The re-creation of the first-class salon opens up before us as we make our way toward the elevators, and my footsteps falter. The room is lit low and warm, but the holographic projectors are off—no ghostly passengers milling around, no music, no hovertrays. The utter stillness makes it all too easy to see that we’re not alone.
I grab for Gideon’s arm as he starts to move past me, and his gaze snaps over. Off to the side, near one of the plush leather-lined booths, are Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen.
Gideon and I draw back into the shadows, waiting for some sign that they noticed us. But the soldier’s arms are around her, and her face is buried in his shoulder, and neither of them is looking our way. I was so busy making sure Gideon and I weren’t spotted as we slipped away that I must not have noticed when these two did the same. As we watch, Lilac LaRoux lifts her head. Her face is white beneath her makeup, the red of her lipstick standing out and highlighting the tight set of her mouth. She wears a black dress, as if she’s in mourning for everything around them. Now that I look closer, I can see that the soldier’s eyes are red-rimmed.
The soldier murmurs something I can’t hear, and in reply, the girl whispers, “Like ghosts, you and I.”
For a moment, I can almost feel sorry for them. Whatever else they’ve done, whoever they’re connected to, they’re the only two surviving people in the universe who were here, who knew the people modeled in the holograms, all dead now, who might have even been inside the first-class salon before the Icarus went down.
I’ve seen that look on the LaRoux girl’s face a dozen times on Avon. Like everything of her has been stripped away, leaving behind only the skeleton of who she was. If it weren’t for the hair, the dress, the rich surroundings, she could almost be one of the war orphans, waiting for the scars of trauma to fade. I could save her the time and tell her that they never do.
She reaches one hand out suddenly, grabbing the edge of the booth’s table to straighten herself, grimacing, and the soldier’s arms are around her, lightning-quick. His voice rises in alarm, and his words are clear. “You’re here, you’re with me, Lilac.”
“I can feel them,” she whispers, jaw clenched, lips barely moving, the tendons in her neck visible for an instant. Then it’s over, and she’s letting out a slow breath, straightening once more.
Gideon and I exchange glances, and he mouths, Them who? at me, but I don’t have the answer. The ghosts of her past, I assume, asking why she’s complicit in the plans of a man so evil as her father.
The soldier speaks again, the lower timbre of his voice making his words harder to decipher now, and the girl nods. He dips his head to kiss her temple, and when he pulls away, she’s Lilac LaRoux again. Smile bright, spine straight, all signs of what I thought I saw erased.
“There’s my girl,” the soldier says with a grin, and all shreds of sympathy flee. I wish I could dismiss tragedy so blithely.
I glance at Gideon, about to tilt my head and suggest we move on—we don’t need to know what these two are doing, we just need to keep out of their way—only to find him watching the pair as intently as I was. Blinking, I realize that his hands are clenched so tightly at his sides his knuckles are white, and that the salon lights reflected in his eyes are glimmering, his eyes wet. He looks at them the way I look at the picture of my father; like the man with his arms around Lilac LaRoux is the last scrap of some part of himself he lost long ago.
I hesitate, then touch my fingertips to his sleeve. He breathes in sharply through his nose, then turns away, not looking at me. Without another word, we continue on past, leaving the Icarus survivors to haunt the halls of the Daedalus alone.
The elevators Gideon wants to use are located in a wing of the exhibit on the crash itself, in a hall displaying about two dozen fragments of wreckage. Holographic text explaining each piece leaps out at us as we walk by, our movement triggering the displays to try to pull our attention away. But Gideon only has eyes for the ornate doors at the end of the room, making his way up to them in silence.
We step inside, and I’m still searching my mind for the words I need. As we silently glide past the floors on the way to engineering, I can feel LaRoux getting farther away. But what’s my next move? Gideon, I know we’ve got a lot of…of things going on. This isn’t the time or place to talk. But maybe—maybe when it’s all over, once we’ve gotten the info we need, we can… Yes, something like that. With a bit of don’t you need to cut the security fields everywhere, just to be sure there’s nothing hidden? mixed in.
I draw in a careful breath.
“Okay, I cut the alarm,” Gideon says, before I can speak, his eyes on his lapscreen. “I managed to isolate just the engineering floor—if we shut down the whole ship, all hell will break loose.”