The Orpheus Plot

by Christopher Swiedler

  “What if you get out there and decide that you’re better off on your own?” Rahul asked. “It would be much safer for you to just leave us all in here.”

  “I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

  Rahul snorted. “Fat chance of that.”

  Willem pursed his lips and looked away. Rahul’s words had clearly hurt him. It was definitely true that Willem hadn’t shown a whole lot of reason for them to trust him. But Lucas had made too many of his own mistakes to judge anyone for that.

  “It’s a good plan,” he said. “Let’s try it.”

  “Are you serious?” Rahul asked, wide-eyed. “What makes you think he’s not going to just let us rot in here?”

  Lucas shrugged. “If he does, we’re no worse off than we are right now.”

  Rahul turned to Elena. “What about you?”

  “I agree with Lucas,” Elena said. “Right now it’s our best option.”

  Rahul scowled. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Lucas and Willem went over to a table in the corner where Maria and Oliver were deep in conversation. “Hey,” Lucas said. “Willem has a plan for getting us out of here.”

  Maria and Oliver stopped and turned toward him. “If you’re thinking about getting into the door’s circuitry, we’ve already tried that,” Oliver said.

  Willem shook his head and pointed at the ventilation duct. “Get me up there and I can open the door from the outside.”

  Maria considered this for a moment. “That might work,” she said.

  “Worth a try,” Oliver said, peering skeptically at the air duct. “I just hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

  “I guess I’ll find out,” Willem said with a bleak smile.

  Oliver quickly organized the other cadets to help them, forming an unsteady human pyramid with Willem at the top. After a few aborted attempts, Willem managed to pull off the cover of the air duct and pull himself inside.

  “How much do you want to bet he just runs off?” Rahul said as Willem disappeared through the tiny opening.

  “Oh, stuff it,” Katya said. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “That’s funny,” Rahul said. “He said the exact thing about you, right before you drove off and abandoned us out on the surface.”

  It gave Lucas some satisfaction to see how that shut her up, even though he fervently hoped that Rahul was wrong in this particular case.

  “Is everyone ready?” he called out to the room. “As soon as Willem hits the alarm, we go.”

  There were a few murmurs of assent, though most of the kids just regarded him silently. They were scared, and who could blame them?

  “This is going to be dangerous,” he said. “But we’ve got some advantages. The miners are spread thin and there aren’t many of them left in the base. That’s our first advantage.”

  “Still, they have guns, and we don’t,” someone pointed out.

  “Right, but we have the element of surprise,” Lucas said. “That’s our second advantage. If we do this right, we can be halfway to the bazaar before they even react.”

  “Any more advantages?” Britta asked. “Because I feel like we could use as many as we can get.”

  “One more,” Lucas said, smiling thinly. “We’re kids. That means they’re going to underestimate us. And now we’re going to show them what it means to be a naval cadet.”

  He looked around the room. Was it his imagination, or were they all standing a little straighter? They were still scared, but they weren’t backing down, even though they knew the consequences. He didn’t know how much he’d managed to encourage them, but he did know that no matter what happened, he was proud to be a part of this group of cadets.

  He turned back toward the door. What was taking so long?

  “Willem should have hit that alarm by now,” Elena whispered. “What are we going to do if Rahul is right?”

  “He’ll do it,” Lucas said.

  A minute ticked by, and then another. Lucas’s nervousness grew. Some of the other kids started to mutter quietly to each other.

  “Maybe it’s time to start talking about alternative plans,” Elena said.

  Rahul strode over to the door and slammed it with his fist. “Willem, I swear, if you really did leave us here—”

  He was interrupted by a piercing alarm. The doors slid open and the overhead lights flashed warningly. “Evacuation,” a recorded voice said. “Please proceed to the nearest airlock. Evacuation.”

  Even though this was exactly what Lucas had been waiting for, the suddenness of it surprised him so much that he was briefly frozen in place. Maria lunged past Rahul and out into the corridor, followed by Oliver and Hanako. Elena pushed Lucas forward. “Go!”

