Yesterday's Legacy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  A cramped storage room off one of the ready areas had been emptied out, the door replaced with steel glass so prisoners could be monitored and a plain steel bench added.

  She was lying on that steel bench now. It was hard and cool.

  Beyond the door, she could see a single civil guard, Eastov. He was at a desk, his back to her, working the communications bands. If the riot was still happening, then he would be busy coordinating efforts and directing guards to where they would be most useful. It was a senior skill and Cantrell should be sitting at that desk. Or even Hayim, damn his black soul. Instead they had left the task to a junior guard.

  No wonder Eastov’s shoulders and back were tight and braced.

  On the wall in front of Eastov, the big permanent screen was showing a rotating view of cameras all over the ship, in quick succession. Marlow blinked and screwed up her eyes, trying to make them focus.

  Then she studied the screen. “Palatine,” she whispered as the view showed the large open meadow in front of the public park. There were three people locked into a hold and a dozen more running toward them. The riot had reached the Palatine, although the intensity would be watered down there because people and houses were so far apart.

  The view flickered. The rotation would go back to the top of the ship now. She had spent many hours watching this rotation and knew the cycle.

  “Bridge,” she whispered.

  Nothing was moving on the empty Bridge itself. The next view was the bullpen outside the Captain’s office, in the administrative section. There were people standing and yelling at each other, with red faces. Captain Sekar himself was sitting on one of the desks, off to one side, watching it all. He looked wary and nervous.

  The view shifted.

  This time, the Bridge Guard post at the front gates to the Bridge. There was only a skeleton staff manning the gate. They were alert and just as on edge as David Sekar.

  Another shift. “Aventine,” Marlow whispered. This time, a view of the long corridors in the residential section. They looked empty. Just before the view shifted again, she saw people running through the intersection of the corridors, swift and secretive.

  Then the market squares at the center of the district, fringing the arena. There was more rioting here and Marlow barely recognized the area. The destruction had been that great and most of it seemed to have centered on the arena. The steel glass walls that separated the concourse and front of house sections from the Aventine public areas had all been smashed. She could see people moving inside the concourse, waving pipes and sticks, running along the concourse in chase of others.

  She moaned. How could they stop this? How could they stop the destruction from reaching a point of no-recovery? Couldn’t people see what was happening? Where had everyone’s better sense gone?

  The Capitol end of the Aventine appeared. Then the Capitol itself. The terraces between the walls and the market square showed fighting only not as much destruction because there wasn’t much they could dismantle for weapons or defense.

  The Field of Mars were virtually untouched. People were running through the public corridors, heading for either the Esquiline or the Capitol. All of them moved in big groups.

  The Artery was completely still. There were some cars pulled off to one side and left at abandoned angles. The trains were halted in the middle of the mag tracks. There was no need to offer transport to rioters. They were spreading through the ship all by themselves.

  The Esquiline was also completely still and silent. The ravaged district showed it was here the riot had started. There wasn’t a single stall in the market place that was whole. Bodies lay on the floor and some of them wore civil guard uniforms.

  People were dying out there.

  Sadness gripped her. How could anyone allow this to happen? Why had it happened? Was it really just the bad confluence of events and cycles that had contributed?

  When the view shifted back to the Palatine again, Marlow very slowly sat up, taking her time and pausing as her head thudded in sickly beats.

  Finally, she was upright. She turned her back to the wall and leaned against it. Now she was standing, she could feel more aches and pains. Her lip was also aching. Either she had bitten it when she had been hit on the head, or split it when she fell on the floor. Either way, it hurt.

  Marlow sat there for several more hours, watching the rioting progress across the ship and recovering her strength. Her headache eased off a short way, although if she moved too sharply it came crowding back, making her dizzy. She didn’t move.

  When the rotating view settled on the Bridge itself and she saw David Sekar and his staff in there, she reached over to tap the glass door with her knuckles.

  Eastov, who hadn’t once looked around to check on her, jumped in his chair and looked over his shoulder at her. He had forgotten she was there. He was too focused on what he was doing.

  Marlow pointed at the screen. “Take it back to the Bridge!” she called. The door wasn’t soundproof. He would hear her just fine.

  Eastov glanced up at the screen, then shrugged and prodded the surface of his desk and turned his attention back to the multiple screens in front of him.

  The view switched back to the Bridge.

  The lens had been refocused so that now it looked at the Captain’s chair and David Sekar, who was sitting in it. The big shoulders of his jacket made him look more substantial than he was in person. He was looking off to the side for his queue. Then he nodded and looked at the camera, held the gaze for ten seconds and began to speak.

  “If there is anyone out there who is looking at a screen right now, I urge you to calm yourselves and look around you at the destruction and ruin that has been delivered upon us. I urge you to quieten your thoughts and your passions. For the sake of the Endurance, I ask that you reach out to your neighbors and help them to see that this must stop, or we will all die and the Endurance with us.”

  He paused, letting the viewers absorb that.

