Sound Page 20

  The witch sniffs the dakait boy. “Will he catch rats?”

  “Sure.” Rubio steps in. “He’s great at catching rats. All the rats you want.”

  I send him a warning glare. Don’t oversell it. “What do you think, Cass?”

  If only there was time to show her Isha’s patients and the filthy warrens in the depths of the station. Then she would know my plan isn’t as merciful as it seems.

  “Wait.” The dakait boy whimpers. “Don’t I get a say?”

  “Sure.” Cassia gives him a cold smile. “Why not? Let’s hear your plan.”

  He swallows. “Let me go. I didn’t take your brother or anybody. All I did was work the door saw.”

  Cassia laughs. “Try again.”

  The dakait boy looks from Isha to his crewmates’ bodies. “Do me like them, then.” He lifts his chin, but for all his bravado, he’s shaking. “I’m not staying here with that wrecked old witch.” He spits at Isha’s feet.

  Cassia’s eyes light up, but there’s something wrong with them. One time when I was visiting Ava and Rushil, their neighbor had to put down a rabid dog. Her eyes are like that—glassy—seeing, but not seeing. This isn’t the girl I know. This is a stranger.

  “Perfect.” She smiles to herself and then at Isha. “He’s all yours.”

  Nutrition bar wrappers and cellophane crinkle under my boots as I duck into the dakait ship. I inch down the narrow corridors, trying not to touch the walls. The whole place stinks of piss and alcohol. Even the corner of the Mendicant where Tibbet has chosen to do his business doesn’t smell this bad.

  I reach the cockpit and squint into the harsh blue-white light bleeding up from behind the wall panels. More wrappers and bottles litter the controls, and a tiny hologram of a naked woman gyrates over the coms station. Charming. I pick up a flak jacket slung across one of the seats and sit down. There’s information here. Coordinates for where the dakait have been. Docking codes. Maybe even names.

  The litter rustles behind me, and I spin around.

  Rubio stands in the doorway, looking as skeevy as I feel. “Find anything?”

  “Not yet.” I bring up the docking log. Something yellow and tacky is spattered across the screen. “I’m thinking we should bring in a decontamination crew.”

  “Heh.” Rubio shoves his hands in his pockets and gazes up at a yellow-brown stain on the wall.

  We both stay silent, me flipping through the logs, Rubio nodding his head and taking in the room. Finally I can’t take it anymore.

  “Is she coming?”

  Rubio freezes and then shakes his head. “She said she didn’t want to see where they kept him.”

  I turn back to the controls. “I guess that’s for the best.”

  “Miyole . . . ,” Rubio starts.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m as freaked out as you.” Rubio takes a seat next to me and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve never seen anyone . . . kill before.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “You never shot anyone down?”

  He laughs. “Vaya, Mi. I’ve only been on security detail for a year. They teach you to shoot across the bow. Warning shots.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I mean, all that blood . . .”

  Blood—the dakait, my mother, the man on our bedroom floor with my eyes.

  “Rubio.” I raise my voice. “I said I don’t want to talk about it. I want to find what we need and get out of here, okay?” I don’t want to think the thoughts tapping at the back of my mind. Should I ever have trusted Cassia? How much do I know her, even now? Is this whole rescue mission a mistake?

  “Fine.” He raises his hands and stands up. “I get it.”

  I sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. Can you go back to fixing the air scrubbers and let me finish up with this?” I wave at the screen. “I just can’t right now. This place is creeping me out.”

  “Yeah.” Rubio shrugs. “All I’m saying is, we should keep a close eye on Cassia. I don’t know what she’s going to do when we get down on the surface, and I’d like to come out of this alive.”

  I hole up in the cockpit while Cassia and Rubio sleep, trying to concentrate on the information from the dakait ship’s log. It’s no use. I can’t unsee the blood or the look on Cassia’s face. I can’t force that other memory—the man with my eyes, my manman taking the gun from me—back to the depths where it belongs. I can’t look at Cassia without it all refreshing before me. I’ve been sleeping beneath a pile of coats on one of the common room couches or scrunched sideways in the pilot’s chair since we left Isha’s station. That is, when I sleep.

