I’d laughed so hard that I’d fallen down onto the sand. Collie had sprawled out next to me with a rueful grin.
“This isn’t funny,” he said. “I’m missing my trousers.”
“Want to borrow my panties?”
“I have underwear. But—” He broke off, laughing too as he kissed me; his lips were wet and salty. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “How did you get this beautiful, Amity Louise?”
“Even with sand in my hair?” I murmured between kisses.
“Even with sand here…and here…and here…”
“What are you smiling at?” asked Hal now.
I looked down and cleared my throat. “Nothing.”
Later we all moved into the lounge area with coffee. Collie sat next to me on the sofa, one arm resting above my shoulders. Occasionally his fingers brushed the top of my arm, stroking it lightly and making me shiver.
Ma didn’t notice. She sat in the armchair, talking on and on to Collie about people back in our old town. He sounded genuinely interested, though I knew he couldn’t care less. He’d always been so much better with Ma than I was – more patient, more giving. No wonder she adored him.
Hal lay on the floor reading a Peace Power comic. Finally he stood up. “Maybe I’ll go read in bed.”
“Just rest on top of the covers,” Ma told him. “You’ll be sleeping on the sofa tonight, dear, so that Collie can have your room. I’ve made up Hal’s bed with fresh sheets,” she added to Collie.
“Oh, Ma, no!” I burst out without thinking.
“No, what?” Her face was almost comically surprised.
“I mean…” I trailed off, cheeks reddening. “Well, Collie and I…”
“You are staying, aren’t you? Amity, you can’t possibly go back this late! I’m sure you must have missed the last train.”
“Yes, of course we’re staying.”
“Well, then?”
I could see Collie’s amusement, and wanted to punch his leg. “Collie will be in my room,” I said.
Ma blinked. “You want to be on the sofa? Sweetie, don’t be ridiculous.”
“No!” I was almost laughing now: this could not have turned out more terribly. “Collie and I will be in my room together,” I said at last.
Ma stared at us, her mouth a small, perfect “o”.
Collie leaned forward; he took my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “Rose, I’ll sleep wherever you want me to; this is your house,” he said quietly. “But Amity and I…”
“We’re in love, Ma,” I blurted out. My cheeks were blazing now.
“Oh,” murmured Ma. “Oh!”
The scene that followed was every bit as bad as I’d thought it would be…but maybe it was kind of nice, too, even if I didn’t know whether to scowl or smile. Ma actually cried, and hugged us both.
“We’re not getting married, Ma,” I protested. I was holding a glass of sherry that she’d insisted on pouring for us. Even Hal had a glass.
“Not yet,” Ma said firmly. “But it will happen. I know it. Oh, wait! I have just the thing—”
I opened my mouth to argue again as she bustled off into the kitchen. Collie put his arm around me. “Hey, she’s right, you know,” he whispered. His lips against my ear sent tingles up my spine; I could feel him smiling. “If you ever marry anyone, it’s going to me.”
“Suppose I don’t want to get married?”
“Fine: if you ever live in sin with someone, it’s going to be me.”
I grinned sheepishly down at my drink. “Maybe you’ve got a point,” I conceded.
Ma returned bearing a tin of fruitcake. Hal shook his head in amazement. “I wish you’d come home with news like this every day,” he said to me. His cheeks were flushed from the drink. “We haven’t had dessert in weeks.”
“This isn’t dessert,” said Ma as she sliced it. “This is a celebration.”
I went to bed before Collie, taking the newspaper with me and leaving him sitting up talking with Ma and Hal. The paper was all in a mess; Ma was terrible about folding it any which way. In my bedroom I got it neatened again and flapped the front page into place.
I froze.
The headline screamed:
GUNNISON WINS EXTRADITION DISPUTE AGAINST WESTERN SEABOARD
CS Escapees Now Criminals
The words hit me in the stomach. I read quickly, gulping the story down. I read it twice and then bit my knuckle, staring out at a neon light blinking through the blinds. Inane thoughts whirled through my head. Which Tier One pilot had been defeated? Russ? What did it even matter?