  “Return to your homes. Close the doors. Rest and recover. Let better sense reassert itself, while you comfort your friends and loved-ones. There will be no reprisals for today’s events. If you go home now, if you fight no more, there will be no recriminations, no blame laid. You have been misled by those who should know better.”

  He paused again. Marlow held her breath. She had watched the Captain’s speeches long enough to know the other shoe was about to drop.

  “The instigators of today’s events, however, will be held fully accountable for their actions.”

  Marlow’s heart squeezed.

  “I am forced by the severity of this incident to a decision no other Captain bar one has ever had to face. I call for the deliverance of the two ringleaders in this affair, Tomas Averill and Jonah Solomon. Hand them over to the Bridge Guard, so they can be dealt with in a manner appropriate to their crimes.”

  Marlow jumped to her feet and pressed herself against the door, horror bursting through her.

  Then her vision blurred and pain gripped her. Nausea washed through her and she closed her eyes, willing it to pass.

  When she could see again, she pounded the door. “Eastov, let me out! Eastov!”

  Eastov had become deaf. He didn’t move from the desk no matter how much she screamed and railed and pounded. Finally, she lowered herself to the bench and gripped her hands together. She felt sick again. This time it wasn’t because of her head.

  It was because of her fear.

  * * * * *

  Erron couldn’t look at him.

  Jonah turned the screen off. “You believe that I started this, Erron?”

  He shook his head. “Mom wouldn’t pick someone like that as…a friend.” His voice was harsh.

  “Do you want to turn me in?” Jonah asked. “It would take all the pressure off you. You would be out of it, your hands clean.” He tied off the basic bandage he had made out of one of Erron’s shirts, moving awkwardly because it was his dominant hand he was working on and the knot wouldn
’t form easily.

  Erron chewed his lip. He still couldn’t meet Jonah’s gaze. “Mom wouldn’t want me to do that.”

  “She’s not here,” Jonah pointed out, then sighed as the knot unraveled. “You have to make up your own mind.”

  “Me?” Erron looked up, startled, finally looking directly at him.

  “There’s what the Bridge wants, then there’s what is right. You have to figure out what is right, Erron. Even if that means going against your own interests.”

  “You mean, if I think it’s the right thing to do I should turn you in, even though Mom will hate me?”

  Jonah gave him a dry smile. “Welcome to being an adult.”

  Erron leaned over and batted Jonah’s hand away from the ends of the bandage. “Here, you’re making a mess of that.” He started to tie it properly, in a firm knot. “Sorry we don’t have coagulant here.”

  Jonah didn’t answer. He waited.

  Erron finished the knot and sat back with a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t feel right to hand you over. I can’t figure out if that’s because I know you or because Mom likes you and trusts you, or….” He screwed up his face.

  “Or….?’ Jonah coaxed.

  “What are they going to do to you? I mean, they’re not even stopping to find out if you’re really the one to blame!”

  “I think you know what they’ll do,” Jonah said calmly.

  Erron made a fist of his hand. “That’s not right!” he declared. “Killing you?”

  Then he had grasped the implications perfectly. Jonah felt a little sad that kids like Erron all over the ship were being dragged into adulthood early by these events. They were dealing with matters than not even adults should have to grapple with.

  “They don’t need to find out if I’m really to blame,” Jonah told him. “They don’t care. The captain told everyone they would be forgiven for the riot if they hand me over. How many people will shove me onto the Bridge if they think it will get them out of trouble?”

  Erron’s mouth opened and his eyes widened. “They would do that?”

  “Survival is a very strong instinct in humans,” Jonah said. “I think a lot of people are very scared right now. They got involved in something that spun out of control and now they’re worried about what happens next. The captain just handed them an escape key. It might take a while but they will end up using it because there’s no other way out for them.”

  Erron shook his head. “That’s the part that isn’t right,” he declared. “Humans don’t kill humans. It’s…barbaric. How can the Captain even think of such a thing?”

  “Because he’s as cornered as everyone else,” Jonah said. “He’s thinking that as long as Tomas Averill and I are still on the ship, we’re a threat to the Bridge.”

  “You’re not!” Erron cried. “Not you!”

  Jonah smiled. “Thank you.”

  Erron looked flustered. “I guess…I’m not going to turn you in,” he said slowly. “Does that mean they’ll come after me?”

  “I doubt they’ll even look twice at you. You’re still technically a kid, by a handful of days. They will come here, though. It will be one of the first places they look. Unfortunately, it’s public knowledge your mother and I are together.”

  “What are you going to do, then? If you try to go anywhere on the ship, all the rioters will grab you and give you to the Bridge, just to get out of trouble themselves.”

  “All I have to do is reach a cab.” Jonah made light of it. “Besides, the riot is still happening. If the captain is smart, he’ll keep that announcement he just made running over every channel and feed and saturate the Forum with it. If the rioters happen to see a screen, they might be persuaded to stop fighting if they think they can save their asses.” He shrugged. “However, while the riot is still on-going, I’ll be able to slip past unnoticed on the edges of it.”

