The Silver Ship and the Sea

by Brenda Cooper

  Tom added, “I don’t have many details. Nava told me that Bryan broke Garmin’s arm.”

  This was bad. I could see Garmin’s face, taunting us, hear his harsh tones. I snapped, “Garmin baits us all the time. I’m sure he started it. I can’t tell you how often Bryan has ignored him—I know he never started any of the arguments we had. We all learned to ignore Garmin.”

  Tom looked surprised, as if the idea that we had our own troubles with people our age hadn’t occurred to him.

  Alicia started gathering the lunch things, even though most of the food was still uneaten. “We’re going back,” she said.

  “It’s three-day-old news,” Tom said. “We’re finishing lunch, and we’re going on to the next node, and then we’ll decide if we go back or go on. Nava asked us to stay out here.”

  “So Nava told you to keep this from us?” I demanded.

  Tom shook his head. “We all talked about it together.”

  Alicia stopped, still holding the tray, and glared at him, her violet eyes snapping with anger, her long dark hair loosely back from her face, exposing her slender neck. “I’m sick to death of people not telling me things. I’m tired of being told what to do. Of other people making decisions for me.” Every muscle in her body looked tense.

  Her anger felt dangerous, its heat thawing my own anger and betrayal.

  “Alicia.” I took the food tray from her hands and set it down. “We aren’t done with our lunch. Do you expect to just barge into Artistos and break him out? We have to think.” I stood looking down at her, realizing I couldn’t have the conversation I needed around Tom and Paloma. “Come on, Alicia, Joseph, Kayleen—let’s go talk.” I looked at Paloma, and said, “You just told us that you can’t solve our problems for us. You’re right. You helped us get out here, helped keep Alicia safe, but this time we make our own decisions.”

  Paloma gulped and looked at Kayleen. A tear streaked down Paloma’s cheek. Tom frowned, but he bobbed his head in a short nod. “Don’t go far.”

  Just out of earshot would be fine. No one else had moved. “Well?”

  Alicia rocked back on her heels. “Did you hear me? I’m tired of being told what to do. No one made you my keeper either, Chelo.”

  Kayleen answered by standing up and stepping next to me, taking my hand.

  Alicia didn’t move, just stayed in her squat on the blanket, a coiled spring ready to fly. Her face was set, her jaw tight. Only her eyes showed anything but anger. In them, uncertainty flashed.

  Joseph went over next to her, putting his hand on her back, looking at me with a terrible ripped expression on his face, as if he were caught in two conflicting moon tides. I held his eyes, willing him to walk to my side, our gazes both unwavering for at least five breaths. It seemed like the entire lunch party had frozen in place, waiting for movement.

  Joseph dropped his eyes.

  Instead of walking over to me, he squatted down to Alicia, looking her in the eyes, holding his hand out. His hand hung there in the air for a long time before she took it, standing and following him to join Kayleen and me. I gestured ahead of us, and Joseph and Alicia, hand in hand, led us down toward the lake bank. None of us looked back to where Tom and Paloma sat silently, but I felt them watching us, felt a small gulf opening between us and their support.

  We sat near where we’d taken the hebras out, the lake spreading in front of us, the mountains that held the cave—held relics of our past and future—to our left, barely visible beyond the curve of Little Lace Lake. A light wind blew off the lake, smelling of water and moss and soaked logs. Alicia sat nestled in Joseph’s arm on my left, Kayleen on my right. “All right,” I said. “This is bad. We don’t know how bad. We know Bryan’s in trouble, and that he can’t get himself out of it. And I suspect whatever happened hasn’t helped us.”

  “Mom will support us,” Kayleen said. “And Tom.”

  Alicia sat up straighter, looking past me to Kayleen, her eyes cool. “Really? They didn’t tell us about Bryan.”

  “And what would have happened if they had?” I asked. “Would we have spent the day with Jenna, learned the things we learned? No one wants to go get Bryan as much as I do. But what if we go back and they lock us up? What if we go back and we can’t change anything? We need a plan.”

  “Bryan and Liam broke me out,” Alicia said. “I can’t bear to leave him there, not after he helped me.”

