Trina glanced over at her sister from where she stood in the kitchen doorway. It would have seemed a normal day with Katie surrounded by mending, but Trina could see how her sister’s hand trembled, and the stitches looked more like her work than Katie’s. “Are you going to be all right?”
Katie didn’t look up, but her hands fisted in the material, only luck keeping her from a needle prick. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I need to get the passes. We go up without them, and we’re nothing but shafters. With them, we can march to the fence and they have to let us through.” Trina crossed the room and knelt by her sister.
“I know,” Katie said, leaning against Trina’s side. “And we can’t stay here. Not now. It’s just I don’t want to be here alone, and I don’t want you taking chances with that polit.”
Trina smoothed a hand over her sister’s curls. “He’s not any polit. He’s our grandfather. He wants us there.”
The curls moved beneath Trina’s hand. “I know that too. It’s hard to trust him though. Even if our father was as Mother said…” She paused for a shuddering breath. “Why’d he leave his family if his father is so wonderful?”
They looked at each other for a moment and laughed as the same word came from their lips: “Paul.”
Trina shook her head this time though. “That couldn’t have been it. Grandfather says the stars called to him.”
Katie snorted. “Like they call to you.”
“I would never abandon my family. You know that. You have to come with me as Mother would have.”
They turned to look toward the room they’d avoided since taking their mother to the dead place then both turned away again.
“You wouldn’t abandon us on purpose,” Katie said, drawing them back into the conversation, “but I don’t trust him not to make that choice for you.”
“Katie, if you could have heard him, you’d know he wants you too. Mother not as much, but you were always part of his plan.”
The shirt Katie had been mending flew across the room as Katie jerked to her feet. “I guess he gets his wish then. Both of us, and no pure shafter to complicate his pretty picture. He’ll dance in the streets when you tell him.”
Trina rose to join her sister. “He won’t.”
“Of course he will. He has no reason to grieve and every to celebrate.”
“He won’t because I won’t tell him. You don’t want to meet him yet. Let him think you two are settling in together. If he knows you’re alone except for me, he might try and pressure you to join him. I don’t plan to give him that much control over us.” Trina laughed, hearing the contradiction in her words. After all, he wanted her to give him control of the colony. “You could come with me. If you do want to meet him. And then you wouldn’t be here alone.”
Katie started shaking her head before Trina finished. “I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want to see him. If he didn’t want Mother, I don’t want him.”
Trina stared at the curtain blocking their window. “I could get Piper.” The words came slowly, but the idea grew on her. “He could stay with you, guard the place while I go up and get the passes.”
A weird look crossed Katie’s face and she laughed. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. You never brought him home in all the time you’ve been friends. I wouldn’t recognize Piper if I passed him in the market, though I know a lot about him. But now that strangers know where we live…”
Trina turned to face her sister, reminded again of the different lives they’d led. “I should have brought you two together before this. It was easier to let fear rule us. But I trust him in this.”
Katie waved a hand toward the door. “Go then. Get Piper, get the passes. I’ll stay here and hold our home.”
Without waiting another moment, Trina swept up the key and pressed it into her sister’s hand. “Lock the door after me. Don’t let anyone in unless I’m with them. I won’t send Piper on alone.”
“I know. Don’t worry. I’ll be safe until you find him. And safe after if what you’ve told me of Piper is true.
THE SHAFTS SEEMED NO DIFFERENT as Trina slipped from their sheltered space to the more populated areas. She saw no sign of watchers, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t come. Though the rats who’d followed them might not find value in such an out of the way place, they could talk to others who thought differently.
That reminder made Trina increase her pace. She wouldn’t have Katie alone when some big man came knocking. As long as the door held, her sister would be safe, but that didn’t mean she’d feel safe.
Trina checked down where the pickpockets and skillsmen gathered. Piper wasn’t there. She searched the passageways heading for Fence as well, but found no sign of her friend. After waiting a bit in case he was making a trade, Trina started to wonder if she’d be gone a shorter time by making a run to the surface. She could go straight to Grandfather’s house to get the passes.
The timekeeper in their apartment followed the movement of hours, but told nothing of days. She wondered if, in her preoccupation with Mother, she’d let the launch day slip by. If so, they’d need Piper more than ever, and the request to watch her sister would have to become permanent.
