The Gauntlet

by Megan Shepherd

  Bonebreak sighed. “There’s a Mosca outpost one-half of a rotation from here—about a human week’s time. The owner keeps decommissioned ships for parts. But it would be impossible to trade this clunker for a new one. I’d have to use all my credit.”

  “So?” Mali asked bluntly.

  Bonebreak sputtered, “I am a black market trader! Credit is the blood in my veins. Without credit, I might as well be dead.”

  Mali shrugged, not seeing the problem. She turned to Anya. “Can you communicate with Cora telepathically to let her know we are coming back for them?”

  “I can try.” Anya sat straighter in the chair, working the kinks out of her neck, and then closed her eyes. Her face strained with effort, a muscle tensing in her cheek, until she let out a long breath and shook her head. “It isn’t working. I think we’re too far away.”

  “Then we must hurry,” Mali said. “Before they give up all hope. Or before Leon does something dumb, like try to be a hero, and gets himself killed.”

  “You heard her. Take us to that outpost!” Anya wiggled her fingers at Bonebreak, a not-so-subtle threat to control his mind again if he disobeyed.

  Bonebreak grumbled, “If we are going to go through with this senseless plan, then it at least needs to appear convincing.” He dug around in his bag until he came out with two small molded black rubbery pieces and the thick thread Mosca used to sew on masks. “It will look suspicious for me to be traveling with two free humans. The outpost trader would smell something rotten before we even landed. It is safest for me to mark as you my property. Just a . . . what is the word? Charade.”

  He held up the glistening shielding.

  Mali eyed him uneasily. This had been exactly what she and Anya had feared when forming an alliance with a Mosca. Bonebreak’s kind were untrustworthy and unpredictable.

  This was why rescuing Cassian was so important: Cassian had prior claim to them. If they freed Cassian, Bonebreak wouldn’t be able to betray them.

  He wiggled the needle, awaiting their response.

  Mali pulled Anya to the facilities room, where they could speak privately. “I do not trust him.”

  Anya rolled her eyes. “Neither do I, but he’s kind of right. How else can we get Cora? She’s got to run that Gauntlet. There’s no one else.” She ran a shaky hand over her shorn blond locks, the tremor in her fingers as bad as that of a woman of seventy, not a girl of ten—the result of having spent years sedated under heavy drugs. If not for that physical weakness, it might have been Anya herself running the Gauntlet as humanity’s savior.

  Anya shoved her shaking hand into her pocket, cheeks flushing pink, as though embarrassed by the weakness.

  Mali tried hard to think of any other possibility but came up with nothing. “Fine. But once we get to Armstrong, Leon and I are going to find a way to board a Kindred supply ship back to the station. We must free Cassian—he is the only thing that can protect us from Bonebreak’s claim.”

  Anya nodded.

  They rejoined Bonebreak in the main cabin. Mali drew in a sharp breath, hating the Mosca’s stench. He held up the needle enticingly. “Your hand, girl.”

  She extended it reluctantly. He set a small piece of rubber shielding over the pad of her thumb but paused before sewing. His gloved fingers grazed her own, the scars deeply embedded in her fingers. “You’ve been in a scrape.”

  “Yes. With the last Mosca who owned me,” she said tensely. “I have scars, but he is dead.” She let the warning linger.

  Bonebreak shrugged and started sewing the shielding to her scarred thumb. She didn’t flinch at the pain. Pain was something she was used to—something she had trained herself to withstand in order to shield her mind from outside prodding.

  Bonebreak finished, ripping the thread with his teeth, and then repeated the process on Anya’s thumb. “If we’re leaving,” he said, glancing at the viewing screen, “we’d better make it fast. It will take us nearly a full rotation to reach the outpost and return. I fear your friends may not last that long.”

  Mali nodded thoughtfully. She was a long way from trusting Bonebreak, but she had to begrudgingly admit that she admired his practicality.

  “Let’s do it,” Mali said. “The wolves are strong, but the rabbits are clever.”

  Anya grinned and plunked down in the copilot’s seat. “Get us to that outpost,” she ordered.

