by Josi Russell
“And I suppose the Cascadians have them, too, now?”
“Yes, sir. They were streaming. The onboard recorder was just backup.”
Uncle Carl paced. “Are they moving in?”
“Not that we can tell, sir. The border patrols say everything looks normal.”
“What did you get out of the pilot?”
Sol realized, with a shock, that they had the Cascadian kid here somewhere.
“Nothing yet. He’s still out.”
“If we are going to do this, we are going to have to know what they’re up to. What they’re really up to.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want to see this kid,” Uncle Carl said.
LeSue glanced at Sol, apparently unsure about whether he was allowed to come along.
“He’s fine,” Uncle Carl said. “I suspect he’ll be inducted soon. Take us there.”
They followed the Sergeant through the building until they came to a barren hallway.
“You’ll need to take steps to find out what he knows.”
“Yes, sir. We just didn’t know how far to go because—”
“Because he’s a kid?” Uncle Carl interrupted.
The sergeant nodded.
“Sure. It’s harder because he’s a kid. But he’s fighting for the enemy. His litecraft was fitted with full-scale nerve interrupters. If he had used those last night . . .” Uncle Carl trailed off. His voice was firm when he said, “Never forget that weapons give even kids the potential to do as much damage as a grown man.”
Just as they arrived at a guarded door, the radios they all carried crackled to life, spitting a string of numbers into the air.
“That’s us.” The sergeant looked at the guard, and Sol noticed that they had similar insignia sewn to their armbands.
The guard looked unsure.
“It’s fine,” Uncle Carl said. “We’ll be here. You debrief. I’ll keep an eye out.”
The guard looked at him gratefully and handed over the keys. “It should only take a few minutes. I’ll be back.”
Sol was beginning to realize that Uncle Carl wasn’t just involved with the Milguard. He was important. He heard his Uncle unlock the door as he watched the guard and the sergeant stride down the hall.
When he turned, Sol expected to see the kid asleep, but instead, his eyes were locked on them. He lay handcuffed to an adjustable hospital bed, his wounds bandaged. An uneaten meal lay on a raised table beside him.
His eyes were wide and scared. He pulled nervously at the handcuffs that bound him to the bed. The chains clicked against the bar.
“You want to go home?” Uncle Carl asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Just tell us about your mission and we’ll arrange it.”
“I’ve said all I know.”
“Tell me. I wasn’t here when you said it.”
“We’re supposed to count useable acres and cattle by the head.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not reporting. The Leadership wants to know the state of the livestock supply.”
“The Leadership, huh? But you’re flying a Cascadian craft, and wearing a Cascadian militia uniform. How does Cascadia figure into the Leadership’s need to know about our supply?”
“And the surveillance video you were transmitting?”
The kid looked away.
“They’re using locals, so they don’t have to send someone from Melbourne. We just send them the counts. Listen, we’re hard up for funds over there. Especially some of us. My folks got talked into selling our whole apple operation to the Consolidated Terrene Leadership, and the Leadership had no idea how to keep the trees producing. They missed the fertilizer schedule, they didn’t thin the fruit, they nearly wrecked the whole thing with their incompetence. They hired my mom and dad back to fix all their mistakes, and now my family works twice as hard for half as much money. We just needed some extra, so I said I’d fly for them.”
Sol thought he saw a softening of Uncle Carl’s features. But the questions kept coming.
“Do you know that Cascadia is amassing weapons at the border? And so is Harvest?”
“No sir.”
The room was hot. Sol was burning up in the jacket. He slipped it off and dropped it on a chair near the door, trying not to hear the intensity in Uncle Carl’s voice as he questioned the kid.
“Do you know that Cascadia and Harvest have been having secret meetings, and we’ve listened to them talk about overthrowing Liberty and dividing our land between them?”
“No sir.”
“I don’t believe you.” Uncle Carl walked closer, but just then Tavish entered. He ran a surprised gaze over Sol, but then focused and spoke to Uncle Carl quietly.
