by Jaleta Clegg
“So why does Jerrus not like it?”
She shook her head. “No one told me.” She tried to smile at her own weak joke. It came out strained. “What ship are you from? Not Patrol or you’d listen to Jerrus.”
“I’ve been out for just over a month,” he said.
“You were Patrol?” She looked surprised.
“Pilot on couriers, mostly. Glorified message runner.” He glanced at her collar. She still had insignia. “You’re a captain?”
“Joli Esslen, captain of the Tommy Ruiz. Or I was.” She shifted back, wiping dripping water from her face. “Tell me how long I’ve been here. What’s the date?”
He told her.
She leaned back against the wet rock and closed her eyes. “Too long. I don’t even know what happened to the rest of the crew. They separated us. I saw my navigator once, a long time ago. Haven’t seen him since.” She opened her eyes and looked at Clark. “What ship are you with, if you’re not Patrol anymore?”
“Small trade ship.” He looked down at his green shipsuit. And remembered Jasyn. He wished he’d been more patient with her.
“Crew?”
“There were three of us."
“Family ship?”
“I guess you could say that. I married one of them a month ago.” So short a time. A drop of rain crawled under his collar, tracing a cold path across his back.
She gave him a look full of sympathy.
“Tell me about this place,” Clark said. “What chance is there of getting out? The thorns can’t be that thick.”
“The thorns aren’t. They live not far away, though. No one’s ever gone very far. The last who tried were beaten to death, just outside. After that, Jerrus took command and made everyone follow his rules. He isn’t sane anymore.” She shifted to a different position. “It rains about once every eight days or so. When it does, we stay here. Otherwise we plant fields. Nothing else has happened since I was brought here. It should stop raining by nightfall.”
“Have you thought about escaping?”
“Every night,” she admitted in a quiet whisper. Jerrus was beginning to stir. “It isn’t possible.”
“If it were, would you try it with me?”
“Sure. I’m dead either way.” She leaned back against the rock and wrapped her arms around herself. She closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.
Clark shifted so the water dripping off the cliff didn’t land on him. He watched Jerrus wake up, wiping water from his scraggly beard. Jerrus gave him a dark glare before rolling over and going back to sleep. The rain trailed off into an intermittent drizzle. Streaks of orange sunlight broke through the clouds.
He missed Jasyn. Even fighting with her was better than not knowing where she was. He hoped Dace was still loose somewhere. With her out there wreaking havoc, his chances of escaping were much higher. He wanted out. He wanted his wife.
He went through his pockets. He had id plates and nothing else. He’d emptied his pockets on the ship days ago and hadn’t bothered to put things back. Now he wished he had. He rubbed his finger over the id plates. Dace had signed him on as permanent crew even though she’d suspected he was working for Lowell and the Patrol at the time. She’d been right. She still trusted him. He’d failed her before, when she was kidnapped from a nightclub. The whole thing had been a fiasco. The only good thing that had happened was Jasyn. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d married him.
Their fights had been stupid. He saw that now. Jasyn wasn’t someone who trusted or loved easily. With her past, what little she’d told him, he could understand. Why had he pushed her? He should have given her time and room to adjust. He rubbed his finger slowly across his name on the id plate and wished he’d done things differently. If he ever saw her again. . . No, not if. When. He had to hold on to that thought or he’d go as crazy as he suspected Jerrus was.
He put the id plates back in his pocket and watched the sun slowly drive the clouds away. Steam rose from the puddles as they evaporated into a thick muggy afternoon.
The men came at sunset with a basket of the brick things. The prisoners crowded forward and were handed one. Clark took his brick and sat next to Joli. He noticed she sat as far from Jerrus as the clearing allowed.
They were joined by two others, a man and woman both wearing Planetary Survey tan uniforms. The man leaned forward when Jerrus was occupied at the far end of the sluggish stream.
“Wade Breton,” he introduced himself. “We heard you talking earlier. If you have a plan, we want in.”