  4

  Cora

  CORA REACHED OUT HER thoughts toward a pebble in the corner of the quarantine cell. Slowly, telekinetically, she lifted it. One inch. Two. Three—

  She lost concentration and it fell.

  “Dammit.”

  Only one day in quarantine and she already felt weak from the fetid air in the tents, and desperately thirsty, and hopeless. Rolf snored loudly on the other side of the cell. He had slept for what Cora guessed was twenty-four hours. She understood his exhaustion. The escape from the space station, Lucky’s death, Bonebreak’s offer to help her run the Gauntlet on the Mosca planet . . . the past few days had been a roller coaster. But unlike Rolf, she had remained awake despite her exhaustion, sick with worry. She hadn’t had such bad insomnia since the first days in the Cage, when she and Lucky had stayed up all night talking about his life on his granddad’s farm in Montana. Lucky. The thought of him brought a pang of sadness. She sucked in an audible breath, so sharp that Rolf stirred.

  His face was creased with sleep. He rubbed his eyes as he looked at the quarantine bars. “So it wasn’t just a nightmare.”

  She picked up the pebble, rolling it between her fingers. “Not the kind that goes away when you wake up.”

  Rolf came over and sat next to her. It seemed he’d forgiven her for snapping at him the day before. He squinted into the low light, looking around the empty tent. “Where did everyone go?”

  “To the mines. They left a few hours ago. You’ve been asleep awhile. Here.” She handed him a canteen of water that a deputy had brought them. It still held a few tepid sips.

  He drank it quickly and then wiped his lips. “I thought I heard you cry out.”

  “I was thinking of Lucky.” She glanced around to make sure all the deputies were outside before taking the journal from her waistband. “Ellis didn’t find this when they searched us. It’s Lucky’s journal. It’s the last thing I have of him.”

  He reached out for it and silently flipped through the pages, then stopped on a dog-eared page and read out loud:

  Mom sacrificed herself for me. She knew the car accident was going to happen a second before it did and swerved the wheel to keep me safe. I guess that’s what parents do for children. I guess that’s what people do for the ones they love.

  Rolf looked up at Cora. “Lucky’s mother died protecting him?”

  Cora swallowed, thinking of that awful night on the bridge. She nodded shakily. “Yeah.”

  Rolf reread the journal entry thoughtfully. “What you said yesterday is true: Nok and I should have thought more before getting pregnant. But now I have to face the fact that I’m going to be a father. It isn’t something I imagined—I couldn’t even get a girlfriend back home. And my own father wasn’t much of a role model. It was my brother they all admired—I was just the freakish younger brother they shipped off to school.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t have the first clue how to be a good parent.”

  Cora thought of her own father—his political job had meant he’d been distant, yes, but in a way, his work as a senator was to create a better world for Cora and Charlie. “I think it starts with building a home. A safe, loving community for her.” She motioned to the tents. “This place might not even be so bad, if it wasn’t run by a crazy sheriff.”

  Rolf nodded, considering this.

  The tent flap opened, admitting blindingly bright daylight, and Cora quickly hid the journal. They both shielded their eyes as two deputies entered and stood guard while the long line of slaves filed back in. The slaves’ hands were caked with dirt and bleeding from torn fingernails. Their eyes were vacant, g
azes skimming over Cora and Rolf behind the quarantine bars and registering no curiosity or acknowledgment at all. They were broken shells of the people they must once have been. Watching them, Cora couldn’t help imagining herself a year from now, just as broken and hollow.

  And what of Nok and Leon, taken as wives? She shuddered to think what must be in store for them.

  The slaves all sank back into their positions lying or sitting around the tent, spooning mouthfuls of the bland broth the guards distributed.

  Dane came in, shutting the tent flap behind him. He strode to the quarantine cell and held up two bowls. “Chef’s special. Marron root broth with powdered onions.”

  He passed the bowls between the bars. Cora’s stomach shrank when she smelled the rank liquid.

