Sound

by Alexandra Duncan

  I put the loose gloves and rolls of skinknit away, and organize the bottles of pills and serums. Where is Juna? Is she watching me, waiting for me to finish? But she can’t be, or else she would have seen the empty room and sent everyone in the spindle looking for me. I find boxes of sutures, another of swabs. More Betadine and, better still, antibacterial skin glue. I pocket a tube of it and wipe down the shelves.

  Are they coming back for me? Rött said they would. He said I could tend to Lisbeth when I was done. He also kidnapped everyone down in the cell and held a gun to your temple, my own voice answers. Why would he tell the truth about anything?

  I rub my scars. They can’t leave me here alone in the clinic indefinitely. Can they? The image of Rött meeting Commander Dhar, claiming nothing is wrong and the Mendicant is only a malfunctioning piece of scrap, plays behind my eyes. All of us left here. Living under Rött’s hand. Dying here.

  My throat closes. I was willing to give up my lab, my spot in the DSRI, but my whole life? I never truly thought before now that we might fail. I knew we could, in theory, but I never believed it was a real possibility until this moment. In my mind, we rescued Nethanel and I found another way to live, another way to use my skills. I got the chance to show Cassia Mumbai’s beaches and gardens. I got the chance to know what she’s really like, not the frightened, vengeful side of her. I got to tell her all my hopes and memories. My eyes burn. Who will remember my mother when I’m gone? Who will remember the Gyre, or the stories my mother told me about Haiti? They’ll die with me in a dingy clinic on an ice moon.

  I bang my fist on the door. “Juna!”

  No one answers.

  I bang again, harder. “Juna, please!”

  Still silence.

  I hit the door with both fists. “Please, let me out!” My vision blurs and I pound faster. “Juna, anyone, please!”

  Juna bursts into the room. “What’s going on in here?” She takes in the shelves and my tear-streaked face. “What in helvete is wrong with you?”

  I drive my fingernails into my palms. I need to stop crying, but I can’t.

  Juna slaps me, then grabs me by the back of the neck and shakes me. “Shut up! I said shut up!”

  “I thought you were leaving me here,” I choke out.

  Juna’s face reads half disgust, half alarm. I’ve clearly gone mad. “You want to go back to your hole? Is that what you want?”

  I don’t dare nod. No one in her right mind would ask to leave the relative comfort of the clinic for our dank, cold cell.

  “Lisbeth . . . ,” I say through dry lips. Surely she remembers.

  Juna rolls her eyes. “Still on about her?”

  I say nothing.

  She presses her lips into a line. “Fine.” She keeps her grip firm on my neck and pushes me out of the room, down the lift, and back to the cell where the other captives wait. Thank you, thank you, I think, even though her hand is hurting me. She pulls open the door and shoves me in, then quickly pushes it shut behind me. I land on my knees, winded and bruised, but back where I need to be.

  “Mi?” Cassia runs to my side. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” I wave her away and turn on my suit’s lights. “I’m fine. No one hurt me.”

  Rubio hurries to us, Aneley and Nethanel crowding in behind him. “What happened? Did you make it to the ship? Is it still fit to fly?”

  I stop laughing and swallow hard. “Yes, I made it. And no. They’ve started scrapping the ship. The only things that were working were the lights and our long-range—”

  Rubio groans.

  Nethanel taps Cassia’s shoulder and signs to her. “It’s okay,” she translates for the rest of us. “We still have the shuttles to fall back on, right?”

  “We do . . .”

  “See?” Cassia says. “It’s back to the old plan, that’s all. It can still work.”

  “The thing is . . .” I hesitate.

  The others turn to me.

  “I heard them talking. I think there’s a chance the Ranganathan’s in orbit above us.”

  “What’s that?” Aneley looks from me to Nethanel.

  “It’s our DSRI ship,” Rubio says. “The one that tried to chase those dakait away.” He looks at Nethanel. “I’m sorry we didn’t get there in time.”

  Nethanel shakes his head.

  I clear my throat. “You should know . . . I . . . um . . . I did something.”

  Silence seizes the room. The others exchange tense looks.

  “I would have asked you, but there wasn’t time. I thought . . .”

