The Silver Ship and the Sea (24 page)

Joseph dropped his eyes.

Instead of walking over to me, he squatted down to Alicia, looking her in the eyes, holding his hand out. His hand hung there in the air for a long time before she took it, standing and following him to join Kayleen and me. I gestured ahead of us, and Joseph and Alicia, hand in hand, led us down toward the lake bank. None of us looked back to where Tom and Paloma sat silently, but I felt them watching us, felt a small gulf opening between us and their support.

We sat near where we’d taken the hebras out, the lake spreading in front of us, the mountains that held the cave—held relics of our past and future—to our left, barely visible beyond the curve of Little Lace Lake. A light wind blew off the lake, smelling of water and moss and soaked logs. Alicia sat nestled in Joseph’s arm on my left, Kayleen on my right. “All right,” I said. “This is bad. We don’t know how bad. We know Bryan’s in trouble, and that he can’t get himself out of it. And I suspect whatever happened hasn’t helped us.”

“Mom will support us,” Kayleen said. “And Tom.”

Alicia sat up straighter, looking past me to Kayleen, her eyes cool. “Really? They didn’t tell us about Bryan.”

“And what would have happened if they had?” I asked. “Would we have spent the day with Jenna, learned the things we learned? No one wants to go get Bryan as much as I do. But what if we go back and they lock us up? What if we go back and we can’t change anything? We need a plan.”

“Bryan and Liam broke me out,” Alicia said. “I can’t bear to leave him there, not after he helped me.”

“And you couldn’t bear to be locked up again, either,” I snapped. “We’re doing what they want, and we’re learning things they don’t know about, things we need to know. It’s impossible to talk to Jenna for long in Artistos, even when we aren’t being watched carefully. She stops it herself. She knows better than to draw attention.”

“I wonder if she knows what’s going on in Artistos?” Kayleen asked. “Is that why she showed us the cave?”

“Maybe she’s there now,” Joseph said, “looking after Bryan.”

Alicia stood up, standing with her back to the lake, watching the three of us. “So no matter what, you’re dependent on someone else? On Tom and Paloma, or on Jenna?”

I watched her carefully as I said, “Don’t underestimate the people in Artistos just because we are stronger than any one of them. You heard Tom and Paloma’s story the other day. Three hundred people stronger than us—adults who understood what and who they are—lost a war with Artistos. We couldn’t win.”

She gazed back at me, her face as angry as when she crouched on the blanket.

I continued, trying to soften my voice, to draw her in. “But you’re right. We must decide what we want. Not what anyone else wants for us. But even then, we may need help.”

Alicia sat back down, still close to Joseph, but this time not touching him. “I know what I want. I want to live by ourselves, just us. There’s six of us. Seven if you count Jenna. That’s enough to start our own town, or to be our own band. Liam and I know how to travel, and you four know how to farm and grow things.”

“Six.” I swallowed. “Or seven. It’s not an adequate breeding pool. I know that from how carefully we keep records, and how the Town Council has to approve marriages. Six won’t do unless we learn more about genetics ourselves, and can design out defects. I don’t even know if we have that information here.” I glanced at Joseph. “Or the tools.”

He shook his head. “We might have the data. I have almost no idea what Jenna gave us yet, for the most part. Even if I could, it’s not like learning to pick corn. It would take training.”

“Paloma understands as much genetics as anyone here,” Kayleen said.

Alicia grimaced.

I held up my hands for silence. “Okay, so Alicia wants us to live by ourselves. There are some problems there, but let’s each have a chance to talk. Kayleen?”

She tucked her knees in close to her, wrapping her arms around them, and glanced over her shoulder toward Tom and Paloma before speaking. “I want to live by ourselves, in one big house, but in Artistos. I would feel safer there, and I don’t want to leave Mom.”

“Joseph?” I asked.

“I’m with Alicia. We can hunt, I bet we can kill predators, and we wouldn’t have to hide anything. I want to be free to go to the cave, to see Jenna, to travel.” He scooted closer to Alicia and squeezed her around the waist, then leaned in to kiss the top of her head. “I’m tired of being told what to do.” He frowned. “But I know what you want, Chelo. Like Kayleen, you want to live in Artistos.”