  “Listen, Dane,” she whispered as she took the bowl. “There has to be another Kindred supply ship coming soon. If you figure out a way to get us all on it, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Dane shook his head. “There’s no escape from Armstrong. Not under Ellis’s watch.” But he lingered by the bars, and Cora smiled. She knew he couldn’t resist the possibility of a deal.

  “You’re not loyal to Ellis,” she whispered. “I see how much you hate her. You’re just her errand boy. She doesn’t respect you. She’ll probably throw you back in the mines as soon as she’s tired of you.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do,” Cora challenged. She leaned closer to the bars. “And you can still have your dream of being king here. Humanity’s time is coming. You can feel it, can’t you? All the other species know that we’re growing more intelligent. There’s a Gauntlet happening on the Mosca planet of Drogane about forty days from now. If I can get there and run it, we humans will be free to rule ourselves. No more Kindred oversight of this moon. I’ll be offered a seat on the Council. I can get rid of Ellis and make you king of Armstrong.”

  Dane rolled his eyes, but there was also something hungry in them. “The Gauntlet? Those puzzle tests?” And then a realization crossed his face. “Wait, is that what this whole thing has been about?” His eyes went wide as he pieced it together. “That’s why Cassian kept coming to the Hunt to meet with you, wasn’t it? I knew there was something odd going on. He was coming to train you in secret, wasn’t he?”

  Dane spoke too loudly, and a few slaves turned at the word gauntlet. One slave, tucked into the rear shadows of the tent alone beneath a cloak—so short Cora thought it must be a child or a little person—sat ramrod straight, as though this information meant something to him or her.

  Cora didn’t answer Dane.

  He barked a laugh. “So I’m right! The Gauntlet! God, you really are insane, aren’t you? In forty days, you’ll still be right here, a slave in the mines. If you even survive that long. Did Lucky believe such a stupid plan would work?”

  Hot anger stained her cheeks. More slaves were listening now.

  “Lucky believed in me,” she whispered fiercely. “So did Cassian.”

  “Oh, of course. The Warden. Well, we all know what was really going on there. Disgusting, songbird. Even criminal. A relationship between a Kindred and a human—”

  A few of the listening slaves let out gasps of revulsion.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Cora said loudly enough for the slaves to overhear.

  “No? Then why are you blushing like a twelve-year-old? Why did you always rush up to him whenever he came into the Hunt? Why did you gaze at him like a lovesick puppy while you were dancing together? I know what I saw.”

  Cora felt her mouth go dry. If they’d had any chance of the other slaves helping them, it was gone now. Only the small slave, the one in the shadows dressed in a cloak, hadn’t turned away in disgust by Dane’s gossip. The slave only reached out for the bowl of broth calmly. Cora caught sight of an arm covered in thick black hair. She blinked a few times. Had she seen wrong?

  “Oops,” Dane said. “I guess your little love affair isn’t a secret anymore.”

  As he left, Cora squeezed the bars tightly, wishing they were his neck.

  SHE TRIED HARD TO keep track of days but lost count somewhere around their eighth or ninth day. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night outside until someone opened the tent flap. For the first few days, Rolf had paid careful attention to the comings and goings of the other slaves, scratching a tally of days in the dirt floor, but then even he lost count. Every day was the same. Marron root broth and tepid water. Slaves leaving, slaves coming. Tossing in and out of sleep. Practicing her training, learning to lift the pebble telekinetically higher each day. Push-ups. Sit-ups. At night, they swapped stories of what had happened to each of them over the last few months, and Cora told him about how, if she ever managed to get to the Gauntlet, she and Mali had figured out a possible way to cheat it by taking over the Assessors’ minds and having them approve of her win without her even having to run it. They spent the rest of their nights planning escapes that were impossible, yet they clung to them because there was nothing else to cling to.

  “We know the Kindred won’t help us,” Rolf whispered one morning after the slaves had left for the mines. “At least not the Kindred who monitor this moon. But Armstrong is in open territory. Which means the other species must pass through here at times. The Mosca, the Gatherers, the Axion. Maybe one of them would help us. The Mosca took Leon in, back on the station.”

  “Yeah, but only because they could use him.” Cora made a face, thinking of Bonebreak abandoning them. “I can’t bring myself to trust them.”

