Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  If he got all the surviving parents back, his leadership would never be questioned again.

  Kieran picked up the data-dot, twirled it in his fingers. His insides churned, and he swallowed the last of his spit.

  God, what do I do? He pleaded for a sign, but his heart was too filled with doubt, and the way was obscured to him.

  With a darting motion, Kieran fitted the data-dot into his com station and turned it on.

  Instantly the image of a much-younger Captain Jones appeared, smiling at the screen. His hair was bright red instead of the paper white that Kieran was used to. He was seated in the very chair Kieran sat in now, in front of the Goya painting that was now at Kieran’s back. It gave Kieran an eerie feeling of impermanence. The Captain hadn’t grown his beard yet, and without it he had hang-dog jowls and a weak, dimpled chin. He looked like a different person. “Anne, you’ll never believe it,” said Captain Jones.

  “Did you find it?” said Mather’s eager voice. She wasn’t visible on the screen; only the Captain could be seen. “Did you find the formula?”

  “Our preliminary trials are astounding! You’re not going to believe your eyes!”

  “Have you moved on to human trials yet?”

  “I’m talking about the human trials! The drug stimulates the ovaries; we expected that. But it appears to improve egg quality! We’ve got embryos!”

  “Oh my God! And they’re growing?”

  “Beautifully, Anne.” Captain Jones rubbed his hand over his face, overjoyed. “I’m going to send you instructions for synthesizing the formula.”

  “Edmond, I’m going to say ten prayers for you tonight!”

  Jones paused—a minuscule caesura, a cooling of the expression in his eyes—and then he said, “Good. Thanks. You do that.”

  The screen flickered to a new image, one of Captain Jones growing out a scruffy beard. He was still young enough that there wasn’t any gray at his temples, and his eyes were clear of their spidery veins, but the look of contempt on his face made him seem monstrous.

  “How could you do this to us?” cried a tearful Anne Mather. Kieran wished he could see her face. He’d love to see her cry.

  “Anne, I’m sorry for what happened; I can’t tell you how sorry!” the Captain said. But he didn’t look sorry. He looked annoyed. “But to accuse us of purposefully sabotaging you—”

  “I rescind it!” Mather cried. “I withdraw the accusation, and no one will ever hear of it again; just please, help us! We don’t have much time, Edmond!”

  “We have young children on this ship. Their bones are still growing. Our medical team thinks the results could be physically disastrous for them if we increased our acceleration—”

  “It would still be only a fraction of full Earth g-force, Edmond, and you know it! It’s no more than their bodies are designed to cope with!”

  “But what about when we slow down again? We have no way to judge how that would affect their development. If it was just us adults—”

  “You’re lying! Making excuses! You don’t want to help us!”

  “Anne, I have to think about my crew.”

  “You want New Earth for yourself so you can create your sick idea of the perfect society. You don’t want us there.”

  “Anne,” he said, and for the first time, Kieran detected compassion in his voice, “you know me too well to really think—”

  The video skipped, as though a portion had been edited out.

  “Edmond, there were over five hundred steps for synthesizing that compound. At the crucial step, we were given directions that created a poison specifically targeted to destroy our fertility. What are the odds of that? How do you explain it?”

  The Captain stared at the screen, blank. “I can’t explain it.”

  “We were sabotaged. It’s the only explanation.”

  “Anne, our kids are more precious than ever now, don’t you see?” the Captain pleaded, his fingers woven together. “We can’t take any chances with their health, none at all. It could mean success or failure for the mission.”

  “You won’t be able to have enough kids for the mission, Edmond, and you know it. We’ll need a full complement when we get to New Earth.”

  “We can make a full complement if our daughters get pregnant young. I’ve got my logistics team on it right now.”

  “Logistics! I’m talking about what’s right and wrong!”

  “Back to that old discussion, are we? Now more than ever, I think we should acknowledge that morality is relative.” Captain Jones leaned toward the screen, and his face loomed. Kieran saw his large pores and the droplets of sweat coating his forehead. “It would be right to help you, Anne, but it would be more right to protect our kids, to make certain they make it to New Earth.”

  “You’re condemning us to certain destruction for the small chance that accelerating would hurt those kids.”

  “If that’s the way you want to see it.…”

  “All our hopes destroyed,” she said, her disembodied voice quivering with despair. “Our future. You’re prepared to let that weigh on your shoulders?”

  “For the good of future generations.”

  “You’ll be remembered as the first war criminal of New Earth.”

  For a moment a look of apprehension passed over the Captain’s features, but then he shook his head. “No, Anne. No one on New Earth is going to remember this ever happened.”

  The screen flickered to an image of the present-day Anne Mather, her hair gathered on top of her head in a neat bun, spectacles resting on the end of her well-made nose. “It’s my belief that Captain Jones knew about the sabotage, and even approved it. But, Mr. Alden, even if he didn’t know, once he learned of it, don’t you think that he and the rest of the crew on the Empyrean should have done everything in their power to right the situation? Wouldn’t that have been the humane thing to do?”

  Kieran shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d expected manipulation. He hadn’t expected it to be so effective.

