21
January 10
Selah sat at her transport navigator station watching Taraji and Bodhi working on a system overhaul. Nothing was going as it should. The only plan Selah had at the moment was no plan.
Bodhi looked up at her from the parts he was fusing. “You look far away. Do you feel well today?”
“I’m fine, I guess, but it’s frustrating. We have no idea how long it will take to find enough parts to rebuild these propulsion systems, and—”
Bodhi set his jaw. “We’re working as fast as we can, but needing to manufacture our own replacement parts has slowed the process.”
“But yesterday, nothing got done at all. Everyone went off in their own direction.” Selah refused to tell them about the changes she could feel, but at the same time they couldn’t know her need for urgency. This slide was happening too fast.
“We didn’t have parts! The merchant didn’t get the silica spacers. We can’t finish the port system without the material. We’ll cut it ourselves, but we have to wait until we get the parts.”
Taraji poked her head out of the cabinet space. “But Mojica and I did spend the day on business. We took another of Glade’s stones in to be cut down to tradeable value size. I have to say I thought it was foolish to bring that bag of stones since back home they’re useless and plentiful, but on this side of the mountain range they’ll allow us a comfortable life for many years to come.”
Selah calmed. Father again. Thank you. “I’m sorry I’m being crazy, and I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t yell at their invisible political system as easily as I can yell at you guys.”
“We do realize that even if you got answers today, we wouldn’t be ready to leave, but what is the holdup? Not being able to be involved in the negotiations makes me very nervous,” Taraji said.
“I don’t think there should be negotiations without me there,” Pasha said as she entered the command deck with a tray of sandwiches and drinks.
Selah’s stomach had forgotten it was lunchtime, but she didn’t want to hear any more of Mother’s words. “I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be involved in anything in that evil place, especially because Dane would act out if you went and he didn’t. And there is nothing in that place that I want him to see. It’s bad enough Rylla—”
“All right! I give up. Who’s the mother here?” Pasha set the tray down on the navigation console and raised her hands in surrender.
Selah bit her lip. She needed some air. She grabbed a sandwich and walked to the ramp toward systems.
“Selah, don’t go away mad,” Pasha said.
“I’m not,” Selah said. She muttered the rest in her head.
Selah drove the Wheeler through the woods to the dome. The kids had showed her how to get closer, but it only worked if she borrowed a horse. This noisy, petrol-powered three-wheeler had to be left in the woods to be hidden.
She walked the rest of the way. She felt a little safer with the gun strapped to her side and the long knife across her back. It reminded her of the one she’d found at Rylla’s.
Three men near the dome checkpoint alerted one another as they saw Selah coming. There should have been at least one of Contressa’s people nearby as a safety, but she didn’t see anyone.
Selah hadn’t been feeling enough energy to use a thrust, so hand combat or the old-fashioned weapons not affected by magnetism were now her choices.
The three lined up close together in her path.
Selah stopped in front of them, but not close enough to be grabbed without a fight. “Do you want something?”
“We want to know why we shouldn’t just grab you and sell you to the highest bidder.” The first scruffy guy was short and dirty, maybe a mine worker.
Selah rested her hand on the Remington in her holster. “Because I’m under Contressa’s protection.”
The three men put their heads together. Selah caught their body-speak right away. They weren’t ready to harm her, just shake her down for the stones they’d probably heard about.
The three faced her again. Off to the right, Baje came charging from the dome. Her bad leg slowed her steps, but her voice commanded attention. “You three need to go harass another entrance into the dome. Contressa will hear about this.”
The men looked fearful of the declaration and scurried off, and Selah strode to the girl. “Thanks. You saved me again.” Selah wrapped an arm around Baje, who blushed but clung to Selah’s side.
“I’m late or this would never have happened. I was coming to your transport. Contressa has news.” Baje headed back in toward the main area of Contressa’s holdings.
Like Cleveland’s, the Chicago dome was divided into degrees of territory. Contressa’s holdings consisted of fifteen degrees of the outer commerce ring, including one of the twelve entrances into the dome and the market. Selah had resigned herself to dealing with this mobster, but only because the hardened woman had a soft spot for disabled children.
Tuere came scampering out of the entrance. “Where’s Rylla? I promised her a bow lesson.”
Selah offered him a hug. He allowed it but seemed as reluctant as Dane usually did.
