Mehercule, no wonder I’m tired.
My cousin Neal’s down there too, on the green teardrop of England, hidden around the curve of the globe. Maybe my father too, somewhere in the heart of Prague.
A loud, dull thud nearly sends me sprinting back toward the dubious safety of the ventilation shaft. Mia, at my side, retreatsseveral steps. A spattering of scrapes and a second, smaller clang, and I see a glitter of something metallic drift past the window—the sound came from outside the ship, not inside.
At the Junction, we’re too far in the interior of the ship to have heard this—but here, on its outer edge, we can hear the sound of Earth’s satellites colliding with the ship’s hull, bouncing off as a cloud of debris to drift forever into space, or else return home in an arc of fire as falling stars.
Trying to regain my composure, I grab the headset, hook the curve of the metal over my ear, and position the glass lens over my right eye. I can still see the room beyond it, but after an instant, a line of glowing white text appears, projected in front of me and superimposed over the view.
COMMAND/QUERY?
“Is it working?” Mia whispers.
“It’s working,” I murmur, trying to keep my voice calm. “And Mia—it’s in English.”
She meets my eyes, strangely overwritten in my vision by the text in the headset. Her gaze is wide, confused, frightened—but I’ve got no way to comfort her, and no answers to provide.
Abruptly, she stiffens, her gaze going past me toward the exit. “Quick, he’s coming back!”
My heart leaps, and I yank the headset off my head. But when I go to replace it on the workstation, I find my fingers refuse to obey me.
“What’re you doing?” Mia hisses.
“We need this.” I’m frozen, all the more so now that I can make out what Mia heard a second before: footsteps approaching down the corridor. “We can’t just leave it.”
“We steal it, they know we exist.” Mia’s fingers curl around my wrist, squeezing, and under her hand my own relaxes.
“Perfututi,” I mumble, and let the thing go.
I’m about to whirl around and race back to the vent in the wall when I see the headset wobble. My stomach seizes. In my haste, I’vedropped it down on the edge of the workstation. It teeters, and as Mia and I both lunge for it, it slips off the corner of the desk and drops.
The approaching footsteps falter as the sound of shattering glass echoes through the crystal-lined room. Then they break into a run.
FOR A MOMENTJULES ANDICLASH AT THE VENT ENTRANCE, ANDit takes me two long, precious heartbeats to realize we’re both trying to get the other to go first into the vent. I abandon my efforts and clamber up him like he’s a tree, then press myself in against the interior wall as tightly as I can so Jules can squeeze in past me.
His long limbs barely fit, and he makes so much noise when he moves that it sounds to my ears like the drummer in a band has taken up residence inside the walls, but so far no one’s noticed us. I lean over after him, with barely enough room to turn and replace the hatch behind us.
I grab for Jules’s ankle and squeeze, warning him not to move. Reminding myself not to hold my breath, I watch while the worker falters halfway to the console, then bends down to retrieve the headset. Heart pounding, ears straining, I wait.
Then comes a gusty sigh and a muttered word I don’t know,though I certainly recognize its tone. A tap of fingers on controls, and then a voice: “Screen repair request, shifting it yourways for recyc now.”
The worker’s footsteps start moving again, but we’re both frozen when a crackly voice bleats tinnily in the small room. Until now, he’s always spoken to the others through his headset—this is the first time we’ve heard them use a communications system built into the ship.
“Sirsly?” The voice is more annoyed than professional. “That’s two you’ve lixo’d since we shifted.”
“Don’t give me hassle, it’s just the screen,” protests Slacker, coming to a halt only a meter or so from the hatch, which I’m still holding in place. I have a brief flash of panic that “recyc” is somehow the vent we’re hiding in, but then he pulls a drawer-like receptacle out of the wall and places the headset in it. “It still works, just cracked-like.”
“Hold up your send, someone’s using the transit.”
Slacker sighs, starting back toward his console. “Broken piece of lixo ship,” he mutters.
I can still see the drawer if I crane my neck. The ship has a built-in delivery system, not unlike the old vacuum tubes they used to use in banks and post offices on Earth. It’s how we’ve been stealing food—if you can call the flavorless, rubbery white protein cubesfood—intercepting deliveries to individual rooms and stations.
Abruptly, I realize he’s sending his headset down that way. And there are precious few seconds before he hits the button that’ll send it zooming away.
“Don’t move,” I breathe, watching the boots intently as I ease forward, keeping the hatch clutched in one hand.
Jules goes rigid under my fingers, choking a protest. I squeeze his leg to reassure him, all too aware there’s nothing he can do to stop me without getting us both caught. We’ve wasted a week waiting for someone on Earth to notice the ship in orbit isn’t empty—thisis our first chance to take action, rather than waiting to be rescued. Iwon’tlet it slip away because I’m scared.
