“It wasn’t,” he said bitterly.
She blinked as though his glare burned her eyes. “You probably want to know why I called.”
He only stared at her, waiting.
“We saw that you veered off course last night. I’m calling to see if you need assistance.”
“How kind of you,” Kieran said, his eyes snapping to hers. “But we’re doing just peachy back here. How are you?”
“Ah, I miss that. Teenage sarcasm.” The woman chuckled. Kieran wished he could shatter her teeth for her. “I see you’ve increased your rate of acceleration to catch up to us. That’s going to have physical consequences for your crew, I hope you know.”
“We’re young.” Kieran grinned. “It’ll only make us stronger.”
“It’ll cause edema, circulation problems, and it’ll wear your joints out faster than you might imagine. And those are only the symptoms we know of.”
“I’m betting that my crew can take it longer than your crew.”
“It won’t work. You know I can’t let you catch up to us only to attack us. We need some kind of understanding before I let you near us.”
“Then put our parents on a shuttle, send them back to us, and we’ll let you go.”
“I would do that if I didn’t know a thing or two about human nature.”
“What’s to know? You’ll be on your ship and we’ll be on ours, just like before.”
“And when we get to New Earth? What then?” She raised one eyebrow.
“Pick a continent.”
“I have a responsibility to the people of this vessel and our way of life.”
“You mean attacking people and kidnapping them? That way of life?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Mr. Alden. Your anger. I can hear it in your voice, see it on your face, that you want to kill me and my crew for what we did.” She clucked. “That kind of vitriol can last generations. It could lead to a culture of warfare on New Earth. Remember the Middle East on Old Earth? I don’t want something like that to be my legacy.”
“You should have thought of that before you attacked us.”
“I had just cause.” Her calm veneer dropped to show a core of rage underneath. “You’re Captain now; you have access to the ship’s records. Find out for yourself how we were sabotaged and provoked. I’m sure Waverly Marshall told you—”
“I’m not going to play games with you,” he said. He felt nauseous even talking to her. “Release our parents and you won’t have to deal with a violent confrontation.”
“I can’t do that until we settle our differences. We need a treaty.”
“You want to call the shots.”
“I want assurance that my crew and our descendants will be safe once we reach New Earth.”
“Fine. You have my word. We won’t attack you.”
“Not good enough. I want the truth to come out about Captain Jones and the past. Only then will you understand why we had to do what we did.” Her tone was plaintive, friendly, even, but her expression was flat. “I want you to do some research, Mr. Alden.”
“You’re giving me homework?”
“When you and I can have a frank, honest discussion about the past, then we can begin to discuss the transfer of hostages.”
“Or I could simply catch up to your ship, board you, and take them by force.”
The slight smile in her eyes flickered out, replaced by hardened steel. “If you think a bunch of kids can overcome a seasoned adult crew, you’re deluding yourself.”
“It’s only to my advantage if you think I’m insane,” Kieran said, and severed the com link.
But a text message came through on this computer with a video attachment:
These are records of communications between myself and Captain Jones, from the years when both ships struggled with infertility. You can verify their authenticity by comparing them to your own files and video logs. When you’ve watched them, hail my ship, and we can resume negotiations. Until then, I’ll receive no communication from you.
Kieran stared at the file name: Sabotage.
Lies.
He stored the files on a data-dot and put it in the bottom of his desk drawer. He would not watch them. He refused to be manipulated by that woman.
He heard a beep and picked up the walkie-talkie he kept on his belt.
“Hi, Kieran!” Philip’s little boy voice called. He sounded excited and happy. Kieran knew that this assignment had done wonders for the boy’s outlook. There was no better therapy than being useful.
“Hi, Philip, buddy. What have you turned up?”
