Sound (28 page)

Chapter 28

T
he coms readout springs to life. I turn down the receiver volume and open an outside channel. Nothing. I bump up the volume. A low, thin hum fills the air, but nothing else. None of the traffic chatter I should be hearing, no call signatures registering. Cold sweat prickles on my forehead. I look across the dock to the control room. One of the
Dakait
is laughing, reclining in his stolen chair.
It doesn't mean anything.
The transmitter could still work, even if the long-range receiver is out.

I duck under the console. Our captors haven't gutted the coms system, so at least there's that. I open the
Mendicant
's ancient systems management interface and pull up communications diagnostics. The receiving line is red, but the transmitter's is green. It should work. I only have to program it to send the DSRI's unique distress sequence.

I pop my head up and check on the
dakait
. Still in the control room. No one new on the hangar floor. I change the coms to pulse mode and set the pitch and frequency, open it to all receivers. Rött's men might pick it up, too, but I don't know the
Ranganathan's
call signature by heart, so it's a risk I'll have to take.
Please be up there. Please hear us.

I switch back to diagnostics and hold my breath. The transmitter line spikes. Spikes again. Green. It works. We can't receive anything in return, and I don't know how long it will hold out, but for the moment, it works. For few seconds, I let myself imagine escaping, what I would do if I got out. Hug Soraya again, the way I used to when I was a little girl, and Ava and Rushil, too. Go visit New Gyre, like Ava is always trying to get me to do. See if it's anything like my childhood home . . .

Enough. I can't let myself dive too deep into that fantasy. I program the distress burst to repeat and look in on the
dakait
again. One of them is drinking something. The other has his feet up. Time to go.

I kneel in the shadow of the
Mendicant
's loading ramp. It's only a matter of time now, whether the
Ranganathan
sends someone for us, or Rött and his men discover the transmission. I have to get back to the others and tell them. We have to be ready.

Twenty-odd meters of well-lit open space lie between me and the duct. How long will it take to run that far and pull the grate back into place? Ten seconds? Fifteen? The men up in the control room could look out at any time. Even if they don't catch me, they could still raise the alarm. But the longer I wait, the more I risk Juna or Rött noticing I'm gone. My chances for making it back to the others decrease exponentially with every minute.

I run full tilt for the open duct—
Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.
I stop short at the wall and spend a few precious seconds maneuvering myself into the duct feetfirst. My knee thuds against the side as I wiggle backward on my stomach. I freeze.
Vaat.

The electronic hush of the control-room door opening fills the silence.

“What was that? Did you hear knocking?”

I pick up the grate with shaking fingers and fit it into the opening. The tabs lock back in place with a whisper of a scrape. I wince.
Not here, not here. Don't look here.

“I don't hear anything. Maybe the lift?”

“No, it was over this way.” Footsteps on the stairs, moving closer.

“You hearing ghosts now?” The other man follows him. “You shouldn't listen to Njord. His head's up his ass.”

“S
kit på dig.
I thought . . .” One of the men's legs comes into view through the grate. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“There's nothing here.” The second man.

“Yeah . . .” Doubt still hangs on the first man's voice.

I open my eyes.

“I'm telling you, it's the lift.”

“Yeah, the lift. Or we've got rats again, maybe.”

The first man laughs. “You know what that means. Rat fricassee time.”

The other joins in. “Rat sausage.”

“Rat pie.”

I crawl backward, shaking. The sound of their laughter fades as I go. The way back is easier than the way up, especially dropping down the shaft between floors. I brace my hands and feet against the sides again and use them to slow my descent so I don't crash into the bottom. I move silently past the room with the lockers and the one with the dummy wearing my helmet.

At last I reach the clinic and peer out through the grate. The room looks exactly as I left it. A few bread crumbs on the exam table, and disorder reigning on the shelves.

