The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 18

18

Scout returned to the hospital room to find Geeta awake and Emilie out of the world of the virtual library. They were standing close together speaking in whispers, and they looked up, startled, as Scout came into the room. Geeta looked relieved to see that is was her and not a hospital worker. Emilie did too, for a flash, but then she scowled at Scout.

“He got to you,” she accused.

“No,” Scout said, turning away to herd both dogs into the room and close the door before unclipping their leashes.

“Yes, he did,” Emilie said, walking closer to her to examine her face. Scout felt her cheeks flush but met Emilie’s eyes unflinchingly. “Yep. You’ve picked a side.”

“I haven’t,” Scout insisted. “I did accept his invitation to see his ship, but that seems only fair.”

“A-ha,” Emilie said, crossing her arms. “How did he get to you? Promise you your own moon, or just gaze at you with those gorgeously dark eyes of his?”

Scout faltered with her answer, momentarily distracted by Emilie’s assessment of Bo’s eyes. Were they attractive? She hadn’t noticed. She wouldn’t have thought Emilie would notice such a thing either.

Then she gave herself a shake. “It wasn’t like that. Believe me, I’ve had that done to me once, and I’m never falling for it again.”

She spoke with a shade more passion than she had intended, but it made Emilie take a step back and hold up her hands in surrender.

“Okay,” Emilie said. “But seriously, Scout. What’s changed?”

Scout thought about keeping what she had a secret, but that seemed like a lousy way to treat the girls who had become her friends. She pulled her hand out of her pocket and held out the two crystal eggs.

“What are these?” Emilie asked.

“Look through them,” Scout said. She hated the way her voice was already choking up, but she swallowed it down and kept her gaze steady on first Emilie and then Geeta as she stepped around her sister’s coffin to take one of the eggs. They both peered into them for a long moment, then traded a glance as they traded eggs.

Finally, they lowered the eggs and placed them back onto Scout’s palm. Scout saw Geeta clutch at the neckline of her jumpsuit and knew she was really touching the little data recorder she wore hanging from her neck, the one that contained every video and image she had of her own dead parents.

“Sorry,” Emilie said.

“He hasn’t won me over,” Scout said, putting the eggs back in her pocket. “But I did agree to go over there. Perhaps we should all go. We can talk to his doctors, tour his medical facility. Pry into whatever we want to. We should know, whatever we choose, that we made as informed a choice as we could.”

Geeta looked back at her sister. “I can’t go. But you two should.”

“Do we want to be split up like that?” Emilie asked.

“It will be safe,” Geeta said, settling back into her customary chair. “The tribunal enforcers won’t let anyone cheat.”

“They won’t let them outright break the law,” Emilie said. “But everyone here is furiously cheating as much as they can get away with.”

Geeta just shrugged, not arguing the point.

“All right, I’ll go with Scout to see the other Tajaki ship,” Emilie agreed. “But only because I don’t think Scout should go alone. But what about the dogs?”

“Perhaps they should stay here,” Geeta suggested. “Bo might try to take them from you under some pretext, turn them into hostages.”

Scout bit her lip hard, looking down at the sleeping face of Seeta under the glass cover, the constant warm breeze the rest of them couldn’t feel dancing through her hair. It was far too late to worry about hostages.

“Room, can you ask Sparrow to join us?” Emilie said.

“She’s on her way,” the disembodied voice replied.

“Do you really think it’s the room itself that listens and talks?” Scout whispered to Emilie.

Emilie grinned back. “Obviously not. It’s a person listening in and answering over a speaker too small to see. We have that kind of tech back home. Still, any opportunity to encourage them to underestimate us is an opportunity not to be missed.”

The door chimed a moment later, and Emilie let Sparrow in. Sparrow smiled up at them all expectantly.

“Listen, Sparrow,” Emilie said. “Scout and I are making a little trip over to the other ship. We won’t stay long, but can you hang here with Geeta? Just in case the dogs need anything.”

“Sure,” Sparrow said. “You’re going to the other ship?” There was no disguising the disappointment in her voice.

“Just to see,” Scout said. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

“We want to be fair,” Emilie said.

