The Silver Ship and the Sea (34 page)

So that was twice they came for me and returned empty-handed. Would a third time come out the same? “Should I have gone with them?” I asked.

As usual, Akashi didn’t exactly answer. “The choice was yours.”

“I know. Did it make a difference? Did it even help to talk to them?”

Paloma spoke up. “They would have made you go back if you had Joseph with you. They’re afraid of him.”

Akashi said, “I agree. If Joseph had been with you, they would have used force. We’d better post careful watches tonight.”

I frowned. “At least Jenna has her extra day.”

Akashi looked at me, a wry smile on his face. “I hope that turns out to be a good thing.”

“Me, too.” I pushed Stripes into a gallop. Maybe Joseph had heard from Liam by now. Maybe I
would
go to Artistos tonight. I
was dead tired of talking and no one listening. I had counted on this meeting, put all of my attention on the solution that scared me the least. I should have had backup plans. Jenna had backup plans. If we made no progress, the only choice for all of us here would be to leave. I was beginning to warm up to the idea.

As we rode back into the spaceport, no one came to greet us. The light wind that started during our talk with Nava now whipped ash steadily around the hebras’ feet, rising in little eddies that made us blink. Legs and Longface, still tied in the corral, called out to Stripes and Sand and Lightning as we rode up. There was no sign of people. Ash blew across the concrete pad like dour smoke, in keeping with my mood.

Surely Jenna would have left someone on watch? A long look in every direction produced no sign of movement. I glanced at Akashi. His brow was creased and his eyes searched the concrete pad. I sighed. “You two stay here, don’t dismount. I’ll go on foot—I’m faster.”

He glanced at Paloma. She’d stripped the brace from her foot for the ride, but she still couldn’t walk fast or far. He would stay.

I swung down from Stripes, tying her near the other hebras but outside the corral, and headed toward the keeper’s cabin. Ash collected in a long line along the windward wall and dusted the windows. The cabin was empty. I darted over to the hangar, calling out as I pushed open the door. No answer. Circling around the building, I spotted Kayleen huddled out of the wind, sitting with her head down on an arm thrown over drawn-up knees. She still wore the headband, and although this spot was sheltered, she’d clearly been in the wind; her dark curly hair was tangled and gray from the ash.

She didn’t move as I walked up to her and bent down. “Kayleen?” I whispered, looking to see if she breathed. Her back rose and fell. At least she was alive. But she didn’t respond to my whisper….

I shook her and she opened her eyes, blinking against the bright late-morning light. “Wha…oh. You’re back.”

Relief washed over me. “Are you all right? Are you supposed to be keeping the watch?”

She nodded, sitting up straighter. “Sssorrry. I—I stopped over here to get away from the ash, and I started getting good readings on the perimeter data. I figured I could tell when you came back in; I can hear it all.” A dazed look decorated her face. “I’ve never been able to do that before, hear the whole network.”

“But you didn’t notice when we came in,” I pointed out gently.

“Ohhh…yeah, I guess I didn’t. I filtered out friendly entry. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the alarms to be more sensitive to animal entry. It’s an exercise Jenna gave me.” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “I can’t get it working yet.”

The headband was clearly tuning something in Kayleen like it had Joseph. A good thing, except that Kayleen seemed dazed. Jenna and Joseph were undoubtedly in the ship. How was I going to get their attention from out here? Throw stones at the ship and hope they made it ring?

I glanced back at Kayleen, who was beginning to look more alert. “How are you supposed to let them know if you need help?” I asked her.

She frowned. “They trained cameras on the spaceport and they can hear the perimeter. Besides, Joseph can talk to me over the nets.”

“Oh?” That implied a connection between our nets and Artistan nets. “Can you call him?”

She drew her brows together and swiped at her unruly hair. “Not yet. He has to open a channel. But he calls every fifteen minutes.”

“Has he heard from Liam?”

She shook her head. “What happened?”

“They don’t care about you or me or Liam. Joseph scares
them—if he’d gone, they would have taken him back. Or killed him. I think the only reason they didn’t just ride past me like a fly was because Jenna scares them, and they don’t know who’s here. I don’t think they know if Akashi brought a small army or not. They act—respectful—of him. They don’t seem to know about the skimmer, but they weren’t exactly a river of information.”

“How’s Bryan? Any word?”

“No.” I reached a hand down to help her up. “They won’t say anything about Bryan. Wanted the rest of us to come back and do their bidding, except Alicia—they want to send her back to Ruth—and Liam, who’s supposed to stay with Akashi. But I think
that
was meant to soothe Akashi.”

Kayleen stood, dropping my hand.

I stepped toward the corral. “Come on, Paloma and Akashi are waiting. It felt weird to ride in and find no one watching for us.”

