Shadow Run

by Michael Miller

  “Meeting someone is hardly knowing them.”

  I wondered if he wanted to know me beyond meeting me—beyond knowing what I was, whatever that was. Beyond my Shadow affinity, at least. How much of me was just a science experiment to him?

  “Where are Eton and Basra from?” he continued. It didn’t quite sound like what he wanted to ask, his voice careful for some reason. Maybe he didn’t want me to think he was prying, and he was easing me into this, coaxing me into talking.

  I was tempted to scoff again. “Of course you’d ask the question I know the least about. Outsiders who end up on Alaxak don’t always like to talk about how they got there.” I shot him a pointed look for emphasis. “I know Eton is from one of the royal planets, maybe yours, and he was some type of bodyguard. Maybe for a family, but he never said which, and I didn’t ask him. Basra I know even less about. He’s incredibly skilled for how young he is.”

  Nev was smiling beneath half-closed eyes. “Basra must be around twenty-five or so? Hard to tell for sure, and young, no doubt, but I’m sitting next to a seventeen-year-old who just so happens to be the best Shadow fishing captain on Alaxak.”

  Flustered, I asked the first stupid thing to come to mind. “How do you know how old I am?”

  He tilted his head to raise one eyebrow that as good as said, Come on, what do you take me for? “I believe I’ve demonstrated that I know how to ask questions. In fact, I’m demonstrating it now.”

  Of course he’s aware of my age, my skill, I reminded myself a little bitterly. The fact that I’d come so far so young and was even still alive was probably how he’d determined I could be of the most use to him.

  But his eyes weren’t the least bit insincere or beguiling as he asked, “Well, if you don’t know where they’re from, how did Eton and Basra come to join your crew?”

  “I met them both a little over three years ago after…after I was just getting started fishing.” I’d almost said, After most of my family died, but I didn’t want him to think all I did was dwell on it. Usually, I didn’t; I couldn’t—I was too busy. “Eton first. He came out of nowhere. Someone was hassling me on the dock for I don’t even remember what. I was an easy target; I was only fourteen, never mind that I had my own ship. Or maybe it was because I had my own ship. Anyway, before I knew it, Eton hauled this guy away from me and flattened him. I needed a strong-arm and weapons tech, and so I asked him a couple of questions: did he know how to shoot a mass driver, and if so, did he want a job?”

  “Did you offer him the chef’s position then or after?”

  I grinned. “He just sort of fell into it, since he was the only one onboard who knew anything about cooking. At that point, it was only me, Arjan, and Telu—a bunch of kids, really, even if Arjan was eighteen then. But you wouldn’t make fun of Eton if you’d tasted more of his food. The guy wields kitchen gadgets like he wields his guns…and has an equally large collection of both.”

  Nev shared my grin. “And Basra?” he asked.

  “Basra found me too, soon after. I’d seen this strange, hooded figure around Gamut for a week or so, and it always seemed to be watching me—watching everything, really. And then one day, this person approached me while we were unloading a huge catch of Shadow, pulled down the hood, and there was Basra. Perfect timing, since I was struggling to find a stable market that would offer a decent price. He told me that, for a percentage, he could make me deals I couldn’t imagine for my Shadow, and he wasn’t kidding.” I frowned. “Seems like he could be making way more money somewhere else. I’m not sure why he stays. He’s the best there is.”

  I wondered what was going on between him and Arjan again, but I didn’t have long before Nev interrupted my thoughts.

  “Like I said, you’re also the best at what you do. It’s pretty obvious once one meets you. Basra must have been looking for you, like I was.”

  I bent forward and put my head in my hands. My hair was loose, falling in a long, tangled curtain on either side of my face, all the easier to hide my blush or anything else he might see in my eyes, unpredictable tears or something darker. “If I’m the best, then why does everything always seem to fall apart around me?”

