Break The Ice (18 page)

“Sam, wake up.”

A gentle wave rocks the cruise ship side to side. I’m staring across a small table in a crowded restaurant as Kaitlyn eats the last bite of her zucchini alfredo. Her smile gets to me, so I ignore the movement. It’s been the best evening. Dinner and a show.

“Damn it. Get up.”

Everything on the restaurant table shakes. And then nothing is left. It all flies into the sky. No, it didn’t go up. I dropped down. I’m falling. Falling straight through the restaurant floor, down through the ship’s bowels, dropping into the ocean, falling forever.

And then it all stops. I hit the ground and my eyes snap open and my head is almost underneath the bed. Dan’s feet are on the other side.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “You wouldn’t shake out of it.”

I groan in response. The pounding in my head dies down, and I don’t think anything broke. I grab hold of the bed frame and pull myself up. Dan is dressed in some weird outfit. It’s all blue with red stripes outlining the sleeves and neck. I have no idea where he found it.

“Don’t worry, there’s one for you in the closet.” He walks over to a large hole in the wall with a curtain covering the inside. He tosses the clothes to me.

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Put them on. We need to get upstairs.”

I look up at the ceiling. A lot more swirling shadows bend through the ice than last night. “People?” I say.

“Looks like a training class,” he says before sliding out the door.

I pull the clothes on as quickly as I can, but my foot gets stuck in the wrong pant leg and my shirt is on backwards at first. When I reach the top of the stairs, Shindrow stands in the middle of the room, giving a speech.

“That’s what you will gain in these coming weeks. Strength. Agility. Power. But above all else, knowledge. That’s the real goal. Ah, the last of our students finally joins us.”

Everybody in the room turns at once to look at me. A dozen Dinmani, staring daggers at me. They all look like teenagers but it’s hard to tell. They all look the same. I scan the crowd. Dan hides in the back, unnoticed. My eyes fall on one Dinmani and blood rushes to my face. I almost jump out at him until my brain reassures me that there’s no way Tinjo stands across from me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know we started so early.”

One of the Dinmani closest to me squints, staring and concentrating on my face. Finally, he turns to Shindrow. “What is he?” the kid blurts out. Even though he looks older, his voice is high.

I blush again, not sure how to react. I forgot that, in this room, I’m the alien.

“Human,” Shindrow says.

Some of the class gasps. A few share uncomfortable glances. One Dinmani in the front steps out of line. “I have seen them in drawings before, but…” He looks at me again and, in a hushed tone, he says, “I did not think they were real. Where are your horns, human?”

Dan can’t keep quiet after that question. He laughs a high pitched squeal. The entire class jump forward in unison. They look at him with the same unknowing expression.

“And a Sunjin,” Shindrow says.

After he adds that, nobody in the room has any interest in me anymore. They’re all gawking at Dan, waiting for something. The Dinmani I mistook for Tinjo leaves formation and approaches Dan.

“He does not look threatening,” he says. The Dinmani is much bigger than Dan. Not only his height, but every visible muscle.

I’m afraid to see how he compares to me.

“Back off,” Dan says.

“Does not sound threatening either,” the Dinmani says.

Heat pulses from Dan. He raises a hand and it glows red. The walls behind him shine as melting water slithers down from the ceiling.

“Cool it,” Shindrow says. “Before you liquefy my house. Tinjen, do as he says.”

Tinjen glares at Dan a moment longer and falls back into the group. He stands out from amongst the group, now more than ever. A mirror image of Tinjo. It can’t be a coincidence.

“You’re Tinjo’s son,” I say, bringing eyes back on me.

“And?” Tinjen says.

An image of Kaitlyn flashes in my mind, and I can’t stop myself from saying, “The second I get back to Earth, I’m killing your father.”

The entire class erupts in hushed conversation. All except Tinjen. He doesn’t break my stare. Once Shindrow manages to quiet the room, Tinjen shrugs and says, “My father is a traitor.”

I don’t believe his casual nature for a second.

“Now that we’re all acquainted,” Shindrow says, “how about we begin? Partner up with somebody of separate strengths. Humans, you’re together. I won’t have the Sunjin killing any of my people on accident today.”

Six hours of training, physical and mental, without a break. I’m ready to collapse. As far as I can tell, none of the Dinmani have reached that point. Even Dan seems ready to keep it up. My knees shake and my left arm has been numb for an hour from the number of times Dan pinned me to the ground. I’m ready to call it quits when Shindrow rings a bell.

