“A kid?” Michaela stumbled over the notion. When she really fixed on the tracks—and there were a lot of them—it sank in. “This can’t be happening.”
Yosh carefully picked his way around the body, trying unsuccessfully to stay out of the mostly dried blood. He used two fingers to pick up the vibraknife. Squinted as he studied the handle. “I’m no expert, but these prints in the blood. It’s a child’s hand.”
Yosh laid the vibraknife on the counter, fixed on Martin’s right leg. “This is the only cut that isn’t surgical and precise. Here, on the back of Bill’s knee. Like it sliced right through the back of the joint. See? Severed the tendons and ligaments, transected the femoral arteries and veins. Bill couldn’t have stayed on his feet. Would have fallen. Bled out within minutes.”
“How could that happen?”
“He was cut from behind. Never saw it coming,” Yosh told her, straightening. “Down low like that? And with a child’s fingerprints on the vibraknife? You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“No! And neither should you. None of our kids would do something like this. It’s totally . . . I mean, do you hear what you’re saying?”
“How could they? Felix is only eight, for God’s sake. Sheena and Felicity are seven. Breez was with us last night. This is freaking impossible.” Yosh’s face worked; he swallowed hard. “None of our kids would do this. Not to Bill.”
Michaela fought for air. “This is a nightmare. An impossible fucking nightmare.”
Yosh had tears streaking his face when he turned to face her. “What’s happening to us?”
60
Dek had ducked beneath the first of the vines and was crossing a shallow root mat when the quetzals began to insert their presence into his mind. At first it came as a subtle warning to step right, to avoid putting a foot on a particular greenish root as he followed Talina. What left him unsettled was a feeling of turmoil, once removed. A realization that something seethed and flexed just below the surface, that it was locked in conflict. But inexplicably, recognition hovered just below his consciousness. Like it teetered on the edge of breaking free—and if it did, it would consume him. If he had to put it into words, it might be likened to having an unfelt inferno in his core, nothing he could physically experience, but he sure as hell knew that his gut was twisting itself into a knot.
It’s all of them. Locked in milling, moiling, and mayhem.
The determination to end it all, the plunge over the falls—the river—had reshuffled the deck. All that TriNA intelligence, Flute’s, Rocket’s, and Demon’s, was resorting.
Talk about toilet-sucking weird. A battle was going on inside him, and he couldn’t even act as spectator. Those competing, replicating molecules were deciding his future. Realization engendered a queasiness in his muscles, bones, and nerves.
What if Demon’s side wins?
And all the while, he had to remain focused on the bush. Everything he’d gained could be lost in an instant with a single wrong move. For the moment, brown caps, a pincushion, or some unknown creature, not to mention thorncactus, claw shrub, or purple burst flower, could kill him dead.
Unsure what he could do to influence the molecular conflict in his blood, he tried to focus on Talina. On the root mat, the hanging vegetation, and any scent of vinegar that would warn of a bem or skewer. He followed her, mimicking her steps, echoing every move her supple body made. He stepped wide where she did, seemed to share her awareness of the dark holes, the curious and new vines that hinted of danger. Periodically she’d glance back, and he’d see the flash in her now-familiar eyes. And most of all, a new intimacy in the way she shared his glances.
He’d always had an attraction toward her, but after this day, he was falling hard. Dealing with feelings he hadn’t known since his youthful fling with Kalay. But Kalay had been about the heart-pounding passion of first love. That total commitment of raging hormones and all-consuming obsession driven by sexual novelty and the belief that their bond was unbreakable and eternal.
“What are you thinking?” Talina called over her shoulder as she skipped from one head-sized stone to the next where they protruded from the root mat.
“That it’s different this time.”
“What is?”
“Until I met you . . . No, wait. How do I say this? I’ve known a lot of women.”
“No shit? How’d I miss that?”
“Hey, cut the caustic. You never had to live as a pampered and frustrated Taglioni first-born son. That’s a lot to overcome in an entire lifetime, let alone a measly decade.”