I land on the floor, reattach the grate, and then bend over and let out a deep breath. It feels so good, the breath turns into a laugh, and then I'm laughing so hard I can
barely breathe. It bubbles out of me—all the tension and silence—coming and coming until it hurts so much my eyes water. Nothing is funny and I ache down to the center of my breastbone, but I can't stop. One time when I was little, I ate some spoiled butter and couldn't stop throwing up until it was all out of me. This feels the same. As if my body won't stop until everything is gone.

I put the loose gloves and rolls of skinknit away, and organize the bottles of pills and serums. Where is Juna? Is she watching me, waiting for me to finish? But she can't be, or else she would have seen the empty room and sent everyone in the spindle looking for me. I find boxes of sutures, another of swabs. More Betadine and, better still, antibacterial skin glue. I pocket a tube of it and wipe down the shelves.

Are they coming back for me? Rött said they would. He said I could tend to Lisbeth when I was done.
He also kidnapped everyone down in the cell and held a gun to your temple,
my own voice answers.
Why would he tell the truth about anything?

I rub my scars. They can't leave me here alone in the clinic indefinitely. Can they? The image of Rött meeting Commander Dhar, claiming nothing is wrong and the
Mendicant
is only a malfunctioning piece of scrap, plays
behind my eyes. All of us left here. Living under Rött's hand. Dying here.

My throat closes. I was willing to give up my lab, my spot in the DSRI, but my whole life? I never truly thought before now that we might fail. I knew we could, in theory, but I never believed it was a real possibility until this moment. In my mind, we rescued Nethanel and I found another way to live, another way to use my skills. I got the chance to show Cassia Mumbai's beaches and gardens. I got the chance to know what she's really like, not the frightened, vengeful side of her. I got to tell her all my hopes and memories. My eyes burn. Who will remember my mother when I'm gone? Who will remember the Gyre, or the stories my mother told me about Haiti? They'll die with me in a dingy clinic on an ice moon.

I bang my fist on the door. “Juna!”

No one answers.

I bang again, harder. “Juna, please!”

Still silence.

I hit the door with both fists. “Please, let me out!” My vision blurs and I pound faster. “Juna, anyone, please!”

Juna bursts into the room. “What's going on in here?” She takes in the shelves and my tear-streaked face. “What in
helvete
is wrong with you?”

I drive my fingernails into my palms. I need to stop crying, but I can't.

Juna slaps me, then grabs me by the back of the neck and shakes me. “Shut up! I said
shut up
!”

“I thought you were leaving me here,” I choke out.

Juna's face reads half disgust, half alarm. I've clearly gone mad. “You want to go back to your hole? Is that what you want?”

I don't dare nod. No one in her right mind would ask to leave the relative comfort of the clinic for our dank, cold cell.

“Lisbeth . . . ,” I say through dry lips. Surely she remembers.

Juna rolls her eyes. “Still on about her?”

I say nothing.

She presses her lips into a line. “Fine.” She keeps her grip firm on my neck and pushes me out of the room, down the lift, and back to the cell where the other captives wait.
Thank you, thank you,
I think, even though her hand is hurting me. She pulls open the door and shoves me in, then quickly pushes it shut behind me. I land on my knees, winded and bruised, but back where I need to be.

“Mi?” Cassia runs to my side. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I'm okay.” I wave her away and turn on my suit's lights. “I'm fine. No one hurt me.”

Rubio hurries to us, Aneley and Nethanel crowding in behind him. “What happened? Did you make it to the ship? Is it still fit to fly?”

I stop laughing and swallow hard. “Yes, I made it. And no. They've started scrapping the ship. The only things that were working were the lights and our long-range—”

Rubio groans.

Nethanel taps Cassia's shoulder and signs to her. “It's okay,” she translates for the rest of us. “We still have the shuttles to fall back on, right?”

“We do . . .”

“See?” Cassia says. “It's back to the old plan, that's all. It can still work.”

“The thing is . . .” I hesitate.

The others turn to me.

“I heard them talking. I think there's a chance the
Ranganathan
's in orbit above us.”

“What's that?” Aneley looks from me to Nethanel.

