The terminal beeped and the guard looked down. “Looks like she’s not in any public buildings. Let’s extend to the grounds.” She tapped another box on the screen.
“What about inside private areas, like bathrooms and people’s houses?” Kendra asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. There was something so creepy about the idea of someone watching everyone at all times. She’d dealt with the constant surveillance by putting it out of her mind.
“Private areas are mostly unobserved,” the guard said cryptically, but before Kendra could ask what she meant by “mostly,” the terminal beeped and a video feed popped up showing Tiran hurrying down the Civil Strip.
“Is that her?”
“Yes,” Kendra confirmed with a small sigh of relief.
“Looks like she’s just late getting home. Madame Morten can rest easy. I don’t blame her for worrying, though. These are dangerous times on Corizen.”
♦
Kendra got back to the Ambassador House not long after Tiran. Her aunt was fuming, no tears now, though her eyes were so swollen and raw it was a wonder she could see anything. Kendra convinced her to get some rest and then went upstairs to talk to Tiran. Tiran was furious at her mother and in no mood to be reasonable about it, so Kendra left it alone. She did learn that Tiran had spent the evening with Markus the librarian at the café.
I told you she was smitten, Dina said smugly.
But what does she see in him?
What does any human see in any other?
I bet Aunt Andie won’t like it.
Kendra could tell that Tiran knew that too. She admitted that she hadn’t been willing to tell her mother who she’d been out with. But it was such a delicious secret, and Kendra could almost feel Tiran’s palpable excitement every time she talked about Markus. So when Tiran came to the library the next day but disappeared behind a stack with Markus after only ten minutes of studying, Kendra merely covered a smile and kept on with her own reading. After all, it was just a teenage infatuation, and what her aunt didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, right?
7. A Dubious Excursion
Morek-Li’s assassination changed everything, though at first Kendra didn’t recognize it. Yes, Uncle Casey left off-planet to go to the Union’s Assembly Station, where all the diplomats and councils converged, and yes, Aunt Andie and Tiran both missed him so much that the atmosphere at home became funereal. Aunt Andie was unbearably tense, as if she expected worse to come. She still helped Kendra with her seminar projects, but she seemed distracted and worried all the time. Tiran’s only relief seemed to come from the time that she spent with Markus. After that first date with the librarian, Tiran started spending more and more time with him. She was utterly and completely smitten, and it was obvious to everyone.
It wasn’t just her aunt that was on edge, though. It was if a heavy blanket of gloom descended on the entire complex.
The day after Morek-Li’s death, her Denicorizen professor broke down during her lecture, weeping and unable to continue. She’d dismissed the class early. The promised second-term dancing lessons were postponed—the dean felt that dancing under such circumstances was inappropriate. Her seminar on Corizen’s history spent three whole weeks discussing Morek-Li’s life and his contribution to the Revolution. Yet even after the memorial service that was broadcast around the world was over, the gloom stayed. More rumors of the brutality of the Brotherhood surfaced, and there were even debates in the common room over whether or not the leader of the Brotherhood (someone called the Oman) was a real prophet. The campus was supposed to be an open forum for all kinds of ideas to be expressed, but everyone grew edgy, and respect for differing opinions was a thin commodity. Kendra stayed out of all of the debates as much as possible and spent the rest of the winter months building up her tolerance to the shield. Or rather, Dina’s tolerance. One cold morning Kendra slowly slid all the way up to the outer hedge and stuck her arm inside the branches, the closest she could come to the shield itself. Dina grew silent and rigid with control, and Kendra held her breath and counted to sixty. Then she slowly backed away.
Dina? she asked anxiously. Are you still OK?
The long moment of silence nearly drove Kendra to panic, but at last Dina gasped, Still here. I think we’ll be able to do it. If you can go through in a minute or less.
We’ll have to time it just right, Kendra pondered. When there’s no line going out or when we need to come back in.
What are you going to tell your aunt?
Nothing. It’s Tiran’s turn to cover for us for once.
You are going to tell Tiran? Is that wise?
Kendra sighed. No, probably not. But I hate keeping secrets from her.
I know. But she’s keeping secrets from you too. I imagine you both have your reasons.
She’s keeping secrets? repeated Kendra, unbelieving. I already know about Markus.
No, it’s bigger than that. But she should be the one to tell you.
Kendra grumbled for a while about this, but Dina was immovable. No amount of pleading on her part would convince Dina to tell her. How did Dina know something about Tiran that Kendra didn’t? It’s not like she had ever shadowed Tiran! Kendra didn’t know why Dina insisted on keeping so many things from her. However, it did make her feel less guilty about not sharing what she was planning to attempt with Tiran and why.
First, she had to convince Bren to go along with it.
♦
“You want to do what?” Bren exclaimed, his large eyes widening until they seemed to take over his face.
“I just need to go back for another reading. I want to do it myself this time, but I need you to take me to the warehouse you went to.”
“You’re crazy.” He shook his head. “There is no way in all of this forsaken blue land that I will take you back to a building that was full of maniacal, anti-Citizen cretins.”
