Zodiac (13 page)

TO SETTLE MY MIND,
Hysan
locks my black opal and our three Rings in his strongbox. We even drop in my Wave with the tutorial Ephemeris, to be extra safe.

It seems impossible, but Ophiuchus has discovered how to bend Psynergy to his will, so we’re shutting ourselves off from everything that could tether us to the Psy. I even make Hysan and Mathias promise to avoid sending or receiving holograms, at least for now. So we’re flying dark. And with no news from the outside world, worry is starting to infect my every thought.

Our zigzag flight during the attack took us far out from Gemini, but we’re speeding back, and the constellation already fills our view. Even now I can’t forget Mom’s drills on the Double.

House Gemini has two colonized planets. The largest one, Hydragyr, is an airless cratered rock, but its mountains hold a trove of rare metals. The smaller planet, Argyr, has been terraformed to support a vast forest. The chief point Mom drummed into me was that Gemini is a House divided. The rich live in splendor on Argyr, while the vast majority of Geminin work in beryllium mines deep under the surface of Hydragyr.

Mathias is in his cabin napping; he and Hysan are taking turns at the helm. “Do you need a break?” I ask Hysan.

“No, but your company would be nice.”

I sit beside him and stare at the screens.
’Nox’s Brain Powers
has a litany of settings for the ship’s artificial brain.
Shielding from Shadows
lists the various veils available, including those of the Psy variety.

“He doesn’t believe you,” says Hysan, as though we’ve been carrying on a conversation this whole time.

“Mathias?” I ask. “No. Neither do the rest of my Advisors. Right now, my only supporters are my best friend, Nishiko, who’s a Sagittarian, and you, a Libran. The only people I can’t convince are my own.”

“The most crucial truths are always rejected before they’re accepted,” he says, gazing out at Space. “It’s one of our greatest human flaws: arrogance. We look up and dare to assume we know, when the universe is unknowable.” The words sound like they’re coming from a deeper place than usual. “In my experience, it’s better to keep an open mind and judge without prejudice . . . whenever I can.”

There’s an invitation in Hysan’s voice to get to know him better . . . and the more he shares, the more I want to learn about him. I know I should leave my wall up, at least until he’s revealed more about himself, but it’s hard keeping my distance when every time he gets close, I find myself wanting to get closer.

“How very Libran of you,” I say, pointing to the heading on one of the monitors. “I like your House’s
Recovery-Requires-Review
approach.
”

“Always nice to meet a fan.”

Librans are known for their pursuit of justice, and they believe education is the best path to achieving it. To recover from any blow or overcome any challenge, they recommend reviewing all information available and studying all of one’s options, as an antidote to snap judgments and rash actions. “Do you know this one, too?” he asks.

A hologram beams out from the gold bloom on Hysan’s iris. The text he’s projecting is a children’s morality tale from Libra.

When the letters of the alphabet began disappearing, word spread there was a murderer among their ranks. They agreed every letter with a sharp edge on its body was a suspect. This ruled out
O
, who was asked to be the judge. He put each letter on trial and eventually blamed
X
, who had the most violent appearance and the worst disposition of them all. The real killer went free.

It was the eraser.

For the Librans, the villain in the story is
O
because he judged without knowing all the facts. From this tale, students are supposed to list all the things
O
did wrong as a judge. They can say he didn’t canvass broadly enough for suspects, or that he didn’t widen his worldview to account for all possibilities, or anything else that comes to mind.

The point isn’t the answer—it’s for Libran children to brainstorm as many potential factors in a given situation, in the hopes of broadening their outlook and instilling objectivity as an early value.

“
O
 . . . for Ophiuchus,” says Hysan, shutting down the hologram. “I wonder why he’s been biding his time, and why he’s coming out of hiding now.”

I know I should be relieved Hysan trusts me—and I am—but there’s something strange about how easily he’s accepted my story when compared to everyone else’s reactions. “How did you get to be a diplomatic envoy at such a young age?” I ask.

“That’s funny.” But for the first time, he’s not smiling. “I didn’t peg you as someone who would ask that question.”

