Unravel (42 page)

He explained briefly. He'd tried to get the message again while they waited for Lin to arrive, and again it had come through in a spatter of meaningless pixels on the screen, a disjointed buzz and crackle of static in the speakers. The emergency marker—a tiny, ultrastable block of code designed to make it through nearly any type of interference—blinked
on the screen and repeated in a short pattern of beeps in the midst of the storm of static. And on the main viewscreen, Cadan pointed out the broken, blinking line that showed that the message was originating from on or near Philomel. But nothing else came through. No ID marker, no hint of whether the emergency was on the planet itself, or between the
Phoenix
and its destination.

“For all I know they're warning us away,” said Cadan, wiping the screen clear and resetting the receivers—yet again—to their widest sweep. “But without knowing for sure, I can't take the ship blinding back out into space. Damn it, Philomel's supposed to be a first-grade planet—what are they doing with this kind of shoddy equipment? For all SFI's faults, we did at least keep our communications going.”

Lin had slid into a seat next to him, her gaze intent on the screens. “What do you want me for?”

“Okay,” said Cadan. “It's a long shot, I know. But you picked up incoming aircraft down on Sekoia. I don't know which bit of your mind you're working with when you do that—”

Lin shrugged. “Me neither.”

“—but if it's tied to your electrokinesis, then it might be that you're sensing the presence of electrical fields. In which case you might be able to read this message before it hits whatever it is that's scrambling it before it reaches us.”

Lin was nodding. “Yeah. Okay.” She reached a finger out to the com-unit, then hesitated. “Can I touch?”

“Sure. Try not to fry the circuits, though.”

Lin grinned, amused, then put her fingertip to the screen of the unit, and her smile was brushed away by a look of intense concentration.

Silence stretched out, second after second of it, ticking soundlessly by, measured only by the blinking, changing numbers of the control-panel clock. Lin shut her eyes and spread her other fingers over the screen, still resting just her fingertips on the shiny surface.

“Oh,” she said. “It's . . . very empty.”

Vertigo made Elissa's stomach swoop as it came to her that Lin was looking out into space, into all that emptiness, into a dark, airless, lifeless ocean that went out and out and down forever. For a terrifying moment she was afraid Lin, as she had so many times before, would pull Elissa into experiencing it with her, would pull Elissa into staring, through Lin's eyes, into all that directionless dark. A random, out-of-place quote swam into her brain: “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” She couldn't remember where it came from or what it meant, but that was what it felt like—the abyss gazing into her, huge, impersonal and merciless. Her head spun, and she dug her nails into her palms, trying to anchor herself in her
own
body, her
own
consciousness.

“Oh,” said Lin again. “That's why it's not getting through. There's a . . . like a cloud of . . . bits, debris. A whole band of it.”

“Can you tell what the message is?” said Cadan.

Lin's eyes, already shut, screwed up tighter. “It's such a long way . . . and it's so
empty
.”

“Stop it,” said Elissa suddenly. “Stop it. It's too much.”

“Lissa,” said Cadan, “we have to get this message.”

“You don't. Lin, come back! Stop trying.”

“Lissa—”

“Cadan, she's not a
machine
! You can't just use her like this!”

For a moment his mouth opened as if to snap back at her, then he changed what he'd been going to say. “Okay. You're right. Lin? Lin, you heard what your sister said.”

“Emergency,” said Lin, her voice expressionless. All of a sudden it was as if she
were
a machine, a speech-robot processing a communication from unspoken words to spoken. Elissa's skin went as instantly cold as if she had stepped physically into that airless, freezing ocean outside the ship. That was
Lin
speaking in that robot voice. Lin who'd gazed into the abyss and seen it gazing back at her.

“Emergency transmission to all ships carrying Sekoian Spares,” said Lin. “All Spares and their twins are at extreme risk. Repeat, extreme risk. Spares and twins must be separated immediately—”

She broke off, choked, then spoke in her normal voice. “
What?
What are they trying to do?” She scrambled up and around in her seat, her hands going out to Elissa. “They're wanting to
separate
us?
Now?
I thought we were coming to Philomel because it was
safe
.”

“Lin.”
Cadan had half risen in his seat. “What else did it say? The message, what else did it say?”

Lin shook her head. She was clutching Elissa's hands now, her own tight with panic. “I don't know. I don't know what else. It said that—they want to separate us—”

Elissa's heart was thumping, high in her chest, her throat, her temples, making it hard to think, making it so that she couldn't draw enough breath to speak.
Extreme risk. All Spares and their twins are at extreme risk.
And suddenly it wasn't Lin's face in her mind, but Zee's.

Cadan touched the controls, turning the autopilot on, then got up and came around the safety bar at the back of the
control-panel seats. He reached over Elissa's arm and grasped Lin's shoulder. “Lin, listen to me. You're at risk. You and Lissa. That's why they're saying separation. If you didn't hear the rest, then we won't know why, but we're going to have to do it.”

“No.
No
.” Lin wrenched her shoulder away from him, her gaze clinging frantically to Elissa's. “Lissa, say something. You said you believed me. You said you knew I wouldn't hurt you. I
won't
, I wouldn't
ever
—”

“And if you want to make sure of that, you'll let yourselves be separated.” Cadan's voice rose. “Lin, listen to me. If you want to keep Lissa safe, you'll do as they said.”

“But I
won't hurt her
! I
won't
!” Lin's fingers were a death grip now.

