“I did!” I protest. “I asked if there was any food on the Dart.”
“You must have known that you were going to run out of energy,” she challenges.
“I wasn’t sure,” I tell her. “And I had to do what The Knowledge said so I could get the captain back and find out about the shapeshifters.”
“But why didn’t you tell me!” She seems really angry now.
I’m a little angry too. “Because I thought you didn’t like me.” I think back over our conversation. “You told me you didn’t like me. You never wanted to talk to me. You called me it and thing!”
We both glare at each other.
The Knowledge’s eye peeks out from behind one of the seats, and then ducks away again to hide.
Electra sighs and slumps against the wall. “You’re right.”
I realize suddenly that she’s changed her mind about me, but it’s more than that. “Electra, why did you rescue me?” I ask.
“Because you’re dangerous,” she answers.
I wait.
“Because . . .” she says. She looks unhappy again. “Do you remember the captain’s test? You passed because you offered to give yourself up to save the ship. But I failed, remember?”
I nod, yes.
“I failed because I kept insisting that you were not a person. I’ve been thinking a lot about that.” After a moment she goes on, and her voice gets very quiet. “At that moment, T, you were a better person than I was.”
Slowly, I get up and go over to sit down next to her.
Electra will never, ever cry, but I know she feels the misery water inside her. I pat her arm. “It might not matter,” I tell her, “but I liked you almost from the moment you came onto the ship.”
“Of course you did, T,” she says, that bitterness in her voice again. “That’s why you’re so dangerous.”
We sit quietly for a moment. I feel jittery with the need to hurry, to get the captain and get back to the Hindsight so we can escape before General Smag and the Peacemaker arrive, because I know they are coming with all speed. But the Dart can’t go any faster, and we have another half an hour before we get to the asteroid.
“Electra?” I ask, because she really hasn’t answered my question.
She sniffs. “What,” she says, sounding a little cross. Her tintacles are faintly golden colored, and lying limp on her shoulders as if they are tired.
“Why didn’t you leave? General Smag is coming with the Peacemaker,” I say. “You could have shown him right where I was. You would have been a hero.”
She’s quiet for a second. “Remember when Amby told us about their home planet and their parental units and their pod-siblings and the nest they grew up in?”
I nod.
“I never had that.” She takes a shaky breath. “The StarLeague identified me as a good candidate to be a cadet. They took me away from my mother when I was a baby.”
“What’s a baby?” I ask.
She casts me an annoyed glance. “It’s when humanoids are small and young, right after they’ve been born.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
She brings up a picture on the Dart’s screen and shows me.
Ohhhh. I’ve seen pictures of babies before. There were lots of pictures in the art of Earth, second era, of ladies holding babies on their laps. I’d thought they were some kind of pet. But no! They were young humans.
And then . . . they change, and their heads get smaller, their arms and legs get longer, and they can walk around and talk. They grow up. To be kids! Like me, and like Electra. And then adults, like Captain Astra.
All kids, I realize, are shapeshifters!
Then I try to imagine Electra as a baby. I bet she was cute. “Do you remember your home?” I ask her.
“Not really,” she answers. “Only that, when the StarLeague came to take me away, my mother cried.”
Crying. I know about that now. It’s when you fill up with sadness until it spills out your eyes.
“That’s all I remember,” Electra says sadly. “My mother with tears running down her face, and her tintacles all pale and drooping. After that I never saw her again.”
36
Now I know why Electra decided to stop being a cadet. Because the StarLeague took away her family and her home.
That is a very good reason.
“No,” Electra is saying into her wristband communication device. “Reetha, just let me and Trouble get the captain back from The Knowledge. You stay on the ship.”
The asteroid, still bristling with antennae, is looming large in the Dart’s forward window. Beyond it is the dented tin can that is the Hindsight.
I’m on my feet, ready to go. The Knowledge’s eye hovers next to me.
“General Smag has almost certainly detected Trouble’s shifting energy. He is probably on his way to the Vault,” Electra says to Reetha. “So we have a little time until he figures out that Trouble isn’t there anymore. Make sure the ship is ready to go to pulse engines and turn on the stealth-box as soon as we get back with the captain.” She pauses. “Yes, we’ll hurry.” She says a few more words to Reetha, and then pushes a button on the control panel. We slow, and ease toward the asteroid’s dock.
As we approach, it opens. The Knowledge is letting us in.
Electra, fully armed again, comes to stand next to me by the outer hatch. “Ready?” she asks, with a glance at the eye.
“Yes,” I say. I’ve had enough to eat; I’m ready.
“Stay back,” she advises. “Once we’ve got the captain, you’re going to shift into the Hunter and we’re going to destroy The Knowledge.”
“Wait.” I grab her sleeve. “No. We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Electra asks, jerking her arm away from me. “The Knowledge knew you were coming, lured you into its prison-Vault-thing, and trapped you there. Seriously, T, give me one reason why I shouldn’t blast it to pieces.”
