“Does that make it right?” I say.
Mom thinks about the question for what feels like a long time. Finally she says, “I’m not sure right matters. Not when we’re talking about the potential extinction of our species.”
That gives me a horrible thought.
“What happens if Pel won’t negotiate with us?” I ask. “What will we do if the Sorrow tell us to go?”
Mom doesn’t answer right away. She doesn’t have to. I can guess.
I think I might be sick.
“I hope that doesn’t happen,” Mom says, finally. “But no matter what, nothing that comes next is going to be easy.” She scrubs a hand over her face and through her hair. “God, Jo, I’m so sorry. I wish you were still a little girl I could protect. But I’m glad you aren’t. I’m going to need your help to get us through this.”
And by get us through this she means “save the entire freaking human race.” But no pressure or anything.
I’m furious. I’m terrified. I’m confused. I’m so incredibly sad. Big complicated emotions feel like they’re slam-dancing under my skin, tearing me apart.
Then it’s all gone.
Suddenly I feel good. Wonderful, actually. And warm, too. Like I’m standing in the sun. But none of that is true. It’s still dark. It’s still cold. And the hurricane of emotion is still there, screaming silently under a smothering, artificial coating of happiness.
Mom feels it too. “What is that?” she says, putting her hands against her cheeks.
“It’s Sorrow sonar,” I say. “I don’t hear anything, but . . . wait. There it is. Can you hear them?”
Mom nods. The song is getting louder now. More intense. It sounds like a whole choir of Sorrow are out there, weaving their tactile voices together to create the warm and sunny sensations we’re feeling.
“But that’s impossible,” Mom says, tapping into her flex. “They couldn’t have gotten past . . .” She swears. “The particle shield is down.”
“How . . . ?” I answer my own question. “They have Dr. Brown’s command codes, don’t they?”
Mom nods, texting furiously. “We kept her log-in active, so no one would question the official story that the Vulcan was in the Wolf 1061 system. Damn it. I should have thought to lock her out.”
The exhilarated sonar is getting closer and stronger. It’s making me feel like I’m bouncing on a giant trampoline. It’s getting hard to focus on the real world and my real feelings.
Pounding footsteps cut through my sonically induced giddiness. Dad is racing down the street toward us with Sarge and four other marines on his heels. Jay and Tarn are only steps behind them, though Jay is still limping on his injured leg.
The marines are all carrying rifles.
“Guns? No!” I say. “Can’t you feel it? That chant isn’t a threat. It’s . . . I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t hostile.”
“Hacking our shield and coming into the Landing uninvited is hostile enough for me,” Mom snaps, but then she turns to Sarge and says, “If we can avoid a confrontation, we should. Stay back where you won’t be seen unless things start going south.”
“Do not hide your weapons,” Tarn says as he and Jay reach the group. “Whatever her intentions, Pel will appreciate an honest show of strength.”
“That song isn’t a threat, is it?” I say.
He holds his hands in front of his face, palms out. “It is a welcoming song,” he says, dropping his hands again. “I am most surprised to hear it. The new Followed has always expressed great fear and anger toward your people.”
“Would Pel use a welcoming song as a trap?” Jay asks. “To make us think she’s friendly, so she can attack while our guard is down?”
“My pouch mate would not have done so,” Tarn says. “But I cannot say what Pel might do. I’m sorry I cannot be more illuminating.”
The air is so thick with Sorrow sonar that I feel dizzy with it. Happy tears prick my eyelids. My body can’t tell the difference between real emotions and the manipulation of the song.
A line of black-robed Takers emerges from the darkness beyond the airfield’s floodlights. Then another. There must be at least thirty of them. Maybe more. They’re marching in a tight square formation around another, smaller square of Givers in glowing lantern cloaks.
“Fall in, marines,” Sarge says. Jay’s eyes find mine as he joins his squad mates behind Sarge. It feels so strange to not be standing shoulder to shoulder with him, facing this together.
“Tarn, Jo, stay close to us,” Mom says, beckoning us to stand behind them as my parents turn to face the Sorrow.