“That’s enough. Gather around,” Shindrow says. “Good work today. A lot of amateur attacks and sloppy movements, but I expect nothing more than that on day one. Tomorrow, you will meet at the official training area at the same time.” He pauses and locks eyes with me. “All of you. Until then, rest and eat. The dining halls inside the palace are at your disposal. Take advantage of them. Dismissed.”

The Dinmani shuffle out of the house. One by one, they slip out through the door and run off down the street, hollering to each other. Tinjen is the last out the door. He glances over his shoulder at me for a quick second before lowering his head in order to fit through the door.

Shindrow picks up two mats before realizing that Dan and I haven’t left his house. “You both show promise, but you need a lot of work. Before you’re ready to learn anything about fighting Tinjo and his men, you’ll have to get in better shape.”

“Is that what you’re here for?” I say.

He laughs. “No, you’ll need to work that out on your own time. Starting tomorrow, you’ll learn more about your Dinmow. Although I’m afraid the Sunjin won’t find it very useful.”

“I’ll manage,” Dan says.

The three of us stand there for a few uncomfortable moments, nobody talking. I don’t know how lectures about the Dinmow will help. I’ve already used it a dozen times. What I need is the attack that can send Tinjo out of my life.

“Well? Why are you both still here? Get to the palace. Eat whatever you can stomach and find yourself new rooms there. You won’t be returning here. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Shindrow returns to cleaning the floor and rearranging the room. He doesn’t say another word to us, even as we stand there and watch him work.

“Come on,” Dan says. “Let’s see what this palace is all about.”

Out on the streets, kids run around. They’re chasing each other and laughing. A Dinmani woman sees Dan and I approaching. Without hesitating, she runs over to two young boys and ushers them inside. Before she goes in herself, she stands in the doorway, guarding her home. Her eyes follow until we both look at her. She slams the door.

“I don’t think they like us,” Dan says.

A few other Dinmani follow in the first woman’s footsteps. They clear the streets of their kids and hurry inside.

“I don’t blame them. I trusted the first alien I ever met and look where that got us,” I say.

“I would have done the same thing in your position.”

“You’d have the choice if I listened to you.”

Dan’s quiet for a few seconds. He cracks his knuckles and then smiles. The same smile I saw the morning on the train to Utah. “What kind of food do you think they’ll have?”

Probably smart to change the topic. I want to kick myself for bringing it up anyway. “Hopefully something good.”

“Try this stuff,” one of the Dinmani from our class says to me after I stare at the buffet of food for over two minutes. “It is my favorite.”

I turn to thank the Dinmani but can’t find any words. The only girl I’ve seen since stepping into the palace stands next to me. She has short hair, cut right below her ears. Her skin is deep blue, darker than any other Dinmani I’ve seen. Even darker freckles are scattered across her cheeks. She seems innocent. But I watched her in class, taking down men double her size with ease.

I grab the metal spoon and ladle the soup into a ceramic bowl. A thin spiral of steam rises from the top. The sight warms my bones. I let the steam rise up to my face and sniff, cautiously.

“Smells good,” I say.

The Dinmani smiles. “Grab some of the dough. It makes it better. If you want, you can sit with us. Even your Sunjin friend if he promises not to cause trouble.”

“Thanks,” I say. “We’ll be right over.” I find Dan staring down at two trays. One filled with what looks like red asparagus and the other slices of bacon. I reach for a piece of bacon, and Dan stops my hand.

“I tried a piece,” he says. “It’s awful.”

“Grab some of the soup,” I say. “And follow me.”

It’s harder to find the Dinmani than I expected. Twice I walked up to a table, ready to sit down. Both times, none of the students sitting there were the girl who approached me. With such short hair, she blends in with all the men.

“You sure you know where to go?” Dan says.

“It’s around here somewhere,” I say, standing in the center of the palace’s extensive dining hall. Dozens of tables crowd the room and they’re all packed. I’ve no idea who else is here besides our training class, but there are a lot of them. “Right there,” I say.

“I told you they would not get lost,” she says to the Dinmani sitting next to him. “Shove over.”

Dinmani on both sides of the table slide down, freeing up one spot on both sides. Dan and I sit down across from each other, sandwiched between Dinmani who won’t stop staring. Some have food in their hands, but it lingers inches from their mouths, unmoving.

