Flame: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  Now Arthur’s back complained painfully as he stretched. He could hardly stay on his feet, he was so stiff. He reminded himself of his father, the way Hans Dietrich was always a little hunched from working into the wee hours on his various projects. This brought a pang of guilt to Arthur’s middle. Dad probably thinks I’m dead. Mom … He wouldn’t let himself finish the thought. His mother’s name hadn’t been on the list of survivors on the New Horizon, and there had been no video from her among the communiqués from the captured Empyrean crew. She was probably gone, but he couldn’t allow the thought into his conscious mind.

  Arthur missed his parents with every part of him. Once upon a time he’d felt smothered by his mother, but now he’d give anything for more of her tireless love. His father was even dearer to him. He would let Arthur stay up late reading to indulge his interests in writers like Proust, Hawking, and Goethe. The two would spend hours talking about existentialism, quantum mechanics, or the ancient Greeks. What Arthur learned during his time in classes was minuscule compared to what he absorbed on a daily basis from his brilliant father. There was no one in Arthur’s life he enjoyed talking with as much as his dad. He had to get him back. And maybe his mother was still alive on the New Horizon …

  He was tempted to hack into the com system to see what he could find out, but he didn’t dare linger. He’d come to do one simple thing and get out, and that’s what he had to do now. From his pocket he pulled a walkie-talkie and knelt under the com desk that Chris used. It was a simple matter of hooking the unit into a power source, then connecting the transmitter up to the audio signal that came through the computer. Once it was in place, Sarek and Arthur would be able to monitor all the voice communications that went through Central Command. Arthur was just finishing wrapping electrical tape around the loose wires when he heard Chris’s voice in the corridor outside.

  “I know that, George,” Chris was saying, “but the Pastor wants us to secure that equipment first.”

  Arthur stood to look at the video screen that monitored the corridor. Chris was holding a small tray of emergency rations, standing just on the other side of the door.

  Arthur broke into a cold sweat, too scared to move.

  A second went by, and another, and Chris didn’t open the door. He was distracted by his conversation.

  Arthur scrambled back to his old com station and pounded on the keyboard. What could he do? Quickly he opened the software controlling the alarm system and set off the siren in the central bunker. On the video screen by the door, Arthur saw Chris startle, then go to investigate.

  Arthur flipped the com screen back to the one Chris had been looking at, darted out the door, ran as fast as he could to the port-side stairwell, and sprinted down to the habitation level. He dove into the first apartment on the left, where he knocked Sarek to the ground.

  “Hey!” Sarek cried from underneath him and hit Arthur with the flat of his hand. “Where have you been?”

  “I got trapped,” Arthur told him, adjusting his glasses on his face as he struggled to his feet. “In Central Command.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “No,” Arthur said breathlessly.

  “What happened?” Sarek asked as he scrambled to his feet and followed Arthur into the kitchen. Arthur turned on the sink and put his lips right to the tap. He drank and drank.

  “Arthur!” Sarek said, stomping on the floor. “Tell me!”

  When he could pull himself away from the water, Arthur said, “Don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”

  “You planted it?”

  “Yes. The goats and sheep are alive!” Arthur said. “I don’t think the destruction was as total as we thought.”

  A rare smile crossed Sarek’s face.

  Arthur sat down at the kitchen table. Sarek went to the refrigerator and pulled out a plate of flatbread with hummus, olives, dried figs and dates, and set it down. Arthur smeared the bread with the hummus and took a big bite. Delicious. He’d worked with Sarek for months in Central Command and had never known what an excellent cook he was.

  “Any news about our families?” Sarek asked.

  “I didn’t have time,” Arthur said distractedly. “Did you evacuate the infirmary?”

  Sarek looked at him blankly. “Yeah. I mean, I told them to evacuate.”

  “Did you hear back from them?”

  “Yeah,” Sarek said, looking slightly horrified. “Tobin said I had to be kidding.”

  “And you said…”

  “I said I wasn’t, that he had to get everyone out of there.”

  “And did he?”

  Sarek’s face was a blank.

  “Because the sensors are showing no life support there,” Arthur said.

  Sarek’s eyebrows dropped. “But that whole side of the ship is pressurized. It should be fine.”

  “I know.” The two boys stared at each other, thinking.

  “Where are the repair crews right now?” Arthur asked his friend.

  Sarek put on his headset and tuned into the audio signal Arthur had just established. He had to listen for several minutes before he could finally say, “Most of them are with the animals. A few are in the conifer bay…”

  “Nowhere near the infirmary.”

  Sarek stood up. “Let’s check it out.”

  The two boys peeked into the corridor and, finding no one, ran to the central stairwell and started the climb up to the infirmary. They’d chosen this apartment for its proximity to the stairwell, and because there was no surveillance camera trained on the door so they could come and go without fear of detection. The ship felt enormous, deserted, and ghastly. Arthur didn’t like walking the bare corridors, hearing the strange echoes of the repair crews’ machinery groaning through the ship.

  Staying behind had been Arthur’s idea. He had come to Central Command looking for Sarek just as the last escape shuttles were leaving. He’d found his friend staring with trepidation at his vid screen: Four New Horizon shuttles were headed for the Empyrean.

