Stone in the Sky (10 page)

The other aliens joined in yelling at the officers who finally took off after the Nurloks.

We were alone in the hall now, except for the few who had lingered behind to still cover us. Everyone that had been on the station since before the boom seemed to be in on ensuring my escape, some had even given me pieces of their clothing to help disguise me.

I entered in my secret code and retrieved my data about Brother Blue.

“We don't have time for this,” Reza hissed.

I put my finger up to tell him to wait.

“I can't count on Trevor being at the docking bay, and I need my proof if I'm going to have a bargaining chip down the line,” I said.

I punched in the numbers to remotely access my data and ordered a data plug of the file that I kept on Brother Blue. It was encrypted, and only I knew the code, but when I decrypted it I could show the discrepensies that I knew for certain about him. Some of it was what I had accumulated. Some of the data was what Els had tried to bribe Brother Blue with. Silently I thanked her, even though she had caused me so much trouble and had died for it. In a few minutes, the console 3-D printed a data plug for me.

Now I was armed.

“Go, go!”

It was Kistch Rutsok pulling at us to leave the nook.

I shook the dreadful thoughts out of my head and put one foot in front of the other.

“Thank you,” I said as we passed Kitsch Rutsok.

“Live,” he said. Not looking at me.

I tried to calculate how many favors I would owe for this. My mind spun at the thought of the unpayable debt for life by so many people on the station.

“What's at the docking bay?” I asked Reza as we ran down the halls. There was no time to go any other way than the direct way.

“There is a Per ship willing to take you off the station,” he said. “After that you're on your own.”

“I know how to do that,” I said.

 

12

Finally, we were at the docking bay.

Trevor was there waiting for us. I was so happy that it'd made it.

Reza and I rushed to the hangar where the Per were waving us in frantically with all of their arms.

“The alarm has been sounded,” the Per captain said. “We need to leave now if we are going to leave at all.”

I was really leaving. After three long years on the Yertina Feray, after all of that wishing, the day was finally here and I didn't want to go. I sent Trevor onto the ship ahead of me and then turned back to Reza.

“Come with me,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I have to stay here. I can make money. A lot of it. If I can get it to the resistance and overthrow Earth Gov and stop this collaboration with the Imperium, then somehow, maybe I can help Earth.”

I loved that he was still fighting for Earth. Even after it betrayed him, even after it had fallen to the Imperium, he still believed in it. It was as if he knew that though things were seemingly good on the surface, the dependence on the Imperium was a deal with the devil. Reza believed he could be the one to open Earth's eyes to that.

How much further along would he be with his dreams right now if I had not mistakenly sent him to the Outer Rim, but back there as I had planned a year ago? Would he have done anything as noble back on Earth? Or had my mistake, assigning travel passes to Caleb and Reza during their cryosleep, somehow saved him so he'd be ready for this moment? Maybe my mistake had really given him his best shot. Maybe he knew it too from the way he was looking at me. Like he still had some fight in him.

He clenched his fists and brought them to his eyes. “Besides, if I go with you, Brother Blue will know who is on your side. We've got to keep him guessing. This is everyone's best chance.”

I knew he was right, but I didn't like it. I caught my breath. I was leaving. And I might never see him or Tournour again.

“Tournour will have to be your enemy,” I said.

I didn't like to think of the two I really cared about being on opposites sides.

“It'll be all right,” he said.

He took my hand in his and squeezed it. All I could think of was that his skin felt so familiar, and I might never feel it again. His thumb ran itself along mine. Time slowed. These few seconds were forever. They were all we had.

“I shouldn't have been an ass when I arrived,” he said.

“I was a jerk, too,” I said.

I looked into his deep dark eyes, and I got up on my tippy toes, and I kissed him. At first it was hesitant, but then he slid his arms around me, and I knew that we had both said what we couldn't say
. I'm sorry.

“You have to go,” he murmured as he pulled away from me.

“Tell me where Caleb is,” I said.

“I don't know.”

“You must know something. A clue. A trail. Don't let me be alone out there in space.”

“I honestly don't know,” he said. “Besides, you don't want to meet him again. He's different.”

“We're all different,” I said.

He looked down at his feet and then after a moment back up at me.

“Please,” I said.

I could see that he was trying to keep something from me.

“We have to go,” the Per captain said worriedly.

“The
Noble Star
. Look for the ship
Noble Star
. He might still be with them.”

I nodded. We hugged. I held him longer than I should have. Unless I found Caleb, he would be the last friendly face I would ever see.

“Come on, come on, come on!” The Per captain pushed me up the ramp as it was closing.

The door sealed shut, and we were separated by the metal and glass, and a Per crew member put one of her hands on me, pulling me away from the door.

“Please, Tula Bane, you must strap in for takeoff,” she said to me. The ship started rumbling as the engines engaged.

I tore myself away from the door; from Reza standing on the dock staring at the closing airlock, from Tournour somewhere in the station dealing with the fallout of my escape, from my home.

I was frightened. I felt the ship uncouple and float. I sat down and strapped in just as the engines engaged.

I looked around at the ship. It was a standard cargo ship with a skeleton crew. Probably running passengers to the Yertina Feray for the rush, but now empty on the way back. I could see the cargo of alin hastily strapped down next to where Trevor had been secured. This was how my trip was being paid for. It was probably Reza's first crop. Another thing I owed him.

The ship accumulated high speed and pushed toward the inevitable light skip we'd have to complete to pull free from this solar system.

We were off.

I was in space again.

 

13

There is a certain kind of calm to a voyage in space.

I wondered if it was the same in the old times for those who sailed on the oceans of any planet. Of course, oceans are choppier than windless space, but space had its own storms and challenges. What it did hold in common with an ocean voyage was the endless view of the same thing outside of a window for days, weeks, and months, even years on end. It allowed the mind to roam.