“I don’t have a plan,” Clark admitted. “I’m working on it, though. I’m not going to stay here until I die.”
“Most of the others will join us,” the woman said. “My name’s Enuri Akoma. I was a botanist. Not that it’s much help here.” She held up the uneaten half of her brick. “This is what they make from the grasses we’re planting. The whole ecosystem is very simple. It’s maintained artificially. It definitely isn’t native.”
“Quiet!” Jerrus’ mad glare pinned Enuri against the rock. He shifted his glare to each of them in turn, reserving the longest glare for Clark. “Quiet,” he repeated.
They sat until Jerrus wandered away again.
“After he’s asleep,” Clark said very softly. “We can start planning something. I don’t know what, though.”
Chapter 11
I woke to complete silence. I rolled onto my back, staring at the unfamiliar bunk over my head. A piece of old tape clung to one corner. Someone had put up pictures. I noticed every detail. It was one way to avoid thinking about what I was going to do next. Or about the captain of this ship, wherever he was.
Darus Venn. Could he really be my father? I rubbed my eyes and let my arms fall over my face.
What kind of man was my father? I’d known nothing about him other than his name until last night. Now I had a face and voice recordings, impersonal ship logs.
What would happen when I met him? Assuming he wasn’t dead. What could I possibly say to him? Hi, I’m your daughter? Why didn’t you come get me? Why did you leave me in the orphanage? Did you want me? Did you love my mother? What was she like? Why did you leave her on Tivor? Why did she have to die? Why did my life have to be so awful? Why did I seem to get deeper in trouble everywhere I went? How was I going to get off this planet? How was I going to find Jasyn and Clark? What plan did I have once I did find them?
The questions circled in my head. I shifted my arms so I could see the bottom of the bunk overhead. What picture had hung there? A sweetheart? A family? It didn’t matter, not anymore. I rolled over.
I thought I’d come to terms with my childhood. Once off Tivor, I put it behind me and didn’t look back. Or so I thought. Finding my father’s name, hearing his voice, seeing his face, had reopened all sorts of old wounds.
My stomach growled. I laughed. It was a bitter sound, halfway mad. I bit it back, wishing I hadn’t even tried. I should get up, I should eat something and keep cataloging ships. I should do a whole lot of things. I lay on the bunk, staring at nothing.
What good would any of it do? What could I possibly do against an entire planet? How could I ever hope to get Jasyn and Clark free? I was by myself. I had almost nothing; a handful of blankets and someone’s spare socks. Two hand weapons that would probably blow up if I tried to use them.
I couldn’t possibly rescue anyone. I didn’t have the training. I was by myself, on my own. I was guessing in the dark and missing the answers.
I closed my eyes and gave in to despair.
My stomach growled again. My bladder joined in. My body wasn’t going to let me wallow in self pity. I gave up and went to the bathroom.
I used the galley, punching up a dish of bland, mushy rice with some kind of sauce over the top. The taste left a lot to be desired, but it was hot and it stopped my stomach from complaining.
I ate in the cockpit, watching the scans. They showed the same things I’d found on the other ships. I tried sending spikes of code. Maybe I could get ba
ck to one of the other ships and see what had come through. Except the golden men knew I was out here. I switched the equipment over to video to show outside the ship.
The landscape was transformed. Sheets of thin gray rain swept across the rolling hills. The brittle plants expanded, reaching after the moisture and sucking it in. I panned the camera. Everywhere I saw evidence of plant life groping after the rain. I ran atmospheric scans, curious at what I’d find.
While they ran, I changed the viewscreen over the pilot’s chair to transparent. I watched rain trickle over the screen.
The scanner beeped. I moved back to that station and pulled up the results. The rain was thickest over the canyon. It thinned out quickly as the clouds drifted away on the steady wind blowing from the canyon.
I could have hit myself. It was so obvious. The canyon contained atmosphere and weather generators. Where they were, I was likely to find generators for the tractor beams and force fields. I set the scanner to do a more detailed map of the atmosphere over the canyon.
