by Pintip Dunn
“You know, the Fittest families could be the solution to your task.” I make my tone casual, as if I’m remarking on the trajectory of the rain spigots. “If they give up their meals permanently, then the other patients can be saved.”
“That’s a big if,” she says, her eyes still closed. “I’m not about to base my entire strategy on an if.”
We fall silent once again and go back to waiting some more.
…
Two hours pass. Finally, the medic comes back into the lounge. By now, I’ve figured out that he’s Mistress Barnett’s apprentice. Once the head medic passes, he’ll take her place.
My mind flashes forward ten years, and I see an older version of the medic, his black hair shot through with silver, working alongside the reigning Queen. But try as I might, I can’t see her face.
“Your father’s awake.” The medic takes off his stethoscope and rubs his neck. “He’d like to see both of you, one at a time. I’m sorry I won’t be able to give you more than a few minutes each. The King needs his rest.”
I look at Blanca. Any color she’s regained in the last hour has bled out again. “Do you want to go first?” I ask.
“No, you go,” she says. “You’ve been so good since this whole thing happened, and I’m a total mess. You should see him first.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you give up a first turn at anything.” I try for light and teasing, but the words come out forced and childish. Little wonder. I haven’t teased my sister in years, and I’m not sure how to do it now.
“People change.” Her faint smile is a relic from our childhood. “Or sometimes, they’ve been a certain way all along, and they only just remember.”
What has she remembered? Are we friends, rivals, or something in between?
I don’t ask. So long as she doesn’t contradict me, I can answer the question however I want.
…
A hologram is playing on the wall when I enter my father’s recovery room. Nebulae from our home galaxy. A crystal-blue light cracks open the deep black space, surrounded by an algae-gold cloud and twinkling pink spots. If I didn’t know better, I could believe I was looking into the gates of heaven. The image changes. This time, electric-blue lightning snakes through a dragon’s flaming breath. This would be hell.
The pictures flash across the wall, each nebula more breathtaking than the last. But I ignore them all and hug my father. “Dad. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Me too, baby. Me, too.”
I pull back. His skin sags with as many wrinkles as there are stars, and deep circles bruise the underside of his eyes. His eyes themselves seem lost. A million light-years away with the nebulae.
“No, don’t you worry about me, too.” The lines around his mouth crease, as though he’s trying to smile. “Mistress Barnett will tell you herself, the poison has left my system. With the exception of my ribs, I’m back to normal.”
“But you’re sad.” Simple words, but they stick and tumble on the way out of my mouth. I don’t normally associate sadness with the King. In fact, I’ve only seen him truly melancholy one other time—the day we sent my mother’s ashes into space.
He fixes his eyes on the nebulae. After all these years, could this be where my mother’s ashes have traveled? Is this my father’s way of being with her?
“When your mother died, a gash was ripped in my heart,” he says, as if I’d spoken out loud. But I don’t need to. My mother’s presence is in this room, as real and tangible as any physical body. “People told me, over time, the gash would mend itself. It would get smaller until I wouldn’t notice the pain with every breath, I wouldn’t feel the gaping hole with every beat of my heart. It might even disappear, they said.
“They were right. But they were also wrong. I got used to the gash, but it never closed. Time was nothing but a series of bandages I slapped over the wound. Not for a moment have I ever forgotten how much I love your mother.”
He catches my chin with his hand. Tilts my face so it catches the light, not from the nebulae but from the sun lamps outside the window. “As you grow up, Vela, I see her in you more and more. Your mother lives for me again, in the ghost of such moments. I can almost believe she waits for me in a different realm.” He smiles, as wistful as a child. “I miss her.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel about his confession. Even as I watch, he puts on his kingly role the way one might button himself into a coat. He buries the tragedies of his personal life behind his responsibility. The emotions melt from his face, so when I look at him, I no longer see a man grieving over his dead wife.
All I see is the King.
This camouflage is perhaps his greatest lesson to me. It’s not that he doesn’t feel. Indeed, he feels as much as the next person. But what supersedes his emotions is the duty to his colony.
My father taps the holographic cube to turn off the nebulae. “So tell me. What have you discovered about my poisoner?”
I tell him about our plan to check his food and my theory that the poisoning is related to the Fittest Trials.
“You might be right. I’ll increase the number of bots watching all of us.” He sighs and then winces as the breath moves along his ribs. “I don’t think even the council predicted how hard this task was going to be.”
“What do you mean?”
My father untwists the wires on his torso. “You’re so young, my eye-apple. Too young, some of the council members think, to be considered for such an important role. I disagree. I think your youth is a strength. You’re not entrenched in the status quo. You don’t accept something just because that’s the way it’s been. There are some…lessons…that have taken the council and me a lifetime to see. And you’re on the verge of understanding them now.”
I get the feeling he’s alluding to something big, something vitally important to the future of our colony. And it’s all related, somehow, to my decisions in the Fittest Trials.
“Are you trying to tell me something about Carr?” I watch his face for every nuance of expression.