  “And you couldn’t bear to be locked up again, either,” I snapped. “We’re doing what they want, and we’re learning things they don’t know about, things we need to know. It’s impossible to talk to Jenna for long in Artistos, even when we aren’t being watched carefully. She stops it herself. She knows better than to draw attention.”

  “I wonder if she knows what’s going on in Artistos?” Kayleen asked. “Is that why she showed us the cave?”

  “Maybe she’s there now,” Joseph said, “looking after Bryan.”

  Alicia stood up, standing with her back to the lake, watching the three of us. “So no matter what, you’re dependent on someone else? On Tom and Paloma, or on Jenna?”

  I watched her carefully as I said, “Don’t underestimate the people in Artistos just because we are stronger than any one of them. You heard Tom and Paloma’s story the other day. Three hundred people stronger than us—adults who understood what and who they are—lost a war with Artistos. We couldn’t win.”

  She gazed back at me, her face as angry as when she crouched on the blanket.

  I continued, trying to soften my voice, to draw her in. “But you’re right. We must decide what we want. Not what anyone else wants for us. But even then, we may need help.”

  Alicia sat back down, still close to Joseph, but this time not touching him. “I know what I want. I want to live by ourselves, just us. There’s six of us. Seven if you count Jenna. That’s enough to start our own town, or to be our own band. Liam and I know how to travel, and you four know how to farm and grow things.”

  “Six.” I swallowed. “Or seven. It’s not an adequate breeding pool. I know that from how carefully we keep records, and how the Town Council has to approve marriages. Six won’t do unless we learn more about genetics ourselves, and can design out defects. I don’t even know if we have that information here.” I glanced at Joseph. “Or the tools.”

  He shook his head. “We might have the data. I have almost no idea what Jenna gave us yet, for the most part. Even if I could, it’s not like learning to pick corn. It would take training.”

  “Paloma understands as much genetics as anyone here,” Kayleen said.

  Alicia grimaced.

  I held up my hands for silence. “Okay, so Alicia wants us to live by ourselves. There are some problems there, but let’s each have a chance to talk. Kayleen?”

  She tucked her knees in close to her, wrapping her arms around them, and glanced over her shoulder toward Tom and Paloma before speaking. “I want to live by ourselves, in one big house, but in Artistos. I would feel safer there, and I don’t want to leave Mom.”

  “Joseph?” I asked.

  “I’m with Alicia. We can hunt, I bet we can kill predators, and we wouldn’t have to hide anything. I want to be free to go to the cave, to see Jenna, to travel.” He scooted closer to Alicia and squeezed her around the waist, then leaned in to kiss the top of her head. “I’m tired of being told what to do.” He frowned. “But I know what you want, Chelo. Like Kayleen, you want to live in Artistos.”

  I chewed on my lip. He was right, and that meant we were split. “You and Alicia could join the West Band.” I glanced at Kayleen. “Or maybe we all could. We don’t have the skills, today, to live completely apart, not even as a group. But there’s something else I’ve been thinking about.” I made sure to look each of them in the eye, to make them nod before I looked away. “We’ve always helped out. Maybe we did it for the wrong reasons. But the best outcome for us and everyone in Artistos is for them to let us live there, and to value our skills. We have something to offer them.
”

  “I don’t care if they all die,” Alicia said, sliding a little away from Joseph. “It would be a lot easier on us.”

  Kayleen stiffened, her eyes flashing. “But I do,” she snapped. “I don’t like them all, and they don’t all like me, but I love Paloma and Akashi and Liam and Bryan and even Tom. Gianna. We have friends there.”

  “I have no friends in Artistos,” Alicia said, her voice even and flat, unemotional. “And only one good friend in the band. Just Sky.”

  Joseph pulled her into him. I could have planted my own kiss on his cheek when he said, “Chelo’s right. We can help. If we can’t figure out how to make them let us help, we leave until they will let us. They’ll need us someday. For more than fixing data networks. Jenna’s probably saved twenty lives so far with her predator kills. They’ll see.”

