by Kate Rauner
Fynn clenched his jaws and wrapped one arm around Rica. Over her shoulder, Lukas looked dazed. They started across the dome.
Most Blue Kin must have returned to the Village dome because only a few milled around the furnaces. As Fynn passed, a short Viking balanced on the walkway circling the platform. He glanced at the woman, recognizing one of Magnus' trustees. It was a shame she hadn't joined the search party. She frequently caused confrontations, and her eyes flashed with fire.
She shouted something and heads jerked toward her. The furnace crew dropped into narrow spaces between the consoles while Fynn and the others sprinted between cargo containers.
Mechanics hovered around their mess hall and Fynn waved them to the barracks as he ran. Out of sight would be out of mind if he was lucky.
Something crashed and Mika, unmistakable in lemon yellow, reversed course toward the algae ponds. Fynn swore and followed her.
Several men flipped over Mika's potato container and began yanking on an algae pond. Even in Titan's gravity, a bin of water was heavy, but they sloshed green goop over the top as they tried to topple it.
Mika grabbed the bin's lip and pushed back. The closest man spun and slammed against her shoulder. She toppled backward and her head bounced into a slimy puddle on the floor.
Pounding feet sounded behind Fynn, louder than the insistent rush of ventilation and ending in splashes. The man attacking Mika backed away. Fynn's Mechanics outnumbered the Blue Kin.
Just as everyone froze, the dome lights flickered and Ben bounded toward the furnaces. That broke the standoff. Blue Kin circled around Fynn's crew, shuffled backward until they cleared the line of pallets, then turned and marched away.
People dropped to the wet floor to help Mika. Her tawny face was pale.
"I called the clinic." A nearby woman waved her arm.
"No one will see the message," a man in red said. "I'll get the medics." He galloped away.
Someone shouted after him. "Blue! Turn your coveralls blue."
Fynn took a breath but his pulse refused to slow. "I've had enough."
A flutter in his chest told him to slow down and think, but the warning burned away. Fynn yanked out his flat pad. Drew. You there? Been watching?
I'm monitoring a bunch of helmet cam images. Your sister's halfway across the peninsula.
Tell Orpheus to hack into the cybernet.
You think it can do that?"
Another deep breath calmed Fynn's trembling hands. Sure it can. The net's just a dumb database. I want our messaging put back to normal privacy settings.
Tyra's here. She says there's a security code she doesn't recognize.
How about taking the system to a restore point?
Rica grabbed his arm. "What're you gonna do?"
"Demand fair treatment for us, like the Kin we are."
"Wouldn't it be better to let things quiet down?"
"You're the one who keeps telling me I need to do something. Well, you're about to get your wish."
While he waited, Fynn typed out a message to the cohorts, calling a Council meeting for the next morning.
Drew's response popped up. Done. Settings restored. Won't Maliah be mad?
Fynn hit send on his cohort message. His next breath warmed his chest. Fynn bounced lightly on his toes as he texted Drew. Know what? I don't care.
Chapter 22
F ynn selected a table in the Village mess hall, the one closest to the women's barracks and the tower stairs. Nearly half of Fynn's crew followed him as far as the exit from the greenhouse tunnel. They were leaning against the red panel walls of the men's barracks. He hadn't asked them to come, but when they realized he was going to the Village they simply followed. Their presence might cause a scuffle, or their numbers might discourage harassment. He couldn't predict and didn't send them away.
Max came out of the tunnel, easy to spot since he was nearly a head taller than the crewmates who followed him. Fynn had sent his message directly to Max and to each cohort but hadn't suggested secrecy.
Max's crew paused near the Mechanics before choosing tables to lounge around. The encounter had been harmless.
Several Blue Kin emerged from the barracks, and Fynn recognized a couple trustees among them. It was the right time of morning for trustees to leave on another day's search for Magnus' body. Apparently, they were recruiting assistants, because a dozen people strode purposefully past the Mechanics to the tunnel without hesitation.
