Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  It felt crowded with spirits. Both shuttle bays had been the scenes of such death and loss, he was pretty sure the crew avoided them. He didn’t like being here himself.

  Seth ducked behind the shuttle craft and jogged to the com station near the air-lock control panel. He fired up his father’s portable computer and hooked into the ship’s computing system via the universal port, hoping that his father’s passwords had not been changed. As head pilot of the Empyrean, Mason Ardvale’s level of computer access would have been second only to Captain Jones’s. Mason probably wasn’t officially supposed to allow his passwords to be automatic, even on his own computer, but before the attack, everyone had been lax about security.

  “Come on, come on,” Seth whispered.

  The computer flashed an access screen to the ship’s central computers. Seth held his breath and waited for his computer to automatically log on to the ship’s system. If it did, he was home free. If it didn’t, he’d have to drop the computer and run like hell.

  The screen winked once and flashed the words “Access granted.”

  “Thanks for being such a slacker, Dad,” Seth muttered under his breath. As quickly as he could, he located the software that controlled the surveillance system and scanned the lines of code that governed the motion detectors. It took him almost fifteen agonizing minutes to find the code that he needed, and when he found it, his jaw dropped.

  Max must have already altered the code. He’d made precisely the change that Seth had intended, disabling the motion detection software, but leaving the cameras themselves intact. Impressive, given that Max was an idiot. Then again, if he could tamper with the thrusters, he ought to be smart enough to do this.

  Ought to be. But was he? It didn’t sit well.

  Seth shook his head. It must have been Max who had done all this. No one else had a motive.

  Seth folded up his father’s computer, tucked it under his arm, and jogged out of the shuttle bay. He disappeared into the outer stairwell again, but he crouched on the landing. At least now he didn’t have to worry about keeping one step ahead of the video surveillance.

  This might give him the time he needed to find Max. Where would he go to hide?

  If Max was smart he’d go someplace out of the way and lie low, but Max was stupid and was ruled by petty appetites. During Seth’s brief stint as ship’s Captain, more than once he’d reprimanded Max for being drunk while on duty. Max had even broken a little boy’s arm pulling him away from the blades of a combine. If Max had been sober, he probably could have saved the kid without hurting him. Seth had let it go at the time but lived to regret it later.

  The first thing Max would probably want after getting out of the brig was alcohol. The distillery wouldn’t be such a bad hiding place, actually, because distilling grain alcohol would be the last thing Kieran Alden would allow the crew to do. Probably no one went there.

  Seth took the stairs two at a time until he reached level 7, then sneaked into the corridor just outside the granary bays. There was no one in the corridor, but he could hear the voices of people working to harvest the wheat. A film of dust from the harvest had drifted through the doors to coat the floor of the corridor. Seth slid along the wall and ducked into the distillery, painfully aware that he was leaving footprints. He must be leaving traces of himself everywhere.

  The sharp smell of alcohol stung his nostrils and made his eyes water. The lights were dim in this small room, which resembled a factory. Masses of tentacle tubing snaked along the walls and over the ceiling. A complicated system of beakers and carafes covered the metal countertops. Seth paused, listening, and he saw droplets still clinging to the spigot of the gin still. Gin was Max’s poison of choice. He was definitely here.

  “Max,” Seth whispered, “it’s me, Seth.”

  Nothing stirred, but Seth could sense him here, listening.

  “We’re in the same boat, Max. It’s not like I’m going to turn you in,” Seth whispered. “And I don’t want to hide out together, either. I just want to talk.”

  Still no answer.

  Seth crept down the narrow passage between the countertops, eyes on the floor. When he reached the end of the room, he found a circle of what looked like crumbs.

  “Max, come on. We can help each other.”

  “I don’t need you,” a gruff voice muttered.

  Seth turned and saw Max crouched inside a stainless steel cabinet, bleary eyed, head wobbling on top of his meaty neck. Max was only fourteen but he was as physically powerful as a grown man.

