Dove Arising (19 page)

Now I understand why no one from Defense or Medical showed up to investigate my abnormal handscreen feed—and why Callisto and Jupiter knew about Mom’s predicament.

“Sorry, Phaet,” says Yinha. “I should have hauled myself here faster, before they hurt you . . . hey, who am I to tell you trainees to move it?”

Soft footfalls approach, rubber against tiles, as familiar to me from hours of trying to match them as my own. No one else seems to notice—especially Yinha, who continues mumbling apologies.

At once, the dark hallway is less of a menace.

Everyone ogles Wes as he rounds the bend and skids to a stop. His eyes reflect the light from Yinha’s handscreen. When he spots me, he drops to his knees, props up my back with sturdy hands, and pushes the mussed hair back from my forehead.

“Oh God. Which of these fiends gets retribution from me first?”

“Shh,” I mouth. He doesn’t need to punish anyone. Being here is enough.

I release my grip on consciousness. Everything dissolves like spiral galaxies through an unfocused telescope, everything except an alabaster oval and two specks of silver.

21

SINGING. A BOY, SINGING. FAT GREEN FRUITS hang above my head; long, pointed leaves cast shadows on my white robes, which spread across the ground beneath my back. I’m in the greenhouses, watching sunlight fade into shadow, clasping Umbriel’s hand. I never knew he could sing my cares away, open up space in my heart for sunshine and music and the clean green smell of chlorophyll.

But Umbriel’s real voice is a rumble like the deep whir of the solar-powered generators. Even when he was younger, it was never silky like the inside of an avocado, never capable of low timbres and high hums.

I open my eyes, expecting to see him. And there he is, tan skin and all, with the mole beneath his left eye and the question mark lock of hair dangling between his brows. But Umbriel’s face has the haze of a dream, as if there’s a scratched-up plastic film covering it—one that I can’t peel off, because I can’t find where it ends.

“Stripes?” Would Umbriel ever call me that?

The music has stopped.

I blink in my dream, open my eyes, and open them again to take in reality. I’m in the Medical quarters, with Wes bent over my cot, looking intently into my face. He has eight little freckles across the bridge of his nose. There’s a definite zigzag pattern. If they were connected with little line segments, they would make a path, jagged like the constellation Draco, from below the center of one eye to the area beneath the other.

“Did I wake you up?” Wes retreats to a standing position, hands clasped to conceal his handscreen. “Er, sorry if that was the case.”

“Where’s Yinha?” I croak. Last night, if I wasn’t hallucinating, she acted so strangely, speaking comforting words to me . . . using a finger, not a handscreen, to check my pulse.

“Officer duties,” Wes says. “She asked me to stay when she needed to leave, but following orders isn’t the only reason I’m here. I’m glad to see you conscious.”

So Yinha’s kindness wasn’t my imagination. Neither is Wes’s. Checking that my left hand is completely covered by the blankets, I say, “You were singing?”

Wes’s cheeks flush the pink of cherry blossoms, though his narrow scar doesn’t. I’d never known his skin could be anything other than eggshell pale.

“I liked it.”

He turns pinker. “I think they might’ve hit your head too hard. I’d do no such thing. Public singing is punishable by adhesive over the mouth for twenty-four hours.”

He’s teasing, but he’s also right—on the Bases, only patriotic songs are allowed. A while ago, Psychology ran a study that proved that people remember things more easily if they’re set to music, and the Committee decreed non-nationalistic singing a public disturbance. Mom thinks the lyrics of “Luna,” our national anthem, are juvenile. Looking back, I realize she only said so in our apartment, while sitting on her handscreen. Her offhand criticisms made me squirm for reasons I only understand now, but back then I wasn’t brave enough to critique them. Maybe she wrote something far worse than insults directed at a song to get charged for disruptive print.

I grind my teeth together, wishing I’d confronted her then.

“Your song didn’t hurt anyone.” I pat the covers by my left leg, gesturing for Wes to sit.

He does. When I bend my knees to accommodate him on the cot, the chilly pain I feel brings back everything: Jupiter, Callisto, scimitars, blackmail.

“You all right? Please tell me—does anything hurt?”

“No,” I lie.

“Do—do you know what you looked like last night?” Wes has difficulty speaking, as if the words are too big for his mouth. “Blood all over your clothes, cuts everywhere? God, it was—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I rattle off.

“All the evidence on you is gone. The Medics got rid of every mark. Thank God.”

Why does he keep saying “God”? If the security pods are on, he could get in trouble for indecent spirituality, which runs counter to unbiased scientific advancement—a core tenet of Lunar life. Religion incited conflict on Earth before and after the embargo; that’s why the Committee banned it.

“What if Yinha hadn’t come? You’d—argh, please, will you watch out a little more? Maybe switch cots with your friends, don’t travel alone, tactics like that.”

Digging around in his pants pockets, Wes pulls out a pair of glasses. “Here. These provide infrared vision. Nothing and no one will be able to ambush you in the dark again.”

“Thank you,” I murmur. With all the concern for my safety, he’s reminding me of Umbriel. “I haven’t seen these before. Are they from Base I?”

He nods.

“Cool,” I remark, even though the glasses are primitive compared to the latest sonar-vision eyewear.

Oh. Gadgets. We’re due to learn about field equipment, for earthen and lunar missions, in the final two weeks. I’ve missed at least a day.

