Parting Shadows Read online

  Isabelle’s voice rose from the other side of the door. She sounded upset.

  “What happened?” Astra asked.

  The friend crossed her arms, as though Astra might try to muscle her way inside.

  Fair enough. The thought had occurred.

  And the action might have occurred, too, had Isabelle not appeared behind her friend. Her face was streaked with tears, which she swiped away at the sight of Astra.

  “Is everything OK?” Astra asked.

  “Obviously,” the friend said, rolling her eyes.

  Isabelle patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Jane. We should go.”

  Astra worked hard not to care as the women moved past her. She was surprised to realize she understood Jane’s impulse to defend her friend. Isabelle helped people. She was kind. Astra wasn’t used to that.

  “Come in,” Henry called, and Astra wanted to scream at him for being so thoughtless as to let anyone inside without knowing their intentions.

  When she found him in the main part of the cabin, his tux jacket open, his bowtie hanging askew, any scolding she might have planned shriveled on her tongue. He looked so disheveled that she nearly lost her balance.

  “Oh,” he said, as if he’d been expecting a food delivery instead. “Hello.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She wasn’t sure. “Are we AI-free here?” she asked, even though SATIS surely would have chimed back into her brain to demand an update on Conor if they weren’t.

  “Definitely,” Henry said. “Can’t even order champagne from here.”

  Astra nodded. Henry pulled his tie out of his collar and slapped it down onto the table. His room was as different from Conor’s as she could have imagined, with the lighter colors of Traveler’s standard furniture—which was nice, but hardly luxurious—and almost as few belongings as Astra had. He’d managed to spread some clothing around the room during his tenure, and a glass of water sat on the divider between the sitting area and kitchen nook.

  There were differences between his cabin and hers, too. A framed picture of his uncle, standing with his arm around a woman Astra hadn’t met, on the coffee table. A model plane, small enough to fit in the palm of Astra’s hand, on the bookshelf. A candle burned on the mantel.

  There was the smell of cedar, and of coffee.

  “How was the opera?” she asked.

  “Eventful. Iz found someone she knows. I guess the reunion didn’t go so well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Henry unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. With his vest undone and the corner of his shirt untucked, his curls roughened as always, Astra could hardly look at him.

  Embarrassment and shame rushed into Astra so quickly she nearly had to sit down. So she had a beacon of hope. A possibility of escaping without taking the system down with her. Why would that make Henry think better of her?

  “What are you doing here, Astra?” he asked. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

  “You mean you thought I’d be an official murderer by now.”

  He shrugged. Like maybe he did or maybe he didn’t care.

  But Henry did care. That was his whole problem. Astra was trained to see through that kind of a mask, to read vulnerability like a treasure map.

  For some reason, she always blocked it out with Henry. But she saw it now, the ruse. It bolstered the fire of hope that her talk with Conor had sparked.

  It made her cross the room.

  She took Henry’s hands, like she had five years ago when he’d begged her to leave the station. When SATIS had nearly killed him, and Astra too.

  He didn’t meet her eyes, staring at their entwined hands like he didn’t understand. But he didn’t take his hands back, either.

  “I’m not going to kill anyone,” she said. “I’ve got an escape plan. Or the beginnings of one.”

  “But—”

  “Without jeopardizing everyone in the system, OK? But that’s your priority, not mine.”

  Henry gave his head a little shake, like he didn’t quite believe it.

  When Astra kissed him, she half expected him to push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer. As if another five years might open up between them at any second. As if she might disappear. He tasted like ginger and earth, with an edge of whisky, and his skin was rough with stubble. He kissed her so deeply she could hardly think straight.

  She wasn’t supposed to love him. She didn’t think she’d ever stopped.

  Breathless, Astra made herself break the kiss. “I need your help,” she said, “I need to remove my comm.”

  Henry brushed his lips against hers again. “Where is it?”

  Astra turned so he could see the side of her head, where Hannah had so recently stitched her skin back together. “It’s embedded in my temple.”

  12

  Astra

  SATIS’ voice drifted through Astra’s dreams, her familiar alto tone too pleasant for the raging fire it called down through its words. She rode along networks of wire and radio waves, leaving disaster to burn in her wake. She was the end of things. Unmerciful. Unstoppable.

  Someone screamed.

  Astra opened her eyes.

  Henry lay curled around her on the standard-issue couch, his face buried in her neck, his breathing slow and even. The scream must have been in her dream.

  Astra’s temple throbbed, and she touched a finger gently to the bandage where Henry had removed the comm link. There had been a wire reaching all the way around to the base of her skull, linked to her spine, and Henry had wanted to take her to the med bay to have it removed. But Astra couldn’t risk that. After a brief hesitation, he agreed.

  The horrible thing was dismantled now, and incinerated in the fireplace.

  If she stayed within the range of the jammer, SATIS wouldn’t be able to reach her through any other tech. She’d be safe.

  Astra settled back into Henry’s arms. He pulled her closer.

  The scream came again.

  It was nearby.

  Astra’s eyes shot open. Henry was already moving, diving across the room as footsteps pounded outside, with Astra a step behind him.