“Waverly spent all night alone in her quarters. She didn’t even go visit Sarah this time. She looks really tired. Today she was working on a tractor engine in the cornfield. She changed a tire with some help from a couple guys. She hurt her hand with the wrench.…”
“Less detail is okay, Philip. Did she go anywhere unusual? Talk to anyone? Mention anything about Seth Ardvale maybe?”
“I can’t always hear her. Mostly she talks to other mechanics about work. The rest of the time she’s quiet and alone. She seems sad.”
Kieran’s heart hurt, and for a moment he thought of her as the old Waverly, the girl he loved.
“Okay, Philip. Keep on her. You holding up okay?”
“It’s easy.”
“And you’re sure she hasn’t seen you?”
“She doesn’t notice hardly anything. Like she’s always thinking hard about something and not looking around.”
“Okay, that’s good. You’re doing a great job. I think I’m going to promote you to deck officer when this assignment is through.”
“That would be great!” Philip squealed.
Kieran severed the link and looked at the drawer that held Mather’s data-dot. She wanted a treaty, she said. But she was holding all the cards. He might have little choice other than to play her game. But for now, he’d let her wait. He tapped his intercom link to Central Command, and Sarek answered.
“Sarek, increase our acceleration by another two percent.”
“The crew is already complaining,” Sarek said. “People are getting backaches.”
“We’ve got to catch up to that damn woman.”
“Okay,” Sarek said, tired.
Soon Kieran felt the extra pull on his body. When he stood, he had to lean against the desk, panting. The extra gravity was exhausting, but it had to be even harder on the older New Horizon crew. Maybe he could wear them down this way, make Mather see reason and let the parents go. If not, he didn’t know what else to do.
He was in his quarters undressing for bed when the intercom from Central Command buzzed. “Yes?” Kieran said, not bothering to go to his com station for the video link.
“Kieran,” Sarek said. “The New Horizon has increased their acceleration by two percent.”
Kieran leaned his forehead on the wall. “Did we gain on them?”
“No,” Sarek said. “What should I do?”
“Keep up the new speed. We’ll try to wear them down.”
“Okay,” Sarek said, and hung up.
When Kieran pressed the off button on his intercom, he noticed his hands were weirdly swollen. He squeezed the pads of his fingertips, which felt like over-full balloons. Edema, Mather had said.
Already it was happening.
He crawled between his sheets, buried his face in his pillow, and prayed. “God. Help us, please?”
But the voice in his mind—that hard-to-hear whisper in the dark that had first come to him when he was starving in the brig and had been with him ever since—only said what it always said to him: I already am helping you.
How? he asked desperately as he twisted against the mattress beneath him.
You will know your path when you see it, the voice said.
He knew the voice was telling him to trust himself, and he tried to believe he was equal to the task before him. He had faith in the voice but not enough to keep from being afraid.
CLUES
Seth huddled in a corner of the conifer bay behind the juniper bushes. The heat lamps were programmed for springtime, but it was still only a chilly fifty degrees, and he shivered. For the moment, this was the best hiding place. Two hours before, he’d heard a couple of Kieran’s guards enter the bay, and they’d strolled through it, peering between the needles, looking for him. He lay perfectly still, not even allowing himself to breathe until they’d disappeared behind a stand of Douglas fir. Since then there’d been no one, and he’d had some time to think about who could have caused those thruster bursts. Who would want to send the ship off course?
Considering that everyone on board, even the orphans, desperately wanted to recover the captives being held on the New Horizon, only one possibility made any sense: There was a stowaway from the New Horizon on board.
Seth rubbed his palms against his arms, letting the friction warm him. The first step to finding the saboteur would be to figure out how he was able to program the thruster misfires, which could only have been done from the well-populated Central Command or from the radioactive engine room.
