Another figure detached itself from the shadows around the spaceship, came across the no-man’s-land between the flightpad and the shelter.
Elissa jerked upright. “Lin—”
“I know.” Lin unknotted herself and bent to pick up the bag Elissa had bought for her earlier. The edge of her thumb showed red and sore.
As Elissa glanced down to pick up her bag, she noticed her own fingernails. Every one of them was bitten down to the quick.
The door whooshed open and Cadan stepped in. He looked freshly showered, his face shaved smooth, and he was wearing the familiar dark blue SFI jacket, but with the silver gleam of a pilot’s bar pinned to the shoulder.
“We’re boarding passengers now. If you’d like to step across for security checks?” His voice held none of the sympathy that had made her feel so guilty that afternoon. It was crisp, authoritative, what she’d always thought of as Cadan’s “watch the world spin around me” voice.
They followed him out into no-man’s-land, past the sign warning of the penalties if you passed it unaccompanied by authorized personnel. A hot, dusty wind blew Elissa’s hair across her face, filled her nostrils with the scent of rocket fuel. Away across the plateau, beyond the perimeter of the spaceport, there was the drainage ditch where she’d found Lin. An instant of disorientation hit her, a feeling that this couldn’t really be happening, it couldn’t, not to her, Elissa Ivory. Then the sensation vanished, leaving behind a loneliness so intense, it was like a cold blanket dropping over her.
They came into the shadow cast by the looming spaceship, which was held in position by landing arms that created its squidlike appearance. Elissa pulled her hoodie closer around her, an attempt at comfort. She’d been on a ship twice before, on a family vacation and on a school trip, but those times she’d departed straight from the central spaceport area, surrounded by soothing indoor lights, the cheerful busyness of embarking tourists.
Beside her Lin reached out and put a hand on Elissa’s arm. Elissa glanced at her, anxious, wondering if Lin was finding this as intimidating as she was. Lin’s face was tight with the same tension Elissa was trying to hide, but when her eyes met Elissa’s, she smiled. Elissa’s hoodie hadn’t provided any sort of comfort. Lin’s smile, weirdly, suddenly did.
Then they came under the huge silver curve of the spaceship itself, its entrance gaping directly in front of them. Lin’s eyes left Elissa’s, and her head tilted back. “The Phoenix,” she read. “That’s its name?”
Cadan glanced at her. “Her name. Ships are feminine.”
Lin’s gaze went back to him, a fascinated smile growing on her face. “Really?”
“Yes.” His eyebrows rose a little, but Elissa couldn’t tell if it was in impatience or just amusement. She prickled, waiting for him to say something—how many times had he and Bruce taken pains to point out when she’d gotten their terminology wrong?—but all he did was gesture to the entrance. “This way.”
It took them straight into the cargo hold, a cold echoing space with steps running up all the sides and metal walkways cutting back and forth overhead. Cadan led the way up a long flight of stairs and along a walkway that followed the inner contour of the ship’s wall, then into a corridor lit with bluish strip lights at its edges, curving away in front of them. The position of the ship meant that the floor sloped gently downward, then, as the corridor took them around the far side of the ship and up onto the next level, more steeply upward. Doors dilated to let them through, then snapped shut behind them, isolating each section of the ship—one of the many safety functions that Bruce and Cadan had found so very impressive when they’d first learned about them.
“The passenger areas are lit with amber lights,” Cadan said over his shoulder. “For your own safety I’m going to ask you to make sure you stay within those areas.”
Around them, a hum began, a vibration that went through the walls and the floor, raising the hairs on Elissa’s skin.
“What’s that?” said Lin.
“We’re running a test on the engines. You’ll feel it less in the passenger area.”
Lin ran a hand along the wall as she passed. Her face was intent, fascinated.
