Keystones: Tau Prime (16 page)

“I didn’t expect us to make it, not after that ship caught us and tore
Serenity
apart.”

A finger on his lips quieted Deklan. “Well, we did. Now we’ll be able to warn those at Tau Prime and send a warning to the Terra Rings.” Jamie gripped his head with both hands. “Now let me look at you. Their medical equipment is out of date, and their maintenance is unimpressive.”

Deklan could feel the uncomfortable pressure on his cranium. “Jamie, stop!”

She looked at him with her eyebrows furrowed and head tilted to the side.

“Jamie, you’re Keystone strong. Stop!”

Her grip relaxed, and he felt the pressure on the back of his skull abate.
 

“So let’s talk about your new powers,” Deklan said with forced calm.

“My face isn’t doing the melting thing anymore.” Jamie’s voice was quiet and sounded relieved.

Deklan nodded. “Good. That’s good. What about your memories?”

“Bits and pieces,” admitted Jamie. Her speech was slow and hesitant while she thought about her memories. “They’re all confused. I remember you bleeding. I remember thinking I was her. I remember teleporting.”

“Teleporting, yes!” Deklan had one finger up, and his voice turned crisp. “We’re on a spaceship, and soon we’re going to be on a habitat. You need to make sure that you don’t teleport into space by accident.”

Jamie’s face showed that she’d been thinking about this before Deklan showed up.

“What are you going to do now?” he continued. “When I first met you, you called yourself Slate and pretended to be a man. Are you going to hide your abilities?”

Jamie sat down again in a chair. “I think so,” she replied, “or at least some of them. I can’t hide the strength.”

Deklan took a seat next to her. “Have you broken anything?”

She looked at her hands, at him, then back at her hands. “No, I’m fine.”

He chuckled. “No, I meant, have you broken anything onboard the ship? But I’m guessing you would have understood that if you had.” He chuckled again. “That’s good. It means you’ve got a good grip on that power. You always did strike me as strong, but you’re stronger now, or at least more of your strength is coming through now. These Keystone abilities are confusing.” He tapped the stump of his left shin. “I don’t know why I don’t have a new foot yet.”

“You were in an older rejuvenation tank, one without rapid efficiency for the regeneration of limbs.” Just like that Jamie had gone from sounding tentative to sounding authoritative.

“Jamie,” asked Deklan, “when you were Slate, how well did you remember your past?”

As her eyes veered up and to the left, Deklan knew that she wasn’t seeing anything in the room. “I wasn’t thinking about the past,” she replied, “so I don’t know, but I don’t think I remembered it well. Why?”

Deklan put his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. “Just curious. I haven’t had a chance to talk with a lot of other Keystones about their powers, and everyone’s are so much more interesting than mine. I feel boring.” His light tone was a lie. He’d been thinking that if Annie hadn’t been real, then Jamie might not be real either, but he didn’t want to tell her that. He didn’t want her thinking it, and he didn’t want it to be true.

“Boring? The first time I met you there were three gaping holes in your body. You, Deklan Tobin, are many things, but you’re not boring.” She ran a hand through her hair. “So what do you think we’re going to find on Tau Prime?”

A loud clang interrupted Deklan’s conversation with Jamie. He could only assume that it heralded their arrival at Tau Prime.

Calm broke the silence. “Stay close. These people are insular and strange.” He made eye contact individually with Jamie, Deklan, and Jonny. “We don’t know what they’ll do, but judging from how we’ve been kept isolated here, they aren’t going to like us.”

Not ten minutes later the door to their room opened. It was the first time anyone had visited them since the doctor had brought Deklan there. It was Almsworth again. “All of you come with me.”

Calm nodded at each of them in turn. It was a reminder to stay close.

Gravity cut out, and Deklan floated into the air. He was surprised: he would have expected gravity at any port. Almsworth didn’t speak again. He just turned and floated down the hallway, making contact with his hands and pushing himself along.

Jonny shrugged and followed. Deklan took up the rear, after Jamie and Calm.

They passed from the room to the ship’s main airlock, which was open. Lining the dingy passageway to it were eight crewmen, each of whom made Dr. Almsworth look warm and welcoming by comparison. They all wore the same style of flowing red clothing that covered everything except the face and arms. All were men.