The Takers are bristling with weapons. I see crystal-spiked staffs, massive war hammers, and lots of black-bladed knives. I hope Tarn is right, and Pel is just putting on a show of strength. Even with our guns, I don’t think we’ll win if this comes to a fight.
The Sorrow formation stops as they hit their final note. They hold it, letting the tactile sound flow over us and fade into the night. My ears ring in the silence, and suddenly I’m so cold that I’m shaking. I probably was freezing the whole time—I just didn’t notice because of the effects of the Sorrow song.
The Takers expand their square by a single step, moving in absolute unison.
Mom is standing close enough to me that I can feel her body go tense at the eerily synchronized movement. The Sorrow formation opens like the covers of a book and the Takers fall back into two straight lines. The Givers melt back as well, their movements as fluid as the Takers’ are sharp and precise.
Dr. Brown is standing at the center of the formation, next to a hooded Sorrow in a billowing, light-amplifying cloak. That must be the new Followed. But why is Dr. Brown with her? Is she a prisoner? Or . . .
The glowing Sorrow’s trijointed fingers push their hood back, revealing eyes covered by mirrored lenses that gleam silver in the floodlights.
Tarn lets out a startled cry.
Shock crashes over me, immediately followed by relief so intense my muscles feel like Jell-O. I don’t know how he survived that blow from Pel’s hammer, but Ord is alive. And, judging from the entourage, he’s still Followed.
“Hello, Alice Watson,” Ord says to Mom. “Welcome to my planet.”
Sixteen
“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” Leela says.
We’re sitting with Jay at one of the fire pits in front of the mess hall, watching the double doors of Ground Control. A Taker stands at attention on either side of the entrance. Ord is in there, with Tarn and Dr. Brown and my parents. They’ve been behind closed doors in Mom’s office for nearly two hours now.
“‘We promise, we’re only going to steal a third of your world. Half, tops,’” Jay jokes.
“We aren’t stealing anything!” Leela protests. “I’m sure if the Sorrow want us to go, the commander will respect that.”
Jay makes a dubious face. “Sure might be a strong word,” he says, scratching at the nanobot-laced bandage wrapped around his clawed leg.
“I can’t believe you didn’t let Tarn heal your leg,” Leela says. “It feels strange, but it doesn’t hurt, and it itches way less than nanites.”
“Tarn didn’t offer,” Jay says, “so I didn’t bring it up. It seems like a really big deal to him. And I’m not dying or anything. Tiny, itchy robots will do me just fine.”
“So sensitive for one so pessimistic,” Leela says.
“Dubious,” Jay says, “not pessimistic. There’s a difference.”
She snorts and tosses the gray-green grass stem she’s playing with at his head. “I still think there’s a sixty-forty chance we’re going home.”
“We aren’t going home,” I say. “We might not have known about the Sorrow, but the ISA did. They aren’t suddenly going to grow a conscience about it now.”
“We aren’t talking about the ISA,” Leela counters. “We’re talking about the commander. No way she’s just going to go along with this.”
I don’t know what to say to tha
t, so I don’t say anything. None of us know what my mother will do in the face of a possible human extinction. I’m not sure Mom does either.
“You sound like you’re hoping we bail,” Jay says.
Leela shrugs. “Not hoping, really. But we’ve already caused a civil war and nearly wrecked the ecosystem, and we haven’t even finished constructing base camp. If the commander has the chance to undo this, then maybe she should.”
For a moment, I’m profoundly jealous of Leela all over again. She has such absolute faith in my mother. I wish I still felt that way. I understand why Mom agreed to come to Tau, but that doesn’t mean it was right. It doesn’t mean she was wrong, either. We can’t gamble the future of the human race on a fixer-upper planet like Proxima Centauri b. But does that make it okay to force our way onto Tau? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but it’s all so complicated. I hate that.
“They’re coming out!” Jay says, breaking me out of my inward spiral of misery. We all straighten as the doors from Ground Control swing open, but it’s just Dr. Kao.
“How are things going in there?” Leela calls as he zips his float-chair across the square to us.
