“No, you don’t understand. Daddy had no intention of letting the colony have it. He was prepared to leave it in orbit unless the Council gave him special treatment. Madam Coordinator refused. That’s when he started negotiating with Councilor Layton—”
“Oh,” said Jeremy.
“There were a lot of private messages and finally Councilor Layton told Daddy not to worry. Daddy got very happy about something. When I asked him, he said that Councilor Layton was going to handle the political problem. I didn’t realize what he meant. I should have known, shouldn’t I? If I’d said something then, maybe somebody could have done something, but I don’t want anybody to think that I was part of it, because I’m not, I wasn’t—”
Jeremy stopped her then. “Nobody was thinking that.”
She wiped her nose and looked to him. “How do you know that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? HARLIE trusted you.”
“Oh.” But she didn’t stop sniffling.
“Does anybody else know about those private messages?”
“I don’t think so.”
Jeremy fell silent, thinking.
I looked across to Charles. “HARLIE’s going to leak them. Isn’t he?”
“Probably. If he can find them.”
But J’mee wasn’t finished. “Jeremy—when we deliver this video, when it gets broadcast and everybody knows what happened, won’t they see that Daddy was part of it too. What’ll happen to him?”
Charles and Jeremy and I all looked at each other. None of us knew what to say. We wanted to tell her everything would be all right—but she’d just confessed that her dad was part of Coordinator Layton’s conspiracy.
Finally, Jeremy said, “Did your father know what Councilor Layton was planning?”
J’mee shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“If he didn’t know, then he’s not an actual accomplice. He might . . . I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. There are a lot of ways this could come down, J’mee. It all depends on what he knew and when he knew it. And what he’ll do when he finds out the truth. That’s why we have to show him the video. If your dad is as smart as you say—”
“My dad knows all the smartest ways to be stupid,” said J’mee. She folded her arms, as if that was the end of the conversation.
I cleared my throat, my way of saying that I had something to say. “Well, maybe you can convince him to be a little smarter than that?”
J’mee sniffled one last time. She lowered her mask so she could wipe her nose on her sleeve. “I don’t want to show him the video. I don’t want to show anyone the video. I’m afraid of what’ll happen.” And then, looking around at us, she said, “But—we have to, don’t we?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” said Charles. He reached over and held her hand.
J’mee nodded slowly, then pushed herself up to her feet. “All right, let’s go.”
We still had a long way to go. Commander Khuri had been right. The tunnel was long, so long that we started wondering if we were going the right way, but Jeremy said that some of the lava tubes were fifty klicks straight downhill, and this one was nowhere near the longest.
At one point, I started giggling. Jeremy asked me what was so funny. I said, “The noise is off. Even if I wanted to turn it on again, I couldn’t.” Then I had to explain to him about the implant and the noise and why I’d gone to Doctor Rhee.
“Why did you do that, Kyle?”
“I wanted to find out who I really am. And I wanted to know . . . I wanted to know who you really care about.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, here’s your answer. I knew there was something different about you at X-Station. I didn’t know what it was. Now I do. I like it. I like you this way. Are you going to turn the chip back on?”
“Maybe. Eventually. But if it doesn’t work right, I’ll turn it off and leave it off. Is that okay with you?”
“Of course it is.” He patted my shoulder and aimed the light forward. “Better be careful now. It’s getting steep.” He called back. “How are you doing, Charles?”
“I’ve had better days.” Then he added, “I’m coming. I’m coping.”
J’mee called, “He’s doing the counting and breathing exercise. He’s fine.”
When we finally reached the bottom of the tunnel, it branched. We went through several narrow caverns—some of them looked like they’d been carved, others looked like fractures in the lava, places where the weight of the different layers had broken apart, leaving narrow chasms and sometimes even wide corridors. There were boards bridging the worst of the cracks—and in one place a rope bridge went across the widest. As tired as we were, we picked our way slowly and cautiously. My feet hurt—and both my legs, and my good arm too.
