Zodiac (20 page)

“WHAT INFORMATION HAVE YOU UNLOCKED
in yours?” For some reason, I whisper the question, as if on some level I know it’s inappropriate.

“I can’t say.”

“But it has to do with your Psy Shield.”

He looks at me a moment before nodding. “The Talisman . . . it doesn’t give answers. It just makes concepts clearer. Based on what it revealed to me about Psynergy, Neith and I were able to devise the shield. On Libra, I nearly finished synthesizing cristobalite beads that should veil people from the Psy. Individual shields.”

That’s the gift he was making for me, I realize. “Thank you,” I say.

He nods. “Lord Vaz and I built the Libran Talisman into this ship. It powers
Equinox
’s brain and projects the Ephemeris you saw back in my reading room at home.”

“And now Cancer’s is gone, before I could even find out what it can do.” I bump my forehead on the wall, feeling every failure of my tenure as Guardian so far. “This is all my fault.”

“Why don’t you take a rest in the healing box?” Mathias suggests, only gentleness in his voice. “Fix your arm.”

“The pod is all yours, my lady,” says Hysan, rising to his feet and following Mathias out the door. “And don’t worry about your Talisman. We’ll get it back. We know where Caaseum lives.”

• • •

The ship is flying on fumes.

We’re close enough that we should make it to House Aries before running out of fuel, but the timing will be tight.

The Zodai suit Lola and Leyla made me is ruined, so I have to wear the Libran uniform. To make sure Mathias doesn’t flip, I salvaged the four silver moons from the blue suit and sewed them over the Libran glyph of the yellow tunic. Probably best to head him off now, before we land, so there are no disagreements when we disembark.

When I get to Mathias’s door, it’s ajar, and he isn’t there. But Hysan is.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He snaps his gaze to me from behind the desk and stops rifling through Mathias’s gear belt. “Inspecting cargo?”

I cross my arms. He glances toward the lavatory stall, where the ultraviolet shower is humming. He’s a little pink in the cheeks but otherwise unaffected by being caught. “You won’t tell, will you?”

“Hysan, these are Mathias’s things. This war between the two of you—”

“What about
him
? He went through my weapons—”

“Yes, and that wasn’t right either. But you’ve been keeping a lot of secrets.”

Hysan steps closer to me and lowers his voice. “I also just revealed my biggest secret to a complete stranger, my lady, and now I would like to know exactly who he is.”

“Two strangers, actually. What about me?”

He turns back to the desk and replaces Mathias’s things where he found them. “Rho, you’re a Guardian. It’s no more your fault Origene couldn’t teach you than it is my fault my parents couldn’t raise me. But it’s still your right to know.”

There’s a noise from the lavatory, and we both freeze—but the UV keeps humming.

“Look, I know that was wrong, and I won’t go snooping again,” says Hysan, coming around the desk. “But please keep this between us. I don’t want to set him off right as we’ve arrived.”

I swallow, hard. “I don’t like secrets.”

“It’s not like that.” His eyes grow greener. “Rho, that truth was mine to protect, and I swore never to speak of it to any soul other than the next Libran Guardian. I broke my sacred oath, and I didn’t do it for Mathias, or even House Cancer. I did it for
you
.”

Hysan walks out of the room, leaving me alone with his secrets and my guilt.

When the shower cuts off, I flee from the cabin, easing the door closed behind me. I hate keeping things from Mathias, but I don’t want to give him any more reasons to dislike Hysan. We’re going to need to work together on Aries, and that can’t happen if the guys are at each other’s throats.

I’ve never felt so far from home.

• • •

Night is falling when we reach Phaetonis. Sunset gives the domed capital city of Marson an amber sheen.

Equinox
circles low over the spaceport just outside the city dome. The place is a fortress, bristling with laser canons, hover-drones, and radar surveillance. It’s also enclosed in a high mesh fence. “I don’t like this, but we need fuel,” says Hysan. “We won’t make it much farther
.
”

“Is there another depot?” asks Mathias.

“Not near the city.” Hysan circles again, watching the enhanced optical view on his screens. “I’ll put us down as close as I can get to the fuel pumps at the edge of the port.”

