Elissa did manage to sleep for a while, although she woke each time Cadan took the ship into hyperdrive, and she spent a good part of the rest of the time jerking awake, hearing phantom explosions or running footsteps. After a couple of hours she couldn’t cope with it anymore. She slid off Cadan’s couch, washed her face and brushed her teeth with items from the toiletries machine in his shower room, and went quietly out, leaving Lin in the bedroom.
The whine and shriek of the hyperdrive vibrated all around her as she climbed through the doorway up to the flight deck, and the jerk as they took another hop made her grab for the rail at the bottom of the steps to the bridge.
Cadan was standing by the nutri-machine when she tapped on the security door. He turned, coffee cup in hand, to let her in. “You couldn’t sleep longer?”
“I’ll have to sleep when we get there too.”
“Good plan. Coffee?”
She nodded, and he dialed for her. “I’m having it with extra caffeine. You want that?” drew in a breath, c
She couldn’t suppress a little shudder. “No, thanks. Regular’s plenty strong enough. I only started drinking it, like, three days ago, when Lin and I first ran away from my house. Before that, when I was getting all the symptoms of what Lin was going through, one of the doctors I saw said going caffeine-free would help.”
“Sadistic freaking bastard.”
Elissa blinked. That was a reaction she hadn’t expected.
Cadan turned from the machine, the coffee he’d just dialed in his free hand, his face set in lines of anger and distaste. “For God’s sake, they knew all along what was doing it,
and they recommended things like going caffeine-free? For disconnecting a telepathic link?”
“Oh, no.” He wasn’t handing her the coffee, so she took it from him. “I don’t think they all knew. I mean, some of them definitely did, and I’m sure my parents knew all along too. But that doctor—he was kind of early on, and I think the others—the ones who did know—I think even they were maybe hoping it was nothing but nerves and hormones and stuff. Right at the beginning I was just getting the pain, before the bruises started appearing. So to start with, they sent me to ordinary doctors as well—doctors who didn’t have all the information, I mean.”
Cadan’s face had gone, if anything, even grimmer. “And that’s how it started? With the pain coming from what they were doing to her?”
Elissa sipped sweet hot coffee and nodded.
“How often did it happen?”
“Two or three times a week, usually.”
Cadan muttered a swear word that Elissa thought it would be polite to pretend not to hear. “And what they were doing—plugging stuff into the back of her skull—that’s what you felt? All along, that’s what it was?”
“Yes.” She frowned at him. “But you know that. I told you earlier today—yesterday.” She shook her head. “Whenever. I already told you. And back then, you must have known? Not what was doing it, but that I was sick and stuff. I mean,
everyone
knew.”
“Bruce said you got headaches,” said Cadan.
“Well, it was difficult to know what to call them. I guess they were sort of headaches—” Then his tone, the look on his face, hit her. “Wait, what? You mean—Bruce said I got
just
headaches?”
Cadan’s eyes met hers. There was still anger in them, but now there was shame as well. “Pretty much. A few times he said they were migraines, but he— I never got the impression they were any worse than that. And
definitely
not even as often as once a week.”
“Bruce said . . .” She couldn’t take it in. Bruce had
known
how bad the symptoms were. He’d seen the bruises, had seen her when she was so sick with pain that she couldn’t sit up or stand. And he’d told Cadan they were
headaches
?
“Yeah.” Cadan was watching her. “I should have known there was more to it than that. Bruce . . . he doesn’t like things he can’t define, give reasons for. I guess saying your symptoms gave a breath of laughter. a thought were just headaches, it didn’t embarrass him like having to admit—”
“What did
he
have to be embarrassed about? It was me it was happening to!”
“I’m not defending him. I just—that’s the way he is.”
Elissa let out a long breath, trying to let her shock and anger ebb. “I guess so. My mother’s pretty much the same. She kept insisting it was just hormones or something until it was so way beyond obvious that it wasn’t. Which is crazy, because I
know
she knew—I guess she just kept refusing to believe it.”
She sipped coffee, trying to calm down, trying to put it behind her. What did it matter, how her mother and Bruce had tried to deal with what had been happening to her? What did the opinion of anyone back on Sekoia mean anymore?
