PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
PALLAS STATION
478.2.6.04
Since the scanners declared the rooms clean, we removed our helmets and gloves, though we left our suits on. After a heated debate over who should sleep on the sofas, Jordan and Zhen conceded, and I unrolled a thin mat in the computer room with the drones, which I insisted did not bother me.
Though exhaustion pulled at me like heavy gravity, and I could have done nothing to protect them, I needed to know the marines returned safely. Before they reached the control room, however, the monitor displaying the hangar showed the arrival of an unfamiliar shuttle. Five marshals, two Elders, and six drones descended on Pallas Station.
My mouth went dry, and I croaked, “Jordan. Zhen.”
Together, we watched Jackson escort the new arrivals from the hangar to the control room. When the Elders left the main group to study the AAVA drone, unnecessary fear coated my throat. The group left for other areas, and as Jackson led them in a circuitous route, I skimmed ahead to watch the hallways. My heart skipped a beat, and an exclamation escaped involuntarily. I could not warn the marines of the two roaches blocking the hall.
The three of us watched with bated breath as marines and marshals both fired on the behemoth insects. Jordan’s gloved hand tightened on my shoulder when the first cockroach fell but the second charged. Incendiary rounds flared brightly, and the second roach skidded to a smoking stop three meters from the Elders.
Oddly, Jordan laughed. “I should have known. There are always bugs that close to the algae tanks.”
“Then why did he not go another way?”
“To make a point,” Zhen said.
The newcomers returned directly to their shuttle after the encounter, and Jackson stood near the back of the hangar as they departed. The doors shut, and the marine beside Jackson pounded him on the back.
I fell limply against the chair. Somehow, two meters seemed even larger on a small screen. But, no one was injured. Neither Elder had lost control of the drones, so they would not die. We had seen neither James nor Daniel, and neither had the Elders.
“We’re safe enough in here for now,” Jordan said. “Get some sleep.”
She was correct. I did not even remove the suit before collapsing on the mat near the other four drones.
Despite the certainty that the Elders would return, and despite witnessing the confrontation with the roaches, I slept well that night, though drowsiness clogged my mind upon waking. Jordan pressed me into eating a packaged meal—overprocessed protein blocks were as unappealing as ever—and I returned to the monitors. Attlee remained in synchronous orbit, and no shuttle arrived from Thalassa.
I stared blankly at the monitors. “Do you believe Nate is safe? And Alec? Without Edwards—”
“Timmons will be fine, and Alec was recovering well enough when we left,” Jordan answered. “Between the Consortium on Attlee and ongoing repairs, Archimedes will need both of them on Thalassa, not on Pallas.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier,” Zhen said. She was correct. “So what do we do while we wait?”
I glanced at the drones to double-check that they remained silent and dark. “I believe I can utilize these computers to feed information to the AAVA drone, which will transmit it to Thalassa.”
“We knew that,” Zhen said.
“I can use that to insert James’s fictional past into the record.”
“That would be safer than only having an ID bracelet.” Jordan drummed her fingers. “What about Dan?”
“Inserting Daniel Parker’s story might be harder, but since James is taking Freddie’s place, his information would be here, in these databanks.”
Jordan bared her teeth in a tight smile. “Do it.”
I pulled out my datapad and Freddie’s datastick, and after discussing modifications with Jordan and Zhen, I spent the next several hours tucking James’s altered identity into the station’s databanks. When I reviewed the talkative Recorder’s falsified history, however, I stopped and tapped my thigh twice.
“Something bothering you?” Jordan asked.
“I am concerned about the talkative Recorder—Daniel.”
Jordan chuckled. “Talkative Recorder? That fits. So what’s the issue?”
“Why would his information be in Pallas Station’s databanks and nowhere else?”
“Point.” Her lips pursed. “What do you have so far?”
I explained, and Jordan, Zhen, and I wrestled with the problem for the next two hours. Zhen’s knitting needles whispered against each other as she continued the intricate variegated blue pattern, and Jordan’s knives took on razor-sharp edges.
