Trion Rising, page 6
Now all she could think of was what the securities might say to her father about her— and what kind of trouble she’d be in when he found out. Why had she told them who she was, anyway?
“I still don’t know what you were doing here, Oriannon.” Margus interrupted her thoughts.
“I was about to say the same thing about you,” she told him, but he just shrugged and gave her his “no worries” line, which she’d heard too often before. No worries? After what they’d just seen?
“I’m liking his stories,” he finally offered, which sounded rather lame.
“That’s it?” she lowered her voice. “What about all that stuff you said the other day about—”
The faithbreaker. But he shook his head at her, as if he wanted her to cut it out, or Jesmet might overhear them. And of course that’s when she heard Jesmet’s voice again in her ear, as clear and strong as if he was standing next to her.
Thanks for your help, Oriannon, came the voice again, and Margus didn’t seem to have a clue what she was hearing. See you in class tomorrow?
She looked around, just to be sure Jesmet wasn’t walking nearby, after all. He must have already disappeared into the crowd. A woman pushing a baby in a lev-carriage gave her an odd look.
Uh … sure. She nodded and returned the thought, though obviously Jesmet was nowhere close by and couldn’t see her. Tomorrow.
And then it occurred to her. She checked her ear and felt nothing.
She had already slipped the earbud into her pocket.
7
Some days she would wear the earbud, other days not. But Oriannon had to admit it was often fun listening to Margus imitating Mentor Narrick’s nasal voice, or Margus announcing the mid-day meal in the school’s dining room. Like now.
And now, students, you’re going to enjoy one of the supreme benefits of living the good life on the sunny side of Corista. Even his thoughts sounded like a media announcer, working the crowd. Today we have … glaep dumplings to brighten your day even more!
Too bad the rest of the kids filing into lunch lines couldn’t hear him. Instead they gathered under vaulted ceilings, waiting. Sunlight filtered through shaded skylights arching from marble column to column, set in a careful pattern between long tables in several rows. Dark banners speckled with embroidered planets and stars draped the upper walls. Oriannon thought it all rather pretentious, for a cafeteria. Pretty, perhaps, but pretentious. With tables moved out it had, on occasion, doubled as a grand ballroom.
I’m here, you know. She thought it best to warn him, in case he didn’t want to embarrass himself. He wheeled around from where he stood at the front of the line.
Hey, haven’t talked to you in a while. His face brightened and she almost forgot what had happened back at the Temple. Where you been?
Oh, you know. Around. My dad’s making me come right home from class for the next week, after what happened the other day.
Oh. Sorry. But you couldn’t miss lunch, right?
Not for the world.
Of course, if Oriannon could have politely plugged her nose she would have. And she imagined so would everyone else in the lunch line. She had long ago given up trying to figure out how an advanced civilization that could send people to nearby planets and produce thought transceivers couldn’t come up with better cafeteria food.
She did think of maybe slipping out— except the lunchroom probe had already scanned her entry and she knew what would happen if she tried to leave. Besides, Mentor Jesmet had followed them inside and was coming up the line with his own tray.
Brave guy, thought Margus. He must have seen the mentor come in as well. You ever seen him in here before?
She had not. But that didn’t stop Jesmet from smiling at the two older women behind the serving line, Deelie Wither and Frax Orrun, and thanking them for the generous helping of glaep.
“Supposed to be good for you,” Margus told her the regular way as he passed with a steaming tray and plopped down at one of the ironwood tables draped with a royal blue tablecloth. He glanced up at the hovering probe and switched back to the thought transceiver.
Whoops, sorry, Oriannon. I know your dad doesn’t want me talking to you. Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.
Not likely. She never looked to the side as she stood in line, just straight ahead. I think the probe is keeping busy making sure everyone eats this stuff.
Yeah, what a job, huh?
Out of the corner of her eye she did keep track of their music mentor, though, who was now holding his own tray and chatting with several kids in the middle of the crowded lunch room. The probe also looked as if it was keeping track, as it flew closer to the mentor for a better look. Meanwhile Oriannon inched ahead in the line.
Stay right there, Margus told her as she neared his table. Right between me and the probe.
She looked up to make sure, alarmed by what he’d said. And she nearly ducked away when she saw what Margus was getting ready to do.
“Margus,” she hissed out loud, but too late. Step one, he’d quickly loaded one of his glaep dumplings on his spoon. Step two, he’d lined himself up to use Oriannon as a shield from the all-seeing eye of the probe. Step three, he pulled his spoon way back and let it fly.
Oriannon shut her eyes and waited for the splat. Now they were in bigger trouble than ever.
No worries, Margus told her through the transceiver. Yet one peek up at the probe told her Margus had aimed pretty well; spinach-green glaep dumpling had spattered all over the side of the grapefruit-sized unit, probably gumming up the view lens and sending it into a wobbly gyro-spin that threatened to take it down. A couple of other kids who noticed clapped under their tables.
