CHAPTER 11

“W hoa! You look like Star Rovers!” Sam takes a step back and stares up at me and Ballga with admiration twinkling in his big aqua eyes. We’d just stepped out of the engine room, still in our jumpsuits and face shields, when the kid careened into us at full speed, chasing after a hoverball.

I lift my face shield and squint against the light that feels too bright after seeing the world through shaded slits all morning. “Star Rovers? What’re those?”

Sam practically explodes with enthusiasm. “There are five of them and they have masks like that.” He points to the shield perched atop my head. “Each mask is a different colour. And each colour goes with a different power. Yellow Rover’s my favourite. He has lightning power. But you and Ballga look like Green Rover and Blue Rover, and anyway, when they battle, their armour combines into this giant Robo Rover.” He stands on his tiptoes and stretches his arms up over his head then around in a circle. “And—”

“And more importantly”—Ballga rubs her hip with one hand as she lifts her headgear over her pointy ears and hooks the helmet under the crook of her arm—“no hoverball in the hallway. Take that thing outside before you cause a more serious collision.”

“Okay! Sorry, Ballga!”

I can’t help smiling as Sam obediently picks up his ball, then drop-kicks it toward the open exit hatch, truly desiring to please, yet not understanding the spirit of Ballga’s orders in the slightest. The ball whizzes out over the sand, then hovers above the lapping, blue-green tide until Sam gets close. He launches his foot at the ball. The toy dodges his kick. Sam’s arms pinwheel, then he topples backward into the water with a splash, laughing.

I jerk my chin toward the open hatch before we turn and make for the lounge. “What’s his story? I mean, obviously he’s not yours or Mitchell’s, but you all seem”—I hesitate as the lounge door hisses open and we step through—“well, like family.”

Ballga gives me an appraising look and pads toward the kitchenette without responding.

Not going to lie, Granny Cat scared the living shit out of me this morning. I was standing on the beach, watching the sun rise over softly lapping turquoise waters and feeling unusually at peace with spending more than a few seconds standing still, when Ballga came up behind me. She’d approached so silently I didn’t hear her even with my aural mods. When she cleared her throat, I turned and screamed like an air quality siren in a mineshaft .

Ballga had blood dripping from her mouth and the mangled carcass of a wild animal thrown over her shoulder like a rucksack. She looked scary as hell. But she’d come to apologize and ask if I’d help with the light drive.

Apparently when you’re a true carnivore evolved from a deadly, predatorial species, nothing relieves stress like ripping into the throat of live prey. The grumpiness of yesterday was gone, and she was ready to make peace. Perfect, since I’d resolved to play friendly with the Tileah in order to investigate Vince’s comment about the crew.

Ballga’s actually not that bad to work with. And she’s smart, especially for someone without mods. Her plan to distill the necessary ingredients for light drive fluid from chemical components she had on hand for other uses was impressive.

It’s just that my way is quicker. My mind holds a catalogue of every known chemical formula, and my brain’s always rearranging them to fit together in new combinations, the same way I remix sounds when I DJ. I showed her a quicker method of reprocessing the spent light drive fuel that will cut the four-day distillation process in half.

Over the course of the morning, I’ve worked up the nerve to engage in friendlier conversation. Still, asking about Sam might be pushing it. Ballga seems like the type to close off completely if I pry too hard.

“Never mind, it’s not my business,” I say quickly .

Ballga silently grabs two mugs and fills them with steaming water, then dumps a heaping spoonful of powdered coffee in each. The spoon clinks against ceramic as she stirs.

“Sam and his mother were refugees,” she says finally. I blink in surprise when she hands me one of the mugs. I had assumed the second cup was for Mitchell. “Came to us looking to get off-planet. Almost two years ago, now.”

She sips her coffee and eyes me as I break an extra caffeine pill over my mug. I refrain from adding a second or third like I normally would. “His mother?”

“Sheela. She’d been working double and triple shifts in the mines since Sam’s father died, and she was sick with overexposure to raw Delirium. Never seen Miner’s Sickness so bad in someone so young.”

“Oh God…” My stomach twists at the thought of bright, exuberant Sam watching his mother waste away at the hands of such a gruesome disease.

I’d only read about Miner’s Sickness before living in the Underground. So much distance separated me from the afflicted that it didn’t seem real. But in the Underground, I saw the reality of the disease up close and personal—right there in the rasping, hobbling, walking dead who came back from the mines.

Before humans came to Varus, native Varuns mined Delirium in small quantities for medicinal and religious uses. Varuns are amphibious, naturally suited to the underground aquifers where glowing Delirium deposits accumulate.

My ancestors took over and exploited the native sentients, sending them deeper, for longer periods than they had ever gone before. Miners came back struggling to breathe. Blue skin turned black and sloughed off in thick hunks. Bodies slowly shut down. They’d become weak, then paralyzed, then blind. After months of torture, they’d die. Eventually medics discovered that overexposure to raw Delirium inhibited the amphibious characteristics of the Varuns’ skin, decreasing their ability to take in oxygen until they died a slow, painful death by asphyxiation.

