I’m too hungry to move. My stomach isn’t even bothering to growl anymore; it’s become a gaping black hole inside me.
I cannot believe how stupid I am, walking right into this trap. The Knowledge even gave us a hint. It told us that it didn’t know who stole the object it was sending me to find. But it’s The Knowledge—it knows everything! I should have realized that it was tricking us.
The Hunter could escape from here, I find myself thinking.
If I could shift into the Hunter, which I can’t, because I’m completely out of energy.
I could manage to shift into my blob of goo form. It’s the shape that’s easiest. The blob of goo might even be able to escape from this round prison made of light. But it would take a long time—because I’m so drained of energy, I’d have to squeeze out slowly, molecule by molecule, and I’d run a big risk of forgetting the captain and Reetha and the Hindsight and Electra and everything.
I won’t do it.
There’s a faint buzzing sound, and a small door opens in the wall of light that surrounds me.
The Knowledge’s eye pops out of the door and hovers nearby.
“Hello,” I croak at it.
The eye buzzes, which I guess means hello.
Then I speak directly to The Knowledge, because I know it is listening, and that it is the only one clever enough to set a trap like this. “Did you capture me for the StarLeague?” I ask. “Is General Smag coming to get me?”
The eye buzzes again, and this time The Knowledge’s deep, thrumming voice emerges from it. No. The StarLeague cannot find you here. You are being helped. You are mine.
Oh no. The Knowledge doesn’t just collect information, it collects things, and it stores them in the Vault. Now it has collected me. That means I won’t be able to rescue the captain or find the shapeshifters or go back to the Hindsight. . . .
The eye drifts closer, examining me. I know I must look terrible, splatted on the floor, completely out of energy.
“My captain will come and get me out of here,” I whisper.
Captain Astra will be returned to her ship and it will depart. The StarLeague cadet will return to her master. You will stay here, where you are safe.
Its words make me shiver all over. I want to be safe, but not this kind of safe. “No,” I tell it. “You’re wrong. The Hindsight won’t leave without me.”
No one is coming for you, The Knowledge says, and it sounds certain.
So certain. What if it is right?
Maybe I caused too much trouble this time. I made a stupid mistake. Maybe Captain Astra isn’t coming for me after all.
At the thought, tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, and I’m too weak to lift a hand to brush them away.
Even if I manage to escape, will the Hindsight already be gone? And Electra, too?
The eye bobs closer, and its buzz turns into more of a hum. It’s almost comforting.
“Listen,” I say to it, and my voice is a whisper that I can barely hear over the roaring of my hunger. “If you’re keeping me here, you’ll have to give me something to eat.” Or I will die. And soon.
As an answer, a thin metal appendage emerges from the wall of light. I feel a needle prick against the skin of my arm, and then—nothing.
* * *
When I wake up, I’m lying in the middle of the platform. I’m wearing clothes, a shirt and pants made out of a plain white material. The air in my prison is warmer. And . . . I’m not quite as hungry. I lever myself into a sitting position and push up the sleeve of my shirt. There’s the mark of a needle on the skin at the inside of my elbow.
The Knowledge has figured out a way to give me enough energy to keep me alive without feeding me enough so that I can shift and escape from its prison.
I wrap my arms around my legs and rest my chin on my knees.
I’m still shivering. But not from the cold.
Does your species do this thing called dreaming?
It’s something humans do. When they are asleep, they see stories inside their heads. I know, it’s weird, but that’s humans for you. The stories can be snippets of things that happened, or imagined things, but while the human is asleep and dreaming them, they seem like they’re really real.
While I was unconscious, or sleeping, I had my very first dream ever.
It was not a good dream.
The dream started out here, in The Knowledge’s round white quiet trap at the center of its Vault. And then it changed. It became a different, bigger room—a prison—with metal instruments, gleaming devices, blindingly white walls, people in white coats.
And me, in the middle of it all, alone and ravenously hungry.
Me, being watched all the time.
Trying to escape. Struggling, fighting, resisting.
Being forced to take shape after shape after shape until I didn’t know who I was, or what I was.
Until I woke up, shaking and shivering and scared.
I don’t think that shiny white room was a dream place. I think it was real. It was my before.
It was the place I escaped from before I ended up at that station in the shape of a dog puppy. It must be the prison. What did I do that I was put into such an awful place?
The Knowledge’s eye bobs closer. In its curved, reflective surface I see my face, pale, thinner than it was before, dark circles under my eyes.
I frown, and my reflected face looks like Electra’s: grim, determined. I know what Electra would do in this situation. She would fight.
“You’re wrong about Captain Astra,” I tell the eye.
I am never wrong, The Knowledge intones.
“Yes you are,” I insist.
Your tiny brain cannot encompass what The Knowledge knows, it says.
“Your giant galactic brain doesn’t know anything about humans,” I say, my voice shaking, “if you think my captain will leave me here. Because she won’t.”
