Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  I tried to focus on something, anything, but there were no details out here. Only vagueness of the night desert. I plodded through the punishing sands, my feet sinking deep into the grit. Stumbling over half-buried ruins. The dunes and winds waging their constant war across Tierra Muerta—covering and uncovering its bones.

  Crossing the moonlit wasteland, it was hard to imagine that there was once a working colony here. The Rememberings described blue glass towers reaching for the sky. Millions of people filling the streets, living their lives, dreaming dreams I couldn’t even imagine. It was impossible to believe that we were all that was left of that world.

  Soon my thirst drove even those thoughts from my mind, the craving singing through every inch of my body. I was headed northeast toward the Exchanges. But every step was a battle, the harness digging into my skin. There was something else keeping me moving, though—something stronger than my desperation. A tiny thought that had been born in my mind when I first laid eyes on the shuttle. When I’d heard the voice over the shuttle’s radio, breaking through the static. Flying across the stars. Calling to us.

  What if I was the one who found the way back to Earth? Me—the Corrupted one. What if I was the one who saved my people from their eternal penance? Would I be Indigno then?

  And with that thought goading me on, I sunk one foot in front of the other. Finally, when my urge to collapse had almost overcome my thirst, I came around a dune and saw the narrow strip of metal cutting across the desert. Catching the bright moon. All the Exchanges sat along the magfly tracks. Most of them weren’t much more than a bit of roof, a clump of cactus, and a couple of lights. But walk far enough along the tracks in either direction and you’d find one. And with them, the Curadores.

  I was in luck. A silvery magfly was loading up at an Exchange just to the south, a breath of light and noise in the dark. Relief broke over me as I walked along the track toward it. I would not fail Suji. I would not fail my sisters or myself. A pulse thrummed through my feet as if lending me its energy. The deep vibration always ran through the tracks, keeping them free of sand and the trains suspended in the air, though no one knew how.

  In fact, very little was known about the Curadores. The Abuelos preached that the Curadores were on Gabriel by the grace of God—to help us reach atonement. After all, hadn’t God spared their Dome, just as he’d spared Pleiades? Sarika had felt differently, though.

  She’d always been devout. But after Marisol ran away to be a Curador’s Kisaeng and the outbreak had swept through Pleiades, her beliefs became more extreme. The Curadores are a temptation . . . demons put here by God, she’d said. We eat their food. Trade with them, in their magflys and suits. We allow their sin to dwell alongside us and yet we cry out, “Why hasn’t God forgiven us? Why hasn’t He delivered us to Earth?”

  It wasn’t only Sarika’s attitude that changed after the resurgence of Red Death. Before that, the Curadores had simply been a necessary evil. Every animal on Gabriel was contaminated—a carrier of Red Death—and very little grew outside the carefully tended gardens of Pleiades. So the Citizens needed the food the Curadores provided. More than that, they hauled away our scrap and cremated our dead so infections wouldn’t spread.

  But in the days after the outbreak, I heard more than one person wonder why the Curadores should stay fat and safe in their Dome and isolation suits, while we died out in a wasteland. Some had even whispered that God had abandoned us . . . though only after a few shots of mezcal.

  My mother’s obsession with the Colony had extended to the Curadores. Once when I was twelve, Mom and I were weeding the gardens together. She’d stopped midrow and I watched her just kneeling there, staring up at the Dome. Then she asked in a hushed voice, “What if God wasn’t punishing us with Red Death? What if we didn’t have to live like this?”

  I’d sucked in my breath, stunned by the extent of her blasphemy. Then I’d looked around, afraid someone else had heard. But Mom just squeezed my hand and looked at me in this wide-eyed way she had and said, “Oh, Leica, do you think it’s very beautiful inside?”

  Now, as I made out the gleam of the Curadores’ white isolation suits under the lights of the Exchange, I wondered the same thing. But then the door of the magfly slid shut, the metal disappearing seamlessly into its streamlined shell. And it started moving toward me.

