Trina smiled at the colonists she passed, but inside she cursed this timing. Already the instinct to move in shadows drew her. She regretted leaving her panel tool in its hiding spot, something her grandfather hadn’t anticipated in providing her the tunic. Two months and she hadn’t walked the duct system for more than half of that, hadn’t felt the need to find her hideaway. She’d fought against her shafter instincts and was winning. She’d started making a place for herself as a colonist.
And now her grandfather tore all that away. She understood he didn’t have a choice. Even if he ignored Tasrien’s suffering, the virus would spread to the whole ship if not stopped. This was why shafters isolated those who survived polit experiments.
No one else could do this. They needed her to be spacerat with fear and adrenaline pumping through her veins.
In the privacy of the lift, she pulled out his vial, staring at the clear liquid contained within. So much rested on so little. If polits had a cure, why couldn’t she have learned of it in time to save Mother? Trina wondered if she should listen to her grandfather or if she should bring this to the spacers. Surely they had the ability to make more, but whether the spacers wasted it or just took too long to figure out a way to duplicate the cure, Grandfather had said unless the virus was stopped soon, it would be too late.
The lift halted and she shoved the vial back into the hidden pocket. She needed to get her panel tool and reach a safe place to change. When this was done, though, she’d hand the device to her grandfather. He could find another spacerat.
The door whooshed open to reveal her sister’s eager face. She’d forgotten about Katie with all she’d learned.
“Well? What did he want?” Katie pulled Trina to the table, straddling a chair opposite her.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Colonist or no, she still wanted to keep Katie free of her spacerat activities.
“I finally want to meet him and he didn’t ask to see me, did he?”
Trina jerked out of her preoccupation to see her sister’s disappointed face. “Katie, it’s not that simple. He does want to see you.”
“But?”
“Just not yet. He’s busy with things.”
Katie fixed her with a hard look. “But he wanted to see you.” Her glance dropped to the hidden pocket, only then making Trina aware that her hand kept stealing up to touch it. “Things that have you touching your pockets the way you would before meeting Fence.”
Trina stared back, unwilling to answer. The truth would lead to other questions about what she’d become. She wanted to declare herself a colonist. Once again, she had no right.
“Don’t do it.” Katie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Whatever it is, don’t do it.”
“There’s nothing to do. He just wanted to see me. To see how I was doing.” Trina tried to brazen it out but could see she’d failed.
“And what’s in the pocket? Another piece of our father’s life to bind you closer to him?”
Trina jerked, remembering her own assumption upon seeing the box. She hadn’t thought of the gifts as binding. When he used something in that way, he’d been upfront, but out of his influence, she could see how he’d played her to get his way. He always got his way. That this time it would help others mattered little against how he’d manipulated her.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because Katie frowned. “If it’s nothing important, show me. Show me what you’re hiding in your pocket.”
Trina pushed up, using anger as a mask. She’d spent so much energy trying to change Katie’s mind, but faced with Grandfather’s games, Trina didn’t want Katie to see him as a hero. Let his act stay hidden just as she had to be.
“I’m tired. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. We were up so late dancing, I’m exhausted.” She seized the excuse Marcus had given her and curled up under the blanket, one hand pressed against the vial and the other holding the Tasrien tunic close.
Silence filled the room, though she could practically hear Katie fuming. She forced her breath out evenly, mimicking sleep in the hopes her sister would give up and go find Aaron to commiserate with. As though they were back in their underground home, Trina heard the ticking of time melt away. She had to deliver the cure before it was too late for all of them.
The door triggered then closed, the noise almost too soft to hear over her pounding heart. Trina exhaled and reached for the panel tool even as she pushed back the blanket and jerked the tunic over her head. She’d go now or it would be over. Her freedom came at too heavy a cost if she bought it with lives lost to the same type of disease that had killed her mother.