  “What did you do?” Aneley asks.

  “I got the Mendicant’s coms working,” I say. “Not completely, but a little bit. Enough to send a distress pulse.”

  Silence stretches out between us, until it’s nearly too taut to bear.

  Rubio stares at me, disbelief on his face. “Are you saying . . . the Ranganathan’s coming for us?”

  Cassia and Nethanel begin signing furiously to each other.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “What do you mean, maybe?” Cassia says.

  “I don’t know for certain it’s them. And even if it is, I don’t know if they’ll come.” I look at Nethanel. “They wouldn’t authorize us to come after your brother.”

  “But they might?” Aneley’s voice rises with excitement. She turns to me. “Rött wouldn’t fight a government ship.”

  Rubio shakes his head. “One distress pulse. They might miss it altogether.”

  “That’s why I programmed it to transmit on a loop,” I say.

  Silence again. Rubio points up. “You mean it’s still going?”

  I nod.

  Rubio pushes away from the floor. “Maldito sea.”

  “What?” Aneley asks. “What is it?”

  “They’re going to find it, that’s what.” Rubio scowls. “Rött and his boys. They’re still taking apart the ship. Don’t you think they’ll notice?”

  “What?” Aneley sounds as if the breath has been knocked out of her.

  “Miyole, why?” Cassia looks stricken.

  “I had to risk it.” I look at Cassia, willing her to understand. I did it for you. I didn’t want you left here alone. I didn’t want you to sacrifice yourself.

  “Oh, god.” Aneley stands. “They’re going to kill us. They’re going to kill us before anyone finds us.”

  Nethanel jumps up and pulls her close, shaking his head.

  “You don’t know.” She looks at me, eyes wild. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “But we can fight them.” The certainty I had standing over the Mendicant’s console falters. “We just have to hold them off long enough—”

  “You said yourself they might not come,” Cassia says. “They wouldn’t send anyone after the dakait. Why would they come now? If it’s even them!”

  Rubio frowns at her. “We chased them away when your ship was under attack. You keep forgetting.”

  “If it’s right in front of them,” I say. “If they can’t ignore it—”

  Aneley’s father cuts me off with a cry. “Ki ki ri ki! Ki ki ri ki!”

  A moment of silence follows his outburst, and in it, I hear something that turns my blood cold. The rumble of boots approaching.

  Rubio motions for us to back away from the door and throws himself flat against the wall beside it. I kill my suit’s lights. Being accustomed to the darkness might be our only advantage.

  The door bursts open. Rubio hooks his foot around the first guard’s ankle and sends him sprawling. The guard’s electric prod skitters across the wet floor. Cassia scoops it up and runs at the next man through the door, screaming. Nethanel follows her, and then Aneley, wielding limpet-shell shards in each hand. One of the guards swings his prod at Nethanel, who dodges and elbows the man in the ribs. Aneley stabs wildly at the same guard’s shoulders, misses, and sinks one shell into his neck. He cries out—a wet sound—and clamps a hand to his neck, dropping his prod.


  I dive for it, but Pulga reaches it first. He snatches it and stabs it into the next guard’s foot. Electricity runs up his leg, snapping and arcing across the metal findings in his boots. The man convulses, eyes rolled back in his head, and collapses just inside the door. A claxon blares from the hallway, so deafening I can feel it pulsing through my eyes. Nethanel doesn’t falter, though. He delivers a solid hit across one guard’s jaw and barrels into another, knocking both of them into the hall. One of the guards in the hallway raises his prod to slam Nethanel, but Cassia is there with her own. She catches the guard in the chest.

  “Come on!” Rubio screams.

  I run for the door, but then I remember—Lisbeth. The older woman has pushed herself off the bench and is working her way to the door with one hand out against the wall to steady her steps.

  “Go on,” she says. Her face is drawn with pain. “I’ll catch up.”

  “No, you won’t.” I grip her around the ribs and drape her injured arm over my shoulders. Blood has soaked all the way through her makeshift bandage. I remember the roll of skinknit in my pocket, but there’s no time now.