  “What do they want?” Arthur had said. “Should we hail them?”

  Sarek hadn’t answered; he hadn’t moved toward his com system, either. The two boys had simply watched, helpless, as the shuttles docked not thirty minutes after the last of the Empyrean kids abandoned ship.

  “Let’s go, before they catch us,” Sarek had said. “I don’t want to talk to them.”

  “I want to know what they’re doing,” Arthur insisted. The two boys had stayed in Central Command as long as they could, watching the movements of the crew on the surveillance system. When the crew started approaching Central Command, the two boys retreated to this apartment. Every day Arthur and Sarek talked about going to the New Horizon, but there was always some new repair happening, something to keep them here, watching the salvage crew, like ghosts protecting an old home.

  In all this time, never once did it occur to either boy that maybe there were other Empyrean survivors on board. And the infirmary would have been the first place to look.

  Arthur kicked himself for this oversight as they cautiously entered the corridor outside the infirmary. A surveillance camera was pointed away from them, straight at the infirmary doors. “What do we do about that?” Sarek asked.

  “Lift me,” Arthur responded.

  Sarek wove his fingers together to make a step for Arthur, who stretched up to the camera and yanked out the wires from the back. The light winked out. He hoped no one would notice, but if someone did, he’d probably assume it was the same problem that had darkened the infirmary in the first place. Now the two boys could approach the infirmary without fear of detection. The glass windows embedded in the doors were completely dark, and it looked like the entire complex of rooms had lost power. But as they got closer, Arthur thought he saw a certain grain to the darkness.

  “Curtains,” Sarek said wonderingly. “Someone hung fabric to block the light.”

  “So it would look dark to the surveillance camera,” Arthur said. He recognized the fabric fro
m his recent stay in the infirmary. “This is one of the curtains they hang around the beds to block light so patients can sleep.”

  “What do we do?” Sarek asked, perplexed.

  Arthur shrugged and knocked.

  Almost immediately, Tobin Ames, the fourteen-year-old boy who had taken over running the infirmary, opened the door. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

  PART TWO

  PLANS

  Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people.

  —Richard Nixon

  THE ELDERS

  Waverly passed the days in suspended animation, trying to read, trying to weave, trying to bake … willing time to pass more quickly. Every day was filled with plodding conversations with her mother, trying to make her see how desperate their situation was, getting nothing in return but comments like, “Everyone seems so nice … I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think…” Waverly finally gave up and let her mother remain in her muffled, safe world. Doing so made the day-to-day existence peaceful, but it made Waverly feel even more alone, and more worried she might never get her real mother back. What if the doctor couldn’t find a way to fix her? What then?

  And where was Seth? If he really cared, how could he have left her alone like this. When Kieran was her boyfriend, he would never have left her side if he thought she was in danger. But she’d made certain he’d never be there for her again, hadn’t she? She’d practically become his enemy, showing him nothing but doubt and mistrust and criticism ever since she got back from the New Horizon. And why? Because he’d used religion to give solace to the bereft children on the Empyrean? Was that so terrible? Kieran was a good person, one of the best she’d ever known. She’d treated him like dirt, and now she had no one.

  She couldn’t even dream of the past, or of Seth. Instead of comfort, sleep brought her nightmares of blood and revenge. She’d killed Anne Mather so many ways, so horribly, that she woke in the night, her feelings a mixture of horror and a disturbing joy that made her wonder if she was losing her mind.

  She spent more and more time in her room, in a twilight state, still and quiet under her blankets. That’s where she was when she heard a knock on the front door. She went into the living room to see who had come and found Dr. Carver’s handsome assistant making small talk with her mother.

  “Remember me?” he asked as he stepped neatly into the living room.

  “Hi, Jared,” she said, wondering why he made her feel timid.

  “Want to go for a walk?” He swept his arm toward the door.

  He smiled as she wordlessly reached for her black cardigan that she kept hanging next to the door. The flabby, snide guard who stood perpetually outside her doorway looked at Jared with apprehension but made no motion to stop him from taking Waverly.

  “Why is he letting me leave?” Waverly asked when they were out of earshot.

  “He can’t interfere with the church elders,” Jared said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The doctor has been laying groundwork. Now he wants you to meet his colleagues.” The elevator doors opened, and Waverly stepped on with him, careful to leave plenty of distance between them. He smelled earthy, like rich soil and sage, a masculine, primitive fragrance.

  “Do you know anything about my friends? The ones who were taken away from the Empyrean reunion? Are they okay?”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” he said conspiratorially. “All right?”

  “Thanks,” Waverly said.

  The elevator doors opened onto the administrative level of the ship, and Jared led her down the hallway to the Central Council chamber. The room looked just like the council chamber on the Empyrean, though it was filled with religious icons. Most of them were Christian, but Waverly recognized a Muslim crescent and star, a laughing Buddha on the ledge below the large dome of windows, and a Shiva sitting on the credenza by the door, cross-legged, many arms stretched like a fan around his head.

