I pace inside the stuffy cell. It’s like the sleeping room aboard the raider, except there isn’t a porthole and there aren’t any plants growing on the walls. All I have is the bed made of moss on the floor.
I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or worried Zahesh didn’t put me in the hold with all the other prisoners. Was it because Hashima didn’t want me spreading word of everything I’ve learned to them? Or because she’s considering agreeing to my alliance, and she wanted to keep me close?
I’m afraid I might’ve screwed up by letting her read my memories. I’ve handed over every war plan, every secret I’ve learned from the Developers, and the vul don’t need my help to overthrow them anymore. They know our weaknesses, and they could use them to destroy us.
But if the Tessar showed me the truth about the vul and their kind, and they aren’t the monstrous aliens the Developers told me they’d be, what Hashima saw should’ve changed her mind. She saw how horrible the Developers have treated their citizens. She saw how most of us have been imprisoned all our lives, and we had nothing to do with the wars; we didn’t even know about Marden’s existence. She saw that her people are truly in danger. All I can do is hope she won’t let age-old prejudices get in the way of peace.
* * *
I have no idea how long I wait in the cell. An hour? Two? Three? I almost fall asleep more than once, having been up all night. But I don’t want to sleep through someone’s arrival, so I do everything I can to stay awake. I shout and yell through the door, hoping someone will hear me.
After a long time, the door slides open. I’d given up and started dozing off, but now I startle awake and jump to my feet. Zahesh is in the doorway.
“Come,” he says, putting the electric field around my wrists again.
“What did the Qassan decide?” I ask.
“You will see.”
He takes me back to the chamber where the golden tree grows. Hashima walks over the roots to greet me. There’s something slightly less harsh about her eyes this time, though her voice sounds the same when she speaks.
“Thank you for your warning of your commander’s plans,” Hashima says. “We will ally with you.”
“You’re going to help me overthrow the Developers?” I ask.
“We are,” Hashima says. “My warriors have been informed. We will depart for your planet in three hours’ time.”
Sweet, beautiful relief washes over me.
“We must save both our peoples and rescue the Tessar,” she says. “His survival is of the utmost importance. Balance cannot be restored on Marden without his guidance. I saw much of your invasion plan in the mayraan, but we will discuss more details shortly.” Hashima gestures behind me, and I see another vul has walked into the room. A vul with lidless green eyes, a sheen of white hair, and silver armor. “Jehara will take you to your friends in the hold, so you can see that they have not been mistreated. We will announce the alliance immediately, but they will be freed after the invasion.”
“What if any of them want to help you fight?” I ask, thinking of Beechy and the other Alliance rebels. I’m sure they’d want a hand in this final battle. “There are rebels like me among your prisoners who could be a great asset in planning out the invasion.”
“If they are willing to give their help, we will gladly accept it,” Hashima says. “Do remember, you are expected to uphold your end of the agreement and ensure at least half will return to Marden with us.”
“I will,” I say, forcing steadiness into my voice. I know the people in the work camp. Once they learn the truth about everything, I’m sure they’ll agree.
“Good,” Hashima says. She studies my face as Zahesh removes the electric field from my wrists. “You are a strange Kielan. Do you know this?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, rubbing my wrists.
“The mayraan has never been so strong with another,” she says. “Nor has any Kielan before you ever been able to meld with the Tessar. I saw in your memory how the doctors modified your genes. They made your mind more like ours, in some way. Though I do not think they intended it.”
I frown. What does that mean—my genetic modifications somehow made me more like the vul than any other Kielan?
I open my mouth to ask a hundred questions, but Hashima has turned away to return to the group of vul standing beneath the golden branches. She’s no longer paying me any mind.
The vul with silver hair and armor, Jehara, beckons me to follow her out of the hatch comb, so I go to her. Her lips part in a smile that shows me her yellow teeth. “You are Clem-en-teen?” she asks.
“Clem-en-ty-ne.” I correct her pronunciation of the word with a smile.
“I am Jehara,” she says, leading me out into the corridor.
“Je-hair-a,” I repeat, pronouncing her name slowly.
She nods and clicks her tongue encouragingly. “That is close. With practice you’ll get better.”
I examine her armor as she walks a step ahead of me. The material reminds me of silk, though it must be more protective than that. It clings tightly to her sinuous limbs, leaving only Jehara’s hands exposed. “Are you one of the warriors?” I ask.
“I am the Qassan’s aid,” she says. Her voice is softer than Hashima’s, though it has the same clicks and hisses. “I fight for her, yes, and also assist her in any way she needs. It has been said you met with the Tessar.”
“I did. I wouldn’t have come if not for him.”