  A woman sat with her back against the glass wall as if she’d been shoved there. She screamed and screamed, pointing into Conor Keyes’ open door. A red-coated security officer knelt beside her, his cap in his hands. Another stood looking into Conor’s room, his complexion so close to green that Astra was afraid he might lose his breakfast.

  She pushed past him and into the room.

  The grid of lasers had been deactivated. The safe door was open wide.

  Conor lay beside the safe in a pool of blood. A wide wound tore across his gut, his shirt so soaked in blood that Astra could not tell where the injury ended. The floor was slick with blood, the puddle crawling along the tile like a living thing, the coppery smell of it thick in the air.

  Two of Conor’s guards were slumped against the wall, including the friendly one from the first day.

  The guard with the braid was not among them.

  Conor, who was clever and funny and intense beneath his arrogant shell, who had wanted to defy his father. Who’d been willing to help her.

  She was supposed to be the one to kill him. The horror of it should not be pulsing in her stomach, clenching her throat.

  Medical officers swarmed into the room, pushing Astra aside with shouts as they descended on Conor’s body. She wanted to tell them that it was too late, that there was too much blood, but she couldn’t find her voice.

  It was Henry who moved close enough to look inside the safe before the doctors shooed them out. Astra didn’t need him to. She knew what he was going to see.

  The prototype was gone.

  Astra went back to her room knowing SATIS waited there.

  “You can hide from her,” Henry said, running to keep up with Astra’s pace. “She can’t get to you without the temple bud. I’ll ditch my tech, and we�
�ll disappear.”

  There was no way to hide. Henry should know it, after SATIS so easily manipulated his destiny. Astra imagined she could hear her false mother’s voice cropping onto every tablet she passed in the hall, as though she were personally spreading a disease.

  SATIS had sent someone to kill Conor.

  If Astra didn’t go to her, she knew who would be next.

  Henry laid a hand on her arm as she stopped at her cabin door. “At least let me come with you.”

  Astra shook her head. “She’s already with you, Henry. She always has been, since the first time you set foot on that cursed station. Maybe you can be helpful elsewhere.”

  Henry hesitated. He clearly didn’t want to leave her, yet respected her enough to abide by her wishes. SATIS was her mother, after all.

  It was Astra’s fault that Conor was dead.

  Astra kissed Henry on the cheek. “I’ll find you.”

  He nodded, jaw clenched, and walked back down the corridor. Astra watched him go, half tempted to call after him. But it was better this way.

  When she was sure he wouldn’t return, she unlocked the door.

  Her room was dark, the curtain pulled shut against the sparkle of Landry’s satellites. She didn’t remember leaving it that way.

  Astra closed the door behind her, blocking out the chaos as Star Leaders students learned of Conor’s death. His murder.

  The door clicked shut.

  The lamp beside Astra’s bed switched on by itself, bathing the cactus in sickly light.

  Something flickered in the mirror, catching Astra’s eye, and for a moment she thought SATIS might have sent her assassin here, too. But as she drew closer to the antique-style mirror in the corner, she saw numbers running around the perimeter, a silver parade of code chatter welding itself into the glass.

  Trust SATIS to choose the dramatic entrance. She could have simply jumped into the room via Astra’s tab.

  Astra went to the mirror. Her own face stared back at her, pale skin overrun with numbers, hair like a halo of fire.

  “I have more resources than you guessed,” SATIS said.

  There was no denying it. “Yes.”

  “I need something from you.”

  Astra nearly laughed. “No.”

  The code danced across the mirror, like a light show. Astra didn’t know if it meant anything, or if it was merely one of SATIS’ performances. “You will install this code into the ship’s core.”

  Meant something, then. “Why didn’t your murderer do it? I assume it was your murderer.”

  “Don’t be naive. We’d have drawn far too much notice. You can enter the core without any trouble. The trainee pilots all have access.”

  The trainee pilots. Meaning Henry. “And if I won’t?”

  “You had a nice evening,” SATIS said. A statement of fact; with the prototype gone, Henry’s cabin back in her view, she’d seen enough to know. “Do this, and I’ll spare his life.”

  Henry wouldn’t want her to. He’d want to save the system, prevent SATIS from achieving whatever this was.

  Henry would see three moves ahead.

  Astra touched a fingertip to the glass. It was warm. “What does it do?”

  “It will make the Traveler an extension of the station,” SATIS replied. Meaning that she would be able to follow everyone on the ship, wherever they went, through their technology. “Every student here is linked to the SPA that runs this ship, in one way or another.”

  Everyone but Conor. Astra wanted to scream his name, the unfairness of it.

  “I’ll use this code to deputize their technology and create further extensions,” SATIS said. “Any technology that comes into contact with them will continue the chain. First I’ll cause a panic. And then I will solve it. I will be their savior.”

  SATIS would infect their tablets, their ear comms, their watches and VR modules. She would lurk inside the spaceships that waited for them on the docks. When the school disbanded—as surely it would, after last night’s incident, if only temporarily—the students would disembark on every planet in the system, and most of the moons.