  “Waverly!” called Dr. Carver, waving from his place at the head of the table, around which sat five other people who looked almost as elderly as he did. She nodded, uneasy to suddenly be in front of an audience. “Everyone,” Dr. Carver said, “please introduce yourselves.”

  A tiny, withered woman held her chin high as though she expected to be admired and said, “Miranda Koch.” She fingered a necklace of white beads around her neck. Beside her was another woman, much larger and plumper, with lots of rouge rubbed into her swollen cheeks. She smiled at Waverly and held up a hand, disturbing dozens of gold bracelets around her wrist. “I’m Selma Walton. Welcome.” Across the table from the women sat two men, identical from their unnaturally brown hair to their crooked noses, and angular shoulder bones poking up through gray cardigan sweaters. Twins, Waverly realized. She’d heard of twins, though she’d never before seen any. They looked at her steadily, and she blushed, embarrassed to be caught staring. One of them lazily lifted a finger and said, “Wilbur Murdoch,” and his brother muttered, “Raymond.” Next to them, Waverly recognized Deacon Maddox, the stooped figure who always sat on stage with Anne Mather during services. Now he was sitting perfectly still, eyes closed. Waverly thought he must be sleeping, for he made no move to introduce himself.

  “On the Empyrean there are seven council members,” Waverly mumbled to the room.

  “I’m number seven,” Jared said, smiling with good humor. “Don’t I look dignified?”

  Waverly returned his smile, and suddenly she didn’t feel so alone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Carver with ceremony, “I present the key to bringing down Anne Mather. After that, we can put anyone we like in the Captain’s chair. Jared, for instance.”

  Jared humbly bowed his head.

  “Isn’t the Captain chosen democratically?” Waverly asked, small voiced.

  “He will be,” the doctor said, looking around the room, garnering support. “Most people want a leader to make them feel safe, offer them a vision, make them proud of who they are. I can show Jared how to achieve that, the same way I showed Anne. The crew will love him, and for that, they’ll choose him. That’s how democracy works, after all.”

  “That’s just artifice,” Waverly said, aware she was challenging him, a little afraid of what he’d do. “It wouldn’t be real.”

  “A little artifice is necessary,” Dr. Carver countered. “People need leaders.”

  “Maybe it’s the leaders who need followers,” Waverly said.

  The doctor laughed, but it didn’t feel sincere to her. The rest of the elders watched him; none of them seemed to be in on the joke.

  “Leaders and followers need each other,” he finally said as he dabbed at the corner of an eye with his sleeve. “But first things first. We need your testimony.”

  Waverly took a deep breath. The mere mention of the word sent her heart fluttering, and her fingertips trembled as she pressed them together under the table.

  The doctor studied her. “Don’t tell me your resolve is weakening.”

  “I don’t blame her for hesitating,” Selma said, drawing the doctor’s glare away from Waverly. “You want to use this girl to deal the final blow to Anne.”

  “It has to be her. No one else has the moral authority Waverly has,” said the doctor.

  “I’ll do it,” Waverly said quietly. “I’d kill Mather myself if I could.”

  Seven sets of eyes turned to her.

  Dr. Carver thoughtfully stroked his upper lip. “If we call Anne Mather’s transgressions crimes against humanity, Anne would be subject to impeachment.”

  The table was silent as the council considered this.

  “What does that mean?” Waverly asked.

  “It means that the church elders would become her jury,” Selma said quietly. She was looking at the doctor now, her face unreadable. “We wouldn’t need the Justice of the Peace to be involved.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows as he looked around the table.

  “Wesley,” s
aid little Miranda as she rattled her beaded necklace. “Are you proposing that we fix this trial?”

  “Fix it?” He pounded his cane on the floor. “We know she’s guilty!”

  “There were mitigating circumstances…,” began Deacon Maddox, opening his eyes lazily. “You know that, Wesley.”

  “She has botched everything, Maddox!” The doctor raised his voice so loudly it reverberated against the glass dome over their heads. “Let us fool ourselves no longer! The woman has become a monster and she needs to be deposed!”

  The table went silent, so still that Waverly could hear the rattle in the twins’ throats as they breathed.

  “It’s dangerous,” Selma said warningly, and Waverly realized the plump woman was addressing her. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  “You saw the way she turned the congregation against Anne the day of her escape,” Dr. Carver insisted. “This girl is formidable.”

  “Are you prepared for this, little girl?” For the first time Deacon Maddox looked totally present and awake. “Are you ready to take on Anne Mather?”

  Waverly glared at him so that he could see she was anything but a little girl. He looked away, raising his eyebrows, hiding one veiny hand under the other. Then she stood. “Destroying Anne Mather is the only thing that will make life on this ship tolerable for me.”

  “Huh.” The sound came from Selma, something between a bemused chuckle and an exclamation of surprise.

  “Thank you, dear,” said Dr. Carver, and he patted Waverly’s wrist. She stared at him until she understood she was being dismissed. Jared had stood, too, and nodded at her in a deferential way, extending a hand to usher her out of the room.

  Once the door to the Council chamber closed behind them, he turned to her with a smile. “Want to go for a walk?” he said.