Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  He blinked, thinking at first he’d gone blind. His eyes were flooded with sticky, hot blood. He wiped it away with his right hand while reaching for his attacker with his left. Seth felt wiry hair and grabbed on to it, swung around with all his strength, and slammed his attacker’s head into the wall, then again.

  Trying to see through the blood in his eyes was like looking through a reddish film. He saw a hulking shape buckle and roll forward, then he felt the full force of a shoulder ramming into his gut.

  His wind exploded out of him and he fell onto the floor, kicking blindly, struggling to recover his breath. Helpless on the floor, Seth rolled to his side and covered his head with his arms. Savage blows crushed him. A hard boot sole crashed into his rib cage once, twice, sending shards of pain deep into his chest. The light in the room faded.

  The light in Seth faded.

  He blacked out.

  *

  When he came to, Seth expected to find himself in the conifer bay. But instead of pine needles there were metal countertops above him, fluorescent lights blurring in and out of focus. He had no idea how he’d gotten here.

  “What happened,” he whispered.

  No one answered.

  He was lying on a stone cold floor. He forced his eyes open. He was hurt, hurt so badly. Slowly he unwound himself, checking his legs, his joints, his arms—all intact. He sat up.

  A stabbing pain seared through his chest.

  Oh, it hurt!

  Couldn’t breathe. Fractured rib. Maybe two.

  He forced himself to take small even breaths, then pulled himself to his feet, swaying, and looked around. He was in one of the labs, and he was wearing strange clothes. He limped to a mirror. His face looked like a Halloween mask. He had a bruise under his right eye, and streaks of blood covered his face. He turned on the overhead light and poked through his hair at the cut on his scalp. Four inches, and deep, oozing blood. He’d need stitches.

  The last thing he remembered was eating pine nuts, thinking about how to get close to the stowaway.…

  I guess I found him, Seth thought grimly. No way Kieran or his cronies would have done this to me. If they’d been the ones, I’d be in the brig right now.

  He peeled off his bloody shirt, one he didn’t recognize, and turned, wincing against the pain in his ribs. His entire right side was a pattern of bluish bruises. As bad as he looked now, he knew he’d look ten times worse in the morning.

  He needed help.

  He limped to the door and listened, then slipped out and struggled down the corridor toward the port side—a long walk. This level was little used, but he was still lucky not to happen upon anyone. Once he was inside the stairwell he paused, trying to breathe, hoping he didn’t have a punctured lung. He’d gotten beat up plenty, but now he understood all those times his father had said, “I’m only giving you forty percent, son.”

  “I love you, too, Dad,” Seth muttered, then remembered where he was, and paused to listen. He thought he heard footsteps below him, but they were far away, near the rain forest level or maybe lower.

  Seth held tightly to the handrail and slid down the stairwell, letting the wall hold some of his weight. His thigh ached where he’d been hit, but his leg still felt strong enough to get him there, if he didn’t pass out from his horrible, pounding headache.

  He took it slow, until he reached the level where the living quarters were, then he listened at the door.

  What if she doesn’t help me? he thought, holding a hand against his side. She will. When she sees me, she’ll let me stay.

  The corridor on the living level was quiet, but someone might come any second. He had to be fast. Struggling against the pain, he forced himself to walk quickly though his ribs screamed. The pain was bad enough to turn his vision red, or was that the blood in his eyes? He didn’t know. If he didn’t lie down soon he’d pass out.

  He mustn’t be seen entering her place, so he headed for the maintenance closet down the hall from her quarters. He glanced around the hallway, looking for surveillance cameras here, but like on the level where his quarters were, there was no camera pointed at the maintenance closet. Once inside, he found a putty knife in a dirty bucket and pried away the back wall. He stuck his head into the passageway. It looked identical to the narrow space behind his father’s apartment. Squeezing into it, agonized, sweat pouring over his face in rivulets, he sidled along, counting pipes until he was almost certain he’d found Waverly’s quarters. He pried away the back wall and fell into a closet that smelled of sandalwood, then fought his way through the hanging clothes and into a dark room.