  “No!” I shouted, the wind whipping my words away.

  The train picked up speed, flying inches above the track. It was a long silver blade slicing through the sand and I had no way to stop it or slow it down.

  I needed to find my way back to that half-buried shuttle. And for that I needed water. And food. I would not fail now. I would not let them leave me.

  So I simply stood there, in the middle of the tracks, watching the headlights grow bigger and bigger. The buzzing of the metal rails crept up through my boots, echoing in my hip bones and chest, all the way to my jaw. It eclipsed my parched throat, my cramped belly, even the grief sitting on my chest, until I was only this one single thrumming sensation.

  And still the massive beast rushed closer. A blast of the horn blanked out the world and shuddered my eardrums. They had seen me.

  But it still kept coming. Whipping the wind around me, knocking me off my feet so my kneecaps cracked against the rails. I kept my eyes wide—facing the glaring lights head-on—daring them to try. Rudders jammed into the sand and I was swallowed by a dust cloud. I shut my eyes against the stinging grit, bracing for impact.

  It never came. When the air cleared, the pointed nose of the magfly was so close I could touch it—when I pulled off my sandmask, my breath fogged its surface. I pressed my forehead gratefully against the cool metal. Death had been after me all day, but he hadn’t caught me yet.

  Then a Curador in a white isolation suit was towering over me. The lights of the Exchange reflected off the clear plastic face, making the Curador into a featureless giant. His nasally voice blared from the speakers of the suit. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  I forced myself to my feet—taking a step back to put distance between me and the Curador. My legs barely held.

  I swallowed but I had nothing left to moisten my throat. I pushed the words out anyway. “I’m here to trade.”

  “Get off the tracks!” His hands clenched and unclenched, as if he wanted to physically remove me. But he didn’t dare touch me, even with his suit on.

  I squinted up at him, the beam of the magfly blinding me, my whole body numb with exhaustion and adrenaline. I’d never spoken to a Curador before. In Pleiades, the Abuelos council dealt with them. Out here, it’d been Suji. I remembered the way she’d talked to them, though—respectful, but uncompromising. Silently, I asked Suji to help me to stay calm. I had to make them listen to me, one way or another.

  No one was leaving until I got my supplies.

  “We found uncorroded metal.” The we scraped in my throat and I swayed a little on my feet.

  “Get her out of here.” Another Curador joined the first. He switched on a headlamp and scanned the desert around us—the light only making a small dent in the dark. His voice was tentative. Nervous. “We should’ve been back by now.”

  “I need you to listen—” But the first one was trying to move me off the tracks, without really touching me. He sort of shoved me with his foot.

  Instinctively, I grabbed it and twisted. These were men used to being obeyed, and the faceless Curador went down with a surprised yell. But I had no strength left and I went down with him—a tangle of slick white suit and harness straps.

  The Curador on the ground fought to get away, striking out at with me with his huge fists, panicked blows thumping my gut, my shoulder, my face. The other one kicked me in the ribs, yelling for me to get off. But I was still strapped to the slideboard, and the most I could do was protect my head.

  Then there was a commanding shout and the blows stopped. A third C
urador joined the others.

  I blinked up at the new headlamp starbursting above me and struggled to hold on to consciousness. But the voice was gentle. “Are you okay?”

  No. I wasn’t okay. The world was closing in on me.

  “I have to go back . . . I have to find it . . .” Before it went dark, I managed to push the last word out of my raw throat. “Earth.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, PLANCK?”

  It was the third voice. The gentle one. Except it wasn’t gentle anymore. It was angry and authoritative. “Couldn’t you see she was half dead on her feet?”

  I opened my eyes, but the men were just out of view. My body was tangled in the harness, my slideboard and its haul twisted alongside me. Being trapped made me nervous, but at least I still had my pack and something to trade.

