Alight

  “A place to see stars,” Gaston says.

  Bishop points up. “We can see them at night. We don’t need a building for that.”

  “It still has power,” Spingate says, ignoring him. “We have to go there. If the city builders wanted to make sure their knowledge was preserved—science, engineering, maybe even history—they would store that knowledge in a database of some kind. It makes sense they’d keep that database in a building that maintained power no matter what happened.”

  “History,” Aramovsky says, his voice full of longing. “We might finally learn what our symbols mean.”

  O’Malley’s eyes flick to me, then instantly back to the map. He looks…guilty. Almost as if he already knows what the symbols mean and isn’t telling us.

  Spingate leans over the map, squints at the towering ziggurat.

  “The city builders must have encountered the red mold. Maybe they found a way to beat it.”

  Bishop grunts. “If they beat it, why would people leave?”

  Spingate throws up her hands. “I don’t know! Why do you people think I already know everything? Look, if the Observatory holds any data on the red mold, I have to have it.”

  She stops. She’s breathing hard. A heavy lock of curly red hair hangs in front of her face.

  Bishop’s point disturbs me. Is the red mold the reason the city is empty? Did it drive people out? Did it kill them all? If so, what chance do we have of surviving here?

  I stare at the ziggurat’s image. At this scale, where most buildings are the size of my thumb, that one is as big as my head. It’s so real I could almost reach out and brush the vines away from the stone.

  O’Malley clears his throat.

  “The Observatory isn’t far from here,” he says. “Someone could leave now, be there about midday and take a look. They’d be back just after sunset. I know we’re short on time and food, but one day isn’t much to sacrifice if it saves us the risk of sending people into the jungle. Also, Em, you were saying earlier that we need to know if there are any spiders close to the shuttle. Whoever goes to the Observatory could also reconnoiter our area.”

  Bishop’s head snaps up at the word reconnoiter. He nods in wholehearted agreement. He uses his fingertip to trace a glowing path down the streets, moving from the shuttle to the towering ziggurat. He traces another path back, using different streets.

  “I could take two circle-stars with me,” he says. “We’d be able to check a large area of the extended perimeter for spiders, and recon the big ziggurat. Great idea, Em.”

  It is a great idea—but did I come up with it? Maybe. There’s so much going on I can’t remember everything I’ve said. Or did O’Malley once again pretend his idea was mine? Either way, it’s a good plan, but not one without risks.

  “It might be too dangerous,” I say. “That’s a long time to be gone with the spider out there somewhere.”

  Bishop stands tall and rigid, holds his axe against his chest. He seems to be staring at something that isn’t there.

  “We are shadows.” His voice sounds different, quiet and soft. “We are the wind. We are death.”

  The rest of us glance at each other, not knowing what to say. Bishop’s blank stare is creepy. What just happened to him?

  I gently put a hand on his arm. “Bishop, what does that mean?”

  His trance breaks. His face flushes red.

  “It means circle-stars can move quietly, that’s all. I think some of my memories came back. I was taught to say that phrase when I was little. We were instructed on how to move without a sound, how to track people and animals, how to sneak up on anyone, how to…”

  His voice trails off, but I know what he was going to say: how to kill.

  “Like how I was taught math and science,” Spingate says. “They trained me early. I mean, they trained my progenitor.”

  “Like I was taught how to pray,” Aramovsky says.

  “Or fly,” Gaston says.

  Flying, fighting, science, even religion—there seems to be a specialized area of knowledge for each symbol. My friends were all taught something important. What was I taught? I am a circle, there are more of us than any other group—what is it that we were born to do?

  “I could take Visca and Bawden,” Bishop says. “They’re fast, like me. If we see the spider, we come back. Even if the spider catches one of us, two will return and share what we’ve learned.”

  He wants to take three because he knows a single person might not make it back. Is information more important than lives? I wonder what else the circle-stars were taught when they were little.