“You know I can’t talk about the Fittest.” He drapes a hand on his forehead, as if to shield himself from my scrutiny. “I can’t help you with this decision. You must make it alone. That’s how we’ll know if you’re ready to be the Successor.”
What decision? I thought the veto was my last move, and I already made it. Master Somjing said the council was still evaluating me, but on what? Helping Carr get settled into the shuttle? Investigating the firewall breach?
A thought occurs to me, so terrible it makes me stumble backward. “Dad, is the council behind the wiped files? Are they responsible for your poisoning?”
“What? No. No.” He tries to sit up, his face contorting with pain. “I give you my sovereign word the council has nothing to do with either. Our focus is finding the next Successor, and whoever is causing this trouble is making our job more difficult.”
I exhale. I don’t know how to feel. Relief the council isn’t involved. Or frustration that I’m back to my original questions.
Before I can probe any further, a bot rolls in and tells us my time is up. I give my father a kiss and turn to leave the room.
“One more thing, Vela.” My father’s eyes are beginning to close, and his face looks shadowed even in the light of the sun lamps.
Guilt slithers through my digestive tract. I’ve worn him out, and he’ll have nothing left for Blanca. Crossing back to his side, I pick up his hand, careful not to disturb the wires. “Yes, Dad?”
“As the King, I would choose again and again to have you participate in this task. I firmly believe you have the most potential to be the kind of leader I would be proud to follow. But I want you to know…” His eyes close all the way, and I’m no longer sure to whom he’s speaking. To me or himself. Or perhaps to the ashes of my mother, floating along a distant nebula. “As a father, I will never, ever forgive myself for asking you to make this decision.”
> Chapter
Thirty-Two
When I return to the lounge, Carr’s waiting and Blanca’s gone. I walk straight to him and wrap my arms around his torso, trying to soak up his warmth, his goodness. My head’s like the planetary water before they filter it. Full of too much bacteria, too many colors. But this. This doesn’t confuse me. If I could live in a world of his arms, maybe everything would be okay.
I stay there, trying to memorize the rhythm of his heartbeat. After a minute or an hour, he whispers into my hair, “We have company.”
Two bots stand ten feet away. I didn’t hear them approach. The engineers specifically designed the bots to roll with a mechanical whirring sound, but I guess they didn’t take Carr’s mesmerizing heartbeat into account.
“May I help you?” I ask.
One of the bots whirrs closer and pokes a mechanical limb in the air, a few inches from my kneecap, doing a remarkable imitation of a jabbing finger. “I’m watching your every move, Princess. Master Somjing says you don’t need to wear the loop any longer.”
“Who are you with? What are you doing? What are you thinking?” the other bot asks.
I roll my eyes. Great. Nosy Bots. One for each of us. That was fast. My father must’ve put in the order for increased surveillance as soon as I left his room.
Unlike the messenger bots, every surveillance bot has a set of human eyes watching from a control room. And I thought the recorder was bad.
I turn off the loop, unwinding it from my neck and stashing it in my pocket. “Did you get the list?” I ask Carr.
He nods and gives me the handheld. I open the appropriate document. “I was right. The only food he ate yesterday was his favorite snack, right before the crowning ceremony. Honey-apple toast with vanilla ice cream, drizzled with honey.”
“I gave the ingredient list to CORA, but I’m not sure it’ll get us anywhere,” he says. “More likely, the poisoner added a toxic substance to your father’s food.”
I feel as though we’re searching for the one red pebble in a riverbed of brown stones. You know it’s got to be there—the composition of the planet dictates as much—but you have no idea where to start.
At that moment, Master Somjing lurches into the room, followed by his own bot. He scowls. “This thing showed up a few minutes ago, and it won’t stop following me.”
The three bots circle each other and park themselves along the wall. If we get any more Fittest-related people in here, we’ll have an entire crew.
“You’ve never had a surveillance bot?” I remember my first one. I was four or five, old enough to play by myself but too young to go completely unsupervised. For the first hour, I did nothing but run in circles, zig-zagging around trees and doubling back on my tracks. It took me even longer to figure out the bot was following me and not playing tag.
“I had no reason to have a surveillance bot,” Master Somjing says. “Never important enough to be in any danger.”
I press his arm. The council member looks as wrinkled as I feel. “Thank you for coming. My father will be happy to see you.”
“It’s the least I can do.” He touches the holo-cube around his neck. “Your father visited me every day the year after Viola passed. I credit him with pulling me out of depression, you know.”
He looks at me, then Carr, and then the three bots lined on the wall. His neck flushes red, as if he’s just realized we’re not the only two people in the room.
“That’s not the only reason I’m here.” His voice takes on a stiff, formal tone. “I have official council business to relate.”
“I’ll leave,” Carr says.
“No, stay. This news concerns you, too.”
Carr and I exchange a glance. The surveillance bots roll forward a few feet. They have no stake in the conversation, of course. But when the volume drops, they’re programmed to come closer, in order to capture every word.
Whatever this news is, it can’t be good.
“The council called an emergency meeting. Mistress Barnett informed us the King has recovered from the poisoning, but this episode has taxed his already weakened system.”
My hand reaches out and wraps around Carr’s.
