Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel (22 page)

He sat rigid, his wrists in manacles, his fists like stones on his knees. He was hunched, his head nestled between massive shoulders, and he stared out of his cell from the cave of his heavy brow ridge. As he breathed, his lips puffed out, then sucked inward like a bizarre bellows, and his cheeks quivered with fury when he recognized her. His eyes were black, and they followed her progress past his cell with a steady, fierce hatred. He looked like a man who had never known civilization.

“Stop,” she said to Tobin, her fear replaced by anger. “Turn me toward him.”

Tobin did as she asked without a word.

“I’m going to make you terrified,” she said to the terrorist’s meaty face. Her voice was still reedy, but her tone was murderous. He seemed to be looking past her, at the empty air behind her head. “I’m going to make you hurt so bad that you’ll tell me anything to make it stop. And I’ll enjoy it.”

For half a second or less his eyes flickered to hers, and then his gaze was nonspecific again. But she knew she’d gotten to him. She’d given him something to think about so that when she came back here, he wouldn’t be so brave.

TALK

Kieran sat on the metal folding chair across from the terrorist, ignoring the last remnant of his headache, which had faded to a nagging soreness since he left the infirmary. The man breathed noisily through hairy nostrils, and he kept his small eyes on Kieran’s chest, refusing to speak. The sink against the rear wall of his cell had a leak and made a dripping noise that nagged at Kieran’s ear.

“What is your mission?” Kieran asked the man again, but he was met only with numb silence.

Kieran knew from his own captivity that after a long while of being alone, you were willing to talk to anyone, even someone you hated. Maybe he hadn’t isolated this man long enough to let the solitude work on him, but he couldn’t afford any more time. There might be booby traps laid in the ship. He needed a way into this man’s mind, and fast.

“Max Brent,” Kieran said, and paused to let the name rest between them. “That was the name of the boy you poisoned. He was fourteen years old. You like killing kids?”

The piggish eyes flickered over Kieran’s face.

“And Philip Grieg. He was an orphan who carried his teddy bear everywhere he went. You knocked his head so hard that his brain hemorrhaged. He’ll never be the same. You feel good about that?”

This seemed to move the man. His eyes softened a little and he said sadly, “I didn’t know he was so little until he was on the floor.”

He’d spoken! Kieran tried to hide his excitement and responded with, “And you tried to strangle to death two of our crew members, both fifteen years old.”

His eyes darkened at this. “That bitch deserved it.”

“Oh really?” Kieran said, forcing his voice to stay cool. “And why is that?”

“She killed my … friend. Murdered him in cold blood.”

“I know Waverly, and she wouldn’t have done that unless she thought he was going to kill her.”

“Shelby wasn’t a bad man.”

“So you think Waverly should have let Anne Mather do anything she wanted to her and not try to get away?”

“After the way your crew sterilized our women,” the man said, “your girls owed us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” the man shot at Kieran with contempt. “You destroyed our women.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“You sent us a bad formula for the drug therapy. You assured us it had been tested and it was safe.”

“Did Anne Mather tell you to say that?”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Sure she does. Otherwise why would you have been in the observatory at all, if not to communicate with her?”

“I like to look at stars,” the man said flatly.

“You say our crew sent you a bad formula? You didn’t test it yourselves before you used it? Seems pretty stupid to me.”

“We trusted you!” the man screamed with deafening violence. He jerked off the cot where he was sitting, but the chains around his hands held him back. He glared at Kieran as though intending to kill him.

With half a turn of his head, Kieran made sure that Hiro was still standing behind him, ready with a baton. He let out a quiet, slow breath, calming himself.

“Even if what you say is true, it doesn’t give you the right to kill two young boys.”

The terrorist’s eyes fastened on Kieran’s, and he closed his fleshy lips as if resolving to say nothing more.

Kieran stood and motioned to Hiro to unlock the cell door. Let the terrorist stew for a while.

Harvey and two other guards stood in the hallway outside the entrance to the brig, armed with mace and batons.

“No one sees him or talks to him, understand?” Kieran barked at them.

