The Secrets of Star Whales, page 9
And then I yelped in excitement, heart hammering in my chest. I did it. The generator was working. My hydrodriver slipped from my fingers, and I descended on the circular panel, tapping buttons and twisting knobs to get it fully powered up.
There was no mistaking it. A soft rumble echoed through the engine room, and the whole ship began to vibrate. Soon after, the hammering of footsteps was impossible to ignore.
As expected, Mr. Hames slid down first, followed closely by India, Nashira, and Rhett. I froze, caught off guard. Our teacher’s jaw dropped as he stared at the glowing purple orb. And then he started to laugh.
It didn’t take long before we were all laughing with him, the pure happiness of accomplishment settling into our bones. India squeezed my shoulders, and Nashira clapped me on the back. Even Tarynn, peering down from the top of the ladder, was grinning.
“Oh, Max, you brilliant genius!” Mr. Hames exclaimed, and swept me into a spinning hug. I squirmed to get away, but he didn’t hold on long, just enough to ruffle my hair before taking a closer look at the Starkwil generator. “Haven’t seen it this color since I dropped my crew off at Lucarro XI. Gorgeous.”
“Nice job, Max,” Rhett, standing at the base of the staircase, said begrudgingly.
“Good thing I always have a hydrodriver as a ‘security blanket,’ huh?” I grinned. “By the way, these uniforms are perfect for mechanical work.”
It was a direct dig, considering the leather jacket was too stiff to be comfortable and mine was smeared with grease. Rhett glared at me, but for the first time in our lives, he didn’t respond scathingly. For the first time, I was more necessary than him.
Which basically made me untouchable.
India offered her elbow, which I tapped in accomplishment. We smirked at each other, right up until Mr. Hames clapped his hands.
“Okay, kiddos! Who’s ready for our first excursion?”
“Wait,” Tarynn called from the top of the ladder. “Right now? Mr. Hames, we’re not ready to go yet. We need more preparation. Nashira’s getting a hold of her uncle’s patrol routes, and Louisa is still synthesizing the audio recordings.”
Mr. Hames strolled to where Rhett was standing, glancing up at our first officer. “Come on, Tarynn. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
She gaped. “I’m ready for adventure! I just think we should adventure after the weekend, when we’re ready.”
“We want to go now!” India exclaimed, taking hold of my arm. “Max didn’t fix this thing to watch it break over the weekend.”
“That’s not how it works—” I started to say, but she cut me off with a squeeze of her hand.
Oh. Right. I nodded firmly, the corners of my lips tilting upward. “I mean, waiting might gum up the works. Then we’re back at square one.”
Mr. Hames saw right through it, but he flashed me a thumbs-up behind Rhett’s back, even though I hadn’t done it for him. But his voice was bright as always. “There. See, Tarynn? It’s got to be today. Lesson number one: if you wait for everything to be perfect, you’ll be waiting forever.”
I frowned. No one else knew about his deadline, but after my running dialogue with Kane, it was painfully obvious Mr. Hames was desperate to get back into space, desperate to scour the asteroid belt for signs of a star whale.
Dad wanted to find one too, I reminded myself. And what Dad wanted, I wanted.
So, I kept my mouth shut.
And a few moments later, Tarynn huffed. “Fiiine. Louisa! Timeline’s moved up. We’re leaving now.” Her footsteps receded down the hallway above our heads, and the other students climbed the ladder out of the engine room. Mr. Hames motioned for me to follow.
In the upstairs hallway, kids rushed back and forth. Louisa was securing the kitchen galley, flipping red latches to keep the drawers and cabinets closed before plucking her holopad from her pocket. Nashira and India scaled the staircase, making their way to the flight deck with Louisa close behind. The Flight Deckers, reunited again.
Meanwhile, Tarynn and Rhett followed Mr. Hames as he inspected the exterior of the starship. With nowhere else to go, I climbed the staircase after India.
And promptly ran into Arsenio, just outside his medbay.
