The Silver Ship and the Sea (26 page)

Akashi rode back up, coming from the other direction. I noticed the lines around his eyes looked deep, and that his cheeks were
dark and puffy. We had had four hours of sleep at the fork, but they had surely ridden all night. His smile was as warm as ever, though. “It’s all clear.”

The perimeter bells chimed friendly entry as we finally clattered into the spaceport, heading straight for the water trough.

As Stripes began drinking, I started to strip her saddle but Akashi said, “Not yet. There’s more to do.”

“What?” Kayleen asked. “Aren’t we staying here?”

He nodded. “We’ve got to make it safe, first. And before they send anyone down the hill.” He glanced up at the sun, now just fully risen. “We have to do it now.”

“What are we going to do?” Kayleen asked.

“You’re going to take the hebras inside the hangar, and blindfold them,” Akashi said.

I blinked, understanding dawning slowly. “You’re going to burn the grass.”

“Yes. I was hoping for a storm, so they might think it was lightning-sparked. But we’re going to do it anyway. The grass is ready; it happens about this time every year.”

“But what about the animals?” I asked. “We saw a herd of wild hebras last time we were here, and”—I shivered—“paw-cats. And there’s rabbits and jumping prickles and…”

Akashi held up a hand to quiet me. “All of the bigger animals will outrun the fire, especially today, with no wind. Smaller ones will hole up and the fire will burn over them. Some will die. Many of the animals here live only that year between fires, and their young shelter in eggs laid belowground, safe until next spring. It’s the way of these plains, Chelo.”

We would still cost them at least days of their lives. “Well, what about Joseph and Alicia and Jenna?”

Akashi spoke patiently. “Jenna will know as soon as she smells smoke. She’ll keep everyone safe.”

I swallowed again, my eyes watering. “At least there’s no wind,” I said. “We can get it going every direction at once.”

“Good girl.”

I frowned. “Why inside the hangar?”

“Artistos has satellites. No point in giving away how few of us there are.”

Oh.

He nodded at me, and I swallowed hard, and led Stripes toward the hangar.

We piled the tack, all except the head harnesses and lead lines, just outside the hangar door and set Paloma by it to watch, with a damp shirt and a bucket of water to keep it damp next to her. If the smoke got too bad, she’d come inside or breathe through the shirt.

Fire itself was no issue; the spaceport had survived two hundred years of natural grass fires.

We blindfolded the hebras, and Kayleen and I each took two, giving Liam three for the moment. Kayleen had Longface and Sand, I had Stripes and Legs, and Liam had Ink, Star, and Akashi’s whitish hebra, Lightning. Standing in the quiet barn with the animals, dead tired, it seemed to take a long time before anything happened.

The huge shuttles the colonists used to carry goods down from
Traveler
were dark hulks above us, heavy and almost spooky in the thin light that crept through the tiny windows and in around the door.

Lightning and Legs shifted uneasily, then Stripes lifted her blindfolded head and bugled, sounding like Sugar Wheat had the night of the lightning storm.

Only then did I begin to smell the smoke. I’d smelled it before—every time the plains burned we hunkered down in Artistos, staying inside for the day it took the cleansing fire to burn the plains to smoldering stubble. It was stronger here, stinging my eyes, and first Stripes and then Legs tried to pull away. It grew darker, and I pictured smoke filling the air, obscuring the morning sun.

Akashi darted in the door. “Talk to them.” He grabbed Lightning and Ink, and Liam took Sand from Kayleen. “Get some distance between us. Don’t let them bunch or run.”

My arms quickly tired from hanging on to the leads.

The perimeter rang entrance. “What’s that?” I whispered.

“Animals,” Liam whispered back. “Maybe hebras or paw-cats on their way to the forest. They’ll pass through.”

The bells rang exit.

“See?” he whispered.

We talked and soothed and whispered and sang, our eyes stinging. I lost track of time in the dim gloom of the smoky hangar, as if I had been there forever and would be there forever. Bells rang and rang again and fell silent.

Finally, Stripes leaned down and nuzzled me, content apparently that the fire would not chase her down.

“Okay,” Akashi said, “slowly now, take one blindfold at a time off.”

We stayed in the hangar with the hebras for another fifteen minutes, ensuring that they were all right. Then we walked, blinking from the smoke, outside the door to join Paloma by the pile of saddles.

We stood in the middle of death.

All around us, blackened grass attested to the killing power of the fire. Beyond the large concrete pad, beyond the blackened expanse of grass, red tongues of fire still burned, all moving away from us. A light breeze blew in off the sea, carrying most of the smoke toward Artistos. What would Bryan think as he smelled the fire? Would he know we set it? Were people in Artistos telling him anything? I swallowed, my throat raw from singing, from talking to the beasts, from smoke. Maybe Tom. Surely Tom would check on him.