Finally I heard the low murmur of Collie’s goodnight. When he opened my bedroom door I jumped up. He stopped in his tracks, then shut the door behind him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Look.” I shoved the paper at him. My hand was trembling.
With a tense frown, Collie read it. “Oh,” he said finally. He rubbed his jaw.
“‘Oh’?” I repeated. My voice rose. “Collie, he can extradite you back to the Central States! It says—” I fumbled to find the place, then read aloud, “The new law will target those CS citizens who have illegally fled their country, including but not limited to those known as the ‘Discordant’. You’re a CS citizen; you told me so!”
“Not so loud,” Collie said, glancing at the door. He sat us both on the bed and rubbed my arms. “Please don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
“How?” Fear made me snap the word. “Even the anonymity policy won’t help you! It says no exceptions will be made!”
Collie took the paper from me and set it aside. “Look… I can’t promise anything. But I have reason to believe that I’ll be safe.”
I went very still. “What reason?”
“Remember I told you that some people helped me get out of the CS?”
“You said they were people you wouldn’t want to cross.”
“And they’re not – but the ones I actually dealt with in the Resistance were good guys. And part of what they did was to give me papers showing I’ve been in the Western Seaboard the whole time.”
I stared at him. “Is that really true?”
“Of course it’s true.” When I didn’t respond, Collie squeezed my fingers. “What?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just remembering the way you lied to Ma and Hal at dinner, with that exact same honest look in your eyes.”
I was sorry the second I said it. Hurt flinched across Collie’s face. “Amity. We agreed to that; you know why I did it! Why would I lie to you?”
“To make me feel better! To stop me from worrying!”
His jaw tensed. “Listen to me,” he said. “Gunnison’s regime doesn’t know I exist any more. The Collis Reed who was in the CS has totally disappeared. That’s the absolute truth, I promise.”
I hesitated, longing to believe him. He cupped my cheek with one hand, his eyes intent on mine. “They told me that the Guns won’t find out about me, and I trust them,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere, Amity. Nothing will ever stop me from being with you.”
As I studied him, something inside me relaxed a notch, like a clock spring easing down. I felt shaky suddenly. I let out a breath and sagged down onto the bed. I put my face in my hands.
The bed springs creaked as Collie sat next to me. I felt him stroke my hair. “Amity?” he whispered.
For several seconds I couldn’t speak. “You really don’t have to keep me on my toes like this,” I got out finally. “Letting myself love you in the first place was hard enough.” I let my hands fall and wiped my eyes. “I need you…don’t you know that?”
Collie’s expression melted into understanding. He unbuttoned his shirt; his chest muscles flexed as he shrugged out of it. His trousers followed the shirt onto the floor.
“Come here,” he said.
He pulled me into his arms and we held each other, pressed close under the covers of my single bed. Collie’s skin was warm, his heartbeat steady against mine. The faint hum of tr
affic drifted in through the closed window.
“Remember Canary Cargo?” Collie said softly. “That’s what we’ll call our transport company.”
I smiled drowsily. We’d talked about how we’d maybe buy a little island up in Puget someday, and fly transport to the surrounding towns. “Canary Cargo” was what I’d called my fantasy business as a child.
“Will we have a bright yellow plane?” I murmured.
Collie stroked my back slowly, rhythmically. “Of course. And when we have kids, we’ll teach them to fly in it.” He kissed my hair and whispered, “Everything’s going to be perfect for us for ever…I’ll make sure of it.”
The next morning I woke up early. Collie lay on his side, holding me even in his sleep. I kissed his cheek and slipped out of bed. I pulled on my robe.
The apartment was silent as I went to the kitchen. I made coffee and sat at the tiny table, where I gazed out the window at Madame Josephine’s sign and hated its blood-black swirls all over again. Everyone who thought they’d escaped Gunnison must be panicking over this new policy.
I idly sketched the shape of Collie’s Leo tattoo on the table with my finger. They’ll go into hiding, I thought. Or try to get to a country that doesn’t have an extradition law.