Emily emerged from the recycling systems behind the women's barracks, and some of her crew hovered at the edge of a red unit.
That totaled a fair percentage of the Kin in the domes hanging around the Village kitchen quadrant for no apparent reason. A prickling ran across his scalp, but Fynn took a deep breath and silently rehearsed his demands.
Figures in True Blue stepped out from behind the tower. Maj and a trustee crossed the dome carrying a large wall screen.
They set the screen at one end of the table and held it upright. "Maliah is resting," Maj said. "She'll join you via the cybernet." She tapped the screen and Maliah appeared with the tower room's dark plastic paneling behind her.
His attempt to stay calm failed, and Fynn's planned speech evaporated as heat flushed through his body. But before he could clench a fist, the feeling drained away. The woman of stone who'd carried her baby to Black and White Hill was gone. With elbows propped on the desktop, Maliah covered half her face with her hands and looked out from swollen eyes.
She was behind the carnage and Fynn wanted to be mad. He deserved to be mad, but his throat ached as he watched her.
Max filled the silence. "Deepest condolences, from me and my entire crew."
Maliah slowly lowered her hands. "Titan demands an evolving of our souls if Kin are to survive. Our martyrs will ignite the reintegration."
Max tilted his head but said nothing.
Fynn drew in a breath but abandoned his attempt at a reply. Instead, he tipped his head toward the screen. "We're still waiting for Greta and Birgit."
Max tapped the tabletop where a large flat pad should sit, linked to the Herschel. "And Liam."
Muscles twitched along Maliah's jaw. "You haven't heard. But, of course, there is no mourning. The accident that took Magnus from us was the commander's fault. His error in piloting."
Max looked at Fynn, brows raised in a question.
Fynn's anger reignited. "Yes, Liam's dead and it wasn't an accident. Magnus killed him." His eyes snapped back to the screen, to the expression like carved stone returning to Maliah's face. "You can't blame Liam. I was there. I saw."
Maliah faded from the screen and Tanaka's image replaced her. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. His voice boomed in Fynn's ear gel. "To live, to prevail, the path cannot be avoided. Loyal Kin must act."
Everyone startled. Emily jerked to her feet and took a step backward, knocking over her chair. Fynn thought she might run, but she lifted her chair upright and stood behind it, gripping the back. Undecided.
Among the various groups watching from a distance, people shifted. They were too far away to hear what was happening, but they could see their cohorts tense.
Fynn also rose, keeping his eyes level with the screen. "Are you there, Maliah? What's he mean? With less than four hundred of us, we need each other."
Tanaka continued to glare from the screen, but Maliah answered. "That's why we keep menials to serve true Kin, as long as you stay in your place."
"What're you saying?" Emily's voice cracked. "We're equals here. This is a Cohorts Council."
"What do you know about it?" Maliah's voice still shouted in their ears. "I was at Tanaka's side."
Max rose slowly, as if he didn't want to scare anyone into motion.
Maliah's voice was painful. "This meeting is ridiculous. This Council is ridiculous. I have Doctor Tanaka to advise me. It begins. Now."
At her last words, the trustee dropped the monitor, shattering the screen.
A wave of Kin poured from the barrac
ks. Fynn, on the far side of the table, jumped backward, but the trustee's punch caught him in the chest and he toppled.
Mobs surged from all directions, and colored coveralls surrounded Fynn like confetti in a storm. Max, his solid frame a rock in their midst, roared for them to stop, but no one listened.
The Mechanics found each other easily as they retreated toward the greenhouse tunnel, but other scuffles of blue on blue were a mass of confusion.
Fynn's crew crammed through the tunnel, scrambling across the floor and half climbing the walls to spill into the greenhouse. Blue coveralls and angry faces met them.
Fynn leaped for the closest frame and kicked off again to climb into the dense foliage. Mechanics spread up and out, pursued by greenhouse Kin. They rolled along the hydroponics tubes, smashing through plants, releasing a hailstorm of vines and stems to drift, in absurd slow-motion, to the floor.
