Authors: Brenda Cooper
This was a different scale altogether.
Next to me, Kayleen breathed harder, making small moaning sounds. I needed to go down and see where she had gone, especially after I spoke so harshly to her. But I couldn’t quite tear my eyes away from the screen.
This convergence of fleets was so much bigger than us. Changing flier genetics was nothing, and by the same token, couldn’t be enough to change the trajectory of so many things already in motion. No matter what Marcus thought, how could we be any more than spectators?
At least Chelo wasn’t here. She’d hate seeing this. It would frighten her and make her angry all at once.
But me? I wanted to fly them. I felt surprised at how much the powerful space ships spoke to my heart, my blood, my breath. This was not what Marcus had been teaching me; not how he’d want me to feel. That, I knew. Marcus had been more father to me than David Lee ever had been, had taught me more, pinned more of his hopes on me. He’d rescued me, and helped me rescue Chelo. He wanted to stop the war, not fly the ships. Chelo would feel the same. I should.
But to fly such a beast!
I set the plate down and lay back, opening to whatever data might be here.
Immediately I was wrapped in the familiar. This was like Silver’s Home, like
Creator
, like the
New Making
. All of the sweet seductive slowness of Lopali was gone, and here information flooded my whole being, chaotic and confusing and welcome. I belonged here. It steadied me, feeling the threads, choosing some and rejecting others. I heard myself laugh—my
self
deep in the data hearing my physical laughter, and then I dove deeper, letting go of the physical, losing the sound of my laughter and leaving behind the flat pictures on the wall.
The room’s data pulsed all around me, kept me from becoming lost out in the fleet, kept me from seeing too many details. Besides, I was here for Kayleen. I had an apology to make. I brushed her energy, sent her soothing thoughts. She felt thin and fluttery, virtually far away.
The room’s data folded me, gave me structure, reminded me of where I was. At the same time, the data flowing into it—from space, of course—demanded attention. Trajectories. Weights and fuels and star systems and a thousand possible strategies, none of them decided. Some rejected, some gone because of one choice or another.
This was the data of impending war.
The details of hundreds of specifications and weapons, the hope and despair of possibilities. The ships’ computers sending to this very room the calculations and recalculations they made over and over in preparation. The limited dreaming of ships’ AIs.
So many choices meant the fleet, our fleet, had room still. Time could change the outcome.
In a way, the ships were like demon dogs. The captains and the AIs chattered across space and time, all of the conversation now hours old due to the lag between there and here, but urgent and awake and aware. Intense.
An incredible counterpoint to the calmness here, making both seem so outrageous they must be lies. Two truths so different they should not exist so close together.
I stayed close to Kayleen, kept one bit of awareness on her, while I followed other threads. Kayleen was easy to feel, familiar, even though I could tell we were far apart in the data streams. Being physically close probably helped. Knowing her helped. Still, the ships demanded attention, the raw purpose of this room as a place to watch the engines of war pulling me, almost the way Lopali data pulled me serene.
The ships’ chatter rode the top of all the data, noisy and demanding; it took bandwidth to draw them on the wall. But there was more below. And Kayleen was below. I shrugged away the fascinating detail and dove, sensing when she and I were seeing the same thing. She felt curious and appalled, but she reached for me, sent me a greeting and pulled me into the part of the data threads or streams she inhabited.
Are you okay?
I asked.
Mostly. These aren’t the Lopali data streams. They scare me.
That’s good. They’re more likely to be real.
It’s so fast. What if I get lost in here? What if I get lost?
I’m here. I’ll help you if you need anything.
I sent her peace and calm, a feeling of being present. I waited until she felt smoother.
What are you looking at? Show me. I’m here for you.
I’m glad. Come see!
There were piles of data from all the planets’ newsfeeds. I let her lead me, knowing I should come back and look and see the details. Metadata streamed past. Islans demonstrating against Silver’s Home.
Riots on Silver’s Home—some for, some against. People in both places being sent to war. Mothers and fathers crying at being split from their children, men and women angry or proud or scared when one part of a family left. Spaceports with remembrance stones around the edges.