And even apart from that, there was hardship. Travelling to Ma’s from the station yesterday, I’d seen how much things had changed in the Western Seaboard already. Half the stores had signs saying OUT OF STOCK or NO JOBS TODAY. Next door to Ma’s, the fruit seller’s wooden display crates were empty. In dozens of places people had been standing in line, looking washed out even in the sunshine.
“Why doesn’t Lopez do more?” I’d heard someone demand angrily on the streetcar to agreeing murmurs. Our president was an honest, intelligent man, though lacking in charisma. His eyes looked worried now whenever I saw him on the telio. The truth was, there wasn’t much he could do.
There were no shortages back on base, which somehow made everything worse: Peacefighter pilots were subsidized by the WfP. I thought I’d almost rather go hungry. I’d stared out the streetcar window thinking, All this, for five years – just because that one time I wasn’t good enough.
“Morning,” said a voice, startling me out of my thoughts. Hal shuffled in, wearing striped pyjamas.
“Morning,” I said. I sat up a little and took another sip of coffee. My job was to fight, not make the policies, I reminded myself. “You’re up early,” I added.
“Smelled the coffee,” Hal said. “No breakfast yet?”
“Not unless you’re cooking it.”
He made a face and poured himself a cup. His dark hair was sticking up in back. He sat across from me and carefully added two sugars from the sugar bowl.
“So are you going to marry Collie?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe someday.”
“I bet you do.”
“What do you care?”
Hal took a gulp of coffee. “Then Collie would really be my brother. It’d be pretty keen to have two Peacefighters in the family. Plus it might help me get in. When the time comes.”
He looked so eager. I thought of Stan, shot down over the water. And of Vera. I heard her crying at night sometimes; she’d never gone to see Marcus like I’d urged her to.
After a pause, I said, “Hal, do you know what I had to do a few weeks ago?”
I told him about Concordia Winston. I didn’t leave anything out. Not even the terrible red-black of her wound, or how her eyes had glazed over when she died.
“I wrote to her family like I promised,” I finished. “But I didn’t really know what to say.”
Hal was pale. I knew we were both thinking of Dad. “Did you tell them she said she was sorry?”
“No,” I admitted. “Just that she hadn’t been in pain. But they wrote back to me – this whole long letter, telling me about her childhood and what she’d been like…” I fell silent, remembering: We never had much money, but Cordy was always smiling, and tried to help out all she could.
“They told me everything about her,” I murmured. “And I was the one who killed her.”
“You didn’t! Her parachute—”
“It feels like it,” I said shortly. “Hal, listen. Rumbles are fast, exciting – it’s so worthwhile to be a Peacefighter like Dad. But you should know how hard it is before you decide.”
Hal looked down and played with the sleeve of his pyjamas. “Have many of your friends died?”
“Enough. Too many.”
“Are you afraid that Collie will?”
“Every day,” I said. “I don’t let myself think about it. You can’t live that way.”
He studied me with a thoughtful frown. “Does being a Peacefighter make you feel close to Dad?” he said finally.
My throat felt tight. “Yeah,” I said. “It does.”
“You never told me any of this before.”
“I know. Maybe I liked having a place where nobody knew the whole truth. Anyway, don’t tell Ma.”
My brother’s brown eyes were level. “I won’t.”
We heard her then, humming as she came down the hallway. Hal got to his feet and stretched, looking tall and gangly, and then surprised me by leaning down and kissing my cheek.
“Thanks, Sis,” he said quietly.
Chapter Eighteen
Gunnison’s street cleaners were out in full force. Kay passed a pair scrubbing the sidewalk and stepped daintily around them, her skirt swinging about her knees. The sun gleamed on her new Scorpio brooch: smaller than her old one, but pure gold. Whatever else Gunnison was, he certainly wasn’t stingy to his employees.
Skinner appeared beside her on the sidewalk, matching her pace. “I have to talk to you,” he said.
