Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) (26 page)

I stayed close to Marcus as we pushed through the crowd and exited a door on the far side of the building. Outside, we threaded through crowded walkways that smelled of human bodies, of flowers, and of the salt air blown in on a stiff breeze.

Marcus ducked sideways, leaving the street. He led me into a throng of people gathered in small groups on a wide expanse of grass bordered by four buildings, including the big one we’d landed on top of. There must’ve been as many people in this one space as on all of Fremont. Twice as many. More. Heady spices from strange food assaulted my nostrils and a cacophony of conversations wafted around me. We changed direction multiple times, passing through two buildings and a tunnel.

The island and its strange inhabitants dwarfed me, dwarfed the
university, which had seemed big and full just hours ago and now felt like a refuge of peace and stillness. My breath came fast and quick and my hands shook. “Marcus,” I called. “Can I sit down?” Without waiting for an answer I found an empty bench and collapsed, trying to shield my senses from all of it.

Marcus stood, looking at me, his eyes narrowed in concern.

I focused on his tall slender form, on the one familiar thing, and the background swam behind him, losing resolution. “I’m dizzy.”

He sat beside me on the bench. “It’s okay. Rest.”

Marcus smelled familiar and comfortable. I closed my eyes, letting the sounds wash over me and through me. I began to treat it like data, isolating conversations. It helped. After a few moments, I tried opening my eyes again, and this time the colors and movement of the crowd stayed crisp and clear.

“Better?” Marcus asked. When I nodded slowly, he asked, “What is it? Are you just tired?”

I shook my head. “I think it’s just—there are so many new things here. Maybe the isolation room took more out of me than I thought.” Watching my back and worrying didn’t help much either. How was I to tell who might be an enemy in the sea of strangeness here?

He pursed his lips. “Maybe it’s from shielding so hard. Try to relax into it; let it be your normal state so that data stays outside of you.”

I took three deep breaths, trying to follow his advice. But if I relaxed too far, I felt data creep in, and knew I’d go out to meet it. It was too natural now, maybe had always been too natural. I swallowed, maintaining my shield with force. “I’m ready to go,” I said, trying to sound strong.

We made it three-quarters of the way across the busy lawn when I noticed Marcus heading for a large tree with thin green and gold leaves that cascaded almost to the grass. Its shape reminded me of the tent trees back home even though the leaves and slender branches of this tree created a more delicate boundary. It shimmered. As we came near enough to hear the leaves rustling gently against each other, a hand appeared amidst the leaves, parting them, and Alicia darted out, clutching me tightly. “Joseph. It’s really you. You’re here,” she whispered, “so good.”

My heart raced. She looked wonderful, felt wonderful. “We’re
here.” I clasped my arms around her, holding her tight. I couldn’t believe Marcus hadn’t told me we were meeting them. I buried my face in her hair. “Are you all right?”

She pushed me back and lifted her face up. Her skin glowed with health and her violet eyes danced. “I’m better than I’ve ever been. I love it here. I don’t ever want to go back, or go anyplace else.” She stood and threw her arm out in an expansive gesture. “Isn’t this beautiful? There’s so much here.”

I stared at her, entranced. Enchanted.

A necklace of tiny green and gray beads lay neatly against her neck. She brought one hand up, stroking the necklace the way she had stroked my face a hundred times. Excitement and pleasure seemed to roll from her like waves. “I can read data. And no one cares if I have access, no one keeps me down here, Joseph. I can be myself.” She lifted her hand from the beads and took mine in it, her slender fingers holding tight.

Envy flashed through me for a second. I couldn’t even let my shields down. But seeing Alicia swamped all other emotion.

She stopped and squinted at me. “How have you been? We’ve heard rumors about you, and I studied up on Marcus. The Port Authority and the rest of the government seems scared of him even though they hire him. He’s popular, kind of in an underground way—he has low steady buzz. Jenna called him a ‘balancing power,’ whatever that means. He really is the strongest Wind Reader here.”

I laughed, and Marcus came up beside me. “I might not be anymore.” He smiled at me. “Now go on, see the others.”

