Will was next to me, and then Ulysses. His brisk and indifferent demeanor suddenly melted. “What is it, little sister?” he asked.
“My shoulder,” I managed.
Ulysses gently manipulated my arm. The pain was like a thousand knives in an open wound. “Dislocated,” he concluded. “I can fix it, but it will hurt worse first.”
“How much worse?”
“Like stretching the muscle until it tears.”
“And then it will feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
Ulysses looked at me long and hard, as if he were weighing the pain against his ability to inflict it.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
He took my good arm and gripped it tightly. The hard calluses on his palm scratched my skin. His other hand was on my shoulder. His chest was pressed close up against me. I could see every line in his face, the fine hairs on his cheeks above his beard where no beard grew. I could feel the thumping of his heart, the hard steady rhythm that matched mine. He steadied himself with a deep breath and turned away. Then he pulled.
The pain was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was as if every fiber in my arm cried out at once, then was ripped from its anchor. A swirl of violent colors washed over my eyes, and my face burned as if on fire. Then something slipped and fell back into place, and just like that the pain subsided. I was left dizzy and nauseated, covered in a cool, clammy perspiration.
“It’s done,” said Ulysses.
Then I did vomit, in a wrenching spasm that doubled me over. Nothing but a thin stream of spittle emerged, however, and once it was gone the nausea passed. I wiped my mouth and sat up straight. “I’m okay,” I said.
Ulysses tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied a makeshift sling from my neck to my wrist. “It’s not what the doctor ordered, but it will hold your arm.”
Will was staring at me with something like awe. “Did it hurt?”
“Not that much,” I lied.
The jet thundered again overhead and dropped two flares into the geno-soy. Plumes of red smoke rose toward the sky.
“They’re flagging us,” said Ulysses. “Let’s get moving.” He put an arm around me and helped me stand, then beat a path through the soy with his free hand. The plants were thick and hard to bend, but Ulysses held them down until we could pass. The stalks reached higher than my head. I kept looking up to make sure the sky was above me, but it only made me lose my step, and I still felt trapped and claustrophobic.
After a few minutes, I noticed Ulysses had slowed and was limping.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
But his leg was dark red with blood. It had soaked through his pants and the wound appeared to still be bleeding. I insisted we rest, but Ulysses refused. “In about five minutes, they’ll be here with robo-sniffers and guns,” he said. “They won’t stop until they’ve caught us. They’ll leave the bodies in the fields.”
His tone was calm, but there was something in his voice that betrayed him. It took me a moment, but I realized he was frightened, and his fear made me more nervous than anything he could have said.
“These are not ordinary people,” he continued. “Pirates steal, and we’ll cheat if we need to, but we do it to survive and because our enemies do the same. Even PELA has a code, though they don’t always live by it. But Bluewater cares only about money. They don’t even care about the water, really. They have no loyalty and don’t look out for their own. It’s greed, pure and simple. Nothing will stand in their way. Not laws, not governments, and not any pirate with a gun.”
“How do we know they haven’t killed Kai?” asked Will.
“No. They’ll keep him as long as it suits their purposes. The boy is a diviner. That’s worth a lot of money. He can tell them where water is, and they can keep him from telling others. They won’t kill him as long as there’s use for that.”
“He needs medicine,” I said.
“They’ll give him that too.”
The jet had disappeared now, but there came another sound in the distance, harsh and braying.
“Sniffers,” said Ulysses. “Move!”
The three of us were battered, two of us bleeding, but we ran as quickly as we could. Will winced with every step, his leg healing but not healed. Ulysses showed no pain, but his pale face betrayed his injury. My shoulder had begun to throb, and every plant that brushed me was like a whipping.
We were deep in the soy fields. I had never seen so much vegetation. I could practically feel the plants pulsating, exhaling moisture like breathing. Without any protection from the sun or the sky, they flaunted the great wealth of their growers. Even with their genetic alterations, they still wasted enough water to quench the thirst of a large town. But their growers didn’t seem to care. They had resources to burn, and the food not only tasted better, it was a potent reminder of their enormous power.
“Run, Vera!” Will urged me forward.
The braying grew louder. We followed Ulysses, who beat at the plants with his powerful arms. The pain in my shoulder was nothing compared to the burning in my lungs, the aching in my sides, and a terrible, drill-like pulsing in my skull.
And then suddenly, without warning, Ulysses collapsed.
For a moment time stood still. It was not possible that the great pirate king could fall. Even when I thought Ulysses had drowned, I never saw his body, and I had refused to accept he might actually be gone. But now there he was, splayed out before us, his pants leg soaked and his face white.
I grabbed his hand. “Ulysses,” I begged. “Ulysses.”
He looked up at me, and his eyes fluttered slightly.
“You remind me of her,” he said.
“Who?” I asked, although I knew.
“She was skinny, like you. She used to call me Poppy.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Please. We’ll get you help. I promise.”
And then the sniffers were upon us.
CHAPTER 15
The prison cell was no larger than the back of a flatbed truck. I leaned up against one wall, a dull banging in my head like the headache that comes after a beating. It started low, at the base of the skull, and then worked its way up to the temples and the forehead until it threatened to explode.
“Open the door,” commanded a voice from beyond the walls.
The banging stopped, and the great steel door swung open. A nearly hairless man walked into the prison cell. He was as tall as Ulysses but with no eyebrows, eyelashes, or beard. His eyes were a pale gray-blue, and he might have been albino, except his skin was a sun-ripened brown. Behind him, hopping on one foot, his face scarred and ravaged, was Nasri. He seemed as excited to see us as we were surprised to see him.
“That’s them,” said Nasri. “The pirate and his spawn.”
The hairless man practically filled the room. Although he was the most unusual man I had ever seen, the most curious thing about him was his shiny fingernails. It looked as if he painted them with polish. There was no trace of dirt, and there were no scabs or other visible injuries on any of his fingers. In fact, as I observed him, I noticed how clean his entire body appeared, and as he approached, I smelled a scent that reminded me of flowers—the real ones grown in hydro-vaults, not the fake chemo ones planted about the town.
With one foot the hairless man pushed at Ulysses’s prostrate body. Ulysses moaned slightly but did not move.
“This one is injured,” he said in a voice liquid and smooth. “Get the medic.”
“But Torq,” protested Nasri, “he’s a pirate.”
“And now he’s our prisoner. We will not let him die quietly.”
Nasri hopped from foot to foot but did not protest. Torq obviously frightened him as much as he frightened me. Nasri’s mouth worked silently, as if he were chewing over something. He glared at Will, and his hand went involuntarily to the scar on his face. Then he backed from the cell, never letting us out of his sight until the door closed behind him.