The Silver Ship and the Sea (12 page)

We hardly saw Alicia the next day. At Paloma’s insistence, she spent the morning in the infirmary and that afternoon, Paloma took her to retrieve her gear from Bella and Michael.

I fretted all day. I nursed anger over breakfast while Nava and Tom made lists of supplies, kept the anger while Joseph and Kayleen and I gathered dried djuri meat, water bottles, and large saddlebags designed to fit over the backs and rumps of pack hebras from various storehouses. I hated the idea of Council talking about us while we were gone. Nava had outmaneuvered us, but she had also, ultimately, been clever, and had crafted a solution that removed Alicia from the East Band without making Ruth, an important leader, and Nava’s friend, lose face. By midafternoon, my anger with Ruth still burned brightly, but Nava, I grudgingly conceded, had done the right thing for the colony, if not for us.

We each had some room for personal gear. I took the flute, packing it carefully inside a roll of clothes, all three barrettes, and some precious handmade paper and pens with colored dipping ink.

Joseph hardly spoke except to clarify instructions. His mood felt as black as mine. An hour before dinner, I grew impatient enough with both Joseph and myself that I fled to look for Bryan. I had been watching for him all day, expecting him to find us, but he didn’t. Last night, he had simply left as soon as the meeting was over, his shoulders tense, his jaw clenched.

It took a half an hour to find Bryan out beyond the hebra barns, barely inside the boundaries. He was standing near the edge of the cliff, looking toward the sea and the Grass Plains. As I walked up near him I noticed the smell and shine of sweat. “You’ve been running.”

He put a big, heavy arm across my shoulder and drew me toward him. “I want to go with you.” His arms shook, and his cheek rested on the top of my head.

I missed him already, missed him even though he was holding me that instant. The four of us has never been separated more than a day or two, for errands near Artistos. We’d never left town farther than the Grass Plains or partway up the High Road.

I bit my lip. Bryan wanted to make his own choices so badly. When he got angry, I was the one who calmed him, listened to him, the one who held his hand or watched him pace. Who would do that for him with me gone? I clung to him, trembling and afraid for him. After a while, I choked out, “I want you to be with us, too. But you know one of us must be here to hear what’s said while we’re gone.”

“Nava wouldn’t want me out of her sight. I scare her.”

Because of his strength. Because everyone could see his strength in his wide biceps and broad back and height. “Promise you’ll be careful? Don’t make anyone angry, or get angry, no matter what they say? Promise me you’ll talk to someone if you need help? Gianna is fair, Lyssa, Eric…try for us?”

“I wish you were staying.”

“Joseph needs me.”

He held me tighter, and his arms trembled a little. “Perhaps I need you, too. I’ll miss you terribly. All of you, but you especially, Chelo.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and Bryan kissed my forehead and my sobs deepened as if a flood of pain and anger was coming out of me, falling from me, falling into Bryan’s strength. And I was always the even one, the one who didn’t cry, who helped everyone else. Me and Bryan, and we helped each other.

After my tears dried, we walked back, arm in arm, silent. Words would have been extra burdens.

Nava had cooked a whole chicken, which she served with fresh bread and steamed yellow beans, all things Tom loved. Surprisingly, I cleaned my plate. Throughout dinner, I watched Nava, seeking clues. She maintained a cheerful and empty face, speaking cheerful and empty chatter. I needed to talk to her, to convince her to wait for our return before she made up her mind. As soon as the dinner dishes were neatly dried and stacked, I asked her, “Nava, will you take a walk with me?”

She smiled, almost as if she expected the invitation, and held the door open. We stepped out into a cool, misty evening. Two moons, Wishstone and Plowman, hung in the sky above us, appearing near each other through an accident of orbits, even though Plowman was farther away by half, and smaller. Night birds sang, and small animals rustled through the low grasses and shrubs near the path. I led us to River Walk Park, not entirely sure what to say. Nava seemed willing to let me take my time.

As we reached the river, it dawned on me where I had to start, although it was hard to swallow my frustration enough to sound sincere. “Nava, thank you for helping Alicia.”

