Bright Shards (The Vardeshi Saga Book 2)

by Meg Pechenick

  He followed my look, and I saw it again, that glint of chilly amusement. “Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  He frowned slightly. “What did you say?”

  I hesitated. “I said no.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He studied my face. “You’ve always had it. Ever since you arrived. This . . . insubordinate air.” His tone was still light, but I could feel the anger gathering behind it.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “Sir.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what you mean . . . sir.” He spoke slowly, drawing the words out. “I can never tell how much is deafness, with you humans, and how much is just stupidity. What do you think?”

  “What?” I cringed at the word as it left my mouth, but I couldn’t contain it.

  He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Are you deaf? Or are you stupid?”

  “Neither. Sir.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Deaf, stupid, and a liar, then.”

  I said nothing.

  “We made the right choice the first time,” he went on, as if to himself. “We never should have gone back to Earth. We should have left you to tear yourselves apart like the savages you are.”

  “Yeah, we’re clearly the savages in this scenario.”

  I knew the words were reckless, but I couldn’t keep them in. A tiny flame of anger had flickered to life inside me, deep down, below the terror. This was ridiculous. It was a ludicrous, tragic waste, what was going to happen in this room, very soon now, as I knew with total certainty. And it was my own fault. What could have possessed me to ignore Reyna’s directions? I had fallen into what I now recognized as an utterly transparent trap. I had made a stupid mistake, and I was going to pay for it with my life.

  “I don’t know from where you get the presumption to speak to me like that,” Hathan said, each word falling sharp and clear, like needles onto a tile floor. “Your kind are worthless. We should have ground you into dust when we had the chance. We should have taken the knife to every last one of you. Instead, here you are, breathing my air, drinking my water, eating my food. Contaminating everything you touch. Do you have any idea how much we despise you? How miserable it is to be in the same room with you? Your smell. The sound of your voice. It makes me sick to look at you. Did you know that?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Don’t speak to me!” he shouted. He caught the edge of the table and threw it sideways into the wall. My flexscreen smashed against the wall and shattered, cascading onto the floor in glittering shards.

  I started to cry.

  “Did you think we wanted you here?” he said, quiet again. “Did you think you could work with us as an equal? As a friend? Is that really what you believed?”

  I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, hands wrapped around my elbows, trying to hold myself together.

  “Look at me.” His voice was soft.

  I stared at the ground.

  “Look at me,” he ordered again.

  I looked up at him.

  “Are you afraid of me now?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “You’re a slow learner. Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.” My throat closed on the words. I could barely get them out. If I could have saved myself at that moment by shouting for help, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

  “You should have been afraid of me all along,” he said. “Because this is who I was all along. Under the surface. I never wanted you here. Wearing our uniform. Speaking our language—or trying to. I should have gotten rid of you any way I could. Vekesh had the right idea. If he’d been a better shot, I wouldn’t have to finish his work for him. But better late than never.”

  “Stop it,” I said.

  He went still. “What?”

  “Stop it.” My voice was a thread of sound, and it broke on the second word, but I pushed on. “Please. Please stop and think about what you’re doing. This is not who you are. The Hathan I know—”

  There was a crack and a blinding flash of white, and I fell backward over a chair I hadn’t known was there. I hit the floor hard, and wrong; one of my wrists bent sickeningly backward. The right side of my face was numb. I had been looking directly at him, and I hadn’t seen the blow coming. My vision was blurred, and there was a deafening roar in my ears. I tried to breathe, tried to gather myself back together. My face and my wrist already hurt more than anything in my life had ever hurt. I got my hands and knees under me and started to crawl forward, with no orientation other than the drive to escape. Where was he? I didn’t dare look around. My sight was a dark tunnel with a queasily bright patch of clarity at the center. My hands found a wall, and I dragged myself upward. Somehow I was next to the door. I fumbled for the control panel.

  His hand closed on my wrist—the injured one—and twisted hard. I screamed. The spike of pain forced me to my knees, and I would have fallen if he hadn’t still been holding onto my wrist. Nausea and terror rolled over me in black waves.

