Alkor looked doubtful, but she nodded, crossing her arms. “So he’s alive. Maybe. We chase him, if we’re lucky we find him—”
“We’ll find him.”
“You know that too?”
“I do.” Sinder inclined his head. There was no way to explain the certainty he felt. It was as though he could see lines twisting through the surrounding space, through the larger universe; lines that bound pieces of it together and tugged them closer. Tethers that held people and places and things into orbits. Branching paths of probability and chance, seemingly chaotic but in fact possessed of a profound order.
He would find Adam Yuga because he must. There was no escaping that fate.
“Well, we’ll see.” Alkor sighed and sank down into the chair opposite him. “In the meantime I suppose we should get some rest. We’ll need to be sharp. Whatever happens.”
There was a soft lurch, and the stars outside the window swelled and filled the void with brilliant light as they went to slipstream. Sinder watched the transition for a minute, losing himself in it, then shook it free and got to his feet.
Rest. Yes.
“Sleep well, Captain.” He gave her a small bow. “I hope you know, I don’t regard this as any failure of yours.”
Alkor seemed to hesitate, then gave him a smile, wry but genuine. “I appreciate that, Sinder. I sincerely do.”
Sinder nodded, and left as silently as he had entered.
Back in his cabin, he hesitated between stripping off his clothes and sliding into bed. Naked, he approached his own window, laying his hands on its pristine surface as if he could touch the slipstream itself. All those stars, rushing past. Space-time warping, twisting in on itself. It was a kind of magic. He was in the midst of a maelstrom of the spaces between everything. Impossibly tiny, impossibly large. He had never really given it a thought before.
He lifted his hands away. Slightly, so slight it was hardly perceptible, they shook. He dropped them and took a long, deep breath.
There was freedom in surrendering. That was the wisdom he had been waiting for. He had his path to walk. He would walk it with grace. At the end of it he would look Adam Yuga in the eye.
And kill him.
When he had been very young, Adam’s mother had told him stories. These were profoundly romantic stories, and they revealed parts of his mother he hardly ever saw. She was a cool woman, efficient and more than a little distant, but when he lay in bed at night and she lowered the light and spun her tales, her face would contort with emotion—fear and excitement—and it would make its way into him and he would feel it too. She’d tell old stories, of brave warriors and proud, graceful royalty, heroes and heroines who fought for love and justice. There was one story, a woman who had been cursed by a Bideshi witch to sleep for a thousand years, but a Protectorate peacekeeper who loved her fought his way to her side, took her in his arms—though he believed she must be dead—and gave her one final, sorrowful kiss that woke her from her charmed coma. It was a rare moment when the magic of the Bideshi made its way even into the lives of the Protectorate heroes as something powerful and real. It was thrilling, beautiful, and at the end he had felt a rush of joy as the two were reunited.
Like that woman, he had fallen into his own sleep, deep and dark and still, but somewhere in that darkness he felt a hand stroking through his hair, lips on his, and he opened his eyes.
Lochlan smiled. “Thought you might sleep the whole way to wherever-the-fuck-we’regoing.”
Adam groaned. The dark was receding, and he wished it would come back, because now he felt his own body. He was sore, still exhausted no matter how long he had slept, and when he moved every muscle rushed to tell him what a bad idea that was. As far as he could tell, he was lying on a bunk in one of the ship’s dormitories, and the sounds—and smells—of other people were all around him: muttering, groaning, the shuffling of feet.
Ignoring his body, he pushed himself up on one elbow. Lochlan slid back to give him room. “How long was I…?”
“About five hours. I wanted to let you sleep.” Lochlan took his hand and held on, and the tension in it pulled Adam back to a fuzzy memory. Something that had happened before he and Rachel had—
The ship.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he breathed. “Naomi?” But he already knew. He sensed it, how she wasn’t there anymore.