  Lucas’s first thought, as his brain began to function again, was that they needed to find Willem and take care of any guards. But as he followed Maria and the other cadets out into the hallway, he found that wasn’t going to be an issue. Oliver and Elena had a Belter pinned on the ground in a complicated-looking arrangement that had one arm over his windpipe and a hand over his mouth. Nearby, Willem was leaning over, breathing heavily.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he gasped.

  “You did great,” Lucas said, helping him stand upright. “Are you okay?”

  Willem nodded. Elena and Oliver dragged the unconscious guard into the rec room. “He’ll be out for a minute or two,” Elena said, jogging back to them.

  “Then let’s hurry,” Maria said. She led the cadets down the hallway at a quick pace, stopping briefly to look around the corner of each intersection. The alarm was still blaring, but so far there was no sign of the miners. How long would it take them to search the base and find them?

  When Lucas reached the airlock, Maria, Oliver, and Elena were already passing out emergency suits. He did some quick math. With ten people at a time in the airlock, it would take five groups. It took around thirty seconds to cycle the airlock. They should all be outside in three minutes, if everything went well.

  Lucas saw Rahul putting on a suit. He grabbed his arm. “The airlock we went through,” he said. “It’s powered now. Do you remember where it is? Follow the rover tracks and keep the crater on your left.”

  “I remember,” Rahul said. He turned to the airlock and almost bumped into Willem, who was still putting on his suit. There was a brief moment of silence.

  “Sorry,” Rahul said gruffly. “I guess I should have trusted you.”

  Willem cocked his head to one side and gave a lopsided grin. “Hey, I don’t know if I would have trusted me.”

  Rahul snorted a little laugh and squeezed into the airlock with the first group of cadets. Lucas went around, helping some of the other kids with their emergency suits and ushering them into the airlock, packing them in as tightly as possible. When the last group had gone through, Maria turned to Lucas, Elena, and Oliver. “Our turn.”

  “Any sign of Tali?” Lucas asked.

  “Not yet,” Elena said.

  “We’re not leaving without her,” Oliver said.

  Maria shook her head. “We can’t wait around any longer. She can take care of herself.”

  “We’re not leaving her behind!” Oliver insisted. “I’ll stay here by myself if I have to.”

  “I’ll stay too,” Lucas said.

  “The rest of the cadets are waiting out there,” Maria said. “They need us.”

  “You go,” Oliver said. “Make sure they—”

  He stopped suddenly as Jonah and Stockton rounded a corner at a dead run about twenty meters away. “There!” Jonah shouted, pointing at them.

  Maria slapped the button to close the inner airlock door, but Jonah already had his pulse weapon leveled. There was a bright flash of light, and Oliver let out a quiet gasp. The door slid shut, and he sagged to his knees.

  “Oliver!” Maria screamed, grabbing him by the shoulders. A blackish-red dot had appeared on his chest, as if someone had jabbed him with a permanent marker. He looked up at Maria in confusion, and t
hen he collapsed on the floor of the airlock.

  20

  MARIA DROPPED TO the floor and put her hand over the wound in Oliver’s chest. The smell of burned flesh filled the airlock. Oliver’s mouth moved as if he was trying to speak, but no sound came out.

  “No, no, no,” Maria moaned. “Oliver! Stay with us!”

  Lucas knelt down beside them. He pushed Maria’s hands away and probed the suit material with his fingers. He couldn’t feel any holes or tears. Did these suits automatically reseal? There wasn’t time to find out.

  “They’re coming!” Elena said, looking through the window in the inner door.

  Lucas fastened Oliver’s helmet and then pulled on his own. When everyone was ready, Maria grabbed the airlock cycle switch and jerked it downward. The pumps roared and their suits ballooned. Lucas checked quickly to make sure that Oliver’s suit wasn’t leaking, and then he opened the outer doors and helped Maria and Elena carry him outside and lay him down.