  He listened. The apartment sounded empty. He’d never been invited into Waverly’s quarters, not since a birthday party when they were five. What if he was in someone else’s place?

  “Waverly?” he asked timidly. He even sounded injured, his voice thready and weak, pinched with pain. When no answer came, he said more loudly, “Waverly?”

  He crossed the hall to the other bedroom and turned on the light. There was a huge Raggedy Ann doll in a chair in the corner, and over the twin bed a picture of a woman standing in a field of flowers, a parasol over her shadowed face. A black sweater lay draped over the back of a chair, and Seth picked it up to smell it. Waverly. This was definitely her quarters.

  He stood in the darkness, catching his breath. His heart pounded against his cracked ribs, feeling as though it were chipping away at the bones, displacing jagged shards one beat at a time. He wanted to lie down so badly.

  But no. He couldn’t. Not before he stitched that cut closed.

  He hobbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The gash in his scalp yawned apart like an open mouth nestled in his hair, bloody edges thick and floppy. Butterfly bandages wouldn’t do it. If he didn’t force it closed, it would certainly get infected.

  He knew he should wait for Waverly, let her do it. But he couldn’t bear the thought of letting another person anywhere near the savage cut. Not even her.

  For once, Seth let himself cry as he limped into the living room to Waverly’s sewing table. He chose what looked to be strong black thread and the thinnest needle he could find.

  “Four stitches, that’s nothing,” he told himself with a shaking voice. “One, two, three, four, done.” He found an antibiotic solution under the sink in the bathroom, and cotton swabs and a patch of gauze that he could tie over the cut.

  Back in the bathroom, he looked at his reflection, trying to measure the boy in the mirror: Are you strong enough to do this? His blood had congealed into grooves in his forehead and along the natural folds of skin around his mouth. He thought this must be what he would look like as an old man, and he stared. Maybe he’d already become an old man. Maybe all this had made him old.

  He shook his head. “Don’t go crazy yet, Ardvale.”

  First he trimmed the hair away from the edges of the cut with a pair of scissors, as close to the skin as possible. He’d have a bald patch, but that didn’t matter. Next he dabbed at the cut with the antibiotic. It stung all the way through his core, and he nearly passed out. He wished for something gentler, but he knew the only place to find that was at the infirmary. So he had to endure the deep, physical hurt of the solution in the underlayers of his skin until he was sure that the cut was clean. Even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t take the pain anymore.

  “I can do this,” he said as he held a flame to the needle, then threaded it. “I’m a tough son of a bitch,” he said as he pinched the end of the cut closed. “This is nothing. People have gone through much worse.”

  Still, he held the needle in position for a long time, just staring at it, knowing that the longer he put it off the worse it would be. He had to just get this over with so he could go to sleep. But the simple act of piercing his own flesh wasn’t, in fact, simple. He had to overcome every instinct in his body forbidding self-injury. And the fear of the pain. How bad it would be. How horribly it would hurt.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he told himself in the mirror.
“You don’t want to die from a little cut, right?”

  He jabbed the needle through the skin on his scalp, and screamed. He couldn’t help himself. The pain was excruciating, but he forced himself to pierce the other side of the cut, the needle entering the raw bloody skin underneath. Tears streamed down his face and plopped into the sink in red rivulets. But with shaking fingers he managed to tie off the first suture as tightly as he could stand.

  Then he threw up. He hadn’t even noticed feeling sick. The spasm took him by surprise, wrenching his ribs, grinding the bones against one another. He cried out, holding his side, his forehead on cold porcelain. He didn’t remember falling to his knees, but somehow there he was, on the floor, sweat pouring over his face.

  How was he supposed to do another one?

