Cagebird

by Karin Lowachee

  I clasped my hands on the table and didn’t speak. Papa gazed at me a long moment while Marcus lit another cigret. He’d given Papa a pack.

  Papa said, “Yurochka, what do you want to do?”

  Bo-Sheng sat to my right, slurping at noodles Mishka’s mat had made for us. He looked at me with his face bent over the bowl.

  “It would be good to go,” I said, even though I felt sick at the idea of leaving. Even if it was to go with Bo-Sheng. But I had to stop thinking of just myself. I was getting older, and so was my father. “Papa, if I made enough cred, we could all leave the Camp. Maybe even before Isobel’s my age.”

  I knew it hurt him to look at Isobel, who was so quiet and so tiny, smaller than she should’ve been. When I held her at night it was like hugging one of her dolls, slack and barely stitched together.

  I looked down at the table because when I thought of my sister, sometimes I wanted to cry. Sometimes I talked to her about Mama, but she had no real idea. She thought Mishka’s mat was our mama.

  Papa took a deep breath, stubbed out the end of his cig in the ashtray, and looked across at Marcus.

  “Can I see the contract, sir?”

  I had no real possessions, so all that I wanted to take with me—like my slate—fit into one shoulder bag. Marcus said he’d supply us with what we needed anyway, until we had enough earnings to buy our own gear. Papa bundled me up in my coat and scarf and hat, and I hugged Isobel. I told her I was going to come back, but she cried. She hit my arm and my chest.

  Mishka’s mat had to tear her away and take her to her room, but I still heard the crying even through the shut door.

  Mishka stared at me for a second as if I’d hit her or shouted at her, then ran after her mat. Without a word.

  “It’s okay,” Papa said, putting an arm around my shoulders.

  I didn’t cry. We walked to the landing pad and my stomach just got tighter. But I gripped the strap pressing against my chest and listened to the scrape and clump of my steps along the road. Once at the gate, Papa stopped and stared at the shuttle. Specks of early snow blew around its struts. Shadows ran from the tall tower and huddled around the body of the little ship. Dots of red and blue surrounded the pad like bits of glowing candy.

  Bo-Sheng was already there by the shuttle’s nose. He waved at me.

  I didn’t wave back. I looked up at Papa.

  “Well,” he said. Then he paused. His mouth worked as if words were trying to get out, but he wasn’t letting them. Then he hugged me hard, patted my back, and let me go.

  “Papa,” I said.

  But his hand pressed my shoulder, he was looking over my head, and in the next moment he made his way back down the road, toward home.

  My feet didn’t touch the floor of the shuttle. Me and Bo-Sheng were the youngest ones there. Six other kids from the Camp, all older, sat scattered around the cabin talking or just staring out the windows. Beside me, Bo-Sheng shifted restlessly, anxious and excited as we roared into the air. Beneath us growled and rumbled with the force of the firing jets. I peered out the cabin window as the Camp drifted away like a small pebble dropped in a large, dense lake. Soon the clouds mottled the gray haphazard expanse of occupied land. The homes and buildings and carved, scratched pathways were nothing but toy models on the surface, a playground made of plastic and paint, with tiny robotic figurines going about their day.

  I’d forgotten to say good-bye to Seamus.

  I thought of his dark amber eyes, cold nose, and dirty fur. He used to lick my hand if I held it out, like he expected treats.

  But dogs didn’t belong in space, among steel and cold and narrow corridors, and I was never going to see him again.

  And I cried then. Because of that animal.

  9.20.2185 EHSD—Estienne

  Estienne was warm gold to Marcus’s cool silver. He was a lot younger than the captain and his hair shone the color of reflected sunlight, thrown forward on his face as if he looked at everything with his head bowed. He had to look down at me a lot, and something about the way he smiled put me at ease. There was nothing nervous or twitchy about him, just a calm acceptance of everything and everyone. He watched Bo-Sheng’s energetic stride down the corridors of The Abyssinian, hanging back from it as if he was afraid the enthusiasm would infect him. The older kids were ahead of Bo-Sheng, their own little group. I was slower going, clutching the bag strap across my chest, keeping myself in among the shadows and tall walls, and Estienne walked beside me, slowing down to match my smaller steps. He spoke in a low voice with words that took their time to fall through the air.