Kayleen looked out at the devastation, and said, “I wish we hadn’t done this.”

Akashi said, “We had to. This place is too big to defend by ourselves if people can sneak up on us.”

Paloma looked out over the burning plains, her eyes red and watery, her hair hanging in strings, dark with smoke. Her voice cracked as she asked, “Will it come to that, Akashi?”

He stood, watching the fire, a faraway look in his eyes, his
mouth a hard slash in his face. “I hope not, Paloma. I truly hope not. I feel as if the war never ended.”

But this time you’re on our side.
I went and stood by him, then gave him a fierce hug.

He leaned into my hug, returning it, smelling like smoke and fire and sweat.

The fire spent all day spreading out from the spaceport, a ten-and-twenty-foot flame wall flaring, racing to its natural barriers: sea, river, cliff, and steep, wet mountainside. Following, a red-gold carpet of low fire slowly finished the first flame’s work; behind that, smoke and black.

I took the first watch, staring at the fire, feeling the hot wind of change and danger it represented. Afterward, when my eyes stung from smoke, I slept, snuggled in blankets outside the hangar, secure in the knowledge that nothing could approach us for now. The fire would be a barrier to the return of Joseph, Jenna, and Alicia, but it would also be a beacon to them, telling them where to find us.

I dreamed of running animals, racing in front of the fire, of red-and-yellow winged birds flying into the fire, becoming the fire, melting into single red eggs shaped like
New Making,
of the eggs rocking in sunshine, cracks widening in their sides. I watched to see what came out of the eggs. But something shook the ground, an earthquake…

…Kayleen’s hand on my shoulder. “Wake up. We’re all meeting for dinner.”

Watches lasted two hours. I had slept, fire or not, for eight glorious hours.

I pushed off my blanket, and the dream, looking around. No one but Kayleen and me were in sight; everyone else must be
awake and elsewhere. Figures moved in the keeper’s cabin windows. The scent of smoke and ash filled—everything. I stood. The first night stars glimmered over Artistos, shining weakly through gray smoke-stained sky. In the west, the sun shone bloodred just above the water, torching the smoky air with shades of red: blood, brick, and russet.

Kayleen stood beside me, transfixed by the sunset. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered.

I put an arm over her shoulder and drew her close. “Yes.” Joseph and I used to love watching fire sunsets. “Is anyone coming yet?”

Kayleen shook her head. “Akashi expects Jenna and the others soon. He said not to expect anyone from Artistos until tomorrow. I just washed my hair in the trough—it felt wonderful. You should, too—gets the smoke smell away. Come on, let’s eat!”

Surely the keeper’s cabin had a shower? Shrugging, I dutifully followed Kayleen to the cold, bracing trough water and cleaned up, changing into clothes that had been too dirty to wear two days ago. At least they didn’t smell like they’d been roasted in grass-fire all night. Walking to the cabin, I felt better than I’d felt in days.

Akashi and Paloma had cooked up a thick vegetable and root stew and a crumbly golden corn bread I recognized as Paloma’s. Full serving plates filled the tiny table in the keeper’s kitchen. Akashi nodded at us. “Grab a plate. We’re eating outside, by the far corner.”

The corn bread steamed as I split it, smelling like home. I sniffed, breaking off a corner and letting it melt under my tongue before smothering the rest with spicy stew. I wanted to stand like a rude two-year-old and just eat right there, to feed the growling beast in my stomach.

I did lick my fingers, then dip them in stew at the edge of my plate, and lick them again, as Kayleen and I followed Paloma and Akashi across concrete tinted gray with tiny flecks of ash, a test of self-control as my stew cooled beneath my nose. Paloma sat on the concrete corner of the spaceport closest to Artistos. She looked up at us, grinning.

Kayleen stopped, eyes wide with protest. “Mom? How did you get way out here?”

“I walked.” Paloma sounded distracted, her focus on the fire. “Some sleep and some time without being on a big lurching beast helped. So did Akashi; he resplinted my ankle.” She laughed softly. “But I’m still really slow.”

Kayleen sat next to her mom, frowning in consternation. “Just don’t reinjure it, okay?”

I sat, plate on my lap, finally able to fork enough food into my mouth at once to feel warmth radiate through my belly. The fire was easily visible east, toward Artistos, and north, at the edge of the mountains. There, lacking rain, it would slowly consume green underbrush, making more smoke than flame until it ran out of easy fuel. Redberries and mountain-fern were notoriously fire-resistant. To the west and south, small puffs of low smoke announced the fire had already run into sea and river.