“Okay,” Sparrow said, but she didn’t sound convinced. Scout remembered what it was like, that first year after her family had gone. It felt like everywhere she went, people kept abandoning her all over again. They had just been going about their normal lives, none of it had actually been about Scout, but at ten it was hard to see that.

Scout gave Sparrow a hug, which caught the girl by surprise. “The dogs were just at the park, so they’ll probably nap now. I hope we didn’t pull you away from engineering?”

“No, I was just wandering the marketplace,” Sparrow said. “I’ll see you when you get back?”

“Of course,” Scout said. Then she and Emilie were out the door.

Scout had no idea where the airlock between the two ships was located, but Emilie had been studying both ships’ schematic—among a thousand other things—when she was accessing the libraries and knew just where to go.

“I’m worried about Geeta,” Scout said, keeping her voice low, although she had no idea if anyone was still listening in. “Bo seems a much more honorable person than the Months, and I think we’d be safer there, as well as it being a better choice for all the descendants of the colony ship Tajaki 47, but I don’t know how we can make her see that.”

“She doesn’t trust the Months,” Emilie told her. “We were just talking about it when you came in. But she does trust Dr. Tajaki. Geeta has a little training and a lot of natural gift when it comes to reading people.”

“So there’s going to be no moving her?” Scout asked.

“Probably not,” Emilie said. “But I’m going to examine every bit of the medical area to be sure they have everything Seeta might need and then persuade the doctors to go over to see Geeta. Their words won’t sway her, but her read of them just might.”

“I suppose that’s the best we can do,” Scout said. They had crossed the marketplace and were back in the labyrinth of corridors carved out of the metal. Emilie kept them to the large main hallway, walking with determined steps.

“I’m not sure we can trust either side here,” Emilie said. “What Bo told us appears true, but there are lots of little things that aren’t quite right. I think he skirts the laws a bit more adeptly than the Months. He hides what he’s up to better. The Months didn’t even know he was here, and they have access to the same tech he does. I think that makes him more dangerous.”

“To us?” Scout asked.

“Maybe not the three of us,” Emilie said. “But to all of the people of Amatheon? He might not be the best choice.”

“I wish the Torreses had got to us first,” Scout said, dropping her voice even lower.

“We all wish that,” Emilie said. “And yet they didn’t. We have to go on from where we are.”

The airlock meshed perfectly with the end of the hallway; the only sign they were in a different space was the walls going from machined metal to a bright white plasticky material.

Bo’s ship was nothing like the Months’ ship. When they reached the end of the airlock, the corridor became a rich, honey-gold material that Scout just had to touch. It felt warm, like a living thing.

“Wood?” Scout asked.

“A remarkable simulation,” Emilie said. Her tone was trying for sarcastic, but there was no hiding the fact that she did find the material remarkable.

The lights spaced along the walls flickered warmly, like flames dancing over gas spigots, but that too was just illusion.

The corridor ended in a square room where two people were waiting for them, a short man of late middle age with squinty eyes and very pale skin and a woman of about thirty with a cheerful smile and her long, black hair pulled up into a high ponytail, the ends of it still reaching her waist behind her. Both of them were dressed all in royal blue, tight leggings over slipper-like shoes and long tunics. Frank had another sleeveless vest over his tunic. It fell past his knees, but Scout guessed what he wanted it for was the many bulging pockets.

“Greetings, Scout Shannon, Emilie Tonnelier,” the woman said, upping the wattage of her smile a few ticks. “I am Rona, the first mate of this vessel, and this is Frank, the head librarian.” Frank stepped up to Emilie with a little bow.

“Taking me straight to the library, I see,” Emilie said.

“Not at all,” Frank insisted. “Unless that is what you wish to see first. I am at your disposal. Name your destination, and I shall show it to you. Ask your question, and I shall do my very best to answer you.”

“You’re splitting us up?” Scout asked.

“Unless you object? Mr. Tajaki thought this would be more efficient,” Rona said.

Scout noticed that only two people were waiting. Had they known Geeta wouldn’t come, or just guessed?