“Yes!” A guy from orchestra cheered.
But then nearly everyone else in the crowded lunchroom suddenly went very quiet, and it sent a chill up Oriannon’s spine.
Uh-oh, she thought, this is it.
She was afraid to even look at the main doors; perhaps Headmaster Knarl had just walked in. And if he had, surely life as they knew it was over.
An odd thing happened, though, when she finally got up the courage to look around. Because instead of everybody laughing at the glaep-splatted probe, the way she might have expected, they all stared down at their trays. And the busy hubbub had been traded for an eerie silence, quiet enough to hear a plexi fork drop to the floor.
“Holy Regev and Saius,” Margus whispered. He poked his spoon where the pile of glaep used to be. But now?
Disappeared, without even a trace on the plate to show where it had once been. Oriannon refocused her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Everyone in the room could not have suddenly scarfed down their lunch or dumped it on the floor. A quick look under a couple of nearby tables told Oriannon that much. She even picked up a nearby tray to give it a good shake, just to be sure.
Nothing. She sniffed the air, and even the food smell had disappeared, which made no sense, either.
Back in the kitchen, Deelie and Frax scurried around, lifting empty serving trays, bumping into each other and knocking over piles of clattering steel pots in their panicked search.
“Does this mean we don’t have to eat glaep today, after all?” asked a girl at the head of the line. Deelie wiped her hands on her apron, parked her hands on her hips, and scowled at the student’s question.
“Take a look around, sweetheart. What do you think? It’s all gone!”
Except for one. The only glaep left in the entire room finally slid off the side of the security probe and landed with a plop— right on Oriannon’s arm. Considering where it had been … She carefully wiped it off with a napkin and left it on Margus’s tray. Meanwhile, the probe had straightened itself out and raced around the room, obviously trying to catch up with what had happened. Someone back in the office was going to be very interested in all this.
By now the noise had reached a new level again, as everyone looked to see what had happened to their lunch. And in the middle of it all, a smiling Jesmet looked to the ceiling for a moment, nodded his head, and then threaded his way out through the crowd— as if he was the only one in the room who wasn’t completely taken back by what had just happened.
He nodded when he passed where Margus still sat at the table. Their mentor leaned over to make himself heard.
“Actually,” he told them, “I don’t care much for glaep, either.”
And with that he left the room.
“Wait!” Oriannon called out. Maybe nobody else understood what was happening here. But Oriannon wasn’t going to let him get away with this so easily. She ran out after her mentor, catching up with him in the hall.
“What happened back there?” she asked.
She couldn’t say why she thought he would know. But he looked over at her with that same twinkle in his eye, the one he’d brought to the first music class.
“What makes you think it’s for me to explain?”
“But it was you, wasn’t it? Everybody saw …”
He waited for her to finish.
“Everybody saw the food vanish,” she said. Did she really have to explain it again? One moment plates were piled high with their lunch, the next minute each one was cleaned off, as if the tray had just come out of the sonic cleaner. That much she knew.
But everything was getting more and more confusing with Mentor Jesmet.
“Would you be less confused,” he asked, “if I had made food appear, rather than take it away?”
“So you did take it away.”
“If I had, where would I have put it?”
“You always answer my question with another question.” She sighed and regrouped as they headed down the hall toward the music rooms. “But something weird is going on here.”
“You should explain what you mean by weird.”
“Actually, I was hoping you would explain, sir. What happened in the Glades with the yagwar? And what about the other day at the Temple, when you knew the securities were coming, and then their stun batons wouldn’t work. Did you?”
“Did I …?”
He was going to make her finish the question, every word of it.
“Did you fix it so they wouldn’t work?”
“I do feel badly about how that happened. The poor man wouldn’t listen when I suggested he check the switch. I did not want him to hurt himself.”
Good thing the halls weren’t crowded yet. But she had another question— the one that, unasked, made her twitch.
“Actually, that was kind of funny. But …” She fingered the earbud in her pocket, wondering how much she could say that he didn’t already know. “I have this … well, I thought I heard …”
Oh, forget it.
She yanked the earbud out of her pocket and held it out at him, like a solicitor in a court of law, cross-examining a witness before the Assembly. He had to know what it was.
“Do you have one of these?” she asked. There— a good yes or no question. She would wait for the answer, this time.
They rounded the corner to come face to face with a probe, hovering just above their heads, pointing a red eye straight down at them. Oriannon swallowed hard and quickly slipped the earbud back into her pocket. Mentor Jesmet didn’t even seem to care.
“You can speak freely, Oriannon.” He looked from her to the probe. “I’m afraid this probe isn’t in working order at the moment.”
See? One more thing to ask him— assuming he was telling the truth. What about these probes that wouldn’t work whenever Mentor Jesmet was around? He had no idea of the kind of awkward position that put her in with her father. Or perhaps he did.
“Actually I do know, Oriannon.” This time he answered the question she had not even asked, only thought, and once more without the earbud in place. “And I’m sorry if you’re feeling pressure about having to observe my actions for your father.”
