“It’s not an emergency, but I have something for you.”
“Could you be any vaguer, please? I just love guessing.”
“We’re busy,” Bero said coolly. Still hadn’t warmed up to the other human on his back.
He tapped an annoying little jingle on the metal. “What, you two suddenly on a time crunch? What are you doing in there, anyway?”
She sighed and set her tools aside, then dug her heel into the ground and dragged herself out, the creeper under her back sliding easily across Bero’s floors. Tomas grinned down at her. She pursed her lips.
“Bero’s old, if you haven’t noticed. Sometimes the connections degrade and need sprucing up, or severing. He’s in good shape, though, considering his age.”
“AnnLee always stressed the importance of self-maintenance,” Bero said.
“Nice of her, but the wiring breaks down over time. Fine work like that is hard for Grippy to do efficiently.”
“Nothing beats opposable thumbs, eh?” Tomas wiggled his at her.
“Nothing on this ship. What do you want?”
“Worked up a little something I think you might like in the lab. Care to come see it?”
“You’re not going to tell me what it is, are you?”
In answer, he offered her a hand. She took it and let him drag her to her feet. Her leg made every step awkward, but she made a point of keeping pace with him.
He had all the lights up in the lab, and the table he’d claimed for himself was cluttered with bits and bobs—a gross violation of storage procedures. She bit her tongue. The chances of Bero suddenly spinning down were very, very small, and she was guilty of leaving a mess herself. But just because she had bad habits didn’t mean he needed to join her.
“All right, what did you want to show me?”
Tomas stepped up to the table and hovered a hand over a sheet with an oblong bulge under it. He’d gone and set some of the lights to beam straight down on the object, making it gleam like a shuttle in a showroom. She groaned and rolled her eyes.
He pressed a finger to his lips before she could tell him to move it along. “Impatience,” he said in an affected, grandiose tone, “is pointless in our current situation. Behold. My apology.”
“Your what—?”
Tomas made a show of waving his hand over the sheet, then pinched the fabric and yanked it back.
A prosthetic leg rested in the middle of the table, looking almost like something out of a high-end medical catalogue. She actually gasped, then flushed violently red when Tomas laughed at her reaction.
“See? I couldn’t just tell you.”
“How in the hell?”
He shrugged. “I based it off the design you came up with. While you’ve been busy patching up Bero, I had some time on my hands. It worried me that the FitFlex was having to conform over raw metal when you entered vacuum. This should be a little safer.”
The leg showed its armature in the joint at the ankle, but was otherwise covered in blue, hard foam sculpted to look like a calf and foot. As she traced her fingers over it, she could just barely feel the slight ridges of whatever tool he’d used to sculpt it, the subtle texture of careful sanding.
“When did you learn how to do this?”
He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “Made it up as I went, really. Nazca are picked for their ability to improvise. Here, let me help you try it on. I hope the light weight won’t be too weird. I filled a rectangular mold with SealFoam, then carved out the body. There wasn’t any flesh-weight equivalent material in the ship.”
“I think I’d be squicked out if there were.”
She sat on the bench and unbuckled her leg, tossing it to the ground with a little tinge of guilt. It’d taken her ages to get that thing working, and here Tomas came along and whipped up something superior in way less time. Must have been because he had her hard-won research to use as a kicking off point.
He fit the leg carefully over the puckered skin of her thigh. Cold fingertips brushed against her scar tissue, causing goose bumps to rise, and he shot her a questioning glance. She smiled at him to let him know it hadn’t hurt. He nodded and bent back over her leg, pulling the straps taut, but not too much so.
When it was secure to his satisfaction, he gave her a hand as she rocked carefully to her feet. The foam did feel strange—she couldn’t quite place her finger on why. Something to do with having the sense of flesh, of avoiding knocking her calves together, without the density to back it up. The joint movement was much smoother than her own version, and the shape of the thing would make wearing FitFlex and shoes so much easier.
“Well, how’s it feel?”
She took a few experimental steps without his help and cracked a grin. “I can’t exactly dance with it, but it’s aces above what I had before. I can’t believe it only took you, what, a week? We’re only halfway to Farion. What are you going to do next, build us a gate from scratch?”
“That is impossible,” Bero said.
He smiled. “It’s true, I’m not that good, but I could help you with Bero’s faulty wiring.”
“There is only room enough for one human in my access ducts,” Bero said stiffly. Sanda couldn’t blame him. She’d had to promise complete obedience to be allowed access to his circuits, and even then there were stipulations. Bero’s ducts and wiring were his circulatory system, his neural network. She wouldn’t want anyone fumbling around in her body, either.
“Well, the offer stands regardless,” Tomas said.
“Thanks.” She thumped him on the shoulder. He rubbed at the spot and glanced away, hiding a goofy grin. A grin that vanished the moment he caught sight of a tablet Velcroed to his workstation.
Tomas cleared his throat. “Anyway. I’ll let you get back to your repairs. You need any help, let me know, yeah?”
She nodded and took off for the door at a slow, careful pace, before she could open her mouth and shove her new foot in it. Tomas had set up his workstation opposite hers, near the desk where she’d discovered the research relating to Keeper Kenwick. She tried not to look, every peek felt like a violation of that man, but it drew her gaze whenever she walked past.
