The Silver Ship and the Sea (18 page)

Tom stretched and yawned. He moved slowly. Now that they were open, his eyes looked bloodshot with exhaustion. “Mmmmm. I’ll go,” he mumbled. “Give me a moment.”

Jenna met his gaze steadily. She gestured toward Paloma. “There should be a capable adult here. I will take Chelo and Joseph and we will find the animals. It only needs three of us.”

Tom drew his brows together, as if the thought of us going off together just wasn’t all right. He yawned again, apparently so exhausted that even Jenna’s surprising presence wasn’t enough to shock him fully awake.

Alicia’s eyes shone up at Jenna, curious and intense. “I want to go, too.”

Jenna kept her eye on Tom, forcing a decision with the intensity of her gaze. It felt like having a wild predator in the room, a force of nature bending all of us to her will.

Paloma broke the tension, her voice husky and laced with pain. “Let them go. Jenna will not let any harm come to them, and you are in no shape for that job. Besides, I’d like you here.”

Tom smiled at her. “I’m outnumbered.” He glanced at Jenna, “Take Alicia, too. She’s a roamer, she’ll know the trails.” He glanced from me to Jenna and back. “Come back at least an hour before dark? Whether you find them or not. Will you take hebras?”

Jenna shook her head. “We do not need riding beasts. Besides, it would make it harder to bring the others back.” She smiled. “And yes, I am hungry.”

While we packed water and a light lunch, I watched Jenna sit cross-legged on the floor, as if she were a normal person, a family member, eating fried djuri I had caught with my bare hands and exclaiming politely about the quality of the cooking. I bit down on my tongue, checking to be sure I felt pain, to be sure I was awake. Sure enough, it hurt.

“Take two earsets,” Tom suggested, rummaging in his coat pocket and handing me two of the small devices.

I stuck one over my ear, handed the other to Joseph.

Kayleen looked worried. She hadn’t asked to go with us. Perhaps she didn’t want to leave Paloma. “Check in, okay? I’ll wear an earset, too, so I can be your contact.”

I liked that idea. It would be nice if our main contact was one of us. Kayleen understood things Tom and Paloma didn’t. Couldn’t.

While I was rummaging through my pack, I noticed my paper and pens. I hadn’t had time for them, but maybe Paloma would like to use them—she often drew plants and flowers and herbs she found. I handed them to her, stopping only long enough to acknowledge her startled smile.

Jenna stood in the doorway, frowning, as we gathered our final goods, said our good-byes. At last, we stood by her in the doorway, ready. She frowned down at us, then reached for our bags. She stripped out everything but the water and the earsets, leaving a small pile of goat jerky, apples, and even a shirt by the door. I looked at Joseph and giggled nervously. “I guess we travel light.”

Jenna glared at me, and saying nothing more, she went out the door and took off, loping quickly across the meadow. We tumbled outside, finding our feet, running bunched together, trailing far behind her. We never set off the exit bells. Did the storm or the plunging animals destroy them, or did Jenna just know how to magically avoid our nets?

By the time we reached the end of the meadow she had become invisible again. We stopped and stood in a knot, staring at each
other, blowing, our breath coming in gasps. Alicia caught her breath first, and called out, “Jenna?”

There was no answer.

Alicia’s cheeks were red from exertion, and she flexed her fingers and danced a little, ready to keep moving. I suspected this was just the beginning of a long day, and laughed. “We’ll have to find her. She doesn’t teach with words, not often.”

Alicia blinked, absorbing the information. Then she adjusted. “So what do we look for? Tracks?” She gazed at the muddy ground. “Should be easy enough, here.”

Our tracks showed clearly in the mud. I was sure this was where Jenna had left the meadow. I’d marked it by the redberry bushes that stuck out farther into the meadow here than anywhere else nearby. But Jenna’s tracks were invisible, as if she ran on air.

I leaned down to look at the grass, trying to spot broken stems.

Joseph said, “You won’t see anything. Think your way through this. I saw her leave through here. And you agree, right? That’s why you stopped?”

I nodded.

“So, we’re tracking hebras. Looking for signs of them. So she wants to find high ground. She’d go up.” He pointed to a gravelly wash with a thin stream through it. “That goes up, and it’s easier than pushing through underbrush. There’s no regular trail here.”

We followed him up. Around the first bend, Jenna sat idly on a rock, a patient look on her face. She smiled. “Good. That did not take too long. But don’t bother looking for the hebras.”

Were they dead? Or had they run home? I pictured Nava’s face if three riderless hebras showed up in Artistos. “Why not?”

“Because there is something else I need to show you.”

