The Spindle

by J. Darlene Everly

  “No one even knows this is happening. We have to get the word out. Someone had to have seen something.”

  “People won’t be comfortable, they’ll think it’s looking back. We’re so close to getting to the surface, no one wants to risk their ride to the planet.” He raked his hands through his hair, leaving tufts of it standing up. It reminded her of Troylus’s too long hair when it got mussed up.

  An ache opened in her chest, more acute than the pain from Briar’s attack.

  “If we can’t get the people to do the right thing, we have to figure out which silver-eyed person has the ability to create fire.” She stopped in her tracks, thinking through what little they knew of the abilities.

  “Troylus fixes things,” she said out loud, her thoughts creeping out.

  “Yes, that’s basically what starwalking is. It’s in space, and dangerous, but it’s fixing things,” Rullon said, staring off into space and clearly not paying attention to where her mind was. But he was right.

  “Rullon, starwalking is fixing, and the ability Troylus has is fixing. So, who would have an assignment that would make sense with developing a fire ability?”

  His head popped up, his eyes wide, while his mouth worked open and closed.

  “I… I don’t… I don’t know,” he stammered, but she knew he was thinking like she was now.

  She pulled out the other chair and sat across from him, pulling out a holo from their station.

  The list of assignments that popped up reminded her that she didn’t know all of the different crews onboard. When they were learning, they went over them all, but there were too many to keep track of.

  “Help me hide the ones that wouldn’t make any sense. We’ll keep it big picture. Maybe some will only barely make sense, but we keep them as possibilities.” She started eliminating some of the crews on the list and handed it to Rullon who went through and deleted more from their list before he shook his head and handed it back.

  “Stasis is an obvious no, but engineering and service? I mean, maybe,” he said, scratching his head and looking out to the middle of the room while she scanned the list again.

  “Medic is out, but what about robotics?” she asked, rubbing at her forehead where a headache was forming. This was taking too long.

  “Here,” he said, gesturing for the holo.

  She handed it back to him and tried to think through what she knew about the systems that robotics used, and if they would necessitate knowledge of fire at any point.

  “And what about the kids? Upton is turning silver and I think his ability is something with the mind, something almost prescient. It’s weird.” She shook her head at the words coming out of her mouth. They were talking about people with incredible abilities and she was describing Upton’s cryptic comments as somehow more weird than Troylus remaking reality.

  “The attack on your dad wasn’t done by a kid. It was too well controlled. It didn’t happen in the middle of the hallway or at the clinic. It was someone conniving, and I think they did it on purpose. Hmmm.” He tapped on the holo and squinted, then stared off into space.

  “What about terraforming? They deal with fire and heat and climate,” he said, his brow furrowed.

  Rullon seemed unaware that she couldn’t breathe.

  Zellendine stood up from the chair, her hands braced on the table in front of her, her shoulder and arm screaming, her stomach aching, and the hole in her heart ripping open further. But every broken and wounded part of her was filling, knitting itself together with rage.

  “I know who did it.”

  Her voice was harsh and ugly, Rullon snapped his eyes to hers.

  “Briar killed my dad.”

  38

  Troylus

  Before being locked up, he didn’t know there was a wet room off the gathering room. The only benefit of his situation was the size of the wash. He could lay in the water for hours, letting it fill to his shoulders and luxuriate in being more engulfed than he had ever been.

  No trickling, tiny amount of water meted out over time while he got colder and colder in there. For leadership, in their secret wet room, it was all the things he had always wished he had in his own quarters.

  Apparently they thought it was okay for him to know how much they were holding out on everybody since he was going to be frozen forever.

  He closed his eyes and allowed his head to slide under the water. Somewhere in the inner workings of the ship, after he was done, the water would be processed and used again.

  Maybe, before she left for the planet, his water would find its way to Zellendine and they could have one last wash together while they pretended they weren’t both wishing for a bed.

  In his mind, he imagined a life with her where they had their own quarters, no matter how small. Just their own space to be together and not worry that at any moment his dad could walk in on them.

  Banging sounded on the other side of the wet room door.

  “Go away. I’m not done,” he yelled to whoever was enough of an asshole to interrupt the only thing he got to do.

  “When you are finished, I will be here,” Alara’s voice answered. Even while yelling through a door, her voice was melodic and it pissed him off.

  No one who worked so hard on behalf of leadership should be gifted with that beautiful a voice. It made it a lot more difficult to hate her, and almost impossible not to listen when she spoke.

  He tried to get back to the place in his mind where he was living with Zellendine, where he was happy and free of the Chapter and all their regulations and stupid mottos. He tried to make his way back to the warmth of the water soaking into his body. He tried to not be aware.

  But none of it worked, even the warmth of the water was starting to fade, the cold sinking back into him.