They climbed a short flight of stairs, and the strip lights turned amber. Cadan gave a quick sideways nod. “That’s the way to the dining area. There are nutri-machines in your cabin, but they’re prepacks only—there’s no link to fresh supplies. The crew will be eating meals in the dining area. If you’d like to join us, please let the chef know in advance so he can prepare.” He pointed along the next side turning. “There’s an exercise room down there. The crew has priority use, but you’re welcome to use it if it’s not booked.”
His voice didn’t sound as if they really were welcome. Irritation prickled along Elissa’s spine as she looked at the uncreased back of his jacket, at his tidily cropped hair.
As he swung up the next flight of stairs, she caught a glimpse of his face. He looked the way he had in the cadet accommodation, as if he owned everywhere he walked, everything he touched.
You’re not even the real captain. You’re only in charge of this flight for a few days, then you’re back to being a cadet.
The irritation sparked into words. “What’s wrong with the real captain?” she said.
He glanced back at her. “The real captain?”
“Well, you’re only pilot for the duration. This ship—it’s not yours, is it?”
Cadan paused, his hand halfway up to a door panel. His voice was a little stiff as he answered. “This is an SFI-owned ship. She has no captain permanently attached. The captain is whoever is in charge for any particular flight. So right now, I am the real captain.” He hesitated. “Bruce and I must have explained that kind of thing to you years ago?”
She shrugged. “You told me an awful lot of things, Cadan.” Without quite meaning it to, her voice hovered on the edge of outright rudeness.
Cadan’s eyes met hers with an icy little jolt. Then he looked away and touched the door panel to open the door. “This is your cabin. I’ll take security details and payment here.” His eyes flicked briefly to Elissa’s. “As part of my captain’s role.”
He couldn’t just win a point; he had to win it again, driving home that he was—always—the expert, that she was nothing but some stupid little schoolgirl with no specialist knowledge of anything ever.
She looked away and around the cabin. It wasn’t quite as tiny as the pod-motel, but, barring a window, it had all the same kind of facilities. Bunk beds, toilet, shower cubicle, nutri-machine with a newsscreen above it. Except of course it wasn’t a newsscreen—it was for ship information and announcements only.
Cadan touched the screen to wake it and tapped in a code. “Elissa, I’ll take your details first.”
She handed him the morph-card, the now-familiar tension twisting through her. She’d had a horrible moment earlier when she’d realized she could no longer use a fake name on the card, not if she was showing it to Cadan. But if she used her real name, would it spark a security alert, like the known aliases of terrorists and interplanetary criminals did?
She’d come up with a solution she was pretty sure would work, but she’d had no way of pretesting it. As she watched him slide the morph-card through the scanner below the screen, all her muscles tightened as if they were trying to tie themselves into knots.
Her name flashed up on the screen. Ellissa Layne Ivory. A difference of just two letters from her real name: enough to slip under the system’s detection, but not enough to catch Cadan’s attention as a name that wasn’t hers. She hoped.
If it does catch his attention, if he starts asking me questions like he did in his room, if he does it in front of Lin . . . Her muscles tightened further, in a painful jerk that made her stomach cramp. She was back on the shaking staircase, watching that awful smile spread on Lin’s face. If something goes wrong now and she feels trapped . . .
Cadan tapped the screen, then drew the card out and gave it back to her. Elissa
took it in a suddenly clammy hand, not daring to meet his eyes, in case he saw the relief in hers. It worked. I did it.
“Ms.—?” He was holding out his hand for Lin’s card now.
“Lynette May.” They’d gone over Lin’s new name a million times before they’d left the motel, and now her voice sounded natural, convincing.
Cadan slotted her card into the machine, waited for her name to appear, then tapped the screen to bring up a menu. “And you’re paying the full amount?”
The full amount blinked onto the screen. Phantom money, dead leaves disguised as gold. Elissa swallowed, refusing to think about it.
“Yes.” Lin’s voice was calm and cheerful. They’d rehearsed this, too. What they hadn’t rehearsed was how it would feel to do it for real, to look at those numbers on the screen and know they should read nothing but zero. Elissa looked away, folding her arms across herself. I can’t help it. I don’t have a choice.
