Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2) (38 page)

Only days after the Taim was planted in its new
field, Ethan stood with Aria at the edge of it, shocked by what he saw. The
Taim had grown. Not a little. It was three meters high and growing almost
before their eyes.

Through Rigel, the Taim had told them that as
seedlings they depended on the ground gas that ran in channels underground,
much like the liquid Yynium. The gas channels had, in all the previous seeding
cycles, run into the Karst Mountains and provided the seedlings with the gas
that they needed to metabolize. But the blasting had fractured the gas
channels, sending the ground gas into the city. It was toxic to humans and
vital to the Taim. The Taim seeds followed the gas into the city, in order to
have enough to grow into strong seedlings. But they also needed carbon dioxide
to grow and in Coriol they got an extra boost from so many humans emitting so
much carbon dioxide.

Now that they were planted in the field, with the
gas flowing out of the mine on one side of them and the city washing them with
its abundance of carbon dioxide on the other side, they were growing remarkably
fast. In days, they said, they would be a full-grown Taim grove, just as Aria
had seen in the mountains with the children.

Ethan had been looking at them in wonder when the
deep reverberation of Saras explosives shook the ground and bounced off the
karst peaks in the distance.

Saras had broken his promise. He’d begun blasting
again.

The Asgre had damaged Saras’s shafts in their
search, and he wanted the Asgre off the planet. Giving them the Vala, he argued
to the Coriol Defense Committee, would achieve that.

The UEG was supporting him. They wanted humans and
Yynium safe at any cost. Reagan, though, was preparing to defend the Vala. He
had called for volunteers against the Asgre threat. He was risking his
admiralcy
with
such open defiance to the UEG. But Ethan knew it was the only option. Now he
had seen the cages on the Asgre ships. He had seen the little barred boxes
where the frightened Vala children cowered. Every time he thought of it he felt
sick.

If humanity would not protect innocent children,
then what humanity was in them, after all?

Ethan left the Taim grove with a new resolve. He
would not allow the Asgre to reclaim the Vala. Ethan and Reagan would fight him
alone, even if there was no fleet, if there were no ground troops, if no one
else stood against this monster, Galo. The symbol flashed through Ethan’s mind:

Ethan and Reagan would stand between Galo and the
Vala children until they could no longer stand.

***

Late that night, a group of Vala appeared at
Ethan’s cottage. He and Aria stood with their arms around each other as Svetal,
the single adult Vala in the group, herded fifteen Vala children into the
cottage. The children looked sleepy and clung together uncomfortably.

“The Asgre have found us,” Svetal said urgently. “Somehow
they know we are in the caves. We have destroyed the staircase, and they cannot
enter, but they have landed, and they flock around the entrance, trying to gain
access. I was able to flee with these children, who had already awakened, but
our other adults have stayed in the sanctuary and in the cavern with the
sleepers. They are in great danger.”

Ethan looked at the little group. “Could you flee
the planet? If we held the Asgre off?”

Svetal looked incredibly sad. “No. Some of our
sleepers are still deeply dormant, and even these children, who have just
awakened, must regain strength before they can—”

Again the translator buzzed with an error. The
word she spoke was the concept for which Ethan’s language had no words.

Svetal tried again. “Before they can travel,” she
said, though Ethan had expected to hear the word ‘navigate.’

“Can you keep us safe, Ethan Bryant? Can you
protect us?”

Ethan looked at Aria. She was already in motion,
crouching before the little Vala children, motioning them to the soft thick rug
in the living room.

“Ethan,” she said, “go to Kaia’s for more
blankets.”

He offered a smile at Svetal and nodded. “You are
welcome here,” he said, “and we will keep you safe.”

***

The next morning Ethan had signed up with the
volunteer ground forces, where he’d seen several of his passengers from Ship
12-22. Kaia was out recruiting, and she was pretty persuasive. After he’d
signed up and got his uniform and weapon, he’d dropped them off with Aria at
the cottage before taking the sol train to Saras Company Headquarters.

