by Piers Platt
Weaver frowned and opened his mouth, but said nothing. Ngobe looked over at Saltari, an eyebrow raised.
“He has a point,” Ngobe said.
“I’m not sure it’s fair to the other inmates at the colony,” Saltari said, shaking his head.
“What’s more fair?” Falken asked. “Letting them have a say in this decision just to be democratic, or ensuring the right decision is made, and all of them are more likely to be freed from this place?”
Saltari rubbed his chin. “Hmm. There’s certainly a risk that if we try to involve them, and turn this into a vote or some kind of lottery, all hell will break loose, and the whole plan will fall apart.”
“It could lead to anarchy,” Ngobe agreed. “Or at least, some very bitter fighting, and likely some dead inmates as a result.” The physicist ran his hand over his bald head, thinking. “Very well, I think I’m on board. We send Weaver.”
Saltari nodded slowly. “We send Weaver.”
Weaver shook his head. “I don’t … I don’t know if I deserve this.”
“‘Deserve’ isn’t part of the equation,” Saltari said. “The only question is: when you get to Earth, will you turn yourself in, and fight to get the rest of us released?”
“Yes, I would,” Weaver said, without hesitation. “But both of you have been here longer. You’re just as articulate as I am, if not more so. For that matter, Falken’s injured – maybe we should send him back, to make sure he gets treatment.”
“Do you want to go back?” Falken asked Weaver.
“Of course,” Weaver said. “More than anything.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” Falken said. “Quit arguing.”
Saltari extended a hand, and Weaver took it. “Congratulations, Mr. Weaver. It appears you’ll be going on one more voyage. Let’s hope it’s more successful than your previous ones.”
Weaver shook his hand, and then Ngobe’s, too. “I envy you,” the physicist said. “It should be quite the ride. A rocket-powered ascent … thrilling. You’ll get a fantastic view of the planet during lift-off.”
“Weaver,” Falken said. “When you turn yourself in, they’re going to ask you about why you were sent to Oz. What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth,” Weaver said.
“Which is …?” Falken asked. He held his breath, heart pounding in his chest.
“That I was sent here for a crime I didn’t commit,” Weaver said, simply.
Falken hung his head. Damn it.
“If you tell them that, you’ll destroy your credibility,” Falken said. “They’ll know you’re lying.”
“But I’m not,” Weaver protested.
Falken sighed. “Weaver, the minute you deny your guilt, you ruin any hope of the rest of us getting out of here.”
Saltari cleared his throat. “Falken is right. If you won’t tell the truth about what you did on Earth, how can you expect them to believe you about Oz?”
Weaver threw his hands in the air. “Everyone keeps saying it’s not the truth. But you weren’t there. None of you were.”
“So convince us,” Falken said.
“I’m trying to! Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because it’s a lot easier to believe that you had a momentary lapse in judgment and killed a man, instead of your version of events. Because I think you’ve spent the last nine years trying to convince yourself you’re innocent, instead of coming to terms with what you did.”
“No,” Weaver said, shaking his head. “I don’t have anything to come to terms with.”
“Really?” Falken asked. “Yesterday you told me you weren’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.”
Weaver took a step back, as if slapped. “That’s not fair,” he said. “Don’t try to use that against me.”
“No? Let me try this, then,” Falken said, his voice rising. “Where did the shovel and the bleach come from? Why were they in your trunk?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why was Tevka’s blood on a towel back at your house?”
“I don’t know!” Weaver repeated.
Angry, Falken pulled the keycard out of the wall, and the panels folded up, hiding the escape pod. He gripped the card between his hands and held it up, bending it slightly.
“Last chance, Weaver,” Falken said. “Confess, or I break this card in half. And then none of us get out of here.”
“Falken, no!” Ngobe said, but Falken ignored him, watching Weaver.
The bookkeeper looked at the keycard, then up at Falken’s face.
“Why are you doing this?” Weaver asked.
