Sound

by Alexandra Duncan

  “A little tweak.” Rushil laughed and shook his head, but then his eyes took on a glossy look. He rubbed a hand over his chin, thinking. “You’d need a good, solid hack to stand up to a government review. All the bells and whistles.”

  I smiled. “You know I’m good for it.”

  “I know you are.” He looked at me, and suddenly he seemed tired, older than his twenty-seven years. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

  The smiled drained from my face. I knew what it would cost Rushil to get back in contact with Mumbai’s network of hackers and purveyors of false documents. He tried so hard to keep any kind of criminal element away from his business, away from Ava, which was next to impossible for a kid raised among the gangs of the Salt, and there I was asking him to put his toe back in their waters. I could have backed off then. Maybe I should have. But that meant I would have had to spend the next two years shuttling between the university and home, stagnating in the same air while another class of my friends flew off to London or Chennai or Baghdad to launch their own lives. Even Vishva would be really and truly gone next year.

  I swallowed. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  And that, at least, was no lie.

  “You are the very devil,” I tell the cat.

  We stand faced-off in the lab, me with a syringe, gloved hands, and a crisscross of dermal bandages on my arms, the cat backed up against the stainless-steel storage cabinets, with its ears flat against its head and its coat puffed out to double its size. It turned out to be a curry-colored tabby with a rice-white belly beneath the ash, but that makes it no less terrifying now. I managed to wash the soot from its coat at the price of several deep gashes down my forearm, but every time I move in with the needle, the cat lets out a low, dangerous sound, bares its fangs, and hisses at me like a goose.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I’ve been reduced to pleading with the cat. “I’m trying to help.”

  A high tone sounds throughout the lab. Someone at the door.

  I point the needle at my charge. “You stay there.”

  It emits another throaty growl but stays in place.

  I go up on tiptoe and peek out the porthole. The Rover girl peers back in at me. Without the coating of ash, her hair hangs in damp honey-brown curls to her shoulders. A dense field of freckles covers her pale face, as if someone has spilled a cinnamon pot across the bridge of her nose. She’s holding the toddler. They both wear the loose-cut blue tunic and trousers the medical ward gives their patients. Thick bandages sleeve the older girl’s arms, and toddler has an oxygen feed taped beneath her nose.

  The Rover girl frowns when she sees me and tries to say something I can’t hear through the door.

  “Hold on,” I shout back, even though I know she can’t hear me, either. I duck down to click on the intercom and pop back up into view. “I couldn’t hear you. Say again?”

  “They said you had our cat.” The roll in her voice is sharp, like a hill cut off by a cliff.

  “That’s right.” I try to match the impatience in her voice. “I’m administering the standard quarantine tests.” Behind me, the cat issues another warning yowl.

  She shifts the toddler to her other hip. “They said you should be done by now.”

  “Well, I’m not.” I try to tamp down the annoyance in my voice. Be professional. I’m a research assistant, a representative of the DSRI, and the Rovers have been through hell. “I mean, I’ll be done shortly, so if you’ll kindly wait—”

  “Wheels of heaven!” She swivels away for a second, and when she turns back, her jaw is tight, making her sharp chin stick out even more. She looks down at the toddler. “Look, Milah’s gone through a lot today. She only wants to see the cat, and then we’ll go.”

  “I can’t let you see the cat,” I try to explain. “Not until I’ve finished the quarantine procedure.”

  “Then finish it,” she snaps.

  “I’m trying,” I shoot back. “If people would stop interrupting me, and if your mangy beast would cooperate!” I clap my hand over my mouth. I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.

  She closes her eyes, heaves a sigh, and swallows down whatever she was about to say. “If you let me in, I can calm him down, and then you can get whatever tests you need. He’s probably scared, is all.”

  I chew my lip. It’s against regulations to break quarantine until I’ve finished the tests, but she has been living with the cat this whole time, and she hasn’t caught anything deadly. The med ward wouldn’t have let her out unless she was pathogen- and parasite-free. What could it hurt?

