Nova (7 page)

He says the words lightly, as though it’s no big deal, but I can’t help thinking he lost his parents to the war as surely as Lia did hers. Only he has the hope that one day his will come back, and Lia’s never will.

I feel a strange lump in my throat at the thought, though I’m not sure why. I clear my throat. “You must really miss them. Your folks, I mean.”

Michael slides his gaze toward me, studying me from the corner of his eyes, and shrugs. “No more than you miss yours, I’m sure.”

I look away, uncertain how to answer the comment. Mistaking the gesture, Michael hastens to apologize. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it that way.” When I don’t respond, he adds, “Hey, you want to see something?”

When I glance over, he pulls out something small and round from his pocket. Curious, I take it, fingering the tiny metal spikes on the bottom of the disc. “It’s a chit,” I say in surprise, recognizing it as the same communication device Rowan punched into my hand on my first day here.

“It was my dad’s,” Michael explains. “It got caught on something and yanked out of his hand a few days before he left for the
Prize
and we came here. See the way the spikes are bent there? I was supposed to stick it in the recycler to be melted down when he got a new one, but I kept it. I don’t know, I guess I just thought it was a way to remember him. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s stupid at all,” I answer softly. “So do your parents ever come to visit?”

“They come whenever they get leave, but it’s been awhile.” He shakes his head. “Teal thinks it would be cool to be an officer like Mom, but I never want to join the military. To have people always telling you where to go and what to do? When you can see your family and when you can’t? I’d hate it.”

All of a sudden Teal’s earlier needling makes sense. “Do you really think they might institute the draft?” I ask.

“I don’t know. There was talk they might, before the Tellurians suddenly opened negotiations. Maybe if the ceasefire holds . . .”

Maybe, but it won’t. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that. People who want peace don’t send human bombs to destroy space stations. I open my mouth to say so, then close it. What, exactly, would I say?

With a silver rush, the SlipStream pulls in on the left, sparing me the need to respond. I spend the ride with teeth clenched, forehead wrinkled in concentration as the train churns down the track. The motion isn’t as bad, now that I know what to expect, but I keep my inner eye trained on my clock, certain it will start turning at any moment. It doesn’t; the number is fixed in place even after we arrive and disembark into the hub.

*00:02:31*

Michael drops me at the cargo bay with the box and says goodnight. It got late somehow, without me even noticing. The lights are still on, but people have already lain down to sleep and others are getting ready to. I’m not tired, so instead I sit on my cot and slowly sort through the box Taylor gave me.

On top is a thick pillow stuffed with synthesized down, nothing like the thin headrest provided with my sleeping roll. A blanket comes out next, soft and white and fluffy. I rub the fabric lightly against my cheek, reveling in the texture, a far cry from the stiff gray blanket already covering my cot. The container of cake is on the bottom, along with several other small things Taylor apparently threw in when I wasn’t looking. A bag of candy. Half a dozen pairs of clean socks and a new package of underwear. A cheap reader loaded with books. A small basket of toiletries—scented lotion, soap, and shampoo. Frilly, feminine things smelling of lilac, at least according to the package. All I can smell is the usual sour-and-sweet odor pervading the hub.

I finger the items one by one. This boxful is a king’s ransom for someone like me, who can carry everything she owns tucked into one small sleeping roll. I wonder: does it make me a thief, to accept things under false pretenses? Would Taylor take it all back if she knew I wasn’t Lia? I don’t think she would, and it’s that understanding, more than anything, that pricks my dormant conscience.

I think back to the evening with Michael’s family. I didn’t go out of any expectation or desire, but because it was easier to say yes to Michael than no. At times, I felt awkward and out of place, like an extra piece trying to fit into a puzzle that’s already been completed. And yet . . . Taylor’s hand on my shoulder, the easy way she and Michael came to my rescue when I didn’t know the answer to a question, Michael’s and Teal’s fingers in mine during grace. For a few short moments, there was a place for me in that puzzle, too.

