Reading the Wind (Silver Ship)

by Brenda Cooper

  She snorted. “I can doctor the nets so anyone watching after the fact sees me in Artistes when I’m really here. I come here all the time.”

  I tried to keep from looking startled. Kayleen had always been compliant. “It’s dangerous,” I cautioned.

  She shot me a disapproving look. “I’m very careful.”

  Liam dropped his hand, sat back, and turned the conversation. “What have you found?”

  The feral look returned for a moment, raising the hair on the back of my neck. The cave held whole rooms of weapons, and generally we left them alone.

  But Kayleen headed toward the room she had moved the skimmer into two winters ago, under cover of a storm. We followed her down a short, wide branch just to the right of the cave entrance, and entered an equally wide doorway

  Although Liam didn’t say anything, I could feel him questioning the wisdom of following Kayleen. I had no answer; I didn’t trust the Kayleen who walked in front of us, purposeful and sure of herself in this place where Liam and I always walked carefully.

  A light flicked on, Kayleen’s work. Her abilities felt like magic, even though I knew from working with Joseph that they reflected a connection between microscopic data readers that sang in Kayleen’s blood and any altered technology tuned to her or others like her. A common genemod, but Liam and I did not have it, and there was no way to get it here, where everything altered was despised, and information about genetic engineering scrubbed from databases. Envy crossed my heart, followed by the memory of what those skills had cost Joseph.

  I stood in the doorway, eyeing the skimmer, the Burning Void. Tiny sister to the New Making, the silver cylinder gleamed brightly even in the relative dark of the cave, twice as tall as me, twice as wide as tall, and so long I could have laid down in it ten times. It sat high on five wheels, two near the front, two near the back, and one just below the nose. We could walk under it and hardly bend.

  As we approached, the silver passenger ramp unfolded and set down with a soft click on the cave floor.

  Kayleen climbed up the ramp easily, as if she were intimately familiar with the machine. Liam followed her, and I followed him.

  I drew in a startled breath at the young hebra with bright brown side-stripes who stood unsteadily between the door to the cargo bay and the last row of seats, blinking at us. She had been cross-tied to the last row of seats, with only a meter or so of room to move around. This must be the hebra Paloma talked about, but what on earth was she doing in the skimmer?

  Kayleen sat relaxed, one leg thrown lazily on the seat in front of her. She smiled at me. “Sit down.”

  “Is that Windy?”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know about her?”

  “Paloma told me about her. That’s why we went to the barns to look for you.”

  Kayleen frowned. Relaxed body position or not, she felt like a snake about to strike. I glanced from the hebra to the open door, still standing.

  “Hang on.” She licked her lips and her fingers went to her hair as if to knot themselves in it, something she often did, but she put them back in her lap. “I’m closing the door so I can let Windy loose to meet you.”

  The soft whine of whatever mechanism controlled the ramp became background noise as the hebra bugled.

  I glanced at Liam in time to see him to take two steps toward Kayleen. He stood over her, looking down, and I recognized the set of his stance from hunting, from the moment before he sprang into a chase. “Stop!” he commanded.

  Kayleen smiled, looking up at Liam. The feral look in her eyes actually matched her expression this time, and as she raked her gaze across me I felt like prey. Me. Her best friend.

  She flashed a map of Fremont from above—a satellite shot, on the wall screen in front. It rotated, the picture first showing Jini, where we were, and then sliding to hang above the only other land mass of any consequence, the continent Islandia, almost half a world away and closer to the equator.

  The ramp clicked closed.

  Liam stared down at her, stance frozen, his eyes wide and his jaw tight.

  She looked up at him, apparently unconcerned. In a measured soft tone she said, “Too late.”

  3

  A TRIP

  As soon as Kayleen uttered the phrase “too late,” I knew what she meant to do. Even knowing, disbelief closed my throat.

  Liam’s face transformed into one I had never seen, anger tightening his skin and lacing his muscles so they jumped. His dark eyes turned nearly black. He stepped toward Kayleen, leaning over her, strange and terrible and unlike himself. If Liam were anyone but Akashi’s son, I’d have expected him to strike her, the anger poured from him so strongly.