  Alicia shook her head. “I don’t want to live in Artistos or to help them. But I want to stick with you three for now. That will have to be enough.”

  It wasn’t. We needed to be united, and even Joseph didn’t yet see that living on our own, away from Artistos, wasn’t all right. I drummed my fingers and fidgeted. “Okay,” I said. “We know we don’t want to be told what to do and we’re tired of living with the adults. So we know what we don’t want. We know two of us want to live in town and two don’t.”

  They all nodded. Alicia said, “Now that the preliminary chat is out of the way, what do we do? We can’t ignore Bryan.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. We better talk to Liam. Maybe I can get Tom to let us do that.”

  “I don’t want to let Tom off the hook for not telling us,” Alicia said.

  “And so we…do what?” Kayleen asked. “Ignore him?”

  Alicia shook her head. “I feel like a prisoner.”

  I had no counter…I felt the same way. But I didn’t want to agree and feed her anger. “All right. Joseph, there’s one more node here to fix. Can we get to it tonight?”

  He nodded. “It’s only a few hours away. After that, there’s nothing left to do but make our way around the lake.”

  I looked at the far shore, calculating in my head. “We’ll still have to camp one more night. It’s too far to get back to the fork before dark. Let’s talk to Liam, and then decide what to do next. I want to get Bryan out of Artistos, but I don’t know how to do that yet.”

  “We could break him out if Jenna helped,” Alicia said. “She can get through the boundaries.”

  The idea made me squirm uncomfortably. “We need to find out what’s happening first.” I glanced at the sun, which had started its afternoon transit. “Let’s talk again as soon as we camp—maybe all four of us taking the first watch. Whatever we have to do.” I stood. “But first, we should move. Sitting and talking all day won’t help Bryan.”

  I took Kayleen’s hand, reaching my free hand for Joseph’s. He took mine and then took Alicia’s. I wanted us to walk back looking united, even though we had agreed on very little. The gesture was pretty much wasted on Tom and Paloma, who were so deep in conversation they didn’t notice us until we were almost back in camp. They had packed up, and sat ready to go.

  “Kayleen and Alicia—it’s your turn to run,” I said. Alicia favored me with a brief glare, but they obeyed, standing while Joseph and Tom helped Paloma mount up. Tom and Paloma did not ask us any questions, nor did they seem surprised that we were ready to just keep going. I glanced over at Tom. “I’d like to set a fast pace.”

  He nodded. “Well, then. Take the lead.”

  I drew in a breath and made my voice sound calm. “I want to talk to Liam when we stop.”

  He looked long and hard at me. “I’ll talk to Akashi.”

  So the balance of power between us was shifting, but not entirely. If it was this hard to get Tom and Paloma to let us choose our own path, how much harder would it be to convince Nava, Hunter, and Wei-Wei?

  This time, I let Joseph ride by himself. They’d just assume he was lost in thought about Bryan, and perhaps he could figure out something about Bryan. I asked Tom and Paloma what else was happening in Artistos, but they offered no more information. I couldn’t tell if they had none, or just weren’t willing to share.

  We settled into a quiet and uncomfortable ride. Alicia pointed out fresh paw-cat tracks once, a reminder to keep good watch.

  After an hour, we traded runners out. Joseph and I stayed close to the others, nervous of paw-cats and both quiet.

  The next data spike had simply lost its power, probably not even related to the quake. Tom and Joseph worked quietly together. Paloma made no protest when Tom agreed with us that we could keep going for another hour to take advantage of the light.

  We camped in the open, on a little muddy beach in the last set of hills before the path intersected the fuller and deeper Little Lace Forest. Tom and Kayleen laid the perimeter bells, building a U-shape with the lake at the opening of the U. When they finished, Tom said, “Okay, now we need some firewood. Why don’t you four go out together? You’ll be safer that way. I’ll pitch the tents while you’re gone. Gather a lot of wood—we’re so in the open here that I’d like a big fire to ward off any predators.”

  In other words, he and Paloma wanted to be alone. I met his eyes. “I want to be here when you talk to Akashi.”

  He nodded. “I know you do.”

