“It’s fine.” I give what I hope is an unaffected shrug. “It’s just one interview. No big deal.”
“But you don’t want to do it?”
Another shrug, this one slightly less unaffected.
“Then don’t,” he says, (mind?) reading my silence. “Tell Rivon the interview is off.”
I laugh. “He works for NewsNet. You want him printing retaliatory stories because I backed out of our agreement last minute? No.” I scrub my face, drop my hands, sigh. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
The next week passes at warp speed, and too soon I’m changing intocivilian clothes, exiting the detachment, and (with the sergeant’s approval, which she grants easily in obvious hopes that I might win the Sixth some much-needed good press) taking the tram across Skyhub toward the Aurtortorium Museum. I lean my forehead against the coach’s window as we zip away from Detachment 94 toward The Hub and try not to think of anything—not anonymous NewsNet viewers or Rudy Rivon’s smooth voice or Lament looking worried at breakfast that morning, asking if I wanted him to come with me, asking if I was sure.
The tram spits me out at The Hub’s central station, and from there I walk to the museum. There aren’t any roads on Skyhub, but the footpaths are busy, fleet members and visitors all bustling from place to place. I pass the bar we visited on my first day, a few restaurants, a swanky-looking lounge. The museum is easy to find thanks to the giant flashingAURTORTORIUMMUSEUMsign with speakers currently chanting what is, apparently, the museum’s anthem. Like most buildings in The Hub, it looks like it used to be a warehouse of some kind, probably for storing Legion equipment, but it’s since been converted into a public space.
Inside, the museum is bigger than I would have guessed, airy, very clean. There’s a ticket booth up front and a few sculptures partitioned behind ankle-high velvet ropes. And there, waiting on a bench beneath a photo of a vegetable garden that is also somehow a man’s face, is Rudy Rivon.
“Keller.” He buttons his suit jacket as he stands, striding forward to shake my hand. “So glad you made it.”
“Yeah,” I say, wiping my palms on my thighs. “Thanks.”
“The crew is almost finished setting up. They’ll be ready for you soon. Please,” he says as he makes ayou firstmotion, “this way.”
We walk through the museum, passing a planetary exhibit, a film screening, a blown glass series by the famous Wallace Mane. I can’t help but think Rivon chose a good spot for an interview. Not that I really know anything about it, but I imagine the architecture will make a nice video backdrop. Then I stop imagining that, because I’m starting to get nervous again.
“I appreciate you making time for me in your schedule,” Rivon says. Helooks polished in his dark suit and loafers. I wonder if he’s wearing makeup. I wonder ifI’mgoing to have to wear makeup. That’s a thing you do for the camera, right?
“Today should be easy,” Rivon continues. “Just a few questions about your acceptance into the Sixth, how things are going with your fleet, your hopes for the future, that sort of thing.”
“Okay. Yeah.”
“You nervous?”
I give a laugh. “A little.”
“Perfectly normal.” His smile is easy. “This will be painless. No trick questions, that’s not my style. It shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
When he looks at me, his expression is friendly. I try to relax. I’ve known Rudy for years. We’re not friends, exactly, but he was the correspondent for ARCAN Aviation Academy while I was enrolled there. He spent a lot of time interviewing cadets and was always respectful. Never painted anyone in a bad light.
Rudy steers me through yet another spacious sequence of display rooms and into a private area that looks like it’s normally reserved for guest exhibits. I’m expecting a camera and a crew, but the area is empty.
“How deep does this place go?” I ask.
“Almost there,” Rudy replies lightly. “Just through here.”
I’m led through a door into yet another room, which is plain, no art, still no crew. It’s empty of everything, in fact, except for a table, three chairs, and a woman standing in the center.
Nina Hartman.
My brain sidesteps. My breath snares.
But no, this can’t—my mother?
I stumble backward like I’ve been kicked in the groin. “No,” I hear myself say. “No—what?”
“Keller.”
It was different, seeing her on Venthros. Almost like looking at an old photograph. The details were blurry, blunted. Fuzzed with time.
It’s not like that now. Nina Hartman isright there, standing in sharp relief, looking exactly like I remember: petite but not slight, chin-length hair, an overgrown fringe reaching past her brows. Her eyes are expressive, her face round with health. Motherly. She looks like a mother.
