Reading the Wind (Silver Ship)

by Brenda Cooper

  Alicia’s hand remained in mine, clutching me tightly. She knew what it meant to me to see him. Bryan knew also. He still stood behind us, one hand on the back of the bench, the other on my shoulder.

  My father seemed excited and apprehensive as he gazed at Jenna. “I have good news for you.”

  She cocked her head, waiting.

  He glanced over at us. “Can we walk?” he asked. “Or are these people with you?”

  “They’re from Fremont.”

  His eyebrows drew together as he looked at us, the puzzled look spilling from his eyes and filling his whole face and a trace of something unsure flickering in his eyes. For a second, he looked afraid.

  Jenna continued. “Remember the children? Three of them came back with me.”

  His eyes widened, and he seemed to actually focus on us for the first time. We sat, still as the statues in the park, watching him back. The moment froze, and I heard Jenna say, “Bryan is standing in the back, and that’s Alicia, and next to her is Joseph.”

  Her voice saying my name broke my tongue free. “Father.”

  For a long moment he looked at me, and I watched the hope in his face turn first to disbelief and then to amazement. “Joseph?” He knelt then, not yet touching me, but something mysterious passed between us in that moment, a spark of deep knowing.

  And then I stood and he stood and we embraced, and I felt the arms of my father holding me tightly, his chest heaving, and his cheek against mine. He drew in a deep sobbing breath. “You’re alive. You’re truly alive.” His face was wet, and mine, our tears mingling. The park, the people around us, the very air disappeared for a long moment, and I felt only him, only the joy of being held by my father. He smelled of space ship: clean oils and remanufactured air, the soft captain’s coat. “I thought … I knew … I knew you were dead.”

  The birds and the wind-sculpture and the sound of running water returned to my consciousness, and he stepped back, looking at me. “You have your mother’s smile,” he said, his voice choked and small, full of loss.

  I knew by the way he said it that she was dead. I swallowed, touched by his feeling, loss and a need to know about her filling me. “What happened to her?”

  Pain flashed across his eyes, momentarily destroying the wonder and joy of a moment before. “She died in the last battle.” He glanced at Jenna. “You couldn’t have known.”

  The mother of the tender drawings. But I would not dwell on it yet—not in this moment when my father stood before me in the flesh.

  He turned back to me, his voice choked. “I thought you died, too. They killed children. Or at least, our children.” He gazed at some point on the horizon past me, his face rigid. “We were sure they killed you. The last thing we heard before we left was Chiaro telling us you were captured.” Hope filled his eyes. “Chiaro? Is she alive?”

  “She died that day. Chelo remembers.”

  He turned to look at us, as if counting us again to make sure he hadn’t missed the other three. “Chelo?” he asked, his voice insistent. “Where’s Chelo?”

  “She’s still on Fremont,” I said. “She’s doing all right, or she was when I last saw her. She and Kayleen and Liam.”

  He closed his eyes and breathed out, slowly, as if absorbing this new information. I expected him to be happy. Instead, it seemed like hearing Chelo lived delivered a physical shock.

  But he hadn’t, truly, known we were dead. Had that been easier for him—to be sure even when he couldn’t really know? Did that explain why he never came back for us?

  I stepped closer to him, wanting to ease his pain. I didn’t care about the past, not now; I cared about this moment. “Father. It’s okay and Steven who took me and. Did you know Therese and Steven? They took me and Chelo in. They took care of us.”

  His eyes widened and he turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me, or Jenna.

  When he turned back around, the first thing he said was, “I’m sorry.” His face crumpled in for a moment and he looked away, visibly drawing control back over his features. “I would never have left if I thought there was a chance you were alive.” He squinted at me. “How did you get back?”

  “We brought the New Making back.” He must know I had his skills. “Dad, I’m a Wind Reader. I flew us back.”

  He blinked, then looked at Jenna, as if this was something he couldn’t believe without verification. She nodded and he looked back at me. “You flew her back by yourself? With no training, no certification?”

  Alicia interrupted. “Of course he did. Who else could have brought us home?”

