Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Abysme’s blind eye widened and she writhed in her re­straints. The beacon draws near.

  For­get the beacon. I’ve been in­side the orb, and there’s noth­ing there but tempta­tion. Mestasis’s mind shot up every chan­nel she could find, but she ran against dead ends. If no one looked after the ship, the sys­tems would fail. She had to con­vince her sis­ter to let her go.

  Abysme con­tin­ued, ob­li­vi­ous to the ship’s im­min­ent danger. Everything is there. You, me, Mom. We’re to­gether.

  She soun­ded like they’d already died and gone to heaven. But there were thou­sands of people’s lives rest­ing on theirs. Mestasis forced her­self to con­cen­trate and think of a tac­tic that would pen­et­rate her sis­ter’s de­li­rium.

  Re­mem­ber the oath we took to pro­tect the ship and all the col­on­ists?

  Abysme squirmed as if she didn’t want to re­mem­ber. I’ve been a slave to this ship and its crew for so many years. Don’t we de­serve our free­dom?

  Mestasis re­mained si­lent. She had a point. But she’d signed away their free­dom hun­dreds of years ago in Thadi­ous Leg­acy’s of­fice. In re­turn they re­ceived ex­ten­ded life and power. But, to use that power to achieve their own ends at the ex­pense of the crew was un­think­able. This wasn’t her sis­ter talk­ing, it was the orb.

  Bysme, let the orb go. It’s only an il­lu­sion, a trap.

  Abysme shook her head. I don’t care what it is. When Al­pha Blue brings back that beacon, I’m go­ing in.

  Mestasis balked, feel­ing her grip on her sis­ter slide, tear­ing a hole in her heart. To be de­ceived or forced against her will was one thing, but Abysme knew what she did was wrong. She flung her­self head­long into tempta­tion, and she didn’t care who she plowed down in her path.

  Vira tossed in her sleep pod, banging her el­bow against the side. She wanted to fall into a deep sleep and en­joy her baller­ina dream all over again, but a sense of jit­tery un­eas­i­ness crept over her like spiders un­der her blanket. The strong pres­ence pulsed on the other side of the sys­tems, search­ing for her.

  As the ship grew weaker, the pres­ence grew stronger, like it sucked the vi­tal life of the sys­tems to sup­port its own de­mands. She sensed it in every vi­bra­tion. It wanted con­trol, and it hated the fact that an in­truder had spied. If it caught her, it could keep her soul stran­ded in the nev­er­land of the elec­tric grid while her body fell into a coma.

  She wished she could shut off her powers. In fact, she wanted to get rid of them al­to­gether. All they’d done was cause her prob­lems, and she knew she couldn’t keep them hid­den forever. Smooth­ing her hands over her blanket, she tried to con­vince her­self to fall asleep. Some­how, she knew the pres­ence couldn’t find her in her baller­ina dream. When her con­scious mind dozed, she was safe.

  Vira hid her head un­der her pil­low. She hadn’t meant to spy. She was just try­ing to keep her fam­ily safe. But some­how, she didn’t think her ex­cuses would mat­ter. It would only be a mat­ter of time be­fore it found her out and then every­one would know about her powers. They’d take her away and her poor par­ents would never be happy again.

  An ugly ques­tion reared its way into her head.

  What if she was the only one who could save the ship? What if she could stop it?

  Vira shook her head and ig­nored the an­swer. She wasn’t ready to be a hero. The other men on the Ex­ped­i­tion were work­ing on the en­ergy. Her dad said so. They’d fig­ure out a way to stop it, and then her mind could roam free. She hugged her blanket to her chest. All she had to do was lie low and wait.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sacrifice

  The hunk of crushed metal pok­ing out from the ho­ri­zon grew lar­ger, ig­nit­ing nervous jolts of en­ergy in Gemme’s limbs. She gripped the arm­rests of her seat, won­der­ing how a place she’d called home her en­tire life could look so omin­ous.

  “I don’t see any deck lights on.” Brent­wood squin­ted out the sight panel as they ap­proached. She wanted the com­fort they’d given to one an­other last night, but the warmth of their tent seemed a life­time away, like the cabin on the prairie. Draw­ing strength, she as­sured her­self that with their love they could handle any­thing the Seers threw at them.

  “Maybe the Seers are con­serving en­ergy?”

  “Or maybe they ran out and the en­ergy core has failed.” He nar­rowed his eyes, his jaw set in a grim line.

