Compete (37 page)

“Something we have in common,” I mutter, momentarily imagining Aeson Kassiopei in a grand ballroom surrounded by crazed girls in fancy outfits that look a little bit like the fashions worn by Consul Denu. “Not the ‘court ladies throwing themselves at me’ part, but the ‘I hate dancing’ part. But I’m really eager to learn how the Zero-G part works.”

“Let’s go to eat dinner, and I’ll tell you all about it,” Gennio says.

W
e eat at the Cadet Deck Two Meal Hall, among crowds of mostly subdued teens, still recovering from the bloody ordeal of yesterday. Gennio and Anu blab non-stop about how the Resonance Chamber will be set up for the Dance, and how they will likely have to do a lot of the preliminary tech setup.

As I listen, only with part of my attention, I keep thinking about where Logan is, and how my sister and brother are doing, and for that matter how Laronda and the rest of my friends are.

“So there are all these layers of sound-sensitive orichalcum panels,”
Gennio is saying. “And they line the entire Resonance Chamber, floor and ceiling.”

“Uh-huh,” I reply, taking a bite of my sweet-sour-savory noodle and greens dish called
varoite
.

“And the floor panels are the most fun part. Because they will be levitated up and down during the dance, each section separately from the others, so that people end up on different levels, and then when the gravity drops out,
you fly!
”

“Wow,” I say. “I still can’t really visualize it, but I guess I’ll see it in action.”

“Oh yeah, you will,” Anu says. “Because it’s part of our job to make sure the tech behind the Zero-G works properly, and in time with the music. Blue is hosting this first dance, so the CCO has to get involved, whether the CP likes it or not. I mean, he’ll probably farm out the official welcome announcements stuff to Pilot Keruvat Ruo, but still, he’ll have to make an appearance—”

“Okay, now I’m a little confused,” I say. “Why are we, the CCO, involved, exactly? Isn’t Pilot Ruo in charge of the Blue Quadrant? So, how is it the CP’s business?”

The Atlantean gives me a look, this time as if I’d said something truly ridiculous. “What else would it be? It’s
his
Quadrant.”

“Wait,
what?
Oh . . .” I exhale. Suddenly a whole lot of things snap into place and become clear. “So—does it mean that before Command Pilot Kassiopei got to wear the
black
armband he wore
blue?
”

“Yes, of course.” Anu grows silent, almost respectful. And then he ruins it and adds, rolling his eyes at me, “What did you think, stupid Earth girl?”

I raise my brows. “Well, actually I didn’t think anything. . . . I mean, I didn’t really
know
. How could I?”

“Yes, our CP originally pledged himself to Blue,” Gennio tells me. “He is the best marksman in the Fleet—that’s a Blue distinction. In Fleet School, he ranked in first place for marksmanship. He was so far ahead of everyone else that he broke the curve. He can shoot multiple targets with his eyes closed. And he can shoot faster than anyone in recent history.”

“Okay,” I mutter, thinking about what I’ve witnessed during the meal hall hostage shootout. “I can believe that. . . .”

At that point the guys forget about the Zero-G Dance and start talking about target practice scores, so I zone out, and finish my dinner mostly with my own thoughts.

A
little before 8:00 PM I head back to the CCO for my voice training. It’s been a long day, rather unexciting compared to yesterday, but with much thinking in retrospect. As I walk the ship’s corridors, I see cleanup still happening, as Atlantean crews scrub and sterilize decks, and wash the blood residue from the floor and wall panels.

Where are the bodies?
What happened to all those people who died, both Earth and Atlantean? The grim thought plagues me.

The guards at the CCO doors let me pass, and I find Aeson Kassiopei is inside. He sits before a darkened screen, leaning back in his chair, hands resting behind his head, eyes shut.

The moment I walk in, his eyes fly open. “Lark,” he says. “Good, you’re here.”

“Sorry I’m a little early,” I say, feeling a familiar elevated pulse beating in my temples, which happens every time we’re alone.

“There will be no voice training today.”

“Oh?” I pause.

“Instead, you will come with me.” He gets up from his desk and I turn after him in confusion.

“Where are we going?” I mutter, trying to match his long stride as we walk outside past the guards, and head down the corridor.

But Aeson Kassiopei does not turn to look at me, and doesn’t say anything. We continue walking past several sections of Command Deck Two, then cross over to the Cadet Deck, and continue to the Residential Deck, all the while moving outward, away from the hub center of the ship.

Finally, in a long dimly lit corridor designated as Storage—which I only know from studying the ship’s layout map, never having been here before—we pause before a series of doors leading into a closed and isolated sub-corridor section. In other words, we will have to go down to
lower
levels—something that again I’ve never done before on an ark-ship. Everything I know so far is located on the same main ship level—Command, Cadet, Residential Decks, the central hub with the Resonance Chamber, the space observation deck, et cetera.

What’s down there? I believe some of it is designated as Hydroponics decks, and the rest? More storage? Machinery?

As I stand and wonder, Aeson Kassiopei takes out a key access card and swipes it over a security panel. The doors slide open, and we are inside another corridor that stretches for about twenty feet and then ends in a corkscrew metal staircase.

The Command Pilot goes down the stairs first, and I follow, our boots clanging against metal. The echoes here are significant, by their acoustics suggesting the presence of more metal.

We keep going down the dizzying spiral of stairs, passing several levels marked with Atlantean numerals. When we get to Five, we come to a stop. There are more levels below, but Aeson Kassiopei steps off and enters the corridor on Five. It is long and dimly lit also, as though there’s a need to conserve lights, or maybe no need for them.

