Dove Arising (32 page)

“Huh?” says Io. “Oh. Oh, no no no.”

“What the fuse, Stripes!” shouts Nash, abandoning all caution. Then she leans toward me and whispers, “That’s career suicide for all of us. Maybe real suicide too!”

“That night, Lina lay awake, clutching the photos to her chest and occasionally leafing through them. While they made her angry and terribly sad, she was glad her father had taken them
. At least I know the Jinjiang that’s hidden from me,
she thought
. Injustice will continue to exist, whether or not I choose to ignore it.

“The next morning, Lina found a sack of silver coins under her mattress, enough to live on for over a year. Her father kissed her brow before heading to work. ‘Everything I do is motivated by affection for this city, and for you,’ he said. ‘Always remember that. I love you, Lina.’

“Jon never came home.”

Mom means to club her readers with the truth, to stop their breath, and it’s working.

In the Law chamber, she looks directly at the camera, at me. She’s not allowed to talk, but her eyes convey the remains of her resolve.

For years, I’ve known and responded to that expression. If Mom had a tight deadline for a news story, I’d look at her once and know to program Tinbie with cleaning instructions and begin setting the table for the night’s dinner. But now, she needs a different type of help.

“They’ve got her!” I cry. “They’re going to—”

“Be quiet!” Orion says.

But today, I want to be loud. Blast the eavesdroppers—I don’t care who’s spying on us.

“Please listen to Phaet,” Wes tells Orion. “That prisoner”—he points at me, lowering his voice—“her mother. It’s quite literally a life or death situation.”

“Jon had known that photographing state secrets and showing them to someone else meant death. The government had electronic ears and eyes in every wall, and they easily caught him. Officials took Jon to the gallows. He died knowing that he had shown his daughter the truth of her world.

“Years passed before Lina forgave her father. By then, she had found other people who thought like him—and thought like her. Someday, together, they might make Jinjiang into a place where the government would have nothing to hide. A place where the water ran clear, if not golden.”

“Why do you care, Kappa?” Even as Orion argues against us, I feel the ship slowing. He whispers, “Why sacrifice your job—
our
jobs? You can’t influence the verdict.”

“I don’t want to be poor!” Io moans.

“Blast it, Io!” Orion throws up his hands. “Why don’t we all say whatever we want now?”

The eavesdroppers must have noticed something funny—if they aren’t occupying themselves 100 percent with the trial feed.

“Great!” Nash exclaims. “I’m done hiding!” Then she remembers to lower her voice. “The Committee shouldn’t be listening to us in the first place. Don’t you see? Those engine workers, Jon, Lina, this Jinjiang city . . . they’re stand-ins for the Bases and people living here. That’s what Phaet’s mom is saying.”

Orion turns on her. “So the lunacy has gotten to you, too.”

Nash raps her knuckles on the back of Orion’s helmet, whispering, “Nah. Just . . . some of this grit matches thoughts I’ve had. Someone has to try and change things.”

“Mm,” says Io. “The Committee makes everyone do stupid stuff. Beta has to wear maroon. It’s ugly.”

Nash beams, relieved that her disobedient thinking isn’t occurring in isolation. “So that’s four of us who think it’s worth going back.”

“You going to dump me out the hatch or what?” Orion says. “I’m not coming.”

“Orion . . . this is a team effort,” Nash says. “We go where Stripes goes.”

“She’s our superior,” adds Wes, careful as always. “We’re obligated to follow her orders.”

I’m
the one who’ll get written up for insubordination, not any of them. And there’s a chance I’ll face charges of disruptive speech, along with Io and Nash. I’m surprised by how little I care.

Exasperated, Orion bangs his forehead on the steering joystick, causing the ship to jerk. “Fine!”

“There’s a good Orion!” Nash singsongs, flicking the ponytail that protrudes from underneath Orion’s helmet.

He grunts, but doesn’t jerk away.

