The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (19 page)

“Okay,” I said. “And thanks again.”

Victoria smiled, and unlike so many smiles I had endured from Paul, this one seemed real, kind. “You bet.” She strode back toward the center of the deck, calling out to people as she went.

I watched her go and felt like, for the moment, we had reached a safe port.

The deck became crowded, a din of people shouting and hurrying back and forth. The crew was lean but tough looking, lots of tangled hair, beards on the men, dreadlocks here and there. I could see sunburns on the lighter-skinned people, and on everyone there was a look of exposure, including the dark discolorations of Rad lesions. A couple of the older-looking crew members were missing patches of hair. They called to one another in harsh voices, lots of foul language. Keller’s people couldn’t have been more different from Paul’s in Eden. They were different from what I’d known at Hub, too. These people seemed to have no fear of the world, and they had the scars on their skin to prove it.

“All ahead!” I heard Arlo call from the aft deck.

I felt a rumble in my feet and the ship began to pull away from the dock. The twin hulls extended out like blades into the water. For the first few hundred meters, debris thunked against the sides: rotted chunks of walls, posts and beams and trash, soggy and bloated from the sea.

Then we were out into the open water, the color still grayish and oily, with an acrid twinge of burned gas. We began to rock slowly up and down over long swells, and I found myself gripping the railing, and feeling like I’d lost track of my center of balance.

The warm wind stung my face, and I kept licking my dry lips, tasting the salt. The foggy cloud cover burned off, and the sun began to sear through a white, hazy sky. I had to squint to see. The buildings of Houston slipped out of sight behind us. Ahead, the horizon stretched vast and distant. I thought of my old idea, about swimming off to find some hidden corner of ocean with Lilly, and realized that I had not considered how great and empty the ocean really was.

“Deploy the solar sail,” Arlo called.

A large, golden sheet unfurled overhead, spun between the two masts. A crew member snared its triangular point and brought it back to a pole on the aft deck, clipping it into place so that a giant, shimmering triangle had been created above us. The fabric was somewhat transparent with golden threads and provided some shade from the sun.

But even in the relative shade, the heat had become liquid. I felt myself getting light-headed, and turned to look for Arlo. A crew member pointed me to him, up on the aft deck.

He led me down a narrow flight of stairs, into a skinny hallway, and to a little cabin. There was a bunk bed and a hammock in the triangular space. A small table beneath a porthole held a pitcher of water and a bowl of fruit and crackers. I downed a glass of water and had a few crackers before I finally lay down on the bottom bunk.

The bed was broken in, and I sagged into the middle of it. I fell asleep almost instantly and had no dreams I remembered, just dark and finally rest.

I WOKE UP SOMETIME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. Out the window I saw only brownish, oily sea and pale blue sky with high feathery clouds.

Everything felt sore. My arms and shoulder were locked up, my legs rubbery, but that might have been the steady rise and fall of the world around me. I thought about just lying back down, but wanted to see how Lilly and Leech were.

I found a bathroom outside our cabin. It had a sink with a little pump faucet. I washed my hands and face. So much dirt came off, along with black flakes of dried blood. Washing made a cut sting on my cheek that I’d forgotten I even had. I traced the little line back toward my ear. When had I gotten that? Then I remembered: from the first time we’d lit the vortex engine, escaping Eden. I should have remembered that back in the mountains, then I could have warned Leech before it was too late.

I examined the cut in the mirror and the Rad burns on my scalp, arms, and a new one on my left shoulder. The skin was shriveling to brown, sickly pink pus oozing, but that blue gel had eased the pain. Back at Hub, I used to worry about getting hurt, the idea of cuts and bruises. Now I had more than I could keep track of.

I headed back up the narrow hall, asked around, and found my way to the infirmary. It was a cramped room: one center aisle with narrow cots against the walls. Lilly and Leech were lying across from each other.

“Hey there.” Serena came over to me as I entered. “Your friends are settled in. I’ve got their fluid levels up and have started treating their wounds. You have any sore spots?”