And then what?
“Then we see what happens,” I muttered.
I swiveled the chair, one leg hanging over the arm, as I watched the rain. I didn’t know if it would keep the golden men away or not. Tonight, if the rain quit, I’d check out the last few ships. That would just leave sneaking into the canyon to disable the generators. And finding Jasyn and Clark.
The scan finished. I fitted it over an aerial map from the ship’s files, the best I’d seen yet. Blue lines showing intensity of rainfall spread away from the canyon, growing fainter the farther they got. They were centered several miles north, closer to the Phoenix. I hit the print button, feeding a sheet of my notes into the printer.
I heated a different dish from the galley. It was barely past noon. I had lots of time to wait. The rain slowed. Fewer drops slid over the viewscreen. I set the scanner to do everything I could think of and then explored more possibilities. This was an Exploration ship, the choices were many.
While the equipment worked, I pulled up the ship logs. I played them from the beginning. I picked at my food while I listened to my father’s voice. What kind of person was he? Was he kind? Was he strict? What did he do for a hobby? The logs gave me no clues. His voice was a medium range, not deep and not thin or high. He sounded nice enough.
I remembered the locked bins in the captain’s cabin. I went into the cabin and studied the bins, hands on hips. I chewed my lip. I could pick them, eventually, but not without damaging them to the point that it would be obvious someone had tampered with them. So far, I hadn’t broken any serious rules. I’d bent quite a few, but nothing that I couldn’t justify. If I forced these locks, not only would I be admitting that I had skills law abiding citizens shouldn’t, but I’d be committing a serious crime that would land me in deep trouble. Deeper than what I was in now? I doubted that.
I settled on the floor in front of the bins and pulled out my lockpicks. When I got out of this, I’d answer any questions. If anyone asked them. For all I knew, the crew of this ship was dead and it would never lift again.
I wiggled a probe into the first lock. It beeped and hummed. The lock didn’t budge. I tried a different one. Still no luck. I sat back, one arm wrapped around a knee, and studied the lock. I had plenty of time. Hours. No one was going to interrupt me.
I spread out my lockpicks. I picked a slender needle and poked it into the lock. I wiggled it back and forth. The lock still didn’t budge. My skills were rusty; I hadn’t used the lockpicks in a while.
I worked on the lock for the next hour. It kept me from thinking. It was a challenge I could handle. The pick slipped for the thousandth time. I shoved it into the case, out of patience. I pried the latch loose with a screwdriver.
The bin held several smaller boxes. Yellowed papers, handwritten letters, filled the first box. I lifted the top one. It was addressed to Darus and signed Liri. I’d found letters my mother had written to my father. My hand started shaking to the point I couldn’t read the letter. I put it back in the box. Maybe later I would read them, I wasn’t ready yet.
Another box held an assortment of trinkets. A shiny stone, deep red. A feather that sparkled blue green. A glass globe with a tiny scene of a forest buried in it. Ticket stubs from various shows. A thin yellow ribbon. An engineer’s cogwheels, Patrol silver, double starred with a weapons rating. A plain gold ring. I held the ring for a long time, thinking. He’d been married. To whom? I doubted it was my mother. I put the ring back and shut that box.
The third box held more papers, not as personal. Graduation from the Academy on New Friedland. Top honors, I noted. Copies of various postings to different ships. He’d climbed fast, earning rank quickly. He’d stayed with smaller ships, though, until he’d worked his way into command of an Exploration ship. According to the records Darus Venn kept, it had flown quite a few successful missions. He’d earned several awards. I opened those boxes, fingering the medals for a moment. They were smooth, polished symbols of dedication and duty. I closed the small flat boxes and put them away. At the very bottom of the box was a different certificate. It had elaborate scrollwork along the edges. The ink was faded with age. I lifted it out and read it.
It was a marriage certificate. He had married my mother. Then why hadn’t he come? Why had she died on Tivor when I was too small to remember? Why had he left me on that planet, in an orphanage where they hated me? I bit my lip, fighting back more hot tears.