“That’s it!” Jordan sheathed her knife with a snap. “That storm—what, four years ago? On Ceres. It pummeled the entire northern coastline, but Trinity North was hit hardest. They had to evacuate. Remember?”
Zhen’s gaze grew distant. “The one people took up collections for?”
“Exactly. The storm was so bad the Consortium lost a bunch of patrollers and a section of their Hall of Records when their storage facility flooded.”
Something about that storm . . .
The memory teased me, as if it held deeper significance than Jordan’s summary, but I gritted my teeth and shook off my uneasiness. What mattered now was not the cumulative effect of my difficulties with names and information. To dwell on a faulty memory only obscured the true task: keeping Daniel and James safe. Forcing my mind back onto the problem, I asked, “You are suggesting we falsify the records to indicate that he came from Ceres? His accent will be incorrect.”
“We’ll tell him to practice a few phrases. No one will think much of it if he learns some regional idioms.”
“After years away, it’s reasonable that speech patterns change,” Zhen said without looking up from her stitches.
I jolted to my feet and clapped my hand to my forehead. “Moons and stars! How did I forget?”
“Simmer down,” Jordan said. Once I sat again, she added, “What’s wrong?”
“The marines’ logs! They must be altered to verify that both Recorders were destroyed by roaches, and I cannot do so from here—”
“Easy enough,” Zhen said. “J, you and I will make sure they tweak a few facts.”
Her assertion did not allay all my concerns. “Additionally, Daniel and James need identification bracelets.” I glanced at the silent drone, the discomfort of anxiety seeping through my chest like steam from a damaged vent. “I cannot add the security layers and details until I have access to the Consortium network, but we must have the bracelets.”
“James can have mine—”
“He’ll have Freddie’s,” Zhen said. “Either man will look downright silly in yours.”
“Right.” Jordan added, “But not the gold and amber one, Zhen. The black one.”
“Two. I forgot.” Zhen muttered something about upper tier upbringings. “Your wrists are thinner, though.”
“It’s adjustable.” Venetia Jordan turned to me. “You say you need a drone to fix them, but the first step is his history. I think that the Ceres story will work.”
With their assistance, everything clicked into place. Daniel Geoffrey Parker had been born on Ceres in Trinity North. After studying political science and liberal arts at the local university, he accepted an assignment on Pallas as a technical writer on the strength of his exit exam for language. Guilt twinged when I relabeled some documents with his new name. I had not only erased Freddie’s past, but now I lessened Alicia Brisbane’s accomplishments.
He had left the station and joined the marines on a supply trip right before the first people had fallen ill. I slid the information in and sighed.
Zhen’s knitting slowed. “What’s the problem now? We figured it out.”
“There is none.” I could not find the words to explain that the inherent dishonesty of my actions weighed on my mind, or perhaps I did not want to call attention to it.
Her yarn resumed its steady dance from needle to needle. “You’re not a very good liar.”
“Which isn’t a bad thing,” Jordan said.
She would have been correct, if fewer lives depended on it.
I leaned back against the sofa cushions and stared at the clouds churning on the horizon, muting Ceres’ lavender skies and the ocean’s surface tossing beneath them. Craggy cliffs anchored the nearly one-sided coniferous trees that leaned away from the water, as if years of wind had taught them to protect their branches from storms by turning inland. In the upper right-hand corner, a solitary bird rode the winds, but the fine brushstrokes did not make it clear why the bird flew. I knew the painting by heart after twenty-three hours in the two rooms, from the obscuring clouds down to the hidden signature: F. Westruther.
There was no one to ask if the bird ever made it home.
The turbulence depicted in oils was too similar to the turmoil in my heart. I moved to the other sofa to avoid seeing it and settled at the opposite end from Jordan, who was flushed from doing calisthenics in the center of the room. Facing the other painting’s calmer images did not still my racing thoughts. Light sparkled on deep waters of blue and aubergine. The barest hint of Nivien, Ceres’ smaller, slightly uneven moon, showed above the horizon.
