“So, sister,” she said, not looking at me. “You’ve thrown yourself over the edge. You’re a criminal.”
“Nova.” I sat on the bed next to her. “It’s not that simple.”
“Oh, I know.” She still wouldn’t look at me. She just kept manipulating the light between pinched fingers. Knit, purl. “The captain told me all about their intentions while you were out on the hull. And then those awful news reports . . . ”
“It’s not their fault that thing attached to the hull. They don’t know where it came from. They’re just trying to help their pilot. Help us.”
She huffed a sarcastic laugh, and her knitting project fluttered under the puff of breath. “Well, if by ‘us’ you’re referring to yourself and the rest of the crew, fine, but don’t lump me in with that lot.”
My sister was as contained as ever, knitting there on her bed. No trace of the grief I knew she had to feel. I worried for her, shoving all that emotion down where she wouldn’t have to deal with it. The sound of her wails on the bridge still replayed when the massacre flashed through my mind.
“The people on this crew aren’t bad,” I said. “If I can sense that, I know you can. What’s your deal, anyway?”
Finally, she set her knitting down onto her lap where it illuminated her dress. She looked directly at me. “Shame on you, Alana Quick. Shame on you for leaving Lai the way you did.”
“Whoa, hold on a minute. Don’t talk to me like I’m a child—”
She pointed at me. “I will speak to you as your elder sister when you’re being so selfish you can’t see past your own wants. You left Heliodor because you couldn’t stand it anymore, and you just left Lai there to fend for herself. Now look at you. Running from the authorities. Butchered under some stranger’s scalpel.”
Anger burned in my throat like bile. It felt good to feel something other than loss. “And you’re so magnanimous, aren’t you. Turning a profit on the spiritual anxiety of your clients, throwing crumbs Lai’s way when it suits you. How is that any better?”
She pointed at me. “I saved your shop. You’d be working for Transliminal if it weren’t for me.”
“You know I’d never give up my work.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, then sighed and shook her head, tossing her big, beautiful cloud of hair side-to-side. She resumed knitting. “Anyway. I know you want to help that pilot, but—”
“Marre.”
“Excuse me?”
“The pilot. Her name is Marre.”
“Whatever.”
“Why are you so angry at them?” I said, knowing the answer. I just wanted her to admit to her grief out loud. To let it out.
“They blackmailed me and now I’m stuck here because they’re running from the enforcers. You know that just makes them look guiltier. They’re no friends of mine.”
“What choice do they have but to run? Do you really think Nulan government would listen to a bunch of fringe folk? Just believe us when we tell them we didn’t do it? ‘Oh, you say you didn’t do it? Well, our mistake! Just be on your way, and here, have some fuel money for your trouble.’”
“Alana, please. That’s not necessary.”
I sighed. “If you agree to answer Birke’s contract requests—if you help convince Birke to help Marre—Transliminal might be able to cure me. I could take the cure to Lai.”
Nova put her knitting aside and placed both hands on my leg. “Sweetheart. You should know I’d do almost anything to help you, but I’m not going to let these people manipulate me. At the first opportunity, I’m getting off this thing and taking you with me. We’ll go to Transliminal Solutions ourselves and see if they’ll help you. We don’t need some Wooleran cattle-wrangler to—”
“Seriously? Wooleran cattle-wrangler? Do you forget where you came from?”
I could tell she swallowed a nasty retort, fingers stiffening on my leg. The tiniest fluctuations in her face betrayed her effort to rein in her anger before she said something awful. After nearly a lifetime of arguing, you learn another person’s expressions, just like she’d learned enough of my weaknesses to exploit them when necessary. She let out a slow, measured breath, then forced a small smile. “I know you love all these romantic sky surgeon ideas, but just because someone pilots a starship doesn’t make them a good person.”
“Neither does being a spirit guide.”
She laughed and let go of me. “I’m a whole lot closer than the rest of you.”
