“We’re only going to make it worse for ourselves if we don’t come clean right away.”
Zee hoists the medbag back onto her shoulder and stands, adjusting her somehow-still-perfect blue-and-blond hair. “You know, as much as I hate to say it, maybe she’s right. There’s nothing I want less than to finally get away from Earth, only to spend my first few years in jail.”
I scrub a hand through my hair and look toward the buildings rising on the horizon. “Look, we don’t even know where anything is. Let’s just start walking toward the city. We can’t keep standing next to this shuttle that could explode at any second. And if they are coming out to investigate the wreck, I’d rather not be here when they arrive.”
The others turn to look at the shuttle as one, but I can’t. The sight of the twisted metal, flaking blue paint, and shattered acrylic makes my stomach turn. We survived that.
Together, we set off toward civilization, shuffling along through the sand and scrub in silence while my brain plays on infinite loop. I could have killed us all. My first time at the controls outside of a simulator. I was responsible for their lives, and I almost blew them all to pieces. We were lucky as hell.
“I . . .”
Damn. I clear my throat.
“I’m sorry about the rough landing. I’m glad no one else was hurt.”
Rion chuckles and peeks at me out of the corner of his eye. “The rest of us have half a brain and buckled up. Of all the stuff that broke on that ship, we were lucky the safety systems stayed with us. The impact cushioning kept us all alive.” He bumps his shoulder into mine. “That, and the last-second bit of fancy you pulled.”
Even Case thaws a bit at that. “Yeah, what made you think to cut in the mag coils before we hit?”
A small smile pulls at the corner of my mouth, the weight of mortality easing a bit.
“At the last second, I thought, ‘The sand is red. Red means high in iron. Worth a try.’ My parents’ farm has lots of red clay soil, so I guess it stuck in my brain somewhere. I’m surprised it worked. I didn’t think there’d be enough unoxidized metal content to really give any magnetic pushback. The shuttle must’ve had really sensitive mag coils.” I shrug. “It was just a hunch.”
“Well, I like your hunches,” Zee says, kicking up a sandy cloud. “I’m even tempted to call it genius, but I know what pilot egos are like.”
She smiles to soften the teasing, and a little thrill of pride bursts in my chest at being called “pilot” . . . immediately drowned by a powerful wave of shame. I don’t deserve that. We barely survived. Every time I get behind the controls, something goes wrong. Do they suspect?
“Well, you know, I do what I can.” I swallow hard. “I guess some of us are just good like that.”
Case rolls her eyes and snorts, but I catch her trying to suppress a smile, too. Cute.
Zee spins around and somehow manages to walk backward through the sand as she talks. “You know what this day really needs? A soundtrack.”
“Yes.” I seize the neutral topic like it’s a life raft. Distract me, please. “Tell me Bright and Burning isn’t the absolute perfect background music for a walk along the most gorgeous beach you’ve ever seen after epically surviving a shuttle crash.”
“Yes!” Zee claps her hands for emphasis, but Rion makes a disgusted sound. I roll my eyes.
“What, is Bright and Burning too common for your refined tastes? I suppose you and your mates take tea at the symphony?”
Rion flips me two fingers. “I hate the lead singer, actually. The rest of their sound is top.”
Zee gasps, scandalized and more animated than I’ve seen her thus far. “You hate Ella Rider’s voice? Never speak to me again, you heathen.”
“Agreed. You’ve been voted off the crew. Have a nice life.” I toss him a wink, and Rion chuckles, shaking his head.
I glance over at Case to see if I can draw her into the conversation, but she’s lost in her head, her mouth tense and downturned. Maybe best to leave her alone for a bit.
We crest a particularly large dune, and the city is suddenly before us, spreading out over the beach like a glittering spiderweb of glass and steel. Just like the suburbs back on the Rock, the outskirts of this city are quiet and sparse, with only a few buildings placed intermittently along paved pathways. Al-Rihla is one of the oldest colonies, founded a hundred years ago, and Saleem is its oldest city. It’s fairly well developed by colonial standards, with three generations of expansion piled atop the core infrastructure they laid out upon arrival. Still small when measured against Earth cities, but beautiful and fascinating all the same.
