Paradise 21 (29 page)

If he thought she’d go back into that prison cell of a room, he was wrong. Aries ran through an empty lab, knocking vials of seeds to the ground. If only she could get to the escape pods.

She tripped on a garden hose and skidded on her elbows across the floor, banging her head. Pain erupted behind her forehead and zapped her courage. Who was she kidding? The
New Dawn
had traveled so far from Sahara 354, she’d need a whole other spaceship to go back, not some rickety escape pod.

The computer on the table above her head booted up, and she picked herself up again, ducking underneath the desk before the familiar image could solidify. Barliss had her cornered. He was right: there was nowhere to hide. Curled up into a fetal position under the desk, she heard footsteps run past. It would only be a matter of minutes before they found her.

Aries held her breath, her heart thumping so hard she could feel it in her throat.

“The lieutenant said the trail ends here.”

“Yeah, it looks like she’s been here.” She heard the man kick a vial across the floor and watched it settle just beyond her nose.

“Been here and gone.”

“Jeez, you’d think she was a ghost.”

“Come on. Let’s keep going. There are three more greenhouses to sweep.”

The two men left and Aries released her breath.

She’d fooled them, but Barliss had closed in on her location and search crews trapped her from both directions. An overwhelming urge to cry erupted in her chest, but she swallowed it back down.

No. She’d run no longer. This was no way to live her life.

Aries stood up. Fear had been a constant companion all her life, eroding each day into silent worries and controlling each decision she made. This day, her fear would cease.

Aries strode swiftly to the computer and banged on the keypad, bringing the screen to life.

“Barliss, I know you’re in there.”

His face appeared through the static. He didn’t wait for the edges to solidify before speaking.

“Yes, Aries.”

“I’m ready to talk to you. You know where I am. Come alone and I won’t run.”

Before he could respond, she took a step back, brought her knee up nearly to her chin and kicked out, hard, at the monitor. The heel of her boot shattered the screen.

“How in all the universe are we going to find her?” Tiff peered over a supply container, her laser cocked and ready to fire. Loot crept across the other side of the loading bay, scouting.

“I’m working on that.” Striker glared at her and resumed hacking into the computer’s systems. The clearance codes were tiresome but easy enough to figure out. Striker conducted a file search and found Aries’ name on the prisoner cells. “Here she is: sector eight alpha, cell fifty-seven.”

“Great.” Tiff’s voice was less than enthusiastic. “Let’s go get her and get the hell outta here.”

Striker read through the information. “It’s not that simple.” A rush of pride burned in his chest as he searched for her. “It appears
she’s
the prisoner that’s escaped.”

“Shit.” Tiff’s face soured even more. “She’ll be even harder to find, and we won’t be the only ones looking for her.”

Striker gained access to the progress of the search teams. “They haven’t found her yet. The last sighting was near the bio-dome.”

A laser fired across the loading dock, hitting the chrome above their heads. Striker and Tiff ducked and turned around.

“Oh no. Loot.” Tiff moved to run after him.

Striker held her back. “We can’t help him if we’re both dead. This way.” He gestured around the back of the loading dock where the machinery sat, unused.

“If anything’s happened to him…” Tiff hissed.

They heard scuffling and hid behind a mammoth vehicle, its wheels taller than they were, combined. Striker pressed his back against the rubber tire, thinking of a plan.

“It’s all right. You can come out now.” Loot’s voice rang out and Striker’s chest heaved with relief.

“Told you I could take care of myself.” The boy dragged an unconscious man behind him and dumped him at Striker’s feet. “I caught him just before he alerted anyone.”

Striker smiled, impressed. “Good work, Loot.”

The boy shrugged, but Striker could tell he valued the compliment, because his mouth quirked in a smile despite his effort to appear casual. “Come on, sir. I’ve found a maintenance shaft leading to the upper decks.”

Tiff ruffled Loot’s hair. “If anyone can work their way through the air shafts, it’s Loot.” She looked back at Striker as the boy led the way.

Striker still had trouble reconciling the selfish Tiff he knew with the one who was so protective of a child.

Loot brought them to the base of a ladder at least twenty decks high. Loot jumped up and started to climbed as nimbly as a monkey. He called down, “Which deck is the bio-dome?”

“Deck fifteen.” Striker waited as Tiff began the climb, then he followed, concentrating only on the rung in front of him, and on Aries. His skin burned as he thought of seeing her again.

“Are we almost there?” Tiff panted.

Loot looked down at both of them and shook his head. “That leaves us thirteen more decks to climb.”

“Ugh.” Tiff quickened her pace and Striker followed. For her this was a chore, a means to get to Refuge, but for him, this mission was his destiny.

“Striker, can you find the door entry code?” Loot asked, as they reached the right deck.

“Sure.” He pulled himself up on the landing and immediately went to work on what he did best: decoding. In moments, the door dematerialized and a strange smell wafted into the maintenance shaft. It was an earthy tang, like the soil on Sahara 354, but with a pungent humidity Striker had never experienced before.

“What is it?” Tiff’s pixie nostrils flared and her face scrunched up.

“Trees.” Striker peered into the deck. “It’s a forest.”

They stepped from the metal maintenance shaft into an ocean of green.

“Whoa.” Loot whispered, brushing a fern out of his way. “It’s like a real forest from before the destruction of old Earth.”

“Leave it to the colonists to take everything that matters with them.” Tiff ran her hand over a leaf. “Leaving us with nothing.”

“Come on.” Striker picked his way through the squishy soil. “I see a break in the trees. This way.”