His eyes seem to darken during moments when he’s most present, but when his mind clouds over with other thoughts, like now, the green fades until his irises become as elusive as air. We’re quiet again, and I realize he’s touchier about his age than I am.

“You’ve been to Gemini before?” I ask, determined to keep the tone lighter from now on. There’s enough tension on this ship already.

“Unfortunately,” he says, his eyes still distant.

“Can you tell me about its Guardians?”

He nods. “’
Nox
, show us the Twins.” A small holo-map of the Double constellation spins in the air above the helm. “Gemini’s two Guardians are brother Caaseum and sister Rubidum, and they’re at least three centuries old—but when you see them, you’ll think they’re twelve-year-olds. They use appalling procedures to maintain their youth.”

“Three centuries? How can anyone live that long?” My mother told me about the Twins, and we touched on them at the Academy, but only very peripherally. Like every House, Gemini guards its secrets jealously, so they don’t share all the details of their major discoveries.

“In the early days, Gemini led the Zodiac in scientific and humanitarian achievements,” says Hysan. “They imagined solutions for every problem, and they brought a lot of those solutions to life. Then their House discovered cell regeneration, and holding on to youth became a Geminin obsession. Lots of aristocrats do it, but few take it to the Twins’s extreme. The cost is beyond imagining, and so is the pain.”

“How long can they live that way?”

“The longest anyone’s lasted is about three hundred and fifty years. The Geminin Guardians are probably reaching their end.”

Goosebumps ripple up my arms. The thought of living long enough to watch my family and friends die around me is depressing and lonely in a way that no other companionship could fix.

Hysan scans the blinking messages on the
Shielding from Shadows
screen. As he clicks through the entries, I ask, “How did you design a shield that repels Psynergy?”

He keeps studying the controls, looking preoccupied. Another screen blinks new data, and he speaks quietly to his ship. To me, he says, “We’re about to land. Better alert your watchdog.”

“He’s my Advisor,” I say defensively.

He hands me two metallic devices. “Take these collars. There’s one for each of you.”

“What do they do?”

“They’re cloaking veils that project a mirage of invisibility. We should all wear them when we disembark until we’re sure it’s safe.”

Before I can ask more questions, he turns and starts a long conversation with his ship, so I wend my way forward to reach the front tip of the nose. Ahead of us, the smaller Geminin planet, Argyr, shines like a green melon. When we get there, I’ll have to explain my theory about Ophiuchus again, the theory Mathias still won’t accept.

I peer through the glass, and the cold black eternity of Space makes me sad. I miss the Blue Planet. “Every world is beautiful from a distance,” says Mathias, coming up beside me.

The sound of his musical voice still jostles my heart, though I’m not sure how I feel about him anymore. If he could be the guy with the soft eyes all the time, it’d be different. But I can’t reconcile the person who swore his loyalty to me on his Mother’s life—who risked his own life setting out on this mission—with the Mathias who distrusts me.

“What are those?” he asks, pointing to the thin metal collars.

After I explain, we put them on. “All this stealth technology,” he whispers. “I suspect your Libran may be involved in espionage.”

“Espionage?”

“Every House engages in it,” he says, still whispering like Hysan can hear us. “Even Cancer has a secret service.”

“We do?” It’s hard to imagine Cancrian spies. We’re not very good liars. “Well, aren’t you glad this ship is veiled?” The question comes out like a challenge, and I realize I’m being as defensive of Hysan as I was of Mathias earlier.

“Of course,” he says, forgetting to keep his voice down. “If it hadn’t—if the shield hadn’t shut down the Psy attack . . .”

He moves closer, and the raw look from earlier comes over his features. Seeing how much he cares about me makes my heart pump at hyperspeed. If he would just trust me in equal measure, things could be different.

Trust
 . . . the word reminds me there’s something I haven’t told Mathias yet. And it’s time I confide in him fully—after all, even without believing, he’s come this far.

“Mathias, I’ve put you in more danger than you know by letting you join me on this trip.” I hesitate a moment, then I confess. “I didn’t tell you earlier, but Ochus threatened to kill me if I spoke of him. In fact, if I do exactly what I’m doing now—warn the other Guardians—he pretty much guaranteed it.”

Mathias blanches. “You predicted the attack on the ship? And you chose to do this anyway?”