Dan’s stare meets the Dinmani sitting next to him. Both watch each other for a long moment until Dan finally says, “You look weirder to us, trust me.”

With those words, the tension that had been building up in the air melts away and everybody laughs. The others continue eating as Dan and I take a stab at the food on our plates. The soup is pretty bad, but it’s edible. And I’m starving.

“Human,” one of the Dinmani says. “What does it mean?”

Dan looks up at me but says nothing. A few second pass, but I can’t come up with an answer. I never gave it much thought before. “I could ask you the same thing,” I say.

“Dinmani means strength in oneself.”

I didn’t expect him to have an actual answer.

“Human means strength in numbers,” Dan says. “Why put all your chips on one player when it’s much harder to take out a team?”

“If that one player learns all there is to learn, it is impossible.”

“Nobody can learn everything,” Dan says.

When he says that, everybody in the room stops talking. An eerie silence, nothing but shallow breaths.

“What’s happening?” I say, trying my hardest to whisper but with how quiet it is, it sounds like I shouted.

“Shh.” She nods her head in the direction we came in.

Four men had entered without me noticing. They stand by the door, long sabers hanging from their sides. It’s hard to tell because of the distance between us, but I think the blades are made of ice. The men face each other, unsheathing the swords. In unison, they touch all four tips together and mutter some chant. The joined blades ignite, melting the swords in a blaze.

As the flames fade away, the door opens again. A man steps through. His hair sits over his shoulder in a tight braid that would look ridiculous on any other man. But on him, it looks regal. For some reason, I’m not surprised who I’m looking at.

“Striker,” I say, quieter than before.

“Who?”

I point a finger at the man walking into the room. The Dinmani sitting next to me grabs my hand and slams it onto the table. Plates and cups rattle in the silence, drawing unwanted attention our way. I rub my wrist, surprised it’s not broken.

“What do you think you are doing?” he says, shaking his head. “Do you want to get us all killed? Never point at the king,” he says.

King? The man who I saved from dying against a stack of filing cabinets is the
king
of the Dinmani? I’m not sure why I’m so surprised. He looks the part, especially in the uniform he currently wears. But I never would have guessed king.

“Good evening,” Striker says, walking between two long tables. “It is an honor to have so many young warriors in my home. I will keep my speech short so that you can feast and enjoy yourselves before your real training begins. All you must do is remember one thing–”

His eyes lock on mine and he stops talking. He stares for a long time before saying, “Train hard. Study harder. You will all be fine warriors in no time.”

The room explodes in applause. Whooping and cheering. All around me, people scream and clap. Not me. I’m still staring back at Striker. Even though his eyes flit around the hall, looking at everybody simultaneously, they always fall back on me. He waves to a few more people and makes his way towards our table.

The Dinmani sitting around me stop cheering and each one hardens into stone. Every detail frozen in place, staring at the man marching straight for us. His eyes still haven’t left mine. My breaths quicken. Heart races. Palms sweat. I don’t know why I’m nervous. Something about the intensity in his eyes.

Dan has a different approach in mind. When Striker gets ten feet from our table, Dan says, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the man of the hour.”

Any Dinmani close enough to hear him gasp. A few blink way too fast, on the verge of fainting. They must not be used to somebody speaking his mind. Especially not in front of a king.
To
the king.

“Mind your place,” Striker says. “You are not among friends here.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dan says. “I’m counting the days until I can leave this shithole planet.”

“You are welcome to leave whenever you want. I do not need you here.”

Dan chuckles to himself. He breaks a piece of the bread off and gnaws at it. After a few chews, he spits it onto his plate. “We both know you need me to crush this little revolution that’s brewing under your nose.”

Striker shakes his head, hints of a smile behind his lips, but his words don’t give it away. “I need him,” he says, pointing at me. “I do not care about you. The only reason you are alive, breathing on my planet, is because of him. He saved my life once and you are breathing in my palace as his repayment. Do not forget that, Sunjin.” He spits the last word out, disgusted.

Dan’s face grows red and the Dinmani behind Striker laugh. Nobody at our table joins in, but they don’t hide the grins on their faces.

I can tell he’s trying to think of something clever to say. When he opens his mouth, I kick his shin under the table. He yelps and turns his gaze to me. Striker walks away without another word, and we’re safe for another day.

“What’d you do that for?” Dan says.

“We were supposed to stay under the radar,” I say. “Now you have the entire place gunning for us.”

