The Silver Ship and the Sea

by Brenda Cooper

  My thoughts were interrupted by the noisy return of the others, arms laden with herbs and fruit.

  The wooden cabin was simple, only three rooms, two bedrooms, and a great room with a fireplace and kitchen and a table and chairs. The kitchen had running water. A metal woodstove that must have been hard to drag up here stood in one corner. There was no power except the small sun-batteries we carried, so after dark fell we lit candles we’d found in the cupboard, and talked, yawning, for about an hour before scattering to sleep.

  Tom and Joseph took one bedroom, Paloma and Kayleen the other one, and Alicia and I slept on the floor in the great room. Alicia’s breathing slipped into the steady rhythm of sleep only moments after the sounds of people settling in quieted, but I lay awake in my blankets on the hard floor for a long time. The big patterns on Fremont seemed clear to me: our struggle to prove ourselves, the difficulty the original humans had accepting us, Akashi’s strengths as a storyteller and band leader balanced against Nava’s power. The interdependence of the town and the roamers. The lingering effects of the war. Joseph’s struggle was closest to me of all, but ideas about how to help him escaped me completely.

  After an hour of lying still and quiet, trying to will my body to sleep, I opened the door and slipped outside. Thunderclouds still hung far to the north. A deep-throated growl of thunder floated across the lake, and jagged lightning forked the sky over the mountains. The air smelled like electricity. Yet, above me, stars scattered across the darkness like tiny spring field flowers, and the moon Dreamcatcher hung low in the south, full and bright, some details of its cratered surface visible. Small animals rustled the brush on the far side of the clearing. I hugged myself against the chill, wishing I’d brought a blanket.

  Three meteors, close together, flashed overhead. At least one of them was big, still glowing as it plummeted down below the dark silhouette of the mountains, falling toward the clouds as if it were lightning from deep space. I couldn’t tell if the meteor landed in the sea or burned up above it. I sat in the bowl of a crater, and imagined the searing impact of the stone that made it, the scattering of rocks and life and steam.

  A few moments later, the perimeter alarms went off, toning for demon dogs. A high yip, and then another one, and then the alarms stopped. Apparently, the pack was not interested enough in us to push past the noise. Still, I shivered. A demon pack had killed two children last year.

  Fremont was deadly, and more so without the nets. Fremont surrounded me, naked and dangerous and wild, like a great predator. I shivered and slipped back inside.

  11

  Hunting

  The sharp scent of a fire in the woodstove teased me awake, my belly growling. I opened my eyes to see Paloma padding past in her bare feet, holding a pot of water for morning tea. She grinned down at me. “Late sleeper?”

  I scrambled up. Alicia stood in the kitchen, peeling twintree fruit and cutting up apples. She raised an eyebrow at me as I folded my blankets and stacked them next to hers. I mumbled a good morning at her and stepped outside, stretching, breathing in the cool air, blinking at thin clouds torched bright pink by sunrise. The morning smelled of the lake, the hebras, the dew-damp grass; entirely different from Artistos’s human-filled morning scents of cooking food, of the oily tang of gears at flour mill and the chuffing metal smelter. I felt free of some familiar oppressiveness, full instead of the exhilaration of adventure, tinged only a little by my fears of the previous night.

  I returned to find Tom tilting his head, clearly speaking into his earset. “Nava?”

  Only Tom’s side of the conversation was audible. Alicia had stopped near him, probably listening as close as I was.

  “Yes, we’re safe.” He frowned, pursing his lips at whatever Nava was telling him.

  “No, not yet,” and then, “I’ll talk to you soon. Let us finish the lake circuit.” Whatever she said next, Tom’s voice rose. “Just trust me, all right. Give me some time.” He walked outside, taking even his half of the conversation away from us.

  He came back in a few minutes later, a scowl marring his round face. Whatever the conversation was, it didn’t make him happy.

  Kayleen pushed awkwardly through the door, breathless, a bunch of thumb-sized round purple pongaberries held triumphantly in her right hand. Her arms bore long thin scratches from the pongaberry tree, and her skin was slicked with a light sheen of sweat. “Good morning! I’ve been to the lake and there’s no wind so it’s like a mirror and the sun is making it pink. I saw a huge bird I’ve never seen before, but I think Liam mentioned; it was fishing.” She stopped for a panting breath. “I found the pongaberry tree on the way back. It’s going to be a great day.”