“It's our DSRI ship,” Rubio says. “The one that tried to chase those
dakait
away.” He looks at Nethanel. “I'm sorry we didn't get there in time.”

Nethanel shakes his head.

I clear my throat. “You should know . . . I . . . um . . . I did something.”

Silence seizes the room. The others exchange tense looks.

“I would have asked you, but there wasn't time. I thought . . .”

“What did you do?” Aneley asks.

“I got the
Mendicant
's coms working,” I say. “Not completely, but a little bit. Enough to send a distress pulse.”

Silence stretches out between us, until it's nearly too taut to bear.

Rubio stares at me, disbelief on his face. “Are you saying . . . the
Ranganathan's
coming for us?”

Cassia and Nethanel begin signing furiously to each other.

“Maybe,” I say.

“What do you mean,
maybe
?” Cassia says.

“I don't know for certain it's them. And even if it is, I don't know if they'll come.” I look at Nethanel. “They wouldn't authorize us to come after your brother.”

“But they might?” Aneley's voice rises with excitement. She turns to me. “Rött wouldn't fight a government ship.”

Rubio shakes his head. “One distress pulse. They might miss it altogether.”

“That's why I programmed it to transmit on a loop,” I say.

Silence again. Rubio points up. “You mean it's still going?”

I nod.

Rubio pushes away from the floor.
“Maldito sea.”

“What?” Aneley asks. “What is it?”

“They're going to find it, that's what.” Rubio scowls. “Rött and his boys. They're still taking apart the ship. Don't you think they'll notice?”

“What?” Aneley sounds as if the breath has been knocked out of her.

“Miyole, why?” Cassia looks stricken.

“I had to risk it.” I look at Cassia, willing her to understand.
I did it for you. I didn't want you left here alone. I didn't want you to sacrifice yourself.

“Oh, god.” Aneley stands. “They're going to kill us. They're going to kill us before anyone finds us.”

Nethanel jumps up and pulls her close, shaking his head.

“You don't know.” She looks at me, eyes wild. “You don't know what they're capable of.”

“But we can fight them.” The certainty I had standing over the
Mendicant
's console falters. “We just have to hold them off long enough—”

“You said yourself they might not come,” Cassia says.
“They wouldn't send anyone after the
dakait
.
Why would they come now? If it's even them!”

Rubio frowns at her. “We chased them away when your ship was under attack. You keep forgetting.”

“If it's right in front of them,” I say. “If they can't ignore it—”

Aneley's father cuts me off with a cry.
“Ki ki ri ki! Ki ki ri ki!”

A moment of silence follows his outburst, and in it, I hear something that turns my blood cold. The rumble of boots approaching.

Rubio motions for us to back away from the door and throws himself flat against the wall beside it. I kill my suit's lights. Being accustomed to the darkness might be our only advantage.

The door bursts open. Rubio hooks his foot around the first guard's ankle and sends him sprawling. The guard's electric prod skitters across the wet floor. Cassia scoops it up and runs at the next man through the door, screaming. Nethanel follows her, and then Aneley, wielding limpet-shell shards in each hand. One of the guards swings his prod at Nethanel, who dodges and elbows the man in the ribs. Aneley stabs wildly at the same guard's shoulders, misses,
and sinks one shell into his neck. He cries out—a wet sound—and clamps a hand to his neck, dropping his prod.

I dive for it, but Pulga reaches it first. He snatches it and stabs it into the next guard's foot. Electricity runs up his leg, snapping and arcing across the metal findings in his boots. The man convulses, eyes rolled back in his head, and collapses just inside the door. A claxon blares from the hallway, so deafening I can feel it pulsing through my eyes. Nethanel doesn't falter, though. He delivers a solid hit across one guard's jaw and barrels into another, knocking both of them into the hall. One of the guards in the hallway raises his prod to slam Nethanel, but Cassia is there with her own. She catches the guard in the chest.

“Come on!” Rubio screams.

I run for the door, but then I remember—
Lisbeth
. The older woman has pushed herself off the bench and is working her way to the door with one hand out against the wall to steady her steps.