by Sarina Dorie
“You spoke with the engineer then?” Faith asked.
I swallowed. “More than spoke.” I could have kicked myself for how stupid I’d been to trust a stranger.
She turned to face me. “Did he do something to you? Hurt you?”
“No.” I looked away. Not how she meant anyway. Jacques knew me well enough to know how best to set me up. He’d known a woman would capture me in a way no man could. “Show me how you do that.” I pointed to the screen. “When you sleep, I will keep my eyes on Jacques. When I sleep, you shall, ne?”
She shook her head as if in utter disbelief. “You’re as sharp as a razor.”
She showed me how to work the controls of the screen. The default was set to an image of fashionable ladies’ clothes from the catalogue. Not a bad idea considering that would be about as far as Faith might delve into the ship’s computers on a normal basis.
She offered to take the first shift of spying while I slept.
“Are you certain?” I asked. “You’ve been through much.”
“No rest for the wicked.” She turned back to the computer.
I woke to the sound of voices. For a moment I would have sworn Meriwether was in the room. Faith’s face was illuminated by the mirror screen of the vanity. Her voice came out deeper, her American accent gone. She sounded British. Meriwether’s arrogance laced her words. “We can’t very well expect Jacques to remain patient forever. I daresay, even if he does believe us, he’ll eventually try to force a memory exchange with my body to gain knowledge of all I know. What will he conclude when it doesn’t work? This little plan of ours won’t last forever. It’s only buying time.”
I watched through half-slitted eyes. Her posture changed. Faith’s voice became the high, sweet resonance I recognized as hers. “Oh dear! If he doesn’t try to force information from you through memory exchange, then he’ll resort to torture to learn more about the suffrage movement. Or about the chiramantep stones. Why must he be like that?”
A shiver as icy as a winter storm darted up my spine. I didn’t like Faith talking to herself like this.
“Knowledge is power. Jacques likes both.” She leaned against the vanity table, her unladylike pose channeling Meriwether again. “Where Maddock is concerned, he’ll stop at nothing to get his way. I suspect there’s some kind of history between him and my father I don’t know. Perhaps it isn’t important. In any case, we need to focus on the matter at hand—how to escape.”
Maddock? I thought they had been talking about Jacques. I was confused. Was Maddock another name for Jacque? He was a spy and a double-crosser. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went by multiple names.
She sat up straight. This was prim and proper Faith. “We only have days before we meet your father. Sooner or later he’s going to make you perform memory exchange. We have to stop him before that happens.”
“You’re going to have to kill him.”
She sighed. “I can’t.”
“You aren’t married to him. Sumiko said as much.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. I closed my eyes.
“I want to believe her, but I can’t. She would lie to protect me from myself.”
I tried to swallow the hard lump in my throat. Faith knew she had been married. She just didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t feel bad telling her what she wanted to hear. I didn’t like Meriwether Klark, but at least his intentions with her were honorable. He loved her more than he loved himself. Jacques might say he loved her. He might even have convinced himself he did, though more likely he was only enamored as a result of the memory exchange. That was the problem with memory exchange. It often confused the heart.
“If you can’t do it, then let me kill him,” Meriwether said.
“Oh? And you’ll let me kill your father?”
“I couldn’t burden you with that, dear. You’ve already taken on so much hardship.”
I didn’t know if it was normal to have conversations with oneself after dosha kuzure. I’d never experienced a memory mudslide myself and I hadn’t witnessed my brother’s. Did Faith have Meriwether’s kamuy inside her now? The elders said that was how memory exchange worked: a little piece of your soul left your body and became one with someone else. If she had all of Meriwether inside her, he was without any kamuy. That left him vulnerable to evil spirits. It wasn’t healthy for him to go without his own memories or soul, nor was it any healthier for her to be burdened by his.
“I love you,” Faith said.
I tried not to roll my eyes at how silly and sentimental she sounded. A hiss of air escaped my nose.