  Kayleen held her smile, her gaze on Liam, her body completely still, neither provoking nor backing down. They held that pose for three long breaths, not moving.

  We killed animals when we hunted, but we protected each other. Always.

  The baby hebra, Windy, bugled and struggled to back away, finding only smooth silver hull behind her, her cloven hooves slipping and scrambling. She shook her head back and forth like a rag on her long neck.

  Liam took a step back.

  Kayleen leapt up, vaulted one-armed over the last row of seats, and landed lightly next to the bleating hebra. She put a hand out, flat, in front of Windy’s nose. Small soothing noises rose from Kayleen’s throat. Her body language became the tough alpha of a trainer, tempered by a soft tone in her voice. Windy bugled again and then gathered her splaying legs under her, standing, shaking.

  Another long beat of silence, all of us breathing, no one speaking. The cabin felt small and close, the air thick with the mingled stink of fear and anger and upset hebra.

  Windy lowered her head slowly and curled it against Kayleen’s chest. Kayleen brought her right hand up and stroked the side of the hebra’s face. Windy closed her eyes and moaned like a new foal at her mother’s teats.

  I glanced at Liam. The expression on his face was so incredulous that I nearly burst out laughing, regardless of the tense situation. Maybe because of it. But then Liam had almost no experience with Kayleen’s mercurial nature.

  I did. But did I know this Kayleen?

  “Kayleen,” I said softly, using the same tone she had used on the hebra.

  She glanced at me, her eyes unreadable.

  “Kayleen. You can’t leave.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me.

  Liam spoke. “The band needs us. They’re going to Rage Mountain. It’s dangerous there. They’ll need us to hunt.”

  They were the wrong words, about us and not Kayleen.

  She continued standing with Windy’s head in her arms, continued the soft soothing movements and kept her voice soft. “Well, perhaps I need you. Perhaps I’ll go crazy if I have to stay there another year. The nets give up their stories to me freely now, all the time, even into my dreams. I can see everything, hear everything. I watched you all last winter, and all the summer before.” She searched my face for a reaction.

  I struggled not to give her one, trying to look calm, to radiate calm. She’d watched us? Without telling us? Seen Liam and I kiss and hunt and watched me and Sasha train Stripes? Watched us train for the dances?

  What did she make of what she saw?

  She frowned when I failed to respond and kept going, her voice raised higher. “I tried living through you, imagining it was me laughing and dancing and running free. But it was too hard, what with everyone in Artistos treating me like dung. Everyone either looking down on me or afraid of me.” She ran the long fingers of her free hand through her hair, bunching it, a contrast to the hand that stroked the hebra. “Rumors that I’d go crazy like Alicia and threaten the town. Jokes that I’d come get their babies in the night if the babies didn’t behave. See, I let them see how strong I am. I didn’t care anymore. I let them see how fast I can run and how far I can climb.”

  She buried her head in the soft striped fur of Windy’s neck. I shifted on my feet, unsure whether to go to h
er or leave her alone. She raised her head again, and this time pain came through with her words. “They’re scared of me. How can you have friends when everyone is scared of you?”

  Liam cleared his throat. “So come with us to the band. Akashi will protect you.”

  It was a lie. Akashi would try, but he was one man. Kayleen knew it. She shook her head. “Nava would find me there, and make me go back. We’re going farther away than that.” She nodded toward the front of the cabin, sending our attention back to the vid screen.

  There it was, what I knew she meant in the beginning: Islandia centered in the screen, a long thin strip of land dominated by the glowing red fires of the great volcano, Blaze. The southern edge of Islandia ran near the equator. There, hyperactive currents shredded the coast into a hundred bays and headlands where mountains, commonly referred to as Islandia’s Teeth, plunged into the water. No one on Fremont had been there. The colonists didn’t have skimmers, just shuttles that took them up to their ship, the Traveler, and back again every few years.

  I stared at the image, fascinated at the idea of seeing Islandia up close, then shook my head to clear it of craziness. I couldn’t leave Akashi and Mayah and Sasha and Stripes and…

  Liam broke the silence before I did. “I’m not going.”