  “I’m sorry.” The one I guessed was Planck answered in a nasal whine. “I was just trying to follow Jenner’s orders about getting in before nightfall.”

  “Let me worry about Jenner,” the third one said.

  “Edison . . . I think . . .” The second Curador—the nervous one—came around the slideboard. I half closed my eyes as he crouched just a couple meters away. His suit was lit from the inside now and he frowned from behind its plastic window. A few brown curls stood out against his cheeks, a shade darker than his skin. He switched the headlamp of his suit brighter and wiped the dust from my Find. “I think you’d better come see this.”

  The third Curador, Edison, came into view. He was impressive. At least a head taller than the other two. Something about him—his walk, the way he stood—made it clear that he was in charge. But despite his importance, he dropped to his knees, brushing away more of the dust. “What did she say before she passed out?”

  “Something about Earth.”

  I shifted, propping myself up a little to see better, and the movement caught the eye of the nervous one—his eyes darted toward me. His bushy eyebrows raised and his bright green eyes went wide.

  “She’s awake!”

  Planck joined the other two. His blotchy pink skin matched his nasally voice—bright yellow hair standing out against it.

  Even in my exhaustion, I marveled at how different they looked. From each other. From me.

  Since the Citizens had all descended from such a small group of surviving Colonists, we were like slight variations of the same song—straight black hair, dark eyes, light brown skin.

  But the Curadores were different. Their variations were endless. Blond hair, brown hair, black, curly, straight. Skin from pale moon to the darkest dusk. The only thing they all had in common was their size. The smallest of them were still larger than the biggest of the Citizens.

  Edison helped me to sit up, his suit warm where it touched me—heated in the chilly desert. I groaned involuntarily as I moved, my body throbbing from the blows of the other Curadores. From escaping the exiles. From the grief of the last days. He took my hand—pausing for the slightest of seconds as he stared at my fingers—before molding them around a heavy plastic jug.

  “Here. Drink.” His voice was quiet, but insistent.

  And suddenly the mad thirst reared up through the pain. Not able to stop myself, I grabbed the jug, gulping the water in giant, greedy swallows.

  “Slow down.” Edison eased the plastic jug away from my lips. Precious drops spilled across the sand but he didn’t even notice. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  I nodded and tried again. Forcing myself to take small sips, catching my breath in between.

  “I’m Edison. This is Planck”—he jerked his head first toward the pink-faced Curador, then at the nervous one—“and Sagan. Let me apologize for what happened. My men shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

  There was true concern in his eyes as he knelt in front of me. Unlike Planck and Sagan, Edison wasn’t afraid to get close to me, and it was impossible not to stare.

  He was perfect. Like someone had taken the best parts of every face and arranged them in complete balance. High cheekbones that gave his face a sleek, angled look. Matched with a straight, broad nose. And skin that gleamed deepest brown with a hint of purple. The color of the mountains at dusk. It made your eyes drift to the brightness of his mouth. Making his smile or frown matter that much more. But his eyes were the finishing touch. Yellow-orange eyes. Like the blaze of firelight through a glass of mezcal.

  “I’m Leica.” I tilted my head in greeting and gave him my name as a way of accepting his apology. This was the Curador to trade with. It wasn’t just that he was in charge, which he obviously was. Something about him made me sure he’d give me a fair deal. He was the kind of Curador who would fit inside the lovely Dome my mother had imagined.

  “What happened to you?” Edison squinted into the dark behind me. “Where’s your crew?”

  No Citizen was fool enough to wander Tierra Muerta on their own. Especially no woman.

  I couldn’t begin to describe the past few days, so I simply said “Gone.” The single syllable sounded harsh and cold, so I added “Red Death . . . May God protect them.” The last words spilled out of my mouth—half habit, half prayer.

  “Looks like it’s too late for that.” His words were sharp and I was reminded that there was a much bigger difference than what we looked like. The Curadores lived with the luxury of isolation suits and the safety of the Dome, whereas Citizens spent our lives exposed, at the mercy or wrath of God.