  I rub my eyes and try to focus. The dakait made a host of port calls on Enceladus.

  Dock Roppyaku, East Block Subport, Ny Kyoto: 36.637864, 155.522461

  Aoki Diagnostik, Shio Subport, Ny Kyoto: 36.637865, 155.522460

  Rangnvaldsson Keramik, Ny Karlskrona, Kyushu Province: 36.375480, 127.441406

  Cryatics Wholesale, Kazan Spindle, Zaius Shelf Port: -76.052861, -89.472656

  Norling Buki-ko, Jämtlands län, Ny Skaderna: -74.00182, -63.942321

  A-1 Suchíru, Hiroi Glaciär Spindle, Ny Skaderna: -70.81924, -64.11021

  Enceladus was supposed to be one of the Ranganathan’s ports of call, too—there was some talk about taking shore leave if we were on schedule—but I only remember the very basics about it. I should have paid more attention to the docking briefs in my preflight packet. I trail a finger over the names and pull up Ny Kyoto from the Mendicant’s data banks.

  Founded by Japanese and Swedish refugees fleeing rising tides, Ny Kyoto was the first colony established on Enceladus. Research indicates great potential for bioengineering ship components in the moon’s subterranean oceans. . . .

  I close the screen and groan. Clearly no one has updated the Mendicant’s data banks in at least fifty years. Enceladus has been growing ship parts for decades. The skeletons of the Ranganathan and her sisters were born in the Enceladan ocean yards.

  I scroll back up to the port call roster and press my fingertips against my temples, as if that will help me remember. Ny Kyoto, that’s one of the biggest population centers. And the one with the Swedish name—if the coordinates are right, it’s not too far from the city. That puts the others near the southern pole. Something itches in the back of my mind. Wasn’t there something dangerous at the south pole? Riptides, maybe? There was some reason no major cities formed there.

  What were you doing? Where did you leave him? I don’t know any Swedish and my Japanese is terrible, but some of the locations look like businesses of some kind—Cryatics Wholesale, Aoki Diagnostik. And buki-ko, that has something to do with weapons, but I can’t remember what.

  I lean back in my chair and grind the heels of my hands into my eyes. We have the coordinates, but they could mean anything. And then there’s Sweetie’s delivery. Hopefully we haven’t missed his message telling us the location of our drop point by diverting course to Isha’s station. There’s nothing to do but wait until we reach Enceladus and see for ourselves.

  I turn off the cockpit’s overhead lights and try to sleep, but my mind keeps turning over. Vishva and I always used to play If I Had a Time Machine back when we were at Revati together.

  If I had a time machine, I’d go back and tell myself not to come to school the day Sanjita read my note about Roshan to the whole class.

  I’d go back and tell the engineers about how the levee was going to breach.

  I’d tell Mummy not give my stepfather a second chance.

  I’d warn my mother about the hurricane.

  If I had one now, how far would I go back and do things differently? Back to the moment I told Cassia I’d fly for her? To my missed chance to stop the dakait? To the moment I asked Rushil to fix my records for me? Or maybe even farther—back to save my mother, back to before the sea swallowed Earth’s islands so we could have ridden out any storm on land and I would have a place to call my home. I lean forward and pull up the M
endicant’s data-bank entry on Haiti. The ship’s records may be woefully out-of-date, but Haiti drowned hundreds of years before this ship was built, and as far as I can tell, its entry is more or less right. Or at least, it matches my memories from world history class.

  The former slaves of Haiti won their years-long battle for independence from the French in 1804, under the command of Toussaint L’Overture.

  It always felt so distant back then. My books weren’t talking about anything to do with me. Now my mother’s words run through my head as I read, like two streams weaving and curving together. We were the first in the age of slavery to strike off our chains. Be proud of that, ma chère. Your people saw the chance for freedom and took it, no matter what the rest of the world said.

  I read on, words sparking memories, memories sparking memories, until I fall into a fitful sleep.

  I am in my manman’s bedroom. I am playing with my doll. She has a long, dark braid, almost as long as her whole body, and I like to hold her by the tip of it and spin us both around and around.

