The Sowing (41 page)

The rest of the trip passes in tense—and hungry—silence. The strangeness of meeting a group of people in the Wilds who used to be my classmates and friends, now as something like enemies, hangs over us all. I keep catching Jahnu and Kenzie sneaking glances at us, as though looking at an illusion they can’t quite figure out. I don’t mind—it gives me an opportunity to watch them, too. They’ve undoubtedly seen a fair few Sector broadcasts with my face plastered all over the displays, and Jeremiah has probably made an appearance or two as well. But aside from the raid under the cover of night, I haven’t seen any of them in three years.

When we finally touch down, Kenzie and Jahnu tie black kerchiefs around our eyes and then lead off the ship. I try to make use of my other senses while blind—the ground beneath my feet is paved, and the air crisp and moist. We suspect the Resistance base is located somewhere in one of the old world cities, but nothing around me gives any indication as to where the base is within the city. We start to descend, though, and I realize we’re going underground.
Of course.
They wouldn’t have built their facilities on the surface where our drones would be able to photograph them.

We make a few sharp turns and finally are sat down somewhere. Here the air is stale and recycled. It’s clammy and cold, and I’m sure Miah’s not happy about any of this. He’s claustrophobic. Someone pulls off my blindfold and I open my eyes, expecting to be blinded by bright lights. But the lights here are dim and luminescent, probably to save energy. I blink a few times, refocusing my eyes, and Eli’s face swims before me. I look around and see that I’m in a tiny holding room, and Jeremiah has disappeared.

“Where’s Miah?” I demand. 

“You’re being separated so we can corroborate your stories independently.” Eli’s cutting the ties binding my hands behind me. When he’s finished, I rub my wrists together, trying to get rid of the red marks. Eli steps out of the tiny room without another word and closes the door behind him. I can hear a series of locks click into place.

I wait patiently, expecting something to happen soon. Surely they’ll want to talk to me immediately, right? I steel myself for the impending interrogation, and my mind flits anxiously back to the condition that Remy and Soren were in when I first saw them in the capital. I can only hope I won’t meet a similar fate.
Karmic retribution,
I think bitterly.

But even after half an hour, nothing has happened. I lie down on the wooden bench in the small room and try to relax. I’m expecting someone to walk in the door at any minute. But still no one does.

I realize it’s entirely possible they have more important things to do than talk to me immediately. After all, they’re a small group of people. Just because Valerian Orleán walks into their midst, I shouldn’t expect them to drop everything to hear my story or exact their revenge. Somehow that calms me.

With that in mind, I quickly relax and drop off into a light sleep.

****

Some time later, the sound of the metal locks clicking in the door wakes me. I stir and sit up, my spine stiff and sore from sleeping on the rough wooden bench. The door creaks open and Eli stares at me, incredulously, as I rub my eyes.

“Were you
sleeping
?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I respond defensively.

“Doctor Rhinehouse wants to talk to you.” He ties the kerchief around my eyes again and everything goes black. He walks me out blindly through the stuffy corridors and dumps me in a chair. This time when the blindfold is removed, bright purple lights shine down at me, the rays stabbing into my eyes, and for a moment I am almost as blind as I was before. After my pupils adjust, I see an old man with an eye patch sitting on the other side of the table, watching me cautiously. His face looks more like it is covered by a thick protective bark, rough and creased, than by skin. Only the slate-colored beard stubble and the glistening, attentive eye give him away as human rather than tree. 

“Good evening, Valerian,” he says, somewhat cordially. “Eli—out.” Eli turns on his heel and stalks out, slamming the door behind him. He always did have a problem with authority. I’m sure he doesn’t like responding to Rhinehouse’s commands any more than I did to Aulion’s.

“Dr.  Rhinehouse,” I nod in his direction. “Pleasure to finally meet you. Is Jeremiah all right?”

He stares at me stonily. “You’re not in a position to be asking questions like that, Valerian.”

“You can do whatever you want to me, but Jeremiah’s here in good faith. Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.” Rhinehouse’s good eye is deadly focused on me. “Firestone is feeding him some soup. He said he was hungry.” There’s a note of humor in his voice, but his face is blank, unsmiling, neutral.

