Sea of Stars (Kricket #2)

by Amy A. Bartol

  The overup continues to descend as if it were taking us to the Underworld. The five soldiers surrounding me obscure its soft bench seats. I hate the look in their eyes, so I keep mine on the sparkling crystal in the chandelier as it sways with the motion of the rectangular car.

  I scan my mind for what I could’ve done differently with Minister Telek. I can’t find a solution that would’ve gotten me out of the torture I was sure to face with him in charge. I should’ve killed him. He’ll murder us for sure now—with or without a confession. My only consolation is that what I just did to him will buy us some time; he would’ve extorted a false confession out of me right away. Now, he has a corroded bowel to contend with before he can address my supposed crimes. He’ll wait until he can watch my interrogation. I’ve kicked him in the crotch, metaphorically speaking; he’ll want to be around when it’s time to return the favor. I have only a small window to figure out my next move.

  They should have some sort of elevator music, I think, as the awkward silence in the compartment grows. I clear my throat. “I hope someone remembers to feed Manus while Minister Telek is away. It’d be a shame to find him floating on top of the tank.”

  The soldiers scowl at me.

  “What?” I return with a weary sigh. “That happened to a goldfish I once had. I had to flush him.”

  “Quiet!” the one with the itchy trigger finger barks at me. His voice is loud in the confined space.

  I begin to shiver. I’m the kind of cold where it seems I’ll never know warmth again. My chest feels tight and I find it hard to breathe. I look around the compartment—there isn’t a way out until the doors open. Why don’t they open? With growing panic, I pull at my restrained hands; they’re immobile, locked in amber like some Stone Age mosquito that drowned in sap. I feel claustrophobic; the walls are closing in. They’re going to kill me, my mind whispers, and even when I want to deny it, I can’t. I swallow hard, trying to contain my freak-out. I hope for a drop in air pressure, for the lift to crash, anything so that this silence ends.

  From behind me, I hear a masculine voice ask, “Did you really stab a member of the Brotherhood with a dinner knife?” There’s something familiar about the voice, but I can’t discern why that is. I begin to turn around, but the voice barks, “Face forward and answer the question.”

  The hair on my arms prickles. My head hurts, and I feel as if I couldn’t turn it if I wanted to. “Yes. He was murdering everyone,” I answer.

  “He wasn’t killing you,” he points out.

  “No,” I agree. “He wasn’t killing me.”

  “Why didn’t he kill you?”

  “He thinks I’m his.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  There’s silence for a moment. I try to see him in the smoky mirrors, but I can get only an impression of him. He’s not Rafian—his hair isn’t black. “What are your talents?” he asks.

  I moisten my lips. “I can rub my stomach and pat my head at the same time, but you’ll have to free my hands if you wanna see.”

  The soldier holding the harbinger on me looks suspiciously over my shoulder at one of the soldiers behind me. “Who are you? What unit are you with?”

  “I’m a Comantre conscript from Westway,” he lies. His speech is very lovely, refined in a way that would suggest some sort of upper class. He’s not Comantre and I doubt he’s ever even been to Westway.

  “Then shut your mouth! You’re not here to interrogate our prisoner.”

  The man behind me replies, “Don’t interrupt me.” He moves closer to my ear, as he asks, “When will they attack next?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply.

  The Brigadet in front of me scowls at the poseur Comantre conscript behind me. “What did you say to me?” The Brigadet shifts the barrel of his harbinger. All the other soldiers on the overup do the same, pointing their weapons away from me and in the direction of the soldier behind me.

  A heavy sigh comes from the Comantre impostor. “I told you not to interrupt,” he replies. The air in the chamber becomes supercharged. The harbinger is torn from the Brigadet soldiers’ hand. His eyes widen in surprise as the gunlike weapon floats in the air before him, its barrel pointed at him. All the other soldier’s harbingers follow suit, each doing a one-eighty in the air to levitate in front of its soldier. Even as the shock wears off, no one moves at all.

  The soldier claiming to be from Westway says to the Brigadets, “If you speak again without my permission, your harbingers will shoot you. Now, stop the overup.”

