Days ago, I wanted an answer, but now I don’t. “Yes.”
“They’re hers. And mine. And everyone’s. We care for them.”
“Where are their parents?” I ask.
“Lost,” she whispers.
Lost. Like ships and materiel. I shiver. “You made it sound like Rosealma was the only person who cares for them.”
“The children love her best,” the owner says. “They would be devastated if something happens to her.”
“So would I, I say. “Believe me, so would I.”
THIRTY
You didn’t tell me this was a military base,” I say to Squishy the next evening. We are in the viewing area of her medical practice, where we’ve been the past few nights. Only on this night, there is no image of Karl’s surrounding us.
For the first time, I feel like we’re alone.
“It’s not,” Squishy says.
“But it was,” I say. “It’s on imperial property.”
“The families bought this land,” she says. “They’ve invested a fortune to clean it up.”
“To clean up what?” I ask.
Her lips thin. Then she smiles, as if she’s had a private joke with herself. “What does it matter if I tell you?” she says. “Of all people, you’re not going to say anything.”
I feel my cheeks heat. Was that why the restaurant owner didn’t tell me much? She was afraid I would run to the authorities?
I only know one person in Vallevu who ever did that, and it wasn’t me.
“The families cleaned up everything legally,” she says.
“Legally?” I ask.
“They effectively sued to own this place,” she says. “Then when they got it, they scrubbed the record. In no way can the military reclaim this land. In fact, it should be off their books as well.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because,” she says, a slight color building in her cheeks, “the families believe someday their loved ones will come back.”
I feel a deep horror, something I thought I was past. The families here believe like the families did at the Room of Lost Souls. Someday their loved ones will return to them. Someday, their loved ones will come back.
Only unlike the Room, where no one could stay for a long time, simply because of its location, these families remained at the site of their loved ones’ disappearance for years.
“Shouldn’t they be in orbit instead of down here?” I ask.
She looks at me sharply. “Diana talked to you,” she says.
“I don’t know any Diana,” I say. And that’s true. I never let the owner of the restaurant—if, indeed, that was Diana—tell me her name.
“Yeah,” Squishy says in a tone that implies she doesn’t believe me.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I say.
She nods. “They should be in orbit, yes. On the military science station. We had an entire wing for our work. And they should be waiting somewhere near it. Only it’s gone.”
I saw many things in orbit when I approached Naha. There were a few obvious tourist resorts—places where people stayed so that they could get a lovely view of the planet without traveling too far from home—and a few other things that I’m sure were classified. But I didn’t see anything obviously military. I would have noticed, I’m sure.
“Gone,” I repeat, just to make sure we’re being clear this time.
“The military took the base apart. The equipment went other places. I’m not sure what happened to the parts of the base itself. I know some people thought it contaminated.” She shrugs. “This is all after my time.”
“So they can’t stay in orbit, so they stay here.”
“If you believe that someone can return from stealth tech—or whatever it was that we created—then yes, this is the second most logical place to be. The soldiers who took part, they knew their families were here. So they would come here. If they could ever come home.”
It’s clear from the way she says that that she doesn’t believe they will ever return.
“That’s how the families ended up with this place,” she says. “They were supposed to leave when their loved ones were declared legally dead, but they wouldn’t. A bunch of them wouldn’t even participate in the call to declare their loved ones dead. The military had to do it over their protests.”
I stare at her. “There was a battle over Vallevu?”
“Yes,” she says. “And in this case, the families won.”
“The children,” I say. “They’re orphans of soldiers who were … lost?”
Her face closes down again. “The children aren’t any of your business.”
“Actually, they are,” I say. “They’re the reason you can’t go to that Dignity Vessel.”
Her expression is flat. She doesn’t want me to see how she feels. But now I’m getting to know that expression, and I’ve come to realize she puts it on when she’s the most frightened, and the most upset.
“I want to destroy that ship,” she says.
“You can,” I say. “You build the bomb. I’ll place it.”
“I’m going to place it,” she says.
I shake my head. “You can’t. You don’t want those children to lose you too.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says.
She sounds like me at the Room. Or me just before going to the Dignity Vessel. All bravado and denial.
But I don’t tell her that. Instead, I say, “Squishy, look. You can build the bomb. You can even come with me on the trip to the Dignity Vessel. You just can’t dive the wreck.”
“I want to go onto that wreck.”
“Serve as my science officer and medic,” I say.
She shakes her head.
I’m getting irritated. She’s being stubborn—again. I don’t want her to be stubborn.
“If we fail,” I say, “and we both die, then what? The Empire continues with its program. More family members will disappear. Or worse. The Empire will get stealth tech.”
She raises her chin slightly. I know I have her attention now.
“But if I go in,” I say, “and if I fail, then you’ll live to fight another day.”
“I’ll just go in the next time on my own,” she says.
“But I won’t be alive to see it,” I say. “Then it’ll be your choice.”
“It’s not my choice now?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It’s my choice. My mission. My father’s behind this, Squishy, and all he’s interested in is money. He sacrificed my mother to it.”
“You said you don’t know that for sure,” she says.
“You heard my story,” I say. “What do you think?”
She looks away.
“I saw you with those children,” I say. “They care about you. You’re different with them. Warmer.”
“Nicer,” she says.
I smile. “That too.” Then I let my smile fade. “Don’t you think that’s worth coming back for?”
“Others can take care of them.”
“But everyone tells me the children prefer you.”
She stares at me. “I can come?” she asks.
“If you swear to me you won’t dive the wreck,” I say.
Her jaw clenches. She moves away from me. She walks around the furniture, then stares at the wall where we watched the images that Karl recorded.
She’s clearly thinking about it. The question is, even if she agrees, can I trust her to keep her word?
I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know that I need her. I don’t have the expertise to make weaponry. I suppose I could make some kind of bomb or buy something that might be effective. But I’m not sure it’ll work on the Dignity Vessel.
The mysterious Dignity Vessel that is out of time and out of its proper region of space.
In some ways, I am more superstitious about that ship than most people are about the Room. That ship seems almost magical to me, and because it does, it seems indestructible too.