Nabukko, page 10
He stared at me for a beat, his face stony. “Then do you want to explain why you’re still up here, casing the place?”
“Doing what?” I asked, perplexed.
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Maybe I am dumb.”
He chuckled slightly, but quickly tried to hide it with a cough. Now who was playing dumb?
“Look,” I said. “I’m not doing anything nefarious, okay? I’m just waiting. Eoghan said he’d come with me back to Gia’s place after my meeting so I can drop my clothes off there.”
I held up my canvas bag and wiggled it a bit for emphasis.
He eyed the bag as if realizing for the first time that I was holding it. His eyes remained glued to the bag even after I lowered my arm back down.
“Hullo?” I sang, waving my free hand in front of him. “It’s just a bag. You can’t be suspicious about this, can you? Ascelin gave it to me herself. Look, it’s just clothes.” I opened the top of the bag to showcase my innocence.
His head snapped up, his eyes fastening on mine. My breath hitched. Was that shade of blue natural? No, he must have gotten a gene edit, just like I had with my hair.
He stared at me so intensely that I might as well have been paralyzed.
Eventually I mustered up enough willpower to pull my eyes away. I focused on the camp, trying to reorient myself.
I blamed my recent lack of human interaction for my social ineptitude. I didn’t know what this man’s deal was, but in all likelihood he was just trying a new tactic with the intent to unnerve me to get more information.
Yes, that was it.
I could still feel his gaze on me. What was he contemplating? Surely my acquisition of clothing from Ascelin wasn’t that big of a deal?
A few more tense seconds drifted between us before he finally spoke. “Nothing nefarious, eh?” Leaf Man said, mocking my earlier word choice for some reason.
"Correct . . ." I drawled out, uncertain what he was getting at.
He stuck his jaw out, moving it slowly from side to side. Then he nodded, some inaudible decision made. “Okay, then. Come with me.” All traces of his haughty tone had vanished.
“What?” I sputtered. I must have misheard him.
“I’ll take you to Gia’s room.”
“You know where it is it?” I asked, stalling for time as my brain struggled to catch up.
He shrugged. “I’ve been there a few times.”
Leaf Man stuck his hand out. I blinked down at it.
What we he expecting me to do? Take it? Was he offering to carry my clothes? Neither made any sense.
He chuckled at my confusion, dropping his hand.
He no longer exuded that cocky, menacing persona he had claimed only minutes before. What changed? Perhaps he had finally seen that I was no threat to Nabukko? That seemed too simple, and just . . . not quite right.
I didn’t want to just disappear on Eoghan, but I felt like declining Leaf Man’s offer would cause a setback between us. A decent, or at least polite, working relationship with this man seemed like a smart idea. Especially since he and I were going to be sharing the chore of scavenge inventory for the foreseeable future.
My mouth opened to hesitantly accept, but a familiar voice interrupted me.
“Hey, Eff! Sorry I’m late!” Eoghan waved exuberantly up at me from the ground below. “Had to finish my guard report from yesterday. Nahova keeps a tight ship. I mean crew, er—guard!” The metal stairs clanged as he bounced up them.
“Speaking of guard duty and yesterday, I just wanted to apologize again, Eff,” Eoghan said, wincing.
I couldn’t help but think that my capture was more traumatic for him than for me.
“You were just doing your job. It’s fine. Really, Eoghan.” I laid a hand on his arm as extra reassurance. He smiled brightly at my easy forgiveness.
Leaf Man, shoved farther down the railing by Eoghan’s arrival, cleared his throat again. Was it my imagination or was the sound harsher this time?
“Hey, Keir! I, um, didn’t see you there.”
“Uh-huh.”
Eoghan rubbed his hands together. Leaf Man crossed his arms.
“What happened to Jarl?” Leaf Man asked.
Eoghan rubbed the back of his neck, eyes intent on discovering the mysteries of the grooves and scratches in the railing.
“Merula had another discussion with him.”
