Chapter 29
Hela doesn’t like weapons. For one thing, she’s not particularly good with them—-she can throw a mean punch, but put a sword in her hand and it may as well be a kitchen knife, for all that she knows how to use it.
But today she needs to get over it, because there’s no way she’s showing up at some guy’s potentially creepy lair unarmed.
She felt the tug of a message earlier that morning, so early the sun was just clearing the horizon and Elegy hadn’t even made the coffee yet. It took her three tries to get out of bed and pick up the quill. Elixir lit up orange spider veins along her arms, and she wrote:
Dreadful,
I received your confirmation of retrieval with great joy, and will be delighted to host you at my home for the delivery of the plant. Please take precautions, as it is sensitive to sunlight. Attached are the coordinates.
Sincerely,
Dr. Canterbury
There was no hurry to make the trek today, but she’s between jobs and burning with curiosity. Parin volunteered to take her there, and he’s a half hour late.
She’s just shaking her sleeve down over her watch when the Hummingbird putters to a stop next to her parked Finch.
She grabs one of Elegy’s spears—-spears are effective even if you haven’t mastered the finer points—-and the plant itself, covered in an old T--shirt to protect it from the sun, and leaves the trailer.
The passenger door of Parin’s Hummingbird pops open. He’s wearing a blue plastic visor for some reason.
“Hey there, sugar,” he says. “Want to go for a ride?”
“Little old me?” Hela says. “Are you sure there’s not some other girl you want to sweep off her feet?”
She sits in the passenger’s seat and closes the door behind her. The plant is cradled in her lap.
“Who is this Dr. Canterbury guy, anyway?” Parin says, and he flicks one of the air vents so it’s pointing at her.
The inside of his Hummingbird is covered in crumbs and wrappers. She tries not to think about what she might be crushing beneath her boots.
“Don’t know, actually,” she says. “He posted the job last week and it sounded weird and not too close to Talusar territory, so I took it.”
“And then it started to connect you to a beautiful stranger. Are you going to leave it with him?”
“I don’t know.” Hela squeezes the plant tighter to her chest.
“You hear the rumor about the Sundial?” Parin says, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. He could just set the autonav to take them to their destination, but she’s never known Parin to sit that still for that long.
“What, that it was built by a society of aliens that have secretly infiltrated Cedre government?”
Parin laughs. “Nah—-the Sword wants it converted to a museum, like she said on Evacuation Day. But the rumor is, the staff is just . . . not doing it, and hoping she doesn’t notice.”
“She’s the Sword. She’ll notice.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Parin shrugs. “I’m not sure why the Sundial is in her purview anyway—-she’s not our only leader.”
It’s technically true—-Cedre has a council of elected leaders called the Quorum who handle all the other aspects of government, resource distribution and the economy and transportation and criminal justice.
But the Sword is in charge of the military, so for a nation at war, she’s pretty much the queen of all the land.
“You ever think about trying to get on board the Sundial when it launches?” he says. “I hear they’re still looking for people. You could be a janitor or something.”
“The worst janitor they have,” she says, with a laugh. “I don’t know. I guess I’d go if Elegy went. But I’m kind of attached to this Earth.”
“Yeah,” Parin sighs.
It’s where Hela and Elegy part ways. Elegy’s always been interested in the Sundial, in finding out what else—-and who else—-is out there, in the end of struggling against the Talusar.
She probably feels that way because of the prophecy.
Wanting to stay on Earth, for Elegy, means believing what the augurs told her, means accepting that the weight of the world actually is on her shoulders.
Hela doesn’t blame her for refusing to believe that.
But Hela loves every inch of this planet. She can’t imagine going to another one. And she thinks that whoever is out there beyond Earth’s solar system is just as likely to mean Earth harm as they are to be friendly. Not worth the risk.
They fly for a while, Parin’s fingers tapping like hard rain on the wheel, electronic music playing quietly over the speakers, the desert spilling endlessly beneath them. She’s just starting to fall into a half sleep when she hears a chime.
“Getting close. You got an escape plan in case it goes sour?”
“Yeah. Fight my way out.”
“Uh . . .” Parin raises an eyebrow at her. “How are you with that spear?”
“Good enough to stab a guy. You don’t need to come in, if it sounds too exciting for you.”
“Are you kidding? I am so goddamn bored.”
He guides the Hummingbird lower to the ground, and then slows.