  “Jesus, you’re drunk.” This was going to be easy.

  “Just celebrating.”

  “What if you need to run?”

  “They won’t find me.”

  “If they do, there’s nowhere to go. You’ll be trapped.”

  Max thought about it for a minute, his bloodshot eyes swimming in their sockets, then finally eased himself out of his cabinet. When Max stood, Seth was assaulted by a strong odor of gin and stale perspiration. “Where sh-should we go?” he slurred.

  “Somewhere we can talk,” Seth said, and grabbed hold of the idiot’s elbow to steady him.

  “Wait,” Max said, reaching toward the row of bottles that lined the shelves above him.

  Seth jerked him away from it and pulled him to the doorway of the distillery. When he was sure the way was clear, he pulled the weaving Max along the corridor to the outer stairwell and dragged him down several flights until they reached the orchards. The trees would be in their winter dormancy by now, so there would be no reason for anyone to come here. Seth pulled Max into the back corner behind a thicket of blueberry bushes. The boys crouched on the cold soil, hands tucked under their arms for warmth, and Seth waited for Max to catch his breath.

  Max didn’t look good. There were bluish circles under his eyes, and the skin around his mouth seemed especially pale.

  “You doing okay?” Seth said, though he felt no sympathy. He deftly turned on his father’s computer and enabled the audio recording software. He’d been worried about doing this in front of Max, but the boy was so drunk, he didn’t notice.

  “Got a cramp in my gut,” Max said, and doubled over.

  “That was a good idea, those thruster bursts,” Seth said casually. “Created a nice diversion for us.”

  “Yeah,” Max said absently.

  “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?” Max gasped, massaging his middle.

  “How did you program the thrusters to misfire like that?”

  Max looked at him in surprise. “I thought you did that.”

  “Come on, Max. Level with me. Who am I going to tell?”

  “Seriously. I figured you must have done it. I wouldn’t know how to do a thing like that.”

  Seth searched Max’s face and saw that he was being truthful. “What about the surveillance software?” Seth asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “What about it?” Max said irritably.

  Who, then? Seth wondered. “Did you see who let us out?”

  Max held his stomach, eyes screwed shut, panting. “No. I woke up when I heard the door to my cell click open, but they were already gone.”

  “And Harvey?”

  “Didn’t see any guards,” Max said.

  “Any ideas about who might have let us out?”

  “Waverly was the only one who came to visit you,” the boy said through a grimace, hands massaging his middle. “No one came to see me.”

  “That’s true,” Seth said haltingly.

  Max doubled over, wincing, and Seth waited while he puffed and moaned. After what seemed a long time, Max leaned back again. “Oh, that was bad.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “You think I’m going to tell you anything?”

  “Fine.” Seth got up to leave, regretting that he’d wasted his time trying to talk to this moron. “Don’t follow me.”

  “Wait,” Max said weakly. His hand gripped his stomach again, and he leaned up on on
e elbow. “You know, I think I’m sick.”

  “You shouldn’t drink.”

  “I think it’s something I ate.…”

  “Rotten food?”

  “Bread and miso spread someone left for me. I grabbed it on my way out.” He doubled over and vomited up a foul-smelling greenish liquid. His head lolled backward; his lips were turning blue.

  “God, Max. You are sick.”

  “No kidding,” Max said, then his head swung back on his neck, farther than seemed physically possible, and suddenly he was snoring violently. Seth felt Max’s pulse at his wrist; his heart was racing.

  Seth had seen food poisoning. He’d had it several times. This was something else, something serious.

  “Max!” Seth held the boy’s head upright to straighten out his airway. Max opened his eyes. “We can’t stay here!” Seth stood and pulled on Max’s arms. Nodding, Max tried to get his feet under him, but he stumbled into Seth’s legs and back onto the ground, lolling, boneless. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere under his own power.

  “Damn it,” Seth spat. After a moment’s consideration, he jogged to the doorway and checked to make sure the corridor was still clear, then jogged back to Max and heaved him up over his sore shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again!”

