Island of the Sun

  Faint shouting and the sound of engines came from outside, and Eleanor turned to her mom. “The gush?”

  “Yes,” her mom said. “It’s now or never.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  AS ELEANOR ENTERED THE WORKROOM, BETTY STOOD over her desk. While the others pulled on their masks and prepared to venture out into the frenzied town, she shoved papers and files and other things into a backpack. The pack bulged, and when it didn’t seem it had room for anything else, Betty stopped, looked around her, and let out a long, pained sigh.

  “Damn,” she said. “Damn Global Energy Trust.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said.

  “Not as sorry as I am,” Betty said, and shook her head. “Ten years of my life crammed in here.”

  “Long time,” Luke said.

  “Living is changing,” Betty said.

  Eleanor’s mom stood near the hatch. “We’d better go now. If you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready,” Betty said.

  “What is all that you took?” Dr. Powers asked.

  Betty slung the pack up onto her back. “Call it insurance.” Eleanor didn’t know what she meant by that, but Betty pulled on her mask then, which seemed to say it was the only explanation they would get. Then she stepped toward the hatch. “Follow me close and try not to get separated. Stay to the side of the roads so you don’t get hit.”

  “Hit?” Finn asked.

  Betty opened the hatch, and they followed her through the air lock and out into the street just as a snowmobile shot past, engine whining, blowing gasoline exhaust, chewing white. Other vehicles charged up the street after it—more snowmobiles, and even enclosed, tanklike transports—all of them traveling in the same direction toward Betty’s false oil find.

  “You sure got ’em up and moving!” Luke shouted.

  “Cashed in every last cent of reputation I’d saved!” Betty replied.

  Eleanor’s mask warmed the freezing air up before it could stab her lungs, and the sound of each breath through its subtle machinery echoed in her ears.

  “Now!” Betty said. “This way!”

  She dove across the street through a break in the traffic, then down the alleyway through which they’d come earlier that night. They all followed after her, and Eleanor felt relief that she hadn’t seen the G.E.T. agents anywhere yet. Above them, the dawn sky was nearly as bright as the stars, but they could still be seen, less like diamonds and more like white lint on a pale-blue blanket.

  Eleanor and the others crossed several more busy streets as the town emptied itself, until they reached the landing field and the hangar where Luke had left Consuelo. It was a very large building, a fortress, among several in a line of defense.

  Betty pulled a small black pistol out of one of her coat pockets. “What’s the play here?”

  “Whoa!” Eleanor’s mom said. “To begin with, we are not shooting anyone! They’re calling us terrorists, and we are not going to prove them right.”

  “The G.E.T. agents in that hangar will have guns,” Betty said.

  “And Sam,” Dr. Powers said, “don’t forget Skinner was prepared to shoot you.”

  “I don’t believe he actually would have,” Eleanor’s mom said. “And even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean—”

  “What about Amarok?” Dr. Powers said. “His people defended their village with—”

  “You know I didn’t agree with that, either!” Eleanor’s mom said.

  “However we do it,” Luke said, “this is what has to happen. We have to get in there, and while I start up Consuelo, somebody’s gotta get those hangar doors open. Then we have to get everyone on board, taxi to the runway, and take off. You think those agents are gonna just stand around and give us time to do that? We don’t even know for sure how many are in there.”

  “I’ll check,” Finn said.

  “No, son, don’t—” Dr. Powers said, but Finn had already scurried away.

  He made it across the street quickly and then down the side of the hangar to a small window. The echo of Eleanor’s breathing ceased in her ears as she watched and waited. Finn had to stand up on his toes to peer into the hangar, and he lingered there for what seemed to Eleanor a dangerous amount of time before dropping to his heels and hurrying back to them.

  “There are only two that I can see,” he said.

  “We could just try taking ’em without shooting them,” Julian said. “There’s two of them and seven of us.”

  “Still too risky,” Dr. Powers said. “There’re probably more agents nearby.”

  What they really needed was a way to get the agents out of the hangar for a little while. “What if we give them their own gush?” Eleanor said.