Seth could never get within a mile of Central Command, but it was unlikely the saboteur had operated there, unless the culprit was Sarek or Arthur, or Kieran himself. Unlikely. That left the engine room, if Seth could only get down there. The entire section had been sealed off to control the radiation, so the only way into the engine room would be through an outer hatch. The main problem: The engine room hatches had been designed to vent gas, not for ingress. They were barely large enough for an adult man to fit through the opening. But getting there was only half the battle; the entire area was flooded with radiation. He knew that OneMen were equipped with radiation shields and oxygen. If only the engine room hatch was big enough to fit a OneMan! Seth leaned back, his arm behind his head, and thought.
OneMen were really glorified space suits. They were bulky because of the outer metal shell, the oxygen tanks, and the rocket packs on the back. But inside each OneMan was an inner sleeve that served as a second layer of protection. If that could be removed from the bulky parts of the OneMan, the wearer would easily fit through the engine room hatch.
It was worth a try.
Seth got up, brushing off juniper needles, and crept to the empty corridor, his father’s portable computer tucked under his arm. When he was sure no one was around, he sprinted to the outer stairwell, up seven levels for the starboard shuttle bay, and slipped through the doorway.
The shuttle bay was eerily quiet. Here was where the majority of the Empyrean crew members had met their deaths, and it felt like a tomb. The visors of the OneMen hanging along the walls were as eerie as death masks.
He went to the nearest OneMan and, using the automated system, lowered it from its housing and removed the helmet. He plunged his hand between the soft fabric and the hard shell. The fabric looked metallic and it felt like flexible plastic, but Seth knew it was an advanced carbon polymer modeled after the fibers of a spider, the strongest filament known. It was perfectly airtight and lined with micron-thick lead. It would protect him from the engine room radiation, and once he’d disconnected himself from the air tanks, there’d be at least a few minutes worth of oxygen within the suit for him to breathe, enough to get a look around, but not for much more.
He released the connectors that held the envelope in place and pulled it out by the collar. It looked like a silvery jumpsuit. Seth pulled it on, and the remarkable fabric stretched to accommodate his long frame. Fitting the helmet over the envelope, he heard the automatic click sealing him inside. His ears popped reassuringly when the pressure seals engaged. He climbed into the outer-shell OneMan, leaving the lower connections between the shell and the fabric envelope open so that when the time came, he could simply leave the shell.
He was ready.
“The engineers designed something well for a change,” he muttered.
He engaged the thrusters to lessen the weight of the vessel, turned on the oxygen from the tanks, and walked with ponderous steps over to the smaller air lock that was meant for OneMen. Once inside the air lock, he felt as though he’d stepped into a coffin. The heavy metal doors slammed closed behind him, and he jumped inside his suit when the air lock cleared itself with an explosive rush.
He felt the metal shell of the OneMan expand with the pressure difference. Now all Seth had to do was open the outer doors, and there’d be nothing between him and the rest of the universe.
He’d never admitted this to anyone, but space walks terrified him. He’d had to perform several after the damage Kieran had done to the atmospheric conditioning plant. Seth had acted as foreman, teaching the other boys how to use the complex tools, showing them where to make the repairs. The entire time he’d been quaking in his suit, covered with cold sweat, his heart racing. When he looked in any direction in space, there was nothing between him and eternity. The feeling of his own smallness before all that vast, empty cold made his bile rise.
It would be even worse this time: No one knew he was going out here. One wrong move could send him spinning away from the ship, and there’d be no one to come looking for him.
He couldn’t let himself think of that.
“I’m not afraid,” he told himself with a shaking voice, took a deep breath, and opened the outer doorway.
The door yawned open to the awful blackness of space. The stars were crisp pinpoints, so thickly strewn in places that they looked like foam. They were so far away. Seth swallowed bile.
“It’s just the sky,” his father had said once, when Seth admitted he was afraid to try flying a OneMan. “If you were on a planet, it’d be the same thing. No walls. No windows. Nothing but nothing above your head.”
Seth had only nodded at this because he didn’t want to say anything stupid, but in truth the thought of walking a planet’s surface gave him a terrible feeling of vertigo. If he could live his entire life on the Empyrean, he probably would. Because now, standing on the edge of the air lock and looking into eternity, he was utterly terrified.
