Finally Bay reached a vertical shaft. He began to wriggle his way up, pushing against the shaft walls. It was slow work. He had climbed half the shaft before he slipped, fell several meters, and managed to reach out and halt his fall. His bad hand hit a protruding screw, and he grunted with pain. His pistol banged into another wall, and the muzzle dug into his thigh.
For a moment, Bay hung in the shaft like Santa trapped in a chimney.
He sighed.
"What the hell am I doing here?" Bay said to himself. "I could be halfway to the next star system by now."
He felt trapped—trapped in this duct, trapped in this life.
What happened to me, Seohyun?
A voice spoke above him.
"You're not very good at climbing, are you?"
He looked up. She lay above him in another duct, sticking her head into the shaft, looking down at him. A girl with short brown hair and dark eyes. Rowan.
"I don't suppose you have a rope?" he said.
She rolled her eyes. "Would you trust me if I tossed you one?"
"No," he confessed. "But my choices are limited."
She groaned. "I don't have a rope anyway. But wait." She pulled her head back from the shaft, and he heard her scurrying away. A few moments later, she returned and lowered a cable. "Here, use this."
He grabbed the cable, pressed his feet against the duct wall, and resumed climbing. Rowan grunted above, tugging the cable.
"God, you weigh a ton," she said.
"I'm average sized!" he said.
She snorted. "For what, an elephant?"
She knows what elephants are, Bay thought.
But of course she did. She had the Earthstone.
Bay still remembered that day—when David Emery had stolen the artifact.
Dad was furious, Bay remembered. I thought the old man would tear the galaxy apart.
Bay couldn't remember Rowan, though. He remembered the traitor having a daughter, a blond girl named Jade. Leona had been good friends with Jade. But Rowan? He could remember nothing of a girl with large brown eyes. The traitor had defected sixteen years ago. Rowan must have been born in exile.
She has no idea who I am, Bay realized. No idea that I knew Jade, her older sister. Ra, how long has she spent here in the ducts?
"Yo, elephant boy!" Rowan called down to him. "Stop daydreaming and climb. I can't just pull you up. You gotta help! Grab the cable with both hands."
Bay stuffed his bad hand into his coat. "I'm fine with one hand!"
He finally reached the top. Rowan moved back, and Bay collapsed onto the horizontal duct.
"You're out of shape," Rowan observed. "Have you considered aerobics?"
Bay tried to sit up but banged his head. He grimaced. "I'm in perfect shape."
Rowan nodded. "Uh huh. I'm sure all the grogging and drugging you do helps with that."
He glared at her, this waif of a girl. She was half his size, and she wore nothing but a blanket, but there was fire in her eyes. One of her eyes, he noticed, was bruised and puffy. Somebody had struck her. Normally, Bay would be furious that somebody should hurt a young girl. But this young girl kept insulting him. She was definitely a troublemaker.
"Hey, what's your problem anyway?" Bay said. "Why are you so rude?"
"I'm rude?" Rowan said. "Last time we met, you insulted my father. You're lucky I didn't let you drop to your death."
Bay nodded. "Rowan, I'm sorry. I didn't know you're David Emery's daughter. See, our dads . . . they had a falling out. Long ago. But it was their feud, not ours. I was only a kid, and you weren't even born. Whatever happened between them, it doesn't need to affect us. I came here to apologize. I'm sorry."
Rowan stared at him, eyes narrowed, as if trying to read his mind. Finally she nodded. "Apology accepted. And I'm sorry I called you an elephant."
He couldn't help but laugh. "Hey, I've been called worse. Already forgotten."
She tilted her head. "I thought elephants never forget."
"Hey now, don't you get clever!"
Rowan grinned. "Can't help it, buddy." Suddenly her cheeks flushed, and she hurriedly closed her mouth.
"You all right?" Bay said.
She looked away. "I . . . Yeah! I'm great. I . . ." She heaved a sigh. "I'm a bit self-conscious about my teeth being crooked. I don't like smiling."
"Hey, at least you have teeth!" Bay said. "All I have are ivory tusks."
She cracked the tiniest of smiles, but she kept her lips closed.
"Funny," she said.
Bay bit his lip, then pulled his bad hand out from his coat. "I'm a bit self-conscious about the claw here, as I call it. I can't uncurl my fingers. It's why I couldn't grab the rope. It's also a bit smaller than my other hand."
She looked at his hand, then into his eyes. "What happened to it?"
"Was born this way," Bay said. "Cruel joke, I guess. My sister Leona was born to be a warrior. She's tall, strong, perfect. I was always the skinny kid with the bad hand, who couldn't fight, who spent his days drawing dragons and space warriors and alien princesses."
Rowan's eyes widened. "I want to see your drawings! Show me! I wish I could draw. I like to write movie scripts. I wrote a movie titled Dinosaur Island—it's about an island on Earth where dinosaurs never went extinct—and bits of other movies. My dream is to become a filmmaker someday—like Spielberg and Lucas—and actually film my movies. Oh, and I love tinkering with machines, almost as much as writing movies, and I've fixed Fillister several times. He's my robot. Belowgen smashed him once, and I had to fix him. But I'm only an average drawer. I can draw pretty good My Little Pony ponies, and one time I drew all five Dinobots, but that's about it. I bet you could draw some wicked Lord of the Rings stuff. I tried to draw all the characters once, but all the hobbits looked the same, and my Gandalf looks more like a hobo than a wizard. So? Show me your drawings!"
Bay blinked at her. "I have no idea what you just said."
She groaned. "Don't you have Lord of the Rings, and Transformers, and My Little Pony, and Ninja Turtles, and all that stuff where you're from?"
"Let me guess," Bay said. "Earthstone."
Rowan nodded, reached under her collar, and pulled out the crystal. "Yep! All here. All the good Earth stuff from two thousand years ago." She heaved a sigh. "Sadly, Belowgen shot up my monitor and keyboard. I'll have to get new ones, and build a new adapter, before I can get movies and books again." She tapped the crystal. "Don't worry, though, all the data's still in here. It's safe. I've dropped the crystal down the shafts three times already, and you can't damage it. I think it's some kind of diamond. Hard as mithril, as beautiful as the Evenstar. Those are Lord of the Rings references, by the way. Once I get a new adapter and monitor, we can watch those movies. I've seen them about a million times. I want to watch them again with you. And Star Wars of course. And Game of Thrones. Oh God, I have so much to teach you about Earth! Sorry. I'm talking too much. I haven't spoken to another person since I was a baby, just to Fillister. I get excited." She blushed. "You must think I'm mental."
Bay blinked at her. "Is Fillister from Lord of the Rings?"
She laughed. "No, silly! I told you about him already."
She pulled out a pocket watch. She unclipped the chain, then hit a button on the watch. Wings burst out from it, and a robotic dragonfly took flight.
"Nice trick," Bay said. "Is that a Transformer?"
"This is Fillister," Rowan said. "Fill, meet Bay."
The dragonfly buzzed before Bay, eyes narrowed. He looked back at Rowan. "I don't like him."