“A wound on my shoulder,” I said. “The Rad burns are feeling better.”

“Let’s take a look.” Serena sat me down on a bed. I peeled my shirt off gingerly. “First things first,” she said. “Let me check your vitals.” She started to put a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and I noticed that she had black-painted fingernails. It seemed like an odd coincidence, a little thing, but still . . . “The doctor at Camp Eden had nails like that,” I said.

“Maria,” said Serena. She blinked, tears forming.

“You knew her?” I asked.

“I did,” said Serena. “We were friends. We trained in Desenna together.” She sighed. “Were you there when she died?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She was trying to draw attention away from us. And she gave us supplies. If it hadn’t been for her, we probably wouldn’t have made it out of Eden.”

Serena sniffled. “She was tough. She was the first to volunteer for that position, to go undercover. She knew how dangerous it was.”

“She cared about me,” I said. I hadn’t had a chance to think about Maria since we’d left. It made me tight inside. I pictured her up on that ladder, firing at those copters, only to be riddled with bullets.

“Well,” said Serena, “you were worth it. That’s what they’re saying in Desenna, anyway.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, “but thanks.”

Serena taped a bandage to my shoulder, then applied more blue gel to my burns. “Infection’s not too bad, and I’ve seen way worse Rad burns. You don’t seem to be feeling any Rad poisoning, so you should be okay.” She smiled at me. “Thanks for telling me about Maria. She lives on in your mission.”

I felt a little weight settle inside. First the CITs, now Dr. Maria . . . The list of people who made sacrifices for us was growing. It made me wonder if I was up for it, if I could hope to honor them, but is also made our mission more important. This wasn’t just about me, or even the three of us, anymore.

As Serena moved to another part of the room, I went over to Lilly’s bed and sat on the edge. She stirred. Her neck was wrapped in bandages that looked moist. A bag of fluid hung beside the bed, a tube leading to her arm. She looked like I had, I supposed, after I’d drowned. They’d washed her face, and in spite of the dark circles under her eyes and the cut on her chin, she looked beautiful and delicate, clean in that angelic way like the very first time I’d seen her on the Eden docks. I felt an ache inside.

“Hey,” I said. I took her hand. “It’s Owen.”

“Hey,” she whispered faintly.

“She shouldn’t talk much,” said Serena from nearby.

“Sorry,” I said. “Keep resting.”

“We are floating . . .” she said softly.

“Yeah, we’re on a boat, heading to Desenna.”

“No,” she said, and her lips spread into a faint smile, “we’re floating on music. Do you hear it?” Her head began to rock back and forth, like she was hearing a melody.

“I . . .” She must not have been totally awake. “Just rest,” I said.

“It’s beautiful,” Lilly whispered. “Someone’s singing such a pretty song . . .” and then her face went blank as she drifted back into sleep.

“She keeps talking about that music.” I turned to see Leech sitting up. His left eye was covered with bandages. His right eye was barely visible beneath swelling and redness, but at least you could tell that it was still there. He had the sextant on a thin rope around his neck.

I went over to him. “She’s just out of it, I think. How are you?”

“They gave me some stuff for the pain, but . . . I’m not a navigator if I can’t see.”

“Your eyes will heal,” I said.

“Tch,” Leech scoffed. “Maybe one. Eventually. What’s funny is that if we were still in Eden, I could get a bionic replacement, just like Paul. And it was leaving there that made this happen. That’s some twisted luck.”

“Qi-An,” I said.

“What?”

“That’s the Atlantean idea of the balance of all things. It has something to do with harmony.”

Leech shrugged. “Great. Well, I don’t know if this is Qi or An, or what, but either way, it stinks.” He gazed toward a porthole. “Any idea what happens when we get to Desenna?”

“Not really. I talked to Keller a little. She seems nice. I think we’re safe, for the moment.”