“How is he?”
“He’s weak,” I say. “But he is alive.”
Jehara sucks in a shaky breath. “We must bring him home,” she says, leading me through another hatch comb. I notice the ceiling is a few feet higher than in Core ships, probably because the vul are so much taller. “We must rescue him and help him grow strong again. The death of the Tessar before his time will hasten the death of many worlds. We feared he’d gone on to the next land already, but the Qassan had a vision. The Tessar spoke to us through her and told us he was still alive.”
I remember hearing him speak to her in his memories, while he was locked in a cell in the Core. “Can you all communicate with each other from that far away?”
Jehara shakes her head. “Most cannot. But the Tessar is different. Special. When he was born, the ocean waters warmed and the fish stayed close to the surface. There was bountiful food to eat. That is why we call him Tessar. He has saved my people many times. It was a fearful day when he was stolen away.”
“What happened?” I ask. “Why did my people attack your planet?”
I’ve heard the Developers’ version of the story: My ancestors had left Marden to make a home for themselves, having been at odds with the vul on Marden. But they faced a horrible famine on Kiel, so they went back to Marden seeking a peaceful return, only to find themselves attacked by the vul. But I don’t believe it was as peaceful a return as Commander Marshall said.
“Long ago we lived in harmony,” Jehara says. “There is a pattern for all life, a rhythm in which the land and the sea must work in order to thrive together. Long ago, the humans lived according to this rhythm. All things were in balance. But they became greedy, wanting more than they needed. The Tessar warned the humans not to leave Marden, but they would not listen. They sought a new home, where they could grow more riches and build a vast empire. The humans no longer understood the balance. But they learned, yes they did, when the famine came. That is why they made war with us, to take back Marden. They made slaves of our people. We knew there would be no more harmony with them, so we could not let it happen. We fought back until they left, but they came back once more. That is when they stole the Tessar. We could not bear it. We feared there was no more hope for humans, so we sought to keep them from surviving anymore. Now it is clear we made a mistake. Marden will die if the balance is not restored.”
We’re walking down a hallway with the tubelike plants growing in the walls, so I ask Jehara about them.
“They are species from Marden,” she says. “We wanted to save them from dying, so we transferred seeds from the soil and grew them here. We are hopeful we can make them grow again once we return home. We are also collecting samples of species from your planet to take back with us. We will cultivate them on the journey to Marden and see if they are likely to grow.”
The vul must be collecting the samples in their settlements down on the Surface.
At the end of the next corridor, Jehara leads me through a hatch comb into an enormous room with one wall and ceiling made of glass. An observation deck. I slow my footsteps, staring out the window. The surface of Kiel looks eerily calm from so far away. There’s no sign of the war. No sign of the danger brewing underneath, which could destroy the planet in less than a day’s time.
From up here, there’s only beauty. Rolling green fields, the sparse desert, and the bright blue of the great big ocean. My life was confined to such a small part of Kiel, and I wish I’d had the chance to explore more of it. To traverse the jungles and see more of the wildlife.
But the Developers took all that away from us, choosing to imprison us instead. It goes back long before they were born. My ancestors were the ones who started all of this, because they thought the vul were inferior beings that didn’t deserve freedom. It’s a poisonous way to think, and the poison has leeched through the centuries to the Developers who rule Kiel now. They’ve never gotten over the idea that some people are worth more than others, but it simply isn’t true.
Jehara sees me looking down at Kiel and smiles. “Tell me about your life here.”
“I grew up in a work camp,” I say. I tell her about the fields where we labored, about the shacks with leaking roofs and the officials who would punish us if we made one bit of trouble. About the cam-bots that followed our every move, the force-field fence that kept us inside the settlement, and the gas chamber where we were sent when it was decided we weren’t useful anymore and needed to be replaced. Jehara might not understand every word I say, but the look on her face tells me she understands the feelings behind my story.
“You will have a better life on Marden,” Jehara says. “You will be free there. As long as everyone does his part, we can make it grow again.”
“I’d like to help,” I say.
I’d like to find a new home, a better one. One where we all can be free. I only hope we’ll make it there, Logan and I. I can’t go there without him. And I can’t leave all of this behind until I know the rest of the people on Kiel are safe.
I tilt my head toward the window on the ceiling. The stars speckling the darkness of outer space are glossy and distant.
“How long did the journey here take?” I ask.
“Three months,” Jehara says. “But the journey back will be longer. The orbit of our planet has taken it farther in the expanse of space than it was when we left. Four or five months may pass before we reach it. But come, I must take you to your people.”
She beckons me onward, and I follow.