Then a thought struck her, and she had to force her fingers not to clench on the cup and make coffee spill. “You believed him.”
Cadan flushed. “I didn’t think not to. If I’d thought about it more . . . but we were in the middle of training, and I just—”
She put the coffee down on the shelf next to the nutri-machine. “So was
that
why? All that freaking advice you kept giving me, about making the most of my opportunities at school? The jabs about me not excelling in class? You thought all I had was headaches? You thought I was lazy?”
“Not lazy.”
“Then what?”
“Look, I just thought you were in the position of not having to work for what you wanted. I thought you took it all for granted. Bruce kept mentioning that you were having time off school, that you’d dropped your swimming club and weren’t taking driving lessons. And . . .” He sighed. “Okay. I thought you were using the headaches as an excuse. And I thought you were doing a bit of attention seeking.”
Attention seeking?
Anger swept through her, so strong she felt her face heat. She could only stare at him, hands clenched.
Cadan looked alarmed. “It’s not that bad, Lissa. Look, you’re a teenage girl—that’s the sort of thing they do—”
“Oh my
God
. Tell me you did
not
just say that.”
Cadan’s flush deepened. “Okay, look—”
“You don’t get to make big huge statements about teenage girls and assume they apply to me! You don’t
do
that!”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He put his hands up, a gesture of capitulation and defense. “I said it the wrong way. God knows I did my own attention seeking when I was in my teens.”
“
Please
. You’re twenty-one. Like you’re
so
far out of your teens now.”
“Point taken. And”—he grinned a little, ruefully—“it’s not like I’m immune to seeking some attention now, either. I had the wrong information, and I drew the wrong conclusions. I’m sorry. Really.” reflected”rt
“I
cared
what you thought,” she said before she could catch the words back. “I
wanted
you to approve. I thought you were awesome when I was little.”
Cadan’s mouth twisted into a wry look. “You hid it pretty well when you were a bit older, though.”
“Of
course
I did! You with your career advice and your ‘Oh, Lissa’s not up on current affairs,’ and making fun of me. Of course I wasn’t going to show you I—” She stumbled, suddenly scared of what she might end up saying if she kept talking.
Cadan’s eyes were intent on hers. “I didn’t despise you,” he said. “I
never
despised you.”
“Well, then, you
hid it pretty well
,” she shot back at him.
“I guess I must have.”
The words hung between them, seeming to gather meaning like static electricity. Elissa’s heart was suddenly beating up in her throat.
He always thought of me as a little girl. Bruce’s baby sister. That’s all I was to him. Wasn’t it?
Cadan opened his mouth, then shut it again. Then folded his arms. “Look. I was pretty pleased with myself when I was a little younger, when I was training. I know I must have been all kinds of irritating. And I made some pretty harsh judgments of you. But I did
not
despise you.”
“Okay.” She wouldn’t ask him what he had thought about her. She’d put herself out there enough already—she couldn’t do it anymore.
She shifted her position instead, took a gulp of coffee. “I
didn’t
have to work for what I wanted,” she said suddenly. “Before the symptoms started. You were right about that. So if you thought I was kind of spoiled, well, I guess you weren’t totally wrong.”
“Yeah, I did, a bit,” said Cadan carefully. “But only kind of.”
Elissa lifted a shoulder. “I guess that’s fair.”
Cadan had been glancing at the screens at intervals while they talked. Now he moved back to take his seat at the controls again. “You’ve changed, though,” he said, eyes intent on the screens. “Since you’ve been on the ship. Seeing everything you’ve had to do—everything you’ve given up for Lin . . .”
Elissa sat down two seats away from him. She wasn’t going to ask. It was enough to know that he hadn’t despised her; it was enough that he knew she hadn’t been faking the symptoms.
“So I’m not so spoiled now?”
Cadan glanced at her. “Not at all spoiled.” Their eyes met, and held, and once again the words hung in the air, gathering electricity that hummed and sparked between them. Cadan took one hand off the controls. “Lissa . . .”