  My family, my ship, my crew, my life…

  “I don’t think you realize how much you’re holding together, and what few resources you use to do it.” Something definitely rose up inside me then, but not tears or Shadow. It was a hot pressure, coiling around my rib cage and pinching my lungs too tight. It felt horrible, and good, to hear him acknowledge that. I rubbed at my eyes just in case, and he hesitated. “I’m sorry, Qole, if I’ve crossed a line. What about Telu. How did she join you?”

  I pulled my hands away from my face, but kept leaning on my knees, unable to look at Nev just yet. “I’ve known her…and her family…practically since she was born. We grew up together. She’s a year younger than me.” I held my palms up, looking at the lines there, reflecting on everything Telu and I had been through, ups and downs alike.

  Nev straightened slightly at that. “She’s only sixteen? Wow. The girl is…formidable…for someone so young.” He barked a laugh. “Terrifying, actually.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear to look at him. “There’s a good reason she’s that way.”

  He sobered. “No doubt. Are her parents…?”

  “Both are alive, actually,” I said, and he blinked. “But they’re not exactly…present.”

  He waited for me to explain.

  I took a deep breath. “Both of them have a Shadow affinity, but only enough for them to go a little crazy and not die outright. Her father had a ship and was a decent fisherman, until he decided to drink all the time to ward off the hallucinations. Drink and take out his fear and frustration on Telu and her mom. For the longest time, Telu just buried herself in a virtual world. That—and her Shadow affinity—is why she’s such a good hacker. Her mom was too out of it to do anything to stop her father, but Telu eventually tried. Law enforcement didn’t listen.”

  Nev grimaced. “Why not?”

  Now it was my turn to bark a laugh, a bitter one. “They don’t care. We have one officer in Gamut, and they change all the time. Beyond making sure we’re not burning the place down or messing with the drones—your drones,” I added sourly, “they couldn’t care less what happens to us, or whether a father beats his wife and daughter senseless every so often. So, Telu, she…uh…”

  “She what?” Nev asked, his voice softening.

  I cleared my throat. “She asked for my help. I took her dad’s ship when he was passed out drunk, and I…I shot down a drone.” I looked at him, daring him to get offended.

  He looked amazed, instead. “You shot down a drone with a fishing vessel? By yourself ?” I nodded. “What kind of vessel was it?”

  I shook my head, laughing in exasperation. “What does that have to do with anything? You and your ships. I don’t know, it was like all the fishing ships in Gamut, some kind of mishmash.”

  He laughed at himself. “Fair enough.” His face quickly moved from boyish curiosity to seriousness, his smile sliding away as his eyebrows dropped. “But…how did you survive? Even if you managed to shoot one down, drones swarm when one is attacked…” He trailed off, thinking of the implications. I sobered, too, suddenly and irrationally angry at him again. Whole communities had been wiped out because of that drone function.

  I exhaled slowly. “Telu hacked the alert signal,” I said, “to keep it from calling the others.”

  “The authorities would have to know it had been sabotaged.”

  I pulled my lips back into a humorless smile. “I know. Exactly.”

  “You…,” Nev said, stunned. “You pinned it on her father.”

  Even now, I felt a grim satisfaction over what I had done. I leaned back into the wall, feeling the cold surface press into my shoulders. “The authorities paid attention to him then. He was too drunk and crazy to even know whether he’d done it, and they didn’t look into it all that deeply. Hauled him offworld to
some prison. He hasn’t bothered Telu or her mom since. They confiscated his ship, of course, so now Telu works with me to support her mother. She viewed it as a fair trade.”

  Nev was looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. I didn’t know if it was good or bad. “I see,” he said.

  I felt defensive without even knowing if I should be. I opened my mouth, but he spoke over me.

  “I see, even more now, why you’re the best captain on Alaxak at seventeen. It makes perfect sense.” Before I could sputter anything, he said, “But the one I don’t quite understand is Arjan. He’s four years older than you, twenty-one now, right? Did he not want to captain?”

  I swallowed and glanced at the airlock doors, even though I couldn’t see inside. “No,” I said shortly.

  Nev was silent for a moment, and then his voice prodded me gently in the dimness. “Why not?”

