Maia and the Xifarian Conspiracy (The Lightbound Saga Book 1)

by S. G. Basu

  They fell silent, staring blankly at an unusually dejected Ren who sat with his eyes cast down, his face dark and gloomy.

  Then Dani spoke up. “So? I don’t think any of us are any good at it either,” she said.

  “Thanks, Dani. But it’s not the same,” Ren said, his voice still doleful. “Among my people, it’s something you are expected to be born with. Even my little brother can—”

  “Maybe you’ll get better,” Dani comforted. “Hans always says that you have to keep trying until you succeed.”

  “I do keep hoping.” A tiny bit of liveliness seeped into Ren’s voice. Then he looked up, pushed his chair back, and sprung to his feet. “Well, I’ve had enough of this whining. Let’s go, we’re going to be late for the tryouts. At this rate we’ll never get any of the front seats.”

  Maia sighed with relief. She did not care much about TEK, but she hated seeing the boisterous Ren look so miserable. And she was not alone; everyone seemed glad to see him happy and in character again. They chirped gaily as they walked to the Hall of Spires, and then took a path along the left edge of the hall instead of the usual march across to the opposite end. The very first door on the left was the Dusilado Arena and by the looks of the long line of people waiting impatiently at the entrance, the TEK Club tryouts seemed extremely popular. The Hall of Spires looked strangely warm; the crowds, the bustle, and the flurry of action made it feel a lot less unnerving than usual.

  “Kusha,” Nafi squinted, and then smiled wide as the group stood at the end of the serpentine line. “What makes you take that thing off?”

  “What?” Kusha asked. He looked puzzled as everyone stared at him.

  “Your stupid headband.”

  “It’s not stupid, and for the hundredth time, Nafi, I’m not taking it off,” Kusha replied scowling, his hand reaching toward his forehead. Then he turned the ghostliest shade of gray.

  “It’s gone.”

  He fell to his knees before anyone could blink, peeking around people’s feet. It took a few moments before Maia and the rest of the team joined him, craning their necks, hoping it might have fallen nearby. But there was no sign of the headband in the immediate vicinity.

  “I need to go back to the old project room and everywhere else I’ve been today,” Kusha said, panic surging in his eyes.

  “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” Dani suggested. “Since we are nearly at the gate here—”

  “No,” Kusha’s voice shook a little. “You guys go and watch the tryouts. I’ll run around and look for it.”

  “Come on, people, move on,” someone yelled from behind. With all the searching and the talking, they had failed to keep up with the urgent pace of the crowd behind them. Nafi made a face at the back of the line as they shuffled closer to the door.

  “Will you be able to find your way there and back?” Ren asked Kusha.

  Kusha fidgeted. Maia did not know about Kusha, but she knew she would lose her way, thanks to the countless halls, corridors, and rooms of the vast complex.

  “I’ll come with you,” Ren declared, stepping out of the line.

  “No, you want to see this,” Kusha protested. “You stay, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m coming anyway. The best you can do to help is start running.”

  The boys took off immediately, sprinting around the spires.

  “Are you coming in?” The girls had reached the head of the line. A black-clad senior monitoring the arena door frowned irritably at the three absentminded girls.

  “Umm . . . I don’t know,” Dani mumbled, turning to look at Maia and Nafi behind her.

  Maia knew what Dani meant; although curious to go inside, she did not want to watch when Kusha and Ren were caught up in something else. She also wanted to help Kusha find the headband, since it evidently meant a lot to him. Maia turned to look at Nafi and guessing by the way her eyes sparkled, she did not seem to think any differently.

  “Let’s go,” Maia whispered.

  “We’ll be back later,” Nafi hollered at the gatekeepers as they rushed away.