“I’m sorry. I can hold on to a lot of the net now, more than ever, but it pushes the physical world away from me. It’s like a flood.” She shook her head again, not moving with me, but standing and blinking as if some great light shone in her eyes. “Joseph says I’ll get used to it.”

“I hope so,” I said, worried for her, for us. We were all overtired. Kayleen looked almost drugged. I took another step, and this time she followed. We left the lee of the hangar, stepping into the cool wind, the blowing ash. We’d taken no more than ten steps when Kayleen stumbled, falling all the way to her hands and knees. She turned to look up at me, her eyes rolled so far back in her head I could see mostly whites. “Kayleen! Are you okay?”

She sat down on the concrete and put her hand on her head. “Yes. Joseph says he’ll be right down—says Liam called. He wanted to know if you were back.” She sneezed.

They’d had a conversation and I couldn’t hear either side of it. Spooky. “Did Liam find Alicia?”

She pushed to her feet. “Joseph didn’t say. He’ll be here soon, though.” Between her wind-tangled hair, the circles under her eyes, and the odd, skewed look on her face, Kayleen seemed like a
caricature of her usual self. The next thing I knew, she was going to start talking in simple sentences, one at a time.

“Come on.” I held my hand out for hers, offering support. She took it, and we walked close together. I watched her steps carefully the whole way. She made it to the corral without any further stumbles.

Paloma and Akashi dismounted as soon as they saw us, and Paloma started loosening Sand’s girth rope. I eyed the saddled hebras. “Leave them saddled. Joseph is on his way with news from Liam.” I squinted at the
New Making,
trying to see if the ramp was up or down. Just closing—so they were coming. Was anyone in Artistos watching?

Joseph pelted up to us, running all out, followed by Jenna who moved at an easy lope. He stopped near me, struggling for breath. His eyes were wild. “Alicia got in, but she set off the alarms. They’d programmed her as unfriendly entry—loud bells. Everyone in Artistos is looking for her. I turned off their perimeters, so she won’t telegraph her location if she leaves, but I’m worried about her.” His face showed mixed defiance and desperation. “I…I found her once—she was in the park—but now, with the nets off, I can’t find her anymore.”

Jenna caught up, and stood watching us, her face a mask.

“What about Liam?” I prompted.

Joseph answered. “He’s in, too, used his frizzer. It worked. He’s looking for Tom. But if anyone sees him, with the hunt on for Alicia…I don’t know. I don’t feel good about this.”

Damn. We were too split—too many people in too many places. And the only choices I saw now made it worse. Wait here. Safer. But it left them alone, left Liam alone, and Joseph might not be able to stand it. We did have an open invitation to go to Artistos. “What condition is the ship in?” I asked.

Jenna shook her head. “We need more time. Joseph needs to drill more, and I’m tuning the environmental systems. We
could
leave now, but it’s risky. I don’t want to leave until tomorrow.”

“When?” I asked.

Jenna frowned, and drew her brows together. It took her a mo
ment to answer. “We could leave in the morning. After first light. If Joseph and Kayleen both stay to help.”

Paloma’s face went white. “Can I help you?” she asked Jenna.

“You’re not…you don’t have the training. You can keep watch.”

“But we have to go to Artistos!” Joseph said. “We have to leave now.” He started toward the hebras.

I grabbed him and turned him toward me. He nearly pulled away, then gave in, his eyes demanding that I let him go.

“Can you talk to Liam?” I asked him. “Tell him to lay low. Tell him to find Alicia if he can and just stay out of the way. Tell him…tell him to tell Alicia we’re coming.”

“When?” Joseph asked.

“Not you. You heard Jenna. You and Kayleen are staying here.” I wracked my brain for the best of the choices running through my head. “Me and Akashi. We’ll say we’re following up on the conversation this afternoon. Negotiating terms. That will get us up there.”

Joseph glared at me. “But I—”

“No. Tell Liam—now—and I’ll get us packed.” I looked at Akashi. “Mind being part of a rescue party?”

He gazed at me evenly. “My son is there.”

Joseph still stood, watching us. I snapped, “Joseph—go!”

He glared at me, but he stepped a few feet away and I waited until I saw his lips moving before turning back.

I addressed Jenna. “Is the skimmer ready to go?”

She nodded. “You can’t fly it.”

“I know that. I’m crippled, remember, just like you. We need Joseph for everything.”

Jenna took a step back from me, looking as if I had thrown something at her. I sighed, wishing I could bite back my words. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just—worried about him.”

Jenna nodded quietly. “I will watch over him.”

“Kayleen, too?”

“Yes.”