“I’m trying to help you,” Falken pleaded.
“I’ll go back, and I’ll tell them I did it, if that’s what you want,” Weaver said. “If that’s what you think I need to do to help everyone on Oz, I’ll do it.”
“Tell me you did it. Now,” Falken ordered.
“I …,” Weaver looked over their faces, searching for the right words. “I killed him. I killed Tevka.”
Falken studied Weaver’s face. After a moment, he shook his head. “No. I don’t believe you.”
Weaver glanced at the card again, flexed to the breaking point between Falken’s fingers. He licked his lips, and when he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry, Falken. I’ve never been a good liar.”
That much is true, Falken thought. Weaver always wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s partly why I liked him immediately – in this planet full of coldhearted liars, Weaver always told the truth. A knot settled in Falken’s gut, as realization washed over him. And he’s telling the truth now. My god, it’s all true.
Weaver’s innocent.
Chapter 30
“What are you doing?” Rauno asked Vina, his voice eerily calm.
She stood facing him in the study, holding his old datapad in one hand.
“I was looking for this,” she said, her heart racing.
Rauno’s eyes fell on the datapad in her hand.
“I lent it to you a long time ago, remember, Grandpa?” Vina lied.
He looked back into her eyes. “No, you didn’t,” he said, evenly. “What are you doing here, Vina?”
Vina eased her thumb up onto the datapad’s screen. She took a deep breath, steeling herself.
“I came here for the truth,” she said.
“The truth about what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“The truth about my father,” Vina said. She held the datapad up. “And I found it, right here. I have proof, Grandpa.”
“Proof? Proof of what?” Rauno replied. He held a large book in one hand, at his side. Vina could see his fingers flexing against the book’s cover, gripping it tight.
“I know what you did,” Vina said. “You can’t lie to us anymore.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her grandfather said, but his words rang hollow in Vina’s ears.
Vina lifted the datapad, nodding at it. “You remembered to delete the messages from Tevka. But you forgot to delete the last message you sent to him,” she lied.
His eyes flickered to the datapad, and then back up to Vina’s face. He seemed to relax, then, and she saw his mouth twist into a half-smile. As she watched, her gruff old grandfather transformed into someone she barely recognized, a cold glint in his eye. “It’s only fitting. After all the trouble that fool caused me – to be caught because of a message I sent him.”
Vina’s eyes went wide. “Why, Grandpa? Why did you have him kidnap your own family?”
“To teach your father a god damn lesson,” Rauno growled. “I wanted him to know exactly what it felt like to lose the one thing he cared about most in this life. Just like he did to me.”
“What did he do to you? What did you lose?” Vina asked. “The award?”
“Yes, the award!” Rauno thundered, gesturing angrily toward the sitting room with his free hand. “I spent my life working toward that award. Years watching lesser booksellers win it because they had a friend on the com
mittee, or spent millions on advertising dollars. But I put in the work, I did it right, I wanted to earn it honestly. And what happens? After I’ve spent literally years laying the groundwork, building the foundation? I go to the hospital for a few months, and your father swoops in and wins it in my place!”
“But … he didn’t want it,” Vina said, shaking her head. “He didn’t care about it.”
“That’s the worst part,” her grandfather seethed, gritting his teeth. “He didn’t even care. He had the gall to just leave it on my table, so that it was sitting here staring at me when I got home from the hospital. Mocking me.”
“It’s just an award. I don’t understand,” Vina said, edging away from the desk.
“I don’t expect you to,” Rauno said. “Neither did your father. And he just discarded it. He left that award here, like some kind of consolation prize for me. Except it wasn’t any consolation. And neither was the liquor in my cabinet, not anymore.”
The liquor …? Vina thought. Oh, right – he had just gotten his artificial kidneys … that are designed to rapidly metabolize alcohol, so you can’t get drunk. He lost the award, and his coping mechanism, all at the same time. She shook her head.