Dr. Canterbury appears to live right smack in the middle of a junkyard, across a cracked road from a strip of ruins.
She’s hard--pressed to find an actual lodging amid all the rusting cars, piles of tires, and heaps of scrap as tall as a house, but eventually the collection of nonsense resolves into an actual concrete structure.
She assumes that’s where they’re headed.
Parin parks next to the tower of old cars, and doesn’t lock his doors, so they can make a quick getaway if necessary. Hela gets out, secures her spear across her back, bundles the plant under one arm, and leads the way to the good doctor’s house.
The man himself pops up in the doorway before she gets to it. In some ways, he’s exactly what she expected: rangy and worn, his skin browned by the sun, his unkempt hair tied back with a bandana. But he seems steadier than what she imagined—-his eyes aren’t wild, he’s not twitchy. Good signs.
“You’re Dreadful?” he says to her. She would be impressed that he guessed right, except she’s obviously the one carrying the plant.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Who’s this?” he says, nodding to Parin.
“My friend,” she says. “I’m not going into your house by myself, no offense.”
“None taken, though we can just do the exchange here.”
“That’s the thing,” Hela says. “I don’t want money for this. I want information.”
“Information.”
She nods. “Before I hand anything over, I want to know what you know about it.”
She expects resistance. But instead, Dr. Canterbury’s eyes light up like a kid with a stack of birthday presents.
Well, shit, she thinks. She should have asked for money.
“I am always happy to supply information for seekers of the truth,” he says. “Please, come in, both of you.”
Hela glances at Parin, who mouths seekers of the truth at her, and together they follow Dr. Canterbury into his house.
The house is dark. All the windows are covered with black fabric.
What little light there is comes from beneath: strips of light fixed to the edges of tables and desks, fish tanks, plant grow lights, a few glowing orbs on metal stands, lamps with hot wax bubbling up inside them, spotlights pointed directly at walls.
She’s never been in a place with so much stuff in it.
Most of it appears to be random: books stacked without any regard for subject or title, news-papers strewn across desks, plates and cups and mugs, computer keyboards, star charts, old photographs, busted clocks set to the wrong times, and in one corner, in one of the tanks, a rubber snake.
Dr. Canterbury leads them into the next room, which appears fractionally more organized than the rest of the house. In the center of the space is a table with junk arranged on it, mostly metal parts, but each one is labeled carefully.
The metal looks familiar to her.
Parin leans over the scrap, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Before I begin,” the doctor says, “can I see the plant?”
“Sure.” Hela carefully lifts the old T--shirt, exposing the plant to the dim room. The light from its leaves reflects in Dr. Canterbury’s glasses. He lets out something like a gasp, and brings his hands together in front of his chest, almost like he’s praying.
“My, my,” he says. “How beautiful! I’ve only ever seen a cutting. May I?”
She doesn’t want to give it to him, but she’s not sure how she can avoid it.
If she tries to abscond with it after he gives her the information she needs, things could get ugly.
Surely there are weapons somewhere in this scrap heap of a house, and the man’s reverence for the plant could easily turn to fervor.
Besides, it’s just a goddamn plant.
She sighs, and offers it to him. He takes it in both hands, gingerly, and sets it on the table near the labeled scrap. He takes a small magnifier out of his pocket, and looks at the plant’s leaves through it.
“What are you going to do with it?” she says.
“I’ll run some tests,” he says. “See if I can get it to propagate.”
“Will you have to . . . remove its leaves?” She almost winces as she asks, thinking of all those leaves stretching toward her as if toward the sun, and the calming green glow of them.
“Several of them,” the doctor confirms. “But the plant should rebound nicely. I was told they’re very resilient.”
Hela feels cold.
It’s just a plant, she reminds herself. It’s just a plant.
“You’ve seen one of these before?” she says.
“A mere piece of it,” he says. “Over the years I’ve been gathering evidence, isolating its approximate location . . . but my resources are limited, you see.”
Hela thinks of Akara telling her to find the one who makes it bloom. “The piece of it you saw . . . did it have any flowers?”
“No,” Dr. Canterbury replies. “Why?”
“No reason. How long ago did you see it?”
“Over twenty years,” the doctor says. He pulls away with the magnifier still in place over his eye, so one eyeball appears huge in his face.
“A little plant like this could live that long?”
“Yes,” Dr. Canterbury says. “If it is, as I suspect, extraterrestrial in nature.”
Hela raises her eyebrows.