“Very well,” Dr. Kao says. “So well that the Sorrow have agreed to join us for a late dinner. I need volunteers. You three will do nicely.” With that he continues into the mess hall, not giving us the chance to make excuses.
“Well, we knew this was going to end in kitchen patrol eventually,” Jay says, hauling himself to his feet.
“Speak for yourself,” Leela grumbles. “We aren’t all flyer-stealing delinquents.” But she seems kind of relieved to have something to do. She follows Dr. Kao into the mess hall.
I hesitate, looking back at Ground Control.
Jay puts his arm around my shoulders and squeezes gently. “It’ll come out okay.”
“You think?”
“It has so far,” he says. “Against all odds.” He tugs me toward the mess. “Come on—I’m wounded here. Give me a shoulder to lean on.”
I slip my arm around his waist to support his weight but he’s hardly limping, much less leaning on me.
“That leg is really hurting, huh?” I say.
“Not particularly,” he says. “You mind?”
“Not particularly,” I say.
His face overflows with a grin so big I can feel it tugging at the corners of my own mouth. What is wrong with me? The future of the human race is in jeopardy, and I’m grinning like an idiot over a boy. A boy who’s grinning like an idiot over me.
Why does it feel like nothing else matters?
The incongruous happiness doesn’t last. While we soak beans and measure rice, Jay gets everyone talking about all the food we can’t get here. He goes into excruciating detail about his favorite vat-grown double cheeseburger, which comes with onions and cheese and some kind of sauce he thinks is amazing. I can hear how much he misses the flavors and smells in the shading of his voice. I wish I couldn’t. But being around the Sorrow seems to have changed how I listen.
I jump at the chance to go to the 3D shop and print extra platters. If I don’t get out of here, I’ll blurt out the truth about Earth and Tau and ruin everything for Jay and Leela, and I don’t want to do that. Not yet.
The 3D shop is quiet, which is disconcerting. The huge 3D printers have been running twenty-two hours a day since Mom initiated Stage Two. But Dr. Ganeshalingam—I guess she’s Chief Ganeshalingam now, since she was Chief Penny’s second-in-command—has preempted all five of the 3Ds to print parts for the new shuttle. They’re just waiting for the salvage crews to finish recycling the wreckage of the Wagon.
I set one of the smaller 3Ds to print a dozen serving platters and then I go down to the bathrooms to pee. While I’m washing my hands, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrors. My hair has frizzed out of its braid in a halo around my face, and my thermal is spattered with bean juice. I can’t go back to the mess like this. Jay is there.
I guess I should stop pretending I don’t care what he thinks.
I pull on a fresh ISA Ship Pioneer thermal and hoodie, and a pair of soft gray cargo pants. I wash my face too, and rebraid my hair. I should probably cut it. Long hair just isn’t practical right now. It won’t be for a long time.
I study myself in the mirror. Pale skin touched with pink sunburn despite my blockers. Brown eyes dusted with gold. Brown hair already escaping its braid in wisps that curl around my ears and neck. I look the same, but I don’t. Even if I cut my hair again, I won’t look like I used to. Joanna Watson, cadet pilot, is gone, and for the first time I don’t regret it. She was smart, and quick, and happy in a way I’m not sure I ever will be again. But I don’t know if she was strong enough to deal with what’s coming.
Am I?
I guess I’m going to find out.
When I get back to the 3D shop, Chris is stacking my freshly printed platters.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says.
“I looked for you,” I say. “I . . . I should have looked for you sooner, but the Sorrow came, and Ord is—”
“Yeah,” Chris says. “I saw Dr. Brown. She told me.”
“Oh,” I say. I try to sound normal, but every word feels like it has sharp edges. “Where did you . . . I mean, I thought Dr. Brown was with Ord and Mom? Is she, um, I guess she’s not?”
Chris shrugs. “Guess not. I went out to the greenhouse and she was there.”
“What was she doing out there?” I wonder.
“Dunno,” he says. “She was sitting on the ground, staring at the seedlings. They’re already starting to die, you know, without Stage Three.”
