The Owling, page 12
Yes, unfortunately. A moment later, Sola joined them, adding her own commentary for the cams. Each one followed her obediently, catching all her moves.
“And this is the little Owling boy we found amidst the ruins,” Sola told the cams, her voice taking on a sad tone as she moved closer to him. “We couldn’t find out what happened to his parents, though we searched desperately. We have to assume they were lost in the earthquakes. All we know is that we’re going to work just as hard now to help find him — and the Owling people who used to live in this city — a better life. We’re going to give them the kind of hope they never knew before.”
Oriannon stood helplessly by while Sola’s straight-faced deception made her feel she needed to take a long shower. All at once she wanted to grab Olim and run away screaming, but obviously she could not.
“There, did you get that?” Sola finally asked the reporters. “Let’s try that angle over here.”
Oriannon backed away while they took more close-ups and scripted backgrounders, all designed to convince viewers that they were moving heaven and earth to help this little boy. Sola even used that tired old expression.
Oriannon stumbled back to the shuttle, feeling ill for her part in this farce, and afraid of looking back. But she couldn’t help watching three techs come in with makeup in reverse, dusting red dirt on the little boy’s forehead and rubbing the hem of his little robe to make it look more worn than it already was. He would have to look dramatic for the camera all over again. Of course, now he tensed up once more, but even so he stood perfectly still, as if he knew he had a duty to perform. This time, though, he never took his eyes off Oriannon, and now she could see the pleading there.
She finally had to turn away; her vision had so blurred with tears.
“Oriannon!” Sola called her again. “How about one more shot over here with the little boy in front of this building?”
But Oriannon couldn’t, not even one more time. Pretending she didn’t hear, she hurried toward the shuttle.
“I’m not feeling well,” she told the security waiting by the open hatch, and every word was true. The only thing she could do now was lock herself in the restroom, fighting back tears that would not stop, and wait for the others to return.
14
It wasn’t hard to see why all the reporters were enjoying this assignment. What was not to enjoy? Once safely aloft, everyone’s grav seats released, and the reporters literally drifted over to the fully laden buffet table.
“Enjoy!” Sola played a perfect hostess. “We thought you might need some refreshment after all that hard work.”
The reporters chuckled at the joke and seemed to know better than to question Sola. A chef in a floppy white hat stood anchored behind the buffet, carving off slices of bread and dishing up generous pieces of pie doused with cream. “Aren’t you going to have anything?” One of the reporters paused to let Oriannon into the line in front of him, but she only shook her head.
“I’m not hungry,” she told him, though her stomach growled at the scent of so much good food. But what she said was sort of true. She knew she could not eat, not after what she had seen down on the planet. She needed to find somewhere to be alone.
“At least have a bite,” insisted another, the dark-haired reporter who had spoken with her when they’d first landed on Shadowside.
Ori had purposely not asked any for their names, thinking it better not to have to remember any details on this trip.
“Well . . .” She paused for a moment, remembering her manners.
“Sure, go ahead.” He held one of the flaky delicacies out to her on a fork, smiling a crooked smile at her as he chewed and swallowed another one himself. Goodness, didn’t his wife feed him at home?
She gingerly took the pie with a napkin and nodded her thanks.
“We got some great shots of you and the Owling, Miss High-tower,” another reporter told her. “My editor is going to be real happy when we put this story together.”
Yeah, with all the help you got from Sola. But she kept the thought to herself, and looked around for a way to escape. With all the partying going on in this gold-plated, plush-carpeted extravagance, she thought it couldn’t be that hard. She needed to get away to think.
“That’s great,” she answered. Without looking back she headed for the door at the end of the main cabin, near the restrooms but also off to the side near a spiral stairway. She waited for a moment while a flight attendant in a prim navy blue suit brushed by, then for another moment while Sola told another joke and everyone laughed far too loudly as they piled their plates high with more pastries and breaded fruitmeat.
When no one seemed to be paying attention, she ducked past the “Crew Only” warning sign, slipped down the metal staircase, and found herself alone on the lower utility deck.
She stood quietly for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dim lighting and the low ceiling of pipes and conduits. Down here, constantly thrumming engine thrusters caused the metal grate floor to vibrate, and she could feel their power through her shoes. Warm drafts drifting by her face smelled of burnt ion fuel and pneumatic lubricants. Only occasionally did she hear a faint laugh drifting down the stairwell behind her.
Kind of creepy, she thought, and the farther she got from the stairwell, the more intense the engine noise and vibrations became. Still she wound her way through narrow aisles between crates of supplies piled high and strapped to the floor. She wondered if there was any chance the little boy could have been taken down here.
She read some of the labels: diurnal generators, deconstituted consumables. Stuff for longer trips, probably when they went to the farther reaches of their system. Nothing too interesting. Lighted wall panels cast a strange red and blue glow, and she felt her hair stand on end as she stepped closer to the force field generators that powered their craft. She caught her breath at what she saw when she rounded a corner.
