She stopped the playback as he opened his lips and took the moment with him. Even just the picture of him. Then, steeling herself, she started the message.
“Hey there, Knuckles. Sorry it’s been so long this time, but things got a little busy over here. I’m guessing you heard about Avasarala? The funeral brought in a lot of other guests to the palace.”
Using the nickname Knuckles, which he never had when they were together, was the signal that he knew they were still hunting her. She also heard the ghost of sarcasm in the way he said guests, but the censors hadn’t. There were real challenges to controlling communication between two people who’d been intimate for as long as she and Jim had been. The private language between them couldn’t be perceived by bureaucrats, and what couldn’t be seen couldn’t be stopped. The story of her life, these days.
“There’s still not much I can say. You know how it is. Uh. I met the guys who actually review this before it goes out. So hey, Mark. Hey, Kahno. Hope you guys are having a good day too. But yeah, things are fine here. Some rain in the afternoon, and Laconia’s getting on toward what passes for midsummer. They’re letting me have a lot of access to the grounds and I’m catching up on my reading. Mark and Kahno say I can’t talk about what I’m reading in particular, but it’s nice to have access. I’m also watching the newsfeeds, and the things that Duarte… They want me to call him High Consul Duarte, but really it seems pretentious. Anyway, the work he’s doing about figuring out the gates and what happened to the protomolecule engineers is actually pretty impressive. We disagree on other things, but he’s on the job with that. Which, you know. Hopefully…
“But I hope you’re okay. Give the kids my fond regards, and I’ll send you another message as soon as Mark and Kahno have an open slot in their schedule. They’re good guys. You’d like them. I love you.”
The image cut to blue, and Naomi let out her breath. It always hurt to see him. And the kids meant Alex and Bobbie and Amos. He had no way to know Amos was lost to them, probably killed on the same planet where Jim was being held prisoner. Or that Bobbie and Alex were off leading the fight on the front lines as pirates and revolutionaries. But even with all of that, hearing him always made her feel a little better too. It was as near to proof of life as she’d get. He didn’t look sick. He didn’t sound like he was under duress—
The image changed again, and a new face appeared. A man with dark eyes, acne-scarred skin, and a calm in his expression that landed him directly in the uncanny valley. Naomi found herself pulling back from the screen even before she realized who she was looking at. High Consul Winston Duarte, emperor of thirteen hundred worlds, smiled as if he’d seen her reaction and sympathized with it.
“Naomi Nagata,” he said, and his voice was pleasant and reedy. “I know I don’t usually insert myself in these messages, and I hope you’ll forgive me this rudeness. I don’t mean to intrude, but I think we should talk, you and I. I want to extend an invitation to you. Contact any of my security people on any station or base or city, and I will have you brought safely here. I understand that you and your fellow partisans don’t see eye to eye with me about the shape that humanity should take moving forward. Come talk to me. Convince me. I’m not an unreasonable man, and I’m not a cruel one. The truth is, over the last few years Captain Holden and I’ve found we have much in common.”
Naomi chuckled despite herself. Sure you did.
“You’ve seen how Holden is treated. If you come as my guest, you’ll have all the same courtesies and comforts, and you’ll have access that will let you advocate for the changes you want without the violence and death. I know we haven’t met, but everything Holden has told me says you’re more than some old-fashioned anti-government extremist. He believes in you, and he has convinced me to believe in you too. Accept my offer, and you and Holden can be eating breakfast together before you know it. He’ll tell you himself I’m a decent host.”
He made a self-deprecating smile. Carrot done, Naomi thought. Now stick.
“If you choose not to, that is your right. But as an enemy of the state, the consequences will be less pleasant. It’s going to be better for you and for me and—excuse me if this sounds grandiose—for the whole of humanity if you come as a guest. Please at least consider the option. Thank you.”
The message ended. Naomi shook her head once, tightly, and held on to her anger like it was a vaccine against something worse. Whether Duarte said it or not, the offer included trading all she knew of Saba and the underground. In return, she would be waking up next to Jim, living in a prison a thousand times larger than the one she’d imposed on herself. That was all obvious. The poison was the rest of it—access, influence, the emperor’s ear. It was exactly the path she’d argued for. Working within the system to make a revolution without starvation and hatred and dead kids. He was offering it to her on a plate, and it was possible—just possible—that he was even sincere.
Everything Saba had learned through his sources said that Jim really was being treated well. A guest as much as a prisoner. That was the cheese in the mousetrap. It was cunning almost to the point of wisdom. If she believed in her heart that Duarte would break his word, it would have been a thousand times easier to reject him. But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn’t cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised.
And the price was your soul.
The knock startled her. It was like something from a different world. A moment ago, she’d been on Laconia. Eden, complete with a snake. And now she was back in her box, floating a few centimeters above the gel of her couch, the straps drifting around her like seaweed wrapping the drowned. She shifted her monitor to show the exterior of the container, half-afraid to see the Bhikaji Cama’s security chief ready to take her in, half-hoping.