At first glance, she thought the tablet with all the research regarding Kenwick was missing, then she realized Tomas had moved it to his own table. It had been the sight of the Kenwick research that’d killed his grin.
The man cared. The realization lifted something in her she hadn’t realized she’d clamped down. He’d called the prosthetic an apology, but it was more than that. You didn’t spend hours out of your day carving out a prosthetic for someone whose comfort and safety you didn’t care about.
You didn’t trawl through the files of a dead man, either, unless you deeply cared why he had been made dead. Wanted to give the wasted life meaning. Sanda shivered. Even just looking at the blank screen that held Kenwick’s data gave her the creeps and threatened to rile up a coldsleep headache. She’d put all the details of that file out of her mind, a pleasant blank spot in her memory. How Tomas could spend his time browsing through that gorefest, she had no idea. Spy or not, there was a core of something good lurking inside him. A side she’d very much like to get to know.
CHAPTER 31
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
TWO YEARS OF COLD WAR ENDING
Evacuation loomed over Biran’s head. He lay on his bed, the standard-issue sheets scratching against the bare skin of his back. All of his friends had upgraded. Silk-likes, natural cotton. Biran stretched against the rough weave of some efficient synthetic and daydreamed of a curry. His stomach growled.
A red light blinked on his wristpad. Graham calling. Wanting to know if the Nazca had found anything yet. Wanting to make sure Biran was getting on the first shuttle off the station—to be whisked away to Atrux. To be whisked away from knowledge.
How many years would it take an email to travel from Icarion to Atrux without the use of a gate? He tried to do the math, and his head ached. Something like thousands
of years. How many generations would that take? For there to be generations, he’d have to have children. He hadn’t been on a date since the Nazca had started bleeding his accounts dry. What woman would want to love a pauper even if they were Speaker?
He could adopt, or tube conceive like his dads had. But then he’d have to answer some sharp questions about where his finances were going. Right now, the arrangement made him look like a rather exuberant philanthropist. Good as the Nazca were, he suspected that facade would break down under court scrutiny.
Anaia’s face flashed in his mind. He could tell her. She’d understand. But he hadn’t talked to her since the bombardment. No more than passing pleasantries. Hadn’t talked to anyone, really. Some leader he was. Some political climber. Prime wouldn’t send ships to investigate Dralee. Icarion claimed the evac pods as hostages—but never approached the rubble of the battlefield, not directly. That’d put them too close to Ada’s wall of weapons.
His sister’s body—living or dead—marked the DMZ of a painful stalemate.
A priority cast screeched an alert on Biran’s wristpad, jerking him out of his melancholy. The director’s face flashed across the screen and he swiped to accept the call, sitting up, but not bothering to hide the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Director Olver squinted.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Get your things together. The Keeper transport to Atrux leaves at 0400. I understand you’re concerned about your parents, but there’s only room for Keepers on the first ship out.” The precious cargo. He meant that everything else could be lost, if Icarion struck after their spies inevitably told them that the exodus had finally begun. “They’ll be on the first civilian transport.”
“Understood, sir.”
The director hesitated. “No comment, Greeve? No protest?”
“Is there room for one to be heard, sir?”
“I hired you as Speaker because you speak, Greeve. Though as of late, less so.”
“I have been briefing the people on the news every morning, sir, but there have been no new developments that are not classified.”
“The exodus is happening. You need to do your part—and that isn’t limited to getting on a ship to be taken to safety.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“In a few days, Speaker, when the planet Ada is bare and Keep Station has been reduced to its robotic staff and a few doddering old Keepers, I am going to put on a flight suit. I am going to get in a shuttle, and go up to Ada’s Casimir Gate. I don’t know what I’ll say, then. Nothing will seem… enough until that moment. But then I and the others will scan our chips, where the cumulative knowledge of generations is fractured and stored, and we will enter the commands to combine certain facets of that information.
“We will beam it—whole for the first time since the gate was built—to the maintenance bots that swarm the gate. And once they receive that information, once they have their orders, they will take it apart. Not piece by piece. Not a child’s toy to be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere. They are going to initiate protocols used only once before. They are going to turn the negative energy generated by the gate upon itself. They will rend a gash in the sky, and I will be vapor before the dust clears. If it ever clears.
“I am dying, Speaker Greeve, because this system is dying. And its people, its survivors, will need a voice. A guiding light. You and I—we butt heads. And that’s how it should be. No consortium of Keepers should ever be all in agreement. But I don’t need you placid to my orders, now. I need you loud. I need you passionate. I need you bullying from the pulpit. Because, come the morning, the people of Ada will have lost a war. But they will have to move on, survive it as refugees in an already established system. Keep them together, Biran. Keep them safe. Keep them hoping.”
Biran’s throat swelled, his nose and cheeks went hot as tears coalesced behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes, let a few drops fall, blinking them from his lashes. “Sir…”
“No. No goodbyes. But I will say good night.”
Biran smiled crookedly. “Good night. Director Olver.”
