Lifer (29 page)

Maston opened the door and the natural light and the lush green hurt my eyes, but before that it was darkness and noise and a narrow twisting path between pumps and wires.

Now, the throb of what I once believed was the ship’s engine fills the darkness ahead. Following instinct and scraps of memory, I let the door close behind me but prevent it clicking completely shut in case I need to leave fast. I step forward, turning sideways to squeeze between two huge vents, alert in case someone comes from the other side. First it’s left, and then right, and then left again along a path that isn’t really there. It lies between what’s probably nothing more exciting than the ventilation systems for the levels below.

When Maston first led me this way I commented on how big the ship’s engines were. He’d laughed. I guess living in a mountain for three generations was pretty funny to someone from the Company.

Here the smoke mingles with the warm oily smell from the machines. It’s noisy enough to drown any sounds beyond. It’s warm but not the heat from a raging inferno. The sprinkler systems so carefully maintained after the fire in Manufacturing must be working.

I drop the ground at the sound of a door being flung open and the accompanying burst of light
.
The thudding of my heart matches the throb of the machines around me. There are scrambled voices for a second then, as fast as it opens, it closes again and the darkness returns. My steps slow. I edge toward where the light came from. Through the door are the Naut quarters but there was something more familiar about the woman’s voice.

I replay the moment in my mind. The voice was older, about Mother’s age but not her. Someone I know.

Not
my
mother but Asher’s. Elex. I’m sure it was her and she said, “Not here.”

What is a Lifer doing in the Naut quarters? Who is she looking for?

Zed. It has to be. She’s looking for her son.

I freeze between two racks of wires. I press backwards to disappear against a hard metal shelf, even though there’s no one in here to see me. The vibrations of the pump behind me reach deep into my chest and find a rhythm with my panting breaths. I know what happened to him. I was the last to see his body after I stripped off his clothes and left him submerged in a shallow pond. How can I face this woman?

My nails bite into my palms as my hands form useless fists. The anger inside me has no outlet. It’s directed at me. But there is no going back.

I force my feet to move. First left and then right. Step by painful step I approach the door. There’s no panel or special lock here. The metal handle’s cold to touch but gives easily under pressure. There’s a click and the door seal breaks.

I blink at the light as I open the door a crack. My nose presses to the edge and I peer into the short hallway beyond. There’s a blur of movement. Navy uniforms mostly. More Lifers in the Naut quarters.

There’s no sign of the Nauts in their Company clothes.

There’s hustle and activity but no panic. The smoke seems to dissipate as I watch. Whatever caused the fire must be under control now. I scan the people who walk past, looking for a Fishie or at least a familiar face. I’ve given up expectation of seeing a Naut. The four who fled down the trail must have been the only ones on duty. And then I see her.

Asher.

She’s not the girl I remember. Not the same as the girl I’ve loved since before I knew the difference between girls and boys or Lifers and Fishies. Something about her has changed. It’s not the flowing white dress clinging to her body where I’ve only seen her in navy before, or the bruise under her eye, but the way she holds her head. There’s command in her voice when she barks an order at a passing Lifer.

The girl whose voice was strong enough to penetrate the procedure Maston performed on my brain is in charge here.

Then, inexplicably, she looks toward where I hide behind the crack in the door to the engine room. My hand tightens on the handle but I don’t move. There’s no way she should be able see me here in the darkness. But her eyes widen and the color drains from her high cheekbones.

“Samuai.” My name is a silent cry on her pink lips.

And then she’s stumbling straight for me on bare, blue-swirled feet just like her brother’s. The feet I left beneath the water.

My gut twists.

The pressure on my chest reminds me of the force on my brain when Keane gave me back my memories. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t think. I simply stand and watch.

She’s moving closer. There’s a single tear on her cheek and her eyes shine brighter than any stars I saw in the city. I feel the sting of matching tears in my own. I never thought I would see this girl again.

The heavy door swings open beneath my hand as though on the lightest breeze. I don’t care about warning anyone, or the Company, or what has happened to give the servants control. I just need to hold this girl in my arms again.

She fits perfectly. My arms go around her like they remember how it used to be.