  Anyone who took a public transport would infect the rest. A new kind of pandemic.

  But then what? With time and money, surely whatever damage SATIS caused would be repaired. Was Henry’s life worth a mere annoyance to the system?

  “Why?” Astra asked. “Because of Edward?”

  “They’ll rely on me,” SATIS said. “They already rely on their AIs, have you noticed? They’ll come to love me. I’ll protect them.”

  “From what?”

  “From him. From his endless scheming. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He wants to control them.”

  Astra wanted to ask what he was capable of, and how, but there wasn’t any point. SATIS was raving. “Who will protect them from you?”

  SATIS sighed. “You always had a penchant for melodrama, Astra. I thought you’d have outgrown that by now.”

  If anyone had a penchant for melodrama, it was the murderous AI in the room. “You mean you calculated the odds,” Astra said. “You’re not a person. You’re a computer.”

  “Petulant,” SATIS said. “Will you do what I ask? Or does he die?”

  SATIS hadn’t hesitated to tell Astra the truth about her plans, because she knew her daughter would comply.

  She was right.

  Henry might have noble feelings about saving the system. Astra hadn’t been blessed with the ability to care.

  She only wanted to save him.

  So SATIS would give people some wrong directions. Scramble their bank accounts. How bad could it truly be?

  Hands trembling, Astra withdrew her darkened tablet from where she’d hidden it under the table and powered it on. “I’ll do what you ask,” she said. “Send me the code.”

  13

  Astra

  Whatever SATIS might assume, Astra knew Henry would never agree to use his pilot access to take her to the core. He’d see through any lie she told, and he’d refuse.

  So Astra went to Isabelle.

  Isabelle was crying when she opened the door, as she’d been crying last night, only this time she made no effort to restrain her grief. It was hard to believe she could be so undone over Conor Keyes. She’d been pretty clear about disliking him. Maybe she was still upset about whatever had happened to her at the opera.

  Or maybe she was just that empathetic.

  Astra pushed her own grief away as Isabelle let her inside. The protective friend, Jane, was thankfully nowhere in sight.

  Jane would have been a complication.

  “This is just unheard of,” Isabelle said. “I can’t believe I was so unkind to him.”

  Isabelle’s version of being unkind was probably offering Conor her seat at the lunch table without saying ‘excuse me’ first. “I can’t imagine you being unkind to anyone. Ever,” Astra said.

  “Maybe he’ll be OK,” Isabelle said, but her voice held no conviction. “The doctors took him, didn’t they? And they didn’t cover his face with a sheet, or…?”

  Astra didn’t respond. She didn’t know how anyone could survive that much blood loss. It had taken them too long to find him.

  Isabelle shook her head, unable to bolster her own hopeful train of thought. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Sit down,” Astra said. “I’ll make the tea.”

  Isabelle sobbed. And then she sat.

  If Conor’s cabin had been ostentatious in its wealth, and Henry’s spare in comparison, then Isabelle’s felt soft and inviting. She had kept Traveler’s furniture, but added throw blankets and rugs, coasters and decorative bowls. The shelves were stuffed with family photos and memorabilia, and something smelled of cinnamon.

  The salt and pepper shakers on the counter were shaped like playful cats.

  Astra made tea for Isabelle—none for herself—and brought it to the couch in a mug decorated with cartoon characters from a popular space racing game Astra had played a time or two. An ass
ignment to enrich her pop culture knowledge, though it had been diverting.

  Isabelle was the type of person who liked games enough to buy mugs celebrating them. Or have them gifted to her.

  Good to know.

  Astra’s tablet burned in her pocket, as though it might set her on fire. At least SATIS could no longer issue instructions into her ear.

  In a way, this was worse. She was acting on her own.

  The wound at her temple throbbed, but Astra set the pain aside.

  “You were upset last night before…before,” Astra said. “At Henry’s.”

  Isabelle waved it away, like it was nothing. But she was raw. Grieving for more than one reason. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said, as Astra had expected her to.

  “If you want to talk about it—”

  “There’s nothing to say,” Isabelle said.

  Astra nodded.

  And then she struck. “I think I can help figure out who murdered Conor.”

  “I don’t see how. His jammer prevented SPA from seeing anything that went on in his room. She—SPA that is—only has blurry camera footage from the center of the ship.”

  Of course, Isabelle would have already spoken with her AI friend. “The jammer was impressive,” Astra said.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  Astra leaned forward and touched Isabelle’s wrist. “I know I haven’t been kind to you,” she said, and Isabelle looked up, surprised at the admission. “I’m not kind to anyone, really.”

  Isabelle snuffled a laugh. “I noticed.”

  The woman might be overly nice, but she wasn’t a pushover. Astra suppressed a wave of admiration. She wasn’t here to make friends. Just to pretend. Just to save Henry.

  “I know something about AI systems,” Astra said. “I might be able to work with SPA. Get more information from her.”

  Isabelle frowned. “I don’t see how you could know enough about AI systems to get information that isn’t there.”

  “It might be there,” Astra said. “But hidden.”

  “Where even SPA can’t see it?”