  “Why not Coyotl and Farrar?” O’Malley asks. “They went out before and made it back. Wouldn’t you rather have their experience?”

  Bishop winces. “Farrar didn’t follow orders. And Coyotl is…noisy.” He looks at me. “You could move quieter than him, Em. I could teach you.”

  That’s something I’d like to learn.

  For now, though, if I agree to Bishop’s plan, that’s three circle-stars gone for a whole day. Spingate is right—a building with power is more important than the fire pit. I don’t think we can risk sending additional people into the jungle. That will have to wait for tomorrow.

  “Go now,” I say to Bishop. “Be back by nightfall.”

  He turns and walks out.

  “I have work waiting in the lab,” Spingate says.

  Aramovsky snorts. “Work. Is that what you call it?”

  That’s it—I’ve had enough of his crap.

  “Everyone, out,” I say. “Except you, Aramovsky. I want to talk to you.”

  O’Malley’s eyes widen. He wants to stay. He clearly thinks I need his help with this. I ignore his unspoken warning; I can take care of this myself.

  Spingate grabs Gaston’s hand. “Come on,” she says. “I need your help in the lab.”

  Aramovsky crosses his arms, waits.

  O’Malley is still standing there.

  “I asked you to leave,” I say.

  He flashes Aramovsky a clear look of warning. Aramovsky pretends to yawn.

  O’Malley storms out.

  I follow him into the corridor, stop him at the shuttle door.

  “Wait,” I say. “You’re acting strange. Is there something I should know?”

  We’re alone. This is his chance to tell me that he already knew the Observatory would have power, to tell me he knows about the symbols.

  He shakes his head. “No. Just be careful with Aramovsky. He’s tricky.”

  O’Malley turns and walks into the coffin room.

  Is he hiding information from me? I’ll have to find out soon.

  But first things first—it’s time to deal with Aramovsky.

  I shut the pilothouse door. I don’t have the ability to lock it, but the others had to see how angry I am—Aramovsky and I won’t be bothered.

  He smiles his fake smile. “Decided to do your own talking instead of having Bishop do it for you?”

  “He doesn’t talk for me.”

  Aramovsky looks at his fingernails, checking them for dirt. “Bishop told me that I needed to stop arguing with you”—he looks me in the eyes—“or he would hurt me.”

  Is that true? I can’t have Bishop threatening people, and I can’t have him thinking he needs to fight my battles for me.

  “I’ll talk to him about it. No one is allowed to threaten you for speaking your mind. We need everyone’s ideas.”

  “Funny, I was speaking my mind in the coffin room when I said the red mold is a punishment from the gods. You got in my face, brandishing your spear. Tell me, Em, if Bishop hadn’t taken me outside, would you have threatened me?”

  I don’t think I would have, but I can’t say for sure—I was furious.

  “If you want to talk about threats, let’s talk about how you threatened Spingate.”

  “I told you, all I did was repeat what the gods told me.”

  Now he’s pretending the gods speak directly to him?

  “Th
e others might believe your lies, but not me. I know what you said to Spingate, and I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You want to be the leader.”

  He smiles again. This time it feels genuine—but also dismissive, the smile of an adult dealing with a child.

  “I want no such thing,” he says. “I merely want to give people guidance. I want us to be right with the gods.”

  “You’re going to stop doing things that hurt us.” I keep my tone level, but I know he hears me. This is his warning. “That includes you stopping all this religion nonsense.”

  I expected that to rattle him, perhaps make him mad, but he seems more exhausted with me than angry.

  “You called it nonsense when we spoke at Latu’s grave. Think of all the miracles we’ve seen since then, and yet you still don’t believe in our destiny?”

  “There are no miracles. We make our own destiny.”

  Aramovsky sighs and crosses his arms. “You shouldn’t fight religion. Religion helps guide your decisions, helps people follow those decisions. We’re almost three hundred souls now—you’re struggling to make everyone obey.”

