Sea of Stars (5 page)

The Bird giggles. “You’ve frightened her, Kyon. You mustn’t amuse yourself at her expense or she’ll never love you.”

“As long as she respects me, I can live with her fear,” he replies.

Oh, I’m
so
going to put a knife in the other side of your chest
, I think, feeling stabby.

“Fie! Now she’s angry with you. She indicates that next time the stabbing will be on the other side of your chest,” the Bird crows. “Oh, I like her!” She claps her hands like this is all a game.

The Bee’s tone is waspish. “Permission to make her go away?”

Ugh, you have to ask for his permission? Gross.

The Bird clasps her hands together with a look of pleasure. “She’s a free spirit!”

Kyon looks in my direction. “Catch up, Kricket. I’ll be along soon.” With Kyon’s approving nod, the Bee’s hands lift in my direction.

“Can’t wait, freak—”
I’m blown off my feet and out into the blackness of space where I’m falling, falling, falling. I land on my back upon the enormous mahogany desk in Minister Telek’s office. Grasping my head and holding it, I realize I’m still somewhere in the future. I search around, trying to decide
when
I am.

Sliding off the desk, I rifle the room, looking for anything that will indicate a date. A steampunk-looking clock on the shelf nearby makes a metronome sound. Drifting near it to watch the pendulum, I see that it swings faster than it would on Earth. I read the dials that whirl as I interpret the date: it’s sixteen parts, Fitzmartin, which is Wednesday, two days ahead in time. In my time it’s still Fitzlutzer—Monday.

I move to the round table in the center of the dim room. It’s empty, having no flowers to replace the znous. Across from me, Manus’s watery habitat is no longer occupied; he’s gone but the tank remains. A small tremble causes ripples in the water, disturbing the soft murmur of the tank. Then, another much larger thump shakes the water a bit more. Golden light from the window behind me causes me to turn around. Through it, I track a burning ball of fire hurtling downward into the building next to this one. The impact of the explosion blows out the window, sending cascading glass into the room. Since I’m made of air, the glass passes through me, shining with fiery reflection.

I back away from the terror reining down on the Ship of Skye. I move toward Manus’s empty tank again, not knowing what to do. More explosions thump the ship; it begins to list to one side.

In a savage progression, the thumps grow louder:
th-thump, thump, thuMP, th-thUMP, THUMP, THUMP
—the wall to my side vaporizes in a fireball that engulfs the room and blows me sideways into the overup shaft.

I tumble, down, down, down.

I awake in my body with a wide-eyed gasp of air. My lungs burn as I struggle to take another breath.
I feel like I’m waking from the dead.
I’m shivering from cold, and my teeth chatter. I try to lift my hand to my forehead, but they’re both still confined behind my back.

Someone shakes me, rattling my already jangled nerves. “What? Stop it,” I grouse. I cringe because I’m in the arms of the dreadlocked soldier.

Sitting with me on his lap upon the soft, gray bench, he looks down at me with angry green eyes. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you,” I groan. “Now shut up. My head hurts.”

“I thought you were dead,” he murmurs. I squint at him. He’d be worth a second look if he weren’t such a knob knocker. His hair is light brown, but it has streaks of burnished gold in it. His hands are strong and rough. He doesn’t get his physique from exercise equipment. If I had to bet, he earns his strength in other ways.

“I’m not dead. Disappointed?” I scowl back at him.

“I’m becoming more so by the moment,” he replies with a frown. “Did you see the future?”

“It’s more like I went there. And I thought I told you to shut up.” I rest my forehead against his chest only because I can’t hold my head up on my own. I have a ridiculous headache. I might have stayed away from my body too long; I’m half-dead from it.

His hand slides up and down my arm and it takes me a second to realize he’s trying to warm me up a bit. “Tell me what you saw,” he orders.

Lifting my forehead off his chest, my eyes meet his green ones. “Kyon Ensin is alive . . . by tomorrow he’ll be fine—up and around and plotting our deaths. The Alameeda will attack on Fitzmartin—in two rotations—midday—sixteen parts.”

“How will they infiltrate the shields?”

“I don’t know—I didn’t see that part. The fact is that they do, and then they start blowing the crap out of this place.”

“You said you stabbed Kyon!” he says in an accusatory tone.

