Sound (20 page)

“Hello,
ma chère
. Did you miss me?” she says.

His voice cuts between us. “Where have you been?”

I look over my shoulder. He is staring straight at me, but it's my
manman
who answers.

“I have that new haul route to Mirny. I told you last week, remember?”

I freeze, watching him. Maybe he will rise up out of his chair and come at her. Maybe he will scream and curse. Maybe he will
break something or take away something we need. Maybe he will
say we all have to stay home with him.

Instead, we are lucky. He grunts and turns his attention back to his sat phone.

We eat dinner. He still says nothing about my doll. I want to ask him if I can have it back, but then I would have to admit I saw him take it. I would have to admit I was hiding from him, and that will make him angry like nothing else.

After dinner, I brush my teeth and hug my
manman
good-night. She is in the kitchen, washing up the dishes. I try to slip away to my cot without him noticing, but this time I am not so lucky.

“Miyole.” He crooks a finger at me and beckons me over to his chair.

I stand beside his chair, enough distance that we aren't touching, but not so much that he can say I'm trying to stay away from him.

“Are you forgetting something?” He raises an eyebrow.

I hug him quickly, mechanically. “Good night, Papa.”

“Good night,” he says.

I turn to go.

“Miyole.”

I stop and turn back around. I am too young to know the word
dread
, but I feel it filling me up all the same.

“I found that doll of yours,” he says. “On the floor.”

“What doll?” I say, even though I know exactly what he means. It is not a good lie. I don't have many toys. I am already shaking.

His eyes go wide. “What doll?” he repeats. “What doll?”

My
manman
turns around, her hands still dripping soapy water. “Janjak, please.”

His eyes flash. “Don't you Janjak me. This girl is a liar. And how do you think she got that way?”

I back away one step.

“Don't you go anywhere.” He points at me and pulls the doll out from behind his back. He's been sitting with it wedged between the cushions of his chair. “You don't appreciate what we give you. You're going to take this down to the brink and throw it in the water.”

“No!” My eyes fill with tears. “Papa, please. I'm sorry. . . .”

“P
e
dan w la!”
He stands suddenly, towering over me. “Stop crying.”

“Janjak.” My mother steps between us, her voice calm.

His hand flies up and strikes her across the cheek and then he's hitting her and hitting her.

I run to the storage closet beside the washroom and close myself
inside. It's my fault. If I hadn't made him mad, he wouldn't hit her. If I hadn't dropped my doll. If I had said I was sorry sooner. I should go tell him to stop, to hit me instead, but the shameful, cringing part of me is stronger. The truth is, I'm glad it's not me.

I wake in the pilot's chair and rub the sleep from my eyes. The giant gas planet that Enceladus orbits glows in the dark before us—a pale orange smear only now visible with the naked eye. Three days, and we'll be in its orbit, too. Three days, and we'll touch down on the moon's icy crust. I shiver.

I climb down to the storage room to find the body armor Rubio “reappropriated” from the
dakait
ship. If Sweetie's contacts on Enceladus are anything like Sweetie himself, I'm going to want all the protection I can get. I pick up an armored shirt—a black, beaded thing, thin but strong, perfect for dispersing the energy behind a fired slug. I've seen feeds of soldiers and rescue workers in armor like this, but I've never had to wear it myself. It moves like water, like snakeskin. I pause, weighing the shirt with my hand, then grab two more and head off to find Rubio.

I stop short in the doorway to the common room. Cassia sits on the couch with her back to me, stroking Tibbet's head and staring at the design Isha drew on the far wall. For
half a moment, I think about turning around and locking myself in the cockpit, but I can't avoid her forever. I steel myself, walk past her, and dump the armor on a table. I cross my arms and stare down at it, not moving, but not looking at her, either.

I feel her eyes on me. She clears her throat. “I know you think it was wrong, what I did.”

I turn around. “You killed him.” Something sticks in my throat. “You killed him even after you told him we were going to spare him.”

“So did Isha,” Cassia points out.

“Do you really want to compare yourself to Isha?”

Cassia hugs Tibbet tight. “They were selling people, Miyole.
Selling people.
You heard what he said—what he would have done with us.”

I shake my head, not because I don't believe her, but because I don't want the images cycling around in my mind. What could have happened to us. What has already happened to others. They were us, minus some luck.

“The Deep's better off without them.” Cassia leans forward, and Tibbet leaps from her lap. “You know I'm right.”