“What happened in training?”

“Not much. Yinha reviewed team basics, equipment maintenance, and space-suit operation.”

They’ve started wearing pressure suits already? If I don’t learn how to use one by the time I venture into the lunar plains, I could die from temperature fluctuation or decompression. I’ll have to read the lengthy manual myself. “But—”

“Let yourself rest. Both of us have worked too hard lately.”

“I’ll sleep if you sing.” Music will take me somewhere that isn’t cold, hard, and painful. Better than any medication.

He shakes his head but says, “If that’s what you want.”

After a long moment, he starts quietly. His eyes close, and he sways as if he can feel wind around him. I briefly wonder what wind must be like, all that air moving at once.

“Have an olive,

No, have two.

Wear a dress of leaves

As the sun warms you . . .”

This time, his smooth voice reminds me of water, drizzling out of the greenhouse ceiling to nourish the plants beneath. The words stick in my mind, growing into my synapses like roots in fertile soil. Something prickles behind my ribs and spreads to my belly. I can’t explain what it is, only that it’s multicolored and alive and makes me hold my breath, wrap my arms around my chest, and rock myself back and forth, trying to cage it in.

“Little girl, little friend,

This day will never end.

Our day will never end. . . .”

Too soon, he stops, eyes still closed, and the silence is part of the song.

When the silence reaches an acceptable length, I say, “Is there more?”

Wes opens his eyes and has to think before replying. “I don’t quite remember it.”

“But you do. Why don’t you want to sing the rest?”

He frowns. “Well. It’s my sister’s absolute favorite.”

He has a sister? And she listens to
music
?
I don’t remember anything about her in his stats, and I don’t recall any evidence that such singing is permissible anywhere on the Moon.

“Where is she?”

“With my parents.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Slightly.”

“What’s her name?” I can’t help myself.

“Murray,” he mutters cryptically, as if memories of her pain him.

Interesting name. “Is that a star?”

“It’s a comet that orbits a binary star a few hundred light-years away.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

Wes scratches his cheek with a forefinger, right along his scar. “Not many people have.”

“How old is she? Is she strong, fast, and
daring
, like you?”

Eyes downcast, he chuckles at my sarcasm. “Murray is a few years older than I am. She prefers more domestic activities.”

“Cooking and cleaning like Earthbound women?”

“Not necessarily,” Wes retorts, but he doesn’t elaborate. “What about your family? I’d like to know more about Cygnus and Anka, since you obviously adore them.”

The thought of my siblings floods my brain with dopamine, that happy chemical. “Cygnus is thirteen and already wants to run everything. Before I joined Militia, he was plotting to fake his age and work in Sanitation. But InfoTech would be a better fit.”

“Ambitious.”

“Anka relies on him completely, and they’re as close to each other as I am to Umbriel. She’s eleven and entering a feisty phase that I never experienced.”

“Right. I can’t imagine you ever causing trouble—intentionally.”

“Mm.”

Pause. “What are your parents like?”

Wrong question. I fight to keep a grimace off my face.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was never good with delicate things. Will you forget I said that?”

“It’s all right.” I cough away the lump in my throat. “Well, you already know that Mom’s not home.”

“Would you like me to fetch water?” Wes starts to stand, but I grab his forearm. I need to finish.

“Dad died on a Geology expedition when I was six.”

“That’s so sad to hear.” A straight crease appears between his eyebrows. “Not to be callous, but I think I know why you joined Militia so early.”

When I remain silent, he guesses, “Money?”

Exactly.

Sympathy and sorrow cross his features. Does he see why I’ve worked so hard? Will he listen to that small, merciful part of himself and let me, his de facto protégée, have the ultimate honor?

“I would help you place first, now that I know this. . . .” he trails off, and my heart swells with hope. “But I can’t.”

Why?

He shakes his head.

The hope crumbles to nothing. I want to hit him for letting me amass it in the first place, for withholding the reason he needs to be first. Wes is stockpiling information away from me, just when I thought we were starting to rely on each other.

“Second is fine,” I spit out, though first would mean three hundred extra Sputniks, the title of sergeant, and a salary large enough to free Mom even if the Committee finds her guilty.

Second is not fine for either of us.

I’d rather he not let me win—Ariel never did. I’ll get more satisfaction through my own efforts.

“I’m going to sleep,” I stammer, cuing him to leave.

“That’s good.” Standing abruptly, he reaches a hovering hand down, as if he’ll brush a runaway strand of hair from my face. He decides against it at the last instant.

The fluttering thing in my chest slows and plummets. As Wes’s footsteps fade, I hum his lovely song to myself. But it doesn’t remedy the fact that I might have lost him: the boy who salvaged me from mediocrity, gliding out the door.

22

“STRIPES!” THE NEXT DAY, WHEN I TROOP into the training dome on steady legs, Nash ambushes me with open arms. Since Vinasa’s accident, Nash has grown bubblier, overcompensating for grief. As per our instructors’ expectations, we act as if Vin never existed—actively denying the past. Our behavior disturbs me, especially because Vin, an aspiring History worker, would hate it.

“You’re back! I stayed up these past two nights worrying about you and sneaking banana peels under Callisto’s bedsheets.”

“Was that necessary?” I ask.

“Having insomnia or making her smell funny? Yes to both.”