“Beth said they would,” I say.
He nods. “I asked Dr. Brown what she was doing in there, and she said she was, ‘meditating on consequences.’”
“In the greenhouse?”
He shrugs. “I guess. I don’t know.” He makes an embarrassed face. “She said it weird, but I think she was doing the same thing I was.”
“What were you doing?” I say, cautiously.
“I was trying to understand.” He shrugs again. “It’s dumb, I know. Dying plants and dirt can’t really explain anything. But we wouldn’t have had to go into that nest if not for Stage Three. I wouldn’t have . . .” He trails off, scuffing the toe of his boot against the floor tiles. “So stupid. All over some dirt.”
“There’s more to it than that,” I say. “More even than we knew. This isn’t just about Tau.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snaps. “I’m thirteen, but I’m not stupid. The ISA didn’t break all its own rules just for kicks. Something is really wrong back home, isn’t it?”
Funny that Leela and Jay haven’t realized that yet. Or maybe they have on some level, and they don’t want to know anymore than I want to tell them. But Chris’s universe has already been shredded. He’s got no reason to delude himself.
“Yes,” I say. “Pretty much everything is really wrong.”
His face crumples. “And you’re about to tell me that since all the adults are screwing up and everything is terrible, what I did, Miguel dying, none of that is my fault,” he says. His voice cracks, sounding like a little boy’s one word and a man’s the next.
“No,” I say. “I wasn’t going to say that. You screwed up. But so did I. So did everyone. This whole situation is just . . .”
“A mess,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“So what do we do now?” he says.
“I have no freaking idea.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me either.”
“Are you chiseling those platters by hand?” The delicate moment evaporates as Leela hustles into the 3D shop. “The commander and the Sorrow are already out in the square.” She snags the stack of platters from Chris and grabs his hand, towing him along as she reverses course. “C’mon,” she says. “If we have to do KP, you have to do KP.”
A Sorrow song buzzes over my skin as we approach the square. It’s late, but no one is sleepin
g in the Landing tonight. Everyone, including the little kids, has gathered in the square to watch the Givers sing.
The fire pits are covered, and the lights have been turned out so that we can see the full effect of the Givers’ lantern cloaks. They’re arranged so that their colors fade from a pink-tinged gold on one end of the line to a vivid bluish scarlet on the other.
Ord is showing off.
I don’t blame him. The Givers are beautiful, and their song is intoxicating. At least, I imagine this is what being drunk feels like. I’ve only been drunk once. The night they told me about my medical discharge I crashed the first senior cadet party I could find and drank as much as I could stand. I don’t actually remember what it felt like. But that was the point—to forget. This night is different. I want to remember every second.
“What does it feel like for you?”
I drag my eyes away to find Jay watching me watch the Givers.
“You know that feeling,” I say, “when you’re a little kid and you spin as long and as fast as you can, then you fall down and you lie on your back and stare at the sky?”
He nods.
“That’s it. Sort of,” I say. “It’s hard to put into words.”
“It reminds me of swimming,” he says, turning to look at the Givers again. “My friend’s great-grandma used to take us to the community pool and throw a bunch of coins to the bottom so we could dive for them. You know how it is, when you stay down a little too long and your head gets kind of full and light at the same time?”
“Like you’re a balloon that’s about to pop,” I say.
He grins. “Exactly.”
The song trails off then. The crowd of humans and Sorrow falls quiet.
Ord comes to stand in front of the Givers. His robes amplify his blue-violet bioluminescence so much that it washes out their delicate spectrum of pinks to white.
“Friends,” he calls in English. I feel a corresponding flutter of Sorrow sonar and twist, looking for the source. It’s Tarn. He’s standing off to the side, translating his brother’s words for the other Sorrow.
“Ever since Lucille came to live with the Sorrow, I have dreamed of this day,” Ord says. “And now that it’s here, it is greater than my dreams. We are each strong and unique species in our own right. Together, we will do marvelous things. It will not be easy. Great sacrifices have been made to get us this far, and they will not be the last.”
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