by S. G. Basu
“Aah,” Nafi whispered.
Maia kept staring at the magnificent city, her heart filling with admiration for the Jjord and their perseverance. They had built a wonderland out of nothing, all the while caring so much about the habitat and respecting it. Maia hardly remembered how long they hovered, coming to her senses only when the craft fell abruptly downward.
A scream of fear and surprise rose through her, but Nafi beat her to it.
“What are you doing?” Nafi shouted.
“Welcome to the Hansmobile,” Dani said calmly. “If you want to live to see another day, hang tight.”
Down they went, picking up speed as they sunk lower. Maia’s heart beat wild and loud in her chest as she grabbed the edges of her seat. The Hansmobile headed straight toward the bottom of the ocean. The floors of the city whizzed in front of them, a thrilling sight by itself, but Maia was not in a state to sit back and enjoy it. They were heading, at a breakneck speed nonetheless, toward where the vast network of transporter lines converged into one and entered Zagran. A few transporter crafts could be seen zooming through the tunnels as the Hansmobile drew closer to them.
“You do know what you’re doing, right?” Nafi squeaked.
“I’m about to show you line-hopping,” Hans replied, smirking.
Maia gulped; this sounded neither safe nor innocent. But as scared as she was, she could hardly ignore the thrill of what she was about to see. Fighting the instinct to keep her eyes shut, she held her breath instead as the Hansmobile shot through the tight knot of transporter lines and weaved through them in a smooth, practiced motion. They coiled around the tunnels, grazed past their length, and ran along parallel to the crafts inside. Before long, Maia found herself cheering as Hans hopped and bobbed around the maze of tunnels, skipping over one and under another, spinning across them in reckless abandon.
A brilliant flash of gold from somewhere in Zagran broke the intoxication of the adventure. The vivid light blinded Maia for a brief moment, its suddenness shocking and overwhelming.
“Hans!” Dani screamed.
“What was that?” Hans said as he slowed abruptly and turned the Aqumob to face the direction of the flash.
It came from one of the lowermost levels of Zagran, an orange-yellow glow that leaped across the floor, the colors incredibly brilliant amidst the darkness. Giant flickers of red swung upward like the flames of a burning torch. Then, the whole level was swept by the flickering gold light, a startling contrast from the floors above and below it.
A dread held Maia’s heart in a painful grasp. She knew what it was. “Fire,” she barely managed a whisper.
Everyone stared at her. Hans and Dani looked horrified. Then Hans turned away and swung the Aqumob upward.
“Dani, notify Emergency Services. Use my code,” he instructed, and Dani immediately took out her Urso and started fiddling with it. Not another word was uttered until they had left the confines of the Upper Docks.
“I’ve to go down there right away. I can’t imagine how terrible it can be, if indeed it is a fire,” Hans said on the way down to the 500th. “This is crazy, it can’t be true.”
“I’m sorry,” Maia mumbled, hoping that she was wrong in her assumptions.
A loud beep sounded from Dani’s Urso as they were walking out of the elevators. Dani’s face had paled when she passed the device to Hans who shook his head glumly.
“You were right, Maia. It is a fire. It was impossible to believe the first few small ones we had before. This one was—” Hans stopped abruptly.
“Did people live there?” Nafi asked.
Hans nodded, grief etched in his face, his eyes dark with worry.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have as much fun as I had planned, Maia.” He led them to the stairs. “I hope we have some time to get together again while you’re here.”
As Hans strode away, Dani ran up behind him to say something. A sharp nudge on her elbow made Maia wince and turn around. Nafi stood with her arms crossed, squinting at Maia with all her might.
“What?” Maia asked, rubbing her elbow gingerly.
“Boy, you are sweet on him,” Nafi declared.
“That’s nonsense, Nafi,” Maia protested vehemently.
“Come on, Maia, you blush just like Joolsae does. And I’ve to say, it’s most disgusting.” Nafi twisted her face to make her annoyance more obvious.