The battle crashed through the greenery in a dozen fistfights, many entirely blue on blue. Somewhere, Max was shouting, his words lost in the cacophony. With a crash, a tube broke and water gushed to the floor.
Pain shot through Fynn's shoulder, and his attacker screamed too. Soft booties over toes didn't make much of a weapon. Fynn fell backward, the low-gravity giving him time to thrash around to face the floor and pull his feet downward. Water cascaded around him, thick streams and huge globs breaking like balloons when they struck something solid.
Fynn landed on all fours, dug his toes into the wet, textured floor, and shot toward the next tunnel, toward the Mechanics dome. During a leap's hang time, he swiveled his shoulders, looking for crewmates who needed help, but leaves and vines swirled near the floor, blocking his view.
Whenever he tripped over someone in colored coveralls, Fynn hauled them up and together they staggered on. He shoved his crewmates into the tunnel and waded back into the sea of leaves, searching for more friends as he dodged blues. Finally, with only blue coming at him, he retreated.
***
Triage proceeded smoothly in the Village mess hall. None of the children were injured, aside from minor scrapes on one or two older teens who'd piled into the melee. Greta caught Brigit's eye and waved, releasing them to return to their classrooms.
She stood by Kumar while he stitched a large cut. It was difficult in Titan's low gravity to brace well enough for a killer blow, which fortunately limited injuries, but seemed to leave combatants with enough energy to celebrate as if they'd won something.
Greta bit her lip. No one here was winning.
The tables were only half-full. With forty-seven Kin on the space station, there were over three hundred in the domes. Three hundred forty? Somehow, she'd lost count of the survivors.
But there were nowhere near three hundred Kin in front of her, even allowing for the children and teachers creeping past the women's barracks toward their classrooms.
A couple dozen Kin sat around two tables - those with serious injuries that required treatment. Others sat farther away, unbruised and unruffled. Many had never joined the brawl.
The tunnel was a significant restriction, so most of the throng had never made it through. Most of them, she realized, thinking back on the milling crowd she'd observed, had never tried.
Most of the Kin she'd sent to the space station were part of the secret team that had hijacked the Herschel, but half of those pirates remained in the domes. Yes, they were among the worst injured.
The rest of those gathered around the tables had only been awake for a month or two. They were only now coming to a visceral realization that they would never return to Earth. Whoever thought barracks discipline would compensate, would make everyone happy to be here, was delusional. This irrational conflict further bewildered the newcomers.
Greta' thought of her weekly meetings with the other medics, of the comments relayed to her over the past year. Kin presented clear indications of pathological anxiety. How could she have failed to realize the depth of the problem?
Titan wasn't paradise and wasn't likely to be. Life would be a difficult struggle. A lump closed Greta's throat, choking off the rising sour taste. She was trained to deal with physical trauma, not to treat fear, jealousy, and anger. Maybe Kin chose anger to avoid despair.
As nearly as Greta could estimate, there were a hundred Kin unaccounted for, so they had to be in the other domes. They must have been in the midst of the fighting and would need care. The kind of physical care she was competent to provide.
She cleared her throat and moved to Kumar's side. "When you finish those stitches, come with me. We'll move to the greenhouse."
They didn't get far. Bins and packaging jammed the tunnel, and its sky-blue inner layer was scuffed and scarred. One of the tunnel fans was slammed against the ceiling with its impeller still spinning, and a vague smell of hot plastic wafted out.
Thankful to have normal communications available, Greta opened a voice link to Max. "I'll open a corridor for you and Kumar," he said.
Sounds echoed as items in the tunnel shifted, and a narrow passage opened along the wall. One of Max's crew emerged. He peeked out warily, nodded at Greta, and backed away so the medics could follow.
Max shuffled through knee-deep vegetation that lay torn and trampled in the aisle.
"What a mess," Greta said.
Max was grim. "I've got my crew sifting through to recover the vegetables, especially high caloric produce. My core crew, the ones I trust to care for the gardens and not..." He waved a hand vaguely in the air and Greta understood. Not those gripped by whatever madness filled the domes.
