Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling)

by Leah Petersen

  “You imagine? Don’t you know?”

  He shot me a look of contempt. “I do not have him in my custody, if you require clarification. The unclass was supposed to die as well, but he managed to escape, and the children with him. I do not doubt that if he is alive, they are as well. The creature seemed to actually believe Owen was his son.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “At least he will let no harm come to the boy. Owen is safe, and will be even safer when I have located Dawes and killed him.” As if an afterthought he added, “I will see to it Owen is not there when that is taken care of. The boy is too young to understand, and Dawes has taught him to be soft.”

  It still burned that Dawes had my child, but it was an old pain, buried deep. “What happens now?”

  He sat back with a smile. “I must return to the palace. I am not officially away. It would look very bad for me to do anything that would give the appearance of running. But I wanted to rescue you myself.”

  “My hero.”

  He only smiled. “In any case, it is too early for you to be seen just yet, so rather than going back to the palace, I thought you would prefer to go home for a while.”

  I sat back to disguise my sudden lightheadedness. “Home?”

  ***

  Like the other nobles of my station, I’d spent most of each year at the palace. Besides that I had countless houses, cottages, estates, even a small moon. But there was only one place I could properly call home: the estate of Appalachia. I waited until I could be more certain of my voice.

  “None of that belongs to me anymore. Or so I was told at my execution.”

  “It belongs to you again.” Laudley made a dismissive gesture. “It will soon. In the meantime, I made sure it would be accessible to you even during this time of turmoil.”

  I gave him a wry sneer. “No one will be looking for me at my family’s oldest holdings?”

  He scoffed. “You are dead. No one will be looking for you at all.” And yet he couldn’t be the only one who had considered I might still be alive.

  “What about her?” I said, jerking my head in the direction I’d last seen Kafe. It felt like I could track with each cell in my body the distance that grew between me and Dead End. But she was here with us, like a rash I couldn’t ignore. Her presence tingled at the back of my neck like a premonition of danger.

  “The woman?”

  “Yes, what do you plan to do with her?”

  He shrugged. “I leave that entirely up to you. I have no use for her, yet she knows too much. I am certainly not going to leave her out there alive. I would kill her, personally. But perhaps you have some use for her?”

  Kafe. How many times over the years had I wanted her dead, had imagined doing it myself? Fantasized about it. But now that it came down to it, I was oddly conflicted. Still, I shrugged. “Do whatever you want with her. I don’t care.”

  Laudley’s smile held an edge of malice that unnerved me. He nodded to a servant who then departed the room.

  “Here,” he said, turning back to me, “have some wine.” As another servant poured, Laudley watched me, the ghost of a smirk on his face. I took the glass without a word, studying and sniffing it as if I hadn’t just spent years with access to nothing but prison slop. The wine sang on my tongue and I closed my eyes, barely biting back a groan of pleasure.

  He settled himself across from me, a faint smile on his face as he took in the view. For several moments we sat in silence, as if we had nothing more important to contemplate than the vintage. My head was reeling but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the wine.

  A servant entered the room and approached Laudley. “They’re ready, Your Grace,” he said quietly.

  Laudley nodded, turning to me with a smile. “Come see.” He stood and gestured for me to accompany him to the window. I couldn’t let him see how very much I didn’t want to be any closer to it than I was. I forced myself to join him. “Ah,” he said, pointing to something just coming into view. “There she is.”

  The sight of Kafe’s lifeless body spinning away into the void kicked me in the gut. The reaction was visceral and completely unexpected. I hated her, but this—being spaced—was bigger than her or me. It was every Dead End inmate’s fear. Both because we were afraid of it and because we wanted it. I pressed my lips together and concentrated only on staying upright, showing Laudley nothing.

  Laudley cocked an eyebrow, but when I didn’t react, he turned away as if bored. “So now there is nothing to do but return you to Earth. I hope you take this opportunity to relax and refresh yourself and re-acclimate to life as a free man. You will have little enough time, soon.”

  “Why is that?”

  His grin became something sharp and predatory. “I have not tried it myself, but I hear that ruling the empire is a difficult job, Your Excellence.”

  What time will you be back?

  Late. If I get back tonight at all.

  The kids want to stay up for you.

  Better not, I don’t know how long I’ll be.

  They miss you.

  Just them?

  I always miss you.

  You’d better.

  iv11

  The shuttle sped through a simple underground tunnel and we slipped out into the ocean, like a newborn sea monster. Water whooshed by the thick windows in momentary flashes of colorful sea life staggered through long stretches of water. I kept expecting that we would surface and take flight. Surely we were leaving the planet? But our course remained unvaried.

  The children at first were fascinated, quickly forgetting things like fear and loss in the face of something so grand and new and amazing. But when the abundant life nearer the shore gave way to long, uninterrupted stretches of ocean, they began to lose interest. Molly slowly inspected the transport, but Owen settled into the seat beside me, slipping his hand into mine.