None of which stopped humans from continuing to send Varuns to the mines.

I raise the warm mug to my mouth, then lower it. I can’t drink.

Ballga’s eyes follow the path of my mug as she continues her story. “Sheela could hardly walk when we left Varus for Enethea. She knew she didn’t have long. Said she had family there who could care for Sam when she was gone. Said she wanted to take her last step on free soil, knowing her son would never be forced to go to the mines. But she didn’t make it. She died in the very bunk Sam sleeps in now.”

A heaviness weighs on my chest, worse even than the shame of being discovered by Mitchell. I press a palm to my sternum, but it doesn’t relieve the guilt .

“Mitchell searched Enethea for a month. When he finally found records of Sam’s relatives, he discovered they’d all died not long after they arrived on the planet. Miner’s Sickness took all three—a male, a female, and their teenage son. They’d literally worked themselves to death to buy passage off-planet, but the mines caught up with them anyway.”

Ballga raises her mug and takes a long, slow drink. Her yellow gaze is far away. “There were orphanages on Enethea. A lot of refugee kids end up like Sam—parents survive long enough to get them off-planet, but don’t live long after. We brought Sam to one of the orphanages. I didn’t like the idea. Overcrowded, kids underfed, conditions barely better than what Sam would have had on Varus. But it’s not my ship. Wasn’t my call.” She shakes her head like she’s trying to get rid of things she can’t unsee. “Mitchell took one look at the place and walked Sam straight out of there and back to the ship. He’s been with us ever since.”

I blink, focusing on the contrast of Ballga’s furry fingers against the smooth porcelain of her mug as I breathe through the heaviness constricting my lungs. “Wow.”

The weight of the responsibility Mitchell took on for a kid he barely knew is almost unfathomable to me. Sometimes just having Tori’s back is more responsibility than I can handle, and she looks out for me as much as I do for her. Mitchell can’t be that much older than I am, and he’s essentially adopted a child .

I fidget, tap-tap-tapping my spoon on the rim of my still-full mug. These are good people. The kind I thought only existed in stories. The kind who not only believe they can make a difference in the world but who live by that belief.

And I took advantage of them. Posed as someone who needed help, when in reality, everything I am and have is tied to the very suffering they’re working their asses off to relieve. Even now, I’m only talking to Ballga to get her guard down so I can dig for information.

I’m behaving like my dad, and I’m disgusted with myself for it.

Ballga watches my spoon. The way she blinks sharply with every tap, I can tell it’s bugging her. I force my fingers to still. “I’m sorry,” I say, “for what happened to Sam’s mom and for… for taking advantage of you like we did. It wasn’t right.”

Ballga’s gaze flicks from the spoon to my eyes. I force myself to hold her stare even though I know she’s seeing the silver-on-blue record of my weakness.

“Everyone’s running from something,” she says after staring me down for what feels like a full minute. “Even the good guys.”

I have no idea what she means by that. She and Mitchell are the only good guys I know, and they seem like they don’t run from anything .

-X-

“Have you seen Sam?”

At the intensity of Mitchell’s tone, I douse my torch and lift my facemask in a hurry.

Next to me, Ballga does the same. “He was playing ball on the beach around two hours ago.”

“Yeah, I saw him out there.” Mitchell runs a hand through his hair. “Told him to stay clear of the woods and out of the water. He’s not one to disobey a direct order.”

I almost snort at the way Mitchell talks about childrearing like it’s a military operation. But the situation’s not funny. If Mitchell is this worried, Sam could be in serious trouble.

Ballga’s already tugging off her protective gloves. “You searched the ship?”

“Twice. And I talked to the others. They haven’t seen him, either.”

I toss my facemask on the workbench and start yanking off my gloves, too. “I’ll help. We all will. I’ll get Tori and Vince.”

Mitchell doesn’t argue. Maybe he’s starting to trust that I’m not a total idiot and my help might actually be valuable.

Five minutes later, we’ve all convened on the beach, the little dramas of last night set aside now that we’re faced with a bigger problem. I toe the wet sand, my eyes following the path between water and treeline. The whole beach shimmers a shade darker than its usual dazzling white, and it’s firmer underfoot—signs that high tide has come and gone. Any trace of footprints that might have helped us home in on Sam’s whereabouts has been erased. The hoverball is nowhere to be found. There’s no clue to tell us where to start looking.

“We’ll have to search the woods,” Ballga’s saying. She shoots Mitchell a worried look. “And the water.”

Tori pushes her brows together, looking from Mitchell to Ballga. “But Sam’s a Varun. They’re practically born swimming. There’s no way that kid could’ve—”

“It’s not drowning they’re worried about,” Vince cuts in darkly.

Tori’s eyes widen. A pink hand shoots to her mouth as she turns to Vince. “You don’t think something could have taken him into the water, do you?”

Ballga and the captain exchange another look.

“Sam’s a good kid,” Mitchell says. “He wouldn’t leave the beach unless something either lured him away or carried him off. We discovered the hard way that this place has carnivorous trees. There’s no telling what kind of wildlife we could be dealing with.”

