Ovie interrupted us a few times to run through the schematics of the repairs and make adjustments with me. He even talked shop unrelated to the Tangled Axon, necklace circling his thick neck all the while, shaking when he laughed that heavy, wolfish laugh. I admired the craftsmanship of the jewelry and wondered if he’d teach me someday. If we made it through this.
By the time Slip had accelerated my healing far enough that I could leave the infirmary and we were halfway to the breach, I’d thought a lot about what Tev had said about me making my life all about Nova. She was right; I did myself a disservice by looking at everything I did in the context of someone else. It was time to let go of childhood hurt and live my life without letting my sister throw it into sharp relief.
I knocked on the door of her quarters. She was draped across her bed, knitting in a supine position. The light from her project illuminated her as her fingers worked above her. I watched her for a moment, smiling; how rare it was to see her so relaxed.
Nova turned her head to look at me, still lying there with her arms above her, then resumed working. “Feeling better?”
“Oh. Yes, thank you. I, uh. Wanted to talk to you.”
“So did I.” She sat up, layers of emerald fabric spilling down her back as she made room for me on the bed, patting it. “Come sit with me. I want to show you something. Oh, did you bring your plants? I can light them for you.”
I complied. “No, they’re in my quarters. Look, Tev said something to me that—”
“See what I’ve made for you?” She lifted her knitting, letting it fall evenly in front of her, an opaque membrane of iridescence that kicked up her jasmine aura in a sweet breeze.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. The movement hurt my ribs, but it wasn’t anywhere near as intense as when I’d first come back from the repair lot. “Don’t change the subject. I’m trying to talk to you about us, Nova. Me and you. I don’t have time to look at your dresses or whatever—”
“Please.” Her voice was firm. “It’s not like that. Just look.”
I sighed and gave the fabric a good once-over: a pool of pearl-white light in her lap. “Okay, it’s pretty. What am I looking at?”
“Look harder.”
I squinted to focus my eyes on the subtle movements inside the veil of light between us. Pale colors shivered across the surface. Knowing the way my sister loved to marry her guide work with everything she did, I assumed there were hidden dimensions to the fabric that my eyes struggled to grasp. Shapes and movements flickered in and out of my perception, here and then not.
“What is it?”
She floated it closer to me. “What do you see?”
“I don’t know. Colors. Am I supposed to see something specific?”
She sighed, and the fabric fluttered. Her face was illuminated as if the knitting were made of water, dappled light flickering across her skin. “For non-guides, it works best in tandem with a comm link. I do wish you still had yours.”
“Well I don’t because I’d rather not be executed for genocide.”
“Don’t take everything I say personally. That wasn’t a criticism, it was an attempt at connecting with you. I made this for you, you know.”
“And I appreciate it—”
“No you don’t.” She was practically pouting now, half-hidden by the knitting she still held in the air between us. “But I’ll tell you what it is anyway, because you need me just like you’ve always needed me, even if you are ungrateful.”
“What are you—”
“Being a guide has taught me so many things about the way baryonic matter works, the way our presence in the universe distorts reality around events, like a flash that imprints—”
“Can we talk about your work some other time? My head is killing me. I can’t think straight.”
“Listen to what I’m saying!” She dropped her hands and the light crumpled into her lap. “I’m not as silly and vapid as you think, but you won’t even give me half of your attention, or listen to me long enough to find out. You only hear what reinforces your opinion of me and you just ignore everything else.”
The hurt on her face was sharp and raw, cutting through all my stubbornness until it fell to my feet in shreds. I’d been so wrapped up in myself and my own grief that I’d forgotten my sister’s. She had lost just as much as me. Love for her gnawed at my heart, worrying away the steel chain and wire I’d wrapped around it for so long. “I’m sorry, Nova. I appreciate you being there for me the past few days. I don’t think you’re silly and—”
“Yes you do. But it’s okay. Frankly I think you are too.” She squeezed my hand. “I may not understand why you’re so fascinated by things like this outdated old vessel, but I meant it when I said I want you to be happy. I’m not going to try anymore to convince you to live a life I understand. I’ve never seen you light up the way you do here; if tinkering with ships is what makes your heart sing, then that’s what you should do.”
“Nova . . . ”
“Hush now, Alana. Your big sister is talking.”
I let myself laugh, popping the bubble of anxiety that had grown around our conversation. I knew she was teasing me.
“You’re good at what you do, but so am I. Remember Spin. Remember what I told you about Transliminal’s so-called medication. It’s all matter manipulation. Distorting perception and reality. Distorting the way we move through the world, the way the world intersects with us—our flesh, our nerves, our minds. There is more to matter than matter itself; it transforms when humans move through it. I know you don’t like admitting that the way you feel a vessel’s injuries is basic guide work, but it is. That’s the same sort of magic I feel humming through everything, all the time.”
I thought of the way the Tangled Axon had worked her song into my heart, about the inexplicable buzzing and honey-scent billowing in Marre’s presence—not to mention her ghostly body. I thought about the canine shadow that followed Ovie around. The image of the crew that left a residue of uncertainty in my mind. All of it, a haunting inside my head.