“Not today. I may bring her in tomorrow. She’s been behind in her studies.” Rylla and Dane had spent so much time reading the Stone Braide Chronicles that very little other work was accomplished, and now real school needed its due.
“I’m glad we don’t have to study,” Tuere said. “But sometimes I wish I had time to use the stuff I do learn.” His eyes held momentary sadness.
Selah was grateful Contressa gave the Outcast children a place to be sheltered for their short lifespans. She pulled her lips tight, trying not to cry. Wet eyes were never a positive negotiating point unless the object was sympathy, and today there would be none of that. These kids needed a chance to live. She hadn’t discussed her decision with anyone because she couldn’t take hearing any more voices giving her advice.
She walked casually with the children. Now that she was inside she had no fear of attack. The merchants knew her as someone under the boss’s protection. No one tried to hawk their wares as they passed.
Selah knocked on the door and it opened. A young girl with a limp closed it and shuffled away to another room. Contressa sat off to the right of the door in a courtyard terrace that looked out on an impressive garden with a pond and waterfall.
Selah strolled over to the circular table. “You have news?”
Contressa looked up from her bowl of soup. “Well, hello to you too. Such a pleasant day—”
“Listen, you didn’t call me here to wish me a good day. What news do you have?”
Contressa laid down her spoon. “Here’s the way it works. The Outcasts are considered to be a blight on our society. Their plight has caught the attention of a group of do-gooders looking for a cause. They think these children should get better care through the dome government like other citizens. The group is an active and strong political voice in the Chicago dome, and any Seeker who gets their endorsement is a good contender to win the seat to run the dome government.”
“I still don’t see where I come in,” Selah said.
“There is a particular Seeker who would covet the endorsement from this do-gooder group. The Seeker could be convinced to tell the novarium the truthful answers to her questions, including wherever you’re supposed to go from here.” Contressa picked up her spoon and resumed sipping the soup.
Selah hated when people talked around her questions. “You still didn’t answer my question of where I come in.”
“I told you the Seeker will give you any answer you’re looking for.”
Selah pounded her fist on the woman’s table. The soup bowl jumped. “Stop playing with the needle and get to the point. What do you want from me?”
Contressa sat back in the fluffy cushion of her chair. “I don’t want anything from you.”
Selah’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. How can you get a whole political group to endorse the Seeker? How does that happen? It must cost something.”
Contressa looked bored. “I own the group.”
Selah’s mouth fell open. “I probably don’t want to know anymore, except why you are doing this for me.”
A smile crept across Contressa’s mouth. “Because of the children. Even though they’re not mine, I do love every one of them for their short lifespans, and my Tuere is infatuated with your Rylla. Baje thinks the sun rises in your eyes. So it’s for my children. Besides, with a Seeker in my pocket I’ll have more dome clout without needing to play the game.”
“I haven’t been to the interior of this dome. In the Cleveland dome we spent the majority of our time in the interior and took only a brief trip to the wharf, which was in this outer diameter. What’s it like here? I mean, since you call politics a game.”
“This dome went to the dark side so many generations ago that now it is the norm. That’s why their moral code allows them to throw away these children.”
“Why aren’t you bargaining for my blood like everybody else?”
“Because my kids like you as you are. Excuse me for speaking so frankly, but the others captured were only bought and sold to profit the rich and elite in the dome. Any lasting effects would never be passed to the common masses. Besides, I think it is a rather ghoulish practice to drain a living person of their blood to make money or extend your own life.” Contressa furrowed her brow. “I do have standards and that’s not one of them.”
That complicated any thought Selah had of giving plasma and the cure code to the dome for the STORM project, but she still ached for the children.
“Do you know how many novarium made it out of here?”
Contressa looked off toward a large red rhododendron bush that looked the size of a tree.
“Contressa?”
“Go to that tree next to the rhododendron and count the marks,” Contressa said.
Selah, hesitant at first, approached faster as she saw the notches extended under the foliage. “Twenty-nine. There are twenty-nine marks.”
“There have been a total of thirty-nine who have come through here during the life of the dome. Nine got to leave here, twenty-nine were captured,” Contressa said.
“Where’s the other one?”
“That’s you and yet to be determined.”
Selah’s shoulders felt a little looser. “How soon can it happen?”
“I’ll let you know. It may take a while, but I hear tell in the market that you’ve got a big job going on out there. You’ve been real lucky so far the snow has held off.”