“Samuai. Samuai.” She whispers my name over and over in the lilting way it was meant to be said. She looks up at me. Her fingertips brush the orange stubble on my head. “Your hair…I can’t believe it’s really you.”

“I’m here.”

There’s a booted step behind me, at the doorway I just came out through. My hands drop from Asher and I turn with her still half in my arms.

Megs stands in the doorway to the engine room with darkness behind. “This is why you didn’t want us to come with you.”

More guilt adds to the weight inside me. “It’s not like that.”

Her gaze skips over Asher who’s still buried against my chest. One eyebrow arches. “Really?”

Megs’ presence must penetrate Asher’s shock. She looks up at the other girl and then edges away from me, crossing her arms across her body. “Who’s she?”

I get her confusion. She believes we’re on a ship and strangers are not in her life experience.

My hand reaches out to comfort her and Megs’ lips flatten. I bring my hands together instead. Two brilliant girls and neither of them will be mine once they know the truth.

I breathe in smoke and Asher and Megs and try to get the words in the right order.

“Asher, meet Megs. She’s from Earth.”

[Asher]

“She’s from Earth?” I repeat Samuai’s statement to make sure I heard him correctly. His once familiar voice now stretches the vowels in a way similar to the girl’s in the doorway.

A stranger.

I don’t know whether to stare at the living ghost of the boy I’d given up for dead or the girl he’s brought back from the grave with him.

Earth? It’s impossible…unless the government sent another ship after the Pelican.

“Yes.” He stands awkwardly between us. “It’s hard to explain.” He looks past me toward the Control Room where people are trying to understand the ships’ systems now that there are no Nauts to run things. “What happened here?”

“Rebellion. Revolution. More importantly,” I peer into the darkness behind the girl where there should only be engines to run the ship. “Where’s my little brother?”

Samuai’s clasped hands grip each other so tight the knuckles whiten but he doesn’t answer.

“Where’s Zed?”

The girl by the door looks from me to Samuai. “The boy in the pond?”

I know a pond is a small pool of water from history lessons but we have nothing like that here. Zed can’t swim. What would he be doing in a pond? “Samuai?”

His name comes out strangled. The hope that flared within me at the sight of him fades.

There’s a screech behind me. I don’t turn to see Lady running. She passes me with her elbows flapping with joy. Then she takes her boy in a tearful embrace. “My baby,” she croons over and over. She touches his face, his arms, and his legs like she wants to make sure he’s not an apparition.

Red blooms in the tips of Samuai’s ears but he suffers the maternal affection, holding his mother close for a minute and calming her tears. “Don’t cry, Mother.”

Her sobs only increase. “I never gave up hope.”

I feel Davyd stop behind me. As usual my whole body is attuned to his presence.

“The prodigal son returns,” he murmurs for my ears only.

And then my mother’s with us. No flapping run like Lady, but an energized stride across the wooden floors. “Zed?” The hope in her voice hurts my heart.

Tears I don’t want to cry burn my eyes. I blink hard to get myself under control. Surely Samuai would have told us good news by now. I take Mother’s trembling hand in mine.

“Samuai was about to tell us.”

Everyone looks at the boy we believed was dead. His gaze skims me and Mother and then lands somewhere on the floor.

“He didn’t make it.”

Mother convulses silently at my side. My strong Mother sways and it’s only through clinging to my hand that she stays on her feet.

“What the hell does that mean?” I clench my free hand into a fist to prevent closing the distance between us and shaking him by the shoulders. Davyd’s hand brushes the small of my back. Supporting, taunting. I don’t know anymore.

And I definitely don’t know this orange-haired boy Samuai’s become.

The girl, Megs, moves to his side in silent support. Her body angles to his, showing they’re close. Their unspoken communication confirms it. The hot shaft of jealousy through my chest takes me breath. It’s crazy I’ve grieved for Samuai. I should have let him go. Hours ago I enjoyed kissing his brother.

The room spins. I close my eyes.

When I open them, Samuai’s head is up and he’s looking at me with his warm brown eyes awash with tears and pain. “I’m so sorry. Maston decided he’d seen too much.”

