‘I do.’ She finished up her nugget and wiped her mouth. When Evie offered her more, she shook her head.
‘Don’t worry,’ Berossus said, standing by the table, holding a big bowl of brown greasy things in one hand. In the other, he popped one in his mouth, and while chewing, said, ‘We’ll take you home.’
Evie wanted to say the same, but could not. If Aino was what everyone thought she was, it would be difficult for her to ever return to normal life, whatever ‘normal’ was for her. Evie could only wish they could take her home, and hope that Tredd wanted the same.
‘THE BLACK OBLIVION BEFALLS US. The stars augur the impending crunch, and the devotees herald the coda. She is here. I have seen it, I have seen her, and I have seen them. The Shades, they shape our destiny.’
Tredd watched as Tommy spoke with a low voice. The Rutger had no proper hold-up, nor had it space in any of the rooms, so they had placed Tommy in the cargo bay. It was a shabby joint, but given his current state it was enough. At least Bells had provided a light mattress for him.
Eddie had tied him down to four cargo clamps with composite cable ties. They did not want him to try anything. Not that he was going to: he lay still on his back, his eyes open, and stared at the ceiling, unresponsive to stimuli.
‘Since he woke up he’s been repeating those same words over and over.’ Kneeling beside Tommy, Eddie glanced up at Tredd and confirmed the cable tie was tight.
Tredd stood straight, his arms crossed, and stared down at them. ‘Has he said anything else?’
‘No, nothing.’ Eddie stood up. ‘I tried to talk to him, ask questions, but he just keeps repeating the same sentences every two minutes or so. It’s like he doesn’t even recognise we’re here.’
‘He was fine when we encountered him, and I’m sure a tranquilliser shot from a Light Burst didn’t do this.’ It’s something else, but what?
‘The thing he says,’ Eddie said, scratching the stubble on his chin, ‘could it be about Aino?’
‘Perhaps… I think he’s gone gaga.’
‘Shame.’ Eddie shook his head. ‘Perhaps Bells can figure out what’s going on.’
It was a shame. Tredd wanted to get some sense out of Tommy. Not only was he the key to understanding Aino, he was an old friend – and an old enemy. Whichever he now was, their lives were intertwined. The old wounds would again be torn open. Tredd knew Eddie must feel the same, even if he remained silent.
‘How did you get on with the Craftliner’s logs?’ Tredd asked.
‘I was just about to mention that,’ Eddie said, stepping around Tommy. ‘It’s funny… The first record of Aino on board the Craftliner is from Guardian Nature Reserve.’
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but was too generic for Tredd to be able to place it. ‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s in Eura, my friend… only a few hundred kilometres from Initia.’
‘Oh…’ Speak of opening up old wounds. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Do the Baar men prefer blue?’
They both stared down at Tommy. He had his eyes open, but his blank, unmoving gaze never met theirs. His belly rose and fell slowly to the rhythm of his breath. Then with a shuddering sigh he broke the rhythm and started to speak again.
‘The black oblivion befalls us. The stars augur the impending crunch, and the devotees herald the coda. She is here. I have seen it, I have seen her, and I have seen them. The Shades, they shape our destiny.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TREDD SAT on a bench at the infirmary, Aino opposite him. The whites of her large, pinkish eyes were red, like she had been crying. They stood out in contrast with the most striking aspect of her appearance: the absence of colour. Her skin was white like milk. Her curly hair was completely bleached, just like her brows and eyelashes. Her eyes and lips shared a pale pink tint. Putting the colour – or lack of it – aside, with her pointy nose, high forehead and round cheeks, she looked like a cute little girl, perhaps even younger than the twelve years her data had indicated. Tredd remembered riding tuned hover bikes in the pit close to his home when he was her age.
He wanted to figure out what to do with her and to understand the nature of her powers. Once they reached Dawn Alliance-controlled space, FIST or the navy – whoever got to them first – would demand the girl. If this were a device, he would have no trouble destroying it or bringing it back for the highest bidder to do with it as they pleased. However, this was no device: she was a living human being.
