Aerin stared. The blood was like a dagger, one more slice in what she had thought she knew about Dane, and hadn’t. She had pushed him into this flight, leveled it at him because she thought he could not resist the challenge. From the ground, the spiral had been just a curling design on a structure to her, a decorative obstacle in the path of what she wanted and thought she needed. Her desires.
Her gut had sucked in when she saw the spinning tube up close, but she still had not really understood the danger.
Until that ride. Not a trip through a moving tube of black material, not for her. It had been a living, burning memory. Not of a moving spiral, but of a spiraling crash in another ship six years before. With another pilot. One whom she trusted and relied upon. One with far more experience than the young man she had pushed into flying this night.
And the blood at the end of that crash had been deadly.
Far worse than the pair of crimson lines drizzling down the palms of the friend at her side. Or was Dane more than a friend? His kiss: she had not known how to react—had known only the sudden, sharp fear of uncertainty.
She should say something, thank Dane or apologize, but her tongue felt weighed down, unable to form the words. Instead, she ripped two swaths of lining from the inside of her uniform and wrapped each of his palms in the fabric, tying a secure knot on the back of each hand.
With the second knot, her tongue returned. “We won’t go back.”
“What?” Dane spoke as though in a daze. She wondered what horror had lived in his mind on the journey here.
“We won’t fly back on our own. We’ll radio someone and ask for help. I’ll tell them the truth. It was my idea. I never would have—should never have asked you to do this for me.”
He pulled his hand away abruptly. “We’re here now. Let’s find what you need.”
He exited the ship, and a moment later, Aerin stood on the floor of clear glass. She looked down at the point below her with the black stem running through it.
Dane was moving now in a slow circle around the landing pad. “This is only the hangar. The records must be kept on another floor. There should be an entrance somewhere.”
Aerin set off in the opposite direction, her nerves shivering. She scanned the white wall for the slightest crack, but nothing interrupted the smooth ivory flow.
“In the center,” Dane said, as he met her on the other side of the room, “there’s a keyboard.”
She approached the vertical cylinder. A small section of the stem was divided into panels, all black without letters or numbers; but they were, as Dane had said, in the shape of a keyboard.
She bit her lower lip. This was no simple machine. Aerin knew all computers had an override, built in by the maker in case of needed repairs, but it was one thing to find the override on a normal computer. If she failed, she could always shut off the machine and try again. There might be no second chance with this keyboard, and judging by the deadly spiral, the consequences if she failed might be fatal.
Her fingers trembled as she typed in the entry code, Alliance. A curved screen of white light lit up on the stem just above the keyboard. Before she had time to try a basic command, a maze of letters and numbers began to shift across the screen. A map, she thought. These were the steps, if she could figure out how to read them. There! Amid the maze, the letter J sped across the screen in a straight diagonal. She hit the key where the J should be. Then the letter A in the same formation. The letter N. She hit them both. E.
And all the other letters and numbers swirled down in a tornado toward the bottom of the screen where they disappeared. A simple question replaced them followed by a blinking cursor, “Up or down?”
Aerin turned to Dane. What could be down? They could see the Spindle’s bottom point.
“And I thought this was going to be hard,” he said with a grin.
Her forehead creased as she typed in the term, “Up.”
Zzzzh. Beside the keyboard, a crack split and widened within the black stem. An opening, eight feet high and two feet across, revealed the hollow inside of a tube.
She heard Dane catch his breath. Thin white seams edged the stem’s interior in two long vertical lines. Down. All the way down into nothingness.
Aerin crouched low, placing her hand on the glass surface of the landing pad. She slid her palm forward into the hollow stem. Her fingers glided over a crack, then moved forward. Solid. “More glass,” she whispered. Carefully she stepped inside the stem. “It’s an elevator.”
Dane showed no sign of joining her. He was still staring at those thin white seams. Fearing she might be left alone, Aerin grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him into the stem. A second later, the door closed, sealing itself. Once again, they had entered a hollow tube, someone’s nightmarish creation. Aerin felt Dane’s hands circle her waist.
Tilting back her head, she could see the top of the stem. The distance was hard to judge, perhaps a hundred feet. Then the surface beneath her shoes gave a slight shudder, and she was moving. The distance began to shrink. Now ninety feet. Now eighty. Seventy. Dane’s chin bit into her collarbone, and his arms pressed tight to her rib cage.
A second shudder brought the movement to a halt, and again the crack opened, revealing yet another vast white room, a mirror image of the first.
She stumbled forward, thankful to escape the narrow stem and grateful to stand on the solid white floor. The tentlike wall stretched up to the Spindle’s topmost point, the slanted surface once again smooth.
And empty. Aerin felt a lump lodge in her windpipe as she searched for anything that might store information. She skirted the outer wall and the stem. Nothing. Not even another keypad.
This she realized as the door slid shut.
“We were wrong.” She felt her legs waver as hope drained from her body. “It’s not a Center for Intelligence.”
Dane steadied her. “No one went through the trouble of building this tower to hold nothing.”
“It’s a prison.”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “There are speakers in the floor.” He stooped down and ran a hand along the surface.
