Chapter Eleven

Sejal’s Journal

Day 4, Month 11, Common Year 987

My old journal got left behind when we left Rust, so I’m starting a new one on the ship. Everyone’s pretty upset around here, so I’m staying out of the way. That means I pretty much stay in my room and mess around on the computer like I’m doing now.

The ship’s called the Post Script and it’s pretty cool, though Kendi says it’s a piece of junk even when they have gravity. Being weightless made me sick as a dog for an entire day. It feels like you’re falling, but when you look around, the walls aren’t moving and you never hit anything. A tiny push sends you spinning, but it seems like you’re holding still while the ship spins around you.

At least I didn’t throw up like Fen did. He barfed in his helmet, and it floated around his head like chunky fog. It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t been so disgusting. Gretchen—she’s big and blond and kind of pretty and she seems kind of familiar—turned on some kind of vacuum that sucked most of it away, but bits and pieces still clumped in his hair. He couldn’t take his helmet off to clean up, either. No atmosphere.

Anyway. Kendi took me to a room and set me up. He told me to stay in it until all the repairs were made. I do tricks in zero-gee and hunt through the computer database for stuff to read. We got atmosphere back a few hours after Harenn made basic repairs, though Fen still couldn’t shower. No gravity. As for me, between monkeying around with zero-gee and the computer, I haven’t gotten bored yet. I play the flute a lot, too. I can sit cross-legged in the air upside-down and play. And the room I’m in is a lot nicer than my room back ho—back on Rust.

I’m trying not to think of Rust as home. I don’t live there anymore. It’s weird. For years all I could think of was getting off Rust. But now I’m not so sure. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Kendi says we’re going to a monastery on Bellerophon, which is in the Independence Confederation. They’ll train me how to use my Silence.

I’m Silent.

I said that aloud while I was typing it.

I’m Silent.

Those words make me feel so free! I hadn’t realized just how scared the voices and dreams made me until Kendi touched me in the restaurant and jolted me all the way down to my feet and told me I was Silent. The voices and the vivid dreams are all normal, he says. I’m normal! It makes me feel like I could fly, even without zero gravity.

I like Kendi. And not just because he saved my ass, what? Two times? Three? He listens to me, believes me. I don’t know about Ara, though. Mother Ara, I guess I’m supposed to call her. I mean, she was stalking me? And she has this way of looking at me, like she’s sizing me up. It kind of reminds me of the look some jobbers get, jobbers that make me want to run far and fast because they want something I don’t want to give them. Other times she seems nice and caring. When she’s like that, she reminds me of Mom.

I don’t know what to think of Mom. She dumped a lot of stuff on me just before we left, and there’s no way to talk to her about it. I want to know more. I mean, I have two brothers out there somewhere? And a sister who was kidnapped? And then there’s my dad. I mean, Mom always said he was “gone” whenever I asked, and I just kind of assumed she meant he was dead. But now I hear he (and my sister!) just disappeared one day. I’ve got a whole family out there somewhere, but now I’m leaving Rust, and I’ll never find out any more about them. How could Mom not tell me this stuff? And who the hell does she think she is getting mad when that bitch Harenn told her I was tricking? Like Mom has any right to be angry after she sold her own kids!

Sometimes I get so mad I want to pound something, but I’m not going to ruin anything for myself on the Post Script by flapping off. I’m even polite to that bitch Harenn.

I hope Mom found the money okay. I’m worried about her.

Anyway. The hull’s almost fixed. It broke open when we were running away from the Unity. I thought we were dead for sure, and I still get nightmares about it. One of the guys who came to get me when Kendi and I were at the spaceport—Brother Pitr was his name—died making sure we’d get away. I didn’t even know him, barely talked to him, but he gave up his life for mine. Mother Ara held a service for him and jettisoned the body into space. Then everyone who was Silent—Mother Ara, Kendi, Sister Gretchen, and Sister Trish—went into the Dream. Kendi told me later that they hooked up with a whole bunch of other Silent and had another service. Then they all went back to work repairing the ship.

Anway. Like I said, the ship’s almost completely repaired, and that’s good news. A red-headed guy named Ben helped get main power restored so they could turn the gravity back on. I felt heavy at first, but now everything feels normal again. Fen’s a lot happier, anyway.

I remember where I’ve seen Gretchen—Sister Gretchen—before. She bumped into me when I was getting out of a jobber’s car. Kendi said she planted a bug so they could follow me easier. When I got mad, he said they did it because they wanted to be able to keep an eye on me in case something bad happened. I still don’t know. I can’t get pissed at everybody. Can I? This whole situation is screwed up.

Anyway. I still like Kendi, I guess. He treats me like a younger brother. It’s kind of neat. He sits next to me at meals and cracks jokes that almost make me wet my pants from laughing so hard. And he knows what it’s like to be scared about being Silent.

He told me about the Children of Irfan, who they are and where they came from. Now I’m going to be one of them. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. And I’m normal!