I chewed on my lip. He was right, and that meant we were split. “You and Alicia could join the West Band.” I glanced at Kayleen. “Or maybe we all could. We don’t have the skills, today, to live completely apart, not even as a group. But there’s something else I’ve been thinking about.” I made sure to look each of them in the eye, to make them nod before I looked away. “We’ve always helped out. Maybe we did it for the wrong reasons. But the best outcome for us and everyone in Artistos is for them to let us live there, and to value our skills. We have something to offer them.”

“I don’t care if they all die,” Alicia said, sliding a little away from Joseph. “It would be a lot easier on us.”

Kayleen stiffened, her eyes flashing. “But I do,” she snapped. “I don’t like them all, and they don’t all like me, but I love Paloma and Akashi and Liam and Bryan and even Tom. Gianna. We have friends there.”

“I have no friends in Artistos,” Alicia said, her voice even and flat, unemotional. “And only one good friend in the band. Just Sky.”

Joseph pulled her into him. I could have planted my own kiss on his cheek when he said, “Chelo’s right. We can help. If we can’t figure out how to make them let us help, we leave until they will let us. They’ll need us someday. For more than fixing data networks. Jenna’s probably saved twenty lives so far with her predator kills. They’ll see.”

Alicia shook her head. “I don’t want to live in Artistos or to help them. But I want to stick with you three for now. That will have to be enough.”

It wasn’t. We needed to be united, and even Joseph didn’t yet see that living on our own, away from Artistos, wasn’t all right. I drummed my fingers and fidgeted. “Okay,” I said. “We know we don’t want to be told what to do and we’re tired of living with the adults. So we know what we don’t want. We know two of us want to live in town and two don’t.”

They all nodded. Alicia said, “Now that the preliminary chat is out of the way, what do we
do
? We can’t ignore Bryan.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. We better talk to Liam. Maybe I can get Tom to let us do that.”

“I don’t want to let Tom off the hook for not telling us,” Alicia said.

“And so we…do what?” Kayleen asked. “Ignore him?”

Alicia shook her head. “I feel like a prisoner.”

I had no counter…I felt the same way. But I didn’t want to agree and feed her anger. “All right. Joseph, there’s one more node here to fix. Can we get to it tonight?”

He nodded. “It’s only a few hours away. After that, there’s nothing left to do but make our way around the lake.”

I looked at the far shore, calculating in my head. “We’ll still have to camp one more night. It’s too far to get back to the fork before dark. Let’s talk to Liam, and then decide what to do next. I want to get Bryan out of Artistos, but I don’t know how to do that yet.”

“We could break him out if Jenna helped,” Alicia said. “She can get through the boundaries.”

The idea made me squirm uncomfortably. “We need to find out what’s happening first.” I glanced at the sun, which had started its afternoon transit. “Let’s talk again as soon as we camp—maybe all four of us taking the first watch. Whatever we have to do.” I stood. “But first, we should move. Sitting and talking all day won’t help Bryan.”

I took Kayleen’s hand, reaching my free hand for Joseph’s. He took mine and then took Alicia’s. I wanted us to walk back looking united, even though we had agreed on very little. The gesture was pretty much wasted on Tom and Paloma, who were so deep in conversation they didn’t notice us until we were almost back in camp. They had packed up, and sat ready to go.

“Kayleen and Alicia—it’s your turn to run,” I said. Alicia favored me with a brief glare, but they obeyed, standing while Joseph and Tom helped Paloma mount up. Tom and Paloma did not ask us any questions, nor did they seem surprised that we were ready to just keep going. I glanced over at Tom. “I’d like to set a fast pace.”

He nodded. “Well, then. Take the lead.”

I drew in a breath and made my voice sound calm. “I want to talk to Liam when we stop.”

He looked long and hard at me. “I’ll talk to Akashi.”

So the balance of power between us was shifting, but not entirely. If it was this hard to get Tom and Paloma to let us choose our own path, how much harder would it be to convince Nava, Hunter, and Wei-Wei?

This time, I let Joseph ride by himself. They’d just assume he was lost in thought about Bryan, and perhaps he could figure out something about Bryan. I asked Tom and Paloma what else was happening in Artistos, but they offered no more information. I couldn’t tell if they had none, or just weren’t willing to share.