“So? Have you?” Talina flipped out her knife. Like a blur, she severed a thick stem where a biteya bush that blocked the way grew from a crack in the rock. The vine immediately began to contort, fluids spattering this way and that. “Don’t get any of that on you. I think if we go back around that boulder, the rest of the vine is going to be so busy dying it will ignore us.”
“Dying does that,” Dek agreed, stepping back, leading the way around the boulder, making sure in the process that nothing hid on the stone’s opposite side. He got no quetzal warning as he winced and scurried beneath an outlying tendril of the contorting biteya bush. The air was ripe with its peppery odor.
Dek picked his way, taking his time before each step as he climbed. Through the thin branches of an aquajade, he could see the cleft toward which they ascended. The root mat was thinner here; the stuff squirmed under his weight and the grinding rock that shifted underfoot.
He said, “Going back to the subject, let’s just say that becoming a human being after having been a Taglioni is a brutal and sobering ordeal. One I’ve had to relive in too-intimate a detail over the last month as Demon picked through the disgusting flotsam that makes up my memory. The man I am now really hates that guy who swaggered his way onto Ashanti. Not only that, I’m ashamed of him. The stuff you heard about? As the old saying goes: tip of the iceberg.”
“That’s not winning you a whole lot of points.” She scrambled when rock rolled under her feet. As it did, a flurry of invertebrates exploded, only to vanish into cracks and crevices. “But I will say this, it’s nice to have Dek back and Demon at bay. How’s that going, by the way?”
“I think we’re on the way to solving something. That fall into the river, it broke the impasse. I’ve got a war going on inside me. Nothing I can put my finger on. A feeling of desperation and conflict, and the fact that one way or another, I’m going to be different when it’s all settled.”
“Different, how?”
“One way, I’m a new Dek. The other way, Demon triumphs and I either drown myself or put a bullet in my head. The lines are drawn, Tal. I won’t be what Demon wants me to be. Nor will I be the heartless-and-amoral tool that my dear father was so desperate to mold me into. I will be the man I want to be—one worthy of what I think you might come to love in a man.”
“You think I’m that kind of a prize? Me?”
“That’s what I was getting at when I said I’d known a lot of women. Even loved a few. You, however, make me whole.” He smiled to himself. “And that is something I’ve never known.”
She remained silent as they climbed through a steep cone of talus. Little multi-legged creatures kept scattering this way and that. Most had sharp horns, stingers, or things that looked like spears protruding from their backs. Not the kind of creatures to grab with a bare hand. At the head of the talus, the narrow-walled crevice loomed dark in shadow, the aquajade, stonewood, and some big-leafed overhanging . . . “Tal? That’s a mundo tree right there in the opening to the crevice.”
He stopped, let her climb up next to him. On either side, weird thorn-covered two-meter-tall plants with waving hair-covered leaves ensured they didn’t venture too near.
“Mundo tree all right,” she agreed, avoiding his eyes. “See the detritus beneath? That’s bones and bits of body parts. If you look closely you’ll see tentacle
s hanging down in the lowest leaves.”
“Uh-huh. If I was an old Donovan pro, I’d say that might be a real honest-to-God nightmare up in those big leaves.” He didn’t need her assent. He could feel it through quetzal sense. It still surprised him, that weird way of knowing without knowing how he knew it.
“You’d be right.”
“What are we going to do? The damn thing’s right across the trail.”
Talina glanced to each side, staring thoughtfully at the rock walls where they rose in angular blocks. “Thank God it’s basalt. Dek, time to show that gnarly old nightmare what primates are all about.”
Dek chewed his lips, nodded. “Still, it’s a hell of a good location. That nightmare tags anything climbing up or down the chute.”
This time she gave him the intimate look again. “I think you’ll do, Dek. That is, assuming that the right band of quetzal molecules comes out the winner. I’m starting to think I’d really hate it if Demon won. I like you a lot better when you’re you.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
So, come on Flute, Rocket, and clan. I’ll get us past this shit-sucking nightmare if you can keep a lid on Demon. And maybe we can all convince Talina to fall in love with us.