  Heavy footsteps mount the stairs outside, a measure too slow to be my manman’s. Fear sinks into my chest like a spider. The front door unlocks, and the steps are in the house. I dive under the bed. Too late, I look back. My doll is all alone in the center of the bedroom floor. I wriggle forward to grab her, but the footsteps turn my way. I pull my arm back under the bed just in time.

  Two scuffed, pointy boots stop in the doorway. I want to squeeze my eyes shut, but I know if I do, I’ll open them again and he’ll be bending down, looking under the bed.

  “Miyole!” he shouts, hitting the last syllable of my name hard.

  I don’t move. I am boneless, trembling.

  He reaches down and snatches my doll. I stifle a little exhalation—oh. Where is he taking her? What is he going to do with her?

  His footsteps retreat into the kitchen. I listen to him taking things off the shelf, making food, talking to someone on his satellite phone. Eventually I fall asleep beneath the mattress.

  I wake to the sound of my manman’s sloop roaring overhead. The spider lets go of my chest. She’s home. I crawl out from beneath the bed and peek around the corner into the living room. He sits in his big yellow chair, clipping his fingernails. No sign of my doll. I sneak into the hallway, where he can’t see me, to wait for my manman and throw my arms around her legs as soon as she comes in the door.

  “Hello, ma chère. Did you miss me?” she says.

  His voice cuts between us. “Where have you been?”

  I look over my shoulder. He is staring straight at me, but it’s my manman who answers.

  “I have that new haul route to Mirny. I told you last week, remember?”

  I freeze, watching him. Maybe he will rise up out of his chair and come at her. Maybe he will scream and curse. Maybe he will break something or take away something we need. Maybe he will say we all have to stay home with him.

  Instead, we are lucky. He grunts and turns his attention back to his sat phone.

  We eat dinner. He still says nothing about my doll. I want to ask him if I can have it back, but then I would have to admit I saw him take it. I would have to admit I was hiding from him, and that will make him angry like nothing else.

  After dinner, I brush my teeth and hug my manman good-night. She is in the kitchen, washing up the dishes. I try to slip away to my cot without him noticing, but this time I am not so lucky.

  “Miyole.” He crooks a finger at me and beckons me over to his chair.

  I stand beside his chair, enough distance that we aren’t touching, but not so much that he can say I’m trying to stay away from him.

  “Are you forgetting something?” He raises an eyebrow.

  I hug him quickly, mechanically. “Good night, Papa.”

  “Good night,” he says.

  I turn to go.

  “Miyole.”

  I stop and turn back around. I am too young to know the word dread, but I feel it filling me up all the same.

  “I found that doll of yours,” he says. “On the floor.”

  “What doll?” I say, even though I know exactly what he means. It is not a good lie. I don’t have many toys. I am already shaking.

  His eyes go wide. “What doll?” he repeats. “What doll?”

  My manman turns around, her hands still dripping soapy water. “Janjak, please.”

  His eyes flash. “Don’t you Janjak me. This girl is a liar. And how do you think she got that way?”

  I back away one step.

  “Don’t you go anywhere.” He points at me and pulls the doll out from behind his back. He’s been sitting with it wedged between the cushions of his chair. “You don’t appreciate what we give you. You’re going to take this down to the brink and throw it in the water.”

  “No!” My eyes fill with tears. “Papa, please. I’m sorry. . . .”

  “Pe dan w la!” He stands suddenly, towering over me. “Stop crying.”

  “Janjak.” My mother steps between us, her voice calm.

  His hand flies up and strikes her across the cheek and then he’s hitting her and hitting her.

  I run to the storage closet beside the washroom and close myself inside. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t made him mad, he wouldn’t hit her. If I hadn’t dropped my doll. If I had said I was sorry sooner. I should go tell him to stop, to hit me instead, but the shameful, cringing part of me is stronger. The truth is, I’m glad it’s not me.

  I wake in the pilot’s chair and rub the sleep from my eyes. The giant gas planet that Enceladus orbits glows in the dark before us—a pale orange smear only now visible with the naked eye. Three days, and we’ll be in its orbit, too. Three days, and we’ll touch down on the moon’s icy crust. I shiver.