“I think you’d be surprised about the way I’ve started seeing the world,” I said.
“Well good, then!” She seemed genuinely pleased. “There’s a lot more to reality than electromagnetism. Transliminal Solutions lives in my world—all illusions and handwavium.” She laughed a little. “This isn’t your electromagnetic, tech-based way of life we’re talking about.”
“They’re passing it off as if it were.”
“Yes, they are. Pernicious, isn’t it? But I’m not talking about ethics right now. I’m talking about the mechanics of guide work.”
I leaned back against the wall and gestured for her to continue.
“Surely you know about the pockets their ships create? About how they puncture our reality each time their ships are operational, each time they cross the breach from their universe into ours?”
“I’ve heard something to that effect, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“Their ships’ movement through our reality unravels the weft and warp of over here so over there can seep in. Does that make sense? They have to weave a pocket of their own world inside ours, or their ships won’t work. All their supposed ‘technology’ functions that way. As I said, it’s no different than guide work. As spirit guides, we shift and reconfigure reality for the purpose of manifesting our clients’ intentions or helping them journey. It’s what I did to dull your pain, for that matter. In Transliminal’s case, their intentions are usually simple: exist in a universe different from their own.”
Nova was using what I liked to call her “teacher voice,” treating me as if I were a client.
“Okay,” I said. “So they’re, more or less, spirit guides. We established that.”
“Right. And when they do their work, weaving those pockets inside our reality, it leaves an imprint. Think of how we used to record information on electromagnetic strips. So . . . ” She tilted her head at me and raised her eyeb
rows. “Guess what happens when someone uses Transliminal products or medication?”
“It leaves an imprint.”
She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Exactly. Bits and pieces of data programmed into reality itself, like metaphysical flotsam. And guides like me are excellent at extracting that data. Easy as plucking strands of hair from my own head.”
“Nova, can you please get to the point? What are you telling me here?”
She lifted the milky, cold veil. It shimmered like nacre. “Do you understand what happened at Adul?”
My heart raced. Even the mere mention of the name Adul was becoming a trigger for me. I was starting to realize my parents would be dying all the time, in my head. Over and over again, they would die, and Adul would fade, and I would never not see that when I closed my eyes, or when I heard their names, or when I heard certain sounds, saw certain colors, felt certain things. Everyday things, like the weight of the shoes I wore the day they died, or the feeling of the navigation console beneath my fingers. When I felt these things, I’d lose everything all over again. That was what it meant to grieve.
“Alana?”
I started, then remembered Nova had asked me a question about what had happened at Adul. I simply said: “What do you mean?”
“Tell me what you know about what happened.”
I sighed and spoke quickly, to get it over with. “The planet was destroyed. Its inhabitants were killed. Our parents . . . ” I paused to tamp down the grief. “We were framed. Something shot out from the Tangled Axon because of a Transliminal device on the hull—”
I stopped. Nova grinned.
“A device made from what?” she said.
“Transliminal tech,” I said, my voice a near-whisper under the weight of what she was telling me she’d done. Now, when I looked at her woven veil, I felt hopeful for the first time in weeks.
“I couldn’t let my own flesh and blood be blamed for something so sinister. The moment I saw what had happened, I got to work extracting the imprint.”
“You have proof.” I grabbed her and knocked her over and kissed her cheeks several times. “Nova! You have proof!”
“Come on now, you’re messing up my hair.” She shoved me off her and patted the cloud of hair puffed up behind her head. “You are a heathen, Alana Quick. But yes. Everything that happened at Adul has been recorded here. The mere fact that this tapestry exists is proof Transliminal committed the massacre, not the crew of the Tangled Axon. It’s proof that the attendant at Ouyang Outpost had been switched with a representative from their side of the breach, and proof that that ugly thing in the cargo bay was a ploy to get your crew out of the way.”
“I can’t believe this.” I just gawked at my sister while she smiled. “We have to tell the others.”
“I’m not so useless after all, now am I?”
Chapter Seventeen
I kissed my sister’s cheeks several more times and laughed with her, pressing my forehead against hers. Joy exploded from my every pore and for a moment, I felt the ship tremble in celebration with us. After a lifetime of resentment, finally, finally, we were sisters in more than just blood and genes. I had been so wrong for assuming she didn’t care.
“I’m sorry for doubting you,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah.” She gently pushed me off and waved her hand dismissively, though she couldn’t hide her happiness, either. “I know, I’m fabulous. Now go tell your beloved captain.”
Once more I kissed her, then ran toward the bridge. Between Tev’s kiss, Nova’s evidence, and the Dexitek relieving me of the worst of my Mel’s symptoms, I felt galvanized. Forget broken ribs—even with the ache of injury splitting my side in half, how could I care? In the grand scheme, that was nothing. Life had promise again.
“I have to tell you—!” I said as I practically exploded onto the bridge, but stopped in my tracks, grabbing the entrance frame. All the joy drained out of me and seeped like acid into the floor.