“I should have written a list,” I said to myself.
Zhen stuffed her knitting into her bag and gestured at the end table. “Paper’s right over there. Knock yourself out.”
“With paper?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. After perhaps seventeen seconds, she added, “Moons and stars, but waiting is hard work. I keep coming up with new things to worry about.”
“The Consortium might have taken Edwards, Zhen, but they won’t—can’t—leave Thalassa without a doctor.”
My self-centeredness hit me again. Alec. Preoccupied as I had been with saving the other men, with Nate’s absence, and with Edwards’s arrest, concern for Alec’s health had receded from my mind.
“I know.” Zhen rubbed at her eyes, then leaned back. “Regulations. Those Elders must have left someone else. Good thing Williams and Max are down here. They’ve defied the Consortium to its face more than once.”
My stomach grumbled, and Jordan searched through the stack of supplies by the door. She tossed a prepackaged meal at Zhen, who caught it one-handed, and a second to me. I left mine on the table, then washed my hands in the small water closet.
Jordan and Zhen had started eating by the time I settled in one of the chairs. Again, my stomach protested, but after I tore my package open, I stared with revulsion at the food inside. The label clearly stated it was a pasta and vegetable dinner with dried fruit, yet the contents bore little resemblance to the promised items.
Zhen did not seem as repulsed by her food. “At least they sent a variety this time. The work-study trip right before I met Alec, they sent a crate of nothing but fish loaf and isopod stew.”
Whatever my meal was, it was not fish loaf. I stiffened my resolve and took several bites.
“They did that on one of my cousin Gerry’s tours.” Jordan took a swig of bottled water. “But he’s allergic to isopods, so he lived off dried tilapia. Never touched the stuff afterward.” She studied the bottle as if doing so would reveal her cousin’s location. “I hope he’s still out there somewhere, avoiding fish and isopods.”
“We’ll find out,” Zhen said.
I sipped my water before attempting another unappealing bite of my rations.
“So,” Jordan asked, “what sort of list?”
“There are several things I need to do while we have access to those computers.” I toyed with the pale lumps of pasta, then set my utensil aside and twisted a disposable napkin into a knot. “They seem, however, to have fled my mind.”
“Not surprising,” Zhen said. “You’re tired, and there’s been a freighter-load of things happening.” She ticked each item off on her fingers. “Saving people, check. Securing voided AAVA drones, check. Keeping an eye on the monitors to make certain no voided Elder messes—”
“Zhen!” I protested. Suddenly, the computer room’s open door, where the drones waited silently, seemed a maw threatening to swallow us whole.
Jordan waved a fork in Zhen’s direction. “Add work on good habits to your own list.”
Zhen rolled her eyes and attacked her pasta.
“I cannot remember,” I said cautiously, “which is an uncomfortable feeling.”
Jordan finished her meal and threw away the empty container. “Don’t worry about Alec or Tim. I’m certain they’re fine.” Pointedly ignoring the open door, she asked, “Are there penalties for staff who disobey? Like the way they murder Recorders?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Staff, while also members of the Consortium, are in a separate category, somewhere between Recorders and citizens. Disobedience is met with increased fees, making it more difficult to pay off gifting. Staff may be reassigned so Elders can closely monitor their behavior. Only the most extreme actions—murder, assault, or insurrection—are met with extreme penalties.”
“So they won’t kill him,” Zhen said, “just sell him further into slavery?”
I bristled, but there was truth in her analysis. “I would never say that.”
She snorted. “I bet you wouldn’t.”
“Ease up, Zhen. I don’t like waiting, either.” Jordan took the chair across from mine. “You need to actually finish a meal.”
I grimaced and rotated the container to sample the fruit. It was edible.