  The pressure on my wrist relented, enough for me to swim back up toward awareness, but he hadn’t released me. “Can you hear me?” he asked quietly.

  I nodded. My breath sobbed in my throat.

  “Don’t ever use my name again,” he said. “Names are for equals. You are not my equal. Do you understand?”

  I nodded again.

  Hathan said, “No. You don’t. But you will. I’m going to make an example of you for the rest of them. Get up.” He waited while I got unsteadily to my feet, my wrist and face still throbbing. Then he reached out with his free hand and unlocked the door. “Let’s go.” He shoved me forward through the doorway, one hand between my shoulder blades, the other hand still bending my wrist up behind me. “Where are the others?”

  “I—”

  He twisted my wrist again.

  “Engineering,” I whispered, when the darkness had receded again.

  He shoved me ahead of him down the corridor.

  We had gone only a few steps when the overhead lights blinked on. There was a rush of movement on each side of us. I heard him cry out. He pulled on my wrist, dragging me backward a step, then abruptly let go. Not knowing what was happening, I stumbled over to the wall, slid down it, and sat with my knees pulled up to my chest, cradling my injured wrist. I tried to concentrate on breathing in and out. Gradually the racing of my heart subsided. The roaring in my ears began to fade. I put my head down on my knees and closed my eyes. It was over. I had endured it, and it was over.

  CHAPTER NINE

  After a time I heard two sets of approaching footsteps. I didn’t lift my head. The footsteps stopped beside me. I felt a gentle touch on my arm. “Eyvri?” said a voice. I looked up in surprise. It was Sohra. Ahnir was standing beside her.

  “Where’s Reyna?” I asked. Moisture tickled my upper lip. I dabbed at it with the back of my wrist and saw with a sense of unreality that there was blood on my sleeve. My nose was bleeding.

  “Trying to find someplace to put Hathan,” Ahnir said grimly. “Not an easy task when none of the doors will close. She sent us to help you. I’m trained as a medic. Do you have an emergency kit in your quarters?”

  I nodded. “Under my bed.” Slowly I processed what he was saying. “Where’s Daskar?”

  “She’s unconscious in the clinic. We think she may have felt the symptoms of the Flare coming on and dosed herself with a sedative.”

  “Come on,” Sohra said. “Let’s get you back to your quarters.”

  I let her help me to my feet. “Is anyone else hurt?”

  Ahnir said, “Zey has some bruising, but nothing serious. Ziral has a broken nose and, I think, some fractured ribs.”

  “How?”

  “Khiva. Fortunately, Ziral is the better fighter, even when taken by surprise. Khiva herself has a mild concussion and some bruises.”

  “Who else is infected?”r />
  “Only the three,” Sohra said. “It looks like it may have run its course. But just to be safe, we’re working in pairs as much as possible, and checking in with Suvi Ekhran every twenty minutes.”

  “Run its course,” I repeated. “Already?”

  “There are only ten of us,” Ahnir said. “It’s possible that there’s simply no one left to infect.”

  We had reached my quarters. I was sure there were more questions I ought to be asking, but I was too tired to think of them. I went inside—the door, of course, was open—and sat down on the edge of the bed. Ahnir followed me in, knelt down beside the bed, and drew the medical kit from underneath it. “May I perform an examination?” he asked. I nodded. His fingers were cool on my skin as he traced the line of my jaw and cheekbone, then the orbit of my eye all the way to my eyebrow. After the manual examination, he performed a scan using an instrument I didn’t recognize. Studying the readout, he nodded as if it confirmed his expectations. “I don’t think anything’s broken. The bones are intact, and your eye is fine. I’m afraid the bruising will only get worse though. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “My wrist.”

