“Manman?” My own voice whispers back at me in hushed awe.
Still nothing in answer.
“Manman, how . . . Where are you?”
A long pause. The recording plays back my breath, harsh and elevated. She’s going to hyperventilate, I think, forgetting for a moment that’s it’s me. And then my own scream. My voice carries the unmistakable stamp of terror. Another clammy wave ripples over my skin, and I ball my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
I cut off the recording and lean against the controls, my head buried in my hands. No responses from the other ship, no warning alarms, only my own words spoken into the stillness.
I’m going mental. That’s the only explanation. Rubio has his birds, and I have my mother’s ghost.
I look out at the vast, empty expanse. We’re still twelve days out from Enceladus, running on limited telemetry functions, with who knows how many other technical problems waiting to spring themselves, and the last functioning crew member has officially gone mad.
We limp into orbit around the closest station I’ve been able to find in the ship’s databases, Outpost 247.281.5M. No one answers my calls for an approach vector, so I guide us in blind, using only the telemetry readouts, until the outline of the station appears against the stars. With its docking arms extended, the outpost spins like a windmill in the darkness—smoky-gray shielding nearly disappearing into the black.
No signal lights outline the station’s extremities. Either we’ve just happened to show up in the middle of a power outage, or the station is abandoned. My fantasies about finding a doctor or a neural scan operator shrivel and shrink back into my chest. I might not even find air or gravity on the other side of our hull.
The docking bay doors sense us and slide open. A good sign, I think, until I realize that means the station power isn’t out—someone turned off the signal lights on purpose, or at least didn’t bother to fix them when they burned out.
We should go back. Find another outpost, an inhabited one.
But what guarantee do I have that the next station won’t be abandoned, too? Or worse yet, full of the same kind of traffickers who took Cassia’s brother?
Ma chère, you didn’t finish your rice, my mother’s voice echoes down from the other end of the ship. I whip my head toward the sound before I can stop myself.
It isn’t real. She’s not there, I remind myself.
But the thing is, it was real once. I can’t filter out the memories anymore. They sneak up on me, but jumbled, out of order. Sometimes my palms will bleed, but when I reach for the bandages, my wounds will close again. My mother’s voice will startle me out of sleep, or scenes from the Gyre will superimpose themselves over my vision while I’m lying on my back, completing a repair—paint peeling from white iron railing, the smell of fish frying and the scrabbling of chickens on the roof, leaping the gaps between pontoons with Kai, handing him the string to a danger-red kite, fishing a strand of plastic pearls from the bleached, floating refuse of the Gyre plain and looping them around my neck. Whatever happened to that necklace? Or the red kite? Are they sunk to the ocean floor, along with my mother’s bones?
The necklace becomes my manman’s bones, becomes my manman. My manman sitting with me over an enormous old paper book full of maps spread out on our kitchen table. Its pages are wrinkled and warped with age and water damage.
My manman smooths it with her hands and taps a small island in a field of faded blue. “That was our homeland, ma chère. Before the water rose.”
“But we’re not from there.” I wrinkle my nose at the old book’s smell. “We’re Gyre people.”
“Yes,” my mother agrees. “But we’re Haitian, too. Everyone from the Gyre is more than one thing. We all came here from somewhere else. You see?”
I shake my head, my braided pigtails hitting the sides of my face. I like the way they swing, so I keep doing it until my mother puts a hand on my arm.
“Answer me, Miyole. You see?”
I scrunch up my face. “But Haiti’s not there anymore. We can’t be from a place that isn’t.”
“The land is gone,” my mother says. “But the rest of it we brought with us. So long as you and I and all the other Gyre folk from Haiti remember it, it still exists. The same as all the other lands our neighbors are from. As long as we exist, those places still exist, too.”
Guilt fills up my pounding head. I let myself forget. No, I made myself forget. Not only Haiti, but the Gyre, too. Everyone else died in that storm, and I made myself forget. I know what Ava and Soraya would say—that I had to forget to stay sane and keep functioning—but that doesn’t dispel the cold, queasy feeling in my stomach or the prickles of shame traveling through my nervous system. Did the Gyre stop existing when I forgot it?
