Stone in the Sky (24 page)

“Clear,” Tournour said.

The door opened, and Brother Blue entered with Myfanwy at his side. When he saw her, Caleb pulled his coverings to shadow his face. But despite the fact that I had told him she was here, I knew he was flummoxed. I watched as he composed himself, throwing back his shoulders to give him an air of confidence.

“Brother Blue,” Caleb came forward, arm extended. The two men shook hands, and I shuddered.

I could see Caleb stealing glances at Myfanwy. Her face betrayed nothing, not even a hint that she knew him. If Caleb could still be hurt, I'm sure that hurt him. At least it confirmed what he had confessed to me. His love affair with her had been unrequited.

The acoustics in the cargo bay made it so that we could hear most of their conversation.

“I don't know why you would be so bold as to think I need these Humans,” Brother Blue said to Caleb. “They should be sent to the Earth colonies to populate them. That's what I pay for. Transport there. Not to me.”

“I understand you have managed to secure a small tract on Quint,” Caleb said.

“I did claim a parcel from a deceased species for Earth,” he said.

“Humans working a Human claim,” Caleb said. “We both know that's good business. Your claim is only as good as the area you can work.”

He had been so concerned about keeping the colony ruse alive that he'd ignored the potential orbiting right below him.

“You can add settlement to your roster,” Caleb said, hooking him and reeling him in.

Brother Blue was silent for a moment as he considered the proposal. I knew that he was no dummy. The Humans would give him a legitimacy that he didn't currently have, and his claim area could grow.

“It's possible that could work,” he said trying to sound casual. “What are the terms?”

“You take my Humans then you split the alin profits that they reap fifty-fifty with me.”

“That's a bad deal for me,” Brother Blue said. “I can get non-Humans to work for cheaper and keep it all. Why should I do that when I could make you go away?”

“You know that claims change easily, and only claims that are worked by the same species stick. You don't have Humans here.”

He took a long hard look at Caleb.

“I have some Imperium officers who are working my land,” he said. “I don't need these.”

“I think you do,” Caleb said. “Let's just say, I caught them in the cargo hold of a Hort ship en route to Marxuach.”

“A jewel of a colony,” Brother Blue said.

“If you like dead ends,” Caleb said.

“Seventy-thirty,” Brother Blue offered.

Caleb nodded. He should have held out for more, but Brother Blue was pleased.

His whole demeanor changed. He went from hard negotiator to best friend. He laughed and slapped Caleb on the back.

“I've never seen a Human Pirate before,” he said. “How did you escape wandering or Earth?”

“Well now, that
is
a story,” Caleb said. “But one I like to tell over a good drink. Business first.”

“Of course.”

They continued to talk details. Prices. Workload. Nanites. Coded conversation about how much Caleb knew about Brother Blue's deception.

“I'd like to inspect them for weapons,” Tournour said.

“They seem harmless,” Brother Blue said.

“It's my job to keep the Yertina Feray safe,” he said. “The Imperium charges me with that task.”

“You don't trust Humans,” Brother Blue said.

“I don't trust anyone,” Tournour said.

“Go ahead,” Brother Blue said waving him away with his hands. “I don't want to get in the way of Imperium policy.”

Tournour stepped forward to help his team, taking the middle row where I was. I was frozen, hoping that he would reach me before one of his officers would. Our eyes locked. If I didn't know him so well, I'd have thought that he was being cold, but his antennae folded toward me in a way that was tender.

After what seemed an eternity, he was there in front of me. His hands moved over my body, checking me for weapons, but every part of him was saying hello. It was torture not to speak. To stare straight ahead. To be submissive.

I did not know what had been going on here while I had been away. I had to trust that Tournour would let me know in his own way in his own time. I had to trust that his messages to me were proof that our bond was still strong.

“Clear,” he said it directly to me. That was the only way he could say hello. I nodded slightly to acknowledge him somehow.

Tournour moved on to Bitty and then over again down the row until he was far away from me.