  Joseph appeared in the doorway of the back bedroom, sleepy-eyed, and frowning slightly. “You’re awfully cheerful.”

  Tom looked around the room, like one of the herd dogs we used for the goats, making sure we were all there. His voice sounded clipped and edgy. “First, Kayleen, no going out by yourself. Not even in full daylight and inside our perimeter. Everyone travels in teams of at least two, all the time.”

  Kayleen nodded, her sunny demeanor falling away, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Tom continued. “We should be on the road by midday. I think Kayleen and Paloma should fix this node, and Chelo and Alicia pack us up and water and graze the hebras. All right?” He picked up the gear pack and stowed it back in the saddlebags.

  I glanced at Paloma, who nodded. “That’s fine with me,” I said.

  Joseph had sat at the table, and now he stared at his hands, concentrating fiercely on his knuckles, as if trying to shut the whole room of us out of his thoughts. Tom cleared his throat, watching Joseph, perhaps hoping Joseph would look at him. But Joseph just stared at the rough-hewn wooden floor. Tom leaned in toward him, speaking loudly. “And Joseph and I are going hunting.”

  Joseph looked up, a surprised smile transforming his face. Only people allowed to carry stunners hunted; certainly none of us.

  Paloma didn’t look at all surprised, but covered a small smile of her own. “Well, eat first.” She passed the plate of fruit toward Joseph.

  I took a pongaberry, narrowing my eyes at my little brother. “Be careful. I heard a pack of demon dogs last night.”

  Joseph ignored the fruit, his eyes fastened on Tom, looking ready to jump up and leave that moment.

  Tom laughed and took a cup of tea from Paloma’s outstretched hand. He stood to sip it, even though there was a chair right in front of him. “An empty stomach won’t kill him. We won’t be gone long.” Tom proceeded to pop two pongaberries in his mouth at once. Juice escaped and ran purple down his chin.

  Joseph grimaced and ate a pongaberry himself. “Good job, Kayleen,” he mumbled, wiping his mouth and reaching for an apple.

  I bit down on the pongaberry I’d been holding in my mouth, savoring the sudden sweetness coating my tongue.

  Twenty minutes later Joseph and Tom rode away on Legs and Sugar Wheat, the rumps of the hebras disappearing into thick foliage. Tom was getting Joseph away while Kayleen and Paloma fixed the node. Anything that excited Joseph was good. Besides, fresh djuri tasted better than jerky.

  Alicia and I headed for the corral. She leaned in toward me, her voice low. “So what’s the story with Nava? I can’t tell what she thinks of us.”

  Water from the stream flowed through an exposed pipe to a hand pump. I worked the lever, starting fresh water running into the hebras’ trough. Once the flow was properly started, I locked the pump handle up, and leaned through the fence, feeling the cool water on my fingertips. Alicia’s question seemed less straightforward than it would have a few weeks ago. “She…she’s never liked us much. But now, since she’s leading Artistos, she’s got to deal with us. She doesn’t trust us. She’s even told me so.” Stripes pushed ahead of the other five hebras, snuffling my fingers on the edge of the corral, and then plunging her nose into the cool water. “But I’ve been learning that maybe she’ll be fair. If we don’t give her any excuses
to treat us badly.”

  “Don’t she and Tom lead together?”

  “Sort of. It’s not like when Therese and Steven were alive.” The words didn’t hurt quite as much I expected them to. “They worked together, like partners. But Nava tells Tom what to do, and he lets her. Mostly.” I shrugged. “She sent him with us. I think he’s been charged with getting Joseph to do what Nava wants.” I chewed on my lip.

  Alicia reached through the bars toward Ink, rubbing her black nose. “I think he agreed to come to get away from Nava. He sure didn’t sound happy with her this morning. He doesn’t mind being bossed around?”

  “They mostly get along. Or at least he mostly does what she asks, but it’s responsible stuff like directing half the rebuilding. Besides, she listens to him sometimes. I don’t know if she ever listens to anyone else. But I’ve heard them argue twice since they moved in.” I reached into the corral and scratched Stripes below the beard. She lifted her head and curled her upper lip, her warm brown eyes beaming pleasure.