  “He’s…scared. Scared of this.” I held my hands out in front of me again, not to look at the lines in my skin this time, but as if to see what dwelled underneath. “You’ve seen how he pilots the skiff. He has this too—the skill, the darkness. But he watched it kill my parents. And then our oldest brother, Onai, only two years later, just after he’d turned twenty-five. Arjan wants to hide from it, and not lose himself or anyone else. Captaining would have required him to take responsibility for a crew, and to face his fears every day. He still faces them in the skiff, but it’s different. Less pressure. Less of a chance to snap.” I swallowed. “And he’s the only one at risk if he does.”

  Nev was quiet for a moment, and when his voice came again, it was practically a whisper. “Are you scared?”

  My hands started shaking and I clasped them together. I hadn’t cried in years, and yet again today I felt that sting in my eyes. Maybe it was just bone-deep exhaustion. Or maybe nobody had ever before asked me if I was afraid. It was sort of taken for granted on Alaxak. We all had to face it, so why talk about it?

  What he asked next was even more shattering. “Why do you put yourself through this, then, day after day?”

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said, my voice small.

  “No choice…” His smile was bitter when I glanced over at him through my hair, trying to surreptitiously wipe my eyes. “Now that, I can understand all too well.” I wanted to ask him what he meant, but then he continued, “But what do you want, Qole? If you could choose?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know what that means. I want to live long enough to do what would have made my parents proud. To do right by my ancestors. And that’s what I’m trying to do now.”

  “Let’s assume you’re at rights with your ancestors.” Before I could get irritated with him for casually brushing them aside, he said, “And I know your parents would be proud of you.” He had no way of knowing that, actually, but the words still made my throat too tight to speak. “And let’s say you don’t need to work, to Shadow fish, for the purposes of this exercise. So what would you want to do with yourself ? First thing that comes to mind?”

  Honestly, I’d never really thought about it. That was a luxury, as much as dwelling on my parents’ deaths, that I didn’t really have. But this was in a hypothetical universe. I could try to use my imagination…though I’d have to dust it off first.

  I swallowed. “Um…let me think. I would…” I closed my eyes, tried to put myself somewhere other than the Kaitan. Where would that even be?

  I felt a breeze. A warm breeze, on my face. And maybe the sun. I smelled flowers.

  My voice came out hesitantly. “I would want…to be in a field. With grass. And sunlight. Lying on my back and looking at the sky…doing nothing. Nothing but laughing.”

  I almost felt the imaginary touch of a hand on mine. Laughing with someone.

  As soon as I said it, I expected him to laugh at me. It was such a stupidly unsophisticated, selfish desire for me to have, when he was trying to change the systems for the greater good, and all that. I should want to do something much more amazing, especially if money were no object in this hypothetical universe. My eyes fluttered open and I glanced at him.

  He wasn’t laughing. He looked sadder than I’d ever seen him. I must be so pathetic he felt bad for me.

  I scrubbed my face and cleared my throat. “Okay, enough imagining things in imaginary worlds. Especially since my imagination is rusty.” Before he could try to claim that it wasn’t, I said, “Besides, you said you have no choice in what you do, either. Why? Tell me about your life, Nev.”

  Not only was I happy for a change in subject, I was also genuinely curious.

  He flinched. “I’m not sure if you want to hear about that.”

  He was probably remembering my reaction in my quarters, the last time he’d tried. “Really, tell me. I’m…I’m sorry about earlier.” Finally, I could say it. “I was tired and stressed and angry, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  “I…” He looked mildly surprised. “Apology accepted. What would you like to know?”

  “Tell me about your family—they’re a good place to start. I’m probably going to meet them, after all.” At the thought, my stomach tipped a little on the perfectly level bench.

