Chapter Four
Chelo
Docking with a space station is nothing like leaving a planet. Liam and Kayleen and I were playing word games with the children in our room when Joseph stopped by, followed by Sasha. He greeted the children and kissed me on the forehead. “We’re getting near the station. You should sit down in case we need to do anything, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be flying her in—it should be automatic.”
Kayleen, beside me, tensed. Fear flashed across her face. I took her hand and squeezed hard, telling her to be strong.
“Do we need to strap in?” Liam asked, and I shuddered at the idea, remembering how confined the takeoff had felt.
“No—but sit down and hold onto the children. Can I leave you Sasha?”
“Of course.” After Joseph, I was Sasha’s second favorite, and she quickly curled around my feet, her tail brushing back and forth against my leg.
Kayleen left with him, so I sat with Jherrel in my arms, Liam beside me, and Paloma, Kayleen’s adoptive mother, beside Liam. Caro leaned back against her dad, laughing, the way she always laughed in his arms. In front of us, a vid screen pretended to be a window. It showed us mysterious Marcus’s secret destination: Jillian May Station.
I wanted sky above my head and the ability to ride across open plains, grass tickling the bottoms of my feet and the air smelling of grass-flowers and berries, of the Lace River and rich dirt.
I didn’t care if I never saw this, or any other, starship again.
The station looked like a pile of space ships left behind in the void, sort of like hebras left piles of poop on the plains, or paw-cats piles of bones by a trail. Ugly, yet organic.
A few days ago, when Creator finally admitted our destination to Joseph, we’d learned Jillian May served as a transport stop and cargo hub for the Five Worlds, and would have ships coming and going regularly. Paloma had paced nervously and then blurted out a question. “Won’t whoever is looking for Joseph be watching?”
Jenna replied, “There are more space ships in the Five Worlds than stars in Fremont’s sky.”
Joseph smiled. “I trust Marcus.”
As we neared the station, it resolved further to look like a silver pole festooned with charms. Then the charms turned to ships and the pole was clearly taller than any of the volcanoes on Islandia. Almost every ship here was larger than our guildhalls, some by a factor of hundreds, and almost all bigger than Creator. How was my little family supposed to maneuver in a place so vast? I squeezed Liam’s hand. “What if we get there, and one of us makes a wrong turn, and we never find each other again?”
Liam placed an arm around me, pulling me in close, smelling like worry and love. “You are supposed to be the positive one.”
“I know.” And so I let a small prayer touch my lips. Let me keep this man by my side always. “To hold us all together, I have to worry.”
As we slid between two huge ships, Jherrel squirmed on my lap and burbled. “Big ship! Big ship,” and I saw the ghost of Joseph in him, and clutched him to me.
I snuggled closer to Liam and Paloma. Caro climbed on top of us, queen of her hill of people. Creator rocked once, gently, and then stopped. The screen went dark.
A few moments later, Joseph came and stood next to me, his eyes shiny and excited.
“How will you find Marcus?” I asked him.
His grin widened. “He already found me.” He practically bounced as he stood there. “He’s coming. You’re going to love him, Sis. You will.”
We followed Joseph down a corridor and then up an elevator, and then through a round corridor with a thin walkway between us and Jillian May. The children’s minder bots followed.
Lighter gravity made me feel as if I’d drunk too much beer, even though there’d been none on Creator.
At the far end a slender man waited. He looked taller than he had on the video. I expected Joseph to race to him, but my brother stayed beside me and watched Jenna approach Marcus like a moth drawn to a candle. She stood on tiptoes and Marcus lifted her and kissed her deeply and almost reverently.
For a long time.
Jenna, the wild woman of Fremont who trusted no one, loved this man.
I watched the fall of her hair and the way his arm curled around her and how they seemed to fit together, and it made me want to gather Kayleen and Liam to me. Kayleen looked as open-mouthed as I did, and then leaned into Joseph. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A small smile touched the corners of his mouth. “It’s her story to tell.”