She crouched beside him and felt the tiny ridges grouped together.
He backed away toward the outer rim of the room and peered up at the top. “Along the ridge of the stem.” He pointed. “Those are light fixtures.”
“Lights and speakers.” She could hear her voice shake. “Of what use are they in finding answers?”
Now Dane met her gaze, a shine in his eyes. “It’s a simulator.”
She swept another glance around the room. “I thought there was only one.”
He smiled. “This makes two.”
“How do we . . . how do we turn it on without a keyboard?”
Dane raised his voice, no longer speaking to her. “Simulator, data request.”
“Access code, please,” an electronic voice responded with clarity.
Dane looked at Aerin, and she looked back at him. How could either of them ever guess the access code? An override? she mouthed to him without speaking.
He shook his head, slipped his fingers through the strands of his hair, and rested his palms at the back of his skull. She saw his chest rise and fall. Then his chin came up and he spoke. “Emma.”
There was a pause, a slight whirr, and an answer. “Access code confirmed. Awaiting data request.”
Aerin’s mouth opened, then closed. Of course, the access code was the name of the woman who had designed the first simulator and no doubt this one as well.
“Awaiting data request.” The computer repeated.
Dane gestured toward Aerin. This was her mission, her quest.
“Antony Renning,” she said, letting her voice echo off the white walls.
“One hundred files available. Limit search.”
Limit search? How was she to do that? She wanted to know everything about her father. But she might not have much time. She had to begin with her most vital questions. “Why did he leave the Al
liance?”
There was a soft whirr. Dane slipped to her side as the room went dark. And the simulation began.
Chapter Twenty
SIMULATION
SHOUTING INVADED THE DARKNESS. AERIN FELT Dane go rigid and pull away as she recognized his father’s voice. “I can’t believe you, Tony. You’re a traitor!”
“And you’re a sellout, Gregory Madousin! I thought you wanted to save the universe.”
Her heart exploded at the sound of the second speaker’s voice. Seven years she had been trying to shut herself off from the memory of that voice, from the memory of the man who had raised her and loved her and left her behind in hell when his ship had crashed. The man whose death had severed her heart into fragments and almost destroyed her.
And now her father’s image solidified: his narrow shoulders, the swath of dark hair, and those gray eyes shot through with specks of green. It was him.
And yet not him. For both he and the man squaring off across from him looked younger than she had ever seen them, barely older than Dane or her.
The entire scene felt eerie. Black chairs, matching lamps, and a pair of footstools emerged, all clearly those of the Academy 7 dorm lobby. And in the background, two vaguely familiar female figures lingered on a brown sofa.
But Aerin had no time to try to identify the young women. Her focus, like theirs, hinged upon the argument between her father and the future general.
“After all the Alliance has given us,” the young version of Gregory argued, “the education and the skills.” He flung up a pair of skinny arms that had yet to catch up with his tall frame. “You want to disregard all that!”
“I’m not betraying my education,” replied Aerin’s father. “I want to put my beliefs into action.”
What beliefs?The man she remembered had always been kind, but she could not recall his employing that trait in the name of anything larger than her welfare.
“You can do that within the Alliance, Tony. Join the fleet.”
“And follow orders like you? Not likely.”
A shade of red climbed up above Gregory’s collar. “It’s an honor to fly for the Alliance.”
Her father stepped back a single pace. “I’m not saying it’s not.” He took a breath. “It’s just not for me, not how I want to make a difference.”
A brief silence descended, and then a female voice broke into the lull. “Where will you go, Tony?” One of the young women slid off the couch and seemed to float rather than walk as she came forward to stand beside Gregory. Her black hair coiled around her head in a formal manner, and her slender arms rested with ease at her sides.
“I thought I’d start with Mindowan,” Tony answered. “It’s not far from the Alliance, and its citizens will understand the concept of freedom even if they’ve never experienced it.”
Mindowan, Aerin had heard that name before, in debate class, by Yvonne, of all people, stating that the Alliance could not afford to lose another trade partner like Mindowan.
The woman tilted her head. “It’s a monarchy, isn’t it? With a king.”
“And a princess waiting to inherit. The people have absolutely no say in their government.”
“Then they haven’t asked for one,” Gregory grumbled.
“Haven’t fought for one, you mean,” Tony argued. “The Council refuses to help them because Mindowan is a vital trade partner. It’s one of the only planets in the region willing to sell ironite to the Alliance. And oh, the Council would never want to disrupt its best interests.”
A stab of familiar pain twisted in Aerin’s gut, the same pain she had felt upon learning of the Alliance’s hands-off policy with regard to X-level planets.
“Mindowan is a peaceful planet in the middle of a violent sector,” growled Gregory.
“And that’s one of the reasons I’m going there. I want to effect peaceful protest, not violence.”
“I know you’ve never been loyal to the Alliance, but I thought you would at least stay loyal to us.” Gregory swept a hand to include the two young women. “We’ve been friends for years; at least I thought we were.”