So now he stood again in Saras’s office, battling
the man behind the desk. He had been surprised to see Veronika Eppes standing
in the office. There was a rumor that she was scheming against the company and
Saras was avoiding her. Now, the way she draped an arm around the back of Saras’s
chair and watched Ethan with her arachnid eyes made Ethan suspect that avoiding
her was harder than it sounded.

Ethan spoke as forcefully as he could. “Absolutely
not. You cannot keep blasting, and you cannot support giving the Vala to the
Asgre.”

Saras’s eyes slid over him. “You like being a
hero, don’t you, Mr. Bryant?”

Ethan felt his heart rate quicken. “That’s not
what this is about.”

Saras persisted. “But you do, right? You do like
to be a hero? Come on, everybody likes to be a hero. Even I’d like to be a
hero. But who’s the hero here, Ethan? Is it the person who saves the aliens or
the person who saves the humans? You didn’t seem to have any question about
that when you were fighting on Beta Alora.”

“We’re not sending these beings back into
slavery.”

“You have a difficult time seeing things from
other points of view, don’t you, Ethan?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that your ethics, your morality, are so
tied up in your tiny human experience. You have to broaden your mind. What if
slavery is only bad because you’ve been taught it is? You have some idea that
owning another creature is inherently wrong or shameful. Obviously the Asgre
don’t see it that way. They see it as necessary and useful. Can’t you open your
mind to their worldview?”

Ethan turned away from him, disgusted. “Why would
I want to do that?”

“Why does anyone do anything, Ethan?” Saras said.
“For their own gain. We all have a lot to gain by giving the Vala back to the
Asgre.”

“You know a lot about personal gain,” Ethan said
disgustedly.

“I do.” Saras was proud of the fact.

Ethan stuck his hands in his jacket pockets,
frustrated. A smooth edge slid across his fingertip and Ethan remembered the
morning on the bank of the river when Theo had taken the chunks of Yynium. In
the midst of the Asgre invasion and Polara’s illness, he had forgotten it
except to occasionally worry that Theo would reveal the Vala’s whereabouts. But
the Asgre already knew where they were and that fear was past now.

Ethan leaned across the desk, putting his face
close to Saras’s. “If you are interested in your own gain, then I have to ask
you, Mr. Saras: Did Theo tell you about the Yynium?”

Saras grimaced and Ethan was amazed again at the
power that word had over this man.

“What Yynium?” Saras asked.

Ethan pulled the chunk of Yynium from his pocket
and laid it on the desk. Saras scrambled to snatch it up. Veronika leaned over
and peered at it as he inspected it.

“Where did you get this?” he asked urgently,
digging in his desk drawer for a purity monitor.

“From the Vala. They extract it by the block
using nothing more than their own bodies. You want gain, Mr. Saras, you’ll team
up with them, not sell them into slavery.”

Saras placed the chip on the desk and touched the
monitor to it. The dial buried itself in the Yynium reading.

It was a perfect sample. Every impurity removed.
The purest Yynium in existence.

Veronika, ever unshakable, emitted an audible
gasp. Saras closed his hand around the chunk.

“So this changes things, Mr. Saras?” Ethan said.

Saras raised his eyes and looked at Ethan with a
new respect. “Considerably,” he said.

The Vala children were becoming more comfortable
around the humans, but they were getting crowded in the living room. Ethan and
Aria had moved some of them into Polara’s room and some into Rigel’s room and
now Ethan was helping Aria clean up her little lab room to move a few more
into. That would make only about four to a room instead of five. The floor had
been cleaned and he was starting on the desk when he found the broken vial from
the gas sample that had saved Polara.

“This is odd,” he said, turning the triangular
needled end of the broken vial over in his hand. “What is it?”

“I’d forgotten about that.” Aria said, gazing at
it. “It’s some kind of hypodermic. But why would someone want to inject this
gas?”

“Maybe it works like a drug?”