We settled into a quiet and uncomfortable ride. Alicia pointed out fresh paw-cat tracks once, a reminder to keep good watch.

After an hour, we traded runners out. Joseph and I stayed close to the others, nervous of paw-cats and both quiet.

The next data spike had simply lost its power, probably not even related to the quake. Tom and Joseph worked quietly together. Paloma made no protest when Tom agreed with us that we could keep going for another hour to take advantage of the light.

We camped in the open, on a little muddy beach in the last set of hills before the path intersected the fuller and deeper Little Lace Forest. Tom and Kayleen laid the perimeter bells, building a U-shape with the lake at the opening of the U. When they finished, Tom said, “Okay, now we need some firewood. Why don’t you four go out together? You’ll be safer that way. I’ll pitch the tents while you’re gone. Gather a lot of wood—we’re so in the open here that I’d like a big fire to ward off any predators.”

In other words, he and Paloma wanted to be alone. I met his eyes. “I want to be here when you talk to Akashi.”

He nodded. “I know you do.”

I held out my hand. “Can we have an earset in case we need it?”

Tom shook his head. “Not until we all talk, later. Just stay close enough to yell if you need us.”

Who was he trying to keep us from communicating with? I frowned, but turned anyway and started off. The other three followed me. We set off the perimeter bells as we passed outside the safe zone.

I led us to a downed tree I had spotted on our way in, in a small grove just a little ways back along the path.

Joseph and Alicia walked together a little bit ahead of Kayleen and me, holding hands. Kayleen turned toward me, giggling. “Will you look at them?”

I remembered Trading Day, when it had seemed like Joseph had a crush on Kayleen. “Do you mind?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to be Joseph’s girlfriend. And he needed something to drag him out of his shell—better
he hunts a girl than the local wildlife. They’re kind of cute together.”

“So you don’t like hunting?”

She shrugged. “Someone’s got to do it. I don’t want to. But I do worry for her, and for him because of her. She cried on our last run. Earlier, she stayed angry the whole time.”

“Did you try to talk to her? Alicia told me a few days ago that she feels like you don’t like her.”

Kayleen scowled. “She’s not making it easy to like her.”

Joseph and Alicia reached the downed tree ahead of us and started ripping off branches, Joseph filling Alicia’s arms. As I held out my arms for a pile of wood, he asked me, “So, what are we going to do? Go back tomorrow?”

“I want to. But maybe we need to stay out until you understand more.”

He laid two heavy branches across my outstretched arms and started adding smaller pieces. “I made some progress this afternoon. I can separate the two strands of data now, but I still can’t control the new one.”

Alicia asked, “Can you read the Artistos data? Can you find out what’s happening in town? I hate waiting for them to tell us.”

Joseph silently finished giving me a full load of branches. The rough edges scratched my bare hands. He turned and ripped off another branch, as wide as his biceps, the cracking sound satisfying. When he turned back to hand the branch to Kayleen, he said, “I probably could. But I don’t think I can do it without leaving traces. Yet. I was probing the net a few hours ago. I think we better wait until we’re closer; they’ll just shut down the nets if they think I’m poking around. Remember how Tom said Hunter had them watching for signs that Jenna might be in there? I got in a lot of trouble when I got caught at that years ago, and that means they’ll remember I can do it.”

I glanced at Alicia. “I think it’s best not to probe. Not now.” I sighed and shifted the load of wood a little, speaking softly to Joseph. “But you should be ready.”

He kept adding branches to Kayleen’s pile. “I know. I don’t like it, but I can certainly do it. But I can only do it for sure once.” He picked up two branches for himself. “I’ll travel light. Someone should have their hands basically free.”

So we walked back, slowly, burdened with piles of wood. My legs were tired from the run, and I felt like sitting down around a fire and not moving would be the best thing in the whole world. The sun had fallen far enough that we walked in twilight, even though it still shone on the tops of the hills above us.

I felt like an outsider to Artistos, like I was planning, or at least preparing for, an assault on my home.

Tom smiled and joked as he helped us stack the wood by a fire pit he had dug and surrounded with gray river stones. His voice trembled a little, as if the friendliness was being dragged over some other feeling I couldn’t identify; maybe worry about what we would do next, or better, remorse over hiding information about Bryan from us.

