Wings of Creation (26 page)

He shook his head gently. “I planned to keep her with us. It’s the kids we couldn’t have, and this was her choice.”

I knew that. But separating me from Alicia was Marcus’s choice. Ever since the first day he met us, on Silver’s Home, he’d been mildly disapproving of Alicia. “What? No room for babies in this huge place?”

Kayleen, who had been watching quietly, spoke up. “Joseph. Relax. It’s done now. We’ll be together soon. I know we will.”

“How do you know?” I snapped at her. “I don’t know.”

She gave me a hurt glance and walked off.

Maybe I should have followed her, but Seeyan’s hands were still in mine. She squeezed lightly, her angled features giving her a wild look, her wide-set brown eyes intense. She seemed nervous. I remembered Chelo mentioning how weird it felt when everyone knew her. I bet I was learning the same feeling. She spoke earnestly, her voice quivering a bit at first. “It would have been hard to get the children here. There are no roads, and they’re too heavy to carry. They
are
in a safe place, Joseph, I promise. They’re very, very well protected.”

“They’d better be,” I snapped. I took a deep breath, surprised at how angry and worried I sounded. Chelo and Alicia were both strong, both adults. But I wasn’t going to feel better until I saw them. I let out a long sigh and let go of Seeyan’s hands, stepping back.

Disappointment crossed her face, and she rubbed her hands together in front of her.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I’m very, very tired.”

“Sit.” She ushered me to a chair, and gestured to Induan, who reached into a large bag beside her. Seeyan poured me a tall glass of water from a carafe and then brought over a self-heating teacup. It smelled of Seeyan, and must have come from her house. I’d never seen one, but Chelo had told me about them. The glass of water disappeared first. The teacup was as magical as Chelo described. The tea itself tasted bitter but, as I drank it, I felt physically better, although still worried.

Marcus had disappeared somewhere else in the cave, maybe going
after Kayleen. I wanted to go find them both, but even though I felt better, my tired legs really, really didn’t want to move. So I sat with Induan and Seeyan. We shared a good view out of the cave from our seats, while the sun painted the sky with orange and pink and a purplish gold. The cave mouth acted like a picture frame, making the sunset seem like a vid wall from a ship. The brightening artificial light and the sounds of movement from behind us accentuated the effect. Sasha, curled beside me, made it all the more pleasant. When Seeyan got up and refilled my teacup, I looked up at her. “Thank you for bringing Sasha.”

Her smile was tender, and she reached a hand out toward my face but then pulled back before touching me. “You’re welcome.”

“What is this place?” I asked her.

She folded down beside me, legs crossed. She wore thin yellow leggings and a green blouse that contrasted nicely with her auburn hair. “It’s from before they made us. Before they finished Lopali. There are a few more of these. Most are just abandoned. Keepers inhabit at least five. And some, like this one, we lease to other people. It’s a way to get credit so that we can do our own projects.”

Did she mean ones the true fliers didn’t know about? Although, there were a few fliers here. “Who do you lease this one to?”

A flustered look crossed her face and I sensed she wished I hadn’t asked her. “A group of people like Marcus.”

“Who work with fliers? People working on what I’m working on?” I pointed into the dusk outside. White and black wings moved toward us in near-perfect unison. Angeline and Tsawo. I looked for a set of made wings and found none. Paula wasn’t with them.

“Do you know Paula?” I asked Seeyan.

She looked away. “I’ve met her. But Paula isn’t one of us.”

“Isn’t a Keeper?” Because she wasn’t a failure?

Seeyan shook her head. “Keepers who are the same age—and Paula and I are close—spend a lot of time in the same classes and building the same projects. But I’ve only met Paula a few times.” She sounded proud of herself. “Paula doesn’t have our training.”

So Seeyan didn’t like her? “Which means?”

Seeyan looked confused. “Well, if she were a Keeper she’d have a purpose in life.”

I managed not to choke on the dregs of the tea. “I have a purpose in life.”

Her eyes widened. “Of course you do. You’re a maker.”

Wow. “I was trying to say maybe Paula is okay. I’ve met her, and she’s part of the work being done to help you all.” After the words escaped, I realized I’d spoken too sharply.

