I felt no rush to explain myself, so I let him and his question dangle in the dark that had become my entire world. To test my hearing, I put my fingers against my windpipe and felt the vibrations as I hummed a few notes that must’ve sounded like pain-stricken groans. I spoke the next words out loud even though neither Pol nor I could hear them. “You don’t own me anymore. I do.”
I let the corkscrew tongue fall to the floor and reached about until I located the pail. Finding the handle with my fingers, I stood up. With my other hand, I felt for the top of the chair back, which I’d been sure to aim at the hatch. Mentally drawing a line for my feet to follow, I walked with one hand stretched before me.
Reaching the hatch, I spun the wheel.
The hatch was open. I couldn’t let myself be seen, but without sight or sound, there was no way to know if anybody was nearby. I stepped out to the corridor, trusting that the Empire’s engineers had moved on to Staircase 5.
I turned right to head for the air lock. Dragging a palm along the wall to keep on a straight line, I counted my steps. At thirty-three, I turned again.
The next run would be sixteen steps, but a bout of dizziness made me stop halfway. Leaning against the wall, I took several calming breaths until my balance returned and started counting again.
My hand brushed across wet air tanks, which served as proof that the scuba teams had already come in for the night. Arriving at the air lock, I worked the controls by memory. I reached out a hand to verify the air lock had opened before stepping inside and moving toward the back wall. Making contact, I worked my way down and to the left until I found the screen.
I struggled to get the screen back in position, and once I did, I turned the handles and sealed the bucket inside.
I was in the corridor; my next destination was back up the stairs to Dome 4. Dragging a hand along the corridor wall, I counted paces back to the T and turned for the staircase, which would be exactly nineteen steps away.
I was keenly aware of how dangerous it was for me to walk these corridors. If spotted in my current condition, all was lost. For all I knew, the governor herself was standing by the stairs, and she was watching me approach, horrified by what the crazy idiot had done to himself.
But I wouldn’t let myself be paralyzed by such possibilities. I chose to believe in my destiny. Nothing could stop me from defeating the Empire.
On the nineteenth step, my hand bumped a bulkhead, and I ducked through and started up the stairs.
The Empire hadn’t survived for millennia because it met the needs of its people. It had survived because of inevitability. But this little backwater world had done the impossible. With a successful revolt, it had cracked the Empire’s aura of infallibility.
The Sire called it a fluke. And now that his minions had returned to broadcast the atrocities that occurred here, he called it a failure.
But what would he say when the Empire fell a second time? What could he say?
The Empire’s foundation was cracking, and I held the hammer. The blow I was about to land would be the epicenter of a massive quake with the power to topple the Sire.
Let it be known that it started here.
It started with Mmasa, the diver. With a kiss on his cheek, he stood up to his governor. He put voice to the question all who are oppressed must ask: Is there no limit to what you’ll take from us?
Yes, it started with Mmasa. And as Sali had said, it would end with me. I only wish she were here to see it.
My heart pounded with the exertion of the climb. Every heartbeat tightened the tourniquet of pain wrapping my head.
Reaching the top, I bumped my way through shelves and rows of boxes until my hand landed on the chill of steel. With effort, I lowered the object to the floor and felt for seams with my fingers until I managed to find the control panel and pop it open.
I recited the numbers for Pol.
I kept stating the numbers until I finished punching them in.
Pol’s voice had turned to ice.
With total concentration, I pictured the interface in my mind as I set the timer for thirty minutes. I had no way to verify success, but I trusted my ability to navigate without sight. I’d been journaling blind for weeks now, and although I suspected my typing abilities left much to be desired, the missile’s interface was so much simpler. All I’d had to do was press timer, three, zero, start. Then yes, yes, yes through the verifications just like the last time I’d set one of these missiles to blow. Except that time I’d gone out of my way to disable the main payload so only the hull-piercing head would detonate. This time I’d unleash the full payload’s destructive power.
Wrapping my arms around the missile, I lifted it upright. Letting the shaft lean into the crook between my neck and shoulder, I squatted low to wedge my fingers under the missile’s tail. I stood, hands cupped under the heaviest end. I felt the strain in my legs and back. Felt it in my shoulder and the way the muscles in my neck stretched like bands.
I felt around with the toe of my boot until it landed on a rope I’d left lying flat on the floor. Like a tightrope walker, I followed the rope’s snaking path through the dome’s cluttered shelves. When the short run of rope ended, I knew the door was sixteen paces dead ahead.
Sweat streamed down my forehead to sting my open eye sockets. My torqued back screamed from the strain. But I kept moving, one agonizing step at a time. Counting step number sixteen, I felt with my toe for the single stair that would drop me outside the dome. Not finding it, I took another step forward. Still not locating it, I took another step and repeated the process.
Don’t change directions, I told myself. If I’d veered off course, I’d hit the wall. Figuring I’d probably been taking shorter paces thanks to the weight of the missile, I kept up my slow forward progress and was rewarded upon finding the stair on step number nineteen.
I was outside now. I’d turned right but stayed close to the dome wall. My fingers had gone numb with lack of circulation. My head pounded with such ferocity I felt the need to vomit. But I couldn’t stop making my way around the dome.
It was impossible to know exactly where I was, so I stopped every few steps to balance on one foot while reaching for the dome wall with the other. When I made contact, I kept on my path. When I didn’t make contact, I angled to the right to close the gap between me and the dome.
I’d hugged the dome long enough that my current angle had to be aimed at the water. Abandoning the dome wall, I picked up my pace before my back gave out.
Greased by sweat, I felt my handhold on the missile slip from my first finger joints to my second. Accelerating my pace, I couldn’t keep the missile from sliding down to my fingertips. Hustling toward the water, I knew I’d soon have to slow down or risk falling in.
I’d barely finished that thought when my left foot landed on open air. I tried to pull it back, but my balance was already lurching forward. The missile tipped out of my grasp, and I was instantly surrounded by a rush of seawater.
A pain I’d never felt screeched from my ears and eye sockets. Whether from shock or from being locked too long in one position, my arm muscles were slow to react. Sinking, I gasped with fear only to find water rushing into my lungs. My arms unlocked, and I thrashed in a fit of violent choking.
An instinctual kick of my legs thrust me upward. Propelled by a stroke from my arms, I surfaced.
Treading water, I shook my head to get the water from my ears. Forgetting I had no eyes, I instinctively tried to rub the salt out my sockets and sent lightning bolts of pain through my head. I vomited. Then sputtered water from my lungs. Then vomited some more.
He laughed.
No. I couldn’t fail. My destiny wouldn’t allow it. This world’s future depended on me. What I had to do was find my way out of the water. But which way was the atoll?
Tides of Maritinia Page 29