  I climb down to the storage room to find the body armor Rubio “reappropriated” from the dakait ship. If Sweetie’s contacts on Enceladus are anything like Sweetie himself, I’m going to want all the protection I can get. I pick up an armored shirt—a black, beaded thing, thin but strong, perfect for dispersing the energy behind a fired slug. I’ve seen feeds of soldiers and rescue workers in armor like this, but I’ve never had to wear it myself. It moves like water, like snakeskin. I pause, weighing the shirt with my hand, then grab two more and head off to find Rubio.

  I stop short in the doorway to the common room. Cassia sits on the couch with her back to me, stroking Tibbet’s head and staring at the design Isha drew on the far wall. For half a moment, I think about turning around and locking myself in the cockpit, but I can’t avoid her forever. I steel myself, walk past her, and dump the armor on a table. I cross my arms and stare down at it, not moving, but not looking at her, either.

  I feel her eyes on me. She clears her throat. “I know you think it was wrong, what I did.”

  I turn around. “You killed him.” Something sticks in my throat. “You killed him even after you told him we were going to spare him.”

  “So did Isha,” Cassia points out.

  “Do you really want to compare yourself to Isha?”

  Cassia hugs Tibbet tight. “They were selling people, Miyole. Selling people. You heard what he said—what he would have done with us.”

  I shake my head, not because I don’t believe her, but because I don’t want the images cycling around in my mind. What could have happened to us. What has already happened to others. They were us, minus some luck.

  “The Deep’s better off without them.” Cassia leans forward, and Tibbet leaps from her lap. “You know I’m right.”

  I look at the armor. “Right,” I say. “But I don’t want to be the one to decide those things.” In Mumbai, even murderers receive trials, and on the Ranganathan, they have correctional hearings. A lone person doesn’t hand down a death sentence.

  “Lucky you weren’t, then.” Cassia’s voice hardens.

  It would be easy to believe that, nicer to think I had no choice in the matter. But I could have gone to that dakait at any time and stopped his bleeding.

>   The old memory plays again—the kick of the gun in my hands, the shock, my manman’s eyes so sad, and then her standing over the man. The gun’s report, deafening in our tiny bedroom. I look at Cassia. Her hair hangs lank under the bandage, and the skin beneath her eyes is bruised. Was killing the dakait really so different from what my mother did? She was only protecting herself. And Cassia’s right, the Deep is better off without people like that. So why does it feel different?

  I take a step toward Cassia. I don’t know what I mean to do. To speak? To throw my arms around her? To shove her away?

  Rubio appears in the door, out of breath. “Telemetry’s going crazy,” he says. “There’s something outside.”

  Chapter 18

  The three of us crowd into the cockpit and lean over the displays. Beyond the viewport, something small and white floats against the darkness, too perfectly round to be debris. I cut the engines and fire the fore thrusters to slow our approach.

  “Anybody want to guess what the hell that is?” Rubio says.

  “It’s a drop.” Cassia’s voice is almost a whisper. “Our delivery coordinates.”

  I frown and toggle our coms. “It’s just sitting there. Why isn’t it streaming?”

  “Some things are too . . . sensitive for streaming.” Cassia nods at the screen. “We’ve picked those up before, on runs for Sweetie.”

  “You’re sure?” I lean in closer.

  Cassia nods. “The buyer usually launches a blind drop once Sweetie confirms the cargo is under way.” She stands straight. “Let’s bring it in and see what it says.”

  Rubio snaps to attention. “Whoa, wait. Bring it in?”

  Cassia narrows her eyes. “How else are we going to figure out where we’re going?”

  “Okay, that’s a terrible idea,” Rubio says. “Even if it is for us—which, why should we assume it is?—how do you know it’s not a pulse bomb or something?”

  Cassia makes a face. “Why would Sweetie’s buyer leave a bomb for us?”

  “Why do you keep saying it’s from Sweetie’s buyer?”

  Cassia throws up her hands. “Who else knows our specific trajectory coordinates?”