Angeline and Tsawo landed, and turned to silhouettes as they looked back at the last of the sunset.

Seeyan sipped her tea in quiet, watching the two fliers. She’d been born by a mother she’d never met, taken to another planet, broken, rejected by a family that had bought her (bought her!) and then been given a simple job. No wonder she identified so with the job. Come to think of it, all of Lopali was pretty tied up around whether you were flier or a tourist or a seeker or a Keeper or another kind of human who lived here. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound short with you. I’m just not very happy about being separate from Chelo, and there’s still a lot I don’t understand about this place. In case that’s not enough, people are chasing me.”

Her usual gentle smile came back. “Opposition is almost always an opportunity to learn.”

“Sometimes.” I could see why people would have taught her that. “Sometimes it’s just an obstacle.”

She picked up my teacup and took it away without answering me. She’d lost the smile again, but she still looked more contemplative than angry.

I went back to petting Sasha and watching for the first stars, which was a lot easier than understanding Seeyan.

I only got to find three stars before Marcus found me. He offered me a hand, which I took, and I let him pull me up. We stood side by side looking out into the darkness. His voice was soft. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“That you’re hunted. That you aren’t all together. I’ve watched you and Chelo, and you’re both stronger when you’re together.” He was apologizing, but I didn’t hear regret in his voice.

“Kayleen’s family is split up, too.” Kayleen! “Where is Kayleen?” I should have gone after her a long time ago. She had to be even lonelier than me.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

He led me toward the back of the cave, where a table had been set up with food for the taking. I looked around. “Where is she?”

“Grab a plate of food and come on.”

I took bread and fruit, avoiding a pile of the same grapes I’d already gorged on. There was wine on the table. I reached for it.

Marcus put a hand out to stop me. “Drink water. You shouldn’t be impaired.”

I grunted, tempted to pour anyway. “Aren’t we safe here? At least tonight.”

“We still have work to do.”

“All I want to do is find Kayleen, then eat, and have a glass of wine, and sleep.”

He looked at me as if I were a small child, which made me feel like one. “I’m sorry. But I’m tired.”

“Me, too. But the longer it takes us to stop this war, the more people will die.”

I poured a glass of water, being deliberately slow. “And hiding in a cave on a planet full of bird people will stop this war? And aren’t we only hiding from two people? How can they be such a threat?”

Marcus sounded exasperated. “I’ll answer those backward. There are powerful people paying to have you killed. We can change that, but not immediately. And you and I are good, but we aren’t the only strong Wind Readers in the Five Worlds. Why do you think I’m warning you off the nets when you aren’t working?”

He didn’t appear to want an answer so I took a bite of bread while he continued. “Lopali will make a difference in this war. We’re almost even, but without them . . . we might not win. If we can help them, earn their trust and get them to our side, we’ll have more power and a much, much better chance.”

“If the people we’re trying to get them to fight alongside don’t kill us first.”

“That’s right.” He picked up a grape and tossed it in the air, catching it easily. The next time he caught it in his mouth, completely breaking my anger. “Politics,” he said after he finished the grape, “very seldom makes any sense.” He plucked a slice of bread off the
table and handed it to Sasha. She gobbled it up and stared at him for more. He picked out a few pieces of fruit.

“So if politics doesn’t make any sense, how do you know when you’re doing the right thing?”

“You trust yourself. Bring your plate. You need to see the war room.”

Huh?

We left the main room and walked down a wide hallway. Halfway down, Marcus waved his hand in front of a door, which opened for him. He stopped to let me pass, Sasha following at my heels.

Inside, I stopped and stared. The far wall was entirely video, a view of space like I’d had from
Creator
. Only it wasn’t contiguous, it was chopped into squares, the edges visible primarily by the shifting of constellations and nebulae in the background. Here and there, ships appeared to fly in and out of the squares. As I looked closely, every square held a ship.

The ships looked like the bigger ones we’d seen at Li Spaceport back on Silver’s Home, or at some of the space stations. Many had obvious weapons.

I counted. Ten squares up, eleven or twelve across. Over a hundred.