Maia wanted to make Nafi disappear. This conversation was inappropriate as is, given the situation with the fire. Even otherwise, it was ridiculous. And it would be mortifying if Dani caught a whiff of it. Of course, Maia liked Hans. Maybe she liked him quite a lot, but that was just because he was friendly and kind and . . . just fun to be around. Nafi, like always, was making too much of very little.
“You’ll stop this right now, Nafi,” Maia whispered as threateningly as she could before Dani walked back to them.
Heading up the stairs with her friends a bit later, Maia felt exhausted. “I wonder what’s causing these fires,” she pondered aloud.
“Maybe the question is not what but who?” Nafi added.
“I just hope no one is hurt,” Dani said with a small sigh.
Maia went to bed in a sullen mood. All the fun and excitement of the outing had been dimmed by the tragic incident.
27: Breaking Out and Breaking In
The next morning, the girls told Kusha and Ren all about the previous night’s adventures. Ren was particularly crestfallen at having missed out on riding the Hansmobile.
About halfway through breakfast, Jiri rushed up to their table. “Have you guys heard about the fire on the tenth floor?” His voice was taut with anxiety. “They say about a hundred people were hurt, some of them pretty badly.”
Dani shook her head morosely. She had been scanning for reports on the incident but had found none on the news broadcasts. Earlier that morning Dani had asked Hans about it but apart from a plain “Don’t worry,” she had not heard a word. Maia guessed this was probably Hans’s way of hiding the enormity of the tragedy from his sister. But information had found its way to her and now Dani’s worst fears had been confirmed.
“How do you know?” Kusha asked Jiri.
“Just heard from a few seniors there,” Jiri explained. “They say it wasn’t an accident either. Someone set the fire deliberately.”
“Who would do that?” Ren asked. “And why?”
Jiri shrugged. “No one knows for sure.” Then he leaned closer and whispered, “Some people said they saw masked, hooded men wearing dark capes carrying these long whip swords. The guys back there think it’s just a tale.”
Jiri left soon after, but the faces around the table had paled considerably at the news.
“Masked men in capes and carrying whip swords,” Nafi repeated slowly. “Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?”
It did sound eerily similar to the men Maia and her friends had fought at the Grotto on Xif, the men who had tried to sabotage the Stabilator. Those men, Chairman Phocluus of the Defense Services had explained, belonged to the Order of the Fyrstell. The Order was a covert militant wing of a political faction on Xif that backed the withdrawal of Xifarian energy support to Tansi.
But it still doesn’t make sense. Why would they set fires in Zagran?
“It could be a tale, like Jiri said,” Ren speculated.
“The similarity is too unusual to just be someone’s imagination,” Maia said slowly. “If it’s the same guys, then they must be planning something terrible.”
“I think you’re jumping to conclusions too quickly,” Ren shot back. He seemed tetchy and difficult this morning.
“And I think you’re turning a blind eye.” Nafi was not one to give in so easily.
“Now why would I do that?” Ren retorted.
“You tell me.”
“All right, guys, no point in fighting over things we don’t know yet,” Maia interrupted.
Dani pitched in quickly. “We’re getting late for our session, let’s not upset Aerika again.”
The atmosphere in the classroom was glum. Rumors abounded concerning the source of the fire, but there was no official news regarding the matter.
Maia had to privately laugh at the absurdity of the situation—she had hoped to feel lighter after revealing her secrets to her friends. The burden of carrying her own story bottled up inside her had not been easy, and having shared it with everyone else was liberating.
And yet . . . I barely feel happy. The worries just keep on coming.
Ren had been slipping into sullen moods every now and then, and Maia did not like it one bit. The rift between Kusha and Dani did not show any signs of waning either. Kusha did make some small attempts to start conversations with Dani, but she ignored him steadfastly. The whole situation was, in one word, dismal.