It wasn’t an official certificate. Half the signatures were missing. What story was behind it? I put it back in the box and added the rest of the papers on top.
I retrieved the bundle of letters. There weren’t many. Was I really ready to find out who my parents had been? Would I ever have another chance? I took the top one and started reading.
My mother’s writing was not elegant or even pretty. It was square and blocky and filled the lines. Except for the tails on some letters that tried to escape. Much like her, I realized as I read her words. She was young when she wrote that first letter. She worked near the port, where she’d met my father. He’d been a young engineer, stationed at the Patrol base, repairing the ships that landed on Tivor. It was supposed to be temporary, or so I gathered from the letter. He’d asked my mother on a date. She wasn’t allowed to go, the government rules against mixing with offworlders were very strict. It was a miracle she’d met my father at all. She’d been attracted to him, though, enough to find a way to smuggle letters to him. She was excited in that first letter. She’d managed to talk her way into a job that would let her see more of him. She never said what it was. She signed her name Liri.
“Lirondalla Muberretton,” I said. Her full name. She’d named me Zeresthina Dasmuller. I still didn’t know why. I set the first letter aside and read the next one.
Her letters showed a growing love between them. And a growing desperation. By the tenth letter she was asking about his petition for them to be married, for her to escape Tivor. It wasn’t granted. Her twelfth letter was full of disappointment and despair. There were only two more letters. The next one was brief, promising to meet him at their special place that night. She signed it with her love and all her heart.
The next letter was dated two months later, the longest gap between any of them.
Dearest,
I would come if I could. I know your posting is up next week. I won’t be there. I know I promised to come, that somehow you would get me free. They came this morning. Kylee is risking her life to bring this to you. I love you. No matter what they may say, my love will go with you. My heart will always belong to you.
She hadn’t signed it. The paper was blotched with dried tears. I wiped back a few of my own. What had gone wrong? Why had he left me on Tivor? That question wouldn’t leave me alone.
I carefully put the letters back in the box. Darus had loved my mother. He wouldn’t have kept these letters if he hadn’t. I put the box in the bin with the others and shut the door. I wiggled the latch into place.
&n
bsp; I’d learned a lot about my parents but I hadn’t found anything useful to my current predicament. I stared at the other locked bin. What were the chances that it was more personal things of my father’s and nothing that would help me? Did I really want more revelations about him? Or the mother I barely remembered? She’d been killed during the food riots when I was three. All I really remembered was soft dark hair and a sweet lullaby.
I jammed the pick in the lock and twisted it. The lock broke. I used the screwdriver to free the latch.
Half of the bin was full of clean socks and underwear. I lifted a pair and laughed. And wiped tears off my face. White socks and white shorts, I knew more about my father than I ever expected to. I put his clothing back.
The other half of the bin held only a single picture. I looked into the faded face of a smiling woman. She wouldn’t be called a beauty by anyone’s standards, but there was something about her smile that intrigued me. Her brown eyes danced with mischief. Her hair was dark, tied back with a yellow ribbon. I touched the smile on her face, tracing the line of her lip with one finger. The woman could only be my mother.
I put her picture back, letting go reluctantly. Darus Venn had more to remember of her than I had ever had. Maybe, when I found a way free, I’d come back here and take her picture and letters with me.
I closed the bin gently.
The scanner beeped, a loud sound in the utter quiet of the ship. I leaned against the bunk. I didn’t want to shut it all away, where it might never be found again. I didn’t want to lose what little I’d found of my mother and father. I opened the bins again. I took only her picture and my father’s wedding band. The letters and the rest belonged to him. But these, I wanted something to prove my parents had loved each other. I wanted my mother’s face. I would have printed the picture of my father if I’d had paper to spare. I gently pulled my mother’s picture from the frame. I tucked it into my pocket, over my heart. The wedding band I slipped onto the only finger it fit, the middle one on my left hand. It hung loose on my finger. I shut the bin again.