"Did somebody count? Did somebody fly over and make sure?"
"It was the middle of the night...."
"Right."
Silence fell again. Harper's mind buzzed with pity and anger.
But he had stopped listening.
In the back of his mind, the confusion stormed. But he pushed it further back.
And he walked.
His feet moved along the halls. His arms swung just a bit by his sides. His eyes moved along the dark walls of the ship, and over the floors as he walked over them.
But it was all involuntary.
His body was just walking.
Then at some point there was a chair in front of him and he sat down in it. At some point there was food in front of him, and he stared at it. For a moment, he failed to connect the clawing feeling in his stomach to hunger. Dried, crumbly bits of brown food stared up at him.
He picked up a piece of something and broke it apart with his fingers. He stared at it for another moment. The hunger was persistent, gnawing away inside him, so he picked up one of the little pieces of dried stuff and ate it.
He looked up from the food. His eyes landed on Wills eating across the table. The soldier wasn't looking at him, intent on his own food. Somehow he managed to keep the shadow of a grin on even as he ate. He said something with his mouth full, and Harper just "Hmm-"ed. He didn't have the energy to listen. He couldn't even listen to his own thoughts. Inside his head, circling accusations vied for his attention.
Why is everything I do the wrong thing?
The guilt gnawed at him, worse than the hunger that was now ebbing away.
Why is everything wrong?
He thought saving Zara from a lifetime of misery in the brown fields and the hatred of the Sky Reverends was the right thing. He thought that telling the Union troops about the soil was the right thing.
And now the country and city burn.
Harper chewed on the tasteless brown food. He was not even remotely hungry anymore, but the guilt still gnawed at his gut. The dried brown foodstuffs did nothing to quell those pangs.
I am a traitor to someone, no matter what.
But whom to betray? The Union? His people? He had already betrayed his family...
And now, I said I will betray them again.
They would kill his father, the Union troops would. He knew it. Maybe they would throw him into a silent, one-way cell, sealed off from the world. Maybe they would give him air that turned white around his breath. Maybe they would leave him nothing but a corner to piss in.
They are both wrong. They are both killers.
There was no good option.
Wills was chatting politely now. His voice floated through Harper's own thoughts, weaving in with them: "I just want to get back soon. Back to my family and my own planet..." I already betrayed my father, betrayed the Reverends, betrayed the Sky. What more can I do? How much worse... "Not that this planet isn't nice. I mean, it's like a fire here, but I kind of like it. Sunny, uplifting you know...." I didn't want this, I just wanted to leave, to make a life elsewhere... "And I like how you can see everywhere, I mean you can just see forever across the country. Feels almost like you can see the whole planet. "Just wanted to make a life, not take lives... "But I still miss my own place. I'll be glad to see trees again. But I want my own sky, you know." The sooner I make a choice, the sooner I can get back to that life, back to Zara... But it isn't a choice of whom to betray. It's a choice of whom to kill... "I should be getting back soon, though."
Harper looked up from his own thoughts. "Soon? You're leaving soon?"
"Wasn't supposed to be here in the first place. Just got brought in from the periphery on emergency."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Was supposed to be home a week ago. We just came in to fill the gap before the regular troops could show up. With them coming in, I'll be able to get out of here, to get back home."
"Where is your home?"
"I'm from Den. Right in Union Proper. Nice place–hey... Hey, Harper?"
"Hm?" Harper was on his feet. He hadn't even noticed himself standing up. He looked at Wills.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to go talk to my father." He turned away.
No footsteps followed him as he left the mess.
This time, Harper didn't wait for a microphone and a sniper to accompany him. He wound through the long passageways out towards the exit. Once more, he passed the guard at the fence without a glance and headed out to the country.
Den. I should be there too.
Chapter Twenty Eight
in which there is a job well done...
Harper was two steps past the fence when he stopped.
Something hummed.
Somewhere... around him, to his right, his left... Voices. A hum of many voices filled the air. Somebody laugh, a child maybe. Someone called in a loud voice and another answered.
Harper looked around.
There were people outside the base. Skylanders.
He looked towards the city. A group of people were heading off past the base, moving towards the bridge over the dribbling river. Farther ahead, another group walked in the same direction. He looked out to the fields and villages. More people walked, in big groups or in twos and threes. Here and there a solitary person walked apart from the others. But they were all headed undeniably towards the same place.
The city.
Harper looked farther out. His eyes swept out over the distant country, scanning the fields. Everywhere, there were people. Even far, far out, they walked, tiny like ant armies, moving closer.
Beyond them, smoke still rose on the horizon.
He looked back to the walkers closest to him – still twenty paces away. They were giving the base a wide berth as they passed it. He caught one or two eyes looking sideways at the towering ship, before they looked down and hurried on.
Why so many?
Here and there, children ran ahead of their elders, tossed their bundles back and fourth, squatted on the ground to wait, drawing with their fingers in the sandy dirt.