The woman outside gripped a handhold and looked straight into the hidden camera. A black zippered duffel floated beside her. She was heavyset, with gray-streaked hair pulled back into a harsh bun and dark skin that got darker around her eye sockets like she’d cried too long and it had stained her. Naomi recognized her as Saba’s agent on the ship, but didn’t know her name.
Naomi pushed off from the crash couch, drifting fast toward the far end. She landed feetfirst, absorbing her momentum with her knees, and tapped her security code into the mechanism. The mag bolts clacked. In the silence, they sounded like gunshots. Before Naomi could open the door, the other woman did. She slid through, pulling the black bag with her, then shut the door behind her and glanced around the container as if there might be something unexpected in it.
“What’s the matter?” Naomi asked.
“Captain got a call middle of last shift,” the woman said in a clipped accent that sounded Europan to Naomi. “Took me longer than it should have to get a copy. That’s on me.”
She shoved the bag at Naomi. Even without opening it, the shape of mag boots and the hiss of a flight suit were unmistakable. Naomi didn’t wait. She slid the zipper open and started pulling the uniform on over her own clothes while the woman talked.
“Laconian destroyer burning in for a rendezvous. Should be here in eighteen hours. Say they’re going to make a full inspection, so alles la—” She gestured at Naomi’s things. The home she’d made for herself. “Yeah, we’re going to have to get clever about making that match the manifest.”
“Inspection?”
“Full,” the woman said. “This is all supposed to be bacterial samples. They see this…”
If they saw the false container, they’d know how the underground was staying hidden. And that some fraction of the Transport Union was in on the scheme. It might not be the end of the shell game, but it would be a data point too clear for Laconia to overlook for long. And it would be the end for her.
“Is it only us?” Naomi asked.
“Does it need to be more? Us is our problem. Focus on—”
�
�No,” Naomi snapped. “I got an offer of amnesty if I turned myself in. This just after that? Are they coming for other ships, or do they already know I’m here?”
The woman’s face went gray. “Don’t know. I can find out.”
“Do it fast. And get me a loader. I’ll try to find a way to cover this over.”
“Yeah,” the woman said. “And crew manifest. I got to put you in somehow—”
“Not the priority,” Naomi said.
“But …,” the woman said. Then, “Right. All right.”
Naomi looked around her container. It seemed sadder now that she had to leave it. She’d have to wipe the system, just in case she was taken. All her belongings would have to go too. She’d be starting over from nothing again.
Or she could go to the security office, announce herself, and spend the rest of her life waking up next to Jim. Eating real food. Maybe even talking Duarte into a better, kinder, less authoritarian future for all of humanity. If it was a trap, it was a good one. Offer her an out, make the threat, and then tighten the screws. If she’d been younger, it might have been enough to panic her. Convince her to announce herself. Sign the deal. It would be easy, and she could even tell herself that she was protecting the underground and the people like the woman before her. She’d only tell Duarte things that wouldn’t compromise Saba and their network. That wouldn’t threaten Bobbie and Alex and the Storm.
She could imagine the version of herself that would have been able to do it. Not so different from who she was now. Younger. That was all.
“Emma,” the other woman said. “We’re going to pass you for crew, you’ll need to know names. I’m Emma Zomorodi.”
“You can call me Naomi.”
“I know who you are,” Emma said. “Find me someone who doesn’t.”
The woman—Emma—looked at her again, more closely, then turned away, shaking her head. The fear in her expression was thick enough to see. It’s okay, Naomi wanted to say. I know what to do. It’ll be all right. It would have been a lie.
“Come on,” Naomi said. “We don’t have time.”
Chapter Fourteen: Teresa
Yes,” Teresa said. “I know. Okay. Let me get ready.”
Muskrat barked once as if she’d understood the words. Probably she had. Dogs could have broad functional vocabularies. It was a point Dr. Cortázar often made. The fact that humans were not the only conscious animals seemed very important to him. It had always seemed obvious to her.
Teresa set her room to high privacy and sleep, dimming the lights and locking her doors. No one would disturb her now unless they were evacuating the State Building. Muskrat wagged hard enough that her back legs looked unsteady as Teresa changed into the same simple tunic and pants she normally used for gardening. They had no technology, so they weren’t connected to the palace network. She started up an entertainment feed on her system on low volume as if she were dozing and watching an old Caz Pratihari adventure.
Her window had a sensor in the frame that alerted a security officer when it was opened. So Teresa had opened it every now and then over the course of weeks, trying different ways to get around it. Was it electronic? She tried keeping the window and frame touching with a copper wire. Security still got their alert. Optical? She searched everywhere for anything resembling a pinhole camera or light sensor, but never found one. Motion activated? She tried opening the window very slowly over the course of days, but on the fifth day security got their alert. Not motion sensing, and it only went off when there was an eleven-millimeter gap between window and frame. Interesting.