“I love you,” Meriwether lowered his voice. “Sumiko is awake.”
She turned to face me, a great big smile plastered on her face. “Did you have a good rest?” Her accent was between her own and his.
“Who is speaking this time?” I asked. “Are you going to start wearing his clothes now, too?”
She laughed at that. “Of course not. He and I both like the way I look in dresses.”
I think the correct British word in this circumstance was barmy.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wish to meet my son’s wife and mistress tomorrow. You will bring them onboard with the diamonds and my prototype. I will then give you the information you requested on the babbage disk.
—hyperspeed message from Lord Klark
Over the next couple days, we cycled through shifts of spying on Jacques. I learned how to use the computer better and how to adjust the sound with Faith’s assistance. I examined the inhabitants of other rooms and followed the men on the cameras as they marched about the hallways. There were still seven left. I could take on seven. Not all at once, but if I took half the men by surprise while they slept, I could kill the rest at their posts by laser pistol. It would only be Jacques I would have to worry about. Then the ship would be ours.
Too bad the robotic maid entrance was sealed up. As was the vent Faith had used to crawl through the ship. The doors were locked and even with Faith’s tinkering, she couldn’t unlock them. I had no way to retrieve my stashes of weapons. Jacques had confiscated Faith’s. In order for my plan to work, I had to be able to get out and have weapons.
We kept up the façade of Faith’s madness. There were moments I feared madness might not be too far from the truth considering how split her mind was. Back on Aynu-Mosir, Felicity’s memories had become Taishi’s. Sometimes he didn’t know which memories where his or hers without prolonged thinking, but he had never thought he was her. At least not that I knew.
I shook my head at the strangeness of memory exchange. How could the elders chastise Tomomi for becoming a man when my brother must have become a woman through memory exchange? Everyone became someone of the opposite sex through this process, even if for a temporary amount of time.
Such thoughts were a path that led back to Eli. I pushed him out of my mind. I would not allow myself to feel regret or shame. The sex had been a pleasant diversion. That was all it had been. The feelings I had for him weren’t real. They were built on lies. I would ignore those feelings.
I was so distracted by trying not to feel that I forgot to pay attention to the images on the monitor. Jacques strode down the hall with two men toward our quarters. It was fortunate I looked up in time to see him on the screen. I pressed the button to change the display to the pretty dresses and raced over to the bedside.
“Wake up. He’s coming.”
Faith sat up. She looked about wildly. “How much time do we have?”
I shook my head. “Seconds.”
She unbuttoned the back of her dress. “Help me. It will buy us more time. He won’t drag off a lady in a state of undress.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I did as she bade. I yanked the back of the dress open, popping a button in the process. She gave me a dirty look. Faith and her clothes. I managed to pull the blouse off her. We didn’t get to the chemise and corset.
Jacques knocked. The door sli
d open. He paused in the doorway. Seeing Faith half undressed, he cleared his throat and waved a dismissive hand at the two men behind him. They remained outside as he strode in. The door closed behind him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Mademoiselle Sumiko, must you try to seduce your charge?”
I dropped the blouse onto bed. “I was helping Faith-san change into a fresh pair of clothes.”
Faith stared forward with a blank expression.
“You needn’t bother with that at the moment. You can dress your little doll when we return.” He waved a hand at me. “Go on. Put her dress back the way it was.”
Reluctantly, I did so, moving as slow as I could. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, wishing I might find a weakness.
He leaned against the door frame, a smirk on his face. “Do you need my assistance?”
I shook my head. I finished up the last of the buttons and tucked her blouse in. Better I dressed her than he did.
“Where are you taking us?” I asked.
“Nowhere.”
“You just said I could dress her when we returned.”
“When she and I return.” He took her by the arm and tugged her from the bed.
She stumbled forward. She kept up her dazed act better than I would have given her credit.