I look at the armor. “Right,” I say. “But I don't want to be the one to decide those things.” In Mumbai, even
murderers receive trials, and on the
Ranganathan
, they have correctional hearings. A lone person doesn't hand down a death sentence.

“Lucky you weren't, then.” Cassia's voice hardens.

It would be easy to believe that, nicer to think I had no choice in the matter. But I could have gone to that
dakait
at any time and stopped his bleeding.

The old memory plays again—the kick of the gun in my hands, the shock, my
manman
's eyes so sad, and then her standing over the man. The gun's report, deafening in our tiny bedroom. I look at Cassia. Her hair hangs lank under the bandage, and the skin beneath her eyes is bruised. Was killing the
dakait
really so different from what my mother did? She was only protecting herself. And Cassia's right, the Deep is better off without people like that. So why does it feel different?

I take a step toward Cassia. I don't know what I mean to do. To speak? To throw my arms around her? To shove her away?

Rubio appears in the door, out of breath. “Telemetry's going crazy,” he says. “There's something outside.”

Chapter 18

T
he three of us crowd into the cockpit and lean over the displays. Beyond the viewport, something small and white floats against the darkness, too perfectly round to be debris. I cut the engines and fire the fore thrusters to slow our approach.

“Anybody want to guess what the hell that is?” Rubio says.

“It's a drop.” Cassia's voice is almost a whisper. “Our delivery coordinates.”

I frown and toggle our coms. “It's just sitting there. Why isn't it streaming?”

“Some things are too . . . sensitive for streaming.” Cassia nods at the screen. “We've picked those up before, on runs for Sweetie.”

“You're sure?” I lean in closer.

Cassia nods. “The buyer usually launches a blind drop once Sweetie confirms the cargo is under way.” She stands straight. “Let's bring it in and see what it says.”

Rubio snaps to attention. “Whoa, wait. Bring it in?”

Cassia narrows her eyes. “How else are we going to figure out where we're going?”

“Okay, that's a terrible idea,” Rubio says. “Even if it is for us—which, why should we assume it is?—how do you know it's not a pulse bomb or something?”

Cassia makes a face. “Why would Sweetie's buyer leave a bomb for us?”

“Why do you keep saying it's from Sweetie's buyer?”

Cassia throws up her hands. “Who else knows our specific trajectory coordinates?”

Rubio runs a hand through his hair. “Listen. I'm the only one with security experience here and—”

“Well, I'm the only one with smuggling experience,” Cassia interrupts. “And I say we bring it in.”

“Okay.” Rubio shrugs. “You go get it, then.”

“Gladly,” Cassia says.

“Hold on.” I step in. “Cass, your head—”

“I'm fine.” She scowls over my shoulder at Rubio. “I'm not afraid like some people.”

“You're still getting over a concussion and carbon
monoxide poisoning. The last thing you should do is try to walk outside.”

“I can do it,” she insists.

“No,” I say, and I hear my
manman
's voice in my own, firm, in control. “You can't.” I glance at Rubio. “But I can.”

The first time I did a spacewalk sim, I barely made it out of the antigravity chamber before I threw up. Second time: same. Third time: same. Luckily for me, the DSRI doesn't expect its scientists to be experts at zero G, so three successful sim runs were all I needed, and throwing up
outside
the sim chamber was still considered a success.

I stand in the
Mendicant
's cramped air lock, waiting for the air pressure to bottom out so the ship doesn't eject me like a projectile as soon as Cassia and Rubio pop the lock. We're stopped several dozen meters from the drop sphere. I reach behind my back to double-check the tether hooked to my pressure suit.
I will not hyperventilate. I've done this before.
Well, more or less.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rubio calls over the coms.

“Yes.”
No.

“Because I could try to fit in your suit. We could rig it—”

I roll my eyes, even though Rubio can't see me. “Please. You're half a head taller than me.”

The atmospheric indicator lights around my helmet's faceplate change from blue to yellow to red. We found a set of five bulky pressure suits in one of the
Mendicant
's storage lockers, but something had chewed holes big enough to poke a finger through the outer insulating layers. My suit is it.

“Enough.” Cassia's voice relays into my ear. “Ready, Miyole?”

Outside the small viewport, the Deep is thick with stars, like sugar spilled over a black tablecloth. It's gorgeous. It's majestic. But I prefer looking at it from behind dozens of layers of self-healing nacre and radiation shields.

I take a steadying breath. “Ready.”

The air lock door winds open. I step up to the black.

Imagine throwing yourself from Mumbai's tallest skyscraper. Imagine drifting alone in an endless blank sea. Imagine being sealed, awake, in a light-tight coffin. Now combine those things, and add a dose of vertigo.