  Swearing under his breath, he pushed the button that opened all the drains and in seconds he was standing in the center of an empty wash, dripping.

  Drying off was quick, but the cold had sunk into his bones by the time he was done and back in his uniform anyway.

  Maybe it was good he was chilled all the time now, soon he was going to even more frozen.

  His own dark humor wasn’t even funny to him anymore. That probably wasn’t a good sign, but then again it didn’t really matter.

  That actually did make him smile as he finished drying his hair.

  Alara was standing on the other side of the door, her hands in front of her and her face serene.

  It made him want to punch a wall that she was so happy.

  “Why are you here?”

  She turned to him and her smile morphed into one of sympathy.

  “You should be given every opportunity to tell us all that you know.”

  “No. There’s still nothing I know about Stephen’s death, or anything else. Put me back in the little hole. I’ll sleep standing up again for a while.” He walked over to the door of the tiny box of a closet.

  It didn’t matter how much he did not want to be back in there, it was safer than being in the large gathering room if any member of leadership was around.

  “Troylus, I don’t want you to go into stasis. All your crew members value you, and what you have managed to do for Zellendine despite the differences you have with her, it’s all commendable.”

  He didn’t respond. She had made it clear that she wanted him to come up with something, anything. There was no promise that even if he did it would change his fate. So why would he risk doing something to make life worse for someone else?

  “No, thanks. I don’t want to talk to any of you. I have few hours left, I would rather it be spent thinking about the people who I will never get to see again.”

  She flinched. The unflappable Alara, who he wasn’t sure until that moment was entirely human she was so perfect all the time, flinched.

  “I…” She let her voice trail off and looked down at the floor for so long he started to think she was going to just walk away instead of finishing her sentence, but eventually she look
ed up at him again. “Maybe I can get you a chance to see them.”

  His traitorous heart skipped a beat and thudded as fast as it ever had in his chest. He wasn’t sure he could take seeing Rullon and Zellendine again, but even the thought of it made him feel warmer and more alive.

  Troylus nodded before one of her helpers opened the door to the closet and he climbed inside.

  39

  Zellendine

  “You don’t know that,” Rullon said, shaking his head.

  “He’s attacked me twice,” she said, trying not to be embarrassed by it, even as he reared his head back and jumped up, coming to her side and looking her up and down like he would be able to spot her injuries.

  “Neither time were his abilities involved, he used his fists and his feet. Once he used a table.”

  “Shit.”

  Zellendine barked out a laugh even though it wasn’t funny, but she shoved the sleeve of her uniform up her arm to expose the clear bruises forming in lines that coincided with where his fingers had been.

  “That little asshole,” Rullon said.

  “You’re not wrong. But some of the things he was saying made no sense, and now I think they were all about him killing my dad. The problem is that I have no idea how to get anyone to believe it was him, let alone how to bring in someone who could cause the kind of damage he did to my dad. No one wants another accident.”

  Rullon wandered around the room, not quite the marching style pacing she had done, and not in her back and forth pattern, but close. And she couldn’t help wondering how she was going to keep him from getting hurt.

  “So, how are we going to get Briar to tell on himself? That has to be the way we go about this,” Rullon said, finally coming to rest back in his chair, leaning forward on his elbows on the table.

  “You’re right. That would be the best way, but I’m not sure how to go about that yet. I do know that I feel like I need to speak to Upton. And no matter what, I’m getting Troylus out of there.” She curled her hands into fists and wished, not for the first time, that she had some kind of ability so she could use it to help them.

  “Upton is tiny. Why bring him into this?” Rullon frowned, his jowls growing more pronounced.

  “Because, I think he already knows. I think he was trying to warn me the last time I was there, I want to know what else he might know.” She took over walking the room, going back to her pacing instead of taking up the circuitous path Rullon was wandering.

  “Do you think it might help us trap his brother? And do you think you can even get in to see him without a big problem with his brother?”

  She wasn’t sure she could avoid Briar in the attempt, not unless she had a way to know he would be somewhere else.

  Zellendine was facing the door as the idea struck her, she stopped mid step, her foot falling unceremoniously from the air to drop to the floor, her momentum over. She turned around slowly to look at Rullon.

  “Are you willing to help me? I don’t think we have a lot of time to do all we need to. The spindles are supposed to be heading out soon. And Troylus is going to be on one.”

  “First of all, of course I’m going to help. I’m trying not to be insulted right now that you thought you had to ask me. But second, how are you going to get Troylus on a spindle if this doesn’t work? We don’t even know where they’ve got him locked up,” Rullon shook his head like he didn’t believe she could do it, but she meant what she said.

  “I’m not heading down to the planet unless he’s going to the planet too. And I know exactly where he is. You forget, I’ve been the one in trouble.”

  Watching the memory of her trial come to his mind was like watching as the Wheel turned so she could see their sun out a window.