  “It doesn’t look like a lot, but you’ll get used to it.”

  If I were Jonah, like in the stories I’d read about, then this was really the belly of the whale. The ship seemed to have ribs, arching dark and smooth over my head, with small round lights running along the spine, bumpy gray. The deck was triple-paneled and opened below through the tiny holes into black. Our steps echoed, and my face started to itch from the cold.

  “Bo-Sheng,” I said, to call him back to my side. He waited until we caught up, somewhere between Marcus, who walked ahead with the older kids, and the silence coming up from behind.

  “It’s creepy,” Bo-Sheng said, and giggled. “Like Halloween!”

  Estienne said again, “You’ll get used to it. And it’s just the passageways that’re like this. The rooms are different.”

  Marcus paused at a lev, holding the doors open with his hand on the call pad, and looked back at us. At Estienne. “Take the kids to Dorm Two. Then come to my office.”

  Estienne nodded and Marcus half smiled at us before disappearing into the lev with the older group. So far he hadn’t shown much interest once he got us aboard his shuttle. It had been mostly Estienne sitting with me and Bo-Sheng in the passenger cabin, talking to us about the ports he’d seen and the strits he’d killed (because, he said, The Abyssinian did in fact run information for the military sometimes, and sometimes they ran into a strit ship; Marcus, he said, wasn’t the type to back away from a fight). Now it was Estienne looming over us in the dim corridor, looking perfectly at ease in the shadows, wearing a thin jacket for the cold. I was bundled in my Camp coat and sweater and scarf, and I still wanted to crawl under some blankets to warm up.

  “Where’s everyone else?” I said, peering up at him.

  “Working,” he said. “People work on this ship.” The smile slid across his face again, but his gaze drifted over our heads.

  “Where’re the other kids going?” How come they got to go with the captain?

  “You ask a lot of questions.” He looked down at us again. “They have a different schedule because they’re older. C’mon, let’s get you both settled.”

  His hand rested on my shoulder as we went, but not to hold me back or even for comfort in this strange place. He leaned a little as if he needed me in order to walk. Bo-Sheng was quiet and slower now, looking all around from behind his bangs, staying close to my elbow. There was just enough room for the three of us to walk side by side.

  “I think it’s kind of cool,” Bo-Sheng whispered to me.

  He didn’t seem scared, but I think he knew I was. I couldn’t think of anything except how much I wanted to be back in the Camp, even with its grit and grayness, instead of here without Papa or Isobel. But maybe that was baby talk. Maybe I needed to just grow up.

  Estienne paused in front of a hatch and tapped the control pad above our heads. We’d have to stretch to reach it. Then he turned the latch and shoved with his shoulder, and the hatch swung in. Light came up automatically, stark white, and we squinted into it, poking our heads under his arm to look in. It was a small cabin even for a kid’s size, with a fold-down bunk, web storage, one locker wedged into the corner, and a narrow door leading to something else. Maybe a bathroom. The blanket had a red stripe on it, but everything else was steel gray. Even the walls.

  “Sorry, but this is the best we’ve got right now until you guys earn it,” Estienne said, sounding
like he really was sorry. “Bo-Sheng, this is for you.”

  “We’re not staying together?” I said, before Bo-Sheng could speak. My voice sounded too thin in the cold, heavy air.

  “Does this look like it can fit two people?” Estienne asked, squeezing my shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll be right next door.”

  I didn’t like it. I started to follow Bo-Sheng into the quarters. But Estienne caught my hood.

  “Yuri. Let him get settled.”

  “It’s okay,” Bo-Sheng said, smiling, standing in the middle of that small space like it was some rich palace. “We each get our own. I mean, it’s better this way. We’re old enough to be by ourselves.”

  Maybe he was. But I’d liked sharing a room with my sister, even though I was nine.

  “You’ll see him again,” Estienne said, laughing beneath the words.