As soon as we finished, Tom motioned us to gather near Paloma. She lay nestled in a pile of saddlebags, her foot propped up, looking small and tired in the near-dark. Kayleen squeezed next to Paloma and rubbed her shoulders, and the rest of us gathered in close.

Tom held a hand up for attention. “Time to call the West Band.” He gestured toward the data reader next to him, like Paloma, propped in saddlebags. It surprised me that he had set it up to route the other side of the conversation from his earset through its speakers. He took his earset off and twisted it, changing channels to match the roamers’ frequency. He fit the set back over his ear, the small dark knob visible like a black stone beneath his earlobe. “Akashi?”

“Here. Tom?” Akashi’s voice was barely recognizable through the tinny high-pitched speakers. We all leaned in closer to hear him.

“We can all hear you; we patched you through some speakers. How are you? How is the band?” Tom asked.

Akashi sounded too happy, stage-cheerful. “Hello, everyone.
We’re wintering at the edge of High Canyon Falls, near Hunter’s Stream. We’re almost settled, and Liam just returned from setting the dragonbirds free. No one’s been hurt. Are you still out fixing data nets? How is that going?”

A small ironic laugh escaped Tom’s lips. “Oddly. We’re making good enough progress we’ll have time to come up your way.”

There was no answer for so long that Tom asked, “Are you there?”

“Yes. Perhaps that is better than going back to Artistos right now.” Akashi’s next words were measured. “Fixing the nets up here would be good; we’d like to get our communications with Artistos clear.”

Tom raised his eyebrows as us, asking us wordlessly.

Alicia grimaced and shook her head, her eyes dark and angry.
Don’t agree.
Joseph’s dark eyes met mine, unreadable, but he held Alicia’s hand. Torn again, I suspected; wanting to follow Alicia anywhere, but not yet shorn of
all
good sense. Beside me, Kayleen smiled encouragement, her expression eager. She would want to see Liam. I did, too. As much as I wanted to free Bryan, riding back to Artistos didn’t feel right. I looked back at Tom, nodding. I’d take responsibility for getting Alicia there.

Alicia pursed her lips and looked away, her body rigid. She said nothing.

“All right,” Tom said. “We’re almost all the way around the lake. We’ll be back where we separated from Liam, at the fork in the High Road, by midafternoon tomorrow. Which way do we go from there?”

“Don’t. Stay put. I’ll send a guide. That will be faster.”

“We have a map,” Tom protested. “And Alicia. Surely she knows how to find a roamer band.”

“Yes, but you don’t know all the dangers.” Akashi seemed to be picking his words carefully.

Tom pursed his lips, glancing from me to Alicia to Joseph. “When will someone meet us there?” he asked Akashi.

“Sometime in the morning, the day after tomorrow. If you camp by the river, back up to the cliff. It’s safer.”

“All right,” Tom said. “Paloma twisted her ankle a few days ago. We ride slowly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Tell her good traveling. We’ll talk when you get here.” The crackle in the speakers deadened to stillness.

Tom turned off the data reader. “Shall we eat?”

Hours later, Tom and Kayleen woke Alicia and me for the second watch over the hebras. Destiny hung directly overhead, lighting our way as we walked Ink and Sand down for water. The grass was already so wet with dew that I slipped twice as we made our way to the bank, careful to stay inside the perimeter. Far off, behind us in the hills, I heard a pack of demon dogs, and the call of two wild hebras, probably herd lookouts giving direction. Ink danced and threw her head, perhaps reacting to the dogs and the wild band of hebras. Sand pricked one ear forward and one back, but otherwise she simply pulled me down toward the lake. Two clear silver paths of moonlight, from Destiny and Summer, reflected on the dark water, intersecting in a V near the shore. We stood in the moonlight while Ink and Sand drank in quick slurps, one at a time, the other always standing and listening, ears swiveling.

“Why did you let Tom decide what we would do?” Alicia asked.