  “If I let you in, you won’t be able to leave until we finish processing the test results,” I warn.

  “Fine.” A flicker of impatience crosses her face again, and she bounces the toddler on her hip.

  I deactivate the lock. “It’s your skin.”

  “Thank you.” She edges in while the door is still opening. “You don’t know how much this means to Milah and me.”

  I shrug, not sure what to make of her.

  “Hey now, Tibbet.” The Rover girl kneels and speaks softly to the cat, perched atop the counter. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

  The beast stops its goose noises and lowers its back, but its eyes stay black and dilated. An uneasy growl reverberates in its throat.

  Milah stares wide-eyed at the cat, frozen beside the older girl. “Bit?” she asks.

  The older girl glances at her. “Yes, Tibbet’s mad, isn’t he? He doesn’t like this place.” She cuts her eyes at me as she says the last part.

  I pick up the syringe. Professional, I remind myself. “I have a sedative whenever you’re ready.”

  The Rover girl turns back to the cat. “Here, Tibbet. Everything’s okay now. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  The animal hesitates on the counter edge. We all hold our breath, but then it finally hops down and pads cautiously to the Rovers.

  “That’s it,” the girl croons, stroking the cat’s head. “That’s right.” She looks up at me and nods. Now.

  I kneel beside her and slide the needle beneath the cat’s skin. It stiffens for a moment as I push the tiny dose of ketaphine, and then slowly relaxes in her arms. Its tongue lolls out, an undignified little pink tab.

  Milah looks up, alarmed. “Bit dead?”

  “No, no.” The Rover girl rubs Milah’s arm. “He’s only sleeping, see?” She pets its fur.

  Milah frowns. “Like Mama?”

  The Rover girl hesitates. “No, Little Pea.” She reaches out and strokes Milah’s hair. “Your mama isn’t waking up, remember? But Tibbet will.”

  Milah raises a small hand to her chin and makes a series of signs with her fingers, looking intently at the older girl the whole time.

  A bolt of pain flickers across the Rover girl’s face. “No,” she says calmly, and signs in return. “He’s coming back. I promise.”

  It takes me a moment to piece together what their movements mean. I’ve seen it in movies, and once we had a unit about it in the biomedical history class I took at the university. Before there were genetic cures and implants for deafness, people who couldn’t hear talked with their hands. But that was forever ago.

  “Is she . . . she’s deaf?” I blurt out.

  The Rover girl glares at me. “No.”

  “But then—”

  “Her father is,” she interrupts. “My brother, Nethanel. The one they took.”

  The words thump against my chest. Her father. My brother. The one they took. All the pieces tumble into place. No wonder she’s been frantic. No wonder she’s been sharp. Guilt balloons in my chest again. If I hadn’t been frozen with fear, if I had just reached out and stopped that dakait . . .

  “Oh.” I swallow. “What did she say?”

  The Rover girl’s throat works silently for a moment. “She asked if Nethanel had gone to be with her mama.”

  “Oh.” What can I even say? Sorry about your brother. I might have had the chance to stop the people who took him, b
ut I guess we’ll never know. On the plus side, someday your niece will forget about her father.

  I look away, busy myself with preparing the next syringe. Behind me, the two of them continue their talk in a flurry of hands and soft murmurs. I try to block them out, give them some privacy, and focus on something other than my guilt. Line up the diagnostic strips. Program the pathogen analyzer. Right the boxes of swabs and syringe heads the cat scattered across the counter.

  I check over my shoulder. Milah has that look little kids get where their faces seem like they’re about to crumple. It hits the small soft spot in the center of my chest, and before I know what I’m really doing, I’m reaching up into my alcove and pulling down my sari.

  Milah goggles at me as if I’ve produced a bird from thin air, like a street magician.

  I shake out the sari. “Here.” I spread it out on the ground, picnic style, and scoop up the limp bundle of fur. “You hold him, and I’ll take some blood. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  The Rover girl shoots me a small, grateful smile, settles Milah on the worn fabric, and piles the cat in her lap. His mouth hangs open and his legs splay sideways, but Milah strokes his back and coos at him anyway.