A cry interrupted them, coming from the algae ponds. Several Kin lifted a limp, sodden woman from one of the tanks.
Greta and Kumar started work immediately, but it was too late. Max's crew gathered around and stood a quiet, respectful distance back. She glanced around. Perhaps fifty people, disheveled, with cuts and spreading bruises, but she didn't spot any serious injuries.
It was hard to believe that a fall, even from the top of the hydroponics frames, would kill a healthy woman. Possibly she was knocked out and drowned by accident, but Greta feared that there could be a murderer in the domes. With the cameras blocked by plant growth, they'd never know for sure. Chills numbed her chest.
When Kumar rose and announced a time of death, Greta hoisted one of the medical bags. "Continue triage here. I'll go on to the Mechanics while you handle the greenhouse crew."
She called Fynn next because that tunnel was stuffed full too. As she waited for a narrow path to be cleared, her stomach churned, and her professional calm threatened to dissolve. Her vision clouded at the edges. Her throat tightened around each breath. She needed to do something to ward off the dread.
Greta closed her eyes, pulling up inner visions of cryptic symbols from the ancient Indus Valley. Mental images that she often used in private meditations. She had a job to do, and that job kept her centered. Kept her safe. She heaved out a sigh and opened her eyes, blinking at accumulated tears.
Someone was scuffling in the tunnel. Once again in control, Greta busied herself sorting through the medical bag. Bandages were running low. Whoever packed the Herschel in spaceport hadn't expected so many cuts and bruises. There'd be no more antiseptics and topical analgesics than she carried, not until the space station's medical lab was in operation.
That made her think of Erik and Kin on the space station. She opened a voice link and his assurances calmed her further. Although Village camera feeds left everyone agitated, people could check on their friends. Normal comms did a lot to quiet worries. Apparently, Fynn was responsible for that. Good for him.
Greta had regained her doctor's face by the time a final wad of plastic popped out of the tunnel. She followed a slender woman in bright yellow coveralls into the Mechanics dome.
Part of the corridor wall to the Gravitron was missing, probably stuffed into the tunnel, but Greta didn't stop to look. Across the dome in the Mechanics mess hall, people crowded around those who sat on benches or lay stretched out on t
he floor.
Fynn met her. "Not my most successful meeting, wouldn't you say?"
She couldn't help but smile briefly. He held one arm against his chest, but too casually for broken bones. Swelling on the left side of his face caught her attention. "Any pain when you move your jaw?" she asked. "Is you vision okay?"
"I'm fine."
She wanted to hug him, examine that arm, look more closely for bruises beneath his dark skin, but triage said she must move on to other patients.
Chapter 23
D rew flew past cargo bins, following the pilots to the blue residential segment where the station's Kin lived. A few steps after tripping over the connecting lip, he saw that a crowd was gathered at the center screens. Most station Kin wore their clothes from Earth, so maybe he was being paranoid, but he quickly flipped his coveralls to blue.
He had to stand directly under the screens to see the images without distortion. The epic view of Saturn was replaced with feed from a Village camera. A few Kin wandered around the half-empty mess hall, but most were seated. Something was happening near the kitchen, and after a moment's study, Drew saw that medics were examining people.
A man pointed to the screen "Can you zoom in? That's my barracks mate. Is he hurt bad?"
"It would be his own fault if he is," a woman said.
"He's True Blue. Those Mechanics started it."
"They weren't bothering anyone. Just hanging out."
"Backup the feed." The image fluttered and began playing again. "Look there. None of them are dressed in Kin Blue. That's asking for trouble."
Someone waved a flat pad. "I'm getting an image from the greenhouse now."
The screens above blinked to a new view through a mass of greenery. Max's big frame dominated the floor below as he gestured, stopped to pat the shoulder of a passing crewmate, and then sent leaves sloshing as he waded down the aisle.
A woman pressed her hands to her face. "Look at the destruction. That's our only source of food. I've got to go down and help them." She spun around and her eyes lit on Evan.