The girl turned around, and I saw she wasn’t a girl at all. Her face had the smoothness of someone who had done too many anti-aging treatments. The skin was too pink and smooth, like a doll. The lip treatments had stretched her mouth out too much, adding to the doll-like effect.
Her eyes flickered once to me, then back to Divana. “So nice to see you, Divana. How’s our ship running?”
“Wonderful,” Divana said. Her voice was a little shaky.
The woman walked over and sat down in chair that was much too large for her. Her feet didn’t touch the floor. “And how is Pixie?” she asked.
Divana shook her head and took on a dejected expression. “She’s aging very fast. Looks terrible, feels terrible. I don’t know how much longer she’s got.”
The old woman cackled, the sound nearly identical to Pixie’s laughter. “Her own fault. She should have kept herself up. I warned her long ago.”
The woman twirled a strand of her hair around her finger and looked at me. “I want to see your current cargo.” She motioned me to come closer. I walked over to her. There wasn’t any other seating in the room, so I just stood there and tried to continue to look uninteresting. “Certainly not your usual lot,” the woman said. “And I understand there are several of them?”
“The boy and his friends are off to rescue some girl from Ansun. Young love and all that. They paid me well.” Divana walked over to the wall of slips and stared at one that showed an empty passageway.
Since they were acting as if I wasn’t in the room, I decided I wasn’t going to add to the conversation. Divana’s nervousness was making me nervous.
Vire reached out and touched the sleeve of my tunic. I forced myself not to take a step back. I wished I was still wearing the Reyetan clothes. Even without insignia, my tunic screamed Combined Forces. I was sure she’d recognize it.
“And how did they afford the fare?” she asked, turning her head toward Divana.
Divana moved to stare at a different slip of another empty passage. “He recovered some jewels someone had on them when a bridge on Reyet collapsed. They were more than enough for the fare.”
I tried to swallow. I couldn’t. How had she known I’d gone down in the gorge after the bridge collapsed? And even though I hadn’t found any jewels then, I’d paid for my fare with one of the jewels Mira had left for me. Divana wasn’t supposed to know any of that. My deal had been with Fade.
“You look familiar,” Vire said, looking back at me. “Even with this.” Her hand darted out and touched my eyepatch. I flinched away.
“A lot of people tell me that,” I managed to choke out. “I’m one of those ordinary people who look like everyone else.” Dread washed over me. She was clearly getting suspicious.
“So, who is this girl you’re going to rescue?” she asked. “I assume she is on Fosaan, since that’s where Divana is going.”
“Yes, she is.” Divana answered for me. “And if Quinn succeeds in helping her, it will make Ansun unhappy. I’m all for that. I have a score to settle with him.”
“Ah, yes. Ansun, our new scourge of the galaxy.” Vire pursed her lips. “He is getting a bit above himself.”
“He may not be a scourge for long,” Divana said. “The Combined Forces are throwing all their resources at him to take him out. CF ships are out looking for him.”
“Yes, I just heard there is a huge reward out for him.” Vire leaned back in her chair and swung her feet. “Every pilot in the galaxy is going to be looking for him, bounty hunters included. How is that going to work with your delivery plan? Don’t you think some of them will go to Fosaan? He may be captured before you even get there.”
“The planet is cordoned off. There are CF ships orbiting to watch for any sign of Ansun. But I think he’s already there, and I know how to get through.”
Vire tipped her head. “Now you’ve intrigued me. Care to share how you are going to do that?”
Divana hesitated. She was shifting around just like she had when she spoke to the commander of the CF patrol ship. “We analyzed the patrol patterns and found some blind spots,” she said.
“That’s quite sophisticated. Who among your crew not only came up with that but managed to do the work? Surely not Pixie. She’s more of a plow-right-through kind of pilot.”
“No, not Pixie. We have a new crew member named Creak. Smelly little grimer, but he’s surprised me with some of his skills.” She shifted again. I realized what it meant. She was lying, and the shift was her tell. My father had taught me about tells when he’d taught me to play the game of cut throat.
I didn’t believe it was Creak who had calculated the blind spots. It had to have been the MI, Tineg.
“Creak? I’ve never heard of a raider named Creak,” Vire said. “Where did he come from?”
Divana shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. He’s very cagey about his background. I think he just got out of prison. Probably was serving a long sentence, which is why he doesn’t seem to know anyone, and no one knows him.”
“Hmmm … watch out for him. If he’s that good, he may want to get rid of you so he can take over the ship. Beware of unfortunate accidents.”
“I always watch my back,” Divana said. “But thanks for your concern.”
Vire got up and went over to the wall of slips. Her voice took on a more serious tone. “Ansun is not Earth’s only problem. There are rumors the Konsilon are going to come down hard on dissent, and try to grab more power while they are doing it.” She clasped her hands together. “It’s going to be lovely. Chaos leads to shortages which lead to profits. I do love profits. Earth doesn’t know what’s coming. The crackdown won’t work.”
She twisted around to face me. “Am I right, Earther?”
Chapter Nine
I broke out in a sweat. Did she already know who I was? A crackdown sounded exactly like something my grandfather and the rest of the Konsilon would order. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “We were cut off from news while we were on Reyet.”