  “Halt overup, authorization five-nine-alpha-wastern-urtza,” the Brigadet soldier responds with a tight voice.

  “Thank you,” the one behind me says politely. “Now, Kricket—”

  He knows my name

  “—tell me when and where the Alameeda will attack again.”

  “You move things with your mind,” I say, slack-jawed.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me. Where will the Alameeda strike next?” the man asks with a low snarl.

  “Who are you?” I’m breathless.

  He lifts my arms behind me in such a way that I think for a second that he intends to break them. I’m forced to bend away from him so that they don’t snap. Driven to my knees, I bend forward more with my face going to the floor. I pant in pain, but bite my lips so that I don’t cry out.

  “I’ll ask you again. When’s the next attack? Where? How will they come?”

  With my cheek to the floor, I punctuate my answer: “I. Don’t. Know!”

  “Then you’re going to have to find out, aren’t you? Open your chakras, meditate—get in touch with your spirit animal,” he says condescendingly, “whatever it is you need to do to find out—do it!” He lifts my arms again and I grind my teeth.

  “What are chakras? I don’t do any of those things! I—” I stop speaking when he pulls me up from the floor to my knees again. He kneels down behind me and places one hand on my throat while the other holds a harbinger to my temple. Near my ear he whispers, “Countdown to death commences in three-two-one—”

  I breathe the words, “I wish I knew—” As I exhale, my breath curls into the air in a cold, smoky plume from the chill in my lungs. My eyes roll up to the ceiling. The poseur soldier’s hand slides from my neck to my ribs, holding me against him so that I don’t slip to the floor.

  I’m violently ripped out of my body to hover above all of them, near the sparkling, teardrop crystals of the chandelier. The man beneath me claiming to be a Comantre soldier is the same one from the gallery balustrade at the rail station. He raises his shamrock-colored eyes to my spirit floating above him, as if he can see me. I realize then that he’s the one who slapped me in my waking dream—or he will slap me in the future, depending on how you look at it. “Hurry, Kricket,” he orders, “before I decide to kill you.” His hand shifts back to my throat, gripping it like he’ll strangle me.

  I hope he can see my spirit finger as I flip him off.

  The next moment compares to a solar flare or the heat of a thousand stars as I blast out of the chamber, thrown back up the elevatorlike shaft. The galvanized steel beams that construct the maze of overup channels fall away. I eject from the top of the skyscape and into the sea of clouds. And then . . . the real fun begins. I flash-forward; the trap of ordinary things that one gets used to slips away too, by an explosion of time. The fabric of matter is different here: soothing as it is disturbing, with the sense of being whole and complete but not content—cleverly striving for the suggestion of perfection. Somehow, I know that if I twist, if I move in another infinite direction, the fabric will fold in around me and I’ll arrive somewhere else.

  Before I realize it, I’m in the stratosphere, climbing higher and higher. The blue sky fades in the absence of air and is replaced by the darkness of space. A gleaming white mass grows larger as I approach it, becoming disc
ernible as a space station. Shaped like a capital I, the station tumbles end over end in its orbit of Inium, the smallest of Ethar’s moons. This moon is a favorite of mine; it glows blue and it’s so near to Ethar that I imagine it has heard all the wishes I’ve made on it.

  I pass through the side of the space station either because it doesn’t exist in this space yet or I don’t or both. Thinking about it is likely to fry my brain. Instead, I concentrate on a silver transport trift landing in the open bay of the capital-I station. When the enormous bay doors close with a heavy thump, sealing the area like a tomb, the doors of the elegant falconlike trift open just below the wing. Free-floating steps emerge from the craft to form a convenient walkway to the causeway.

  I’m surprised when three females alight from the trift, pausing on the gangway. They’re each taller than me by just a few inches, with longer white-blond hair than mine and varying shades of blue eyes, but otherwise, in form and in feature, their likeness to me is undeniable.

  A very masculine-looking blond male appears behind them. He’s a golden god of a man—heaven-faced, cut from stone, and maybe just as lovable. He leans near to one of them, saying something to her in a low tone before he nuzzles her cheek. She doesn’t turn her lips to his or respond to his affection. She’s cold and distant. Her demeanor bothers him; he frowns at her, but takes her arm solicitously and leads her ahead, helping her navigate the steps.