“If that’s true, then you shouldn’t abandon these people. If not for the whole crew, then for Marre. She’s a spirit guide too. Or was. I don’t know.”
Nova resumed her knitting “That is not a spirit guide.”
“Alana to the cargo hold,” Tev said over the intercom. “We have a problem.”
“Sorry, Nova,” I said, touching her hand one last time before heading for the door. “We’ll have to argue about this later.”
“It’s interesting, you know,” Nova said. “Watching you here. Would you be so loyal so quickly if she weren’t a woman?”
I stopped at the doorway. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged and just kept knitting, smiling in a self-satisfied way. I lingered another moment, trying to come up with a response to my sister’s implied accusation, but I forced myself to let it go.
I made my way down the corridor and clanged down the metal stairwell leading to the cargo hold, railing cold under my hand as I steadied myself against the Dexitek’s side effects. The Panacea sample sounded more tempting by the second. If someone from our own universe could come up with a cheap medication with no nausea or vertigo, I’d make out with them on the spot.
The green eye of the device we’d harvested from the hull stared up at the three crew members surrounding it, so sharp and bright I expected it to blink at me on my way down. A subtle glow from the object illuminated Ovie’s arm, which still shone from the antibacterial sealant over the place where his touchscreen used to live. As tired as he seemed, his face was hard with focus as he crouched over the thing, running a hand along its skin. He sniffed at it, then tilted his head as if listening. When he caught my eye, he beckoned me.
“What’s wrong?” I called on the way over, checking to make sure Slip’s pants were still staying up on my hips without a belt.
“How are you feeling?” Slip asked. Before I could answer, she took my arm without warning. I caught a glimpse of a blood puller for the briefest moment before she stabbed the crook of my elbow, grabbing a sample.
“Ow! Come on, how about asking for permission first?”
“Sorry.” She grinned. “Hurts less if you don’t expect it. Just be grateful I have this and not a drawer full of catheters.”
“We need you to take a look at this,” Tev said. “Quickly.”
“She needs to rest,” Slip said, depositing the sample into a mobile reader. “And so does Ovie.”
“This is a shit situation.” Tev shifted her weight. “Not much ideal about it. They’re the engineers we have, so rest will have to wait.”
They’re the engineers we have. Was she really grouping me in with Ovie? One of her own?
“Look.” Ovie gestured for me to join him, so I crouched down. “The outer section just beneath where it connected to the engine through the hull is a basic Meir configuration.” He pointed at a panel he removed from the husk of the object. “But look.”
He moved aside the nest of copper wires, revealing a glowing, writhing mass of light.
Reality closed in on me as the truth became clear. My whole existence was reduced to each pulse in my veins, each tendon in my fingers, each breath and heartbeat. No sound. No smell. A white, dead world with Transliminal Solutions at its core.
An othersider had done this. The people I’d believed could save me had killed my family. Somewhere in the distance of the cold, white emptiness surrounding me, Ovie’s voice broke through and the rest of the world crashed into me in the wake of his garbled words.
“What is this thing?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. Trying to pretend I could think of anything but someone from Transliminal massacring my family and pinning it on this crew.
He shrugged. “No idea. Othersider tech. Or however we want to think of it; I don’t know if I’d call it science. Marre detected it sending out a signal a few hours ago. The transmission was so hidden by the engine’s radiation neutralizer that she almost didn’t notice it. It’s tracking us. Beeping our location all over the system.”
“Shit.” I tried to sound alarmed, but I just felt cold, so I’m sure it came out flat.
“If they find us, we’re dead. Or as good as, and I can’t blame them. All the evidence of the massacre points right to us. This thing is going to be the end of us. We have to figure out how to disable it.”
“Throw it out the airlock,” I mumbled.
He shook his head and exhaled hard, rubbing his forehead. Exhaustion weighed down every movement. I forced myself to channel all my cold anger into helping Ovie, though I still found it hard to think of anything but glamorously decorated othersiders plotting the demise of my parents. Why? Why would they do this?