“Sure thing,” Harvey said to Kieran, but he didn’t look him in the eye for long. He was on the Central Council, and Kieran guessed that already his loyalties were being tested. He thought of moving Harvey to a less-crucial duty, but that might alienate the boy further.

Back in his office, Kieran opened the bottom drawer of his desk. The data-dot with Mather’s files was still where he’d left it. He’d thought she would contact him again, try to cajole him into watching the vid files, give him a chance to work on her, but he’d heard nothing from her.

He logged on to the radar system in Central Command and checked the position of the New Horizon. They were about 8.75 million miles ahead. He’d managed to close the gap by a quarter million miles, but at this rate it would be at least a year before he could catch up to them. And then what? If they ever did catch up, his crew would be so weakened from severe edema, muscle strain, and worn-down joints that they’d be useless in a fight. His whole body hurt him, and he could see in the faces of his crew that they hurt just as much.

He’d thought through dozens of ideas for how to attack the other vessel without killing the parents on board in the process. He’d only be able to use the older kids in an offensive—that would be about forty, maybe fifty at the most. They’d have to board the ship and get the parents out by force, but Mather had all the advantages. He’d never be able to sneak up on her; she could monitor the Empyrean’s position easily. The battlefield would be her own ship, which she could prepare any way she liked. And worst of all, he and the attack force would have no idea where to look for the parents. The more he thought about it, the more he could see that overt warfare would never work.

Though he had butterflies in his stomach at the thought of what he meant to do, he keyed into the long-range com system and hailed the New Horizon. A woman’s sallow face flicked onto the screen, and Kieran said, “I want to speak to Anne Mather.”

“I’ve been instructed to inquire whether you’ve seen the video files that she sent to you?”

“I haven’t had the time. We’ve been dealing with a terrorist on board our ship.”

“I’ve been instructed to tell you the Pastor is unavailable.”

“I just want to ask her a question.”

“Until you’ve watched…” The woman lifted her hand to an earpiece and looked again at Kieran with colorless eyes. “One moment, please.”

Abruptly, the screen changed to Mather’s plump pink cheeks. “Hello, Kieran.”

“We’ve captured your man.”

“What man?” she said, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“The Neanderthal you sent to sabotage our ship? He’s in our brig.”

“Are you saying there’s a member of my crew on board the Empyrean?” she asked, blinking her eyes with surprise.

He watched her, looking for signs of deception. Her gaze was steady and her brow wrinkled, as though she were displeased to learn one of her crew was AWOL. Either she really didn’t know about the terrorist or she was a good liar.

“He won’t give us his name, but he’s a big guy, heavy features, receding hairline.…”

“Jake,” Mather said under her breath. “Jacob Pauley has been missing from his duties for quite some time. I thought he was depressed and keeping to his quarters.”

This was clearly a lie. The New Horizon was just as large and complicated a ship as the Empyrean. Every crew member had vital duties to perform and would be severely admonished if those duties were neglected. No. She must have sent him here, or at least she’d known he was here for a long time.

“I assume you’ve watched those videos,” she said.

“No, and I don’t plan on watching them, if you want to know.”

Her eyebrows flicked upward at this. “I thought you wanted your families back.”

“How do we even know they’re still alive? You’ve given us no proof.”

Mather nodded, eyes drifting away from the com screen. “Yes, I suppose that’s right. You’d want proof, wouldn’t you?” She leaned forward and pressed her fingertips together to make five spikes. “When you’ve watched the video, I’ll give you a partial list of survivor names. As we make progress in our negotiations, you’ll get more names.”

“I’m not going to let you manipulate—”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with a smug smile, and her screen flickered out.

She was hateful, but at least she wasn’t pretending to be his friend. Kieran stared reluctantly at the data-dot, afraid of what he was going to find there. He almost shut it back in the desk drawer, but he’d just seen some graffiti outside the central bunker calling Seth Ardvale and Waverly Marshall heroes for capturing the terrorist. Sarek had captured a video image of the artist, who had draped a blanket over him- or herself. It was impossible to even see if it was a boy or a girl. “Do we put our heroes in the brig?” was scrawled in large blue letters across the wall. Kieran’s political position was shaky at best.