“Good night, Speaker Greeve.”
Olver half raised a hand—part wave, part benediction—then cut the connection, disappearing from the screen in a flick of light. Biran had until tomorrow morning. He could get up right now, go to the Cannery, and see the director in person.
But he wouldn’t. To Biran, the director ceased in that moment. That second. He’d never see him again. Biran’s subconscious had already begun to draft his eulogy.
Biran blanked the screen on his wristpad and bent double, a profound ache echoing through the empty hollow of his chest—the hole Sanda had carved with her disappearance. The hole that was spreading, devouring him up, with all the things he’d lost. All the things he would lose. All the decisions he could not bring himself to make.
If he had been bolder. If he had been stronger. If he had been smarter.
If, if, if…
Someone pounded on his door.
“Who’s there?” he asked the house AI. Never upgraded, never would be.
“Keeper Lavaux is at the front door.”
Biran scrubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist and stood, padding across the cold floors he’d never bought rugs for, the hem of his pajama pants catching at his heels. He flung the door open, surprised to see the station lights had already deepened to simulate the dead of night. He hadn’t left the bed all day.
Lavaux, his medium-length hair tousled as if he’d just stepped off a movie set, looked Biran over from aching head to bare toes.
“Rough night?”
“What are you doing here, Lavaux? We leave tomorrow. I saw your name on the evac roster, too.”
“You might leave tomorrow, but I’m leaving tonight. Two hours.”
Biran narrowed his eyes, struggling to see meaning through the haze of pain clouding his every thought. “Have they moved up the schedule?” A flash of fear pounded clarity into him. “Has Icarion made imminent threats?”
“Neither. I have my own ship, a big bastard of a thing. Some of us don’t agree with the current schedule. I thought you might be one of them.”
Biran narrowed his eyes. “It’s late. Get to the point.”
“Prime’s running scared. I don’t care what lullabies Okonkwo sings to Olver, she’s not pulling us out just to isolate Icarion. Something’s got her spooked, and I’m betting it’s this weapon Icarion has been dick-waving at us. Unfortunately, the young fools on the Protectorate are too young to have honed a real long-term perspective. From the day of the bombardment I knew they’d eventually scamper. Luckily they stuck around long enough to give me time to prepare.”
“You’re the same age as the director.”
“Am I? How funny. If we cut Icarion off, they’ll just hit us harder, later, with a bigger weapon. Something we haven’t prepared for.”
“We’ve been arguing this point for two years, Lavaux. What do you propose to do about that now?”
Lavaux flashed a grin. “You’re not the only one with Nazca friends.”
Biran swayed, his vision blurred at the edges. Lavaux grabbed him by both shoulders to steady him. “Whoa. Don’t faint on me, boy. I know why you did it, and I won’t turn you in. Sit.”
His tongue was too thick to form a reply, so he let Lavaux ease him to the ground. He brought his knees up and put his head between them, breathing deeply and slowly.
“Better? Good. As I was saying, our mutual friends have found a few little hints for me to follow. A bread trail, if you will. I know where the weapon is. And I’m going to take it.”
“How in the hell are you going to do that?” Biran demanded. Lavaux was mad. Mad as blowing up a Casimir Gate. Mad as hiring an intergalactic spy agency to find his sister.
Lavaux flashed him a white-toothed smile and flicked a hand through his hair. “Come find out in two hours. Pack your things, Greeve. Meet me at the docks—the ship’s the Taso. Don’t be late.�
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“They’ll leave,” he said, strained. “They’ll leave us behind.”
“Hard to have an exodus of the Keepers when all the big movers are missing.”
Lavaux whistled to himself as he jogged down the walkway. Biran watched him until he disappeared behind the slope of the hill. For a half second he wondered if he’d ever see Lavaux again, if that was their goodbye and good night.
But that was a stupid thought. Biran grabbed the edge of the door and pulled himself to his feet. He had packing to do.
CHAPTER 32
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
ANOTHER KIND OF EVACUATION
Taso gripped the dock like a spider clinging to its prey. If it were a spider, then it was largest of the swarm—a beast of a tarantula towering over the new-spawned children of lesser species. Biran had never seen a private ship so large. Such things were not unheard-of outside Ada. Some of the upper echelons of the universe lived on much grander ships full-time. Ships so large they nearly required their own governments, though they were ostensibly overseen by Prime.
But Ada was a backwater, and Biran had spent his whole life here. What was often seen in news clips, movies, and serial shows, was a hard thing to swallow when confronted with in real life.
He used to think his parents had done very well, financially, with their trading ventures. He’d been wrong. There were scales of “doing well” in the universe he hadn’t realized existed until that moment.
Biran swiped his wristpad over a reader and watched the lock beep green, the gate sliding open with a merry chirp to welcome him to the Taso. He’d half expected Lavaux to forget him in the chaos involved in moving such a large vessel on short notice but again, he’d been wrong.
Someday he’d like to get used to being wrong. Then maybe he’d start being right.
The airlock dilated, revealing a man with a strained smile and his finger poised ready over his wristpad in the same pose secretaries had assumed since the beginning of time.
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