The Clouded Sky
Page 28
“Couldn’t sleep?” Jule asks.
“Not really,” I say, blinking back to the present. “Big day, right? You want me to get some coffee going?”
“That,” he says, “would be spectacular. Won’t be getting any more of the good stuff after this trip.”
He skirts the table to slip his arm around me and kiss the side of my neck, and I manage not to tense too much. “You can wash up,” I say. “I’ll have breakfast ready when you’re done.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a grin and a mock salute, and heads into the bathroom.
True to my word, when he steps back out in a fresh set of clothes, I’ve set a steaming mug and a heated packet of the pseudo-pancakes I know are one of his favorites at his usual spot at the table. I grab a can of the calming beverage for myself.
“Not hungry?” Jule asks as I sit down.
“Already ate,” I say, which isn’t true—my stomach’s knotted too tight. “And I need this.” Which is.
He sips his coffee between bites of his meal, the swallows getting larger as it cools. I watch his hands. His fingers twitch as he smooths out the empty packet. He curls them into his palms.
Time to get this over with.
“So what’s the plan for your final payday?” I ask. “Get Davic to send the Enforcers to the Travel bay, or let them grab us on the ship?”
Jule has just taken another gulp of his coffee. He sputters, choking on it, and manages to swallow while wiping his mouth. For a second, the gaze that meets mine looks haunted. And then I know it’s true with a certainty that hadn’t quite hit me before.
“Davic?” he says. “Payday? What are you talking about, Skylar?”
“You know,” I say, fingering the edge of the can. I could drink ten of these and I don’t think they’d take the edge off my anger. My horror. “The guy I went to talk to yesterday. The guy who’s been passing on information about our group to the Security division via the head of Earth Travel. I assume the guy who’s responsible for the encrypted payments into your financial accounts.”
“My accounts.” He glances at the screen across the room, and back at me.
“I looked at your records,” I say before he can come up with some new argument. “I looked at them for a long time. I wanted to be wrong.”
His hands close around his mug. He takes a long drink from it, clutching it even after he’s set it back down as if it’s a life buoy. “Skylar . . .”
“Could you please just admit it?” I burst out. “You’ve been expecting me to stumble on something that points to you for—how long?” Every concern he’s raised about my “safety,” every way he tried to distract me, infatuate me, so I wouldn’t see clearly . . . My eyes are welling up. I swipe at them, glad to at least find no tears have leaked out. “Or do you think I’m so stupid I’d let you talk it all away?”
“I know you’re not stupid,” he says quietly.
That’s not really an admission, but it’s not another denial either. I square my shoulders. There’s one thing I need to know, before anything else. One reason we needed to have this conversation at all.
“What have you already told him about our plans to leave the station?”
His throat works. “Nothing,” he says. “I haven’t told anyone anything since . . . I never wanted to jeopardize the mission, Skylar. Everything can still go exactly the way we intended. I only ever gave him bits and pieces that I knew wouldn’t really set us back—”
“Britta and Odgan could have died,” I say, staring at him. “Britta’s still a mess. And Odgan and I were almost caught the other day when the lockdown started. Are you saying we didn’t matter?”
“No,” he protests. “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. With Britta, I programmed the message to send— It wasn’t supposed to get to him until after they’d be safely back. Just close enough that the Enforcers could believe something had happened, that the information was good and they’d been too slow. But that cargo hauler showed up and threw everything off. And he must have read the message the second it got to him, and had Silmeru call Security immediately. I thought they’d still have enough time.”
He cuts himself off, his mouth twisting. “I went too far. I could see that. That’s why I stopped. It wasn’t worth risking anyone else. The lockdown—that had nothing to do with me.”
There wasn’t a new payment after the lockdown. He sounds like he’s telling the truth. But he’s sounded like that an awful lot of times before. Last night, that whisper in my ear. I bite my lip.
“Why was it ever worth it? So you could pay for your dad’s gambling habit? You don’t even like him.”
