Sound
Page 31
Commander Dhar pauses before she answers, and then laces her fingers together, leans forward, and looks me in the eye. “We had every assurance from our distributor that our ships were sourced from fair-wage and indenture facilities.”
I frown. “But didn’t anyone check? Didn’t anyone want to make sure?”
Commander Dhar looks away and presses her lips together, as if considering the chart on her wall showing the Ranganathan’s progress through the system. So many moons and planets. So many colonies and outposts. What else does the DSRI not want to know?
“Specialist, you can rest assured that the DSRI will rigorously investigate any future ship purchases,” she finally says.
“That’s brilliant,” I say, not really meaning it. “But what about the people being held captive? What about the false indentures at Rangnvaldsson’s? There have to be hundreds more places like the ones we found.”
“Yes.” Commander Dhar clears her throat. Her eyes stray to an old star chart hanging on the wall in a gilded frame. “You’ll be happy to hear Rangnvaldsson Keramik has been ordered to turn over its records for a full audit.”
“So Petya and all of them, they’re free now?”
Commander Dhar nods. “Yes.”
“And you’ll help root out the others? You’ll send in rescue teams like you did for us?”
Commander Dhar hesitates. “We can only be responsible for our own actions, Specialist.” She gives me a tired look. “The DSRI isn’t a police force. And the politics of this situation are complicated.”
“How is it complicated?” My voice rises. “Is it legal to own slaves on Enceladus?”
“No, but—”
“Then why can’t you do something?” Tears of frustration spring to my eyes. “Or tell someone who can do something?”
The commander furrows her brow. “I’ve read your record, Specialist Guiteau. You’re young. Maybe too young to understand. This isn’t only about what the DSRI wants. It’s about Enceladan sovereignty.”
“It’s about human beings,” I shoot back. “It’s about human sovereignty.”
Commander Dhar stares down at her desk. “You’re tired, Specialist. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. I think perhaps some more rest might be in order.” She taps her desk com. “Might we have an escort for Ms. Guiteau?”
Two wellness orderlies appear at the door. I glare back at Commander Dhar as they lead me away. There’s nothing more to say.
Chapter 31
My door opens only from the outside. Once a day, the orderlies escort me down the hall to David and his origami cranes, and then let me stop to look in on Rubio on my way back. His color looks better and he’s off the ventilator, but still too drugged to hear me say I’m sorry. I ask for Cassia, but she doesn’t come. Or maybe my messages never reach her.
They bring me meals. I eat them but don’t taste them. I watch the flowers fading in and out on my wall until I’ve memorized the order of their rotation. I sleep. I sleep more.
And then one night I wake to the soft bong and hush of air as my door slides open.
I roll over. Commander Dhar stands in the entryway, holding a book.
“What do you want?” I sit up.
“Just to talk.” She gestures to the foot of the bed. “May I?”
I swallow. “Okay.”
“You know.” She lays the book down on the bed, next to me. “I read your notes on the pollinator project.”
“Oh?” I glance down. Is that what she brought me?
“You were right about the solution being a genetic one.” She nods at the book. “I think you’ll be glad to hear your subjects are thriving now.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m glad the pollinators are doing well, but being right about them doesn’t matter now. All of that feels like another life.
“You’re a good scientist, Ms. Guiteau.” Commander Dhar smiles at me. “No matter what else might be said about you.”
I stare at her. “Is that what you came to tell me? In the middle of the night?”
“No.” The commander meets my eye. “I want your opinion on a delicate matter.”
“My opinion?” I raise an eyebrow.
“What if—” She stops.
I look at her sharply. “What if what?”
“There are people on Enceladus who hate what’s happening as much as you and I do, correct?” She folds her hands and examines them.
I eye her. “Yes . . .”
She looks up at me. “What if I were to tell you the DSRI allocates a certain amount of disposable income for each mission to be dispensed at the commander’s discretion?”
I frown and clear my throat. “How much are we talking about?”
“Enough to fund a freelance team of Enceladans interested in shutting down slavers and investigating indenture fraud.”
I don’t say anything, so she goes on. “It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would be a start.”
“Are you asking me to be part of that team?” I say.
“Oh, no!” She laughs, sudden and sharp. “I’m afraid your recent misadventure makes that impossible.”
“Am I going to be taken to the correctional board?”