“To warn the other Houses,” I say, nodding. “Otherwise they’ll be unprepared . . . like we were.”

The mysterious expression that comes over him is like the one he wore when I mastered the Ring. “You’re a truer Cancrian than I realized, Rho.” Even though it’s a compliment, his severe tone makes it sound like a criticism.

Crius and Agatha may disagree with me, but they stopped questioning my qualifications for Guardian when I passed their test. Sometimes I feel like Mathias is still evaluating my candidacy.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the risk sooner,” I say.

He sighs, softness coming to the surface of his midnight-blue eyes. “I might not have believed you.”

The ship rolls to the left, and we both reach out for the handrail. There’s a change in the atmosphere, like we’ve just crossed an invisible barrier.

Real gravity is weightier than the ship’s imitation brand, and our muscles grow heavier. I feel every part of my body, like I’m becoming more alive by the second. It’s my first time on an alien world.

“Entering orbit,” announces Hysan from the helm. “When we land, stay alert. . . . This is a place where nothing is as it seems.”

AFTER STUDYING THE PLANET’S TERRAIN,
Hysan decides to dock in a wooded park outside the capital city. No one will see our ship, he says, thanks to the cloaking veil. Argyr is a lush garden planet with plenty of breathable air and decent atmospheric pressure, so we won’t need compression suits. It’s also massive enough to exert a reasonable level of gravity.

I change into the Zodai suit Lola and Leyla made me, with the four silver moons on the sleeve. Before leaving the ship, Hysan activates our veil collars. The collars are networked, which enables us to see each other, but to anyone else, we’re invisible.

When the outer hatch opens, we’re embraced in a warm bath of humidity, and the first thing I notice is the sweet smell of the air. I step onto loamy earth, birdsong echoing through a grove of enormous tree trunks. Our Cancrian trees are mere reeds compared to these giants.

“Let’s be quick.” Hysan sets off at a fast trot. He’s lighter and thinner than Mathias, and he runs impressively fast in his expensive boots. The forest gives way to a belt of meadowland circling the capital city. We sprint single file through feathery, knee-high grasses, and when we draw close enough to see the buildings, I have to stop and shade my eyes.

Every surface ripples with stripes of color. Orange, blue, green, white, purple, brown—the color bands swirl in sinuous patterns over the rounded domes.

“Like it’s made of rainbows,” I say, repeating what I used to tell Mom when she’d show me pictures.

“It’s agate,” says Hysan, “mined from their other planet and transported at tremendous cost.”

Mathias puts on a pair of lightweight field glasses and scans the east and west. He’s holding that silver oval thing that may be a weapon, and when we take off running through the grass again, he stays close beside me.

The buildings are shaped like globes, with fanciful cupolas bulging in all directions. Windows bubble outward, gleaming in the sunlight. The city has no wall, no apparent defenses, and since we’re invisible, it’s easy to walk in. I think about our own unfortified islands, and I wonder how often Hysan, or other veiled travelers like him, has wandered unseen through our villages, spying on us.

With a shudder, I glance up at the sky. Does Ochus already have us in his sights?

Hysan winds us deeper into the city, through a warren of curving lanes, where we constantly dodge little kids on skates and hover-skis. From my lessons, I already knew the people of Gemini have coffee-colored eyes and lustrous tawny skin, ranging from salmon pink to deep burnt orange. What I didn’t know was how bizarre it would be to walk through a world overrun with children.

In the shops and residences, I glimpse adults working as salespeople and household servants, but the streets are filled with kids, and their formfitting suits gleam in metallic patterns of brass, nickel, and platinum with accents of glittering jet. They’re so androgynous it’s hard to tell girls from boys.

Soon, we arrive at a broad plaza, dazzlingly white, where hundreds of small, elaborately dressed Geminin dash about, all wearing thick sunglasses and interacting with unseen people and things.

“This plaza is Gemini’s Imaginarium.” As Hysan explains, I remember. “People come here to interact with their own imaginations. When you’re wearing the glasses, anything you envision in your mind becomes real . . . but only to you.”