“It’s not just about him,” Jule says. “My whole family . . . Our name used to be respected—people heard ‘Adka’ and they thought of the great scientists and tech developers in our past: my grandfather, his mother and uncle, their parents . . . A standard was set, and my dad and my aunt, they decided they could just coast on what we already had, let it skip a generation.” His tone turns bitter. “What a disappointment that his son, the first in the line, had no head for tech or science. He gave up on me. My grandfather, I thought he cared about more than that, but as soon as his mind started to go . . .” He stops, his voice dropping. “He’s refused to speak to me in three years. In most families, being a Traveler is almost as respected, you know? In most.”
“And how respected are people who snitch on their friends?” I can’t help asking.
“No one ever had to know.” Jule shifts as if uncomfortable in his seat. “I found out what Thlo was doing, and I knew she could pull it off, and when she did I wanted to be with her. I’d be one of the leaders of the new order. But it was taking time, and my father was burning through the family accounts, and my grandfather couldn’t understand he isn’t still lord over masses of wealth. I’d already used up most of the trust that was in my name, pulling them out of debt. In just a few months they’d have had to move to the lower sectors, sell off their collections, and everyone would have known. All I had to do was play the other side a little, make use of what I had. Sell little tidbits that weren’t going to hurt anyone anyway.” He shifts again, with a tremor of his shoulders. “Grandfather would have appreciated my resourcefulness.”
“So that’s all it’s about?” I feel even more sick. “You risked probably the only chance of getting my planet out of your people’s control, maybe the only chance for everyone here to move on to a real home, so your family wouldn’t have to . . . to live like most people on the station already do?”
“There’s more to it than that,” Jule says. “You can’t understand, without having lived here.”
“No,” I agree. “ I can’t understand putting a few people’s immediate comfort over the future of two entire worlds.”
“I told you, I only gave them leads I knew we could work around. Except for that last one—”
“You didn’t know for sure what would happen any of those times,” I interrupt. “You risked something like that, or something worse, with every single message you sent Davic.”
He opens his mouth, and seems to struggle to get out the words. “I stopped,” he says hoarsely. “I swear to you, I never meant to sabotage the mission, I never meant to give him any information about our leaving for Earth, and I haven’t.”
“How am I supposed to trust you now? You put all our lives—my life—everyone I care about—on the line for people even you admit don’t give a damn about you.”
“I’ll show you,” Jule says. “I can show you the records—”
He grips the table and starts to stand, but his legs tremble. He sits back down with a thump, frowning at himself.
“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think you should try going anywhere right now.”
His gaze shoots to me, startled. But Jule isn’t stupid either. A second later, he turns his attention to his mostly empty coffee mug. He swears rather profoundly in Kemyate.
I rest my hands on the tabletop, letting anger and satisfaction
flatten the pain from my voice. “I did my research first. There’s a lot of documentation about illegal drugs in the public network. You got a standard dose. I didn’t want to risk your life. I did wonder whether the tripping or the paralysis would come first. I guess now I know.”
“Skylar.” He makes a jerky movement, as if he meant to reach toward me but his hand only responded halfway. Then he starts to keel sideways toward the bench. He catches himself on one stiffly straight arm.
“I had to make sure you can’t send any messages now.” I get up. The calming drink sits heavy in my stomach. “If you meant everything you said, then you’ll just be out for five or so hours, and when it wears off you can pretend nothing ever happened and you’ve got no idea what any group of rebels might be doing.”
His eyelids flutter, but he keeps his gaze on me for a moment longer. “I never lied to you,” he says. “Things I didn’t tell you, but I—”
He coughs, and his arm teeters. He slumps over, sprawling on the bench. When I step back, I can’t see more than the side of his leg, the rest of him hidden by the table.
It’s too late to second-guess this. If the rest of us are going, we have to go now.
28.