February 4
Selah had cabin crazies, the kids had cabin crazies, and in general the whole group was on edge. They’d been trapped by three snowstorms in two weeks’ time that had left the transport surrounded by five feet of snow, and with the wind and cold weather it refused to melt. For hours Selah would sit staring out the front shield, willing the snow to melt . . . but it was still there.
“I wondered where you went,” Taraji said. She slid into her command seat and swiveled to face Selah, who had taken up residence in Bodhi’s chair.
Selah turned her eyes in Taraji’s direction but didn’t turn the seat. “Was there any question that I was still on board?” She had lost an incremental amount of energy since this time last month, and she was no longer able to thrust.
“Guess not. I was just wanting to talk with you. We haven’t had a good discussion since . . . well, since Brejian died.”
“I wanted to talk to you about her. Did you always trust her?” Selah swiveled to face Taraji.
Taraji furrowed her brow. “Yes, of course I did. We three originally came from the Cleveland dome together, but then we separated. Mojica went to the Mountain, I went to TicCity, and Brejian traveled with the Keepers of the Stone until the last died, then she came to TicCity also.”
Selah sat up. “Keepers of the Stone? That’s what Treva’s parents were. They died less than twenty years ago.”
“That’s the time frame in which Brejian came to TicCity.”
“It’s funny how so many people can be interconnected and not even know it, and how so many can be directly connected to Brejian,” Selah said. “Like the ones who will live on in Cleveland because she verified that breakthrough cure with my plasma.”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to discuss with you,” Taraji said.
Selah smiled softly. “Good, two minds with one thought.”
Taraji lowered her chin but raised her eyes, giving her a sinister look. “What are we talking about?”
“I want to give a plasma treatment to Contressa for the kids,” Selah said.
Taraji bolted from her seat. “No! Absolutely not! You can’t do that anymore.”
Selah flinched. She had expected Taraji to be an ally. “What’s the matter? It wouldn’t be that much. I’ve gone over the data a dozen times since we’ve been snowed in. With the formula Brejian provided, we can create an inoculation that can cure the defect no matter the stage.”
“Are they forcing you to do this? What are they holding over you?” Taraji was visibly upset. “Is this their price to find a Seeker?”
“No, I promise they’re not asking for this. They don’t even know about it. I was going to wait until we were ready to leave before giving it to Contressa. She’s helping because she loves those kids and the kids have taken to us.”
“I’m sorry I misjudged them, but it’s still not a good idea for you to do this,” Taraji said.
“I’m swearing you to secrecy. I’m going to do this, and you can’t say a word about it to another person on this transport.”
Taraji leaned forward in her seat and ran a hand across her forehead. “You can’t give away any more samples of your blood.”
“I think I’m the one who gets to decide that.” Selah felt her anger rising.
Taraji looked out the front shield and sighed. “I finally had some free time to go through the data crystals Brejian gave me the morning before she died. One of them is a long letter of apology to me, Mojica, and you for deceiving us.”
Selah frowned. “What did she lie about?”
“It was more a lie of omission. She ‘forgot’ to tell us that the large plasma sample, in addition to what they took from you in the Mountain, shortened your lifespan considerably. You’re not going to make a year.”
Selah felt adrenaline course through her body, then shakes that quivered even her fingers. “When will I die? How much time did it take?”
Taraji shook her head. “No one knows how much they took out of you in the Mountain. Brejian apologized for taking a month of your life, but she said she couldn’t apologize for saving people who had dedicated their lives to you.”
Selah gulped for air. She couldn’t force her lungs open. She felt the life squeezing from her a breath at a time. “Is there anything we can measure, anything at all? I could drop over right here in the snow.” Her mind raced.
“I only had time to go through the crystals once. We’ve been full speed on the retrofit. We picked up supplies right before the snow started, so we’ve had plenty to do. We only need one more load of piping and parts, and we can be done in two weeks.”
“The sooner, the better.” Selah needed an answer from Contressa. Had the Seeker agreed? She needed that next station so they knew what direction to go.
Taraji stood to leave. “I’m glad you understand why you can’t give any more of your blood away.”
Selah understood. She just wasn’t listening. “And you understand this whole conversation was just between you and me and no one else.”
Taraji nodded and started to walk away. She stopped and turned back. “I do remember one thing Brejian was sure of. The length of time from the beginning that you picked up skills, you will lose them in reverse order.” She walked down the ramp to systems.
Selah gripped the chair arms. She’d gained the thrust in September and lost it sometime in January.
When was it first gone?