Finally, the passage came to a tunnel that had been carved, the walls were too even and scored with regular patterns, the evidence of a digging-bot. “This tunnel was made,” I said. “Didn’t the seismic monitors reveal the digging?”
Jeremy laughed. “How do you hide a noise, Kyle?”
“Hide it under a louder noise?”
“Right. Whenever Winterland digs a tunnel or remodels a cavern, somewhere an X-Station tunnel is being dug as well.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” I thought for a moment. “Can I ask? How many people are living at X-Station?”
“You can ask,” Jeremy said. “I can’t answer. I don’t know. That’s one of the biggest secrets. Not even all the exiles know. The whole thing is supposed to be a safety valve for the colony. It’s a long story.”
“You can tell me later.”
“No, I can’t.” He looked to me. “Seriously, Kyle. I can’t. I don’t know very much. Only what I need to know. And that’s almost nothing. We’re not supposed to talk about it. And you’re better off not knowing—because you can’t reveal what you don’t know.”
“Oh,” I said. “I guess that makes sense too.”
We stopped talking for a while and concentrated on the trek. Every so often, the corridor branched. Mostly we took the right branch, but not every time. I had long since lost all sense of direction. Jeremy didn’t have a map, but he had a list of specific directions. Up, down, left, right. As long as we followed them exactly, we’d get where we were supposed to go. There were no signs anywhere, no identifying marks, nothing that would help an unwelcome explorer find their way. I was glad we didn’t find anyone’s bones. That would have been bad. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling, just thinking about it.
And then finally, after what seemed like forever, we stopped for what Jeremy said would be our last rest. Here, he collected all but one of our flashlights, our air-masks and canteens, and whatever food we still hadn’t eaten—anything that would have been evidence that we’d been to X-Station. We didn’t talk much. I think we were all too tired to say anything.
Jeremy sat down next to me, put his arm around me and pulled me close. I didn’t mind, not even when he rumpled my hair and kissed my cheek. He whispered, “Hey, kiddo. It’s gonna be fine.”
“I know.”
He grunted. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Jeremy? Are you gonna be okay? Will you be able to find your way back?”
“I’m not going back the same way. No need to. From here, I’ll go back to the farm. Not the big one, one of the little ones that not very many people know about. One of the test beds. I’ll stay there until it’s safe. Once you get that video out, as soon as the storm breaks, the weather truck will start pinging its arrival. That should get a big crowd down to the docks. I’ll probably see you there.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” It was okay, we didn’t need to stinky promise.
“All right.” I took a deep breath. “I’m ready to go. Charles? J’mee?”
“We’re ready. Anytime.”
“HARLIE? You ready?”
The monkey was safe in my backpack. It chirped a single beep of readiness, then it went silent again.
“Okay, let’s roll.” I don’t know why we say, “Let’s roll.” I mean, it’s the right thing to say in a Rollagon. But it makes no sense at all when we’re walking. People don’t have wheels. But we say it anyway.
It wasn’t far to the end of the corridor. Here was a steep vertical tube with a ladder carved into the side. At the bottom was an access to a ventilation tube. Jeremy didn’t come with us. “This is it, kids. Make it count.” He levered Charles and J’mee down the tube, kissed me one last time, and pushed me after them.
At the bottom, the ventilation tube was narrow and we had to crawl. It was windy here—at some distant far end, this channel opened to the outside, catching the relentless winds coming in off Hella’s stormy ocean, but this deep in the ventilation system, we were safe. The air had been scrubbed and filtered and slowed down.
It was all explained in one of the videos I made about Winterland. The incoming air was irradiated at least a dozen times and passed through multiple air-turbines too. By the time it arrived at the settlement levels it was only a mild breeze—except during a super-storm. That’s when multiple sets of internal louvres had to shift their pitch, blocking the worst of the assault, bringing the speed of the wind in the vents down to a manageable velocity.
