“We can’t live up here forever,” Katrina said.
“There is nothing down there, Lieutenant. But I’ll tell you what: if we find a way out of this storm, I’ll send a team down there to check those coordinates out, just to prove it to you.”
Rodger Mintel was convinced he was the only one of his kind. He had always felt in his bones that he was different. Most of his friends and even his fellow divers thought him a little odd. For one thing, he loved to build things out of wood. Oak, if he could get it. Most softer woods had crumbled over the years. He had scavenged broken furniture from the Hive and even found whole planks on the surface during his dives. Once, trees had thrived on the planet below. Now they lived on in his creations.
He had just returned from the launch bay and was standing in the stall his family owned, looking at his creations: animals, figurines of people, and even a replica of the Hive. Most of the ship’s inhabitants couldn’t care less about his pieces, but he had a few customers who appreciated his art. Some of them even brought him furniture to fix from time to time. It wasn’t how the Mintel family made a living, but it did add some extra credits to their account.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong, or just stand there?”
His father glanced up from the clock he was making in the workshop behind the stall, and took off his spectacles. The real family business had been passed on from generation to generation, but it would stop with his father. Someone else would have to become the ship’s clock and key maker. Rodger had opted to become an engineer, and then a Hell Diver.
“You know I can’t tell you anything, Pops. Besides, you’re supposed to be in the shelter with the rest of the noncritical staff.”
“Noncritical. Pish.” He laughed at the very idea. “I have clocks to finish. Without the sun, they’re the only way to know the real time.”
Another voice came from the back of their shop. “Cole, leave him alone. You know he can’t tell us anything.”
Both Rodger and his father turned to face Bernie, the matriarch of their little family. She walked into the workshop and set a wooden bowl of fruit down on Cole’s desk.
“You’re supposed to be in the shelter, too,” Rodger said.
“Oh, stop, Rodge. The Mintel family doesn’t cower.” She smiled and pointed at the apples. “Eat something. You’re as skinny as a pole.”
Rodger grinned back. “Thanks, Mom.”
He was one of the luckier citizens of the Hive: both his parents were still alive—although he wasn’t sure how much longer this would be true. They both were in their fifties, and the years had not been especially kind to them.
Cole sat back down, moaning from the aches that plagued his body. Bernie took a seat at the desk beside his and brushed her thinning gray hair back over her shoulder. She was a two-time cancer survivor, and Rodger was perpetually afraid that it would come back and finish the job.
“Sit down, Rodge. You need your energy, especially if they’re planning to send you back out there again.”
Rodger sat, looking warily at his mother. “Who said anything about that?”
Without looking up from his clock, Cole said, “Your coveralls speak volumes.”
Rodger glanced down at his black jumpsuit and laughed. “Oops.” He plucked a small red apple from the bowl he had made for his mom on her fiftieth birthday. He had brought the wood back from a dive in a green zone. His team had discovered an entire warehouse filled with lumber, and Rodger had insisted on bringing some back. Magnolia had given him hell for that, rolling her eyes and telling him to leave the wood and grab something useful, such as plastic.
It was then that Rodger had taken a real liking to Magnolia. His thoughts were filled with the girl with blue highlights in her black hair—the girl who never seemed to pay attention to him. He wasn’t going to wait any longer. As soon as she was back from fixing the rudders, he was going to tell her how he felt.
He picked up his carving knife, but instead of cutting into the apple, he went to work on a present for Magnolia. He had just the thing in mind.
As Commander Rick Weaver left the bridge, his mind was filled with questions about the transmission he had overheard Captain Jordan and his XO whispering about. Jordan probably wouldn’t tell the Hell Divers anything, and he certainly wouldn’t ask for their opinions. Everyone knew that the only reason he listened to Katrina’s advice was because he was sleeping with her. It was obvious to most everyone but them, apparently.
Weaver trusted only one person on the ship for answers, and he had only a short time to sneak away and find her. Ten years ago, his home had come crashing to the ground, killing everyone he loved. He alone had survived, and it had changed him.
The hostile ruins of Hades had thrown everything at him, but in the end, he had beaten the wastelands. Captain Maria Ash had welcomed him to the Hive, and he had done his best to honor her memory and be a good role model for the other divers. But this place had never felt like home. It shouldn’t feel like home. The human race belonged on the surface, and someday it would return.
Shortly after coming to the Hive, Weaver had heard rumors of a prophecy originating on the lower decks. He had traced those rumors back to their source. According to the prophecy, a man would come and lead them to their true home, on the planet’s surface. For whatever reason, Captain Ash had believed in the prophecy. Weaver didn’t know what to believe, and maybe that was why he kept coming back here.
He hurried through the passages, darting an occasional glance over his shoulder to make sure no one from command was following him. Jordan would have his head on a pike for going belowdecks. He dug in his pocket and felt for the old-world coin that seemed to bring him luck. He could use some right now.
The coast looked clear, but he drew up the hood on his sweatshirt and kept his head down to avoid inquisitive gazes. Most of the lower-deckers had emerged from their shelters and gotten back to their daily lives. For these people, the turbulence was just another interruption in their routines.
Weaver’s fellow divers, when not working, usually stuck to the upper decks, playing cards and drinking shine. He had earned a reputation as a formidable card player, but few knew that he spent all his spare credits on food and medicines for lower-deckers who couldn’t afford them. Helping the sick and needy, especially here in the third communal space, where the sickest and most disadvantaged people lived, was his way of holding on to hope. But today he wasn’t here to help them. He was here for information.
As he climbed down the final ladder to the entrance to the barracks that housed over a hundred lower-deckers, a militia guard approached. Weaver kept moving purposefully, a worker intent on the task at hand. It seemed to work, and the guard didn’t call after him.
Like the trading post, the communal area was one open space. He pulled a bandanna over his mouth and nose before entering. Coughing and sporadic shouts echoed through the space. He walked inside and took a right at the first alley. Twenty families lived here in slots not much bigger than his launch tube, each habitation cordoned off by thin curtains hanging from cord or rusted drape rods.
Weaver knew exactly how many steps would get him to his destination. Because of the power curtailment, the banks of overhead lights were dark, and the heating units the engineers had hooked up to the boiler were dormant. The flicker of candles guided him through the cold space.
Stopping midway down the aisle, he pulled back a faded red curtain to reveal an empty bunk. The bed and the shelf next to it were covered with books and candles, but the woman he had come to see was gone.