Only the children made any noise.
The adults in the groups leaned in towards each other and spoke in hushed tones. Some were bent under big bags. Others carried only the clothes on their backs. They did not smile.
It looked familiar.
Harper took a few steps towards the closest group. One of the walkers looked up, an old man with a web of lines on his face and deep folds in the flesh of his neck. His eyes flicked to the base then quickly back down. Harper caught the look in the old eyes.
Guilt.
He recognized it – it was the same look he felt on his own face. He held the man's gaze for a moment.
No... There is more... I am sorry... sorry...
Under the guilt he saw something else. Again, the man's eyes flicked up, then back down.
He's not flinching from the Union ship's gaze. He's flinching from Her gaze.
The sun glinted off the layer of tears, unshed, in the old man's eyes, before he broke eye contact and lowered his gaze to the dirt.
He cannot look at Her.
Harper shivered at the echo of his father's words. He felt the weight of the great blue eye above and lowered his own gaze.
He cannot look at Her...
Harper looked at the dirt and listened to the chatter of children's voices and the hushed tones of the adults' before he realized they were not the only ones that made up the humming sound that had first stopped him in his tracks.
There was more.
Much more.
Many more. Many more voices, fainter and farther off, but many together that carried out over the bridge across the open country to the Union base.
The groups of country folk coming towards the city passed closer to the base, and Harper stepped up to one of them.
"What's going on?"
"The next ship is leaving."
"Already?" That's what he meant by "pretty soon?" Today?
"Hm."
He knew where his father was.
There was no need to expose the villagers' hiding place. His father would not be among them.
He turned and followed the groups headed for the city.
Harper wouldn't have thought it possible, but the docks were even more jammed with people this time.
Are they that trusting?
He looked into the eyes of those around him. Their eyes were wide and darted here and there, their hands clutched their bags, their children, close to them.
Not trusting. Just desperate.
How would he possibly find his father in the crowd?
"Traitor."
He froze at the hiss in his ear.
"Father–"
"Traitor! Traitor!"
He spun around. His hand was on his father's arm. The tiny, wasted arm twisted and pulled hard under his grip, but Harper held on.
"Father, I didn't know." His voice was a pleading whine, and he struggled to keep it low. "I didn't know what they were going to do. Please–"
"You are... you are an abomination."
"You have to get out of here." Harper tightened his grip on the old man's arm.
"No."
"Get on the ship father, you can slip in with the crowds." The words were out before he had thought them up. But they were true. They will kill him. They are not any more peaceful than the Sky Reverends. "You need to leave!"
"I will get on the ship–"
"No, Father please!" Harper tried to move towards the ship, dragging his father with him, but the man was fixed and planted his feet, stubbornly. "You need to fly on the ship - you need to get off this planet."
"No!"
"There are Sky Reverends elsewhere, too. You can join them. Please!"
"I will not fly!"
"Go on the ships."
"No!"
Harper pulled.
Movement flickered in the corner of his eye. Soldiers were swarming onto the docks. Dirt brown Union uniforms pressed in on every side. Closer. Closer.
"Father, please... Come on!"
"We've got him!" someone shouted.
Then the soldiers were right there. Even over the noise of the crowd, Harper heard the click of the handcuffs close around his father's wrists. Or he imagined he heard it.
"Abomination... abomination!" His father spat on the ground.
Harper shook his head and turned back to the ship. He couldn't watch.
A hand slapped his back. "Good work, son."
Harper turned around, but his father was already gone. Beside him was the angry man. He was smiling. His face shone with a genuine grin – the first real smile Harper had seen on his face.
"You're own father. Good job, son!" He patted Harper on the back again. "Must have been difficult. I'm proud of you."
"What?" Harper struggled to understand. "No... I-I didn't know... I didn't..." I wanted him to leave!
"He was struggling pretty good there," said the angry man. "From over there didn't look like you weren't going to be able to hold him."
I didn't want to! "But... I-I didn't know you were going to arrest him."
"What did you think? That we were going to send him flowers?"
"But..." I knew. I knew. "No. I... I just thought you were going to let me talk to him." I betrayed him... I betrayed him...
"And so we did."
Harper's head was shaking mechanically. No. NO. It was too much, too much to think about. The country blown apart and his father arrested... He was a traitor. Now. He really was. Harper's mouth hung open uselessly, his mind wordless, uncomprehending.
"Well, this is your ride," said the angry man.
"What?"
"You're leaving, remember? Now get the hell outta my sight," he said, still smiling. "Someone on the ship'll tell you where to go."
"Now? I'm going–"
"That was the arrangement. Go on, now."
"I-now?" He asked again, stupidly. But his feet were already moving away, stepping backwards towards the ship.
"Thanks for your services and all that. Now get outta here." The angry man waved and smiled a big, terrifying smile.
Harper turned around and made his way onto the ship.