“Nope,” Ovie said, responding to my blasé suggestion that already seemed so far in the past. “Apparently its function is directly connected to gravity levels. If it hits zero-g?” He punched his palm. “Boom. Besides, we might need it as evidence.”
“That doesn’t make sense. It was fine out on the hull.”
“Must have been activated when we brought it inside.” He lowered his voice, glancing briefly at the captain. “I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how it works.”
The Tangled Axon’s chief engineer was hanging his hope on the possibility that I might know how to fix this and get the enforcers off our tail. Like he said—this didn’t even look like technology. I had no idea what to do, but couldn’t admit it out loud. Being useful, staying busy, might prevent the grief and rage from eating me alive. If I lost myself to it now, I didn’t know if I’d be able to get myself back.
I tied back my locs, bent closer to the exposed section of the device, and examined what little of the light-bramble peeked through the wires. The tangle moved as if it were alive.
Actually, it reminded me of Nova’s knitting. I made a mental note to ask her about it.
A few sparks flitted and scattered deep within the device, but were quickly obscured by the undulating strands. This thing was a mess of . . . what? Photons? No one even knew what the othersider ships were made of, or how they worked. No one from our side of the breach anyway. They kept their research under tight control. How could I disable something that wasn’t even native to our universe? How could I manipulate a thing that looked more like abstract art than technology?
“Can you disable it?” Tev crouched down on the other side of me, and Slip hovered behind us, penning us in. Not only was I acutely aware of their close proximity, but now the pressure was on. Every word that came out of my mouth, every action I took, would sway their opinion of me in one direction or another, determining whether Tev kept me on the crew beyond my usefulness in persuading my sister. Not to mention our continued freedom depended on me and Ovie figuring this out. How could I think straight with so much riding on my performance? How could I focus when I still felt white anger for what Transliminal had done to us rolling over me in cold waves?
“I’m . . . ” I shifted the wires again, trying to see a different angle, as if that might reveal some hidden kill-switch. Nothing, of course. Again my emotions tried encroaching on my concentration, but I pushed them back while ignoring the mild disorientation from the meds.
I’d have to come back later. Take a look at it when I didn’t have the entire crew hovering over me. When Tev’s body wasn’t so close to mine. When I wasn’t so aware of the fact that she smelled so damn good. I pretended to further assess the device, but just shut down my thoughts as I got lost in her presence. It was better than the fury, better than the flashbacks. Her long hair brushed my arm, her every movement a charged jolt up my spine. She tucked her hair behind her ear, body turning slightly toward me, and I felt her eyes on my hands as they traced the lines of the object. I sensed the Tangled Axon’s energy surrounding Tev like a halo. A thread of need stretched tight inside me, connecting me to her, pulling at my chest.
“Anything?” Slip said.
I tried to focus. The device. Think about the device.
The body and electrical panels of the thing were engineered traditionally. It was the innards that confounded me. Maybe if I could disable the connection between the exterior body and the interior, I could disable it completely.
Tev’s voice was quiet, as if she didn’t want to disturb my thought process. “Can you do something?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m trained in plasma engineering, not . . . whatever this is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ovie sat back, like a dog on its haunches. “I hate to say it, but Alana is right. I don’t know any sky surgeon who could work with this.”
“Shit,” Tev sighed. “We can’t do anything to help Marre in the middle of this mess. We need Bell.”
Ovie exchanged glances with Slip as he stood up and brushed his hands on his pants, locs dangling.
Okay, I’d ask. “Who’s Bell again?”
Tev shook her head, looking at the device as if she’d glean something new from it. She stood and nudged it with her boot. “Weapons dealer on Spin.”
Spin was a resort planet owned by Transliminal Solutions: a thick hedonistic crust over a mantle of escapist self-loathing. Each “nation” was devoted to one indulgence or another, empty of anything but pure gluttony and a vile disregard for anything but moment-to-moment indulgence. It was a garish, embarrassing part of our system, full of folks who’d sell their own livers if it would turn a profit. Perfect for someone who brokered deals in illegal tech and weapons.