“Oh, h-hey, Max,” he stammered. I forced a smile, because I still felt bad for how I’d snubbed him last week. He smiled back. “Congratulations on fixing the generator. Louisa told me everything’s running normal now.”
“Hopefully,” I said. That swell of pride hit again, the certainty that I’d fixed something otherwise utterly broken. And here Mr. Keller didn’t think I could handle anything bigger than an artificial gravity device. Ha. Joke’s on him.
Arsenio hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. We were alone in the hallway, with six closed doors stretching beyond us: the Calypso’s crew rooms. At the end of the hall was the observation deck, brimming with comfy couches. Beside Arsenio was one more room—the medbay. I hadn’t seen it during the tour, but it looked pretty intense.
Although he probably thought the same about the engine room.
“Did you need something, Arsenio?” I asked, trying to be polite. Somehow, it came off as annoyed.
He winced, his freckles bright against his skin. “Do you hate me, Max?”
“What?” I blanched. “Why would I hate you?”
But even that sounded forced.
Arsenio sighed, shoving his hands into his leather jacket’s pockets. I hadn’t noticed before, but he wore an apron over his black pants, with scissors and a tiny first aid kit poking from the depths. Rhett must have made it special for him.
“I know we were never as close as you and India, but I thought we were friends. You know, before.”
Before my dad’s accident. I pressed my lips into a firm line, trying to focus on the point at hand. “We were friends. Are friends.”
“Mr. Hames thinks you might be mad at me,” he said quietly. I bristled, and he held up his hands, hastening to reassure me. “Ah, not mad. He said you’re sad, and angry, because of what happened. And since my mom operated on him, I’m an easy target. ‘The embodiment of your grief,’ he said.”
What was he doing, talking to Mr. Hames about us? As if that nosy teacher had anything to do with life on Azura. As if the decaying friendship of his mechanic and his medic meant anything to the functionality of this starship.
“Mr. Hames is wrong,” I snapped. “I’m not angry.”
Arsenio shrank into himself, and I realized I’d moved forward, clenching my fists threateningly. Shocked, I pressed against the opposite wall, putting distance between us. As if it might add distance to this conversation.
It didn’t. Arsenio swallowed hard. “She cried for days, Max. My mom. She didn’t go back to work for a week, she was so upset.”
“I don’t care,” I replied harshly. What I wanted to say was, It’s not enough. We cried for months.
But again, I suddenly, vividly, remembered Dr. Drose staggering into the hospital waiting room to deliver the news. How devastated she’d looked, hands shaking and bags under her eyes. How when she told Mom, they’d just hugged and hadn’t moved for ages. Not until Mom realized I was crying alone on a nearby chair.
It was the worst day of my life. It had never occurred to me that it might have been the worst for Arsenio’s mom too.
An announcement came over the loudspeaker, interrupting us. Mr. Hames bellowed, “Attention, attention! Please report to the observation deck. Takeoff in two minutes, kids. If anyone wants off, now’s the time!”
Rhett and Tarynn pushed past us. Tarynn paused only long enough to say, “Observation deck. You heard him!”
Once they thundered down the hall, Arsenio wrung the corner of his leather jacket, glancing back at me. To my surprise, his eyes shone. “I’m sorry for what happened to your dad, Max. If you want to be mad at me, that’s okay. But I’d like to be friends again. One day.” Then he offered a sad smile and turned down the hallway.
Mr. Hames came up behind me. I barely heard him, not until he asked, “Max, is everything okay?” His eyes trailed after the would-be doctor. “Did you talk with Arsenio?”
The hope in his voice made me furious, and suddenly, this was the last place I wanted to be. I couldn’t just stand in the observation deck listening to my classmates chatter, couldn’t accept congratulations for my engineering efforts while my body felt this numb. I couldn’t just smile and nod and pretend this conversation hadn’t happened, even though the memory of that day in the waiting room was tearing me to bits.
I couldn’t do it.
“Leave me alone,” I snarled, and shoved past Mr. Hames. Down the staircase, into the kitchen, down the ladder, straight to the engine room.
Back to what I knew.
And that was where I stayed for the Calypso’s inaugural flight.