“But they’re not there now!” Kendra tried to sound her most reasonable. “That was a rally, late at night, and they probably change locations all the time so the local police don’t find them.”
She sat down directly in front of him and stared into his face pleadingly.
“Please?” she asked, putting her hand on top of his. “I can’t do this without your help.”
He groaned. “Your aunt is going to kill me, and then when he gets back, your uncle is going to dig me up and kill me again. Then your parents are going to show up and chop my body into pieces.”
“Ew, yuck.” Kendra wrinkled her nose. “Of course not.”
“Oh? You think they’d all agree with this plan?” Bren raised an eyebrow.
“No, but they’re never going to find out about it, so it won’t matter,” she said. He groaned again.
But she saw the resigned look in his eye. She’d won.
Poor boy never had a chance, said Dina.
♦
They planned their trip for right after morning classes started. Kendra didn’t explain that she needed the lines to be short to get out of the complex, and Bren assumed that they were just trying to avoid extra eyes that might wonder why two of the Citizen students were heading into the city instead of toward campus. As they approached the gate and the small gap in the shield, Kendra could sense Dina hunkering down, withdrawing behind her mental wall. She took a deep breath and hurried forward, reaching the gate station just ahead of Bren. Flashing her most brilliant smile at the guard manning the station, she pressed her thumb to the pad to register that she was leaving. The guard raised his eyebrows; he was probably familiar with the students who regularly left campus, and Kendra was not one of them. However, he waved her through without a word, and Kendra didn’t even pause to wait for Bren. She darted through the lane for arriving transports and stopped across the street, gasping at the sharp lance of pain through her head.
Dina? You OK?
Y-y-y-es. Her voice was small
and shaky.
While Bren finished checking out at the gate, Kendra concentrated on trying to slow her breathing back to normal. No need to worry Bren. Still, when he reached her, he studied her expression with concern.
“Are you all right? Your face has gone totally pale.”
“Yes,” she said, forcing a smile. “I don’t like how the shield feels is all.”
Bren glanced back toward the looming hedge that bordered the complex and the violet shimmer that was the only indication the shield was in place. “It makes my head buzz a bit, but nothing that would make me think twice. You must be sensitive to it or something.”
“Probably,” said Kendra lightly, while inside her stomach still clenched. At least Dina wasn’t screaming. “Well, shall we go?”
Bren shot another concerned look at her but then shrugged. “If you insist. I still vote that this is a really bad idea.”
“We’re eighteen, Bren. We’re allowed a few bad ideas now and then,” Kendra said, thinking of Tiran and her secret infatuation.
“Sure. As long as we don’t end up dead.”
♦
In the transport, Kendra stared, transfixed, out the window as downtown Roma passed by. Like during her one and only passage through the city before, there were people everywhere and a riot of bright colors assaulted her eyes. But she noted with concern that there were an awful lot of soldiers on the streets too, both guys wearing the gray Armada fatigues and the blue uniforms on the locals.
“Who are the soldiers in the blue uniforms?” she asked Bren. His eyes followed her pointed finger.
“The CPF—Corizen Protection Force. They’re out in force now, along with the Armada troops. At least in this section of town. This is the biggest financial and commercial district with the most interplanetary businesses,” Bren explained. Clearly he was getting something out of his current affairs seminar. Kendra was completely ignorant of what was going on, other than the bits she gleaned from overheard conversations between fellow students or what she heard back at the Ambassador House. She used to hear a little from her aunt and uncle, but with her uncle off planet, Aunt Andie wasn’t saying much about life outside the complex at all.
When they left the financial district, there was an obvious difference. There were fewer people on the streets (though the streets weren’t completely empty), and the buildings were shorter and shabbier. When Bren stopped the driver, the area was still busy with cargo transports, but several of the big warehouses looked as if they had seen much better days.
“This is pretty close. We’ll have to look around a bit and see if I can recognize the exact alley,” he said, his tone suggesting he would rather do anything but. Kendra smiled reassuringly at him and stepped out of the transport. Then she steeled herself.
Dina? Can you feel anything?
After a long moment when Kendra wondered if they were suddenly going to be attacked by hostile alien isithunzi, Dina spoke, her tone discouraged.
No one.
Kendra swallowed her spike of relief, not wanting Dina to know just how ambivalent she was about finding Ulyssa, let alone a strange isithunzi.
Well, we’ll just have to go retake the readings then, Kendra said briskly.
♦
Bren paid the transport driver to wait for them, since there was no guarantee that they would find another one in this area. Then he led the way past two different warehouses, stopping and looking into each alley. At the third alley, he stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “I think this is it. That’s the shed I fell into trying to leave.” He pointed at a rickety collection of scrap wood and metal stacked into a crude shelter against the wall of the warehouse.
“Looks like he rebuilt it even without your help,” Kendra teased as she pulled out Kip’s scanner and turned it on.
Any animals nearby? she asked Dina. Rodents that we could scan? Animals, especially small animals, weren’t the most accurate subjects, but if they had been repeatedly exposed to qualian energy, they would register. Plants, especially trees, would work too, but there wasn’t so much as a weed growing in the alley.
