"You did that on purpose!" I didn't think about the accusation--well, I hardly ever did--but more than that, I didn't know why I said it. Just that it was true. "What was that, a test? Did you screw the diagnostics too?" Without thinking, I sent the question out like a wave, trying to find out.
I got a shock back. It felt like a thin electric zap, nothing to damage, only to surprise. I snatched my hand away from contact with the wall--with his skin--and Nadim said, "That was just a reminder that you wanted more distance between us." He could hold a grudge. Interesting. "And I didn't do anything to the diagnostics. Why would you think I had?"
"Such a jerk."
"I've made you angry," he said. "You burn so . . . warm." There was something about the way he said that word that made my breath hitch. It was something I noticed about him . . . the tone in his voice, the heat of the walls within him. You're reading into it, I told myself. But I remembered the dream that had so unsettled me--Nadim's nightmare of being sealed alone in the cold, a lonely and desolate scream in the night.
No wonder he longed for warmth. No wonder I did too. All those long nights out in the Zone, running from my own nightmares and believing I was free. Weird, to come all the way out here into the black and find someone who understood me so well. Who wasn't even human.
Without even thinking about it, I blurted the next thing that occurred to me. "You did mess with the console."
There it was, an unmistakable pulse of surprise. And guilt. "How do you know that?"
"It's not my fault you're thinking so hard you're leaking into my head!"
"Zara, I wasn't thinking about it at all," he said. "That's the problem. You are . . . difficult to keep out. And I'm trying."
My mouth went dry, suddenly, and I rubbed my palm against the nu-silk of my uniform. "But--"
"It's difficult for me to keep things from you. I don't know why. I've never had this problem before."
"So I'm a problem."
"It's not the same thing, Zara."
Sure. Like I hadn't heard that one a million times.
I put the handheld tester back into the toolbox and had the satisfaction of slamming the lid shut. Not very many things around here I could slam. The sound echoed through the chamber, and I kicked the metal housing of the data console for good measure.
His voice flattened. "If you're finished with the repairs, there are other tasks on your list."
"I'm ahead of schedule," I pointed out.
I'd learned something from this exchange, at least. Nadim could lie. And I could tell when he did. Since I was good and pissed about that reveal, I headed to the VR room to burn some anger. I scrolled through a lot of the standard game stuff, quests, and puzzles, and stopped on the combat sims.
I tapped that, fast, and got a dizzying array of options, from standard martial arts to cage fighting to guns and knives and half a dozen more weapons. I hadn't looked at all the choices before. Damn. Somebody knew how to party. I suspected it was Chao-Xing. I started out on the midlevel, just to get warmed up, on the cage match, and ended up in a startlingly realistic VR sim that gave me convincing biofeedback on punches, chokes, and throws. No bruises or broken bones, and Nadim's spongy floor came in handy for a fall mat.
It felt madly great. I dialed up the level to expert and went at it. Then, when I'd won two and lost the third, I swapped for an opponent with a knife. Then one with a gun in a realistic street setting. The bullets, I learned, hurt. But I didn't get killed. Not once.
Sim was just what I needed to clear the cobwebs and confusion, get me back in my own skin again.
Nadim didn't tell me to get to work; I showered and returned to task myself. While I was kicking ass and taking names, more orders had appeared on my H2, sending me back to the same workroom where I'd assembled the shock device. Without a word, I went there and checked until I found the project number. Another huge rolling bin, and it was subnumbered.
Since Nadim can't work with components like this, humans brought this tech on board at some point. Maybe Marko or Chao-Xing?
I stepped back and looked at the rows of enormous bins. This one was number ten of a series that stretched all the way to fifteen. When I pulled the tabs, the sides fell away to reveal another enormous, mysterious device--larger than the last, towering over me by a good two meters at its highest point. It reminded me of something I'd seen before, at a distance, but completely outsized. Is it an engine? No, that wasn't right, though it had some aerodynamic sweep to it.
Took me a few moments to figure out it was a weapon. Laser cannon, missile delivery, I didn't know, but whatever it was, it was militant. And from the size of this thing--it wasn't meant for any drone.