***
The sessions with Palak and Dill went well over the next few weeks. Both trainers were impressed with the progress made by the team. Much of their expertise in the sessions was due to Dani’s extensive knowledge of the Aqumob, as well as the effort each one of them put into the reading exercises. It had become an unspoken challenge to prove to Aerika that they were indeed the best.
All that studying left them busy and exhausted most of the time, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. They hardly had time to worry about the Council, and with Hans having disappeared on them completely, they did not have any news of the fires to fret over either.
On a particularly tiring day that included a long study of the buoyancy modules of the Aqumob, Maia fell into the deepest sleep she had had in months. It did not last very long; she found herself being shaken vigorously by the shoulders. She sat up, trying to recognize the face in front of her. It was Anja. She stood over Maia with her arms on her hips, a deep frown etched on her face.
“What do you want?” Maia said in a sleepy stupor.
“Your boys,” Anja pointed an accusing finger at the door, “were making an awful ruckus out there. You’re lucky that those two princesses didn’t wake up with all the knocking and the calling.”
“Boys?” Maia pulled herself out of bed and nudged Dani and Nafi. Dani woke up without too much effort, but getting Nafi up and ready was quite a task. Soon they had all managed to slip on their coats and the trio gingerly stepped out into the passageway.
Ren and Kusha stood at the top of the staircase, hunched over a piece of paper.
“What is it, Ren?” Maia asked.
“Found something,” Ren announced, pointing at the piece of paper Kusha held up reverentially. “A map—”
“Hold on,” Dani interrupted. “What map? What would we want to do with a map?”
“And where exactly did you find this?” Maia was growing increasingly suspicious about the whole situation. Something fishy was going on, and she knew this would lead to some trouble.
“I saw Karhann putting this in his satchel a few nights ago after he came back from one of his nightly prowls,” Kusha explained. “Today we found a piece of paper peeking out from under his pillow and we decided to grab it. It turned out to be a map.”
“You stole?” Nafi, barely awake, stood frowning.
“No,” Ren replied emphatically. “We borrowed it for a while and copied it for our reference.”
Nafi shook her head and turned away, still too sleepy to argue the morality of this.
“So?” Maia asked. “You’ve stolen a map. Now what?”
“It’s not stealing! Anyway, look at this . . .” Kusha impatiently spread the piece of paper in front of them. He pointed at a red star that marked one of the rooms. “Obviously, this is where he’s been going every night. We want to get to this place and find out what he’s up to.”
“We don’t even know what this place is or where,” Maia said. “What are you hoping to find there?”
“That seems like a secure government floor. Can you imagine what will happen if we get caught?” Dani asked solemnly.
“Aerika would make mincemeat out of us.” Maia had to side with Dani on this.
“That Bones is a terrible woman,” was all Nafi would say.
“Yes, we know all that.” Ren snapped. “But the question is, don’t you want to find out what the sneaking around is all about?”
They looked at each other for a while, and Maia silently pondered over the not-so-attractive outcome if they did get caught.
“Are we going or not?” Kusha demanded.
“Well, you woke me up,” Nafi offered a sound reason. “Now we have to go.”
And so they started on their mission. Not only did the map have precise directions, but it also had the requisite security codes for any closed doors they came across. All along Maia wondered how Karhann could have found such a map. They had to go up twenty floors with the help of an elevator code, pass three doors from the atrium using three more codes, and finally go down a long flight of stairs to a large arch-top door that stood closed. A panel with an illuminated keyboard on the wall next to the door quietly announced the name of the room.
“CR-470-2R,” Nafi read the small letters.
“Stop,” Dani whispered even before Nafi had finished reading it aloud. “This is the Council Room. This is where the Trinational meetings are set to happen. We’re not allowed in there.”
“But we are here,” Nafi stated. “And we have the code to enter. Are you telling us that we should walk back to our dorms now?”
“Nope, we go inside.” Ren had made up his mind.
Kusha nodded in agreement. “And watch the proceedings.”