“I hear Ansun has quite a prominent scar. We haven’t gotten many good images of him. Have you seen him up close?” she asked me. The sudden change in topic confused me.
“Yes.” I’d never forget the complete coldness of his look as he decided Decker and I should be put out in the Fosaanian jungle at night for whatever creature wanted to come after us.
“Describe his scar.” She rubbed her hands together.
“It looks like a large creature bit him.” We’d run into one of the creatures ourselves. It was a miracle we didn’t have scars, or worse, from the encounter.
“A little more detail, please.” I didn’t like the way her eyes were shining.
I didn’t know exactly what she wanted. I ran my finger from the top of my head down the side of my forehead. “It’s about here, I think.”
“A pity for him,” she said, sighing. “Even without the scar, I can tell he is too weather-beaten to be considered handsome. And I can’t say much for his fashion sense.”
The conversation was turning very bizarre. I couldn’t imagine Ansun caring anything about fashion.
“I still want one of those MI robots,” Vire said to Divana. “And I expect you to bring me one. As soon as Ansun starts producing and selling his bots, he’s going to rake in the money. He’s not going to get it all, though. He needs some competition. I have plans to set up our own production facility. He’s shown himself to be too unreliable to carry out a joint operation.”
It sounded like Vire had dealt with him. I knew raiders had helped transport Fosaanians ever since Ansun set his plan in motion. I’d just assumed it had been Divana and a few others. Had more been involved? It would explain how he’d managed so much in such a short amount of time.
“His robots are flawed,” Divana said. “I thought he was cheating me when he gave me the specs, that he’d kept the ones for the models that were fully operational. But now we know he doesn’t have the correct specifications.”
“That may be, but they still work better than the existing ones on the market. He’s certainly making use of them to disrupt everything. Planets have gone to code orange. He’s using them very effectively.” Vire moved over to another slip and touched it. “Though I can’t follow the logic of some of his actions.”
The image of a raging forest fire appeared on the slip. “He’s claimed responsibility for this,” she said. “His MIs made some of Earth’s bombers launch an attack on an Earth nature preserve. It was totally destroyed, along with a bunch of school children who were there for a class. Why would he do that? A nature preserve doesn’t matter. Now, the destruction of a weapons factory, that would help him. I’m almost inclined to believe it was a mistake, especially since the MIs are flawed.”
I walked over to the slip so I could get close enough to read the scroll at the bottom of the clip. Sixty people died when the Shinrin-Yoku Pine Preserve was destroyed.
My insides went cold.
Shinrin-Yoku.
I’d practically grown up there. My grandmother had managed it, and I’d spent more time with her than my own parents. Sixty people died. My grandmother lived right on the site.
A creeping horror filled me and then my grandmother’s face appeared on the screen. Recently retired Shinrin-Yoku director, Naomi Galanis, on the tragedy.
Relief washed through me. She hadn’t been there. I hadn’t known she’d recently retired. I felt guilty I’d been so caught up in my own life, I hadn’t even wondered how she had been doing after we left Earth.
I wanted to know more about the fire, but I restrained myself from turning on the sound. I was afraid if I showed too much interest, Divana and Vire would want to know why.
“I’m tired now,” Vire announced. “You can leave. Keep me informed.” She looked over at me. “I’ll be interested to learn your fate.”
“Um … thanks,” I said. I didn’t think of my life in terms of having a fate. I liked to think I had a little more control over how things went.
She motioned to the door. I was more than ready to get out of there.
I followed Divana back to the ship and tried to make sense of what I’d seen about the fire. Was it too much of a coincidence Ansun had destroyed a nature preserve that had a connection to my family? When had my grandmother retired, and who had known about it? That wasn’t the sort of thing that was important enough to be reported in the media. Ansun could have found out she ran the place and assumed she’d be there. But Ansun was busy trying to stay alive and carry on his revolt. Would he really take the time to find out how he could hurt us? I hated trying to get inside Ansun’s mind. I wasn’t sure I could get close to understanding him, but if we were going to outwit him again, I needed to try.
When we got back on board, only Tineg and Pixie were in the cockpit.
“Get us out of here,” Divana ordered, dropping into her seat.
They ignored me, so I stayed to watch the ascent. Pixie shot us up so fast we could have been a missile. As I watched the moon grow smaller and smaller, another worry hit me. I remembered something Pixie had said. And Earth doesn’t bother with it because they still have it listed as a religious community. They don’t know we use it.
Why had they let us know the location if it was such a secret? It was as if they knew we wouldn’t get a chance to tell anyone. Divana thought we wouldn’t survive an encounter with Ansun, but was that the only reason? Did she have another plan to get rid of us if we lived?
I had to get out of the cockpit. The whole ship felt like it was closing in on me, and there was nowhere to go. Our space was empty except for Mags, who was sleeping peacefully, but I was worried about the others. It wasn’t mealtime, and I doubted the cook could be convinced to make an exception for any of us. I went back out in the corridor and heard Lainie’s laughter coming from the direction of the Z room.