  “Since your Captain refused, and since we were faced not only with our own extinction but also with the probability that the mission to terraform New Earth might fail, we had no choice but to invade your vessel and take genetic material that could restore our fertility.” Anne Mather smiled, her face full of weird joy. “Now we have almost one hundred babies on board our ship, and we’ve got over a hundred crew members pregnant with more. The mission is safe, now, Mr. Alden. But the future is tenuous. I call on you to bring the truth to your crew, to make what happened known. Even if we are still reviled by you, at least you’ll understand why. And I believe future generations from both ships will be able to forgive the mistakes of their forebears and live in peace, side by side, on New Earth.”

  Kieran leaned back in his seat, wide-eyed, flabbergasted.

  Captain Jones had been lying all those years?

  He understood why the Captain refused to help the New Horizon, but he couldn’t understand the lies. Captain Jones had kept the truth hidden from the Empyrean crew for sixteen years. He’d created a bitter enemy, and he never let the crew know they might be in danger of an attack. Kieran had always loved and admired the man. But now he didn’t know what was true anymore.

  Nothing could justify the New Horizon’s attack and all that senseless loss of life. But if what Mather claimed was true …

  He flicked the call button on his com console and hailed the New Horizon. This time, Anne Mather answered directly.

  “I trust you have watched the video?” she asked, one thin eyebrow raised.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “An acknowledgment.”

  “Of what? So far I see that Captain Jones did nothing wrong. He was only protecting his crew.”

  “Like you’re doing? You’ve accelerated, though he refused to. Have you thought of that?”

  This stopped Kieran cold. What about the little kids? Had he harmed them? It was time to drop
the acceleration back down, he realized. It hadn’t worked anyway.

  “I’ve done what you asked,” he said to Mather. “Send me the list.”

  “All right,” Mather said, and the screen flickered off, but a text with five names came through, and Kieran hungrily read them over, hoping to see his mother’s name. He did not, but he smiled anyway. He pushed the hail button for Central Command, and Sarek’s face filled the screen.

  “Sarek, I just got a partial list of survivor names from Anne Mather.”

  “And?” Sarek said, biting his lip.

  “Your dad is on it.”

  INMATES

  Seth lay on his back, eyes hidden under the crook of his elbow. He felt a little easier in his bones, less tired, and he thought Kieran must have dropped the acceleration down. Every part of his body, from his muscles to his joints, even his skin, felt relief. Now if he could only figure out a way out of this torture chamber. However little he weighed, he was still lying on a hard metal cot. And his ears were being tormented, too. The terrorist had been humming an old-fashioned hymn over and over again for hours, and it was driving Seth crazy.

  “Hey!” Seth called down the hallway, his injured voice cracking. “Why don’t you shut up?!”

  The humming stopped for half a beat but started up again, this time in a higher key.

  “You trying out for the church choir, asshole?” Seth called, as loudly as his weakened body would allow. “I said shut up!”

  “You shut up, you little punk!” the man screamed back, the first words he’d spoken in more than a day.

  “Cro-Magnon gains the power of speech!” Seth called. To his surprise, the gorilla laughed.

  Seth wanted to get up and get a drink of water, but with all the tubes hooked up to his arm, it was a hassle. Besides, drinking wasn’t even necessary. As Tobin had inserted the IV needle into the back of Seth’s hand, he’d said, “This will give you all the fluids and nutrients you need right now.”

  “Why can’t I just have a chicken dinner?” Seth had asked weakly.

  “Not through that throat, Seth. He hurt you pretty bad. Liquids only.” Tobin had lifted up Seth’s shirt and taken in the ugly bruises over his ribs, then he’d fingered through Seth’s longish blond hair until he found the bald patch where his gash was stitched together. “Seems to be healing okay.”

  “I guess Waverly told you…”

  “… about the beating you got. Yes. How’s the IV feeling to you?”

  “It’s just delicious.”

  “First this, then some fried chicken and okra, okay? Just lie here and let your body heal.”

  But lying still was not a skill Seth Ardvale had ever mastered.

  His throat was feeling much better, but he still couldn’t shout, so, with a metal food tray, Seth banged on the bars of his cell. He heard heavy bootsteps, and Harvey Markem appeared on the other side of the bars.

  “Yes?” Harvey said. He was a good deal friendlier toward Seth than he used to be. Seth guessed this was because he’d caught the terrorist; that’s why a lot of people were being nicer. He didn’t point out to anyone that the terrorist had caught him, too.

  “If I have to hear that son of a bitch,” Seth said, “why don’t you move me where I can see him?”

  “What for? The view isn’t exactly pretty.”

  Seth watched Harvey’s open face, trying to decide if the truth would get him anywhere. He gave up on a lie, though. He was just too tired, so he shrugged, trying to seem humble. “He might talk to me.”

  “Why?” Harvey screwed up his face, looking like a little boy for all his impressive size.

  “Honor among thieves? Misery loves company? Something along those lines?”

  “Oh,” Harvey said. He thought it over for a minute, chewing the corner of his mouth, then fitted the key into the door of the cell. “If anyone asks, I moved you as a punishment.”