  She reminds me of a queen bee. Her pale blond hair is piled high on her head with a mass of intricate braids down her back. Her elaborate dress has to weigh a ton. It’s not the least bit practical, with a flowing train of rich brocade silk and a corsetlike rib breaker. The neckline plunges in a deep vee, lined with sharp points that could be the stingers of drones she’s killed. The dress has to hurt like hell, but she carries it as if it were her skin.

  As I watch the pair together, I wonder, Is that her Brotherhood consort? Her cult-master who simultaneously owns and worships her? She seems so very important to him: owned by the drones and unable to fly away without them following her—forever. I can’t imagine a worse fate than to be a queen-slave.

  The other two priestesses follow closely behind her arm in arm. They each have similar style dresses as the Bee, but only one has an exaggerated collar of stiff, swanlike feathers: the Bird. The other has a high, round orchid-colored collar: the Flower. Two more handsome, chisel-cut blond males trail them, engaging in sedate conversation like old friends.

  I have no choice but to follow them. I thrust forward, joining their party as they converge in a solemn chamber filled with several embryonic vessels. It’s not hard to ascertain that this is a medical room and these steely pods are the equivalent of Manus’s shark tank back on Ethar. Uniformed personnel stand far back from them, almost in reverence at their presence.

  A small discussion commences about which one he’s in. A stuttering worker shows them to a particular unit. The six figures gather around this unit. The Flower breaks away from her friend, the Bird, and lays her hand on the lid. The coffinlike capsule opens, emitting a pressurized hiss. I ghost-move around the open lid so that I can see who is in it, but a part of me already knows.

  It’s Kyon. Unconscious. Naked. Damn my eyes!

  The beautiful flowerlike woman with the full, petal-pink lips places her hand on Kyon’s broad chest. She covers the angry red stab wound I gave him. His masculine, steam-shovel jaw tenses. Blood raises the color in his cheeks. Readouts on the lid of his pod go ballistic. His eyes open wide, the irises of which shine pure silver. When his mouth falls open, that same silver light emits from deep within him, gray embers from a blast furnace.

  When she removes her hand, there is a thin silver scar in place of the angry wound. The Flower glances behind her with a radiant smile to one of the granite-cut men she arrived with, but that stone won’t notice her. She loses some of her smile.

  The Bee flutters forward, helping Kyon to sit up. He does so awkwardly, which is very uncharacteristic of him. He rubs his blue eyes, trying to clear his head. His blond hair is pulled back from his face and tied so that it doesn’t fall into his eyes when he slumps forward. He’s weak, I think, but I don’t have a moment of guilt about it.

  “How do you feel?” the Bee asks. Her fingers rest on his shoulder, covering the dark military tattoo that interconnects to form circles there. The tattoo spans his neck, chest, and abdomen, stopping where his hip forms one angle of a dramatic vee.

  Kyon ignores her, choosing instead to gaze over her shoulder at the Bee’s consort. “Chandrum, was Kricket brought to Alameeda? Is she here?”

  Chandrum shakes his head. “She’s still with them. The extraction was a failure.”

  Kyon growls. “What’s being done?”

  “There is a new plan,” Chandrum offers as he watches the Bee wring her hands.

  “Tell me,” Kyon insists.

  “In due course,” he says before looking over his shoulder and snapping his fingers. A medical attendant rushes forward with a blanket, forcing the Bee to step back from her post.

  The Bird looks in my direction, piercing me with her eyes. She sniffs the air and says, “She listens now. Your Kricket.”

  “I feel her too,” the Bee agrees.

  A slow smile spreads over Kyon’s lips. “Kricket,” he says with a rough voice of someone who has been unconscious for a few days. I startle, not expecting him to say my name, let alone speak to me. “Must I wait for you to catch up to my time?” It’s a rare joke, since in my time he’s still in the pod, stabbed and unconscious, but here, he’s maybe a day or so ahead of me, unconscious as I am in the overup.