12
New Instrument, Same Sound
I didn’t want to think about anything. My ears popped as the pressure regulated, as the heat kicked on, as the artificial gravity amped up to compensate for the loss of Azura’s constant spinning. And still I sat, curled against the escape pod docking station, watching the soft purple glow of the Starkwil generator, gripping Mr. Hames’s decivox.
I ran my fingers along the polished lacquer, ghosted them over the hollow space between the two metal rods. A beautiful sound breathed from the instrument, softer than the wailing in my mind. Tears tracked down my cheeks. This wasn’t Dad’s decivox; I had no right playing it. But it felt familiar, comforting, to hold this instrument. If I closed my eyes, it was almost like I was back in that tiny storage closet on the recreation level, passing hours in seconds while India hummed along.
Rhett was wrong. The hydrodriver wasn’t my security blanket.
I tweaked the dials and plucked invisible strings, listening to the soft humming of the decivox. It was so unfair. Dad had died two years ago, but he was still a ghost over my shoulder, a weight on my heart. I was sick and tired of the pity. Maybe I just didn’t want to be friends with Arsenio, okay? Who’d want to befriend a kid who always talked about blood and gore, anyway?
But he was right. The years before Dad died felt like another lifetime, one blurry and discarded. India and I used to be into the gross stuff, back when a fart could make us laugh and bodily fluids were fascinating. Arsenio had been airtight back then.
I was so angry after Dad died. Of course that had seeped into our friendship. And India was loyal; if I didn’t like Arsenio anymore, she didn’t like Arsenio anymore. The guy never stood a chance.
Clenching my eyes shut, I twirled my fingers over the decivox, pulling an anguished, melancholy sound from its depths. Dad once told me music was communication, that a truly gifted musician could tell a story from the rise and fall of a rhythm.
Today, I believed it.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually someone knocked softly on the metal wall. I startled, almost dropping the instrument, eyes flying open to see Mr. Hames standing at the base of the ladder, well across the room. Against the soft purple glow of the slipstream generator, his awed expression was hard to miss.
“Oh, Max,” he breathed. “That’s absolutely incredible.”
“What do you want?” I sniffed, rubbing my eyes to hide the last remaining evidence of tears.
Mr. Hames shifted, stepping away from the ladder. “I was worried. India too. She thought maybe you got left behind. She wanted to check, but she’s the navigator, so Tarynn wouldn’t let her leave the flight deck.”
I imagined that fight. Bossy Tarynn squaring off against a stubborn India. Normally, I’d laugh, but I didn’t feel like it now. Instead, I set the decivox on the ground and replied, crossly, “Well, I’m here and I’m fine.”
“If you want to talk—”
Oh stars.
“I don’t,” I forced through gritted teeth. He looked disappointed, but I kept talking, my voice growing more forceful. “I don’t want to talk. If I wanted that, I’d find someone and talk, but instead I’m down here playing your decivox, so clearly I don’t!”
He considered me for a moment, and I half expected him to scowl, to scold. Mom would have been all over that, shooting me The Look while simultaneously apologizing for my outburst. I’d heard it before: he’s upset, he lost his father, he doesn’t mean it.
But I did mean it. I glared, daring him to say anything.
Of course, he didn’t. Nothing about Mr. Hames was normal. In direct opposition to my dark tone, he took a bright, happy one. “Okay. No problem, Max. You can stay down here as long as you’d like. But we’re almost to the asteroid belt, so I thought maybe—”
“What?” I interrupted.
He blinked. “Ah, we’re almost to the asteroid belt.” To prove his point, he nodded to the tiny windows lining the bulkhead walls. I squinted, but the dark shapes drifting before a bright abundance of stars were hard to miss.
“But the asteroid belt is two hours from Azura.” I’d lost track of time, sure, but I hadn’t been playing that long. No way. And then my eyes settled on the Starkwil generator, and appreciation overtook my irritation. “Wow. This thing is fast.”
