One passage led into another, the same unpainted pale ceramic walls set with featureless doors. They climbed into a lift, which, by her estimation, descended about six floors, underground most likely. Because there were no ancestors-damned windows anywhere that she could see.
A bunker then?
Nuri could almost imagine the weight of the earth pressing down from above, and the mere thought of so much mass made her chest tight. She concentrated on breathing, on giving the appearance of being calm at least.
The Heran had his back to her, and the moment the lift doors sliced open, he swept along, and she was prodded out into a reception area.
The same unfinished ceramic walls. A row of benches down one side that seemed an afterthought to all the bareness. She was ushered through the door directly before her into an unfurnished office and made to sit down on a broken chair at a plastic table covered in singe marks. Three chairs had been positioned facing her, on the other side of the table, and she could only assume this was where her interrogators would be seated. Because, oh, something gave her the feeling there would be many, many questions. Nuri sighed deeply and clutched at her sides. If only she’d headed straight to her hammock instead of going for that run. If only she’d not climbed the stupid aerial. If only she could touch the stars …
She allowed herself a bitter smile.
Maybe that siren call would’ve hit her anyway, even while she was sleeping. Impossible to refuse. Maybe she should’ve practised her psi-shielding a little more when Vadith had suggested it, and she wouldn’t be in this mess.
The two guards stood behind her, while she waited for the ancestors alone knew how long.
The cameras were easy to spot – one in the corner of the ceiling to her right, and another diagonally behind her, in the other corner.
“I’m thirsty,” she said after some time had passed.
“Shut your mouth,” snapped the woman guard.
“I know I’m in the wrong, but if you don’t want me dead, can I at least have some water? You don’t want me to get sick on your lovely floor now, do you?” Her stomach was still rebelling. Whatever they’d knocked her out with had nasty side-effects.
“Eric?” the woman said.
“Fine.” The door opened and the male guard stomped out, returning shortly with a disposable plastic cup half-full of water that smelt faintly of chemicals.
Water was water, and anything to quench her raging thirst would work.
She’d barely slugged back most of the foul-tasting liquid when three people bustled in. One was the wrinkled old Heran, another was a pinch-faced human woman whose black hair was scraped back into a severe bun, and the last was a J’Veth drone whose skin was stained dark with anger. The slit pupil of his red-orange eyes was tiny, and his facial tentacles fair quivered as he regarded her.
“This is the cause of all our troubles?”
Ugh. What a way to start her interrogation.
“T’Atmar,” the old woman chided as she seated herself in the middle. “That is unworthy of you.” Then she smiled at Nuri, her features transformed. “Don’t mind that grumpy old drone. He’s just annoyed because he was rudely interrupted from his slumber.”
“As we all were,” said the wrinkled Heran, settling himself on the chair to Nuri’s left.
“A little bit of excitement would do you well,” the woman said. “Get your ichor flowing.”
T’Atmar sat down so hard his chair squeaked alarmingly, and he rearranged his voluminous navy-blue robes. “A little bit of excitement will be the death of us all.”
“We don’t need any more excitement than we’ve already got,” said the Heran male.
Nuri sipped the last of the water from the cup. Merely having an object to hold, no matter how flimsy, gave a degree of comfort as she searched the faces before her. Her heart beat so wildly she feared it might explode. Exactly how much trouble was she in?
“Right,” said the old woman. “What is your name, child? You are not a Citizen, and according to city records you have a list of misdemeanours longer than your arm. Why you haven’t been shipped off-planet yet is anyone’s guess.”
Next to her, the Heran male frowned ferociously.
Nuri sighed. “My name … is Nuri.”
“And?”
“I run for one of the bosses in the north-west barrens.”
“A career criminal!” the grumpy old drone snarked.
“Peace, T’Atmar,” the woman said, holding out a hand. “I will ask the questions. You and Katha are merely observers.”
She then looked Nuri. “I am Alda Valeni, and I am a spokesperson and chief facilitator for this facility. We would like to understand why you felt the need to trespass, and indeed how it is that you managed to penetrate as far as you did without tripping the alarms. And how by the ancestors’ souls did you bypass security to the hangar?”
The woman didn’t sound angry, which was more than Nuri could’ve hoped for. She wasn’t sure if she could cope with angry adults shouting and waving their arms about, although Alda’s two companions didn’t look as if they had any patience for a story.
When Nuri didn’t immediately reply, Alda said, “You can speak, child. We are, naturally, concerned for the security breach, but we will not hurt you.”
Nuri drew a deep breath. How much could she say? “You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try us.”
“Okay. I heard a siren song. A strong psi-call.” She waited for the angry outburst that didn’t come.
The adults turned to each other, Katha’s large oval eyes becoming even more bulbous. The J’Veth drone paled to a stone colour before returning to his dark emotive state. He splayed one hand on the table top, truly agitated judging by how none of the eight tentacles could stop squirming over each other. Alda, however, sat a little straighter and locked her gaze with Nuri’s.
“How did you enter the hangar? The locks were all activated.”
“They’d been overridden. Like a system’s glitch.”
“Impossible!” the J’Veth drone burst out. “The system was updated only three days ago. She must’ve done something.”