  It took him much longer to build up the courage for the second stitch, but when the needle finally pierced his skin, it didn’t hurt as much. Somehow his body had numbed the cut, and he thanked God for that. Each successive stitch hurt less than the last, but he was shaking uncontrollably, and his breath came in jagged, rasping heaves.

  The cut needed six stitches after all. They were uneven, jagged, very ugly. But the wound was closed. Seth forced himself to dab at it again with an ointment-soaked cotton ball, then he tied a piece of gauze over the cut and down under his chin. He’d look ridiculous when Waverly got home, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Seth bent down and drank from the bathroom tap, deep gushes of water flowing into his mouth. Then he rooted through the medicine cabinet until he found aspirin. He chewed on four tablets at once, knowing how little it would do for his pain.

  He needed sleep. His legs shook under him, and his torso felt soft and wobbly. He had to lie down right now.

  He crossed the hallway to a dark room, not even sure where he was going, and saw in front of him a messy bed. He groaned and hobbled forward until his knees touched the mattress, then he fell, trying to protect his ribs with his arm. The cool sheets enveloped him, and he descended into a fitful sleep.

  THE SHEPHERD

  “Thank you all for coming,” Kieran said to his congregation. This was the first service since he made the rule requiring attendance, and he was pleased with the results. Almost the entire crew had come. Arthur was in the back row, quietly taking down names to find out who wasn’t here, though he’d balked at the duty. Kieran looked at the faces in the crowd, trying to gauge how many he’d have to win over. Almost all of the older girls were staring at him with open contempt, angry about Sarah and Waverly’s incarceration. They must have heard about it from one of the guards. Even some of the boys looked at Kieran distrustfully, but he still had allies. And the front rows were full of his core supporters, the kids who would stand by him no matter what. He hoped that number would increase with this sermon. His life might depend on it.

  He shut out the memory of that sham trial that Seth had arranged. Kieran had been half conscious, starved, weak, and sick, and he’d listened to false charges against him enumerated by boys he’d once called his friends. He remembered the coldness in some of their eyes, the way they leaned forward in their seats when Seth mentioned execution. He’d been a slab of meat to them, a bit of trash to be thrown out an air lock. Seth had convinced them of this once, and it could happen again, unless Kieran consolidated support for himself by whatever means necessary.

  “By now you’ve heard that Sarah Hodges and Waverly Marshall are being held in the brig. I bet some of you are pretty mad about that. Well, I’m mad about it, too. I want to make it clear that they were not arrested to settle a personal score. They were put there for obstructing an investigation into a series of incidents on this ship that gravely endanger us all. No single crew member will ever be allowed to endanger us or our mission. You have my word on that.”

  He looked at the faces again. Many looked at him with distrust, but they were listening. They hadn’t shut him out. That was as good as he could hope for. He could see from the nodding and thoughtful expressions that he had almost full support among the boys. He bowed his head.

  “I didn’t ask to be forced into a position of command at so young an age. I would have liked a lot more years to learn how to run this ship. But we don’t have the luxury of time. Right now our parents are in the hands of our enemy, and who knows what they suffer? My number-one priority is getting them back, and protecting all of you while we do it. I know I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but haven’t we all? We’ve had more combine breakdowns in the past six months than we had in the previous five years. That’s because our maintenance crews and our drivers are all making mistakes. Well, I make mistakes, too. And I’m sorry for every single one of them.”

  Now even more faces in the crowd had softened as people remembered their own mistakes along the way. Not so many scowls.

  “This brings me to Seth Ardvale. He escaped on the same night as the thruster misfire, which makes him a person of interest. He may even lead us to the terrorist, but only if we can find him. Already the terrorist has killed one of us and tampered with the ship’s navigation system. I implore you, for the safety of everyone in this room, if you know anything about Seth’s whereabouts, please come forward.”

  Kieran looked around. Now his congregation wasn’t thinking so much about Sarah and Waverly, not with a dangerous terrorist on the loose. (He had chosen that word deliberately.) Already most of the older girls seemed more afraid than angry, and all their eyes were on him.

