I drop my eyes to my boots. “I didn’t, really. It was the others. My team.”
“And you are part of that team?”
“Yes?”
“Then my thanks stand.” He studies me. “I want to thank you, also, for not dying yourself. It would have grieved me terribly.”
That makes me laugh. It’s short, and slightly choked, but nonetheless genuine. “I promise, the pleasure was all mine.”
33
We find our wayinto The Bargainer’s command center. The other nine Sixers are standing around looking anxious (minus Illiviamona, who is gazing dazedly out the front window, and Avi, who’s contentedly picking soot from under her nails). Avi glances up at our entrance and asks, “So who’s the old guy?”
Vera is still too out of sorts to scold her. She blows her nose into a tissue.
“I am a friend of Keller’s,” Master Ira says.
“A friend?”
“Master Ira took me in when my mom left,” I explain. “I lived at his children’s home on Venthros until I ran—um—went to the Academy.”
“But then how’d he end up on The Parallax?”
“And what happened while you were in there?” Toph adds, leaning heavily against the arm of his koala chair. “All we know is, not long after you left, our half of the keening wilted like it was dead, and Lament started demanding we find a way to get to you. Then it turned into a space battle, and now”—he motions around—“we’re here.”
I explain everything. The meeting with Nina, breaking into the simulation room that was actually a laboratory, confronting Doc Min, getting thrown into a cell that happened to contain my long-lost mentor. I describehow the Determinists captured Master Ira for his knowledge regarding Mount Kilmon, how they’ve used that information to plant voroxide inside capsules hidden within altered heat collectors.
“And now,” I summarize, “the Venthrothians really will succumb to the gas unless they pledge their allegiance to Doc Min in exchange for his neutralizer.”
“Bartenders out of beer?” Caspen asks from her spot near the controls, wringing her freckled hands.
“She’s wondering how the Determinists will be able to continue with their scheme,” Youvu Hum says, “given The Parallax was sucked into oblivion. Surely the heat collectors didn’t survive…?”
“No,” Master Ira says grimly, “but Ran Doc Min’s inner circle—those who know the truth, which includes himself, Trey Morton, Nina Hartman, and a few others—have been working on this plot for months. They’ve already installed several altered collectors inside the volcano. Some of them detonated prematurely and had to be removed. Without the force of the eruption, the voroxide won’t spread properly, but there’s at least one collector left, which is all they need for their plan to work.”
“That explains the blue-eyed apes from the forest,” Youvu Hum says.
And the mist leaking from the volcano’s peak, Jester agrees.
“I still can’t believe FPS is a hoax,” Vera mutters from behind her tissue. “Like, I can’tbelieveit.”
“The evidence was always there,” Youvu Hum says. “We just didn’t see it.”
“No need to rub it in,” Avi grumbles.
“We have to warn people,” Vera asserts. “We need to out Ran Doc Min for the villain he is.”
“Wecan’t,” I growl, in a surge of frustration. “It’s too late. We can’t go to NewsNet—Rivon is their top correspondent, and he’s a Determinist. We can’t go to Sergeant Forst—she’s under Trey Morton’s control, andhe’sa Determinist. We could try to appeal directly to the public, to prove the Determinist leader is a fake, but we just destroyed Doc Min’s laboratory, and with it, all evidence tying the altered collectors to the Determinists.Besides, we’re deserters now. We stole three Legion ships and fled our detachment without leave. Who is going to believe anything we say? The whole story sounds like a conspiracy theory.”
“And the best way to support a conspiracy,” Toph adds, “is to try to disprove it.”
“Could we remove the remaining heat collector?” Vera asks.
“And do what with it?” I return. “If the gas capsule is rigged to open on the day of the eruption, we can’t just throw it away. It will spread through space. It could hurtanotherplanet.”
“I could explode it,” Avi offers hopefully.
Jester shakes his head.There’s no way blow up the collector without releasing the voroxide inside.