At my shoulder, the eye buzzes with alarm. “It’s all right,” I tell it. I’m not happy with The Knowledge for kidnapping the captain and for trying to lock me in its prison, but it really did think it was keeping me safe, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t intend to hurt the captain, and . . . there’s another reason.
“I think it’s lonely,” I tell Electra.
She stares at me. “Lonely?”
“It’s the only one of its kind,” I tell her. “It’s like I was before I found the captain and Reetha and the Hindsight.” Then I add, “And you.”
Electra takes a breath. Then another. “Lonely,” she mutters under her breath. Then she checks one of the weapons at her belt, looks up at the ceiling, and then back at me. “All right,” she agrees at last. “We won’t blast it.”
“Good.” I bounce on my toes, ready to go.
The Dart docks, and we step out into the dark tunnel. The light of The Knowledge’s room gleams in the distance.
Without speaking, Electra and I pace toward it. The light grows brilliantly bright, and we step into it. I look around quickly, but the captain is not there.
As before, the curved walls are pulsing with a low thrum. We stand on the flat place, and we wait. I feel jittery. The eye hovers at my shoulder.
Greetings, says The Knowledge, sounding weirdly calm.
The bone-deep rumble of its voice has the same effect it did before. It makes my skin bumpy and my hair prickly.
Beside me, Electra looks determined and completely in control. “We’ve come for the captain of the Hindsight,” she says.
Thrum, thrum, thrum.
“Please,” I add. Always good to be polite with hyperintelligent, powerful beings.
Then, across the room from us, my captain steps half out of the light, blinking. She looks around, catches sight of me and Electra, and nods.
Seeing her, I feel a hugely human reaction
of relief.
“And now,” Electra says firmly to The Knowledge, “you will give us the information about shapeshifters.” She raises her voice. “Unless, of course, you want to argue with us about it.” She puts her hand threateningly on one of the weapons at her belt.
At my shoulder, the eye buzzes in alarm.
The light pulses. There will be no arguing, The Knowledge intones. We are not enemies.
Suddenly, from behind me, one of The Knowledge’s telescopic arms shoots out of the wall of light. I flinch away from it.
“Should I blast it?” Electra hisses.
The Knowledge only wants to help, it says. The arm snakes closer.
“I’m going to blast it,” Electra threatens.
“No!” I blurt out. “It’s not going to hurt us. It’s not our enemy.”
I hold out my hand, and the robotic arm drops a small square information chip into my palm.
The answer to your question, The Knowledge says. The location of the shapeshifters.
I close my hand around the chip. “Thank you,” I say.
Across the room, Captain Astra pulls herself farther out of the light and starts toward us. I’m so, so glad to see her. I don’t know what humans do in this kind of situation.
The captain gets halfway across the room, and then she stops and opens her arms. “Come here,” she says.
I step closer, and the captain comes to meet me, and wraps her arms around me. I feel her kiss the top of my head. “You’re all right?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Are you all right?”
I hear her mutter something, but I can’t quite make out the words. She lets me go, and I step away.
The captain must see the confusion on my face, because she smiles. “That was a hug, Trouble. It means I’m glad to see you.”
“I am extremely glad to see you,” I tell her.
“I’ll bet,” Captain Astra says. “Now let’s get out of here.”
The Knowledge thrums, and then speaks. You must hurry, it says in its deep voice. This message arrived only a short time ago.
And then a section of the curved wall goes dim, and in place of the light, a recording of a giant General Smag appears. The sight of his bulbous forehead and jutting chin and his beady black eyes looming over our heads makes me shiver.
“Knowledge unit,” he says in his commanding voice.“We have detected activity on the planet indicating that a dangerous escaped criminal is in the vicinity, and it must be recaptured. You are in great danger. My ship will arrive at the planet in less than one hour. Close your dock and admit no one to your asteroid.” The screen goes dark again, and then light.
Another human reaction hits me—fear. I remember the dream I had when I was in the Vault, the dream about the terrible prison with the hunger, and the bright lights and shiny metal, and the fear, and how it felt so real. General Smag wants to put me back in that place.
“Come on,” Electra says, and heads for the door, followed by the captain.
I’m about to step out, following them, when the eye buzzes up to me and, at the same time, The Knowledge says my name.
Trouble, it booms.
I pause in the doorway. Electra and the captain are ahead, running down the passageway toward the Dart.
“I don’t have time to talk to you,” I tell The Knowledge.
Wait, it says. There is information. Knowledge. You will find it where you are going.
“Information about what?” I ask. “Shapeshifters?”
Knowledge about The Knowledge, it answers. Will you allow an eye to accompany you?
Ohhhh. The eye bobs up to me, level with my face. I gaze into it.
I think of all the times people have looked at me and seen—well, I don’t know what they see. The dog puppy, the human boy, the Hunter. And I’ve wondered if they see me.
I don’t see me, reflected in The Knowledge’s eye. I see something else.
The Knowledge has questions about itself, just like I have questions about who I am and what I’m for.
“Yes,” I tell it. “Your eye can come with me. And I hope it finds out what you need to know.”
The eye hums.
Thank you, The Knowledge says politely.