“Show me.” Uncle Carl said, then, to Sol, “Stay here with him until that guard gets back.” Uncle Carl shoved the keys into Sol’s hand.
Sol didn’t want to stay, didn’t even want to be here, but his uncle was already walking out.
When he looked back, the kid had started to cry.
Sol was too like his father to let that go. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said. “what’s your name?”
The kid’s voice cracked as he said, “Sonny Lundgren.”
“Okay, Sonny. Just calm down.”
“I can’t. You’re going to kill me.”
The words shocked Sol. “No! No. I’m not. They’re not. They just want to know why you were here.”
The kid struggled, pulling against the handcuffs. Sol saw where his wrists were red and raw from the metal. He saw the kid eyeing the food.
“Are you hungry?” Sol tried to smile. “You should eat.”
But how? Handcuffed like that, the kid would have to drop his face to the plate and eat like a dog. Sol eyed the keys Uncle Carl had given him. One, smaller than the others, looked about right. He moved over and unlocked the handcuffs. “I’m not sitting here while you stay chained up like an animal.”
As he removed them, he noticed something strange. The kid’s fingertips were stained a deep, vibrant purple.
“Is that ink?” he asked, his curiosity overruling politeness.
Lundgren glanced at his fingers as he rubbed his wrists. “No. It’s called Axuris. It kills a particular fungus on fruits and vegetables. We use it all the time in Cascadia.” The kid gestured at Sol’s banner. “You’ve been getting into some chemicals yourself.”
Sol ran a hand over the banner and laughed lightly. “Yeah.”
The kid smiled. “Until you came in, everything they say back home about Libertyites was proving true.”
Sol shrugged. “I guess seeing you invading our airspace last night made me think the same thing.”
“Fair.” The kid said. He eyed the food. “Is it safe?”
Sol hadn’t thought of that. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Sonny glanced around nervously. “Do you know about Cascadia’s Disclosure Squad?”
Sol shook his head.
“They’re an interrogation team. When I was training, I had to spend a day shadowing them.” The kid closed his eyes briefly. “They were awful. Their job is to get intel from prisoners. They did terrible things. Poisoning the food was one of the nicer ways they got to people.”
The thought turned Sol’s stomach. He wondered if anyone he knew was being held in Cascadia. He lifted the plate, smelled it. “I think it’s safe. I don’t know.”
Lundgren hesitated, then reached for the thick slab of buttered bread atop the meat. He began to eat, and Sol saw him relax a little.
Lundgren gestured at Sol’s banner. “That’s cool.”
Sol shrugged. It didn’t feel as cool as he had thought it would. “Just something a kid around here does for extra cash.”
“Better than my side job,” Lundgren laughed, a sharp sound. “I never should have gotten mixed up in all this. My dad said I shouldn’t fly for them.” He swallowed the last of the bread.
Swiftly, he reached out and grabbed Sol’s other arm. His eyes were inte
nse, and there was fear in them that that kids their age usually didn’t show.
“What are they going to do with me, man?” He was pleading, “Will they let me go home?”
Sol wanted to say they would, wanted to reassure the Cascadian that he’d see his family again. But when he opened his mouth, he thought of the secret meetings, the tough talk. He thought of the weapons the Libertyites carried with them everywhere. He thought of their fear and their hatred, and the words wouldn’t come.
6
Zyn'dri looked out the window. The few months they had spent on this ship seemed to stretch behind them endlessly. But now they were here. Earth, the blue and green planet that would now be their home, hung below them, waiting.
There were only so many transports, so they would be on the ship for a while more. The humans were being transported first, to various stations around the globe. The Stracahn would leave these ships last and be carried to the Stracahn Preserve, a safe community in a land called Yellowstone.
Zyn'dri wondered about that. She hadn't seen yellow stones but thought they sounded nice.