  “Yes, I flew her back. I liked it very much. I—I always wanted to fly her, from the first time I set eyes on her. I’m your kid, after all.”

  My father’s face went still and silent and he sat down on the bench, putting his head in his hands. I sat down next to him, and Alicia and Jenna sat on the grass, facing us. Bryan stood watch above us all, alert.

  What was he thinking? The confident man who had walked up to Jenna had fallen into himself, the emotions playing in his face a mix of sadness and anger spiced with a periodic smile in my direction. His eyes darkened as a single emotion won out. Deep sadness covered his face, fell over his body, slumped his shoulders. He looked at Jenna. “My god, Jenna. We worked for years to get Fremont back. We even left our ships in hock and saved everything. We starved to get enough credit. Three of us.” He looked away. “Everyone else abandoned us. But three was enough to contract for the Family, since so many people dropped out after we came back.”

  Jenna’s voice came out flat and cold. “Getting Fremont back how?”

  He put up his hand, signaling silence. A set of two flyers walked by, the first I’d seen in the park. Their faces did not have the beautiful look of the flier in the statue. They seemed slightly pained, leaning forward to carry the weight of their wings. Surely they felt differently flying, lost the agonized looks, the awkwardness. I couldn’t quite picture it, but I wanted to. Perhaps Alicia could. She watched them with a sense of longing. Her eyes ran up and down their oversized wings, taking in the golden ribbons tied to their pinions. Tiny silver bells tinkled on the ribbons, more because the wings bobbed slightly up and down than from the light breeze.

  After they passed out of earshot, my father’s hands shifted in his lap and sweat beaded his forehead. He looked—guilty. “Not one family came back whole. Not one. They took everything from us. And the bigger family—the Family of Exploration—splintered back here. They’re still scattered.”

  “I know,” Jenna said. “I have been trying to gather them up.”

  “We were angry,” he said.

  Jenna laughed bitterly. “I understand. Of all people, I understand.”

  She probably did. She had barely survived Fremont herself. Had lost her own family, as far as I could tell.

  My father was babbling, almost like Kayleen babbled. “They killed Marissa, and they killed you, Joseph, and Chelo. I was sure of it. They took everything I loved. We …” He looked at Jenna. “We hired Star Mercenaries.”

  I didn’t understand. “Star Mercenaries?”

  Jenna’s eyes widened and then turned to coal. She stood up and spat the answer out. “Hired soldiers. The Star Mercenaries are the way the Islas Autocracy goes to war when it doesn’t want anyone to know that’s what they’re doing. They’ll be bringing a fight to Fremont.”

  Chelo was there.

  How would the mercenaries know to save her? And what of Akashi and Paloma, of Liam and Kayleen? Nava? I didn’t want even the ones who hated me dead. In that long stretched-out moment of silence, I heard Chelo’s voice in my head: That damned war defines all of our lives, Joseph. We never even fought in it, and it has nearly killed us. Never, never in my whole life, will I join a war.

  “Chelo.” I said quietly, staring at my father in disbelief. How could he do such a thing? “Are they there yet?”

  He’d buried his face in his hands again. Maybe he couldn’t stand to tell me he might have kill
ed my sister. His daughter. Maybe he couldn’t stand himself. No bitterness was worth such severe action. He shook his head from behind his hands, apparently unable to even look at me. “Not yet. We just… we just signed the contract last month. At Islas. If only I’d known you were here.”

  Bryan spoke from behind me, his voice colder than I had ever heard it. But he, too, loved Chelo. “When will they get there?”

  My father lifted his face from his hands. Surely he heard the coldness in Bryan’s voice, the near hatred. “I don’t know. They weren’t leaving right away, but they’ll have gone by now. Takes a few years to get there, maybe a little more. They’re supposed to message me when they’re done.”

  Jenna’s eyes had turned to ice. She spoke slowly, as if needing to be sure he understood every single word. “When they are done doing what exactly?”