“Oh, no!” A large crate had been strapped to the deck, with holes in the sides like tiny windows, and a tight metal mesh nailed across the open front as a crude but effective screen. Four dark shapes cowered inside, huddling and shivering. At first she could not tell if they stood on two feet or four, and for a heart-pounding moment, Oriannon wondered if she should flee while she had the chance.
I shouldn’t have come down here! No telling what kind of wild animal this might be or what it might do to her if she ventured too close.
So she held her breath and waited for an attack, ready to bolt for the stairs. But when none came, she straightened her back and took a tiny step forward. In response the creatures inside pressed themselves more tightly into the corner, in the way of trapped animals.
“I’m sorry,” she told them, finally gathering her courage to step up to the crate and touch the mesh. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
In truth, she was the one more startled — particularly when she got close enough to see these were not wild animals, but Owlings! She strained her eyes to be sure, hardly believing what she saw. In a cage? Three men and a younger woman looked as tired and haggard as the makeup artists had made Olim back when they were taking photos. They didn’t answer her.
“Are you from Lior?” Oriannon struggled to keep from breaking down at the sight, barely managing to force out the words. They only looked at each other and shook their heads no. The woman muttered something she could not quite understand over the engine noise, so Oriannon pantomimed a mountain with her hands and raised her voice. “The cliff city? Lior?”
Where else could they be from? Oriannon knew the Owlings lived in a number of other villages and settlements; Wist had once told her that much.
“I have friends in Lior.” Oriannon looked around and back toward the stairs, though she couldn’t see them directly from where she stood. “Had. A girl about my age? Wist? Her grandfather’s name was Suuli, and — ”
That certainly got a reaction, and they now stared at her with eyes wider than ever. The Owling man closest to her stepped up to the mesh window, dragging a foot behind him as if to make a quick retreat.
“You’re knowing of Suuli?” he asked, and she could barely make out his hoarse voice. That, and she had a hard time making out his words through his heavy singsong accent, heavier even than other Owlings she had heard. Maybe they had different accents in different parts of Shadowside. She lowered her eyes for a moment before looking back at him.
“I met him before he died in the first earthquakes. But I was with Wist just a few weeks ago, after Jesmet returned.”
He turned back to the others, and they spoke to each other in hushed tones, eyes filled with fright. The woman still shook in the corner, crossing her arms and looking genuinely ill. The other two men shook their heads again before the leader turned back to her.
“We’re not believing you saw Jesmet,” he told her. “If you had, you would be in here with us, not out there with them.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m your friend, not hers.” Most certainly not hers. Oriannon unwrapped her pastry from the napkin and tried to push it through the mesh. “See? Are you hungry? Here, take some of this.”
The Owlings made no move to take the food as it dropped to the floor of the cage. They didn’t even look at it.
“Why are you acting this way?” she asked them. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The leader studied her more closely, as if trying to decide what to tell her.
“They said the same thing when they were attacking our village,” he finally replied. “We fled to Lior.”
The engines whined a little more loudly as they banked to the side. Oriannon grabbed for a handhold, and the Owlings fell inside their crate before scrambling back to their feet. She noticed for the first time that they all wore silver glasteel tracking anklets. Apparently the cage wasn’t enough.
“Attacked?” she asked. “What kind of attack? You mean, after the earthquakes?”
“Earthquakes we survived. Stealing our water we survived. But when they came to Lior, they knew exactly where to find us. Every hiding place. Every doorway. Every alley. They even came up through the Grand Hall passageways! How could they be knowing? They destroyed everything. And for what?”
His voice trailed off while his eyes took on a glazed, faraway look.
“Sola said she would give you hope,” Oriannon mumbled, ashamed that she had once believed it. She squeezed her own hands together, trying to keep from trembling, trying to keep from remembering how she had given Sola every detail of the city. She turned aside and held a hand over her mouth, ashamed to see how she had been used — and how stupid she had been.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
But now she knew just how twisted the words sounded, held up against the truth of Lior in ruins and these poor people captured in a cage.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed, afraid to look at him. “I know that Sola said she would give you hope.”
“Sola!” He spit the word back at her. “You’re seeing what this Sola has done to Shadowside? You’re seeing what her securities have done to us? We’re house servants now. Slaves. This isn’t hope.”
Oriannon had to back up a step, away from the words. She felt her cheeks burn as she reached for the piece of scorched wood she’d slipped into her pocket next to the Pilot Stone. If this Owling was right — and he most certainly was — the wood could only have been scorched by a disruptor beam.
“Please,” she begged him, though now she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear. “I need to know what happened. I must know.”
For a moment, the Owlings murmured among themselves, arguing, perhaps wondering if they could trust Oriannon. Finally their leader again approached the front of the cage.
“I don’t think — ” He winced now and held a hand to his forehead, blinking his eyes as if trying to focus. “I don’t think you’ll be wanting to hear.”
“I do. Please.”
She waited for him to answer, to tell her what had really happened. But this time he backed away with a new sense of fear in his eyes. Though he opened his mouth, only a low groan came out as he gripped his right temple and fell to his knees.
“What’s wrong?” Oriannon pressed her face to the mesh, pushing as close as she dared. She grabbed and shook the simple electronic lock on the cage door, wishing for a combination to set them free. “Can’t you tell me anything else?”
