Unmade

by Amy Rose Capetta

  There was no way Cade was letting them go without her. It looked like she was beat, but she still had a card to play. “Rennik told me the next time there was danger, he and I would go in together.”

  Rennik looked stricken, but Lee broke into a smile. “It’s settled, then,” she said. “We’re both going.”

  “Me, too!” Mira said.

  “No,” Cade and Lee said chorused.

  Rennik kneeled in front of Mira. “It’s more than possible that you saved Renna’s life.” Cade looked down on the scene and her chest swelled tight. “I’d like to ask you to stay here and take charge of keeping her safe.”

  Mira’s face twitched in an odd pattern, computing. She put a hand to the wall and struck a nod.

  “All right,” Cade said. “Let’s move.”

  Ayumi, who had been quiet since the control panels, chose this moment to speak up. “You’re sure you have to?” she asked. “Those attacks changed things for the human race. I have notes, I have stories, all of which back up the basic premise that, historically speaking, when things get bad for our kind, they get really bad.”

  Lee pried Ayumi’s fingers out of her curls, pulled her hands close, and centered them between her long fingers.

  “If things want to sour on us, we just won’t let them.”

  Cade wondered if Lee would live by those words. If they would really stand between her and a good fight.

  The meeting broke up, but Lee turned back and made one more dive at the bag that held Rennik’s Hatchum finery. “Oh, wait, this is the best part!” She produced a slew of silver bells.

  Rennik’s sigh came from the depths of his gut. “I had hoped you would forget those.”

  “Never,” Lee said.

  She tied some around Rennik’s neck, and others in circles around his upper arms, accenting the puff of his sleeves. Cade laughed once, and it sent Mira into fits. Ayumi pressed her lips together. Even Renna quivered.

  “I hope you appreciate this,” Rennik mumbled to Cade as he passed her on the way out.

  “Me?” she asked. “I’m not the one who pulled those things from storage.”

  “No, but . . .” Rennik’s scowl faded. “You’re the only human I would act like a Hatchum for.” He headed for the control room, ringing all the way. Cade’s heart kicked out of time, a little too hard. She told it to calm down. They had people to save. Vegetable matter to locate.

  The trading station was bigger than Cade had imagined. In terms of size, it could have been a small moon, but it was wheel-spoked instead of round, with long arms spreading from a central point. The arms alternated, some lined with docks, some with shops where nonhumans could trade for what they needed on long space runs. Sharp lights—red, blue, green—outlined the metal in the dark.

  It was beautiful.

  Cade didn’t waste a lot of time being jealous of nonhumans, but the trading station gave her good reason. Without spacesick, nonhumans could live in the black as long as they wanted. Since they weren’t being hunted out of the universe, they could fly without the constant fear that crept over Cade’s minutes and days.

  Lee eased Ayumi’s shuttle into the long rows of docks. Cade had never seen so many small craft in one place, not even at the spaceport on Andana.

  Lee gave the shuttle’s control panel a good-ship pat.

  “This is one of the reasons we avoid space refuels,” Lee said, low enough that Rennik wouldn’t hear. “Renna is one-of-a-kind when it comes to ships. On most of the planets where we put down, she’s a curiosity, nothing more. But here we can run into Hatchum, and that starts the questions up right.”

  It was true, Ayumi’s ship blended with the others, but Cade knew that she’d be able to pick it out of any lineup. It didn’t have distinctive markings from the outside. The difference was in the scale, the proportions. Something about its humanness.

  Cade picked a corner of the hold and helped Lee into the form-fitting Saea outfit that would keep her safe in the nonhuman crowd. Lee had insisted on Cade wearing it, and Cade had counter-insisted, which led to a coin toss: loser wears the suit. Cade rolled the light blue skin-film over Lee’s freckled shoulders, and pasted the bonus eye to the back of her neck.

  With Lee transformed, they met Rennik at the back of the hold. He’d slid into a different personality easier than he’d shrugged on the robes. He was hard-faced, calm, twice as unreadable as the real Rennik.

  The dock swirled open.

