PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
CTS THALASSA
478.2.9.10 – 478.3.1.02
My retrieval day was that tenth-day. It had never meant much to me, since it was merely the day Caretakers had removed me as an infant from a gifting tank. Daniel, however, had explained the significance of designations, and James had remembered mine, so people filed in and out of the computer laboratory all day to wish me a happy birthday. By the time Cam, Eric, and Tia bore away the remains of my dinner, I was exhausted.
Williams kept glancing at the door. The frown playing across her face lifted when Jordan, Zhen, Alec, and Nate arrived. As Zhen set plates and utensils on the table, Nate slid a fudge-frosted cake in the center.
“I wanted strawberries,” Zhen said, “but the kitchen only had freeze-dried ones left, and that isn’t the same. We’ll have strawberries next year.”
Next year. The promise pinched at me.
Nate brushed her comment aside. “Chocolate’s better anyway.”
“Max and Kyleigh will be by later. Max guessed that you’d be worn out, with all the visitation requests he and Archimedes approved,” Jordan said as she guided me to a chair.
They sang then, and the uneven melody was the truest gift I had ever received. Nate deposited a large, uneven slice of cake on a plate and pushed it in my direction. I took a tentative bite of deep, dark chocolate. My eyes closed.
“You like it?” Nate asked.
I could but nod as I swallowed. “I do.”
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
Then, he kissed me in front of everyone, but I did not mind at all.
As Thalassa approached Lunar One, the Consortium found me. My right wrist tingled, and the dull green that pulsed under my skin confirmed my fears: It was more than a medical device. It was a Consortium tracker. Like the devices used in patrollers on Ceres, once activated, the Elders—the Eldest herself, should she be concerned with a single aberration—would know where I was. My unexpressed hope of removing it vanished, for any attempt to cut it out would now be traced. Citizens would be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Recorders, too, faced a severe penalty, though I did not dwell on that. I knew where I was going. My consolation remained that the Eldest could not know my thoughts.
The light in my wrist brightened and expanded overnight, stretching in a thin streak alongside the veins, like fluorescent blood poisoning. I kept my sleeve tugged down to hide it, lest Nate worry. They all would.
No one could do anything about it.
That night, Thalassa slid into the arms of Lunar One.
And there was nothing anyone could do about that, either.
“He’s gone.”
Glad of any excuse to stop trying to slide the loop of yarn over the needle without dropping the loops I already had, I put my knitting down. “Who is?”
Williams spun the chair around and gave me a broad smile. “That Recorder-doctor. He and his drone departed on the first shuttle. If you have any plans to escape, this may be your opportunity.”
Before I could respond, the door slid open. Archimedes Genet strode in, followed by Jackson, Nate, Alec, and the marine whose struggling moustache had not grown any thicker during our trip from Pallas. Williams and I stood.
“Recorder, Williams,” Archimedes said. “It seems you have been mistakenly detained.”
Nate nodded to the young man. “Hodges has a confession.”
The young man favored us with a grin. “Everything was my doing.”
“Everything seems a broad admission,” Williams said, though a smile shone in her eyes.
The young man’s sparse moustache twitched, and his smile seemed at odds with his claim of guilt. “I was the one smuggling parts. I’ve talked to the captain, whose beneficence has led him to let me off with a fee.”
“Laying it on a bit thick,” Alec muttered.
One of Jackson’s wild eyebrows rose. “That’s not all you’ll face.”
At that, Hodges lost some of his assurance and stammered something incoherent about “trophies,” which made no sense. The idea that anyone would wish to keep insectile parts so distracted me that I barely heard the cheer in the hall.
The captain seemed to be holding back a smile. “Will you press charges?”
Startled, I shook my head.
Hodges agreed to hand over his stash of two tarsi and three antennae and pay a fine, but no additional punishment awaited him. Two marines escorted him out, though he offered both Elinor Williams and me what she later informed me was a “cheeky grin.”
I did not ask how he had brought all those pieces onto the ship. I did not want to know.
That evening, there was a small party in the dining commons, but though I had no desire to go, Elinor Anne Williams did. She stood in the doorway for a while, studying me. “Thank you. You gave me a purpose these past few ten-days, which eased some of . . .” Her words stalled, then she added, “You and a certain young man need to talk.”
My brow wrinkled. “That is vague.”
One of her now-rare smiles creased her face. “As you often say, perhaps.” She headed down the hall, but before she reached the corner, she pivoted to face me. Her smile vanished. “My friend, do not make the same mistake I did.”
