“If you want,” she said, making her voice bright and carefree.
He chuckled and tousled her hair. “I don’t need it. You can go work with Colonel Ilich. If Trejo has something critical, I’ll let you know.”
“All right,” she said. And then, because she could tell he knew what she’d been thinking, “Thank you.”
“Always,” he said, and waved her on.
She knew as soon as she stepped into the classroom that something was wrong. Usually the others were spread in clumps, lounging on the sofas and chairs of the common area, with half a dozen conversations going on among them. They would notice when she walked into the room, but they didn’t make an effort not to stare at her. Today, they had scattered to the edges of the room, leaning against walls or against the pillars like little prey animals that knew a predator was close. Connor was by himself, frowning at a handheld like it had insulted him and he was trying to keep his temper. The others all glanced at her and then away again, but Connor didn’t see her with an energy and focus that felt deliberate.
“I’ll be right back,” Colonel Ilich said, touching her on the shoulder. “I just need to get one thing before we start.”
She nodded, dismissing him. Her attention was on Muriel Cowper. She was a year older than Teresa, with dusty brown hair, a chipped front tooth, and a talent for drawing that meant she did all the face painting at the large-group events. She approached Teresa now, and it looked like she was trembling. It reminded Teresa of Carrie Fisk.
“Teresa,” the other girl said. “Can I… could we talk for a minute?”
Teresa felt a little prick of dread, but she nodded. Muriel took a couple steps toward the door to the courtyard, then stopped and looked back the way Muskrat did sometimes, to be sure Teresa was following. In the courtyard, Muriel held her hands in front of her belly like a child being disciplined. Teresa wanted to take them, push them back down to her sides, make her act normal. Muriel’s anxiety was like heat from a fire, and it made Teresa feel anxious too.
“What’s going on?” Teresa asked.
Muriel licked her lips, took a deep breath, and looked up, her eyes locked on Teresa’s. “There was a camping trip with the school last week, and all of us went, and it was overnight so a bunch of us snuck out to the water when we were supposed to be asleep and Connor kissed me.”
Teresa felt something. She didn’t know what it was, but it lived in her abdomen, just below her navel, and in deep enough that she knew it couldn’t be muscular. The implications clicked over in her mind like dominoes. Connor had kissed Muriel. Not just that, but Connor had wanted to kiss Muriel. Not just that, but Muriel had known that Teresa would care. And so had everyone else.
Oh God, and so had Connor.
“I can break up with him,” Muriel said softly. “If you want me to.”
“I don’t care what either of you do,” Teresa said. “If you and Connor want to go into the woods and kiss, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Thank you,” Muriel said, and went back into the common room, almost skipping. Teresa followed her, trying not to let anything that was happening in her body show on her face. Colonel Ilich arrived as she did, smiling warmly. He had a round black-and-white ball the size of a decapitated head under his arm.
“Today,” he said to all of them, “we’re going to be learning some new football drills. The rain’s made the east lawn a little damp for the process, so if you fine ladies and gentlemen will please follow me to the gymnasium, you can change into more appropriate clothes…”
The middle of the day was filled with echoing shouts and the burn of her legs and back. She kicked too hard and missed more of the shots than she made, and through all of it, she felt the attention of the class on her. Of Muriel. Of Connor. Even Colonel Ilich noticed that she was off her game, but apart from a gentle question about how she was feeling, he didn’t follow up on it. When the time came to shower and change back into her regular clothes, she didn’t go to the locker rooms with the others. She had her own apartments. She didn’t need to be with them anymore. Not any of them.
As she left, she looked to see if Connor was with Muriel. If they were holding hands. If they were kissing. As it happened, they weren’t—Connor was at a brushed steel drinking fountain with Khalid Marks and Muriel was pretending that she’d died and had to be carried off the floor by Anneke Douby and Michael Li. Teresa thought it should make her feel better, but it didn’t.