“Because he chose the right thing for us. I don’t like making Bryan wait, but we need more information, more time. We need to find Jenna.” I sighed. “Or let her find us.” Stripes lifted her head and butted me gently, asking for a scratch. Her beard dripped water. I scratched her anyway. “We can’t risk Hunter taking the headband, not yet. Not until”—I swallowed—“not until we have a good way to keep it. I bet things at home are worse than Tom is saying. Akashi was too quiet. He didn’t sound like he wanted to say anything specific. I bet he knows about Bryan. Besides, Akashi’s advice is almost always good.”

“Waiting for someone else to tell you what to do again?”

What? Who wouldn’t want to listen to Akashi? “Should I just do the opposite, by reflex? We’re going to have to pick our battles.”

She nodded, her profile nearly a silhouette. Her voice was
almost belligerent as she said, “I hate agreeing with you about that. I hate waiting. I’ve waited all my life to be free of the band. Only…only I’m not really free. There’s always something to keep me from doing what I want.” She reached into the shallow water and picked up a stone, skipping it across the lake surface. Ink warbled at her and splashed water on her torso with her head. Alicia glared at her hebra, then splashed Ink back softly, laughing. She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I’m fighting everything. That’s not fair.”

I reached toward her, but she pulled away, leading Ink toward the bank. We rotated through the rest of the beasts in awkward silence, and went to sit by the fire.

Kayleen and Joseph were there, sharing a log for a seat. Flames crackled and snapped in a good-sized fire, releasing sparks to drift briefly over our heads, red stars winking out one by one.

Kayleen said, “We had to wait for Tom to go to sleep. Joseph wiggled out of the tent right past him, and he kept right on snoring. Joseph wanted to talk to us, and this is a good time. Isn’t the fire pretty?”

I laughed and gave her a little hug. “Shhhhh…you’ll wake your mom. Yes, it’s pretty.” I looked over at Joseph. The fire’s reflection danced in his dark eyes. His fingers drummed on his knees and his right foot tapped impatiently against his left calf.

“What did you find?” I asked.

He kept his voice low. “I changed data buttons, and the one I’m reading now is about the
New Making.
”

“Can you fly it?” Alicia asked.

He laughed. “Hardly. I don’t even know yet if this data button will tell me how to. But I know some of what it looks like inside, how they expected the crew to live. I know how to make food and use the toilet and take a shower, and what the sleeping rooms look like. It’s not that same silver inside. It’s got lots of color, mostly soft blues and greens. It’s pretty simple outside the living areas; pipes and storage—lots of storage.” He threw a small log on the fire, watching as yellow flames embraced it. “I want to get in there and see what they left. There may be ships. The button shows ships. Smaller than the ones we use to go back and forth to
Traveler
. But
I don’t remember any stories about them—us—using ships like that. Do you?”

I shook my head. “No. The
New Making
doesn’t look big enough to hold ships inside it.”

“These were only about six times as big as a wagon.” He looked at Kayleen. “It has a big garden. Paloma would love it.”

“I bet the garden is dead after all this time,” Kayleen mused.

“Well”—Joseph shrugged—“there’s that. I wish I could show you the pictures I’ve been seeing in my head. Maybe after a while I can figure it out.”

“Can you pipe what you see through the projector?” Kayleen asked.

I shook my head. “Jenna said not to risk it near anyone.”

Kayleen looked pained. “Paloma and Tom wouldn’t turn us in. I know they wouldn’t.” She picked up a stone and threw it out across the water, so Ink and Sand both raised their heads. “But you’re right. Did you see anything else?”

He shook his head. “No. And…I don’t think the projector would show you the data the way I see it…it’s layered and twisty, and I have to follow idea-threads, which work like a bad knot. Data lays on data and points to data, image on image.” He stared at the fire for a few moments, then yawned. “I don’t exactly know how to direct questions yet…I just sometimes know how to go down a path of questions that relate, one to another. If I make up my own new question in my head, I don’t know how to start answering it.” He yawned again. “I thought you’d want to know about the ship.”

He glanced at Alicia and gave me a hopeful look, but I said, “Go to sleep.” I told him the same thing I’d told Alicia earlier. “We’ll save our energy for the important fights.”

He nodded, gave Alicia a slightly too long hug, and slipped back into the darkness.
New Making
. I had yearned to see inside it for so long, had been entranced and puzzled by its mysteries. Alicia had dreamed of it. Joseph had obsessed about it when he was about ten, drawing pictures of it every evening. And now we were learning something about it. At last. At least Joseph was. The projector
nearly burned in my pocket, but I resisted, feeding small sticks into the fire and humming.