I make my way along the
Mendicant
's side, one hand on its fuselage, until I reach its farthest spar. The drop sphere hangs some twenty meters in front of me, like a tiny, pale moon. I brace my feet against the ship, ready to kick off
and launch myself out to grab it. My blood pressure rises, thumping beneath my collarbone. I look down at the endless kilometers of nothing below me. If my tether snaps, if I fly too far . . .

A memory engulfs me.

I am a little girl. I am up to my neck in water, treading, a trace of salt on my lips.

A boy—Kai, my friend Kai—splashes me. “Can't catch me, slow dough!”

I growl and show my teeth—my best shark impression. “Huh-uh. I'm going to eat you up!”

A
nd then I'm flying, arms churning the water, as I race after him. I am fast and powerful in the ocean, like the dolphins we sometimes see at sunset. I'm gaining, and then I'm level with him. We swim far, as far out from the docks as we've ever gone, and then far as the older boys and girls. In a burst of speed, I overtake him. The rush of it carries me on, giddy glee flooding my arms with strength. I am made for this. I could swim forever.

“Miyole!” Kai's cry is far behind me.

I slow and kick myself around to look back. His head is a tiny dark shape bobbing in the water. The docks and pontoons of East Gyre rock gently behind him, stretched as far as I can see. From here, my home looks like a collection of little play ships and houses,
small enough I could pick them up in my hand. I've never swum out so far before.

“Miyole!” Kai's voice barely carries to me. “Come back!”

I look from him to the open sea at my back. A stocky boat chugs along the horizon, as far from me as I am from the docks. Suddenly, the adrenaline drains out of me. I'm no longer powerful, no longer made for the sea. I'm a small thing with aching arms, too far from the Gyre's steady ships and footbridges. The blue beneath me is too blue, the depths too deep, and I am alone.

“Mi? Miyole?”

I blink.

“Mi?” Cassia's voice is back in my ear. “Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

I hear my own breathing before I can register what it is—harsh, quick gasps filling my helmet.

I gulp them down. “I'm okay,” I say. “I'm okay. Just out of practice.”

Rubio's voice now. “You've got to breathe slow so you don't burn all your oxygen too fast.”

“Okay.” I know that, but I'm too short of breath to argue with him.

I close my eyes, concentrate on the simple physics of what I'm about to do. Push off from the ship's side, but not too hard.
Force divided by mass equals acceleration.
Grab
the sphere.
Mass times velocity equals a change in momentum.
Wait for Cassia and Rubio to winch my tether back in.
Time equals distance divided by rate.

I steady myself, open my eyes, and jump.

The sphere comes up fast, smacking me in the chest so hard I barely remember to wrap my arms around it. The impact spins me around, and I find myself facing the
Mendicant
, my tether trailing loose behind me like a ghostly umbilical cord. The ship's wedge-shaped face stares blankly back. Vertigo starts to overtake me, but I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Got it!” I say.

I try to keep my eyes closed tight as Cassia and Rubio reel me back in, but every few minutes, the not knowing is worse than the knowing, and I have to peek out from beneath my eyelashes. The
Mendicant
grows before me, dirty white against the darkness, like an unbleached clamshell. And then I'm touching down in the air lock, the ship's gravity steady under my feet, and the door seals behind me.

Rubio's face appears in the inner air lock window. “You okay?” he mouths.

I give him a thumbs-up and sink down against the wall, clutching the drop sphere to my chest as the air pressure
gradually climbs back to normal. The lights around my faceplate fade from red to yellow to blue—safe atmosphere and pressure—and I pull off my helmet.

Cassia rushes in and takes the drop sphere, while Rubio holds out a hand to help me up. I look from him to Cassia, ignore Rubio's hand, and push myself upright. I'm sure I would forget about her if it was my family we were hunting for. I would snatch up that sphere first, too.

We follow Cassia into the common room, where she kneels on the floor and places the sphere in front of her. Rubio backs up against the wall, as far from the device as he can go. Cassia rolls her eyes at him and touches a finger to the sensor on the sphere's top. Its upper half splits and retracts, revealing a small metal tube cushioned inside.

Cassia picks it up. It fits easily inside her palm.

I lean in. “It looks like . . . lipstick?”

Cassia holds the tube up to the light, examining the hairline seam around its circumference. She raises an eyebrow at Rubio. “Still think it's a bomb?”

He looks at his feet and shrugs.

