Chapter 16
“Hartman.” Lament’S fingers grip my wrist. He doesn’t pull, exactly, but he’s applying pressure, holding tight. “Hartman, come on.”
I wonder if Lament can feel my pulse pounding furiously through my skin.
I wonder if this is all an elaborate dream.
The world continues to spin. I hear the blare of a siren, the patter of retreating feet.
There’s a charred stench in the air from Avi’s Time Stopper, mixed with Soto’s dense humidity and the sour tang of my own adrenaline.
I inhale a breath that sounds like a gasp, because it is a gasp, because I can’t breathe.
Lament’s expression changes. “Hartman?”
Part of me thinks I must be hallucinating. That’s got to be it, right? I’m having some sort of waking nightmare, because if this isn’t a dream, if my mom is actually here on the planet where she dumped me and is now seemingly in league with a mob of Determinists …
I’m struck by a fresh wave of dizziness.
My throat is shrinking, and everything looks too shiny.
I make another noise, a strangled kind of half laugh, and set my hands to my knees.
The road beneath my boots appears digitized.
I can make out every crevice, every shadow and detail.
Ants, bits of litter. Someone’s discarded cigarette.
“Hartman.” Lament’s voice has gone tight with worry. “What’s wrong?”
I saw my mom in the crowd. Nina Hartman is here, and she saw me too, and nothing is making any sense.
“Keller. Look at me.”
There he goes again, saying my name. I wonder if Lament really thinks that’ll make any difference.
I wonder if he’s right, because seemingly of their own accord, my eyes lift to his.
Lament’s giving me one of those too-searching, too-honest looks.
He brings his hands back to my shoulders, bending a little to meet my eye.
“You’re okay,” he says firmly. “Take a breath.”
I take a breath.
“Another.”
I take another.
“All right.” He’s not drawing away, but the child in me wants to cling to him anyway. Don’t leave. All of a sudden, I’m nine years old again, powerless and scared, watching my mom walk away. Please, stay.
Lament’s tone is firm when he asks, “Did the Time Stopper get you?”
“W-what?”
“Avi’s measurements are usually precise, but sometimes the particles go astray. It looks like you inhaled some of the stopper’s fumes.”
He’s speaking to me like you’d speak to a skittish horse, all commanding and reassuring. It seems to be working, because the world isn’t spinning so badly now, and my lungs appear to have unstuck themselves.
“Yeah,” I say faintly. “Yeah, that must be it.”
By this point, the frozen citizens are coming unfrozen, and local law enforcement is finally starting to arrive.
I try to concentrate on what’s happening around me, but most of the next half hour is a blur: the joint fleet debriefing; securing the area; questioning stragglers about Ran Doc Min’s motives, his means of communication, and details surrounding his latest prediction.
Illiviamona and the Fifty-Seventh’s medic tend to a few wounded civilians in a mobile medi-rover while Avi tears into Soto’s officials (You seriously call yourselves keepers of the peace?
Where were you when your people were mauling each other?).
Lament keeps glancing at me like he’s not entirely convinced I’m okay, and while I’d like to put on a smile and pretend all is well, I can’t seem to make my face cooperate. My thoughts are all smoke.
“Hartman.” That’s Beckly’s voice coming from somewhere to my left, and go figure he’d decide he wants a chat when I’m in less than peak chatting condition. “Hartman, hey.”
He jogs over to where Lament and I are standing beside the medi-rover. Lament scowls and says, “Now’s not a good time, Van.”
Beckly rubs a palm over his cheek and offers a sheepish shrug. “I just wanted to tell Hartman thanks. For stopping that crowbar.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. “Okay.”
“Also”—he crosses his arms, then uncrosses them, like he’s just remembered the proper body language for gratitude—“I may have been a bit harsh on you earlier. About your Academy status. You clearly know how to shoot, and the Sixth is lucky to have you.”
This would be a good moment for me to be mature and gracious. “Did Mira tell you to say that?”
“Oh, um. She did, actually, yeah. But I still mean it and stuff.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering if I should believe him. “Thanks.”
“Cool. Yeah. You’re welcome.” He looks relieved. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to shoot together again someday.”
I can’t quite muster an answer to that, so I just give a nod. Beckly walks away, and though I guess his apology should make me feel better, I am, if anything, more confused than before.
The sun is sinking by the time we split off from the Fifty-Seventh and reconvene on The Bargainer, which is parked where we left it in the field south of the city.