Calm passed Jonny and made sure that he was closest to Almsworth before letting the others follow.

Deklan noticed that the passageway was dilapidated. He didn’t have anything to compare it to except the Terra Rings, but there everything would have been refitted long before it reached such a state.

The passageway opened onto a small room where they were greeted by a group of nine men and one woman. The men were dressed in much the same fashion as Almsworth and the other crew members, though the red of their clothing was a deeper and more vibrant hue. The cloth too was newer. The woman was taller than the nine men and taller than both Calm and Deklan. Her head was uncovered, crimson hair tumbling down past her shoulders. Her clothes came to her neck in a form-fitting garment that became a skirt reaching to below her knees. Like the men, her arms were bare.

“Welcome to Tau Prime,” said the woman in a rich voice. She had the same accent as Cranston and Almsworth, but her words were understandable in a way that theirs weren’t. “We haven’t had visitors in a very long time.” She spread her hands. “I am AnnaLea, the First of Tau Prime.” She placed an emphasis on “First,” which clearly was a title, though not one that Deklan recognized.

“Thank you for your warm hospitality and rescue,” said Calm. It was the voice that Deklan had heard him use hundreds of times before they’d met, the voice that he used for public ceremonies. “We are indebted to the people of Tau Prime.” He finished speaking with a smile and a bow.

“We are sorry to have detained you,” replied AnnaLea, “but it was reported that you were found floating in space with an emergency beacon .There was no ship, no debris, and no explanation. We would like to know the circumstances that led to these unfortunate events.”

“Certainly,” answered Calm. “When I was rescued, the emergency beacon was taken from me. It has a record of our travels since we left the Terra Rings.”

Three of the men around AnnaLea stifled gasps; the others controlled surprised jerks or facial tics. AnnaLea’s lack of a physical reaction was telling. She spoke again: “We welcome the first men and women of the Terra Rings to visit our habitat since the great separation. This is a momentous day.” An ingratiating smile creased her face. “We will review the data from the beacon. However, to save time could you tell us your story?”

Calm’s voice lost its statesmanlike charm and became graveyard-cold. “We were attacked.”

AnnaLea’s face matched Calm’s voice. “By whom?”

Deklan held his breath. They had agreed to tell the truth, but there was no guarantee that they would be believed.

“We don’t know, but we don’t think they were human.”

There were more gasps, but this time no effort was made to hide them, and AnnaLea’s showed alarm. “You think that you were attacked by aliens?” she said.

“I know that it sounds hard to believe,” replied Calm, modulating his voice. “Review the information on our beacon. It will support our story.”

Nothing on AnnaLea’s face betrayed her thoughts. “Very well. I’m afraid that we’ll have to cut this greeting short. Your news is too important. Eric will take you to your quarters and give you a tour of our home.”

One of the younger men from the welcoming party stepped forward and partially bowed. “I’m Eric. Welcome to Tau Prime.” His voice lacked the polish of AnnaLea’s but was still the voice of a politician. “I’m to take you to your rooms for a repast and then for a tour of the habitat.”

Calm matched Eric’s tone. “Please,” he said, “lead on.”

“Because we’re on Tau Prime’s central axis,” explained the visitors’ guide, “we have to use handles to reach our guest facilities.”

The zero-gravity passageway they followed led to a tunnel filled with the moving walkways found also on the Terra Rings. Along the way was a series of handles in straight lines. A pedestrian, as it were, simply grabbed a handle and was pulled along. The outer bank of handles moved at a speed just above a walk; the three inner banks proportionately increased one’s speed. Deklan had only heard of these systems.

Eric grabbed an outermost handle, and Deklan followed suit. The method of transportation had some of the fun of a motorcycle, but more than anything else, given the weightlessness and rapid movement, it felt like flying. Other passengers on the transit system zipped by on the higher-speed lines. Deklan didn’t have long to look at them, but he had the impression that the habitat’s residents stared at the four strangers. All of these people wore the same red clothing that had been ubiquitous so far. The feeling of flying faded as gravity came into play. By the end of the trip Deklan was in gravity’s embrace.