  Gemme took his hand, the touch of his skin against hers now fa­mil­iar, but still just as ex­cit­ing. “We’ve brought the first ship­ment of hy­perthium. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it, okay?”

  “I hope it’s some­thing that can be fixed.”

  Skid­ding in the snow, they pulled up to the back hatch. Icicles two times longer than Gemme clung to the hull in deadly stalac­tites. Snow coated the en­tire chrome ceil­ing, pil­ing up as if the land­scape had claimed the ship for it­self. The hull looked more like a moun­tain than a ship that only days ago had flown through deep space.

  Brent­wood pressed the com­mu­nic­a­tions panel. His voice was gritty, like he hadn’t spoken all day. “Al­pha Blue re­quest­ing entry.”

  Gemme gave him a nervous look and they waited in si­lence as she struggled to calm her­self. What if every­one was dead? The Seers hadn’t re­spon­ded to her com­mu­nic­a­tions con­cern­ing the hy­perthium, and she hadn’t heard from Fer­ris in days.

  “Entry gran­ted. Re­quest­ing status of Beta Prime.” Even though it was a sign of life, the mono­tone voice sent a shiver across her shoulders.

  “She didn’t even ask about the hy­perthium.” Gemme smoothed her shaky hands over her thermal pants.

  Brent­wood’s eye­brow rose. “Ex­actly.”

  He drove for­ward, speak­ing into the mi­cro­phone on the con­trol panel. “Beta Prime loc­ated and se­cured. Re­quest­ing an audi­ence.”

  The Seer re­spon­ded quickly. “Re­quest gran­ted. Re­port to the con­trol cham­ber im­me­di­ately with Beta Prime.” Gemme wondered if she de­tec­ted a hint of eager­ness in the oth­er­wise emo­tion­less voice.

  The doors re­trac­ted slowly, re­veal­ing a dark and empty dock­ing bay. Gemme had ex­pec­ted an audi­ence and a grand parade, Al­pha Blue in its en­tirety lug­ging great bins of hy­perthium be­hind the landrover to thun­der­ous ap­plause. In­stead, she re­turned to a ghost ship. “No one’s here.”

  He shrugged. “Prob­ably isn’t worth heat­ing this part of the ship, so I bet the Seers dir­ec­ted the work­ers else­where.”

  The hatch opened to si­lence and the oc­ca­sional bang of metal as an icicle cracked off the hull. Gemme jumped out and scanned the empty dock­ing bay. The doors rumbled as they closed, leav­ing them in shad­ows. She had to warn Fer­ris, but she didn’t want to drag him into any­thing dan­ger­ous. Click­ing off her loc­ator, she joined Brent­wood at the con­trol panel.

  His fin­gers brushed the touch­screen. “I’ll send for a team to un­load the landrover.”

  Gemme felt like the Seers mani­fes­ted in every chrome plate, watch­ing them move, hear­ing them speak. She whirled around, search­ing the shad­owy ceil­ing and hugged her shoulders. Without the dis­tant light of Sol­aris Prime, the bay felt frost­ier than the ice world out­side. “Should we wait for them?”

  Brent­wood shook his head. “I’ll leave a mes­sage say­ing we’re check­ing in with the Seers and to tend to Luna’s body. I’d like to avoid any ques­tions about the chest.”

  “Okay. Let’s get out of here be­fore every­one shows up.”

  They roun­ded the vehicle and Brent­wood pressed the panel for the back hatch. The chest res­ted between the hy­perthium con­tain­ers like a pearl among stones. The cos­mic swirls moved un­der­neath the crys­tal, col­lect­ing on the side that faced them as if drawn by their pres­ence.

  “Do you think it re­mem­bers us?” Gemme asked as Brent­wood pull
ed it for­ward.

  “Who knows? We’ll keep the rope tied around the lid just in case.” He tugged the chest out and Gemme took the other side, mar­veling at the light­ness. For some­thing that held so much, the crys­tal weighed as though it held noth­ing at all.

  Brent­wood ges­tured over his shoulder. “I know a private cor­ridor that will take us to the Seers without run­ning into any­one. Come on.”

  She fol­lowed him to the back end of the load­ing dock. He typed a code into the panel, and a secret portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized from the wall. Gemme watched in fas­cin­a­tion.

