by Andrew Post
But then he noticed there was a third shape outside, shorter than the other two. I thought we were picking up one.
After detangling himself from his harness, he exited the starship too, dropping into the choking syrup of hot fumes gathered around the ship’s landing gear. Waving a hand in front of his face, he marched toward the group under the nose-cone lights. The softness of sand felt strange after so much time on Adeshka’s solid pavement.
Nevele had her arms wrapped around her friend, peppering his face with kisses, hiding him from Aksel’s view.
But as soon as she moved aside to introduce him, Aksel’s DeadEye shot out of its socket, his eyelid momentarily caught on the barrel’s tip.
Clyde looked just like them.
In a surprising display, Nevele put herself between Clyde and Aksel’s DeadEye. Still, as dismayed as Clyde may have been, Aksel noticed he’d gone to draw his sword.
“Sorry,” Aksel said, using his palm to coax the barrel to collapse into his head. “For a moment there, I thought . . .” Did they really put that much fear in me?
“It’s okay,” Clyde said. He moved around Nevele, released his hand from his sword to extend it toward Aksel. His handshake was firm.
Aksel was still unsettled by how much this Pyne looked like an amalgamation of the other three.
“Thank you for helping Nevele,” Clyde said. “But who did you think I was? I don’t believe there’s many people I could easily be mistaken for.” He smiled uncomfortably.
Aksel looked to Nevele. Doesn’t he know any of this? he tried to make his face read.
Nevele took Clyde’s arm. “Uh, well, we have some things to catch you up on.”
“What is it? Have you found my siblings? Are they okay?”
Aksel said, “Actually, the thing is—”
A voice called out with the thickest Lakebed drawl Aksel had ever heard. “Might also wanna learn him that trustin’ those familiar with the local fauna wouldn’t be such a bad idear.” A dirty-faced young man, using a harpoon as a crutch, stepped into the ship’s lights.
Nevele looked at Clyde askance.
“This is Emer,” Clyde said, bringing the boy into the group. “He has been an invaluable help to Rohm and me.”
“Rohm?” Aksel said, not seeing anyone else present.
A white frisk mouse popped up from under the flap of Clyde’s jacket pocket. “I’m Rohm. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Aksel nodded. “Okay, then. Sure. A talking mouse. I probably shouldn’t think it’s all that strange, but somehow right now I do.” A bubbly titter escaped his lips.
Maybe it’d come on a delay, the day’s events catching up to him now. “You mind if I sit? I think I need to sit.”
CHAPTER 11
White Lies, White Sand
So you really don’t know anything, do you?”
Flam shook his head. “No. I’ve told you I don’t.”
And as soon as he was done speaking, Nula eased off. Relief came as his thoughts were relinquished into his control. He’d felt a similar sensation before, that invasiveness that would crack a whip and make his mind jump to Clyde or Nevele whenever Nula would ruffle his fur or pat his shoulder, the stories tumbling out on their own. This time it was as if she had his skull open and was snapping a pointer to the bits she found interesting, demanding his immediate explanations of what they meant.
Before, he’d thought it was only the butterflies you’d feel whenever your crush touched you, even accidentally. Not so. And apparently she could hear that thought as well.
She sighed. “Believe me, I didn’t want to do it this way, but gaining your trust was just easier. Takes less when it’s voluntary. Doing it by force, making you speak, would’ve invited unwanted attention, considering who you are. If you suddenly disappeared . . .” She peered down at her hands, crestfallen. “I didn’t want to do that.”
“Why do you want Clyde dead, anyway? What did he ever do that was so wrong?”
Nula swallowed. “It’s not really mine, wanting it.”
“Then who?”
“Raziel, my brother.”
“Can’t you say no?”
She closed her eyes tight, shook her head. “It’s always been the three of us. Our father said Clyde was dead and . . . and he was, as far as we knew, for years. He came back and took the throne after we’d already lost it to Gorett—who we suspect had our continent passes blacklisted so we couldn’t leave Embaclawe when our father was said to have died. Raziel was furious. We only managed to leave by stealing a starship from the academy—with some help from our small arms instructor’s assistant, Karl—but by the time we’d decided to go after Gorett, we heard Clyde wasn’t really dead. It filled Tym’s and my hearts with joy, but Raziel took it differently. Much differently. And . . . I guess Raziel’s anger was the communicable kind.”