  “Where’s Papa?” he asked quietly. My throat closed around the answer and I looked away from him, fighting hard to force back tears. I wanted to scream in frustration. How many times had I wanted to escape this life? Clean and complete and untraceable. But not like this. Not like this at all.

  Pete was supposed to be here.

  Owen’s hand spasmed. I pulled him close, burying my face in his hair.

  “I’m sorry, Owen,” I said, choking on even the vague acknowledgment. He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing hard.

  “Did they kill him?” he whispered.

  I nodded against him. He hiccoughed a loud sob. Molly turned at the sound and wrapped her arms around him. “Are you having a bad dream?” She turned her face up to mine. “Where’s Papa?”

  Owen’s shoulders jerked and Molly buried her face in his back. “What’s wrong?” Her body grew taut with tension as it became obvious that something really was not right. Her jaw set and she glared at me, demanding that I fix it, refusing to be weak.

  She’d have made a good empress. I started at the thought. She was empress now. Or should be. Should have been? The thought pulled a strange sound out of me, some combination of grim amusement and grief. We were speeding through the ocean, running as fast as we could from the palace, the throne, to some place no one in the empire knew how to find. Would we ever even go back? Could we? What were we now?

  Pete was dead.

  I gathered the children close, sharp elbows and chins and knobby knees clashing and shoving themselves into some conglomeration of family I meant to have now. So that I could never lose one again.

  I cried into Molly’s hair as I explained simply and without detail that Papa was gone, that he wasn’t coming back. That we were three where we had been four. Whatever else we were or weren’t, I left alone.

  I didn’t know.

  ***

  The children fell asleep because they were tired, as only children can do. More than an hour of unrelenting o
cean passed by the windows. I gently disengaged them from around me, laying them together in a tumble of arms and legs and made my way to the front of the ship. I didn’t like our chances much, and I wanted to know what I could of this series of secure protocols that were literally hurtling us through the depths of the ocean.

  The readouts were fascinating. Half of the technology the transport bore didn’t officially exist. There were so many camouflage and deflection, defense and protective measures that I began to wonder at the fact that I could see and touch it. From inside.

  I’d seen some of this tech before because I had access no other scientist in the empire had, but there was plenty I didn’t recognize at all. The scientist in me could have lost himself in it for days.

  Somewhere in my absorption I noticed the ship slowing. Before long, the underside of a manmade structure came into view and we slowed further, making an approach to an underwater garage. The water was lighter in color here, nearer the surface. The doors opened and swallowed the transport, closing behind us. Water drained slowly from the bay and we were once again sitting in a visually unremarkable ship in a nondescript room no one in the empire knew about.

  With dread heavy in my gut, I triggered the door to the transport and stepped out into the garage. Water dripped from the ship and the ceiling, running along the edges of the room in a soothing trickle, disappearing through drains in the floor. A door into the garage opened and a man stepped through.

  It was Jonathan.

  So how do you like your new rooms?

  You mean your rooms?

  Ours.

  Jonathan corrects me every time I say that.

  You leave Jonathan to me. He’s wrong. They’re yours too. I plan on keeping you, you know.

  Same goes, Emperor.

  iv12

  For a long time we stood there, just staring at each other, as if neither of us had the brains to use to open our mouths and say anything.

  Or that either of us had any idea what to say.

  “What are you doing here?” I managed to croak.

  His answer was slow in coming. “I live here. I am the caretaker of the safehouse.”

  “In what universe?” I sputtered. “You were—you were exiled! I was there. I did it!”

  His reply was slow and careful, as if confronting a skittish animal. “When you banished me I came here.”

  I shook my head, running a hand through my hair, looking around the garage as if there was something here that could make sense of this.

  “You were banished from the empire and this counts?”

  “Like you were banished to the IIC?”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  He didn’t bother to argue. I just felt tired. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I didn’t want to remember. Anything.

  I heaved a huge, shaky sigh, turning back to the transport. He came to stand beside me, looking at the sleeping children. “Shall I carry one of them?”

  “Stay away from me. Stay away from my family.”

  He stood still and silent. Waiting. Because he was the servant and that’s what they did. It infuriated me years ago, when I wanted him to stop pretending to be a robot and admit we were really friends. Now it infuriated me for a whole different reason.

  “Stop that!” I cast a quick glance at the children to make sure I hadn’t woken them. “Stop,” I said again, but more quietly. “Stop playing ‘good servant.’ It’s a lie and we both know it.”

  I turned my back on him, sick with fury and loss and emotions I couldn’t even name.

  I picked up Molly. She shifted to put her arms around my neck and her head on my shoulder without opening her eyes. I shook Owen gently.

  “Owen. Buddy. We’re here. Come on, let’s get you to bed.” He blinked sleepily, standing, leaning into me, heavy lidded. I turned to the garage again, trying to figure out this place.

  “I can show you to their rooms,” Jonathan said quietly.

  I blinked away ridiculous tears shaking my head and, exiting the garage through the only door there. I couldn’t see him, but the back of my neck crawled with the awareness of Jonathan following behind.