  “Let me see.” Exhibiting a surprising gentleness of touch, he examined my wrist, concluding that it was sprained, not broken. “Obviously we’ll have Daskar perform her own examination as soon as possible,” he assured me. He applied a Vardeshi cooling salve, then produced a silver brace, a more delicate version of the one I had seen Saresh wear, which he fastened around my wrist. He made a few careful adjustments to the fit before touching a control. Instantly the brace tightened into place, matching the contours of my hand and arm as if it had been crafted for me. I moved my right hand experimentally. The brace was so light I could scarcely feel it, but it immobilized my wrist. Ahnir watched me flex my fingers and nodded in satisfaction. “It looks like it’s fitted correctly. Are there any other injuries I should be aware of?”

  I shook my head.

  “In that case, you should try to get some rest. I’ll go get your food and water from the storeroom. Do you remember which room it was?”

  “Reyna knows,” I whispered. He nodded and left. When he had gone, I picked through the open medical kit until I found the packets of ibuprofen. I took out two of the little envelopes, tore them open with my teeth, and swallowed the pills. Then I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. Sohra’s and Vethna’s voices drifted in from the corridor. From what I could hear, they were cobbling together a makeshift door from a spare deck plate and some magnetic bolts. I was glad they were there. The very ordinariness of their dialogue was a comfort. I could almost pretend that things were as they should be, that my world hadn’t tilted and slid sideways into some dark parody of itself the moment Hathan took the flexscreen out of my hand.

  I sat without moving until Ahnir returned. I was cold, but I was too tired to reach for a blanket. Finally I heard the thud and scrape of heavy objects being set down. I opened my eyes. Ahnir finished arranging the food tray and water jug on my table and straightened up. “All right, I think you should have everything you need for now. Sohra, how’s the door coming?”

  “It’s done,” she said, stepping into the room. “I’m sorry, Eyvri, it’s not a very elegant fix. We’re effectively locking you in again. You’ll have to call one of us to remove the bolts when you want to come out. But at least you’ll be safe. Suvi Ekhran wants you to stay in isolation for another day anyway.”

  “One day,” I said faintly.

  Ahnir said, “If no one else is showing symptoms by tomorrow night, she’s going to call off the quarantine.”

  I nodded.

  “Get some sleep,” Sohra said. “Let us know if you need anything.”

  Not until they had left and I heard the metallic click of the magnetic bolts snapping into place did I realize that, once again, I had been left without a flexscreen. It didn’t matter. As far as I knew, the Ascendant’s communications network was intact. I would have no difficulty calling for help if I needed it. I closed my eyes again. The throbbing in my face and wrist eased by degrees as the painkillers took effect. I realized I was shivering. With a great effort I roused myself to increase the temperature in my room using the controls on the bedside panel. Then I turned off the overhead light, lowered myself down onto my bunk, and pulled the blankets up. I was asleep in an instant.

  Some time later I lurched awake in a dizzying surge of panic, certain I had heard his voice in the dark. I fumbled for the light control with fingers made clumsy by panic. When the light came on, I sat tensely in the bed, listening to the stillness with its underlying hum of distant propulsion systems. At length I forced myself to climb out onto the chilly floor. Heart hammering in my chest, I checked the closet and the sanitation room. Then I went to the doorway and pushed on the deck plate. It was still secure. I got back into bed, but I couldn't bring myself to turn off the light again, so I just sat in the warm nest of blankets until I finally relaxed enough to doze upright against the wall in full simulated daylight.

  * * *

  Waking again, hours later, I reached instinctively for a flexscreen that wasn’t there. I fumbled along the wall shelf where it normally sat until my sleep-dulled mind presented an image of it in fragments on the conference-room floor. I activated the wall display next to the bed. It was almost noon. There were no messages for me. I pushed away the blankets and climbed out of bed. My right arm ached fiercely all the way up to the shoulder, and my neck was so stiff I could barely turn my head. The pain in my temple had returned in full force. I fumbled through the medical kit, which I had shifted onto the floor before collapsing the previous night, for more ibuprofen. Pills in hand, I shuffled into the sanitation room for a glass of water.