“Peace.” Alda held out her hand again and then turned back to Nuri. “I believe you, child. But now we sit with a conundrum. We cannot let you go, even into the care of an authority. At least not until the emergence.”
“Ma’am,” Nuri started. “What’s in the hangar?” She might as well ask. And emergence? What was that? And this business of not letting her go until then? That pressure was back in her chest but she daren’t let the adults see how much their words upset her.
“She might as well be told,” Katha said.
Alda’s lips puckered and she shut her eyes for a few heartbeats before looking at Nuri again. “Very well. How much do you know about the seed?”
“The seed?” The way the woman had said “seed” made it sound important, but no recognition was sparked.
Alda sighed. “Twelve years ago, one of the star-jumpers left a seed here. A highly unconventional, unexpected act. The first in recorded history of this sector in the galaxy. There have been cases before elsewhere, but knowledge has mostly been suppressed. And we suppressed the media until we were certain it would take.”
A gasp escaped Nuri, and a ghost of the psi-call that had brought her this far echoed in her heart. What did this mean exactly? She knew next to nothing about star-jumpers and hadn’t been paying attention to the news recently.
Alda frowned and turned to T’Atmar. “She heard the call. You can see it writ all over her face.”
He grumbled in J’Veth, the words too slurred for Nuri to follow, but it sounded like an insult.
Nuri steeled herself, determined not to let it show that his attitude towards her stung.
Alda turned back to Nuri. “The short version of this story is that for some reason unknown to us, the star-jumpers have decided to allow this planet an opportunity to bond with one of their own. Each star-jumper is more than just a
vessel to jump between stars – ancestors above, perhaps even between galaxies. We simply don’t know. What we do know, and what isn’t common knowledge, is that each of these ships is a sentient, living being, represented by an avatar. And each star-jumper requires an avatar. Which brings us to you.” Alda exhaled enough to make her shoulders slump. “It would appear that it has called you.”
“If word gets out about this, our patrons will not be happy,” Katha murmured. “This is a PR disaster.”
“You don’t think I know this?” Alda snapped at him.
“It’s unconscionable,” T’Atmar said. “We cannot allow her to stand. We should keep her secured until this is over, then have her mind-wiped.”
“And if the nymph rejects all the others?” Alda asked. “What then? We’ll lose a valuable opportunity!”
“She has no patron,” Katha said.
“Is that even necessary?”
“You forget who funds this initiative,” said T’Atmar. “Most certainly not fresh air and star shine.”
“How poetic of you.” The woman turned her gaze to Nuri again. “But I suppose if the right patron can be found, it will provide this wee mite with a modicum of legitimacy.”
“Who are your parents?”
“You’ve never received a formal education?”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Are you sure you don’t know who your parents are?”
On and on the questions came, until Nuri lost track.
One of the guards brought her water again, and when her yawning became uncontrollable, she was taken to another level and what she assumed might be living quarters. A camping cot with blankets that smelt new had been set up for her.
No windows, of course, and the floor-to-ceiling monitor on the largest wall was blank, so it felt as if everything was closing in on her. The door was locked and then it was just Nuri, on her own, in a tiny room with its own en-suite bathroom. The guards had provided her with a flask of liquid that tasted almost like apple juice, as well as a pre-packed meal of weird, unidentifiable pastes and bars. These she bolted down with shaking hands, not knowing when she’d have anything to eat again.
She paced the bare room like a wild animal for a bit, but there was no way out except for the door, and the ventilation grate had been sealed down so well, she’d need explosives to get it open. All that she’d learnt spun around in her head – she’d been called by a star-jumper. Nuri, a nobody who didn’t know who her parents were. What did it mean to be an avatar? Would this be freedom, of sorts? Or would she be a slave to this mysterious living vessel? She’d never thought of them as living. Just weird. And more than just a little bit awe-inspiring.
Vadith would be furious when she didn’t return to the Den. Ancestors, he was most likely already incandescent. No one ran away from Vadith. If she was ever freed, she’d be cleaning bathrooms for a year once he laid his paws on her. Nuri’s skills were far too valuable for him to cast her off. Yet oddly, she almost felt something like relief that she’d been taken from him, that she was no longer his possession. A useful tool, and nothing more. Lately, things with the pack hadn’t been all that great. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Tired and frustrated, Nuri did the only thing she could in her predicament. She curled up on the cot with its chemical-scented blankets and went to sleep. No dreams came to her, which was a mercy.
4
At first when she woke, Nuri wasn’t sure where she was. She missed the sway of her hammock, and what stood out was the utter silence. So much so that she could hear her pulse beat in her ears. While she’d slept, the lights had dimmed, but as she sat up in the rumpled blankets on a strange cot in an unfamiliar, bare, ceramic-walled room, the room grew lighter. Not that it helped. Her prison was still grim as all hell. She wrinkled her nose at the marshy, muddy stench of her clothing, and the way everything itched. She could use a bath. And she desperately needed to pee.
Only she couldn’t move. Besides the fact that her body still felt as if she’d been stomped by a stampeding pandor, she simply couldn’t summon the energy to move from the relative comfort of the bed. Day one of captivity, she supposed.