  “It’s an old es­cape route,” Brent­wood ex­plained while bal­an­cing the chest on his knee as he po­si­tioned his hands around the sides for a bet­ter grip. “For the Seers. They were to be kept alive at all costs, even in the event of a ship fail­ure. The Seers had their own es­cape pods. They could con­trol the other pods from deep space us­ing their mind­speak to or­gan­ize an emer­gency land­ing on a suit­able planet. Once bio­lo­gists and doc­tors con­nec­ted them to the main­frame, they aban­doned the es­cape plan. Now the Seers can’t sur­vive without the ship, so it doesn’t mat­ter.”

  “It mat­ters to me.” Gemme tried to ig­nore how the swirls twis­ted around the place where her arms touched the chest. “How come I didn’t know about this?”

  “Con­fid­en­tial. Only the Lieu­ten­ants know.”

  She nar­rowed her eyes. “How much more do the lieu­ten­ants know that I don’t?”

  Brent­wood smiled, sur­pris­ing her. “Not much. I’m sure you as the ex-match­maker have your own little secrets.”

  Gemme smiled. “Maybe a few.” She was temp­ted to tell him about the hy­pergene secret, but she’d have to go into great ex­plan­a­tions, and she de­cided now was not the time to fur­ther com­plic­ate mat­ters.

  Brent­wood sighed. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know about the beacon or the orb un­til just a few days ago.”

  “So much has changed in so little time.” Over­whelmed, the dark­ness of the cor­ridor pressed in on her while the chest’s in­nate glow beckoned. She tried not to fo­cus on it, but her eyes kept re­turn­ing to the elu­sive shine.

  “I know one thing that hasn’t changed at all in cen­tur­ies.”

  He stole her at­ten­tion from the chest and she flicked her eyes up. Brent­wood checked over his shoulder as he walked back­ward and then turned to her with a lop­sided, boy­ish smile on his face.

  “What?”

  “Us.”

  Gemme al­most melted onto the chrome floor on the spot. Her knees weakened and she struggled to keep the chest level. “I’m glad that hasn’t changed.”

  “So am I.”

  As much as she feared the chest, its powers had brought her and Brent­wood to­gether like noth­ing else could, and she couldn’t deny the vis­ions it presen­ted them. Even now she wondered just how far back in time their pre­vi­ous lives stretched. Did they ex­ist in the me­di­eval era? At the rise of the Ro­man Em­pire? The roped hold­ing the chest loosened and a sliver of green caught her eye un­der­neath the lid. If only she could peek in and see what the crys­tal was try­ing to tell her.

  “We’re al­most here.”

  Brent­wood’s voice roused her from her trance and she yanked her head up. They stood in front of an el­ev­ator shaft.

  “This will take us right to the main con­trol deck.” He stud­ied her pas­sion­ately. “Are you ready?”

  Em­bar­rassed by her sud­den urge to look in­side, Gemme wanted to ditch the chest as soon as pos­sible. “More than ready.”

  “Let’s fin­ish this.” He el­bowed the panel, but the screen re­mained black. Gemme’s heart crawled into her throat while they waited. “They must have cut the power to the el­ev­at­ors.”

  “I’m not lug­ging this up ten flights of stairs.”

  Just as Brent­wood spoke, the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized, and the el­ev­ator panel set to deck sixty-seven. Gemme stumbled back and al­most dropped the chest. She whispered un­der her breath, “They know we’re here.”

  Brent­wood shrugged as if he wouldn’t let the Seers ubi­quit­ous powers scare him. “Guess that solves that prob­lem.”

  They stepped onto the plat­form and the el­ev­ator rose to the com­mand cen­ter at the helm, ush­er­ing them so quickly, Gemme could feel the pull of grav­ity weigh­ing her down. Mis­giv­ings nagged her. She never thought she’d have to see the Seers, never mind con­front them. “What do they look like?”

  Brent­wood tapped his toe while the el­ev­ator brought them up. “Wires, ma­chines, and miss­ing parts.” His shoulders moved as if a chill crept across them. “Be pre­pared.”

  She didn’t know if any­thing could pre­pare her for this mo­ment.

  The el­ev­ator beeped, and the portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized into a dark cor­ridor lit only by sparks from frayed wires. They stepped care­fully over the debris from the crash.

  “Noth­ing’s changed since I was last here.” Brent­wood kicked part of the ceil­ing pan­els out of their way. “Either they haven’t al­lowed any­one up since, or no one’s over­see­ing the op­er­a­tions.”