  He looked at me when he spoke, his eyes stricken and dark, the blue nearly turned to black. His voice came out a hoarse whisper. “When they are done killing everyone on Fremont.”

  24

  PREPARATION

  My father’s words echoed in my being. “Killing everyone on Fremont.”

  Chelo.

  And hundreds of others. Even Nava and Hunter seemed dear. Each name, each face sank into my belly like a stone.

  How dare he!

  Alicia leapt to her feet and stared down at him as he sat next to me on the bench, her face snarled in anger. “You didn’t. No one could be that cold! Your daughter is there.”

  He leaned back, as if trying to fade into the stone bench.

  She and I were one in our rage. Alicia, of all of us, had reason to wish some on Fremont dead. But we were not killers. Anger tightened her features, bringing out her fierce beauty. I expected her to scream at him, but it was Jenna who spoke first, her voice sharp yet controlled. “David.”

  He sobbed, his words broken. “I did it for Marissa. And for the kids.” He raised his head and looked at me, his eyes so pain-drenched I almost felt sorry for him. I bit my lip, steeling myself against his remorse as he continued. “I’m sorry. I thought they killed everyone.”

  Jenna’s voice was stone. But then, he was looking at me, and she couldn’t see his eyes. “We died, Marissa died, so many of us died, because we didn’t believe in genocide.”

  His voice shattered. “I—I know—I know.” He put his head back into his hands, not looking at me. Afraid to look at me?

  We remained still and silent. My father, craven behind his hands. Jenna, her jaws tight and her eyes turned deeply inward. Alicia, still standing, fists balled, jaws as tight as Jenna’s. Bryan stood behind me, his disgust deep enough to feel. And me? I have no idea what I looked like. My dreams of a loving, strong father lay shattered around me.

  I spoke next, asking him, “Can’t you call them off?”

  He shook his head. “If I could reach them. For a fee. It took ten years to save enough for the contract. The cancellation fee is half again.”

  “What did it cost to kill a whole people?” I asked, my voice shaking, my jaw tight.

  He recoiled as if my question stung him. Words seemed to stick in his mouth until they almost choked him. Finally, he said, “One hundred thousand credits.”

  Jenna gasped. Marcus’s training for me had been less than a thousand credits so far, and Tiala had called that the price of a small space ship. So for enough money to buy a hundred small ships, you could annihilate over two thousand human beings.

  “So we need fifty thousand credits to save my sister?” I needed to be sure I understood.

  “That’s a fortune,” Jenna whispered.

  Bryan spoke up. “There’s no time to raise it.” He glanced at my father. “Unless you have any bright ideas?”

  My father shook his head, but he sat up a little, so he no longer looked quite like he wanted to disappear into the bench.

  Bryan almost never spoke, but when he did, everyone listened.

  “Bryan’s right,” I said. “So we have to get there before the mercenaries do.”

  Jenna’s gaze radiated approval.

  I glanced at my father. “Do you have a ship?”

  His eyes widened. “No.”

  Alicia’s fingernails carved ridges in my shoulder.

  I glanced around to look her in the eyes. They snapped with anger, but she took a deep, quivering breath and went still. Her voice softened. “I had a dream once that I left Fremont, but realized I had left something behind that I needed to go get. I told Chelo the dream. I never thought what I left behind would be her.”

  I gripped her hand, pulled it from my shoulder, and squeezed it in gratitude. Artistos wouldn’t be happy to see her, but I needed her. They might not be happy to see me, either. I didn’t care. Chelo needed me.

  Bryan added his voice to hers. “I’ll go, too.”

  My father looked carefully at each of us. As he did, his shoulders slowly straightened and his hands fell into his lap. “We can find a way to fix this.”

  I didn’t want his help. All the longing for him had come to this. I swallowed the words I wanted to say—I never want to see you again—and stared over his head, focusing on a tall slender tree with golden leaves.

  I could not save Chelo alone. And I didn’t know anything about these killers he’d hired. Tears of frustration stung my eyes as I looked over at him. “If you can help, I’ll take you.”