  “For what?”

  “For being so damn good looking.” Harvey leaned over Seth, hooked his arm over his shoulder, and pulled him to a sitting position. “Okay?”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, wrapping his fingers around the pole to his IV. “Take it slow.”

  Groaning, Harvey heaved on Seth’s arm until he could get on his feet, and then slowly the two swayed out of the cell and into the corridor.

  “Did Kieran slow the ship down?” Seth asked.

  “Yeah. My back feels a lot better now, too.”

  Seth hadn’t been on his feet in days, and he realized how weak he truly was. He tried to hide it so Harvey wouldn’t notice, and appreciated how the younger boy tactfully kept his eyes on the floor ahead of them.

  “So,” Harvey ventured, “it was you who carried me up to the central bunker after I got knocked out?”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, puffing.

  “That was nice of you.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t have second thoughts,” Seth rasped.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Because you looked pathetic.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  Seth felt embarrassed and looked into the empty cells they passed by. Finally Harvey pulled him into the cell across from the gorilla and eased him down on the cot. He gave Seth an apologetic smile as he locked the door behind him, then left.

  The prisoner sat on the floor of his cell, leaning against the metal cot. He hadn’t stopped humming his precious hymn, his milky eyes fixed on the ceiling. There was a weird, glazed quality to his expression that made Seth wonder if the man was entirely sane. He thought he recognized that look. He’d seen it on his own face many times before. It was the look of having nothing left to lose. The look of someone ruled by impulse because thinking for very long about anything was too painful.

  “Mind if I sing along?” Seth asked the guy.

  The humming stopped momentarily, but the gorilla picked up the melody again from the beginning.

  How do you get someone to talk? Seth wasn’t exactly the most social guy; he’d always been jealous of people who could open up and talk about themselves without reservation. It always seemed to make people want to talk back.

  “You and your crewmates sure know how to make a great first impression,” Seth said, and glanced sideways at the man. “Really excellent attack. Very efficient.”

  The guy went on singing, staring at his hands, which he held cupped between his bent knees.

  “My dad died because of what you and your friends did,” Seth said. “And since then I’ve been on my own. So thanks for that. I’ve learned a lot about myself.”

  The man’s humming seemed a little quieter, and he was very still, as though he were listening.

  “I lost my mom years ago,” Seth said, eyes on the ceiling. If he looked at the guy, he knew he’d give away what he was trying to do. “Some freak air-lock accident, they said. When I was four. I don’t really remember her. All I’ve got left are pictures.”

  “You want sympathy?” the gorilla grumbled.

  “Just passing the time,” Seth said, trying to hide his excitement that he’d gotten the guy to speak.

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Then don’t listen,” Seth snapped.

  The man went back to humming.

  Seth focused his eyes on the ceiling again as he fingered the calluses on his hands. “It’s funny the things you miss. Mom used to make the best hot chocolate in the world. It was real creamy, and it made a thick mustache on your upper lip. I’d make a big show of licking it away, too, just to make her laugh. After she was gone, my dad tried to make it for me, but I could never choke it down. When I got older I even tried to make it myself, but Mom did something to it that I guess I’ll never discover. Some spice, or extra goat’s milk, or something. But her hot chocolate was the best there was. Now, I never touch the stuff.”

  Somewhere along the line, the humming had stopped.

  “She used to laugh a lot,” Seth said. He closed his eyes and imagined the sound of his mother laughing, a light giggle that never laste
d very long but always made him happy. He loved clowning for her. He used to dance around in his pajamas, kicking up his legs and making faces until she’d give him a kiss. “After Mom died, no one laughed in our house. My dad was a real … Well, I hate to speak ill of the dead, but he was the kind of son of a bitch who thinks laughter is a sign of weakness. I guess I take after him there, because I don’t think there’s a person on this ship who has ever managed to make me laugh.”

  “Maybe you’re just sad,” the gorilla said.

  Seth was shocked for a second at this apparent compassion, but he recovered quickly. “I guess I am.”

  “I didn’t know you were an orphan.”

  “Yeah,” Seth said. His throat was hurting from so much talking, so he held his breath, waiting for the man to speak.

  He waited a long time and had almost fallen asleep when the man finally said, “I’m an orphan.” The man said it with a voice so deep it seemed to come from the middle of his broad chest. “My mom died on Earth, before we got on the New Horizon. Dog bite, and we couldn’t find any antibiotics for her. Can you imagine that? Something so simple as penicillin, and we couldn’t find it! That almost drove me crazy. I think that’s why my dad wanted to get on the ship so bad—so we’d always have a doctor.”

  “What happened to your dad?” Seth asked.

  “Liver cancer. When I was twelve.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I grew up okay. Folks looked out for me.”

  “Yeah, you grew,” Seth said with false appreciation. “How tall are you?”

  The man chuckled. “Six two.”

  “Really? I’d have guessed more.”

  “How tall are you?”

  “Six feet, about.”

  “You’ll still grow some. If you don’t get yourself killed first.”

  “Interesting comment from the guy who tried to murder me. Twice.”

  “That wasn’t personal.”