The cloudless night sky was sure evidence of our guilt as fire-setters.

“So, Akashi,” Paloma said, “what do we do next?”

“It’s up to
us,
” I said. It was time for us to make choices, for the
altered
to stand up for themselves. Paloma and Steven and Therese had taught us to be quiet and invisible. I knew, now, that was the wrong choice. I glanced at Akashi, noticing a spark of approval in his eyes. “We need to make these decisions.”

Paloma narrowed her eyes, gazing at her daughter, frowning. “Whatever you decide affects me.” She looked at Akashi. “The West Band, too. I’m not willing to give up my voice.”

I understood. It was like being forced out of Artistos just as the conversation about our own future started. Akashi and Paloma had helped us. But our freedom was at stake; not theirs. I was the oldest. Joseph, at least, was my direct responsibility. And what he needed, what I needed…we all needed. Freedom and knowledge.

“I’m sorry, Paloma, we do want to hear from you. You, and Akashi, and Tom, too, if he returns. I trust you. But I’m not sure this is a vote.” I groped for the right words. “We have the biggest stake; we can die.”

“The chance of losing a child is a bigger stake than you can know, Chelo,” she replied. As if to emphasize her point, a small quake shivered beneath us, rattling the plates against the concrete.

“I do want to hear from you,” I repeated, closing my eyes for a brief moment, searching for wisdom. I opened my eyes to find Akashi watching me closely, waiting. “Akashi. You’re Town Council. Everyone but you is in Artistos, now. Will they make a decision without consulting you?”

“I hold my Council position as West Band leader. They may try to negotiate with Mayah instead of me, but that won’t hurt our cause.” He glanced toward Liam, who was sitting next to Paloma. “Mayah loves Liam like I do, and she loves me.”

His matter-of-fact trust in Mayah warmed me. Therese and Steven had been like them; Tom and Nava were cool together, and almost never tender with each other. Far better to be like Mayah and Akashi. “Okay,” I said. “But what if they cut Mayah off, too? Can they, or do the town rules prohibit that?”

“A majority can vote a Council position closed,” Paloma said. “But if they vote Akashi off, they vote out the West Band. I don’t think they will. The band, by law, gets to choose its representative on Town Council. It’s traditionally the leader, but the band could choose someone else.”

Kayleen scowled down at the ground, scuffing her feet through the ash. “I don’t want to talk about politics, I want to talk about how we get Bryan back. I want to know he is all right.”

“Me, too.” I sighed. Even Kayleen did not see. “It is not so simple. We have to win this with politics—with discussion. Not by fighting.”

She frowned at me. “So how do you plan to use politics to find out how Bryan is?”

I shook my head. I had questions, but no answers; my struggles to find a future vision we all shared hadn’t quite born fruit. Time. I needed time.

A low sound grabbed my attention, deep and throaty, like the machinery in the mill that kept the heavy rollers spinning. It
seemed to come from the sea. A memory stirred, fuzzy, of being little, still with Chiaro, and frightened of
this
sound.

I leaped up, looking toward the noise. No light, just noise; not loud, but getting louder, coming toward us. Lights bloomed, growing bigger, fast. Three round white lights, and two tiny red ones. We were all on our feet, looking. Akashi’s voice, awed and angry. “Skimmer. I thought they were all destroyed.”

Kayleen started to dart away, out into the dark grass, but Paloma yelled, “Kayleen, it’s okay. It has to be Jenna.”

Akashi ran toward the hangar, and we followed, the three of us outdistancing him easily, Liam ahead, and then me and Kayleen next to each other. Liam stopped by the small door, the piles of tack, fumbling for the lead lines. “Get the animals. They’ll want to put it in here.”

The hebras stood in a dark, quivering knot behind one of the shuttles, the big animals dwarfed by the flying machine. We walked through the near-dark, calling to them. Liam flicked on the big overhead lights, startling the hebras. They flattened farther against the wall as the noise grew, the pitch changing, surely signaling that whatever approached was slowing. Ink and Star made low frightened sounds deep in their throats.

We held two beasts each, and Liam was reaching for Legs’s head harness, when the wide door the shuttles used creaked and rolled up, and the lights in the building clicked on, stopping all of us momentarily, human and hebra. Legs darted around Liam and started running for the door. I struggled with Stripes and Star as they nearly pulled me from my feet, trying to follow. Akashi stepped toward Legs, his arms windmilling, trying to slow the big beast, but Legs darted left and around, and fled out the big hangar door just before the skimmer’s lights shone directly on us, coming inside. The noise shook the floor and the walls, and I was too busy with Stripes and Star to look, pulling them out of the path, as far away from the skimmer as I could, trying like hell not to share my fear with them, to stay calm, to calm them.