  The sight of my reflection stopped me. The lighting in the sanitation room was harsh and unflattering, designed to complement blue-toned Vardeshi skin. It had never done me any favors. It hid nothing now. I looked pale and tired. My hair was lank, my slept-in uniform disheveled, the bruising around my eye grotesque. Ahnir had said it would get worse, but how was that possible? I felt sick at the sight of it. Before turning away, I sent one quick piercing look into the eyes of my reflection. She looked fierce and sad, and somehow defeated, in a way she hadn’t before. I looked away quickly.

  I began running hot water into the basin. At that instant I would have given anything for a private shower like the one in Kylie’s suite on Arkhati. I knew showering was out of the question until the quarantine expired, so I cleaned myself up as best I could, given the constraints of my sprained wrist and the tiny sanitation-room basin. Then I went to examine the contents of my food tray. I had slept through the early stages of hunger, and now that I was fully awake, my body was demanding food with a panicked, slightly nauseous urgency. I added a hot meal to the list of comforts that would have to be deferred until I regained access to the rest of the ship. Even a hot drink would have gone a long way toward restoring my sense of well-being. As it was, I had to settle for granola, dried fruit, and powdered milk. I felt a little better after I’d eaten. I found my laptop and hard drive, arranged them on a stool next to the bed, scrolled through Kylie’s sitcoms, and selected an episode so familiar I could practically recite it. Then I lay down on my bunk again.

  For the rest of that day I alternately slept and watched episodes of old sitcoms. When I was hungry, I ate something from the tray. When the ache in my wrist and face reasserted itself, I took more painkillers. Addressing each immediate physical need as it arose cost me all the energy I could muster. I didn’t think about the Flare. I couldn’t. I knew the memory was there, every word and glance and blow preserved as if in amber, but my waking mind shied away from it. My quarters were a safe haven. I had food and privacy and a soft bed, and for the moment, those were the only things I needed. About the fate of the others I felt only occasional muted stirrings of curiosity. I forced myself to check my messages every couple of hours and sighed in relief each time the screen displayed an empty inbox. I was g
rateful for the silence from my crewmates. It demanded nothing from me. I didn’t have to think about how I was going to face them again. I didn’t have to think about anything. I lay in a cocoon of warm numbing quiet, blessedly free from thought.

  At ten o’clock that night I finally received a message from Reyna. It was brief and general, directed at the entire crew, and said only that the quarantine would be lifted at midnight and that there would be a mandatory meeting in the mess hall tomorrow morning. I checked the time, saw that there were still a couple of hours left before the quarantine was due to lift, put my head down again, and went back to sleep.

  I woke to a series of clunks, which I placed after the first startled moment as the sound of magnetic bolts hitting the floor one by one. Someone was dismantling my improvised door. I went over to see who it was, hoping for a friendly face. To my profound disappointment, the deck plate shifted aside to reveal Vethna standing outside my quarters. “Quarantine’s over,” he said over his shoulder as he eased the heavy plate to the floor and leaned it against the wall. Straightening, he took a look at my face and winced. “You look like shit. Hathan must have one hell of a backhand.”

  I waved at the deck plate. “How am I supposed to close my door now?”

  “The controls are working again.”

  “Perfect.” I closed the door in his face. Then I stood in front of it and trembled for a long time. Finally I went to look for clean pajamas and a towel. I wanted to curl up on my bunk and stay there forever, but I wanted a shower more. I knew, too, that the longer I delayed my first departure from my quarters, the harder it would be. I collected the things I needed and put them in a bag to keep my left hand free for keying in door codes. Quickly, before I could reconsider, I opened my door and ventured out into the hallway.

  Vethna and the deck plate had both vanished. The residential corridor was empty, but as I stood in front of the shower room, checking to see that it was unoccupied, I saw Reyna approaching from the direction of helix three. Her quick assessing look moved from my bruised face and braced wrist to the bag slung over my shoulder. “Take your time in the shower,” she said. “The water restriction’s been lifted temporarily. You saw the message about tomorrow’s meeting?”