  “The only people who don’t obey are the ones listening to you. And we’re almost three hundred because you let those kids out.”

  He nods. “I did, because it was the right thing to do. Keeping them in their coffins because it is convenient for us would make us no better than the Grownups.”

  That takes me by surprise, crushes my anger. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I never, ever want to be compared to Matilda and her kind.

  “Maybe you have a point.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “But I didn’t come to that decision on my own. I was guided to it.” He pauses, thinking carefully about his next words. “Let me help you, Em. The gods want to guide you—I can be their voice.”

  Of course. With Aramovsky, it always comes back to power.

  “I don’t need anyone’s voice to guide me.”

  His eyebrows rise. “Oh? Then maybe I don’t understand what O’Malley is doing when he whispers in your ear.”

  My face flushes hot. “O’Malley is not whispering,” I say, even though I know that’s exactly what O’Malley does. “I listen to everyone. He has good advice.”

  “Oh? So was it really your idea to have Bishop reconnoiter for spiders?”

  He noticed the same thing I did. Is he saying O’Malley manipulates me? That’s ridiculous…isn’t it?

  I shake my head. “I make the final decisions”—I hold up the spear—“because I have this.”

  “Yes, you have the spear. The spear that the God of Blood guided into your hands.”

  He wants to pretend it wasn’t the people who voted me leader, but rather the will of his invisible friends? I will never get through to this boy. He is a danger to us, a wedge that can divide us all.

  “I’m sick of your God-talk. Where exactly are your gods, anyway? Why don’t they just show themselves and help us?”

  Aramovsky’s expression is so condescending I want to slice it off his face.

  “Em, how can you be so blind? We traveled on a ship that moved between planets. We were created in that ship, designed to live on Omeyocan when those that designed us cannot. We are standing in a city that was made for us. If you need more evidence of the gods, Little Matilda, then—”

  My spearpoint at his throat, a blur of motion that my hands perform before my brain even engages.

  “Don’t call me that,” I say, my words low and growling. “Don’t you ever call me that.”

  Aramovsky stays very still. He tries to appear unafraid, but the point of my spear is just below his Adam’s apple. I could push forward (it would be so easy and you’d be forever free) and shut him up for good.

  The same way Bishop shut up Aramovsky’s progenitor.

  I remember the black body crawling, the broken thighbone plunging into its back. That sickened me, made me want to run…

  A hard shudder shakes me. What am I doing? My temper again. I almost killed this boy. I pull the spear away, set the butt on the floor.

  Aramovsky rubs at his throat. “Unless you intend to stab me again, may I go?”

  “I didn’t stab you.” I say it sharply, defensively. I feel stupid, clumsy and out of control.

  He lifts his fingers from his throat: they are traced with a thin smear of red. “The God of Blood approves, Em.”

  “Get out.”

  Aramovsky leaves.

  I’m sure of it now—he wants to lead. On his own if he can, or by controlling me.

  Be careful with Aramovsky, O’Malley had said. He’s tricky.

  O’Malley was right about that. But is O’Malley trying to control me just like Aramovsky is? Am I really in charge, or is O’Malley shaping the way I think?

  Spingate seemed so upset in the meeting. I’m going to check in on her first, then I’ll find O’Malley. I have to know if he’s hiding information from me.

  There are little kids everywhere. Running around, goofing off and generally getting in the way. The shuttle is big, but we have far too many bodies in here. I’ll find a way to put them all to work.

  They are even on Deck Two, where the labs are. The lab doors are closed. I heard Spingate’s voice coming from behind the door of Lab One. She’s yelling at someone.

  I knock.

  “Go away,” she shouts.

  “Spin, it’s Em.”

  A pause. The door slides open. Gaston steps out. He’s wide-eyed, frazzled. He closes the door behind him.

  “Em, save me,” he says quietly. “She wants help, but the work she’s doing is way beyond me. I was trained to fly, not to do biology research. I need to be in the pilothouse—I think I’ve found weapons systems.”