“Clyde did try to find you, though. It’s just that he had to do something. With so many people coming back from the refugee camps, they needed someone to send their questions up to, someone to listen to them. He had to take the stewardship. I mean, it’s not like the minute we got topside he plunked down in the throne and declared, ‘This is henceforth all mine.’ He hasn’t taken the throne from anybody, because he hasn’t taken the throne at all. He wants Gorett to pay for what he did—the man who had your father killed, for Meech’s sake. But you act like Clyde was the one who stuck the sword in the man’s—”
Nula raised a hand. “I don’t . . . want to talk about that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Would that sort of talk make you uncomfortable? Silly me. Because here you sit, grilling me to know where your own brother, my friend, is so you can go kill him.”
They’d been in the Patrol vehicle a while. It was starting to get stuffy. The tip of Flam’s nose was always dewy, but now it was practically dripping.
“Well?” he said in her long silence.
“Yes. Yes, that’s what we have to do. It’s the right thing. Raziel belongs on the throne, not Clyde.”
“Nula—”
“Please, Flam, that’s not my . . . I know that you grew awfully attached to her and really liked her, but she was never real. And I don’t blame you for not knowing anything about what Clyde and Nevele are up to. They’ve been thorough in keeping their plans secret.”
“But why me?”
“Because you were his only friend still in Geyser.”
“Okay, this time, why really?”
She finally met his gaze. “You were nice.”
For a moment, they shared the dark quiet of the armored auto. Traffic passed by on Armand, passengers never seeing them parked behind the tanner’s building. The dispatch continued to summon any straggling guardsmen from their beds or pub tables to the station.
They repeatedly called for auto twenty-one, theirs, but Flam never bothered to reach for the receiver, suspecting what Nula might do if he tried.
Instead, Flam listened to the death toll rise and watched, absently, as the headlights streaked the wall ahead of them. His mind ran on and on with shock. The world is coming apart.
“So what now?” he finally said, too disgusted to look at her.
“I’m waiting for my brothers to call.” She withdrew a small device from a hip pocket and tapped the screen to wake it up. She stared at it, her face lit blue. “I don’t know what’s keeping them.”
“Your weekend holiday?” He scoffed.
“Flam . . .”
His eyes went wide, more things clicking into place. “The frigate. Did they . . . ?”
Her face remained set. Flam watched her for any indication, any tell in her painted face. And there it was. The tiniest twitch wrinkling her left eyelid. Telling enough.
“Meech on his throne. You’re not just Clyde’s younger siblings all bellyaching you don’t get to sit in the big, important chair. You’re no better than the Odium. People died on that frigate, Nula. A lot of people. And it was heading here, which meant there may’ve been some people I know on tha
t thing. My friends, our coworkers maybe.”
“I know.” Nula moaned, putting her face in her hands. “I know.” When she lifted her head again, more of her makeup was gone—fingers leaving ten white dots on her cheeks and temples. “I’m sorry, but it was the only way to get help in protecting Geyser.”
He moved to knock the blade away, to try and grab her, get cuffs on her.
But she was quicker. A small gesture: one shoulder shifting. At first he thought she had kicked him, feeling something knock against his breastplate.
But when he looked down, jutting between the panels of armor was Nula’s side sword.
She actually just stabbed me. The thought passed fluidly, processed clearly. He looked up as she withdrew her hand from her end, leaving the blade stuck where she’d put it.
Tears created dual pale rivers down her face.
The pain came, delayed. He groaned, his back straightening on its own. The sword’s bite seemed to spread.
He heard her door clunk open and managed to steer his glance—with pain dotting stars in his vision—in her general direction.
She stood there, her makeup mask mostly gone, a peerless white like that of the dead. But her face now was anything but dead. It wore a bouquet of things: regret, confusion . . .