Carefully, I get to my feet. I am not going back to that prison, the one I dreamed about, and I’m not staying in this prison either.
For a moment I study the glowing globe of light that surrounds me. Taking a deep breath, I try to step through it. There’s a crackle and a flash, and the shock crashes through me, and a second later I’m flat on my back, trying to catch my breath.
The Knowledge’s eye buzzes around me, concerned.
As soon as I can manage it, I climb back to my feet. I’m trembling so hard, I can barely stand.
The prison dream.
Captain. Other shapeshifters.
Must escape.
A metal appendage zips out from the wall; I lurch away from its grabbing claws, and then duck as another appendage tipped with a needle comes after me.
Gritting my teeth, clenching my fists, I fling myself at the wall again.
This time the shock sends me down into the darkness.
* * *
I stay in the dark for a long time.
There are no stars. There’s no singing.
A long, long time. It’s like being in my blob of goo form, floating through empty space.
Captain Astra, I remind myself. The Hindsight. The crew. Other shapeshifters. Safety. Home.
Then, in the far distance, I hear other noises.
A rumble. And then, nearer, an echoing boom and the sound of something cracking open. The platform under me shivers.
And I feel a hand on my shoulder.
It jerks me out of the drifting darkness. I open my eyes, squinting against the light.
It’s Electra, crouched on the platform next to me. Wind is rushing past her. She has a smear of grease across her cheek, her tintacles are waving wildly, and she’s wearing her most determined look.
“E-Electra?” I croak, blinking up at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Come on, Trouble with a
T,” she says, and her green eyes gleam with excitement. “We’re getting you out of here.”
34
“Here,” Electra says, and pulls five protein bars out of a pocket in her coverall and drops them onto my chest.
Food! I manage to sit up.
She is crouched beside me, on the alert, with a weapon drawn and ready. She has some sort of sword strapped across her back, and knives and a stun weapon at her belt. The bubble of light that had imprisoned me has disappeared, and so has The Knowledge’s eye; we’re at the center of the Vault, the platform an island in the darkness. There’s a crack in the curved wall, and water from the next level is leaking in. In the distance, alarms are going off and there’s a low rumbling sound and I can smell smoke. Did Electra do all this?
“The Knowledge will send more defenses after us,” she says, scanning the area.
I fumble with a protein bar. My hands are shaking so much, I can’t even open it. It’s very frustrating!
Without dropping her guard, Electra reaches over, rips open a bar, and shoves it back into my hands. “Eat fast,” she orders.
“How did you—” I start, with my mouth full of protein bar. I’m so glad she’s here!
“Shut up,” she interrupts as she whirls, aiming her laser weapon at a swarm of metal stun-darts that have erupted from a door in the curved wall of the larger sphere. Four of them explode into flowers of fire; two more keep coming, arrowing toward us.
Smoothly, Electra draws the sword from its sheath at her back and with a single slice cuts both darts out of the air.
She spares me a glance. “Are you eating, T?”
No, I was watching. Quickly, I finish the first protein bar. My hands are steadier, so I don’t have any trouble opening the second. “Where did you get all those weapons?” I ask through my next mouthful.
“Here,” she says.
“But—” I start to say.
“Not now,” she orders. She taps a band on her wrist and speaks into it. “Yes, I’ve got him, Reetha.” She pauses and listens to something. Then: “Relax. He’s fine.” She glances over at me. “You’re fine, right?”
I nod and stuff another bar into my mouth. Better every second!
“Yes,” she is saying into the band. “He needs another minute, and then we’ll start.” She taps the band again and says to me, “You’ve got about thirty seconds and we have to move. Can you shift?”
I climb to my feet, devouring the fourth protein bar. “Yep. What do you mean, that you got the weapons here?”
“The Knowledge gave us the schematics to this place, right? Stupid of it. The outer level included a collection of weaponry.” She slides the sword back into its sheath. “When I realized you were having problems down here, I took the Dart back to the Hindsight, got you some food, came back here, and fired a targeted blast from the Dart that penetrated the Vault.”
She makes it sound like a report, and she makes it sound easy, but I don’t think it was.
There’s a deep rumble from the Vault, and another alarm starts blaring, louder than before.
Ignoring it, Electra goes on, “Then I broke into the outer level of the Vault, where I found the rest of the weapons that I needed, and fought my way into its center, which is where I figured you’d be.”
Electra, I realize, is extremely good at what she does.
“How did you know—” I begin, because I want to ask her how she knew that I was here, exactly, and that I needed help, but she holds up a hand.
“Later. For now we have to get out of here. Ready to shift?”
Five protein bars can’t put me back at full strength, but they’re enough. Clearly I am our way out. Quickly, I move to the edge of the platform and shift into my big, leather-winged, snake-tailed, sleek-bodied self.
“That’ll do,” Electra says, and without even a moment of hesitation she climbs onto my back. “Follow the trail of the blast—we’re going out the same way I came in.”