  We hurry to the hallway with the others. The guards litter our path. Some of them are bloody. Some of them are dead. Maybe this should bother me, but it doesn’t. I don’t have time to feel anything, especially for them. I grab a discarded prod and step over one last body.

  Rubio, Cassia, Nethanel, and Aneley lead us down the corridor. We should be running, but the most some of the captives can manage is a quick, shuffling walk. Lisbeth and I draw closer to the front. We stop in front of the lifts. Cassia reaches for the call button, but Rubio catches her hand.

  “Not that way. We’ll be trapped.”

  “There’s no other way up to the dock,” Cassia argues. “How else are we going to get out?”

  Nethanel tugs at her sleeve. He points down the corridor that branches off to the right and makes a stair-climbing motion with his forefingers.

  “An access stair?” She raises her eyebrows.

  He nods.

  We hurry down the corridor, passing empty rooms with no doors. What was this place built to be? The beginnings of a city like Ny Kyoto? A research outpost? Whatever it was, I doubt it was this. We come to the stair.

  “Access code?” Cassia whispers, signing to Nethanel as she speaks.

  Nine three two four, he responds, and I realize what she’s doing. Getting the keypad lock codes, preparing to stay behind, without him ever knowing.

  Cassia activates the door, and we file in, Rubio in the lead. Lisbeth looks up at the flights rising above us and knits her brows.

  “I’ve got you.” I tighten my grip on her. “We’ll make it, okay?”

  Rubio reaches the first landing. He stops, a hand held out to the rest of us, his head cocked, listening. He jerks as if he’s been shocked.

  “Back!” he says in a hoarse whisper, waving his arms at us and hurrying down the steps. “Go back!”

  A murmur of fear runs through the group. Some freeze in place, while others try to jumble through the narrow doorway.

  Aneley wades in. “One at a time,” she murmurs, touching people’s shoulders, steering them to the door. “Keep moving. One at a time.”

  But now I hear what Rubio heard. Footsteps pounding down the stairs.

  I look around, heart battering at my chest. We had surprise on our side before, but now our captors know we’re loose, and only a few of us are fit to run, much less fight. I pull Lisbeth down into the wedge of darkness beneath the stairs. Pulga crawls in after us.

  Aneley has shepherded almost everyone through the door, leaving Cassia, Rubio, and a few stragglers, when the first pair of boots hits the landing above us. Rubio whirls around and pushes Cassia behind him.

  “Stop right there!” Juna’s voice rings through the stairwell.

  I crawl forward and peek out between the railing. Juna descends the stairs one step at a time, five other guards close behind her. Each of them carries a slug rifle. I pull my head back into the shadows and try not to breathe too loudly.

  “You little skitstövels are going to pay for this.” Juna steps down from the last stair. “You think you’ve seen blood, but you haven’t seen nothing.”

  Rubio’s eyes flicker to me and then back to Juna. I feel the weight of the prod in my hand. I know what he wants me to do.

  Rubio raises his hands, buying time. “We only did what you would have done.”

  “We fed you, gave you a place to live.” Juna takes another step. “This is how you repay us?”

  My manman’s voice runs through my head. Your people saw the chance for freedom and took it. Sweat slicks my hand. I wipe it on my suit, grip the prod, and slide out from beneath the stairs.

  Juna starts to turn. I jab the prod up, through the stair rails, into the hollow at the back of her knee. She cries out and drops, her body jerking. The other guards open fire. Rubio falls back on Cassia, and screaming fills the hall outside the stairwell.

  I pull the prod from Juna’s body. One of the other guards wheels on me and fires just as something wrenches me back beneath the stairs. I scramble against the wall next to Lisbeth, breathing hard. Pulga. He looks at me, pupils wide, and then darts out into the fray.

  “No!” I scramble after him and try to snatch the edge of his shirt, but he’s gone.

  Rubio has crawled forward and found Juna’s gun. He fires up the stairs, knocking one of the guards back against the wall. Pulga rushes another, screaming, and plunges his weapon into the man’s sternum. The remaining guards return fire. Pulga’s body spasms. He tips backward and his head hits the bottom step with a sickening crack.

  The air sucks from the stairwell. I stumble to my feet, ears ringing.

