[Asher]
“She’s from Earth?” I repeat Samuai’s statement to make sure I heard him correctly. His once familiar voice now stretches the vowels in a way similar to the girl’s in the doorway.
A stranger.
I don’t know whether to stare at the living ghost of the boy I’d given up for dead or the girl he’s brought back from the grave with him.
Earth? It’s impossible…unless the government sent another ship after the Pelican.
“Yes.” He stands awkwardly between us. “It’s hard to explain.” He looks past me toward the Control Room where people are trying to understand the ships’ systems now that there are no Nauts to run things. “What happened here?”
“Rebellion. Revolution. More importantly,” I peer into the darkness behind the girl where there should only be engines to run the ship. “Where’s my little brother?”
Samuai’s clasped hands grip each other so tight the knuckles whiten but he doesn’t answer.
“Where’s Zed?”
The girl by the door looks from me to Samuai. “The boy in the pond?”
I know a pond is a small pool of water from history lessons but we have nothing like that here. Zed can’t swim. What would he be doing in a pond? “Samuai?”
His name comes out strangled. The hope that flared within me at the sight of him fades.
There’s a screech behind me. I don’t turn to see Lady running. She passes me with her elbows flapping with joy. Then she takes her boy in a tearful embrace. “My baby,” she croons over and over. She touches his face, his arms, and his legs like she wants to make sure he’s not an apparition.
Red blooms in the tips of Samuai’s ears but he suffers the maternal affection, holding his mother close for a minute and calming her tears. “Don’t cry, Mother.”
Her sobs only increase. “I never gave up hope.”
I feel Davyd stop behind me. As usual my whole body is attuned to his presence.
“The prodigal son returns,” he murmurs for my ears only.
And then my mother’s with us. No flapping run like Lady, but an energized stride across the wooden floors. “Zed?” The hope in her voice hurts my heart.
Tears I don’t want to cry burn my eyes. I blink hard to get myself under control. Surely Samuai would have told us good news by now. I take Mother’s trembling hand in mine.
“Samuai was about to tell us.”
Everyone looks at the boy we believed was dead. His gaze skims me and Mother and then lands somewhere on the floor.
“He didn’t make it.”
Mother convulses silently at my side. My strong Mother sways and it’s only through clinging to my hand that she stays on her feet.
“What the hell does that mean?” I clench my free hand into a fist to prevent closing the distance between us and shaking him by the shoulders. Davyd’s hand brushes the small of my back. Supporting, taunting. I don’t know anymore.
And I definitely don’t know this orange-haired boy Samuai’s become.
The girl, Megs, moves to his side in silent support. Her body angles to his, showing they’re close. Their unspoken communication confirms it. The hot shaft of jealousy through my chest takes me breath. It’s crazy I’ve grieved for Samuai. I should have let him go. Hours ago I enjoyed kissing his brother.
The room spins. I close my eyes.
When I open them, Samuai’s head is up and he’s looking at me with his warm brown eyes awash with tears and pain. “I’m so sorry. Maston decided he’d seen too much.”
“Maston?” Mother’s question is raw and filled with anger. She’s shaking with it.
Samuai nods. “Zed followed us. There was—” he hesitates. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Sure.” Davyd’s word is no more than a whisper but it’s clear to me.
Samuai might have changed, but he liked Zed, I’m sure he did, and the pain in his eyes is real. “What did he see?”
“The truth.” Samuai hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Beyond the machines is another door.”
“Where does it lead?” Davyd speaks for all to hear.
He moves a little closer behind me and when I glance up to look at him his gray gaze is locked with his brother’s. There’s a challenge and something else I can’t read.
Samuai looks away first.
“To a mountain.” He pauses then adds, “This ship never went in space.”
Hot then cold. Goosebumps rise on my skin and my knees threaten to give way.
“I don’t believe you.” Mother speaks first. Four words filled with grief and all the anger of a lifetime of servitude.
We could have walked out at anytime. The new life we’ve been promised with a fresh start for humanity was a big trick. Everything we’ve lived with for three generations is a lie.
Launch it all to hell.
“No.”
“It’s true,” says the girl by Samuai’s side.
It fits with the pond, with the strange girl, with Samuai and Zed, and the Nauts disappearing off a ship in the middle of space. It’s why I couldn’t see the stars.
My brain can’t mesh everything and come up with something that makes sense. “But there’s a countdown.”
Samuai shrugs. “I don’t know what they planned for when it hits zero.”
“They?” Mother picks up on his words. “You know who did this to us.”
There’s movement behind Samuai and two men in green robes step through the engine room door. More strangers. One is stocky and dark-haired with a blockhead and a grim expression.
“You call them Nauts,” the man says. “We call them Company. Either way they’re the enemy.”
“Who are you?” I ask, because everyone else seems too shocked. I’m aware a crowd of Lifers has gathered in the Control Room. Whispers pass on the news about the ship to each new person who arrives.
I wonder whether the Fishies contained on the level below us know yet.
