Stone in the Sky (23 page)

Marxuach.

“Let's check it out,” I said. We headed for the first building. The windows were dirty, so we couldn't see anything inside. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. We tried the door. It was locked. The same was true for the other three buildings.

“Trevor,” Caleb commanded. Trevor rolled to the door and blasted it open. Stale air escaped. We went inside.

It was the base camp for a colony. It had all of the basic equipment to set up a first wave of colonists. But except for two skeletons with guns in their hands, it was empty.

“There is no one here,” I said. There was a strangeness to having hoped in a tiny way that I was wrong.

“Where are the people we brought here?” Siddiqui asked furrowing his dark brows. “There were hundreds that I personally sent.”

“Let's split up and do a search,” I said. I knew we would find no one, but Siddiqui still needed proof.

We each headed in a different direction, making sure that we could keep each other in our sights. In front of me there was nothing but mountains and vegetation.

“Here! Here!” called one of the Pirates. He'd taken the southern direction, heading toward a line of trees. The smell that seemed to stick onto everything thickened as we got closer. When we joined him, we saw what he saw. Beyond the trees was a field, and it was full of decomposing Human bodies.

“Oh my God,” Siddiqui said as he heaved.

“We can't leave them like this,” I said.

“No, we can't,” Caleb said. He called Trevor.

None of us objected when he commanded Trevor to burn the trees. We stood and watched as they caught fire and spread to the field, burning the bodies along with it.

Silently we boarded the shuttle and returned to the Hort ship. Sobered from our visit to the planet below. As we blasted off and hit the outer atmosphere to join the stars, we could still see the smoke rising below.

Even though I knew that there would be no colony on Marxuach, I was still in shock at what I'd seen.

We all wanted the same thing now.

We all wanted Brother Blue to pay.

 

33

We were shaking as we told them what we had witnessed on the planet below.

Every Wanderer gathered in the mess hall to hear our report from Marxuach. They hung on our every word, their eyes stealing glances at the column of smoke that still rose off of the planet.

Disbelief. Despair. Disgust permeated the room as we haltingly told them. Faces found shoulders to sob on. Hands covered eyes as if to unsee the horror. I wondered if it was worse to have to imagine it. Shocked faces stared blankly as they realized that sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends had been lost. There would be no reunion with them.

“It's too dangerous to live as you have lived,” I said to them. “We must not let what happened on Marxuach happen to us.”

A murmur of assent washed over the crowd.

“I am taking suggestions as to where we might go to be safe,” Bitty said. As strong as she was the burden of this was weighing on her heavily.

I stepped forward.

“We're going to make the dead speak,” I said.

There was a collective shout of agreement from the crowd. I raised my hands up to quiet them down. When they were settled, I continued.

“Brother Blue is making his money from alin on Quint. If we can get back to Quint and destroy his source of income, then it won't be so easy for him to ship Wanderers to those colonies to die like that.”

“The aliens who collaborate with him will get angry if he can't pay,” Caleb said backing me up.

“And that will chip away at his reputation,” I said.

“It isn't his death, but it's a start. We have to start somewhere.”

“And how will we do that?” Traynor asked.

“Brother Blue is a sucker for a deal,” I said. “When I was assisting him on the
Prairie Rose
, he was always going on about the deals that he'd made. We could have Caleb sell us to him to work Quint.”

The crowd roared in disagreement.

“We won't be slaves!” an old woman yelled.

“Why don't we just kill him?” someone else shouted.

Others agreed or yelled insults.

“It's true that you'll be nothing short of slaves,” Caleb said.

“But we'll be safe from that death,” I said. “He'd pay for us. I know he would. Caleb is a Pirate. He's outside of all of these politics. We'll go to Quint. We'd only be slaves in name, not in spirit. From there we'll have time to hatch an attack on him.”

“It might be a long game,” Caleb said.

“But at least it's a game we can play,” I said.

“He'll see you, Tula, and he'll kill you,” Bitty said. “I can't allow that. I just found you again.”

After hearing of the dead on Marxuach, no one wanted to head into danger and lose anyone again. But we were in more danger in space. I had to make them see that.

“That's where you're wrong, Bitty. He'd see me if I was one Human alone, but if I dress like a Wanderer? He won't see me at all. He doesn't see you as individual people. I'll be invisible.”

I put my hands on her shoulders to reassure her that I was right there and not going anywhere without her.

“Humans working a Human claim,” Caleb said gently, trying to explain the logic behind the plan. “Keep it in the family.”

Bitty looked away from me and out over to the sea of faces that now depended on her judgement for their lives.

“Caleb can show him that he can undercut the Imperium. Show him he can grow his profit, and then we'll snatch it away,” I said.

I directed it to the Wanderers who were hanging on to our every word.

“He'll go for that,” Siddiqui said quietly. “I've met him. He thinks that we Humans are superior.”

Ever since he'd been back from the surface he had barely spoken. It was clear that the truth had shocked him to his core.

I could tell that some of the crowd were moved by him.

“We're just like any other species,” Caleb said. “We're the center of our own story.”

Caleb appealed to the Wanderers, pulling on the thread of hope that they were beginning to hold on to. He was doing what he was born to do, lead. I jumped in to bring the point home.

“Exactly. And right now, Quint is the new center. Let's use that,” I said.

“Tip the center and topple the Imperium,” Caleb said pumping his fist in the air in a rallying gesture.

“Why would he think the Pirates were on his side?” someone shouted.

“It's not a part I want to play,” Caleb said, walking into the crowd so that he could address the dissenter personally. “But Pirates can be very persuasive.”

“Can we even live on Quint?” Traynor asked.

This was the moment where they would tip to join us or where we would lose them all. I had to tell the truth or we'd be lost.

