Dragon Pearl(77)

Swallowing, I stepped up until I was standing side by side with my brother. Haneul warned me against it, but I had no attention to spare for her.

What I had at first mistaken for a mass of identical spirits, all with ragged long hair and no legs, resolved into unique individuals as I got closer. In the front ranks I saw a woman wearing a robe. Its embroidery would once have displayed lucky colors, but now all I saw were traceries of black upon gray. Another was an elderly man holding hands with a child who carried a stuffed bear. I saw Space Forces officers in full uniform, and figures wearing clothes in styles I’d only seen in historical holos, fashions from two centuries ago.

Once upon a time these ghosts had been people as distinctive as Haneul or Sujin or me, as unforgettable as power-hungry Captain Hwan or greedy Nari. They might be united in their anger, but that didn’t mean they all wanted the same thing . . . or did it?

They had something besides anger in common. All of them had emaciated faces, the bones of their skulls showing prominently, as if ready to erupt through the skin. They didn’t have the gruesome lesions of smallpox, the disease that gods had once wielded to teach humankind respect, but the ravages of their illness looked grotesque enough.

One of the ghosts, the robed woman, stepped forward. “Fox,” she said. “Dragon. Dokkaebi.”

“Honored ancestor,” I said with a bow, but my voice sounded hollow even to myself. I threw some Charm her way, hoping to keep any ghostly bad luck or mind control at bay.

“Tiger,” the woman added.

I gasped. As one, Haneul, Sujin, and I turned to look back the way we’d come.

A shuttle painted with the white tiger emblem of the Pale Lightning was streaking down from the sky. We couldn’t see who was inside, but I had no doubt the ghost was correct. Captain Hwan had tracked us down, and the ghosts had allowed him through.

“What are we going to do? We can’t outrun ghosts,” Sujin said through gritted teeth.

We were trapped.

I looked to Jun for answers, but he remained silent, his gaze locked on the ship as it landed. The ghosts parted for it, but I imagined the captain wasn’t under any illusions that he was safe. Angry spirits weren’t the kind of threat he was used to confronting as a military officer.

I cast my eyes frantically among the ghosts, searching for any clue as to the Pearl’s whereabouts. This was my last chance—I had to reach it before Hwan did. If I succeeded in finding it, maybe I could bargain with him. My friends and I could get a ride to safety, and he could promise not to persecute us. In exchange, I could give him the Pearl and . . .

. . . steal it back before he had a chance to exploit it.

Or he could simply use his superior firepower to take it from me. But I preferred the first plan.

I scanned the landscape. In one direction, small hills furry with grass rippled away from the forest. In the other, boulders stippled the ground up until what looked like a steep drop-off. I thought back to Captain Hwan’s map, and my heart sank. From what I remembered, the Dragon Pearl lay beyond that cliff.

If I broke away from Haneul and Sujin, they would think I was abandoning them to Captain Hwan. They might never forgive me. Still, I knew what I had to do.

“Jun,” I whispered, “show me where the Pearl is.” I needed to reach it as quickly as possible. The less time I had to spend searching for it, the better.

Jun smiled at me, and for the first time the wrecked asymmetry of his face didn’t gnaw at my insides. “How fast can you run, little sister?”

“Run?” I said to him with a grin, despite the desperate situation. “I can do better than run.” Certainly a fellow fox should know that. I wish I’d thought of shifting into a faster shape earlier, when we were trudging through the mud. Then again, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave Haneul and Sujin behind.

I turned to my friends. “I’ll be back shortly. In the meantime, keep the ghosts distracted.”

“Min, wait! There’s something you should—” Haneul shouted after me, but Sujin had elbowed her, and I was already shifting.

I shed my human shape for that of an enormous hawk. On a planet with stronger gravity, I wouldn’t have been able to fly. But the Fourth Colony’s lower gravity worked to my advantage. Here I could soar.

It was a risk—the ghosts could have flown after me. But they didn’t. They were too focused on Captain Hwan.

I caught an updraft and wheeled higher. The wind buffeted me, and it took several moments to steady myself. As a hawk I had keener eyesight, and I surveyed the valley beyond the cliff. Surely an artifact as powerful as the Dragon Pearl couldn’t be concealed easily?

“Let me guide you,” Jun whispered in my ear. I was grateful for his help. Following him would be a lot easier than trying to remember the coordinates from Hwan’s map. We banked and arrowed downward.

Another group of ghosts swirling below us made it easy to spot the Pearl. In the center of the throng, my hawk’s vision picked out a glow coming from a shining sphere. Unlike the death-white spirits, the orb was a tumult of colors, like a living ocean—from jade-green to turquoise, from aquamarine to deep blue, with foam-pale flickers in all the colors of the rainbow. It looked to be about the size of my fist when I was in human form.

I circled, frantically considering my options. No way did I want to swoop down among the ghosts. But I didn’t have a choice, not if I wanted to retrieve the Dragon Pearl.