  So I didn’t say anything when he shut the hatch and guided me to my own, right next to Bo-Sheng’s like he had said. He opened it up and it looked exactly the same, except the blankets were pale yellow. I went in and turned all around, then looked up at him. He stood in the hatchway.

  “Unpack your things, and I’ll come back. If you’re tired you can take a nap. Explore in here if you want.” He ruffled my hair, gently. I didn’t hit him, even though I thought about it.

  He stepped out and shut the hatch, and I heard something beep. I went to it and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t open. So I banged on it and yelled, but nothing came back but an echo.

  I sat unmoving on the bunk with my bag still solid across my back, holding on to the straps on my chest, and watched the hatch. I didn’t need to explore this narrow space. I wanted to know if I’d ever get out.

  Eventually Estienne came back, dressed in different clothes, all black and shiny, with black dots around his eyes that faded into smudged darkness on his lids. It made his gaze fierce, too shiny, but then he smiled, and it was that same soft expression, as if all his thoughts were gentle.

  “You didn’t even take off your coat?”

  I stared at him, then shot toward the corridor.

  “Hey!” He caught me around the waist and lifted me off my feet. My legs flailed but his arms held me tight. “Settle down, Yuri! Hey!”

  “I wanna go! Take me back!”

  He carried me into that horrible little space and kicked the hatch shut. I clawed at his arms, but he set me on the bunk. I wasn’t that small, but he didn’t even flinch or seem bothered by my activity. He grabbed my wrists but not hard enough to bruise. Just to hold me still.

  “Yuri.” The pale color of his eyes pierced through the feather cut of his bangs and those painted dark smudges. “I’m sorry, it took me longer than I expected. Please just relax.”

  “You locked the door!”

  “For your own safety. If you wandered around this ship, you might get into trouble. Marcus wants to orient you first before he lets you loose. There’s a certain way of doing things here. Just like any other place. Okay?”

  It sounded reasonable. But I stared at him, quiet.

  “You’re awfully cute.” He grinned. It was a Bo-Sheng thing to say. Just to bug me.

  “Shut up.”

  “You are,” he said, and poked my stomach.

  “Stop it!”

  Of course he didn’t. He picked me up under my knees and shoulders and dumped me on the bunk, then started to tickle me. I hit him and shoved, but he rolled me back on the blankets. And I couldn’t help it, I laughed until I couldn’t breathe and then he sat back, satisfied.

  I kicked him. Just so he wouldn’t think he could do that anytime. He winced.

  “Come on, let’s get you settled, then I’ll take you to Marcus. He wants to talk to you.”

  “What about Bo-Sheng?”

  Estienne rolled his eyes. “He already talked to Bo-Sheng. You’re the lazy one that hasn’t even unpacked your bag.”

  So I let him help me unload my few items of clothing, my slate, my socks and extra pair of mittens and the little robot Isobel had made for me a long time ago, out of spare plastic parts we’d fished from the lakeshore and glued together in school.

  “What’s that?” Estienne said.

  “A robot.”

  His eyebrows went up. He tilted his head and gazed at it. “It looks like it encountered a strit.”

  I kicked him, but not too hard. He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to the hatch.

  “You need maintenance,” he said. But nicely.

  “Why’re you dressed like that anyway?” I walked beside him down the corridor, and he kept his arm around me. I could’ve easily twitched it off, but his sleeve brushed the back of my neck beneath my hair, and the material was velvet soft.

  “I’m going to meet somebody,” he said.

  “At a party?”

  “Kind of,” he said.

  “When’s the ship going to move?” That was scary, but in a fun way. We’d leaped once to get from that Rimstation to Colonial Grace. Mostly I blacked out, but I wanted to know if it’d be different for the second time.

  “Don’t worry,” Estienne said, “you’ll know it when we do. There’ll be an announcement, and you’ll be in quarters.”

  It had taken long hours in the shuttle to get to The Abyssinian. Maybe we weren’t even near Colonial Grace anymore. I didn’t like to think about how far away I was from Papa and Isobel, but it was natural to worry. Wasn’t it? And maybe it was going to feel better. Estienne liked to play, at least. And Bo-Sheng was just next door.

  “What will we be doing first? For work?”