  Alicia opened the gate and slipped into the corral. She sounded wary. “I heard Nava was a war hero.”

  I followed her into the corral, untangling two lead lines from the fence, remembering Nava’s story. It seemed a confidence, so I didn’t pass it on to Alicia, but I wondered what she would think of it. “I’m pretty sure Tom was, too. Maybe we should ask Paloma.”

  She frowned at me, stopping momentarily, brushing the hair back over her shoulder. “Doesn’t it feel strange to you that our parents’ killers are Artistos’s heroes?”

  “They’re all we have.” I watched her, but she didn’t look directly at me, just focused on the two ropes in her hands, running them through her fingers, adjusting out the kinks. I considered her question. Alicia had little reason to trust anyone; I shouldn’t assume she trusted me. “Sky is your friend.”

  She nodded. “I know. I just wish our parents had won.”

  I had thought that myself once. Before Steven and Therese and Paloma and Gianna started treating us better. Before I cared about anyone in Artistos. “Better the war never happened. That our people never came here, or that they and the others learned to live together.” That everyone we loved was still alive.

  She glanced at the center of the clearing, where Kayleen and Paloma sat next to each other on the ring of stumps, heads together. Paloma was laughing at something Kayleen had said. Alicia sighed. “Kayleen’s lucky. Out of all of us, only she and Liam have adults who love them.”

  “Joseph and I used to.” I turned away from her, blinking back tears. Sometimes I could talk about them without pain now, but other times it snuck up, sharp and heavy. “Tom is okay. He seems really good with Joseph, and I guess we get along, too. At first, I hated living with Nava—she’s so rude and so always-busy and so bossy. She doesn’t talk to us much unless she’s telling us what to do. We make her uncomfortable.” I turned the water off. “But I don’t think she hates us anymore. I guess I’m still not sure. Really, you and Bryan have had it the worst. You worst of all.” A stray thought crossed my mind. Alicia had been with us sometimes when we were little, but her mom had stayed back from the fighting. Chiaro hadn’t watched her when she watched us. “Do you remember your real parents? At all?”

  She stared at Kayleen and Paloma, then seemed to look beyond them, as if seeing the past. “I can’t see their faces anymore.” Her voice was soft, so soft I could barely hear her. Stripes nudged me, and I pushed her head away, straining to hear Alicia. “But I remember being happy. My memories kept me warm and safe all the first few years I was with the band. It helped me feel okay about myself.”

  I clipped a lead line to Stripes, and another to one of the pack animals. “Do you feel okay now?”

  She shook her head. “I feel better now that I’m away from Ruth and Bella and Michael. I don’t care if I ever see them again.” She reached for Ink’s head harness, clipping the lead on. “But I don’t know what will happen to me. To us.”

  “I don’t know either,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.” We walked two hebras each out, including Ink and Stripes.

  She stayed silent until we reached the center of the field and let the hebras graze. Her voice was stronger, as if she had returned to the present, and to our predicament. “Do you trust them? Any of them?”

  I didn’t, not really. Maybe Akashi, but he had his band to lead. “I guess I trust them to do what they think is right. So that’s what I try to understand, to influence.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “So you do what they want so that they’ll think it’s right to help you?”

  I turned away from her, watching Stripes tear huge hunks of grass with her wide sharp teeth. “I guess…I guess we often do what they want. But they never asked us to work on the network; Joseph and Kayleen figured out how to do that by themselves. Paloma and Therese only encouraged them after they saw it worked. But what they want and what we want are often the same thing. In Artistos. We all want to live.”

  She nodded. “Bella and Michael always told me what to do. I did it, I had to. But every time I got away from them, I ran, or I climbed, or I threw rocks. I practiced being strong and fast as often as I could.” She glanced at me, a little sideways glance, as if whatever I said next mattered to her.

  “I guess…I guess we try not to shock them. When we run at our speed, we do it in our own place, back behind the mills. I mean, some people have seen us. We just don’t rub it in.”

  “Did you ever get in trouble for running?”