When I got there, I stuck my head around the door to make sure I wouldn’t run into the not-so-friendly crew. No crew, but Lainie, Decker, and Javen were lounging around on some of the more comfortable looking furniture. Wren sat at the small table where the crew had been playing their game.
“Quinn!” Lainie cried, motioning me to come in. “We’ve been waiting and waiting. Decker was sure you’d have your throat slit or something. I told him he was being ridiculous. Who did you meet? What’s going on?”
I went in, feeling a little better at the sight of everyone. “Is it okay we’re in here?”
“Yes,” Wren said. “The crew won’t be in here for a few hours. They’re on a work shift.”
I looked around, getting a better view of the place than I had from the doorway. I shouldn’t have been surprised that this particular Z room was a bit odd. Some contraption made of tubing and cylinders stood in one corner.
“What is that?” I asked Wren.
“It’s a still.”
“A still? You mean like to brew things?”
“Yes, Manny is determined to develop an award-winning beer. He’s at the experimental stage at the moment, and he experiments a lot. Just don’t try the Minolian blossom beer. It’s awful.” She made a gagging sound and then giggled.
I went over to inspect it. “And Divana doesn’t mind this taking up a quarter of the room?”
Wren shook her head. “She says if you don’t have a hobby, you don’t function well long term in space. She doesn’t mind if people need to use the Z room to pursue hobbies.”
That was probably true, though I wouldn’t have guessed she would be concerned about her crew’s mental well-being.
Another corner was filled with a different sort of contraption. I couldn’t figure out what it was until I saw a shelf full of spools of thread. Some memory tugged at me, an image from a history text. “Is this a loom?”
“Yes. Ryger likes to weave, though he gets frustrated a lot and yells at it. He threatens to break it apart all the time.”
“Which one has the hair?” Lainie asked. She motioned to the back of her head.
“That’s Ryger,” Wren said.
The room did not smell of Creak. “What does Creak do as a hobby?”
Wren shrugged. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been here very long, and he stays in his own quarters when he isn’t on duty. We all prefer it that way.”
“Quinn, enough questions! We’re waiting!” Lainie said. “Tell us what happened!”
I sat down and told them all I could remember, except I left out my worry about us knowing the location of the base. I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Wren. I ended with the part about the fire on Earth and my grandmother’s connection to the place.
“Then it’s either an incredible coincidence, or Ansun hates you more than we supposed,” Decker said.
“It’s not a coincidence. Ansun is not going to stop until he can destroy you,” Javen said. “I thought you realized that.”
“I thought I’d be low on his list. He can’t do everything at once.”
“You’re underestimating him again. People who do that usually end up dead.”
I was not going to dwell on Ansun. I had an advantage over him. I didn’t need to destroy him, though I wouldn’t care if he disappeared. I just needed to help Mira.
“Ansun can’t get to the rest of Quinn’s family,” Lainie said. “Though I’m sorry about the preserve. I know you loved that place.”
I got up and walked over to the loom, not wanting to let anyone see my face.
“It’s weird,” Lainie said. “About this Vire raider person. I never really pictured some raider overlord. I thought they all acted on their own. Have you met Vire?” Lainie asked Wren.
Wren shook her head. “No, and I don’t want to.” She bent over something on the table. I hadn’t noticed when I’d come into the room that she had a tray of tiny vials in front of her and a paintbrush in one hand. Her hands were bare, except for one butterfly on the top of her right hand. I realized she didn’t have tattoos after all. She had a
lot of talent to be able to paint such realistic images.
“Are you from Earth?” I asked, pointing at the butterfly.
“Yes,” she said, “but I haven’t been there in a long time.”
I walked over to her, and when I got close, I could see the incredible detail she’d put into the image. “Is that a Palos Verdes Blue?” It was a species that was hard to mistake for anything else. The ice-blue coloring and the white fringe on its wings made it appear like it was coated in frost.
She smiled. “Yes. Even though it’s sad that it’s extinct in the wild, I like looking at it. Sad can be beautiful sometimes.”
I didn’t know exactly what she meant, but I nodded my head anyway.
She put down her brush. “You should go. Manny will probably be in soon.”
We left, but I wished we could have stayed. In those few brief seconds, I hadn’t thought about Ansun.
For the rest of the trip, I tried to find other distractions, though the choices were limited. Nic stayed out of sight for the most part, but we actually met Manny and Ryger, and they weren’t the ogres we’d thought. Lainie decided they were just shy and spent the rest of the flight drawing them out.
I spent the time thinking about a plan. I tried to talk to Javen about the layout of the palace, but he claimed he didn’t know how much they’d actually managed to renovate since he’d been there three years before.
My main hope was that if Mira actually wanted help getting herself and Cadia away from Ansun, she’d be on the lookout for anyone coming in on a ship. “What about Tasim?” I asked Javen. We’d met Mira’s cousin on Fosaan. He hadn’t liked us and wanted Mira to stay away from any Earthers, but he’d acted as if he cared about her. “Will he help her?”
Javen shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to understand Tasim. He was always overshadowed by Ansun.”
Paradox Hunt Page 10