The Clouded Sky

by Megan Crewe

  “They seem to have determined that someone is planning an illicit use for kolzo,” Mako takes over. “The network is showing holds on all transfer of it, and checks on all requests. And we don’t have enough gathered for our purpose yet.”

  Kolzo. The special fuel we need to power the weapon’s beam. The stuff we lost when Jeanant was killed. If there’s a record of those past Enforcers confiscating it from his body, they mightn’t have needed much to connect the dots.

  “How will we get the rest?” Win says.

  Pavel frowns at him. “Let’s not push forward too quickly,” he says, obviously more comfortable in Kemyate. “We’re still determining whether Security found other significant information.”

  “Do you think they could follow it back to us?” Emmer asks, his jaw twitching.

  “We have no reason to believe any of us is at immediate risk,” Thlo says firmly. “But this does mean it’s currently impossible for us to gather what we need by the usual methods. I’ll be considering alternative strategies. In the meantime, I advise you all to be extremely careful not to mention kolzo, even in passing, anywhere your conversations could be recorded.”

  Alternative strategies. How much will this delay the mission?

  “We should all be aware of a second issue with the Security division,” Isis adds while I’m still processing that first concern. “Pavel’s heard talk about investigations of people who’ve been off-Kemya recently, and the communications Britta’s been able to access confirm that Kurra, who was pursuing us on Earth, has returned Kemya-side and is attempting to search out our group here.”

  “Just remember she doesn’t know anything,” Britta pipes up. “If someone comes to talk to you, stick to the cover story, and we’re good.”

  My skin goes cold. If Kurra crosses paths with me, I don’t think any story is going to cover it. Face to face . . . I remember those icy eyes fixed on mine when she threatened me back on Earth. She’d recognize me despite my disguised appearance.

  “The final reason I wanted to gather all of you together,” Thlo says, “is to remind you that we haven’t lost anything essential. We’re still here, and we are still just as powerful as Jeanant promised we would be. Stay proud of that.”

  She makes a dismissive gesture. When everyone stands, Isis squeezes past the others to join me. “I need to talk to Skylar,” she says to Jule. “I’ll make sure she gets back to your apartment.”

  He shifts his weight, and then nods. As he leaves with the others, Isis motions for me to sit back down. Win lingers to approach Thlo. He says something to her in a low voice, but she seems to cut him off and sends him out. I try to catch his eye, but his gaze flits past mine, his serious expression unwavering. Thlo exchanges a look with Isis that I can’t read, and heads out herself.

  “I’ll keep this quick,” Isis says, her tone so urgent my attention snaps back to her. “I think you need to know,” she goes on. “Because of your position here, and how precarious it might be. Britta and I suspect someone inside the group leaked information about when we’d be in the tech bay.”

  “What?” I say. “To the Enforcers?”

  “Exactly,” she says grimly. “We’ve both scanned the networks. Britta can crack all but the most secure channels. There’s no reason we can find for those two Enforcers to have been patrolling those rooms at that time. And there were a few incidents, before the trip to Earth . . . Smaller things that we hoped were just an unlucky coincidence, but that’s starting to seem unlikely.”

  My mind trips back to that awful moment in the workroom as I watched the Enforcers stalk toward the bay where she and Britta were working.

  “I saw,” I say, with a fresh chill, “when we were watching the surveillance footage and the Enforcers were coming your way—one of them said something to the other, like he was suggesting they check one room, and the other dismissed it and kept going. As if she knew a specific place they needed to investigate.” As if it wasn’t just a random patrol.

  Isis’s eyes widen. “Then it’s even more likely they had inside information. Look, we’ve mentioned it only to Thlo, and she’s not convinced. She wanted everyone here today so she and the two of us could watch for unusual reactions. I can’t say I saw anything definitive . . . We’re not sure we can trust even Emmer, even though he seemed as startled as we were.”

  Thlo isn’t convinced? My chest tightens. I think she’s giving the problem more attention than Isis realizes. Her request that I report any tension in the rest of the group makes a lot more sense now. She must have already been wondering, watching for signs of betrayal. She gave me more responsibility than I knew.