Kayleen frowned. “She never tells us anything.”
Then Marcus was dishing out hugs to Jenna’s sister, Tiala, and Dianne. Both women seemed to hold onto him a long time. Dianne held on so long I wondered what the rules were here. On Fremont, Liam and I and Kayleen were the only group of three I knew of, and even then we’d have never become a family if we hadn’t been alone in the wilds for a year with no expectation of rescue. I couldn’t decide whether to be fascinated or repelled.
Alicia and Induan approached him next, fully visible with no sign of their strange ability. Rather, they were solid and sure of themselves, dark Alicia and blonde Induan. He shook hands with them, gave them short but warm hugs, straightening quickly to look at the rest of us. When his eyes met Joseph’s, his face looked as if a sun bloomed near it, but he stayed where he was, a one-man greeting line. You’d think we were attending a party instead of a space rescue.
Dark-haired and smooth-moving Ming came up next, standing silently in front of Marcus while he regarded her in equal silence. The other women stopped and watched, too, and Joseph visibly tensed. I knew a little of Ming’s story. She’d worked for the Port Authority and yet helped Jenna and Joseph and the others escape from custody when they first got there. Later, she ran away from the Port Authority and joined Joseph’s crew by stowing away. She was a bodyguard and a dancer, and somehow made it look normal to be both.
Joseph had told me she used to be Marcus’s student.
They were silent so long I thought neither of them was going to move.
Marcus broke first, his eyes and facial features softening visibly even though I was twenty feet away from him. His arms opened until she stepped forward and filled them. It wasn’t a long hug, about what he gave Alicia and Induan, but even from a distance it looked like tension ran off of them both, as if they became lighter by touching. The moment passed. Ming danced away, literally light on her feet.
Our turn.
He came over to us, and he looked at me instead of Joseph. He searched my eyes, my face, my whole body, and then looked back and forth between me and Joseph. In my arms, Jherrel stilled as well, regarding Marcus as silently as I did. Liam stepped close to me and put his free arm around my shoulder. Marcus’s eyes were the most amazing color: bright green with flecks of gold and silver. They seemed to drink in my very soul. His voice sounded soft and sure. “Chelo Lee. The sister worth a war.”
The words stabbed me. I waited for him to explain.
Jherrel reached toward him and Marcus took him from my arms and held him, smiling like all people smile at toddlers, but also seeming to look for something more.
The moment to ask about his comment was gone. But I’d remember the words: The sister worth a war.
Marcus glanced at Sasha, at Joseph, and then at the dog again.
Joseph looked uncertain, and starved, and I realized then how much he needed this man.
A quirky smile touched Marcus’s lips, but then he handed me back my child and held my brother. Joseph’s face relaxed, and for a moment he looked younger than I’d seen him since he came back to Fremont for me. The two of them could have been a father and son. It showed in both of their faces, trust and regard, a bond so close it seemed ancient.
Feet scraping on metal reminded me we weren’t entirely alone. Strangers dressed all in gray clothes with black pockets began unloading our cargo.
In no more than twenty minutes we were climbing into yet another starship—this one at least five times bigger than Creator. It looked rough and well-used. The floors and some walls were scratched and dented. Layers of yellow and green paint peeled from corners where bots or carts had nicked them.
Gray-suited people roamed the halls carrying things. We turned and climbed up or down enough times that I felt lost before Marcus finally stopped in a big room full of cushioned chairs with straps. I grimaced as I recognized acceleration couches. “Are we leaving?” Liam asked.
Marcus nodded. “Welcome aboard. This is the Migrator, a cargo ship which will be departing in about an hour.”
“We’re leaving so soon?” I protested. “We just got here.” But of course, he’d known our timing. A man who could send a message to intercept a space ship could tell where that space ship was. Especially since Creator was his in the first place.
“Things have …” he looked very serious “… gotten worse. Silver’s Home has banned Joseph, Jenna, and me. If they find us, they’ll at least lock us up. Maybe kill us.”