Of course the others were there. I squeezed Alicia’s hand. She turned and I followed her. As we slid in between the leaves, all noise from outside cut away as if a sheet of glass separated us from the crowd. The tree smelled of clean dirt and leaves, with a slight sweetness under it all. “The silence feels good,” I whispered, drinking in the details of her face.

Alicia grinned. “Isn’t this cool? It’s a meet-me tree. You have to pay to use them, but they can make you feel like you’re alone even here.”

“Does it block out data, too?” I asked.

She grinned, touching her necklace. “If you ask it to.”

I looked around. Bryan sat next to Tiala, smiling expectantly. He,
too, looked perfect, with glowing skin and no sign of his injuries. He gave a small wave and stayed seated. Waiting for something?

I looked around for Jenna and for Tiala’s bird. The upside-down bell of the tree was big, but not big enough to hide anyone. “Where’s Jenna?”

Tiala waved at me, lifting a hand and returning it to her lap, twisting her hands together. A slightly exaggerated gesture. She gazed at me steadily, her expression as expectant as Bryan’s.

I looked, and looked again. Her perfect face showed no scars, but her dark hair was no longer caught back in a long braid. It hung, like Jenna’s, just above the shoulders.

It wasn’t Tiala.

“Jenna?”

She nodded, and a broad smile lit her perfect features, a smile full of more joy than I had ever seen on her face. I knelt down in front of her, meeting her eyes. Two eyes. Two perfect steel-gray eyes. One of my hands went to her smooth cheek of its own accord. The skin was soft, like a child’s.

So much damage, undone so quickly.

Her eyes were still her own—haunted and sure of herself. It amazed me I had mistaken her for her sister at all. I leaned forward and folded her in my arms, something I had never done before. Surprisingly she let me, relaxing into my embrace for just a moment before reasserting her usual distance and pushing me gently away.

I sat back on my heels and stared at her. “I—I—Wow. You look great! How did you do that?”

She shook her head. “I got good prices, particularly for the animals and plants from Fremont.” She smiled and stood, pulling me to my feet with her new arm, which had the same soft-skin glow as her new face. “I had to. No one is ill or maimed here. I would stick out worse than a flyer in a walking city.” She gave a funny smile. “Oddly, it helped a bit to look broken. I think people bid higher just to see the damaged woman in person.” A trace of bitterness flashed momentarily in her eyes, and maybe even loss. She tossed her head and turned to face me, as if still a little unsure of what I thought. “But if I had stayed that way, I would have been noticed everywhere I went.”

She seemed almost apologetic, even though the new Jenna was
young and beautiful. No one should have to apologize for being whole. “I understand,” I said softly. “It must feel much better.”

Her face grew serious. “It wasn’t anywhere near enough credit to buy the ship back, anyway.”

I touched her new cheek again. “This was more important than the ship.” Not than getting Chelo; nothing mattered more than that. But surely Jenna had chosen right.

She stretched her arm out. “It’s still a little stiff, and partly mechanical. That was the faster route, and I had other things to do. That’s why I asked Marcus to bring you. Your father is coming—he is flying into Li Spaceport tomorrow.”

My father.

I swallowed hard. “He’s coming to see me?” I asked. “What about my mother?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about Marissa, Joseph. And your father doesn’t know you’re here, yet. I need to see him, and that is all he knows right now.” A brief troubled look passed across her eyes. Just as I was about to ask what worried her, she looked over at Marcus, who stood beside me, watching me closely. Jenna said, “I want to take Joseph to meet David.”

To meet my father. My dreams—flying the ship, finding my parents—my dreams were coming true. I looked at Marcus. Would he let me go?

Marcus returned my gaze. “What do you want?” he asked mildly.

“I need to see my father.” I waited, watching him watch me. “But I want to study with you more, too. Can I come back?”

Marcus nodded slowly at me, a small grin edging his generous mouth. “Perhaps we can work something out.” His eyes seemed to bore through to my very soul. “You still have much to learn. But since I’ve just been seen with you it might be good for me to be seen without you for a little while.”

Alicia stepped up close to me, clutching my hand tightly. He glanced at her, then winked at me before turning his attention to Jenna. He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve heard the rumors about him?”

“Some,” Jenna said. “But they seem to be dying away.”