No place for a traitor here.
Minutes later, Harper watched the ship take off for a second time.
It wasn't so big this time, the ship.
It was, of course. But it didn't feel like it. The massiveness had been dwarfed by the giant flying Union base. Plus, Harper just couldn't muster the energy to feel impressed anymore. His nerves were frayed.
There was no excitement, no awe this time.
The walls cut off the horizon. They were blunt, harsh. The recirculated air did not come fresh from the Sky. It was moving, blown about by vents. The floor did not expand till the end of his sight like the dry fields in the desert. It was not soft under his feet.
There was nothing welcoming about this thing.
Abomination. Abomination.
As the ship lurched gently, the dried up planet fell away, further and further away. The Sky disappeared. The blackness closed around the ship. The blackness had so frightened him the first time! It looked the same.
Empty, unending space expanded outside the window.
But this time, he did not look away.
Chapter Twenty Nine
in which there is an offer...
The bearded man sat back in the chair. Harper was shocked that the stiff, statue-like man could actually sit comfortably like that. His straight, uniformed back curved back into the chair, his head tilted to one side, leaning on crooked knuckles. The other long-fingered hand stroked the grey stubbled chin.
The man.
Harper glared.
"Mr. Fields," the man greeted him.
"Man," he greeted the man.
The man leaned forward, both elbows resting on the table. "Thank you for seeing me," he said.
Harper snorted. Like I had a choice.
The man tilted his head, his eyebrows twitched upward. He actually looked surprised. "We only asked..." he said. He shook his head. "At any rate, thank you for coming."
"Who are you?"
"Apep."
Apep? Harper rolled the syllables over in his mind for a second. Then he shook his head. "I don't care. Really. What do you want?"
"To offer you a job."
Harper saw the man's lips form the words – barely, like the rest of the soldier's appearance, the lips were stiff and hardly moved as he spoke. So Harper just stared. Silently.
"I would like to offer you a job," the bearded man repeated. "A job with the Union."
"What?"
"The Union army would like you to join us."
"I did join you."
"Permanently."
"Why? I did what you wanted. And I want what I was promised - to be reunited with–"
"Oh you will be. In a little while. You would not need to be separated from your... Zara, right?"
"Yes." The word came out through gritted teeth. Harper didn't like the sound of his wife's name on the man's voice.
"You would not need to leave her. We want to give you a position with us – a fixed, stable position," said Apep. "This would be of your own volition."
Again, Harper snorted. "Right."
"Completely. This is not an order. It is not a threat. It is an offer."
Harper stifled a laugh. A position with the Union? He shook his head, looked up at the ceiling, away from the stiff-looking soldier across the table from him.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because we are not done. The conflict on Skyland is not over."
"Not my problem."
"Again, this is voluntary."
"Uh huh."
The man sat back in his chair again. His hands rested on the table this time, clasped, unmoving on the shiny surface – it was wood this time. The dark, thick surface
reflected the glow of the room. Would have cost a fortune on Skyland. Probably standard issue for the Union military – and massively out of place on the Skyland vessel.
Why is there Union luxury h–
"Harper Fields."
Harper looked up.
"Harper Fields..." Apep began again, looking at his long intertwined fingers. "Do you know that your people are not alone?"
"Alone? What do you mean?"
"The Sky cults do not exist only on Skyland. And the threats do not only come from them. The other planets on the periphery have their own hostilities against the Union, many of them fueled by zealotry."
"So?"
"We could use your help. You are familiar with the Sky worshippers, and you have a certain... affinity for the underrepresented folk on the periphery."
"No thanks." This time, Harper answered without any hesitation. I'm poor, therefore useful.
"Understand, we are not asking you just to help. We are asking you to work for us."
"So?"
"You're knowledge, you're experience, you're... loyalty is highly prized. You would be compensated generously."
"Hm."
"Full salary. Pension. You would be put in a nice home on Den on a base when not in the field."
"No, thank you."
Apep paused. His head tilted minutely to one side, and his unblinking eyes considered Harper. "You stopped your own father at the docks," he said. "You didn't have to. So why? If you don't want to help us, then why?"
I didn't stop him. "I do. I do want to help." Harper shook his head. "I did, anyway. And I did what I could. That doesn't mean I want to sign my life over to you now."
"It would be a good life."
"So you say."
Harper looked around the room to avoid the eyes of the bearded man – Apep, whatever that meant – who sat in silence across the table, watching him. They were again in yet another black room. But this time it was warm, like the rest of the ship. The door was open, the table was wood, and the chairs had soft pads on them.
"If you don't mind telling me," Apep began, "what were you planning to do once you got to Den?"
"Why?"
"You were not pre-registered on the first ship."
"So?"
"So you didn't have plans to leave. You didn't make arrangements. You had nothing to go to there. How do you think your wife will fare with no plan, with no one to look after her?"
Skyland One Page 19