  That’s why she kept this meeting in English, I’d bet—so I’d understand everything. So I’d have a chance at spotting a traitor. Emmer did seem uneasy, but then, why wouldn’t he be, when he was almost caught?

  “You really think someone would just turn on the rest of the group?” I ask. It’s hard to wrap my head around that. One of the faces around the table from me today tried to sabotage us. Tried to get Isis and Britta caught. Maybe more.

  Isis sighs. “I don’t want to think it. But Kemyate politics . . . they’re complicated. And people’s circumstances can change. Maybe it was an accident, the wrong comment overheard by the wrong person. We’ll be limiting access to the most crucial information from here on, to make it harder for anything essential to be passed on. I wanted to tell you so you know to be especially cautious. If someone asks you to do something you’re not sure is part of the general plan, you can call Britta or me and confirm.”

  “Of course,” I say. I can’t really trust anyone except Thlo, and Isis and Britta, I guess. Win? Jule?

  Isis is right about one thing: the most vulnerable person in this equation is me. “If they want to get the group in trouble,” I say, “why wouldn’t they have already pointed to me? If they interrogated me, it’d take the Enforcers no time at all to realize you brought me here illegally.”

  “I don’t know,” Isis says. “I hope it’s that, if the sabotage is purposeful, whoever’s turning on the group still cares enough about at least some of us that they don’t want us all arrested, only to cause enough setbacks that we’ll have to give up. Or it could be just that they’re not sure how much they can trust Security not to turn on them too if they reveal too much. Just . . . keep quiet, and keep your eyes open. We’ll do everything we can to protect you.”

  “All right,” I say. It’s not as if I have any other option.

  11.

  Jule heads to work shortly after Isis escorts me to the apartment, so I’m stuck there alone like a rabbit in a cage. After an hour or so of screwing up my current language lesson, I throw myself into my cross-country warm-up exercises and jog back and forth in the main room for a while, trying to burn off my nervous energy. I even consider Jule’s personal exercise cylinder, but my memory of the one at the fitness center makes me balk.

  My uneasiness lingers. Right now, someone could be revealing to the Enforcers who I really am and where to find me, and there’s no way I could stop them. Nowhere on the station, really, I could escape to. No chance of a reasonable trial. Earthlings have no rights here; that’s been made abundantly clear to me.

  I sit down on a bench, and the padded surface beneath me starts to feel too solid, my body too flimsy. I make myself breathe deeply, counting the faint ripples in the maroon floor.

  No matter what else is going on with him, I can’t believe Win would turn against the mission he risked so much for just weeks ago. And I saw how anxious Jule was to get Isis and the others out. Mako and Pavel have been with Thlo for ages . . . but Isis is right, circumstances can change. Neither of them has seemed totally happy to have me involved. It’s been hard to read Emmer too. And Tabzi . . . Tabzi has been nothing but upbeat. On the other hand¸ she left just before those Enforcers turned up. And she’s so new to the cause Thlo didn’t think it wise to bring her along on the expedition to Earth.

  Or it could be no one. It could be, l
ike Isis said, simply a careless comment that was overheard by the wrong person.

  I itch to hash it out further, but I have no one to talk to. I find myself trying to imagine how Angela would respond to the dilemma, thoughtfully optimistic, or Mom, with her zealous determination, but this situation is so far beyond anything they’d ever imagined, that just leaves me homesick. I can’t even help the way Thlo wanted, by observing, while I’m trapped in here.

  Or maybe I can. I go to my computer terminal.

  There isn’t much on the network about anyone in the group—Thlo has probably encouraged them to keep a low profile. I find a recording of Tabzi with her mother, an elegant woman who seems to be important, given the way the camera focuses on her and her companions for several minutes at some official function. There’s an accolade for productivity in the resource management department from a few years back, for a Mako I assume is the one I know. A list of scores from a simulation racing competition that an Emmer placed highly in. Nothing that gives me any sort of lead.