Marcus gave a wry smile. “We were just spotted at Foral University.”

She frowned at that.

Alicia spoke up. “What does that mean?”

Marcus closed his eyes for a second, surely testing the data nets. I ached to do the same. But I held my shields up, watching him. After a few moments, he opened his eyes. “There’s only a low buzz, and some are debunking the story line. I think it’s safe enough, although I don’t want him easily visible. I’ll go make some cover for you all—I can add to the confusion by being seen elsewhere, without him, and by posting a few of my own incredulous queries.”

“You’re leaving now?” A sharp sense of loss shot through me. He must have heard the pain in my voice, seen it in my eyes. His own voice softened, and a small, slightly sad smile touched his face. “Perhaps I’ll see you sooner than you think. But for now, Jenna can keep you as safe as I can. Stay in touch through her—you
must
remain shielded.”

“But what if we need to know something? Or reach you?” I asked.

“Then Jenna will have to help you, or you will have to use some other form of interface.”

Jenna glanced from me to Marcus. “Can he read the data structures here?”

Marcus nodded. “He also knows how to shield. See that he does it—he needs to stay as invisible as possible.”

“Then he’ll be all right in public?” she probed.

“Yes. He’ll be fine. I think. But feed him and get him to sleep. I wore him out today.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet you’ve been wearing him out every day.”

Marcus continued. “You were right to let me take him. I don’t know of anyone else who could train him—he really is strong.” He glanced at me. “And naïve as hell. But he kinda grows on you. So take care of him.”

I grimaced, resisting a childish urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Jenna glanced over at me, an appraising look in her eyes. “I will.” She turned her gaze to Marcus. “Thank you. You’ve been paid. I want to know more about what he has done, and learned, but I can keep him safe for a day.”

Marcus leaned in and kissed her. She accepted it, naturally, already seeming to be a different person than the wild woman of Fremont. Marcus looked down at her, his eyes soft. “He’s truly remarkable. And not yet trained. I want him back—but in the meantime, show him
what you can of the world here. We’ve been hiding out at one of my houses. Tell me where to meet you.”

“Outside of Li, there is a garden. The memory garden. That’s where David will come. Meet us there tomorrow around noon?”

He looked at me. “I’ll come if I can. Good luck with your father.”

“Thank you.” I meant for all of what he’d taught me as well as for his good wishes. The way he smiled down at me, I felt sure he understood the whole message.

With that, he turned and left, parting the leaves nearly silently, the sound of his footsteps cut off as he left the cone of silence inside the tree.

J
enna’s hand shaking my shoulder woke me the next morning. A ray of sunshine fell through the open window, highlighting her unbelievably perfect features. As she bustled about the tiny kitchen making col that smelled like redberries but tasted sweeter, she seemed like someone I hardly knew: beautiful, poised, and smooth. However, the look in both of her eyes remained as wild and cautious as the look in one eye had been, as if the old Jenna inhabited a cave inside the new one.

Jenna flew us all to the memory garden in a skimmer I’d never seen before, a simple silver machine with room for six. “I don’t know how long before he shows up,” she said. “There are sights worth seeing here—we’ll walk.” She looked at me. “Stay shielded.”

“I know,” I mumbled, tired of constant warnings.

Bryan looked as complete and fresh as Jenna, his limp entirely gone. He walked beside Jenna, chatting with her. They led us along a simple path lined with tall spiky plants covered in purple, pink, and yellow flowers. I pointed the flowers out to Alicia, who walked next to me. “The blooms in Marcus’s garden are even more perfect.”

She leaned down and smelled a bright yellow blossom the size of her hand, sniffing deeply. “These are better than anything on Fremont.”

“But even these aren’t as pretty as wild spike-bells.”

“Right,” she shot back. “And I bet these won’t make you sick if you
eat their leaves, either.” Still looking at the yellow flowers, she said, “I don’t ever want to leave here.”

Bryan must have heard her, because he looked back over his shoulder and said, “We have to go get Chelo and the others.”

“I still don’t want to go back,” Alicia said.

“I’ll be happier when we’re all together,” I said. I belonged here. I had a role to play, a destiny that could never be fulfilled someplace as backward and untrusting as Fremont. I just knew it.