The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 10

10

Scout hugged Shadow close and stepped out onto that scarlet carpet. Her feet sunk into its lush depth. She could only imagine what it would feel like to walk barefoot across such softness. Even through the soles of her canvas shoes, it was like a delightful massage.

Geeta followed close behind and to the left of Scout, her hands ready on the grappler no one had asked her to leave behind. Emilie had a little trouble convincing Gert to step out onto that strange floor, to walk between two masses of strangers, more people than Gert was used to since she was quite a young puppy living alone on the streets of one of the domed cities. But she trusted Emilie nearly as much as she trusted Scout and finally allowed herself to be led through the double doors.

The crowd had been murmuring amongst themselves when Caleb had thrown the doors open, but they all fell into silence as the three of them crossed the room. A few leaned together to whisper behind cupped hands, but most just watched them walk by. Their chaotic mix of clothing and general attitude reminded Scout of the black market hidden in the depths of Amatheon Orbiter 1. In fact, a few looked downright familiar, and she wouldn’t be surprised to find they were the same people. If they all worked for the Months, that made sense.

And now they had been summoned to court.

Mai and Jun watched them approach without a word. Mai had a warm smile on her lips, but Jun was fidgeting in her chair, drumming her fingers on the arms and bouncing her knees. Finally, she gave up the attempt to sit still and jumped up to pace the dais behind the two chairs.

Caleb paused for a moment at the bottom of the dais, then bowed and stepped to one side. Scout, not certain if she was meant to follow but very certain she was not about to bow to anybody, stopped with the toes of her blue-with-white-polka-dot sneakers at the very edge of the carpet. Geeta drew up beside her, then Emilie stepped up on Scout’s right side. Gert looked up at the two women towering over them and dropped into her lopsided sit, her pelvis rolling so she rested rather indelicately on one hip.

“Welcome,” Mai said, spreading her hands as if to encompass the room and everyone in it.

“Okay,” Emilie said guardedly.

“Since we picked you up, we’ve flown out of your planet’s atmosphere and are making our way to the barricade gate. Once the tribunal enforcers let us pass, we’ll be on our way to galactic central, but in the meantime, we do hope you’ll join us for a meal.”

She indicated a room off to the right with a tilt of her head, but Scout needed no hint as to which direction the food was. The air was thick with smells: fresh-baked bread, sizzling meat, roasted vegetables, caramelized onions. Even Shadow in her arms finally perked up a bit, lifting his head to sniff at the air. Gert was smelling it too.

“Strings attached?” Emilie said, not exactly a question.

“No strings attached, my dear Emilie,” Mai said. Jun made a low growling sound in her throat and ceased her pacing to lean over the back of her sister’s chair but still said not a word. Mai gave her a little glance and then turned back to Emilie. “I’m sure warm, fresh food must be welcome to you. I can’t imagine what you were living on in that abandoned station.”

Emilie didn’t answer, but Mai gave her another smile like that was exactly what she expected.

Caleb might think that Jun was fascinated with Scout for whatever reason, but Scout suspected that paled in comparison to the regard Mai had for Emilie.

“Well, shall we?” Mai asked, getting up from her chair with a completely superfluous swirl of her scarlet robe.

“Just like that? No questions first?” Emilie asked.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Mai asked over her shoulder as she stepped down from the dais and passed through the open doorway to the room beyond. Her sister jogged to catch up with her, her own scarlet robe billowing out behind her a bit less elegantly. Caleb emerged from the edge of the crowd to hurry after them, hands clasped together as always.

Emilie turned to look at Scout and Geeta, her eyebrows raised so high they had disappeared behind the thick whorls of her candy-red hair. “What. The. Heck,” she said.

“They’re playing with us,” Geeta said.

“What do we do?” Scout said.

“I guess we go in and eat,” Emilie said, but none of them took a step off the carpet.

The crowds around them were starting to flow through the doorway. Scout could see the end of a long table covered in bowls of food, baskets of bread, and decorative lights that had a warm hue almost like actual candlelight. It would have to be a long table indeed to seat so many.

“They’re not going to make us sit with them or anything?” Geeta said. “This is really weird.”

Scout was about to agree when a voice cried out over the din of the moving crowd. “Seeta!”

Geeta flinched, turning away from the crowd before they could see the sharp pain that tightened her features. Emilie stepped up to put a hand on her arm in comfort, but her eyes were scanning the crowd.

Then Scout saw her, the girl of no more than ten she had seen from a distance but never met. She had warm brown skin and hair gathered on top of her head that sprouted out of the ponytail holder like a smooth globe over the top of her head.

What was her name again? Her brother Hal had been a close friend of Seeta’s, might have been more than a friend if he hadn’t died so suddenly from an assassin’s poison dart. The same assassin, in fact, that had pushed Seeta off the hangar deck and out into space.

