While We Run

by Karen Healey

  I felt a weight drop into my stomach, like an anchor into deep water. “Me, the liar.”

  “You, the guy who saved thousands of lives in his superspy mission to get medicine where it was needed. Do you remember what you told me before I started making that ’cast, talking to all those people?”

  I did. She’d been terrified of that big an audience, convinced that all the words would come out wrong, ashamed of some of the things she’d sworn to reveal.

  “You said, ‘You can do this.’ ”

  I flopped down on the foot of the bed. “Did you believe me?”

  “No. But you were right; I could.” She leaned over and kissed me, a soft, reassuring pressure. “You can do it, Abdi. Go and change the world.”

  Bethari needed some effort to wake, but once she was up, she took about ten seconds to grasp the implications.

  “Oh,” she said, and sat down heavily. “That’s… wow.”

  “I think it’s the best we can do,” I said. I kept my voice neutral—no attempted manipulation, no trying to argue her around. We needed Bethari for the plan to work, but I was going to let her decide for herself. I wouldn’t make Hurfest’s mistake and use her skills against her will.

  “And if we pull it off, you could stay in Australia and help people from here,” Tegan said.

  Bethari hesitated. “And my mother?”

  “Releasing Captain Miyahputri will be my first demand,” I said. That wasn’t manipulation, I thought. That was the truth.

  “Thank you,” Bethari said. There were tears glistening in her eyes, and she dabbed them with the corner of her headscarf. “All right. What do you need from me?”

  “Come with us,” I said. “Zaneisha might need some convincing.”

  We found Zaneisha eating a breakfast of leftover pasta bake, topped with what I thought was a dehydrated egg scramble. When I started talking, she put her fork down and focused on me with intimidating intensity. She listened all the way through, didn’t ask any questions, and said, “The library would be the most secure venue. I’ll see what I can do about defenses.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Have you talked to Dr. Carmen yet?”

  “No,” I said, and grimaced.

  “Do it now,” she advised, and looked over my shoulder at Tegan. “And Tegan? You should do the talking.”

  Marie was in Tegan’s bedroom and wasn’t happy that Tegan was out of it. But when she saw our faces she stopped scolding. She listened all the way through, her expression becoming smoother as we went.

  I knew her well enough now to know that wasn’t a good sign.

  “I’m a doctor,” she said, when Tegan was done. “I can’t do things I know will hurt people.”

  “I know,” Tegan said. “We won’t be actually causing the harm, but…”

  “But we won’t be preventing all of it. We could wait,” Marie suggested, but not as if she really thought it was an option. “Get to safety, then think of a better plan.”

  “The more time we spend doing nothing, the more people get hurt,” Tegan told her. “This is the best possible moment for this to go as well as it possibly can.”

  “That’s what Carl and Lat said to justify their assassination plans,” Marie noted.

  I flinched, as arguments lined up behind my tongue. I made them stay there, unheard. Marie looked at me, at Bethari, and finally at Tegan. She reached out and stroked Tegan’s hair back from her face, fingers lingering on her forehead.

  “I suppose everyone wants to help the people closest to them,” she said quietly. “I’ll help you.”

  I exhaled. And steeled myself for the next conversation.

  Bethari’s computer beeped at her. “Prayer,” she said. “Gotta go.”

  It was an unwelcome reminder of time ticking onward. The men would also be at dawn prayer. When they emerged, they would want to go.

  Tegan put her hand on mine and traced her fingers over the knobbly bone on the outside of my wrist. My skin shivered pleasantly.

  “What if he says no?” I asked. “What if he leaves and tries to take me with him?”

  “Then you’ll go with him,” she said firmly. “We can’t fight them.”

  I tried to smile. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

  “You’re having a strong effect on me. No, you’ll go. And I’ll try to play your part.” She looked doubtful, and I tried not to copy her expression. “SADU made me lie for six months. I figure I can use those skills to hit back.”