The cargo craft is large and shaped sort of like a beetle, with six hydraulic legs and a row of bulbous windows resembling eyes.
Caspen docks her overland rover in the ship’s belly, and (exhausted, grimy) we file up the ramp into The Bargainer’s command center, which looks nothing like any command center I’ve ever seen.
There are the usual blue-glowing monitors and flight controls near the windshields, but there are also a bunch of beanbags, a Ping-Pong table, and a gaming console.
Movie posters adorn the walls, and there are snacks everywhere, the kind a teenager might choose if you gave them a wad of cash and free run of the supermarket.
“That,” Vera announces as she sinks into a plush chair, “was a disaster.”
“Understatement,” Avi agrees, launching into one of the beanbags.
The rest of the Sixers follow Vera and Avi, claiming spots on various sofas and chairs like they’ve done it a hundred times before.
Which, they probably have. Toph takes a giant seat shaped like a stuffed koala, Jester perches on the counter, Caspen and Illiviamona claim the pilot and copilot chairs by the main controls.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Vera continues, rubbing her chest like she’s having palpitations. “The absent law enforcers, the hidden weapons. And of course, Ran Doc Min’s speech about how Mount Kilmon will spew poisonous fumes across Planet Venthros.”
“That part wasn’t news, exactly.” Toph strips out of his jacket and tosses it aside. (It lands heavily on Avi’s head; she splutters indignantly.) “Doc Min has been hinting at something like this for months.”
Hinting, yes, Jester points out, but this is the first time he’s given any specifics.
“Which has only brought up more questions than it’s answered,” Vera groans. “I mean, who knew a volcano could be poisonous?”
This would be a good time for me to jump in with the fact that Mount Kilmon never used to be poisonous.
Except doing so would also mean admitting I’m from here, which would mean admitting I hadn’t admitted that sooner, which suddenly feels a lot scarier than it should.
It’s not just that I’m worried the Sixers will be confused by my reluctance to disclose my origins (though they’d have every right to their confusion).
It’s just … everything. Being within walking distance of Longji, hearing Ran Doc Min’s dire words, remembering what Professor Morton said about Master Ira’s imminent demise, seeing my mother in a crowd of Determinists.
I don’t know how to break all this down, or even where to begin breaking it down, and on top of all that, Beckly (the earlier, shittier version of Beckly) must have gotten into my head, because I’m standing here like a nematode watching my fellow fleetmates take up space like they own the place, because they do own the place, whereas I’m the new guy who doesn’t yet know where I fit.
If I fit. Aside from a vacant spot on the love seat next to Lament (which is really built for one normal-size human and not two fully grown men), I don’t see any open chairs.
Do I sit on the floor? Continue standing in the doorway like I’m a flight risk?
If Master Ira were here, he’d say I’m fixating on small problems to avoid the larger issue, and he’d be right, but I don’t know what to do about it.
The conversation is turning from rabid gases to planetary evacuation strategies when Lament pulls out his handheld and starts typing. A moment later, my pocket vibrates.
What are you doing? reads his message.
I glance at Lament. He’s got an arm over the back of the couch, one ankle balanced on his knee. I get the sense that he’s trying not to look at me.
Standing here? I type back. And then, because we’re already messaging each other from twenty feet away and it’s already weird: You?
Waiting for you to come sit next to me.
Relief bubbles through me like fizz in a soda can. Don’t want to sit next to you.
No?
You’re not even my partner.
He rolls his eyes. Vera catches this and glances at his illuminated handheld, then at mine. She coughs in a poor attempt to cover her smile.
You’re getting Vera excited, I type.
I am doing no such thing.
Her eyes are morphing into giant hearts.
You’re seeing things.
Did you know she once compared us to Malcolm and Harley?
The characters from The Starless Night?
They’re a couple and they fall in love.
Lament’s ears go bright pink. He hovers his thumbs over his handheld, but rather than reply to my latest message, he clicks the device off and tucks it under his leg. I feel a pang of disappointment, except then he looks at me and says in this voice I find deeply, deeply troubling, “Hartman.”
I am suddenly very interested in Toph’s assessment of how many people we could feasibly stuff onto an evacuation spacebus. “Hmm?”
“Come here.”
It’s not healthy, surely, the way my stomach reacts to that command. “Come where?”
“Here,” he emphasizes.
So … I go there.