  Stockton banged his fists on the inner airlock window and shouted inaudibly. Lucas grabbed a rock and set it down in the outer doorway, jamming the airlock open. Without an airtight seal, the airlock’s fail-safes would refuse to let the inner doors open. The Belters would have to find another way out onto the surface. It wasn’t much, but it would at least give them some time.

  Maria grabbed him and pulled him away from the airlock. Elena was holding Oliver under the shoulders. His eyes were half open and he was breathing, but barely. Would he last long enough to get him back inside the colony?

  The three of them lifted Oliver up and carried him along the trail. He was bigger than any of them, and even in the low gravity Lucas’s arms soon started to feel as if they were being dragged out of their sockets. His lungs wheezed with the exertion, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. After a few minutes the air quality indicator in his suit faded from green to amber. He was using too much oxygen. If he’d been smart, he would have put on a fresh suit back at the naval base, but there was no helping it now. Either his air was going to last, or it wasn’t.

  A splitting pain built up in his head, as if someone were sawing his skull open, millimeter by millimeter. His vision went blurry. He squinted and tried to get his eyes to focus. Oliver’s legs slid through his fingers, and he stumbled in one of the ruts in the trail. He collapsed hard on the ground, but the impact barely registered. All he could see was the faint red glow of the status light in his suit.

  Someone picked him up under his arms and dragged him forward. He tried to open his eyes to see who it was, but everything was gray. His lungs sucked in air, but there was no oxygen left in his suit.

  He was dropped unceremoniously on a smooth metal floor. The impact jolted him awake, and he sat up. A pair of hands ripped the flimsy plastic helmet off his head. Fresh air flooded over him, and he gasped.

  “Oliver, can you hear me?” Maria was saying. “Breathe!”

  My name isn’t Oliver, Lucas was about to say, but then he remembered what had happened. He blinked his eyes and looked around. They were back in the airlock in the old colony. Oliver was lying on his back next to Lucas, with his blood-smeared emergency suit torn down to his waist. Maria was kneeling over him, pressing her hands over the wound.

  Lucas stood up slowly and leaned against the wall. His lungs ached with every breath. Elena ran into the airlock carrying an armload of old Belter T-shirts from a nearby storeroom. Maria grabbed one and wadded it up to use as a bandage.

  “Where’s Tali?” Oliver mumbled.

  “She’s fine,” Maria said. “Just relax and breathe.”

  Oliver tried to push her away. “We need to go back.”

  “Oliver, you have to relax,” Lucas said hoarsely. “If you don’t—”

  “You’re lying!” Oliver said, thrashing his legs wildly. “We have to help her!”

  Maria tried to keep the bandage on his wound, but his agitation was making it difficult. They needed to calm him down. Lucas grabbed Elena and pulled her into the corridor. “Talk to him. Tell him Tali is okay. He’ll believe you.”

  Elena looked at Oliver, who was still struggling on the floor. “But—”

  “You have to,” he insisted. “You’re the one he’ll listen to. If Maria can’t keep pressure on that wound, he’s going to die.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she nodded and headed back into the airlock. “Oliver, listen to me,” she said, sitting down on the floor next to him. “Tali is fine.”

  Oliver turned his head to look at her. He looked confused for a moment, but then he relaxed a little. Quickly Maria grabbed a second T-shirt and switched it with the first, which was already soaked with blood. “You’re sure?” Oliver croaked.

  Elena put her hand on his forehead. “I promise,” she said, her voice tremulous. “I saw her just a minute ago. She went ahead . . . she went ahead to help the others. We all got out safe.”

  “Safe,” he whispered. “All of us?”

  Lucas knelt down next to him and held his hand. “All of us, Oliver. We did it.”

  Oliver’s muscles went limp, and he turned his head toward Elena. His breathing was still unsteady, and it was getting slower. “That’s it,” Elena said, stroking his temple. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  He nodded and he closed his eyes. Maria adjusted her makeshift bandage and looked at Elena and Lucas with an anguished expression. The bleeding wasn’t stopping. They were doing everything they could, and it wasn’t enough.