The stations’ walls fill up the viewport, dark and silent, its outer air locks hanging open like slack mouths. I manage to maneuver the ship onto the magnetic docking track and let the station glide us forward. I listen for the reverberation of the air lock sealing around us, change into my pressure suit, and check on Cassia and Rubio before I hurry down to the hatch. They’re both well under—sleeping the sleep of the drugged. Tibbet lies curled at his mistress’s feet, either guarding her or taking advantage of her body heat. It’s hard to tell with him. He’s gotten weirder since Cassia stopped getting out of bed. When he isn’t sleeping, his eyes stay dilated, and he stalks around the ship crashing into things and making lonely noises. He runs away whenever he sees me, even though I’m the one setting out softened, mashed protein bars for him each day.
“Take care of them, okay?” I whisper, and thank my stars Dr. Osmani isn’t here to see me talking to a cat. If I don’t get help soon, Tibbet is going to be the one most qualified to fly this ship. Leaving Cassia and Rubio alone while they’re sedated sets off all the alarms from my medic training, but I don’t have much choice. The only time Cassia stops vomiting is when she’s unconscious, and Rubio will burrow through the walls if I leave him awake.
Down at the hatch, all the door’s air-quality indicators show green. There’s atmosphere on the other side, or at least the Mendicant thinks there is. I cross my fingers that the ship’s exterior sensors haven’t started malfunctioning, too, and reach up to double-check my pressure helmet. I press the hatch seal release.
The door opens onto a dark hangar, illuminated only by the light streaming from our ship’s interior. My suit’s readouts show breathable air. Score one for the Mendicant’s systems. I retract my faceplate.
“Hello?” I call as I step down onto the dock and lift an LED torch over my head. My footsteps echo back to me in the empty space. This place was definitely a functioning dock once. The scuffed markings on the floor and the seams around the repair lifts leave no doubt. But our ship is the only one in the room, and the walls are bare, the typical accordion hoses and robotic arms that line most ship hangars stripped away. On the far side of the hangar, something skitters in the shadows.
“Hello?” I call again. A ripe, mildewed smell permeates the air. I force myself forward, away from the ship. Midway across the hangar, a black, open corridor looms out of the darkness. I stop short, my heart pumping hard.
Stay calm, I remind myself, and swallow my panic. Even if there’s no one here, you could still find something to help. Supplies, or even a sunlight simulation chamber.
Unless there is someone here . . . My blood pressure shoots up a notch. I shiver. Not for the first time, I miss the Ranganathan’s sprawling recreation gardens and its sunlamps. If I were there now, I would submerge myself in a bath of orange-gold vitamins and electrolytes.
The open corridor swallows me. I keep my torch raised and creep forward, hugging the wall. My footsteps patter down into the darkness and bound back. Ahead, the hallway splits. I shine my torch in both directions. To the right, a wheel-locked door; to the left, more darkness.
I choose the door. The wheel sticks at first, but eventually it gives, and I’m able to shoulder it open. Plastic tubs
of flame-retardant powder line metal shelves, along with bins of re-breather masks and dusty water bottles. I pick a mask out of the pile and blow the dust from its mouthpiece. Its indicator lights blink on—four green, one orange. I try it on and inhale. Instantly, the air tastes fresher, like a cool drink of filtered water.
I find two other masks that still seem to be working and hook all three to my belt, then stuff my parka’s pockets full of bottled water. The labels look at least five years out of date, but I’m willing to chance it. Anything is better than what comes out of the Mendicant’s moisture recycling system.
I backtrack and make my way down the hall in the opposite direction. What I really need is a station schematic. Clearly the outpost’s solar arrays are still drawing enough power to keep the air filtration and artificial gravity systems working, so why not lights, too?
I pass a bank of lifts at what I think must be the center of the station and find an access shaft with a spiral staircase coiling up and down into the darkness like a single strand of DNA. I glance back at the lifts and then down into the narrow abyss.
