When We Wake (33 page)

After I’d shown him the footage of the starship, Abdi was silent for a long time.

“The refugees could be volunteers,” I said weakly. “They could have chosen this to get out of the camps.”

“Seven-year-old refugees, choosing between the camps or freezing. Some volunteers.” He shook his head. “The only real difference is that these slavers won’t have to worry about their cargo dying on the way.”

I winced at the starkness of
slavers
.

He noticed. “You want to use another word? ‘Pioneers’? ‘Explorers’?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just… they’ve done it all before. Take condemned people and ship them to a new land to work. Send poor kids over to make up labor shortages. Oh, and kill or drive off the people who are already on the land and steal their kids, too. Tell yourself that it’s all for the best, that you’re making a bright new future.” I swallowed hard against the bile in my throat. “I just thought… I thought we’d learned better. I thought we’d stopped making this sort of horrible mistake.”

“People are still people,” he said gently.

“I know. You’re right. But I… my dad was in the army. They told me I was helping soldiers. My guardian, Marie, she has no idea about any of this; they were using her, too. I feel sick.”

Abdi put one arm around my shoulders and steered with the other. “I’m sure your father was a good man,” he said steadily.

“He was. He wouldn’t stand for this. We have to get the word out. I can’t believe there won’t be any change, if people just
know
.”

He tugged me in a little tighter and tucked his chin over my head. “You’re optimistic.”

“I have to be,” I said. “Or why not just give up? Protest and people speaking up has worked—it honestly has, in so many ways. Equal marriage, gender rights, religious tolerance—some things have really changed for the better since my time, Abdi. This could change, too.”

“I’ve seen too much to take that on faith,” he said. “But, Tegan, I hope you’re right.” After a second, he began to sing “The Ballad of John and Yoko.”

Awful as it might seem, I started to laugh. Harassed by the press, trying to get away for some time together, spreading the word about peace—John and Yoko hadn’t had it easy, even before John took off for his months-long Long Weekend of debauchery.

But they’d still been able to joke about it.

I sang along, and for once, I didn’t mind that my voice was rough and creaky. Me and Abdi, we sounded good together.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with us, to us. But we had that, at least, and it was much more than nothing.

Running from the warehouse, we’d planned to upload the footage as soon as we could. But with no one out to get us right away, we had time to spare. The first priority was to check on news of Bethari and Joph.

For once, Soren came in useful. The headline story of his ’cast was still the absence of his four classmates.

“He says we’re all on vacation,” I said, scanning the accompanying transcript. “Soren knocked on Ms. Miyahputri’s door, and some guy was house-sitting. He implied I’d had a nervous breakdown, and you guys were going with me while I recovered in the country somewhere.”

Soren, of course, was delighted by this news and talked about it at some length, complete with excerpts from my interview with Hurfest, dwelling lovingly on the bits where I’d appeared the most upset and furious.

“I really hate that guy,” Abdi said, leaning over my shoulder.

I nodded, tapping my fingers against my thigh. “This isn’t good news,” I said slowly. “But at least it’s not bad, either. No reports of finding their bodies in a ditch.”

Abdi nodded and did something to the boat controls. “Do you want to upload the footage now?”

“I was thinking about that,” I said. Seeing the interview extracts was an unpleasant experience, but it had given me an idea. “Let’s try something else.”

It was a seven-hour trip to the mainland, and Abdi stopped arguing with me at about hour two, having gone from outright opposition to making sensible additions that gave us a much greater chance of success. We studied the maps on the boat computer. Instead of going straight for Port Phillip Bay, we headed for a much quieter destination along the Great Ocean Road, near the small township of Kennett River.

Despite my confidence in our plan, I was nervous. So many things had already gone wrong.

“Weather’s not good,” Abdi said as we got closer to the mainland, eyeing the boat computer. “There are supercell storm warnings.”

“That sounds bad.”

“We’ll make it there well before it gets serious,” he told me. “It’s actually good; there should be fewer boats on the water.”

“But you can manage the boat all right?”

“I’ve done this before,” he said, not for the first time.

“Not in Australia.”

“The Red Sea is a challenge,” he said. “Bass Strait is easy.” He paused. “Easy-ish. Relax, please? Trust me.”

I did. I just didn’t trust the weather. By the time we got close to land, the sea had gotten noticeably rougher and the wind was blowing hard enough to make me hold tight to the handgrips when I went on deck. The bay itself was sheltered enough, with a nearly deserted sandy beach. Abdi kept a sharp eye on the depth gauges as we went in, sonar guiding him through the rocks. There was a chunking sound as he dropped the anchor.

I eyed the beach. It looked depressingly far away. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. Close as we can get with this keel. The currents should be all right, though.”

“Augh,” I said, and started taking off my shoes and pants. The T-shirt could stay on, but swimming in jeans wasn’t something I wanted to try.

Abdi stood still and stared.

“Oh,” I said, remembering that our nighttime explorations had been in that solid dark. “Uh, so, yeah, should I do a little dance?”

“No, this is good,” he said, and pulled off his own outer clothes.

Abdi in underwear. Mmm.