“You would be.” She picks up the book and taps it to life. “Only it seems the DSRI made quite the mistake allowing you on board in the first place.”
“Oh?” My stomach flutters.
Commander Dhar pins me with a look. “How old are you, Specialist?”
“Eight—” I catch the quirk at the corner of her mouth and stop. What’s the use in lying at this point? “Sixteen.”
The commander nods. “We can’t subject a minor to a correctional hearing, can we?”
“No?” I say.
“No,” she agrees. “But we do have a duty to send her home.”
“Home?” A lump rises in my throat.
“We’ve already sent word to your guardian and arranged for your transport,” Commander Dhar says.
“When . . . when do I leave?” I ask.
“As soon as our orbital positioning window is open,” Commander Dhar says. “Two days.”
“Two days?” I repeat. “Will Rubio . . . I mean . . .”
“We don’t know yet.” Commander Dhar gives me a sympathetic frown. “We’ll see.”
The flowers fade in and out—daylily, blue vanda, tea rose, champa.
Commander Dhar clears her throat. “In another five years, the DSRI will be preparing for another mission. You’ll be, what? Twenty-one?”
I nod. I can’t really imagine myself that age. It doesn’t feel possible, even if the math says so. Twenty-one sounds so grown up.
“Well,” Commander Dhar says. “I, for one, would be glad to see you reapply for another DSRI mission when that time comes. Under my command, of course. And with the understanding that you don’t steal any more shuttles.”
I look at her, cautious. “Really?”
“Really.” The commander stands. “You don’t give up, Specialist Guiteau. And even if I can’t say so in my official report, I admire that.”
They finally let Cassia visit me the next morning. She comes bringing news of Rubio, and also bringing Tibbet.
“They stopped to meet with the Tsukinos after they raided Rangnvaldsson’s,” she says as she drops the cat on the bed next to me. “Commander Dhar wanted me along since I know them. Like an ambassador.”
“Hello, Stink Beast,” I say to Tibbet. He butts me with his head and rumbles deep in his throat.
“Rubio’s awake,” Cassia says. “He opened his eyes this morning. His body’s accepting the limb grafts.”
I look up from scratching Tibbet under his chin. “Have you been to see him?”
Cassia nods. “He asked about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He wanted me to tell you he always wanted a biomechanical skeleton anyway.”
A short, shocked laugh bursts out of me, quickly replaced by a prickle in my eyes. I shake my head and wipe a
t them with the back of my hand. “Rubio.”
Cassia traces a circle on the bed. “What are you going to do when you’re back home?”
“I don’t know. Be in trouble with Soraya forever?”
She laughs. “After that.”
I hook my finger around hers. “I know I want to go back and see what’s rebuilt in the Gyre. But the rest . . . I thought you might want to come with me.”
“Mi . . .”
“I know you’d be away from your family, but it wouldn’t be forever,” I rush on. “Only until I’m eighteen, and then we can go wherever we want.”
“Miyole.”
“You said you shouldn’t be with anyone while Nethanel was missing, but now that everything’s going to be calm again—”
“Miyole.” Cassia leans forward and clasps my arms. “I can’t.”
I stop. A small vacuum opens up inside me. “Why . . . why not?” I search her face.
Cassia pauses. She looks down and wets her lips. “Commander Dhar, she told me about her plan. She asked if I wanted to put together a liberation team on Enceladus.”
“Oh,” I say softly. The one thing I can’t do. The one thing I can’t ask her not to do.
“I just . . . I have to do this. I can’t let them keep doing what they did to Nethanel and Aneley and all the rest.”
“I want to go with you,” I say. “We never got a chance—”
Her face crumples. “Don’t, Mi. This is already too hard.”
My mind whirrs, trying to figure out a loophole. Some way to stay together. Some way to get out of being sent away from her.
“I could break out of here. We could run away again.”
Cassia and I stare at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing. I rock forward. In the history of spectacularly bad ideas, that has to be the worst.
Cassia sobers first. “But then how would there be a liberation team? Commander Dhar is the one paying for it.”
My laughter dries up. I bury my head in my hands. She’s right. I don’t want her to be, but she is.
In the silence, she moves beside me on the hospital bed and wraps an arm around me. I lean my head against her shoulder. She leans her head against mine, and I close my eyes. I want to feel her skin, the warmth of her, the soft waves of her hair against my shoulder, for as long as I can. I want to kiss her and memorize the pattern of her freckles. I want more time to learn the real her.