“It’s deadly, though,” Aria said, scooping the
tray of dead broccoli plants into the recycler. “See, these died immediately
when it made contact with them . . .” Her voice trailed off and
a faraway look crept into her eyes. She turned and snatched the broken vile
from him, grabbing his shoulder with her other arm and pushing frantically at
him.

“What are you doing?”

“Turn around!” she commanded.

Ethan turned and she grabbed his arm, raising it
as she lifted his shirt off his side, revealing the triangle scar she’d seen
when she was bathing him during his illness. She put the needles close to it.
They were a perfect match.

“Your illness,” she said, her voice trembling. “It
was caused by the gas. Someone injected you with it!”

Ethan stepped back, away from the needles she was
holding, and pulled his shirt down.

“But who would do that?”

Aria was mumbling. “I’ve seen it. I have seen it.”
She looked up at him. “Can I see your missive?”

Ethan extracted his missive from his pocket and
Aria took it and punched at the screen. A moment later she was staring at it,
looking as if she had been underwater too long, as if she were fighting a
rising panic. Ethan leaned over to see what she was looking at.

There, open on the screen, was a copy of the
photo he had taken in the flowstone room of Brynn next to the Ikastn symbols.
Aria pointed at the pale girl in the picture. Brynn was reaching up, toying
with the necklace she’d worn all those days underground. It was a vial exactly
like this one.

Ethan stepped backwards quickly. Not Brynn. Not
the sweet-faced girl who cried through days and nights underground. How could
she have done this? Why? She had never met him before the trip. Why would she
have wanted to poison him? And why on the last day of that nightmare, when she
could have easily tripped him down a shaft to get rid of him anytime while they
were in the cave?

Something didn’t add up, and he was going to the
surveyor’s office to figure it out.

On the sol train ride, Ethan sent a message to
Ndaiye.
On my way to your office. I need to talk to you.

He watched the buildings of the HHSD flying by
and waited, his heart pounding alarmingly in his chest. He remembered the
moment she had done it. The moment, as they stepped out of the pit. He saw it
now. She wasn’t tripping, she was lunging. But why? Was it a plot to get rid of
him because he was supposed to be watching the survey crew? Maybe Saras had
hired her, too, just like they’d hired Collins. Or maybe Maggie had carried
more of a grudge than he’d realized.

His missive jingled and he checked it. The
message was from Ndaiye.
Out in the field with Traore. Won’t be back till
late. Brynn and the Cap are at the office.

A knot tightened in Ethan’s stomach. His two
least favorite members of the crew. He wished at least one of the cousins was
going to be there. But he wanted to know what was going on, and he still couldn’t
really believe that Brynn was any harm. If anything, he was a little
apprehensive about Maggie being there.

He exited the sol train in the Industrial
District. Today it seemed fitting that the survey office was in the ugly part
of the city. Ethan’s errand here was an ugly business that fit in with the endless
pavement and the huge, windowless buildings. Though he thought he knew what
they contained, every building effectively hid what was inside. The sticky
Minean summer seemed hotter here, where there were no trees to deflect the
heat. Ethan walked under the relentless press of the sun and humidity, dreading
talking to Brynn more with each step he took. He slowed to allow a tram laden
with sanitizer parts to cross in front of him. The Survey Office was just
ahead, and once the tram passed he had no excuse not to go in.

He’d met Ndaiye for lunch here only a week ago.
It was a small, square building with a small reception area in the front and
several offices and a workroom in the back. The reception area was empty and
Ethan saw Maggie in the workroom, her back to him through the window in the
closed door. He ducked quickly past, looking for Brynn’s office.

She sat hunched at her desk when he entered, the
light from an open side door streaming through and lighting up her brown hair. As
she saw him, she sat up and took a sharp breath. Ethan didn’t bother with
greetings. He didn’t know how much time he had before Maggie came in. He took a
few steps toward the desk.

“I know you poisoned me, Brynn,” he said, hearing
his own bitterness at the betrayal in his voice. “Why?”

She looked up at him, her brown eyes pleading. “It
was an accident, Ethan. I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“An accident? What were you doing with that stuff
anyway? Tell me what’s going on, Brynn.”