Though she was supposed to return to the bottom deck each night, Zyn'dri slept curled tight against her mother in the narrow bunk in her mother's room. She didn't like being alone down there in the bottom of the ship. Curled in her bed, she felt alone and small. But when the officers came around to check, she had to be in her own room. She was fairly sure that her own door guard, the one who had escorted her to her room that first day on the ship, knew she sneaked to be with her mother, but he had never said anything.
She sat in her bunk now, waiting for the other guards to come so she could slip back up to her mother's room.
Zyn’dri was startled by an alarm. The ship thrummed around her. The alarm sounded sharp and insistent. She rose and walked to her door.
Peeking out, she saw an empty corridor. It took her a moment to realize that the guard had not left his post: he was lying slumped on the floor.
Zyn’dri ran to him. It took all her strength to turn him over. His eyes were open, his mouth agape. Zyn’dri heard a strange, strangled sound coming from his throat.
The alarm continued to blare. Zyn’dri looked down the corridor. Other Stracahn peered out of their doors.
“He can’t breathe!” she called to them in Stracahn. But they didn’t come, and the man was quickly weakening.
Zyn’dri closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. The air ran across her tongue with a new, metallic tang. She looked again at the guard. He was having trouble breathing. There was something in this air that was deadly for humans.
Zyn’dri studied the guard. His suit had an attachment. It was the shape of a rounded triangle and looked like it would fit over his face. She grasped it and put it over his nose and mouth, pressing the button underneath it.
She heard a soft hiss and felt the mask cool beneath her hand as air flowed through it.
In a few moments, the guard began to stir. His breathing smoothed, and he looked up at Zyn’dri.
His voice was muffled as he said, “You saved my life.”
Zyn’dri tried to find her words. “What happened?”
The guard sat up and looked at a small screen on his wrist. “The air mixture changed suddenly. They’re saying one of the scrubbers was cracked, and it allowed some of the dirty air to be sucked into the fresh air stream.” He listened a moment. “They’ve got it fixed now.”
“Why were the Stracahn unharmed?” Zyn’dri asked, thinking back to the faces peering out of the doorways.
“You can withstand more fluctuations in the atmosphere than we can. Your people are adapted to breathe in more hostile conditions. I’ve read that your lungs actually have a filter system made from living tissue that allows you to clean the air. It’s a remarkable trait.” He stopped to catch his breath for a moment. “One of the teams of scientists I guarded was studying it to see if they could create something like it for humans.”
“Humans seem so fragile. Are you afraid?” She searched his eyes.
The guard smiled. “No, I’ve spent my life on ships, and I’ve been through things that are much scarier. Don’t worry. The engineers will have the system purged in a few minutes, and until then, I’ve got this.” He tapped the mask.
He was breathing better now. He looked at the screen again. “You’d better get back in there. They’ll be here to check any minute.”
Zyn’dri rushed back to her room. On her bunk was Laska’s shoulder bag. She opened it for the hundredth time. She rifled through the books and looked at the lovely designs that were spread across the pages.
Her favorite was Laska's diary. He discussed Empyriad in such detail that she felt that she was back there. She also liked the green-bound notebook. She turned to an elegant design which took up most of one page.
Zy’ndri ran her finger over the design. It made sense to her, spoke to her in some way. She loved its sophisticated curves and its complex intertwining. She continued to trace it.
When she finally looked up, it seemed she had been waiting for the guards’ room check for a very long time. But as she took her finger from the page, she heard the sound of heavy boots in the hallway outside. She scooped the books back into the bag and slid the bag in a small vertical compartment along the edge of the bed. She clicked the compartment’s lid closed, sealing the bag inside.
When the door slid open, the officer on duty leaned in and waved. "Hi, Zyn'dri. Doing okay?"
She smiled, "Yes. Thank you." She said.
"Okay." He tapped his screen, counting her, and retreated into the hallway.