I take offense to the tone. “Don’t yell at me! My head hurts like someone hit it with a golf club! And I
did
stab him. The Flower-looking fre
ak healed him—err . . . will heal him . . . uh, I mean—whatever! The fact is that by tomorrow night, he’ll be as good as new.”

“The Flower-looking freak? What’s a Flower-looking freak?”

“She’s a priestess—she had on an orchid dress—never mind!” I say in exasperation. “I don’t know who she is. I’ve never met her! But they completely knew I was there—will be there—ugh! They could sense me listening. This is such a paradox to think about.”

“Are you getting this?” the man asks aloud.

“Yeah, we got it, Giffen,” comes a voice from a small device on Giffen’s uniform.

“You’re not Comantre,” I state.

“No, I’m not,” he agrees.

“Who are you?”

“No one you know.”

“Fine,” I retort with growing hostility. “I’ll leave you to it then. I have to go.” I try to move from his lap, but his arms tighten around me.

“You’re leaving with me,” comes his calm reply.

“Yeah,” I say with a fake laugh, “that’s not happening.”

“I wasn’t asking for your permission.”

“Good, because I’m not giving it. I have to warn everyone—”

“You’re not in charge,” he says with a snide twist of his lip.

“I’m not leaving!”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re irritating?”

“No. Everybody likes me,” I counter.

The communicator on Giffen’s uniform makes a static noise. “Gif, there’s a problem,” the com-link voice relates in a stressed tone.

“What is it?” Giffen asks.

“They detected our trift.”

“Are they moving on you?” he asks.

“Affirmative. We need to move the ship.”

“Leave us here. I’ll find a way off Skye.”

“But, Gif—”

“Go! Now!” Giffen orders.

“Happy landings, Gif,” his com-link partner reluctantly says.

“To you, as well,” Giffen replies.

“Aww, your ride’s leaving. Looks like you’re toast,” I smirk. “So, let me go and you can save yourself.”

“You are very strange. I don’t know what bread has to do with this,” Giffen says in confusion.

“You’re moving things with your mind and I’m strange?” I counter.

“Shh,” he hushes me as he sizes up the mess he’s in—we’re in. It’s a colossal debacle. The overup jerks abruptly. Giffen rises to his feet with me in his arms. The elevatorlike car begins to descend once more.

“I think they just noticed us,” Giffen mutters. “This is going to sting a little.”

My eyes narrow in suspicion. “What’s going to sting a little?”

He closes his eyes, and his brow creases. I cringe as a shock charges through me the equivalent of touching an electrified fence. The overup trajectory shifts with a jerk and starts moving sideways, and then slantways.

“Owah! That hurt!” I whine. “What was that?”

“I redirected the overup.” He frowns at me, adding, “It didn’t hurt that bad.”

“Yes it did! Put me down!” I demand.

“You can hardly stand.”

“I’m fine.” I wiggle in his arms. It’s feeble; I’m weak.

With a heavy sigh, he sets me on my feet. I pull away from him.

He reaches for my neck. I shy away from him. “What’re you doing?”

“Hold still,” he orders, reaching for me again.

I shy away again. “No!” I give him my severest scowl.

“I’m going to take off your collar! Don’t move,” he says in frustration.

“Oh.” I hold still. “Do you know the code?”

“I don’t need the code,” he grumbles.

I mock him silently, mouthing:
I don’t need the code.

A click of the metal latch sounds; the collar around my neck slips off me to fall to the floor. The sound of the hardened foam cracking is next. I glance over my shoulder at Giffen; he has his eyes focused on my wrists. Pieces of the foam shed off. The increased circulation in my hands causes my numb fingers to sting as I wiggle them, breaking the foam.

I turn to face him. “What are you?” I demand as I rub my wrist with my free hand.

He raises one eyebrow. “What are you?”

I shake my head, glancing up at the ceiling for a second with a humorless laugh, before I look him in his eye again. “I’m not human, I’m not enough Rafe, and I’m too much Alameeda,” I reply.

For a moment, he just stares at me, and then he says, “I’m too much Alameeda and not enough Wurthem.” The overup lurches again, making me hold the wall for support. We begin to plummet downward once more. Giffen grinds his teeth in frustration. “There’s too much going on; I can’t control it all. We have to get out.” Giffen puts his harbinger back into his shoulder holster. He summons a soldier’s harbinger by holding up one hand in the air; it flies to his palm.