“That’s what’s at stake,” Marcus said. “And as much as Silver’s Home is often wrong, and as hard as I’m working to change the biggest wrongs, Islas is worse.”

As if it were timed to his words, the view in front of us shifted to a widescreen picture of space with blinking yellow dots. “The Islan Fleet,” he murmured. “To stop the war completely. To make all those ships turn around. That’s what I want.”

Lopali seemed really small compared to those fleets. “How many ships does Lopali have?”

He grunted. “Two hundred or so. That’s the easiest way to stop this. The other two fleets are close in strength today, nearly a thousand ships each. But Islas’s command is more unified.” He glanced around and licked his lips. “The thing about Lopali’s fleet is that they’re very, very accurate. And agile. Small and fast. Also, the Islans look up to the fliers. They wouldn’t want to shoot at them. They’ve been working as hard to make them to stay neutral as I am to get them to take a side.”

“What’s Silver’s Home working for?”

He grimaced, and his voice sounded bitter. “It changes day to day. I’ve been working that angle since before your parents left for Fremont the first time. It’s like swimming upstream; futile from the beginning. Maybe we’ll get lucky, they won’t be able to agree long enough to go to war.”

I glanced up at the wall of ships, which still showed the Islan fleet. “Isn’t that good?”

“Not if it makes us lose.”

The wall changed to show a view of both fleets. Dots in the sky—individual ships couldn’t be drawn at this scale. The Islan side looked more organized, even from this wide and far view. But I didn’t know enough to know if that was better. “But the fleets aren’t really that close to each other, right?”

“No. They’re months away. It’s just how we’re displaying them. This wall is a simulation. The only real vid we have is our fleet.” He was shifting back and forth on his feet, as if the sight of the powerful armies infused him with energy.

I’d forgotten the plate in my hand.

A blocky man with short dark hair and swarthy skin came up to me and Marcus. “Introduce us?”

“Of course. This is Joseph the infamous.”

I looked. He was grinning. I managed not to drop the plate while I extended my other hand. “Pleased. And you are?”

“Stark.”

Well, the name fit him. Everything was angles. His clothes were simple, and black, all the way down to his shoes. In a room this dark, he’d disappear if he wasn’t looking at you or smiling.

Marcus elaborated. “Stark is an old friend. He’s responsible for the security here, and for getting all of us information if anything changes.”

I wondered briefly if he worked for Marcus or with him. No matter.

Stark smiled at me. “I hope I get to visit with you. In the meantime, it looks like you’re planning on dinner. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.” He walked away, fast, heading toward a tall man in the corner.

Marcus looked after him with a rather fond look on his face. “Don’t mind Stark. He has a short attention span, but that’s just because you’re not broken right now. If you ever need anything, he’ll be there for you.”

Good enough. The room was pretty dim except for the wall, although I could see ten or twelve figures walking around, and in two places—far in the corners, away from the screens, smaller displays threw light onto the faces of watchers. I looked for Kayleen. Marcus took my elbow. “She’s over here.”

We walked to the back wall, which was lined with dark lumps in the dark room . . . the lumps turned out to be comfortable chairs, easy to sink into. Kayleen was the only inhabitant; her dark hair faded into the general darkness so only the contrasting whiteness of her face and arms showed. Her eyes were closed.

Marcus whispered, as if afraid he’d wake her, “Sit down and eat, then drop your shields.” He walked off and left me with my plate on my lap, my friend nearly comatose by my side, and my eyes glued to the display wall.

Sasha stared at my plate until I gave her a bit of bread, then settled at my feet. I mentally thanked Seeyan again. My world was better when Sasha was around, my bit of home, my success story from the war (battle!) with the Star Mercenaries.

I barely tasted my food as I watched the ever-changing display in front of me. So many ships, and although real relative size was impossible to tell, all of them were bigger—by far—than anything I’d been in.

How many pilots did they take? How many crew? What were the weapons like? What would it be like to fight in a ship?

I’d rescued, and I’d fled, and I’d flown, but I’d never driven a ship that was itself a weapon. The closest we’d come was the
Burning Void
, back on Fremont, and I wasn’t even there. Kayleen piloted her, and Liam and Chelo threw bombs out the door at the Star Mercenaries.