Ballga nods. “Every second counts.” Her pupils are narrowed to slits in the bright sunlight. Her ears press flat to her skull like an angry cat’s, and I’m pretty sure a long, brindle tail would be lashing all over the place if it wasn’t contained by her jumpsuit. “We split up, we’ll have better odds of finding him in time.”

Before he’s eaten—if he hasn’t become some alien predator’s lunch already is what I think she means. Tori must be picking up the same implication because her eyebrows hit her neon hairline as she stifles a half-gasp, half-squeak.

“Agreed,” Mitchell says to Ballga.

“I don’t like it.” Vince rests a hand on my shoulder and shakes his head at the captain. “Like you said, we have no idea what kind of wildlife’s out there. Look at the size of DJ Girl here. You send her into the woods solo, she’s as likely to get dragged off as the kid.”

I glare up at Vince, shrugging my shoulder out of his grasp. “Don’t you start with the overprotective bullshit, too. I can handle myself in the woods just fine.”

But Mitchell gives Vince a grudging nod. “We’ll split into teams.”

I roll my eyes. So much for the captain starting to value my help.

“It’s safer for all of us,” he tells me before turning to Tor. “You a good swimmer, Pink?” Tori’s kind aren’t amphibious, but they’re known for their skill in the water.

“Not like a Varun— ”

“She’s amazing,” I cut in. Tori’s forgetting she’s talking to three humans and a cat. “There was a beach at Rich”—I bite my tongue—“at the place we met. A girl was drowning, and Tori got to her before the lifeguard. Even before the bot. Tori saved her life.”

Her skill in the water was also how we escaped, but I’m not going to go into that part.

“Good. You’ll search the water.” Mitchell’s gaze flicks from Tori to me. “She’ll need someone to cover her back in case we’re right about the wildlife. You ever handle a water dart blaster?”

God, I’d love to get my hands on a weapon, even if it’s one I’ve never heard of. But Tori’s safety is at risk, and so is Sam’s. I’d better be honest. “I’m… not sure I know what that is.”

Mitchell’s gaze flicks to Vince, misgiving clear, and I realize the captain was probably aiming to partner up with Vince so he could keep an eye on him. And keep Vince unarmed. Mitchell casts an anxious glance at the woods, then sighs. “You?” His tone is grudging as he looks to the bounty hunter.

One side of Vince’s lip curls up in a roguish half-smile. “I can manage.”

Mitchell’s expression is conflicted as hell as he reaches into a black nylon sack at his feet and pulls out some kind of gun—a smooth-bodied, streamlined version of a blaster. He tosses it to Vince .

Vince catches the strange-looking thing and turns the weapon in his hand. A wicked, hooked metal point protrudes from the tip, and there’s a window in the side that showcases a roll of thin, metallic chain coiled inside, like the chain of a harpoon. “Nice.” Vince’s brows rise in apparent approval. It must be a really impressive weapon, because he’s not even smirky or snide for once.

Mitchell eyes him uneasily. But at least he’s not a fool. He knows what he needs to do to have the best chance of saving Sam.

Vince holsters the weapon in his belt and turns to me. “How ’bout a swim, DJ Girl?”

“We only have two of these.” Mitchell reaches into a pocket and pulls out two small objects that look like mouth guards. Breathers . The swim team at Skyside used them. He tosses one to Tori and another to Vince. “Gemma will come with me.”

Vince doesn’t look happy about that plan. I recall his implication last night about the crew being dangerous. But after hearing how they adopted Sam, it’s hard for me to believe these people are anything less than saints. Probably from Vince’s perspective, their competence plus the fact that they’re a lot nearer the opposite side of the law from where we stand would seem like a potential threat .

But they’d only turn us in if they knew we were killers-for-hire, and I’m not about to reveal that to Mitchell. Vince doesn’t need to worry.

And anyway, before he can voice the protest forming on his lips, Mitchell’s moving on. “Ballga, you’ll go alone. You’re our strongest tracker and our best chance of finding Sam. You search the woods east of the brook.” He jerks his chin down the beach to where a stream emerges from the treeline and trickles into the bay, glinting silver against the white sand. “Gemma and I will take the woods to the west.”

Mitchell hands out gym-teacher-style silver whistles on necklace-length lanyards—one to Ballga, one to Tori, and one he hangs around his own neck. “Anyone finds a sign of him, whistle. If not, we meet back here at sunset.”

Ballga nods, and I watch in fascinated surprise as she goes down on all fours and bounds across the beach like a panther, a hefty blaster strapped to her back. I blink once and she’s leapt the stream and disappeared into the shadow of distant trees.

Holy shit. Ballga’s no Granny Cat. She’s a fucking lioness.

By the time I finish gaping, Mitchell’s already heading in the opposite direction, his long strides leaving me in the dust. I glance at Tori. Anxiety creases her brow as she contemplates the glittering water .

Next to her, Vince eyes Mitchell’s back before his gaze flicks to mine. “Stay on your toes in those woods. And around the captain.”