PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
PALLAS STATION
478.2.6.07
Jordan whistled.
When I looked around from the antiquated VVR, she tossed me a water bottle and a food bar. I caught the first, but the second skidded under the chair. My lack of coordination brought heat to my cheeks. The package proved difficult to open by hand, and I was close to swallowing my pride and asking for Jordan’s knife when the packaging split on the third attempt. The scent of blueberries and oats wafted free.
I left the antiquated VVR flickering and took the seat at the monitor while the other two chatted quietly, but when there was a lull in their conversation, I confessed my lack of success uncovering the perpetrator who had made Kyleigh an orphan.
“Not quite an orphan. Her mother lives on Ceres.” Jordan stabbed her fork into her rice and beans.
“And there is no one to bring to justice.” I carefully folded the wrapper into a tidy cube.
Zhen frowned. “Not knowing would bother anyone, but as if grief itself isn’t hard to bear, she knew whoever it was. Talked with them, had meals with them. She doesn’t talk about it much, but I bet it’s eating at her. Who can she trust; who can she not?” Her eyes flashed. “Especially after Ross and Elliott. She took it personally that her friend was in league with genocidal monsters.”
“The station’s security chief,” Jordan began. “What was his name?”
“Gideon Lorde,” I offered.
“Right.” Jordan nodded. “He didn’t figure it out, but he was one of those nineteen who died after Kye’s dad, if I remember correctly. Maybe he didn’t have time.” She scraped the last bite from the dish. “I’d want to know, if only so I could properly hate the person who did it.”
Zhen’s glare eased. “Kye’s not quite like that. I think she’ll want to know so she can forgive them or something.”
Jordan gestured with her empty fork. “Point.”
Therein lay my secondary problem. “And yet she did not seem to feel forgiveness before she left Pallas. It was as if she had forgotten who she was.”
The inactive drones seemed to grow behind me, looming over our conversation, threatening every word I had not spoken. Even here with my friends, I could not bring myself to admit my concern that Kyleigh might have lost her assurance in her unquantifiable God.
The loss mattered to me, more than I could have predicted. She had held to her beliefs through grief before, and whether or not I—or anyone else—believed them as well, they had provided her a foundation. They offered her a glimmer of hope that the inexorable march of time, coincidence, and human error were inadequate obstacles on a path to something greater. But I could not admit that aloud, either.
I placed the empty wrapper in the portable rubbish compactor.
“She hasn’t forgotten.” Zhen joined me in the monitoring room. “It’s just been a few days since losing Freddie. She probably believes it was her fault—”
“It was not,” I declared emphatically.
Jordan held up a hand. “No one but Kye thinks it was.”
“Kyliegh’s emotions have to be all over the place. She’s lost her father, Freddie, and everyone she’d known over the past few years. I mean, I don’t think Elliott was a loss, but he was her friend before he joined up with those trogs.” Zhen sighed. “I get it. I felt lost when my grandmère died.”
Zhen loosened the collar of her Consortium-labeled suit and pulled out a necklace with a small pendant, a centimeter wide and twice as long. She unfastened the clasp and placed the necklace onto my palm. A plain silver casing surrounded strands of white hair interwoven with black, not dissimilar to the roots of Zhen’s blue hair. A smooth glass-like substance encased the intricate pattern.
“A memorial pendant?” I asked.
“My grandmère’s. I have this physical reminder of her, and some days . . .” Zhen paused, then began again. “It’s been four years, but some days it’s as raw as it was then. Some days the ache is all encompassing. Others, it’s not there at all, which felt like a betrayal at first. Maybe it isn’t that way for everyone.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
A knot rose in my throat. “Today?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Today’s all right, though I wish she’d been there when Alec and I first contracted. She would have approved of the strawberry cake. She loved strawberries.”
Like a shot fired in an enclosed space, jealousy ricocheted through my heart. I had never had such a person—a mother or grandmother who wanted to share strawberry cake with me. I was a child of the Consortium. I had no other family. My hand fisted tightly around the pendant. But as quickly as it had come, the jealousy fled.
Faces appeared one after another in my mind. Nate. Max, James, Alec, Kyleigh, Jordan, Zhen. And the others: Edwards—though thinking of him pinched my heart—Williams, Cam, Eric, and Tia. For whatever time I had remaining, I had their friendship, which was wealth beyond anything I had dared imagine.
Wordlessly, I returned the pendant to Zhen, who refastened her necklace and traced a fingertip over the surface.
“In those first days, there was nothing at all except the hole left by Grandmère’s absence, but Kyleigh doesn’t even have a pendant. Maybe it isn’t so much that she’s lost her faith”—I gasped at Zhen’s supposition—“but after losing her father, her mentor, her friends, and the boy she loved, she has to reorient herself. She’ll change some. Grief does that. It takes a while for a gaping wound in your heart to heal.”
I opened my mouth to protest that loss was unlike physical injuries, but had it not been as painful as any medically treatable injury to be taken away from Thalassa and Nate? To lose Lorik as I began to understand him, watch Freddie suffer, or fear Alec might die? Had not my chest ached when they had stolen Edwards? There was no true cure for the hurt, was there?
I wanted to reject the idea that pain was the price of love, and yet . . .
The storm on Ceres caught my eye.