“We’ll find each other,” she says quietly. “When all of this is done, we’ll find each other again.”
I pick up my head so I can look at her. “Promise?”
“I promise.” She presses her forehead against mine.
Our lips come together. I kiss her and kiss her and hold back my tears because I don’t want her last memory of me to taste like sadness. I kiss her because I don’t know how long it will be before each of us finishes what she has to do. I kiss her because this is how it has to be.
Epilogue
“Steady,” Ava says. “Stay low enough to keep out of the gusts.”
“I’m on it.” I sit in the pilot’s seat of Ava’s sloop, squinting against the harsh Pacific sunshine. A small flotilla appears on the horizon, ships and pontoons linked together in the beginnings of an enclave. Beyond them, acres of plastic and debris float on the ocean’s surface.
“Is that it?” I glance at Ava, sitting in the copilot’s seat.
She nods. “That’s New Gyre.”
I turn back to the shimmering sun and watch the ships growing as we make our approach. A flock of gulls circles one of the masts. “Do you think it’ll be anything like the old one?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.” Ava frowns. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” I say. Our hold is full of medical supplies—vaccines, antibiotics, splints, painkillers, and skinknit. I’ll set up shop here, and in a month’s time, Ava will be back with more of what I need. I won’t save the world, but I’ll break off my own small piece. I’ll see that cuts don’t become gangrenous, that broken limbs can heal, that pain doesn’t accompany the birth of a child or mar a man’s last days. I’ll do what I can.
I look up at the blue, blue sky through the viewport. Somewhere out there, Cassia is making people whole again, and here I’ll do the same.
We land on the traders’ docks. They aren’t on the seaward-facing side, where they were so many years ago before the storm, but something about them tickles my memory. The air smells like salt and home. If I close my eyes, I can see my manman waving to me from the roof of our old house. I can see Kai racing over the footbridges and the boats going out at dawn. I will pay the price of living and remember. I will remember and I will heal.
I open my eyes. High above the rooftops and gently swaying masts, a red kite soars in the breeze.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, many thanks to my husband, Jeremy, for encouraging me, understanding when I was terrible about cleaning the cats’ litter box while on deadline, and re-reading this manuscript more times than I thought was humanly possible You are my favorite human and my best friend.
Also, a huge thank-you goes to my editor, Virginia, and everyone at Greenwillow Books, including Preeti Chibber and Gina Rizzo. Thank you for continuing to push me and challenge me to be a better writer with every draft, and for all of your encouragement and support. Thanks as well to my agent, Kate Testerman, who confirmed my suspicion that Miyole needed her own story and who cheered me on, along the way.
My mother, Leslie Golden, consulted with me on medical aspects of the book, and for that, I am incredibly grateful. Any factual errors or liberties taken with medical science are my own. She is also the person who taught me to live with compassion and showed me how to stand up for what I believe in, even if I was afraid. Mom, you are an incredible woman.
The inimitable Stephanie Perkins, Megan Shepherd, and superlibrarian Lauren Biehl have my thanks for serving as first readers and cheerleaders. There would be no book without you guys. Thanks as well to Nathan Ballingrud, Meagan Spooner, Beth Revis, Alan and Wendi Gratz, and all the writers at Bat Cave and the Chocolate Lounge. You are the reason I am still sane.
Finally, thank you to all my colleagues and to the patrons in the Buncombe County Public Library system. Your support along this crazy writing journey has meant the world to me, even if I can’t help turning bright red and hiding behind the circulation desk when you talk to me about it. Just know that is my introverted way of saying thank you.
Back Ad
DISCOVER
your next favorite read
MEET
new authors to love
WIN
free books
SHARE
infographics, playlists, quizzes, and more
WATCH
the latest videos
TUNE IN
to Tea Time with Team Epic Reads
About the Author
ALEXANDRA DUNCAN is an author and librarian. She lives in the mountains of western North Carolina with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats.
www.alexandra-duncan.com
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Alexandra Duncan
Salvage
Sound
Credits
Cover art © 2015 by Mariusz Pocztowski
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
SOUND. Copyright © 2015 by Alexandra Duncan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this t
ext may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
EPub Edition © September 2015 ISBN 9780062220196
ISBN 978-0-06-222017-2
15 16 17 18 19 PC/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com