Chapter 2 #2
“It used to be rare for off worlders to get jobs on Chronos, it’s true.
But nowadays it’s very trendy amongst the Royal Pigment houses to have a human employee.
We’re considered loyal. Trustworthy. Discreet.
” I let the corner of my mouth twist. “No House loyalties of our own, you see. No stake in your politics. The Xylan are the ones who freed us from the Hurlians, so every human on New Earth grows up knowing that the Xylan saved us from our enslavers. We love your species.” I shrug.
“So when a Xylan House offers a human a position, the human says yes. Gratefully. Why wouldn’t she?
She’s going to be given a cushy, high-paying job and allowed to serve the species that saved hers. ”
Naomi presses a hand to her chest. “That’s why you trusted them.”
“That’s why I trusted them,” I agree.
“And what did you do for this House?” Scar asks. “What was your job position?”
“I’m a Keeper,” I say. “A Keeper of Records.”
Ines narrows her eyes like she’s starting to understand.
“A great House hands its most sensitive records to a human Keeper because a human is a vault that walks, talks and never leaks. Ledgers. Correspondence. Manifests. Everything they don’t want written anywhere a rival could reach. They gave it all to me.”
“Because they trusted you,” Lila says.
“Yes. And because it never once occurred to them that the primitive little human might actually understand what she was keeping.”
Across the table, Scar leans forward. “You saw something that troubled you.”
“Very much. I saw something that...” I look down at my hands, at the gloves of the unmated they gave me at the station, and I make myself say it out loud for the first time since I ran.
“There’s an old and powerful Royal Pigment House on Chronos, and in their records there’s a plan.
” I swallow. “A plan for this planet. For Timbur.”
“What kind of plan?” Chief questions.
“A plan that I consider to be evil. It’s wrong and unethical, literally against the Scales of Xylan Law.
The kind of plan you put in clean language so it doesn’t look like what it is.
” I’ve read enough of their euphemisms that they’re burned into me.
“Relocation. Resettlement. Demographic correction. Purification.” I lift my eyes.
“What it means, underneath the words, is that they want Timbur to belong to Royal Pigment Xylan. Only them. No humans. No other species. No—” I glance around the table, at all these golden-skinned miners, and force myself to keep going.
“No Margol, either. Not as anything but labor they control completely. Everyone else removed. One way or another.”
“That’s genocide,” Naomi says softly.
“They don’t call it that. They never call it that.
But yes.” I make myself hold steady. “There’s one thing standing in their path though,” I go on, because they need to hear the rest. “One thing they can’t get around.
This Royal Pigment house wants to own this planet and everything in it, but they can’t fully, because the Illibrium only chooses Margol Xylan miners. ”
“Yes, that’s right,” Chief grunts. “The Illibrium has only ever chosen Margol Xylan as it’s miners since these deposits were first discovered.
Every other species in the Four Sectors was offered the Illibrium too for bonding, but only Margol Xylan are ever chosen beyond attunement, to the higher level of bonding with a personal crystal.
Illibrium has never wanted any other species to extract it from the caves, not even Royal Pigment, who are also Xylan. ”
“And that,” I say, “is the part of the records I couldn’t make sense of.
Because they aren’t just trying to remove the miners.
They’re trying to do something to the Illibrium itself.
Trying to change it in some way so that it will accept Royal Pigment miners.
I found traces of weird experiments. I could see researchers on the payroll.
There were shipments I couldn’t trace. Whole files about—” I search for the words they used.
“The selectivity problem. The attunement problem. As if the crystal choosing for itself is a malfunction they intend to fix.” I shake my head.
“I don’t know how. I’m a Keeper, not a scientist. But I know they mean to make the Illibrium stop choosing. To make it obey instead.”
Scar makes a sound low in his throat, like something struck him. “They could ruin the Illibrium. Literally ruin the cleanest, most powerful power source in the entire four sectors.”
“Because of their greed and pompous, grandiose ideas of true Xylan.”
All the Fever Brothers look very, very angry.
Maxon stands up beside me. “Okay, that’s enough for tonight,” he announces.
“Hallie has given us the outline. Tomorrow we can ask more and try, with Hallie’s help, to formulate a plan for how to stop this from happening.
Right now, she’s obviously exhausted and needs a good night’s sleep.
I’m taking her to her room so she can rest.”
“But…” Ines starts.
“Rook,” Scar growls.
“No,” Maxon growls in return. “No more questions tonight.”
He takes my gloved hand in his and leads me out of the room.
It’s very telling that I don’t even protest. “First thing tomorrow,” I promise.
“I’m here because what I found was shocking, horrifying.
I got away, coming here, hoping to find Margol Xylan miners I could tell all this to, to warn you, so you had time to counteract what they are trying to do because… ” I say fiercely, “because it’s wrong.”
“She’ll have the room next to mine,” Maxon says to them on our way out.
Why does that send a thrill of heat through my entire body? Oh jeez, I’ve got the hots for Maxon of Twenty-Seven? How is that even possible? I’ve known him for no more than an hour, and I’m on the run from some very powerful Xylan who will want me dead when they realize what I’ve done.
I glance over at Maxon again, at his large muscles, his perfect lips and that long hair and butterflies take flight in my belly. Thank god he couldn’t possibly know of my ridiculous lust. I was on Chronos for the last three years and not once did I feel this way for anyone on that planet.
He walks me to the door himself. “That is my room,” he points.
“If you need anything, even if it’s in the middle of the night, no matter how small, I want you to alert me.
And when you are awake and ready to go back out, knock on my door first. If I’m not there, I’ll be in the living area, waiting for you. ”
“Thank you, Maxon,” I say.
“Thank you, Hallie, for your bravery. What you’ve done will save many lives.”
My mouth is open as I watch him walk to his own room and step inside.
The guest bedroom I’m being given in this compound is small but nice.
There’s even an attached bathroom. Someone even thought ahead and left me pajamas to change into and clean clothes for tomorrow, as well as toiletries.
I set down my bag, strip off my clothes and take a hot shower.
Eventually I’m in the bed, in the pajamas and that’s when I notice I’ve even been left a basket of late night snacks that I eagerly dig into.
I can’t help but wish again that this was a place I could possibly stay.
But I know there’s an essential problem with my plan to get on Timbur without being followed.
I created a visa and kept the House’s name off it, yes.
I was careful, yes. But there is a genuine, signed, filed authorization sitting in the Minecorp system right now with my name on it and a destination printed in clean official script.
You can scrub a transport manifest — I had them mark me confidential, I made the transmission record disappear — but you cannot scrub a visa that an official signed, because that signature is the whole reason it worked.
The cleverness that got me out is the exact thing that draws the line straight here.
I came here because they were the only ones who might stand against Chronos. I didn’t escape to safety. I carried it here.
It’s only a matter of time.
Maybe if I go, it follows me. I give them the proof tomorrow. They’ve earned it; they’ll need it. And then, somehow, I have to be gone.