I didn’t need her to add that this was a unique opportunity. We were away from all the adults in Artistos, on our own. Outside the data nets. I remembered Jinks, though. “Can we try and find Stripes, too?”

“Later.” She turned and bounded easily up the damp streambed, her steps sure and silent. We followed, almost as sure but not nearly as silent. She lost us again quickly, but we kept going. She
wouldn’t let us stray far. Whatever she wanted us to see was important to her. I thought of Joseph’s words yesterday, and turned to him. “Do you feel…what you felt yesterday? From the data button?”

He nodded. “Stronger.”

Perhaps she wasn’t making us find the thread ourselves. After last night, maybe she thought we’d never make it.

I shook my head to clear it, trying to focus on the wild rush up the hill the way I had focused on the djuri. Right hand reaching for a jagged gray rock, pulling up, left foot swinging wide to find purchase on a little dark shelf of volcanic rock, slipping, grabbing, finding a big flat stable rock, squatting and jumping, almost sliding off the next target, my hand splashing in cool shallow water, birds twittering overhead, the scent of wild mountain-fern…How did Jenna make it up here so fast with one arm?

By the time we found her again my palms were raw, I’d bumped one knee, and the long muscles in my thighs quivered.

She laughed at us as we clawed our way up a short sharp cliff to her. Our perch was near the top of the crater rim. We could see all the way across Little Lace Lake and farther, past the mountains on the other side. Alicia pointed out the rising dark clouds that marked the volcano, Rage, on the far southern tip of the continent, belching steam and fire.

Alicia and Joseph looked as ragged as I felt. Jenna didn’t sport a single scratch.

She didn’t say a thing, just watched us gulp water. She pointed, and we followed her finger to a tall pongaberry tree.

But Kayleen wasn’t with us.

We must have looked confused. Jenna sighed and took off her shirt, handing it to me. I wondered what Joseph thought about her tanned breasts. The one by her missing arm drooped slightly. We didn’t get a long look. She jumped up and ran for the tree, hopping easily from one boulder to another, down to the ground, and making another jump. Her balance was perfect. The muscles in her back stood out, the ones on her right side, the one with the arm,
at least twice as thick and ropy as the others. She appeared to have no fat on her long body at all.

She
walked
up the pongaberry tree, almost in line with its slender trunk. Her feet seemed to find easy purchase on the rough bark, and her arm shimmied up the tree with easy, if jerky, motion. I held my breath, afraid she’d fall and yet sure she wouldn’t. The first half of the tall tree had no branches, no leaves, and once past that point, Jenna moved even easier, using the thin swirling branches as footholds and a handhold. A fat bunch of berries nestled near the trunk a meter above her head, well over thirty meters above the ground. She stood on two branches on tiptoe, and reached for the stem where the berries attached to a branch, the stem fully as thick as the branch they attached to. She jerked and freed the plump berries. Two purple berries fell down through the leaves and then the open air, into the brush below. Jenna clamped the berry stem between her teeth and descended as easily as she’d climbed up.

She returned, handing around the berries, and simply said, “It would be good for you to practice your physical strengths.” She only had one scratch. Every time Kayleen harvested pongaberries she looked like the spiky leaves had used her for target practice.

Alicia glanced at me and grinned. We did practice, but clearly not nearly enough.

Jenna pulled her shirt back on with no further comment. She must have dressed again for us, for our Artistan upbringing. Certainly, I’d never gone shirtless.

The berries were sweet and warm from the sun. As I ate my share, energy filled my body. The others looked better as well. The rest helped us as well as the berries; all of us had stopped gasping for air and the red flush had fallen away from Alicia’s and Joseph’s faces.

The next part of our journey took us along a faint trail over the top of the rim, away from the lake. We stopped briefly at the crest. Blue sea lined the horizon. Far to our right, the edge of the Grass Plains showed yellow-green. Everything else fell away in forested hills, marching north and north and north. The sun was almost di
rectly overhead. Wherever we were going, we wouldn’t have much time there before we had to turn back.

We wound down a faint path, Jenna periodically pointing out markers: a rare single twintree trunk, a rock shaped like a bird, a deadfall near-elm with three tall live trees growing in it, including a round baby tent tree.

Jenna stopped on a long, flat rock with a great clear view on nearly all sides. She stood still for a long time, looking outward, apparently lost in thought. She turned back around and swept her gaze over us all, letting it linger for the longest on Alicia. Then she touched my earset. “Call home. Tell them we haven’t found the hebras yet. And don’t say how far we’ve come.”

I tapped the set to activate it. “Kayleen?”

Her voice was excited. “Did you find them? Did you keep up with Jenna? Did she tell you anything interesting? Are you on your way back?”