  “We need this ship run­ning, Gemme.” He gave her a ser­i­ous look as if to warn her about the fra­gil­ity of the Seers, and how im­port­ant they were. She knew the risks they took in bring­ing the chest, but Brent­wood was right about de­term­in­ing their motives. She’d rather piece the parts of the ship to­gether her­self than have two crazy twins at the helm.

  “I’ll do everything in my power to up­hold that.” Gemme kept her reply gen­eral. She didn’t want to speak so openly about their in­ten­tions. Who knew what the Seers heard?

  The portal de­ma­ter­i­al­ized to the main con­trol cham­ber as they ap­proached and cool, reg­u­lated air flowed out, chilling Gemme’s cheeks. Wires hung from the ceil­ing like dead fo­liage in a for­got­ten forest, and she ducked to avoid their broken ends. Some of the loose cables brushed her head and shoulders as they par­ted their way into the dark room, send­ing shivers down her neck. She stumbled over a pile of debris. The chest pitched, but Brent­wood held it up as she re­gained her foot­ing.

  The glow from the orb on the floor il­lu­min­ated the main sight panel ahead of them. Thick snow piled up against the glass, cov­er­ing the helm. The ship must have crashed head first into a snow mound. She wondered how long it would take to shovel them­selves out and re­minded her­self it wasn’t ne­ces­sary. The Ex­ped­i­tion would never fly again.

  “Place it down here.” Brent­wood in­struc­ted. They crouched low to the floor be­fore set­ting the crys­tal chest down as gently as they would a baby’s cradle.

  Rust­ling came from the ceil­ing be­hind her. Gemme craned her neck and stumbled back, fall­ing over the chest onto her butt. Two frag­ments of hu­man be­ings hung in sus­pen­sion, like two gi­ant spiders with eight thou­sand long wiry legs.

  Leave us. The skeletal face on the left jerked up, two blind eyes lolling. Al­though her lips didn’t move, Gemme heard her voice clearly in her head. She looked to the other one, but her torso was ri­gid as a ro­bot. The other twin had one dark eye that looked al­most nor­mal, and in it Gemme saw a tre­mend­ous amount of fear and pain.

  How could the bio­lo­gists leave them like this?

  Brent­wood gave her a re­as­sur­ing nod as he offered his hand to help her on her feet. Gemme grabbed his hand and forced her­self to keep her ground be­side him.

  He spoke up. “No, we stay.”

  The blind one tilted her head. You would dis­obey us?

  “I’m here to pro­tect you.” Brent­wood’s voice was firm. “This chest holds the past; it sucks you right in and tempts you to stay un­til you for­get everything go­ing on in the real world. It’s not safe, and I sug­gest we des­troy it.”

  No! Her voice roared in their heads. Gemme’s hands shot up and she squeezed her palms over
her ears.

  Leave the chest with us.

  Brent­wood’s hand hovered over his laser. “We’re not go­ing any­where.”

  Wires rustled be­hind them like mice scur­ried un­der­neath the chrome floor. Gemme whirled around as a thick cord poked through the metal grat­ing at her feet.

  Brent­wood shouted, “Look out!”

  She kicked at the cord as it ex­ten­ded to­ward her and climbed up her leg, coil­ing around her calf.

  “Miles! Help!” She screamed as it pulled her to the floor. Brent­wood fell be­side her, wires and cables wind­ing around his arms and legs. Her fin­gers dug around the coil to yank it off just as a cable shot out from the wall and wrapped around her wrist. A plastic tube, thick as her arm snuck up be­hind her, slip­ping along her neck.

  Gemme struggled to breathe. The tube would so tightly, any move­ment would choke her. Brent­wood grunted be­side her as he struggled against the re­straints hold­ing him down.

  Her heart squeezed to see him de­bil­it­ated. “Are you okay?”

  His eyes were bright with ad­ren­aline. “Can you reach my laser?”

  A wire held her hand inches away. She wiggled her fin­gers. Her pointer grazed the cold sur­face of the hol­ster. “I al­most have it.”

  A cable shot up, wrapped around the bar­rel, and dragged his laser into the bowels of the ship.

  “So much for that.” The muscles in his face strained as he fought to find a way out.

  The blind Seer lowered her­self to the floor. One by one, the wires con­nect­ing her to the ceil­ing broke loose. Gemme’s heart poun­ded. Would she come over and suf­foc­ate her with the tube?

  The Seer glanced once in her dir­ec­tion, blind eyes in­tense, and us­ing the wires and cables, slithered to­ward the chest.