When the inspection was done, Tournour and his team fell back and gave Brother Blue a nod that all was right.

Brother Blue snapped his fingers, and Myfanwy stepped forward.

“This is my assistant, Myfanwy Yu,” he addressed us Humans. “She'll be here inspecting you for health and fortitude and administrating the nanites you'll need to survive on Quint and placing bands on your arms.”

Myfanwy went down the lines, taking inventory on us one by one. I was covered in Wanderer garb, and we had hand painted more tattoos on my body and face so I could blend in more. My nerves were making me sweat. I wondered if the paint would smudge, revealing me. I had met Myfanwy before. I was standing next to Bitty, and she could sense that I was nervous. She slipped her hand into mine, and I immediately felt better.

Myfanwy stepped up to us. But it wasn't me who caught her attention. It was Bitty.

“You're damaged,” she said to Bitty, pointing to her scars.

“I'm strong and I'm healthy,” she said. “I'm just not pretty.”

Myfanwy laughed.

I saw Bitty smile back at Myfanwy as she moved on to me. I kept my eyes down.

“You're not as hard as the others,” she said. “You're soft.”

I nodded, staring at her shoes.

I wondered if she was struggling to place me. We'd only met once, but sometimes one meeting is enough to burn a face in the mind's eye. I wondered if I should say something or keep quiet.

“She's just had a child,” Bitty interjected. It echoed throughout the hangar. I knew that Tournour had heard the lie, but he wouldn't know if it was true or not. He might not even know how long a Human child took to gestate.

“Where's the child?” Myfanwy asked.

“Dead,” I said, this time looking straight at her. Of course there was no child. Bitty's bravery enabled me to look up without fear. If there had been any flicker of recognition in Myfanwy's face, I would have seen it. There wasn't. Whatever flicker there could have been had been extinguished, and Myfanwy was now embarrassed for having pressed the issue. That was one thing that Humans were steady in. It was best to get out of uncomfortable situations as quickly as possible.

“Ah,” Myfanwy said injecting and banding our arms and moving on.

Once again I reached for Bitty's hand. I squeezed it in thanks.

“They're fit for work on Quint,” Myfanwy said, returning to Brother Blue.

“Good.” Brother Blue said to Caleb, “I'll send you the money once they're down on Quint and have done a harvest. They have to prove their worth. They've been traveling for so long that they might not take to planet living.”

“You'll give me an advance now,” Caleb said.

“I don't have that kind of currency,” he said.

“Then find it,” Caleb said. “Or when I get to the entertainment deck, I just might tell a whole lot of stories. I've been on the ground at Marxuach. I've seen what you've plowed the fields with.”

Brother Blue's smile froze. He took the datapad from Myfanwy and pressed his thumb to it.

“I can give you half now. Half on harvest.”

He was going down.

 

35

The makeshift spaceport near the landing pad on Quint was bustling. There was only one town on the planet, nestled at the center of the Dren Line. It was made up of a few buildings: a general store, a place to eat, a place to imbibe, and a place for pleasure. There was also a law office that housed a few of Tournour's team. There were no embassies or representatives here. Most speculating on the planet were free and wild, as long as you paid your tithe to Brother Blue and the Imperium.

As I stepped onto Quint, I allowed for a tiny moment of joy after months of running and uncertainty. I had spent so many hours staring at Quint, and now I was finally here.

Technically, Brother Blue owned us. To ensure that everyone knew that, we were each fitted with a metal armband to make sure it was known that we could not leave the planet freely. They were easily removed but would tear up the skin if not taken off with a key. The scar would never go away and would always mark a runaway.

Somehow, despite that yoke, it felt free here. Like anything could happen.

We were marched out of town and down a dirt road to the fields that we were going to care for.

I wondered when I would run into Reza. Did he know that we were coming? Had Tournour warned him? Was he curious about our group? Was he on his field working hard? Only time would bring answers.