Disembarking was just like leaving any of the moving walkways on the Terra Rings, but there was one major difference. Whereas the exits on the Terra Rings led to wide open spaces, on Tau Prime they connected to a warren of dimly lit tunnels.

Once the party was on foot it was obvious that local residents were either fascinated with or repelled by the strangers. Deklan noticed a correlation with age: the younger the individual, the greater the chance that he or she regarded the visitors with curiosity rather than revulsion. “Eric,” he said, “your people don’t seem to like us.”

Calm, Jamie, and Jonny shot sharp looks at Deklan, but Eric was unaffected by the comment. “Yes,” their host answered. “Well, you are of the outside.”

Deklan waited for more information, but Eric simply kept walking. “Have you had any problems with Keystones in the last weeks?” he inquired.

Eric replied with a statement that blithely ignored the question. “We’re almost there,” he announced. After passing tributaries in the tunnels that branched off to the left and right, they had come to a door exactly like all of the others at the end of a hallway. Eric turned to face them, his hand on the door and pride on his face. “Welcome to Tau Prime,” he said once more.

The door opened onto a massive open space that stretched for kilometers in every direction. Green plant life started within ten meters of the door and carpeted the ground. In the distance were skyscrapers. To either side there was no horizon but only curving walls covered in plants, small moving dots, and buildings. Deklan had a flash of understanding: like most habitats, Tau Prime was cylindrical in shape. The living space was on the inside of the cylinder, and if you looked up at the “sky” you saw the “ground” on the other side. The habitat spun like the Terra Rings, providing artificial gravity. Unlike the Terra Rings, however, you could see right across, or would have been able to were it not for the cylindrical body of water suspended in the “sky.” It ran the length of the habitat, a long river with no banks and no shore.

Small craft and people flew through the air. Some were near the ground, some close to the water, and others in between. Everywhere you looked there was activity, as in a hive of bees.

The area to which Eric had brought them was like a parkland back on the Rings. Deklan understood why Eric was proud. The expanse was beautiful, but Deklan felt threatened. The last time he’d been at a parkland in Boa Vista he’d been attacked and nearly died. “Eric,” he asked, “are there animals here?”

Eric looked puzzled. “Of course. There are bees.” He looked at the trees. “Isn’t that how you pollinate them too?”

“Yes, but what about dogs, cats, rodents?”

Eric looked even more confused. “What’s a dog?”

“A domestic pet.”

“Is it a type of bee that you keep inside?” asked Eric in all earnestness.

Deklan sensed Eric’s incomprehension. “What types of animals do you have here?” he asked.

“Bees and fish.”

“And what do you eat?”

“Fish and the dead.”

Jonny directed a stream of amber liquid from his finger into a glass. The sides crackled with frost. He passed the tumbler to Calm and repeated the service three more times.

Deklan joined the others in slugging back the cold liquid, which burned down the back of his throat. After Jonny refilled the glasses, the group emptied them again.

Eric had promised that food would be delivered to their communal apartment. Deklan’s stomach, which roiled with hunger, was still queasy at the thought of eating anything on Tau Prime given Eric’s synopsis of the inhabitants’ diet.

The four wayfarers stood in the kitchen of their quarters. The natural wonder of the floating sea and surrounding parkland made the space look drab in comparison. Old metal furniture and worn fabrics did nothing to combat the impression. The chairs looked as though they’d been made a hundred years earlier and had whiled away the time by competing for an accumulation of scratches and tarnish. The kitchen had a distinctly institutional feel to it, like a place where you might find down-on-their-luck ex-cons.

Calm summarized the collective thoughts of the group in one statement: “We need to leave.” He held his glass out to Jonny for a second refill. Sipping it, he said, “If we’re lucky, the First will want us as envoys to the Terra Rings.” His tone left no doubt in Deklan’s mind that he didn’t expect that to happen.

Deklan’s stomach rumbled again. “Jonny,” he asked, “can you give me a dense beer or something heavy and filling?”

Jonny winked. “I have just the thing.” He filled Deklan’s glass with a dark fluid that looked as though it could be week-old coffee.