While Marre sat at navigation and quietly guided us toward our destination, Tev and Slip were wrapped in each other near the other end of the bridge. Tev’s hands at Slip’s perfect, round hips. Slip’s on her cheeks, fingers tangled in Tev’s beautiful hair. Intimacy in their eyes. It was a closeness she and I had shared only days prior. I shouldn’t have been surprised—she’s her partner—but I was. She’d kissed me while Slip remained ignorant of the truth.
Tev had played us both.
I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t linger there for a moment longer—not even to tell her about Nova’s evidence.
Jealousy and embarrassment burned in my stomach, flames licking my shame raw. I hurried down the corridor to the crew dorms, thinking I was going to my quarters until I found myself opening Tev’s door and running up the stairs to the observation deck. Anger spiraled out from me, scorching everything in my path. Roiling clouds of betrayal churned inside me like volcanic ash; I was all pyroclastics and lava, wild and ready to burn everything down.
One thought cycled through my mind: Tev led me on, and I was the fool. I blamed myself most of all for having let her do this to me and Slip. I should have known better. I was nothing more than her dirty secret—the neophyte engineer, the new plaything, the distraction. Something novel and insignificant to boost her ego.
I should have known! Women with swagger like that didn’t develop feelings for women like me. Just like women like me didn’t love women at all—we loved ships, stars, engines. That was the way it should have been, and I’d let myself wander too far from the values I’d held all my life. My mind had been clouded by the romance of all those stars, all that black creation outside the Tangled Axon.
Ships never lied to you. They loved sincerely, unabashedly. No games. Falling prey to human women invariably ended here, always like this, with a bellyful of fire-scorched shame.
“Marre, please open the observation deck window,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Certainly.”
The window flashed to transparency. I thought the view would help calm me, but it did nothing. I still wanted to give my jealousy and rage room to lash out, to feed it enough oxygen to flare bright and fast, leaving nothing but a glass heart in its place. I wanted it to erupt and die out quickly so I could move past it and not care. But I thought of Slip’s hand on Tev’s waist, of her laughter, of their intimate embrace, and I knew I’d carry this with me no matter how much fire I filled myself with. This kind of embarrassment and loss of face was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, not even when Kugler left me because I couldn’t meet her idea of what a marriage looked like. And even that still plucked at my heart.
Why was I surprised? This is what people did to each other. They took what they needed and gave only what they must. I should have been grateful I hadn’t confessed anything stupid. People like her never apologized, never cared. They brushed their victims off as collateral damage and moved on to the next easy target.
The metal stairs shook from below as someone climbed. When the person reached the top, the slightly arrhythmic sound of the footsteps told me it was Tev.
“You disappeared,” she said, her familiar accent tugging hard at my heart. “You said you wanted to tell me something—”
I turned around, hands in my pockets to keep from defensively crossing my arms. “You claim to love Slip.”
Her head pulled back as if I’d slapped her. “You’re upset.”
I laughed and turned back around to look at the stars so she wouldn’t see the sadness behind the rage.
“You were so excited on the bridge a few minutes ago. What were you going to tell me?”
“I’d rather not right now. Leave me alone. Just . . . ” I waved her off without looking at her. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Yes, I love Slip. I won’t lie about that.”
Anger burned even hotter inside me but I didn’t let it show. Did she want accolades? “Suddenly you’re being frank?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t in love wi
th her. You knew about our relationship from the beginning. Slip said she told you.”
Everything in me wanted to turn around and shout at her, but regardless of my feelings, she was my captain first, and I didn’t want to lose any more face than I already had. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, the power, of witnessing me fly off the handle. Even if I had control over nothing else in my life, I’d maintain control over my actions.
“You let me believe you wanted me. If seducing someone while your partner is just down the corridor isn’t deception, I don’t know what is.”
“I haven’t deceived you.” Her voice wavered a bit. I heard her walk up to me. I just faced the silence, watching the stars, but I didn’t have to look at her to feel her gaze sliding over me. “I do want you.”
She took my wrist and stood right behind me, then nuzzled her face against the crook of my neck. Desire welled inside me again, as did all the resentment I’d held inside, but I choked back the bitter tears and collected myself as well as I could, stiffening under her touch. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of either giving in or pushing her away. Finally, she pulled back slightly but remained close, still watching me.
“We agreed we weren’t going to have kids,” she said. “Me and Slip.”
“Good for you.”
“Please, just listen. Three years into the relationship, she changed her mind. Tried to get me to change mine, but I’d already told her I didn’t want to be a parent. Kids are great, don’t get me wrong, but parenthood isn’t the life I want. I wanted her to respect that. To respect me and the terms of our relationship. Our family is the Axon and the crew, and I wanted her to want that life with me, the way she said she did when we first met.”
Tev sighed, her breath brushing my shoulder. I could feel warmth radiating from her body. I fought my desire to collect her into my arms. “But people grow, they change. I can’t fault her for that. If someone wants children, nothing should keep them from that. But asking a person to commit to parenthood when they don’t want it . . . that’s no different. Just like I couldn’t fault her for changing her mind, she couldn’t fault me for not changing with her, or for knowing myself. She’s a good person and has a kind heart, and I still loved her. I do love her. We want to be together despite everything.”
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel Page 24