“Wait, Nahova didn’t do anything? Make him work a second shift, clean out the goat pen?”
Hold up, they had goats here?
Eoghan shook his head. Leaf Man scowled, but it wasn’t directed at the young guard.
Eoghan suddenly straightened up, his soft eyes finding mine. “You ready? We should probably get back to Benedeck soon.”
I nodded. The idea of focusing on a work task rather than trudging through social pudding sounded immensely appealing.
Leaf Man’s scowl remained glued to his face as Eoghan and I slid past him and down the stairs.
As we walked away, I glanced back at Leaf Man, but his attention was already lost to some other part of the camp.
“What did he mean about Jarl?” I asked as Eoghan and I plodded toward the dorms.
“Hmm? Oh, Jarl? It’s nothing,” Eoghan said offhandedly. He seemed lost in thought, but about what, I couldn’t say.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that Jarl had been the other guard present for my capture yesterday. But why would Leaf Man care about punishment for Jarl?
I surveyed the dorms in front of us, glancing around at the other visible buildings constructed of the irregular metal.
“Hey, Eoghan?”
His head popped up. “Yeah?”
“Why do you call your camp Nabukko? The name sounds marginally familiar, but I can’t place it.”
“Merula didn’t tell you?”
I scrunched my nose. “No. She actually wasn’t very helpful at all.”
“Oh. She probably has her reasons,” Eoghan said weakly.
“She certainly has her reasons. I just don’t think they are any good.”
Eoghan chuckled lightly. I laid a hand on his arm, forcing him to stop at the foot of the dorm stairs.
“Eoghan,” I said. “She’s just trying to use me. To squeeze information out of me. Maybe it is for the benefit of her people—all of you. But that group doesn’t include me. I’m the outsider.” My eyes searched his. “But I can’t be kept in the dark. And I definitely can’t trust Merula with my well-being. I might have secrets, but you all clearly do too. If we can’t work together . . . then I should probably just go.”
Eoghan’s lips parted as he stared down at me, but I held firm. The temptation of friendship—maybe even something more—was tantalizing. What if I left Nabukko and never saw another human again for the rest of my life?
But I wouldn’t be a pawn for Merula. I’d survived too long on my own to be stabbed in the back or discarded when my usefulness ran out. Yes, Nabukko offered shelter, food, and companionship. But it felt less safe than being alone in the woods. If I could even name the dangers here, I could work with that, but I wasn’t going to wait around for a mere possibility.
Eoghan glanced down at my hand on his arm then back up at me. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Eff, I—” He paused, and I waited, giving him time to form his thoughts. “I—I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re right. You already know my thoughts about sharing resources. And that includes information in this case. All we have is each other. And we can’t forget that.”
I allowed a tentative smile to take over the corners of my lips.
“So . . .” Eoghan said hesitantly. “Nabukko . . . Nabukko was the name of our ship.”
Their colony ship? I was expecting a bigger revelation than that. “Was? Was it decommissioned or . . .”
“I can’t tell you specifically what happened to it, but I might as well tell you where it is. Come on,” Eoghan said, pulling me up the stairs to the second floor of the dorms.
My curiosity was piqued now. “Eoghan, what are you—”
He smiled down at me. “Trust me. Just a little.”
What harm could just a little bit of trust do?
Eoghan positioned us in the center of the walkway, affording us what was probably the best view of the camp.
The clouds were completely gone now, and the gentle afternoon sun folded over the camp like a soft, willowy blanket.
I looked to the ashen mountains beyond, surveyed the sky above for unnaturally moving dots. “I don’t see a ship anywhere.”
“You won’t find it if you are looking for a ship.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
He smiled at me again, and I immediately felt at ease.
Eoghan turned to the rail and swept his arms out wide. “Here. This is our ship.”
I peered back at the camp. At Nabukko . . . which was also the name of their ship. I looked more closely at the metal panels that all seemed to come from the same source, and the irregular way they had been segmented, modified, and welded together. I thought about how there was enough of this material for a dozen buildings, some with two floors.
