Spark A Sky Chasers Novel Read online

  She looked pointedly at him. “Don’t be shy.”

  “Okay.” He grinned, and took the last one, too.

  She snatched a cookie back from him and sat on the couch near where his feet were, her thigh pressing on his toes with a comforting kind of pressure. Seth wondered if she was as aware of the contact as he was, but she seemed a million miles away. The look of concentration on her face created furrows between her eyebrows as the light from the lamp winked tiny pinpoints in the globes of her eyes.

  “You once said something strange about Captain Jones,” she finally said. “Right before the attack.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was husky, and he knew that he was looking at her in a way that could not be mistaken.

  If she noticed, she pretended not to. “You said his friends lead complicated lives.”

  “Yeah.” His throat tightened.

  She leaned toward him. “Were our parents murdered?”

  He sat up, wincing, and wrapped his arms around his knees, leaning close enough to smell the lingering trace of shampoo on her hair. But what she wanted to talk about was ugly, so he leaned away again and pulled himself together. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing, but…” She brushed cookie crumbs off her hands. “Can I show you something?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She went to a box hidden behind a large loom, pulled a single photograph from it, and handed it to Seth. It showed Waverly’s father as a young man, the gray just beginning at his temples, standing with Captain Jones, looking as though the two had just shared a private joke.

  “So?” Seth asked her.

  “Look,” she said, and turned the photo over to show writing on the back: Galen and Eddie, discovery of phyto-lutein. “That’s my mom’s handwriting,” Waverly said darkly.

  Seth looked at her, not comprehending.

  “Never once has my mother ever called the Captain by his first name.” She sat back on the couch, her eyes on Seth’s, deadly serious. “She’s never said so, but I’ve always felt that she hated him,” she said, then seemed to hear herself. “Hates, I mean.”

  Seth nodded. “Do you think your mom knows something?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why would she lie to you?”

  “To protect me,” Waverly said, without a hint of doubt. “That’s not all, though. Seth, I’ve combed through the ship’s public logs. Hardly anything was written about it. They said the accident was caused by a malfunction in the air lock that had come from a faulty installation.”

  That didn’t sound right. “If the problem occurred at installation…”

  “It should have shown up the first time the air lock was used.”

  “Then the thing to do is find out how many times that air lock was used before—”

  “Thirty-five times that air lock was opened, all without incident. I looked through all the maintenance logs since the Empyrean launched.”

  “It’s not evidence, but I agree it sounds strange.” Seth sighed. He didn’t want to think about this. For so many years he’d protected Waverly and his father from the truth getting out, but maybe his hiding the truth was only tormenting her. As for his father, nothing could hurt him now.

  “I can’t find anything more,” she said. “Not without sneaking into the Captain’s suite and reading Captain Jones’s private log.”

  “You think you’ll find anything there?” Seth said ruefully. “You’ll just find more of the same lies.”

  “Lies,” she said thoughtfully, studying his face. He dropped his eyes. “You know something.”

  “I don’t know anything for sure.” He leaned the side of his head on the back of the couch. “Just some things I remember from when I was a kid.”

  “Tell me,” she said, and put her hand over his. “Please, Seth.”

  He could only look at her small hand on his larger one. He froze lest she take her hand away, until finally she did take it away and leaned back, waiting for him to begin.

  “All I have to go on is a conversation I overheard between my dad and the Captain when I was four years old. I was supposed to be taking a nap, but they woke me up.” Seth closed his eyes, letting the memory come back to him—the thing he never let himself think about that was nevertheless always there.

  The anger in his father’s voice had woken him, and he’d sat up and rubbed his eyes with pudgy fists as the two men stood in the next room hissing at each other. Seth toddled to the doorway and sat on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, listening through the crack in the door.

  “She had nothing to do with it,” Mason Ardvale had rasped to the Captain. “She couldn’t do a thing like that.”

  “Mason, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say. You can just leave.”

  “I wouldn’t make an accusation like this without evidence.” The Captain had pulled a data-dot from his pocket and walked to the computer terminal in the corner. The two men were quiet for a long time. Seth peeked into the room and saw them leaning over the vid screen, their faces awash in blue light. His father’s face was a block of impassivity, but his expression changed incrementally to one of shock, and then profound grief.

  “We have to ask her about this,” Mason Ardvale had cried. “There might be some explanation.”

  “What could possibly justify this?” the Captain had said evenly, his eyes fixed on the younger man’s face as he leaned over him, one thick hand on his shoulder.

  “Give her a chance to explain!”

  “She’ll have her chance,” the Captain had said.

  Seth’s father wouldn’t look at him, and the big man had seemed to recognize it was time to go. Captain Jones lurched out the door on his clumsy legs, his bearded chin tucked in to his chest like a man who knows he ought to look sad.

  Mom was in trouble, of that much Seth had been certain. But when his mother came home that evening, covered in crop dust from the wheat fields, her husband was darkly quiet, and when she asked him over dinner what the matter was, he cleared his expression and said with a smile, “Oh, just looking forward to having some time off.”

  So Seth had decided Mom wasn’t in that much trouble after all.

