"Yeah, Falcone will wanna see him." The hand let your tag drop, lifted up your head by the hair and turned your face this way and that, then pried open your mouth and looked in. You bit. The creature slapped you again. Hard.
"Gonna have to beat the attitude out," was the last thing you heard.
II.
Deep nausea from a deep leap through space pushed you awake. But you were blind.
Then lights hit you in the face. Stinging. Somebody screamed. Shadows formed out of the light and there Adalia reached for you as a man dragged her out a hatch before you could even sit up. The hatch slammed in with the speed of a chopping knife and darkness swallowed you whole. Whimpers bled from the corners of the room, all around you.
Little Adalia. Four-year-old Adalia.
"What's happening?"
Your voice was not your voice. It sounded small and it echoed in the black room. You were cold and the air smelled metallic and rank. The darkness sat thick and solid around you. But maybe a senior was in here with you. Maybe someone who knew things.
"Pirates," someone said.
"Evan?" You sat up wiping your eyes, feeling stickiness, sniffing. "Evan, where are you?"
"I'm here. C'mere, Jos."
Evan and his brother Shane stayed with you when your parents and their parents got together off-duty. Evan used to bully you sometimes, dump food on your clothes and make you jump to get toys he'd hold over his head. But now Evan kept talking to you in a soft voice until you found his leg and then his arm and hugged him there to not let go. Evan was twelve. Not grown-up yet. But he was strong and he could protect you if that man came back.
"Where did they take Adalia?"
"I don't know." Evan paused. "We're on their ship."
"It's pirates? Not aliens?" Your voice sounded shrill. Evan kept patting your hair and back.
"Yeah."
Others came to Evan. They were all younger than twelve. You recognized the voices. Tammy, Whelan, Sano, Paul, Indira, Kaspar, Masayo . . . all crowded around Evan and you, touching for comfort, shivering as you shivered, sniffling and crying. Scared.
Now that you weren't alone you were more afraid. Everyone else's fear added to your own and your heart trembled, all your insides shook, and you dared not ask where Daddy and Mama were. Evan usually had a big mouth and tousled you rough in gym sometimes, but now he was silent in a way he'd never been silent in all of your life. What had he seen? What had happened to Mukudori? But you couldn't ask. Evan patted you and didn't speak unless you asked a question.
But no more questions. You huddled with everybody else, all who might have been left, and tried for hours to sleep.
III.
In the dream you were home. Mama was tucking you into bed and whispering "my starling," like she'd call Daddy her darling, but playing on the name of the ship. Mukudori meant starling, she said. My starling. You fell asleep like you always did to the hum of Mukudori's drives, and it was a song that brought with it the sounds of your parents talking softly to each other when they thought you weren't awake. Sometimes Mama sat with you, rubbing your back with her hands, which felt dry and rough even though her touch was light and made you drowsy real fast. Sometimes Daddy sang to you. Daddy's voice wasn't so great and sometimes you fell asleep to their laughter and Mama saying, "You'll make the boy deaf."
You dreamed.
But light woke you hard again. The man had returned with Adalia, whom he threw to the floor beside you. Her jumper was torn and her face smudged with tears. You tried to touch her but the man stepped in and grabbed you up, hit Evan when Evan refused to let go. Evan fell back with a bruised eye. You screamed and kicked but the man yanked you out anyway. The hatch slammed shut, silencing the cries behind you. The man swore, dragged you by the arm so hard you thought your bones would snap. With satisfaction you noticed bright red welts on his arm where you'd dug your nails.
He bodily lifted you down the corridor. Dirty, dank corridors, not like Mukudori's. Dull red stains painted the gray bulkheads. Pulse-beam scars cut angular designs through yellow deck numbers and doors. The lev whined and grated, smelling of steel and sweat. He dragged you into a small room, bare and brightly lit, and left you there. You rubbed your arm and leaned into the corner, looking around. But there was nothing to look at. It wasn't home. It was a nightmare you couldn't wake up from.
Then another man entered. Tall, with spiky silver hair, a smooth face, and smooth blue eyes that didn't blink as they looked at you for one long minute. He came to the corner and took your hair, rubbed it between his fingers like you'd seen Mama do with silks on station promenades. He said, "Lovely color. Like sable."
You couldn't retreat. The bulkhead stood behind you like a guard. The man touched your cheek and rubbed like he had with your hair, took you by the ears and looked into your eyes, his own unblinking, they hadn't blinked once. The blue irises were like welding flames. He looked into your ears and ruffled through your hair, made you open your mouth like the first creatures had done, and put his fingers in and pressed your gums. You coughed, tried not to gag, eyes watering because you knew if you bit down this man might kill you. He forced your chin back and looked at your throat, then lifted your hands and inspected your fingers, your nails, your knuckles. Then he stepped back.