Rows of doors fill both sides of the corridor. Two sets of guards patrol slowly down its length. The CP swipes his key card over one door, and we enter.

The room is small, dimly lit, and there is no one else inside. However, one whole wall is a one-way observation window into a brightly lit small cell—a questioning room. The cell is bare of furnishings except for a hard table and two chairs. Two people are inside, sitting across the table from each other.

One of them is Logan Sangre. The other is a girl with long dark hair with purple streak highlights and a red armband. She has a dark bruise on her face, while her hair and uniform is a mess. I recognize her as Trey Smith’s girlfriend, Brie Walton.

A single untouched glass of water stands on the table before her.

“Oh my God . . .” I whisper. “What’s going on?”

What’s Logan doing here?

Aeson Kassiopei glances at me. He then touches a console near the wall and suddenly I can hear what’s being said in the other room, as if I’m there.

“. . . Tell me, when and where was the order given? All I need is the time and location,” Logan is saying in a cold measured voice.

The girl says nothing, only continues staring at him from underneath dark straight brows. She is both fierce and strangely calm at the same time.

And then at last I understand.
Logan is interrogating her.

“Sangre has been working here all day,” Kassiopei says suddenly. “He is good. I am impressed with his methods. He succeeded in getting two of the Earth Union to provide solid intelligence.”

“Wow,” I say. “So that’s why I didn’t see him in any of the classes or anywhere, not since he left my room this morning—”

As I say it, I realize suddenly how it must sound, and my face flushes with heat. What must Command Pilot Kassiopei think? That Logan and I spent the night together? I mean, we
did
, but it wasn’t like
that
, and Logan was just there to make sure my concussed head was okay overnight.

I glance up to gauge his reaction, and I see Aeson Kassiopei is looking at me strangely.

His eyes—in the low illumination of this room, there is a bared, raw glitter in them, liquid and
intimate
. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he blinks and looks away from me, as though unable or unwilling to meet my gaze in that instant, and once again observes the two people in the other room.

“This Earth Union operative, Gabriella Walton, has been particularly difficult,” he says in a neutral voice. “However, I expect your boyfriend will convince her to talk—eventually.”

“My boyfriend—” I begin to say, then grow silent, because, really, what was I about to say anyway? “I am glad Logan is being useful,” I say instead.

“Should I trust him?”

The question comes suddenly. And I am taken aback by it.

“What do you mean?” I glance up at Kassiopei.

“I said—should I trust him?” Aeson Kassiopei repeats, looking at me closely, and his gaze is suddenly piercing and intense.

I frown. And then I say, very softly, after the tiniest pause. “I do.”

Aeson Kassiopei nods. “In that case, so will I.”

And as I consider the peculiarity of this, and his answer, he nods, then tells me, “That is all, Lark. I wanted to show you this, and to have your confirmation. You may go now, you have seen enough. Sangre will be here, working on her for at least a few more hours.”

And then the CP exits the small dark one-way observation room, with me in tow.

W
e return to the upper levels, walking back along the same dim corridor, and when I ask what else is down here, the CP tells me that some of it is auxiliary storage, and some of it includes places for keeping prisoners—an incarceration deck. Finally, as we enter the corkscrew stairwell, and I smell a whiff of acrid smoke and burning fumes coming from another level below, he tells me there are
incinerators
there.

As we rise up the stairs and emerge on the main level, several Atlantean crew move past us, carrying what appears to be bodies in tarps. They use a special service elevator that’s located next to the stairwell, and go down.

“So the dead—they are getting incinerated . . .” I say in a soft voice.

Aeson nods at me sorrowfully. “Yes. The dead must be disposed of cleanly, to prevent the spread of infection in such a tightly enclosed space as a starship. None of this was foreseen, and we are not equipped to carry so many corpses in storage. We have enough cold storage facilities for standard circumstances of death, but nothing like this.”

“So they must burn. . . .” I glance at him. “This might be a stupid question, but you don’t simply jettison bodies into space?”

Aeson’s gaze hardens even more. “We don’t. We consider it disrespectful to the dead. It is also not very safe, especially not while we are in the Quantum Stream.”

“I see. . . . And are there no funeral services, no prayers said over them?”

Looking straight ahead before him, he says, “Not prayers—but
songs
. On Atlantis we say goodbye to the dead by singing them onward to the great mystery of whatever comes next.”

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” I ask. And in that instant as I wonder what God or gods the Atlanteans worship, or
he
worships—or if he personally even worships anything at all—I remember that some people deify the Imperial Family Kassiopei.

Aeson Kassiopei remains silent for a few moments. And then he says, “I prefer not to talk about it. . . . Maybe some other time.”

Respecting his wishes, I say nothing.

We walk back the rest of the way toward the inner hub area in general silence.

“You are free to go, Lark,” he tells me, as we approach the Command Deck sections. “I will see you tomorrow.” His expression is closed off, weary, and unreadable.

I nod, and watch his straight proud back, as he walks away from me.

Something strange prompts me to whisper in his wake.

Nefero niktos. . . .

But he does not hear me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

S
ometime after midnight, I am awakened out of a troubled sleep by the now familiar androgynous voice of the ship’s computer.

“
Now entering Neptune orbital perihelion. . . .”

About five seconds later, it comes back on with:

“
Now leaving Neptune orbital aphelion.”

And then, another ten seconds later:

“
Now entering the Kuiper Belt region. On approach with heliopause.”