It’s only darkness. It can’t hurt you, I tell myself. Be smart. It’s better than risking getting trapped in a lift shaft if the power really goes out.
But that doesn’t stop my knees from shaking as I shuffle out onto the landing.
“Stop it,” I mutter, and slap my legs to bring the feeling back. I grip my torch and peer over the railing again. If this outpost is designed anything like the Ranganathan, its control center and life support system will be at its core, protected from a full-on assault or an accidental collision. That means down.
I take the stairs one at a time, one hand clamped around the handrail, the other clutching my torch. The steps round down and down, split occasionally by landings leading into other levels. After a while, I notice the wall shrinking away from me. Either I’m hallucinating again, or the staircase is broadening. I shine my torch on the riveted metal wall and stretch my hand out to it. One step, two, and then my fingers meet the cold surface.
Definitely broadening, I think, but then another sensation hits me. And wet.
I pull my hand back. A dilute red stain covers my glove and a metal tang finds its way to the back of my tongue. Blood? I dart my torch beam around, half certain I’ll come face-to-face with some needle-fingered monster from the horror stories the girls at Revati used to trade. But I’m alone. I hold the torch above my hand and make myself look again. Not blood, rust.
I laugh, nervously. The sound echoes up the access shaft and rains back down on me. A memory races by—Kai and me, scaling the upper decks of an old research ship. I stepped on a corroded patch, and my foot broke through, letting loose a downpour of oxidized red flakes on the deck below. Manman had to fly all the way to West Gyre to buy tetanus vaccine.
I aim my LED torch up into the shadows of the access shaft. Somewhere in the darkness, an ominous metal groan sounds.
“Chaila,” I whisper. Has the stair been making that noise the whole time? Who knows how long this station has before the rust eats all the way through it? One major jolt and the whole thing could crumble.
Get out, I think. But I’ve come this far. A station this size has to have a clinic, and that means medical supplies. I can’t go back empty-handed. Not now.
The stairwell bottoms out on a level closed off by a reinforced wheel-locked door. I stow my torch in my belt and wipe my damp gloves on my legs. The hatch opens with a shriek. I poke my head inside and let my light play over the walls. A broad hallway lined with load-bearing buttresses opens up before me, and then disappears into darkness. Through the gloom, I make out a sign hanging from the ceiling—ENVIRONMENTALS. So I’m going in the right direction, at least.
I sidle through and let the door fall closed behind me. Immediately, my boot slips in something fine and powdery. I drop my beam to the concrete floor. A thick layer of white, talc-like powder covers it in drifts, and a cold, chemical burn runs up my sinuses and down my throat. Flame retardant, maybe? Like the tubs upstairs? But how did it end up scattered all around the floor?
I take another step and stop. A few meters in front of me, a set of tracks cross through the powder. I’m hardly Wilderness Girl, but even I can tell they’re human footprints. I’ve seen the same imprint on the sand at the Malabar Hill beaches. Cold prickles the back of my neck.
I swallow, but my throat still feels tight. “Hello?”
No one answers. Somewhere deep in the darkness, something scuffles across the floor. A whiff of rot mingles with the chemical burn in the air.
Supplies. I push myself forward, torch held high. Adrenaline surges in my bloodstream, and my breath comes harsh and fast in my own ears. I’ve never had a panic attack before, but I’ve read about them, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the verge of one now. The floor slopes down almost imperceptibly. I shine my light at the walls. Moisture sweats from the pores in the concrete and weeps down the uneven surface. Damp, sticky patches form on the floor, where runoff has seeped into the layer of powder.
Something crunches underfoot. I stop and lift my boot. A small, yellowed skeleton lies crushed in the sticky mass of powder, tufts of gray fur still adhered to bones. It might have been a rat once, but it’s hard to tell now. At least that explains the smell.
I keep walking. The odor of decay thickens, overtaking the chemical scent. Bits of trash—protein bar packages, broken glass, plastic insulation, and other flotsam—begin to pile up along the walls. It rises in drifts and spreads until I’m forced to pick my way down a narrow path at the center of the corridor.