They had torn apart their ship to build their camp. I gasped at the realization.
The question was why?
Most colony ships returned to Earth after their mission was complete to be used again. Colony ship construction was a massive drain on resources, so it wasn’t feasible to build one every time a colony group went out.
Plus, the whole process for building a new colony ship—bureaucratic approval, sourcing of materials, and the actual physical construction—took nearly a decade, sometimes more. It would take just as long for an existing colony ship to return to Earth. The return journey was often faster, too, since the ship could travel at speeds that weren’t safe for organic material—aka humans.
I mentally tried to reunite all the metal panels back into the shape of a colony ship. My eyes bulged. “Your ship must have been huge, Eoghan! All this material . . .”
“Big enough for a crew of five hundred, plus labs, BioDome, you know the rest.”
“Five hundred? But I thought there were only four hundred of you.”
Eoghan’s arms shriveled down to his sides.
I felt a heavy guilt settle in my chest at being the reason he had deflated. “Did something happen?” I asked softly.
Eoghan opened his mouth to respond, but another voice beat him to it.
“I’ll take over from here, Eoghan, before you spill all of our secrets,” the woman hissed.
Gia stood at the end of the walkway, hands clenched with murder knitted across her face.
Chapter 9
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Eoghan? Merula was very clear about"—Gia threw me a withering glare as she stomped toward us—"about you-know-what!"
“You don’t have to pretend that you’re not hiding something,” I said at the same time Eoghan said, “Gia, just give me a moment to explain.”
Gia thrusted a finger at me. “You. Shut up.”
“And you,” said Gia, re-targeting her finger at Eoghan. “You better have at least some sort of explanation.”
I bristled but stayed quiet. Eoghan needed a chance to mend the situation. I would bet a moon base and all its resources that Gia would listen to him over me, even if we said the exact same words.
“Gia,” Eoghan began again. “Have you been briefed about Merula’s meeting with Eff?”
“Not the details yet.”
“Okay, well from what I heard, it wasn’t very productive.”
“You might want to scrutinize your source a bit more.”
“I don’t think Eff was lying, Gia.”
“Oh? You know her so well, do you? She could be a spy and a fantastic actor. Have you even considered that? By the two moons, Eoghan! You are too trusting!”
I could see that her words hurt Eoghan, but he didn’t back down.
“I might be too trusting, Gia, but I think that’s exactly what we need right now.”
Gia scoffed, waving her hand at him. “Okay, you’ve had a chance to give an explanation, and it wasn’t satisfactory. Leave before I decide to mention this to Merula.”
Eoghan left my side and approached Gia. He gently rested his hands on her shoulders. I was shocked that she let him do it.
As they stood next to each other, I could see now that Gia was about an inch taller than Eoghan.
“Gia,” Eoghan said gently. I expected the stern woman to protest, but she just stared back at him. “Eff was going to leave. Her and everything she knows. I had to say something. Plus . . . it’s not really fair. We’re asking her to help us without offering the same thing.”
“We don’t know anything about her. If we can even trust her,” Gia said, her tone having lost some of its vigor.
“And we may never get the chance to figure that out if she leaves. But if we were both a bit more open, willing to give up a little individual power, we could actually talk things through—we could be reasonable about it. Isn’t that better progress than exploiting someone else because we were too proud to cooperate? Come on, you’re better than those antiquated views! I know it.”
Gia studied Eoghan, an almost tender look on her face. I suddenly felt like I was intruding.
“We were trying to wait and see if she slipped up, see if she accidentally revealed something so we could know if she was a threat or not,” Gia said quietly.
“And how long would you have waited? Weeks? Months? Years? She would forever be on trial, and we would forever be distrusting and reclusive. Why bother with all of that?” Eoghan said.
Gia chewed on her lip. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I just revealed our confidential plan to her.”
Eoghan chuckled softly. “Yeah, not as effective now that she knows about it.”