  Rennik and Lee went in first, and Cade ducked around their shoulders to get her first true look at the trading station. Low ceilings, bright lights, glass walls, the stir-and-bustle of shops. It made the black market on Andana look like an old smudge.

  Years working in space meant Rennik and Lee were used to this. Cade would have to make up for her limited experience with a quick stare and a touch of brass. But as soon as she stepped in sight of the nonhumans, she knew that no amount of posturing would do. They stared at her and the air went flat, like someone had strangled everything that was good to breathe out of it.

  Lee checked a map at the center of the hall, so casually that Cade thought she might start whistling. Lee had lots of practice in pretending that her plans were solid and intact when they had already unraveled.

  “Organics are in row 4, section 19,” Lee said, in Saea. Cade understood the words, which gave her a little scrap of meaning to hold on to. Saea was one of the languages she could mostly understand, and sort of speak. It was something Cade had always done on Andana, at the club, picking up bits of dialect like dropped coins.

  Lee led the way, and Rennik stayed close to Cade as they turned into row 4. He tried to hide her but it was useless. A fresh group of nonhumans stared. Saea detached themselves from the crowd, and two walked right up to Lee and hailed her as one of their kin.

  Rennik stepped forward and put his most intimidating calm into effect. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you,” he said in their language. The vocabulary was basic and Rennik’s accent was clean. Cade had no trouble following along. “I’m Nesko, of Hatch.” He nodded at Lee. “This is my second in command.”

  “And the human?”

  The sleeping air bristled.

  “She’s Hatchum,” Rennik said. It was a bold lie, and Cade couldn’t imagine him getting away with it. But if Rennik had the same worry, it didn’t show in the smallest crease of his skin. It looked like he wasn’t done lying. “This is my new wife.” He clutched Cade to his side, where she fit perfectly.

  Cade blushed so hard that it added weight to Rennik’s absurd story. “She’s shy,” he said. “Doesn’t speak much.”

  “Only when I need to,” Cade added, speaking Saea—which Rennik didn’t know she could do.

  His calm took a direct hit as Cade watched him figure out that she must have understood the part about being his wife. Lee forced a laugh down her throat.

  The impatient foot-shuffles of the Saea pulled Cade away from her friends’ reactions. “Where are your orbitals?”

  “Sending messages at the post.” Rennik’s answer came fast, but not too fast. He was good at this game, and the Saea could sense it.

  So they doubled their efforts on Cade.

  One of them stepped forward, nudged into her space. “She’s short for a Hatchum. And her eyes are—”

  Rennik caught the Saea’s hand, half-raised. “Not yours to inspect.”

  His killing grip turned the Saea’s fingers white, and all of row 4 trembled, on the edge of a fight. Cade had a knife in each pocket, and her hands hung loose at her sides. But she didn’t let them travel the last few inches. Not yet.

  The Saea backed off, summoning fake smiles. “All the happiness in the universe to you.” They turned to leave, but Cade didn’t feel one bit safer until they were around the corner, their bonus eyes unable to track her.

  Lee leaned into Rennik, then Cade, with an impish twist of a grin. “That’s a timely match.”

  Of course, that was the real brilliance of Rennik calling Cade his wife. If
anyone tried to touch her, or even stand too close, a Hatchum would take it as an insult to his honor. And insulted Hatchum were famous for hacking into people.

  Rennik, Lee, and Cade took the halls at a fast-tapping pace, but not a run. Cade’s mind rushed ahead, pushing at the self-imposed limits of her feet. She started to hate the low, bright halls.

  They made it to section 19, then the shop.

  It was filled with Hatchum.

  “Snug it,” Rennik said as he snatched back from the door. Cade had never heard him swear, and maybe it should have rattled her, but she couldn’t help liking it. It reshaped his blank, beautiful face into an over-the-top expression. She found it strangely adorable.

  Rennik steered Cade and Lee backwards, into the nook outside the door. It was a good thing the shop had actual walls, not just glass.

  “Wait here.”

  Lee primed herself to argue, but Rennik was right. Lee couldn’t leave Cade alone to fend off the nonhuman crowds, and there would be no marching in the shop and telling the Hatchum that Cade was one of their kind.