In the privacy of her rooms, she let herself cry. She felt stupid for having to. Connor wasn’t anything to her but the boy she’d thought about more than other boys. She’d never kissed him or tried to hold his hand. Until today, she’d have said that he didn’t even know that she felt different about him. That no one knew. Except now he was sneaking out of his tent with Muriel fucking Cowper in the middle of the night. Who was even in charge of the camping trips that they let things like that happen? Someone could have been drowned or mistaken for prey by a local animal. They were incompetent. That was the problem. That—improbable as it was—was why she was sobbing.
Muskrat forced a thick, prickly nose under her arm, pushing up. The concern in the old dog’s eyes was unmistakable. Her thick tail wagged uncertainly.
“I’m stupid,” Teresa said, and her voice sounded exhausted even to her. “I’m just really stupid.”
Muskrat coughed out something less than a bark and hopped on her front legs. An unambiguous invitation. Let’s forget this and go play. Teresa threw herself down on her bed, hoping that sleep would come or that the bed would open up like in the movies and let her escape to a different dimension where no one had ever heard of her. Muskrat huffed again. Then barked.
“Fine,” Teresa said. “Just let me put some clothes on that don’t stink like sweat. Idiotic dog.”
Muskrat wagged harder. More sincerely.
The morning clouds had gone, but the landscape was still soaking from the rain. The water cycle was something that all the worlds in the empire shared. Any world with life had rainstorms and mud puddles. She walked down the colonnaded paths, tending away from the more inhabited parts of the State Building. She didn’t want to have any company but her dog and her self-pity.
She wondered what she could have done differently. If she’d told Muriel no, that she had to break things off with Connor. She could have done that. She still could, a little. If she went to Colonel Ilich and said she didn’t feel comfortable with Muriel anymore, she could have the girl kicked out of the peer interaction activities. Even request that Connor spend more time at the State Building if she wanted to, and it would just happen.
But everyone would know why she was doing it, and so she couldn’t. Instead, she walked across the gray-green of the back gardens, looked out at the low, green rise of the mountain beyond the State Building’s grounds, and wished she could leave or die or turn time backward.
Muskrat alerted, dark, floppy ears pointing forward with excitement. The dog barked once in what sounded like excitement and then bounded away faster than an animal on old worn-out hips should have been able to. Despite herself, Teresa laughed.
“Muskrat!” she shouted, but the dog was onto something and wouldn’t be turned away. The thick, wagging tail disappeared behind a hedge of lilacs imported from Earth, and Teresa trotted after.
She half expected to find Muskrat worrying a skitter or ash-cat or other local animal that had wandered onto the grounds. The dog did that sometimes, even though the local animals made her sick when she ate them. Teresa always worried that one of the larger native predators would sneak in someday. But when she made her way around the hedge, the only thing besides Muskrat was a human figure, sitting on the grass and looking out toward the horizon. Graying, close-cropped hair. Laconian uniform without an insignia of rank. An amiable, empty smile.
James Holden, and Muskrat sprawling on the grass beside him, wriggling to scratch her back. Teresa stopped short. Holden reached out idly and rubbed her dog’s belly. Muskrat hopped to her feet
and barked to Teresa. Come on! Almost against her will, Teresa found herself walking toward the most famous prisoner in the empire.
She didn’t like Holden. Didn’t trust him. But whenever they spoke, he was polite and unthreatening. Even a little amused by everything in a vague, philosophical kind of way that made it easy to be polite back.
“Hey,” he said, not looking up at her.
“Hello.”
“You know what’s weird?” he said. “The rain smells the same, but the wet ground doesn’t.”
Teresa didn’t say anything. Muskrat looked from the prisoner to her and back again, as if she expected something she was looking forward to. After a moment, Holden went on.
“I grew up on Earth. When I was your age—you’re fourteen, right? When I was your age, I was living on a ranch in Montana with eight parents and a lot of animals. Rain smelled like this. I think it’s the ozone. You know, from the electrical charges? But the ground after a storm had this deep smell. It was like… I don’t know. It smelled good. Here, it smells minty. It’s weird.”