  Estienne smiled and pulled me to a stop in front of a hatch. “Marcus will explain.” He hit the call pad up on the wall, and when it flashed green he shoved open the hatch with his shoulder and a hand on the latch. It sounded like a deep sigh. I peered under his arm and saw Marcus on the bunk, holding a black boot.

  “C’mon in,” he said. And, “Thanks, Estienne.”

  “Welcome, sir,” Estienne said, and gave me a small push inside. “See you later, Yuri.”

  “Uh-huh.” I waved a little then tucked my hands up my sleeves, looking at Marcus. At his quarters. He had a small desk jammed up against the wall, across from a single bunk. It was all larger than my quarters but still small for a man. I gazed up at the bright panels of lights, the smooth scars on the walls as if people had dented the surface with furniture. But aside from the desk and the bunk, there wasn’t anything else in the room but a couple of narrow tower lockers, webbing, and another door. So I looked back at Marcus. “What’re you doing?”

  He patted beside him on the bunk. “Have a seat and I’ll show you.”

  I walked over and sat on the edge of the mattress, resting my hands beside me. After a second I slid farther back until my boots didn’t touch the deck. The blanket was scratchy warm beneath my hands, and I picked at it idly, making fuzz. He didn’t seem to mind even though I knew he noticed. I saw mostly the back of his shoulders, how they made two sharp lines beneath his thin gray jacket. He leaned on his elbows, holding the boot in his left hand and wiping at it with a blackened cloth in his right. The boot shone so much I saw the overhead lights reflected on its tip.

  “Why don’t you use a spray stain?”

  He sighed, but not at the question. “Doing it this way allows me to think.”

  “About what?”

  “This war. My ship in this war. Things like that.” He slid a look back at me. His eyes were bluer than Papa’s. Bluer than mine.

  “Bo-Sheng says we can kill strits here.”

  “Does he?” Marcus smiled. His profile showed a sharp nose, more obvious because his hair was so short. Like a military cut. I wondered about that. “Bo-Sheng’s right,” he said. “My ship runs across the aliens sometimes.”

  “And you fight?”

  “Of course we fight. Why, do you want to fight them too?”

  I picked at the blanket some more. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “They attacked your colony, didn’t they?”
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  I shrugged.

  “Bo-Sheng told me,” he said. “You have a right to be angry at the strits and the government. Too many attacks like that happen, and the Hub doesn’t do anything.”

  I wasn’t thinking of the government, just the strits. “The Rim Guard tried to help.”

  “But did they?” He stopped polishing. I didn’t say anything, just bounced my feet over the side of the bed until he put his hand on my ankle and stopped me. “Come up here, you want to try?”

  I dragged myself forward, and he reached down to the plastic box at his feet and took out another smaller blackened cloth and handed it to me.

  “Here. Your boots are scuffy.”

  It didn’t sound mean like how the teachers in the Camp sounded sometimes, or the guards. So I watched him rub the heel of his boot and slid mine off, sticking my hand inside to hold it while I swirled the cloth in circles on the toe. Soon it was shiny black just like his, and I worked my way around it toward the heel.

  “How come I can’t stay with Bo-Sheng?” I didn’t wait for him to answer or roll his eyes like Estienne. “I don’t like it by myself.”

  “You’re special,” he said, polishing his boots.

  “No I’m not.”

  Now he looked at me. For a long second before he answered, ignoring it when I fidgeted. “You know you’re smarter than he is.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Oh, don’t play around, Yuri.” His lips curled, and I wasn’t sure if he meant it, or if it was the kind of smile you gave when you thought the kid couldn’t understand.

  “I’m not playing, Marcus,” I said. In case he got all Papa-tone on me. “I don’t get what you mean.”

  “I think you do. That planet was holding you back. You love your family but it was killing you to be there. What did you used to do with Bo-Sheng aside from run around the lake? Nothing good, I bet. But you brought your slate aboard. You read or write a lot, don’t you? Even though you didn’t like school?”

  He must’ve talked to Bo-Sheng more than I knew.

  “Bo-Sheng isn’t nearly as concerned about you as you are for him. He’s well-adjusted and ready to begin his training.”