I’m hot all over. There’s a pain in my chest that’s growing into something relentless, burrowing deeper than I thought it possible for pain to burrow. I put my fingers there over my heart and find my lifestone. Which was a gift from her.
“Ran Doc Min understands the importance of placing loyal Determinists within the Legion,” Nina says. Beside her, Rivon is still holding his jaw, nodding. “The Legion represents the rule of galactic law, and Ran needs officers who support his predictions. Yet it has proved difficult to appoint Determinists into Legion positions. The Legion resists admitting members with preexisting loyalties to movements like ours, so Ran came up with a different plan—start younger. We place Determinist children in the galaxy’s best training schools. We ensure they do well, graduate with honors, gain the attention of Legion recruiters. At the same time, we make sure the Legion has no way to connect these young recruits with our movement. I have always been a strong Determinist supporter, but my ties to the group would have hurt your chances as a Legion prospect, so I severed them and let you fulfill your potential while watching from a distance. But I’ve never been far, Keller.”
“I don’t—” My throat is made of razors. “But how—?”
“There’s a reason I wanted to speak with you today,” Nina tells me, clasping her hands together. “You’re old enough now to know the truth.Join us. Take your place among our movement. Ran Doc Min wants to meet you, and to offer his official welcome—”
I make for the door again. Kick the handle.
“Keller.”
I kick it again. Again.
“Wait,” Rivon says. “Keller, you’re going to—”
A final kick, and the lock breaks. The door bursts open, banging the wall behind it. My mother gasps. Rivon tries to grab me. The museum blurs in my vision as I escape.
25
Noise rushes around me.The bustle of a busy path, tram wheels on metal tracks, babbling strangers. I stumble through The Hub, though I barely know where I’m going. It’s impossible to tell the time—light on the space station never changes. I smell fried sausages and vapor lighters. Someone hollers something in a language I don’t speak.
I take a left at random, head down another crowded walkway. I imagine, among the faces, I see my mother. Again and again she appears, in that woman’s smile, that one’s hair, the turn of that lady’s wrist. The shadow of Nina, hidden in the shadow of these people. Like how you see animals in clouds: the projection of something that isn’t real.
I’ve never been far, Keller.
This was always the plan.
Everything is a blur of movement and color, and it’s garish and overbright, and I think I might vomit.
“Keller.”
Lament is there, suddenly and impossibly, catching me to him. I can’t tell where we are. The tram station? An intersection? Lament presses his body to mine. A shelter. He smells familiar, clean and subtly earthy. “You’re okay.” His voice is soft and firm at once. I make fists of his shirt, press myface desperately into his neck. What’s happening? How is he here? “Just hold on,” he says. “Caspen is on her way.”
There are rules against flying aircraft inside Skyhub Space Station, which Caspen seems happy to break. She appears noisily in a midsize hovercraft, touching down right there in the center of the crowded plaza. I’m aware of a door opening, and Caspen’s urgent, “Mondoggers approaching,” but it’s hard to focus on any one thought. All I see is Nina Hartman’s round face, her amber eyes that look like my eyes.
Join us. Take your place among our movement.Lament gets me seated in the hovercraft, Caspen offers a thumbs-up, and we jet up through Spoke III over the tram tracks toward the space station’s outermost ring. Caspen doesn’t take us to the Sixth’s flight deck but parks right there outside Detachment 94’s industrial front doors and says, “Protect the lamb, Pirate King.”
Lament ushers me inside. There’s a blast of cool air, and the lights get brighter, bluer. Vera appears, and it seems like she might start asking questions, but Lament cuts her off. “He’s in shock. Help me get him down the hall.”
I’m fine, I want to protest.I don’t need help.But that’s rubbish, isn’t it? I’m so lost in my own thoughts I can barely figure out what’s happening, beyond the nausea that’s still climbing up my throat and the vicious onslaught of memory. Nina taking my hand as we walk through a city park. Nina in our kitchen, touching the tip of my nose with a floured finger. Nina bundling me up and saying,Just a day’s flight to see the zoo animals, won’t that be fun?The hallway is the color of gauze, and the memories won’t stop. But I can feel Lament’s arm around my waist. A halo of light to ward off the dark.
“Hartman,” Lament says. “You need to breathe, okay? Whatever happened can’t hurt you now.”
My hands are tingling. I stumble a step.
“Here,” Lament urges as we move into yet another room. “Sit.”
I do as he says, which is the moment I realize where we are. We’ve made it to Lament’s bedroom, which looks like my bedroom, expect there are more personal belongings (books on the shelves organized by color,pictures of his family smiling for the camera, shoes arranged evenly on a rack), and it’s cleaner. Vera shoots Lament a worried look. I blink up at them both. “My mother.”
Lament comes to kneel before me. He doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
“It was a setup,” I continue thickly. “A trick. The interview—it was only a ploy to get me alone. That reporter—Rudy Rivon—is working with Nina. They’re Determinists.”
Lament glances at Vera. “Close the door.” She does, and he turns back to me. His expression is calm again, covered over, but I can sense the disbelief—and the anger—seething underneath. “You’re upset. We don’t have to talk about this yet.”
“I—no.” I bury my head in my hands, set my elbows on my knees. “I can’t—” My laugh is splintered enough to startle me. I take a breath and try again. “My mom joined the Determinists. I think she’s been with them all along. She told me this was part of their plan. Not just the fake interview. I mean… all of it. Leaving me at Master Ira’s school, planting a ray gun in my bedroom, nudging me to apply to the Academy.”I have always been a strong Determinist supporter. My ties to the movement would have hurt your chances as a Legion recruit, so I severed them and let you fulfill your potential while watching from a distance.“Holy shit.”
The bed dips with Lament’s weight as he moves to sit beside me. He threads his hand under my arm, presses his shoulder into mine, grips my thigh. “Slow down, okay? I need you to breathe.”