  “What do you mean?” Luke asked.

  “I mean, what if Betty goes in there and pretends to rat us out?” Eleanor said. “She can say we came to her and she let us stay at her place, and that’s where we are. Right now. They’ll have to leave to check it out, won’t they?”

  Silence greeted her plan as the adults looked at one another.

  “That’s actually not a bad idea,” Luke said. “Can you pull it off, Betty?”

  “I think I could manage it.” Betty removed her backpack and handed it to Luke. “Be ready to move.”

  “We will,” Eleanor’s mom said.

  Betty nodded once and marched toward the hangar’s air lock. After she’d gone inside, Luke said, “Betty can sell it. She’s an excellent liar.”

  Eleanor wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment, but in this case, she hoped Luke was right. When several minutes passed without Betty’s return, worry set in more deeply. They had no other plan if Betty somehow got caught.

  “Something’s not right,” Dr. Powers finally said.

  “Betty can sell it,” Luke repeated, but he sounded unsure.

  Another minute later, the hatch opened, and a G.E.T. agent came out into the street.

  “Get down!” Eleanor’s mom whispered, and they all ducked back into the shadows of the alley.

  The agent looked up and down the street and went back inside.

  “This isn’t looking good,” Julian said.

  “Hang on,” Luke said. “Just wait.”

  More time passed, and the agent came back outside, but this time, he trotted across the street and departed in the direction of Betty’s place. No one else emerged from the hangar.

  “Looks like they’re not taking any chances,” Dr. Powers said. “One goes to check it out while the other stays with Betty?”

  “What now?” Finn asked.

  “I’m going in there,” Luke said.

  Eleanor’s mom shook her head. “But you—”

  “She wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me. She might have a gun to her head in there.”

  “All the more reason to proceed with caution,” said Dr. Powers.

  “Betty’s got thirty minutes until that agent gets back.” Luke checked something on his belt. “Less if he radios from Betty’s place. What happens to her when they realize she was lying?”

  No one answered him.

  “Screw this,” he said. “I’m going in.” He left the alley and ran toward the air lock.

  “Damn it,” Eleanor’s mom said. “Simon?”

  “I’ll go,” Dr. Powers said, and he ran after Luke.

  “Then I’m going, too,” Julian said, and raced after his dad, followed by Finn, who left without a word.

  “Wait!” Eleanor’s mom called after them, but they ignored her, and she and Eleanor were left alone in the alley. It didn’t take long for Eleanor to decide she’d rather stick with the others, and her mom seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Stay with me,” she said with a huff.

  They hurried across the street and into the air lock, where Eleanor found the others had stopped and gathered in front of the inner hatch.

  “This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” Luke whispered.

  “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have charged ahead,” Elea
nor’s mom whispered back.

  “If I remember correctly,” said Dr. Powers, “there was a stack of crates just inside the hatch.”

  “Right,” Luke said. “So we slip inside and head for cover there. Just me and Professor Powers here.”

  Dr. Powers nodded, and Luke grasped the handle to the hatch. He turned it slowly, gently, to avoid making noise, wincing in anticipation. When it gave a loud thunk, everyone in the air lock went rigid.

  “That you, Fournier?” Eleanor heard Betty call from inside. “All clear. Get yourself in here.”

  Luke sighed and threw the hatch open. Eleanor and the others filed after him out of the air lock and into the hangar. They found Betty aiming her gun at the G.E.T. agent’s back, while he knelt on the ground in front of her with his hands behind his head.

  “Where’ve you been?” Betty asked. “I need you to restrain this gentleman’s hands.”

  Luke rushed to her side. “You got it.”

  “He’s got handcuffs on his belt you can use,” Betty said. “Though I have no idea what a G.E.T. agent is doing with cuffs.”

  “I have an idea,” Eleanor said. “But you’d call it a conspiracy theory.”