“We no longer print photographs on paper. Our government’s eavesdropping ears are not in the walls; they are built into the backs of our hands. Instead of looking up at the Moon, we look down at the Earth. Because of these differences, we think that Jinjiang’s history, and the histories of dozens of Earthbound states, are not ours.

“We are wrong.”

I’m still trembling; Mom’s Journalism skills have served her too well. I fear that she, like Jon, knew this document would mean her demise.

Orion pulls a U-turn.

Io buries her face in her hands. “Are we really . . . Whoa!”

We speed baseward, our engine’s reactor eating through hydrogen so rapidly that the pressure gauge enters the red zone. On my handscreen, Phobos continues reading. I catch only snippets of meaning amidst Orion’s complaints and Nash’s insistence that we’re doing “the right thing.”

Mom’s document segues into a formal tone, using the pronoun “we” and criticizing fundamental tenets of life on the Moon, decrying mandatory Militia service, lack of resources for the underprivileged, and the secret Standing Committee meetings that determine our laws. The petitioners—my mother!—want “favorable foreign relations” with Earthbound cities and regular elections for a larger “legislative body.”

Overhauling the system never crossed my mind. But if the system is inherently broken . . .

“Fuzz on a stick,” swears Orion. “Patrol ship up ahead!”

“You sissy,” Nash sneers. “Scared of a patrol ship. Keep flying, for nukes’ sake.”

When Phobos stops reading, I glance at my handscreen once more. At the end of the document, Mom has written, in intricate gray script:

“Base minds think alike. Free minds think.”

From my handscreen, Phobos’s voice says, “Anything to add, Atlas? We’ve all read Mira’s articles. When I ran this . . . thing through the comparison software in Law, it was a ninety-two percent match. Let me put it
simply
, in case you don’t understand: Mira Theta oozes from every letter.”

35

ATLAS DROPS TO HIS KNEES. “PLEASE, YOUR Honors, this is illegally acquired evidence.”

“It doesn’t matter how evidence is procured if it’s this incriminating,” retorts Janus. “Don’t bother arguing. Look at your lie indicators on the graph; they’re going wild. You are about to deceive us.”

“This document was written in Mira Theta’s voice,” says Nebulus. “And it was found in her apartment, on her HeRP. Therefore, we conclude that she is . . .”

I clap my hand over the handscreen speaker, knowing what word his mouth will form next, what their verdict will be, what it will mean for the woman I love most in the world.

Guilty.

“Wait! Please!” Atlas raises his hands to the images of the Committee in a supplicating gesture. “Thirteen years ago. The only instance in which a person accused of disruptive print ever walked free. Six thousand Sputniks disappeared from the family’s joint account the following day. I’m making a similar offer, but of eight thousand Sputniks.”

Cassini sniggers in a brassy falsetto, waggling his fingers at the camera he probably doesn’t know is there. People must have tried messaging the Committee that they’re being filmed, but they’ve disabled the function on their handscreens at Andromeda’s request. And no one’s told them in person, either, since the trial’s location has been kept a secret. Besides, who would dare barge in on a secret Committee function?

“Where does a low-ranking legal counselor like you get that kind of money?” Cassini says.

“I keep excellent track of my finances. And those of my friends.”

“A moment.”

The Committee members turn inward, whispering among themselves. Cygnus steers a video pod closer to them; the speakers on my handscreen screech and rattle before he adjusts the volume. The destroyer rattles too, as we bump our way into the Base IV hangar.

“. . . probably got the money from Theta’s daughter,” says Nebulus. “The new captain.”

“It’s a fair sum.”

“Not enough to pay for the degree of disruption.”

“But we’ve accepted such payment in the past,” says Andromeda’s distinctly female voice. “We should let Mira go. We can ensure that she keeps quiet.”

Before the craft slows to a stop, I pull open the hatch and leap out.

“Stripes! Want to tell us what you’re doing?” Nash shouts after me.

“Or
what
we
should do?” hollers Orion.