“I’m sorry,” she said again, barely a whisper. “I had to. He’d read me, and if he sees I didn’t hurt you in some way, he’ll think I may’ve started to . . .”
“Nula,” he managed.
“It’s Moira.” She closed the door between them.
Flam reached. It hurt to move. He felt like he’d been pinned in place. “Wait!”
Her boot heels clicked on the asphalt as she tore away. From the side mirror, Flam glimpsed her bringing her device to her ear as she ran. He caught one final snippet of her small voice before she fell from view: “Karl, my cover’s blown. I need extraction.”
Nevele let Emer squeeze her hand as the Praise to Her’s on board mechanical medic dug the bullet from his leg and patched him up, the stitch work commendable, for a bot’s. Then, flighty on painkillers, the boy was able to be a boy again. Under the moon, he made a constant circuit of the starship as if it were his to protect. Gun tucked into the belt cinching his threadbare jacket, he marched around and around. Even though he didn’t need the harpoon anymore, he continued to march with it like a knight proudly flying with his kingdom’s banner.
Wa-roooo, deep and melancholy, sounded out of the night. The first time they’d heard it, all but Emer had nearly jumped out of their skin. He, instead, clambered on top of the Praise to Her and pointed into the distance. There, among the wisps of clouds, was a pod of sky whales. Their long bodies lit up ethereally. Big tails slowly swept, propelling them in a patient tour of the Lakebed by indigo moonlight. Wa-roooo.
Emer suggested their song was a form of echolocation. It made Nevele think of Tym, who might require a similar method to navigate by since she’d struck him sightless. She wondered when she’d tell Clyde about what she’d done to not only Tym and Raziel but also to Zoya Kesbanya’s father.
Still, honest with herself about what she’d done, she realized how often she wondered about Zoya. Where life had taken her, what kind of person she’d turned out to be. Nevele could dodge the memories of bubbles on a muddy river’s surface easily enough, because the golden goodness of having saved Zoya’s life outshone what she’d done to facilitate it. Or maybe that was how sociopaths thought, developing selective memories, cherry-picking what story fit their fancy best. Nevele cringed at the thought of being more nuts than even she was aware of and focused on imagining Zoya as she was now, safe and well.
How old would she be now? Nevele did the math, counting against her own twenty-two years. Wherever Zoya was, she was sixteen now. Wow. Sixteen.
But as hard as she tried, thinking about Zoya stirred up thoughts of bubbles. Those bubbles. Maybe Nevele did share a dark streak with her brother, after all. One that was hidden, as if drawn in ink that would remain undetectable until dragged under the right type of light.
She turned. Clyde. He was talking to Aksel, sitting in the holds as Aksel brought him up to speed on his family, hanging on the Bullet Eater’s every word. Sometimes he’d turn, apparently able to feel her gaze, and loose a little smile her way. He loved her so much but knew so little about her. She returned the smile and turned away, unable to look him in the eye for much longer. She watched Emer pass yet again, patrolling, chin high.
“My mother was in the Fifty-Eighth militia with you?” Clyde was saying.
Nevele’s ears pricked up.
Aksel nodded his greasy mop. “Yeah, she was. Practically the den mother to us brutes. And one of the strongest people I ever knew, weaver or not. And when I use that word, I mean, you know”—he shook a fist over his heart—“strength.”
“She was woven? But I thought . . .” He looked to Nevele.
She made a face that read, News to me. Susanne had passed long before Nevele had been given the title of Royal Stitcher. She’d been in school when it happened.
“You have to remember we were in a unit together only a handful of years,” Aksel said. “I was eighteen by the time it disbanded, so it’s been a while. A few times we came to Geyser to restock supplies and food and whatnot. She’d excuse herself to go off somewhere, and we didn’t think she was . . . you know, exchanging sweet nothings with
a prince.”
“My father.”
“And after I went my way and Nigel went his, I strolled into town one day and saw this procession going on, big fancy deal. And there was Susanne on the float right alongside Francois. A breeze could’ve knocked me over.”