“
Lin!
No one's saying you will! It's
both
of you in danger—you read the message yourself. It's not saying who the danger's from, it's just saying in order to be protected you need to be separated. Now for God's sake will you stop freaking out and putting your sister in more danger than she needs to be?”

That, finally, got through to Lin. Her hands dropped. She took a step back, bumping against the edge of the control panel, her eyes fixed on Elissa's face. “Then what is it? What's happening?”

“I
don't know
,” said Cadan, a slight snap to his voice. “You didn't listen to all the message. Look, Lis, you stay here for a minute. Lin, I'll take you back to Ivan. I—” He broke off. “God, what am I thinking? The
other Spares
.” He lifted his hand, about to switch his wrist-communicator on, but as if he'd broken Elissa's paralysis, her throat unfroze. She could speak, and she knew what she had to say.

“Zee,” she said. “If there's danger, it's from Zee.”

Cadan's eyes met hers. “You're sure? Just Zee?”

“I don't know. I mean—yes, definitely Zee. But I don't know. The message—maybe it just meant Zee, maybe it meant the rest of us too.”

“Okay.” He clicked his wrist-unit on. “Attention, all passengers and crew. Attention. This is an emergency directive. All Spares and twins must separate immediately. All Spares, go to the passenger lounge. All twins, go to your cabins. Go immediately. This is an emergency directive from the ship's captain. You must comply immediately. Official personnel will contact you shortly to explain further.”

He clicked the wrist-unit again. “Dad?”

“Cadan?” came Clement Greythorn's voice. “What do you need?”

“Isolate Zee,” said Cadan. “He's the priority. Get him away from Ady. Sedate him—both of them—if you have to. I need him secured.”

“Got it,” said his father.

“Where are you now?”

“On my way to the passenger lounge. I'll find them, son, don't worry.”

In the background, there was a sudden clamor of voices, loud enough to be heard even through the narrowly focused mic of Clement's wrist-unit.

“What's that?” said Cadan.

“Arguments.” His father's voice sharpened. “Possibly resistance. I'm outside the lounge. It sounds like they don't want to get separated. You might want to get down here too, Cay.”

“On my way.” Cadan strode to the door, then swung around to the twins. “You both come. Lissa, walk in front of
me. Lin, come behind. When we reach the lounge, Lissa, go to your cabin, okay? Lock yourself in. Lin, you need to go into the lounge with the other Spares.”

Lin didn't so much as murmur an objection. She was silent as they left the bridge, then the flight deck, then went down the corridor through door after door, each snapping shut behind them with a
whoosh
and
clunk
.

They weren't far from the passenger areas now.
Resistance,
Mr. Greythorn had said, but Elissa was sure it wasn't anything as deliberate as that. They'd be panicking, afraid that “separated” meant “separated for good.” Maybe appalled, as Lin had been appalled, at the implication that it was they who would put their twins in danger.

She threw a quick glance back over her shoulder—and that one glance showed her that although Cadan didn't yet have his blaster out of its halter, he had dropped his hand to rest near it. He was capable of shooting to kill, she knew it—had seen it—but never before had he used a weapon against anyone other than people attacking
them
.

“Cadan,” she said, “they won't be resisting, like, on
purpose
. It's not a mutiny. They'll be freaked out.”

“I know.” Although she'd flung only one glance toward him, she knew he must have seen her eyes widen when she saw his hand on his blaster. “I'm not going to mow them down, Lis. But they have to be separated for their own safety, and if I need to frighten them into doing it and apologize afterward . . .”

“Yeah. Okay.” It
was
okay. Of course that might be what he needed to do—she
did
understand. But all the same . . .

They went through another door, into one of the amber-edged passenger-area corridors.

. . . all the same, if I got it wrong and the danger
isn't
from Zee—if it isn't from anyone, if we misunderstood and it's something else altogether . . .

And that was when the screaming started.

ELISSA FROZE,
all her blood suddenly beating just below her skin, a thrumming all over her body, cutting off coherent thought.
Screaming.
Screaming coming from one of the rooms in the passenger area ahead of them.

Then she was shoved against the wall as Cadan pushed past her. “Keep back,” he said. “Both of you. Keep out of the way.”

He strode ahead, past one door, another, then paused outside the door of the passenger lounge, where most of the Spares and twins were. His blaster was in his hand, but for a horrible frozen instant he hesitated, hand half up to the panel that would open the door. His face was pale in the overhead lights, and Elissa suddenly knew that he, like she, was all at once hyperaware of everything that could be waiting behind that door. He, being Cadan, probably wasn't considering putting his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes and running to his cabin to bury his head in the pillow, though.
Or—once again his expression hit her—maybe he was.

Cadan moved his hand up to the panel, and the door opened.

The screams hit her like something solid, so loud that for a moment every sense save hearing ceased to operate.

There were lots of mouths the screams were coming from, but the person Elissa noticed first was Cassiopeia. Her eyes were so wide with shock that they seemed to be bulging from her head. She'd been stumbling across the room, and as the door opened she half fell out. She would have fallen onto Cadan if he hadn't sidestepped. Instead she crashed into Elissa. Her hands came up, a death grip on Elissa's arms, and her mouth formed shapes that seemed to have no connection to words.

Elissa's gaze went frantically over her head, trying to see what was happening, trying to scan the room. Cadan's dad had said they were resisting, that was all, that was
all
. What had happened to cause that screaming, to make Cassiopeia look like that?