  How much time passed? A week? A month? Seth didn’t know. But later, when Seth was in the nursery, playing alone with blocks like always, an alarm sounded through the ship, red lights flashing. Seth dropped the blocks, covered his ears, and began to scream. The teachers took him by his shoulders and held him as he kicked at their shins. The other children had stared, and some began to cry.

  “I remember that,” Waverly said, jarring him into the infinitely lovelier present. “I didn’t understand why you were so upset.”

  “I still don’t understand it.”

  “Because you knew.” Waverly put a hand on his shoulder. “God. Seth, you knew your father had something to do with it!”

  “I didn’t know that for sure, and I still don’t.” He spoke more sharply than he meant. She pulled away from him. He softened his voice. “What I mean is, I don’t understand how I knew at that moment that my mother was dead. But I sensed it. It was like one moment I was playing with those stupid number blocks, and the next there was a huge hole in my life.”

  Seth had never told anyone this before, but he found that once he let himself form the words, a weight lifted away from his center. He wanted to pour all his stories into Waverly, let her have anything she wanted from him. “Maybe you’re right on some level, though. Maybe I’d expected something to happen, from the way Dad watched her when she wasn’t looking. He’d smile when she looked at him, but his smile wiped away the moment her back was turned, and he looked at her like … I don’t know … like a predator looks at something it’s going to kill. I knew that look, even at that age.” Seth raised his eyes to Waverly’s. She watched him steadily, accepting every word without judgment. “He wanted to do her harm.”

  “But why?” Waverly asked, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “Why did
they kill my dad?”

  Seth could only shake his head. “I don’t know what they did to make the Captain so mad.”

  “Mad enough to kill.” A tear slid down her face. Without thinking, Seth held the back of his finger to her cheek and pulled the tear away from her skin, pressed it with the pad of his thumb. He never took his eyes from her face.

  “Do you remember your dad?” Seth asked gently.

  “Only little flashes,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wonder if I invented the memories from things my mother has said.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “You had it worse than I did. At least my one remaining parent was nice to me,” she said, then checked herself and looked into his eyes.

  “You knew?” he said, feeling cold. “The way Dad treated me?”

  She dropped a beat, watchful and hesitant, but then she said, “Everyone did.”

  “And no one did a thing to stop it,” he said, even colder.

  “He was Captain Jones’s best friend,” Waverly said, but seemed to realize she was making excuses. “No. You’re right. It’s wrong that no one stepped in to help you.”

  “Amazing the things people get away with when they’re powerful.”

  Waverly nodded, then leaned the side of her head against the back of the couch. Her eyes had the liquid quality of sleep, but he didn’t want to stop talking. He wondered if this was some rite of passage, whispering your parents’ secrets.

  He’d always thought telling the truth about his father would feel like a betrayal, but actually it felt, for the first time, like he was being loyal to himself.

  “Seth,” Waverly said. “I need to know the truth.”

  “I don’t know how that’s ever going to happen.”

  “I don’t, either. But I’m going to make it happen.”

  She looked so determined, so strong, he wanted to kiss her. He thought that he could take her by the shoulders and press his mouth against hers, test her, see what she did. If she were any girl other than Waverly Marshall, that’s what he’d do. But one wrong move with her … He didn’t want to think how it would hurt if she rejected him once and for all.

  Still, she’d cried in front of him. Had he unlocked her, too?

  He watched her face, but she only looked back at him, examining his features as though she was still undecided about whether she could really trust him.

  She’s not yours, he reminded himself. She can’t be yours.

  “Well, you must be tired,” she said with an apologetic smile.

  Don’t go, he wanted to say. But he nodded.

  “Come on,” she said, and held out her hand to him.

  His heart leapt, but then he realized she was only helping him stand up, letting him lean on her. She took him slowly into her mother’s bedroom, where he saw she’d changed the sheets. “You’re too hurt to sleep on a couch,” she said.

  He turned to her. He knew his face was showing too much, that she could see everything he was feeling right there on the shape of his lips.

  “Good night,” she said, and turned to go to her bedroom. She looked back at him as she closed the door between them.

  “Good night,” Seth said to the empty hallway.

  ATTACK

  Kieran looked out over his congregation, beaming. The auditorium had never been this full even on a Sunday, not even after he’d made attendance mandatory. Nearly every seat was filled. Even Waverly was here, sitting in a middle row wearing a blue dress, looking up at him. Something in her manner was difficult to pinpoint. Apologetic? Guilty? Maybe she felt bad about their conversation and was here to make amends.

  He felt particularly energized about his sermon. His voice felt clearer, his words stronger, his feeling more joyful and open. He was going to reach them. He knew it.

  “Do you ever think about how you came to be on this ship instead of back on Earth, trying to scratch out a living from a planet turning into desert before your eyes? Do you ever ponder the vast set of circumstances that had to happen, in just the right order, for you to be among those chosen for the most important mission humanity has ever seen?”

  He cleared his throat, his eyes on the straight wooden edge of his podium. He brushed the sides of it, feeling the firm wood under his hands. It felt solid and true.