“Let them. I’ll show them things they’ve never seen before.” It’s then that Dan looks around us at the full room staring at him again.

The female Dinmani shakes her head. “You are insane. I like it. My name is Tinev, but you can call me Ti.” She looks at the others at our table. “Their names are not important.”

A few of them laugh. One throws a piece of the weird bacon at Ti.

“Okay, fine. Zen, Fly, Loch, and Boon.” She points at each one as she says the name.

“Strange names,” I say, not meaning for it to sound so insensitive.

“We are strange guys,” Zen says.

“What I mean is, the names don’t sound a lot like the other Dinmani we’ve met.”

“They are not our real names,” Loch says. “We were never fans of our given names so we changed them.”

“Works for me,” Dan says, finally talking again. “My brain reached capacity three names ago.”

Boon leans across the table, stretching as close to our side as he can. He can’t get much closer because his large stomach holds him back. The table pushes against it. “Have you met many?”

Dan and I look at each other. I haven’t met that many, but he may have seen more. “Enough,” I say. “We’ve met enough.”

“Did you meet Tinjo?” Zen says. There’s an unusual tone to his voice. Eagerness. Awe? Not the loathing I expect.

I brush it off. I doubt any of the Dinmani in this room even know what he did. Not to the extent that I do, at least. Right before I can answer, somebody walks past our table and slams his foot into the side. I look fast enough to see that it’s Tinjen. He doesn’t look back, but I can tell.

“Alright,” somebody says from behind me. “Time to get to your rooms.”

Finding the Dinmani who spoke amidst the crowd is harder than finding Waldo. I scan everybody’s face until I figure out that a majority of them all look at one man. He’s tall and thin, with light skin and heavy eyes. I would have recognized him from the first time we met, even if his face wasn’t etched into my memory now, the same face burning in the fire at Yellowstone.

Without saying a word to anyone, I jump up from the table and dart across the room. I zig and zag between Dinmani who walk to the exit, not paying attention to where they go, only following the crowd.

I reach the front but can’t find him. Whether the crowd swept him from the room, or he’s lost behind them, I can’t tell. I’m taller than most of the Dinmani there which lets me see far across the dining hall. Deep down, I know the second brother isn’t in the room anymore. But he’s somewhere inside the palace. If he knows what happened to his brother, he might know something about where Tinjo took the others.

Dan catches up to me and grabs my shoulder. “What the hell was that?” he says.

“Nothing,” I say, making the impulse decision to keep the man a secret for now. “Where are we sleeping?”

Ti leads us to a room across from hers. “I do not see a problem if you use this one. Nobody was in there this morning when the rest of us came in. I think it has two beds.”

“Thanks,” I say, opening the door. I’m happy to see that this room has solid walls, like the rest of the palace. Sleeping somewhere as transparent as Shindrow’s house isn’t relaxing. Dan sits down on one bed, and I fall onto the other, the one near the window. Only one of the three moons hangs in the visible sky outside.

“What do you think they’re going to train us on?” Dan says. His face points up at the ceiling, an arm covering his eyes.

“Hopefully something useful.” I want to get back home. Something about the idea of being on another planet sounds enticing but not at this point in time. I need to make sure mom is safe. That Kaitlyn isn’t hurt. And until I can figure out what it takes to make a small portal, I’m stuck here, looking out at those foreign moons.

“I know what you mean,” Dan says. “See you in the morning, if you can call it that.”

I’ll never be able to fall asleep in the new surroundings. But before long, my eyes close and my mind shuts off.

I wake up before Dan, still tired even though I slept better than the night before. If it was even night. It feels like we’ve been on Dintar for two days, but it’s hard to say. All three moons hover outside the window. Does that make it morning? I can’t grasp their measure of time. It felt like we were going to sleep in the early afternoon, but the training had taken such a toll, I didn’t argue.

Instead of waking Dan, I sneak out of the room and into the hall. I linger outside Ti’s room, listening to see if she or her friends are awake. A light, droning snore but nothing more.

Following the hall, I lose track of where I’m at. I don’t remember how we made it from the dining hall to our bedroom last night, and I wish I paid more attention. Too many doors line the halls, more than I thought possible.

At the end of the hall, the path splits. I take two steps to the right until a shadow grows on the wall. It might be someone who can help me figure out where to go. Unless I’m not supposed to walk around the palace before morning. Except I don’t know if it’s morning…

The shadow gets bigger, and I make a quick decision. I turn and run back, past where I came from and down the left hall. There’s another short wing branching off, and I slip around the corner, back against the wall, waiting for someone to pass.