Eventually, what Kayleen brought me to see: A newsfeed from Silver’s Home had our pictures and unrecognizable descriptions of us. Joseph the big and brave, Joseph the powerful. Some truth: Joseph who could fling ships into the sea. I flinched. The Star Mercenaries stories, real, but realer than life. I had done that, but it had not been a starship, just a skimmer, and four people I killed in anger, but not by cold-blooded plotting. It almost threw me up and out, my heart pounding with anger.
If I could have clutched Kayleen’s hand I would have. I stayed near her, following the threads she fed me, seeing stories about my sister having a real choice, and all by herself setting the starships in motion.
I had not been there but, from what she said, she might herself believe that. She should never see this story.
Marcus, angry and powerful instead of full of humor. The threads of bad stories branched to history rewritten, to the bounty on our heads, to rumors that we were here, on Lopali.
I’m not mentioned in the main stories
, Kayleen sent.
Good.
She returned slightly miffed energy, a moment of laughter. Good for her.
Let me show you. The first ones are the official stories, repeated and repeated and repeated, like we should believe them because we hear them more than once. Some people on Silver’s Home blaming us for the war, as if we wanted it or even knew the players. But there are other stories.
She felt angry. There is no sound when you speak the way we spoke inside the world of data, but there is cadence and speed and choice of words.
Of course there are other stories.
We showed each other.
Kayleen
was
rumored later. A few people said she was my sister. One said she was my sweetheart. No reports suggested she and my sister and Liam were a family. A few reports mentioned Bryan—as bodyguard or fighter. Ming was Ming the Traitor or Ming the Hero. Someone had even figured out Sasha’s existence.
Chelo had asked me to find the stories Dianne had referenced, and I hadn’t really done it.
Kayleen, which stories are ours?
Ours?
From Marcus or Dianne?
I can’t tell.
Which ones say we’re good?
Oh!
Now that we looked together, our own story machine emerged slowly. Counter to the official one from Silver’s Home. Sort of. Chelo the savior of the world, she and I the hands-down winners—solo—in the battle for Artistos. I didn’t recognize how good I was at Reading the Wind. Try as I might, I couldn’t track it back to us—couldn’t prove Dianne or Tiala or Marcus originated anything. Marcus himself was featured as often as me—characterized as a rich, powerful, eccentric loner who’d gone beyond the law, and become the hero who would save the worlds.
The stories that I thought came from us didn’t mention Alicia or Bryan, Kayleen or Liam. Just me and Chelo. Good. I didn’t want anyone else compromised. The sheer volume of data made me angry, the number of people who must be working to add to the legends of us, good and bad. Back on Silver’s Home, Marcus had called this
buzz
, but I no longer thought it arose spontaneously. Maybe sometimes. But we had been gone for years, and we should have been forgotten. Marcus and Dianne and the others were manipulating the stories. How much of that was to manipulate us, even though they almost never talked about it? The pressure was there, anyway.
How was I supposed to tell?
Beside me, Kayleen tugged.
I need a break.
She’d been here longer than I had. I tucked away all I could remember. My own exhaustion was beginning to slow my thinking down; even here, the physical melded to the world of data. It must be worse for Kayleen who had spent very little time this immersed. No single ship had this variety.
I could come back later.
Okay! Surface.
She laughed at my wording, her laughter a little off, but reassuring anyway, and I heard it with my physical ears.
I blinked in the bright lights. One of my feet tingled from being held at an odd angle. I must have spent more time down than I’d thought.
Sasha immediately sensed my presence and popped her head up, nosing my hand until I petted her.
I looked around for Marcus but didn’t see him. The vid wall still flashed pictures, but the room had at least partly emptied out. I only noticed a few people moving around.
Kayleen started whispering. “All those stories. That’s so weird. I mean, I know there’re some people who end up in stories, but it’s never supposed to be you.” Her voice shifted from thoughtful to a little angry. “I don’t like how people are lying about you.”
“People have lied about us all of our lives.”