“Not yet.” Then I added inventively, “But we’re following tracks. How’s Paloma?”

“She still can’t walk. She has a fever, but Tom says it will pass, that it’s just because of the swelling. Paloma had some of her salve in her bag, and Tom rubbed it on her ankle to kill her pain.”

Silence for a moment. Then Kayleen’s voice again. “Tom says to be sure you get back before dark. Well before dark.”

“Okay, we’ll try.” I hung up quickly, suddenly guilty.

Jenna nodded at me and then told Joseph, “Tell me what you feel. Tell me which direction we should go.”

Joseph sat and closed his eyes. “I…I can feel it. It’s all around, though.”

“What direction?”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell.”

Jenna frowned. “Chelo, sit next to him. Support his back.”

I obeyed. Joseph leaned into me, smelling of sweat and mountain-fern and pongaberries. I braced one hand on the warm solid rock under me and put the other on Joseph’s shoulder. He sat still for a long moment, the space of ten heartbeats, and then he
opened his eyes, a surprised look on his face. “Down,” he said. “Under me.”

Jenna nodded approvingly and walked to the end of the long warm stone, turned, and hanging from her one arm, dropped from view. I crawled to the end of the rock and looked down. Jenna stood on another flat rock below her, a rock so flat it looked metal. I frowned and looked at the rock we sat on. It was rough, natural. But the one below was not. Joseph and Alicia both bent over next to me. Alicia made a soft amazed sound, and twisted around, dropping easily to stand next to Jenna. Whatever she saw there, her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open.

Joseph and I scrambled after them.

We dropped from the rough exposed rock to land, bent-kneed and noisy, on the smooth surface beside Jenna and Alicia. We straightened to look into the dark mouth of a cave at least as big as the science guild hall. The floor was cut flat, the walls a mix of smooth surfaces and natural rock. The ceiling was smooth as the floor, and dry. Doors faded in the darkness, set into the smooth walls. At least two wide corridors branched away. The air smelled clear, vaguely dusty, but not damp or chemical or mossy like the caves I’d been in before. This smelled…controlled.

Jenna turned and pointed outward. Trees and jumbled rocks would hide this opening from even direct sunshine within an hour or two. Thirty meters downslope, it would be nearly invisible. Jenna’s voice was firm and careful as she swept her hand in front of her, encompassing the land on all sides of the entrance. “Even if you can find this place from out there, do not come in this way. Only use the way I showed you.” She pointed up to the rock we’d dropped from. I looked up. How do we get out, then? It was too far to jump.

“Climb.” She showed us clever footholds in the rock near the edge of the cave mouth. She demonstrated. It required one awkward jump and much strength; Jenna’s arm quivered at how she had to torque to hold her weight nearly upside down at one point. She landed back beside us and said, “See? Normal humans cannot do that.”

No, it would take our strength. Kayleen’s nearly prehensile feet would come in handy. It could be done with a backpack, but not with very much weight. But two people could haul stuff out; one on top, where we jumped from, and one below. And of course, Tom or anyone could get in and out with rope.

“Why not come from the other way?” Joseph looked dubious about the exit technique Jenna had just shown us. “It looks easier.”

Jenna spoke matter-of-factly. “You would die. There are traps.”

I drew in a sharp breath. The trees and rocks outside looked completely natural, safe. Thick redberry bushes and tall thorn sage bunched together, blocking easy access. Behind them, near-elm. No tent trees. Perhaps they’d been cleared? Tent trees were great to hide in, and with the cave here, they could hide enemies. “What kind of traps? Where are they?”

This time she looked at me. “You can earn that knowledge. Just don’t come up from there, don’t betray my trust bringing you here.”

So she trusted us enough to show us this place, but not enough to share all of its secrets.

Joseph squinted into the cleared sunny area between us and the brush, probably also scanning for the elusive traps. “Jenna, why did you tell us to look for the cave if it’s booby-trapped?”

“I turned the systems off after we talked. Then I changed my mind.”

“Did something happen?” Alicia asked. “Or is it because we weren’t finding it on our own?”

Jenna frowned, as if Alicia’s questions interrupted her train of thought. “Circumstances gave me this unexpected chance.” She shrugged, but excitement flashed from her one eye. “I do not have time to wait forever for you to learn all you need to know, or for Joseph to fix the data nets.” Then she smiled. “Besides, you were busy absorbing other lessons.”

So she had seen our hunt. She gazed far out into the distance, apparently lost in thought. A trick of light highlighted spiderwebs of weathered wrinkles around her one good eye and the corners of her mouth. The place where her other eye had been was a
sunken scar, red and angry around the edges. Her gray hair hung in a long twist down her back, the ends uneven and straggly. She lived a harder life than the rest of us, and after Nava’s story, I was curious about Jenna’s as well. What pain drove her?