  “A confrontation is coming. We need to stand together against our enemies. Until now, I’m not sure we have been standing together. I hear about a lot of complaints, misgivings, people questioning rather than trusting.” Kieran slammed his fist into his palm. “This cannot go on! If we don’t present a united front to our enemies, we can’t prevail. They’re older, they’re more experienced, and they outnumber us. When we finally catch up to them and demand the release of our families, if they sense any discord on this ship, any doubt or bickering, they’ll use it to their advantage. But if we present a united front, sure in the justice of our cause, I promise you we will prevail. Not only because we’re younger, we’re stronger, and we’re smarter; we’ll prevail because we stand on the side of the good and the just, and they stand on the side of evil. And all through history, if you look, good always triumphs over evil.”

  He could see their eyes lowering as they thought about what they knew of Earth’s history, and then they raised their eyes to him again. He had them. They believed in him. How could they not? The truth was naturally persuasive. It spoke to their souls, massaged away their misgivings, defused their anger, negated strife. If ever he doubted he was doing God’s will, today was proof that he was doing what he was supposed to do, what his creator wanted him to do. He was meant to lead this ship into the future. He knew it.

  “Will you join me? Let’s set aside our differences and unite in a common purpose. Let’s make a covenant, right here, right now. We are a single people, united!” He raised his fists over his head and lifted his face to the lights above. “And we’ll never let them tear us apart!”

  His voice echoed over the room, and his congregation answered with a burst of cheers. His core believers raised their fists, pumping them in the air, chanting, “Kyrie Eleison!” It was slow at first, but little by little, the other kids joined in, too, chanting this benediction and cheering. He felt the thunder of their voices in the drum of his chest, and he smiled down at them. God was on his side, after all. How could he fail?

  He was safe once more.

  DISSIDENT

  Waverly stood when Arthur came to release her and Sarah from the brig the next day. He looked ashamed as he flung the metal bars aside. “You’re free to go,” he mumbled, his eyes trained on the floor.

  Sarah bolted out without even looking at him, but Waverly lingered.

  “Do you know what I found him doing to her?” Waverly said, her voice at full boil. “He was threatening her—”

  “I heard,” Arthur said quietly.

>   “He’s out of control!” Waverly yelled.

  Arthur held up a hand. “He didn’t hurt her.”

  “That doesn’t justify…” she began, but was too furious to finish.

  Arthur pressed his lips together and glanced nervously at Matt Allbright, who stood in the hallway with hands clasped behind his back, obviously listening. Arthur beckoned Waverly to follow him out of the brig, and the two started off down the corridor toward the elevators. Once they were out of Matt’s earshot, Arthur grasped Waverly’s arm and spoke softly into her ear. “I agree Kieran was out of line, but Sarah was, too.”

  “She acted like an idiot,” Waverly admitted. “But we can’t threaten people! Or throw them in jail without a trial!”

  “I agree.” Arthur spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Did you hear Kieran’s sermon yesterday?”

  “I couldn’t help hearing. He had it blaring in our cell.”

  “Then you know he has basically painted you and Sarah as collaborators with the terrorist.”

  From Arthur’s neutral expression, Waverly couldn’t tell if he was threatening her or trying to warn her. “We can’t let this go on, Arthur.”

  “We’re all doing the best we can,” Arthur said, sounding exhausted. He pressed the call button for the elevator as he licked at the sweaty fuzz on his upper lip. “I know you’re mad at Kieran. I am, too. But let’s be careful.”

  “As in ‘Please don’t incite mutiny’?” Waverly said as the elevator doors opened and the two stepped onto it. She noticed Arthur watch as she pressed the key for the habitation level. Was he sent here to see where she went? “Kieran keeps too many secrets. A Central Council would help with that.”

  “Do you want to be on it?” Arthur asked, his face impassive.

  “No. But I’m going to be.”

  Arthur tilted his head. “You know what his supporters will say about you, don’t you?”