Behind them someone tapped on the glass. Elissa jumped and turned around, and Cadan hit the button to open the door.
Lin came in, yawning, hair sticking up all over the place, and walked straight to the nutri-machine to dial a hot chocolate and chocograin bar gave a breath of laughter. a thought. “How far are we now?”
“No more than eight hours away now,” Cadan said. He glanced back at the screens, and Elissa noticed his color seemed a little higher than it had before. What had he been about to say, before Lin came in?
And will he get another chance to say it?
He didn’t look as if that were on his mind now, though. “Lin,” he said as she came over to take a seat next to Elissa, “when you were in the facility, did you have any idea what purpose it was for? Why they were doing it?”
Lin had turned toward him as he’d said her name, but at his words her eyes went blank, as if she were looking not at but through him. “No,” she said, and the word was like a barrier clamping down.
Cadan paused a moment, looking at her. “No idea at all? After three years?”
“No.”
As Cadan opened his mouth again, Elissa put a hand out to stop him, an automatic impulse. Couldn’t he see that Lin didn’t want to answer? That he was pushing some button that needed to be left alone?
But either he didn’t see her gesture or he chose to ignore it. “Lin, I’m not asking for fun. I’m asking because it might be useful information.”
“It’s not useful information. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” said Cadan, in a voice of deliberate patience. “Then I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking instead.” He moved a hand over the controls, opened up another window to check something, then glanced back at Lin. “Lissa said it had to do with your greater telepathic ability. And probably your electrokinetic ability too. Like I said, about the only thing I know about that is that it takes up a lot of energy. But I’ve seen what you eat, and, in terms of calories, I don’t think you’re taking in anything like the amount of energy you can give out.”
“So?” said Lin.
“
So
I’m thinking what they were doing was using you like
some kind of energy amplifier. Drawing energy through you—”
Every part of Lin’s body seemed to flinch. For a moment she looked as if she’d actually shrunk. Elissa flung out a hand toward Cadan. “
Stop
. Stop it. Can’t you see she can’t handle you talking about it?”
Cadan’s eyebrows twitched together. “Look, I know it’s not pleasant, but—”
“Not
pleasant
?” All the former understanding she thought they’d reached exploded into dust. “What’s wrong with you? You know what happened to her!”
“Yes, I
do
know,” Cadan snapped. “And I’m trying to find ammunition to ensure it doesn’t happen again! The more information I have, the more of a case I can present to the IPL.”
“You said we’d get refugee status anyway.” Elissa couldn’t help the accusing tone that came into her voice.
“You will. But do you want to live as nothing more than refugees forever? With Lin never being recognized as a legal human? Right now all we can get these people on is contravention of the Humane Treatment Act. If we can find out they’ve broken TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com, cother laws, if we can get you compensation, if we can get Lin legal human status, it’ll make things a hell of a lot better for you both. So please, both of you, stop treating me like the enemy!”
His eyes held Elissa’s, and after a second she looked away.
“I know one thing,” said Lin abruptly. “People—Spares—once the procedures started, they didn’t last long.”
Elissa’s stomach clenched. Once again she heard what Lin had said that first day:
Some of the other Spares . . . they burned out
. Elissa had tried not to think about it. It was over for Lin,
and she, Elissa, couldn’t do anything about the Spares still left there. But sometimes the words came back, and so did images, of Lin burning out, used up, gone.
Lin was watching her. “Lissa, no, that’s not what I’m talking about. Some of us”—she glanced at Cadan—“couldn’t cope with the procedure. It burned out something in their brains. But some of us got taken away.” She hesitated. “At least, that’s what I guessed. I mean, there weren’t any corpses. They could have died and been removed without us knowing. But we all thought . . . The rumors were that they were taken away alive.” She swallowed. “And it was always people a bit older than me. A year, two at the most.”
“People reaching the end of puberty,” said Cadan. “At the height of their powers, maybe?”
Lin shrugged, her face shutting down again, as if, having given the information she could, she was once again blocking it out of her brain.
“Okay.” Cadan reached to unlock the hyperdrive, ready to take yet another hop. “Thank you.”