“He’s always hungry, so I hope you have a lot of soup.” I was hoping for a trace of a smile, but the scowl doesn’t change.

“The Director wants to talk to you, but I told her I didn’t think you were trustworthy. Tell me why I’m wrong.” It’s a challenge.

“Because Remy and Soren are out in the Wilds somewhere, free, at my command.” Rhinehouse stares at me, expressionless. When he doesn’t speak, I continue. “Three nights ago, I overheard my mother command a soldier in my employ to kill Remy and Soren. When I confronted him, I discovered he had no intention of carrying out her orders. I asked him to help them escape. After that, I knew I couldn’t stay.”

 “Tell me why Corine did this. And why that prompted such a sudden change of heart.”

I briefly explain, as simply as possible, what Remy told me during the interrogation about Tai’s death, and how I hacked into my mother’s computer to find out if what she said was true. I tell him about the conversation I overheard between my mother and Chan-Yu, and explain how I dashed back to Sector Headquarters only to find him preparing to spring them free anyway. I don’t mention my conversation with my parents. I tell him only that when I told Jeremiah the whole story, we agreed we couldn’t stay and decided to leave under the cover of the Solstice Celebration.

“And yet last night, for all the world to see, you were so eager to espouse the virtues of the Sector,” he states calmly.

“It’s easy to do when you’re not planning on sticking around.”

When I fall silent, he finally looks away, dropping his one-eyed gaze from my face. The room is so still I can hear him breathe. Finally, after several moments of heavy silence, he says, without looking at me:

“I would think your story was an elaborate construction if not for the fact that it’s so similar to my own.” He stops here and takes in a laborious breath. “Your very identity makes it hard to believe you, but the transformation you claim to have undergone is the same one that brought everyone in the Resistance here.” There is a brief silence. He looks up at me as though contemplating a chess board. Maybe this is a game of chess to him, and I am a knight or a bishop, and he’s trying to decide where to move me. The game is made more complicated by the fact that I could be playing for either black or white, and he has to guess which side I take orders from.

“You say Remy and Soren are out of the Sector’s hands.” He raps his knuckles on the table in front of him. “But you don’t have any idea where they are?”

“Not a clue. I couldn’t have gotten personally involved without drawing attention to their escape. I left them in Chan-Yu’s hands.”

“And you trust this Chan-Yu?”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“That’s not helpful, Vale.”

“I would have trusted him with my own life. More helpful, now?”

“Maybe if you kept your sarcasm to yourself,” he snaps. I drop my eyes. I probably deserved that.

“Sorry.” There’s another pause as we both stare across the table, sizing each other up.

“So, do you know why your mother wanted to kill Remy and Soren?”

“She said they had some information that was a threat to the Sector. Something that could destroy the Sector and the OAC. I don’t see how anything could be so dangerous that it was worth murder.”

Rhinehouse muses over this for a minute. “Yes, we have that in common, Vale,” he says, almost absentmindedly. “I think I know what Corine was referring to, but how did Remy and Soren find the solution?” I can’t tell if he’s posing me the question or talking to himself.

Just then, the lights flicker overhead, and a red light in the corner of the room starts flashing.

“Orange alert. Orange alert. Sector airship detected entering radar space. Prepare for possible conflict. Raid teams on high alert.”

“Damn it,” Rhinehouse swears at me, slamming his fist down on the table. “Did you lead them here?” he shouts. On the defensive, I throw my hands up, palms out.

“I have no idea what this is about,” I protest. “You can strip me bare—there are no tracers on either me or Jeremiah.” Cursing, he stands up and spits something incomprehensible at Eli, who dashes in, pulls my hands behind my back and binds my wrists again. He hauls me up and out of the room as we follow Rhinehouse. I guess speed is important now, since they don’t bother to blindfold me.

Rhinehouse stalks down the hallways, and Eli and I follow. Eli’s got his Bolt out again, and though it’s not pressed to the back of my head, it’s clear he’s ready to shoot. After a series of turns through the winding hallways, we’re in some sort of control room. Rhinehouse shoves a technician out of the way and touches one of the screens, pulling up a hologram of the incoming ship.