“I’ve been around wet soil before,” she said, almost defensive. “That smell’s called petrichor. It’s actinomycete spores.”
“I didn’t know that,” Holden said. “It’s a good smell. I miss it.”
“That’s my dog.” The implied so get away from her was lost on him.
“Muskrat,” Holden said, and Muskrat thumped her tail, pleased to be included in the conversation. “That’s an interesting name. Did you pick it?”
“Yes,” Teresa said.
“Ever seen a real muskrat?”
“Of course not.”
“So why the name?” The way he asked seemed weirdly open. Almost innocent. Like she was the grown-up and he was the kid.
“There was a character named that in a picture book my father used to read to me.”
“And was the character a muskrat?”
“I guess so,” Teresa said.
“Well, there you have it,” Holden said. “Mystery solved. You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know. She’s not.”
Teresa shifted her weight. The ground under her was still soft from the rain, and he was right. It smelled like mint. A half dozen possible responses came to mind, from turning and walking away to telling him that she wasn’t scared of him and he was stupid to think she was. If she hadn’t already been feeling humiliated and angry, she probably would have laughed it off. But it turned out she was spoiling for a fight, and he’d handed her one. He was one of the few people it was perfectly safe to bite at.
“You’re a terrorist,” she said. “You killed people.”
An expression crossed his face almost too quickly to see, then he smiled again. “I guess I was. But I’m not anymore.”
“I don’t know why my father doesn’t keep you in prison,” she said.
“Oh, I know the answer to that one. I’m his dancing bear,” Holden said, and lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky. High white clouds against the blue, and the glittering lights of the construction platforms beyond them. Teresa understood the game. He was pulling her into conversation. The thing about the rain and the soil. How Muskrat got her name. Now this mysterious dancing bear comment. All of them were invitations, but it was up to her whether to play along.
“Dancing bear?” she said.
“Old kings used to have dangerous animals in their courts. Lions. Panthers. Bears. They’d teach them to do tricks or at least not to eat too many of the guests. It’s a way to show power. Everyone knows a bear is a killer, but the king is so powerful that a bear’s just a plaything for him. If Duarte kept me in a cell, people might think he was afraid of me. Or that I might be a threat if I got out. If he lets me out, lets me roam around with what sort of looks like freedom, it tells everyone that comes to the palace that he’s cut my nuts off.” He didn’t sound angry at all. Or resigned. If anything, he was almost amused by it.
“You’re getting your back wet, lying down like that.”
“I know.”
The moment stretched, and she felt the silence pushing at her. “How many people did you kill?”
“Depends on how you count it. I tried not to get anyone killed when I could help it. The thing is? I am in prison. Right now, I’m pretty sure there are at least two very well-trained snipers ready to open up my brainpan if I try to hurt you. So not only am I not inclined to hurt you, I literally couldn’t, even if I thought it was a good idea. That’s the point of a dancing bear. It’s the least dangerous thing at the court, because everyone’s aware of it. The ones you trust are always the most dangerous. A lot more kings and princesses got poisoned by their friends than eaten by bears.”
Her handheld chimed. Colonel Ilich asking to speak with her. She sent an acknowledgment, but didn’t open a connection. Holden grinned up at her.
“Duty calls?” he asked.
Teresa didn’t answer him except to tap her leg. Muskrat hauled herself up to her feet and trundled over, as pleased to leave as to stay. Teresa turned back toward the State Building. When Holden called back after her, there was a buzz in his voice. Like he was trying to fit more meaning into the words than the syllables could hold.
“If you’re worried, you should keep an eye on me.”
She looked back. He was sitting up. As she’d warned, his back was dark with wet, but he didn’t seem to care.
“They’re watching me all the time,” he said. “Even when it seems like they aren’t. You should keep an eye on me.”