  My heart surges at this good news. “You mean like bracelets?”

  He shakes his head. “No, weapons that are part of the shuttle, that it can use on outside targets. Like missiles.”

  I vaguely know what a missile is. I can’t see how it will help us unless he can aim it at a spider.

  He takes my hand. “Come on, talk to Spingate”—his voice lowers—“and watch out.”

  Before I can ask him what he means, he pulls me into the lab. The narrow room is white, like Smith’s medical room. Cabinets, gear and devices I don’t recognize line the walls. Spingate is staring at something floating above a white pedestal marked with a golden gear symbol.

  “Hi, Spin,” I say. “I came to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I doubt it,” she says without looking up from her work. “Gaston is already helping me.”

  The image on the pedestal before her looks like some kind of twisting ladder, rungs made of different colors. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.

  Until now, every time a puzzle presented itself, Spingate was excited to solve it. Not now. No smile, no giggle. Eyes sunken, hair askew—she’s frustrated.

  She stares at the twisted ladder, seems to have already forgotten I’m here.

  I glance at Gaston. His eyes plead with me—he wants to leave. Partially because he wants to learn more about the shuttle, I know, but more so because of the angry mood that radiates from Spingate.

  That reminds me: he’s the only one who knows how to fly—maybe I can solve two problems at once.

  “Gaston, can you teach Beckett to fly the shuttle?”

  He frowns. “Why? I know how to do it.”

  Maybe he’s still mad that Beckett yelled at him about the food contamination. Or maybe Gaston doesn’t want anyone else to know what he knows, so that he continues to be special.

  “Because if something happens to you,” I say, “we could be stranded.”

  He gestures to Spingate. “She could fly it herself, with a few more lessons. I could teach—”

  Spingate’s eyes snap up, her lip curls into a sneer.

  “In case you couldn’t tell, I’m busy. Of course I could fly the shuttle, but it would tak
e time to learn. Does it look like I have time?”

  Gaston backs toward the lab door.

  “I’ll go find Beckett,” he says. “Orders received and believed, Fearless Leader.”

  With that, he’s gone.

  Spingate glares at me.

  “Gaston needs to be focused on what he’s good at,” I say. “I’ll have Okereke and Johnson help you. I’ll make it their only job.”

  She throws up her hands in exasperation. “Okereke and Johnson? Em, they’re not gears, they’re empties, they’re not smart…”

  Spingate’s words trail off. Her glare fades.

  I can’t believe she just said that.

  “They’re not smart enough,” I finish for her. “Because they’re circles. Like me. Right?”

  We made it this far without the symbols affecting us, and the first real division doesn’t come from Aramovsky, it comes from Spingate—my friend. Has she always thought of me as stupid?

  “Em, I…I didn’t mean it like that.” Her face is bright red. Her words rush out. “We all have some pre-existing training. Gaston knows how to fly, Bishop knows how to fight. I already know a lot of math and science that only other gears will know. There isn’t time to teach these things to someone who doesn’t already understand them.”

  Her excuses fall short. I should have known. I probably knew it all along. Spingate is a tooth-girl; at her core she looks down on me because of my symbol, even though she doesn’t know why. Maybe that explains my dim memories of school, of the tooth-girls making my life miserable.

  My feelings are hurt, but my feelings don’t matter, because she’s right—reality is what it is whether we like it or not.

  “You need someone who can understand what you’re doing,” I say. “We had the knowledge of a twelve-year-old when we woke up. The kids from the Xolotl do, too, right?”

  She nods slowly.

  “Zubiri is smart,” I say. “Have you met her?”

  “I talked to her a little.”

  “Good. She and M. Cathcart will assist you with your research. Don’t worry—Cathcart is a gear, so I’m sure he won’t be too stupid to help.”

  Spingate blinks. “Em, I was angry before you even came in. I haven’t had any sleep. About what I said, I—”