“You’re a bit of a oddball,” I observe.

Giffen frowns. “No more so than you.”

He lifts his hands again to the doors in front of us. They slide open, but the compartment keeps dropping. Floor after floor streaks by in a blur. I look at him and say, “I’m not going with you.” The overup slows, and then it comes to a stop in front of ten or so Brigadets who appear to be waiting for the lift. They look stunned when they see us. “Not our floor,” Giffen growls.

The doors snap shut forcefully before they can react. “You don’t know what you’re doing!” I accuse him. “You don’t even know where we are!”

“Quiet!” he orders, pointing at me belligerently.

I ignore his suggestion. “You’re going to get us killed! They see me with you and they’ll think, hmm—I don’t know—conspiracy! If I didn’t appear guilty enough before, you’ve pushed me over the edge.”

“I’ll push you over the edge,” he says as the overup slows down again. He opens the doors and literally pushes me out of it as he jumps. I land hard on my side, bruising my hip. I roll a little, trying to catch my breath that was forced from my lungs. We’re beneath the ship’s main platform, within the half-sphere base. Giffen raises his hands to the lift; closing the door, it activates again, and the overup car leaves.

I sit up, glaring at Giffen as he gets to his feet and looks around. The corridor is illuminated with sky-blue track lights in the floor and ceiling. It’s utilitarian—unadorned—and by all appearances, utilized only by the drone-bots that carry supplies from storage bays to restock the area up top. I watch the robotic carts move past us with shiny, chrome-plated shells. “Come on,” Giffen says, holding out his hand for me to take. “Let’s go.”

Another resupply-bot passes us carrying stacks of enticing beverages in colorful bottles.
It’s a barback-bot
, I think. I remember working at Lumin, the nightclub in Chicago. It’s where I first met Kyon.
He’s going to destroy this place and everyone in it.

“We have to warn them,” I say as I look at Giffen’s outstretched palm in front of me. My eyes travel up him. He’s really tall, like most Etharians. He has the form of someone who scales mountains: all muscle without a trace of body fat. “We have to make them listen.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “we don’t.” Reaching down, he hauls me up with a fistful of my black jacket, popping off a few of the buttons. “We’re getting off this ship if I have to throw you over the side.”

As I look him in the eyes, I kick him as hard as I can in the kneecap. His eyes shutter in pain. I wiggle out of his fist, running full out down the corridor.

I don’t make it halfway before I’m lifted off my feet, and I crash sideways into the wall. With my back to it and my toes nowhere near the floor, I hang on it like a trophy animal. Giffen hobbles over to face me with a seething look.

“Your gift is more useful than mine,” I grunt, trying to pull my arm away from the wall. It won’t budge.

“If you want to call it that. I tend to think of it as a curse, since it puts a price on my head,” he replies. “But in this instance, I don’t mind it so much.”

“Was your mother a priestess too?”

“She
is
a priestess.”

“She’s alive?”

“Last I knew.”

“You have the freak gene, like me. I heard that most males don’t inherit it.”

“They don’t, and when they do, they’re killed.”

“They didn’t kill you,” I point out.

“You have a gift for the obvious.”

“Are you taking me to them?”
I will kill you if you try.

“To whom?” he asks.

“The Alameeda.”

“Why would I? They’re my enemy.”

“Why do you want me then?” I ask in exasperation.

“You can see the future. That makes you valuable to us.” He places his hand on my throat again, but this time he doesn’t squeeze it; he merely strokes it softly. “If you want to save yourself, start being useful. Otherwise, you’re a danger to us. And we eliminate danger.”

“Who are ‘we’? I thought that Wurthem is Alameeda’s ally.” I’m so confused.

“I may be from Wurthem, but that doesn’t mean I subscribe to their politics or their shortsightedness! Whom do you think Alameeda will target once they’ve killed everyone else?” he rails at me.

“Why would they kill their allies?” I ask.

“Citizens of Wurthem aren’t part of their master race.”

“You’re all one race, aren’t you?”

“Not to them.”

“Why would the Brotherhood want to kill you? I would think that you’d be an asset to them as well. You can move things with your mind—you’re telekinetic.”