  Betty smirked. Eleanor noticed her mom looked furious, hands balled into fists at her side, staring straight ahead as Luke pulled the G.E.T. agent’s arms down and bound them behind the man’s back with the metallic zip of the handcuffs. Once the agent was safely restrained, Eleanor relaxed a bit, and it seemed the others did, too. Her mom, on the other hand, turned on Betty and shouted.

  “What do you think you’re doing? We decided no guns!”

  “Relax—it’s not even loaded,” Betty said, tucking the weapon back into her coat, at which the G.E.T. agent looked up. “These goons didn’t trust me, obviously, so when the other guy left, I had to improvise—”

  “I don’t care!” Eleanor’s mom shifted her stance to put her weight on her other foot. “I still don’t—”

  “We don’t have time for this.” Luke pushed by her and headed for his plane. “Get those hangar doors open! Control panel’s on the left.”

  “Right.” Dr. Powers marched in the direction Luke had indicated, toward a terminal beside the entrance to the hangar.

  “Simon!” Eleanor’s mom said. “Are you going to allow—”

  “Not now, Sam,” Dr. Powers said without looking back. “We’ll deal with it in the air.”

  Eleanor did not like seeing this tension between the adults, the ones who were supposed to have all the answers and know how to take care of her and Finn and Julian. The truth was that no one had the answers, and that unsettled her and reminded her of how alone she’d felt when her mom had first gone missing.

  “You should turn yourselves in,” the G.E.T. agent said. “This is only going to make things worse for you. Where do you think you can run? Dr. Watkins will—”

  “Shut up,” Betty said.

  “You’re terrorists,” the agent said. “Everyone will be hunting you.”

  “Not when they find out what we discovered,” Eleanor said.

  “And what’s that?” the agent asked.

  “The Concentrator,” said Eleanor. “The rogue planet.”

  The agent blinked and shook his head. “What?”

  Eleanor folded her arms. “You know. The alien device under the ice.”

  He narrowed his eyes and frowned in what seemed to be genuine confusion.

  Eleanor’s mom inhaled and then said to her in a low and even tone, “Sweetie, let’s get you and the boys on board. Finn, Julian?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Julian said.

  Her mom walked them around the battered plane toward the stairway. Consuelo was obviously not built for commercial travel. She was a cargo plane, and her gray metal skin bore the pockmarks of her many Arctic runs through scouring polar storms of ice and hail. Eleanor followed her mom up the stairs into the passenger cabin with its rows of seats, where she and Finn and Julian took places scattered from one another. Up the aisle, through a narrow hatch, Eleanor glimpsed Luke in the cockpit, swearing at the plane’s controls. All the electronics looked dead and lightless.

  “Is there a problem?” Eleanor’s mom asked.

  “They’ve done something to her,” Luke said. He left the cockpit and stalked down the aisle toward the exit. “I’ll find it.”

  Eleanor’s mom watched him pass. “We don’t have a lot of time, Luke. That other agent will be back in—”

  “I know!” Luke shouted. “I said I’ll find it!” He ducked out of the plane and stomped down the stairway.

  Eleanor’s mom bit one side of her lower lip for a moment. “You kids wait here,” she said, and then she also left the plane.

  When they were alone, Finn glanced at Julian and Eleanor. “Well, this doesn’t look good.”

  “Luke will figure it out,” Eleanor said.

  “You sure about that?” Julian asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Eleanor said, trying very hard to feel that way. Through the window near her seat, she saw Betty standing over the bound G.E.T. agent and Dr. Powers standing at the control panel. A moment later, a vertical seam opened in the middle of the hangar’s side with a distant squeal of metal, admitting a rush of light and a few wind-borne vortices of snow along the ground. When the doors were completely open, Dr. Powers stepped away from the control panel and pulled his mask on. Betty did the same, and then she and Dr. Powers helped get the G.E.T. agent’s mask over his head. Open to the elements, the hangar would be dangerously cold within moments. With the door open, the plane’s cabin would, too.

  “How long has it been since that other guy left?” Julian asked.

  “Fifteen minutes?” Finn said. “Maybe longer?”

  “So we’ve got ten minutes, tops,” Julian said. He got up and pulled his mask out of a pocket in his polar suit. “I’m going to go see if I can help Luke.”