Then, silence. The big door closed. The hebras quieted.

The skimmer shimmered: the same bright silver of
New Making
.
A flattened cylinder with two raked-back stubby wings, sitting on five wheels, only a quarter the size of the shuttles, and new and sleek in contrast to the bigger, older shuttles.

Someone flicked its lights off.

What if it wasn’t Jenna and Joseph and Alicia? What if Hunter had kept it hidden with the other
altered
artifacts he’d confiscated?

A door on the top popped open in two parts, rising like tiny square wings, and Joseph stood up, screaming. “We did it! We flew!”

I unclipped the leads, left them lying there, and ran toward Joseph, reaching him just as he finished climbing down, clutching him to me. “Wow!” With such a machine, we could…we could travel anywhere, we could explore, maybe even get to Islandia.

Joseph pulled free, grabbed my arms, and grinned into my face. “Jenna had it hidden. She couldn’t fly it.” He laughed. “But I could. I flew it, Chelo. She told me Dad loved skimmers—I love this one, I loved flying. You could see everything. Even the
New Making
looked tiny.”

Alicia jumped down and stood next to Joseph. Kayleen ran up, Liam and Akashi on her heels. “You flew it?” Kayleen asked.

Joseph glowed, like he’d glowed after hunting, full of excitement and adrenaline. “You’ve got to try this. It’s so…so fast. I saw places we’ve never been, places someone walking could never go.”

Jenna jumped down next, standing behind Alicia and Joseph, her eye shining with excitement. She looked around. “Odd choice for a barn.”

Legs! “Did you see which way Legs went?” I asked.

Akashi grunted. “He’ll come back after he quits being scared. His herd is here.” He looked at Jenna. “Where the hell were you hiding that thing? And why bring it out now?”

She shrugged, but from the look Joseph gave me, I knew it was the cave. I squinted at the skimmer, trying to picture it rolling out of the cave, suddenly understanding why the cave floor had been so smooth. It was a landing pad. Did they clear the brush or just fly through it? Only then did I think of Artistos at all. “You know, you probably just scared the hell out of Artistos.”

Jenna’s eye sparkled as she waved off my concerns. “We went around and came in from the sea. Joseph needed to practice flying on something small.”

The skimmer didn’t look small to me. She’d had the skimmer and couldn’t fly it. Lack of ability to read data, or being short one arm, or both? I chewed on my lip, thinking.
Altered
in possession of
altered
technology. Joseph able to fly. Nava and Hunter would hate it. Worse, it would scare them. And I’d been worried about their reaction to
hunting
.

What was Jenna doing?

I shivered, feeling pushed, manipulated. I glared at the skimmer, wishing it away, but of course, it stayed exactly where it was, alluring and beautiful and powerful and polished.

Stripes came up and sniffed at the nose of the skimmer, whickering softly, which started Kayleen laughing, then me, then the rest.

But it wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny. Not now. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go outside and catch up.” I wanted to be away from the skimmer, to be outside in familiar surroundings. To draw the others’ attention from the sleek machine.

Liam hesitated, walking up to the skimmer, touching it. His touch reminding me of Tom’s loving inspection of the bigger and squatter shuttles the day we sent Therese’s and Steven’s ashes to the sea, the day Jinks died. Tom’s eyes had held that same look of awe and hunger.

Liam’s face was transfixed, bright, as he walked under the skimmer, his head almost brushing the bottom, circling around to the back where the engines cooled with light crackling and popping sounds. “Can I climb inside?” he asked, directing the question to Jenna.

Jenna smiled, apparently pleased with his interest. “You can help unload her soon. This is the
Burning Void
. Her range is anywhere on Jini.”

“How many people will she hold?” Liam asked.

“All of us,” Alicia said. “There’s room for eight. More if you’re willing to be uncomfortable.”

If Tom had worried about the headband, what would he think now? I interrupted Liam’s entranced tour of the skimmer by saying, “You know, you three might as well have outright declared war on Artistos.”

Alicia’s eyes flashed at me, happy and defiant. She knew. Jenna frowned. “If they saw us, they can choose to see it that way. They chose to shoot at me.”

That stopped me cold. She was right. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m sorry for all the wrong things done to you, by anyone. Maybe they declared war when they beat up Bryan or when they shot at you, or years ago, before I was born. I’m sick and tired of it, too.”