My mind is still reeling from everything that’s happened in the past hour—thousands dead, getting shot at, crashing a shuttle, stop it—but even still, a part of me bounces with childlike excitement at actually standing on another planet, hiking toward a city I grew up learning about in history class. And not just any colony, but the first one, the site of so many important political conflicts in the early anti-colonization days. This is where I wanted to be. This is where I was meant to be. I always thought I’d be doing this with my brother along for the ride, but things change, I guess. Sometimes drastically.
We head toward the outermost roads. After falling out of the sky, my feet are eager to feel solid pavement beneath them, though a piece of my heart is still out there looking down on a new planet for the first time. The rolling beach dunes level out the closer we get to the city, the sand increasingly dotted with tiny shells and chips of rock. Empty construction sites line the outskirts of the city, signs of a thriving colony with reason to grow, though it must be a rest day because the workers are all absent.
We walk past half-finished buildings and windows with no glass until the structures come more and more frequently. As we move toward the center of the city, they shift from temporary portable dwellings to more permanent structures. After a few minutes we’re surrounded on all sides by row houses, neighborhood markets, and coffee shops that smell divine even though I don’t drink the stuff. A few people walk the streets, wearing everything from salwar kameez to jeans and T-shirts to business suits, sometimes with a hijab or other cover. We definitely stick out a bit, being a bit roughed up from the crash. We’re just . . . farmers. Yeah. Who look like we’ve been rolling around in our own goat pens. It’s fine.
Most people don’t spare us even a cursory glance as we weave our way into the street traffic. I catch a few words of conversation here and there in several languages; some English, some Arabic, some Spanish, and I catch a few familiar words in Pashto and Urdu. But there’s more that I can’t even identify, all tangling together in a current of melodic speech that provides a steady background hum for the everyday clamor of city life. The building styles change as we move through the layers of the city, like a look back through its growth over the last hundred years: still-functioning pop-up shelters, sleek ultramodern towers, metal and poured concrete, treated wood and local quarried stone. Over it all, the planet’s sun burns, bigger in the sky than Earth’s own star without being oppressively hot.
More and more people press in around us as we near the center of the city, and the salty scent of ocean air is slowly overwhelmed by movie-theater popcorn, restaurants, fancy bakeries, and beauty shops. It’s so busy here, so different from small-town Nowhere, North Carolina, packed with bodies and noise and constant motion. I hold up one hand and slow my pace. We should probably figure out where we’re going before we get too absorbed into the crowd. Zee clears her throat, speeding her steps until she’s at my side.
“Case is getting jittery back here,” she says, low, with her chin near my shoulder. “We need to figure out where we’re going before she bolts.”
“Yeah,” I breathe, barely a whisper. “I have no idea where we are, though. The signs aren’t exactly helpful.”
“As much as I’d love to visit the Arts District and Restaurant Row, I don’t think they’re going to help us right now,” she says.
“There’s go
t to be a map around here somewhere. Maybe we can—”
“We have a great visitor’s center a few blocks away,” a small, cheerful voice says, “but I’d be happy to show you around myself!”
My heart leaps into my throat. I nearly elbow the poor kid in the nose when I whirl to face him. He can’t be more than ten or eleven years old, but he wears a big grin on his face and an expensive-looking tablet link over one ear. He’s dressed in fine clothes, and together with the earpiece it makes him look like a tiny businessman, the picture of respectability. I twist around to look at Rion and Case. They both shrug. Great. If this blows up in our faces, guess it’s all on me.
“Okay, kid. We’re looking for the Earth Embassy and a place to stay. And we need to schedule a message to be sent back to Earth on the next courier ship, too.” Also, if you rat us out, I’ll ask Zee to use her superior kicking skills on you; I don’t care how old you are. And then I’ll take that earpiece, because awesome.