I’d already bundled my backpack into the Kemyate sack Britta lent me. It takes only a few seconds to grab that from my room. I can’t bear to contact the others over the network and wait here. This apartment is no longer safe. And if this isn’t an emergency worthy of showing up at Win’s place, I don’t know what would be.
I’m heading for the front door when the large screen pings with an incoming call. I hesitate, glancing at the name. “Su Hika-Bai Ibtep.”
Thlo.
She wouldn’t be calling us herself unless it was important. And presumably anything she’d tell Jule, I need to know too.
I glance toward the table. I’m pretty sure Jule’s mind is totally gone by now, lost in his involuntary trip, but he might still be listening—and understanding. I duck into his bedroom.
“Skylar,” Thlo says when I accept the communication, a brief raise of her eyebrows her only show of surprise. “I need to confirm something with Jule. Is he not there?”
I couldn’t have asked for a better opening to tell her what’s happened. But as I draw in my breath, little details in her expression send a wrong sort of shiver through me. The tightening at the corner of her mouth. The slight stiffness to her posture.
I’ve seen that tension before—when I showed her the re-creation of my conversations with Jeanant. As if she’s bracing for something unpleasant.
What exactly is it she wants to “confirm” with Jule?
“No,” I say as my thoughts trip back over our interactions from the last few weeks. Her abrupt disinterest in my observations. Her insisting that I stop seeking out more information. Isis attributed it to overcaution . . . but maybe it was something else. Maybe Thlo didn’t need more observations or information because she’d figured out Jule was the traitor.
And then didn’t tell the rest of us? Why?
I spent too long here trusting others’ instincts over my own. And every bone in my body is balking at the idea of revealing to Thlo what I’ve discovered.
“He had to go out,” I continue. “Something to do with his father.”
From the pursing of Thlo’s lips when she nods, I suspect she’s at least aware of how fraught that relationship is. “Well, tell him to contact me when he returns.”
“If you want me to pass a message on to him . . .”
She shakes her head, and I see that tightening around her mouth again. “On this matter I need to speak with him directly.”
Either she knows and she can’t be bothered to warn me, or she doesn’t and she trusts Jule more than me, even though he’s the one who’s been betraying us this whole time. Even though I’ve risked my life uncovering that fact. My hands clench on my lap.
“Thlo,” I say before she can cut off the connection, and switch to Kemyate, “I’m not expendable.”
Her level gaze evaluates me. I hold it, keeping my chin steady. After a moment, a faint smile crosses her face. It looks more sad than pleased.
“No,” she says. “You’ve done better than I expected. I spoke partly out of frustration. And you must understand, when you’ve been working around the margins as long as I have, you learn to focus on people as practicalities first.”
“Jeanant didn’t,” I can’t help saying.
“No,” she agrees. “Jeanant was impractical enough to place every other life above his own—including those on your planet. And Jeanant is dead.” She pulls back, smoothing her hair behind her ear. “I have other concerns to attend to. Please tell Jule I need to talk to him.”
The image blinks to gray.
I stare at it for a few seconds longer, and then shake myself out of my daze. There are people here I do trust. It’s time to go.
My gut twists as I pass through the main room again. I don’t let myself look toward the table, but I can see it from the corner of my eye. The memory of the awful conversation I just had with Jule is overlaid with moments longer past: him comforting me after his friends’ visit, that first game of Rata and everything after, the kisses and caresses over the weeks . . .
I shove those thoughts aside as I hurry out, but my eyes have gone watery. I’m blinking hard and swallowing the lump in my throat as I slip into the shuttle stop alcove, and don’t register the figure that was just coming around the bend from the neighboring sector until a voice calls out.
“Excuse me. Could you wait a minute so I can speak with you?”
Kurra. I’d recognize that sharp tone anywhere. My body goes rigid. I jab the summon panel, every other emotion scattering in my panic. I can’t face her, not now of all times.