A vibrocopter sits on the pad beside the pumps, and two armed soldiers patrol around it, wearing dusty helmets and air masks. We watch them through
Equinox
’s
glass nose while we alight on the field adjacent to the pad, as soundless and invisible as a sigh.

The soldiers whip around and point their guns at us. “Come out, and put down your weapons,” they command.

I cover my mouth to imprison my scream. How can they see our ship if we’re invisible?

Mathias and I look at Hysan in alarm, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the guns pointed at our heads.
“Sleep,”
he whispers, and a halo of gaseous white mist spurts out from
Equinox
’s hull, showering the soldiers. Instantly, they fall like rag dolls.

I gasp, but Hysan chuckles. “They’re only napping. The heat of our engines must have given us away.”

When he offers us our veil collars, Mathias says, “Enough deceit.”

“You’re insane,” says Hysan. “You don’t know this world. You told Rho yourself, it’s brimming with criminals and spies.”

“We’ll do it Mathias’s way,” I say, the guilt of keeping Hysan’s secret still burning through me.

Hysan stows the veil collars.

Before leaving the ship, we all put on lightweight air masks. While I stand lookout, Hysan and Mathias hustle to the pumps, grab the hoses, and feed
Equinox
’s empty belly with ultracold fluid plasma. It’s funny how the guys get along like dance partners when they’re doing physical work.

Hysan drops some galactic gold coins by the pumps, then steals gate keys from one of the unconscious soldiers. We then set off at a flat-out run, dodging under passenger ships, hiding behind beastly ground vehicles with tires the size of small moons, and sneaking around ranks of soldiers wielding grenade launchers and rifles.

It’s deep twilight now, and we’re making fast time in the weaker gravity, but this spaceport looks as if it’s under siege. Laser burns riddle some of the hangar walls, and the sooty blooms of recent fires stain the launch pad. Searchlights rove over the tarmac, and the high mesh fence is topped by concertina wire.

Mathias stays close beside me, Taser in hand, pivoting constantly and scanning the area with his field glasses. Hysan uses the stolen keys to exit the fenced-in spaceport through a maintenance gate, and we can’t leave fast enough—until I see what lies beyond the fence.

The historic capital city of House Aries is ringed by a gargantuan slum. I’d seen pictures of the slum in our Acolyte studies, but the holographic images didn’t convey the decomposing feel of death that pervades the air.

Shacks lean and tilt on mountains of rotting garbage, and the valleys in between are open sewers. Even with the air mask, the stench makes me dizzy.

Through the open doors of the shacks, we see older people silhouetted in pools of lantern light, and they’re sewing, hammering, assembling electronic devices, sharpening knives. Overhead, modern pulse-trains rocket from the spaceport into the city center, skipping over the slum.

“We have to catch a train,” says Hysan. “It’ll take too long to cross on foot in the dark.”

Mathias points to one of the massive columns supporting the elevated train track. “Maybe we can climb it.”

Hysan nods, and we sprint toward the column, splashing through muck. My yellow trousers get speckled and stained. The column has a ladder bolted to its northern face, and the rungs are slimy with blue-green algae. Hysan goes first, then me, followed by Mathias. My boot soles are still warped from the heat on Tethys, and they slip and slide as I climb.

When we near the top, I feel a stitch in my side. Above me, Hysan’s Scan shoots out a golden beam, and the locked access panel instantly pops open.

We climb up into the webbed steel truss that supports the train track. The build-up of static electricity here practically makes my curls stand on end.

“The closest station’s that way.” Hysan points. “It’s an ordinary pulse-train. It runs on a current of oscillating magnetism. We’ll have to crawl through this truss to reach it.”

Mathias gives me water from his canteen, and I tug down my air mask to drink. “How far?” I ask.

Hysan wipes sweat from his eyes. “A kilometer or two.”

There’s not enough room to stand inside the truss, so we crawl along the riveted beams on all fours. Every few minutes, a train blasts over us with a deafening rumble. By the time we reach the station, our water canteens are almost empty, my eardrums feel lacerated from the train noise, and my hands are bruised from the rivets. We’re all covered in slime.

Hysan unsheathes his dagger and uses its blade as a mirror to peek over the edge of the dimly lit station platform. When he gives the all clear, we scramble up, onto the platform, where it’s a relief to stand upright.

Hysan surveys his grimy suit. “They’ll never let us on the train looking like this.”