As she speaks, the Vault sends another attack at us.
“Go!” Electra shouts, and I spread my wings wide and launch myself from the platform.
Pursued by a flock of telescoping robot arms with needles at their tips, I bank; at the same time, Electra fires her weapon. “Up!” she orders, and I crank my wings and we shoot upward. My keen eyes spot the ragged tunnel that Electra had blasted through all the layers of the Vault, with a window of light on its other end—sunlight. This is our way out. As Electra fires her weapon behind us, I zoom through the tunnel, through one layer after another, banking around attacking crystal spiders, swooshing around a waterfall of liquid nitrogen, holding my breath through a puff of methane, until I see sunlight directly ahead. A mighty flap of my wings, and I aim myself toward it.
A second later we shoot out into the air, under the sky—free.
* * *
Outside the Vault, I land, Electra hops to the ground, and I shift back into my human boy shape again. The Dart is waiting, sitting on a burned circle of grass where it must have landed. The blue sun is shining dimly behind a layer of clouds. Nearby, the Vault is a huge broken metal egg with smoke streaming from its cracks and water gushing from other cracks. I hope all the rats in there are all right. They probably are—they’re always the first to know when trouble is around.
“Hurry,” Electra says, putting her weapon away and scanning the area. “Landing the Dart set off alarms, and I’ve been here too long already.”
The shifting drained my energy again, but I manage to stagger onto the Dart and into a seat . . .
. . . when I realize that The Knowledge’s eye has caught up to us and followed me in.
“Electra!” I exclaim, pointing at it.
She turns from the controls. Her eyes narrow. “We’re coming for you,” she threatens The Knowledge, speaking directly to the eye.
It cowers, then zips around to hide behind me.
“You’re mistaken,” I tell it over my bare shoulder, “if you think I’m going to protect you.”
The eye buzzes unhappily.
Electra swivels back to the controls. “Hold on,” she snaps. “This is going to be messy.”
35
By messy, Electra means completely, terrifyingly bumpy, but we lift off and claw our way through the atmosphere, and at last the Dart comes out into the smooth darkness of space. I can almost see why the captain likes it better out here.
Electra pushes a few buttons and then leans back in her chair, releasing a deep, relieved breath. “Hindsight is holding its position at the asteroid,” she says. “We need to hurry, but it’s still going to be another hour before we arrive.” She swivels her chair. Seeing me, she shakes her head. “There are clothes for you over there.” She points.
On unsteady feet I go to the compartment and find a coverall and a colorful sweater and foot coverings, which I put on, and another supply of protein bars, which I start eating at once, sitting on the floor with my back against a wall.
Electra is busy inspecting each of her weapons before laying them out on the control panel.
“The captain,” I say through a mouthful of food, because I’m worried about Captain Astra. The Knowledge has her, she could be in danger, and we might be too late to save her. I am feeling very human about the situation.
Electra glances at me. “I know.” She holds the sword at arm’s length, checking the edge of its blade, and then slides it into its sheath. “We’ll get her back.”
And because it’s Electra saying that, I believe her, and the worry lifts a little.
“How did you know I was in trouble?” I ask.
“You’re always in trouble,” she answers without looking at me.
Did she just make a joke? She’s not smiling. Maybe not.
Electra sets down the laser weapon. After a moment she gets out of her chair and sits on the floor, opposite me.
&nb
sp; I toss her a protein bar, just in case she’s hungry.
She tosses it back. “Let me ask you this, T. You escaped from a StarLeague prison. How did General Smag know you were on the station?”
I blink. “I don’t know.”
She nods grimly as if she expected my answer. “And how did the Peacemaker keep tracking the Hindsight, even though Captain Astra’s ship had the stealth-box and made evasive maneuvers, and I wasn’t signaling him?”
“I don’t know,” I say again. “The captain didn’t know either.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that, and about something The Knowledge said,” she goes on. “Do you remember?”
The Knowledge said a lot of things. I shake my head, no.
“It said that when you shift, you release a unique kind of energy. Once I knew to look for it, the Dart sensors were picking it up. From orbit. Do you see what I’m saying here?”
My mouth is full of protein bar, but I stop chewing and stare at her.
She nods. “If this Dart could detect your shifting energy, so could the Peacemaker. General Smag knows exactly where you are because you were shifting over and over again while you were in the Vault. That’s how he tracked you to the station, too.”
This gives me a cold, creepy feeling.
All along I’ve thought that shapeshifting was helping me to escape.
And it was really helping General Smag to pursue me.
Electra goes on. “After you left, I was tracking your shifter energy. You hadn’t been gone for very long when the numbers started to go down.” She frowns at me. “You were getting weaker.”
“I was very hungry,” I tell her, finishing yet another protein bar.
“Why didn’t you say something before you left?” she asks, a note of exasperation in her voice.
Trouble in the Stars Page 12