  “Though he seems to have had a soft spot for you.” And there was an eagerness in his eyes now, something he was trying to rein in. “Is this all you found? Or is there more?”

  His hint of eagerness infected me. I managed to pull free of the harness and get to my feet. I tried to plant myself in a confident fighter’s stance, but I imagined what I must look like to him in the glare of the magfly. A short girl with lukewarm brown skin smeared with blood. Wild black hair that I’d kept short, barely long enough to cover my ears. My freakish hands covered in blue-grey dust.

  Together, we looked down at the oval door with a small window in it. Uncorroded metal—worth a fortune in Gratitude. The headlights shone yellow against the tarnished letters that’d been stamped into it over five hundred years ago: Lockheed Martin.

  “There’s more,” I said. My neck ached as I looked up at Edison. He was one and a half times my height, his wide shoulders stretching out the white plastic of the isolation suit. “The whole shuttle is intact and—”

  But Edison interrupted. “Is that how your crew got sick?”

  I nodded and touched my aching head, trying to block out the memory of what we’d found inside the shuttle. “We were forced to abandon it, but I have to go back. There was someone . . . on the radio. Someone from Earth.”

  And in a voice used to giving orders, Edison said, “I’m going with you.”

  “No.” A Curador was not going to be the savior of my people.

  A flicker of anger crossed his face. It was a risk to refuse a Curador. I tried to backtrack. “I mean, the whole thing is infected with Red Death . . .”

  “So you said. But I’m wearing an isolation suit and you appear to be immune. So we’re just the people to go after it.”

  “No. Just trade me for supplies and I’ll be on my way.” This was a Citizen matter. When Sarika preached of God returning us to Earth, I’d always imagined the Citizens being miraculously transported to a divine realm. But maybe this was what forgiveness looked like—a long-forgotten shuttle and a staticky voice. I looked down at my hands—maybe I had been marked, not for suffering, but for salvation.

  “And what will you do when you find it? Will you haul it back by yourself? On your slideboard?”

  There was a smugness in Edison’s voice that made me want to hit him, but he was right. What had I expected to happen when I got there? Did I think that God would reach down from heaven and take the shuttle to
Pleiades himself? No, the truth was, I hadn’t thought past making it back to the shuttle.

  “There will be no trade—no food, no water—unless you take me with you.” Edison smiled as he said it. There was no threat in his voice. No malice. It was just a simple fact from a man, a boy really, who was used to getting his own way. And he was about to get it this time too.

  CHAPTER 4

  “IN THE NAME OF the Curadores, I claim this object, found beneath the sandline. It will be used for the good of all who live on Gabriel and all those who will live.” Edison intoned the words of the trade ritual. Behind him, Planck and Sagan were distracted, scanning the darkness that pressed in around the Exchange.

  We didn’t haggle about the Gratitude—enough food to make the journey there and back. The shuttle would be the real prize. And as long as I made it back to the radio, I didn’t care what happened to the rest.

  As I made the proper response to Edison, the other two hauled the shuttle door into the magfly and loaded my slideboard with bowls of chiken, beeph jerky, five jugs of water, a packet of salt, and two bottles of mezcal. “I accept your Gratitude. In the name of the Citizens, I surrender these sins of Gabriel into your hands. My hands are clean.”

  Then while Planck went from pink to red trying to convince Edison to come back to the Dome with them, I filled my belly with a tepid slurry of chiken and water and unrolled my blanket. I lay down, exhausted, on the hard grit, but the voices of strange men were the least of what kept me awake. Knots of grief sat tucked behind my shoulder blades. Tied themselves around bruised ribs. Banded themselves down aching, tense arms.

  It hurt to breathe. It hurt to close my eyes—as everything I’d lost came rushing back. It even hurt to look at the stars. There were just too many of them.