She licked her lips. “There is much in this cave which it would be best if no one sees.”

So show
us,
I urged her silently. But she remained in the cave’s mouth, still looking out. Alicia asked, “Are there other places we shouldn’t go? Other traps?”

She turned to face us. “Not nearby.”

I fidgeted, wanting to be inside the cave, to see what was so carefully hidden. “Can we come back here?”

She grinned at me. “Answer that yourself.”

I pursed my lips, thinking, then grinned back. “Sure. You wouldn’t have been so careful to show us how to get in and out if it we couldn’t come back.”

Her smile faded. “Best if I am with you. There is much in here you would not understand, and some you could do harm with.” She licked her lips. “Harm to yourselves or others.” Her eyes flicked toward the sun, already past midday. “Today, you will only see a very little bit of the parts of your heritage that are here.”

“Is this where you got the pipe and the data button?”

“I’ve gathered nearly everything of ours, and put it in here. There is another, smaller cache that Akashi knows about. But even Akashi has not seen this.” Jenna turned around and walked into the cave, the three of us following like baby chicks, until we were surrounded by stone and weak light.

The cave felt full of new knowledge, knowledge of ourselves. Our parents. Surely they, or at least the
altered,
had lived here, based from here, fought from here. I wished Bryan and Liam could see this. Kayleen. I wished we were all together.

Jenna prompted, “Okay, Joseph, now where?”

He blinked and scanned the cave. At least three tunnels led in different directions. Small alcoves hid in shadows. “I don’t know.”

Jenna sighed exaggeratedly. “What did you just learn?”

I stepped over to him, folding him in my arms. He leaned into
me, smelling of sweat and pongaberries, letting me take his weight. His eyes closed. I braced myself to balance him. He was so heavy my leg shook and I wished we’d thought to sit down, like on the rock above the cave.

It seemed like a long time before he straightened and walked toward a wide shadowed doorway in the left back corner. The rest of us followed.

Alicia whispered to me, “What do you do to help him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve always helped him.”

“Could I help him?”

Jenna answered, “Not as much as Chelo. She and he are one blood; brother and sister. Even though Chelo is deaf to the nets, her physical closeness soothes Joseph. It has to do with Chelo’s own genemods.”

My breath caught in my throat. “And what are they? What am I?”

Would she avoid the question, change the topic like she did with me so often? But she licked her lips and answered, “A caretaker, a planner. An influencer. That is your special gift.”

“Will I be as strong as you?”

“If you develop your body. But it’s more important to develop your instincts. Separate your goals from the goals others have given you. Almost anything you want, you will be able to make happen. By suggesting, by making choices about how and when to offer what information, and to whom. Joseph can thread data, but you can thread life, thread politics. But you must learn who you are first, decide what you want. Because, you see, you will often get what you want.” It was a very long speech for her, and after that she fell silent.

Joseph had stopped by the doorway, listening. “I always do better when Chelo is around.”

Alicia looked long-faced. “Does that mean I can’t help him the same way?”

“You, Alicia, are a risk-taker. Perhaps there will be a time when that is exactly what he needs most.” Jenna turned to Joseph. “Here, you’ll need light.” She handed him a shiny silver canister, wide as
my wrist, half as long as my forearm. I had not seen her carrying it, or seen her pick it up.

Joseph turned the cylinder over and over in his hands.

Jenna laughed. “Figure it out.”

Joseph ran his fingers along the smooth surface. It reminded me of both the skin and the mystery of the
New Making
. He drew his brows together and twisted his mouth up. He carefully placed both palms, one on either side, flat against the lower portion of the cylinder. Light bloomed from the top, startling Joseph so much he nearly dropped the cylinder.

“How did you know to try that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It felt…warmer there. But I don’t know if that was physical, or something else. This new—energy field—feels different from the Artistos data.”

And suddenly I started giggling, picturing us so serious, so intent, so…like children with new toys. “It’s…it’s just a flashlight…a flashlight.”

He clutched it to himself, looking at me strangely. He clearly didn’t quite get my change of perspective. Neither did Alicia. Their solemn confused faces only made me laugh harder. Artistos had flashlights. They turned on differently. They weren’t as bright. But they were small enough to fit in pockets or slip on belts. Perhaps we were not so high-and-mighty-different as I’d wanted to believe, not in some ways.

Jenna watched me, her eye flashing approval of my laughter. She did not laugh herself, though.

As my giggles died down I reached for the flashlight, wanting to try it myself, see if this was yet another thing only Joseph could do.