“Sparrow!” Scout called, finally remembering the girl’s name. But the girl who had just stopped in front of them, carefully not on the carpet, looked at her in puzzlement. “You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Seeta’s.”

“Yeah,” Sparrow said, eyebrows furrowed together as she looked from Scout to Geeta, who still wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m sorry, I should explain,” Scout said. “This is Seeta’s sister, Geeta.”

“Oh, hi,” Sparrow said, brightening. “I remember now. Twins, right?”

“Yes,” Geeta said.

“So where’s Seeta?” Sparrow asked, looking around as if she might have missed seeing her when the three had made their long progression down the hall.

“She’s not here,” Scout said carefully, glancing up at Emilie.

“Not here?” Sparrow said.

“Sparrow, I’m so sorry. You do know about your brother, don’t you?” Scout asked.

Sparrow’s face fell. “Yeah. Some of the others told me. No one caught the woman who did it either.”

“I’d like to,” Geeta said, one hand tensing into a fist. “I intend to.”

“But no one knows who she is,” Sparrow said.

“No one? No one here knows?” Emilie asked.

“Yeah. Not even the Months. They are awfully curious about her though. I think they were hoping you knew?” Her voice trailed off, but Scout gave a sad shake of her head.

“We couldn’t catch her, and we don’t know who she is,” Scout said.

“So where’s Seeta?” Sparrow asked again. It was obvious there would be no distracting her from that point.

Scout looked at Emilie and Geeta. She wasn’t sure she knew how to craft a convincing lie.

Then, to her surprise, Geeta just blurted out the truth. “That assassin tried to kill her. Nearly succeeded. Seeta is in stasis back on our ship.”

“Stasis?” Sparrow repeated, alarmed. “She’s alive though?”

Geeta couldn’t answer. Emilie gave a little shrug.

“But they can help her here,” Sparrow said, clutching at Geeta’s arm. “There’s a whole hospital in this place. Why did you leave her behind in that dinky little ship?”

“She’s safe,” Geeta tried to assure her, but Sparrow was already gone, fleeing into the dining hall. The low murmur of voices that had traveled with the crowd as it exited the room was becoming a din of revelry on the other side of that doorway.

“Does she have pull with those two?” Emilie asked as they watched Sparrow run straight up to where the two sisters sat at the head of the table and make some passionate plea, hands pressed together in supplication.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything,” Scout said. “If they take her to the hospital, they’ll put her in a pod or hook her up to a machine or something, and we won’t be able to move her. And there is no escape for the three of us without her.”

“We won’t be escaping,” Geeta said stiffly. “Not from this place. It’s quite impossible.”

“They might use her against you,” Scout said, but her voice dropped off as Geeta turned to fix her with an icy stare. “Sorry. You’re right. If they can help her, this is what we have to do.”

Sparrow came skipping back, Caleb hurrying along behind her, a look of grave concern on his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he nearly wailed. “I would have taken her to the hospital immediately, even before taking you to the audience chamber. Oh, I wish you had said something.”

“We said something now,” Geeta said, her voice still cold.

“I shall see to the transport of your sister at once,” he said. “Why don’t you join Sparrow at the table? I don’t expect you to make merry with the others, but do get some warm food in you. I’ll send someone to fetch you the very moment we have your sister stabilized in a medical pod. Please?”

Geeta gave another curt nod, and a look of profound relief washed over his face. He waved them on towards the dining room, waiting for each of them to step off the end of the carpet and follow Sparrow towards the dining hall before finally turning away and jogging back to the hangar.

Shadow started stirring in Scout’s arms, excited by the plethora of food smells that filled the room. Sparrow led them to an open spot further down the table, then reached for bowl after bowl, filling their plates with great heaps of steaming food with impressive speed. She even prepared two smaller plates with slices of meat and set them on the ground for the dogs. Shadow nearly fell out of Scout’s arms, so anxious was he to get down and get at that meat before Gert could eat it all.

“You don’t blame us for what happened to your brother?” Geeta asked.

“No,” Sparrow said around a mouthful of bread. “He knew it was risky, but he said he had to do it. And that was only partly for Seeta and the rest of you. Mostly it was because the Months needed him to do it. And he knew how important that was, even though he didn’t exactly know who the Months were. It’s kind of sad he never got to meet them. You can talk to them about him if you like. They valued him highly.”

Emilie started to scoff but quickly pretended she was coughing. She exchanged a glance with Scout, and Scout knew they were both thinking the same thing. The Months seemed to value everyone highly. But words were cheap. When it really mattered, what would they do to show what that value meant to them?

Scout was afraid that they would soon find out, and that Seeta was going to be their test case.