Obediently, every head in the room lowered. Kieran folded his hands, but he kept one eye on Mather as she spoke into her microphone.
“Peace be upon you,” she said to her congregation.
“Peace be upon you,” they parroted.
“Lord”—Anne Mather raised her hands over her head as though to touch the divine presence in the air—“it is our fervent wish that you will guide our negotiations with the emissary from the Empyrean, that we may coexist on New Earth for generations. We seek your presence at our table. Help us know what to ask and how to answer, that we may reach an understanding with each other and, if it is not too much to hope, that we might come together in brotherly love and give glory to your name. Amen.”
“Amen!” the crowd responded.
The doors at the back of the room opened, and people wheeled in carts filled with trays of food. They offered Kieran fruits both dried and fresh, glazed pastries, breads filled with dates and nuts, chilled shrimp, and pies. He took small portions, but he was too unsettled to eat. The people sitting at the tables below him talked jovially, patting one another’s backs. Here and there, out of the corner of his eye, he’d sense someone watching him from the crowd. As soon as he turned to seek them out, they’d already turned to their neighbor, laughing lustily as if sharing a joke.
It’s all an act, Kieran thought. This isn’t real.
He got up from his chair at the long table, and immediately the crowd subsided to a lull as every eye watched him cross the stage to where Anne Mather was seated at the end of the table, talking with an old woman. Kieran saw two large men standing at the back of the room rush forward, and they hovered nearby, watchful. He ignored them and leaned down to Mather, close enough that he could smell the bread she was chewing, and said in her ear, “I want to see the prisoners right now.”
“But everyone is so happy you’re here!” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I wanted to share this moment with them.”
“I’m not here to be shown a good time,” he snarled. “You and I have business.”
“I’m aware,” she said. “But it’s customary to show a diplomat the courtesy of a celebration upon his arrival. I suppose you’re not familiar with the old customs of Earth.”
Why was it so difficult to talk to this woman? “I need to see the prisoners right now, and then I need to get to a com station.”
“Oh.” She gave a half turn of her head. “Why is that?”
“They’re waiting to hear that I’ve arrived safely.”
“All right,” she said with a bland smile. “I’ll take you to one just as soon as I can.”
She placed an olive on her tongue, making no move to leave.
Kieran looked around him, feeling helplessly trapped. This party was insane. Negotiations hadn’t begun, yet he had a feeling that in some uncanny way, Mather had already beaten him.
Because she’s counting on me to be polite, he realized. She doesn’t think I’m willing to make a scene.
With a stroke of inspiration, he walked to the microphone at the podium and turned it on. “Hello?” he said, and his voice boomed through the speakers. Immediately the room sank into silence. Even the people serving food stopped what they were doing to look at him.
“If this exercise in insanity is finished, I’d like to be taken to see the prisoners from the Empyrean. Now.”
Anne Mather was looking at him, stone-faced, but still she didn’t move from her perch.
“NOW!” he yelled into the microphone. The people sitting near the speakers cried out, covering their ears with their hands.
Mather stood up, threw her napkin on the table, and marched up to Kieran.
“These people have worked so hard—”
“NOW!” he screamed at the tops of his lungs. The microphone whistled a piercing tone that seemed to drill through the channels in his ears.
Mather glared at him and took the microphone from the podium. “I’m sorry, everyone, but our guest of honor has to leave.”
She turned on her heel and walked out of the room with Kieran right behind her.
“They prepared a good-bye song,” she said under her breath. “All that practice for nothing.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? That I can be won over with a couple songs and some nice food?”
“I wanted you to feel like an honored guest.”
“You wanted me to feel like a fool,” Kieran snarled at her.
She gave him an injured look. In that moment, he hated her enough to kill her.
She led him across the corridor to Central Command, which looked much larger somehow than it did on the Empyrean. It buzzed with people rushing around, speaking urgently into headsets. How smoothly things would run on the Empyrean if he had a full crew of reliable deck officers! Even in this, Mather had the advantage.