  “I’ll find a way.” He sounded like one of the large camp dogs that had just been disciplined. Big enough and strong enough to do damage, but for the moment, with his tail tucked.

  Jenna sat and stared out at the park, a silent statue of a beautiful, angry woman. A single tear gathered in her new eye, but didn’t fall. “We need a ship,” she said. “We have to get New Making back.”

  “Hello the crowd!” Marcus’s cheerful voice fell on us like a laugh at a funeral. He came from behind Bryan. Our stricken mood engulfed him. “Who died?” he whispered, surely thinking of it as a joke, a way to cheer us up.

  Jenna grimaced. “David hired Star Mercenaries to clean up Fremont for us.”

  The look Marcus gave my father might have killed a weaker man. Marcus immediately knew the core of the problem. “Chelo.”

  I gazed at him, unblinking. His green eyes fed me energy, and hope. He opened his arms, and I fell into them, heedless of what my father or anyone else might think, comforted by his rich scent: ship and garden, col and soap.

  After a few moments, he pushed me gently away. His whole body was stiff. Even after so little time with him, I knew he hated injustice and stupidity.

  If only he were my father!

  I looked from my teacher to the man I had yearned for all my life, and then to Jenna, who had protected me all of my life. “Well? How do we get there?”

  My father looked at Jenna. “Did the Authority take New Making?”

  “Yes. We don’t have enough credit to get her back. Not yet.” Anger tightened her features.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “I have a small ship, the Creator. You can take her.”

  Jenna blinked up at him, startled.

  His offer did not surprise me, except that I didn’t know he had a ship. Come to think of it, that wasn’t particularly surprising either. I smiled up at him. “Will you come with us?”

  “I can’t. I have things to do here.” He grinned then, breaking the intensity of the moment. Such a Marcus thing to do. He raised one eyebrow. “Besides, someone will have to make sure you get away safely.”

  “How long will it take to get there? What can we do when we get there? How do we stop this? How do we tell if the mercenaries are there yet? Can we beat them?” I wanted to go right then, to pile us sight-unseen into Marcus’ ship, wherever it was, whatever it was. I wanted to be on Fremont tomorrow.

  Marcus waited for everyone’s attention. “I’ll try to take those in order. Creator will still take almost two years to get to Fremont. Still, that’s a full year less than it took you to get here. I keep her fairly ready, but she’ll need to
be provisioned. She’s small—she can only carry up to twenty people, and you’ll need room in her to bring back at least the other three. There are good cold-sleep facilities, but someone should be up all the time since Creator has better, but less automatic, defenses than the New Making. I’d suggest you take no more than ten people. And you, Joseph, will need to learn how to fly her.”

  He glanced at my father. “You, too.”

  He raised his hand again, forestalling another barrage of questions. “I have no idea what you will do when you get there.” He glanced at Jenna. “But I suggest that you round up a few people with fighting skills and a belief in your cause, if you know any.”

  Jenna’s lips pulled together in a small, tight line and her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do this? What do you want in return?”

  “You can pay for the provisioning if you have enough.”

  Jenna nodded. “I think so.”

  Marcus looked at me. “And when you get back, I want Joseph to agree to train with me for at least a year.” He grimaced. “If we even have a year left by then, and if the Five Planets aren’t shooting at each other yet.”

  He turned back to Jenna, sizing her up, like a man looking at a beautiful woman. “I’d like Joseph to understand my goals. He can help me reach them if he wants to. And if Chelo comes back whole and agrees, I want her with me. I want to understand how Joseph and Chelo work together.”

  Alicia took my hand. “I want to stay with Joseph, too.” She looked up at Bryan. “All of us.”

  Bryan smiled at her. “We are a family.”

  Jenna startled at the word, her hand brushing the new side of her face. She looked at me, then at Alicia and Bryan. A light dawned in her eyes, and her mouth quirked up in a soft, intimate smile. If the energy between a group of people could be seen, I was sure there would be lines connecting the four of us, and one between me and Marcus.

  Nothing, however, between me and my father.

  Maybe affinity groups started with such shared purpose.