No, I remind myself after a moment. Not for me. For Lia.

Still, as I curl up in the white blanket and lay my head down on the pillow, I can’t help wondering for the first time since waking up in the hygiene unit if maybe being alive isn’t the worst thing in the world after all.

11
THOSE LONG HOURS OF LYING
on my cot doing nothing are over. I know it as soon as I wake the next day. Instead of that dull heaviness pressing me down into my bed, I feel a new energy pushing me up into the day. Michael’s coming, his searching me out after all I did to evade him, his folding me into his family for those few short hours—they’ve changed me somehow. Not in any way I can pinpoint or explain, but they’ve changed me all the same. The heaviness has been replaced by a restlessness; the will to die by, perhaps, not a true desire to live, but at least by an acceptance that I have.

I see Michael off and on over the next week. School is less formal on the station than it was on Aurora, with students having the option to attend in person or link in either live or after the fact. It explains how Michael was able to come look for me those first few afternoons on the station. However, he still has to attend his classes sometimes—Taylor is too responsible a guardian to let him get behind—and though he doesn’t say it, I know Michael must have a life beyond me. Friends, activities, maybe even a girlfriend for all I know.

Still, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed the first day he links me to say he won’t be coming by. The feeling surprises me. Before, I would have been perfectly content if I never saw him again. Relieved, even. Not anymore. Somehow between our first meeting on Level Seven and that evening in his home on the Upper Habitat Ring, I’ve gotten used to Michael. Started to like him, even, rather than simply tolerating his presence because he was Lia’s friend. Perhaps it’s because, even though I’m not
his
friend, he’s still mine.

Then again, maybe it’s simple boredom that draws me to him, I muse as I step off the lift onto Level Eight. It’s my tenth day on the station and already boredom has become second nature to me. As a returned POW, I’m not required to attend classes, nor do I have a job or any assigned chores. Aside from sleeping and eating, there isn’t much to do besides walk around the hub—an activity I’ve done a hundred times now. Too bad Michael’s not around. He linked me earlier to say he would be attending classes, so I’m on my own today. As I head for my sleeping quarters, I try to think of something to do. There’s always Taylor’s reader, I remind myself. Though I’ve never been much of one for reading, it’s better than nothing.

I blink as I walk into the bay. Never much of one for reading? Now was that Lia’s preference or my own? Between her hidden memories and my forgotten ones, sometimes it’s hard to tell where I begin and she ends.

Pushing past a group of milling refugees, I make my way to my corner only to stop as I catch sight of my cot. My cot which is no longer unoccupied.

My mouth drops open as I spot the intruder. A girl is lounging on top of the blanket, shoveling the last of the candy Taylor gave me into her mouth as she flips through the reader. Over the last week, I’d been careful to pack all my stuff carefully away into the box and stick it back behind a nearby cargo crate whenever I left the bay. I’d thought it was safe enough, but apparently I was wrong. My eyes zoom in on a glob of chocolate carelessly dropped on my blanket, and a hot flash of anger pulses through me.

Words explode from my mouth, and I rush forward. “Hey! Hey, what are you doing? That’s mine!”

She jerks at my call, jumping to her feet and searching wildly for the source of the voice. She looks about my age, but she’s a
lot
bigger, topping me by at least six inches and fifty pounds. Her eyes take in my smaller stature with one quick sweep and the nervousness immediately dissolves from her face. She smiles a nasty smile, the sort of mean expression only belonging to the worst of bullies.

Gaze locked on mine, she slides the reader into her jumpsuit. “What’s yours?” she asks innocently.

Calm, calm, don’t draw attention.

The words whisper through my mind, but that chocolate on Taylor’s crisp white blanket stares up at me, overriding everything else. “Give that back!”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll be sorry!”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s going to make me? ‘Cause it sure in a bloody moon won’t be you.” She gestures at the box and snorts. “Besides, where would a little frag-nosed refugee like you get all this stuff? I bet you stole it.”