“Let’s not,” Maia said emphatically. She knew the majority of her teammates wanted to get inside, but the idea of breaking into the Council Room troubled her. And she needed to make her opinion clear. “I don’t like this map. I don’t understand how Karhann could have gotten hold of all these codes. It’s all very odd. We should go back.”
“I agree with Maia, it will be bad if we are spotted inside. Let’s leave,” Dani pleaded.
“It won’t be any worse than if we’re spotted out here,” Ren argued. “We’re going in.”
“Karhann has been going to the meetings almost every night,” Kusha exclaimed as Ren quickly punched in the last set of numbers. “Can you believe it?”
As the large door slid open noiselessly, the dimly lit room inside came rapidly into focus.
28: The Council
The rectangular room had a sunken oval center filled with about a hundred chairs lined up in rows. These were arranged into three clearly demarcated sections—one was empty, which Maia presumed to be reserved for the Xifarians and the other two were occupied by representatives from the Solianese and the Jjord. It was in this central area that the talks were in progress.
Rows of benches ringed the central oval; these were for the audience. This space was half filled with people who listened to the proceedings with rapt attention. Hardly anyone looked up when Maia and her teammates entered the room. Kusha spotted a row of seats in the far left corner and the gang marched quickly toward it.
A violent war of words erupted among the representatives before the group had time to settle down. A man wearing long robes typical of the Solianese First Continent paced the floor, waving a piece of paper, and shouting loudly at the Jjordic section.
“Have you forgotten this? Your people signed this accord of support. How can you simply ignore it now?”
A portly man in a predominantly white uniform, who sat in the front row of the Jjordic section, raised his hand to placate him. “Calm down, Sahiiraan Tsininio. Let us go over the situation at hand one more time.”
Tsininio neither showed any signs of calming down, nor did he make an attempt to take a seat. “We have been trying to go over this for a whole month now. This is a time for action, not deliberation. You fail to understand that time is slipping away for my people.”
“Is that so? Then where are all your leaders? I do not see the urgency you speak of in the actions of your House leaders, Sahiiraan Tsininio.” A gray-haired woman who sat hunched next to the portly Jjordic
man spoke in a clear voice that rang across the room. “Now, take a seat, please.”
Tsininio seemed startled for a moment and then his shoulders sagged.
The gray-haired woman spoke again. “Believe me, we do understand your situation. But tell me, Sahiiraan Tsininio, what would you do if you were in our place?”
Tsininio fidgeted restlessly, and his gaze drooped.
“We, the Jjord, have been let down over and over again by you, the Solianese,” the gray-haired woman continued. “Our faith in your abilities and your intentions has been tested more than once in the past. And you would know it better than I do, Sahiiraan, that it has been a series of disappointments, to phrase it nicely. Just your promise to try to unite all the Houses in this one cause is not enough to make us rely on you. Look at your attendance—not even half of the Houses have sent their representatives. How do you expect us to trust people who do not even care to show up at the time of such crisis? After all we have been through, we cannot accept this.”
“You keep referring to incidents of the past.” Tsininio slowly eased back into his chair. “We need to forget them and move on to the future.”
“Yes, and then get burned again by your callousness?” the portly Jjordic man retorted.
“That is offensive . . . you will take that back.” A bald, dark man, who sat behind Tsininio, stood up angrily. The Jjordic man wriggled in his chair trying to get to his feet, but his girth held him back.
The gray-haired woman raised her hand, and both men backed down immediately.
“Who is the woman?” Maia asked Dani. “She seems to be the one in charge.”
“Yes, she is absolutely in charge around here,” Dani chuckled. “She is our leader, the honorable premier, ‘The Intimidator’ Oliena.”
“The Intimidator?” Nafi asked.
“Can’t you sense that already?” Ren commented wryly.
“This is nothing,” Dani added with a knowing smile. “You don’t want to see her in action.”
As Premier Oliena started to speak again, everyone turned their attention to the floor.