The interrogation from the day returned to her. So, they’d mind-wipe her? Keep her locked up unless they found a patron for her? As if they were running a business here, finding an avatar for a star-jumper seed. If only she’d paid more attention to the news reports, but what happened to Citizens was so far removed from her life in the barrens that she never wasted her time with idle speculation –she and her fellow runners were too intent on their tasks.
Thoughts of her pack brought her back to Vadith. What would he do? It was not as if she’d spilled any of his trade secrets; these people apparently knew enough about her thrilling life of crime without any of her help.
But what now? Fear beat a hollow drum in her chest. She wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t show these people that she was terrified of what would happen next. If only she could go to sleep and wake someplace else, with none of this having happened.
So she waited.
* * *
Nuri had no idea how much time passed nor what time of the day it was. More sleep proved impossible; she simply wasn’t tired anymore. Maybe her captors were so busy debating her fate they hadn’t opted for the mind-wipe yet. This brought cold comfort. She was still sitting here, alone. What if they forgot about her?
No, no, no. Nuri wouldn’t chase that idea down any deep burrows.
As if she would ever be allowed to bond with a star-jumper as an avatar … whatever that meant. Maybe it was like being possessed. Ugh. Who knew? There were horror stories about telepaths who could ride other people, usually cooking their brains in the process. Nightmare fuel.
Besides, star-jumpers had always been a thing you saw in movies – remote and vast and alien. Transport for the super-wealthy; not even mere Citizens. And certainly not for a barrens rat like Nuri.
What now?
If they locked her up, would she ever run again? The only freedom Nuri ever tasted was when she was running along walls or rooftops, often with pursuers nipping at her heels. There was the near weightlessness of making that impossible leap no one else was mad enough to try. Or having to make a split-second decision about how much weight she’d put on the balls of her feet before she launched herself at a crazy hand- or foothold. It was a freedom of sorts, even if she was indentured to Vadith. When she was running, he couldn’t catch her.
Now it looked as if she might never run again.
Staring at the unpainted walls soon grew old, and Nuri really did need to pee. The bathroom was set in an alcove behind a sliding door that rattled on its track. And there was a shower cubicle. Folded on top of the toilet cistern lay grey coveralls, clean underwear (grey), a pair of socks, a towel and a toiletry bag that had all the essentials. White sneakers had been set on the floor, so painfully new and bright they hurt her eyes. So, the facilitators meant for her to clean up. That was all right. Nuri smelled ranker than a fen mole.
A wicker basket stood next to the door, and Nuri deposited her clothing there because it felt wrong to dump it on the floor. Maybe they’d have a laundry in this place. The first, dim flashes of hope came to her.
But, ancestors, it felt good to be clean. Her skin soon gleamed and even if the soap was harsh-smelling and chemical-like, she’d at least gotten rid of the bleeding swamp stench.
A pair of guards appeared after her shower and brought her a packed meal. One took the laundry basket, though he didn’t promise to bring back her things. The guards were firm but aloof, and their hands twitched often towards the stunners they wore at their belts.
And then she waited.
Of the siren song that had landed her in this trouble to start with, there wasn’t so much as a peep. It was as if she’d imagined it all, and that was kinda scary. Or maybe she was so far beneath the ground that the psi-call couldn’t reach her.
Four meals she counted, always brought by an unsmil
ing guard who refused to answer any questions. In between those times, Nuri paced. She did exercises to work out excess energy. She tried to sleep. Once she even cried, but stopped when she figured they’d be recording her behaviour. Not that she could see the camera, but you never knew.
“You can’t stress about things you can’t change,” Nuri said to herself. “Can’t, can’t, can’t. But you can breathe and try to be calm. And figure things out.” That was what Shiv had told her once when they’d been on a hectic job that hadn’t gone according to plan.
Eventually her captors came for her, when she wasn’t sure if it was day or night. Nuri was marched along the passages, into an elevator, and brought to that same anonymous reception area from the first day. From here she was marched out into the grounds, between the hulking buildings.
So it was noon. Despite the smog, the sun’s brightness was near blinding.
Nuri scrunched shut her eyes and had to blink rapidly before she could peer at the world around her. The facility was so sparse, so perfect, without even a scrap of litter. They walked along neat ceramic-paved pathways bordered by grass clipped to such uniformity by the roving maintenance bots that it might have been green velvet. The grey of the prefab walls, in regular rectangular rows, was so different from the chaos of the barrens. Teens of various races moved between the structures, all garbed similarly to her. They didn’t pay her any attention; everything was so quiet, so orderly.
She was guided into one of the larger buildings – it looked a little more permanent than the others and went up three storeys, its upper levels consisting of sheets of black solar glass. The interior was cool and smelt strongly of industrial cleaner. Her sneakers’ soles squeaked on the polished poured-stone floors.
The J’Veth drone at the reception desk waved them through a set of double doors that brought them into yet another long passage. The stark white of the walls made Nuri’s eyes ache. Then a sharp right turn into a space that reminded her of the waiting room in the clinic when they’d taken one of her pack-mates after he’d broken his arm.
Sing Down the Stars Page 3