61
The psychic trauma just got worse. Michaela cradled her aching arm and sat at the front table in the cafeteria. Bill’s body had been wrapped in plastic and carried out to the dock where the seatrucks and launch were parked. As she looked out at her people, the horror of it kept crashing down on her.
Did she really believe that a child murdered Bill Martin? Then cut him up like he was a frog in a science lab? That dissection could not have been a child’s work. Kids didn’t think like that, have that kind of motor control. The cuts had been so precise. A child wasn’t capable of that kind of lab-perfect efficiency.
People were shouting at each other, some crying, others pacing between the tables, expressions dark and brooding. Like them, Michaela had no idea what to do.
“My son didn’t do it!” Kevina thundered as she faced Yosh. “He was asleep in bed when I left the room. If you think he’s the murderer, where’s the blood? I just got him out of bed. Looked at his hands. They’re clean! He didn’t do it.”
“Then who did?” Yosh roared back, his face red, fists knotted. “You saw that knife, the tracks in the floor. It was a child’s, and you’re telling me it was Felicity or Sheena? They were in bed, too. And they have no clue about any of this. The tracks on the floor are too big for Breez, even if she hadn’t been in the same room as Mikoru and me.”
“My son didn’t do this: He’s a kid. He’s only eight, for God’s sake!”
Michaela took a deep breath; all of it kept spiraling out of control. “Hey! Stop it! All of you. Sit down and be quiet. We have to think. Figure this thing out.” They just stared at her, eyes reflecting anger, fear, disbelief, and confusion.
“I said, sit down!” She jabbed a no-nonsense index finger to emphasize the point.
One by one they dropped into the nearest seats, glancing back toward the kitchen as the room went quiet enough that they could hear Iso where she was cleaning up the dried blood. If anything, that sobered them more than any demand Michaela might have made.
And damn it, who was going to cook? Which one of them could stand to be alone in that kitchen, taking Bill’s place?
Solve that later, she told herself.
“Stop the recriminations,” Michaela shouted, feeling herself on the verge of panic. “We’re scientists, for God’s sake. We’ll find who did this. Yosh is right. We’ve got the prints on that knife, and only one set of feet will match that blood trail. When we do—”
“My son didn’t do this.” Kevina cried. “He was in bed, I tell you.”
“And he’s locked up with the other children in the observation dome,” Michaela shot back. “Anna’s keeping an eye on all of the children as we figure this out.”
“And what if Felix attacks one of the girls?” Mikoru asked.
“Don’t you dare!” Kevina half-shrieked, leaping from her chair. “Felix would no more hurt one of those girls than he’d hurt a fly.”
“Or Bill Martin?” Mikoru cried, arms spread wide.
Kevina started for her, only to have Kel Carruthers rise to block her way, saying calmly, “It’s all right, Kev. We’ll figure this out. Now, sit down. You have my word.”
“That’s right.” Michaela tried to use a reassuring tone. “There’s got to be an explanation. We’re going to find it. Now, I’ve got Casey doing a little research with the UV light. She’s taking a look at the hallway. If the person who walked in all that blood walked down the hallway, Casey will find traces of it.”
“And what happens when she does?” Kel asked, sharing glances with the others. “Let’s say it is one of the kids. What do we do next?”
“No one lays a finger on my kid,” Kevina promised, her face like a mask.
Piss in a pot, what if it really was one of the children? Michaela used her good hand and rubbed the back of her neck, images of Bill’s dissected body making a horrific vision behind her eyes.
“How could a child do what we saw done to Bill?” Vik asked, shooting a frantic glance at her husband. “Sheena, Felix, Felicity, they’re children. It would have taken a man to do what was done to Bill.”
“Or a woman,” Atumbo declared.
