The Rainbow Maker's Tale (46 page)

Cassie lay behind me on the
single bunk the pod had – not necessarily a drawback – in her hands
she held the portable viewing screen I’d stolen from The Clinic.
Although it was not connected to the Hope’s systems now, it was
able to connect to the databases on the pod, where I had found a
huge amount of useful – but unexpected – data. There were star
charts and documents on physics, the likes of which I’d never seen
in our classes before. There was plenty to help me learn navigation
skills, if we were to use the pod to try and get anywhere useful,
rather than just float around in space until our food ran out.

“You mean the food?” Cassie
said, raising her head.

“Uh-huh, food,” I grunted, “and
the medical supplies, spare astro repair kit, extensive star charts
and navigation data, advanced water and air processing systems…It’s
as though the pod was specifically equipped to support a long
journey with passengers...”

“And…?”

How could she not find that
strange, especially after everything we had been through with The
Collective. “
And
…this is a waste pod primarily. An
unmanned
waste pod…”

Even though I left my sentence
open ended, Cassie didn’t add anything. I sighed and closed the
door, not bothering to open another. I didn’t want to push her too
hard – we’d not even talked properly about what had happened to us
both in the time we were apart on Hope… But, I also needed to try
and work out how this had happened. At the end on the station – I
remembered only small glimpses of it – but Cassie said that one of
the creatures had helped us get out. When I pictured him in my
head, my tarnished memories told me that he was the same man who
had visited me…the only one who seemed to show any sympathy for
what was happening to me…

I didn’t want to push her, but
I still needed her to see what I was trying to work out. Opening
another cupboard I found it filled with medical supplies: saline
pouches, plasma and blood packets, bandages and basic tools.
“There’s so much stuff here.” I said. “Like it was planned or
something – it feels…wrong.” I couldn’t admit to Cassie that my
deepest fear was that this was just another false world of theirs,
and we’d been tricked into it.

“He
must
have done it.”
Cassie insisted, talking about the man who helped us. “He told me
he didn’t agree with what the others did to you and he wanted to
help us get out.”

I shook my head – still inside
the cupboard – it seemed Cassie credited him with doing a lot for
us, but without really being able to explain the motivation for his
actions.

“Doing this would have taken
time – and planning,” I said finally, closing the door and turning
back to Cassie. “How could he have known what we were going to do,
if he wasn’t part of
their
system?”

I waited for a long time, but
she didn’t answer me. I knew now that we had both realised the
creatures on the SS Hope weren’t human. When I’d reprogrammed the
navigation system after just three hours, we’d had plenty of time
to catch up.

Although neither of us had gone
into too much detail about how exactly we had come to the same
conclusion, Cassie had told me about disecting the
body-suit
, as she called it, of the man that I had killed in
the apartment. Her discovery explained a lot about why I had been
unable to hurt them physically, as well as why they were so much
stronger than us. Their one point of weakness – the throat – was
some kind of insertion point, where they entered the suit in their
natural form. For my part, Cassie had guessed some of what they had
done to me, because of the injuries. I didn’t share with her the
other tortures, it would only make her feel worse and it was not
her fault. There was no one to blame in all of this, except for
them
. And that’s why I was having such a hard time
understanding why Cassie seemed able to trust one of them so easily
after everything that had happened.

“I’d seen that
man
before,” I said. Even though I didn’t specify, I knew that Cassie
would know who I was talking about. “He came to see me when they
were holding me in the other place. That MAN was different to the
others – I knew it, I could
feel
it when we met – but he did
nothing for me. He left me with the others. Left me to die.”

Why do you trust
him
so much?

Cassie closed her eyes. Guilt
swallowed me whole and I found half of me wanted to take back what
I had said. It was obvious I was forcing her into a place she
couldn’t stand to be – how could I be so selfish? Unfortunately,
the guilt also made me angry with myself. Perhaps if I’d pushed
Cassie harder, pushed myself harder, when we were in the Family
Quarter, we might have escaped before The Collective had time to
hurt us both? My questions didn’t stop – I couldn’t make them,
because part of me wanted to know the answer more: I would risk
causing Cassie pain, if it meant I could protect her better…

She still hadn’t spoken.

“Do you think it’s a trick?” I
asked.

“No.” Cassie finally replied,
tears catching on her lashes, her answer almost too soft to hear.
“No.” She repeated more definitely and she looked up at me, through
the unshed tears. “I think it’s real. He wanted to get us out.”

“Why? Why us?”

Cassie sighed and in that
moment I knew that she had an answer. There was a reason she
trusted him so completely – I couldn’t comprehend what – but it was
obvious that she did.

“He did it because he knew my
mother. My
real
genetic,
human
mother. He had wanted
to protect her from the others in The Collective, but he failed and
that’s why he wanted to protect us.”

There was silence as I
processed what Cassie had said. This small piece of information
only raised more questions and there was only one thing I knew with
any certainty. Cassie turned towards me, I wondered if she was
going to say something more, but interuppted before she could. “He
didn’t want to protect
us
. It was just you. He wanted to get
you
out.”

Cassie opened her mouth then
closed it, twice, without words coming out. I didn’t want her to
feel guilty, whatever the connection was between her and the
creature, I didn’t want her to feel that I resented the fact that
it wanted to protect her and not me.

“Cassie, I need you to know
something.”

She didn’t move, just sat
frozen, her eyes fearfully intent on my face.

“I might not understand why
that creature acted the way that he did.” And I’m not going to ask
you, I’ll wait for when you’re ready to tell me, I added to myself
before continuing. “But, I’m glad it was
you
. If I had to go
through that again, so that you could get out, I would.”