  Rennik flashed a look at Cade. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.” He flashed a much more serious one at Lee. “Don’t get her into trouble.” Then, with a robe whisk, he was in the shop.

  “Don’t worry,” Lee said, settling deep into the nook with Cade. “We’ve done business with this trader before.”

  “Does he know about Rennik?” Cade asked.

  “Of course. This fellow does a strong and shady business. He’ll keep our secret to himself.” Lee punched the words to make them sound extra-true.

  Conversation drifted out of the shop in a language Cade had never heard. It sounded basic. Unctuous. Like bites of raw meat. Lee stood within whisper-distance and translated into Cade’s ear. “There are four others,” she said. “Ordering the same thing we are, for their orbitals. Well, they’re ordering about as much for a year as Renna eats in ten minutes.”

  Cade picked out the four other voices. Then the trader’s, lower than the others.

  A fifth voice.

  “That’s Rennik,” Lee said, as if Cade wouldn’t know his voice anywhere, in any language. “He’s ordering Renna’s food. Now he’s making some kind of excuse about going on a long trip to explain why we need a million pounds more than we should.”

  The trader filled the orders for the other Hatchum first. They came out of the shop, orbitals spinning. It was like seeing four of Renna in miniature, each one so tiny Cade could have covered it with her palm.

  As soon as Rennik was alone, the trader switched to English. Cade’s sore brain thanked him, but Lee’s face bleached the dirty white of bone. “That’s as much as calling him a human-lover.”

  The volume of the conversation dropped, and the trader’s voice sounded like a scraped knee. “I heard there was a Hatchum running around this trading station in the company of a human girl. Now if I was that someone, I would be quick about changing my mind.”

  “This is not good,” Lee muttered. “This is exactly as not-good as Ayumi said it would be.”

  “What . . . and who . . . I carry, is none of your business,”

  Rennik said in a soft tone, just this side of a threat.

  “I thought you’d like to know.” Cade heard a false smile changing the way the trader shaped his words. “The other ones, the kind that wiped the humans clean, were in here a few days ago and I must tell you, I prefer their business. They’re smarter, stronger, have much better sense than humans. No species in any system that wouldn’t prefer them. It’s why so many went back to finish the job.”

  In that moment, the rest of the trading station didn’t exist. Just Lee’s hand, slipped into Cade’s.

  “What do you mean?” Rennik asked.

  “Cleared up two problems at once, didn’t it? No new fight on their hands, no humans crawling under their feet.”

  So that was why Cade had only heard survivors on three planets. The original attacks were intense, but not enough to null and void whole cities. Not unless nonhumans went back for the survivors.

  “That’s sickening,” Lee said. “That’s pure, utter sickness. That’s . . .”

  No word existed for how bad it was. But it wasn’t the only thing that stuck wrong-side out in Cade’s brain.

  “They can’t tell that the Unmakers are human?” she asked. “Really?” She had seen one under the robes, a small woman with red hair, nothing special about her.

  “I don’t know,” Lee said, with an empty shake of her head.

  “It’s a bunch of costumes,” Cade said. “It’s an act.” But the disguises had fooled her for a long time. The Unmakers didn’t act human, didn’t talk like humans. Maybe there was something in it. Something that went deeper than metal voice boxes and costumes.

  “It’s a good thing I’m a bad sort,” the trader said, “or I wouldn’t sell to you at all. But I need the money. And I must say, there’s a bit more pleasure in taking it off the likes of you.”

  Lee strained toward the door. Cade clamped her hand tight, held her in place, Lee’s pulse leaping in her wrist. Her need to start a fight sat too close to the skin.

  Rennik came out of the shop, moving fast. “It’ll be loaded by the time we get back.” They turned the corners, hurrying down the same halls in reverse. Nonhumans stared at them, and more stopped to watch every minute.

  By the time they made it back to the ship, they were running. The four Hatchum from the shop stood at a window not far from their dock, then stepped into the middle of the hall, stretching across it, forcing Rennik, Cade, and Lee to a stop.