For long uncounted minutes, I sat alone in the computer lab that was no longer my holding cell. Soon, the Consortium would come for me. I needed to walk the ship one last time. Leaving my cane and my communications link behind, I opened the door and peered down the hallway.
Thalassa should have bustled with activity that evening, but the halls were oddly empty. I left my room to prowl the corridors and ended in the small lounge. No one else was present, so I settled at a table in the back and watched the movement of lights out the unshuttered porthole. Familiar footsteps lifted my heart.
“Want company?” Nate asked.
“If the company is yours, yes.”
He took the seat opposite my own and rested his elbows on the table. His too-long, blond bangs fell over his eyes, and I resisted the urge to tuck them behind his ear.
“You’re not going back,” he said.
“Nathaniel, we have had this same conversation time and time again. Archimedes Genet might have hidden me from the Recorder, but no one can hide me from the Eldest and the entire Consortium.” I pulled back my sleeve to show my scarred wrist. His jaw ticced, and he carefully rolled down the fabric to hide the dull green glow under my skin. “They know where I am. The Eldest knows—she must know by now—about you, about us. I cannot run.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking.” He rose, circled the table, and held out his hand. I stared at it for five seconds before my own, seemingly without my permission, slid into his. Our fingers intertwined. “Your discoveries helped save the entire system. We’ll appeal to the prime minister, and you won’t have to run.”
“The prime—No, Nate, that is a wild stretch.” My thoughts tangled together while he waited, green eyes focused on my face. “I am Consortium, and I have betrayed my gifting. The Eldest has no tolerance for deviations. You know the Recorder-doctor went straight to whatever triad of Elders is on Lunar One at the moment.”
“After all you’ve done, she can space herself. Betrayed your gifting?” He frowned. “You’ve more than paid it back.”
“Be that as it may, she will not be pleased.” His defense warmed the farthest corners of my heart, but had I really done much at all? “To the Consortium, I am but an aberration. If you petition for my freedom, it puts you in danger.” I wrestled down trepidation. “My return is the better choice.”
“Stars above, sweetheart. Are you suicidal? You know what you’re facing.”
“Yes. I know.”
His voice roughened. “You’re facing the Halls.”
I could not contradict his statement, but we had now, and that must be gift enough. I ran my thumb over the faded scars on his knuckles. I had never asked about them. Why had I allowed such an oversight? “When did you scar—”
“I’m not letting you.” The green of his eyes seemed brighter than usual. His left hand trailed down my cheek. “It was bad enough the first time, and again on Pallas? And stars, but you had to scare me to death taking off with that drone to rescue Elliott. I can’t go through it again.” He released my hand, but I stood. Nate pulled me close, resting his forehead against my own. “You have to let me try. Let us try.”
The very thought of losing Nate would destroy me, and if he suffered because I was too selfish and too frightened to face the consequences of my choices, my actions? The weight of that consequence was beyond what I could bear.
Yet . . . he felt a similar weight for me.
Irreconcilable, unresolvable weight.
“My heart,” I said into his jacket, “I foresee no solution.”
He waited until I raised my eyes to his. “You never answered my question. The one”—he inhaled deeply—“in that note.”
Guilt pinged through me. I began to pull away, but he caught me again.
“Don’t, sweetheart.” He ran his fingers through my hair.
For a second, I forgot what I must tell him and closed my eyes and hummed, even though my hair must have stood out in disordered curls and points like a nebula.
“You did read it, didn’t you?”
I sighed and set my forehead against his chest. “No.”
For a moment, he held his breath, though his heart pounded. “I see.”
“No, you cannot see.” I had avoided it long enough, then long enough again to cause him pain. My arms slipped from his waist as I moved away. The gaping loss of who I had been stood before me, and I was afraid, so afraid, of losing his respect. I stared at the third button of his jacket and said, “I did not read it because since we rescued Elliott—”
“You rescued Elliott.”
“Please, Nathaniel, allow me to finish,” I said, then summoned all my courage. “Nate, I cannot read.”
I shot a quick glance at his face. Perfect brows furrowed, then lofted, and his eyes grew wide.
“You can’t . . .” He dropped into my abandoned chair and shoved his hand through his hair again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The antistatic flooring consumed my attention until he reached for me, gave my hands a gentle tug, and pulled me onto his lap. He tucked me against his chest, and my tears dropped onto his jacket’s black fabric. He loosened his hold and pulled out his old-fashioned cloth handkerchief to dab my face dry.
“Does Max know?”
I nodded and kept my eyes down, even when Nate tipped up my chin.
“You were afraid to tell me because you thought it would change my opinion of you?”