  Kayleen’s answer was to speak a few more soothing words at Windy, and then to settle on the floor, near the hebra’s wooden cage.

  She closed her eyes.

  Liam stepped over to her and lifted her chin.

  She opened one eye and gazed at him. “Don’t make me crash.” The eye closed again, and her muscles slumped inside her skin. Windy nosed her gently, but apparently found Kayleen’s boneless posture familiar. She raised her head and watched me and Liam calmly.

  The Burning Void lifted smoothly, easily, rising under my feet. There were no windows. Dizzied, I took three steps to Liam’s side and wrapped a hand around his upper arm. I might as well have clutched a rock. He stared unblinking at the screen.

  Liam’s band counted on him. He was heir apparent after Akashi. His long apprenticeship to his adoptive father had gained him so much respect that his orders were followed as unquestioningly as Akashi’s or Mayah’s. His first loyalty belonged to the band, not to Kayleen. To be powerless must have been a shock.

  The image on the screen changed to the open mouth of the cave, then the low brush outside, and then blue sky as we climbed. A camera on the nose? Acceleration increased. I shifted and set my free hand on top of a seat for steadiness.

  Liam pulled free of my light grasp. I nearly fell. He didn’t turn, just went to a front seat, sitting stiffly and staring.

  Kayleen stirred, blinking, as if she’d been asleep for a week. She groaned. “Sorry. I have to focus to get out of the cave.”

  Liam didn’t turn around or respond.

  She glanced at his back, her face a mix of longing and puzzlement.

  The screen showed us passing up into clouds, flying a lazy circle. My stomach circled, too, and I sat. Were we really flying like birds? “Will people see us way up here?” I asked.

  Kayleen grinned. “I hope so. I want the band to know what happened, that we left. I like them for liking you, and I don’t want them to worry.”

  “They’ll worry,” Liam said dryly. Then, “Artistos might be able to see you.”

  Kayleen shrugged. “I don’t care if they do. Besides, their nets are still off. I set them to go back automatically in an hour, in case I get out of range. I haven’t been more than a half-hour’s flight in this thing before.”

  “When you brought it up here?” Liam asked, probing, his voice carefully neutral.

  “I’ve had it out every big storm this winter. At first I thought maybe lightning would hit it and I’d die and maybe that would be okay. But it always misses. Must be something in the ship’s skin that keeps it safe. Artistos believes the nets go down because of the electrical energy of the storms.” She grinned. “I taught them that. I don’t think Gianna believes me, but almost all the science guild kids end up out with the roamers as soon as they get out of school.”

  “Why did you bring Windy?” I asked.

  Kayleen looked directly at me for the first time since we’d taken off. “Because she’s the only thing in Artistos that loves me unconditionally enough to go. Besides, we might need a pack-beast.”

  I glanced at Windy’s unsteady young legs. Hebras grew fast, but she wouldn’t be strong enough to pack anything useful for weeks, at best. “What about Paloma?”

  “Paloma would not have come.”

  “Paloma loves you,” I said. Surely Kayleen would come to her senses. She had to turn around.

  Kayleen blinked, her eyes damp. Then she swallowed, her expression flat. “I left a note. She’ll understand why I had to do this.”

  “Well I don’t.” Liam turned around in his chair, facing Kayleen directly. His face showed that he had come to some sort of conclusion—his eyes clear and intense, his expression neutral. “You have no right. You might as well be kidnapping us.”

  I refrained from pointing out that she was kidnapping us.

  Kayleen simply looked at him and said, “Another year in Artistos and I’d have died or gone crazy. I talked to Tom and Nava and even Hunter, trying to make them see I had to be with you two, had to be with my own kind, and they ignored me. They like having a little compliant, captive altered.”

  “What about the colony and the nets?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Gianna and Paloma can keep them up for a while. What did they do before, after all? We weren’t always here.”

  My hands clutched the arms of my seat, knuckles white. With a conscious effort, I made them uncurl, blood flowing back to sting the tips of my fingers. “What if we come visit you more often? I don’t know how, but we’ll figure it out. Akashi and Mayah will understand.”