  “That’s a nice piece of metal,” the tallest one said, in English. “Human-made?”

  So Cade wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

  Lee peeled back the blue skin-film at her neck, freeing her head from the Saea costume. “Why don’t you ask me that again?”

  “Two humans?” the tall one asked.

  “You’re making it even harder,” said the one at his right, with the brightest eyes. “Which do we kill first?”

  “The quiet one.”

  Cade’s hands shot to her knives.

  As Rennik stepped between her and the tall Hatchum, he loosened the collar of his shirt. Cade had never thought bells could sound threatening. “If it’s Hatchum honor you’re concerned with,” he said, “you kill me first.”

  “He’s right.”

  Three of the Hatchum cornered Rennik, leaving the weakest-looking one to stand guard over Lee and Cade.

  Lee smiled like she couldn’t believe her luck.

  Cade threw herself into motion, knives flashing as Lee sprang onto the back of one of Rennik’s attackers. She toppled him, and Cade moved on to the third, barreling headfirst so that the surprise snugged his balance. She knocked him down again, this time cold. Lee claimed the fourth, who stood there too idiot-faced to defend himself. Rennik rushed to pull out his double blades, but by the time he’d balanced them in his hands, the last Hatchum had hit the floor.

  Cade sat in the hold, cabbage-smell surrounding her, rank but soothing. Lee and Rennik talked back and forth in low voices. It was a short return flight, and the shuttle wasn’t being followed. Those Hatchum would be out for hours, and no one else hated them enough to risk being killed by two human girls.

  Rennik came back to the hold and double-checked the crates to make sure the trader hadn’t stiffed them—not that there was any going back if he had.

  “Do you mind if I . . . ?” He lifted a pinch of robe-cloth.

  “Oh,” Cade said. “No.”

  Rennik gathered his normal clothes and stood in the far corner of the hold, facing away. Cade knew that he hated the robes, but did he really need to make her watch this? She kept her eyes on her knees.

  “Thank you,” Rennik said. No matter how hard she tried not to look, she caught a second of the muscle-shift in his back.

  “For what?” Cade asked. “Saving your nonhuman skin?”

  His shirt drank the sound of his voice as h
e pulled it on. “That,” he said, clearing the neck-hole. “And for making sure Renna doesn’t spin out, or run out of fuel and spend the rest of her life half-buried in a desert.”

  “I know what it’s like to get stranded,” Cade said.

  Rennik turned, dressed in a black shirt and stone-green pants, plain and comfortable. Instead of going straight back to the controls, he sat down on top of one of the crates, facing in her general direction.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” Cade said. “It wasn’t all my choice.”

  “But it comes down to you, Cadence.”

  It was true. She felt the constant need to choose the right path for everyone. It kept Cade from Moon-White when she needed music. It broke her chances to be with Rennik. To be with anyone. The scientists had entangled her, the Unmakers had come after the people she loved, and she cared too much to turn her back.

  So this was her life.

  “I have to help. Renna, the people on these ships, even the ones on Andana. I can’t let anyone else get hurt.”

  It was Xan all over again.

  No—that sounded off-key, even to Cade. Xan had chosen to be left behind. He had seen the universe, a small and twisted chip of it, but enough to make a choice. This was worse. The human race was having the choice made for them.

  Cade’s eyes flicked to Rennik and found a scratch at the corner of his mouth, sticky with blood. He must have gotten clipped by a fingernail. Or maybe a flying bell.

  “You’re hurt,” Cade said.

  “Oh.” He put his hand up. “It’s so small . . .”

  Cade crossed the hold in a few steps and set a hand to the side of his face. “It’s my fault,” she muttered, tracing the spot to one side of his lips. There was nothing she could do to help, and no reason to touch him except that she couldn’t stop her fingers from doing it.

  Cade hadn’t meant to show that much. To let Rennik feel what she wanted—even if it was just one fraction of her overwhelming need. She couldn’t do this. Cade had to give and give and give. When she asked for something back, the universe handed her bombed cities and spacesick mothers.