  “What about the Gatherers?” Rolf asked.

  “I met one once in a marketplace on the aggregate station. They’re odd looking. Eight feet tall, long fingers, gray skin. He was wearing heavy robes and had a really serious air. Cassian told me they’re monastic. They live on orbital ships and farm their own food with growlights and spend most of their time praying. They adhere strictly to rules, so I don’t think they’d smuggle us off the moon.” She reached for the canteen, but only a single drop of water fell to her lips. “Which leaves the Axion. I don’t know much about them.”

  Rolf tapped his chin pensively. “I overheard the researchers in the dollhouse mention them a few times; the Axion had designed the medical equipment they used. They said the Axion built most of the equipment that all the intelligent species use—the interstellar ships, the materialization tech, the thought amplifiers.” His fingers kept tapping on his chin. “There was a picture book in the dollhouse—not a human artifact, but something Serassi must have had made and not gotten quite right, because the page numbers were all wrong and the pictures were upside down. It was the history of the four intelligent species. It said that each one is in charge of a different part of the common society. The Mosca oversee trade and business. Gatherers handle spiritual matters. Kindred are the peacekeepers of the universe, the police and army and judicial system all together.”

  Cora rolled her eyes. “No wonder they’re so obsessed with morality.”

  Rolf nodded. “And the Axion are in charge of technology. The picture book started with them. It said they’re the original intelligent species; they gained intelligence even before the Gatherers, and they’ve tried to bring intelligence to other lesser species, even animals. Now they live on space stations the size of planets, much larger than the Kindred’s aggregate stations. In the illustrations, the Axion cities were sleek and polished, bright white curving buildings with lots of spires. They haven’t farmed or mined resources in centuries—they manufacture anything they need, food and clothes and raw materials, by reengineering light.”

  Cora wrinkled up her face. “That’s all the book said about them?”

  “All I recall.” But then his eyes widened. “Though, remember when we first met Mali? She told us that the Axion have strange religious beliefs—that consuming human body parts gives them power.”

  Cora felt suddenly very cold. “I’m guessing they left that part out of the picture book.”

>   Rolf nodded.

  Over the next few days, Cora tried to talk to the other slaves through the bars, to ask if they had seen Leon and Nok as they went to and from the mines, but the slaves ignored her or gave her long, disgusted looks. Dane came daily to check their health: shining a light in their eyes and ears, taking their temperature, inspecting their skin for lesions.

  “Please!” Rolf asked. “Just tell me if Nok’s okay. I’ll do anything.”

  “Nok?” Dane said. “Oh, she’s okay, all right. The male deputies can’t wait until she’s out of quarantine. She’s really popular.”

  Rolf lunged for Dane, swiping a hand between the bars, but Dane just stepped back out of reach and gave a little wave. “Until tomorrow.”

  As soon as he was gone, Rolf collapsed to the dirt floor, breathing fast.

  “Easy,” Cora said. “Or you’ll hyperventilate. It isn’t true. Dane just said that to get under your skin.”

  “You don’t know that.” He started rocking back and forth, chewing on his lip so hard that Cora could smell the tang of blood.

  “We’ll figure something out,” she said. “We’ll get out of here, and Nok and Leon too. Mali and Anya will come back. I know Anya’s just a kid, but you saw what she could do—mind control an entire regiment of Mosca. She didn’t have to help us, but she chose to. She won’t abandon us. Even if she wanted to, Mali wouldn’t let her.”

  Rolf still sobbed quietly. Cora wrapped her arms around him.

  “It’ll be okay, Rolf. I promise.”

  Through the bars, she caught sight of a set of eyes watching from the shadows. The short slave reached a gnarled, hairy hand out from beneath the cloak’s long sleeve and took another calm sip of broth.

  5

  Cora

  “THE ROOT MINES,” DANE announced.

  Cora and Rolf both shaded their eyes from the bright sun. After two weeks in the reeking quarantine cell, they had finally been cleared for a work assignment. They followed behind Dane, blinded by daylight and weak from lack of food, along the desert path that led from the tent encampment.