“I do not know what you are worried about,” somebody says. “If they meant any harm, we would know by now.” The voice gets louder as it comes closer.

“Unless they are playing us like fools,” a second voice says. It sounds familiar.

“They are far too young to be that cunning.”

“How do you know? Have you ever seen a human before? I do not know the differences between a child and an adult. Do you?”

There’s a moment of silence before the first Dinmani clears his throat. “I am certain the King would not have let them in his palace if he did not trust them.”

“I trust him as little as I trust the Sunjin.”

“Sool ma. Watch what you say in these halls. The King has spies everywhere.”

“Let him find me, then. Is it time to begin the day?”

“I will go wake the students. Cool your head before coming to class.”

The last few words fade away, down a distant hall. I wait a few minutes with my back pressed against the wall before I leave. I don’t find it shocking that the Dinmani have troubles trusting Dan or me, but I’m surprised some of them don’t like Striker. Then again, that’s probably the mentality that forced Tinjo to rebel.

Following the winding halls back to our room, I open the door. Dan’s siting up in bed. His hair sticks out all over the place and his eyes are only half-open. He blinks a few times, adjusting to the light, and looks from me to my bed.

“Good timing,” I say without acknowledging that I hadn’t been in my bed. “Time to get moving.”

“Isn’t it time for breakfast?” he says.

A knock at the door startles us both. Ti stands on the other side, dressed in the same training clothes as yesterday. There’s a grin on her face, but her eyes look as tired as Dan’s. “Wanted to make sure you guys were not late today.”

“Where’s breakfast?” Dan says, still in bed.

Ti’s eyes narrow. “I do not know what you mean.”

“You know, breakfast? Food in the morning before I’m supposed to start my day?” Dan says.

“No,” Ti says. She looks from Dan to me and back. “That is not a thing. We eat after we train. You two are very odd.” The door to her bedroom opens up, so she nods and walks away, following the others.

“This planet is Hell, isn’t it? It’s an icy, backwards Hell.”

“Get dressed before we’re late again,” I say, ignoring his complaining.

Dan slides out of bed and grabs his shirt, slung over the footboard. He squeezes into it and flattens his hair. “You’re telling me you’re not hungry?”

“I’m starving. You’re telling me you really want to eat that food again?”

He shoves his shoes on and laughs. “Good point.”

Together, we run down the hall, following Ti to the training room. They take the same hall I did this morning, even turning right at the end. Thirty seconds away from where I froze, we push through a set of doors into a wide open room. It’s big enough to fit a stadium, but only about thirty Dinmani gather in the center. I recognize a few from yesterday, but only the ones with distinguishing features. The rest still look the same to me.

I head towards two Dinmani talking and try to listen in. I only catch a few words before Dan and I get close and they walk off.

Dan joins the larger group before turning back to me. “Where’s Shindrow? I thought he–”

“Shindrow is not coming,” a voice says right behind me. The Dinmani it belongs to shoves past me, slamming into my shoulder. He tries to do the same to Dan, but misses him by an inch.

I want to kick myself for not realizing it earlier. The voice in the hallway, the one who doesn’t trust us. Doesn’t trust Striker. I knew the voice before but couldn’t place it. Maybe I didn’t want to believe the son of Tinjo would speak ill of the king.

Tinjen struts up to the crowd and pushes through to the front. “I will conduct the training until he finishes up with some personal matters. Everybody, up front now.”

“You will be
assisting
with the training,” the other Dinmani says, the one who looks like he should be teaching. He faces the crowd and bows. “During our training, you will address me as Shinmar. Now, who wants to learn how to use their Dinmow?”

All of the students in front of me whisper.

“Is there a problem?” Shinmar says.

One of the students near the front raises a hand. “We are not supposed to study that for months.”

Shinmar’s eyes glide over the audience. He pauses on Dan and me. “Certain circumstances have changed the schedule. You will be learning it on top of your other training. So, who shall start? No volunteers? Maybe a little context will boost your enthusiasm.”

He walks across the room, approaching a set of shelves, and grabs a book off the top. Flipping through a few pages, he nods. “Nobody will miss this travesty.” Back in front of the crowd, he holds the book up, pinching one cover in each hand. The pages dangle and sway, reflecting light like they’re made of some type of metal instead of paper.