  Oliver coughed and gasped as if he was trying to say something, and then his body went rigid. Lucas held his breath, waiting for Oliver to inhale again. Please, he thought. Please.

  “Breathe!” Maria begged. “Breathe, Oliver!”

  But Oliver lay completely still, and Lucas knew that he wasn’t resting, or sleeping, or pretending. He was dead, and nothing was going to bring him back.

  Maria started to sob. Tears were already running down Elena’s cheeks. Lucas closed his eyes and clutched Oliver’s hand tightly, wanting more than anything in the world for his friend to squeeze back one last time.

  The three of them sat with Oliver for a long time, as if they all knew that as soon as they stood up, his death would be final and irrevocable. Lucas kept his eyes down, afraid to look at Oliver’s face. This was his fault. If he had had a better plan—if he’d stopped Tali from sabotaging the ship, if he had gotten the cadets out more quickly, if he had done something differently—Oliver would still be alive.

  “We need to find the others,” Maria said in a raspy voice.

  Elena and Lucas folded Oliver’s hands across his chest. They pulled the flimsy plastic emergency suit off his legs and left it in a corner of the airlock, and then the three of them carried his body down the stairs and along the hallway that led back to the storage room.

  When they arrived, the other cadets were clustered in a few small groups, talking quietly. Everyone fell silent and turned toward them as they carried Oliver’s body into the room. They set him down on a small pallet of boxes. Lucas found a thin white blanket on a shelf and spread it over him.

  Elena grabbed Lucas and hugged him tightly, burying her face against his shoulder. Her body shook as she wept. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to think of something to say. But what could he tell her? Oliver was dead. There was nothing that was going to change that.

  “I lied to him,” she said, her forehead still pressed against him. “I lied to him, and he’s still dead.”

  “Maybe it was a lie,” Lucas said. “But it was the right thing to do.”

  “I’m going to make them pay,” Elena said, wiping the tears away from her face. “They’re going to regret this. I promise.”

  Maria jabbed her finger at Lucas. “This is your fault!”

  “What are you talking about?” Rahul said. “He rescued us. If it weren’t for him—”

  “He’s a traitor!” she shouted. “If it weren’t for him, Oliver would still be alive!”

  “That’s
not fair!” Elena said.

  “Fair?” Maria snorted. “Tell Oliver what’s fair.” She shoved Lucas hard in the chest, and he stumbled backward into a stack of plastic boxes. “When this is all over—”

  Somewhere in the next room over, a door slammed shut. All the cadets froze.

  “As you can see, there’s nothing here,” came Smythe’s voice from the other room. “And now that I’ve indulged your curiosity, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “They’re here,” Stockton growled. “All of them. They’re here somewhere.”

  Lucas moved quietly to the wall next to the doorway so he could hear better. Was Stockton alone? Or had he brought enough Belters to force their way in?

  “The only muskrat children in the bazaar are the ones you yourself turned over to us a few hours ago,” Smythe said. “Unfortunately, they seem to have run off. We’re not very good babysitters, I’m afraid.”

  “I saw them,” Stockton insisted. “They ran back here. Find them!”

  “Find them yourself,” Smythe replied coolly. “You may be in charge of that base, but here in the bazaar, you’re just another citizen.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, and then Stockton grunted. “You’re choosing the wrong side in this fight, friend.”

  “I don’t usually choose sides, friend,” Smythe said. “It’s not good for business. But you’re making me reconsider that position.”

  The door leading into the store slammed again. After a moment, Smythe’s son, Jo, and his friend Mai unlocked the storeroom door and came inside. Jo looked around and folded his arms.

  “Last we looked, there were two muskrats cadets in here,” he said, glaring at Lucas. “Can someone please explain how we’ve now got an entire school?”

  “These are my friends—” Lucas began.

  “We know who they are,” Mai said. “And those idiot miners know who they are too, which means they’ll be back. With guns.”

  “So what happens now?” Elena asked.

  “If it were up to me, we’d just turn you over,” Jo said. “But this is all something for the merchants’ council to decide. In a little while they’ll be meeting to talk about it.”