“I did not! It was a gift, from
friends.
Something you probably never had in your life.”

I hit a nerve; I can immediately see it in her eyes. Her nostrils flare, fingers clenching into fists. Her body tenses, and I realize she’s about to charge. So I charge first.

She doesn’t expect it, and my weight hits her like a Class II cruiser, toppling her back onto the cot. A leg snaps with a loud
crack!
and then we’re rolling across the floor, our arms and hands grappling in each other’s clothes, each trying to gain the advantage. She uses her superior weight to push me underneath her. I buck, trying to jerk free, but she’s too heavy for me to force her off. She smirks, certain she has me where she wants me.

“Apologize, bitch, and give me your stuff, and
maybe
I’ll spare your life.”

*00:02:30*

*00:02:29*

*00:02:28*

A spark jumps in my eye and a smile slowly curls over my lips, visions of the two of us going Nova dancing in my head. Quick as lightning, I snake my arms around hers, sinking my fingers into her biceps.

“No,
you
apologize and maybe I’ll spare
your
life.”

Her grip on me falters slightly, confusion clear on her face. I’m supposed to be scared of her, frightened and begging for mercy at this point. She can’t figure out why I’m smiling instead. She doesn’t know how to handle prey that fights back.

*00:02:23*

*00:02:22*

*00:02:21*

Two more sparks, so silver they’re blinding.

“All right, that’s it! Break it up!”

A hand grabs the girl’s shoulder and yanks. It takes three jerks before I cool enough to unlock my grip and let the soldier haul her away. Though finally free, I don’t move, heart hammering as I watch the seconds slip away.

*00:02:12*

*00:02:11*

The stretchy feeling is starting in my mind now. Is this it? Is my time finally come? I close my eyes, ready to embrace my duty with all my being . . .

*00:02:11*

 . . .and my clock stops.

I don’t know whether to gnash my teeth in frustration or sigh in relief. For a minute I was so angry, I was ready to blow the station and everyone in it just as long as I could take that girl with me. Shame rolls through me as that strange bout of temper, so sudden and unexpected, cools as quickly as it fired. My job is to further the war effort, not take revenge against one mean-spirited girl. To go Nova like that, rolling around on the floor with some thief, seems wrong somehow. Unworthy. Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t.

Then again, isn’t it better to go Nova in any way I can than to never go Nova at all? My mission seemed so simple once. How did it ever become so confused?

“Hey! You okay, kid?”

I open my eyes to find an officer staring down at me. She offers a hand to help me up. Pausing only long enough to determine there’s no PsyCorp star on her breast, I take it and slowly get to my feet. The big girl is being held by a private a few feet away, the firm hands on her shoulders making it clear she’s not still here by choice. Hatred shoots out of her eyes at me.

The officer looks us over, the large-boned girl with the mean eyes and the small blonde wisp who was trapped beneath her, and it’s immediately obvious whose side she’s on. Still, she scans her tip-pad over both our chits.

“Silverstein, Sharlotte—”

“It’s
Shar.
”

“—Johansen, Lia. Okay, do either of you ladies want to tell me what happened?”

I open my mouth, ready to explain everything, then close it. While Shar started it all by messing with my stuff, technically
I’m
the one who started the fistfight by hitting her first. I might get in just as much trouble as Shar, if not more, for losing my temper instead of simply going to the officers for help. And if they decide to punish me, who knows what other secrets of mine they might discover in the process? I’m sure whatever punishment they’d mete out for starting a fight would pale in comparison to what they’d do to me for being an enemy bomb come to blow them all up.

My gaze meets Shar’s, and for once I see we’re in perfect accord. Neither of us wants to tell about the fight. No surprise there. As a bully and a thief, she doesn’t come out looking any better than I do.

“It was just a misunderstanding,” Shar says.

“Yeah,” I back her up. “I thought she was stealing my reader, but she was only looking at it.”