“I don’t see your dogs,” Rona said, looking around Scout in case she had missed them.

“No, they stayed with Geeta,” Scout said, but her eyes were on Emilie, silently asking, Should we let them split us up?

Emilie gave the smallest of nods before turning to Frank. “I would actually like to see the bridge first,” she said.

“Certainly. Right this way,” Frank said, making a sweeping gesture with his hands.

“And you?” Rona asked Scout.

“I’m not sure what I should see,” Scout admitted. “Emilie is the one who knows how to evaluate stuff.”

“I have a standard tour I give to visiting dignitaries. Shall we start with that?” Rona offered.

“Sure,” Scout said.

“Feel free to interrupt me at any time. I’m here to serve you,” Rona said. “Mr. Tajaki is dealing with a business matter at the moment, but he will signal me when he is ready to receive you.”

“Okay,” Scout said. She felt very out of place all of a sudden. It was probably the phrase “visiting dignitaries” that had done it.

Rona smiled again and gestured for Scout to accompany her down a different hallway than Frank had taken Emilie.

“The wood and gaslights are nice,” Scout said as they walked side by side down the long corridor.

“Aren’t they? It’s one of my favorite looks as well. But Mr. Tajaki creates new decorative programs every so often, so the look of the ship changes at his whim. But they are all lovely,” she was quick to add. “Mr. Tajaki has excellent taste.”

“Do you have a park here like they do on the other ship?” Scout asked.

“Indeed we do,” Rona said. “A bit smaller, but then so is the ship.” She paused to exchange nods with a couple passing the other way. They also wore all royal blue; the woman wore a long skirt and the man’s arms were bare but he had a hood up over his head.

This variety of all-royal-blue outfits was making her nervous. It was eerily like the people in the black not-uniforms who had kidnapped and tortured Liam and later instigated the violence that had killed so many of Emilie and the Malini sisters’ friends.

Not to mention the woman in black who had pushed Seeta out into space.

“Is something the matter?” Rona asked.

“Why all the blue?” Scout asked.

“Oh, that’s just the current thing,” Rona said with a dismissive wave. “Like the wood and lights, that changes when Mr. Tajaki grows tired of it.”

“And everyone just goes along?” Scout asked.

“I don’t understand,” Rona said with a little frown.

“You don’t get to pick what you wear?”

“Of course we do,” Rona said. “Well, the tunic and leggings are required when I’m on duty, but when I’m off duty, I can wear what I like.”

“But it will be all the same shade of blue,” Scout said.

“When that’s what Mr. Tajaki has chosen,” Rona said. “All of our clothing is provided for us by the Tajaki trade dynasty. It’s the very finest in the galaxy. You’ll always be at a comfortable temperature, it adjusts to fit you even if you indulge a bit and your size changes, and it compensates for people with sensitivities to scratchy or rough fabrics. It’s fantastic.”

“But when he wants it to be blue, he programs it all to be blue,” Scout said.

“He changes it up before we’re all sick of it,” Rona said. “I’m hoping for red next. I look stunning in red.”

“But he wore ivory when I met him,” Scout said. She cast her mind back to that very morning. She hadn’t really paid attention to his clothing at the time, but she was noticing things now. “He’s wearing gray today.”

“But he’s Mr. Tajaki. He’s not an employee.”

The corridor ended in a balcony, and Rona waved Scout to join her at the railing. They were looking down into a large open space filled with trees and grass and fountains. It looked like it was the heart of the ship, the arching ceiling above simulating sunlight streaming down through gleaming windows to light the little world below.

And everywhere were people dressed all in royal blue. Two women were wading in a little pond wearing skimpy outfits that seemed to be made entirely of strings, and even those strings were all blue.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Rona said, tipping her face up towards the warmth of the artificial sunlight.

“Yeah,” Scout said because she had to say something.

The ship was beautiful, and the people inside it all seemed perfectly content, happy even. And yet the whole place was creeping Scout out.

Did Bo have something over all of these people? Blackmail? Hypnotic control? Or were they just this genuinely happy to have their whole world depend on the aesthetic whims of their boss?