‘I’m sorry to drag you in here,’ Tredd said, and leaned forward, his elbows against his thighs. ‘You must be tired after all you’ve been through, but I must understand where you come from.’
‘Avalon. I told you already.’ Aino sat back straight, her hands resting in her lap.
‘I remember, but I was thinking more about what you can do… about moving things… Can you tell me about it?’
‘It’s not much of a story.’
‘But it has a heroine and a villain?’
She played with her fingers and smiled. ‘It does. It all began when this man snatched me from a school trip.’
‘Where was this?’
‘A nature park close to Avalon.’
Tredd straightened his back. ‘Perhaps it was the Guardian Nature Reserve, just by the border of Dandelia?’
‘Yes!’ Her face lit up and she grabbed the stool on both sides. ‘How did you know?’
‘We analysed the data from the ship he used. I’m actually from Eura too.’
‘Oh,’ Aino said. A faint smile appeared on her face, but only momentarily, before her expression turned down and she burst into tears.
‘What’s the matter?’
Weeping, her hands on her lap, head dropping down, she muttered, ‘It’s just that… I haven’t seen my dad since. I don’t know for how long, a month?’
‘I understand it must be difficult for you. I miss my home sometimes too,’ Tredd said, and stood up. He picked up a tissue from a dispenser on the shelf and handed it to Aino, thinking, Only my home does not exist anymore; I hope yours does.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and dabbed the corners of her eyes with the tissue.
‘I will get you back home. We’ll go together,’ Tredd said to comfort the girl. But it was not just that. He really wanted to take care of her. He sat down on the bench again and leaned forward to be on the same level as her. ‘As you might have noticed, I once knew the man who kidnapped you. I guess that’s why I was involved – we have a bit of a history...’
‘Are you going to kill him?’
Those little words hit Tredd hard. A little girl asking an obvious question. ‘No. I’m not going to kill him. What makes you think I would?’
She shrugged, looking down. Tredd realised the Light Burst was visible in its holster, emitting blue light, and she was looking at it.
Tredd clicked the gun off, extinguishing the light, and pushed it back into the holster on his hip. ‘To be honest, for a long time I planned on finding and killing him. I thought revenge would make me feel better, but I have learnt I was wrong. Taking his life would be like taking a part of my own.’ He paused, realising he didn’t want to open this up, not with himself and especially not with her. ‘Did he hurt you in any way?’
‘No,’ Aino said. She looked to be more at ease with the gun out of sight. ‘He was actually very kind. He was weird, like all foreigners, like you, but he never did the smallest thing to hurt me. Other than what he did by taking me away.’
Tredd clenched his jaw. Although this was good news, he had almost hoped to be able to vilify Tommy as someone who had hurt this little girl. ‘That’s a relief. Do you know why he took you?’
She nodded and looked down at her hands, twirling her index fingers. ‘My powers.’
While Tredd waited for her to continue, she just sat quietly, eyeing the various pieces of medical apparatus around the room.
‘Do you know why he took you down to that bunker?’ Tredd tried.
Aino shook he
r head.
‘Did he ever say anything about working for someone, perhaps mentioning names like the Dawn Alliance, New Existentialists, Kisha Clan, or some other organisation?’
‘No.’ Aino looked down, holding her left ring finger between her right thumb and index finger. Her hands were so very white. Then, without raising her gaze, she said, ‘But he did talk about taking me to someone called Nenetl. He talked about her a lot.’
‘The mythical goddess.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know the story?’
A nod.
‘Think she’s real?’
‘No.’
Tredd leaned back and chuckled. ‘Me neither. What about your powers then, are they real?’
‘I guess so…’ She looked up at Tredd, so innocent and small – yet she had just confessed to moving stars. It was difficult to believe.
‘Can you do it now?’ Tredd asked. ‘I mean, not stars, but something smaller, like the trolley over there.’
She let out a sigh and turned, pointing at the trolley holding vials, caps and tissues. She stared at it with an intense gaze and the muscles on her jaw under her white skin tightened.
