Le Cirque Navire

by Chele Cooke

  “Freeze!”

  Lachlan turned as the beam of light hit him square in the face. He released the mesh with a rattling clang, throwing his injured hand up to shield his eyes.

  It was exactly what he’d wanted. Well, almost. He’d not intended for Hadley to be on the other side of the fence to him when the soldiers caught up. But being forced to surrender, he’d planned it this way. And yet, as he blinked at the bright flashlight beam, Lachlan felt his heart sinking.

  Hadley deserved more than this backwater city on a nothing speck of a planet. She’d be able to get away from the cirque, maybe onto a central planet.

  “Run,” he said quietly.

  He could hardly see the shapes of people on the other side of the fence. Boots crunched closer and he slowly moved his hand back towards his holster.

  “No! No!” Hadley cried, launching herself back at the fence. The mesh clattered when she hit, grabbing the loose wire and wrenching it towards her.

  “Drag her!” Lachlan snapped.

  “No! Stay where you are!” the bearer of the light yelled.

  “Get her out of here!” Lachlan yelled louder.

  One of the men, he thought Jack, wrapped his arms around Hadley’s waist and wrenched her from the fence. She kicked and hit, groans of pain mingling with the cried obscenities she flung at them, but as his eyes adjusted, he could see they were getting further away.

  The light dropped from his face, and on the other side of the flashlight, José stepped closer. His gun rested over the hand holding the flashlight, just like they’d taught them in their first training sessions. In that moment, he wanted to congratulate him on remembering, but the words stuck in his throat.

  “I can’t let you do this, Tack,” he said, taking another step. “I know why, but I can’t let you.”

  “You have no idea why I’m doing this.”

  He pressed his side against the fence, edging along it as José moved to circle him, push him back towards the street. The mesh pressed hard into his flesh as his fingers slid around the butt of his gun.

  Lachlan blinked, like the last of the illusion had finally melted away. He could hear Hadley crying, begging to go back. What the hell was he doing?

  Lachlan grabbed the fence.

  “Don’t do it, Tack!” José ordered. Perhaps the first time José had given him such a clear order. “I don’t want to shoot you, man.”

  “I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t. This isn’t you,” he implored.

  “Where are the others?”

  “They went to the gates.” He snorted like he was about to laugh. “I remember sneaking out this way to drink old Mr. Hale’s moonshine. You remember that, Lachlan? Me and you.”

  Lachlan was surprised to find that there was no anger to him. His features were scrunched in concern and concentration. José had joked around for so long that it was all Lachlan really remembered about him. He’d never been all that serious. Yet now his lips pursed into such a thin line that they disappeared between his teeth.

  “José…”

  “We’ve known each other since we were kids,” José blurted. “I was there when your parents vanished. You’ve worked so hard, you can’t give up now. Doing the same, running off, this isn’t you!”

  Pain clenched his stomach and tightened his chest, making it impossible to breathe. José moved closer as Lachlan wrapped his injured arm around his stomach, hugging himself. He stared down at the ground, the grass brown in the light… so familiar.

  “Being a good soldier was all that ever mattered to you, Lachlan.”

  Hadley gazed up at him from her bed, all bundled in blankets as he told her a story. She blinked back tears when he put a dressing on her knee. Her smile lit up the entire room when she announced she’d got a job at the docking station.

  He’d revolved his life around her. It wasn’t the coalition that had mattered to him, it was her. She was all that had mattered. Becoming a soldier had been to make sure she had a good life, to ensure that people wouldn’t look down on her because of their parents.

  They were his parents but they weren’t his family. Hadley was his family. Hadley was all that mattered.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed.

  José lowered his gun. He reached out to pat the flashlight against his friend’s shoulder.

  Lachlan drew his gun. The shot was deafening in the dark.

  The bullet tore through José’s wrist. Blood splattered across the wall of the house. The gun hit the ground with a thud. José’s screams pierced through the shadows.

  He couldn’t falter. He had to be a good soldier one last time.

  Turning his gun in his hand, Lachlan brought it down against José’s temple. José howled and flung his arm up, the light flashing across their faces. Lachlan brought the gun down again.

  José crumpled, hitting the ground with a thud. Holstering his gun, he grabbed the flashlight as it rolled away through the grass and crouched. José’s breath was steady, his shoulders rocking with each breath. Letting out his own breath of relief, Lachlan went to the fence.

  The edges of the mesh scratched at his face and shoulders as he forced his way through. His bag got caught about halfway. He wrenched it free, a long split appearing down the side, threatening to spill his few belongings. When he got to his feet on the other side, he moved the bag to hang across his chest, and he pressed his injured arm down on it, holding against his body as he set off in a sprint across the dark land.

  His sides seared with each breath. His broken thumb throbbed with each jolt. The light bounced across the ground in front of him. Lachlan prayed that he wasn’t too late.

  A thick heavy wind was blowing in from the south, carrying the smell of fuel and popping corn. He raced towards the ship. The stalks of the cut corn crunched under his boots with every step. The large black fence had been dismantled, the tents were taken down. Scorch marks and trash littered the ground in a wide arc before him. Lachlan lifted his gaze and tried not to notice. Up ahead, the mammoth ship flickered in and out of existence, changing from a swirling galaxy to the black backdrop of the sky. Windows winked like distant stars.