I was restless, and no amount of blackness could calm me.

These Per knew I wanted to get to Bessen. I'd told them my first night on board.

“When do you think we'll get there?” I asked.

“We'll get there when we get there,” the captain said.

But they didn't want to go to the heart of the Imperium with their cargo only to have it confiscated. I had to get off of this ship.

Being a solo traveler on a spaceship was never totally safe. That was why so many aliens traveled in packs. It was why the Humans wandered. I was grateful every moment for Trevor. Trevor rolled with me wherever I went and for the most part, I was left alone by the skeleton crew of the Per ship.

I appreciated their quietness and how they tried to make me comfortable, even though their ship was not made for the Human form. The whole ship was made for more arms than I had, and sometimes it was hard for me to reach or open different things.

Since I wasn't part of the crew, I meandered through the ship and looked out the windows at the stars when they were visible. Part of me knew that they left me alone because of Trevor. They had seen his knives whir once or twice. And part of me knew that they wanted to ensure they could still dock at the Yertina Feray. Tournour owed them a favor now, and even though they'd been paid with an early harvest of alin, with the rush on Quint, it was becoming a desirable thing to have an in on the station.

My safety ensured their future when dealing with alin.

These Per were looking to make trades right away while the prices would still be high. Alin was still rare because it was the growing season, and the first shipments would get the prettiest price.

They knew they were lucky and would tolerate me until their cargo ran out.

Think, Tula. Think.
I said to myself as I wandered the empty ship.

Going back to the Yertina Feray was a death sentence unless I had help. I knew that.

Although I had spent the last three years surrounded by aliens, I was reminded that the citizens of the Yertina Feray had become familiar to me. On the Per ship, I felt a new kind of loneliness.

I tried to remember that despite that feeling, I was not friendless. Tournour was my friend. Thado was my friend. Reza was my friend. Caleb was out there somewhere, and if he could forgive me, then maybe he could be my friend.

He was the only one who I could go to for help now.

The
Noble Star.

It surprised me that he was on a ship and not a planet. From the way Caleb had talked when we were on the Yertina Feray, he'd seemed to lay his bet on finding a race on the Outer Rim that would want to ally with Earth and come to the center with an army. But Reza had said that things had changed out there. I couldn't count on what I thought, only on what I knew.

I had a place to start. The ship's name was
Noble Star
. Now I just had to find it.

I haunted the communication room, sitting for hours searching for news of the ship. I scoured all systems and found nothing. It was as though the
Noble Star
did not exist. If only I had a planet that it was from, or a species to attach the name to. It was like looking for a needle but not knowing what or where the haystack was.

I knew that Reza would not give me a false name, and that there were plenty of ships that came from the Outer Rim that were not on any official registry. Not every planet from the Outer Rim with spacefaring life on it was part of the Imperium. That was what was also so appealing about the Outer Rim. But that was what was frustrating my efforts to find Caleb now.

Of course there could be another reason. The
Noble Star
could be a pirate ship. I didn't want to think of that. Pirates were nasty things, and I never liked to deal with them when I was trading for Heckleck or serving in the Tin Star. They were heartless. They attacked ships and stripped them. They spent their loot on perversions that I could not even think of. The only thing that was true about pirates was they were hard, rough, and had no empathy. They were so cold that the usual tricks I depended on for my trading didn't work. They wore outrageously colored costumes with shapes to distract from their form so that their species was hidden. There was no differentiation of species in their ranks. It was as though they'd all been wiped of any physical identity.

That could never be Caleb. Sweet Caleb could never turn to that kind of life. He was too generous. Unselfish.

Unless something terrible had happened to him.

But Reza had said as much, hadn't he? He'd hinted at the horrors they'd faced on the Outer Rim. Reza had made his way back to me because he hadn't wanted to break. I knew that now. It was the only thing that made sense.

But what if you were broken? I had to believe that even if Caleb had turned into someone like that, he'd still have heart enough to lend a hand to an old friend.

I had no time for doubts.

I sent messages hoping to catch the ship's attention, but it was like sending a message in a bottle. And if the Per knew that I was trying to contact a pirate ship, they likely would kill me on the spot regardless of their agreement with Tournour.

Meanwhile, I had nothing to do and nowhere to go but hope that sometime soon we would cross paths with either the
Noble Star
or a ship that was headed to Bessen.

I had nothing to do as they went about their business, and I tried to make myself as invisible as possible. As generous as they were, I could tell that I was wearing out my welcome from the slurs that the Per crew would mumble when I passed them in the halls or the mess. I had to find another ship that was willing to go to Bessen. And I had to find one soon.

I looked at their manifests daily until finally I saw on the roster of places that a Brahar ship the Per were trading with was going to Bessen.

Bessen.

After weeks of dreariness, my heart lifted. Humans did live in the consulate on Bessen. At least I knew that I would be safe as long as Brother Blue was not there. Perhaps I could buy myself some time. Earth's embassy was there. Perhaps there was a way for me to blend in with them. Pass myself off as coming from Earth. I started to listen to all the Earth transmissions I could whenever the communications array was pointed toward our sun. I studied what news I could get and tried coming up with a story that might slip me in with any Humans as a new recruit. I didn't know how many were stationed on the moon but felt that since I did not have the tattoos of a Wanderer, whatever story I told would be more believable.

Revenge was a powerful motivator.

 

14

The Brahar ship light skipped into the system that housed Bessen soon after I boarded. We were to arrive at the moon in the middle of the sleep cycle, but I woke up early in order to see the outer planets as we jumped by them. Finally, we were circling the Loor home world, Tallara, where the moon Bessen orbited.