  Soon they caught up with the boys and together they descended on the old project room that looked even more ominous at night. But that did not deter the team from crawling under the desks, rummaging through the tool bins, and even daring to move the ferocious-looking hammers and tongs around to look underneath them. A tiring while later, a wretched Kusha was on the verge of giving up when Maia spotted a patch of red among the heap of tertiary propellers. Cautiously she tugged at the end until it came free, the soft wool band springing into her outstretched palm. Its intricately woven surface was weary and washed out in areas, but some patches were still vibrant and soft to the touch. Maia leaned forward to look closely at the golden etching on one side of the band that looked like a child’s scribbled drawing of the sun. She had never noticed it when Kusha wore the band around his head; his unruly hair must have been hiding it.

  “Found it,” she shouted. Kusha was beside her in a heartbeat, and the band was back on his head before Maia could blink.

  “Finally,” Ren yelled.

  “I was starting to think of places to get a replacement for that,” Dani said.

  “You can’t get a replacement for this. Why do you think I was going crazy all this while?” Kusha said, touching the band affectionately.

  “Because you’re a little weird like that?” Ren snickered.

  “No, because this is very important to me,” Kusha explained, indulgent at Ren’s dig. “It’s my . . . it is an inheritance.”

  “And here I was thinking we had finally rid ourselves of the stupid headband,” Nafi said. For the first time Maia detected a hint of lightheartedness in her voice. Kusha must have felt it too because he chuckled loudly.

  They stood for a while, relieved to have found what was clearly important to their friend.

  “If we run, we can still catch a part of the tryouts,” Dani broke the happy silence.

  The mad dash back to the Dusilado Arena left them breathless as they came to a stop at the door. The place looked different from when they had last seen it. Gone was the serpentine line of eager spectators with its excited murmurs, the pushing and the shoving and the sharp banter. Even the two seniors who had flanked the door were absent.

  Fervently hoping that the tryouts were still on, the gang slowly pushed the door open and peeped inside. Strong hands pulled them in. Someone cursed at the latecomers, and they were shoved through a wall of people onto a narrow ledge that circled the rim of the huge circular room. About twenty rows of seats were arranged in a ring around a transparent bubble that covered a raised rink at the center. Every seat was taken, the arena packed to the brim with trainees cheering at the top of their voices. There were about a dozen masters as well, all sitting in the ring closest to the central bubble. A spiky-haired boy, who seemed to have been the last contestant, was leaving the enclosure. His display must have been good because the audience was on its feet and the applause deafening.

  “Look,” Dani pointed toward the demonstration enclosure. The black-haired girl from Karhann’s core was talking to two seniors.

  “Yoome,” Ren whispered, almost reverentially. “She’s a TEKist for LS4.”

  “Maybe that’s why Karhann was so protective. She must be really good or something,” Kusha remarked.

  The seniors soon stepped out of the enclosure, leaving Yoome standing next to a stack of ten daggers neatly arranged on a table. Yoome looked pointedly at the target hung on the opposite wall, staring at it until the target started moving slowly around the circumference of the domed enclosure.

  “She’s making the target go around by simply looking at it,” Kusha said, blinking in disbelief.

  Yoome stepped to the center of the rink. The board orbited around her, gradually picking up pace, the concentric circles on the target spinning constantly. As soon it reached a steady speed, the daggers slowly rose from the table and hovered in the air next to Yoome. With a soft and smooth motion, she raised her left h
and to the level of the floating daggers and flicked her fingers. A dagger flew out toward the circling target. She paused a moment, raised her right hand, and flicked her fingers one more time. Another knife flew toward the spinning dark blur of a target. She went on, again and again and again, arms swaying like a graceful wave, until all the daggers were flung.

  Maia stood frozen. She had long forgotten to breathe, let alone speak. All around her, spectators had risen to their feet at the incredible display. They waited in silence until the target came to a stop. Someone screamed as the audience fathomed the results. Bunched together in the central core of the target were ten daggers vying for space. And then the room erupted in a tumult of clapping and cheers, and it went on even after Yoome had sat back down with her group.

  A pretty, red-haired senior walked to the center of the arena and waited for the ovation to die down. “What a fantastic demonstration by our participants this year! I am proud to announce the inductees to the TEK Club: Rivis Kinne for LS2, Tamare Hal Lys and Karhann Roubor Jne for LS3, and Jonneh Smeira for LS4.