The officer glances between the two of us and raises her eyebrows. Shar reluctantly pulls the reader out of her jumpsuit and hands it back. “
Sorry
,” she bites out, “for the
misunderstanding
.”

I take it, easily reading “sorry for the misunderstanding” as “sorry I didn’t pummel you when I had the chance.” “Yeah, me too,” I say, though I mean my apology no more than she does. The officer is still watching us, clearly not fooled by the exchange, so I reluctantly offer my hand.

Shar scowls at it, but mindful of the officer, gives it a quick slap. A burst of white flashes in my head at the touch, a jolt of pure fear jumpstarting my heart.

I gasp and yank my hand back, but Shar doesn’t try to touch me again, the low five more than enough contact for her. I take a shaky breath, trying to regain my equilibrium, but before I can figure out what just happened, the officer speaks.

“All right, you’re both free to go.” She makes a notation on her tip-pad. “But if there’s any more fighting from either of you, you’ll both end up down at PsyCorp explaining yourselves. Got it?”

PsyCorp! Visions of being brain-drained dance in my head, and I quickly nod lest she change her mind about sending us down to verify our stories. The officer signals to the private, and he lets Shar go. With a final glare, she slips around him and disappears into the crowd.

The private leaves too, dispersing the onlookers as he goes—“Nothing more to see, folks! Go back to your cots!”—and I try to pick up the wreckage of my stuff. The cot’s a loss, with its broken leg, but maybe I can get the chocolate out of my blanket. I look around for something to wipe it off with.

“You sure you’re going to be sat?”

It’s the officer—Ensign Dern I see from her uniform. She bends down and helps retrieve my things, frowning at the broken cot and linking a quick message through her chit.

“I’m fine,” I answer. “I can take care of myself.”

She gives me an assessing look and slowly nods. “I’m sure you can. Where did you get all this stuff, anyway?” I tense under her scrutiny, but her tone is curious rather than accusatory.

“Turns out I have an old friend on the station. We used to live next door to each other on Aurora, before his family moved away. Michael.” His name slips out, though I didn’t mean to say it.

Ensign Dern smiles. “This Michael sounds like a stellar guy. Here, grab your stuff and come with me.”

We load my things into the box, and I follow her between some cargo containers and down along the wall. She stops at a small cargo locker and waves her chit in front of the lock panel. The drawer pops open. “Give me your hand.”

I do, and she programs the access code into my chit. She shuts the drawer and signals to me to try. I wave my hand in front of the panel and the drawer pops open.

She nods. “Good. Keep your extra stuff in there when you aren’t using it. Even the best of people can get tempted when they have so little and they see someone else with so much. Got it?”

I nod, and with a pat on the shoulder and the promise of a new cot before nightfall, the ensign moves off. Shoving the last of my stuff into the locker, I shut the door and lock it, glad I won’t have to deal with the likes of Shar now that I have a safe place for my things. Or so I think, until I emerge back into the main bay area to find her leaning against a barrel, gaze fixed on me, hatred shooting from her eyes.

I shiver slightly, courage fading without my anger to back it up, and suddenly know that whatever happened between us, it’s not over.

I sit on my new cot later that evening, combing out my hair and thinking about the fight. About the way my clock lost seconds during my tussle with Shar. The first time I lost seconds, it was on the SlipStream when I was afraid. The second time, it was during the fight when I was angry. Is it possible strong emotion restarts my clock? If so, could I go Nova simply by generating enough emotion?

It never occurred to me that I might be able to complete my mission out of sheer willpower, but if there’s a possibility I can do it, I have to at least try.

Don’t I?

I start to close my eyes, then stop. It is just after the main dinner hour, and most of the refugees are still up, scattered around the bay amusing themselves as best as they can. There should be no outward signs of my going Nova as far as I know, not until it’s too late anyway. Still, I hesitate. Going Nova seems somehow like a private event; far too private for such a public place. Maybe I should wait until everyone settles down to sleep.