  The Bird giggles. “You’ve frightened her, Kyon. You mustn’t amuse yourself at her expense or she’ll never love you.”

  “As long as she respects me, I can live with her fear,” he replies.

  Oh, I’m so going to put a knife in the other side of your chest, I think, feeling stabby.

  “Fie! Now she’s angry with you. She indicates that next time the stabbing will be on the other side of your chest,” the Bird crows. “Oh, I like her!” She claps her hands like this is all a game.

  The Bee’s tone is waspish. “Permission to make her go away?”

  Ugh, you have to ask for his permission? Gross.

  The Bird clasps her hands together with a look of pleasure. “She’s a free spirit!”

  Kyon looks in my direction. “Catch up, Kricket. I’ll be along soon.” With Kyon’s approving nod, the Bee’s hands lift in my direction.

  “Can’t wait, freak—” I’m blown off my feet and out into the blackness of space where I’m falling, falling, falling. I land on my back upon the enormous mahogany desk in Minister Telek’s office. Grasping my head and holding it, I realize I’m still somewhere in the future. I search around, trying to decide when I am.

  Sliding off the desk, I rifle the room, looking for anything that will indicate a date. A steampunk-looking clock on the shelf nearby makes a metronome sound. Drifting near it to watch the pendulum, I see that it swings faster than it would on Earth. I read the dials that whirl as I interpret the date: it’s sixteen parts, Fitzmartin, which is Wednesday, two days ahead in time. In my time it’s still Fitzlutzer—Monday.

  I move to the round table in the center of the dim room. It’s empty, having no flowers to replace the znous. Across from me, Manus’s watery habitat is no longer occupied; he’s gone but the tank remains. A small tremble causes ripples in the water, disturbing the soft murmur of the tank. Then, another much larger thump shakes the water a bit more. Golden light from the window behind me causes me to turn around. Through it, I track a burning ball of fire hurtling downward into the building next to this one. The impact of the explosion blows out the window, sending cascading glass into the room. Since I’m made of air, the glass passes through me, shining with fiery reflection.

  I back away from the terror reining down on the Ship of Sk
ye. I move toward Manus’s empty tank again, not knowing what to do. More explosions thump the ship; it begins to list to one side.

  In a savage progression, the thumps grow louder: th-thump, thump, thuMP, th-thUMP, THUMP, THUMP—the wall to my side vaporizes in a fireball that engulfs the room and blows me sideways into the overup shaft.

  I tumble, down, down, down.

  I awake in my body with a wide-eyed gasp of air. My lungs burn as I struggle to take another breath. I feel like I’m waking from the dead. I’m shivering from cold, and my teeth chatter. I try to lift my hand to my forehead, but they’re both still confined behind my back.

  Someone shakes me, rattling my already jangled nerves. “What? Stop it,” I grouse. I cringe because I’m in the arms of the dreadlocked soldier.

  Sitting with me on his lap upon the soft, gray bench, he looks down at me with angry green eyes. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” I groan. “Now shut up. My head hurts.”

  “I thought you were dead,” he murmurs. I squint at him. He’d be worth a second look if he weren’t such a knob knocker. His hair is light brown, but it has streaks of burnished gold in it. His hands are strong and rough. He doesn’t get his physique from exercise equipment. If I had to bet, he earns his strength in other ways.

  “I’m not dead. Disappointed?” I scowl back at him.

  “I’m becoming more so by the moment,” he replies with a frown. “Did you see the future?”

  “It’s more like I went there. And I thought I told you to shut up.” I rest my forehead against his chest only because I can’t hold my head up on my own. I have a ridiculous headache. I might have stayed away from my body too long; I’m half-dead from it.

  His hand slides up and down my arm and it takes me a second to realize he’s trying to warm me up a bit. “Tell me what you saw,” he orders.

  Lifting my forehead off his chest, my eyes meet his green ones. “Kyon Ensin is alive . . . by tomorrow he’ll be fine—up and around and plotting our deaths. The Alameeda will attack on Fitzmartin—in two rotations—midday—sixteen parts.”