He knew! By this time they had arrived at the music rooms, and he paused before stepping inside.
“What about the earbud?” she asked once more, her voice low.
He smiled over his shoulder as the sliding door began to slide shut behind him.
“No, I don’t have one. Although you and Mr. Leek do seem to get a lot of use out of them.”
And then he was gone. Oriannon could only stand there and wonder, alone in the darkened hallway. The overhead light tubes had been dimmed. But she hardly had a chance to think about what the strange mentor had just said when an alarm sounded from the hallway they had just walked through.
This time a security hurried up to the disabled probe in the hallway behind her. He pointed a remote at it and picked it out of the air as he would pick a grapefruit from a tree. Cradling the disabled probe, he looked around for a moment before settling his gaze on Oriannon.
“You!” His free hand pointed straight at her, and she wondered how he could see anything in the shadows. “What did you do to this probe?”
“Me?” She looked around the empty hallway, her heart racing, wishing she could blend into the wall just a little better. Was everybody still back in the lunchroom, searching for their dumplings?
“Don’t act dumb.” The security beckoned with his finger for her to approach. She couldn’t see if he carried a stun baton, but hoped not. “You’re the only one in this hall, and suddenly the probe goes offline. Just like it does every time that Jesmet guy sneezes. You haven’t seen him, have you?”
Uhh … She paused for a moment, wondering how to answer, when the security’s lapel comm chirped for him to answer. He touched his collar and turned aside.
“Yeah I found it.” He spit out the words as if they left a bad taste on his tongue. “Just like the others. Offline.”
While the man talked, Oriannon shuffled slowly to the side, down the hall.
“What?” said the man. “No, he’s not here. I’m close to his classroom, but he’s not around.”
Keep talking. She scooted away, slowly. Maybe the security hadn’t seen her face yet; maybe he didn’t recognize her. But if she had to answer any more questions, someone was going to get in trouble.
“Just a student,” said the security, “but I think she might have—”
Oriannon couldn’t wait any longer. She thought of escaping into the music classrooms; decided against it. No telling what kind of trouble would come from that. Instead she put her head down, sprinted for the exit, and pushed her legs as fast as they would go. If she could just reach the door—
“Hey you! Stop!”
At least he didn’t call her by name. That was the good news, if he didn’t know who she was. Unfortunately he pounded along right behind her, threatening to catch up before she reached the exit. And if he did, whatever trouble she had been in before would seem like nothing.
And if he used his stun baton on her? She lunged for the doors, ten steps ahead of the security, hoping they wouldn’t lock up on her.
Margus, she thought, wishing he wasn’t out of range of the thought transceiver. Where were you when I needed you?
8
Oriannon didn’t stop to catch her breath, just darted around the corner and into the gardens behind the school, past a row of bushes and behind a grove of her favorite orange-flowered flamboyan trees. She blinked at the bright sunshine and nearly fell on her face in the gravel path. Out here the security would catch her for certain.
Yet she did have to breathe, and she crouched between two hedges, gasping for air, listening.
From out on the parkway she heard the buzz of passing lev-craft, and overhead the occasional pods, coming and going with their peculiar fizzling buzz. Anything else? She peeked behind her to see nothing. Maybe the security hadn’t followed her after all. Problem was, they’d find out she was missing as soon as Mentor Jesmet took attendance at the start of the next period. And then she heard the crunch of footsteps, running down the path in her direction.
Oriannon hesitated only a moment before turning away from the school once more, toward the narrow garden lanes and pretty whitewashed stucco buildings of Seramine.
“Wait!”
She thought the voice sounded familiar, but between heavy breaths she couldn’t quite be sure. Steps grew louder behind her, and she couldn’t help crying out as someone stepped on her heels.
“I said wait up, Oriannon!”
She might have, but instead lost her balance as her legs folded. She hit the mossy ground with a grunt, rolled once, then stared up at her pursuer.
“You’re not the security,” she said, still gasping for air.
Margus offered her a hand up, which she ignored.
“You figured that out by yourself?” he answered.
“But why did you tackle me?” She rubbed her elbow, moving it gingerly to see if it still worked.
“I didn’t. You just wouldn’t stop. And after what happened in the dining hall, I needed to see you. What made you think I was a security, anyway?”
So she had to tell him the story, or most of it. Margus just started laughing.
“What? I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Sorry. I thought I was the one who was crazy. But you’re totally insane.”
“Or getting that way.” She sighed and looked around the garden, just to be sure no one else was listening in. “Are you sure it’s okay to be talking?”
“You see any probes?” He pointed his thumb back at the school. “After what happened in the dining hall, there’s an army of programmers running around in the hallways, resetting them. Never seen such a panic.”
She shook her head.
“You could have gotten us both in big trouble,” she told him. “And we still might, if someone tells. I mean, you still might.”
“I don’t think so.”