  A primal sound rises from the survivors, something between a scream and a moan. Unearthly, anguished. It is in my mouth and my blood and bones. I am that sound and everyone making it.

  Cassia charges forward, shouting, wordless. We surge after her, mounting the stairs, engulfing the last three guards in a wave. I strike out with the prod, and one of them drops. Fists clutching limpet shells rise and fall and screams of pain and rage twist together until all that’s left is the smell of blood and my own breath, harsh and fast in my ears.

  I patch up the wounded as quickly as I can. Tourniquets for the worst wounds, skinknit for the lesser ones. For the dead, there’s nothing we can do but to leave them where they fell. More guards could be on us any minute.

  Eighteen of us continue up. Thirteen lie on the stairs. I’ve bound Lisbeth’s hand properly, but she’s still shaky from blood loss. The others support the wounded as we make our slow, painful way up the spindle. Cassia and Rubio head the group, while Nethanel and Aneley bring up the rear. The alarm still bleats overhead, but my brain has stopped processing the sound.

  We stop inside the door that leads to the dock.

  “Everyone with a weapon to the front,” Rubio says. “There’s no telling how many of them are on the other side.”

  I hand Lisbeth to another woman, Belen, and make my way to the front.

  Rubio gives me a crooked grin. “You want to go first, Miyole? You’re pretty badass with that prod.”

  Rubio. Trying to joke, even now. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and something about it breaks my heart. I swallow the lump in my throat. “After you.”

  He presses his back against the door and nods. I push down on the activation pad. The door slides away and Rubio enters firing. Cassia, Nethanel, Aneley, and I charge in after him, our weapons held high.

  We’ve run several meters before I realize no one is trying to stop us. No one is fighting back. The last of Rubio’s shots trails off in an echo. The dock is empty, except for the shuttles and the Mendicant’s shell.

  “Where are they?” I say, breathless. We’ve killed a few of the guards, but some of the others were only injured, and we haven’t seen Rött at all. Something isn’t right.

  “Does it matter?” Cassia says. “They’re not her
e.”

  “Everyone keep sharp.” Rubio backs toward the shuttles, scanning the room. “Be ready.”

  Cassia catches my arm. “Make sure he stays on the shuttle, okay?” Her eyes go to Nethanel, walking quickly, hand in hand with Aneley. “Try to keep him distracted.”

  I stop. “What?” And then I see the control room, and I remember. I failed. The Ranganathan hasn’t sent anyone, if they were ever there in the first place. And now Cassia is going to give herself up.

  “You shouldn’t have to do this,” I say.

  Cassia looks tired. “Who else is going to do it?”

  “I don’t know, maybe . . .” I look around at the knot of survivors making their way to the shuttles. But this isn’t the kind of thing you make someone else do. Someone has to volunteer.

  “This is how it has to be, Mi,” she says. “Trust me. Remember?”

  A knot forms in my throat. I do remember. Don’t stay here, I still want to say. Don’t give yourself up. But my lungs have a choke hold on themselves.

  “Right,” I manage.

  “Go on.” She lifts her chin at the waiting shuttles. “They need you. Steer them out of here.”

  I turn away, eyes burning. Cassia’s right. They need me. And if I get out, I can find someone who cares about what’s happening at Kazan Spindle and all the other dirty corners beneath Enceladus’s ice. Someone will come for her. If she’s still alive. If she isn’t broken like Aneley’s father.

  I fight the urge to look back as I walk toward the others. Nethanel hasn’t noticed yet, but Aneley gives me a sad nod. This is how it has to be.

  Behind her, Rubio tries to activate his shuttle’s door. It doesn’t open. He catches my eye, frowns, and tries again.

  A flash of orange flares across the dock. The sound hits me—a squeal and bang like trains colliding. Something shoves me. I don’t remember falling, but I’m on my back staring up at the tracks of lights in the rafters and I taste blood. I raise my hand—it’s streaming from my nose. What happened? I push myself up. My ears whine, and a cloud of black smoke spreads over the remains of the shuttle Rubio was standing beside. Time slows and tunnels.

  “No!” I feel the words in my throat, but all I can hear is the buzz in my ears.