He stopped, watching us hear his news.
I tried not to look as scared as I felt. Alicia looked disappointed, and Joseph, next to her, had an angry set to his jaw. Jherrel and Caro didn’t care, and started a game with Sasha, running between people. Marcus frowned at them, and they stopped for a moment, then went right back to running and giggling.
“Where are we going?” Jenna asked.
Marcus shook his head. “I’ll tell you along the way.”
Jenna looked bemused at Marcus’s refusal, almost teasing him with her next question. “Is there war yet?”
He shook his head. “Almost.” He and Dianne shared a glance. “But I think it started on Fremont, and it will grow from here. Some people are still trying for a diplomatic answer, but Islas has a large fleet at the ready, and Joy Heaven has aligned with her. Paradise is with Silver’s Home.”
He didn’t say with “us.” But surely he wasn’t aligned with Islas, whose mercenaries had almost killed us on Fremont.
“And Lopali?” Tiala asked.
“Remains neutral. We must change that.”
Alicia had told me about Lopali, where people who could barely walk flew gracefully in the air. Only a certain gravity and atmosphere allowed human flight.
Dianne asked, “So how many of us are for peace?”
Marcus looked disappointed, although the list he read sounded long to me. “The builder’s guilds and the Family, of course, and the universities and most of the groups that work on the climates. The swimmers. Two or three of the religions.”
He must have seen that we didn’t really understand what he meant, so he added, “On Silver’s Home, there are affinity groups for almost everything that needs to be done. Those who deal with money and trade and make space ships and weapons are mostly willing to fight, and they’re the primary funders of the Port Authority, which thrives on the idea of war. And Islas personally offends our way of life, which is enough for some people.” But not for him. The way he said it, I could tell he didn’t think much of intolerance, and I liked him for that. “I’ll be back.” He wheeled and left the room.
I put a hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “So who, exactly, wants to kill you?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure if Marcus even knows. People with power and money on Silver’s Home. You can’t understand without being there. It’s so different from Fremont.”
He sounded condescending, but I set aside my frustration for now. “Are you okay?”
“As long as you’re around, I’m okay.”
Deep inside I knew how true the words were, how much love and need drove us both around each other, like a planet and a sun. “I love you, brother.”
His answer was to hold me close.
Three days after we left Jillian May Station, I used one of Marcus’s mandated exercise walks to explore the ship. I’d tried singing to cheer myself up, but my voice sounded hollow and bouncy in tight spaces. So I switched to amusing myself by trying to walk quietly. Around a corner, movement startled me. Bryan. He’d come back to Fremont on Creator, but we’d been in the thick of a battle. Before I found time to talk with him, he was frozen. So I hadn’t seen him alone since before the first sundering, when he and Joseph and Alicia flew away all that time ago, before any of us were lovers or had children.
He and I had kissed once, had toyed with the idea of becoming a couple. Before either of us was old enough to understand a thing about sex or love, even though we did understand commitment and family. We always understood those two things.
He’d been designed as a strongman and a fighter; wide and tall and well-built. His dark brown hair fell just above his eyes in front and barely curled to the nape of his thick neck on the back. All of his scars seemed to have been erased, except, of course, the ones inside him. He looked both pleased and wary to have come up on me. Had he been avoiding me on purpose? I’d sent him away. But it had been the only way to save his life.
My voice sounded as stilted and unsure as I felt. “Bryan? How are you?”
“I’m … I’m okay.”
He was lying. “I’m glad to see you.”
“Really?”
I would have gone to find him on purpose eventually. Really, I would have. He’d always been wary and full of deep anger, and he’d always been a rock of support for me. “Walk with me? There’s a wider corridor I just came through, and at the end there’s a little galley.”
“I’m not hungry, but I’ll walk with you.”