“This is on a different scale.” She glared at the screen full of impending war, and swallowed. She didn’t say anything for so long I began to worry, since Kayleen is never quiet. But then she looked back at me and said the characteristic, “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s take Sasha out, and then look for food.”
As we went out the door, I realized Marcus had needed to open it and we might not get back in. A cool breeze blew down the hallway, illustrating how controlled the environment we’d been in had been. After the door closed behind us, I dipped into the data, sampling the surface threads, and found only the Lopali norm of everything in soft rhythm. Wow.
Doors within doors.
After we entered the night and felt the breeze outside, I looked behind me to see the blackness of an empty cave. There had been no attempt to hide the cave itself, but from outside, there might have been no one else for kilometers. Just me and Kayleen and the dog.
Sasha trotted off into the darkness, probably hungry. Stars hung above us in a brilliant tapestry, and here and there the brighter orbs of the other planets swinging around Lopali’s sun. Kayleen stood close to me, not touching. She whispered, “I miss the moons. They used to tell us how the time would go. Three moons for luck and all of that. Most of the roamer wagons had three moons painted on them. Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Without any moon at all, how are we supposed to know what the night will be like?”
“We’re standing on a moon. Maybe that’s a sign we have to decide.”
She nodded. “If this were one of our moons, it would have to be Faith.”
“Or Destiny.”
A rustling in the bushes told me Sasha had caught her dinner.
“No. This is a stop for us. But we just saw our destiny. I’m scared of it, Joseph. You’ll be strong enough, but I won’t be. I might have got lost tonight without you. But it is still where we are going. I feel it in my heart, in my bones.”
I agreed with her. I didn’t want to say how much all of those warships called to me. It made me feel dirty. I didn’t want war or killing. I’d seen enough of those up close and personal already, seen friends die. But the moment I saw those ships, I knew I had been designed to fly them. Which gave a new urgency to my need to help the fliers, so Marcus would let us go on.
I hadn’t quite figured out how to answer Kayleen, who often didn’t expect answers anyway. We sat quietly for a long while.
Sasha bounded back toward us with a long stick in her mouth, and taking it away and convincing her we weren’t going to throw it in the dead of night got us both laughing and the dog barking playfully. It felt good to have a moment with no moons above me, and no Marcus and no fliers with their wide-set hopeful eyes.
K
ala and her constant companion, Samuel, brought us to a simple, rectangular room for dinner, and served us steaming hot cups of tea, juice, and sweet breads for the children. Then they left. Liam and I sat on the wooden floor and played space ship with the children. Alicia sat still, staring off into space, her eyes narrowed and her chin angry, resting on her folded hands. Bryan paced, his feet making an irritating
slap slap slap slap
on the floor.
“Bryan!” I declared. “Stop. What is bothering you so?”
He turned to me, his deep brown eyes anguished. “Don’t you know? I haven’t heard from Ming.”
Well, we weren’t supposed to, not for a few days. And then, through Seeyan, who would travel more freely. “Have any of us heard from any of the others?” I asked.
Bryan shook his head. “Ming was supposed to contact me. We had our own agreement.”
When Liam glanced at Bryan, he looked as worried as I felt, but he used his calm leader’s voice. “Maybe she just decided to follow the original plan.”
Bryan resumed his pacing, not looking at any of us. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“Give it time,” I suggested, catching Caro as she careened across the small room spilling crumbs. Speaking to the child, I said, “Calm down.”
Alicia’s head came up from where she’d been contemplating the
leaves of her tea. “Why calm down? He should be worried. I haven’t heard from Joseph either.”
“Were you expecting to?” Liam asked.
“Well, no. But that’s not the point. We don’t know how anyone else is doing. Maybe we’ve been kidnapped and they’re storing us in this blissful place so we won’t rebel. Beside, I’m bored.”
Just as she said that, the door slid open, admitting Mohami, and the faint scent of the garden touched by early evening dew. He glanced at Alicia. “I am sorry that I overheard you. Being bored is”—he smiled, his voice and face full of warm humor—“boring. There is much work here for idle hands. We can keep you busy.”