“Ease up?” Zhen skewered the last of her vegetables with such force that her disposable fork broke. She stomped across the room, threw out the whole package, and dropped onto the sofa, her arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Hold onto the knowledge that it will be all right,” Jordan said. “Those Elders on Attlee make me uncomfortable, too, but repairs will be underway. We won’t be stuck here long. And whatever her flaws, Clarkson is good at what she does, and with the information on the datastick you”—she nodded at me—“and Nate got to the researchers, we’ll be out of here soon enough. Besides, as soon as we’re back on Thalassa, Max will check on Alec, and we’ll be underway.”
“You can’t know that,” Zhen argued.
“Of course I can.” Jordan caught my eye and mouthed, “Back me up.”
I blinked rapidly, my mind a blank, before repeating her assertion that Max would indeed see to Alec.
Zhen turned her glare from Jordan to me.
“Both Alec and Tim will be fine,” Jordan soothed. “Max is the best—”
“Moons and stars!” Zhen shot to her feet. “I’m sick to death of that.”
Jordan raised one delicate eyebrow in response.
Zhen stabbed a finger in Jordan’s direction. My heart accelerated, and I fisted my hands to keep from tapping my thigh.
“There you go again”—Zhen’s dark eyes flashed—“and I’ve had enough.”
Jordan remained calm. “Enough of what?”
“‘Max is the best and kindest man in the system,’” Zhen mimicked.
Why would his goodness be a cause for argument? I managed, “No one disputes the fact.”
“No one?” Zhen’s chin rose, and she glowered across the room at Jordan. “What about you, J? You keep saying it, but you take up with complete dross like Julian Ross? Quit lying to yourself and everyone else, especially Max. He deserves better.”
Jordan’s drumming fingertips slowed to a stop.
“Best man in the system,” Zhen scoffed. “Maybe Tim ought to add another two points to the stupid tally you two keep. You ought to be penalized for such an abysmal level of self-awareness.”
Jordan’s scowl reminded me of the storm clouds on the painting above the sofa, but before she responded, Zhen spat out, “Julian. Voided. Ross.”
I wanted to protest that his middle name was actually Meredith, but wisdom kept my mouth shut.
Color tinged Jordan’s cheeks. “People make mistakes.”
Zhen hissed like a cat. “Any other justification you want to offer for that mistake? If Max is the best and kindest man in the system, why didn’t you ever notice?”
“I noticed,” Jordan said flatly. “In fact, I could scarcely have said that without noticing.”
Zhen’s long, deep-blue braid fell over her shoulder when she leaned over the table and punctuated her remarks with jabs at the inoffensive white surface. “Nesmith, Copperfield—Ross. And all the while the ‘best and kindest man’ is always there? Every time? Looking to you first when there’s a question, making sure you’re all right?”
Jordan’s heightened color disappeared, leaving her ashen. “Of course he did. He’s thoughtful—”
“Remembering your birthday, your favorite color, your favorite dessert? Let me guess.” She flipped her blue plait to her back and splayed her fingers over her heart. “You’re friends.”
Jordan’s chin came up. “Yes. Friends. Even Tim—”
“Tim is probably more aware of your feelings than you are.” Zhen waved a hand. “And no, we don’t run around gossiping about you behind your back. You even lean into Max’s hand when he touches your shoulder. You’re that obvious. Or rather, Max is. Stars, J. He calls you Venetia, when no one else does, and you let him.”
Golden-brown eyes widened.
Zhen’s whole frame drooped, like a drone when its power ran down. “Look, I know Alec will be fine. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have left Thalassa. And Max would risk the Consortium and removal if he thought Alec needed him.” Her voice gentled. “Max deserves a bit of goodness back in his life.” Zhen took hold of my elbow and raised me to my feet. “The two of us are going to join those spacing drones and figure out what she’s forgotten.”
She guided me to the door, but I peeked back at Jordan who seemed to have withdrawn into herself. I wanted to say something to bring color back to her cheeks, but nothing came to mind. Zhen turned in the doorway.
“Think about it, J. For your own good. For both of you.”