  SADU had trained and trained her, making Tegan rehearse every gesture and expression until none of her real feelings seeped through the seamless mask. We didn’t have time to do that now. I didn’t say any of that, though I was sure she was thinking it, too.

  After all, Hanad might say yes.

  “No,” said Hanad. “I do not get involved with politics.”

  “I think you get involved with politics all the time,” I said. “Your job is very political.”

  “It has political sides, which I do my best to avoid,” he conceded. “Are you packed?”

  “You know I don’t have anything to pack, and you know that I’m not going with you right now,” I said.

  “Your mother would want you to come with me.”

  “My mother would be wrong.” The words felt impossible in my mouth. He was right; my mother would want me to get myself home. She’d accept me bringing my ragtag companions and my firster girlfriend with me if I had to, but above all, she’d want me staying quiet and keeping safe. But I couldn’t do that. Not with so much at stake.

  “I am leaving now,” Hanad said, in a tone that indicated he was coming to the end of his patience.

  “Then you can pick up Eduardo and Joph and leave for the coast,” I said, in the manner of someone offering a massive concession. “Wait for us where you’ve stashed your boat. When it’s done, we’ll meet you. You can take me and Tegan and Marie to Djibouti. And Joph, too.” Zaneisha had elected to stay with Bethari.

  “Tegan,” he said, and leaned against the bench. “All this effort and risk for a skinny white firster girl. She’s not even Muslim.”

  “Neither am I,” I pointed out, which Hanad dismissed with an irritatingly familiar gesture. Everyone except my father was certain I’d come back to God eventually. “Anyway, it’s not for Tegan. You know that.”

  “Mm,” he said, noncommittal. I wished I’d taken up Zaneisha’s offer to have her there for this interview. But if it came to a fight, she was completely outnumbered, and I’d thought it best to present this to Hanad privately, man to man.

  He sat there for a moment that stretched out until I thought I would scream. But silence was also a tool. “I will give you the coordinates. If you do not appear, Joph Montgomery will pay us, and be abandoned there, for whoever finds her. I will wait one hour. One.”

  I exhaled with relief.

  “There will be an extra charge for three extra passengers. Fewer supplies, more crowding…”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying not to think about how I would pay him. “You’re a good man.”

  “Not always. When I can afford it.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and my knees nearly buckled. “You are a good man, I think. May God keep you safe.”

  “Thank you,” I repeated, because being rude about someone’s religion was something I was trying to avoid these days.

  “And when you get tired of Tegan, I will introduce you to my daughters.”

  “Uh,” I said.

  “They’re beautiful,” he promised. “And brave, and very clever.” He delivered another assault to my shoulder and left the kitchen, whistling.

  Zaneisha brushed by him and leaned against the bench. “Are you ready?”

  “Not yet,” I said, and looked her straight in the eye. “I need something from you, first.”

  At 7:45 a.m., in the subbasement serenity of the house library, we began.

  I took a moment for myself, long enough for my heart to judder and settle, like something
that had convulsed in the waves and then drifted slowly to the ocean floor. I discovered a quiet place, a kind of heightened calm that seemed to make time slow and stretch, leaving me unhurried and secure. I was still intensely angry, but it wasn’t wild rage to be wasted in shouting and stupid violent gestures; it was anger honed to a bright, sharp edge.

  And I was ready to cut with it.

  I looked at Bethari and gave the go signal. There was no delay getting through to President Cox this time.

  “Abdi,” he said, his voice oozing delight. “Did you see the press conference? How are you feeling? I really am hopeful that—”

  “I have Dr. Marie Carmen here,” I said, cutting him off midplatitude. “She is going to explain why the Ark Project as it currently stands is medically unviable.”

  I signaled Marie before Cox could react, and she began to speak. This was the technical explanation she hadn’t given us—for the benefit of those medical advisers doubtless being brought into the conversation as she spoke. But she finished with plain words, simply put: “Anyone aged over twenty-five when they went into cryonic suspension is never coming out of it.”