We walked, both going the way he had been going. In the old days, I’d have held his hand or leaned into him, and we might have laughed. “You know my story, from Fremont. Joseph told me how he worked with Marcus, but I don’t really know how Silver’s Home was for you and Alicia.”
“There were a lot more people like me there.” His voice sounded natural, but he didn’t look at me.
Surely there was more to the story than that. We made the turn into the wider corridor, and something different about the acoustics meant our footsteps echoed, slightly out of sync with our actual movements. “So it wasn’t like Fremont, where we were freaks.”
“Joseph was still a freak. But I was less of one.”
“Less of one?”
“Than almost anybody.” He flicked his hands just so and the knife-edges of his fingernail implants exploded from the tips of his fingers like claws. He held them out in front of him.
I’d seen them, of course. But this time I stopped and took his palm gently, turning it so the light shone on the built-in weapons. I reached a finger toward them.
“Don’t touch,” he warned, and I drew back, a bit too late. A single bead of blood showed on the tip of the third finger of my right hand.
He flicked the nails back in, and took my hand in his, licking the drop of blood from the pad of my finger. My breath caught in my throat and I pulled my hand away and looked down.
He started walking.
I followed, and for a long time there was only the offbeat echo of our steps—his sure and heavy, mine light and almost a jog. We passed the galley I’d thought to stop in and kept going, curling up a long vertical corridor using the handholds as steps, and coming out on a level of the ship I hadn’t seen yet. “Have you been here before?” I asked.
“I walk a lot.”
Oh. Maybe he was lonely. Although I saw him with Ming often, the two of them a sweet contrast of bulk and grace. “Do you miss Fremont?”
He didn’t answer until we’d walked about half the length of the ship. “I miss us all being together. Now you and Kayleen and Liam have each other, and Joseph has Alicia.”
“We love you. We’re all family.”
He turned and looked at me, his brown eyes ashy and his face white, as if tears or anger lay at bay right underneath his skin. “Easy for you to say.”
“We came back for you.”
“And I came back for you.”
He couldn’t have known how it would be, that I would be with Liam and Kayleen and have kids. What had he expected? Why hadn’t I ever asked myself? Worse, what could I do now? I reached toward him, wanting to give him a hug.
He shook his head. “Don’t.”
We separated at the next corridor, and I stopped and watched him walk away, his rolling gait even, his head resolutely turned away from me until he got to the far end of the corridor, and before the turn, he glanced back as if checking to see if I was there or not.
I smiled at him, and he smiled back, and then went around the corner.
I walked for an hour, hoping I would find him again, yet hoping I wouldn’t.
Instead of Bryan, I found Marcus, alone in a small room, staring at a viewscreen wall that showed the stars we flew through in real time. I’d already learned that ships are not houses and windows are weaknesses in space. Every view to the outside is through cameras. The room looked as well-used as the rest of Migrator, with six metal chairs bolted to the floor.
Marcus turned as I came in, and once more I was struck by the humor in his incredible eyes. He seemed happy to see me, and secretly bemused as well. “Hello, Chelo. Would you like a glass of col?”
I hadn’t learned to like the stimulant even after two years of opportunities, but it wouldn’t hurt to be polite, so I nodded and took a chair.
He left me to watch stars for a few moments, and when he returned he held a cup of steaming liquid out like an offering. “This is the way I like it best.”
It smelled different than what I’d been served so far, richer. This version was a deep brown, like djuri hide. The taste was spicy and very smooth. He waited for my reaction.
“It’s good.”
“It’s dark chocolate. A taste from far back in our human past, and cultivated anew on Silver’s Home. I was hoping you’d like it.”
“I do.” I liked that it had history, too. As usual, even a few sips clarified my vision and gave me balance. Subtle things, as if I were growing younger and the world becoming brighter.
He relaxed, leaning back and letting his long legs dangle in front of him. His movements were fluid, like Ming the dancer’s. Almost feline. “So, did you come to find me?”
“Yes.” The question that had been filling my head since I first met him didn’t want out yet. “I … I wanted to meet Joseph’s mentor. He thinks a lot of you.”