Jacques pointed a finger at me. “You aren’t going anywhere. Do you think I’m an imbécile?” He snorted. “No, don’t answer that.”
He lifted her into his arms and marched out the door. I followed a step behind. “She needs me. You can’t take her away. Why are you doing this?”
He didn’t answer. The two soldiers cut between us so that I barreled into one man’s chest and bounced off of him. They stepped forward as a unit, pushing me back into the room.
I lunged for a gun at one man’s hip, but he was faster. He twisted away. The other man caught the sleeves of my attush—my constant weakness—and yanked me back. Then he slapped me hard enough across the face to make my ears ring. He shoved me back into the room. I toppled back onto my behind. My attush flew back, exposing the golden trousers underneath. The doors slid closed between us, but not before I saw his lecherous leer.
I paced the room. My stomach twisted into knots. Jacques must have decided he’d waited long enough and was going to try to put Meriwether’s memories in her. I turned on the screen and switched between spying devices. One of the cameras captured a view of them in a hallway. Faith was visibly shaking, whether part of the act or because she was genuinely afraid.
I switched to find a better view of her. Another picture showed them at a different angle. I changed to the view from the engine room. Meriwether sat in the chair Eli had been building. Meriwether was bandaged up and in a gown of sorts. Patches of skin on his hands were exposed, areas that didn’t look burned if the colors on the screen were accurate.
An old man strapped Meriwether into the chair. I recognized him as the doctor from when Jacques has taken Faith to the hospital. The old man shook his head sadly. He spoke, but I couldn’t hear him. I adjusted the volume of the monitor.
“I’m not a mad scientist neither,” Eli said. He chewed his lip, staring at Meriwether.
When the doctor wasn’t looking, Eli waved to Meriwether and mouthed something to him, but no response came from the other man. That concerned expression on Eli’s face told me he knew Meriwether Klark and not just by reputation.
“Mr. Klark,” Eli whispered. “Master Meriwether?”
Master Meriwether? Now that was interesting. I didn’t know that title.
The doctor turned around. Eli picked up a wrench and pretended to work on the mechanisms of the empty chair. Meriwether’s eyes were as vacant as ever.
I scratched my chin, trying to puzzle Jacques out. I thought he had wanted to transfer Meriwether’s memories into Faith. This machine was supposed to be for mind reading. At least that’s what Eli had said. Unless it had been a lie.
A moment later Jacques walked into the room with Faith. She faltered in her footsteps the moment she saw Eli. A flicker of surprise flashed across Faith’s face and her lips formed a word.
“Birdie,” she said in a hiss of breath. Or perhaps she said “bird.” I might have imagined it. Her face smoothed into the same blank expression she’d worn before.
Eli stood as straight as a staff, his eyes going wide. His jaw dropped. “Miss Earnshaw?”
Jacques shook his head and tsked. “Not the Earnshaw you’re thinking of. This is her sister. You’ve never met this one.”
Eli knew Felicity? The two sisters did look alike and it would be easy to mistake one for the other. But that wasn’t all of it. Faith’s face had changed when she’d seen Eli too, but I was certain she had never met him in all our time together on Aynu-Mosir, nor could she have on the ship. Could it be Eli did know Felicity, possibly from her time on Lord Klark’s station? That meant Meriwether also knew Eli and Faith recognized him from his memories.
Was he friend or foe? From the fear in Eli’s eyes I suspected he was a friend, though for some reason he didn’t want to admit it. Then again, Eli also didn’t want to admit to being a woman, so maybe Eli knew him from an earlier time in his life he wished to forget. If Eli was friends with Meriwether, perhaps he was still an ally.
I shook my head. How could I even hope for such a thing after he’d seduced me and betrayed me to Jacques? Maybe I just wanted a friend where there was none to be had.
Jacques helped Faith into another chair. It wasn’t as elaborate as the other one, but it did have straps he used to restrain her arms. He lowered a headdress made of metal with wires poking out of it over her head. I hugged my arms around my belly. I didn’t like the looks of this.