There are weapons here, and they're having us assemble them. No. They were having me assemble them. Beatriz hadn't set foot in here at all. Maybe this was the kind of shit that Gregory Valenzuela couldn't adapt to, and I wasn't down with it either. In the Zone, I had been great at crafting new gear out of parts I scavenged, so a picture of why they needed me was starting to form.
This time, I didn't ask Nadim about what I found. I just sealed up the device, rolled it back into place, and checked the task off on my list. I'd find out what this was about. Nadim wasn't the one with the answers. I wasn't sure who was; maybe I was going to have to beat it out of Marko or Chao-Xing. But someone, somewhere was going to tell the truth.
Because I wasn't going to put thing A into slot B until someone told me why Nadim needed to be armed.
As I finished up, a loud, shrieking signal rang through the whole ship. It reminded me of the lockdown warning that pealed through the Zone when the cops stormed in to arrest someone really dangerous. Shit. Maybe by refusing that job, I'd set off something.
"Nadim! What's happening?" I ran out of the assembly room, only to pause in the hallway because there were no guiding lights to tell me where to go. "Nadim?"
"The Elder approaches." Nadim's tone came across oddly flat, devoid of nuance. He cleared the ship's wall and showed me the dizzying expanse of space. I might never get used to the wonder of having the solar system appear in an instant, floating right before my eyes. Rather than the impressive view, however, Nadim meant for me to focus on a rapidly closing Leviathan.
"Typhon," he said.
Beatriz burst out of another room, busy dragging her thick hair back and securing it with an elastic tie to keep it out of her face. She swore in Portuguese when she realized she was heading straight for the now-transparent wall. When she grabbed at me for balance, I let her.
"What's happening?" she asked.
The alarm died away, leaving a heavy silence.
I pointed. Typhon was already a pale spot like a very bright star, and he got closer every second. Beatriz's fingers tightened on my arm as the Leviathan swept in, growing in immensity with every breath until it filled the view and slowed to a drift. Elder Typhon. The other ship had pale, broad scars like the rake of giant fingernails, all down the side that faced us. I saw other, deeper scars, too--blackened spots. Gouges. Typhon was old.
He had to be twice Nadim's size. And he had . . . plating, bolted over what I assumed were vulnerable spots. Dark metallic flexible plates that covered parts of his body. Armor? You saw the holo of Nadim getting hit by meteorites. Probably meant to guard against that. I wondered when Nadim would get those upgrades. Clearly, those were manufactured.
We were supposed to rendezvous near Earth after the first week, but--
Beatriz beat me to the punch. "They've come for us early. What does that mean?"
Nadim hesitated a fraction too long. "Nothing good."
Interlude: Nadim
He blocks the stars so I can no longer hear their song and casts me in cold shadow. His mind is vast, infinitely colder than the lack of suns, and I try to twist away, find the light again.
He is faster. Stop, he tells me, in booming shuddering waves that I know my Honors can feel but not understand. It hurts, these frequencies. He intends it to hurt. This is the last of your ch
ances. You understand this.
I gather strength, though it is difficult, and reply, I understand.
Fail, as you have failed before, and you go into the wild. Alone.
Fear washes through me in a gray wave. Alone. I dread emptiness, running cold and desperate in the silences. Never hearing my name again in a song. Failure means exile, means a life of crippled solitary travel in the wastes. Others will avoid me. No Honors. No future. No great Journey. I will hear the songs, but they will never hear mine.
I will be cast out, and I feel the hard icy satisfaction in Typhon at the thought. Weak, he flings at me. You are disorderly. Prove yourself.
Prove yourself now.
CHAPTER NINE
Breaking Ranks
TYPHON DIDN'T SPEAK. At least, he didn't speak to us, though what he said to Nadim could have been private; a strange cold rumbled through our Leviathan that left me badly unsettled. Nadim seemed very still and quiet, none of the joy and enthusiasm I'd felt when we first came aboard. It reminded me of standing at attention at the wilderness camp, not daring to show weakness because weakness just meant vulnerability. Predators liked that. They smelled it.
That's your experience, I told myself. Not Nadim's.