  The loading dock was the only part of the ship that remained truly visible. An orange glow spilled down the dock and across the field as men hurried back and forth, throwing things haphazardly inside. Lachlan grunted and forced his legs faster, his breath harder, racing against the last loading up the ramp.

  Hadley was sat just inside the cargo hold doors, her face buried in her hands when his foot finally landed on the metal of the ramp, his breath heavy and every muscle in pain. Jack nudged her in the ribs and pointed him out. Jumping to her feet, she sprinted to him and flung her arms around his waist.

  “God, Lach, I thought…”

  “I know,” he said.

  Marcus trudged down the loading dock and jerked his thumb up the ramp towards the cargo hold.

  “Come on, get on. We’re about ready to go.”

  They didn’t get far before Lachlan slumped against the wall, clutching the stitch in his side. Hadley helped him sit as the last of the cirque workers ran up the ramp carrying armfuls of metal pegs. The loading dock rose, the stars and corn disappearing behind a sea of rusted metal.

  A whoosh of air was silenced with a hiss as the loading dock sealed shut and all around them, cutting out everything but the roar and rumble of the engines, vibrating right down to his bones.

  The ship rocked and shuddered as it rose into the air, leaving Corapolvo behind.

  There was a sound to the ship like Hadley had never known before. The hum vibrated down the walls, a melody that moved up and down the scale depending on where you were and what the engines were doing. She’d been in ships when they powered up before. She’d even taken a few circuits of the city as they tested new machinery. However, in her twenty-one years, she had never been out of atmosphere.

  The racket as they’d left the atmosphere had been deafening. The ship shook and jumped as if it would f
all out of the sky at any moment or would break apart around them. It lasted a few minutes, she and Lachlan huddled against the wall of the cargo bay while the men lurched and rebounded between the crates, fixing things in place. Jack had explained that usually the cirque was packed away before the launch. However, with their fast departure, they’d needed to simply haul everything inside and the proper clear up would take place once they were out in the black.

  Everyone was expected to pitch in. Once the ship was in the air it didn’t matter whether you were a performer or worked behind the scenes. You pulled your weight or you found a new job.

  Once they were past the gravitational pull of Corapolvo, the launch engines turned off and the ship stabilised again. The autograv was turned on and people flooded down to the hold. Even though she’d attended the cirque, Hadley had never truly realised how many people worked there. Performers and crewmen alike bustled around the cargo bay, rolling tent canvasses, boxing pegs and guide ropes. Crates were hammered shut and dragged on trolleys by men twice as big as Hadley had ever seen. Wares were boxed carefully by their vendors and stashed into hidden cubbies. They chatted constantly, only throwing the occasional curious glance at the newcomers.

  It had been Marcus who finally ushered them over to a set of steep steps into the upper levels of the ship. He walked in front of them, pointing out different parts of the ship. The mess hall was where the main ring stood while they were on planet. The bridge was at the top but they shouldn’t go up there unless it was needed. Performers had upper deck quarters, workers lower decks. Hadley glanced at her brother to find he was looking at everything they passed with a cautious interest. He didn’t comment on the fact that they may not be quartered together.

  Up five more bare metal staircases and along more corridors than she could count, Hadley had absolutely no idea how she would ever find her way back to the bottom, or anywhere else for that matter. Marcus turned back to them, a broad smile on his lips.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Miss, this is you.”

  He pulled open the metal door, holding it wide for her. Hadley stepped inside, her stomach rising into her throat. Glancing back, Marcus watched her, one eyebrow raised, waiting for her to say something. She took a deep breath.

  “Thank you,” she squeaked, her strong reply not coming nearly as defiant as she’d hoped.

  Lachlan stepped forwards to peer inside but Marcus stretched his arm across the doorway.

  “You’ll be below, Captain.”

  To his credit, her brother didn’t snap or glare. He straightened and rolled his shoulders back.

  “Give me directions and I’ll find it once I’ve helped settle my sister in.”

  Marcus drummed his fingers against the doorframe and regarded him for a few seconds. He had a placid thoughtful smile on his face and he nodded.

  “I’ll find you one once everything is settled then.”

  Sliding his hands into his pockets and bouncing up onto the balls of his feet, Marcus walked away as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Lachlan patted her on the shoulder as he passed her. He turned in a full circle before heaving a deep sigh.

  “So, this is you,” he murmured.

  Hadley didn’t think she’d seen a place less her in her life. As she looked at the pictures in delicate frames and the colourful dresses in the open storage she knew it wasn’t her because it was someone else. Moving further into the room, Hadley gazed at a collection of photographs on the wall. There were large impressive buildings, perfect lakes surrounded by willow trees, and endless deserts dripping in sunlight. In the very centre, a tanned and laughing Annalise had her arms wrapped around Jack’s waist as he kissed her temple. Hadley turned away from them.

  The woman in that picture was gone, the man somewhere down below to await some unknown fate. This wasn’t her. She didn’t dare touch the pictures, let alone change them for photos of her own.