  Max was even heavier than Harvey. Seth felt his vertebrae practically scraping together as he lurched onto the main path of the orchard and hurried to the central elevator bank. Already his legs were shaking from the strain. There was no way he could carry Max all the way up to the infirmary.

  He put Max down outside the elevator doors and shook him until he opened his eyes. “Max! I’m sending you to the infirmary so they can pump your stomach.”

  “No! They’ll put me back in the brig!”

  “Max, listen to me. You’ve been poisoned.”

  Max’s head hit the wall behind him with a thud, and he started snoring again. Seth shook him. “Max! You have to stay awake for one more minute, okay? When you get to the infirmary tell them you’ve been poisoned. Can you do that?”

  Max waved Seth away and cuddled against the wall.

  “Max!” Seth reared back and slapped him across the face.

  Max’s eyes flew open, and he looked at Seth in surprise.

  “Stay awake. For one minute. Okay?”

  “Yes! Jesus!” The boy rallied, straightening his back and shaking his head. He was awake again.

  When the elevator arrived, Seth dragged the boy into it and pressed the button for the infirmary level before jumping back into the corridor. As the doors closed, he said again, “Remember to tell them, Max!”

  Max nodded at Seth as the elevator doors closed between them.

  Seth jogged for the outer stairwell, his mind racing. All along he’d thought the thruster misfire had been a diversion Max had set up to hide his escape from the brig. But what if their escape was the diversion? What if the misfire, and pushing the Empyrean off course, what if that was the real point, and whoever did it wanted to cast blame on Seth and Max?

  Who would do this?

  Seth disappeared into the freezing air of the outer stairwell.

  He never knew that by the time Max Brent’s elevator reached the infirmary, the boy had lost consciousness.

  That night he was deep in a coma.

  By morning, Max was dead.

  GALEN AND EDDIE

  Waverly dragged herself back to her quarters after a long day taking apart a tractor engine, looking for the reason it wouldn’t run, finding nothing, and putting it back together again. She’d gotten nothing accomplished, but it had taken all her mental power, and that’s all she wanted.

  With nothing else to do and nowhere to be, she went back to her empty apartment. The door closed behind her with a final-sounding thunk. She hung her tool belt on the hook by the door. One day the heavy tools would pull that hook right out of the wall. Repairing it would give her something to do at home other than brood …

  … And wonder where Seth Ardvale was. Surely he would contact her eventually? If he did, she should know ahead of time what she would say to him, how she would act. But her mind was a blank. Too much had happened. She didn’t know Kieran anymore; she didn’t even know herself. Who could say what this new Waverly would do if Seth Ardvale came knocking?

  After she got dressed for bed, she made herself a cup of chamomile tea, then went into the living room to drink it. She lovingly touched her mother’s abandoned loom, paused for months now on the same aqua-colored stripe of an elaborate wool blanket, half-finished. The wool smelled earthy and clean, and the rough texture was comforting against the tender skin of her wrist.

  “You’ll finish it,” she whispered, and set her tea down on the dining-room table, where she knew it would leave a ring. She didn’t care. There ought to be some proof that a human being was living here.

  She went into her pitch-dark bedroom and plopped onto her mattress, stared at the black outline of the Raggedy Ann doll that had sat in the rocking chair opposite her bed since she was a baby. The doll used to frighten her when she was a little girl. She never liked toys that were meant to be children; there was something morbid about them. But now the doll was Waverly’s favorite thing to look at as she fell asleep, because her mother had made it for her.

  Waverly screwed her eyes shut, tried to block out her last conversation with Kieran, the dark way he’d looked at her from over his tented fingers. They’d reached a sort of détente, but she saw the calculating way he watched her leave his office. Some strange alchemy had changed him into someone who placed her on the outside, in the enemy camp, as if he’d never known her at all.

  But then, hadn’t she come to feel that way about him, too?