  He’d had time to adjust while she spoke. The voice returned, as smooth as ever. “Dr. Carmen, is it possible that you’ve been swayed by other concerns? I don’t mean to question your medical expertise, but…”

  “Then don’t,” Marie said. “I am the world’s leading expert on cryonics, specifically on revival technique. I’m not lying, though my conclusions can—and should—be ascertained by experimentation and observation.”

  “But you won’t want to do that, will you?” I said. “That would let every stinking alley-cat secret out of your big, dirty bag.”

  There was a muffled sound and a distant yell and then the president returned to the line. “Open video,” he growled. “If you’re going to destroy me, at least do it eye to eye.”

  Bethari looked away from her computer long enough to shake her head, but I ignored her, made sure Marie was out of camera range, and signed for video to begin.

  Cox, who always looked as if he were about to laugh with jovial amiability, wasn’t laughing now.

  “You listen to me, you little thirdie shit,” he said, his voice no longer smooth and warm. “You pull another media stunt like your girlfriend did the last time, and I will bury you. You might be able to drag me down with this, but I’ll still have friends. Powerful, dangerous friends. I will personally see to it that you rot in the deepest hole they can find long before I ever take my first step toward falling from grace. If you’ve got any interest in your own health, you whiny—”

  “It was those friends I was thinking of telling first, actually,” I said. “Isn’t one of them Ms. Valda Simons? The most prosecution-proof woman in the country? So strange, how every time the police find a witness they just disappear.”

  “What’s Valda Simons got to do with…” he started, and then stopped.

  “I met her, you know, she and her daughter, Ruby,” I told him. “Ruby told me she was so excited about the Ark Project, so eager to arrive on this shiny new planet, that she was going into cryosuspension the next day, before she turned thirty. She didn’t want to arrive when she was, quote, old and boring.”

  During the brief time I’d known her, Ruby had come across as vain, callous, and selfish. But unknowingly ending her own life was such a waste of her potential to grow and change. And her mother, that steely-eyed woman with the commanding presence—she wouldn’t forgive the man who’d persuaded her daughter to cut her life short.

  Cox’s face grew red and white splotches like a moldy carpet. “But Valda is such a good friend of yours,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll understand. Won’t blame you, or order any regrettable actions she couldn’t take back.”

  “You can’t,” he said unsteadily. “You… no.” His mouth was loose, his eyes blank as he gazed upon some inner vision of horror.

  I didn’t need Tegan’s waving arms to know this was the time to give him the good news. “Don’t worry, Mr. President. I’m going to help you.”

  Intelligence sparked in his eyes again and hope with it.

  “I’m going to keep this little secret to myself. You can release the information how you choose: a slow process of gradual bad-news announcements or a brave announcement that you’ve discovered something the army tried to keep from you. Hell, even keep the whole thing secret and dump the problem in your successor’s lap. Should you lose the election next year—or in three years—it would be a nice gift for the leader of your opposition, wouldn’t it?”

  “What do you want?” he said bluntly. Deals and bargains, that was a language he understood.

  I did, too. My mother’s education, flawed as it might have been, had seen to that. And I was going to break him with it.

  Bethari jumped to her feet and gave me the signal. Time for contingency plans, damn it. Well, I’d known the risks of using the video options. But I couldn’t afford to seem desperate or hurried now.

  “I want Captain Miyahputri released from custody and left to go her own way, unobserved. I want freedom and safety for myself and my associates,” I said, deliberate and measured. “I want every refugee in cryosuspension under the age of twenty-five to be delivered, still preserved, to Djibouti City, where they will be cared for under the jurisdiction of people I can trust.”

  “You can’t be seri—”

  “And I want the Resolution,” I concluded. “You can sign management of the project over to the current Djibouti government. Publicly.”