  “Rullon, do you see the dessert in front of you? And the branch?” she asked, taking a seat at the table across from him and gesturing to the sad remainders of the special moment she had planned.

  “Yes, I just had bigger things to worry about than why Indigo would have dropped off something from her work,” he said, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes like he thought she was missing the point of their entire conversation.

  She smiled, of course he would have thought the branch was because of Indigo.

  “The orchard is a special place for Troylus and I, and I made that dessert for him because I was going to ask him to be partners with me.”

  His eyes widened and then crinkled at the corners as a giant smile grew on his face. All of the joy on his face was gone in a matter of seconds as the reality of the place they were currently in crashed against her news.

  With a nod, Zellendine said, “Now you know how much I mean this, if I can’t get him let out, I’m breaking him out.”

  “Zellendine,” Rullon’s face turned into a sad version of the smile that first overcame him at her news, “I’m so glad he has you in his life. But I need you to make me a promise.”

  Her immediate reaction was to say yes, anything. She wanted to make Rullon happy and to do whatever to honor him that Troylus would want her to. But under the circumstances, she didn’t trust him not to do the dad thing and trap her into promising to stay out of it.

  She bit her lip, but nodded.

  “Please, try as hard as you can to stay away from Briar. I don’t trust him to be anywhere near you. I don’t want you to get attacked again. I don’t think Troylus would forgive me if we get him out just to have you end up in the clinic. Or worse.”

  There was no good way for her to answer that. Yes, she was going to try not to get her ass kicked by Briar again, especially since she doubted he was capable of, or even wanted to hold back his power. If it was a matter of face down Briar, or get Troylus out, she was more than willing to step in front of Briar’s fists.

  But she nodded, because he only asked her to try. And that she could agree to.

  “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do.”

  40

  Troylus

  He was folded up on himself.

  Trying to find a comfortable position in the damn closet was going to drive him to actually want to go into stasis. His anger was even starting to flare up again.

  Just irrational fury at all the people who weren’t in there with him. Not Zellendine like before, but all the other people.

  It made him wonder if he needed to use his ability or it would it build up like pressure until it was more likely to just pop out and run rampant.

  But what would be the worst thing his fixing ability could do? If it could have fixed him up some leg room, now that would have been useful…

  He shoved against the wall and tried to get his feet under him, twisting and turning and thumping against the walls trying to stand up in the skinny box.

  One of his feet were asleep, it made the whole thing more complicated and it felt like he hurt his ankle more than once because of the bizarre way his asleep foot was barely working.

  “What’s going on in there?” One of the big watchers on the other side of the door yelled through it at him, banging on the wall next to the door.

  “Nothing, trying to get comfortable in this damn hole,” he yelled back, grinding his teeth together as he tried to be quiet while he got to a basic standing position without too much weight on the side with the worthless foot.

  Leaning his head against the wall and his butt against the opposite wall helped to alleviate some of the pressure. Slowly, the pins and needles grew to a dancing party of prickles all the way up to his ankle bones. The whole damn thing had lost all feeling.

  No matter how much trouble it had the potential to get him in, he had to do something. This was ridiculous. And some poor asshole after him would eventually be inside there again. Leadership was way too happy to punish, in his opinion.

  The real question was, what was behind the walls, what could be moved to make more room for his body.

  He shoved some of his ability at the wall, nothing happened, he shoved harder, the blue light growing brighter.

  But
it wasn’t expanding the area in front of him, it was sliding down the panel to the floor and moving things there.

  What the fuck? The words almost slipped out of his mouth, he expected the whole wall to move, but his ability apparently had a better idea. Although he wasn’t sure he agreed.

  Finally, he let go of the light. It left him tired, there was so little energy left in his body from shit sleep and stress.

  Sliding down the wall, it was awkward to crumple himself up in order to slide into the tight fit of the space his ability had made for him. But he did fit. It was as if the wall continued in a small box, just the right size for his body.

  He stared up at it, the section above him close enough to his face that if he sat up he would smack his nose on it long before he was upright.

  It was good enough. Maybe it would help him get used to the idea of being trapped inside a cryo tube for eternity.

  Maybe not.

  But it was enough for him to close his eyes, make a wish for Zellendine and Rullon to be safe, for them to know he was as okay as he could be under the circunstances, and fall fast asleep.

  41

  Zellendine

  She was tucked around the corner, hidden by the crowds that still filled the hallways.

  The door to Briar’s quarters opened and he stormed off.

  Good, he got Rullon’s message.

  Making her way to his door seconds after he left, still only gave her the equivalent time it took for Briar to navigate the halls to the starwalker office and back if he didn’t want to stay and talk for very long with Rullon.

  It didn’t take long after her knock for Upton to open the door.

  “Hi, Zellendine. Everyone is out right now, but Briar will be back soon,” he said, prancing off into the room.