Alight (33 page)

Gaston glares at me like it’s my fault I dragged that out of her, like all of a sudden Spingate is this fragile thing that needs protecting. Why, because she’s pregnant? Spingate can take care of herself.

“I know how you feel,” I say to her. “But we can’t control the evil things our creators did. We can only control the choices we make. Do your best.”

She nods. “I will. But I should be focusing on the red mold instead.”

“Zubiri will do that,” I say. “You focus on Bello.”

O’Malley shakes his head. “So this is more important than food? The Grownups made receptacles so they could live on Omeyocan. If this Bello is a Grownup, then she got what she wanted. Anything she does to harm us also harms
her
. If our Bello is gone, I’m sorry about that, but we shouldn’t be wasting our time with this. Besides, she’s too small to be a threat.”

What is he thinking? I’m small, and I’ve killed twice. But does he have a point? Bello is alone. What can she do—trick people to go back to her lumpy ship and return to the
Xolotl
? Only six of us would fit in there, seven at most.

No…there is a way for her to take
all
of us.

“Bello said she didn’t fly the lumpy ship,” I say. I look at Gaston. “If she’s lying, if she
did
fly it here, does that mean she’d have the skills needed to fly the shuttle back to the
Xolotl
?”

I see realization hit home on my friends’ faces. Bishop’s arms uncross. O’Malley glances at the wall showing Bello’s coffin. Maybe now he understands that you don’t have to be big to be dangerous.

“Maybe she could,” Gaston says. “Different ships usually have different controls, though. I’d have to see that lumpy ship to know if she could fly the shuttle.”

“Then go look,” I say. “Right now.”

“Coyotl will take you on his spider,” Bishop says. “I’ll send Muller as well, with a musket.”

Bishop isn’t volunteering to go, because he wants to stay in the shuttle—he finally understands the real threat might be here, with us, not somewhere out there.

“I won’t go,” Gaston says. “Bello could be one of
them
. I’m not leaving Spingate here alone.”

“There’s hundreds of us here,” Spingate says. “I won’t be alone.”

“I’ll watch out for her,” I say. “I’ll make sure Bishop watches her, too. Gaston, we need to know.”

He shakes his head, squares his shoulders. “Send Beckett. He’s studied hard, he knows how to fly.”

Spingate rolls her eyes. “Gaston, I’ll be fine. Go!”

He turns on her. “I said
no
. That baby is
ours
—you don’t get to make all the decisions just because you’re the one carrying it.
I’m
not going,
you’re
not going, and if you had told me you were pregnant before you went out looking for the Springers, I would have said the same godsdamn thing then!”

Spingate’s wide green eyes blink. She’s shocked. So am I, so are all of us. We’ve never seen Gaston this angry.

She knew about the baby before she and I set out to find the Springers—but she hadn’t told him. Maybe she didn’t because she knows him better than I do, because she knew he would have fought against her going.

“We’ll send Beckett,” I say.

Gaston lets out a long breath. “Thank you for understanding. I…it’s not that I don’t want to do what you ask, it’s just that…well, I have to keep Spingate safe.”

That word, yet again.
Safe—
how can anyone still believe it exists?

I
spent the rest of the night, the morning and most of the afternoon in a med-chamber, getting my broken fingers fixed. They still hurt, but nowhere near as bad. I can grip the spear properly again.

Bello got out of her med-chamber before I did, but I planned for that, telling Farrar to watch her closely.

I’d hoped to come out of medical to answers, but that didn’t happen. Spingate found nothing to prove that Bello is a Grownup. Neither did Smith. Science and medicine have failed me, so I’m trying the only thing I can think of—having my friends see if they can spot anything weird.

Almost everyone is in the coffin room, listening to Bello tell of her escape. People want her story to be true. Of course they do—they want a future that is nice and neat. They want to believe that the Grownups’ overwriting machine is a failure, and that we don’t have to worry about evil creatures in orbit preparing to erase us.

The kids, especially, hang on Bello’s every word. Not counting her, there are eighteen teenagers left in our group, people who were with Bello on the
Xolotl.
Beckett and Coyotl are at Bello’s ship, leaving sixteen of us. At my subtle instruction, the teenagers don’t just listen to Bello, they watch her, looking for any indication she is not who she says she is.

And besides—a good story is a welcome distraction from our growing hunger.

At least I know Bello won’t try anything with all these people watching. Farrar will make sure she doesn’t go farther into the ship, or go off by herself outside.

When Beckett, Coyotl and Muller return, I’ll have more information. If Bello’s ship could be flown by autopilot—that’s what Gaston calls it when a ship flies itself—or if Brewer could have guided it down remotely, that means Bello
might
be telling the truth. I’ll let her join us, but I’ll make sure she’s never alone.

If it turns out her ship can’t be flown without a pilot? Then she’s lying; she’s a Grownup. I will lock her in one of the shuttle’s storage rooms until we figure out what to do with her. We’ll have to treat her like a prisoner. We’ll have to question her.

A nagging voice in my head tells me,
Just lock her up now…or have her killed, immediately…it’s the only way to be sure
.

It’s not my father’s voice this time, it’s Matilda’s. And to some degree, it’s mine, too.

The only way to be sure…

I force myself to look away from Bello. If Matilda were in my shoes, she’d kill Bello, but I am
not
Matilda—I will find another solution.

Like the rest of us, I want Bello’s story to be true. I want that desperately. Not just because I love her—the old her, anyway—but because if she’s telling the truth, I can go look for Barkah. My people are hungry. If that continues, I know Aramovsky will make a move. I think I have one day left before he does, maybe two.