  The screen in front of him flickered, drawing his attention to it. There was a priority message for him. He pulled it up, wondering who would have the testicles to reach out to him even using the private channels. He didn’t know how private they were—it was possible the Bridge Guard might be able to hack his profile, even though the Bridge had been assuring everyone for as long as he could remember that private meant private.

  We need to resolve this. Let’s talk. Field of Mars, back tunnel, thirty minutes.

  It was from Tomas Averill.

  Jonah flipped the screen around so that Erron could read it.

  “Isn’t he your enemy?” Erron asked.

  “The better question is, why did he send this? Was it Averill who sent it?”

  “You mean, someone else is sending it to lure you out where they can find you?”

  Jonah smiled. “You’re catching on to rational thinking, I see.”

  Erron flushed. “Tomas Averill doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know that talking about fixing things would appeal to you. Only someone who knows you would know that might get you there. You’re not going, are you?”

  Jonah grimaced. “I have to. If only to find out who wants me there and figure out if they’re friend or foe.” He got to his feet. “I’ll have to walk there. The back tunnel isn’t big enough for a car. I’d better start now. That will give me time to back track if I need to.”

  Erron got to his feet, too. “What do I do?”

  “You need to wait here.”

  His face fell.

  “It’s important, Erron. I’m not making you stay out of it. If…when your mother is released from the Bridge, or if she finds some other way out of there—”

  “If she escapes?” Erron’s voice rose.

  “Not what I was thinking at all,” Jonah said swiftly. “Your mother has a lot of friends on the Bridge. I think Hayim has forgotten that. If—when—she gets off the Bridge, she will come back here because she knows I will head here, too. You need to be here to tell her what has happened because I won’t risk putting it anywhere on the net. I won’t leave her a message.”

  Erron nodded. “Then what?”

  “Then, your mother will need to decide what to do next. You keep watching the Forum, Erron. Just watch. You’re our information center now. Report to your mother when she gets back. She’s going to want to know about the riot, where it’s centered, that sort of thing.”

  “A status report?”

  “Exactly.” Jonah smiled.

  “And you? Will you come back?”

  “Too risky. I’ve explained why. My apartment is dangerous for the same reason. Probably the whole Capitol is. Tell her I’ll work my way to the gray house. She can meet me there.”

  “The gray house,” Erron repeated, frowning.

  “She knows where it is.”

  “There’s hundreds of gray houses on the ship,” Erron pointed out.

  “Not like this one, there isn’t.” Jonah shook his hand. “Stay safe, Erron.”

  Erron nodded.

  Jonah slipped out of the house into the dim light of the district. The lights were no longer red emergency lights. They weren’t the bright sunlight of an ordinary day, either.

  Nothing was normal about this day.

  He worked his way around the edge of the district in a big, circular path along back corridors, heading for the Field of Mars. He tried to keep one eye in the back of his head and the other scanning the way ahead, while his thoughts were focused on the meeting.

  Who would he find there? Would he see the trap before it was sprung?

  Chapter Sixteen

  The hull-high industrial processers, energy towers and batteries, air scrubbers and everything that was considered too large, too ugly or too noisy to be located in the residential districts was collected in the section of the ship called the Field of Mars, after the meadows outside ancient Rome where armies who were banned from the city itself made camp.

  The irony was not lost on Jonah, who suspected that most of the ship wouldn’t know where the industrial area’s name came from in the first place.

  While many p
eople used the Artery to get from one end of the ship to the other, if their journey was only to the next district they tended to walk. There were three main paths through the Field and one back tunnel where maintenance engineers could access the equipment and systems. The back tunnel was nominally a public thoroughfare. It was a dank, grimy place. The enclosed space could be claustrophobic and most people chose one of the other three thoroughfares instead.

  Jonah made it to the beginning of the tunnel without incident, although he’d had to take his time. The riot was still happening, although now it had spread out across the whole ship, it was no longer the concentrated battle that had been waged in the Esquilino marketplace. Instead, gangs were roaming the area. Jonah watched one group walk across the marketplace, their heads turning, looking for trouble. They spotted a single man flitting along the edges and took off after him with yells and shouts.

  There were a lot of injured people and some bodies lying here and there.

  Even farther in the distance, Jonah could hear more shouts and screams. Normally the sound of the traffic on the Artery and the boom of industry meant the ship didn’t echo the way it was now.

  It was frightening. Was this the way the ship would look when it died?

  Jonah eased his way through the district, waiting in dark corners for people and guards to move on and sometimes sprinting from cover to cover. All of it would be useless if anyone on the Bridge just happened to be watching a monitor as he passed by that lens. It was impossible to avoid the cameras. They were everywhere.

  So he ignored them. This meeting could be ended quickly by the arrival of the guard and that might just be a good thing for him.

  At the tunnel mouth, Jonah peered down its length for as far as he could see. It was nearly two hundred meters in length. The other end was invisible from here. Somewhere in between, they were waiting for him. That made the hair on the back of his neck try to stand up.

  Someone stepped out from between banks of machinery and stood in the middle of the tunnel, about eighty meters down its length, almost at the halfway mark.