“His paintings,” I said. “Can we take them? They could be Freddie’s memorial.”
Zhen’s expression lightened. “That’s a lovely idea.”
“We can pack them on the platform,” Jordan mused. “Stars, what a puzzle we’ve locked ourselves into.” She glanced past me, and her gaze sharpened. “Hangar’s opening.”
Though Zhen spun around at once, it took two seconds before I realized Jordan was not implying that the hangar was part of a greater puzzle.
On the central monitor, the hangar doors crept apart, and Attlee’s shuttle settled. A droneless Recorder descended the ramp, and five alert and armed marshals accompanied a hover platform similar to the one we had used to carry equipment. After a heated discussion we could not hear, one which involved wild gesticulation on both sides, two marines left the small office and led Attlee’s group down the halls. After they rounded the corner, two more took off at a run toward the control room, while another one opened the tail end of one of the hangar’s towering industrial bots and dug through the rubbish it had collected.
“What in the system is that about?” Zhen asked.
Neither Jordan nor I knew the answer.
As the first procession wound its way through convoluted passages, the runners reached the control room. Except for the woman focused on the communication console, every marine shot to his or her feet.
“They’re arguing,” Zhen observed unnecessarily.
Finally, there seemed to be a resolution, for moments later, the same runners, and two more, dashed out before the Recorder, marshals, and other marines arrived. After a brief discussion, five marines led the way down the hall to the blocked tunnel where Lorik had died. They aimed heavy guns on tripods at the rubble, and I grabbed Jordan’s arm.
“They cannot mean to—”
“Oh, but they can,” she replied through gritted teeth. “They must be after proof your Elder is gone.”
“I do not want—cannot watch. And the roaches.” My voice echoed mechanically in my ears, and I waved a hand at the screens. Zhen caught my wrist. Despite my assertion, I could not look away while the marshals set explosives.
“Moons and stars,” Zhen hissed, and her grip constricted my wrist. “What are James and Daniel doing back in the station proper with a Recorder present?”
“What? Where?”
She pointed to another monitor, where James, Daniel, and one of the runners hurried down a passage not far from the control room.
The hair on my arms rose. “The Recorder will see them!” My words rushed out in a torrent. “And she will take them, and they will be sent to the Halls.”
“Steady on.” Jordan placed a hand on my back. “They aren’t stupid. There must be a reason that they—”
“Hold up.” Zhen leaned forward, and her long, straight blue hair poured over her shoulder. “Isn’t that the room where we took your drone?”
The marine exited and dashed back to the control room. On the small screen, my friends peeked both ways and vanished into the unobserved sectors, but their departure did nothing to ease the building pressure in my chest. I pulled from Zhen’s grasp.
Two of the monitors flared with yellow-orange and white lights.
I backed away until I hit the wall. My fingers guided me into the antechamber. When my legs bumped a chair, I slid to the floor beside it. I drew my knees as close to my chest as the armored suit would allow, resting my forehead against them.
No. I could not watch. I would not see what remained of Lorik. Moisture leaked from my eyes as I rocked. Dimly, I heard Jordan’s husky alto and Zhen’s smooth soprano, but their words were naught but noise. I wanted to uncurl, to stand, but it was as if I stood far away and called to myself, and the self on the floor refused to listen. A hand tapped my shoulder, but I curled into a tighter ball.
Their conversation resumed, but all I could discern was too much, do something, consequence, risk.
I thought I heard Max’s voice, but he was not present, was he?
The pop of a jet injector on my neck stilled my thoughts with the memories of lavender, pine, and cinnamon. My respiration slowed. When internal tremors ceased and I raised my head, Jordan’s golden-brown eyes stared into mine.
“You with us again?” she whispered.
I licked my lips. “Yes.”
Her eyes closed briefly. “Good.”
“They retrieved the station Recorder’s damaged drone but had to run for it when a small army of bugs showed up.” Zhen appeared and knelt beside Venetia Jordan. “Everything’s all right. They loaded it on the platform, along with some scraps.”
The scent of lavender intensified, enabling me to ask calmly, “Scraps of what?”
Jordan shot a glare at Zhen, then cleared her throat. “No one was hurt.”
“They retreated and resealed the corridor,” Zhen said. “That Recorder is almost as good with explosives as Alec.”
“They’re loading the shuttle now,” Jordan said. “No one found James.”
“Or Daniel.” Zhen’s attention darted back to the small room, and she was on her feet, then at the desk. “We’ve got another datapad message.” She groaned. “Why can’t Quincy tell that woman where the blasted camera is?”
Jordan gripped my elbow and brought me to my feet.
“‘Attlee shuttle departing.’” A quick tap sounded from the other room. “Well, we knew that, thank you very much. Right here on the screen.”
Once I was ensconced on the sofa, Jordan brought me a bottle of water and some medication. Too tired to argue, I simply swallowed the pills.
“Wait, she’s—oh good, she’s turning this way first. ‘Attlee to depart once the shuttle returns.’ About time.”
“Any news on Thalassa?” Jordan asked.
“She’s typing again.” After another minute or so, Zhen appeared at the door, a tight smile on her face. “They’re almost done on Thalassa and are starting to pack up here. Won’t take long, so don’t get too comfortable on that sofa. Looks like we’re leaving.”