Defy the Worlds (Constellation #2)(55)

Even though he disagrees with Remedy, he’s ready to take up arms against the passengers—because the passengers are the ones holding Noemi captive. Mansfield has her even now. If he believes Abel will be unable to find Haven, which would be a rational assumption, Burton Mansfield has no more need to keep Noemi alive. She’s in mortal danger, and the only things standing between her and Abel are a set of force fields and a mech patrol.

Neither will remain standing long.

Fouda says, “Do we have your oath that you’ll help us, mech?”

Abel looks up evenly at him. “Yes. You have me.”





19





NOEMI RUNS THROUGH THE FIELDS NEAR THE HOSPITAL, surrounded by the dead on every side. She has to be careful not to step on their swollen bellies or trip on their outstretched arms. Their Cobweb-streaked faces stare blankly up at the sky, searching for the God who didn’t come. Despair fills her—utter futility—and yet she has to keep running, because there’s something she could do, something vitally important that would put it all right. But she can’t think what that something is.

She stumbles and falls to the ground, between the corpses. Her revulsion turns to shock as she realizes the body lying next to her is Esther’s. Why isn’t Esther in her star? They left her in a star so she would always be warm, so she would always burn bright.

Esther turns her head to face Noemi. She is alive and dead at once, which somehow makes sense. The expression on her face is so completely, utterly Esther’s—compassionate and yet knowing, almost as if she were about to say I told you so.

Instead she whispers, “It’s your turn.”

Noemi startles awake, disoriented for the few seconds it takes her to remember where she is: lying on a pallet of evening wear and luxury pillows, in a cargo area of a shipwreck where half the people on board are trying to kill her, and the other half seem to be plotting the same. The scant few people in the entire galaxy who care about her are literally billions of miles away, while she’s stranded on a planet almost nobody else in all the worlds even knows about.

Being disoriented was better.

She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. This is the first quiet moment she’s had in days, her first chance to center herself. Probably it’s the last she’ll get for a while to come. Possibly ever. Noemi closes her eyes and tries to meditate.

What are you fighting, Noemi Vidal?

Remedy, even though I partially agree with them. The passengers, even though I’m allied with them. Gillian Shearer and Burton Mansfield. My situation on this planet—

Noemi catches herself. She’s naming trees and ignoring the forest.

I’m fighting my own powerlessness.

And what are you fighting for?

My life.

That’s not it either. Noemi accepted long ago that she might have to sacrifice herself for what was right. Saving Genesis—protecting Abel from Mansfield’s plot—those things together are worth dying for. So why is she still living?

I’m fighting for my free life. For the chance to decide how I’ll live and how I’ll die.

She’s not sure she’s ever had that power. Here, in this wreckage on Haven, she finally has it—and nothing else.

Noemi sits up and glances around. The cracked tanks hover against the walls and hang from the ceiling, tinted semi-opaque by the remnants of pink goo, strangely and unsettlingly biological. In a few intact tanks, mechs float in stasis, their silhouettes suspended above; Noemi has no idea when they’ll awake, if ever. Other passengers slumber nearby, all of them seemingly dead to the world. The hard work they’ve done the past day or two—Noemi can’t tell how long it’s been—that’s got to be the most effort they’ve put into anything, ever. They’re too exhausted to be kept awake by their unfamiliar surroundings, or by the occasional dull thud or vibration through the ship that marks Remedy’s efforts to keep their territory.

The chill in the air has deepened. Although the hull of the Osiris in this section of the ship has kept out the worst of Haven’s deep winter, the cold has begun to sink in. Probably the ship’s climate controls were destroyed in the crash, and Noemi wonders whether other areas of the hull were more severely damaged, letting the weather in. Rubbing her hands together briskly, she examines the pile of clothes serving as her bed. Maybe something better got tucked in between the layers. A white jacket looks promising; it hangs too big on her shoulders, but it’s warm, so it will do.

“Noemi?” whispers a tiny voice. It’s Delphine, who’s curled on the far edge of the pallet under what looks like a fur coat. “How are you?”

“Scared and angry.” Hungry, too, but Noemi doesn’t mention it. They have nothing to eat but petits fours, and at the moment she thinks if she ever eats another of those things again, she’ll puke it back up. “Trying to figure out where we go from here.”

“We wait for the mechs to come and save us,” Delphine says. “From the Winter Castle. They must be on their way.”

“The ‘Winter Castle’?”

Delphine’s face lights up. “Our settlement. Mechs built it for us ahead of time, so it would be ready when we arrived. Beautiful suites of rooms with windows overlooking the mountains—hot springs and steam baths—fully stocked and equipped kitchens—entertainment libraries—oh, just everything. All we’d have to do is move in our clothes and our decorations, and we’d be right at home.” Her voice turns wistful on the last words.