He was right. Aerin remembered reading about the Trade Union’s startling growth, especially in the last sixteen years, during which it had expanded from one to three star systems. Begun by a handful of wealthy planets incensed at the Alliance’s moral restrictions on trade, the Trade Union, with its shady political practices and emphasis on privacy, had grown to become the largest single nation outside the Alliance. And frankly, she found it hard to blame the Council for being concerned.
“Why now?” Dane kept talking. “Why salvage a planet like Wyan-Ot when we’ve ignored the same type of corruption on twenty or thirty other planets.”
Because this planet is right outside the Allied boundary? Aerin hypothesized. Though the Trade Union’s leaders had never openly threatened the Alliance, it was clear their biggest goal was to crush the nation they viewed as their main competition.
“Because Wyan-Ot is our primary source of ironite,” said Yvonne. “And we don’t want to lose access to another mineral-rich planet like Mindowan. Our resources are already thin.”
Aerin frowned. Over the past two weeks, she had learned that the black metal used to build the Wall and the rotating tower known as the Spindle was called ironite, but until now she had never associated the substance with the conflict on Wyan-Ot.
“All right,” the pasty boy said to Dane. “So what if we want to protect our access to ironite? It’s vital for space age construction. Without it we lose economic and, therefore, political power against the Trade Union. Since when is it a crime to protect our resources?”
“It isn’t,” replied Dane. “But it doesn’t solve the real problem. The Trade Union is still sending out its representatives and still refusing to work with us.”
“So why not go after the Trade Union?”
Aerin felt a chill run through her body at the thought of an armed conflict between the two strongest nations in the universe.
“Because,” Dane said drily, “we could all die.”
Anger ricocheted off the walls. The room fairly boiled with passion, something Dane took no small amount of credit for. Gone were the raised hands of the first day of debate. Shouts sailed toward him, missed their target, and cascaded off the ceiling.
Enjoying the uproar, he shifted in his seat, trying to lessen the contact between the back of his chair and his most recent bruise. His gaze landed on the culprit. For sixteen days Aerin Renning had knocked him on his backside every afternoon in physical combat.
The bruises were nothing. He could handle the school’s physical toll.
What had surprised him was the mental one.
He had intended to slide through his stint here. It was one thing to slack off when he could have been at the top of his class. But it was quite another to do so when someone else had the upper hand. Aerin had earned the top scores on the first science and lit tests of the year, due in part, he suspected, to a photographic memory and the fact that she seemed to live in the library. But that failed to explain her ability to analyze. Or her performance in technology, where she blew everyone away. Zaniels had even named her his assistant and given her the access code to the precious tech lab.
Not that Dane could not compete. He dominated debate, as well as most of the outdoor classes. But staying at that level was work. He had to study, and he had to train; and still she kept flattening him in physical combat, an ability that absolutely blew his mind. With awe. Though he couldn’t seem to get close enough to her to express it.
She had deflected his attempts at personal conversation. In truth, from what he had observed, she avoided almost all social contact. There was something disjointed about her. She could connect thoughts that even teachers struggled to see, quote huge passages of text without notes, and dissect the themes in a book with painstaking detail. But every now and then she would fail to answer a simple question or go silent and watch her classmates with sharp intensity. Like right now. Why was she sitting there, quietly looking uncomfortable, when everyone else was upset?
For a split second, her dark eyes met his. And he struggled with what he saw there. Admiration? If she agreed with him, why not say so?
She was hiding something.
And he was running out of time to find out what.
“Mr. Madousin”—a scratchy voice from the intercom broke into his thoughts—“you have a call in the message room.” The other students froze. The secretary never interrupted class, certainly not to announce personal calls.
Unless the caller is on the Council. Dane felt an ominous darkness sink through his chest and settle in his stomach. His deadline had come. He had known his father would return any day now. Standing, Dane gathered his supplies, certain he would not be back.
His classmates remained silent as he left. As if they had suddenly remembered who his father was, something they had managed to forget over the past few minutes.
Dane made his way across the hall. He wrestled open a stubborn door and climbed a narrow, sagging stairway into the darkness. The message room was under the eaves, a small, windowless space. At the far end of the room, a subtle ivory glow gave off the impression of a screen.
No use putting off the inevitable. Dane punched the Input button.
His father’s image appeared, his rigid frame towering larger than life upon the wall. Pale skin matched the lips pressed tightly together. Sharp lines traced the smooth forehead, straight nose, and strong chin. The sound of breathing hissed over the speakers. Then the figure drew forward, just close enough for the row of gleaming medals on his uniform to sharpen into focus. “Well?” The word rang with tension. “Shall I tell them, or shall you?”
Dane slouched in silence against the left wall, knowing the lack of respect would grate hard after two months of yes, sirs and yes, Generals. He let his gaze peruse the empty corners of the ceiling.
“I suggest you answer,” came the command. The faintest movement drew Dane’s eyes back to the screen. A knuckle popped as his father’s index finger pressed against his thumb.
Just waiting for you to tell me who it is I’m supposed to tell what.