Faith’s chair was angled so she wasn’t facing Meriwether. That was better for her, at least. I supposed if Jacques cared for her at all he would do that. He didn’t wish to upset her by making her stare at the man who had supposedly stole her memories.
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. Memories. This wasn’t a mind reading machine. It was to extract memories. Perhaps without memory moss. No, it didn’t look that way. The doctor came into view and smeared a green paste on Meriwether’s hands. I didn’t know where he had gotten it. The botanical room perhaps. He covered Meriwether’s hands with a mitt of some sort, wires protruding from them and connecting to the back of his chair.
“I don’t know if this will work, commander. Miss Sumiko told you they might be too far damaged,” Eli said.
“Sumiko is a liar. Proceed.”
The doctor stood back. Eli adjusted knobs and flipped switches. Meriwether’s body went rigid. He clenched his teeth and shook. Eli bit his lip.
On a monitor in front of the machine there was a picture of Faith holding the laser pistol and firing at him. Flames erupted all around him. Meriwether sat in the chair, thrashing and writhing as though he were feeling the fire all over again. I had no doubt he was.
Faith screamed in her chair. She tried to rise, but the straps held her in place. I looked away from the screen. What an awful memory to be given! They both lived through the pain and trauma of it again.
Jacques shook his head. “Go back farther.”
Faith panted. Meriwether moaned. Neither were in any condition for another memory so soon after such a painful memory, let alone so soon after dosha kuzure.
Instead of going back farther, I saw a scene from Meriwether’s bed in the hospital.
“I said, go back, not forward,” Jacques barked.
“I tried. This is all I’ve got.”
They kept trying, but all Jacques could get out of Meriwether were moments after the accident.
He stood there, tapping his foot and studying them. He looked to Eli. “What’s wrong with your machine?”
“I tried, sir, but I’m no chemist. I don’t know how this alien medicine works. Nor do you. Tinkering with this stuff we don’t understand, sir, it’s not right. And I don’t think Miss Sumiko would approve. She said t
here are rules how this medicine is used. There are reasons for rules, sir.”
“Don’t go changing sides on me now. Just fix the blasted machine.” His accent sounded a bit less French and almost British.
Eli adjusted another knob. “I weren’t never on your side.”
I held my breath, wondering if it could really be true.
Meriwether moaned pathetically. Faith whimpered. More images of the hospital were visible on the screen.
Jacques strode over to Eli. “Never on my side? Come now. Is that any way to show your gratitude after I apprenticed you in secret despite the drawbacks of your class, your sex and your race?” A cruel smile played across Jacques’ lips. “You have been mine to use and always will be.”
“No, I isn’t!”
“Oh? Shall we have a talk about your daughter again?”
Eli’s shoulders slumped.
“You might pretend to be holier than the pope himself, you might have even fooled yourself into believing you care, but I see the truth in men’s hearts, even when they cannot see it themselves. You wouldn’t have put Miss Sumiko in a position so vulnerable if you didn’t want the payment. You wanted me to catch the two of you, didn’t you? Sabotaging my spying device? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I always plant two. Surely you must know that. The double portions of food you took from the mess hall. The questions. You can’t be that foolish.”
Jacque’s chuckle grated on my ears. I loathed him more than ever.
Eli crossed his arms and turned away. Jacques spoke fast and his accent was sometimes difficult to decipher, but I caught enough to understand his insinuations. Eli hadn’t actually meant to turn me in. He’d done all those things to help me, but he’d been careless. Which meant the payment earlier had been to make me distrust Eli so that I wouldn’t seek out his help again. It had worked too. Jacques was a master of making his fellow men distrust all around them.
My blood pounded through me and beat like a drum in my ears. I wanted to kick something, but now wasn’t the time. I focused on steadying my breath, listening and keeping calm.