  Jule hasn’t come back by what feels like dinnertime. I distract myself by examining every packet in his cupboards, testing how much of the instructions I can read. I only pause over a couple characters, but that doesn’t make me feel particularly accomplished. I keep imagining Kurra clicking handcuffs around Jule’s wrists—as if Kemyate police would use equipment that primitive—or striding down the hall toward this apartment with blaster in hand.

  Finally, I pick a meal and gulp it down, barely tasting it. The overhead lights dim, following the day and night schedule Jule’s programmed in, and I don’t bother to override them.

  Jule shows up just as I’m turning in for the night. I stop outside my bedroom door, relief flipping my stomach.

  “Sorry I was gone so long,” he says. He looks weary. “Work took longer than I expected.”

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “As far as I can tell.”

  Stupid question, I think as I lie down on the double bunk. Nothing’s okay. Nothing’s going to be remotely okay until I’m back on Earth, where air moves of its own accord and light changes with the sun rather than computerized instructions. Where there are windows to let both in.

  I drift off somehow, but those images follow me into my dreams. I am falling through windows and up into the sky. The sun blinks out. Darkness closes around me, pressing in like a frigid blanket rolled tighter, and tighter . . .

  I wake up, heart thudding, in the dark of the bedroom. An icy sweat has broken over my skin. The bunk is too hard beneath me, the walls too close. Too there. I am a flimsy piece of tissue, about to be crushed. There’s no way out.

  My breath starts coming in gasps. I fumble with the computer controls, my shaky hand bringing up a view of the sky outside. The cold black sky spotted with stars in completely different constellations from the ones I know. The sight of the endless space has the exact opposite effect from what I’d hoped. It’s too much, too ready to swallow me whole. I swipe it away and curl into a ball on the bunk, my forehead pressed against my knees. Three times three is nine. Three times nine is twenty-seven. Three times twenty-seven is eighty-one. My thoughts fragment around the numbers. I can’t hold on to them. A cry builds in my throat.

  Nothing is okay and everything is wrong and there’s never been any place I belonged less than right here. This world is trying to suffocate me.

  I register a faint shift in the air—the opening of the door—but I don’t open my eyes. “Skylar?” Jule’s voice comes, thick with sleep and worry. “Are you all right? Are you sick?”

  I manage to shake my head. No, I’m not all right. No, I’m not sick. “It’s just . . . thinking too much,” I force out, which is the best explanation my jumbled mind can form.

  I shudder, and he’s beside me, crouching by the bunk, his hand on my temple, then my shoulder. A gentle squeeze. “Listen to me, okay?” he says. “You’re here for a reason. You’re going to protect your planet.”

  I laugh roughly. “Great job I’ve done of that so far.”

  “You found the pieces of Jeanant’s weapon. You showed us his last moments. You helped find materials we can skim.”

  His thumb slides back and forth over the peak of my shoulder, following the rhythm of his voice. His words slowly penetrate the frantic haze in my head.

  “You’ll see the weapon constructed, and head home with us, and everything will be the way you remember,” Jule goes on. “And then you can forget this crummy place forever.”

  The laugh that jolts out of me feels more real this time. I swallow thickly, suddenly aware of the cool streaks of tears drying on my face.

  “Blue sky,” Jule murmurs. “Bright sun. Your house. Your city. It’s still there. Just a few days across the galaxy.”

  I’m not sure what else he says. For a time, all I register is the rise and fall of his voice and the thought of home. As my panic fades, exhaustion takes its place, and I drift off.

  The next time I wake up, I’m lying on my side with my arm as a pillow. There’s a comfortable pressure by my elbow and forehead.

  I open my eyes cautiously. Jule’s still here. The room’s lights are starting to glow with the space station version of dawn, revealing him leaning against the edge of the bunk, his face just beyond my line of sight. He must have fallen asleep sitting with me, drawing me out of my panic. I think that’s his jaw resting against my forehead. His hand is cupped around my elbow, holding me steady.