Lochlan nodded, pain briefly etched across his features. “Her and a couple hundred others. I mean, I assume. No way anyone could’ve survived that crash.” He sighed, glancing around the room. “No one is really talking about it. I don’t think anyone knows what to say.”
“They’ll be in shock,” Adam said softly. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bunk, taking a few seconds to let his body reorient itself. “At still being alive. I … I know how that feels.”
Lochlan didn’t say anything else, just held on to his hand. Adam was aware of people moving past, others lying in their bunks, a few sitting close together and talking. Some were stripping off filthy clothes and gathering spare bedding around their waists and chests in makeshift togas, presumably so they could wash what they had. Getting clean, that would make sense as an escape. It would be something to care for the body and occupy the attention.
It sounded amazing.
“Are there showers here?” He raised his head, grateful for the idea. “There have to be, this is a transport ship.”
“There are. And a lot of very hot water. They were pretty crowded a couple of hours ago, but I think we could find a spot.” Lochlan smiled faintly. “Not much privacy, but I’m guessing you won’t mind that.”
“I don’t care.” Gingerly, Adam stood, stretching the kinks out of his spine and shoulders. “Just come with me. Make sure I don’t fall asleep in there.”
The showers—there turned out to be two large chambers devoted to them—were indeed communal, and though the two rooms were probably once divided by sex, people were ignoring that now, throwing Protectorate propriety to the wind in favor of scrubbing weeks of dirt and oil. Men and women huddled together under the spray, using soap and cloths and their hands to clean themselves, whatever they could, some of them laughing with tired joy and some of them merely standing there, heads down. Adam couldn’t tell if they were exhausted or grieving or both, and then, as Lochlan began to strip off his clothes, he didn’t care.
It was strange, how he hadn’t realized that it had been days since they had seen each other naked. Days since he had even thought about sex as something that they might do together. He was still far too tired and too generally overcome with everything that had happened to want to do anything of the kind, but as Lochlan’s body came into view, he felt a low hunger that bled into relief, though there was a flash of anger and sympathetic pain at Lochlan’s bruised and now tightly wrapped side.
He undressed, leaving his clothes in a pile beside Lochlan’s—even though he didn’t want them anymore—and followed him to a miraculously free spot under one of the showerheads. The water was scalding the first time it touched his skin, and he jumped and gasped, but Lochlan curled an arm around his shoulders and held him, and he remained where he was, loosening and uncurling as he became accustomed to the heat. He became freshly aware that everyone could see him, could see them, and that, if they remained close like this, anyone with sense would be able to tell what was going on.
But that seemed beyond unimportant. He leaned back against Lochlan’s chest and let the water run over him, sluicing off everything that had accumulated over days that had seemed like weeks, freeing him of it. Lochlan had gotten soap from somewhere and his hands moved slowly over Adam’s skin, half cleaning and half simply stroking, soothing. And as Lochlan’s hands drifted lower, it became a little less soothing, and he turned in Lochlan’s arms, leaning in close. In part he was trying to hide the fact that he was suddenly getting hard, but it was backfiring badly.
“You don’t have to,” Lochlan murmured, but Adam shook his head.
“Just
stay here for a minute.”
When he glanced up, he saw that no one was watching them. Adam had a sudden, insane fantasy of letting Lochlan push him up against the wall of the shower and take him right there in full view of everyone, and he shivered.
There was nothing left to be afraid of.
“My turn.” Lochlan turned them again, slid in front of Adam, and began to work the soap over his own body—but without thinking, Adam took it from him, and began to lather up Lochlan’s skin. It felt smooth, easy.
And then they simply stood, heads tilted back, skin pressed together and thrumming as the last of the soap ran down past their feet and away.
“Let’s get out of here,” Adam whispered, and when Lochlan kissed the edge of Adam’s jaw, he felt the other man smiling.