In a matter of seconds, the trolley inched forward, vials chinking against each other.
‘Whoa! You really can do it!’ Tredd said as the trolley rolled to a stop just beside them. He was amazed. Often anything that appeared magical was in reality just technology. He would have to ask the doc to find out if this was the case with Aino. He had never seen anyone control the physical environment with their mind. No one except himself. ‘Have you always…?’
She shook her head. ‘Only after he made me do it.’
‘Tommy did? How did it happen?’
‘First he made me concentrate on two small rocks on a table, behind bars so that they were out of reach, and said he’d take me home if I broke them. I was so frustrated,’ she said, and swayed sideways a little on the stool. ‘I couldn’t touch the rocks, but I wanted to go home. The after maybe two days, I burst out in fury because of the stupid game he was playing with me, and the rocks flew at each other, breaking apart in a puff of dust.’ She made a motion of sprinkling dust with both of her hands.
Tredd laid his hand on the cold and hard metal of one of the trolley’s tubes, and pushed it. It was the only way he could move one.
Aino continued, ‘But he didn’t take me home. He broke his promise and wanted more. The rocks got bigger and bigger, and I broke them all. Then he told me a story about the stars Yedda and Moola, how they were ancient gods who provided for the planets, but also gave people radiation, sickness, and death, getting their eternal burning power from the souls of people they bred. It got me so angry… the anger gave me power, and then… I could feel the stars in my head, I wanted to smash them, and I felt how they started to move. Slow first, but then in an increasing speed…’ Aino trailed off in her thoughts, staring past Tredd.
‘What happened then?’
‘Then we had to go – it was not safe anymore.’
‘That was when we found you,’ Tredd said, recalling their jump to Yedda. ‘Speaking of finding, how did Tommy find you anyway? How did he know what you could do?’
Aino shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps this Nenetl told him. I didn’t know I could do it.’
‘So you never did anything like this before he taught you?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought I was just a girl. Now I feel like… like a monster.’ She buried her face in her palms.
‘You’re not a monster,’ Tredd said, though he wasn’t sure what she was.
She frowned. ‘In school they called me the ice monster, because I was the only albino around.’
Of course, she was an albino: that’s why she had white hair, pale skin, and pink eyes. ‘Well, that doesn’t make you a monster. If you travel around the universe, even the Dawn Alliance-controlled space, you see things, weird things. Being an albino is definitely on the better side of those things.’
‘I guess it is…’ she said, looking down at the floor.
‘So…’ Tredd said, wanting to change the subject and get to know her better. ‘What else do you do besides school, got any hobbies?’
‘I don’t know, read…’
‘OK,’ Tredd said, raising his brows. ‘What do you like to read?’
‘Storybooks, books about animals,’ she said dismissively.
Tredd chuckled. ‘You know, I used to have two cats.’
Aino nodded. ‘We have cats too, but my favourite animal is a rhengo. I’ve always wanted to ride one, but Dad never let me.’ She furrowed her brows.
From what Tredd remembered, riding six-legged rhengos across the countryside had been especially popular with young ladies in Eura. ‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘He says it’s too dangerous,’ she said, ‘and that the ones we had were stubborn and difficult to control.’
‘Perhaps your dad had a point. They weigh more than a tonne, and can be quite wilful—’
‘My dad’s always like that. He just wants me to do boring stuff! I know I could handle one.’
Tredd didn’t want to say it, but he agreed with Aino’s father: riding a full-grown rhengo might be dangerous for a little girl, and young rhengos, especially males, were often unpredictable. But he wanted to avoid an argument, so skipped the topic. ‘All right then, what about your powers, are you able to handle them too?’
She didn’t say anything for a while. ‘When he made me angry, it just happened.’
‘Well, let’s keep you calm then. Speaking of which, would you like some hot chocolate?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, please.’
Tredd rose up and looked at the girl. She was so small and frail, but could move stars. It felt mind-boggling that the girl sitting in front of him could bring about the destruction of worlds – perhaps even the end of the universe. Saying, ‘I’ll be right back,’ felt too casual.