“Thank you, Ms. May.”
Lin took the card, her smile wide and bright.
It doesn’t make any difference to her. Practicing cheating someone, doing it for real . . . it’s all the same to her.
“Okay.” Cadan stepped back into the doorway. “We’ll be taking off within the hour. The passenger lounge has a viewing window if you’re interested. You’ll find it on the plan. Please take some time to read through the full safety procedures first. Breakfast will be served at oh-eight-hundred. Shall I tell the chef you’ll be joining the crew for that meal?”
Elissa stopped herself from throwing Lin an anxious glance. They were on the ship for just two days. It wouldn’t do them any harm to stay in their cabin, get their meals from the nutri-machine. Keep Lin out of the way of as many people as possible. “No, thanks,” she said. “We’ll just eat here.”
“That’s your choice, certainly.” Elissa looked up at Cadan, and his eyebrows were raised again, as if he were mocking her. “But I can assure you, you’ll find much better food if you join the crew.”
As if she didn’t know that. “No, thank you.” Again her voice came out too abrupt to be courteous. It wasn’t really deliberate this time, instead born out of fatigue and overfrayed patience, but it was too late to fix it.
Cadan’s eyebrows went up farther, and his eyes were suddenly cold. “Suit yourself, Elissa. Ms. May, it was a pleasure to meet you.” The door snapped shut behind him.
Elissa sank onto the edge of the bottom bunk. Her knees were kind of shaky. With tiredness, of course. It wasn’t like she cared if she’d offended Cadan. He was transport, that was all. She didn’t even need to see him again till she and Lin left the ship.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s unpack. Then do you want to go watch liftoff from the lounge?”
Lin didn’t answer the question. Instead she asked one of her own. “He’s your brother’s friend?”
“Yes.” Elissa reached for her bag and dragged it over to her feet.
“I’ve seen him before, in bits, in your memories. I can’t tell . . . Is he around much? Do you know him well?”
Elissa gave a short laugh. “Not really. He and Bruce left for SFI training four years ago. They’ve been far too busy to know anyone not in flight school.”
She pulled out the wash bag she’d bought at the motel and unzipped it, resisting Lin’s gaze. The faint persistent hum of the engines shuddered into silence. The crew must have finished running their tests, then. Liftoff couldn’t be far away.
“That made you . . . angry?”
Elissa jabbed her hand into the bag, searching for the handle of her toothbrush. “Angry? Please, what did I have to be angry about? He was Bruce’s friend, not mine. And he’s way older than me. We have nothing in common.”
Lin said nothing. After a moment, unwillingly drawn to do so, Elissa looked up and caught her gaze. Lin was biting her lip, her eyes narrowed in confusion and worry.
Oh, hell, it’s not fair to confuse her about—of all things—human emotions. She might have started her life out seminormally, but since then, since what they did to her . . .
Eissa let the bag fall onto the bed. “Okay. I was kind of angry. He was always nice to me—nicer than Bruce a lot of the time. He only has an older sister and a bunch of older cousins, not any younger ones, and I was so much younger than him, I guess he thought I was sweet.”
She could see now, at seventeen, what she hadn’t understood at seven, when Bruce had first brought him home to visit, or even at eleven, twelve, thirteen, when they’d left for the full SFI training program. Back then she’d known he was Bruce’s friend, but she’d thought he was her friend too, had mistaken his amused kindness to his friend’s little sister for genuine friendship.
“When they went off for training,” she said, “I knew they wouldn’t have time to visit much, or even call or e-mail. But I was so excited when they were coming home. I thought it would be like it used to be.” The old embarrassment washed over her, burning. The second day Bruce was home, he’d arranged to go over to Cadan’s house for lunch, then bring Cadan back for dinner. Elissa had spent half her month’s allowance on just the right white strappy top to wear with her favorite skirt; she’d washed her hair at lunchtime to make sure it was as clean and bouncy as possible; she’d got a stack of things that had happened at school that she thought Cadan would find funny. Unable to wait, she’d already told them all to Bruce, and he’d laughed, so she was sure Cadan, who she thought had a much better sense of humor, would find them even funnier. She’d saved up a whole lot of questions, too, about flight training and what safety gear they had to wear, and how soon they’d be allowed up into space.