They didn’t stop to dry off. They didn’t even stop to dress. The ship was still in chaos—no one would notice. There was a small alcove off one of the corridors, for storage or something, and they edged themselves into it, clumsy and laughing. Somewhere, a great many people were dead in senseless fire, but that knowledge only—perversely—made the pleasure sharper, sweeter. They were alive. They were together. Adam rolled his hips into Lochlan’s hand and kept his moans locked behind gritted teeth, his own hands doing as best they could with almost no room to move in.
But there didn’t need to be any skill involved. They tensed and shuddered against each other, Lochlan muffling a low cry in the hollow of Adam’s throat. Then stillness, as they leaned together, breathing hard.
“We need another shower,” Adam mumbled, and Lochlan barked a laugh.
“Chusile, we need to sleep again.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
Lochlan pulled back enough to frame Adam’s cheek with one hand, lifting the other to his mouth and idly sucking his fingers clean. Adam watched him, vaguely entranced. “No. I’m okay.” He paused, licking his lips. “No, scratch that. I’m about to pass out on you right now. Let’s go.”
They finished cleaning themselves up as best they could, and were still naked as they made their way back to the dormitory, but as Adam had guessed, those passing barely glanced their way. It had been a kind of arrogance to assume that they would be so important that anyone could spare them a second thought after everything else that had happened. He didn’t need to carry that with him any longer, and as he lay back down in his bunk, Lochlan curled close along his back, the weariness that stole back over him was almost welcome. For the moment, he had no responsibilities. Later, he could deal with the death, the uncertainty, the guilt that he knew was waiting in the wings.
He could deal with anything. He had everything he needed now.
Aarons scanned the people around him. “So where are we going?”
The cockpit was considerably less crowded than it had been, occupied only by the two de facto pilots—Tamara and Kara were their names—as well as Rachel, who seemed to have taken Naomi’s place as the former prisoners’ leader, Aarons, Adam, and Lochlan, who was leaning against a console toward the rear of the chamber.
Adam didn’t need to ask him to know that he wasn’t comfortable with this, playing a part in the decision making. Lochlan would probably be better pleased if the two of them removed themselves from the front line of things completely. But even now, Adam couldn’t. He didn’t have to be the center, he didn’t have to be the one directing them, but he had to be present.
He was in too deep to pull back.
Aarons’s question hung in the air for a moment. The white light of slipstream streaked over their faces. Kara looked around at each of them, her young face showing unease, while Tamara—the older of the two—kept her attention locked on Rachel, who met her gaze and sighed, raking a hand through her hair.
“I have no idea. Somewhere where we can hide for a while. We have a lot of exhausted people, and they all have more healing to do. Simply getting this far took almost everything they had. I know I don’t have much left in me.” She paused, her mouth twisting. “They’ve also lost a lot, some of them. Almost everyone had friends or family on that ship. And everyone loved Naomi. They’re in mourning, and they need space for it.”
Adam nodded. “That means somewhere on the edges of Protectorate space.”
“Everything out that way is at least a few days from our current position in slipstream.” Tamara frowned. “We’ve got some nonperishable foodstuffs—mostly protein bars—but not enough for everyone, not for long. We’ll either need to find a place ASAP or make a stop somewhere to take on supplies.”
“So let’s pick a planet and head for it,” Aarons said. “The more random the better, probably. Anywhere sparsely populated. There have to be a few of those closer in. We ditch the ship, find the most middle-of-nowhere place that still has water and food, and lay low as long as we can.”
“We have another option.”
Everyone turned toward Lochlan, and Adam could feel their faint surprise—as well as his own. Lochlan, for his part, shifted slightly, mouth tense, as if he felt deep dislike for what he himself was saying. But he pulled in a breath and pushed on. “My people. We didn’t cast Adam out, even when it was in their best interest to send him packing. I don’t think they’d turn a whole gaggle of refugees away, not after we explain what’s going on. We make contact with a convoy, we see what they say.”