My feet fall into step, heels barely touching the ground, toes pointed forward. I dash through the hangar and tear down the hallway, dodging stunned soldiers whose eyes are glued to their handscreens. They’re transfixed by the first news broadcast in a century that means something.

“This pronoun ‘we’ in the document . . . Mira obviously has accomplices!” Hydrus rants. “She’s also committed unsanctioned assembly. We must detain her.”

“But . . .”

“No, Andromeda! Not this time.”

“You’ve been oddly sentimental toward this criminal, Andromeda,” says Janus, sounding suspicious. “Mira spent a
month
in Medical while you argued with us. I can’t fathom why you thought Caeli might have forged evidence, given Mira’s behavior during Peary—or why you thought we’d need a trial to confirm her deviant behavior before execution.”

Are these words a hallucination? If not for Andromeda’s insistence on a trial, might Mom have been killed as soon as Wes brought her to Medical? I dumbly shake my head within the confines of my helmet. The Committee, the guardians of the Bases, planned to murder my mother and label microorganisms as the culprits. She probably isn’t the first they took in this way—or the last.

Andromeda sighs. “Well, you all proved to be right. I’d hoped that her years in Journalism had erased the radical ideas she had in her younger years. Perhaps ingrained ideology can never be replaced. Do with her what needs to be done.”

Hydrus turns back to the camera and speaks normally. The image tilts and the resolution blurs as Cygnus steers the video pod backward.

“We decline your offer, Atlas,” says Hydrus. “We are not like our underlings. Promises of material goods cannot sway us.”

I’ve found my way to the Atrium. People in brown robes are trickling in, staring at the high-resolution screens on the walls. I dodge them and run along the side of the cavernous space, behind the last row of civilian security mirrors. To facilitate my breathing and increase my speed, I throw my helmet to the floor. My ribs convulse and my lungs hold tightly to every milliliter of air so that I don’t sob in fear, which hasn’t happened since I was a kid. I’ll let my face turn blue before I let strangers see me cry.

“. . . guilty as charged!” The Committee’s voices project through the massive Atrium speakers and through the dozens of handscreens belonging to the people gathered there.

No
—something can still be done. I will free her, and we will run together. . . .

“Throughout this trial,” says Cassini, turning to address my mother. “I always wondered why
you
would complain about your lot. You’re middle-class, if on the lower end, and educated—not like those useless robepiles in Shelter. That filth leeches off the rest of us. I’d expect grievances from them—but . . .” He scoffs, “Not so well-articulated.”

My mother speaks, her voice free of rasps and hitches. “I hope I did them justice.”

“A noble endeavor.” Janus’s voice is a hollow sound that hints at the gap in his chest where his heart should be. “Before you take your punishment, Mira, answer us this: how would
Captain Phaet
and her siblings feel if they knew you chose a failed rebellion over them? That you wasted your life on hopeless heroics when they needed you?”

I stumble, overwhelmed. He knows how to hit us where it will burn. For my family, I gave up my dreams for the future. Mom did the opposite.

Running even harder to gain lost time, I burst through the Law entrance and zigzag to avoid confused-looking soldiers. I shove past lower-ranked Militia officers wondering aloud where the trial’s taking place. Someone elbows me in the back, nearly causing me to plant my face onto the front desk. I grab the edge with my hands to keep from landing atop one of three secretaries.

“Militia order! Where is Chamber 144?”

He looks up at me only long enough to see my captain’s insignia. “Take two rights, up the flight of stairs, through the double doors, on your left.”

Mechanically, I follow his directions. My fingerprint never fails to grant me access. As I sprint down the bustling first floor hallway, with my hand close to my ear, I hear Mom’s voice.

“While you six dangle us from your fingertips, those I love are never safe. Nine years ago, the . . . accident taught me, the hard way.”

I bound up the stairs three at a time, sweat dripping into my eyes.

The last hallway is deserted. My thumb slams onto the sensor of Chamber 144, and I tumble inside, my muscles tensed for yet more running.