“My name’s Keane,” the man says. He gestures to the man at his side. “This is Toby. We are part of a rebellion on Earth against the powerful Company that’s kept you imprisoned here for their own ends. Samuai came to us with no memory of you, or this place. He risked his life to find the answers and then again to warn you.”
“Hero,” Davyd says under his breath.
“Warn us?” I say loudly to drown out the doubts raised by Davyd’s sarcasm. “We’ve been safe here for generations.”
Samuai seems to consider. “The Company might know I’m here and they’re known to be ruthless when people go against their wishes.”
“They shot my brother in the back because he wore a green robe,” Megs adds with a tremor in her voice. “He’s just a kid.”
Like mine. My eyes meet the Earth girl’s. Despite her purple hair and strange clothes, I feel kinship between us. It disappears as she breaks eye contact and Samuai refuses to meet my gaze.
The gathered crowd of Lifers waits for a decision with a buzz in the air. Earth. Freedom. Walking around under the open sky is something we’ve all longed to do. But the ship’s our home and we’ve just won control of it.
I look to Mother to lead but she’s staring into the darkness behind Samuai as though Zed might still walk through the door. Lady’s attention is fixed on her son and she’s in a kind of happy trance. The Fishies are locked up and the Nauts are gone.
The weight of the next move settles on my shoulders.
Mine and Davyd’s. I never thought it would be him I’d turn to when I couldn’t be sure whether to trust Samuai. His gray eyes are unreadable.
“What do you think?” I ask in a low tone.
I don’t really expect help from him but asking will give me time to think. He was close to Maston and he didn’t exactly faint with shock when Samuai explained that the whole ship thing is a lie.
He smiles that slow, charming, irritating smile. “I think you’d look sexy in sunshine.”
Heat climbs my throat and I glance around at Samuai and Mother and the Lifers. Did his words carry? No one reacts, and I exhale a shaky sigh. His sheer audacity breaks the stress of the moment. I can think again.
I have no interest in being a dictator here. The rebellion was never about swapping one tyrannical ruler for another. “We’ll gather the whole ship and vote.”
While I spoke to Davyd, the second man, Toby, I think he was called, limped through the doors and returned. He clears his throat and the smile he offers is more like a grimace. “Whatever you do, you’d better make it fast. Company officers are waiting outside.”
“So you say.” Mother spits the words. Her eyes dart around the room, taking us all in but focusing on nobody. “They say all this but we don’t know they’re telling the truth.” Finally, she fixes on me. “Zed could be out there.”
The pain in Samuai’s eyes and voice when he spoke was real. I’m sure of it. “He’s gone, Mother.”
She shakes her head. Hard, jerky movements of denial. “No. They’re lying.” Tears well in her eyes. “They have to be lying.”
She grabs a club from the nearest Lifer. The metal pipe appears so dirty and big in her slender hand. Then she’s pushing past the men at the door and into the engine room at a run.
There’s a heartbeat of shocked silence.
“Mother, stop!” The cry rips from my throat but she’s beyond hearing me.
I’m first to follow through the machines and the dark twisting path. My feet slap on the floor, in time to my thumping heart and racing pulse. But she’s way too fast.
The door at the end bursts open, streaming light into the greasy dark space. She’s out into the morning sun before I reach the threshold. I glimpse a green meadow with Lady’s yellow flowers.
Samuai was telling the truth. But I can’t even take in the sky because Mother has my focus.
Twenty figures lift their weapons to shoot.
“Mother.”
I step after her but I’m dragged back by a fistful of dress. Davyd.
“Let me go,” I scream. I fight him. My nails rip at the bare skin of his arms and face but he’s too strong.
All I can do is watch.
“Fire,” the tallest man calls out.
As one they flick the switch on their weapons.
“No. No. No.” The emotion clogging my throat makes the cry a squeak.
For a second, nothing happens.
She’s closing the gap, screaming something that sounds like my brother’s name. Tears blur my eyes and my pulse is loud in my ears. They’re stepping back, looking at each other in confusion.
She reaches them with club swinging. Crunch. The pipe sends one slight figure flying with a spray of blood. Another swing. I feel the impact through my own body.
Maybe she’ll make it. That’s two down. But there are too many. Way too many. Then she’s surrounded. They fall on her like a swarm of ship moths at the light.
They drag the club from her hands but she fights on. Kicking out with bare blue-inked feet. Thud. One strike lands in a woman’s stomach and she doubles over.
But now they have her club. And I need to get to her. I have to help.
“Mother.”
But Davyd won’t let me go. His arms imprison me when I need to be free. “You dying won’t save anyone.”
My heels connect with his shins but it doesn’t make any difference. “Don’t you understand?” My voice scrapes from my throat. “I don’t care.”
I fall to my knees as they drag her to hers. My hands go to my head with the first blow of the club striking her skull. Then it’s on her jaw and I bone juts through the mangled flesh and pooling blood. Then she’s down among them, and their fists and feet are flying.
Acid burns my throat. I need to be sick, but I can’t look away.
“Mo-ther.”
Davyd drags me backwards despite me fighting to stay. The door closes. We’re in darkness again.