“You know people like that?” I said.
She gave me an “are you kidding me?” stare. Admittedly, even that looked good on her. “Where do you think I got the biter? A farmer’s market?”
“So we’re going to the most populated othersider planet to keep the othersiders from finding us?” I said.
Tev took a few steps toward me. She made a face that I’d come to realize was her trying to decide how to respond to me, biting her lip and tilting her head to the side. She never made that face at anyone else. “Okay, surgeon. You got an othersider contact somewhere other than Spin?”
“No, I . . . ” I wiped my hand over my face, trying to clear away everything I was feeling. Frustrated. Scared. Bitter. Longing, more than anything. Longing for my parents. Longing for Adul. For the life I thought I’d have once I got out into the black, where in reality I found only death and the threat of lifelong incarceration. I wanted to feel something good again, to go get lost in the Tangled Axon’s engine and not come out.
Too many feelings and too few answers.
“I’m just nervous,” I said.
“Psh.” Slip made a dismissive gesture. “A place like Spin is lost on y’all. But not me.” She grinned mischievously, doing a tight dance next to Ovie, hips undulating to the type of beat you’d find in a hundred different clubs on Spin. He laughed and gyrated with her, syncing to her rhythm, and Tev looked anything but amused.
“Glad you two are having fun while we’re running from the enforcers.”
They stopped moving and Slip cleared her throat, standing straight. “Sorry, Captain.”
Ovie avoided Tev’s gaze. He just scratched behind his ear like a canine batting at an itch. I was having a hell of a time trying to figure out the relationships on this vessel.
“We can’t inform Bell we’re coming,” Tev said, letting it go. “No external comm for us, not even briefly. Authorities would be waiting for us if we did. We’ll just have to find her on our own.”
“What about ol’ green eye here?” I leaned my heel against the device. “Won’t it tell
them where we are?”
“Marre says there’s a short lag in the signal, maybe a few hours’ worth at most. Probably because of the blended tech, or at least that’s what she reckons. It’s not much to go on, but it’s a risk we have to take. If there really is a lag, it’ll give us enough time to at least try to find Bell and ask her how to disable the damned thing. They’re going to catch up with us anyway if we don’t get help. We can’t fly forever without refueling.”
I couldn’t believe we had to go to Spin. I hated places like that. Reminded me of downtown Heliodor. And it had to be crawling with enforcers.
“Last time I talked to her,” Tev said, “Bell told me she’s mostly up at night, running the club circuit. We’ll start there. Marre’s charting a course as we speak; we’ll be there in about three weeks.”
I stepped forward. “Um.”
“Um?”
“Am I staying? I mean, are you going to—”
“Did I say we’re dropping off any engineers between here and Spin? Would that even be efficient or sensible?”
I cleared my throat. “No.”
She said nothing, just raised her eyebrows at me. The barest hint of a smile teased the corner of her mouth.
Oh. Right. “No, Captain.”
Evidently satisfied, she nodded. “There are some rituals on a ship you need to get used to, Quick. There’s a chain of command when you’re part of a crew.”
“Yes, Captain.”
When you’re part of a crew.
Chapter Eight
Over the next few weeks, I started thinking of the ship as home.
Sure, I knew it was dangerous to let myself get comfortable when I knew all too well they could have a change of heart, but it was hard not to be infatuated with the Tangled Axon and everyone inside her. Her song rolled through the corridors, starting in her engine-heart, echoing through her belly and out beyond the hull. That gentle hum may not have erased my grief or the ever-present anxiety that the enforcers would catch up to us, but it turned down the volume—even if only briefly.
I’d stop in the middle of eating, talking, showering, studying the device, and let the Axon’s voice cascade through me. Those moments felt delicate and tenuous, as if they might shatter if I breathed too deeply. In their wake, all the sorrow came rushing back in to fill the void, unless I kept busy. Grief makes its home in silence and idleness.
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel Page 12