  I held out my hand. “Can we have an earset in case we need it?”

  Tom shook his head. “Not until we all talk, later. Just stay close enough to yell if you need us.”

  Who was he trying to keep us from communicating with? I frowned, but turned anyway and started off. The other three followed me. We set off the perimeter bells as we passed outside the safe zone.

  I led us to a downed tree I had spotted on our way in, in a small grove just a little ways back along the path.

  Joseph and Alicia walked together a little bit ahead of Kayleen and me, holding hands. Kayleen turned toward me, giggling. “Will you look at them?”

  I remembered Trading Day, when it had seemed like Joseph had a crush on Kayleen. “Do you mind?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t want to be Joseph’s girlfriend. And he needed something to drag him out of his shell—better he hunts a girl than the local wildlife. They’re kind of cute together.”

  “So you don’t like hunting?”

  She shrugged. “Someone’s got to do it. I don’t want to. But I do worry for her, and for him because of her. She cried on our last run. Earlier, she stayed angry the whole time.”

  “Did you try to talk to her? Alicia told me a few days ago that she feels like you don’t like her.”

  Kayleen scowled. “She’s not making it easy to like her.”

  Joseph and Alicia reached the downed tree ahead of us and started ripping off branches, Joseph filling Alicia’s arms. As I held out my arms for a pile of wood, he asked me, “So, what are we going to do? Go back tomorrow?”

  “I want to. But maybe we need to stay out until you understand more.”

  He laid two heavy branches across my outstretched arms and started adding smaller pieces. “I made some progress this afternoon. I can separate the two strands of data now, but I still can’t control the new one.”

  Alicia asked, “Can you read the Artistos data? Can you find out what’s happening in town? I hate waiting for them to tell us.”

  Joseph silently finished giving me a full load of branches. The rough edges scratched my bare hands. He turned and ripped off another branch, as wide as his biceps, the cracking sound satisfying. When he turned back to hand the branch to Kayleen, he said, “I probably could. But I don’t think I can do it without leaving traces. Yet. I was probing the net a few hours ago. I think we better wait until we’re closer; they’ll just shut down the nets if they think I’m poking around. Remember how Tom said Hunter had them watching for signs that Jenna might be in there? I got in a lot of trouble when I got caught at that years ago, and that means they’ll remember I can do it.”

  I
glanced at Alicia. “I think it’s best not to probe. Not now.” I sighed and shifted the load of wood a little, speaking softly to Joseph. “But you should be ready.”

  He kept adding branches to Kayleen’s pile. “I know. I don’t like it, but I can certainly do it. But I can only do it for sure once.” He picked up two branches for himself. “I’ll travel light. Someone should have their hands basically free.”

  So we walked back, slowly, burdened with piles of wood. My legs were tired from the run, and I felt like sitting down around a fire and not moving would be the best thing in the whole world. The sun had fallen far enough that we walked in twilight, even though it still shone on the tops of the hills above us.

  I felt like an outsider to Artistos, like I was planning, or at least preparing for, an assault on my home.

  18

  The Fork in the Path

  Tom smiled and joked as he helped us stack the wood by a fire pit he had dug and surrounded with gray river stones. His voice trembled a little, as if the friendliness was being dragged over some other feeling I couldn’t identify; maybe worry about what we would do next, or better, remorse over hiding information about Bryan from us.

  As soon as we finished, Tom motioned us to gather near Paloma. She lay nestled in a pile of saddlebags, her foot propped up, looking small and tired in the near-dark. Kayleen squeezed next to Paloma and rubbed her shoulders, and the rest of us gathered in close.

  Tom held a hand up for attention. “Time to call the West Band.” He gestured toward the data reader next to him, like Paloma, propped in saddlebags. It surprised me that he had set it up to route the other side of the conversation from his earset through its speakers. He took his earset off and twisted it, changing channels to match the roamers’ frequency. He fit the set back over his ear, the small dark knob visible like a black stone beneath his earlobe. “Akashi?”

  “Here. Tom?” Akashi’s voice was barely recognizable through the tinny high-pitched speakers. We all leaned in closer to hear him.