It had turned out to be magnetic. A low-strength magnet in the window, when moved too far from a sensor in the frame, set off the alert. She’d solved this by using a plastic letter with a tiny magnet in it from her preschool alphabet set. Moving it a little bit every time she tried to open the window, until one time she opened it and no one showed up outside to make sure she was okay.
Now she slid her magnet to the correct spot, manually undid the window, and lifted Muskrat carefully out. She climbed out after, pulling the frame closed behind her. Muskrat chuffed and started off along the path to the edge of the palace, and Teresa followed behind.
It had been too long. It was time to go see Timothy.
She’d found the secret tunnel almost a year before. It was hidden by a rock in a group of ornamental trees. She’d initially thought it might have been dug out by some local animal. There was a kind of underground wasp that left holes that looked similar to it when they died and their hives collapsed. It had turned out to be part of a flood relief system to make sure the gardens never drowned in heavy rain. It led under the walls of the State Building compound and into a small field beyond. Intellectually, she knew that a normal girl might not have gone down the tunnel with the spearmint smell of broken ground and the thin coat of slime. She had pushed through easily, joyfully even, and a few dark moments later had found herself on the far side of the perimeter and free for literally the first time in her life.
She’d gone walking. Exploring. Discovering. Engaging in developmentally appropriate rebellion. And, most importantly, she’d made her first real friend.
Animals had made the path she and Muskrat followed through the forest. Bone-elk and ground pigs and pale, shovel-faced horses, none of which had any relationship to Sol system elk or pigs or horses. She walked down the path, her hands in her pockets. Muskrat bounded through the dappled shade, barking at sunbirds and smiling a wide tongue-lolling grin when they hissed back. It had been too long since she’d been to see Timothy, and she had too much she wanted to talk with him about. It wouldn’t all fit in her head at the same time.
The forest at the edge of the State Building thickened at first, the gloom growing around her, and then the land began to rise. She started feeling her breath get deeper, and it felt good. Before long, the path led out of the trees entirely and into a clearing at the skirt of the mountain. She knew from her studies that the mountain wasn’t natural but a kind of artifact of some long-forgotten alien project. Like a sandcastle, but tall enough that the top seemed to touch the clouds. Not that she’d ever been to the summit. Timothy’s cave was much closer than that.
The entrance was in a little canyon not far from the clearing where she’d first come upon him. Muskrat knew the way better than she did. She walked down the pale sand along the path carved by water that had long since dried. Wide, fresh Labrador paw prints marked her way. By the time Teresa left the last scraggly trees behind, the dog was already at the bend that led there, barking and wagging her tail.
“I’m coming,” Teresa said. “You’re such a pain.”
Muskrat shrugged off the insult, turned, and bounded ahead like a puppy. Teresa didn’t see her again until she stepped under what looked like an overhanging shelf of sandstone and into the deeps of the cave. The natural stone gave way almost immediately to the soft glow of the cavern. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like bright icicles, and the walls were built with swirls and shapes in them like a seashell and a Euclidian proof had joined together and become an architect. Teresa always had the feeling that the walls changed to greet her, but of course she was only there when she was there, so she couldn’t be certain.
A flock of tiny, glowing gnats flowed past her like a wave. Like she was underwater. The air smelled thick and astringent, and a coolness radiated from the walls.
Soft padding sounds came from ahead. Not human sounds, and not Muskrat either. The footsteps weren’t even animal, not really. The repair drones were a little smaller than Muskrat, with dark, apologetic-looking eyes and multiply jointed legs. Totally alien, but they were the closest things to canine friends that Muskrat had, and the real dog ran around them, yipping excitedly and sniffing their rears as if there were anything doglike to smell back there. Teresa shook her head and moved forward. The repair drones made their query tone, trying to intuit whether Muskrat wanted something. The drones were surprisingly good at judging at least the rough intentions of humans
. Real dogs still seemed to baffle them.
The repair drones, the light gnats, the slow, creeping, wormlike stone diggers were all in the weird space between life and not-life. Designed by an intelligence that evolutionary forces had taken in a direction very different from humanity. They weren’t exotic to her at all. As far as Teresa was concerned, they’d always been there, just like that.
“Hello!” Teresa called. “Are you here?”
The words echoed weirdly out of the deepness. “Hey, Tiny. I wondered when you were coming back.”
Timothy’s part of the cave was like another phase change. Nature to alien to human, if not exactly the kind of human residence she was used to. A backpack reactor leaned against the wall, thick yellow power cords going to a wooden rack of neat, well-maintained machines. She recognized the yeast incubator and the emergency recycler from her tours of the early settlements. Other decks she didn’t know. All together, it was enough that Timothy could live like a monk and a wise man in his mountain for more than a human lifetime. His bed was a cot against one wall with a blanket of woven polycarbonate that seemed never to show wear. He didn’t have a pillow.
The man himself sat next to a length of wood, a knife in his thick, callused hand. A pile of thin, curled slivers rested between his feet where they fell as he carved. He was bald and pale, with a thick, bushy white beard, wide shoulders, and arms with muscles like ropes.
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