His words pull on my memories of Gemini, until it feels as though I’ve lugged Mom’s lessons up from a long way down. “Holograms you can touch,” I say, recalling the mnemonic I’d made up.

“The technology extends the length of the plaza, and it only works when paired with those heavyset glasses. As long as you feel the weight of the glasses on your nose, you know you’re still in the Imaginarium. It’s the only way to keep from going crazy.”

Sounds like a protective measure that falls under the banner of
Trust Only What You Can Touch
. I scan the childlike people and realize not all of them look like they’re enjoying themselves. Some are crying, others shouting, and a few are running from invisible monsters.

“There are two sides to the imagination,” says Hysan, catching where my gaze has strayed.

“There are two sides to everything,” I say. Only I meant every
one
. Maybe I meant Mathias.

Or myself—after all, I never thought I could feel competing emotions for the same person. Or that I could be attracted to two people at the same time.

Mathias looks at me with questions in his indigo eyes. I turn away, hiding my answers.

Hysan leads us forward, toward one peculiar building, different from all the rest. Instead of a globe, this edifice is dull black and cone-shaped, sweeping upward to a sharp point. It’s the tallest building we see, so I think it must be House Gemini’s royal court.

Zodai Guards in Gemini’s orange-colored uniforms flank the entrance, wearing ceremonial swords, their eyes managing to look fierce despite their childlike stature. In our veils, we slip past unnoticed.

Inside, the hall is cool, dim, and quiet. Mathias puts away his field glasses but keeps the silver weapon half-concealed in his palm. He pivots and watches for danger, while Hysan strides ahead, walking like he owns the place.

The vaulted ceiling echoes our footsteps, so we slow down and move quietly. We ride up a moving staircase, then dart along a balcony, peeking in through various doors. Images depicting aspects and characteristics from each House drown the walls and ceiling of each room, rendered in such detail that I could be persuaded this building contains the actual Zodiac—and that each of these doors opens up to our various worlds.

When I look into the room that depicts Cancer, I bite down on my inner lip to avoid crying out. The skyline over the Cancer Sea looks like it always did, our moons like four pearls on a string. The water is clean and roaring, and the pod cities light up the horizon with our gleaming, cascading buildings and sun-bleached streets. From this high up, they look like massive lily pads cradling our Cancrian communities in their palms. It’s not easy closing the door on home.

“You see why I despise this place,” Hysan hisses under his breath as we pass more rooms filled with children who are engaged in some version of playing, cuddling, or fussing. “These people are Gemini’s leading families. Not one of them is less than a hundred years old, yet they behave like toddlers.”

“They seem creative,” I say. After all, we’re in the land of imagination—and I’ve never seen anything like it.

A heavy scent hangs in the air, something fragrant and beguiling. It makes me dizzy and . . . dreamy.

“Don’t breathe too deeply, my lady,” says Hysan, glimpsing the change in my face. “They’re using psychotropic drugs.”

I wonder how I can avoid breathing.

“And before you make excuses for them,” he says, “you should see the miners who pay for all this. Only the richest people can afford youth and imagination. The rest of the population ages and dies like the rest of us, and they spend their lives in the mines, unearthing the minerals that keep the rich rich. It’s sick.”

Hysan’s right, but for a Libran, he’s not being entirely fair. My mom’s lessons taught me that mining is the highest-paid work on Gemini, so the mines are mostly filled with people who want to one day retire to this city and live like children again. There’s a separate settlement in the caves of Gemini’s other planet that’s filled with people who aren’t seeking an inhumanly long life. They’re just normal humans who use their imaginations to build incredible cities within the rock.

We slip into another corridor, where the fragrant scent wafts from every door. Hysan stops at the entrance to a lavish room full of giggling centenarians. They’re sprawled among cushions, watching a puppet show in an ornately carved theater the size of a dollhouse.

We stand at the front of the room, beside the small stage, invisibly looking out at the audience.

“There,” whispers Hysan, pointing to the far back, where two especially gorgeous young people are ensconced together in a blue velvet puff pillow. They have skin as pale as the inside of a cantaloupe and curly copper hair. Their arms are draped around each other, and their cheeks rest together. I would guess they were in love, except they look exactly alike.

“Those are the Twins.”