“Hail the Empyrean,” Mather said to a small, tired-looking woman, who nodded cursorily.
“I want to see the prisoners first,” Kieran said.
“You said you needed to tell them you’ve arrived safely,” Mather said, wide-eyed.
“After I see the prisoners,” Kieran said.
“I have the Empyrean,” the woman told Mather.
Mather looked at Kieran, eyebrows raised expectantly.
There was no code word for this, no way to communicate clearly what had happened. He took the headset from the sullen woman and leaned over the com screen to see Sarek’s face.
Sarek released a sigh of relief when he saw Kieran. “You’re okay.”
“I’m fine, but I haven’t seen the prisoners yet.”
Sarek’s expression darkened. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Kieran said, feeling inadequate. A better man, a better leader, could have talked his way in to see the prisoners. He was messing everything up. Already their plan was frustrated. “They’re stalling.”
Sarek paused as though trying to read Kieran’s face, looking for a hidden message. He finally asked, “How are negotiations going?”
“They haven’t begun.”
“You should come back, then,” Sarek said after a pause.
“If you like, Kieran, you and I can go to my office and share a pot of tea,” Mather said from behind him.
“This isn’t a social visit!” Kieran yelled. The woman at the com station jumped in her seat. “If I’m not taken to the prisoners immediately—”
“But my dear boy, that’s not how negotiations work. First you give me something I want, then I give you something you want. This is going to take time.”
He pounded the com board with his fist. He had to decide what to do now. When he made eye contact with Sarek, the other boy raised his eyebrows.
“Sit tight, Sarek,” Kieran finally said. God, please, let this be the right thing.
Sarek nodded, then swallowed hard.
Suddenly an alarm from the Empyrean screeched through the com speakers. Anne Mather stood from the Captain’s chair and rushed to the screen. Sarek had disappeared from view, but Kieran could see his shadow moving frantically across the back wall of Central Command. Sarek’s panicked voice sounded over the speakers, though the words were indistinct. Finally he rushed back into view, panting.
“There’s been an accident!” Sarek cried. “Kids hurt by a combine. Oh God!”
“Can we offer assistance?” Anne Mather said.
Sarek looked at Kieran, and Kieran looked at Anne Mather. “We don’t have any doctors on board,” Kieran said.
“Bring the injured here!” Mather said simply. “Can you get them on a shuttle, or do you need us to come get you?”
“I can get them on a shuttle,” Sarek said, “if you can get your medical team ready. It sounds bad.”
“I’ll send a team down to wait for you in our port shuttle bay,” Mather said, and nodded to a com technician, who spoke quietly into her mouthpiece.
“Thank you,” Kieran said, pressing his cold palms against his thighs. “It’s been really hard without a doctor.”
“Now, maybe we can go someplace to talk,” Mather said, and drew him out of Central Command and into her office next door.
The room configuration was identical to his own office, but the decor was very different. She had tapestries hanging on the walls, giving the room a warm feeling. There was something odd about the way the items on her desk were arranged—a blotter pad, a notebook, a diary, a picture frame—each item perfectly aligned, books precisely angled in harmony with the corners of the desk, pen neatly resting at the center top of the blotting pad. Everything calibrated, considered, perfect, as though a machine worked here, not a person.
“Can I offer you tea?” Mather asked.
“You can offer me access to the prisoners,” Kieran said.
“First I want to talk about your proposal. It’s simply not acceptable.”
“It’s not negotiable,” Kieran said.
“You can’t expect me to guarantee that my crew will stay on a separate continent from yours. We have only a vague idea of the climate of each geographic region, as I’ve said before. It’s possible that there’s very little habitable landmass on New Earth.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near us.”
“We have another forty-two years to get over past wrongs before we get there.”
“You say ‘past wrongs’ as if you had nothing to do with them.”