  “And with the guidance of our esteemed masters, we will induct Yoome D’kien into the LS5 level—her skills are clearly outstanding,” she announced amid a thunderous applause. “As this year’s hosts of the TEK Club, Circle Four would like to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and support. Thank you for being here with us tonight.”

  The crowd of spectators dispersed soon after; the night air buzzed with their animated discussions. All Maia and her teammates could talk about as they walked back to their suite was Yoome’s unbelievable display. Ren looked a little distracted, and Nafi finally raised an eyebrow once they were inside their study.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “Are you head over heels in love with Yoome now?”

  Ren glared at her. “Don’t be silly. I’m simply amazed. That level of expertise is very uncommon in a Circle One trainee.”

  He kept brooding for the longest time, his face uncharacteristically sullen for the remainder of the evening. Maia let him be, and so did the rest of the team. They sat up late that evening, talking about nothing but TEK. Later in her room, Maia lay in her bed unable to sleep, staring wide-eyed at the dark ceiling, thinking of the fantastic TEK display, dreaming of possibilities. Suddenly, at least for a tiny while, being on Xif did not feel like a punishment.

  22: A Voice from Ti

  “How many of you have heard of Ti?”

  Two months had passed since the competition had started. The weather had grown colder, the mornings dull and dreary. On one day that simply refused to warm up, Master Kehorkjin arranged for a special session to announce the details of the first challenge. It had been quite a while since she first set foot on Xif, Maia realized, settling down near the left of the podium with her teammates. While she still tried to keep some distance from anything other than the Initiative, she could feel being drawn closer into bonds of friendship. She resented that, loathing the fact that right now she wanted to comfort and reassure her teammates, particularly Nafi, who was noticeably worried. Ignoring the urge to whisper a “Cheer up, we’ll win this,” she tried to focus on the master and his question about Ti instead.

  “And how many of you know about the landscape of that coveted moon?”

  A few scattered and tentative hands rose up.

  “Let me give you a little introduction. The most valuable place in this star system is Ti, the moon orbiting the remote sixth planet. It is far from a comfortable place. In fact it has one of the harshest and the least habitable environs we have come across during our long trek through the universe,” Master Kehorkjin said. “It is a frozen wasteland—a white moon covered with packed ice, snowdrifts, and ice floes. From space, it looks like a prune, shriveled and unappealing. Ridges and folds cover most of the surface, and flat land is hard to find, mostly hidden in the nooks and crannies between inhospitable ranges of ice. The climate is hostile as well; it is always cold and windy, and exposure to the icy air for more than a few moments can be fatal.”

  He paused and glanced over the wide-eyed faces around him. “You must be wondering why I am telling you this.”

  Maia sighed. She had not wondered why. The description of Ti had left her stomach sinking. Suddenly roused by the master’s question, Maia looked around. Very few nodded, but most seemed just as stupefied as she was.

  “Because this will be grounds for your first challenge—the Prototype Challenge. You will be responsible for helping the thousands of young people who choose to spend their lives out there, who make us all prosper and thrive.”

  Maia winced at his words. No one chooses to go there anymore; they are forced to go there, and only because the Xifarians need to prosper and thrive.

  “As you know, this will be an individual challenge. Each of you will design a craft according to the size and weight specifications given to you. It should be capable of adapting to the conditions on Ti, capable of morphing to handle various surfaces: land, air, water, and everything in between. As light is scarce on Ti, L’miere crystals do not work there too well, so managing energy consumption is key to the success of your design. To be able to save on precious energy, adhering to the weight constraints will be critical. Hence, I recommend that armors and protection systems be avoided.

  “Keep in mind that this assignment is as real as it can get, and the best creation will be the basis for prototype crafts we issue to Ti. Your finished model will be due before the end of next month, so I suggest that you start on your designs as soon as you can.”

  The room erupted in a wave of low murmurs.

  “Now, let us take a look at what it is really like out there.”