“And you aren’t sure what to think?”
“Not yet.”
He hesitated a moment, sipping his own drink and letting me sip mine. Even though his whole being radiated power, he felt comfortable to be with. When he did speak, it was softly. “I first met your brother as a—presence. He was flying the New Making in, and he was so strong and so cocky and so—utterly alien it amazed me.” He grinned again. “Oh—he was naive and rough, and he still is, but strong. It was like meeting myself, only you never get to see yourself as a young adult. That’s all eighty years behind me now.”
I swallowed at the reminder of his age.
“And later, when I tried to figure out how Joseph could be so strong and yet not go stark-raving crazy, the best answer seemed to be where he came from. If he’d been raised here,” he waved a hand at the screen, as if here meant all the stars in the sky, “he’d have been identified early on and isolated and taught by the best. But there—he had you and the other kids, and Jenna, and no other Wind Reader to tell him he might go crazy. And you all were in a dangerous place, so every one of you needed to be smart and focused all the time.”
I bristled at that. “So did the colonists. All of us. Together.”
“Joseph told me you loved them.”
“I miss them.” I looked away from him, needing to keep control. “But I missed Joseph more. I hear I’ve got you to thank for him coming to get me.”
“It was nothing.”
Not true. Joseph and Jenna had told me what it cost to outfit a ship, and the goods from Creator’s hold wouldn’t pay off even part of our debt to Marcus. “Why did you do it?”
“Because I wanted to meet the girl who could keep someone of Joseph’s strength sane for so long. It will be good to study how you were both made, but the strength of people is more than genetics. I wanted to meet you.”
“Jenna told me once we were designed to support each other. More than just me and Joseph, but all of us.”
He nodded as if he already knew that.
The question that had been burning in me cooled enough to rise to my lips. “So why did you call me the woman who was worth a war?”
“The sister worth a war?”
“Yeah, that.”
He took another long moment to finish his drink, setting the empty cup on the tacked-on table and staring at the stars. “Your father started the little battle on Fremont.”
“Little battle!” Tell that to the dead. My fists clenched.
He held up a hand. “Shhh … it was a little battle. You’ll see.” And now he was the one looking angry. “Your father started the fight because they killed you all. That’s what he thought—that Fremont’s people killed his children and so he had a revenge right to kill them.”
“No one has a revenge right to anything.”
He looked pleased. “I know. But then Joseph was hell-bent to get back and save you. I helped him because otherwise he would have gone crazy. He needs you to keep going, and if you’d been killed, Joseph would have been useless. And he needed to be away—a lot of people have demonstrated interest in him. He’s … more than any of us. Even more than me.”
I hated Marcus’s tone. He expected a lot from Joseph. I’d hoped being in a place where everyone was genetically engineered would mean people would treat us—well, like themselves instead of like freaks. And what did this mean for Kayleen? Already Marcus had started spending time with her at Joseph’s insistence, and she seemed calmer, though still fragile. Sometimes at night I’d wake and find her staring open-eyed at the ceiling, unresponsive to her name, lost in data or craziness or dreams. I’d try to bring her back by stroking her cheek or kissing her lips gently, and she would moan off time to my actions, staying lost to me.
If only I knew how to help Kayleen as well as I knew how to help Joseph.
I refocused on Marcus as he started talking again. “So even though the real reasons were more complex, and your father was driven by revenge and I was driven by love for Joseph, the buzz across the whole system is that your father sent the Star Mercenaries on your behalf, and I sent Joseph on your behalf, and so you see, the battle on Fremont, the first shot in this war, was fought over you.”
“But … I hate war.” My voice rose and the blood pounded in my veins, hot and protesting. “I want people to stop fighting. It doesn’t make any sense to kill each other.”
“Truth doesn’t have anything to do with rumor. Myth often places beautiful women in the middle of war. You’re going down in history as the woman who started this war.”