  “You want a multitrillion-dollar starship built by a world superpower signed over to a tiny thirdie nation?” he exploded. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I probably have post-traumatic stress,” I said blandly. “Would you like me to tell the world how I acquired it? I’ve tacked that account onto the records invisibly uploaded to several thousand databases. If I don’t give the approved codeword at the appointed time every day, the information Dr. Carmen has discovered becomes highly visible.”

  And that was the great lie I had to tell. No backups existed, no invisible uploads had taken place. The only people who knew what Dr. Carmen knew were in this room or on the way out of the country. If our plan went wrong, I hoped Hanad or one of his crew might speak out. Joph would certainly try. But it was a thin hope to rest a plan on.

  Which was why I had the thing Cox couldn’t see, held ready in my lap.

  “You’re bluffing,” he growled, and my heart nearly parted in my chest.

  But there was a flicker at the corner of his eye, a ruffle in the otherwise gruff composure.

  “You know I’m not,” I said coolly. “I’m not an idiot, Mr. President. I wouldn’t have contacted you without making certain preparations.”

  He paused.

  I kept my face perfect. I had smuggled medicine for nearly a year under the nose of my teachers and guardian. I had helped Tegan Oglietti outface a religious zealot and persuade a world to hear her story.

  She was right.

  I could do this.

  And in the face of my monumental silence, he broke. “I can release Captain Miyahputri and guarantee your freedom and safety,” he began tentatively. “Perhaps even the refugees. The Resolution, however—”

  “Is not negotiable. None of my terms are negotiable.” I watched his face, saw his resolve harden. Time to give him something. “I understand that the Australian public may be disgruntled by the move, but you can spin it any way you choose, Mr. President. Call it a joint venture, if you wish—no one will dispute that. They’ll think it’s brilliant. You paraded me all over the country; you made me the face of your project to the rich and famous. You made them love me, and they do.”

  His mouth sagged open.

  “Keep calling me your ambassador, and I won’t reveal it’s a lie,” I said, gentle but inexorable. “Djibouti is the termination point of the Great Rift Valley, did you know? Tell the world that the birthplace of humanity will be the launching point of humanity’
s voyage to the stars. Very symbolic. And being able to give investors some of their money back may soothe their anger. After all, what use is the Resolution to you now?”

  “What use is it to you?” he countered. “What can you possibly do with it?”

  “Fly it,” I said.

  There was a crash from upstairs, and the house computer hummed.

  “Warning. Unauthorized entry,” it warned, the walls turning a soft red.

  Zaneisha pushed the other women behind the sturdy bookshelf she and Bethari had arranged earlier, and ducked behind it herself, her gun cradled in her hands. We’d learned from earlier mistakes. No visible hostages.

  Just me, in front of the computer, with Zaneisha’s present to me in my lap.

  Diane burst into the room. She was backed by soldiers in shiny black gear who cleared the doorway and stopped. Their faces were covered with helmets, but hers was clear, her braids pulled back in a tight queue down her back. She scanned the room, saw nothing to threaten her, and focused on me.

  “Abdi!” she said. “You’re being very naughty. Stop it!”

  Cox looked pleasant and avuncular once more. “Are the terms negotiable now?” he asked.

  I watched Diane for a moment and then turned back to the screen. My back was crawling with the urge to spin back again, but I could see part of her face over the shoulder of the image of me on my screen. She looked amused and just slightly affronted that I’d dared to turn my back on her. “No,” I said. “Remember the password, Mr. President. If this woman and her colleagues don’t leave immediately, I might just forget to use it. If you don’t fulfill all of my conditions, I certainly won’t.”

  Diane laughed. “Abdi, don’t be silly. I can get any password out of you within an hour.”

  Cox raised an eyebrow. “Well, Mr. Taalib?”

  “Well, Mr. President? Look at me. You wanted to see my face while we talked; here it is. Do you see anything in it that will break in an hour? Break in a day? Eventually, yes, she could torture me into compliance. But you’re on a deadline, Mr. President. And I won’t let her take me back.”