Empress of a Thousand Skies(43)
The speaker system came online with a single crackle of interference. “Approaching a patch of solar wind. Cubes will go temporarily offline,” a mechanized voice said.
The announcement triggered unease in the cabin; people were uncomfortable offline, even for a few minutes. On the zeppelin this close to the sun, electromagnetic waves had caused signal losses throughout the trip. The passengers were so distressed about it, no one had noticed Rhee and Dahlen had been moving from one passenger car to another. Now he motioned for her to gather her things.
It was perfect timing. As they slid out of their seats, a service droid was just entering their car, tall and lean, its metal dull with age. “Tickets, please,” it announced in a low monotone.
The droid offered the screen on its chest to a squat Chram woman with tiny iridescent scales that looked gray from Rhee’s angle. In the first row, the woman touched her finger to her cube and simultaneously pressed a finger to the droid’s screen with her other hand. It blinked blue and beeped an approval when the woman’s data was accepted.
The overhead speakers crackled to life again. “Approaching a patch of solar wind. Cubes will temporarily go offline in two minutes.”
Dahlen leaned forward to whisper to Rhee as she pushed past him into the aisle. “Whatever happens, don’t touch the droid’s screen.”
“I know that already,” she snapped back. Once her fingerprint was in the database, they’d match it to her DNA. With any luck, however, while the droid was offline they could sneak past it and return to a car that had already been checked.
Rhee counted seconds in her head as she dodged a tentacle and brushed up against the fur of a Yersian, which generated a charge on her bare skin. Several passengers shrank away from her, obviously unhappy to be sharing the train car with a Marked girl. Dahlen’s presence didn’t offer them any reassurance, the tattoos crawling along his neck, his cheekbones sharp like cut glass, his dirty blond hair matted like an animal’s against moon-white skin. It was almost as if pheromones radiated from his skin and warned everyone of danger.
“Please remain in your seat,” the droid said, as Dahlen tried to pass.
“Won’t you kindly move?” Dahlen asked, with such exaggerated politeness Rhee couldn’t believe the droid didn’t register the sarcasm. Before she could prevent him, he grabbed her hand. “My sister isn’t feeling well.”
Julian was the last person who had taken Rhee’s hand.
Rhee wrenched her hand away from Dahlen, annoyed by the obvious lie. And yet why not? With her face still purpled with the mark, and her non-pointed ears hidden beneath a hood, she might have been Fontisian. In that split second, she realized: The boy she disliked most in the world could have been the brother she’d never had—both orphans, rigid in their beliefs, born for strife and loss and revenge.
The droid pivoted its base so it blocked as much of the aisle as possible. “Please provide your ticket information before proceeding.” It sprayed its screen with a pine-scented sanitizer, angling it down toward Rhee. She felt the skin on her neck tingle.
“Approaching a patch of atmospheric solar wind. Cubes will temporarily go offline in one minute,” the speaker voice announced.
“Here, let me,” Dahlen said, feigning irritation. He touched the space on his neck two inches above his cube and moved to touch the screen. Just before he did, a small charge shot from his ring to the screen. It was so subtle that no one would’ve seen it apart from Rhee. The droid rolled back an inch, and light shuddered across its touchscreen, as if it had flinched.
“Unreadable,” it said.
“Perhaps your reader is defective,” Dahlen suggested, still with that tone of politeness that to Rhee’s ears sounded obviously false. “Let me try again.”
“Can I assist?” a second droid said. Turning, Rhiannon saw that they’d failed to notice an additional ticket collector had entered the car.
The speaker crackled. “Approaching a patch of atmospheric solar wind. Cubes will temporarily go offline in ten, nine, eight . . .” Now they’d attracted attention. She heard the sucking sound of someone’s tentacle: a Nilapas, babbling in his native tongue, no doubt trying to shush them. Rhee could feel herself sweating under her tunic. Still she tried to move slowly and with grace—a quality Tai Reyanna had urged again and again.
“Excuse me, can you give her some room? She’s not feeling well . . .” Dahlen said.
The second droid ignored him. It angled its screen down toward Rhee. “Please provide ticket information.” When Rhee hesitated, a red light began blinking on its touchscreen, prompting her with use instructions. Now the first droid rolled over Dahlen’s foot, closing in on the other side, and both droids began to speak at once.
“Please provide ticket infor—”
They were interrupted by a thunderous boom that shook their cabin. Rhee’s ears popped. A girl to the side yelped, her light blue skin turning a dark shade of purple in alarm, and a Kalusian man in the front row flinched in his seat. Rhee remembered the sensation of her cube going dark, like her energy had been sapped all at once. Immediately, both droids powered down in the aisle, their armlike attachments hanging limp at their sides. A section of Yersians groomed one another’s fur in agitation.
Rhee exhaled. Just in time.
“Let’s move,” Dahlen said in a low voice. The doors between compartments had come unlocked as well, and Dahlen cranked the handle and leaned heavily on the door to open it, gesturing Rhee inside. As they barreled through the door, Rhee crashed into someone. She reared back and then stifled a gasp. It was the royal guard.