“Listen,” she said, finally turning. “You basically forced me to turn in my own mother, and then your brother killed her in front of everyone not two days ago.” Her eye was red with tears. “What about that situation makes you think you can ask me for anything?”
“I’m not asking,” I said. “I’m telling you what I want, and I think the people you know might want it, too. Do whatever you like, but it’s not really about you, is it?”
The patch she wore over her eye was thicker than usual, and the skin that showed above it had a sheen, like she had spent the day sweating. Maybe she had; the quarters of maintenance workers were close to the churning machinery that kept the ship running.
“How are we supposed to trust you?” she said in a low voice.
“You’re desperate, and so am I,” I said. “Desperate people make stupid decisions all the time.”
The hatch on the port side of the transport vessel opened, spotting the floor with light.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. She jerked her chin toward the ship. “Do you even do anything useful in that thing? Or just make nice with politicians?” She shook her head. “Don’t suppose you royals go on scavenges, do you?”
“I do, actually,” I said, defensive. But it was stupid to pretend, with someone like her, that my life had been anything but privileged by comparison to hers. After all, she was the one-eyed girl with no family left to speak of, who lived in a closet.
Teka grunted a little, then turned back to the wires.
Akos was looking at Vas—sitting across from us—like he was about to lunge at his throat. Two seats down from him was Yma, dressed elegantly as always, her long, dark skirt arranged to cover her ankles. She looked like she was having tea at a sovereign’s breakfast rather than strapped into a hard chair on a spaceship. Eijeh was in the seat closest to the toilet, his eyes closed. There were others between Yma and Eijeh: our cousin Vakrez and his husband, Malan, and Suzao Kuzar—his wife was too ill to make the journey, he claimed. And beside the captain, Rel, was Ryzek.
“What was the planet the Examiners actually selected, based on the current’s movement?” Yma called out to Ryzek. “Ogra?”
“Yes, Ogra,” Ryzek said with a laugh, over his shoulder. “As if that would have done us any good.”
“Sometimes the current chooses,” Yma said, leaning her head back. “And sometimes we do.”
It almost sounded like wisdom.
The engines hummed at the touch of a few buttons, then Rel pulled the lever for the hover mechanism and the ship lifted from the ground, shuddering a little. The loading bay doors opened, displaying the northern hemisphere of the water planet beneath us.
It was covered entirely by clouds, the whole planet embroiled in a storm. The cities—obscured from view now—were buoyant, built to shift with the rising and falling water levels, and to withstand strong winds and rain and lightning. Rel urged the ship forward, and we shot into space, for a moment clutched in the empty embrace of darkness.
It took no time at all for us to enter the atmosphere. The sudden pressure made me feel like my body was collapsing in on itself; I heard someone in the back of the ship retching. I clenched my teeth and forced myself to keep my eyes open. The descent was my favorite part, when huge stretches of land opened up beneath us—or in this case, water, since with the exception of a few soggy landmasses, this place was entirely submerged.
A gasp of pleasure escaped me when we broke through the cloud layer. Rain drummed on the roof, and Rel turned on the visualizer so he didn’t have to try to peer through the droplets. But past the drops and visualizer screen, I saw huge, frothy waves, blue-gray-green, and globular glass buildings adrift on the surface, enduring the crash of the water.
I couldn’t help it—I glanced at Akos, whose face was frozen in shock.
“At least it’s not Trella,” I said to him, hoping to bring him back to himself. “The skies are full of birds. Huge mess when they all hit the windshield. Had to scrape them off with a knife.”
“You did that yourself, did you?” Yma said to me. “How charming.”
“Yes, you’ll find I have a high tolerance for disgusting things,” I replied. “I employ it regularly. I’m sure you do, too.”
Yma closed her eyes rather than answer. But before she did, I thought I saw her glance at Ryzek. One of the disgusting things she tolerated, I was sure.
I had to admire her talent for survival.
We shot over the waves, the ship battered somewhat by the powerful wind, for a long time. From above, the waves looked like wrinkled skin. Most people found Pitha monotonous, but I loved how it mimicked the sprawl of space.
We flew above one of the many floating trash piles the Shotet would soon land on to scavenge. It was larger than I had imagined, the size of a city sector at least, and covered with heaps of metal in all different shades. I wanted more than anything to land on it, to sort through whatever wet artifacts it held for something of value. But we flew on.
The capital city of Pitha, Sector 6—the Pithar were not famous for their poetic names, to say the least—floated on the gray-black seas near the planet’s equator. The buildings looked like bubbles adrift, though they were anchored with a vast, submerged support structure that, I had heard, was a miracle of engineering, upheld by the best-salaried maintenance workers in all the galaxy. Rel guided our ship to the landing pad, and through the windows I watched a mechanical structure extend toward us from one of the nearby buildings—a tunnel, it seemed, to keep us from getting soaked through. A shame. I wanted to feel the rain.