For most of the Humans, it was hard going. The walk was painful and slow. It was the first planet that they'd ever set foot on and despite living in different gravities all their lives, planet gravity felt different. Bitty had not been on one since Earth. Almost everyone had planet sickness, but not me. Somehow Quint felt just right. Perhaps it was the cold air or the rocks or the pinkish clouds. I felt sturdy walking on this ground.

“The whole place looks scarred, like it's been through a war,” Bitty said.

The landscape beyond the buildings was pocked with deep crevices as though it had been bombed. There were craters and crevices in long gashes along the rocks. Everything was gray, brown or black. It was only far away on the horizon that there was any burst of yellow.

“When the ore started to run out, they did everything they could to get every last bit of it out of the planet. They bound nitrogen to lift it up out of the dirt,” I said.

“It seems strange that we're allowed to ruin planets like that,” Bitty said. “I mean, we caused so much damage on our planet that we nearly killed ourselves.”

“We were bound to do that to Beta Granade when we landed. We were going to change it to suit us,” I said. “And look, Quint has rebounded in a way.”

I pointed to the lush fields that surrounded us.

“But going to change Beta Granade wasn't my choice or yours. It was our mother's choice. I was a child, and now I am not,” she said. “I don't know that I would have agreed with that choice now.”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn't have left Earth either, but there is a difference between razing a planet for resources, which is what the Imperium wants to do, and cultivating it into hosting life.”

“Is there?” Bitty asked.

I wasn't sure in my mind, but I was sure in my heart. When I looked at Quint, left alone for centuries, sprung back and thriving, it made my heart swell. It was something that I wanted to protect. Like this planet was a part of me, and I was its caretaker.

It was strange to think that we were sitting on another planet having a conversation about where we wanted to be. Places that seemed impossible. It was hard to be both sad and angry with our mother for dragging us into this predicament. She was just doing the best that she could by hoping for something better for us.

Along with a few Imperium guards, Myfanwy was with us to settle us into the tract of land that we were going to work. When we arrived at the place, the guards started to set up tents. The Humans could not help. They were laying down, planet sick, and gasping for air, not quite used to the nanites they'd been injected with.

Even though it was cold, I chose to sleep outside and stare up at the stars.

 

36

I was the first one up.

Sunrise on Quint was beautiful. Orange and pink crept up, peeking over the gray mountains and then lighting up the yellow fields that stretched behind where we had slept.

I sat watching the sun get higher in the sky. The day never got as bright as I remember Earth being, or Tallara, but it was a sun I had grown to love in the last years, and to see it from Quint was breathtaking.

“I need some volunteers to get supplies,” Myfanwy said. “You two. You. And you.”

Bitty and I, as well as a few others, including Traynor, who was not so planet sick, headed down the road toward town with her. When we got there, Myfanwy gave us each a list and a currency chit to buy some supplies.

“Don't tarry. Meet back here in an hour. You're with me,” she pointed to Bitty.

I was not going to buy tools the old fashioned way. I wanted to keep the currency chit for later use. I looked at my list and quickly calculated the trades that I would have to do to get the tools that I'd been assigned. Four.

I felt pulled toward the eatery and longed for something that was home-cooked and not space food. I was not disappointed. A Nurlok was grilling some local hard-shelled insect on a grill, and it smelled delicious.

“One please,” I said.

I gave the Nurlok a currency chit but the Nurlok waved it away and nodded at me. I didn't recognize this Nurlok, but I made a mental note of the favor given to me and knew that this was someone I could trade with.

“I owe you a favor,” I said showing the Nurlok my list. “I'm looking to trade. I need tools,” I said.

He looked me up and down and pointed to the metal armband I wore. I shook my head. As much as I wanted to get rid of it, it would scar me and likely get me in trouble just when I needed to be invisible the most.

“I'm new. But I'm here to stay,” I needed something to start trading with, and he probably had something that he wanted to get rid of. I scanned the area behind the counter and noticed the fly-like insects buzzing around the cage holding the insects that he was cooking up on the grill. The cage was filthy with frass overflowing in the bottom of the cage and in a wastebin.