Footsteps tread along the floor beyond the alcove. I tense to run, but there’s nowhere to go. Back in Jule’s apartment, I’d be trapped. She’ll have her weapon on her, that numbing blaster—if I take off down the hall, I won’t have a chance. I mash my thumb against the panel again, as if I can implore the shuttle to arrive faster.
A public shuttle pulls up with a sigh. Kurra’s footsteps have sped up, presumably because I didn’t respond. If she hears my voice, that might bring her even faster. I dash past the doors the second they open, earning a startled look from the middle-aged woman already on route. “Wait!” Kurra shouts, sprinting around the corner of the alcove. Our eyes meet for an instant. She springs forward, the doors click shut, and the shuttle speeds away.
I shudder. Was there recognition on her face? I’m not sure it matters. She knows I was evading her; that’ll be enough reason for suspicion. I have to get off. Win said something, before, about the Enforcers tracing the shuttles.
“Sorry,” I say to the woman, who’s goggling at me, and tap in a sector close ahead. The shuttle slows immediately. I rush out the second the gap between the doors is wide enough, dart a look up and down the hall, and take off in the opposite direction from Jule’s apartment.
I just need to put a little distance between Kurra and me, then catch another shuttle, and—
No. The metallic flavor of fear fills my mouth at the realization. I used the fake profile Isis made for me to call that last one. Kurra’s probably already lifted the file. Maybe already determined it’s falsified. If I use it again, she’ll know exactly where I am.
I jog on, rehearsing Win’s address like a mantra. 23-8-17. 23-8-17. Will Isis’s trick with the surveillance footage still work if the Enforcers are looking specifically for me? All I can do is hope—and hurry.
Four sectors along, I spot one of the maintenance staircases and hurry down it. It reminds me of my earlier explorations of the station, when I spied on Tabzi and her friends. Shame prickles through me. She really has been on our side the whole time, so much more than Jule. She’s put her standing with her family on the line to trick her brother into lending us this ship. There’s no way she’ll be able to hide her involvement when the group returns from Earth.
I keep on at a steady lope, only slowing the few times I spot someone up ahead in the halls. The first two instances, it’s just a local resident headed to or from a shuttle stop. The third, it’s a young man with an Enforcer belt around his waist. I hang back until he heads into an apartment, and then I race past to the next sector.
I feel as though I’ve run a marathon by the time I reach Win’s door. I stop for a moment to catch my breath and swipe my hair back from my face. After a moment’s hesitation, I knock.
I wait what feels like a long time, and no one answers. But immediately after my second knock, a willowy woman with fluttery dark bangs opens the door. Her eyes, a slightly darker shade of Win’s deep blue, take me in with a quick sweep.
“I’m sorry,” she says with an apologetic smile. “I wasn’t sure if I’d heard right at first.”
She’s wearing loose slacks and a tank top that make me think 1960s hippie—in Kemyate-textured fabric, though not the typical trim styling, as if the maker was trying to be authentic to the Earth template with the only materials on hand. Given what I’ve heard about Win’s family, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.
“Is Win here?” I say, hoping my answering smile isn’t too tight.
“Come in,” she says. “Is he expecting you?”
“Yes,” I lie, remembering how odd it must be for anyone to be making social calls while the lockdown’s in place. “It has to do with work.”
The apartment she motions me into is the same size and layout as Isis and Britta’s. A boy who looks about twelve sprawls on the floor opposite the doorway, poking at a tablet. By one corner, a lean middle-aged man with a sharp chin that reminds me of Win’s is peering down at a picture he has propped up on a makeshift easel. A painting, I realize, of a couple strolling hand in hand down one of the station’s hallways. Other small canvases clutter the walls between the cabinets and doors. Scenes from around the station—a cafeteria panorama, the domed ceiling of the assembly hall, a cargo hauler sailing across a starry sky—and ones I assume were inspired by footage from Earth—forests and farmlands and the facades of Victorian houses.