“Defensive positions, Eli,” he says and Eli turns on his heel and takes off running. Then Rhinehouse turns to me. “What is this?” he demands. I take a few steps closer, staring at the hologram.

“Holy shit,” I whisper.

It’s my Sarus.  

29 - REMY

Winter 2, Sector Annum 106, 21h37
Gregorian Calendar: December 22

Soren tries to get the constantly repeating message to shut off, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable it or even to turn the volume down.

“What do we do?” I ask nervously. “Do you think Vale is out here?”

“Did they finally catch up to us?” Soren asks, fear in his voice.

“Why is the ship ordering him to check in? Was this his ship?” There are a million unanswered questions racing through my mind right now, and I can tell by the way Soren’s fingers are flying across the glass panel that he’s in a similar state.

“Why would this ship just be here, though?” Soren asks, and that seems to be the most perplexing question of them all. Why was this ship here? “Did they plant it as a trap?” We discovered this miraculous, beautiful airship, left mysteriously out in the woods as though for us to find. It’s almost like one of the Outsiders planted it for us, just like the
Zephyr
. But then why is it calling Vale’s name? Why is it demanding he report in?

“What’s going on?” Bear asks. “Why would Valerian Orleán be setting a trap for you?”

Soren and I look at each other, trying to figure out what to tell him and what to do next. We haven’t fully explained to Bear what we’re doing out here. He’s figured out we’re with the Resistance, but he might not realize how much attention he’s drawing to himself by tagging along with us. And furthermore, after all that effort, all that time spent breaking into the airship, getting everything ready—have we walked into a trap? Can we continue in this ship?

I take a deep breath and turn around, locking eyes with the young man behind me.

“Bear, there’s something we haven’t told you. You said earlier there was a bounty on your head. Well, there’s a lot more than a bounty on our heads.” I wait for him to ask, to inquire further, but he doesn’t, and the ship interrupts us again.

 “Valerian Orleán , please report, Valerian Orleán.…”

“We’re running from the Sector. We just escaped from the capital a few days ago. They were going to kill us,” I say, looking hard at Bear, trying to impress upon him the gravity of the situation. “Valerian Orleán was the one who captured us in the first place.”

“Whoa,” he says.

“Jackass,” Soren mutters. I can’t agree or disagree either way. I still can’t get over the look in Vale’s eyes when I was shouting at him about Tai. I want to believe he knew something was wrong, but I just don’t know.

“Do we at least have enough fuel to get home?” I ask.

“Looks like we’re at full capacity,” Soren says. “It’s partially solar-powered, and the panels are fully charged.”

 “Well, listen,” Bear says practically, “‘less you two want to head back to the river or go by foot, I say we don’t have much choice but to fly this ship out of here.”

He’s got a point.

“Do you think they’ll track us?” I ask Soren nervously.

“We’re taking a calculated risk either way,” he responds. “We could wander out in the Wilds for days, starving and cold, or we can take the ship now. This will save us days of travel time.”

“Maybe …” I start. “Maybe we could land it a ways outside of base. Then even if the Sector is tracking us, they still won’t know exactly where the base is.”

Soren nods. “If we stay out in the Wilds, we could get lost or the drones might find us. But if we take the ship, we could lead them directly to us. If we land outside the city, though, I think we’ll be okay. We might even draw their attention away from main base.”

“Better that than going by foot for another few days,” Bear offers.

Soren seems to acknowledge this and moves a few dials on the control pad. We are pressed ever so slightly into the ground as the ship lifts into the air, carrying us above the treetops and forward. We’ve made our decision.

 “Wait,” I interrupt, though we’re already flying. “Do we know where we’re going?”

Soren shakes his head. “If we can at least get to the outpost we were originally instructed to walk to, then from there I think we can figure out how to get back home. We still have Osprey’s map. Pull it out. That should help us get to the first outpost.”

“Shouldn’t a ship like this have a navigation system?” I ask, as I rummage around for the map. Not that I don’t trust Soren. I just don’t want to take any chances flying around in the middle of nowhere.