Kingdom of Cages(4)

It had been about an hour before whoever was giving Teal her going-over let her into the waiting room too. Teal had been scared, of course, but at least she didn’t look like she was ready to cry, which she would have if this had happened even just last year. Chena grabbed Teal’s hand and peered around through the crowd, looking for someplace where they could stand. A pair of old men in orange overalls that looked ready to fall off their skinny bodies shuffled sideways and gestured to Chena that she could stand by the wall. Chena nodded her thanks and steered Teal toward the empty spot.

Chena leaned against the wall, and so did Teal, but she collapsed her knees until she’d slid all the way to the floor.

Chena looked down at her younger sister for a long moment. Teal had just turned ten. She looked like Mom. Everybody said so. She had Mom’s sandy brown skin and high round forehead, black hair that fell back in waves around her ears. She had Mom’s shining brown eyes, and was stocky like Mom was too, with square hands but round legs.

Chena, on the other hand, was thirteen going on fourteen and looked like their father—tan skin, thick and wiry hair that was more brown than black, a sharp face, a wide full mouth, and deep-set eyes of midnight blue. Everything about her seemed too long right now—arms, legs, hands, feet. She was still getting used to the fact that she could look Mom in the eye without tilting her head up, and that she needed to wear a bra.

Teal wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them to her chest, turning her head so her cheek rested on her knees and she could look back up at Chena.

“What do you think Dad’s doing?” she asked. Her voice was small and furtive and a little impatient. She wanted to start a story.

Chena sighed. Ever since Dad had left them last year, they’d been making up stories about what had happened to him. All they knew for sure was that he’d failed to rejoin his ship in the port of a world called Rupert’s Choice and they’d left without him. There’d been no news since then, even though Mom had talked to every bureaucrat on the station.

He’d probably just left them. Parents did that sometimes. There were kids in the halls on Athena who’d had both parents just dump them. But maybe not. Maybe he was really out there doing something important and soon he’d come back for them.

Oh, well, it’s better than her whining. Chena sat cross-legged next to Teal. “Okay.” She pulled her leg in as a big dark woman shuffled past, looking for someone or something. “Let me see.” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, like she was receiving messages from the Great Beyond. “I think he’s working undercover for the Authority,” she said, flipping her eyes open. “I think there’s a conspiracy to poison one of the colony worlds and he’s going to find out who’s behind it.”

One of the old men next to them wheezed with laughter. “I think you’ve got too much imagination for a hallway baby.”

Anger, hot and sudden, flashed through Chena. “What would you know, you limp old—”

The door swished open and Teal seized her arm before Chena could finish the insult. Mom strode into the waiting room. Chena scrambled to her feet, stuffing her thumb between her first two fingers and stabbing upward to give the old man the piss-off sign. He waved her off and turned back to his friend.

“Well, Supernova, well, Starlet, that was something else, wasn’t it?” Mom’s voice was light, but her face was tired, even grim. “Gods below, I’m tired.” She had wrapped her arms around Teal and Chena and leaned back against the wall.

There was no time to ask questions then, because a different woman walked in right behind Mom. She wore a brown tunic and a long skirt. Her skin was sandy gold and her black hair was swept back and bundled into some kind of little mesh bag. She said her name was Madra and that she was the coordinator for the village of Offshoot. Then she’d read off a list of names of people who were supposed to come with her—including Chena, Teal, and Helice Trust.

So they lined up and walked down the corridor and out a door, where there’d been a brief glimpse of sky, and shifting sand and pebbles underfoot, and a huge glass and silver wire thing that Chena knew was a dirigible only because of a rig game she’d played once, and they were lead into the compartment under the areogel balloon. At least in this one there were enough chairs, and they were soft and comfortable, even if the immigrants did have to be strapped in, and they flew.

At first the feeling was fun, like the acceleration of the car on the space cable, but then it got boring. There wasn’t anything to see except the walls and the back of the chair in front of her. There were no jacks for her comptroller, or game rigs, or anything, and she found herself missing the space elevator. They’d been cooped up in there for two days in one big room with capsule bunks on the walls, but that had been fun. There’d been rigs and screens and five other kids, including Dea Jemma Tosh, whom Chena had grown up with, and Mom had been relaxed and happy, telling them over and over that this was a new beginning.