* * *
The prisoners the vul captured from the Surface have been separated among four of the battle stations, but the largest group is aboard this station, which I learn is called the Hessana. The people are being held in different rooms in the hold of the ship, like I saw in the Tessar’s visions. They’ve been fed and given blankets to keep them warm. Some of their worst wounded have been treated by the vul julas, trained healers. In most respects, they’ve been treated better than they would’ve been by the Developers, except they’ve had no idea why they were taken or what was going to happen to them. Most probably feared they’d soon be killed.
I ask to see the group of Alliance rebels and soldiers captured in the mountains in the first hours of the vul’s invasion. Luckily they’re aboard the Hessana.
By the time Jehara leads me to the part of the hold where they’re being kept, the vul have made a ship-wide announcement of what’s happening. They explain that they’ve received warning from a representative of the Core citizens that the battle stations are under threat of attack from the Developers, who don’t want a peaceful solution to the war. If they’re able to go through with their attack, all the Kielan prisoners will be destroyed. The Developers don’t care about saving them. But the Core representative has proposed an alliance against the Developers, which the vul have accepted. The vul have received the information they need to access the Core and overthrow the Developers, and in exchange all citizens and prisoners will be freed once the Developers have been taken.
The revelation about what’s happening on Marden will have to come later, after the invasion is over. There’s too much to explain, too many lies that will have to be unfurled.
Jehara leads me to one of the rooms in the hold. It’s huge and crowded with people: girls and boys with dirt stains on their cheeks and mud in their hair, huddled with blankets on patches of mossy material. There’s hardly room to walk between them. Four vul guards move into the crowd while Jehara and I wait in the doorway behind an electric barrier. The guards will find Beechy and the other Alliance rebels and bring them out to talk to me.
All the prisoners are awake, buzzing about the announcement.
“Do you think they were telling the truth?” a boy asks.
“Why did they capture us in the first place, if they were going to set us free?” a girl says.
“When are we getting out of here?”
As soon as they realize one of the vul is in the room, they turn their questions on Jehara. The guards hold up their electric sticks to keep the kids from hounding us.
“What’s going on?”
“Are we going to die?”
“Are you really going to overthrow the Developers?”
Jehara answers them calmly. “Everything you heard in the announcement is true. We leave to invade the Core in an hour’s time. You will be freed as soon as the invasion as over.”
“Clementine?” someone in the crowd says. One of the prisoners staggers to her feet, wincing as the electric shock runs through her wrists. A girl my age with short black hair, whom I recognize from the Crust camp. But I knew her before then, on the Surface too.
“Nellie?”
She looks flabbergasted to see me. “How are you here? I thought you got away!”
“I did,” I say. “I was taken to the Core. I came here on my own to speak with the Mardenite leader as soon as I found out what the Developers were planning. I’ve struck a bargain with them.”
“So it’s true what they’re saying?” she asks.
“Yes, all of it is true. I don’t have time to explain everything because I’m going with them on the invasion, but the Mardenites didn’t come here to harm us.” I look around the room at the other prisoners watching me, hoping they’re listening. “Our ancestors once imprisoned them the same way the Developers imprisoned us. The Mardenites want to save us. They’re giving us the opportunity to go back to their home planet, Marden, with them. We could make a new home for ourselves there. Free from the Developers, free from moonshine.”
More voices start, people asking more questions. I want to answer all of them, but there isn’t time. I can see the guards leading Beechy and the others through the crowd. So I assure Nellie and the other prisoners everything will be explained soon, and step out of the hold with Jehara.
I wring my hands, anxiously waiting for Beechy. So much has happened since we were separated, and I’ve been so worried he was being tortured or killed up here. I need to hear his voice and hug him and make sure he’s all right.
As soon as he comes out of the hold, I run to him. His hair is matted with sweat, and his skin is dirtier than before. He’s still wearing the safety suit he had on when I last saw him. I fling my arms around him, and he hugs me back with a tight grip.
“You’re alive,” I breathe.
“Yes, I am,” he says. His voice is weak.
The other guards escort Uma out of the hold, but no one else is with them. The rest of the Alliance rebels—Paley and Mal and the others—must be in a different part of the hold, or on one of the other battle stations.
“Where’s Sandy?” I ask, pulling away from Beechy.
“I don’t know,” Beechy says. “The Mardenites took her away, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“They probably took her to one of their healers,” I say, looking to Jehara for confirmation.
She nods. “The woman prisoner is with a jula, who healed her wounds. She and baby are well. She is resting.”
Beechy looks wary, uncertain.
“The Mardenites are going to help us invade the Core?” Uma asks.
“They are,” I say. “I have a lot to tell you both.”
“Start at the beginning,” Beechy says.
So I do.