  “No, this isn’t me,” she said.

  But Lachlan had given up everything. He had come with her, and she couldn’t stomach the guilt of letting him think this was anything other than the right decision. Whatever felt wrong about this, she would just have to manage on her own.

  “But maybe with some work, it could be.”

  Even though Marcus came back to show Lachlan to his quarters later that afternoon, he was back within the hour. Lachlan was pale and shaky, and when Hadley touched his cheek he was clammy and cold. She offered him the bed for him to rest but he shook off her suggestion, telling her that he’d rather be busy.

  They organised Annalise’s belongings into neat piles and laid them along the wall on a folded up sheet. They slept top and tail on the bed in the middle of the day, or perhaps it was night time, they couldn’t tell and they didn’t bother to check.

  After two days, Lachlan still hadn’t returned to his own quarters. Marcus said that it was withdrawals that had him vomiting and feverish, and though he offered to help taper Lachlan off to make it more comfortable, her brother refused the spiked lemonade with such fury that even Marcus looked afraid of him. Lachlan retreated to the bed and wrapped himself in blankets until he sweated through them.

  The room was bare. No one had come to collect Annalise’s belongings. The only things of theirs that she had unpacked was a photograph of the two of them from when Lachlan had been sworn in and the toy elephant that had been Lachlan’s and then hers. It smelled of sand and corn and home. When Lachlan was particularly bad, she laid it next to his pillow so that the familiar smell might calm him. It didn’t work.

  Sometime in the third day, a man who introduced himself as Kenneth came to collect Lachlan. He looked more nervous than her brother as he waited for Lachlan to pull on his boots with shaking fingers. His thumb was strapped to the side of his hand, and he tucked his laces inside his boots instead of tying them.

  For an hour, Hadley paced the quarters and worried. Now that the cargo bay was organised and life had apparently returned to normal within the ship, had the ringmaster decided it was time to get rid of her brother? She left her quarters twice but only got halfway down the first corridor before she realised she didn’t know the first thing about where she would find Mr. Hatliffe. She considered finding Jack, but the fact the Advance man hadn’t come to see her drove her back to her quarters to pace some more.

  Lachlan was barely through the door before Kenneth waved her forwards.

  “Mr. Hatliffe would like to see you, Miss,” he said.

  Throwing a cautious glance at Lachlan, he nodded once and retreated to the bed, slumping down onto the mattress and burying his face in his hands.

  Hadley followed Kenneth along the corridor, trying to keep of the number of turns and the staircases. Mr. Hatliffe’s quarters were two levels above hers and around nine turns, but she lost track of whether the turns were left or right around the seventh. His door, unlike most of the others on the ship, was highly polished bronze. Kenneth knocked twice and pushed it open without waiting. He didn’t enter. He simply held his hand out for her to go inside.

  “Thank you, Ken. Would you close the door?”

  The door squeaked and then clanged as it shut and Hadley wished she hadn’t left her confidence on the other side.

  “Miss Tack, take a seat.”

  Mr. Hatliffe’s outer quarters weren’t particularly spacious. A carved dark wood desk stood near the centre with a chair free in front of it. A couch stood against one wall, bookcases against the other. There were trinkets and books crammed onto every shelf. Every wall had at least half a dozen photographs. Though, somehow, it didn’t look cluttered.

  The man in the office, however, was unlike she had ever seen him. He didn’t wear his smart ringmaster suit. Instead, he dressed in worn jeans and a loose linen shirt. His dark hair was still slicked back against his head but not as neat as it had been during the show. Hadley pulled the chair out opposite him and took a seat.

  “I thought it was about time you and I had a proper chat now th
at you are a member of this ship,” he said.

  He leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the desk, clasping his fingers before his lips. Hadley swallowed and shifted in her seat, glancing at the objects scattered across the desk.

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  There was a small vase holding a bouquet of pens. A stack of folded maps to one side, a litcom lying face down the way her brother did when he didn’t want her reading it. An ornate and beautifully carved box stood on one corner, swirls of vines that seemed to sweep into the shapes of animals with one glance and vanish the next.

  “Your brother has agreed to work on this ship in a position I see fit,” he continued. “And I believe it’s quite obvious which position you will hold.”

  Hadley stared at the box, trying to spot the vines moving. The longer the stared, the more they stayed resolutely still. It was only when she blinked that she noticed the differences.

  “Miss Tack!”

  Jumping, Hadley looked at him again, her eyes wide.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Yes, I know my position.”

  Mr. Hatliffe glanced at the box with narrowed eyes and quickly turned his attention back to her.

  “Our next stop will be in little less than a month. In that time, you will work with Marcus every day.”

  “Marcus?” she asked her insides squirming.

  “Yes. Our illusionist is the best person to help you hone your skills. He will teach you presentation and control.”

  Hadley nodded. He leaned closer. His eyes looked even darker up close.

  “You will present yourself as a professional whilst we are on the ground. You will never reveal that your gift is anything more than a well-honed trick.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Wrap the things you see in the tarot cards and the crystal ball, palmistry if you find that more to your taste. But under no circumstances are our customers to know that you have a true sight into their futures.”