“No problem, Earther, I know just the place. Follow, please!”
He sets off on a street perpendicular to our previous path, and the crowd parts for him with fond smiles and pats on the head. I struggle to keep up, though his legs are much shorter than mine. He leads us farther into the busy center of town, which makes me both more and less nervous—more bodies to hide our presence, but more eyes to follow our movements.
The architecture takes another turn when we reach Old Saleem, the heart of the original settlement. It’s a complete mishmash; the original manufactured buildings that were shipped along with the first wave of settlers, heavily modified by this point, form the basis of the neighborhood. Saleem’s first and grandest masjid is the focal point, built soon after the city’s founding and the first structure to be constructed from local materials. Its grand dome and soaring minaret glitter white and gold as they catch the early evening sunlight.
This whole city reminds me a bit of my ammi’s home in Pakistan. The enormous skyscrapers, the lights, though thankfully not the traffic. My heart gives a sharp pang, and a stab of homesickness knocks the breath from my chest for a moment. Those trips to visit my ammi’s family in the years after peace settled in the region were some of the biggest highlights of my childhood. And I’ll never see any of it ever again.
I nearly trip over two boys playing tag in the busy street, and the sight tugs at the deepest part of me, the part that remembers summers split between the farm in North Carolina and a high-rise apartment building in Karachi. That was me and Malik when we were that age, before he became perfect and I became an utter mess. Just two kids chasing each other around and annoying the hell out of everyone around us, inseparable best friends and ultimate rivals. Before everything got complicated.
I shove it all away and jog to catch up with our guide. We have bigger problems right now.
“Hey, wait!” I call, drawing level with him. “How far is it to the embassy? Will it take long to get there?”
“Only about ten more minutes on foot,” he says, sketching a tiny bow to an older man who crosses in front of us. “It’s out of the way. There’s a hotel in the same neighborhood that will work for you. They are . . . quiet, there. You’ll like it. Just what you need.”
“Sounds good,” I say, relaxing a bit. “But we don’t have any money to tip you. Maybe you can show us to a secure bank on the way?”
“No need, sir. The shop and hotel owners pay me for each customer I bring to them. My services are free for you.”
“Oh.” Lucky break.
Zee steps to the boy’s opposite side, giving the crowd a discreet once-over.
“So,” she begins in a kind voice, “what can you tell us about this city? Did you grow up here?”
It’s fascinating—one second she’s ready to kick a guy in the head, and the next she’s everyone’s favorite aunt. The boy instantly warms to her.
“No, miss, I was born back on Earth, but I moved here when I was five. I know every street in this city, though. You’ll see. It was founded by the 30:22 Explorers, so we have a large Muslim population with people from almost every country on Earth. Some of the smaller Muslim-owned shops will close for ten or fifteen minutes at prayer times, but many others will stay open. If you follow another religion, the multicultural center next to city hall can tell you where to go for your needs. Much of the food in Saleem is halal, and it is easy to find vegetarian options if you need. Umm . . .”
The boy sticks his tongue out as he thinks. “Most laws are the same as GCC standard, but there are a few differences. Mostly business related, boring money things. The embassy has an excellent guide to share with visitors that explains in detail. You’ll be fine until then. I’ll tell you if it looks like you’re doing anything illegal,” he says with a mischievous grin. “Any other questions, miss?”
Zee looks back to us and raises her eyebrows.
Rion shrugs. “That about covers the essentials, I think. You’re an excellent guide, little guy.”
The boy turns to smile at us, his gap-toothed grin infectious. “Just doing my good for the community. Happy to help.”
Just then, I’m yanked to a stop by a hand on my elbow. I whirl around to find a girl in a bright turquoise hijab, her hand twisted in my jacket, eyes blazing.
“There you are, Nax!” She lets go as soon as she has my attention. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I’ve already made us all hotel reservations, but they’ll give away our rooms if we don’t get there soon.”