If he got all the surviving parents back, his leadership would never be questioned again.

Kieran picked up the data-dot, twirled it in his fingers. His insides churned, and he swallowed the last of his spit.

God, what do I do?
He pleaded for a sign, but his heart was too filled with doubt, and the way was obscured to him.

With a darting motion, Kieran fitted the data-dot into his com station and turned it on.

Instantly the image of a much-younger Captain Jones appeared, smiling at the screen. His hair was bright red instead of the paper white that Kieran was used to. He was seated in the very chair Kieran sat in now, in front of the Goya painting that was now at Kieran’s back. It gave Kieran an eerie feeling of impermanence. The Captain hadn’t grown his beard yet, and without it he had hang-dog jowls and a weak, dimpled chin. He looked like a different person. “Anne, you’ll never believe it,” said Captain Jones.

“Did you find it?” said Mather’s eager voice. She wasn’t visible on the screen; only the Captain could be seen. “Did you find the formula?”

“Our preliminary trials are astounding! You’re not going to believe your eyes!”

“Have you moved on to human trials yet?”

“I’m
talking
about the human trials! The drug stimulates the ovaries; we expected that. But it appears to improve egg quality! We’ve got embryos!”

“Oh my God! And they’re growing?”

“Beautifully, Anne.” Captain Jones rubbed his hand over his face, overjoyed. “I’m going to send you instructions for synthesizing the formula.”

“Edmond, I’m going to say ten prayers for you tonight!”

Jones paused—a minuscule caesura, a cooling of the expression in his eyes—and then he said, “Good. Thanks. You do that.”

The screen flickered to a new image, one of Captain Jones growing out a scruffy beard. He was still young enough that there wasn’t any gray at his temples, and his eyes were clear of their spidery veins, but the look of contempt on his face made him seem monstrous.

“How could you do this to us?” cried a tearful Anne Mather. Kieran wished he could see her face. He’d love to see her cry.

“Anne, I’m sorry for what happened; I can’t tell you how sorry!” the Captain said. But he didn’t look sorry. He looked annoyed. “But to accuse us of purposefully sabotaging you—”

“I rescind it!” Mather cried. “I withdraw the accusation, and no one will ever hear of it again; just please, help us! We don’t have much time, Edmond!”

“We have young children on this ship. Their bones are still growing. Our medical team thinks the results could be physically disastrous for them if we increased our acceleration—”

“It would still be only a fraction of full Earth g-force, Edmond, and you know it! It’s no more than their bodies are designed to cope with!”

“But what about when we slow down again? We have no way to judge how that would affect their development. If it was just us adults—”

“You’re lying! Making excuses! You don’t want to help us!”

“Anne, I have to think about my crew.”

“You want New Earth for yourself so you can create your sick idea of the perfect society. You don’t want us there.”

“Anne,” he said, and for the first time, Kieran detected compassion in his voice, “you know me too well to really think—”

The video skipped, as though a portion had been edited out.

“Edmond, there were over five hundred steps for synthesizing that compound. At the crucial step, we were given directions that created a poison specifically targeted to destroy our fertility. What are the odds of that? How do you explain it?”

The Captain stared at the screen, blank. “I can’t explain it.”

“We were sabotaged. It’s the only explanation.”

“Anne, our kids are more precious than ever now, don’t you see?” the Captain pleaded, his fingers woven together. “We can’t take any chances with their health, none at all. It could mean success or failure for the
mission.
”

“You won’t be able to have enough kids for the mission, Edmond, and you know it. We’ll need a full complement when we get to New Earth.”

“We can make a full complement if our daughters get pregnant young. I’ve got my logistics team on it right now.”

“Logistics! I’m talking about what’s right and wrong!”

“Back to that old discussion, are we? Now more than ever, I think we should acknowledge that morality is relative.” Captain Jones leaned toward the screen, and his face loomed. Kieran saw his large pores and the droplets of sweat coating his forehead. “It would be right to help you, Anne, but it would be
more
right to protect our kids, to make certain they make it to New Earth.”