But he only waved her off, pointing in the direction of the stairway. He must have heard the footsteps coming their direction before she did.
“Hide!” he warned her. She hesitated only a moment before jumping into the shadows behind a large crate. There wasn’t much room to squeeze out of sight, but it was the best she could manage.
Just in time. A moment later she could see a steward checking the cage. He double-checked the door and paused to examine the lock — obviously tampered with and hanging askew. Oriannon pushed herself back into the shadow as far as she could manage, but obviously it wasn’t enough.
As the steward turned around he crossed his arms and stared straight at her. She remembered the same tight-faced look on Mentor Narrik’s face, back at the academy, when she and Margus had once stepped in late to astrophysics class. This time, she slipped her trembling hand behind her. He touched a comm on his collar and reported back to someone upstairs.
“I’ve found her,” he said. “Level one-b, cargo bay.”
“I’ve found her,” he said. “Level one-Had they sent him out to search?
“Just stretching my legs actually.” She stepped out of the shadows wearing her most contrite look, knowing it would probably do no good. “Curious to see what was down here.”
“Apparently you found out, and as you see, it’s nothing of your concern. You’re not to be here, Miss Hightower.”
“Really? Well apparently there’s nothing special about coach class. Glad it’s for them and not us.” She laughed to cover her unsteady voice. “Although, isn’t there a restroom down on this level somewhere?”
She couldn’t be sure the steward was buying her act. But with a straight face, he motioned her back toward the stairway.
“You’ll find it back up on the main level.”
She wasn’t sure how much trouble she was in, but when she looked back over her shoulder she decided it wasn’t nearly as much as the four Owlings probably faced. When she heard laughing upstairs again, she knew she had to do something about what she had just seen.
Only, what?
“Oriannon, dear!” Sola was the first to notice her as she made her way back to the media crowd. “I thought perhaps you’d gone off to take a nap or something.”
Oriannon glanced quickly at the steward, who ducked away and said nothing.
“Actually,” she told Sola with a hasty yawn, “maybe I am a little more tired than I thought.”
“And you must be so upset about losing your medallion.”
When Sola narrowed her eyes, a hint of an accusation showed through.
“Oh, yes.” Oriannon gulped when she realized Sola knew what had happened. “It happened so fast.”
“I saw, and I suppose you’re not entirely to blame. I must say, however, you’ll have to be more careful around those people. We’ll get you a replacement when we return to Seramine.” Sola beamed at the rest of the reporters, most of whom had drifted off in twos and threes to chat and nibble on their snack trays. “Meanwhile, get all the sleep you can. We have a long day ahead of us.”
Oriannon was almost afraid to ask what she meant. What long day?
“Didn’t I tell you?” Sola took a sip of her steaming clemson-root tea, then flashed a satisfied smirk. “As soon as we land we’re scheduled for an interview program with our friend Meela. You’ll be looking your best, won’t you?”
15
Maybe Oriannon would be looking her best, and maybe she wouldn’t. She hardly cared at this point. Even so, she checked the mirror in the media green room, the place where guests on Media240 got their makeup just before going on air. She made sure her Trion necklace was safely tucked out of sight, where no one would see it, especially not Sola.
“My, but we have some dark circles under our eyes, don’t we?” The makeup artist dabbed a little extra translucent powder on Oriannon’s cheeks and checked her chrono. “Still getting used to the dark like the rest of us?”
Three minutes until airtime. How was Oriannon supposed to answer?
That’s right, I haven’t slept for the past several days, and I’ve just seen all of Shadowside destroyed. The Owlings have been taken away to a nightmare prison. Other than that, I’m having a great day.
Oriannon sighed and nodded. She would just answer the interview questions and get it over with. Three minutes later, she discovered, Meela Rhon wasn’t going to make it that easy.
“So now, this is fascinating, you two.” Meela leaned forward in her interviewer’s chair, looking from Sola to Oriannon and back again. The set behind them showed a moving Seramine street scene. “You went on this rescue mission to Shadowside cliff city, Liam, and — ”
“Lior,” Oriannon corrected her, and Meela Rhon stopped short.
“Pardon me?”
“Lior. The city is called Lior.”
Meela smiled and nodded.
“Yes, of course.” She turned to the nearest tech behind and muttered something about editing that last part out. Then she turned back to the cams. “And this, by the way, is the young woman who should know — after living through such primitive, difficult circumstances there.”
“It wasn’t difficult.” Oriannon shook her head. “They saved my life.”
“Yes, fascinating.” Now Meela was frowning. “Let’s take a look at how her father reacted to his daughter’s bravery, shall we?”
The room darkened as a giant wall screen lit up with her father’s recorded image, his name at the bottom for those who wouldn’t recognize him: Tavlin Hightower, former Assembly elder.
Former? Oriannon nearly choked on the word even as she recognized their living room. When had this been recorded?
“I’m proud of my daughter,” he told the cam, and his voice sounded as flat as it had during that conversation with Sola. Of course, Sola hadn’t told them she was recording it to use on a national media program. But now Meela leaned over and lowered her voice a notch.