She pulled her eyes away from him and stood, her
shoulders slumped, by the desk. She reached slowly into the desk drawer and
shuffled around. She looked the same as before and he still couldn’t believe
that she might have done something so malicious. When she pulled her hand from
the drawer though, to his horror, she was holding a gun.

The weapon shook in Brynn’s hand. She didn’t seem
any more confident now than she ever had. She was not a killer. Ethan stepped
toward her, but she switched the safety off the gun and shook her head
slightly.

“I have to do it now, you know. I thought maybe
you wouldn’t figure it out. But now you know and now I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Ethan saw that
she was trapped somehow, and that could make anyone dangerous. “Tell me what’s
going on. I’ll help you.”

“Nobody can help me,” she said miserably. “Nobody.”
Brynn moved around the desk, and he saw, by the desperate look in her eyes that
she was going to do it. He felt the heat growing within his chest. He could
stop her, and if he had to, he would.

“Just tell me why, Brynn,” he asked, his eyes
searching hers. “Just why.”

Behind Ethan a familiar, rough voice broke the
silence. “Aw, go ahead and tell him,” said the voice of Maggie Schübling. “The
poison was for me.”

Brynn moved the weapon quickly to the side and
fired. Ethan spun and watched as Maggie ducked, the bullet missing her by
inches. When he looked back, the side door was open and Brynn was gone.

Ethan crouched, frozen, his eyes on Maggie. Her
leg had given way and she was floundering on the floor, struggling to pull
herself up using only the doorknob. It hurt him to see her so helpless, so he
moved to her and lifted her to her feet, every muscle tensed to fight if
necessary.

But she was breathing hard and he maneuvered her
to Brynn’s chair, kicking the open drawer closed as they came around the desk.

“What is going on, Maggie?”

She sat heavily in the chair. “I didn’t know you’d
been poisoned, for the record. I thought what everyone else thought—that you’d
wigged out. Except I didn’t blame you because I know how it was down there in
that nightmare,”

Maggie was as good at comfort as she was at
clarity.

“It’s probably a good thing you got the shot,
though, with your healing powers. It probably would have actually killed me.
Which was probably the goal. I knew the kid was a plant on my team. I’ve known
it the whole time.”

Ethan nodded. That explained her distaste for
Brynn.

“I was planning on getting her off the team as
soon as we got back from the survey trip that afternoon. But, then with the crash,
I thought maybe she’d straighten up.”

“I don’t understand. Why would she want to kill
you?”

“Maybe she didn’t, but somebody high up in the
Saras company did. Does. I’ve been leaking information about them for years.
They can’t fire me, or I’ll come out with everything, and that will shut them
down completely. But all the stuff they do that makes people miserable has to
stop, and I’m doin’ my part to stop it.”

“You leaked the survey?” Ethan asked.

“And the air quality report. And I’m about to
leak the dirty Yynium report. So that should make some people mad. Only way to
get rid of me’s to kill me.”

Ethan was puzzled. “I never saw the air quality
report over in the Colony Offices.”

“Well, that was my mistake,” Maggie said, putting
her bad leg on the desk and rubbing the crooked part. “I should have known that
they’d get to some of the Governors eventually. They did, and it got buried.”

Ethan thought of Polara, all those hours in the
hospital that could have been prevented if someone had seen that report, and
his temper flared.

“Why would she do this?” he asked, gesturing out
the door.

“Not really her fault. Brynn has so many brothers
and sisters that Saras paid to bring here that her dad’s in debt for four
lifetimes to the Saras Company. Even though he’s a manager, he’ll never pay
them back. The company owns that whole family. She’d hafta do anything they
wanted.”

Ethan thought about that. Thought about the
pressure of the passage debt. How many people had it crushed?

“Who put her up to this?” Ethan asked.

Maggie kept rubbing her leg thoughtfully. “Really,
there’s only three people high enough in the company to know those reports
existed, and any one of them coulda got to the kid. I’d watch out for ‘em all,
if I were you.”