“I wonder when that moment will end. . . .” Leech lay back, closing his eye. As he did so, his face clenched and I saw his hands shaking again. He seemed to sense me watching, and he said, “Yeah, that’s getting worse, too.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Rest up.”

“Sure,” said Leech.

I left the infirmary, thinking I’d go up to the deck, but as I walked down the hall, I stumbled. The up and down of the water was making me feel woozy again. Plus, I was still exhausted, so I headed back to our room and lay down. I tried eating a few bites of banana but it just made me queasy, and I fell asleep again.

This time, there were dreams.

They began in the infirmary on the
Solara
, only I was a patient. Lilly was there to see me. She and my dad were standing together, hands clasped, gazing at me, fear in their eyes.

“What?” I asked them. I looked down to see that my arms were striped with black, as if someone had drawn the lines of my veins on me. Except my skin was gray, translucent, the black veins beneath. I knew this: black blood, pandemic four, like Harvey and Lucinda and Leech had talked about. I knew, too, in the dream, that the black veins were late stage. Terminal.

“All we can do now is see what’s in here.” Paul appeared on the other side of the bed, glasses off, eyes clicking electronically. He reached down with a blue-gloved hand and sank his fingers into my flesh. It didn’t hurt. I watched his whole hand disappear into my torso, and realized he was reaching in through my hernia scar, his arm sinking up to the elbow. The lump of his probing hand moved around my abdomen, the skin stretching. I could feel his fingers among my organs.

But now there was another sensation. On my cheek. Something old, ancient to me, a light pressure and movement. A thumb making a circle, clockwise on the skin of my cheek. “It’ll be okay, honey.”

I turned and found my mom sitting beside me, leaning close. Her eyes were wet, her mouth trembling, and I knew the feeling of that circle, knew it so well. . . .

“We’ll be together again,” she said. “I promise.”

“Here we go.” Paul’s hand moved up, jostling around my lungs, and then there was a bolt of pain as he grabbed my heart.

“Just gotta shut this thing down,” Paul said.

He squeezed, suppressing the beats—

I bolted up out of bed. My hand went to my hernia scar, and I felt a faint throb there, as if the dream had somehow reawakened that old injury. I was breathing hard and felt a coating of sweat all over me. My hands were shaking. What was with these dreams?

I got some water. Outside, the sky had cooled, the sea now purple and silver. Seeing my dad in the dream made me think of contacting him. I wondered if they had a gamma link on the ship. I headed up to the deck to ask, and to see where we were.

The sun had begun to set, growing bloated, an orange oval dropping into veils of gray mist. Beams of orange, pink, and purple reflected on high feathery clouds and over the slick surface of the gelatinous water.

I spotted Arlo standing with two others by my craft. One of the men was inside it, lit by the glow of the vortex engine. He was wearing a welding mask and holding a blowtorch to the kinked spot in the mast. I walked over.

“Hey, Owen,” said Arlo. “We’ve been checking the damage to your craft here. We can patch the sails easy, and then it looks like the primary problem is the bend in the mast. We’re getting that straightened so you’re back in flying shape for tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Victoria will explain,” said Arlo. “Actually, I’m supposed to take you to her.”

We left the two men working on the mast and climbed up to the aft deck, where Victoria was standing by the navigation consoles. The solar sail had been furled, and we were moving slowly.

“Hi, Owen,” said Victoria. “Did you get some rest?”

“I did,” I said, though I felt more disjointed than rested. “I was wondering if you had a gamma link. I wanted to get in touch with my dad.”

“That would be nice,” said Victoria with a sigh, “but I’m afraid we don’t. The Northern Federation blocks us from using the gamma network. It’s one of their many sanctions against me. On rare occasions we are able to hack our way on, but that’s about it. For the most part, it’s really a blessing for the people of Desenna, but in this case I’m sorry it leaves you out of touch. I’ll let you know if we are able to establish a connection.” She pointed ahead. “For the moment, though, you’ll want to see this.”