  “Okay.” Nev took a deep breath. “My father…he’s the most duty-driven man I’ve ever known. He lives for Dracorva first. He expects a great deal from me, but he gives me the tools I need to excel. He’s a good man, and I…well, I would be happy to think I’ll become half the ruler he is.” He sighed as if he was somehow failing. After pausing for a moment, lost in thought, he smiled. “And Mother, she’s as duty driven as my father, and yet, just as any moral fiber I have comes from him, any sense of decency I have comes from her.” He chuckled. “To you coming from me, that probably doesn’t speak well of her. But she’s a good person.”

  Maybe he believed it, but it might also be a lie he’d been fed his entire life as a royal, and he didn’t know how else to see his parents.

  As if he knew what I was thinking, Nev nearly groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m talking like we’re at a dinner, or an event, or…” He looked away, as if embarrassed. In front of me. “The truth of the matter is, I don’t think we are anything like what you understand as family. We don’t spend our days and hours together, we don’t share hopes and fears. We see one another at set times, by appointments and it’s all”—he moved his fingers in a funny motion—“all a pantomime. A sort of play. Sometimes I love it, but I think what I love best is when I accidentally spend time with one of them and we talk about something that doesn’t matter at all.”

  I supposed I could understand that. Those were my favorite times with Arjan, when we weren’t focused only on fishing. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Two, a sister a year younger, and a brother nine years my junior. Both have strong personalities—if quite different from each other—that sometimes chafe against the strict mold we’re all forced into as our parents’ children.”

  “What kind of mold? You mentioned training, I think, before I went off on you in my quarters.” I smiled feebly and nudged his shoulder in an attempt at another apology. “Training in what?”

  At my playful gesture, he smiled back crookedly, sleepily. It was a smile to get the wearer anything they wanted, and I briefly wondered if he’d trained at that. He tried to lean back against the wall before he remembered his injuries. The change in direction brought his arm back into contact with mine, and he left it there. “Oh, training in everything. History, as you’ve already noticed, but also governance, debate, finance, politics, war tactics, hand-to-hand combat, fencing, piloting, astronomy, poetry…the list goes on.”

  “Wow.” A whole galaxy of knowledge lay between our worlds, not just an actual galaxy. I only managed a second word. “Poetry?”

  A giggle burst out of me, in spite of myself.

  Nev’s odd silver eyes seemed to light up at the sound, which made me swallow it self-consciously. Great Collapse, when was the last time I’d actu
ally giggled? “Like I said, no choice. I’m no good at composing, but I can recite the Eminents with the best of them.”

  I didn’t even know who or what “the Eminents” were supposed to be. Eminent, apparently. “Poetry sounds really rough,” I said, softening my sarcasm with a smile.

  He shrugged, giving me another crooked smile. “Oh, I don’t mind a lot of what I’ve had to learn, honestly. I just spend more time with tutors and trainers than I do my parents or siblings—to say nothing of my friends, such that they are, since no one outside my family is allowed too near me for very long. The sciences have been my escape, actually, simply because they have nothing to do with ruling.”

  Loneliness was audible in his voice, a surprising amount, and my stomach rang hollowly in response. “If you royals have time for poetry, for ancestors’ sake, then your parents should spend some of that time with you.” They’re lucky enough to still have you, and you them, I wanted to say.

  “My father is very…traditional,” Nev replied hesitantly, as if a lot was being said in the space of that one word. “He doesn’t really see me as his child anymore, like a common parent would. I’m the heir. I don’t really belong to him, but to our system.”

  I frowned, trying to ignore the sting of common. “Royal or not, you’re still his son.”

  Nev shook his head. “You don’t quite understand.”

  “Because I’m common?” I asked, failing to keep the bite out of my voice now. “Explain it to me, then.”

  He looked at me warily, as if he knew he was on thin ice. His jaw hardened, but not in anger—more in determination—and he nodded. “All right. When I was officially named heir at age eight, I had to undergo a trial known as my Rendering.” His lips twisted. “Its meaning is manyfold: it rendered me into an heir, my parents rendered me in service unto our people, and the burden of our people was rendered upon me.”

  “Burden?” Something in the way he said it made it sound literal as well as figurative.