“Don’t piss yourself, Ardvale,” he whispered ferociously.
He took a deep breath and stepped off the air lock platform.
And he was falling! Not falling; he was being left behind by his home ship, the rivets and portholes and gunmetal coating of the Empyrean dissolving into a terrifying blur of grays and blacks as the ship sped forward without him. Seth helplessly waved his arms—Oh God, oh God—before he remembered his thrusters. He pressed the throttle and screamed as his vessel jerked toward the Empyrean. Quickly he backed away from the huge ship, avoiding a crash by less than four feet.
His gorge rose. For a moment he was paralyzed with terror, but he forced his eyes open and swallowed bile as he scrabbled with the attitude, pitch, and yaw until he flew in a parallel course with the great ship.
He punched at the thruster controls, and finally he was accelerating at the same rate as the Empyrean, and the illusion of falling ceased. He found himself hovering near a porthole, and looked in to see that he’d fallen to the level of the rain forest bay. He had several more levels to go before he reached the engine room at the bottom of the ship.
Seth eased back on his rear thrusters just enough to move slowly down the gray landscape of the Empyrean. He kept his eyes on the hull, focusing on the rivets that lined each slab of sheet-metal skin, and then the small valley between the domes of the sewage and the water-purification systems. He floated over what seemed an infinite row of portholes, and he checked each one for a human face, but no one looked out as he passed. He should have been happy no one saw him, but instead he felt irrational disappointment, and that made him realize how alone he was.
He shut out this thought and turned his suit toward the port side. He could sense the bottom of the Empyrean looming at his feet like a horizon. He saw the hatch to the engine room below him and reached for the thruster control, but he fumbled and instead engaged an attitude thruster.
His body rotated madly, and he was falling onc
e more, sailing over the hull in a mad spin. The pink nebula they’d left behind loomed in his vision, ready to swallow him whole.
Did he scream?
In a panic Seth tapped the emergency tether and a cord shot out, aimed for the Empyrean like it was supposed to be, but he was spinning, and the cord wrapped around his waist, shortening with every turn. As he was pulled backward, he stared at the immense nebula, so silent and dense. It had enveloped the Empyrean for four years, rendered the ship essentially blind and deaf, allowing the New Horizon to sneak up for a surprise attack. Now it looked so calm, and he caught his breath as he gazed on the arms of magenta gas spreading away from its center, the shades of bluish gray tucked into pockets where the gas was most dense. He’d hated it when they were inside it, but now he could see that it was beautiful.
I’m going to live, he told himself. I won’t die out here.
The enormous rear thrusters of the Empyrean swung into his field of vision, and Seth jammed the joystick forward, aiming for them, knowing that he could be caught in the exhaust and incinerated instantly. He already felt the heat on his face, and a slick layer of sweat coated his skin. “No, please,” he whimpered.
Stiff with terror, he pushed his vessel as fast as it would go toward the hull, holding out the clawlike grippers of his suit, praying under his breath, “Come on, you bastard, you son of a bitch. Let me live.”
He felt his grippers contact the hot metal of the exhaust tunnels, and activated the magnetic arm, which clamped on to the hull.
Seth didn’t know how long he clung to the outside of the Empyrean, gulping air, gritting his teeth, willing himself not to break into a million pieces and cry like a baby. His heart flung itself against his rib cage again and again.
“You’re not dead,” he said savagely to himself. “Don’t be such a goddamned coward.”
Sweat poured into his eyes. He checked the temperature gauge in his helmet; it flashed a red warning signal. The last thing he wanted was to release his grip from the hull, but he had to or he might burn up. He rotated the arm until his thrusters were pointing downward again, careful to get the angle just right. Then he engaged the thrusters until he felt the familiar g-force on the soles of his feet.
Spark A Sky Chasers Novel Page 6