  Apparently he goes to bed shirtless. His muscled chest rises and falls against the side of the bunk, bare except for a sparse trail of dark hair down his sternum. Watching it, I have the urge to trace the contours of those muscles, to learn how the skin there feels. Or to scoot closer to him, wrapping myself in the warmth of his protection while I fall back asleep. Then I think of last night, of how unhinged I was, and all I want to do is cringe away.

  The hand that was on my elbow lifts to brush a strand of hair away from my face, and I realize he’s not sleeping anymore.

  My pulse stutters. I’m afraid to move. I’m afraid my heart will burst if I don’t.

  I tilt my head toward him as his hand drops to the bunk. He shifts back slightly, still so close I can see the pattern of shades in his dark eyes, flecks of copper that I never noticed before amid the deeper brown. There’s a lot I hadn’t noticed, I think distantly. He reaches to caress my cheek, and a wave of one particular want rushes through me.

  I don’t know who moves first—maybe it’s both of us, a perfect alignment of random points—but his lips part as if he’s about to speak, and no sound comes out, and then there’s no room for talking because those lips are grazing mine. The tingling thereness of him ripples through me in a much more pleasant way than the tremors that racked me last night. Making me feel that much more there too.

  I run my hand over the cropped coils of his hair, pulling him closer, and he kisses me harder. His arm slides around my back, sparking warm shivers through the thin fabric of my shirt. I tip back, instinctively making room for him on the bunk, and he follows. His mouth leaves mine to tease the edge of my jaw. His fingers slip down, finding the sliver of bare skin at my waist where my shirt’s ridden up, and suddenly it’s too much, he’s too there. My lungs seize up and my hand balls against his neck. The rest of my body must tense too, because Jule freezes, and then starts to draw back.

  “No,” I manage to say. “Don’t go.” I lean my head against his shoulder, dragging in the crisp filtered air and expelling it, until the feeling of free fall fades. Jule doesn’t move.

  “I’m okay,” I say quietly. He nods and eases away, already turning toward the door as he stands.

  “I’ll start breakfast,” he says. The stiffness in his voice jabs right through me. He thinks I’m crazy. How could he think anything else?

  When the door closes, I press my palms against my face. My head’s still groggy with sleep. My mouth is tender. I don’t even know what I’m upset about. Do I wish we hadn’t begun or that we ha
dn’t stopped? Or maybe just that we hadn’t stopped like that?

  I have never wanted to call Angela more than right now, to hear her cheerful voice telling me what the hell I’m supposed to do, or at least reassuring me I haven’t been a total wacko. But Angela is thousands of light years away. All I have is me. I push myself upright.

  Maybe I’ll be able to think clearer when I have some food in me. I can’t just hide in here until Jule leaves. I’m pretty sure Angela would tell me that’d look even worse.

  I comb my fingers through my hair and look down at my rumpled clothes, but it’s not as if he hasn’t already seen them.

  That thought gives me pause. Last night I woke up in a panic, and he came. He came, even though I hadn’t made a sound, as far as I remember.

  The monitoring sensor. His explanation, my first day here, comes back to me. It must have picked up my scattered heartbeat, my erratic breaths, all the symptoms of a panic attack that can look like physical distress. Good to know the sensor works as intended?

  That doesn’t explain how he understood how to help me, though.

  I step out cautiously. Jule is standing by the cabinets, the table already raised, the square orange packet that tastes vaguely like sausages wrapped in buttered toast, if the sausages were greaseless and the toast made of a cardboard compound, warming by my usual spot. I guess he’s noticed that one’s my favorite, as Kemyate breakfasts go.

  He’s put on a shirt. I kind of wish he hadn’t, and then chide myself for wishing that.

  “How did you know?” I ask, as soon as he turns around. “Last night. That I was . . .” Freaking out. Falling apart. There aren’t any words for it that I want to use. “You weren’t confused. You knew what to say.”

  Jule rubs the back of his neck. “Win told us how your sensitivity to the shifts works and how they, and the Traveling, could affect you. I was there when he went over with Isis and Britta how to help you if you had a . . . reaction. That you need to focus on something concrete, something that matters to you. And it’s pretty obvious what you think’s most important.”