“Yes, you have the spear. The spear that the God of Blood guided into your hands.”
He wants to pretend it wasn’t the people who voted me leader, but rather the will of his invisible friends? I will never get through to this boy. He is a danger to us, a wedge that can divide us all.
“I’m sick of your God-talk. Where exactly are your gods, anyway? Why don’t they just show themselves and help us?”
Aramovsky’s expression is so condescending I want to slice it off his face.
“Em, how can you be so blind? We traveled on a ship that moved between planets. We were created in that ship, designed to live on Omeyocan when those that designed us cannot. We are standing in a city that was made for us. If you need more evidence of the gods, Little Matilda, then—”
My spearpoint at his throat, a blur of motion that my hands perform before my brain even engages.
“Don’t call me that,” I say, my words low and growling. “Don’t you ever call me that.”
Aramovsky stays very still. He tries to appear unafraid, but the point of my spear is just below his Adam’s apple. I could push forward (it would be so easy and you’d be forever free) and shut him up for good.
The same way Bishop shut up Aramovsky’s progenitor.
I remember the black body crawling, the broken thighbone plunging into its back. That sickened me, made me want to run…
A hard shudder shakes me. What am I doing? My temper again. I almost killed this boy. I pull the spear away, set the butt on the floor.
Aramovsky rubs at his throat. “Unless you intend to stab me again, may I go?”
“I didn’t stab you.” I say it sharply, defensively. I feel stupid, clumsy and out of control.
He lifts his fingers from his throat: they are traced with a thin smear of red. “The God of Blood approves, Em.”
“Get out.”
Aramovsky leaves.
I’m sure of it now—he wants to lead. On his own if he can, or by controlling me.
Be careful with Aramovsky, O’Malley had said. He’s tricky.
O’Malley was right about that. But is O’Malley trying to control me just like Aramovsky is? Am I really in charge, or is O’Malley shaping the way I think?
Spingate seemed so upset in the meeting. I’m going to check in on her first, then I’ll find O’Malley. I have to know if he’s hiding information from me.
There are little kids everywhere. Running around, goofing off and generally getting in the way. The shuttle is big, but we have far too many bodies in here. I’ll find a way to put them all to work.
They are even on Deck Two, where the labs are. The lab doors are closed. I heard Spingate’s voice coming from behind the door of Lab One. She’s yelling at someone.
I knock.
“Go away,” she shouts.
“Spin, it’s Em.”
A pause. The door slides open. Gaston steps out. He’s wide-eyed, frazzled. He closes the door behind him.
“Em, save me,” he says quietly. “She wants help, but the work she’s doing is way beyond me. I was trained to fly, not to do biology research. I need to be in the pilothouse—I think I’ve found weapons systems.”
My heart surges at this good news. “You mean like bracelets?”
He shakes his head. “No, weapons that are part of the shuttle, that it can use on outside targets. Like missiles.”
I vaguely know what a missile is. I can’t see how it will help us unless he can aim it at a spider.
He takes my hand. “Come on, talk to Spingate”—his voice lowers—“and watch out.”
Before I can ask him what he means, he pulls me into the lab. The narrow room is white, like Smith’s medical room. Cabinets, gear and devices I don’t recognize line the walls. Spingate is staring at something floating above a white pedestal marked with a golden gear symbol.
“Hi, Spin,” I say. “I came to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“I doubt it,” she says without looking up from her work. “Gaston is already helping me.”
The image on the pedestal before her looks like some kind of twisting ladder, rungs made of different colors. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.
Until now, every time a puzzle presented itself, Spingate was excited to solve it. Not now. No smile, no giggle. Eyes sunken, hair askew—she’s frustrated.
She stares at the twisted ladder, seems to have already forgotten I’m here.
I glance at Gaston. His eyes plead with me—he wants to leave. Partially because he wants to learn more about the shuttle, I know, but more so because of the angry mood that radiates from Spingate.
That reminds me: he’s the only one who knows how to fly—maybe I can solve two problems at once.
“Gaston, can you teach Beckett to fly the shuttle?”
He frowns. “Why? I know how to do it.”
Maybe he’s still mad that Beckett yelled at him about the food contamination. Or maybe Gaston doesn’t want anyone else to know what he knows, so that he continues to be special.
“Because if something happens to you,” I say, “we could be stranded.”