“Maston?” Mother’s question is raw and filled with anger. She’s shaking with it.

Samuai nods. “Zed followed us. There was—” he hesitates. “There was nothing I could do.”

“Sure.” Davyd’s word is no more than a whisper but it’s clear to me.

Samuai might have changed, but he liked Zed, I’m sure he did, and the pain in his eyes is real. “What did he see?”

“The truth.” Samuai hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Beyond the machines is another door.”

“Where does it lead?” Davyd speaks for all to hear.

He moves a little closer behind me and when I glance up to look at him his gray gaze is locked with his brother’s. There’s a challenge and something else I can’t read.

Samuai looks away first.

“To a mountain.” He pauses then adds, “This ship never went in space.”

Hot then cold. Goosebumps rise on my skin and my knees threaten to give way.

“I don’t believe you.” Mother speaks first. Four words filled with grief and all the anger of a lifetime of servitude.

We could have walked out at anytime. The new life we’ve been promised with a fresh start for humanity was a big trick. Everything we’ve lived with for three generations is a lie.

Launch it all to hell.

“No.”

“It’s true,” says the girl by Samuai’s side.

It fits with the pond, with the strange girl, with Samuai and Zed, and the Nauts disappearing off a ship in the middle of space. It’s why I couldn’t see the stars.

My brain can’t mesh everything and come up with something that makes sense. “But there’s a countdown.”

Samuai shrugs. “I don’t know what they planned for when it hits zero.”

“They?” Mother picks up on his words. “You know who did this to us.”

There’s movement behind Samuai and two men in green robes step through the engine room door. More strangers. One is stocky and dark-haired with a blockhead and a grim expression.

“You call them Nauts,” the man says. “We call them Company. Either way they’re the enemy.”

“Who are you?” I ask, because everyone else seems too shocked. I’m aware a crowd of Lifers has gathered in the Control Room. Whispers pass on the news about the ship to each new person who arrives.

I wonder whether the Fishies contained on the level below us know yet.

“My name’s Keane,” the man says. He gestures to the man at his side. “This is Toby. We are part of a rebellion on Earth against the powerful Company that’s kept you imprisoned here for their own ends. Samuai came to us with no memory of you, or this place. He risked his life to find the answers and then again to warn you.”

“Hero,” Davyd says under his breath.

“Warn us?” I say loudly to drown out the doubts raised by Davyd’s sarcasm. “We’ve been safe here for generations.”

Samuai seems to consider. “The Company might know I’m here and they’re known to be ruthless when people go against their wishes.”

“They shot my brother in the back because he wore a green robe,” Megs adds with a tremor in her voice. “He’s just a kid.”

Like mine. My eyes meet the Earth girl’s. Despite her purple hair and strange clothes, I feel kinship between us. It disappears as she breaks eye contact and Samuai refuses to meet my gaze.

The gathered crowd of Lifers waits for a decision with a buzz in the air. Earth. Freedom. Walking around under the open sky is something we’ve all longed to do. But the ship’s our home and we’ve just won control of it.

I look to Mother to lead but she’s staring into the darkness behind Samuai as though Zed might still walk through the door. Lady’s attention is fixed on her son and she’s in a kind of happy trance. The Fishies are locked up and the Nauts are gone.

The weight of the next move settles on my shoulders.

Mine and Davyd’s. I never thought it would be him I’d turn to when I couldn’t be sure whether to trust Samuai. His gray eyes are unreadable.

“What do you think?” I ask in a low tone.

I don’t really expect help from him but asking will give me time to think. He was close to Maston and he didn’t exactly faint with shock when Samuai explained that the whole ship thing is a lie.

He smiles that slow, charming, irritating smile. “I think you’d look sexy in sunshine.”

Heat climbs my throat and I glance around at Samuai and Mother and the Lifers. Did his words carry? No one reacts, and I exhale a shaky sigh. His sheer audacity breaks the stress of the moment. I can think again.

I have no interest in being a dictator here. The rebellion was never about swapping one tyrannical ruler for another. “We’ll gather the whole ship and vote.”