  “Wei-Wei glares at us.”

  She laughed. “That’s not too bad.” She stood and looked out over the lake. “They never locked me up before, but they kept me near them whenever they caught me acting like myself.” She leaned down to pick a yellow flower and stood, both leads and the flower in one hand, plucking the long spiked petals with the other. A light wind off the lake blew her hair back, emphasizing the healing bruises on her cheek. “What do you want, Chelo? You’re the one who spoke up for us before the Town Council. You’re the oldest, the one the others all listen to. Even Liam. What do you want for us?”

  “To be safe. To learn as much as we can about who we are and what we can do. To have normal lives.” I chewed on my lip, hesitating, looking for the right words. “To help Fremont, or maybe to fly away.”

  “I like the flying away idea.”

  Stripes pulled on her lead, and handling two animals became a chore, interrupting the conversation. We grazed the hebras for an hour, rotating them halfway through. What conversations were occurring back in Artistos? Alicia’s questions had started a hundred more questions, a river of questions, running inside me. I sang songs to the oblivious hebras, trying to capture some coherent meaning from the tumbling possibilities. All my energy had been spent keeping us safe. Sort of. Except for Alicia’s bruises and Joseph’s fear.

  Kayleen finished fixing the node and Paloma tested it. Alicia and I packed everything except the perimeter bells. The hebras stood placidly, fed and watered, their saddles and face harnesses set out neatly in a row by the corral. The four of us sat in the log circle, Paloma regaling us with tales of seeking herbs for her salves while I twisted my fingers in my hair, worrying.

  We jumped to our feet as Tom and Joseph crashed out from under the trees into the clearing, Joseph in the lead, setting off the entrance tones. Joseph sawed on the reins, pulling Legs to an awkward stop just in front of us. The hebra shifted uneasily. A dead djuri, dressed and bled, lay across Legs’s saddle bump and two dead jumping prickles hung from the back of his saddle. A wide grin split Joseph’s face. “I got them all!” he crowed.

  Tom pulled Sugar Wheat up next to Legs. His eyes flashed approval and some other emotion I couldn’t quite read—jealousy, concern? Disbelief? “It was incredible to watch.”

  “You didn’t let him use the stunner?” Paloma asked.

  He looked at her like she’d grown two heads. “Of course not.” He dismounted, and reached up to pull the djuri body down, so it fell onto the gras
s with a solid whump. It looked sad, all the grace gone from its slender legs. Its long neck had been snapped, so the head twisted backward, resting unnaturally on its curving black horns. Legs sidestepped, as if trying to get as far away from the dead animal as possible.

  Joseph almost glowed, his eyes flushed and bright with achievement. “I just…I tied Legs up near the edge of a clearing. I got the prickles first.” He pointed. The jumping prickles hung from their long spiky tails, tied on with leather straps looped through the saddle rings. They were end-of-summer fat, tan spiky balls twice the size of my fist, their long, strong legs hanging limply, their sharp fur bent and broken. “I jumped ahead of them. That’s all. I just…I could tell where they were going to be, and I was there before them.” He smiled again, holding out his palms, so I could see the shallow scratches the prickles’ hair had dug into his skin.

  Tom laughed. “It was like you knew how to scare them just so, so they’d jump just so, and you’d simply be there.” He looked at Paloma. “He caught them. I’ve never seen anyone catch a prickle bare-handed before.”

  Paloma grimaced, holding her hands out in front of her, as if imagining one of the sharp-furred beasts in her own palms.

  “And the djuri?” Kayleen asked.

  Joseph looked down at the dead animal. “I caught it.”

  “You caught it? Running?” Paloma asked, skepticism warring with wonder on her face. Djuri were fast, faster than hebras.

  Alicia looked at me, as if to say, “See, we should run,” a saucy light in her eyes and a quiet grin on her bruised face. I grinned back. We were, after all, with Tom and Paloma. They didn’t seem to mind our skills.

  This must be how Jenna lived, how she protected us. I looked at Joseph’s face. Somehow it seemed different, like the transformation when he first began connecting to the data networks. Maybe this was what he needed: confidence. I smiled at Tom’s cleverness, then glanced over at him, catching his eye.