“I’m sorry to say, he can’t afford to wait two months for the organs transplant. We have to move up the procedure.”
“Up?” My heart pounds—loud, loud, so loudly. I’m surprised the bots don’t roll backwards. “How long do we have?”
“One week. The transplant’s been scheduled for a week from today.”
Chapter
Thirty-Three
One week. Ten days. 300 hours. 18,000 minutes. 1,080,000 seconds.
With every second that passes, I die a little more. I sleep a little less. Every minute I sleep is one less minute I can be with Carr. One less minute I can spend in the control room, helping the data analysts look for Zelo. So, I stop sleeping.
I can rest anytime. After the ten-day week. After the deadline for the transplant has come and gone. After I lose or save the only boy I’ve ever loved.
Yes, I love him. I always have. From the moment I saw him digging for his worms to the times his voice told me to hold on. From the kid who was serious beyond his years to the boy who stood on a stone block and told me he was unworthy of love.
I love his kindness and his goodness. I love how he inspires me to be more honorable. I love how he brings order and sense to the universe—my universe, at least.
I love Carr Silver. I know that now. I always have, and I always will.
I put the search for the King’s poisoner on hold. My broken friendship with Astana fades in importance. Everything else gets shoved to the background. My first priority is finding Zelo.
If I can recover his disc and reconstruct the data, I know it will reveal a mistake. Someone tampered with CORA. Carr isn’t the Fittest, after all.
His salvation is within my grasp. All I have to do is find Zelo.
In the control room, the analysts and I check school records, medical records, financial records. Zilch. Birth registry, death registry, personal identification numbers. Zip. We even send investigators to the Temple and other destinations to inquire if anyone’s seen him. Zero. Like the inspiration for his name, Zelo seems to have vanished onto another plane.
My saboteur is nothing if not thorough.
The days pass. Two days. Three days. Ninety hours, one hundred and twenty. And then on the fifth day, with five more days remaining until the transplant, Carr calls me out of the control room.
I meet him in the narrow corridor, so cold and metallic next to his blood-and-flesh warmth, with my surveillance bot trailing after me. Our reflections glint off the curved metal walls, but I ignore them. Just like I ignore the bot and the eyes behind it.
“Can you take a break?” He steps closer, even though there’s no one in the hallway. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”
“Of course. Anything you want.” Guilt floods my veins. Have I been in the control room too long? Should I be spending every last second of these final days with Carr?
Maybe. But foregoing my search for Zelo is like admitting defeat. And I will not give up. I have to believe I can still stop this.
“Before we go…” He tilts my chin up. “I want you to talk to my sister.”
“I’ve tried, Carr. She won’t even look at me, and I don’t blame her. If I were in her position, I’d feel the same way.”
I make my tone light, as though my best friend’s anger doesn’t bother me. But nothing could be farther from the truth. When I lay in bed at night, not sleeping, the grief crushes me from the inside out. There are two holes inside my chest. The bigger hole is for the imminent loss of Carr, but the smaller one is for my best friend. For my sister, if not in blood, then of the heart. If I can’t stop this transplant from happening, and Carr dies, then I’ll lose them both. Forever.
“Try again. Please?” he asks.
When I don’t respond, he sighs and pulls my head against his chest. The bot
whirrs a few feet to the side, trying to get a better view of us.
“I’m not sad, Vela. For the first time in my life, I feel like I don’t have anything left to prove. My life finally matters because I’m able to save Astana.”
“Your life has always mattered,” I whisper. I look up and do my best to imprint his caviar-black eyes and straight, thin brows into my memory.
I’ll have holograms, sure. And I’ve made a point to take a few of him, because I know I’ll regret not having them later. But I don’t want to rely on some dots of light to remember him, like I do my mother. I don’t want all the people I love to be confined to a little black cube.
“I worry about her.” His voice stutters and halts like a faulty combine. “She’s not strong like you. I don’t know if she’ll be able to bear the grief when I die. I would feel so much better if I knew she had you, watching over her. So please. For me. Before I die, repair your friendship.”
I close my eyes, the heat burning like an iron poker against my lids. He’s wrong. I’m not stronger than Astana. I won’t be any better at surviving his death.
But with this speech, he’s passing his life’s work to me. He’s entrusting me to do what he will no longer be able to do. Take care of Astana.
“Okay,” I say, my words a vow to the most honorable boy on Dion. “I’ll do my best.”
…
I try everything. I apologize. I explain why I didn’t use the veto, how I couldn’t destroy Carr’s honor. I outline every step the control room analysts and I have taken to locate Zelo.
I even remind Astana of the time we spread pond mud on our faces to give ourselves a facial. Instead of a smooth and glowing complexion, we ended up with red, splotchy skin.
I talk until my mouth dries out, until my voice goes hoarse, and still, I can’t get a flicker out of her plaster-mold lips.
Okay, then. I want to keep trying, for Carr’s sake, but there’s only so long I can push against a boulder that won’t budge. The bots tell me that Hanoi comes to visit her every day. So, perhaps, even if she never forgives me, she’ll have one friend to comfort her after her brother’s death.