But it felt the same.
Nadim finally said, "A shuttle is coming. Typhon's Honors will inspect your progress."
Beatriz and I looked at each other. She raised her fine, perfect eyebrows. I raised my pierced one in response.
"Nobody said there'd be a final exam," I said. "I hate tests."
I waited for Nadim to reassure me, but he didn't. I wanted to comfort him, which was stupid as hell because they were coming to evaluate me too.
Screw it. I wasn't about to salute. I pictured all the judges I'd been in front of, usually by remote-view sentencing. Severe old farts who barely even looked at me before pronouncing my sentence and sending me off to another rehabbing opportunity.
Somehow, I doubted there were a lot of Camp Kunas out here in the black.
Something echoed through Nadim's skin--a feeling, a shiver really, and then a quick pulse of shock mixed with anxiety. I didn't know why he felt that way as he said, "Typhon's Honors are here."
I exchanged another look with Beatriz, who still stood in a sort of awkward parade rest by the data console. I made myself comfortable on the couch, stretched out as lazily as I could with my hands behind my head.
A stern voice said, "I told you she had no respect. Just look at her."
Zhang Chao-Xing stood in the arched doorway with Marko Dunajski. But they didn't look the same. The familiar blue Honors uniform had been replaced by bloodred with black trim, lending them a foreboding air. There were no other details, no buttons or brightness, just sharp lines and ominous shades.
But it wasn't the clothing that made the difference. It was their eyes.
Marko's eyes . . . I'd seen kindness in them, humor and concern. Now his eyes were simply black, with pupil, iris, and sclera occluded. Chao-Xing's were the same. My gut impulse was to bail; there was nothing human in the void gazing back at me. But I'd faced enough walking sharks to know it was fatal to show fear.
"Marko," I said. "Hey. You're early."
He snapped, "Get up. Now."
I sat upright. Before I could think better of it, I blurted, "What happened to you?"
His unnerving eyes just stared at me, through me. Like people on the streets in the Zone, I thought. High as satellites. Except this didn't feel like chem.
"Stand to attention!" Marko ordered.
Bea and I both made a good attempt. A chill bit my skin, and for a moment I was back at that damn camp, trying not to show my fear. In less than a week, Typhon had transformed Nadim's former Honors from human beings into automatons. Per various science fiction holos, I should check them over for neural implants or possibly a parasite that might be controlling the host. I'd never thought of those scary vids as instructional before.
"We will review your records." Chao-Xing stepped to the console and began calling up data with efficient, mechanical, nearly inhuman precision. Even her body language seemed totally different. This was way off. They'd told us we had a week to complete our second training phase, so why were they changing the timetable? Her dead eyes kept me from demanding answers.
Funny thing. Chao-Xing was processing our info, but Marko was the one who stepped closer to me and said, "Honor Cole. You are dismissed."
"Wait a second! What did I do wrong? Come on, I checked off all your damn boxes, didn't I?"
You didn't finish the work, a little voice said.
They can't fail me, they don't know that.
Before all this had started, before Derry's betrayal, I might have felt a thrill at the idea of running wild back to the Zone. Now that I had some distance, that old relationship didn't seem so much fated as sad. The Zone's desperate freedom paled against the backdrop of red giants and white dwarves, of black holes, pulsars, and binary stars.
"You are dismissed because you passed," Marko said, and for a second there was a flicker of . . . something . . . in his expression. A ghost of personality. "Leave, Zara. We're done with you."
To cover the enervating rush of relief, I crossed my arms and glared. It was tough, but I managed. "Yeah? Well, maybe I'm not done. I'll wait."
Beside me, Bea stepped closer, pressing her arm against mine. Already she felt like somebody I needed to protect. As he registered our closeness, Marko's aspect warmed further . . . and then that hint of the old Marko melted like ice in an oven as his dead stare locked on to Bea. Who flinched, but held her ground. She raised her chin a bit, in fact.
Silence, as Chao-Xing scanned Bea's records. Nadim kept quiet, though I could feel his anxiety running through me like a raw, twitching current. There was nothing he could do. If you don't want anything, they can't take it away, I considered telling him; it was wisdom I'd earned in a lot of hard places. But I was a hypocrite, because I couldn't stop wanting, either.