The knuckle spiked. “You will inform Dr. Livinski immediately.”
And what am I supposed to tell her? wondered Dane, keeping his face blank.
The chest with the medals expanded. “A man admits when he is guilty of a crime.”
Oh, that was great. Dane forced laughter into his voice as he finally spoke aloud. “What am I being charged with now? Murder or manslaughter?”
“You and I both know you could never have fairly earned your way into that school.” The words were like frozen nitrogen.
Dane turned away, back toward the stairs.
“You will admit you cheated on that entrance test, or I will do it for you.”
Leave it to the General to question my intelligence by accusing me of cheating on the securest exam ever invented. “You would.”
“I mean it, Daniel!” The words hammered at the back of Dane’s neck. “And you can pack your bags. I want you out of that school and back on Chivalry before my ship lands in forty-eight hours.”
Blindly Dane slammed the Off button. He had not expected to feel like this, as if somehow he had lost. How was that possible? He had known he would be pulled from the school as soon as his father returned from Wyan-Ot. The General still nursed a grudge against the academy, a grudge that dated back for unknown reasons even before Dane’s brother Paul’s rejection. And if that had not been enough, there was always the excuse of Dane’s disobedience. But Dane had not expected this—to be forced to leave under some false accusation.
A slow whirr ebbed behind him, and the light in the room began to fade.
There was no doubt who the principal would believe. Even if Dr. Livinski were not his father’s colleague on the Council, she would never listen to the word of a juvenile delinquent over that of a general.
Pitch darkness descended on Dane’s shoulders. His palm pressed flat against the wall; his body refused to shift. Return to Chivalry. He didn’t want to
think about what that meant. Military school, most likely. Back under his father’s control. There was no way out, not without an academy degree.
When he did finally move, his ankles screamed, and sharp spikes shot up from his wrist; but the pain did not matter, because he had made up his mind. He might never have had the power to stay at Academy 7. But he sure as hell had the power to decide how he left.
Chapter Seven
THE CRIME
THE GARDEN CALLED TO AERIN, THREADING ITS seductive message through the cracks in her bedroom window. I can hide you, the night seemed to say, and Aerin slipped from her bed to lift the glass. A warm breeze rushed inward, ruffling the sleeves of her rumpled uniform, and a wonderful shudder of pointed leaves swished on all sides. Thin clouds drifted across Academia’s two moons. Without conscious thought, she leaned out to breathe the rich scent of maple. Her arms wrapped around an outstretched branch and pulled the rest of her body out the window.
The maple’s trunk had overgrown with branches, and Aerin soon found places to prop her bare feet. Those feet, hard with calluses, scarcely felt the prick of sharp twigs. I suppose I should have put on my boots, came the belated thought as she glanced up several yards toward the open window.
But the rush of escape felt too good. Discarding the notion, she scaled down the rest of the trunk and swung with ease to the ground. Her feet moved with purpose, deeper into the tangle of the garden. Though she had not consciously planned to leave the dorm tonight, her mind had gone over this scenario a dozen times since her first sighting of the maple’s outstretched branches. And she had known exactly where she would go since her first day of classes.
It took her fifteen minutes to find the circular fountain. Not because she had trouble placing it but because she wanted to enjoy the peace of walking amid the protective oak and pungent cedar. For this moment, at least, no one knew where she was. After her fright on the Fugitive, Aerin had thought she never wanted to be alone again, but she had learned that living among strangers could be more isolating than deep space.
The fountain’s soothing song reached her eardrums and pulled her out from the rim of foliage. She moved across pavement, closer and closer until mist formed damp beads on her nose and cheeks. I don’t want to be alone.But how do I stop?
The other first-year girls seemed to cluster around Yvonne, who had made it clear from the very beginning that Aerin did not belong. There was something frighteningly similar between the olive-skinned beauty and the guards back on Vizhan. She had a keen eye for others’ weaknesses and a killer instinct.
Then there was Dane. Who was always watching. At first, Aerin had feared he would again target her, but today he had made himself the target in debate. She had not understood what he was doing, stoking the emotions of his classmates, until the other students had risen up in fury. And while she was not at all certain she agreed with his argument, the way he had faced down the entire class had been almost . . . gallant.
To wash away the thought, she reached a tentative hand toward the running water. Cool liquid streamed over her fingers and soaked the black sleeve of her uniform. Though the school had given her nightclothes, she could not bring herself to wear them. They made her feel unprepared.
She had never before had real nightclothes. Just an old shirt of her father’s. For a moment Aerin let herself remember that shirt, the way the soft material used to hang below her knees and the way it smelled, of chocolate and caramel. Like her father.
No! She pushed away the thought and stepped back from the fountain. But the night no longer protected her, and memories of her father escaped the locked box in her mind where she had buried them. Images flooded her head, all of him: lifting her up so she could steer the trade ship; telling her long, exaggerated stories; thanking her for fixing the computer.
Her body shivered, now cold despite the warm air, and she squeezed her eyes tight. Nothing could keep the feelings from following the images: the softness of her father’s touch when he bandaged a cut; the roughness of his whiskers when he forgot to shave; the way he made her feel—happy to be with him, mad when he ordered her around, worried when he slipped into a trance. But always, always safe.