Kay gave him a sidelong glance. “You’re still having me followed.”
“I have everyone followed,” he said impatiently. He took her arm and ushered her down the sidewalk.
They went to a cafe and sat in a dim corner under a poster of Gunnison. Skinner ordered coffee for them both and sat tapping his fingers. Kay took in his tension. His eyes were hard, his mouth a thin line. With a mounting sense of dread, she realized that Malcolm Skinner was absolutely furious.
Kay’s spine chilled. She still hadn’t managed to reach Gunnison in person. Had she taken a wrong step, somehow? The severed heads on the chain-link fence flashed into her mind.
Their coffee arrived. Skinner grimly added a packet of sugar to his, then exactly half of a second pack. He folded the tiny packet closed: one, two, three folds.
“We should have listened to you,” he said.
Kay was almost certain that she didn’t show her relief. She took a sip of coffee.
“Oh?” she said.
Skinner opened his briefcase and took out a chart. He slapped it onto the table. “This.”
It took Kay a moment to recognize it, and then it all came back. A month ago, Skinner had asked to see her privately; he’d handed her a thick sheath of astrology charts.
“These are all the Tier One and Two Peacefighters,” he’d said. “Most are unaware of the thrown fights, but we can’t take any chances – we’re at a crucial stage in the Twelve Year Plan. Tell me if any of them might be a danger to us.”
Watching Skinner’s reactions, Kay had sifted through the charts. The Grand Cross chart was there, and she’d felt a bolt of distaste for whoever that pilot was, for getting the burning plane down. Kay still felt sick when she recalled how worried she’d been over the appeal.
But the chart that most seemed to interest Skinner had been the chart of a Leo. Some of the charts were well-thumbed; this one looked crisp and new. A fresh copy of an old chart, perhaps?
Or a Leo who’d only recently made it into these ranks.
Finally Kay had decided. She’d laid down the Leo’s chart, along with a few others. “Watch out for these pilots,” she said. “They’re a danger to the Central States.”
Skinner had nodded slowly, and then indicated the pile she hadn’t
chosen. “We may need to approach some of these. Can they be trusted not to cause trouble?”
Well, you seem to think so, Kay had thought tensely. “As far as I can tell,” she’d said aloud.
Now, in the cafe, Skinner jabbed at the Leo’s chart with a furious finger.
“You were the only astrologer to choose this chart,” he said. “He’s been on our radar for a while, and I admit I had my suspicions, but since there was nothing else to indicate…well. We didn’t do anything. And now, all I can say is that we regret it greatly.”
Kay gave a quick prayer of thanks to the unknown Leo for whatever mistake he’d made. Or he could be one of the Discordant. That was certainly a hot-button issue with Skinner.
“What’s he done?” she asked.
“Not important,” snapped Skinner. “The important thing is: what now? How do we proceed?”
Kay hid her rush of triumph. Maybe she hadn’t reached Gunnison yet, but she must be one of the top-ranked Twelve Year astrologers now. For unless she was greatly mistaken, Skinner had rushed to find her, and only her, the moment this stupid, wonderful pilot slipped up.
As for what to do with him…Skinner had given her the answer the second he slapped down the fool’s chart.
Even so, Kay took out her pocket ephemeris and made a great show of casting a dual chart based on the Leo’s time and date of birth and the current planetary positions over the next few days. Skinner watched intensely, his coffee growing cold.
Finally Kay laid down her pencil. “I’m afraid there’s only one answer,” she murmured. She allowed a fretful furrow to ridge her brow.
Skinner leaned forward. “What?”
Kay glanced around them. She lowered her voice:
“He’s a threat to Harmony. Do away with him. Immediately.”
Chapter Nineteen
The locker room was crowded to the gills: everyone’s fights had come up around the same time and now the room felt steamy, alive with bodies and shouts and locker doors clanging.
“Hey, Vancour!” Harlan appeared beside my locker just as I was fastening my brassiere. He leaned next to me, his chest bare. “You’re still playing tonight, right?”
Broken Sky Page 15