  What do you want for your birthday this year?

  I don’t know, ask Jonathan.

  Ask Jonathan what you want for your birthday?

  Sure. If you don’t know, I’m sure he will.

  Because you don’t?

  I live with the emperor. I already have everything. Wait, how about a lot of sex?

  That I can definitely manage.

  iv13

  The garage opened into, of all things, a kitchen. I stood there for a strange moment, wondering when I’d last been in a kitchen. Abenez? It was so...normal, and yet so completely abnormal to me, considering the life I’d led. I sputtered a laugh. I took the first open doorway out of the kitchen into a wide, window-walled living area. One large hallway led away from it and I turned down there, hoping it was the bedrooms, because I didn’t think I could handle needing Jonathan.

  I stopped in front of the first door and stared at the room inside. The walls all around were painted with one continuous mural of an outdoor scene, complete with animals, both real and fantastic, that tracked from sunrise at one corner through the progression of the day and night until it met itself again with the sun rising. Overhead were the stars, laid out precisely as they would be seen from Earth, probably from this vantage point. It was breathtaking.

  “I didn’t know if Princess Marquilla had developed any particular interests so I went with a more general theme I thought she might like. I can change it, over time. I’m not very fast, though.”

  “You did this?” I breathed.

  “I’m not a painter, but I found enough pictures of what I needed and traced it when I could.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see him watching my face. “It’s my job here. I make sure the house is always ready for you, should it be needed.”

  I entered the room, setting Molly down on the bed. I tugged off her shoes and clothes, tucking her gently under the covers, Owen sleepily did the same for himself, crawling into the bed on the other side, asleep again instantly. I’d have to figure out nightclothes, I supposed. There was an odd moment when I stood there, wondering when I’d become the man who thought about such things.

  Jonathan was there when I came out and I pretended I didn’t notice, continuing down the hallway. I peeked into the next open door and stopped in shock. The lights were low but it was still easy to see the stark contrast of white walls covered in the black accents of musical symbols, instruments, notes, even a three-foot high set of rows, just waiting to be filled with the dots and stems of a music score.

  Stunned to find a room so perfectly tailored to Owen, I crossed to the closet in a daze, opened it and walked into the space filled with clothes and shoes, all Owen’s size. Jonathan was waiting for me in the hallway. Just like old times.

  “How did you know?” I blurted. “How did you know he loves music? How did you know his shoe size!”

  His answer was measured and impersonal. He was respecting and adapting to my mood. I hated it. “My entire purpose here is to keep the house maintained should the Family need it. I’m kept informed by the Family’s servants as to your tastes, preferences, the children’s sizes.”

  “Don’t tell me you sewed their clothes.”

  He huffed a small laugh, so unlike the proper Jonathan from when I’d known him. “Things are sent, and I am able to requisition as needed.”

  “I thought you couldn’t communicate with anyone?”

  “I don’t, directly. There are many people in the web of procedures set up to maintain this place and most have no idea what the orders really mean or what they’re for. What messages I’m allowed to send are all filtered through automated systems. I am only placing orders that eventually show up her
e.”

  I shook my head at the enormity of it all, and how it could still surprise me after living with the emperor so long.

  Pete.

  “Shall I show you to your room?”

  I turned away, sick from remembering and dangerously close to forgetting all Jonathan had done; how careful I needed to be now that it was just me. I clenched my jaw against a surge of nausea and nodded curtly. He pointed me toward another room at the end of the hall, its door at the very center. I cautiously stepped inside.

  The light was soft and golden, the perfect counterpoint to the darkness of the windows set throughout. The sitting room was separated from the bedroom only by a set of French doors with raised curtains. It looked exactly like any room for the emperor you would find on one of his transports or any other place where something grander wasn’t possible.

  Except, it didn’t look anything like that. The colors were quiet and simple, the furnishings and decoration probably priceless and unique yet they weren’t ostentatious or even regal. They were...comfortable, homey. It was the sort of thing I would have chosen for myself, if I’d ever been allowed. Other than my lab, I’d never had something so completely refreshing, completely...normal as this looked.

  Stupefied, I wandered into the bedroom. There was an open veranda that I couldn’t make much of in the dark, but it spanned the length of the room, hints of greenery at the edges. The bathroom was exactly where I expected it to be. I only made it one step into the room before my knees gave out and I fell to the floor, stricken and shaking.

  The emperor’s bathroom at the palace was an elaborate, costly affair, studded with jewels and priceless murals and sculptures. This wasn’t anything like that.

  It was our nebula.

  Somehow, with painted walls and colored tiles, Jonathan had created the illusion that we stood right inside of the Dawes-Killearn nebula. The place that meant everything to Pete and me, that was the most basic and true piece of anything we could claim in the universe, that was ours, and us. I clutched my arms around myself as if I could hold myself together, as if there truly were forces of nature in here too great for puny humans, forces to which I was nothing at all, that would rip me apart and make use of me and never even know they did it.