Kingdom of Cages(150)

“Shontio, we don’t know what they’ll do to her down there. We’re almost ready to start. Our people are on their way….”

“But they are not here yet.” Shontio got up and circled his desk. “And there are not going to be nearly enough of them when they do get here.”

“So, we start early. We shut down the cable, we take over the satellites. We’re going to do it anyway.” She ran her hand through her hair. “And I am sick of waiting.”

“And we run out of food two weeks earlier than we have to because you got impatient,” Shontio said. “No, Bele. The girl has got to go back.”

“And if the fleet gets in tomorrow?”

“Then we pull her right back up the pipe.” Shontio’s face twisted, and Beleraja thought she saw tears. “We are not going to be able to do this without casualties. You were the one who pointed that out to me.” He touched his knuckles again. “If you want, I’ll tell her. I ran her name through our records. It turns out she’s originally one of mine.”

“No.” Beleraja stood up. “I’ll tell her. I have a feeling that delivering bad news is something I’m going to have to get very used to.”


When Teal managed to look up again she was alone in the little office. A cup of water had been left on the edge of the comm board, along with a clean white towel.

Teal was surprised at how steady she was as she got to her feet. She wiped her face dry on the towel and drained the cup in one gulp. She felt… still, dry. Dad was dead. He’d been dead for years. He wasn’t even really an Authority citizen. He was just dead.

“Teal?” Someone knocked on the door.

“Yes?” She turned her head. Commander Poulos stepped through the threshold.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“I am sorry about your father. You must have been hoping very hard.”

“Yeah, well…” Teal looked down at the empty cup. “Turns out it was all a bunch of stupid stories. I knew that anyway.”

Commander Poulos said nothing.

Teal set the cup back on the board’s edge. “I guess you’re going to send me back to Pandora?”

Commander Poulos rubbed her thumbnail gem against her trousers leg. “Not because I want to,” she said quietly. “But the director has found out you’re wanted by the Pandorans. You didn’t tell us you broke the law to get up here.”

Her words sank in, leaving Teal cold and leaden. It had been for nothing. Her grand scheme for escape. All the Pandorans had needed to do was tell the director who she was, and now… now there was nothing.

“What else haven’t you told us, Teal?”

Teal stared at the blank screen above the command pad. In the distance she heard a dull voice explaining how the hothousers had herded them all under the dome, about the Eden Project, and how Mom had died, how they’d escaped and lived with Nan Elle until Teal had thought of a way to leave Pandora for good.

She stopped there. Commander Poulos already knew how it ended.

“Teal…”

The sound of her name made Teal blink and turn her head back toward Commander Poulos. But the commander wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at her own hands, at the wall past Teal’s shoulder, at the door. “You should know…” Commander Poulos stopped, and began again. “I know it’s no comfort, but I believe Director Shontio doesn’t want to send you back either.”

“It’s okay,” said Teal in a small voice, even though she couldn’t help feeling that those words were not the ones Commander Poulos had wanted to say. “It’s okay.”

Commander Poulos’s face tightened as if she were in pain. “You should know…” she said again. “If you can just hang on. If you ever need help, you can…” She opened her mouth, closed it again, and rubbed her thumbnail gem hard against the side of her leg. “You can call on me, Teal.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll walk you.” Commander Poulos got to her feet and Teal could still feel something unspoken hanging in the air between them.

It didn’t matter. There was nothing Commander Poulos could say to make it better. Teal stood. She couldn’t see where she was going. Nothing. Her grand plan had all come to nothing. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. Her feet were moving on their own, steered by Commander Poulos’s firm hand under her elbow. Each step taking her closer to the Pandorans, closer to the hothouse, and the place where Mom had died. Died like Dad in a bleeding mess on the floor, and all for nothing.