She waited a few moments; then she slipped to the doorway. As it slid open, she took a step back. Her parents stood outside. They rarely came down now that she knew her way up to their deck.
There was a strange, excited light in her mother's eyes when she said, "Zyn'dri, come with us. You've been summoned."
Zyn'dri felt a knot in her chest. Summoned? Why? What would the Avowed want with her?
As she entered the Council Room, Zyn'dri saw Meir standing at the window, looking down on Earth. He turned as she entered.
"Zyn'dri," he said. "Thank you for coming."
Zyn'dri nodded, twisting her hand out of her mother's and standing next to the table, in front of the First Avowed.
"I have something to tell you," Meir said, and the knot in her chest twisted harder. "It is your choice, whether to accept or not. No one will force you. But you should understand that this is a great honor." Meir paused, allowing a thick silence to fill the room.
She knew before he spoke again what he would say, but it still took her breath away to hear it.
"Zyn'dri, the everwatchful eyes of the Allbeings are upon you."
No, they're not. She wanted to say. They don't see me and I don't hear them, and I won't be Avowed.
Those words were a calling. A calling was an invitation to join the Avowed in governing the Stracahn, to live with them and eat with them and learn from them in the special training that would uncover her gifts and help her connect to the Allbeings. But she didn't want to join them.
As she grew more agitated, Zyn’dri ran her fingers nervously across tabletop beside her. She settled into the pattern she’d been tracing in her room not long before.
She glanced up at her parents. She could tell by the way their eyes were shining that they wanted her to accept the calling. Was it pride? Did they only want to be able to say that their daughter was Avowed? They had not been able to have any more children, and Zyn'dri knew that other Stracahn thought they were less because of it. Maybe this way they would regain some of their lost status.
Or was it deeper? Did they want her to be Avowed to assure that she was connected to the Allbeings forever?
Tears blurred her view of their beaming faces, and she looked away. Didn't they know that she would have to leave them? That she would have to go live in the Vault without them? Alone.
She didn’t mean for it to happen. She was just so afra
id. Without warning, her parents, the sound of Meir’s voice, the very ship itself, were all stilled.
Zyn’dri straightened. What was happening? She looked at Meir, frozen, half-blinking. She saw the kind look in his eyes. Her fingers were still making the pattern on the table, so she wasn’t frozen. She saw her mother’s bowed head, her humble smile. She knew that somehow, she was causing this. All of time, as far as she could tell, was at a standstill. It gave her a moment to analyze the implications of Meir’s offer.
Quickly, and without more thought, she shook her head. No. She would not leave them. She would not choose that life. She put her hands to her face as if to shield herself from her parents’ disappointment.
And then all was in place again. Meir’s voice carried on, her mother’s eyes darted to her, her father laid a hand on her shoulder.
She spoke directly to Meir. "I don't want a calling." She said. There was probably a formal way to say no, but she didn't know it.
"But—" Meir spoke, but she cut him off.
"You said it's my choice. My choice is no. I don't want to be Avowed." Her chin trembled. She could not look at her parents.
Behind Meir's dark eyes she saw what she thought was anger and confusion. Still, his voice was even when he spoke.
"It is your choice." He leaned down to look into her eyes. "But do you realize that you are declining a high honor from the Allbeings?"
She nodded, glaring defiantly at him. What had the Allbeings done for her? They had let her home be destroyed, and now they wanted her to leave her family, too? Wanted her to give up everything for them when they had given the Stracahn nothing?
Meir turned to go.
"Wait." She said, her anger and fear making her brave. There was a question she had been turning over ever since she'd looked out the ship’s window and seen the barren rock of Empyriad.
Meir met her eyes again.
"Why didn't the Allbeings stop it?" she asked, "Why didn't they stop the destruction of Empyriad?"
Meir softened. "The Allbeings don't control everything. They simply see everything. When they can, they ward off the bad. But sometimes processes are begun, and natural laws take their course, even if the Allbeings would rather they be different."