Shame tiptoed through the present grief of losing who I was and the future grief of losing him. “Yes and no.” I gulped down air. “Though I could not bear it if you thought less of me.”
Silence billowed around us like dust in tunnels.
“If you thought I’d think less of you—”
“I think less of me.”
His words fell, soft as a feather. “Then you think less of me as well.”
“No!” But I had. My hands flew to my cheeks at the falseness of my assertion. Fresh tears welled. “Oh my heart, I am sorry. I should not have—”
I tried to stand, but he caught me again. My fingers curled into his jacket while he pressed me close.
“It’s okay,” he murmured into my hair. “It must be frightening, like your whole world cracked in two, but it doesn’t change the fact I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He puffed out a breath. “Then you’ve no idea what I wrote?”
“No.”
“Blast.”
I waited.
“I won’t set a limit on our relationship,” he began. “Stars, but I wish—” He blew out a breath, and his bangs lifted and fell. “All this time, I thought you’d read it and hadn’t wanted to respond. And when I found it in your jacket, obviously opened, and you never said a thing?” Nate’s laugh was short. “Serves me right for being a coward.”
“You are not,” I retorted indignantly, but before I offered evidence, he kissed me hard. The room around us disappeared into stardust.
Afterward, I whispered, “You are the bravest and best man I know.”
His green eyes, soft and dear, held mine. “I’ve got nothing on you.”
“Do . . . do you still have it?”
Wordlessly, he took the familiar envelope from his inner jacket pocket and offered it to me again.
“Would you read it to me?”
“No.” Though my heart dropped at the refusal, there was a smile in his voice. “I love you. Whatever happens, you need to know that.” He flushed slightly. “After all this is over, when you’re free, when you’ve finally picked a name—and I know it’s an old-fashioned term—but say you’ll marry me?”
The universe stopped moving for one long, impossibly beautiful moment, and all of space and time consisted only of Nate and me.
“This note”—his fingers wrapped around my hand, crinkling his letter—“was a first attempt at asking you. A permanent contract, but more than that, a promise of you and me, to the very end.”
Still I could not speak. A smile coursed through my entire being.
“Say something.” His eyes searched mine. “Say you will.”
I will was shivering on my tongue when reality crashed down. If they knew what he asked—
“Nate, please do not.” My voice broke. “You cannot.”
The color drained from his face. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It is not your question. Oh, I wish . . .” Admitting that wish aloud was too difficult. When I pulled away and stood, he rose to his feet as well. “If I were free, it would be different. But, my heart, think. Please, think.” The note crumpled further as I grabbed his arms. “Remember Gervase Singh and his Recorder. His disappearance and her death. I go to the Halls, but when I go, let me know you will be well. Give me your promise.”
“My promise is that you will be free.”
His note dropped when I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. Fiercely. As if doing so would alter the course of the world around us. As if it were my sole chance to breathe the same air he did. For a moment, he did not respond, then he met my intensity with his own. When he pulled back, he combed his fingers through my hair, and his forehead puckered.
“Sweetheart, if you love—”
“More than all the worlds,” I said.
We stood, hands clasped, an arm’s length apart in the quiet of the lounge for unmeasured heartbeats until he released one hand and knelt to pick up the note. He folded my fingers around it and held my hand to his chest.
“Until we’re out of this mess, this note is my promise.” A faint smile quirked. “I’ll get you a ring later.”
“I do not want any ring.” When he tilted his head to the side, I realized I had spoken amiss. A weak chuckle burbled out before I could stop it. With my left hand, I traced his stubbled jawline. “You. I want you, Nathaniel Phineas Timmons. Not any ring. You.”
“Then that’s a yes?”
I covered his mouth with my hand, and he kissed my palm. “But even more, my heart, I want you to be safe. Perhaps—”
“There’s no room for perhaps.” His mouth tightened. “No room at all.”
I slid my hands under his jacket and nestled into his arms, allowing myself to sink into closeness. At the steady music of his heart, my own calmed.
“I want to hold on,” I whispered. “I want to believe, but I am afraid.”
“I know.” His exhalation ruffled my hair. “Maybe Kye and Max are onto something.”
“How?”
“Faith.”
“Her unquantifiable God? Does Max have one, too?”
Nate chuckled. “I’m pretty sure it’s the same one. I’m not sure if faith is the building block of hope, or vice versa, but maybe without it, the universe isn’t worth much.”
Like a butterfly struggling from a chrysalis, hope fought through a dull sheath of fear. We stood there in the dim quiet for uncounted time, simply holding each other and breathing.