At the edge of the forest, they faced an expanse of crops, gardens and greenhouses. The artificial light replicated old Earth sunbeams, shining down over the massive terrarium which teemed with life—including human life. Striker could hear men’s voices.

“Let’s get a better view.” Striker gestured toward the trees. He climbed one, while Tiff and Loot each climbed into the ones beside him. From his vantage point, he took in the situation at a glance. Humans in white lab coats combed the fields like ants and patrolled the gardens down every row.

“Obviously, she’s not here.” Tiff crouched on a branch of the adjacent tree. “They would have found her by now.”

“Just wait.”

Tiff’s lips thinned. “We’re sitting targets, and this bio-dome is swarming with colonists.”

Only half-listening to her complaints, Striker spotted the same henchman who’d threatened to blow his legs off on Sahara 354. The man strode across the main walkway and turned toward the greenhouses. Uniformed people followed in his wake, but he waved them back as he got closer to the greenhouses. All the people in white lab coats had stopped searching, and now stood in place like pieces on a chessboard, waiting for giant fingers to move them around.

Striker put a finger to his lips to signal Tiff for silence. “Something’s going on down below.”

…

Aries watched from the foggy glass of the greenhouse as Barliss waved his attendants away. She was relieved he’d respected her enough to listen to her request. He’d meet her one on one.

The glass door swung open as he stepped in. He closed it behind him, blocking out everyone in the bio-dome and leaving them alone.

“Aries.”

“Barliss.”

His eyes had the same glazed look she’d noticed on the screen, like a part of his consciousness was lost in another world. A single wire ran from his neck to an inner pocket in his primly pressed uniform. His skin was paler than when she’d last seen him, his expression placid.

“I want my freedom,” Aries said.

“I know.” Barliss stepped toward her. “I know everything.”

“You don’t know me. You never have understood me.”

“I know every pill you swallow. I know how many minutes you’ve slept.”

“That’s impossible.” The thought made her squirm inside.

“I’m part of the
New Dawn
now, Aries. I’m the Commander-In-Training.”

Aries was horrified, but underneath her revulsion, she wasn’t surprised.

“You’ve always craved status, but it’s a hollow pursuit. When will you learn that the people around you aren’t toys to push around?”

“Oh yes, they are.” Barliss waved his long fingers. “And now I have the power to watch their every move, to run this ship how it should be run, with me standing at the helm.”

“But you won’t be standing at all, don’t you see?” Aries couldn’t help but try to help this man, even though he’d tortured her. “You’re going to end up all alone in a hoverchair, kept alive by chemicals and wires in your veins.”

“It’s wonderful, Aries, being united with the mainframe. It’s a whole world of interconnection, an entire universe of knowledge at my fingertips. Won’t you share it with me?” He reached his hand out, strong fingers waiting to grasp her wrist.

“No.” The word came out of her mouth like the shot of a laser. His eyes grew sharper, like she’d tugged a part of him back to reality. “I want to go back to Sahara 354. I need a transport vessel to get there.”

Barliss pursed his thick lips as his hand snapped back to his side. He nodded as if he’d expected such a reaction. His voice took on a lecturing tone, “The
New Dawn
’s mission is to preserve humanity and deliver our genetic code in all the possible variations to another world, where we can live with abundant resources, free of contamination.”

He spread his arms, “You are an integral part of the
New Dawn
and its cargo. As the commander-in-training, I must protect the mission objective. Therefore, I cannot let you go.”

“The
New Dawn
’s computers can’t account for everything that makes a relationship a success.” Striker’s features flashed in her memory. “A human being is so much more than just genetic code. Whatever computer you’re connected to is tragically flawed if it put the two of us together.”

A flicker of doubt crossed his features and Aries wondered if she’d hit the answer to everything right on the head. She pressed further. “You can’t tell me the
New Dawn
knows the right path for all of us, if it paired you and me.”

Barliss’ face screwed up as if he fought an internal battle. He jolted his head like he had water stuck in his ear and touched the wire at the back of his neck. “You’re right.”

Aries almost choked on her own spit. Had she hear him correctly?

Barliss slumped forward. “The mainframe won’t allow me to deceive. The computer didn’t put us together. I did.”

“What?” The truth hit her hard in the gut and she stepped back.

Barliss’ voice returned to its calm, even cadence. “I saw you running one day on the track and I had to have you. I manipulated the system. You were supposed to be paired with a lower officer—Langston, if you care to know. I changed it. I changed the future, our future, and when I did, I mixed everything up. All I’ve been doing is trying to put it back together again.”

Barliss’ flat, factual confession was flattering in a sick, screwed-up kind of way. Aries thought about Langston and their rivalry in mechanics class. Would she have been happy with him? Would she have stayed on the
New Dawn
? Emotions swirled through her, and she rode their currents like a ship in the pull of a black hole. She thought of her parents, of Trent and Tria, of her erased animal pictures and her stifled dreams. She thought of Striker’s stories of old Earth and Outpost Omega, and all the suffering the
New Dawn
had left behind. Her place in the universe became clear in her mind, like the threads of a tapestry all weaving together to form her true path.

“It doesn’t matter who I was paired with. The computer wouldn’t have been right.”

Barliss smiled, showing perfect, straight teeth. “Good, now you’re listening. I’m telling you, I understand the desire to have choices. I’m still human, after all. And I choose you.”

“Yes, but the other person has to choose you back, Barliss.” She stared him down, understanding full well how rejection felt. “You’re not my choice.”

A vein in his neck began to throb. He took in a deep breath and continued. “I’m going to be the ultimate power on this ship. You cannot choose anyone better.”

“You have no control over me. My place is with the pirates, the people the
New Dawn
left behind.”