“I’ve made mistakes, Kieran. As a fellow leader, I’m sure you understand how easily small miscalculations can result in catastrophe.”
He stared at her. At some point, his fear had left him entirely. Now all he felt was a bottomless rage. “If you don’t take me to see the prisoners now, I’m going to leave.”
She stared back at him, her eyes narrowed to flinty gray pinpoints. “You’ll forgive me, Mr. Alden, if I want to see what your friends do first.”
“Friends?”
“The landing party you just ordered? They’re on their way. What they do will help me decide whether to let you see your mother or not.”
“They’re injured,” Kieran said. He tried to sound indignant, but he knew his voice was damp with fear. “They can’t do anything.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said with an amused grin.
BEST-LAID PLANS
Waverly leaned over Sarah’s gurney and tucked the bed linens around her legs. The shuttle bay was filled with a buzzing expectancy as the members of the Central Council loaded their guns.
“Alia put on makeup,” Sarah said under her breath. She cocked her head to where Alia was standing by the shuttle. Her eyes were outlined with thick smudges of charcoal, which made her huge dark eyes seem like two black holes. She looked beautiful, and frightening.
“War paint,” Waverly said to Sarah, who chuckled.
“Do I look wounded?” Sarah asked, squeezing the reddened bandage to the side of her head.
“Let’s see your game face.” Sarah squeezed her features into a mask of pain. “Good enough,” Waverly told her. “We don’t need to fool them for long.”
“Is it wrong of me to say that I’ve been looking forward to this?” Sarah asked with an evil grin.
“Yes, it is,” Waverly said quietly. “Where’s your gun?”
“Sticking in my thigh.”
Waverly wheeled Sarah into place in the cargo hold and strapped her gurney to the wall between Debora Mombasa and Randy Ortega, who also wore bandages that had been soaked in chicken blood. Debora seemed coolheaded, but Randy was panting with fear.
“Doing okay?” Waverly asked him.
He gave her a steady nod.
Waverly went into the cockpit and took the copilot’s chair next to Arthur, who was nervously fiddling with dials and knobs. Waverly wondered if he was really adjusting anything or if he was just making himself busy to take his mind off what they were about to attempt. “Ready?”
He licked sweat from his upper lip and nodded. He tapped his headset and instructed Sarek to open the air lock for the shuttle. Waverly watched him carefully, ready to take the controls if he made a mistake, but his performance was exemplary. She would have thought he’d flown a shuttle many times before.
Once the outer air-lock doors opened, Arthur eased the craft out of the bay and turned it around. They’d chosen the port side to launch from because it was nearer to the infirmary and would make their ploy seem more real, they hoped. The deception felt rather thin to Waverly, now that they were on their way.
Arthur flew the shuttle over the curve of the Empyrean. The many domes covering the hull reminded Waverly of the pictures of sand dunes she’d seen from Earth. Amanda, the New Horizon crew member who had taken Waverly into her home, had shown the pictures to her and had tried to describe the ever-changing desert landscapes of Old Earth. Waverly wondered what had happened to Amanda, and to Jessica, Mather’s personal secretary, after they helped Waverly escape. Anne Mather might have imprisoned them, or worse. She realized she hadn’t let herself think of them at all. They were part of that horrible past she’d wanted to leave behind, so she’d banished them from her mind, though in truth, she owed her life to them.
The New Horizon rose like a misshapen moon over the hull of the Empyrean. It dominated the black sky with bubbling gray metal. As they approached, Waverly could see the outlines of people passing by portholes, none of them turning to notice the approaching shuttle.
It made her sick to look at that ship. It was identical to the Empyrean; why then did it look so evil to her? Everything about it—gray skin, misshapen hull, the light emanating from its hundreds of portholes—all of it was forbidding and awful to her. She concentrated instead on Arthur’s progress as he piloted the shuttle to the enormous bay doors, which slid open before he could even request to dock.
