Starfall (Starflight #2)(58)
“What’s he giving out?” Kane asked.
“I don’t know,” Doran said. “But whatever it is, they seem to want it. Money?” He craned his neck. “No, wait. It looks like they’re eating it.”
From this distance, Kane couldn’t tell. “Let’s get closer.”
They zigzagged from one hiding place to the next until Kane didn’t dare go any farther. He and Doran crouched behind a cleric’s desk and took turns poking their heads above it. The view from here was perfect. Kane didn’t recognize the ship, but there was no mistaking its pilot now that the man’s scar was visible—thick and jagged in a horizontal line across his throat.
“It’s Necktie Fleece,” Kane murmured.
Doran leveled an index finger toward the ship’s ramp, where the last two men were boarding. Necktie offered them a thin, palm-size cylinder, and they plucked it from his hands, eagerly bringing the device to their lips and huffing a series of deep breaths. “They’re not eating it. They’re breathing it.”
“Inhalers?” Kane asked. “But why…” He trailed off as everything began to make sense. “The cure is airborne. That’s why my mom felt better after she slept outside. There was something in the air that night.” He thought back to the disappearing settlers on New Haven. There was no sign of a struggle because they’d left willingly. “Fleece is making people sick and giving them the cure if they’ll come with him.”
“Come with him where?”
That was what Kane didn’t understand. Maybe Fleece had partnered with slave traders. That would explain why he wanted young men from the hatchery. Strong laborers fetched the highest price, followed by young women for the bordellos. He watched the last man enter the ship. As the boarding ramp retracted, it occurred to Kane that he should tell Renny what’d happened. He tapped the com-link fastened to his shirt. “Renny, we’re not alone. Necktie Fleece is here.”
“Copy that,” the captain said. “Where are you?”
“In the quarantine dome. I just watched fifty guys board his ship. It’s some passenger-class vessel, but I can’t make out the name.”
Just then Necktie Fleece paused on his way to the pilot hatch, snapping his gaze to Kane as if he’d overheard the entire conversation. Kane ducked below the desk, but it was too late. He hissed a curse and peeked up again. Fleece was climbing into his ship, but Kane knew better than to assume he was safe. The prickles along the back of his neck urged him to run.
He tugged on Doran’s sleeve and they bolted east, darting around every obstacle in their path. Kane knew there was nowhere to go, but he pumped his legs harder toward the tram station in hopes that Cassia and Solara were still there. He tapped his com-link to warn them, but then caught himself and tapped it off just as quickly. The link wasn’t secure. Whatever Arabelle had done to fix the system, it hadn’t worked.
“Shut down your com,” he hollered to Doran. “Fleece is listen—”
A tremor interrupted him, a light quaking that originated from somewhere deep below his feet. He kept running as the dome shook, causing everything inside it to clatter. He glanced out the fiberglass wall and wondered if a tsunami had struck. Fear choked him as he watched the ocean rise up, swallowing the dome and forcing jets of water though its leaky seals. He heard the unmistakable groan of metal giving way. The floor tilted, pitching him forward, and he scrambled to right himself as he finally understood what was happening. Fleece had detonated the support pillars.
The ocean wasn’t rising—their dome was sinking.
“Cassy!” he shouted, barely able to hear his own voice above the clamor of toppling furniture. They had to find a way out before they sank too low. “Cassy! Solara!” he hollered, and nearly cried with relief when he saw them half stumbling, half skidding toward him, propelled by the floor’s downward slope and dragging the unconscious guard between them.
Kane took one look at the guard’s limp body and knew the man was a goner. His cheeks were no longer purple and he seemed to be breathing on his own, but what he needed to do was wake up and swim.
“We can’t take him,” Doran shouted. “It’ll be a miracle if we make it out of here, and that’s without towing a hundred and fifty pounds of deadweight through the water.”
Solara cast an apologetic glance at Cassia. “He’s right.”
Though Kane agreed, he was glad someone else had said it first. He hated the idea of leaving an innocent man to die, but not enough to put his friends’ lives at risk. “It’s him or us. I don’t like it, either.”
“We have to try,” Cassia argued. Water pooled around their boots, quickly rising to their ankles, and she lifted the man’s torso to keep his head above the surface. “We can’t leave him here to drown.”
“Cassy, look.” Kane pointed at the dome wall, now half submerged. There was no finding an exit point now—they were sinking too quickly. Water gushed in at a thousand gallons per second through every possible opening, which meant the dome would have to fill up before they could escape. “Feel how heavy he is. He’ll weigh us down. If we try to save him, five people will die instead of one.”
The water had reached their thighs now, and from all around, wooden chairs and planks began to float. Cassia grabbed the leg of an upside-down conference table as it swept by. She dragged it between them and then tried to lift the man onto it. “Let me rephrase,” she said, each word strained by her efforts. “He’s coming with us. So either help me or shut up.”