And then the bone-crushing, mindless loss when he was gone. And she wasn’t safe. And she didn’t know if she would ever feel safe again.
Aerin sank down, burying her head in her hands, pressing her elbows to the cement. She mustn’t; she mustn’t; she mustn’t—
But she had already begun. And there was nothing left to do but relive her father’s death in the crash: his blood dripping from his forehead to the control panel of the ship; the twisted tilt of his neck; the empty, frozen gaze in his eyes. She crouched there for an eternity, fighting her demons and not crying. She had not cried in the six years since his death and did not remember how, but she remembered enough to keep her there, her body shaking and shivering, by turns, until a soft glow lit the sky and she could once again bury the memory.
Her sleeve had dried on her skin, and her eyelids weighed down. Aerin tried to get up. Her legs cramped, not wanting to unfold. She leaned back and stretched each limb, one at a time, then finally stood.
Careful to avoid sharp stones and brambles, she picked her way through the garden and back to the ancient maple. Towering above her, it lacked some of its allure. Working her fingers to make certain they could clench a fist, she began to ascend.
The climb took three times longer than the descent. Every twig seemed to catch her hair. Her footing slipped twice, and she knew her body was responding to the night’s trauma. How dare her feet betray her!
With a final effort, she swung through the open window and landed in a crouch on the bedroom floor. At last.
Relief was short-lived.
“Ahem.” A low sound yanked her upright.
The door was wide open. And in the gap stood Mr. Xioxang, a deep frown etching his thin face. For seconds he remained still, perhaps as stunned as she was. Then the frown cracked, and a harsh order whipped forth. “You will come with me to the Great Hall, Miss Renning. Immediately.”
Briiing! The harsh sound shrieked in Dane’s brain. Not his alarm clock; he had not set it.
Dane rolled over, burying his head under the pillow.
The shrieking did not subside. Not a clock at all. A dorm fire drill? He considered lying there until the drill was over, but then memories from his recent nightmares came back—smoke clogging his lungs.
He rolled out of bed, the floor clobbering his knees. More bruises to go with the ones he already had. He reached up for the light, but the bulb would not turn on. Fighting the urge not to slump back to bed, he staggered to his feet. Then shouts in the hallway drew his attention.
“Lockdown!”
“You can’t be serious!”
“They can’t!”
“They can and they—”
Sheer force of will brought Dane hobbling to the Exit button. It failed to work. Overpowering the controls, he thrust open the door and stared out.
At a strangely still crowd. Other male students crammed this end of the hall. They had moved toward the stairwell, leaving behind a row of open doors, yet the exodus had ceased to flow. Bodies slumped against the walls, some of them dressed in uniform but most, like Dane’s, in a haphazard mix of sleepwear and bare skin.
“What,” he groaned, “is going on?”
“We’re in lockdown,” came an answer in a female voice.
Dane’s head snapped in the voice’s direction. At the entrance to the stairway, her slender body draped across the exit, was Yvonne Entera. What was she doing in this wing?
“Lockdown from what?” Thoughts flashed through Dane’s mind, all drilled into him from a lifetime on a military base. Attack? Invasion?
But the girl flipped her hair over her shoulder. “It’s for the Council’s protection,” she said, “not ours. Someone broke into the tech lab last night.”
Of course.
“We’re all trapped in here,” she said, “
together, until Zaniels secures the files.” She pushed away from the door and took a step in Dane’s direction, but her path was blocked by a towheaded boy wrapped in a blanket.
“Why would the Council care about a bunch of school files?” asked the boy, showing no inclination to move.
Yvonne gave him a dirty look. “We all know there are more than school files at Academy 7. What do you think is the purpose of the Spindle?” She referred to the black rotating tower. “You don’t really believe it’s solely for decoration. What better place would the Council have for storing classified information?”
Rumors. Dane schooled his face not to react to her claims.
She flicked her fingernails. “My parents say we should all be on the lookout for spies, in case the Trade Union sends someone here to infiltrate the Alliance.”
Her habit of quoting her parents annoyed him. As far as he was aware, the Enteras had inherited their position of standing, not earned it through some special insight. The planet of Entera had been named after the current family’s ancestors, who had funded its initial exploration, not completed it themselves.
“The spy would have to be a hell of a flyer to navigate the entrance to the Spindle,” said the boy in the blanket. “Even the best pilots in the universe would think twice about entering that moving black tube.”
Murmurs of agreement filled the hall.
“Besides,” said the boy, “I don’t see what the Spindle has to do with the computer lab break-in.”
“Obviously the Council thinks there’s sensitive information in the school database as well,” said Yvonne, finally negotiating her way past him. “I assume they know. So we’re all in lockdown until Zaniels can prove nothing’s been compromised.”
“You mean until Livinski tracks down the culprit,” said Dane.
“No.” Yvonne closed the remaining gap between him and herself. “Dr. Livinski already knows who broke in. It doesn’t take a high A.E.E. score to figure out that only one student had access.”