“And it wasn’t like it used to be?”
When Elissa answered, she couldn’t help the anger that sparked through her voice. “No. They’d only been away a couple of months. I had no idea it would make any difference. But for them it was like they’d been away for years, like they’d turned from children into grown-ups.” She paused, rolled her eyes, and corrected herself. “No, not grown-ups. Into men. They were so pleased with themselves. They talked about themselves all the time—about what they’d done, what they’d learned, about their latest grades—about the latest grades of everyone in their whole class. When I asked them questions, they answered with all this flight jargon. I didn’t even know what they meant. Then I tried to tell Cadan something funny from school, and Bruce just cut me off, said Cadan wouldn’t be interested.”
Elissa, he’d said, in the new grown-up drawl he and Cadan had both adopted, please don’t inflict all fifteen of the eighth-grade classroom tales on us. Not quite so soon after the last time.
But I haven’t told Cadan any of them, Elissa remembered replying. She’d been taken aback but not wounded—not yet. Not until Bruce had laughed and said, Trust me, little sister, once was more than enough.
She picked up the wash bag again, shook it to arrange the contents. “And that was it. From then on, they both made it clear they were on one side of this big adult divide, and I was on the other, still just a kid. Bruce was annoying, but I’d grown up with him, I knew what to expect. But Cadan—he was getting the highest scores on nearly every test; he was the first to be chosen for fast-track pilot training, and the better he got, the more pleased with himself he was. He started giving me advice—about working hard at school, about it never being too early to specialize. I mean, jeez.”
She gave the bag another shake, shaking the memory off too. “I got over it. At least”—she couldn’t help laughing at herself a little—“pretty much, anyway. I started high school and I had my own stuff, my own specialties. But then the symptoms started, and I wasn’t just a little girl not bright enough to get into SFI training. I was this freak who kept fainting and screaming and throwing up and who started failing the sort of classes that Cadan and Bruce had just sailed through—”
She caught herself, hot with shame, shocked at her own thoughtlessness. “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry. I know anything I went through—it’s nowhere near what was happening
for you. I—” It sounded so stupid to say it, but it was the truth, and the only excuse she had. “I forgot. I know that’s dumb, and I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me—”
“I believe you. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. As if I can even compare—”
“It is okay.” Lin’s voice was firm and certain. “The bits of your life I used to see through the link . . . like I said, they were just flashes. As if, every time I reached out to you, dragged you into what was going on in my life, I pulled in some of your memories, too. I knew the link was wrecking things for you, but I thought if the link hadn’t been there, everything else would have been okay. I guess I didn’t put the pieces together right—I thought the rest of your life was all smooth and easy.”
Shame still burned in Elissa’s face. “It was smooth and easy. Compared to what they did to you.”
“Yeah, I know. But just because no one strapped you down and plugged a machine into your head, it doesn’t mean you don’t have scars too.”
Elissa had her mouth open to say something else, but at that she shut it. She hadn’t expected Lin to say that. Hadn’t expected her to even be able to relate to pain so minor, so trivial. Hadn’t expected her to understand.
She remembered now that when she was very small, she used to wish for a sister. She’d always known she couldn’t have one, of course. She was the second child, and her parents had been sterilized according to Sekoia’s legal requirements. She’d made girl friends instead, and she and Carlie and Marissa had gone through a stage of calling themselves sisters, and it had been fine. It had been enough.
Except now she knew it hadn’t.
She had to clear her throat before she could speak again. “Come on. Let’s leave the unpacking and go wait for liftoff. I’ve only seen it twice before, and the last time was on a school trip to Seraphon, when I was only eleven. I bet I didn’t fully appreciate it.”
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