  She just looked at me, mouth open. “Chelo. I don’t have a choice.” Her voice caught in her throat. “I can’t stay there. Maybe I can go back some day, but I can’t stay now.”

  Something in her tone, her eyes, the set of her shoulders, finally convinced me. “I’m sorry, Kayleen.” I cursed myself for being too self-absorbed to catch her need before it got critical. I glanced at Liam, at his beloved square jaw and bright-dark eyes and wide shoulders. This was worse for him. He only wanted to lead his band, to be home with his people. Kayleen was almost a stranger to him. He had never before been sundered from his family, not in a way he remembered. He was two years old when Akashi and Mayah adopted him, and they called him “son” from the first day.

  Clouds and sky floated in the screen behind Liam’s head. I sat beside him, leaving Kayleen in the back of the skimmer with Windy. He took my hand, squeezing it tightly. His fingers were cold. I laced my fingers through his, thinking of my little wagon making its way home, of Stripes and Sasha and Akashi. Of Kiara. Paloma. The faces of the band ran through my head, and I swore silently to myself that this would be a short trip. I would come home soon, home to my wagon and my hebra and my family.

  4

  ISLANDIA

  The Burning Void took us over the ocean between Jini and Islandia. Kayleen remained silent, leaning against the bulkhead with one hand on the young splay-legged hebra’s neck. Windy stamped her feet and shifted nervously. Her attention never left Kayleen.

  I, too, watched Kayleen, looking for some sign that Artistos or the roamers tried to contact her. I saw none.

  The nose camera showed blue-green water, a line of horizon, and above that, clear blue sky. The engines hummed softly and the image on the screen changed slowly. I spent an hour listening to the four of us breathe—the hebra’s breath faster and louder than ours—the tiny movements of Liam shifting weight next to me, Kayleen changing her soft grip on the hebra, my own hands sliding on the seat, the hebra’s feet shifting.

  I couldn’t stand the awkward silence anymore.

  We were family! I stood and stretched, considering Liam’s blank stare, wondering where
his thoughts were. He hadn’t offered a word since I gave up stopping Kayleen. It wasn’t as if I’d given up forever.

  I took two steps toward Kayleen, but she waved me away, either unwilling or unable to talk to me. I bet on unwilling; there didn’t seem to be much to flying through the clear, empty sky. So I kept going, approaching slowly, keeping my voice soft. “Kayleen?”

  She shook her head, a quick warning gesture. The skimmer lurched, dropping, my stomach falling with it. I gasped, grabbing the back of a seat for balance. Windy pasted her ears to the back of her head and her eyes rolled.

  Kayleen’s face screwed up and her eyes scrunched together.

  Steady flight resumed. Kayleen patted Windy, and the hebra’s ears inched back up.

  I frowned. Had Kayleen told us the truth about how often she’d flown before?

  I returned to my seat by Liam, alternating between staring at the empty sea in front of us and watching the silent play of anger, fear, and resolve across his features. We twined our fingers together, a soft caress. I had a thousand things to say to him, but nothing to say in Kayleen’s hearing.

  Time passed slowly.

  At one point, Kayleen reached under the seat in front of her and extracted a bag which held bottles of water, bread, dried djuri jerky, and goat cheese. She set some of the food on the row of seats behind us. I realized my tongue felt as dry as the summer plains, and reached for the water, drinking greedily. Liam drank too, but neither of us ate.

  Being Kayleen’s prisoner seemed unreal. What could have twisted her heart and head so much? How could I have missed it? Already, I ached for Akashi and Mayah, for Sasha and Stripes. They must know we didn’t want to leave. I imagined Sasha driving my wagon, clucking to Stripes, wondering where I had gone, cocking her head and listening for my return. How many band members might be in more danger because we weren’t there to help them?

  Surely we’d be home soon. I swallowed, angry tears stinging my eyes. I didn’t know that.

  Artistos had no way to follow the skimmer. It seemed to be powered by sun and air, like the rest of the altered technology, but the shuttles could only be re-filled from Traveler. When the stored fuel was gone, there would be no more. They would not waste a trip following us.