Tony pursed his lips. “I’m not betraying us, and I don’t believe I’m betraying the Alliance. Sometimes you have to break the law to live out the values of the Manifest.”
Gregory’s head vibrated. “The Council won’t see it that way.”
“We understand what you’re saying, Tony,” said the young woman at Gregory’s shoulder. “None of us think the Alliance is perfect. And what you want to do, help liberate people on nonmember planets, it’s an admirable goal.”
“But he could do it through the Alliance!” Gregory snarled.
“Not on Mindowan,” said Tony, “or any other planet labeled off-limits. Someone has to help those people.” His face had tightened, sharp lines running through his brow, his chin jutting in determination. Aerin had never seen her father this way before, flush with passion. Had he truly been like this once?
“You may be right,” said the woman, “but you know if you succeed, Tony, if you incite rebellion on these planets, the Council will denounce you. They can’t afford to anger other governments.”
“That’s why I have to go, Emma, because the Council won’t.”
Emma? Aerin’s gaze shot back to the young woman. She stood out like a relief against the future general at her side. Where he was pale, she was dark. Where he was angry, she was calm. She slipped her slender hand into Gregory’s, and now Aerin knew why this woman looked familiar. Because she had passed those same dark eyes and hair on to her son.
For the first time during the simulation, Aerin spared a glance for Dane. His eyes gleamed too bright, and she knew the sight of his mother had affected him much as her father’s image had affected her. Dane had gone paler than Aerin had ever seen him, the color fading from his lips.
And then the simulation, too, began to fade. Her heart twisted as her father disappeared. She closed her eyes, struggling to imprint every moment of the past few minutes into her brain.
Then the irony struck. Seven years she had pushed away the memories of her father, and now she clung to one that was not even her own. The moments stretched as she grappled with that reality.
Dane’s words broke the silence. “Well . . . now we know what happened between your father and mine.”
“They were friends,” she managed to say.
“Close ones, or my father would never have been so angry with yours for betraying the Alliance.”
“You think my father did it, then, left to start a rebellion on a foreign planet?”
“That was what you asked the simulator, wasn’t it? To explain why your father left the Alliance?”
She had forgotten about her initial question. “Yes.” Aerin struggled to take in her father’s actions. His motives, of course, had been noble, but how could he risk all the blessings of the Alliance? A chill ran through her limbs. “And do you think my father was denounced by the Alliance, like your mother said?”
Dane brushed the back of his hand over one of his eyes. “It would explain why your father never came back.”
And why he never talked about the Alliance. Or Academy 7. Or anyone from that time in his life.
But it did not explain why her father had changed. Why he had lost the passion she had just witnessed and stopped fighting for his beliefs. Why he had exchanged those dreams for months in isolation on a trade ship with only his daughter for company. Or why he had a daughter at all.
And then Aerin knew what question to ask next. It had nothing to do with the Alliance, nothing to do with revolution or politics or what was legal or illegal. It was the question she had asked only once and thought she would never be able to ask again. The unanswered question that had haunted her life long before debate class, or Academy 7, or even Vizhan. “Simulator,” she said, “who was my mother?”
Before she had a chance to second-guess herself or wonder how the computer could hope to identify her, much less her mother, the whirr of the
machine commenced. And once again the simulation began with voices.
“What if we lose?” questioned a man.
“Yeah!” hollered another. “What if we’re arrested? I’ve a family at home that’ll be thrown out in the streets if I can’t work.”
“I’ve seen that place of yours, George,” said a third. “I don’t reckon the streets would be much worse.”
Images began to form. A diverse crowd in a cobblestoned square gathered around a podium. Men, most of them in rags, pushed their way toward the center, their voices piling one upon another. A second group of men, these in clean breeches and fitted jackets, looked on with curiosity, and a sprinkling of women, some toting children on wide hips, scattered the crowd’s edges.
Aerin peered at the women, searching for one who could be her mother, but her father’s voice distracted her.
“Listen, I’m not here to tell you what’s best for you or your families.” His words came from the podium. “I can’t promise you safety or freedom. But I can tell you your one chance to change Mindowan is to work as a group.” Gone was her father’s school uniform and the short haircut he had worn in the last simulation. He was dressed like one of the crowd members, in a ragged vest, trousers, and long wool shirt. His hair tumbled in loose strands to his shoulders.
“The king cannot arrest you all,” he continued, gripping the onlookers with the strength of his voice. “And he cannot run his mines on his own. If you want to have a say in your government, you must speak together.”
There was a rumbling among the crowd members.
“And who’s to lead this group?” asked one man.
“We should have a meeting,” said a woman.
“A meeting?” scoffed a man in a dark beard. “Lotta good that’ll do! I’d say the time for talk is past.”
Shouts erupted, and Aerin lost the thread of the discussion.
Then a sudden hush fell as a horse galloped into the square. A man in a plumed hat, ruffled shirt, and pair of silk trousers guided a tall black gelding up to the fringes of the crowd. There he paused, his elegant mount shifting his hooves in an uneasy manner. The man reached into a leather bag on the back of his saddle and lifted out a brown tube. “A correspondence for Mr. Antony Renning,” he said.