Chapter 24
“Ran doc min is like a mole,” Avi gripes one evening as she rubs softening oil on a spare sheet of zurillium.
She, Lament, and I have been assigned Moon Dancer duty tonight, and we’re each currently occupied by various tasks around the workshop: Avi’s on the zurillium, Lament is reinstalling plates under the craft’s body, and I’m using Char-Be-Gone to recover the burnt pages of Moon Dancer’s manual.
Avi waves her oiling rag as she continues. “He pops out of his hidey-hole and then just as quick, he’s gone again. The eruption is only twenty-two days away, but Jester and I still haven’t managed to find a single clue about where he might be located. It’s like The Parallax doesn’t even exist.”
“I thought this would be easy for you,” I comment as I peel apart a particularly stubborn set of pages, “seeing as you’re our spymaster.”
“Shh,” Avi flaps the rag and glances around. “Someone could hear you.”
“You’d better hope not. This workshop is supposed to be private.”
“That’s naive. Nowhere is private.”
I frown. “Did you just call me naive?”
“No, I said that’s naive.”
“I’m not sure there’s a difference.”
Her crystal-blue eyes glint with mirth. “Your words.”
I’m about to deliver a crippling comeback, because I absolutely have one, when my handheld buzzes. It’s a message from Rudy Rivon. I’ll be on Skyhub next week for business. I was hoping we could set aside some time for our interview. Will you be free?
Ah, crap.
With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten about my promise to give Rivon an interview.
Which … is fine. It’s fine. I mean, my lungs suddenly feel sticky, and I have the odd yet persistent urge to bury my face under a rock, but it’s a little late to be having second thoughts.
I made a deal. I have to see it through.
Besides, what’s one interview? Recorded for NewsNet?
Aired to trillions of people around the galaxy?
I should be able to make time around lunch, I reply.
Same day next week?
Sure.
Perfect. Meet me at the Aurtortorium Museum at noon?
See you there.
I pocket my handheld and go back to peeling apart the burnt pages of Moon Dancer’s manual.
I think I do a pretty good job of hiding my discomposure, but Lament (possibly through that yet undiscovered ability to read minds) notices anyway.
From all the way across the room. While on his back under Moon Dancer’s body.
And—rather than use his mind reading powers to acknowledge I don’t want to talk about it—he slides out, marches over, and asks, “What’s wrong? ”
“If I tell you it’s nothing, will you pretend to believe me and walk away?”
He crosses his arms. “No.”
I sigh. “I’m doing an interview with a reporter from NewsNet. Rudy Rivon.”
Lament blinks. And it’s the oddest thing, but he looks … disappointed? “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, right. Yes. I can understand why you might be apprehensive about that.”
I study him, feeling like I’m missing something. “Do you?”
“Of course.” He pulls at his sleeve. A habit, but also a tell. He’s upset. Why is he upset? “You’re the Sixth’s newest member. This will be your first foray into the limelight. If you’re interested in garnering a public image, it only makes sense—”
“Wait. What?” I reel back. “Lament, I’m not giving an interview because I want to be famous.”
He blinks up at me. “You don’t?”
“No.” I blow out a breath. “Seriously?”
He holds up his hands. “Sorry?”
“I’m trying to work out whether I should be offended.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“You very clearly did mean it.”
“I just…” He blushes. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I know you better than that. But…” He bites his lip. “So then why are you giving the interview?”
“Um.” Shit. “Rudy and I sort of had a deal.”
Now Lament is the one looking confused. “A deal?”
“Yes.” I focus very hard on the pages in my hands. “I told Rivon I’d give him an exclusive interview if he deleted all the photos taken of you on Venthros.”
Lament’s mouth parts. “You what?”
“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 into civilian 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 flashing AURTORTORIUM MUSEUM sign 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 a you first motion, “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. He looks polished in his dark suit and loafers. I wonder if he’s wearing makeup. I wonder if I’m going 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 is right 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.
The thought brings bile to my throat. “No,” I say again, because that’s apparently all I can manage.
The room is too hot, and the lights are hellfire bright, yellow and white suns that expand before my eyes.
I take a second step back, then a third, bump into Rivon, don’t offer an apology.
This has to be a dream, but I’m not dreaming. I’m—
What am I doing?
Running.
I turn to leave, but Rivon steps into my path, hands up, palms open. “Now, Keller, Nina has come a long—”
I clock him in the face.
He lets out a cry and stumbles backward. My head is spinning. All the air shears out of me. I hear my mother’s voice (that, too, is familiar: soft and soothing, almost musical) saying, Keller, please, but I’m already on my way out. I grip the door handle, yank hard—
It’s locked.
I rattle it harder.
Still locked.
Behind me, Nina is helping Rivon to his feet. “I’m fine,” Rivon tells her, but his eyes are streaming, and I can see the beginning of a bruise blooming around his jaw. He gives me a reproachful look. “Was that really necessary?”
“Let me out.”
“Keller,” Nina says. “Please, let’s talk.”
“Let. Me. Out.”