The actual swim was about as unpleasant as I’d thought it would be, even with Abdi taking the job of towing our supplies behind us. My eyes stung, and salty water went up my nose, and
every time seaweed brushed me, I was convinced it was a shark. And sure, the oceans are warmer than in my time, but that doesn’t translate to actually warm. I was shivering by the time I found sand under my probing feet, and my fingers were clumsy undoing the knots Abdi had made on the tarpaulin wrapped around our things.

“I think I like the Red Sea more,” Abdi said.

“Would you show me someday?” The question popped out before I could think, and I immediately wanted to grab it back, but Abdi tilted his head, smiling.

“I would like that,” he said softly. “If I can, I will.”

I hugged him, wet body to wet body, and neither of us mentioned how unlikely it was that I’d ever visit those faraway waves.

Putting on dry jeans over wet underwear was not the funnest, but the important things were the two computers, safely wrapped in our clothes, and the little knife, which I stuck back in my pocket.

We trekked up the beach to the highway and waited behind a pile of rocks. This was the most uncertain—and most morally dubious—part of the plan. But we needed transportation, and we didn’t have much choice.

It always seemed to come down to a lack of choice.

Abdi spotted the car before I did, moving smoothly down the long highway toward the distant city. The white van looked similar to a builder’s van from my time—with the exception of the solar panels on the roof instead of ladders.

I ruffled my already ruffly hair. “Do I look pathetic enough?” I asked.

“Pout more,” Abdi suggested. “You look cute when you pout.”

I smiled, but it was wobbly.

“I can do it,” he said.

“I’m smaller. Less threatening.” Before we could argue further, I jumped over the rocks and ran toward the approaching van, waving my arms in frantic patterns. “Help me!” I called. “Oh god, please, please help me!”

The desperation wasn’t feigned. We could try it again, but every missed opportunity would decrease our chances of the plan working. The van slowed to a halt, and I didn’t have to fake my relief, either. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! Please help me!”

The driver opened his door and jumped out, his blue eyes filled with concern. “Are you all right, ween? What happened?”

He was alone. He was old, a few white hairs still clinging to his bare scalp, the skin nearly translucent with age. And I held my little knife to his wrinkled throat and said, “Please don’t move.”

He froze. Abdi jumped the rocks and pulled the EarRing, very gently, from the man’s ear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, as Abdi went through his pockets and pulled out his computer. “I’m so, so sorry, I really am.”

“There’s money in the glove box,” he said. “Take it. Please don’t hurt me.”

“We need the car,” I said miserably.

“Please don’t kill me. I have grandchildren your age.”

“We won’t kill you, I promise. Just don’t fight.”

Abdi climbed into the van and looked at the dashboard. “Bring him over here, Tegan.”

“Please,” I said, and pushed him very gently toward the open door.

“Voice code, please,” Abdi said.

The man leaned over and mumbled something at the steering wheel, and Abdi coaxed the engine into action.

“You’re Tegan Oglietti,” the man said suddenly. “I thought you had a breakdown.”

“No. The army’s trying to keep secrets.”

Abdi shot me a pained look. “Sir, there’s a town about an hour’s walk down the highway. We’ll leave you water; all you have to do is follow the road. Maybe someone will pick you up before then.”

The man was looking at Abdi square in the face, no longer quite so frightened. “What’s your name, son?”

“Abdi.”

“Well, Abdi, I’m Jack Harrison. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the weather reports, but there’s a superstorm coming in from the east and I don’t walk very well. If you plan to leave me out in the open, you may as well cut my throat now and get it over with.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “Those rocks there should give you some shelter.”

Abdi bit his lip. “Tegan, I think we have to take him with us.”

I stared at him. “He’ll try to take the car back. We could lose everything, for good this time.”

“These storms are dangerous, Tegan. No one might drive by in time.”

“Abdi, this is important! We can’t risk screwing it up
again
.”

Mr. Harrison was silent and motionless, only his shifting eyes following our faces.

Abdi looked directly at me. “I guess Dawson thinks what he’s doing is important, too. Worth making some sacrifices for.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it? I think this is how it starts, Tegan. You make a decision that might hurt someone in pursuit of something that helps a lot of people further along. And then you make worse and worse decisions, and then you’re willing to sacrifice more people—”

“I am not Trevor fucking Dawson!” I yelled. My hand was shaking on the knife, and I pulled it farther away from Mr. Harrison’s throat in case I accidentally hurt him.

Abdi waited.

“All right! Bring him, then.”

Mr. Harrison’s hands were trembling, too. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“We’ll have to tie you up,” I warned him, and made Abdi take the knife while we got him into the back of the van. I was getting really good at securing people. “I’ll ride in the back with you,” I said, and put the knife on the other side of my seat, well out of his reach. He followed it with his eyes.

“I really wouldn’t,” Abdi said, leaning in. “If anything happens to Tegan, I will be angry.” He climbed into the driver’s seat. After a moment, the van started gliding down the road.

“Where are we going?” Mr. Harrison asked.

I wasn’t prepared to be
that
trusting. “You’ll see when we get there,” I said, and settled in for the long drive home.

The Father’s computer had even more spy apps than Bethari’s. Despite the address being private, we managed to find it with very little trouble, and Abdi parked the van outside a pretty suburban house much like Marie’s. Small upstairs, probably huge downstairs. Solar panels. And a garden. Funny, I hadn’t thought he’d be a gardener.