  “Some of you might remember Arthur Dietrich’s story. Do you? How his parents had to travel all the way across the Atlantic Ocean on a two-bit freight ship? The ship’s engine broke down five hundred miles off the coast of Greenland because of poorly refined gasoline, and they floated on the waters of the northern sea for six weeks, distilling their own water and eating only what they could catch with their fishing nets, until finally a cruiser came along and towed them into Nova Scotia. Then they had to hitch rides on the cross-continental railway, riding on the tops of railcars that weren’t meant for people, freezing at night and roasting under the sun during the day, until finally they made their way to Chicago, where they had to pass a grueling series of aptitude tests and prove their education level time and again, until finally their names were entered in a vast lottery. But it doesn’t end there. No. They weren’t chosen in the first round; did you know that? Their names were filed away as alternates, and they almost went back to Germany in defeat. After all, the mission was set to launch in only two weeks. But they decided to wait, and you know what happened? The people chosen ahead of them were killed by raiders in a random attack only four days before the Empyrean launched. That’s how Gunther and Edith Dietrich were chosen as engineers for the Empyrean crew.

  “Think about that for a minute. Think of all the things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t.” Kieran held his hands up in a gesture of wonder. “Some people might call it chance, but my heart tells me that chance doesn’t explain it. And think about the other stories you’ve heard, all the crew members who had to fight tooth and nail to be included on this vessel. Your parents. Mine.” He could see them thinking back, looking into the past as they sat in their chairs, expressions of concentration on each and every face. “For me, there’s only one conclusion. We belong here. This ship is our destiny. There’s a vast plan for each and every one of us. And everything we do is a fulfillment of that plan. Each of us is doing just what we’re meant to do, just precisely the way we’re meant to do it. That is how I know in my heart that we will not fail.”

  He paused, long enough to hear the echo of his voice ringing through the auditorium. Nothing felt more wonderful to him than these moments of silence during his sermons, when he could feel the presence of God in the room. He felt so much love, so much rightness. He was glad Waverly had come to see it. He looked at her now, her beautiful oval face and her huge eyes, the way they fastened on him. She was thinking hard about something, he could see. Was he reaching her?

  “Can you feel it?” he whispered into the microphone, then paused, waiting for the utter silence of his rapt crowd to filter through the air. “Can you feel the power of this message? I hope you keep feeling it, all day long. I hope you go on feeling it, until we can meet again tomorrow morning to renew our faith once more.”

  Now came his favorite part. He stepped aside from the podium, lifted up his hands, and shouted to the crowd, “Now it’s time for you to speak! Please step forward with your cares and concerns!”

  He was shocked when Waverly stood up without hesitation.

  “I’m concerned that we haven’t held an election yet,” Waverly said, looking right at him. “This ship is supposed to be a democracy. We need a Central Council immediately.”

  Every word was a chip of ice.

  But her comment was only the beginning of an avalanche. Sarah Hodges stood up from the middle of the congregation, fixed her angry eyes on him, and said with a nasty grin, “I’m concerned that Kieran keeps all the information to himself. We’ve got a terrorist on board, and we need to know what’s going on.”

  Kieran opened his mouth to speak, but then Melissa Dickinson rose and called out in her small voice, “I’m conce
rned that Kieran Alden is throwing people in the brig without a Justice of the Peace approving it.”

  He was in a nightmare.

  Kieran stared at the three of them, paralyzed, until Waverly cleared her throat.

  “Kieran has been doing an admirable job,” she said loudly, turning to address the entire congregation. “But he was traumatized by the attack, just like the rest of us. How can we expect him to shoulder the burden of governing this vessel all by himself? He needs some time off.” Her eyes met his, and she said clear as a bell, “With that in mind, I nominate Sarah Hodges to run against Kieran Alden in a general election for the Captain’s chair.”

  “I nominate Waverly Marshall for the Central Council,” Sarah Hodges called out.

  Suddenly the air was filled with voices, all calling out names to fill posts on board the ship.

  This had been orchestrated. They hadn’t come to hear his sermon. They’d come to attack his government.

  “Wait now! Wait!” he screamed over their heads. He hadn’t meant to sound so angry, but at least it shut them up. All two hundred and fifty kids turned to look at him. “How can we run an election while we have a terrorist on board?”

  “We can get it done in one day,” Waverly shouted over the crowd. “If you’re reelected, by tonight you could be briefing your Central Council and they could start sharing the burden.”

  He hated her for putting it like that, as if she were doing him a favor.

  Sarah Hodges started handing out slips of paper. She had hundreds of them in a packet, and the kids in the congregation took them eagerly. Kieran looked at Waverly, who looked right back at him, not a shred of remorse on her face. The last bit of admiration he’d felt for her flew away, and he realized that those lovely large eyes, that heart-shaped chin, those high cheekbones, that honey-colored skin—all made up the face of his enemy.

  “This is a schedule for debates between the nominees,” Sarah Hodges yelled into the crowd. “At the end of each debate we can vote for our favorites. In a few hours we’ll have a Central Council. Then this afternoon we can elect a Justice of the Peace, and this evening the two Captain nominees can have their debate, so you have time to prepare, Kieran.”