  “Good job,” I say. “You’re an excellent assistant.”

  I draw the cat’s blood and pipe it onto the diagnostic strips. Milah babbles on behind me, murmuring soothing sounds that aren’t quite words.

  The older girl clears her throat. “Thank you.”

  I finish fitting the strips into the analyzer and push the loading door closed. “No trouble.” I glance over my shoulder at her and heat fills my cheeks. Professional. “I mean, I’m happy to be of service.”

  The Rover girl stands, holds out a hand. “I’m Cassia.”

  I take it, even though I feel weird and formal—adult—doing so. “Miyole.”

  We drop hands and stand, awkward. Behind me, the analyzer whirrs softly.

  “Thanks for letting her see Tibbet.” She nods at Milah and smiles again, just a little bit.

  I shrug. “It’s nothing. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him.”

  “It’s only . . . she wanted something familiar, you know?”

  “Yeah.” I glance at my sari and then down at my gloves. My scars itch beneath the latex. “I get that.” More than she knows.

  Cassia looks at me, and her face softens. “Yeah?”

  That one word taps my chest, and suddenly the words are coming out. “I lost my mother, too.”

  I haven’t said it in years. Not to anyone aboard the Ranganathan. Not to any of my professors at the university. Not to anyone who hasn’t known me since I was a child.

  “Oh.” Cassia leans against the counter beside me. “I’m sorry.”

  We stand in silence for a moment, side by side, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of her shoulder beside mine.

  “Who raised you?” she asks. “Your father?”

  I hesitate, another set of memories pulling at me like an undertow. Darkness. A steamer trunk. A flash and the very air torn apart. I push them away. If I follow them down, I’m not sure I’ll come back up.

  “No,” I say. “Not him.”

  The pathogen analyzer winds to a halt and beeps out a quick, four-beat tone. I shake myself. There’s no time for any of that in the present.

  “It’s done.” I pull up the results on my handbook. Cassia peers over my shoulder.

  “He’s fine.” I say, running a finger down the list of results. “A few minor pathogens and a case of otodectes cynotis, but nothing we can’t treat.”

  “Oto-what?” Cassia throws a worried look at her niece, who has just planted a kiss on top of the cat’s head.

  “Ear mites.” I dismiss it with a wave.

  She makes a face, and I can’t help it—I laugh. For one brief moment, the heaviness in me dissolves. Milah looks up at us, puzzled.

  “Sorry.” I pull back my smile. Neutral. Professional. I’m supposed to be helping her, not pouring out my own sad history or subjecting her to my mad cackling.

  “No, it’s fine. It’s . . .” Cassia’s mouth twists. She blinks and looks away, but not before I see tears running down her cheeks.

  “Oh, no.” I reach for her but stop short. “Please. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “No, it’s not your fault.” She wipes furiously at her cheeks. “I just . . . I forgot about all of it for a second.” Her eyes have dried, but her skin is still red and blotchy.

  Part of me wants to put an arm around her, make her some tea, rub her back the way Soraya did when I woke up crying in the middle of the night. But she’s not a little kid, I remind myself. She’s my age, and I barely know her.

  “Sorry.” She sniffs. “Stupid, crying.”

  “It’s not,” I say. “I’d be shaken up, too, after everything you’ve been through. The attack, losing your brother—”

  “I haven’t lost him.” Some of the fire surges back into her voice.

  I frown. “But the dakait . . .”

  “I’m not afraid of a few jackers.” The implication is there. Unlike your captain.

  Her words hit me too hard. I step back.

  “No one wanted this to happen.” I cross my arms. “We all did our best.”

  She snorts.

  All the soft parts of me harden over. “You know we can’t break trajectory. The whole terraforming process depends on us hitting our payload deliveries exactly right. Commander Dhar would say the same.”

  “I’ll find a way to do it myself, then. No matter what your commander says, I’m going to get my brother back.”