  It was useless; she’d never sleep like this. She got up and went into the master bedroom, where she turned on the light. Her mother’s double bed had remained rumpled and unmade ever since the day of the attack. Looking at the messy room helped Waverly believe that her mother would come back someday to straighten the bedclothes, hang her nightgown on the hook by the door, put her rouge and lip balm in the top drawer of the dresser, dust the framed picture of Waverly that hung on the wall.

  She wished she could talk to her mother about Seth. Regina Marshall had always been a warm, accepting person, and she’d never approved of Waverly’s skeptical nature. She would likely say that Seth was just an angry boy who lost his mother and had to live with Mason Ardvale, which would be enough to spoil anyone’s mood. Seth had learned his lesson, and his being out of the brig wasn’t going to put anyone in danger, not even Kieran.

  “He’s a good soul,” Regina had once said about Seth. “He’s just misunderstood.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” Waverly said into the empty apartment.

  The closet door stood open, and Waverly passed a hand through her mother’s clothes, stirring up her sandalwood scent. Regina’s black sweater hung askew on a hanger, and Waverly put it on, rubbed the cashmere against her arms.

  On the top shelf of the closet was the box of family photos that Regina had squirreled away, always intending to make an album but never getting around to it. “I could do that,” Waverly mumbled. “I could make the album and surprise Mom when she comes home.”

  She’d have to sort through all their family photos, put them in order, pore over the memories. She wouldn’t have room in her mind to think about Kieran or Seth or any of the terrible things she’d done. Nothing had ever sounded so comforting.

  Waverly got the stepladder from the kitchen, pulled the box down, and marched into the living room to sit on the sofa.

  There were dozens of photos, ranging over Regina’s infancy and childhood, through her teenage years, and then on to the time she dated and married Waverly’s father, a handsome man with a wide smile and deep-set brown eyes. Waverly’s baby pictures showed a happy little girl with rosy cheeks. Waverly especially loved an image of her parents holding her as a wild-haired toddler. She set it aside; she’d make a frame for it and
put it on her bedroom wall.

  One picture at the bottom of the box caught Waverly’s attention, and she pulled it out. It showed her father as a young man, the gray just beginning at his temples, standing with Captain Jones. The two men looked as though they’d just shared a private joke; the Captain had one beefy hand on Galen Marshall’s shoulder, fingers flexed as though he meant to steer him somewhere. Galen was laughing, his chin tucked into his chest, teeth glistening. They stood in a large white room that looked familiar to Waverly, and she realized that it was one of the labs, probably the botany lab where her father had worked. Waverly turned the photo over.

  Galen and Eddie, discovery of phyto-lutein, was scrawled on the back of the photo, again in Regina’s hand. Waverly had seen this photo before, of course, but she’d never lingered over it, never wondered why it appeared to have been crumpled and flattened out again, why the edges of it were frayed, showing the white paper underneath the glossy image. And she’d never turned it over to read the caption, or if she had, she hadn’t really noticed it. Waverly set this photo aside, too, and went back to sorting through the others, arranging them in chronological order.

  As she worked, though, her eyes kept trailing back to the image of her father with Captain Jones. Something about it nagged at her. A part of her didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to fix up this album, lose herself in a project, feel better. But Waverly had never had much success at switching off her mind, and the wheels turned until she identified what bothered her about it.

  Never once had her mother referred to the Captain as Eddie. He’d always been the Captain, or Captain Jones, and the name had always been spoken with a cool reserve. But on the back of the photo Waverly’s mother had identified the Captain as Eddie, as though he were a good friend. Even more odd, Regina had always said that she and her husband had been far from the Captain’s inner circle, outsiders who were happy to be kept out of decision making. But the photograph had captured a definite familiarity between the Captain and her father. Clearly the men had been friends. The most troubling thing, though, was that Waverly had never known her father had anything to do with the discovery of phyto-lutein, the drug used to stimulate the women’s ovaries and create the next generation of the Empyrean crew. Her father had been a botanist, not a fertility specialist.