The silence stretched an unbearably long time, with Nadim's distress coiling inside me. It seemed like her review took twice as long as mine.
Marko finally said, "Honor Beatriz Teixeira. Your performance is unacceptable. You will be dismissed and returned to Earth. A replacement will be selected."
She let out a breath that was as clear as a cry. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide, and I braced her as she staggered. That expression . . . like a child watching her house burn. Or more accurately, her future.
But she rallied. "If you'll just tell me where I need to improve, I will make every effort--"
"Waste of time," Chao-Xing cut in. "Not fast enough. Not bright enough. Unmotivated."
I found that hard to believe. What the hell were they testing for? Bea had aced the modules that gave me the most trouble; she'd been able to plot courses in record time, when I'd labored over that for half a day before narrowing in on it. She had a grasp of math that I never would. Sure, she'd been nervous at first, but she'd adapted just fine.
"That's some bullshit," I said. "Bea's as clever as they come. And Nadim likes her. Don't you?"
"Yes," he answered. I sensed how much it cost for him to say it. "I like Beatriz very much. I see no evidence she is unfit."
"I didn't ask for your input." Chao-Xing appeared to listen to something I couldn't hear. Her voice changed too, like I was hearing her through electronic distortion . . . or like Elder Typhon was using her vocal cords. "Nadim has no discipline. He is weak and emotional. Therefore, his preferences are insignificant. Honor Teixeira, you are officially--"
"Wait."
That wasn't me or Nadim. It was Marko, and it shocked Chao-Xing enough to cock her head. It was the most human gesture I'd seen from her since she'd stepped in the room.
"What?" she demanded.
"Wait," he repeated, and again, I saw the old Marko in there, fighting to make himself heard. "We came early. A full two days early."
"And?"
"Give her another solar day to finish her tra
ining," he said. "She isn't far off. If we had kept the schedule, she might have passed."
Chao-Xing was suddenly her old self again too; I recognized that annoyed glare, even with the weird eyes. "Honor Cole didn't need such coddling."
"But I did," Marko said. "And Typhon chose me for the Journey. So dismissing her abilities out of hand might be a mistake."
They both went silent, and I had the eerie feeling that there was a conversation I couldn't hear going on. I wondered if Nadim could hear it. Or if it was put into words at all.
Finally, Chao-Xing turned to Beatriz and said, "You have one more day." She reached for an H2 sitting on a nearby table--next to a coffee cup I'd forgotten to clear away--and tapped it. It filled with a frighteningly long list, and she thrust it to Beatriz. "Begin."
Bea took it and glanced at me. I'd never forget that look--terrified, fragile, determined all at the same time. She nodded at me. "I won't let you down," she said, and I felt she was saying it to me and Nadim, not to Typhon and his Honors.
Marko and Chao-Xing began to walk in lockstep back toward the door they'd entered from.
"Wait!" I said. Chao-Xing didn't. Marko did, but it seemed like he was resisting some unseen undertow. "Your eyes. What happened--"
"It's nothing for you to worry about," Marko told me. "For the Journey, Honors are matched to our Leviathan in a different way. It doesn't hurt."
"But it does take away your free will. You can't tell me that's fine. What did Typhon do to you?"
He looked away, eyes scanning as if he was reading invisible text. "I'm not obligated to provide information simply because you ask for it."
"You didn't used to be such an asshole," I muttered.
"Word of advice, Zara: don't try to help Beatriz. We'll know."
His lack of emotion troubled me. I missed the old Marko. This grim stranger in his violently red uniform, with too-black eyes . . . I wouldn't have recognized him. Or liked him.
"Marko. Are you okay? Really?"
His head tilted just a fraction to one side, and a corner of his mouth curled into what was almost a lopsided smile. "If I'm not, what can you do about it?"
He was out the door, following Chao-Xing, before I could frame a response.
"What happened to them?" No answer. "Nadim?"
His eventual reply scared the crap out of me. "I don't know."