This is it, she told herself as the shuttle eased inside the New Horizon. Her heart felt as though it were skipping beats, and her hands felt like ice carved into the shapes of brittle fingers.
The inner air-lock doors opened to a group of medical personnel wearing scrubs and white gloves. Strangers with strange faces. She hated them all. She scanned the rest of the shuttle bay for armed guards, but saw none. Could it be this easy?
No, she told herself. Nothing is easy with Anne Mather.
Arthur looked at Waverly nervously before he pushed the button to lower the shuttle ramp, and Waverly heard the gush of air as the hydraulics engaged. She went to the passenger section of the ship, where already the assault team had stood up from their seats. Sealy was clicking off the safety of his gun and peering through the sights. Harvey Markem held his gun across his chest, squeezing the metal with his hands until his knuckles turned white. As the largest team member, he’d been chosen to carry the bag of extra guns, which was strapped tightly to his back in a compact mass. Melissa Dickinson had already taken her position at the top of the stairs, the muzzle of her gun pointing down, ready to cover the team as they descended the stairs.
“Let’s go,” Waverly whispered to them, and started down to the cargo hold, where already doctors and nurses were entering to look at the patients. A small male doctor leaned over Sarah and peered into her eyes, only to find the muzzle of a gun jammed into his face. Two nurses screamed when Randy sat up, pointing his gun at them. The rest of the medical team, about six in all, stood staring, their mouths hanging open.
Waverly jumped down the last few stairs and grabbed one of the nurses by her collar. “Where are the guards?”
The woman only looked at Waverly, working her jaw but unable to speak. Waverly pointed her gun at the woman’s neck. “I said, where—”
“There are no guards,” the woman said, breathless.
“Bullshit!” Waverly yelled in her face.
“It’s true,” one of the doctors piped up from behind her. “Pastor Mather didn’t order guards to accompany us.”
Waverly looked from the doctor to Sarah, who had stood up from her gurney and was eyeing the man suspiciously.
“Everyone grab your hostage!” Waverly shouted. She pulled the male do
ctor by the collar, making him walk in front of her, pressing the muzzle of her gun into the hollow of his back. His dark hair was shorn close to his head, and she could see sweat trickling between the hairs and soaking the collar of his shirt. His fingers were trembling, and she heard his shallow, jagged breaths as he stumbled ahead of Waverly down the ramp and onto the shuttle-bay floor.
“March!” Waverly yelled, though it hurt her throat, and they were off.
Each time they passed a shuttle, Waverly turned, expecting to see guards hiding there but finding no one. She hadn’t thought about her emotional reaction to being back on this ship. She felt claustrophobic, hemmed in, and panic threatened to overtake her. This was where they’d done it to her. She shouldn’t have come. She gulped air, fought down the panic, and tried to focus on the task at hand.
They reached the shuttle-bay doors without incident, and Sarah went ahead to open them. Waverly braced herself, expecting guards to burst into the room, shooting away, but the doors opened to a peaceful corridor.
It was the same the whole way. Around every corner, at every doorway, the team took positions, shielding themselves with their hostages, but they met no resistance whatsoever. They didn’t even find regular maintenance workers. The corridors were deserted.
Waverly knew this was a part of the ship that would be rarely visited by crew members. On the Empyrean, few people went to the sewage plant unless something had gone wrong and repairs were needed. Otherwise this entire area of the ship was fully automated. Still, Waverly had a sinking feeling. Her heart thrummed in her chest so hard she wondered if her hostage could hear it. She could hear his breath, the way air rasped through his throat like rough yarn. His steps were halting, but he let her steer him through the turns in the corridor, keeping his hands at shoulder level.
When the doors to the sewage system came into sight at the end of a long corridor, the team paused to listen for signs of life. The corridor was eerily silent.
“What do you think?” someone said right next to Waverly, making her jump.
She turned to see Alia next to her, holding on to the tunic of a medic, her gun jammed under his shoulder blade. Her dark eyes brimmed with concern.
Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel Page 25