I leaned in and gave her a little hug. She didn’t resist, didn’t lean
into the hug, but she—softened. I backed off and whispered to her. “Thank you. I will try and buy you enough time to do all this, but I can’t promise anything. We’ll at least be a diversion.”

She nodded, and then
she
reached for me, enfolding me in her one arm. I returned her hug, wrapping my arms tightly around her thin, strong middle, feeling the whipcord strength of the muscles in her back and torso. Solid. She felt solid.

Kayleen tugged on my sleeve. “I might be able to fly the skimmer.”

She
was
talking one sentence at a time. “Right now you can’t walk and handle that much data. Stay here, learn. Help Jenna and Joseph. Try to be sure he doesn’t exhaust himself with worry.” If Kayleen was out of her depth, how much was Joseph struggling? He was stronger, but in three days he’d gone from blinded to the nets to reading them all, to controlling them. To training to fly a starship. Flying the skimmer in between. I glanced at the hangar, at the pile of our stuff, the saddled hebras, the silent ship full of bustling robots and green plants; all to reassure myself this was real.

Akashi was already walking Lightning and Stripes over to water. I needed Jenna, too, but she couldn’t be in two places at once any more than Joseph. I shook my head, overwhelmed again by how few of us there were. I had to get Liam and Bryan and Alicia back safely. Somehow.

Joseph stepped back near me, looking earnest. “Liam has the message. I…thank you, Chelo. I wish I could go.”

“Well, me too.” I realized I was tired. My eight hours of sleep had been the previous day, not last night. I sighed. “I should go. The sooner we get there, the better. You can communicate with us okay?”

Joseph reached into his pocket and handed me an earset. “I don’t need one of these. I can talk to you anywhere you can get signal.”

I looked at him, startled again. Of course. Hadn’t he just contacted Liam that way? I was getting used to miracles. In another month, a year, would I still know him? If he left…if he had access
to a world built for us…“Just…just take care of yourself. I’ll call if we need help, or need you to come get us in the skimmer.”

He smiled. “I’ll be watching you.”

“Not every minute. You have work here. I’ll call if we need you. How do I do that?”

“Just say my name. I’ll plant a program in the nets to listen for it.”

“Did you turn off Artistos’s access to the satellites again?”

He nodded. “Except Gianna. I gave her a password entry. I need her…to interpret.”

“Good.” How long would Gianna protect him, though? How much information would she hide from Council? No way to tell. I could hope. “Can you…” I hated to ask him for something else. “Can you find out where Bryan is and how he is, and let me know?”

He nodded. “I’ll try. The hospital net has been protected. I can crack it, but I think they’re hiding something and they’re afraid I’ll find it.”

“Let me be sure I understand. The nets are off for them, but on for you?”

He swallowed. “Their perimeters are down. But not all of their communications. They can use earsets between each other, and query individual nodes with readers. I had to leave some communications up so they’ll chatter on it. It’s the only way I can get information.”

“Can you leave their perimeters up, but turn off the bells? So you can see what’s happening? That way you can warn them if you see anything dangerous coming in.”

“Great idea.” He pursed his lips, momentarily lost in thought. “I’ll have to work a few minutes on that, but I think I can. That will give me better information about you, anyway.”

I looked away, once more overwhelmed with what he was becoming. “God, little brother. You’re growing. Be careful—don’t get too sure of yourself. You could make bigger mistakes now.”

He laughed softly and I turned my gaze back to him as he said, “You’re not doing so bad yourself.”

My voice shook. “So are you as scared as me?”

He nodded. “Probably.”

I leaned in, gave him a hug, and Kayleen stepped forward and joined us. Paloma’s arm slid over my shoulder, and she called out, “Come on, Akashi.” Soon, all six of us, including Jenna, were in a single large hug, a warm and hopeful and supporting hug.

We stood that way, a huddle of
altered
and not, old and young, friends. A brief image of Steven and Therese, watching us, pleased, crossed my mind, and I laughed, and soon we were all laughing, edgy tired laughter, but its core was warmth and support.

We drew apart. I stopped at the keeper’s cabin before heading for Stripes, procuring two pieces of kitchen twine and a scrap of leather from a utility drawer. I wrapped the gun in the leather, being sure it could be drawn out easily, and used the twine to tie the bundle, including the microwave gun, to the inside of my calf where I could reach it mounted or standing. It felt cold against my skin and the twine chafed.

We loped slowly along the wide road, heading for the closest entrance; up the cliff switchbacks. The wind blew harder and cooler and clouds had begun forming over the ocean. In the two hours it took us to get near the top of the switchbacks, the clouds thickened and darkened, and the air crackled with electricity. Perhaps the plains would have ignited today if we hadn’t already done the lightning’s job.