Slowly, Adam shook his head. “I was one person, Lock. We have hundreds. No way they could accommodate that, regardless of whether they’d be willing.”
Lochlan’s mouth twisted. “You’d be surprised what we can do, mitr raya. There wouldn’t be one homeship, remember. There’d be three. If they spread us out—”
“Wait.” Kara held up a hand, frowning. “The Bideshi? I know we’re desperate, but we— You—” She shot Lochlan a look of mingled apology and distrust. “I know you helped us and all, but you can’t really expect us to—”
“You think we’re in a position to be that picky?” Rachel’s voice was sharp, edged with disgust. “Shit, Kara, get over yourself. I’m not sure I like it either, but I want to stay alive, and at this point I’ll do whatever that takes. I have children. So do a lot of people here. Think about that for a second.”
Silence. Adam let his gaze pass from one to the other, halting on Lochlan, who stared back at him, a hundred different emotions swirling behind his eyes.
And then something shifted.
At first Adam thought the deck was rocking, that an object had impacted with the ship itself. But no one in the cockpit seemed to have noticed anything, and when it hit him again, he realized that it was coming not from outside himself but inside. The world around him faded, drifted over him as if he were falling down a long tunnel that led into the core of a vast space. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around his limbs, around his neck, but they were gentle. They meant him no harm.
There was something they wanted to show him.
This was the center. This was the Plain—only not the Plain, but everywhere that the Plain might be, the part of it that he carried within himself now, that was also a door to everyplace and everything else. There were people here waiting for him, strange people, whose faces he had never seen and did not know. They were watching him approach, faces tilted up and arms lifted to greet him: two women, one very old and one young, dressed in the scarves and beaded chaos of an Aalim.
Their eyes were pale and sightless. But he knew they saw him better than anyone could. He drifted toward them, and as he did he heard Ixchel laughing.
Child, perfect, yes. Follow one, bring the other one to you. You are the link between them. You are what I couldn’t be. You are the last piece needed to bind them together, the future and the ruined past.
He reached them, his feet touching a solid surface, and he saw that they weren’t in darkness but in the center of a field, with the stars spinning over them. Wind in the grass whispered secrets to the sky. There was a little house some way away with low trees around it, and a garden. The old woman smiled; the young one’s face crumple
d with pain and loss. Then the faces were reversed, then reversed again.
The stars changed, moved, danced. They spun into new forms, wheeling in strange orbits, and after a few seconds—or minutes, or hours—Adam realized that he was gazing at an atlas in the sky, a map to where he now stood.
A way forward.
Go, Ixchel murmured into his ear. Find her, my lost sister. She has been waiting for you for a very long time.
Who? Why? But as he asked it, fire bloomed under his feet, spreading in an instant across the grass and eating its way up the trunks of the trees, wreathing the house in flame. There was a scream, or maybe only the wind howling, and he was rushing upward again, the vision spitting him out like sour and unwelcome food. Part of him didn’t belong. The other part belonged nowhere else. It hurt, as he crashed back into the world. It was like smashing through a wall of flesh, of glass. It was like being born.
Frightened voices. Lochlan’s face above his, there and then blurring out again. He reached blindly, felt a hand close around his fingers, recognized it as Rachel’s seconds before an aftershock seized and shook him.
“Adam! Adam, what—”
“I know,” he gasped, jerking upward. Somehow he was sitting, gripping the sides of his head. “I know where we have to go. I know.”
Stares bored into him like drills. He managed a smile—through the pain there was exhilaration, the sense of once again finding his perfect place in the line they were bound to.
“I’ll show you.”
Nkiruka watched them set the fire. She watched very closely. One watched everything closely, she supposed, when you knew it would be among the last things they would ever see.
Satya stood beside her, silently. There had been a lot of silence between them in the past day. There might have been attempted explanations, even arguing, but both seemed pointless. This seemed more and more like a decision that had been made a long time ago, that they were finally facing. Satya had always understood that truth.
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