Nava walked quickly, her hands in her pockets, her head down. “I believe Ruth. Not necessarily about Varay—she can’t know how he died—but that Alicia is wild and dangerous. It seemed right to buy time.”

“It will help.”

“Time will help more if you use it, if you actually repair a good portion of the nets. That will make a difference, and to do that, you’ll need Joseph.”

“I know.” The first red-gold fall leaves bobbed by on the quiet river. “He knows it, too. I bet that’s why he’s been so sullen all day.”

She laughed at that, quietly.

“Why don’t you trust us?” I asked her. “We’ve done everything we can to follow the rules, to be helpful.”

“I am only a little worried about who you are now. But I am worried about your future. And ours. How will six
altered
adults affect us? We came here to avoid what you are, to make sure we will
never become what you will become. It presents a rather difficult problem.”

“Have I ever done anything you don’t like?”

“Not you. As far as I can tell, you are the most balanced, the least dangerous. But you do not remember the wars, the deaths, or the loss. Alicia could have killed Varay. That frightens us.”

“Alicia didn’t kill Varay.” I realized I’d raised my voice, and bit my lip to keep myself from saying any more.

Nava’s voice was soft but icy. “Neither you nor I have any proof of that.” She sighed, softening her tone. “But at least she will be under Tom’s and Paloma’s watchful eyes.”

“I
have
talked to her. She could not have done this. She’s heart-broken.”

“Alicia is angry. I see it sometimes in Bryan as well. I do not see it in you, or Liam, or Kayleen. Joseph is angry, too.”

I bridled. “Joseph is fine!” I was wrong. “He will be fine.”

We walked quietly for a few minutes. We were already halfway down the river walk, and I had not convinced her of anything. “So we’re stronger and faster. Yet the six of us would not survive without the colony, without you and all the others. There are enough of you to control us. So why are you so scared?”

“We don’t know who you are. You don’t even know who you are, not really. Look at Jenna. She doesn’t interact directly with us, yet as a single, damaged, genetically
altered
adult, she protects all of our borders. Rather well. We never forget, however, that she is not human. We don’t know how many of us she killed during the war. She is still alive because we don’t know that, because none of us saw her kill anyone.”

I didn’t say that I thought she was alive because no one had been able to kill her.

Nava continued. “But if she can kill paw-cats and yellow-snakes and drive away demon dogs so easily, what could she do to us? Jenna will outlive us all. You will outlive us all. How do we know what she plans? What her plans for you are?”

That hit a nerve. “She, too, needs the colony to survive. You aren’t giving us enough of a chance.”

Nava sighed heavily, and took a seat on a bench. “Sit down, let me tell you a story.”

I settled on the opposite side of the bench, stretching my legs, listening to the water, the distant, faint sounds of people moving about Artistos.

Nava took a deep breath. “I was your age when the
altered
landed. At first, we were just wary of each other. It took time for worries to become war. I remember my parents arguing endlessly at night. We were here first. We wouldn’t leave, and besides, we couldn’t.
Traveler
hasn’t the fuel for another interstellar journey, and besides, already no one knew how to fly her. We could barely manage to keep the skills to take the shuttles up and down.

“We might have accepted it if they had even simply gone to Islandia, had left us in peace on Jini.”

She looked out over the river. Her voice lacked its usual hard edge. “I was born here. My parents were born here. Their parents were born here, but had grown up on the living stories of people who were not. We chose Fremont for humans, true humans. You know what we care about. Living and dying as family, accepting who we are instead of trying to change it. Growing to our natural potential without adding machinery or changing our faces, our lives, or our deaths.” She seemed to drift in the story, talking to herself as much as to me. “The stories passed from Deerfly warned us of the dangers of anything different. Original humans no longer controlled their own destiny, no longer led, no longer had a voice that mattered. The world out there”—she waved her hands at the sky—“is perilous. So we came here. Then the things we left behind followed us.”