Joseph shook his head and kept it. I might have argued, but the cave was far more interesting than the flashlight.

Joseph shone the light in the doorway, and then followed the bright circle inside, turning to light our steps as well. A short hallway, maybe three meters long. The light played across smooth walls, all clearly tool-cut. The hallway widened into a square chamber. The flashlight’s beam bobbed around the room. Rows of stone shelves lined one wall. The other three walls were flat and
featureless. Joseph flicked the light back at the shelves, running it slowly along each shelf. The light stopped and hovered, illuminating five data buttons in a pile on the bottom shelf. The symbols on the surface of each button looked different. Next to them stretched a leather strap, nearly a meter long. Colorful threads wove a diamond pattern into the leather.

There was nothing else of interest in the room. Clearly, Jenna had set us up to find only these things. I watched her. She watched Joseph closely, almost hungrily, like a new mother watching a baby take its first steps.

Joseph’s hand was immediately drawn to the strap. He picked it up, holding it. “Reading threads.”

Jenna smiled, a bright twisted smile of approval. “Good.”

He ran his hands along the length of the leather. It wasn’t new, but it was still supple. “But how do I use it?”

“Tie it…tie it around your head.”

He handed the light to Alicia and complied. The ends of the straps hung down, light against his dark hair, falling nearly to his shoulders.

Alicia watched the whole process closely, leaning in, careful how she handled the light. She reached a slender white hand to touch the headband. “How does it work?”

“The threads woven into the leather read wireless data from the buttons, and connecting with his temples and scalp, they build a direct bridge to Joseph’s circulatory system, and to the nanocytes in his blood. His body was enhanced, using genetics, to accept the nanocytes as part of him.”

“Nanocytes?”

“Tiny machines. Even if you spill his blood and look at it with a common microscope, you will not see them. But they will allow Joseph to read and relate to many threads of data at once. More than he has ever managed. But first, he’ll need to learn how.”

“So Kayleen has the same things in her blood, only fewer of them?” I asked.

Jenna shrugged. “She probably has as many. But she seems less naturally attuned to them. Back home, we could fix that with a
single session. Here, she will have to learn herself. You might try working with Kayleen the same way you work with Joseph and see if it helps.”

“But I don’t have these nanocytes? And Alicia doesn’t have them?”

“Neither do I,” Jenna replied. She turned her attention back to Joseph. “You can actually wear that anywhere—but on your head it will look like a decoration, and draw less comment. If you choose, you may wear it somewhere else, like under clothing. It must touch skin.” She reached over and adjusted the position of the band on his head, so slightly I couldn’t tell the difference. Perhaps she just wanted to touch it. “Our wind readers sewed the threads into clothing. Pants legs, shirtsleeves, helmets, even socks.”

I glanced at the workmanship. Jenna hadn’t made it, not with one hand. “Where did this come from?”

Jenna looked at Joseph rather than me. “It was your father’s. David Lee’s.”

I had remembered the David, but not the Lee. I repeated it in my head. David Lee. David Lee.

Joseph closed his eyes and put his fingertips on the band. We had nothing of theirs. I had regretted that a thousand times, wished for even a small memento. Jenna’s words had clearly affected Joseph as deeply as they had me; I thought for a moment he would cry. But instead, he straightened and gazed evenly at Jenna. “How do I make it work?”

Jenna looked away. “I cannot use one. This is the most sophisticated remote communication we had here, the closest thing to being truly net connected, as if we were in civilized space. Whatever physical technique allows you to read the Fremont data nets, you will want to do something similar to read the buttons. David was the best of us, and he once described it for me as ‘slipping sideways to the data wind.’ Perhaps that will help you.”

Joseph blinked. “I…I don’t feel anything.”

Jenna picked up a data button and handed it to him. As his hand closed around it, his eyes widened. Fear flicked across them.

“Relax,” Jenna said.

I stepped to his side. “Here, sit with me.”

He and I curled on the hard stone floor, Joseph’s head against my shoulder, my arm flung over his chest. His heart beat fast against my palm.

He was silent a long time. When he spoke, his voice was full of wonder. “How do I show the others what I see?”

Jenna frowned and cocked her head. “Do you understand any of it?”

He shook his head. “It’s a jumble of images. I can see those. Some of them. Things I’ve never seen before. And words I can’t understand. But maybe if I can show it to Chelo and Alicia and Kayleen, they can help me figure it out.”

“There are tools for that. But they are not so…easy to conceal.” Jenna pursed her lips, as if trying to make a decision.

“Are they here?” Alicia asked. “Can we see? What’s on the data buttons, anyway?”