37
The second the outer hatch is closed and we step off the Dart and onto the Hindsight, the captain is running down the corridor, shouting for Shkkka and for Amby. She’ll get them to switch on the stealth-box so we can stay hidden from the Peacemaker—for now and as long as I don’t shapeshift.
The Knowledge’s eye has come with us. It’s here to watch everything and keep The Knowledge informed. With it bobbing behind me, I follow Electra to the mess-room. Reetha is there, waiting.
“Hello,” I say, and give half a wave. Somehow I think hug is not something you do with lizardians.
Reetha says nothing, just takes a long look at me with her glittering golden eyes.
“See?” Electra says to her. “I told you he was fine.”
Reetha ignores that, and then she turns and stalks out of the room.
One of these days I should shift into a lizardian so I can better understand how Reetha thinks.
But not now. I flop down onto the couch, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly tired. And safe. The mess-room is colorful, shabby, and warm, and there’s nowhere else in the galaxy I’d rather be.
Electra starts taking off her weapons and setting them on the table. The eye is floating around the room, looking at everything.
My stomach growls. I peel myself off the couch and go into the galley, where I open a cupboard. The first thing I see is a packet of stew.
For a flash I’m back in the center of the Vault, looking across a dark space at a glowing bowl of stew . . . that isn’t really there. My stomach lurches. Not stew. I reach for three packets of noodles instead, and make myself a giant bowl of them, with bright orange cheese powder. I take the bowl to the table, push aside one of Electra’s knives and a laser weapon, and dig in.
The captain comes in looking satisfied. The stealth-box must be working. “Good, you’re eating,” she says to me, and heads for the galley, where she gets herself a cup of kaff.
I notice that Electra is standing at attention.
The captain comes out of the galley. “At ease, Cadet,” she says dryly.
Electra relaxes, but not much.
Captain Astra takes a sip of kaff, looking at me over the rim of her cup. “I was very annoyed with you,” she says, “for falling into The Knowledge’s trap.”
“There was stew,” I say.
“Stew?” Electra puts in. “You were trapped by stew?”
I nod. “I was extremely hungry.” Then I explain: “But it wasn’t really stew after all.”
“T, you idiot,” Electra says.
The captain, watching us, has a strange half smile on her face. “So, Electra,” she drawls.
Electra stiffens again.
“The Knowledge,” the captain goes on, “let me watch the entire Vault fiasco through its eye. As far as I could see, it was mostly Trouble getting into trouble and you rescuing him.” She cocks an eyebrow. “Does that sound about right?”
“Yes,” Electra bites out.
“Why?” is all the captain asks.
Electra looks down at the floor.
I know her; I know what she’s feeling. “Because she didn’t pass your test,” I tell the captain. “That’s why.”
“Huh,” Captain Astra says.
“That’s not the only reason,” Electra says. Her tintacles have turned golden for sadness. “When I was small, the StarLeague took me away from my home and my family so they could train me to become a Dart pilot.”
The captain nods as if she’s not surprised. “The StarLeague does that.”
“They shouldn’t,” Electra says firml
y, as if she’s just realized this. “It’s wrong.”
“Yeah,” the captain agrees. “It is.” She pulls out a chair to sit at the table. “Now, thanks to the stealth-box, we’re hidden in a space-pocket, so we should be safe from the general’s pursuit for a while. Let’s see where we have to go to find the other shapeshifters.” I hand her the information chip that The Knowledge gave me. The remote is on the table; she inserts the chip. The captain and Electra lean closer, watching as information starts appearing on the screen, bright numbers and star charts and coordinates, and then a big schematic. The eye hovers just behind them.
I don’t start eating again. We’re about to find out where the other shapeshifters are. I wonder if it will be what I imagined. Maybe it’ll be a planet with others like me, a place that I came from. Or maybe . . .
Electra and the captain go very still. They are both staring at a star chart that is splayed across the screen. Numbers float under it, and words that I can’t read from where I am sitting.
“It must be,” the captain says.
“It can’t be,” Electra says.
The captain glances at me. “Trouble, what do you remember about the prison you were in?”
I blink at the unexpected question. “Nothing,” I tell her. Except for the terrible dream I had about it, with the fear and the hunger and the metal and the white lights. “The blob of goo form can’t store memories for very long.”
The captain rubs her eyes. “This is bad.”
I don’t quite understand what she’s talking about.
Seeing my confusion, she says, “The Knowledge gave us the information about where to find the other shapeshifters. They’re in a prison. It’s just . . .” She trails off.
“Where?” I ask. “Where’s the prison? Where are they?”
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” the captain says softly. “The prison is on board the Peacemaker.”
Oh.
Oh no.
The other shapeshifters are in a prison on General Smag’s ship.
The same prison I must have escaped from.
Electra is peering more closely at the screen. “Wait.” With a shaking finger, she uses the remote to scroll past some numbers and then freezes the display on a map of a ship. “Look at these schematics.” Electra swallows. “It’s on the Peacemaker, but it’s not— T, the place you escaped from is not a prison. It’s a high-security weapons laboratory.”
Trouble in the Stars Page 13