That fear built in her until it seemed to gain the weight of truth, especially when she couldn’t find Piper in either of the places they often used to catch each other. If she went to the surface and Grandfather had launched, who would be left to find her in the square? She told him to get the passes. Why would he have arranged for the coins if he assumed they’d be with him? More likely all she’d catch in the square would be the attention of enforcers, and worse at his house. Either it would be abandoned, or Paul would have claimed it.
A final attempt drove her to the marketplace. Even Piper had to eat.
By the time she reached the space that had been more Katie’s domain than hers, worry and fear made her neck sore with tension and her knives quick to slide into her hands. She scanned the busy stalls, overwhelmed by the number of people here, both shopping and using the light for their chores. How would she find Piper among them?
“Trina. There you are.”
She spun to face this threat as though she stood in the darkest section of the shafts, not here where shafters gathered in peace.
Piper jerked back from her knife tip, scowling at her. “This is how you greet a friend? Looking for you for days.”
The relief she’d felt at the sight of him soured. “Looking for me? Why? We had no meet planned.”
His scowl lightened into a cocky grin. “Got something for you. Burning a hole in my side.”
Trina watched him as Piper pulled out a paper folded around something thick. From the look of it, the package had not come from any shafter hand. “You? A spy, Piper?” She could not keep the betrayal from her voice. Trina had known he passed information among shafters, knew enough to keep him from learning the way to their home before this, but to cross over to the polits?
Piper pulled the package back and tilted his head to one side. “You know me better. Word is you’ve trafficked some.”
Trina couldn’t stop the blush from rising to color her face. She hadn’t shared others’ secrets, but she had no right to question ties to polits. Shaking off her embarrassment, Trina returned her focus to the package. “That’s no shafter weave,” she said as though she’d never questioned him. “What’s in it?”
“For you to know, and me to pester ‘til you tell. Said I couldn’t look. Only for you. Otherwise no payment.” Piper smiled again, and she could see the curiosity threatening to strangle him.
“Give it over, then. Who gave it to you?” She said the last with her hand already outstretched.
Piper handed the package over, but shook his head at the question. “You know better than that. It came from one of us. No more I’ll say. He knew me as a source to you from Fence.”
Trina froze then, her fingers already prying at the seal. Could Fence have learned about her grandfather? Had he found a way to gain from it?
“So? You going to open it? Can’t find a safer spot than here…well, maybe your home, but it must be far.”
His words reminded Trina of her purpose in searching for him, and that she had little time. He had no way of knowing how unsafe their home had become.
Trina slipped into the shadow between two stalls, away from prying eyes. What this contained would determine whether she could trust Piper with her sister’s safety. She slid her knife forward again, this time using its flat side to crack the wax seal. The flap popped open as if the contents wanted to escape. Official scrip blurred before her eyes as she realized Grandfather had not left their presence on the ship to chance.
Piper whistled through his teeth as he peered over her shoulder. “That what I think?
She nodded. He’d teased her about the spaceport often enough to know about her dreams.
“What did you steal to earn that?”
She wished the passes spoke of anything so simple. “We’re hopping a colony ship.”
A startled laugh burst from his lips. “A colony ship? No shafters allowed.”
Trina waved a hand for him to keep his voice down. The papers contained all three passes, a carter token, and their ship designation. A glance to the calendar beneath the market clock, which tracked surface times because of vegetable trades, told her launch was set for the very next day. “There’ll be shafters on this one.”
“Guess you won’t be backing me up with Fence then.”
Trina glanced at Piper, hearing the unspoken emotion in his voice and sharing it. Her fingers tightened on the passes, all three of them. “Hey, Piper. Why don’t you come?”
He stared at her as though she’d sprouted a crawler shell. “Me? On a ship? Just imagine that.”
For a heartbeat, Trina thought he would agree, that she could take a piece of her life with her the way Katie had packed up Mother’s blankets.
But he shook his head. “I’ll take the pass, sure, but not to use that way. No business on a ship.” He stomped his feet. “This here’s my space.”
Trina accepted his choice with a sharp nod. Though she had only to hand over the pass and return to Katie, no longer needing the trip to the surface, still she hesitated. “I’d offer you our home, though for all I know yours is better.”
“Mine isn’t. I’d take that offer if I knew the cost.”
“Ours comes with issues.”
“And power?”
“Sure enough.”
“The cost?”
“Help us defend and shift to the surface. Then it’s yours.”
He spat on his hand and thrust it forward for Trina to do the same.
“Can you come now? We have to make final arrangements.” She waved the notice at him and pointed to the calendar.
“Nothing more pressing.”