“But … kidnapping?” she said. “I know you were angry, but—”
“It was never supposed to go as far as it did,” Rauno said. “That idiot Tevka was supposed to wait until I was with your father to send the ransom note. I would have stopped your father from calling the police, and then handed off the money myself. Tevka would have disappeared, and your father would have learned a valuable lesson.”
“Lesson?” Vina asked, incredulous. “What lesson?”
“He would have learned some humility,” Rauno said. “And when I rescued you, the rest of you would have remembered that I was still the head of this family, and a man worthy of your respect. And that’s exactly what happened, when I actually rescued you.”
This was all over an alcoholic’s wounded pride, Vina thought, shaking with anger and shock. A stupid prank, basically, that spun out of control. My god. He just wanted to scare Dad, and make us forget about his drinking problem.
“You asked a drug addict to abduct us,” Vina pointed out. “We could have been killed!”
“You were never in any danger,” Rauno scoffed. “The gun I gave Tevka was empty, and I warned him that if he even thought about harming you, I’d kill him myself. Which is a promise I ended up keeping, as it turns out.”
Vina stood stock still. Her eyes glanced down at the datapad in her hand, briefly. “Then my father is innocent,” she said. “And you let him go to jail for a crime he had nothing to do with.”
“Better him than me,” Rauno said, his voice cold. “Tevka was losing his grip, with the police out hunting for him. I met him that evening, outside of town, and he was a wreck. I tried to calm him down, but he pulled a knife, and told me he was going to kill the three of you. I had no choice. I killed him, and saved all of you in the process.”
“You saved us … and then you went straight to our house, and planted the tools in Dad’s trunk, and the other evidence in his trash.”
“I did what I had to do,” Rauno said.
“And then you left us in that bunker, for another three weeks,” Vina said. “You wanted to be sure Dad was well and truly gone before you got to play the hero.”
Rauno shrugged. “It wasn’t how I planned it, but in the end, it worked better than I could have imagined.”
“You cold-hearted bastard,” Vina swore, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. “I loved you once. We all did. We loved you even when you were sick. And you betrayed us. You tore this family apart, for your own petty bullshit.”
Rauno stood watching her, silent. The book still hung in one hand at his side. His other hand had disappeared into his coat pocket.
“You’re going to go to the sheriff’s office, and you’re going to tell him what you just told me,” Vina said.
“The hell I will,” Rauno said, and Vina could hear the menace in his tone again. “And neither will you.”
“If you don’t tell them, I will,” she promised.
“Don’t try me, Vina,” he said. He pulled his free hand out of his coat pocket, revealing a squat, black pistol.
She stepped back as if struck, eyes locked on the pistol. “You’d kill your own granddaughter, too?”
“I might,” he warned.
They stood in silence, eyeing each other as the seconds dragged on. On her arm, Vina’s wristpad suddenly sprang to life, piercing the tense standoff with the loud ringing of an incoming call. Vina started in surprise, and some survival instinct spurred her into action. She took advantage of her grandfather’s sudden distraction, and threw the datapad at him. He held his hands up protectively in front of him, but Vina was already moving. She dashed out of the study, through the sitting room, and hit the front door at a dead sprint, scrabbling at the handle. Over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of her grandfather – he turned, and lined up the pistol on the back of her head. Then the door opened, and Vina burst outside. She sprinted down the walkway and across the street, flying headlong across the neighbors’ lawns until she reached her car. She peeled away from the curb a moment later, heading back into town at full speed, her heart racing, her cheeks wet with angry tears.
* * *
Rauno Korhonen watched as Vina disappeared across the street. When she was gone, he lowered the pistol and sighed. He took a step toward the front door to close it, but his toe bumped against something hard on the floor – the old datapad that Vina had thrown at him. He stooped and picked it up, flipping it over to see the screen. Then he frowned.