She frowned. “All right,” she said, then walked away.
As she headed back toward her rooms and the colonel, Muskrat huffing contentedly at her side, Teresa tried to decide what she was feeling. The sting of Connor and Muriel was still there, and the shame at feeling stung. But they weren’t as immediate as they had been. And along with them was an uneasiness she couldn’t quite fit her mind around, only that it had to do with the fact that Muskrat liked stumbling across James Holden and she didn’t.
She found Colonel Ilich in the common area. The couches and sofas felt very different with all the other students gone. The walls themselves felt like they’d taken a step back and left a fraction more room for the emptiness. Her footsteps echoed, and so did Muskrat’s claws tapping against the tile. Ilich was going through something on his handheld, but he stood up as soon as she came near.
“Thank you,” he said. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything?”
“Nothing important,” she said. “I was just walking.”
“That’s excellent. Your father asked me to see whether you were available.”
“An incident?”
“Piracy in Sol system,” Ilich said. Then, a moment later, “Piracy with some unfortunate security implications. There may need to be an escalated response.”
“Did something important go missing?”
“Yes. But before we go to your father?” Ilich’s expression softened. For a moment, he had the same expression she’d just seen on James Holden. It was eerie. “I don’t want to intrude, but I had the feeling that there was something bothering you at the peer seminar today.”
This was her moment. All she had to say was that she didn’t feel comfortable with Muriel anymore, and the girl would never be welcome at the State Building again. Or that she wanted to go on the next camping overnight that the school took. Then she could sneak out at night and kiss a boy down by the water. She could feel the words in her mouth, solid and hard as candy. But then Ilich would know. He knew already.
The ones you trust are always the most dangerous.
“Teresa?” Ilich said. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
Chapter Ten: Elvi
Something was wrong. She didn’t know what it was, only that she had an overwhelming sense of threat and dislocation. She was coughing and vomiting breathable liquid, and Fayez was already gone. His couch looked empty and dry. He’d been out of it awhile. Her mind slowly came back. She
was on the Falcon. They’d been burning hard to the Tecoma system. She’d been in a high-g crash couch. And something had gone wrong.
She tried to say What happened?, but all that came out was, “Wa appa.”
“Don’t try to speak yet,” her med tech said. A likable young ensign named Calvin with dark skin and features that made Elvi think his ancestors might have come from the same region of West Africa as her own. She’d never asked, because he almost certainly wouldn’t know. Laconians did not share the Earther interest in ethnic origins. His face seemed to swim in and out of focus, and her mind felt weirdly disconnected from her body.
“Wa—” she said, ignoring his advice, and then she vomited again.
“Stop it,” Calvin said more forcefully. “You had a reaction to the sedative mix while you were under. We had to run some tests and a procedure before we revived you to make sure we didn’t do any damage.”
Calvin pulled a medical cuff off her arm that she hadn’t even noticed was there. The needles stung as they retracted. Several tubes ran from the cuff to a drug-dispensing monitor nearby. Elvi tried to read the screen to see what they’d been pumping into her, but her eyes couldn’t focus. The words remained a mysterious blur.
“What—” she managed to get out without vomiting, but before she could finish, Fayez burst into the room.
“You woke her? Why didn’t anyone call me!” he yelled at Calvin. “Let me see her chart!”
Fayez grabbed her hand and squeezed a little too hard. Up close, she could see that his eyes were a little red and puffy. Had he been crying?
“Sir,” Calvin said. “She woke because the procedure had finished. All her scans are clean. No brain damage. There should be no loss of function.”
“Brain damage?” Elvi croaked out. “Were we thinking brain damage?”
Her throat felt raw. Fayez grabbed a plastic bottle of water with a straw and held it up to her lips. She drank greedily. Apparently she was thirsty. Good to know.
“There was some concern that your breathing had been depressed,” Fayez said as she gulped down the water. “We just wanted to be sure.”
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