  Master Kehorkjin waved a small controller stick at the space behind his desk. In the dance of light and shadows, the projection of a small room filled the area. A boy, of Kusha’s age or a tad older, stood at its center, his eyes sharp and attentive, and a small smile flitted across his homely face. Throngs of inquisitive young people peeked and peered from behind him while he waited. As soon as the boy realized that the tour had started, he waved, visibly excited.

  “Hello and welcome to the Training Camp on the 103rd Southern. I’m honored to take you on this tour of our little world,” the boy said in a light, melodic voice. “Right now, I’m standing at the entrance of our base. Next, we’ll go out and follow the Molligessian Seam on the base’s Onclioraptor so you can see the aerial view of the surfaces.”

  The boy walked to a door, pausing briefly to put on his outdoors gear—a parka twice as thick as a wooly bison’s coat, a mask that completely covered his face, and goggles that fit tightly over his eyes and to the hood of his parka. As soon as he stepped out into the vast billowing whiteness, he teetered unstably. Maia shuddered, trying to imagine the ferocity of the wind that had just made the boy sway.

  The boy inched his way around the gate and to a behemoth of an Onclioraptor, the legendary fighter craft of the Xifarian Space Fleet, whose black body stood out in sharp contrast to the white all around. He struggled up the ladder and into the craft, settled down next to a window, and took his mask off.

  “That’s what the wind is like here,” his voice was unsteady. But he smiled brightly soon after. “Today is one of the better days though.”

  The large aircraft took off, flying low over the ice-covered barrenness that was Ti. The boy pointed out various landmarks and locations with zeal, but to the young people assembled in Gallica, it was nothing but an intimidating sea of jutting cliffs and precipices, fissures, and cracks. The Onclioraptor kept flying, forever, over the endless series of chasms and rifts, until the ground fell off in a sheer drop into a vast flat terrain strewn with chunks of ice.

  “That’s the ice floe,” the boy said in a reverential tone. “There’s no water; it’s all ice. But it’s like quicksand, only made of ice and . . . more ice. This stretch is extremely valuable because the Molligessian Seam, the richest pocket of deposits, runs across it. This is also the most dangerous tract to navigate
and the region where we need most help.”

  He paused for a moment and looked away from the audience to the view outside the window. Then he turned back, his dark eyes holding a subdued plea.

  “Any help we can get really—”

  The projection went off air abruptly, the suddenness of the end leaving Maia shaken. A quiet had fallen around the room; most contestants looked strained and disturbed by what they had just glimpsed. Maia sat stunned, an obstinate ache throbbing at the base of her throat. This was far worse than anything she had imagined Ti to be.

  “Questions?” Master Kehorkjin’s voice broke the gloomy silence.

  Nafi raised her hand. “What have they been using so far?” she asked. “I mean, what kind of crafts?”

  “That is not relevant to your assignment,” the master replied curtly.

  “And why is Ti so valuable, Master Kehorkjin?” Nafi asked again. Her voice trembled. She seemed to be shaken to the core. “What . . . what are they mining?”

  Maia looked at Nafi with concern. This was unlike the girl she had come to know—the distraught voice, the off-base questions, the total disregard of the fact that Master Kehorkjin could throw her out of the contest at his will, and that would be the end of her dream of winning it all. Even if Maia wanted to know why Nafi was so bothered, Nafi would never tell, and so Maia would never ask. But still, Maia could not stop worrying, particularly when Master Kehorkjin glowered at Nafi’s last question.

  “That is not relevant either. There will be no more questions about Ti except for what is related to your assignment,” Master Kehorkjin barked. “Now, for the most important part, you will start growing your own light crystals, starting today, to use in the craft you build.”

  Nafi shook her head in confusion and turned toward Maia. “Did he just say grow our light crystals? They don’t exactly grow on trees, do they?”

  “No, Miss Nafi,” the master’s scathing voice made Maia’s heart jump. His eyes had narrowed dangerously, his nose crinkled, and his lips grew thinner. “I hope that you speak out of ignorance and not out of some heroic desire to dare me to throw you out of this room.”