The datapad’s camera app was open, and still recording a video – the counter stood at nearly four minutes long.
She was recording me the whole time. But she didn’t take it with her.
He stopped the recording, shaking his head. But a message appeared immediately, popping up over the camera app:
>>>Video recording stopped. File transmitted to Vina Weaver via EncryptChat message.
Rauno’s eyes went wide.
Chapter 31
“Forgive me,” Falken said. He met Weaver’s gaze. “I was wrong. I was trying to help, but … I should have just listened to you, and believed you from the beginning.”
“Do you believe me now?” Weaver asked.
“Yes,” Falken said, with conviction. “I do.”
Weaver sighed with relief. He held out his hand, tentatively. “Friends?”
Falken took his hand and pulled his friend in close, slapping him on the back. “Friends. I’m sorry,” Falken said. “And I’ll never doubt you again.”
“It’s okay,” Weaver said, his voice muffled. “You’re the only person that ever believed me. I’m just glad to have someone believe me.”
They moved apart, and Falken heard Saltari clear his throat.
“This has been … interesting,” the old doctor said. “To say the least. But we’re still left with the question of what to do with this escape pod.”
“If Weaver can convince us he’s innocent, perhaps he’ll be able to do the same with the public back on Earth,” Ngobe said. “Perhaps he’s still the right man for the job.”
“I don’t know,” Falken said, his mind racing. If we put Weaver on that pod before Oz thinks he’s ready to leave, I don’t know what’s going to happen.
“Why not?” Ngobe asked Falken. “You think there’s a better man to send back to Earth?”
“A better man? No. I … I don’t know,” Falken said, shaking his head. He slid the keycard back into the wall, and the panels folded away. “Ngobe, there’s a box of tools on the floor in the bridge, and an escape pod maintenance checklist on the computer. Can you start running through it?”
“Of course,” Ngobe said.
“I’ll help,” Saltari volunteered. “What are you going to do, Falken?”
Falken, distracted, rubbed his hand through his hair. “I just need to think for a mo
ment.” While the other three men made their way onto the bridge, Falken walked back into the lounge and sat on one of the couches, head in his hands.
Think it through, Falken. Peshai said that Weaver needs to confess before Oz will release him. But he can’t confess to a crime he didn’t commit! And Oz is a program … there’s no way Weaver can convince a block of code that he’s innocent. So that means … escaping here is impossible.
Falken exhaled slowly, his frown deepening.
If we put him in the pod, it will malfunction or something. Oz won’t let him leave. In a few days, Peshai will pull me out, and Weaver will stay stuck here for another year or so, and then they’ll transfer him to the permanent facility. Forever.
He’s innocent, and there’s nothing I can do to save him … because he’s innocent!
Falken shook his head in chagrin.
“Are you okay?” Weaver asked.
Falken started, and looked up. “They didn’t need your help with the diagnostics checks?” he asked.
“No,” Weaver said, sitting down on the couch next to Falken. “Ngobe said he wanted to do it himself, and only needs Saltari to read him the instructions.”
“Ah. Right,” Falken said.
“Are you okay?” Weaver repeated.
“Just frustrated,” Falken said.
“Frustrated? Why?” Weaver asked. “We’ve got a reason to be optimistic. For the first time in years.”
Falken could see the hope in his friend’s eyes. This is going to shatter him. The pod’s going to fail, and he’s just going to slip deeper into depression.
“Weaver, I’m worried the escape pod’s not going to work.”
“Well, that’s why Ngobe and Saltari are running the checks,” Weaver said.
“And I’m pretty sure they’re going to find something wrong,” Falken said.
“Why?” Weaver asked.
Because Oz isn’t done with you yet. You haven’t “reformed” enough yet. “I can’t explain it,” Falken said. “I just know it.”
“Then maybe we’ll figure something else out,” Weaver said. “With all the electronics on this ship, there’s gotta be a way we can build something to communicate with Earth.”