Usually we only got five or six super-storms in winter, but sometimes it was hard to tell, because sometimes the storms were so big and lasted so long and kept hitting us one after the other that sometimes it felt like it was just one big super-storm that lasted all winter long. Nobody knew for sure if this storm would break or last for months. The weather software couldn’t keep up with Hella’s atmosphere. It would be hard for even a heavy-duty weather truck to travel the few kilometers around the cinder cone to get from X-Station to Winterland Station. But Captain Skyler said they would do it—as soon as the video went public.
There were multiple branches here, but Jeremy had given us very precise instructions. But even if he hadn’t, the interiors here were clearly labeled and identified. There were even maps showing airflow and exits and where each vent came out. And warnings not to go up the several lava tubes that connected, they hadn’t been fully explored.
Captain Skyler had picked out the safest exit for us. It was the one where we would be least likely to be seen or caught. It was a vent that served one of the cargo corridors, not the big one, not even the second deeper one, but the one that was used for overflow, when a whole bunch of trucks all came in at the same time.
If the last convoy had gotten out of Summerland in time, those trucks would have been parked here and crews would have been already servicing them, getting them ready for the spring migration. There was always a lot of work to do. I’d helped with the cleaning two years in a row—all the Class 1’s did, that was almost everybody under the age of three. The Class Zeros were still in diapers. Hella Rule Number One: If you’re old enough to work, you work. If you want calories, you gotta spend calories.
But there was no one here now and only a few work lights remained on. Just enough to keep people from banging into things. It was a large empty space, dark and gloomy.
A thick screen blocked the vent, but it could be unlatched from the inside. We wouldn’t have to kick it out or shout for help either. It came out high on the wall just above the catwalk and that was a little problem, especially for Charles and J’mee. They were still thinking in terms of Earth gravity. But eventually, they had no choice. J’mee backed out of the tube, and she and Charles held each other’s wrists. He lowered her as far as he could and when he let go she only had to drop another two meters to the catwalk. I couldn’t do the math in my head without the noise, but we figured it couldn’t be much worse than a two-meter fall on Earth and the catwalk wasn’t rigid, it might have enough give to soften the impact.
When she was ready, she let go. She fell and stumbled, and she cried out too, but more from the shock of landing than from any pain. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Then it was Charles’ turn. I could only hold onto him with one arm, but J’mee stood up beneath him to catch him and help break his fall. Charles said it would be okay, because J’mee was stronger than both of us. He was right. She caught him and even though he came down clumsy, neither one of them fell.
Finally, it was my turn. I had no one to lower me, and my left arm was in a cast, so that complicated things too. I had a slightly higher drop—but J’mee and Charles were both there to catch me. It was awkward, but nobody fell down and nobody got hurt. We all looked at each other and laughed, I don’t know why, we just felt silly.
“Okay,” said Charles. “We gotta get serious. J’mee?”
She nodded. “Give me a minute. I have to—” She wiped her nose and sniffed. “We had to leave our dog behind. I miss her so much. Daddy wouldn’t let me bring her, he said—he said a lot of things—” Her voice broke. “It still hurts. I want—I want my dog, and—” Then she said, “Okay, I’m crying now, let’s go.”
We hurried along the catwalk, to another one that crossed the top of the cavern, and then down the ladder-tube. By the time we got to the bottom of the cavern, J’mee was sobbing loudly. “I didn’t want to leave her. She didn’t understand. She was barking and whining and jumping at the gate. I wouldn’t let go. Daddy had to drag me to the car. I didn’t want to go to the moon, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to come to Hella—I just want to go home.”
She was very convincing. I believed her.
We didn’t know if the reception chambers would be empty. There was a small caf here too and a row of offices, but we bypassed them by going through the tool and equipment bays. If there were no trucks here, there would be no service teams, and the tool bays would be deserted too. Only a few silent bots waited along the walls.