Autolysis initiates the process of decomposition, the rate of which is dependent upon the concentration of enzymes in the material.
I step over an aluminum wrapper smeared with what looks like feces and look up. An orange glow lights the far end of the hallway, bright enough that I can make out the contours of the trash dunes ahead. I switch off my torch. I count out thirty seconds, waiting for my retinas to adjust, and then creep forward, careful to avoid the loose, rolling bottles and cardboard packing tubes littering the floor.
The hallway ends in a landing overlooking a deep, circular room lit by an emergency lantern balanced on the floor. More trash litters the stairs leading down to the bottom and then tapers away, replaced by a jumble of water barrels, gutted electronics, and stacked cots surrounding a cluster of terminals. A soft lapping sound echoes off the bare walls.
“Hello?” I call again. My voice almost fails me.
The lapping pauses, and then resumes. Whoever—or whatever—is down below has to know I’m here. I briefly think of turning on my heel and retreating back down the refuse-packed corridor, but the idea of someone following me through the dark makes me pause.
“Vaat,” I whisper, and lower my foot onto the first stair. The whole construction creaks under my weight, a deafening shriek that fills the room and puts my teeth on edge. I flinch and hurry down the rest of the way, images of the stairwell crumbling beneath me flashing through my head.
The structure shudders into silence. An eerie quiet fills the room.
The lapping sound starts again.
“Hello?” I round the water barrels. “Please . . . we need a doctor. Or the med bay, or . . .” I turn.
A figure crouches in the shadow of the stairs, its hands splayed against the wall. Bits of string, metal, and fur hang in its long, tangled black hair. I watch, paralyzed, as it opens its mouth against the concrete and catches a trickle of water with its swollen tongue.
I step back, banging into the barrels.
The creature beneath the stairs looks up. It pushes its hair from its eyes, wipes its mouth with the back of a pale hand, and locks eyes with me.
Chapter 15
“You’re younger than I thought.” The voice is a harsh, tracheal croak.
Younger? I squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe this is another hallucination. I open them again. It still stands there, its head cocked to the side quizzically.
“Who . . .”
I swallow and try to make my voice stop shaking. “Who are you?”
“I used to think I was Kaede-san.” It’s voice is thoughtful, almost sad. “But I know better now.”
We stand in silence a moment. What is there to say after that?
“We heard you coming.”
“We?” I repeat, my throat dry.
It waves its hands in the air, as if gesturing at a cloud of gnats. “Yes. We.”
I decide not to press the issue.
“You need help.” It scuffles closer, out into the lantern light. Its baggy clothes obscure its shape, but I start to think it might be a woman.
“I . . . I need supplies,” I say, though my words sound as if they’re echoing from someone else’s mouth. “Or access to a medical bay. My friends, they’re sick.”
The woman smiles, displaying a red-stained mouth. “We can help.”
Somehow, this isn’t entirely comforting. I back around the water barrels, putting another meter of space between us. “You know where the med bay is?”
She shakes her head. “That place is no good, not anymore. But we can help.”
My stomach sinks. “How?”
The woman draws herself up and shakes out her filthy robes. “We are isha. We are a doctor.”
I follow her back through the refuse. I could run, but Kaede-san or Isha or whoever she is clearly knows this station better than I do, and that means she might lead me to the medical bay if I play along. She keeps one hand on her head, steadying a makeshift headlamp, and swats at the garbage with a plastic stick she holds in the other.
“They like to bite,” she explains. “Rats.”
I shudder and thank the stars for my pressure suit’s boots.
“What should I call you?” I ask.
“You can call us doctor.” She lets out a harsh wheezing sound I take to be a laugh. “Incorruptible Jewel of the Heavens, Lady of the Phoenix, High Priestess of the Winding Cloth—”
I interrupt. “I don’t think I’m going to be calling you any of those things.”
She frowns back at me. “Fine. Call us Isha.”
Sound Page 17