Cassia twists the tube. It pops open with a quick hiss of depressurizing air, depositing a heavy-gauge needle jack into her hand.

I take a sharp breath. I've seen one of those before—a
box of them, actually—in Ava and Rushil's house, of all places.

What's that?

Something for my friend Soli. You remember I told you about her?

But why does she need so many?

She gives them away. Presents. For crewe girls, like I was. So they can find their way here, if they want.

“Okay . . .” Rubio squints at the jack. “That's for . . . ?”

Cassia holds it up to the light. “It's some kind of manual line-in, I think.”

Rubio pushes away from the wall and leans over us. “To what?”

Cassia shakes her head. “I don't know. I didn't think anyone was still using these. I'm not even sure the ship has a connector for it.”

I clear my throat. “It's a directional.”

“A directional?” Rubio says.

“Sure. It hooks in to your ship's navigation system.” I reach for the jack. “It stores a preprogrammed set of coordinates. Ava, my sister—she hides them inside fans.”

Cassia and Rubio both stare at me.

“It's a long story.” I clear my throat. “We should plug it in, see where it wants us to go.”

We make our way to the cockpit.

“What if it doesn't fit?” Cassia asks.

“It's an old ship. It's bound to have a line-in port.” I drop down in the captain's seat and scan the controls. There. A port the size of a hypodermic needle. It all makes sense now. Newer ships wouldn't have a directional port, wouldn't be able to read the coordinates. This was left especially for us.

“See?” I push the directional home with a
click
.

A tooth-rending screech blares through the
Mendicant
's coms system, followed by a babble of digital static. I clap my hands over my ears. Cassia jumps back, and Rubio slaps a hand down on the controls to silence the ship's internal coms.

“Vaya.”
He rubs his ears. “What was that?”

“New coordinates.” I point to the navigation readout:
-84.0219, -23.9082, a-18.
“That must be our drop point.”

I expect the gas giant to take my breath away, but when I finally see it up close, I feel nothing. It looks so perfectly geometric, like a child's rendering; it doesn't seem real. Even its shadows are too neat and sharp. Telemetry lights up as we pass the nitrogen farming operations on Titan, Enceladus's sister moon, and then runs wild as we follow
the coordinates to our destination. Ice crystals from the planet's outer ring fizzle against our shields. And then there it is—Enceladus—a ghostly mirror of ice reflecting light from the planet and its other nearby moons.

Once, when I was little, Ava and Rushil took me to a Diwali festival down in the Salt, and Rushil bought a sugar rock for me. It was the size of a cricket ball and so hard I couldn't bite it. Enceladus looks exactly like it. Like I could put it in my mouth. Like I could hold it on my tongue until the enzymes in my saliva begin to dissolve it.

We fall into orbit with the other ships waiting for entry clearance. From just above the moon's atmosphere, its imperfections come into relief—craters, canyons, ridges, and boreholes leading down to the liquid ocean beneath its icy crust.

“What's that?” Rubio points to a dazzling white flume rising from the moon's southern pole.

“An austral geyser.” I lean toward the viewport, my voice rising in excitement. That's what I couldn't remember. “Enceladus is cryovolcanic. It has such a high degree of orbital eccentricity that it's subject to tidal heating, but the atmosphere is so cold, the erupting liquid freezes on contact.”

Rubio raises both eyebrows. “Um . . . English?”

“It's an ice volcano,” Cassia says.

Rubio's eyes widen. “Please tell me we're giving that a wide berth.”

Cassia laughs. “Only crazy people fly near volcanos.”

“Actually . . .” I glance at the coordinates we skimmed off the
Dakait
log.

Rubio groans. “You're kidding.”

“It's one of the places they set down,” I hurry to say. “But only if we don't find anything at the coordinates in Ny Karlskrona. We should check there first.”

“And Sweetie's delivery,” Cassia puts in. “I want that done with so we're free and clear to look for Nethanel.”

Rubio glances over at me. “Where's that take us?”

“The drop sphere coordinates?” I bring up the navigation screen. “It looks like they're in Ny Kyoto.”

Rubio grunts. “Sounds like a party.”

We come in above Ny Kyoto. Nothing moves on the surface but gusts of powdered snow. It snakes between the spindle towers that mark each building's anchor point below the ice. From above, the city looks like a forest of needles—silver gray and glistening. We touch down on Onsen Subport, at the marker for pad 134. For a moment, we stare out at the whipping snow. Then a high-pitched squeal rises from somewhere outside, and the ship drops beneath us.