heavy. It got away from me.”

“So use a pen,” Zia said. Jem craned his neck as Ord slipped a suction-tipped tentacle back onto the table. Zia pried it off, and the little robot disappeared again over the edge.

Devi pulled the dokey into his lap. “The point is, we have to wait a hundred years for anything worth having. I've been trying to get telescope time for two years, but my projects are always turned down, while less original work is accepted, because it's written by someone who's real . . . or almost real.”

Skye frowned. “So you're saying there's no way I'll ever get to use the radar system.” She felt Ord's gentle
tap-tap
at her ankles, and nudged the robot away.

Devi's smile was slow and cool. Skye wasn't sure she liked it. “No. For you it's just the opposite—”

He looked up in irritation as the restaurant's hostess stopped at the table. She smiled regretfully. “Carlisle sends his apologies. He's obliged to entertain at another table tonight—”

“So we saw,” Zia muttered.

“—but another chef will be along shortly. We hope that's all right?”

Buyu shrugged. “We'll get by. Thank you.”

When the hostess was gone, Devi immediately resumed his explanation, while he stroked Jem's back with his right hand. “Skye, your circumstances are absolutely unique. And if there really are other lifeboats, then it's also a matter of life and death. If you present your ideas in the right light and then make enough noise, there's no way the project can be turned down. It might be handed over to someone real, but it will still happen, and you'll still be involved.”

Skye felt a flush in her cheeks. “So . . . you really think there's a chance other lifeboats are out there?”

“Sure.” He put the dokey back onto his shoulder, then slipped a scroll out of his thigh pocket. The shimmery white cloth hardened when he stroked it. He produced a pen, and started jabbing at icons with its blunt tip. “The point is, you'll need to convince top scientists like Tannasen, and that might not be easy.” His gaze darted from Skye to Buyu to Zia, including everyone in the conversation. “Think about it. If Skye's great ship was under attack by a Chenzeme warship, it's fair to ask, how many lifeboats might have gotten away? Two or two thousand?”

“We can't know,” Skye said, “because there aren't any records. The lifeboat's Dull Intelligence might have known, but it shut down even before Tannasen came, and no one's been able to wake it up again.”

As she spoke, Ord's tentacle reappeared on the table. It contracted, and Ord's head rose into sight, just high enough that its optical disks could peer over the table top. Jem tensed, but didn't move.

“Sooth,” Devi said. “We can't know, but we can guess. There aren't many records of encounters like that, but in the few we have, no one got away. The Chenzeme warship destroyed them all. We only know what happened because the dying ship sent out a radio message that was intercepted, sometimes years later.”

Buyu scowled. “How do you know so much about this?”

“I've studied the subject before.”

Skye looked at him in surprise. “You have? Why?”

Devi gave her an odd look, as if he couldn't understand why she would ask such an obvious question. “It's interesting.”

“Interesting or not,” Zia said— she paused to rap at Ord's tentacle, and Ord immediately disappeared under the table again “—that kind of fact is not going to help our case.”

Skye too, didn't like what she was hearing. Could city authority be right? Might she be the lucky exception? She didn't want to believe it. “I'm here,” she said. “I got away. That means things went differently when my ship was attacked. My people reacted differently. Maybe they distracted the Chenzeme ship. Or maybe they released the lifeboats when they first saw the warship, long before it got close enough to detect them.”

Devi looked pleased. “Sooth. It's what I would have done. The warship might have pursued them for a year or more, before it got close enough to fire its guns. If they knew they couldn't get away, they would have had a year to drop the lifeboats. They might have used the whole year too, dropping them one by one, aiming every lifeboat at Deception Well.”

Skye tried to imagine it: for months on end the Chenzeme vessel might have been no more than a faint white gleam in the great ship's telescopes, yet it represented inevitable death bearing down on her family, her people. No human ship could hope to match Chenzeme guns. She looked at Devi. “If the lifeboats were dropped at different times, they might arrive here years apart.”

“It seems likely, doesn't it? I mean, you might have been in cold sleep for hundreds of years according to the report I read. That's a lot of time. A small difference in speed could make for a big difference in arrival time.”

Buyu looked skeptical. “Skye's been here for years. If there were other lifeboats, someone would have seen their solar sails by now. That's how Skye was spotted.”

“No one has seen another sail,” Devi said.

The table creaked as Buyu leaned on it. “Which means there aren't any other boats.”

“None that have grown sails anyway,” Devi responded.

Skye thought about it. “It's possible the nanotech failed. Maybe from cosmic radiation?”

Zia nodded. “Or the DIs might have gotten old and forgotten to activate the nanotech. A dull intelligence doesn't last forever.”

Devi nodded. “I think it's possible, even likely, that there are other lifeboats out there somewhere, which have failed to sprout solar sails, for whatever reason. If so, they might be caught in long, elliptical orbits, like comets. They might have already swung around Kheth, only to fall back out through the nebula.”

“That would make them hard to find,” Zia said. “There's a lot of space out there.”

Devi leaned on a fist, looking thoughtful. “Still, it could be done. It
has
to be done. It's so dangerous out there, with the Chenzeme ships always hunting us. Who will look out for us? Who? If we don't look out for each other?”

Ord slipped back onto the table. Devi placed a hand on his dokey, while Zia tried to shove Ord off again. But Ord surprised them all by scuttling toward Buyu—as if that were a zone of safety! As it moved it murmured, “Skye should
not
go to the monkey house. No, no, no. No fun. Skye should listen though. Listen Skye? There is evidence of plague structures in Skye's blood. Skye? This is not good.”

Stony silence fell around the table. Skye felt her mouth open. She closed it. Fear was a dry pain in her throat. Across the table, Zia stared at her, wide-eyed with dread. Devi's cheeks had gone sallow beneath his brown skin. Buyu cleared his throat. “Skye—”

“No, wait.” She held her hand up to stop him. To stop anyone from saying anything as a chef finally approached their table, pushing a cart full of fruits and pastes and protein cakes. On one end of the cart there was a cutting board, and a small flame that burned under a wok. Skye could smell heated oil.