“I would never have left
without you,” Cassie murmured, her voice was soft but imbued with
honesty. “I could never have left you. And I never will. We
cannot
be apart again – you can’t put me before yourself as
you did on
Hope
– no matter what happens to us.” At first
her expression was determined
, as she re-lived
the memories that fuelled her words. Then, something changed in her
eyes: replacing her resolve with two emotions I never wanted to see
on Cassie’s face: anguish and fear.

“Losing you again would kill
me,” she whispered.

In three long strides I was
beside her, leaning over and pulling her close with my good arm.
Cassie’s face tilted up to mine and I could see my own pain
reflected in her beautiful emerald eyes: she meant every word she
said.

“I will not let anything hurt
you,” I promised. Making a vow to myself that I would not live
without Cassie…that I would die to protect her.

“I will not let
anything
come between us,” she replied, grit hardening her words.

I knew that Cassie was
contradicting my promise with her own, and I marvelled at her. No
wonder that creature had chosen Cassie.
She was so powerful, how
did she not see the strength inside her that I did?
She was
strong enough for the two of us. Strong enough to survive anything
– I was sure of it.

Falling in love with Cassie had
given me a taste of life – what it was
really
about. Her
presence woke parts of my spirit that I don’t think had ever
existed until she stepped into my world. Everything – even going
through the pain and horror of our seperation – was worth it, to be
with her.

Cassie wouldn’t understand. I
didn’t doubt that she loved me, but it wasn’t the same. She had
changed me – altered the way I looked at myself and the world
around me. I could not imagine my life without her, because without
Cassie, I didn’t live. I never had.

Staring into her face, I
wondered about what the future held for us, now that our lives
weren’t being planned hour-by-hour, from birth to death. This was
our chance, wasn’t it? Our first
real
chance at life: to
live without controls and lies. I would do everything in my power
to make it happen, for
us
.

“You and me,” I vowed, unable
to keep the smile from my face. It sounded so perfect...sounded so
possible...

“Always,” Cassie agreed
reaching her hand into my hair and pulling my face to meet
hers.

* * *

Beep-beep-beep.

I reached across and switched
off the alert that was telling me we had been onboard the pod for
seventy-one hours. Swallowing thickly, I glanced down at Cassie who
was still asleep on my shoulder, before settling back against the
pillow. My eyes were wide open, just as they had been for the past
few hours while Cassie slept soundly in my arms.

In an hour’s time we would have
to eject Joel’s body from the pod, to maintain the illusion that
the pod was completing its normal function removing waste. When I
re-programmed the navigation systems the day before, I had found a
transmitter that appeared to connect back to the main systems on
Hope. It hadn’t proved too difficult to send a false message
through the system back to Hope, indicating that the main
navigation system of the pod had corrupted and would not rebound
now due to the error. We would have to release Joel’s body from the
pod, just in case it was being monitored, then I would set the pod
to drift onwards along the same course, before letting the
transmitter connection drop an hour or so later, suggesting that a
total malfunction had occurred. My entire plan was based on
knowledge of The Collective’s technology I had found in the file
system on the pod. It was just one more thing to add to the list of
things that had been put here to help us.

Cassie sighed softly and rolled
over, cuddling closer into me. She opened one eye, before closing
it immediately.

“You’re awake again,” she
muttered.

“Just thinking,” I kissed the
top of her hair, dodging the accusation in her tone. “The
seventy-one hour alarm just went off, but I didn’t want to wake you
yet.”

“Oh. At least you weren’t just
watching me sleep again – that was getting creepy.”

“Ha-ha. You’re a funny girl.” I
smiled, just managing to maintain a deadpan tone.

Cassie smiled, her eyes still
closed. “It’s funny because it’s true.”

“Smarty pants.” I kissed her
hair again, my mind already drifting.

Even though we had talked about
what would happen with Joel, I had not been able to bring myself to
tell Cassie about what I had been forced to watch happen to him
back on Hope. They had been friends – spending all that time
together at The Clinic – it was hard enough for her as it was,
without me adding to her pain. And so I kept my secrets, just as
she was keeping hers.

Since we came aboard the pod,
Joel’s body had remained in one of the small compartments dotted
around the walls, where
waste
was stored. Except in our
case, we had found most of the other spaces filled with supplies
and equipment, rather than waste – yet another helping hand from
Cassie’s mysterious benefactor…

We lay together in silence for
another twenty-minutes and I wondered whether Cassie might be
dozing again. “We’ll need to get started soon,” I prompted her,
easing my arm out from beneath her neck and rolling out of the
bunk.

Standing up I shivered as my
feet touched the floor. It was cooler on the pod than it had been
on Hope: the systems on the craft were not as powerful or
particularly oriented towards human transportation I supposed, we
should count ourselves lucky that it had an air handling unit and a
basic gravity system.

Cold. A smile crept over my
face as I walked to one of the compartments and removed another
thermo control blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. For the
first time in my life, I felt cold: a natural reaction to an
environment that wasn’t perfect or controlled. Just like I had
tasted hunger and thirst when The Collective held me prisoner. All
of these were new experiences for me…all were things that reminded
me just how real and human I was.

“Are you cold again?” Cassie
asked from the bed.

“A little.”

She kicked the thermo blanket
away from her legs and stood up, crossing the small room and
wrapping her arms around me, reaching beneath my blanket to hold me
tighter.

“I hope you’re not getting
sick.”

Squeezing her back, I tried to
be reassuring. “I don’t think so – I feel fine – just a little
colder than normal, but I think it’s the pod. You probably don’t
feel it because you’re a girl and carry more fat than I do.”

“Carry more fat...?” She
repeated in a warning tone.

“Just a little,” I patted her
non-existent tummy gently.

Beep-beep-beep.

The sound of the alarm
interrupted whatever Cassie might have been about to say. Her eyes
flew towards the console. “Is that…?”