There’s a human, Dina said. Inside that pile of garbage you called a shelter.
Perfect! He’s probably been living here all along. If there has been an isithunzi here regularly, he should register. Then we’ll know if we need to keep coming back or if it was a one-time reading.
Kendra strode up to the shack and rapped briskly on the low metal roof.
“What are you doing?” hissed Bren, hurrying up behind her.
“Hello?” Kendra called in her accented Denicorizen, ignoring the restraining hand that Bren placed on her shoulder.
The muffled reply sounded groggy and irritated, though she couldn’t exactly understand the words.
“Kendra, leave him alone!” Bren urged.
“He’s probably just a harmless old guy.” Kendra waved her hand, dismissing his concerns.
“He punched me in the face last time. I don’t think he’s harmless.”
She ignored him. “Hello?” This time her word came out a little closer to how it was supposed to sound. She was moderately pleased with herself. Maybe she would be able to learn the language after all.
A thin piece of plywood slid aside, and a head covered in long, matted black hair stuck out the hole. Kendra could barely see his eyes through the oily locks covering his brow. They were small, beady, and bloodshot.
“Hello . . .” she said again, drawing a complete blank on every other Denicorizen phrase she had pounded into her head.
He snarled at her.
Just get the reading! Dina urged.
Right.
She unhooked the wand and scanned him, staring at the screen to make sure she’d gotten the reading. He pushed his way out of his shelter, and Bren tugged her backward.
“Kendra,” he implored.
She was still pointing the wand in his direction. It took longer if he moved, and she had to be reasonably close to him to get a reading.
He said something that sounded like complete gibberish to her and gesticulated wildly.
Is this normal offended Denicorizen behavior, or is he perhaps unwell? Dina wondered nervously. Kendra still wasn’t paying attention. Just a few more seconds was all she needed . . . suddenly, the scanner was snatched out of her hands. She looked up to find that the man was holding her scanner and staring at it suspiciously. Then he started to yell at her again.
Bren grabbed her under both arms and yanked her backward, literally lifting her from the ground and away from the stranger.
“I need that scanner!” she yelled, clawing at Bren’s arms.
“We need to get out of here! He’s not rational, Kendra, can’t you see that?”
“All the more reason I have to get it back!” she screeched. But Bren wouldn’t let her go. They stood only a few strides away, but Bren was gripping her arms tightly and trying to drag her backward. Kendra dug in her heels. She wasn’t leaving without that scanner! Without it, how would they find the isithunzi? Just as she was about to jab her fingernails into Bren’s hands and force him to let her go, the man pulled his arm back and pitched the scanner directly at them. Bren instinctively ducked, and it sailed over their heads and crashed into the wall behind them. Then the man picked up a bar of scrap metal from the ground next to his shack and ran right toward them. Bren let her go, and she turned and launched herself backward, eyes darting among the drift of trash along the wall. She caught the glint of bright metal and scooped up the scanner, turning just in time to see Bren block the swinging metal bar with a broken crate he must have grabbed from the ground. Bren pushed the crate forward, shoving his attacker off balance, and then threw the crate at him. He pivoted, spotted Kendra, and grabbed her hand. Without a word they turned and dashed back down the alleyway, angry shouts echoing behind them.
♦
Bac
k inside the transport, Bren asked the driver to return to the International Complex and then dropped his head into his hands, elbows propped on his knees. Kendra stared at the battered wedge of metal and plastic cupped in her hands. Spiderweb cracks obliterated the screen, and the corner had snapped off completely, revealing the inside circuitry. She tried to turn the power on again, but it remained dark and lifeless in her hands.
Dina’s mute horror mixed with her own. Kip was going to kill her. One of his irreplaceable instruments would have to be replaced somehow. But worse, their task had gone from finding one little ship adrift on the ocean to staring at all the stars in the sky and trying to guess which one was home. Impossible.
Two tears slipped down her cheeks.
When they had almost reached the complex, Bren finally spoke.
“Maybe it can be fixed.” He had raised his head and was staring at her bleakly.
“Not here.” She shook her head dejectedly. “Not in time.”
Bren took a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “What were you thinking? That scanner wasn’t worth your life, Kendra. Nor mine.”
“We weren’t risking our lives,” she protested.
“No? You don’t think a metal bar to my head could have killed me? Or at least left me so damaged that I’m not me anymore?” His voice was harsh.
Kendra’s eyes popped back up to Bren’s face, startled at his tone. Only then did she see the blazing anger in his face, the heat turning his forehead and cheeks dark red. “I didn’t think . . .”
“No, you didn’t think, did you?” he interrupted. “You didn’t listen, either! Well, stop treating me like your dumb sidekick friend! I may be a gigantic, clumsy oaf, but I am not stupid, Kendra!”
Kendra stared at him, speechless. Dina was speechless too.
“You rarely listen to me at all. Half the time when I’m talking to you, it’s like you’re not even there. Then you smile at me and expect me to drop everything and twist myself into knots to do what you want. And I always do! Not anymore. I’m done.”
The Search for Ulyssa Page 10