Mathias scrapes his boot soles clean with his knife, but we’re all so mud-splattered, the effort’s futile. Hysan draws something from his pocket: our veil collars.

“It’s your decision, Rho. Do you want to reach the Plenum or not?”

Mathias and I share a questioning glance, and without a word, we each take ours. No one seems to notice when we waver out of sight.

We slip into the first train that stops, then huddle in the aisle, trying not to bump anyone. The train has an air supply, so we stow our masks, which are now gray and damp. I can only hope the veils cover up our odor, too.

Some of the Ariean passengers around us are hooded and concealing what are obviously weapons. They look like muggers, though they’re too clean to be from the slum. Their complexions range from tones of dark pink to wine, and they’re all built like soldiers. Arieans are the most physically fit people in our galaxy.

No one on the train talks aloud or makes eye contact. Most people are listing to the right, enthralled by their Earpiece—a small device Arieans get pierced into their right ear when they turn seventeen, an age when every Ariean commits to two years in the army.

The Earpiece functions like a Wave, only its images aren’t projected as holograms: They’re screened inside the person’s mind, where no one else can see them. Arieans are masters in the art of war, and troops need to communicate with each other discreetly in the field.

Mathias hands me a tiny squeeze-tube, then passes another one to Hysan. “Antiviral,” he says. Holding his own gingerly by one corner, he bites off the tip between his teeth, then sucks the contents into his mouth. Hysan and I do the same. The syrup tastes like sea cherries.

It’s late at night when we reach the city center, but I don’t feel sleepy. My internal clock must be out of order. The enormous central train station is crowded with passengers and soldiers, all heavily armed. So far, I haven’t seen any wallscreens where we might get news from home.

As we wind through the labyrinthine station, Hysan says, “We’ll find sanctuary at the International Village. Every House has an embassy there.”

“Let’s go to Cancer’s,” I say, the thought of seeing my people giving me new strength.

Marson’s city center is sheltered under a high-tension fabric dome, held aloft by air pressure, like a giant inflated beach ball. Buildings squat like bunkers, especially the hulking hippodrome where the Plenum meets. Soldiers in armored vehicles barrel along the dark narrow streets, billowing fumes. They stop and hassle people at random, like they’re looking to pick fights. Hysan was right—I’m glad we’re veiled.

When we get closer to the hippodrome, the crowd of Arieans surrounding us begins to thin. People from all over the Zodiac are here to observe the Plenum in session. I see mystics from Pisces veiled in woven silver. Dark-haired Sagittarians in levlan suits that remind me of Nishi. Olive-skinned Virgos, too, as well as blond Librans and petite pairs of Geminin. On every street corner, red-suited Ariean soldiers stand guard.

The hippodrome’s been blockaded. Around us, people are talking about a bomb threat. The ambassadors and their aides have been taken to an underground shelter while bomb squads scan the building for explosives.

Everyone seems to view this with more cynicism than shock, as if these kinds of attacks happen often at the Plenum. Suddenly I remember Mom telling me something about these sessions. She said the Plenum meetings were a waste of time because the ambassadors don’t work well together. She claimed the system had been corrupted. Turf grabs. Partisan squabbling. Bribes not paid.

Apparently things have gotten worse in the decade since our lessons ended.

“I see a lot of soldiers, but where’s the local Zodai Guard?” I ask Hysan.

“The Ariean Zodai were marginalized when the junta seized power. Even General Eurek is little more than a figurehead, living under house arrest. The military employs its own astrologers, and so do the warring militias.”

“Can we visit Guardian Eurek?”

Hysan whispers to his Scan, and a small hologram floats before his eyes. It’s a miniature figure of a plump man wearing extravagant robes trimmed in sheepskin. He looks like he was once a bodybuilder whose muscles have since melted into folds of skin from lack of use. Hysan spins the hologram so I can see the man’s face.

“This is Albor Echus, the Ariean ambassador. He’s more a mouthpiece for the generals. You can meet him, but General Eurek receives no one.”

On Stanton’s tenth birthday, the same year she left, Mom gave me a necklace. It was the only gift she ever gave me that wasn’t from Dad, too. On a strand of silver seahorse hair, she had strung together twelve nar-clam pearls, each one bearing the sacred symbol of a House of the Zodiac.