Tom and Joseph together relieved us for the next watch, pretty much ruining any chance to find out if Joseph had learned more about the ship. But maybe, I thought as I yawned sleepily, maybe he and Tom would repair some of the damage they’d been inflicting on each other.

Long before I had enough sleep, I woke to the smell of fish cooking over the fire. The windless air was surprisingly cool. I pulled on my shoes and coat and took a seat by the fire. “You guys were fishing?”

Tom laughed. “I taught him to hunt. I figured I’d teach him to lake fish.”

Joseph was already good at fishing the Lace River. I glanced over at him, and he grinned and stretched his arms in front of him. “We thought we’d better make breakfast before we woke you sleepyheads.” He gestured toward the tents. “So how about if you wake everyone and we eat and go?”

“How about she has a cup of tea first?” Tom asked. He nodded at Joseph. “You can go wake the others. Give me a few minutes to talk to Chelo.”

I curled my hands around the cup Tom handed me, enjoying the warmth, watching a flock of small brown birds dart over the trees we’d taken the wood from.

Tom pitched his voice low, leaning in toward me. “Paloma and I are a little worried about you and Joseph and Kayleen, about the choices you might make. We are more worried about Alicia. She doesn’t listen. At best, she’s a distraction for Joseph. At worst…well, she might lead you into trouble.” I was sure he meant to say something worse about Alicia, but instead he just scraped the fish over with his knife, concentrating on the pan and the fire. When he finished, he looked at me. “Can you control her?”

Not really. No. Joseph would never forgive me if I said the wrong thing, and got Alicia locked up with Bryan. Tom was asking about control, but how would I control her? How had I so far?
“Alicia trusts us more than she trusts anyone. And she wants family. So, yes, I think I can.” A log disintegrated into glowing goals. “She can only earn your trust, or not, if she’s free to make decisions.” I sipped at my tea again, thinking about goals. “And you need to earn hers. In fact, remind Nava the trust she wants isn’t a one-way effort. Tell her that I need her to take good care of Bryan, and that we’ll do our best to take care of Alicia.”

He blinked, looking startled at my audacity.

I heard Kayleen chattering at Paloma and took our last moment of quiet to add, “Thank you for all you’ve done. You did help Joseph.”

He nodded, watching the fire and not me, and said, “It’s getting hard to know what helps him, or you, and what hurts.”

I stood up and went to help organize camp.

By early afternoon, we finally finished circumnavigating Little Lace Lake, coming back to the point where we’d first seen the lake, at the top of the crater wall. It had taken six nights to return to this spot; it seemed as if a year had passed. I felt different than I had cresting the crater on the way over, but the same problems we had left, and worse, waited below in Artistos.

From the crater wall, it was only half an hour back to the three-way fork. Following Akashi’s suggestion, we nestled our tents against the gray-black cliff, so the stream ran between us and the road. A thin line of forest filled the gap, and thankfully, someone had built a corral we could use for the hebras, shaded by near-elm and river whites. We laid the perimeter to include the corral.

When I went to fill my canteen at the stream, I looked back, and could hardly see our camp. If I hadn’t known where we were, my eyes would have slid across the tents. I stopped and looked down the path, toward Artistos, and my feet wanted to start down: to return to this past spring, to collecting herbs for soap with Therese; to run stealthily and fast to the center of town by the hospital and liberate Bryan from the dark jail; to gallop down the cliff and stop near the
New Making,
safely, alone except for my brother, to open the ship and peel its secrets.

I could do none of those things, not now.

On the way back, I petted each of the hebras in turn. “Well, Stripes,” I whispered. “At least we’ll see Liam and Akashi.”

After a cold dinner, and just as full dark cloaked us all, I followed Alicia into our tent, leaving Tom and Kayleen the job of tending fire and taking first watch. I meant to stay up and chat with Alicia, but I was out cold as soon as I closed the door behind me.

I woke, groggy, realizing I had dreamed the entrance bells chimed friendly entry. Or did they? I listened carefully. Nothing. Then a step outside the tent.