“I apologize,” Clyde said, “but you didn’t answer my question.”
“Sorry,” Aksel said. “But, yes, she was woven. She could make you feel good.” He smiled, obviously remembering. “And I don’t mean any sort of encouraging words or compliments or any faff like that. She could just look at you. Got me through a lot of rough spots, those looks. ‘Diamond winks,’ Nigel used to call them.”
Clyde formed a faint, sad smile.
Nevele knew him well enough to realize he was thinking he would’ve liked to meet her, and Nevele had hated being the one to tell him about how a few months before his father fell ill, she’d passed away quietly one night after something had gone wrong delivering his little sister, Moira. Not even forty years old, Susanne was gone. Geyser had wept along with their king.
“Did you ever tell any of my siblings about this? That you knew their mother?”
Aksel shook his head. “Didn’t think it would win me any favors, so I kept it to myself. Not like it was hard, forgetting they were your mother’s children. Nothing like her. You, on the other hand, I can see some Susanne in you. Around here mostly,” Aksel circled his lips and chin with a finger. “She was a good one, Susanne.”
“When you knew her, did she ever say anything about—?”
“Perhaps we should think about moving,” Aksel said, taking a sudden deep breath and slapping his knees before standing. “We don’t have long to find Höwerglaz before the Odium does, if he exists.” He gave Clyde a hand up and clapped him on the back. “Chin up, yeah?”
“Yeah, chin up,” Clyde said with less heart.
Aksel stepped to the open hatch, leaning out to watch Emer make yet another pass around the ship. He turned back to Clyde and Nevele, thumbing over his shoulder. “We bringing him along?”
“He has nowhere to go,” Clyde said.
“Fine by me. Oy, you there, get your arse on board. We’re leaving.” Aksel hauled Emer inside and told him to find a seat and strap in. Then Aksel turned back to Clyde and Nevele. “I don’t understand something here. Why are you two looking for a man who may be make-believe, when people very much not make-believe are planning the destruction of your city? I have the Odium’s home base coordinates. Could go straight up there right now and—”
“Here, awright?” Emer, in the cockpit, was pointing at the p
ilot’s seat, currently under his bum, with a hopeful smile.
Aksel waved him off. “Yeah, sure, fine. Just don’t touch anything.”
“Y’all know thar’s a dead feller in here?”
“Yes. Don’t touch him either.” Aksel grunted. To Clyde and Nevele, he said, “Funny, I don’t recall drawing straws on who’s going to babysit.”
Nevele hid a smirk with her hand, playing it off as an itchy nose.
“So,” Aksel began again, closing the hatch behind him, “why not go after the Odium directly? The FTL’s tachyon generator seems to be in working order. Once it’s charged, getting to them would be no problem.”
Neither Clyde nor Nevele replied. Both wore hesitant, almost bashful looks.
“What?”
“I decided that when I became steward,” said Clyde, “we wouldn’t respond to any attack straightforwardly.”
Aksel waited for the punch line. “So if someone comes guns a-packing, you just smile politely, let them do as they will? As neighborly as that might be, progressive and all, if you like Geyser not as a smoking crater, you might want to reconsider taking the offensive a smidge.” He pinched the air and squinted.
“That’s not to say we’d do nothing,” Clyde said. “We’d use our brains, find a way to impede them. Locate their weak spots and employ subterfuge and sabotage. Anything we can to minimize instigating all-out war. Retaliation only leads to more retaliation.”
That sounded rather prepared, but okay. “Just so we’re clear,” Aksel said, eye closed, hands out, “you’ve been at this for a whole year, and all you know is you have three days to sabotage their warhead and find Father Time—and Father Time is the one you decide to pursue? Because I saw that warhead myself. And it is certainly no myth.”
“We’ve been working on this for a year,” Nevele said. “And while we received the news late, at least it wasn’t too late.”
“And I volunteered to find Ernest Höwerglaz,” Clyde said.
“You’re wastin’ your time,” Emer called from up front. “He ain’t gon’ get it.”