J’mee stifled a sob and looked around. “Where are we?”
I pulled her close as if I was comforting her, the same way Jamie used to comfort me. I pointed ahead. “We’re almost there. It’s just past the apartments. These are reserved for the service teams, so they should be empty. Just the other side is Broadway.”
I didn’t want to tell them that we were passing under live surveillance cameras. I was afraid they’d look up. We needed to hurry, so I said, “Don’t cry, J’mee. We’re almost there. See? Look?”
That was our agreed-upon signal for her to cry louder. As loud as she could. She started howling then. “Don’t let it get me! Don’t let it get me! I want to go home!”
Charles understood as well. “Come on,” he said. “Come on!”
We had to look tired and dirty and hungry, and we didn’t have to pretend. We were already tired and dirty and hungry. We hurried past the empty apartments, down past the decorative gardens, and into the passage that led to Broadway. There were people there, and they saw us; they turned and shouted. Several came running toward us. But we had to get to Broadway. We needed to attract a crowd, a big crowd—so we ran from them as if they were monsters from the caves.
“Don’t let them get me! Don’t let the monsters get me!” J’mee was shrieking now, almost incoherently. She charged ahead in a mad panic, with Charles and I doing our best to catch up to her, but she was faster than either of us.
Hella gravity is normal to me, but people born on Earth have trouble adjusting, they don’t have the muscle memory. They have to learn how to walk a whole new way, they have to learn how to run differently too. J’mee must have been practicing. With every step she threw herself forward, scrambling and bouncing like a terrified rabbit, always looking like she was about to stumble, but always catching herself each time. She hurtled through the gathering crowd like a bowling ball, even knocking aside a couple of people who tried to catch her.
And the noise she made—she wasn’t trying to make words anymore. She just sc
reamed and shrieked and waved her arms for everyone to get out of her way. She was warding off the invisible creatures—
“Booger-jacks!” I shouted. “There are booger-jacks in the caves! The booger-jacks are after us! Don’t let them get us!” Charles started shouting too. Some of the people chasing us stopped and looked back the way we came.
And then, finally, we were running up Broadway and there was a real crowd here, too many to push aside, they caught up with us, they surrounded us, and we collapsed into their arms, out of breath and too exhausted to speak. J’mee fell into someone’s arms, still sobbing. Charles went down onto his knees. Someone grabbed me into a restraining hug, I couldn’t see who. I just kept repeating the same words, over and over, “Booger-jacks in the caverns, in the tubes, we heard them, they chased us, we couldn’t find our way out, the booger-jacks are real, don’t let them get us!”
We must have been very convincing. I think we even believed it ourselves. Everything turned into a blur of faces and noises and confusing questions. Someone shoved a water bottle at me, I drank thirstily. I kept looking around, “Where’s Charles, where’s J’mee? Where’s my mother! I want to go home!” And always, “Don’t let them get us!”
I recognized one of the truck drivers. “Who’s after you, Kyle—?”
“Booger-jacks! In the caves! They chased us! We got lost!” I could hear J’mee crying. Charles was protesting something. And now, other voices started making themselves heard—authoritative voices. “They’re incoherent.”
“They’re in shock. Get them to Med-Bay—”
“No. These are pilgrimage kids. Take them to the executive Med-Bay—”
“Someone call Doctor Rhee.”
“What happened to them—?”
“We don’t know—”
“They’ve been lost for three days—”
“Isn’t that the little brain-bot?”
“Shut up! He can hear you!”
Someone tossed me over his shoulder. Other people lifted J’mee and Charles. We were carried somewhere at a run. A crowd of people surrounded us. A couple security guards came running, but the crowd ignored them. People shouted and even more people came running. I couldn’t see clearly, everything was bobbing up and down, but I could see enough to know that the crowd around us kept getting larger and louder. Everybody had questions or advice or simply kept repeating what they thought they’d heard.
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