“Hey,” Michaela barked. “The killer used a vibraknife. Cut Bill across the back of the knee. A vibraknife will cut through bone, as Bill’s skull more than proves. He was taken down from behind. Probably had no idea what was happening. One second he’s getting ready to start breakfast, the next he was on the floor, bleeding out.”
Yosh added, “And the angle of the wound? It’s low, at a slight slant. The outside of the stroke runs lateral to the femoral condyles. Then the blade was run medially and down. A man or woman would have had to be on their knees to make that same cut.”
“That’s crazy!” Tobi Ruto slapped his hands to the table. “That’s saying one of the kids . . . Hey, I know these kids. We all do. Come on, seriously, you’re going to tell me that Felix, Sheena, or Felicity just decided to get up early and wander down to the kitchen to murder Bill? Are you hearing how pus-sucking insane that sounds?”
“All of this is insane,” Mikoru half-whispered as she broke into tears and dropped her head into her hands. Yosh laid a reassuring arm across her back.
“Got that right,” Odinga muttered, arms crossed. “Nightmare on the ocean, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Kevina’s voice actually came across as half-rational for once. “These kids aren’t crazy. Seriously, any of you, have you ever seen any of the children acting irrationally? Violently? Making threats?”
“Does that include going catatonic like Toni?” Vik asked. “Let’s be honest. Sheena’s my daughter. I haven’t been watching her like a hawk. I’ve had other concerns. We all have. Yes, she’s seemed reserved, introspective. I caught her walking in a daze yesterday. Like she wasn’t home inside her head. But when I touched her, she was back. Looking up at me like she hadn’t seen me in a week. But to think that that same girl might have murdered Bill?”
Michaela added, “Think about this from the children’s perspectives. They only knew Ashanti. That was their world, and lord help us, with the Unreconciled down on Deck Three, it wasn’t the most stable of environments in which to raise kids. Then, magically, they’re here. Like an entire frame and paradigm shift. And no sooner are we moved into the Pod than people start dying in horrible ways. Sometimes it’s their parents, but everyone who was killed is like an aunt or uncle. Shin, Lara, Jaim and Varina, Lee, these are people these kids have lived with and counted on for their entire lives. And we’re all afraid . . . all of us grieving and scared. Then we tell the kids they’ve been infected. That there are alien molecules living ins
ide them. Think of the psychic shock to those developing brains and personalities. It’s a miracle they aren’t screaming in the hallways.”
“Tomaya was just staring into space,” Odinga agreed. “I mean, sitting there on her bed, her arm raising and lowering, hand pronating and supinating. I asked her, ‘What are you doing?’ Took me three tries to get through. Like Vik said with Sheena, I finally touched her, and she came back. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, ‘I’m not doing anything. It’s just my arm. It’s learning.’”
“Learning?” Ruto had a strained look on his face. “She told me the same thing about her leg the other day. Said it was learning how to walk. I told her that was interesting, because she’d been walking since she was two. She told me it was ‘learning by itself.’” He shrugged. “You know how kids are at that age.”
Kel said, “Hey, well, an arm or leg ‘learning by itself’ is harmless compared to what happened to Bill.”
Michaela raised a hand for their attention. “No matter what we find out, people, we’ve got to start keeping a better eye on our children. We may be carried away with our own tragedies and loss, but at least we can process them. For the kids? Raised as they were on a single deck in a starship? This whole experience has to be terrifying. We owe it to them to be . . .”
Michaela stopped as Casey came striding into the room, her face ashen, cheeks tear-damp as if she’d wiped them before entering. The woman’s mouth was working, her gray eyes as terrified as Michaela had ever seen them. The UV blacklight was still clutched in Casey’s right hand, a child’s underwear in her left.
First Casey fixed on Kevina, then she glanced around the room, her gaze ending with Michaela.
“What have you got?” Michaela placed her hand to her suddenly pounding heart. Her breath seemed to have vanished.
The moment was caught in her memory, crystalline, every detail so precise.
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