  Eleanor liked that idea better than sitting and doing nothing. “Me too.”

  Finn nodded and rose from his seat, and the three of them pulled on their masks before exiting the plane.

  They found Luke and Eleanor’s mom up by the nose. Luke stood on a stepladder beneath an open panel, reaching into Consuelo and fiddling with some wires.

  “Can you fix it?” Eleanor’s mom said.

  “Just give me a minute.” Luke grunted. “Fortunately for us, sabotage wasn’t those agents’ specialty.”

  Eleanor’s mom turned toward Eleanor as she and the others approached. “Sweetie, I told you to wait on the plane.”

  “We wanted to help,” Eleanor said.

  “Not much you can do,” Luke said.

  “Boys!” Dr. Powers called. “Get back on board!”

  “We’re fine, Dad!” Finn said.

  “I know you’re fine.” Dr. Powers glanced down at the G.E.T. agent and then strode toward his sons, pointing toward the plane. “But I still want you back on board!”

  “Dad, relax,” Finn said. “We—”

  “Hey!” Betty shouted.

  Eleanor looked in her direction. The G.E.T. agent had seized the moment of distraction and now bolted headlong toward the open hangar doors, hands still cuffed behind his back.

  Dr. Powers launched after him and shouted, “Stop!” while closing some of the distance quickly, but not all of it. As he neared the agent, Dr. Powers leaped forward, hands outstretched, to tackle him, but he only grazed the agent’s ankles and landed in a hard roll on the ground. The agent passed through the doors and got away.

  Finn and Julian ran to their father and helped him up. “Should—should I go after him?” Dr. Powers asked, rubbing his elbow as he returned to Eleanor, her mother, and Betty.

  “Won’t matter either way if we can’t get this thing off the ground!” Luke shouted from the nose of the plane, where he continued to work.

  “Right,” Dr. Powers said.

  “Just get everyone on the plane. I’ve almost got it.”

  They moved as a group toward the stairway and
ascended in single file until they were all inside the passenger cabin. They took their seats, Eleanor and her mom next to each other in the front row, Betty across the aisle from them. Julian and Dr. Powers sat behind her, while Finn sat alone in the row behind Eleanor. A few moments later, Luke came in and slammed the door behind him, then moved quickly through the cabin toward the cockpit.

  “Strap in,” he said as he passed Eleanor. “We’re not out of the blizzard yet.”

  Eleanor buckled herself in and leaned into the aisle to watch as Luke took his pilot’s seat, removed his mask, and put on his headphones, almost wishing she were sitting up there with him as she’d done before. Consuelo’s console lit up at his touch, more brightly than Eleanor remembered it, as if the plane were somehow eager to get away. Her engines rumbled to life.

  “We’re in business,” Luke shouted over his shoulder. “Here we go.”

  Eleanor’s mother took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Eleanor squeezed hers back as Consuelo lurched forward. The whine of the engines pitched higher in the cabin, and the plane rolled forward, out of the hangar, into the spreading dawn. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the stars had fully retreated.

  “I’m not gonna radio the tower,” Luke said. “They wouldn’t give us permission, anyway. Let’s just hope nobody’s trying to land as we’re trying to take off.”

  Fairbanks slid past the windows, even more quiet and empty now with the oil gush on, as the plane rolled into position on the runway. Betty leaned close to the glass, and Eleanor wondered what she must be thinking and feeling, leaving the only home she’d known all these years. It didn’t seem likely she would ever be able to return after what she’d done to help them.

  “Here we go,” Luke said, and the plane heaved forward, pulling Eleanor deep into her seat.

  They hadn’t gone far when Luke shouted, “Blast! It’s the other one!”

  “What?” Eleanor’s mom shouted back.

  “The other G.E.T. agent!” Luke said. “He’s on the runway!”

  CHAPTER

  4

  ELEANOR LEANED INTO THE AISLE AGAIN AND COULD JUST see through the windows of the cockpit that out on the runway, in the distance, was a snowmobile.