As Tredd left the infirmary, he bumped into Bells right outside the door.
‘Hey there.’ She smiled flirtatiously, rolling a strand of her blonde hair around her finger. ‘Are you OK for me to have some time with her now? I would really like to understand her brain, if what you said earlier is true.’
‘That’s fine,’ Tredd said, and took a half step back. ‘I told her I’d get her some hot chocolate. I’ll be right with you.’
‘Captain running for hot chocolate for a girl?’ Bells said with a wink.
Tredd raised his brow. ‘You want some?’
She bit her lip and looked at Tredd like she was evaluating him. ‘Thank you. That would be lovely,’ she said, passing Tredd closer than was strictly necessary as she entered the infirmary.
This doctor was something else. Tredd took a deep breath and shook his head as he headed down to the galley. Eddie and Evie were sitting down, immersed in animated discussion.
‘Evie, shouldn’t you be resting with that?’ Tredd said, nodding towards the patch of artificial skin on her shoulder.
‘Nah.’ She dismissed Tredd with a wave. ‘I’ll live, so I can also sit. How’s Aino?’
‘I think she’s the real deal.’
‘Wouldn’t it be great to move stars?’ Evie said, her face gleaming with awe.
‘I don’t think she agrees with you,’ Tredd said, picking up two mugs from the cupboard. ‘She just wants to be a normal girl.’
‘I suppose I can’t blame her,’ Evie said, and pursed her lips. Then her expression turned into a grin. ‘However, if I had that power, I’d be waving happy goodbye to being normal.’
Tredd grunted. If she had that power, she might think otherwise. He turned to the foodalator, put the two cups in, and asked for hot chocolate, default variety.
‘Tredd, old pal,’ Eddie said. ‘We were just pondering the stories about the Shades… you know, if Tommy’s babble were a sign. I’m curious, if the Shades want the world to end, why would they make a little girl move stars? That doesn’t make any sense. They are supposed to be gods,
right?’
‘Beats me,’ Tredd said as two steaming cups of dark brown liquid emerged from within the machine, and a rich chocolate aroma filled the room.
Evie grinned at Eddie. ‘What did I tell you?’
Eddie shook his head. ‘Seriously, it’s all completely whacked.’
‘That’s the universe, pal.’ Tredd picked up the cups from the foodalator and started heading towards the corridor.
‘Before you go,’ Evie said, making Tredd stop in his tracks and almost spill the hot chocolate. ‘Eddie told me that Tommy’s ship, the Craftliner, still has its quantum pinch engines charged…’
‘That’s right,’ Eddie said. ‘The Craftliner could make a jump further than this wagon. Of course, it’s a two-person ship… but perhaps we could just squeeze six people in. I wouldn’t expect to live on it for long, just for making the jump to a station. We could send the Rutger on a trajectory—’
Tredd nodded. ‘I think we should do it.’
‘But Captain,’ Evie said, ‘where would we jump to?’
That was a good question. Tredd wished it was as easy as getting back to Spit City to collect his reward. He wasn’t worried about leaving the Rutger behind – it would follow on autopilot – but he was not going to release Aino to FIST. Aino did not want to destroy the world; she wanted to be a normal girl. If he could hide her, let her live as a normal girl, he would fail his mission for FIST and be left without a reward. With Aino on board, his mission had become something other than he had thought it was.
‘Let me think about it,’ Tredd said, and started walking back towards the door. ‘Now I must run some hot chocolate to the ladies.’
Evie shouted, ‘What about me, who’s bringing me hot chocolate?’
Tredd walked away without responding. He wanted to say something clever, but he couldn’t find the words. And he definitely was not going to get hot chocolate for Evie. What would the rest of the crew think?
Back at the infirmary, Bells talked while Aino sat still on the same stool, her back straight, squeezing her legs together. She relaxed immediately upon sight of Tredd, and accepted the hot cup with smile, as did Bells.
‘Oh, Captain! Thank you.’ Bells held the cup between her palms and breathed in the aroma. ‘Smells delicious…’
Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1) Page 21