“It would be hard,” I said, remembering all that I'd heard about Quint. “And cold. The air is thinner than you are used to, but with the nanites, it would be easier.”

“We don't have nanites,” Ednette said.

“We can try to trade for doses,” I said.

“No, that's where I come in. If he goes for it, I'll convince Brother Blue to pay for them,” Caleb said, calming the crowd. “It will be worth it for him if you can work on the planet without air masks. I'll make him see that.”

I could see his mind working through scenario after scenario. Everything that he'd been trained to do as an Imperium Youth Cadet was coming up.

“I know how Brother Blue thinks,” I said. “He will take the bait.”

I looked toward Bitty. She was the one who had to decide our fate. Her dark eyes flicked to each one of us, trying to gauge all the information coming at her.

“We have always said that we wanted to go home,” Bitty said.

“I can get my group to agree,” Traynor said nodding.

“I think some will settle. But some will always want to wander,” Ednette said, but I could tell by the way she said it that she thought that settling would be good for the old and the very young.

“It is tiring to be rootless,” I said, going off of my own experience of traveling these last few months.

“It's true,” Traynor said, scratching his beard. “Even when a ship or a station becomes a home, we are never welcome anywhere for long. We are always asked to leave especially when our numbers grow. Then we hitch and are hurried along.”

“A planet is a kind of ship,” Bitty said, raising her voice and opening her arms as though to embrace the crowd. “We'll go. If we follow her, I know we'll live.”

The crowd shouted out their agreement.

As they dispersed, the feeling of the group, which had been so low, began to feel hopeful.

Siddiqui joined me and Caleb.

“What is it?” I asked. I felt sorry for all that he had gone through.

“I can't be invisible in this crowd,” he said. “I've met Brother Blue too many times. Worked with him closely.”

Caleb put his hand on Siddiqui's shoulder.

“You'll be a Pirate with me. You'll be covered up, and you'll stay on our ship. We won't let him get anywhere near you.”

“Thank you,” Siddiqui said.

I turned to Caleb.

“Do you think Brother Blue will recognize you?” I asked.

“I never met the guy,” he said.

“But he looked at your body in the cryocrate,” I said.

“He looked at a dead body in a cryocrate,” he said. “I'm not that dead boy.”

He grabbed a protein pak from the bowl on a counter and ripped it open.

It was true. There was very little chance that Brother Blue would make the connection between them. But there was someone who would recognize Caleb.
Myfanwy.

“There is something you should know,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Myfanwy is on the Yertina Feray,” I said. “She's Brother Blue's assistant.”

Caleb put the protein pak down and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“She won't recognize me,” he said with a bitter edge to his voice.

It was true that she barely seemed interested when I told her that we were friends.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Everything is on the line.”

“She remembers a soft pushover who was moony-eyed for her,” he said. “I know now that I imagined a lot of things that weren't there. I always loved her from afar even when she was standing right next to me. I was invisible.”

I could tell by the way that he crumpled the foil packet and kicked the table that he was telling the truth.

“I don't want your heart to distract you when you have such a big part to play. She's with him now. She can't be saved.”

“You forget, Tula, that Pirates don't have hearts,” he said.

Then he excused himself and left.

I could tell though, from the way he walked, that his heart was breaking.

 

34

A plan, even when well worked out, is not always simple. To work, it must be elegant.

When the clamps from the Yertina Feray clicked onto the Hort ship and we were finally docked, my heart lifted. I was home.

The doors slid open. Caleb, along with his crew and Siddiqui, now disguised as a Pirate, led the Humans out onto the docking bay in single file until we were arranged in rows, standing in the hangar. We were told to look down, as though we were defeated. But I stole a glance at the space station party that met us, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tournour. At first I didn't see him, but then, a crowd of station officers moved and there he was, mingling with a small team of his officers.

My pulse quickened. I began to tingle as though every cell in my body was coming alive. I couldn't help but smile because his face was the one thing I had been longing to see for months, and now there he was. It was terrible to not be able to run to him.

I stole another glance. His long limbs were bent toward some other officers who were laughing at something he said. They did not seem disturbed that there were slaves about to be sold, and I wondered if this had become commonplace since I left, that workers were needed in the rush.

I had sent him a coded invoice message saying that he would see me soon. He'd messaged back that I shouldn't come, but of course he did not know what the plan was. Now that we were hundreds of Humans led by Pirates, I could only hope that he had an inkling of an idea of what I was doing.

I wanted him to turn so that I could see all of his face, but of course he didn't. I couldn't wave at him or smile. I was to be a Wanderer like the others with no known connection to anyone here.

My eyes shot to the floor again as I sobered up to the situation. This was not a homecoming. I had a role to play. We all did.

There was no room for personal feelings when there was so much at stake, but I couldn't help but worry that all of this time apart had changed him. I worried that he wouldn't care for me in the same way. That he'd found someone else. That he wouldn't be the Tournour I'd learned to care for so deeply. I felt that he was a part of me and thinking that he could be different made me surprisingly anxious.

I pushed those thoughts aside. I couldn't know what he was feeling. But I knew what I was. I had missed him. I had missed the station. That's all that I could know.

It was in this moment that I realized faith was such a hard thing to hold on to. Faith that my plan would work. Faith that Tournour was on my side. Faith that Caleb could act the Pirate enough to fool Brother Blue. Faith that Reza would help me if we made it down to Quint. Faith that we wouldn't be herded onto a ship and sent straight to a colony to die.

“Welcome to the Yertina Feray,” Tournour announced. I looked up again at the sound of his voice. Warm to my ears. Commanding to everyone else's.

Tournour motioned for half his team to pat down all the Pirates. If he recognized Caleb, he didn't give it away.