I stare. I’ve never seen this girl before in my life, but she does something with her head that says, “Come on, ask questions later.” She darts her eyes over to the little boy, then back to me, and that’s interesting: our young guide is standing with his arms crossed and feet planted, brows deeply furrowed, with a glare far too intense for such a young kid. My gut gives a pang of warning, so I step closer and lower my voice.
“How do you know my name?” I ask, watching her eyes carefully.
“That boy is leading you straight to the police station,” she hisses between her teeth. She scans the crowd over my shoulder, then snaps her gaze back to me. “He’s after your reward money. I’ll tell you whatever you want, but we need to go. Now.”
I glance over at our guide, and sure enough, the boy is speaking in rapid-fire Bengali with two fingers pressed to his tablet interface. Shit.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the girl, loud enough for the others to hear. “We tried to comm you but the call wouldn’t go through.”
“No problem, so long as we hurry.” Her eyebrows are definitely significant as she says it, and she flicks a small coin to our young guide. “For your trouble, Khoka.”
“Hey, but—” the boy starts, but our new guide grabs my sleeve again and drags me down an alley before I can catch the rest of his protest. I manage to look over my shoulder to make sure the others are following and toss them a smile I hope comes off as reassuring. After all, I may have just killed us by placing my trust in the wrong person.
For several blocks, we walk in silence, our quickened footsteps drowned out by the noise of the crowd going about their daily business. We duck down increasingly narrow alleys, and the crowd thins until we turn one final corner and find ourselves alone, pressed between the back door of a hobby-farm supply shop and the trash bins for the apartment building across from it. The layered scents of manure, sweet hay, and slimy vegetables threaten to overwhelm my poor nose, and I swear I hear quacking from behind one of the doors.
As soon as all five of us are there, the girl in the bright blue hijab rounds on me. She pulls a tablet from the back pocket of her jeans and taps for a moment, and her face . . . changes. The pointed nose blinks away to reveal one more narrow and rounded, her chin becomes less square, her lips thinner. I’d swear I was looking at a different person, one with weird little electronic things on her cheeks, forehead, and jaw.
“Are you completely cracked?” she snaps, waving a hand in my face. “That boy was leading you straight to the security station to t
urn you in! You were a block away from being arrested when I caught up with you, genius.”
My mouth falls open. I want to defend myself, ask how I was supposed to know any better, ask what the hell happened to her face, but all that comes out is: “Do I know you?”
She rolls her eyes. They’re nice eyes, rich and dark against the warm golden brown of her skin, and highlighted with a thin black line of makeup. “Of course you don’t know me, you’ve only just landed. I know you, though—from your wanted notice. Figured it would take all of ten minutes for someone to try to turn you in. You’re either really brave or really oblivious, walking around town completely undisguised. Lucky I took it upon myself to save you sorry lot.”
I turn to the others, and at least Zee is with me in looking sheepish. Case is halfway to panicked, though, revving up more every second. I’ve barely known her for an hour, but I can already tell when she’s spiraling in her own head.
“Thank you for stepping in,” Rion says, polite and formal, before Case can start the cross-examination. “Can you maybe elaborate on the whole ‘wanted’ part?”
The new girl shakes her head at us, pitying. “The last message courier jumped in-system right after you crashed. Ellis Station Academy posted an all-systems bulletin for the four of you. They don’t waste any time—every GCC-sanctioned colony will know about you by the end of the day. They claim you were all denied entry into the Academy’s program and are holding a grudge. Grand theft of an Academy shuttle, assault, defamation, and treason. You’re to be detained on sight and shipped back to the station for prosecution.”
“What?” I shake my head, then shake it again when once doesn’t seem like enough. Oh no, when my parents hear this, they’ll have no trouble believing . . .
“But that’s not even . . . the station was attacked! We barely survived! Does no one know? Does everyone really think everything on the station is just business as usual or something? How did they not notice the venting atmo, and the ships coming in, and . . .” I trail off, my wide eyes looking to the others for some kind of explanation.
The Disasters Page 4