I remember Barkah’s anger at seeing Bello’s ship. Did he react like that when our shuttle came down? Probably. His grandparents, or great-grandparents or even farther back than that, must have seen the first ships from the
Xolotl
release the war machines. To the Springers, perhaps ships mean death.

But Barkah had never seen actual humans before. None of his kind had. They’d only seen machines. Not that encountering people has been that much better for the Springers—my kind leaves a trail of death wherever we go.

Bello finishes her story by describing a daring run down a dark corridor, chased by horrifying Grownups. She reaches her lumpy ship just in time, is shot out of the
Xolotl
to safety. It’s like something out of a storybook—it would be unbelievable if the same thing hadn’t happened to us when we took the shuttle.

When she’s done, people applaud. The kids scream with delight. They ask her to tell the story again. Blushing, Bello agrees.

Once is enough for me.

I walk outside. Night is falling. Bishop is at the base of the ramp, his axe in his hands. A spider stands on either side of him, guarding the shuttle.

For a few moments, I just watch him. He’s dressed in his black coveralls. I take in his broad shoulders, the way his neck muscles flutter when he turns his head. He hasn’t been to Smith’s white coffin to have his numerous scratches repaired. Under that black fabric are scars that bear witness to our struggles.

I think of the way he looked in the Garden, when he stood under the bright lights with nothing on but tattered pants. I think of how he looked when he threw my spear at the pig. I wanted to touch Bishop’s skin then. At the pool, I did. I’d like to touch him again, kiss him again…

I shut my eyes, give my head a hard shake. Now is most certainly
not
the time for such thoughts.

I walk down the ramp and stand next to him.

“Good evening, Bishop.”

He’s staring out toward the Observatory.

“They should be back,” he says. “They should have been back an hour ago.”

His voice is heavy with dread. The emotion is contagious. I was so busy watching Bello, trying to find the truth, that I forgot a trip to the Observatory is
much
faster on spiderback than on foot. Coyotl, Muller and Beckett should have already returned.

A cold feeling thrums in my belly and chest. I missed something, but what? My brain is trying to make a connection—not the muddy sensation of recalling Matilda’s memories, this is something else. I missed something
new,
something that has nothing to do with my creator’s life.

“Go after them,” I say. “Take a spider, with Bawden and as many kids as you want.”

He starts up the ramp. “And if they aren’t at Bello’s ship, how long should I spend searching for them?”

With Bishop and Bawden gone, Farrar will be the only older circle-star we have left—just Farrar and twelve-year-olds to defend the shuttle. That’s not enough. I think of when we ran out of the Garden and abandoned Bello. It was a hard choice, and I hated myself for it, but it was the
right
choice.

“If they aren’t there, then come back without them,” I say. “As fast as you can.”

He runs into the shuttle. I stand where he stood, looking out toward the Observatory.
Please,
let them be all right.

Moments later, Bishop runs down the ramp, Bawden and two young circle-stars behind him. Only Bawden carries a musket. Muller had one as well, which means Bishop is leaving three muskets here.

In seconds, the four of them are mounted and on their way. I watch the spider scurry over the vine ring, then sprint down the darkening streets. Out ahead of them, no sign of Coyotl and the others.

There’s something about Bello’s ship I missed, but what? I can’t put my finger on it. She’s a Grownup, I
know
it. It’s time to lock her up. Just because I won’t act like Matilda doesn’t mean I can’t do
something
—time to stop being so nice.

Pounding steps on the ramp behind me. O’Malley, in a panic.

“Em! Get in here! Aramovsky is calling for a new vote!”

I turn my back for one moment, and he does this? I’m almost glad, because he’s moved too soon—many follow him, but not enough. He should have waited until hunger swayed more people his way.

I stride up the ramp and into the coffin room. Aramovsky is talking, turning, his arms outstretched, doing what he does so well. But he will lose this vote, then I will use that victory to block him from making another. He’s
finally
made a mistake.

And then I see Bello—she’s standing right next to him, whispering when he pauses. She notices me, stares at me, a cold hardness in her eyes. No tears this time. She smiles, sending a chill through me.

Aramovsky steps onto a closed coffin. He spreads his arms, and his voice booms.

“Someone has to speak out loud what all of us are thinking,” he says. “Do we need new leadership? The majority of us—the people from Deck Four—never got a chance to vote at all. It’s time to fix that.”

He locks eyes with me.

“It’s not that Em didn’t do her best,” he says. “But perhaps the job of leader is too much for a circle, too much for an
empty,
too much”—the corners of his mouth turn up in a grin of victory—“for a
slave
.”

The word hangs in the air, pressing down, pushing at locked memories. I see hundreds of faces go blank. I see eyes widen and heads nod. For everyone, even the kids, the mention of that word opens up flashfires—they know.

Gradually, all eyes turn to me.

The things I’ve done right, they suddenly don’t matter. My leadership, keeping the group together, getting us off the
Xolotl,
learning the mysteries of Omeyocan, making contact with the Springers…
none
of it matters.

In an instant, with a single word, they see me as something different than I was. They see me as
less
.

I have to stop this, right now.

“I’m not a slave,” I say. “None of us are. Just because the ring on my head says I’m
Service,
or the double-circle says Aramovsky is
Spirit
or the half-circle means O’Malley is
Structure
doesn’t mean we have to be those things. We make our own choices!”

I look to O’Malley for support, hoping he will back me up, but he just stares at me, openmouthed, like I said something wrong—something
horribly
wrong.

“Spirit,” Aramovsky says. “Structure…
Service
. I just now remembered what the symbols mean, but you…you already knew.”

Bello’s little grin. She told him. She knows the symbols’ meanings because she’s a Grownup. She told him what to say.