She shifted, stretching her arms in front of her, cracking her knuckles. “Those were the stories I grew up on. But they were only stories until your people landed. I don’t think we really believed them. And there were not many
altered,
around three hundred, but they wanted control, demanded to stay with us, told us they would help us.

“We didn’t want help.

“They wouldn’t leave. It started at their camp, outside of Artistos.
Two of my friend’s big brothers, my brother, and a few other young men confronted the
altered
. One
altered,
and all but one of the young men died. My brother died. And the
altered
that killed him didn’t use weapons. He used his bare hands.”

Her voice was higher now, more strained. “My father was a gentle man. He loved to make things. He helped build the walls, the hebra barns, the water plant. When he came home after working all day, sweaty and tired, he read to us and he carved toys for the littler children. The night the war started, he came home crying. I had never seen him cry. He gathered Mom and me in his arms and held us, and told us he’d be gone for a while, and we must stay inside the walls, and we must be quiet.”

A moon-moth fluttered near Nava’s face, and she brushed it away, careful not to let it bite her. “For the next three years, he came home when he could. He grew thin. His eyes had changed, or what was in them had changed. Anger and fear and hatred…”

She paused, ran her hands through her hair. The darkness obscured her features, softened them, and she gulped air, hard, and then gripped the edge of the bench and leaned forward. “He came for funerals. He almost never spent the night in the house.”

I thought of my own parents, of Chiaro caring for us because they were out fighting the same war, of how seldom I had seen them.

“And then one night, someone brought his body home. My mother cried for days. I just remember being numb, not believing it, expecting him to walk in any day.” She paused. “So many were gone by then. The first five years of the war we lost over three hundred people, and they lost fewer than a hundred. For years, I expected everyone on Fremont to die.” She stopped, looking down at her hands, as if they held some secret.

“Two weeks after my father’s death, my mother came to me and told me Hunter had decided we all had to fight. Mom said we would all die, but that was better than living anymore anyway. We packed up that night and left town for the hills. Hunter was brilliant, and brave, and still we lost people. My mother got her wish and died.”

I reached toward her, almost brushed her shoulder with my fingertips. She flinched and scooted away, then mumbled, “Sorry.” But she didn’t scoot back, or make any move to touch me in return.

“The years after she died are a blur. I was terribly alone, and because I was fast, I carried messages from camp to camp, helped plan strategy.” Her voice regained some its edge, became harder. “I wanted every one of the
altered
to die. I remember the day the
Journey
left. Stile and Eric and I were on the High Road, heading back into Artistos, which had by then been nearly abandoned. We heard the low-pitched rumble of the ship, saw it rise up from the Grass Plains, and we cheered. We yelled and screamed and jumped and shook our fists in the air, and then we ran back here, back home. The
altered
were gone!”

I knew the next part, so I said it. “But we were here.”

Nava looked over at me. “We almost killed you all. Akashi argued against it, and we were sick of killing, and we were tired.”

I wondered if she wished they
had
killed us. If she had suggested they kill us. She would not have held power then, not like she did now, but what had she argued for?

“And now, well, we died easily at the hands of your people. But there are only six of you. Seven, if you count Jenna.” She stood, pacing up and down, and then sat down again, tapping her feet. “Already, our data nets are stronger because of Joseph. Liam has shown leadership in his band, and Akashi tried to set him up as heir apparent. All that before you are even adults.” She spread her arms wide, a gesture of amazement. “We don’t want you to lead us. Now, we can tell you what to do, and you comply. But you will not be that way in ten years, in twenty.” She paused and swallowed. “In a hundred years.”

“We will not harm you.”

Now she sounded bitter, a little imperious, as if she had let down her guard and was now putting her usual personality back on. “Harm comes in many forms.”

“And what would you do with us, if you could?” I asked.

“I would send you away. Figure out how that damned leftover ship works, and send you away.”

It was, I thought, better than saying she would kill us even now. She couldn’t know how often I’d wanted to leave, how often I made games in my head of flying off and finding my own people.

She stood and started back, walking fast. I kept up, and as we reached the end of Commons Park, I asked, “So what exactly do you need from us on this trip? What will tell you we’ve succeeded?”