  I shake my head. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  Her jaw tightens. “Maybe.” Her red-rimmed eyes pierce me. “Don’t you have something you’d die for?”

  Faces skim across my memory—Ava, Soraya, the blurred shadow of my mother. Hands on the ladder. Climb, Miyole! The broken seawall filling the feeds and drowning in a well of my own uselessness.

  “Of course I do,” I say quietly. I don’t know what that thing is, exactly, but I can feel the edges of it. If my mother had it in her to sacrifice herself for someone else, maybe I do, too. Maybe she gave that to me. Maybe she inscribed it on my DNA or passed it to me when the wave took her. I meet Cassia’s eyes, and an electric crackle arcs between us.

  “I do,” I say.

  Chapter 4

  I slink away to the women’s residential quarters and close myself in the showers. All my bunkmates are still on duty, thankfully, and the place has a rare quiet, like a back garden surrounded by a sound-dampening net. Every time I close my eyes, I see the dakait’s foot slipping out of reach and the Rover ship burning against the stars. All of it happens again and again in cold, perfect silence. Is that what Cassia’s brother hears? Not the peaceful patter of water and the hush of the air circulators, but an absolute absence of sound? A shiver passes through me, despite the warm water. I stand under the shower long after the soft chime warns me I’ve used up my daily allotment, staring at the wall tiles without really seeing them.

  Afterward I pad out to the living quarters. My handbook lies faceup on my bunk, blinking with an update.

  SCHEDULE CHANGE: 18:00 SPC. GUITEAU TO MIDDLE-TIER OFFICERS’ DINING ROOM

  Officers’ dining room? Middle tier? My eyes go wide. That’s where the commander eats. Why would they want me, of all people? Dining with the commander is the kind of honor you get for pulling survivors from flaming wreckage, not for failing to stop a Dakait and serving as kebab-slicing practice for a fifteen-pound tomcat. There must be some mistake. Any minute now, the duty clerks will realize the error and wipe it from my schedule.

  I comb out my hair and try to wrangle it into something other than the poufy bell shape it likes to take when it isn’t tied down in a braid. I could never understand why Ava always wanted her hair cut short when she was able to grow it out so long. I look down at my handbook. The message hasn’t gone away. I sigh and wrestle my hair into two tig
ht French braids that meet at the base of my skull, then pull my midnight-blue dress uniform from my clothing locker and spread it flat on my bunk. I haven’t worn it this whole journey. I haven’t needed to, since I spend most of my days in my lab coat or my everyday pressure suit. I run my hand over the brass buttons. No point putting it on when I’ll be pulling it right back off.

  I check the message again. Still blinking. SCHEDULE CHANGE.

  I know I should be excited. This is my chance to shine in front of the senior officers. But what I really want is to find Cassia and Milah and take them to the mess hall for biryani and okra—comfort food—and then maybe show them the gardens. Cassia. Our conversation in the lab comes rushing back to me, and I wince. What made me tell her about my mother? I’ve been so careful to leave that behind, to be the Mumbai version of myself, and then I go spilling it to a person I’ve only just met. Even back home, the only person outside my family I told was Vishva. But Vishva was my best friend, almost family herself, at least until the months before I left.

  I pull my crow from my pocket and check the clock: 20:34 SATURDAY, 7 APRIL. I still have it set to Mumbai time. Sometimes it’s comforting to look at it and think, Oh, it’s lunchtime at Revati, or imagine Soraya riding the trains home from an afternoon class at the university. I’ve managed not to think about Vishva for several months, but something about Cassia brought her back. Where is she now? I wonder. What’s she doing?

  Saturday evening. Vishva is likely at a dance club down in the Salt, sweating and swinging her long dark hair everywhere. Or else she’s off with a boy, snogging on a rowboat in the shadow of the Great Levee. I don’t really know. We were inseparable those first few years—always choosing each other as partners on school outings and running the biomimesis club together after school. President and vice president. First and second in our class.

  And then we were fifteen, and I was leaving Revati for college, and everything changed. Vishva changed.