Mr. Hames shrugged, cheeks tinged with pride. “Best in the galaxy—”
A loud wailing cut him off. For a moment, it sounded like someone crying . . . but the tone wasn’t sad. I shoved to my feet, and Mr. Hames froze. His voice was distant as he whispered, “It can’t be.”
We both went silent, trying to identify the source; it seemed to be coming from the ship’s loudspeakers. Like an eerie melody from the depths of space.
But that wasn’t right. Sound couldn’t travel in a vacuum.
Heh. Maybe those cannibalistic space sirens were real after all. Despite my amusement, some scared-little-kid part of my brain whispered, Don’t joke about that. Instead, I tried the logical route. “Maybe someone hacked us?”
There. That made perfect sense. Maybe one of Azura’s miners, playing a prank on the tourist. They probably thought this was funny.
But Mr. Hames looked incredulous. “This—it’s not music, Max.”
I listened harder, straining to decipher the sound. And then it clicked. He was right. Although the sound was almost like a decivox—that smooth transition of high and low notes, warbling with vibrato—this was clearly organic. And we’d heard something similar in Mrs. Smith’s class, during her lectures on poaching—the topic we’d been exploring right before Mr. Hames took control of our class.
It sounded like a whale.
“No way,” I said.
“After all this time. All these years.” His eyes flicked to me, to the decivox in my hands, and his eyes widened. “Oh my stars. That’s it. Come on!” Mr. Hames ran for the ladder. At the last minute, he spun, jerking a thumb at the instrument. “Bring that. I have a theory.”
We scurried upstairs, sprinting to the flight deck. Around us, the melody of the star whales bounced off the metal walls, silencing the entire starship. Even the slipstream generator’s rumble was buried underneath it.
Of course, just as we reached the second ladder, a loud argument in the observation deck stopped us short.
“It’s right there,” Nashira was saying, exasperated. She jabbed a finger at the plastiglass windows, her green leaf earrings swaying as she pointed into space. “Look! How are you missing it?”
“This isn’t funny, Nash,” Tarynn snapped. “Bad enough the speakers are on the fritz. I don’t need hallucinating crew members too!”
Arsenio squinted at the windows, at what was apparently beyond them. Beside him, Rhett scowled. “I don’t see anything.”
Nashira huffed. “Then you’re blind. They’re right there.”
Mr. Hames’s breath caught, but before he could move for the observation deck, India’s head poked through the circular opening of the ladder. She must have been lying on the floor of the flight deck to get that angle.
“Max! Hurry up, you have to see this!”
I wasted no time scaling the ladder, still clutching the decivox. Mr. Hames was close behind, and India scooched out of the way, taking my arm to pull me upright. In front of a massive control panel, Louisa was typing furiously, eyes flicking to the wide window that circled the bullet-like curve of the room. There were two empty chairs—one perched in front of a tiny holographic map of the Fifth Star System, and one opposite it beside a screen broadcasting communication relays beyond the ship.
Mr. Hames reached the top rung of the ladder. “Max, ah, if you don’t mind?”
I was blocking him. I pressed against the back wall, behind where the captain’s chair should be. But it was just empty space, as if Mr. Hames had decided it wasn’t necessary and had it removed. The result was an inviting area for people to mingle, which was probably his intent.
“Max. Max, look!” India towed me to Nashira’s chair, pointing to the window beyond him.
And I saw it. A star whale.
I mean, really, it was impossible to miss. It was massive, bigger than the asteroids Azurans spent a century mining. The creature pushed them aside like annoying debris, shifting its body like a slow-moving eel. The shape was similar to a whale, certainly, with two massive fins below its oblong torso—just like the fin Flandius Scoot recovered, I thought dimly—and a crescent moon of a tail.
That was where the similarities stopped.
I gaped at two huge . . . they could only be described as sails: big, transparent triangles that stretched like a cape over the star whale’s back, glimmering gold in the distant light of a million stars. They rippled fluidly, like fabric through water, and the harder I squinted at them, the more they faded from view. Huge divots on the star whale’s nose seemed to glow green, and two long, um, whiskers—although they looked closer to stalks of wheat—kept brushing against where its blowhole should be.