I was starting to feel like a third wheel. “I’m not trying to harm Nabukko—or anyone in it. I swear,” I interjected. Gia’s eyes snapped up, a few embers still alight inside. Eoghan dropped his arms and looked back at me.
“Look, Gia, I can’t guarantee that I’m not somehow a threat to Nabukko, but I was simply traveling on my merry way when I ‘stumbled’ into Eoghan and Jarl. I’m just looking for some answers myself.”
“Can’t guarantee it?” Gia accused.
Oops. That was a poor choice of wording on my part. I really needed to work on being more conniving. Like Gia.
“I just meant that the unexpected happens."
Gia crossed her arms. “You keep saying you want answers. About what?”
“Well, I—I just want to know why . . . there are other humans here—and how you got here.”
Gia narrowed her eyes. “That’s not all you want to know.”
I swallowed. Asking my questions would reveal too much. Could I risk it?
Gia whipped her head back to Eoghan. “See! She isn’t willing to cooperate, either!”
“I already told Merula plenty!” I snapped back.
“I’m not Merula.”
I hesitated. I had mentally lumped Gia in with Merula, assuming they thought the same way. But Gia had entertained Eoghan’s speech. Maybe she would be reasonable? Maybe she wouldn’t use my vulnerabilities against me?
My eyes flicked to Eoghan. He was watching me, expectant.
He had stood up for me, had talked Gia down. I didn’t flatter myself that he was doing it all for me. But whatever his intentions were, I could tell they were good.
Gia trusted him and valued his opinion, that much was obvious.
And Eoghan seemed to trust Gia, despite her thorny personality.
What would happen if I refused to tell them anything? I could see the scenario in my head: I would leave, wander alone around this planet for who knows how long, and gain nothing. Or Merula would go back on her word and not let me leave. They might keep me locked up—or worse—until I eventually cracked and told them everything.
If I dared to tell Gia right now . . . well, even if it went poorly, I think I could count on Eoghan to help me escape. Then I would run and keep running until I reached the other side of the planet. I could do that, knowing that I had at least tried.
But if I walked away now, I would know that it was partially my fault. That I hadn’t truly put any effort into uncovering the truth.
“You’re right. You aren’t Merula—and maybe that’s a good thing.”
Eoghan and Gia were both staring at me, one with encouragement and the other with disdain.
I took a deep breath. It was time to give up my secret.
I let out a nervous chuckle. “I’m—I’m not really sure where to begin, to be honest.”
“Anywhere that helps you,” Eoghan said. As I gave him a tight smile, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Merula asked how long I had been traveling alone on—on this planet before Eoghan and Jarl found me.”
“And?” Gia prompted.
“When I told her how long—she got kind of weird. I can sort of understand why, but her reaction seemed a bit exaggerated.”
Gia’s eyes widened. Eoghan cocked his head at me, his face pensive.
“What did you tell her?” Gia asked. Both she and Eoghan were hanging on my every word. Why? Why did this matter to them? Why had it mattered to Merula?
My hands were clammy. I wiped them on my pants.
“I told her . . . three months,” I said, almost whispering.
Gia gasped, a hand covering her mouth. Eoghan’s own mouth fell open, and he gave Gia a startled look.
“No way!” Gia blurted out.
“Could it be?” Eoghan said, his tone distant and disbelieving.
“What’s the matter? Why is it a big deal?” I said, but neither was paying attention to me. They were debating about something, and I was lost.
“Guys! Hullo!” I grabbed Eoghan’s arm. “Tell me what the big deal is! Why are you, why did Merula, react this way? What is so special about three months?”
A clamor sounded beneath our feet, and we all looked down, confused.
A figure darted out from under the walkway into the shadow of another building. Someone had been eavesdropping on us!
“Dammit!” Gia spit out. “Come on, let’s finish this discussion somewhere more private. I don’t need a lurking, nosy busybody spreading rumors around,” she huffed, pulling Eoghan and me around the corner into her room. “Put your stuff down. You’re making my arm tired.”
