Chapter Text
Elio caught a glimpse of the starcruiser through a porthole as the shuttle slowed for docking. The ship hung heavy and silver in space, exactly like a real star. Or a bullet, maybe. He’d seen one in the museum and they were sort of the same shape. Even at a distance the whole cruiser was ten times as big as the parliament building, which was a pretty big building, even bigger than the museum. It was was so still it almost looked like a picture, except for the shuttles and skiffs and barges flying around it. Like birds swooping in and out of the cherry tree by the back steps.
The shuttle drew closer and closer until the cruiser took up the whole porthole, a solid silver mass, and finally the silver became black became bright white lights as they docked in the hangar.
Mama helped him out of his safety harness and cushioned seat. She’d already put on her fancy parliament robes--soft white folds draped over her shoulders and over the bump that was baby Mari and all the way to the floor, her black hair twisted up on top of her head with red beads. She smiled at him, a flash of white teeth behind red-painted lips. He felt himself smile back, and took her hand, and followed Mama onto the starcruiser.
*
Their rooms on the cruiser were smaller than the rooms at home, because it was a spaceship, and Elio had to sleep with Mama because there were only two bedrooms and M. Gomez got her own because it was also going to be her office. He didn’t mind. Sometimes when he had a bad dream he slept with Mama anyway, and now Hector too.
They didn’t do anything that first night except sleep, but Mama woke him early the next morning to get ready. She was going to have to wear her robes every day for the whole three weeks, but she’d brought all sorts of jewelry. She put gold beads in her hair, and some gold beads in his too, and when they arrived at the big silver room where the first meeting was supposed to be, all the white-robed delegates patted his head and pinched his cheek and said he looked just like her, and that he would grow up to be a brilliant politician, and that he was a perfect little mascot for Erdura.
None of the other delegates had brought their kids, not even the Orado ones. That meant there was nobody to play with, but it also meant after the meeting was over, instead of pestering her about politics the Orado delegates pestered Mama about Elio and the Erdura delegates pestered her about when she was going to stop working to have baby Mari.
Hector had asked Mama to let Elio stay home, but Elio was pretty sure this attention was why Mama had insisted he come.
After dinner Mama lay down on the stiff couch with her feet up and cuddled him. Elio was happy to be a distraction, for the delegates but especially for Mama.
*
Every day was meetings. Big morning meetings in the big silver room and small afternoon meetings in small bright painted rooms and then fancy dinners in a white and black tiled room that still sort of felt like meetings. Elio didn’t mind sitting in the back with M. Gomez and the other secretaries while Mama had her meetings, but after the first day he did understand why Hector had asked Mama to let him stay home.
Still, the morning meetings weren’t that different from parliament, and Mama took him all the time to parliament. Or, maybe not all the time, not after Hector, because when Mama was working but Hector wasn’t, Hector liked to take Elio to the museum or the park or the pier. But Elio had been to parliament a lot. He knew how to sit still and play quietly with his starships.
M. Gomez was busy taking notes, bringing Mama the papers she wanted and whisper-reminding her of things, but she kept crackers in her briefcase, and he could have as many as he wanted as long as he was careful not to get crumbs all over.
*
At first the meetings were very polite. Scared polite. Nobody wanted to make anybody mad, he could tell. Mama had taught him how to tell, and during the first three days of meetings even Mama was scared.
In the silver room everybody sat very straight in dark wood chairs around a dark wood table with piles of paper and glasses of water that sparkled in the yellow light and talked, polite, and nodded and listened and took notes or double checked their secretaries’ notes. Mama was at the head of the table and an Orado man in a black suit was at the foot, and they always started the talking.
The seventh day, the man in the black suit yelled at Mama.
Mama didn’t yell back, but Elio could tell from the way her jaw went tight she wanted to. Very badly. But Mama had told him that not yelling was the first rule of politics, and even if the man in the black suit broke the rule, Mama wasn’t going to.
The man calmed down, and apologized, and Mama acknowledged the apology with a nod and kept the meeting going, but that night after Elio was supposed to be asleep she stayed up late with M. Gomez, talking low and urgent in the sitting room.
*
There was a lot more yelling, after that.
*
The afternoon meetings were also supposed to be lunch, so everybody split up into whatever little blue or red or purple room they wanted to be in and ate bits and pieces off platters and pretended they were having fun talking to each other.
Elio was allowed to wander as long as he stayed in the same room as Mama. Most of the delegates wanted to say hello to him and tell him he was a sweet and well behaved little boy. He smiled and let them pinch his cheek, even the Orado delegates with their dangling black sleeves.
After the first few afternoons he started taking his starships to a corner once he’d eaten enough, not because he wanted to keep playing with them but because he was tired of cheek pinches. He thought Mama didn’t like the afternoon meetings either, because after the third day M. Gomez had started slipping her headache medicine.
*
On the fourteenth day, after all the platters had been cleared away, one of the Orado delegates sat down on the floor right next Elio as he was crashing a fighter into a cruiser, and said, “Hello, young man.”
Elio blinked at him.
The man smiled, soft, and it made the corners of his brown eyes crinkle up. “How are you enjoying the conference so far?” he asked, even though Elio hadn’t said hello back yet.
Elio smiled his best parliament smile. “It’s nice! I like being on a cruiser. The stars look different up close.”
The man nodded towards the fighters and cruiser and shuttles and barge he had scattered on the carpet. “An aspiring pilot, are you?”
“No.” He tugged his toys closer, in case the man tried to touch them. “These are the only ones that fit in M. Gomez’s briefcase.”
The man tipped his head back and laughed. “Rather limited in your options, hm?”
“I like blocks, but Mama says M. Gomez can’t carry a whole set or she’ll hurt her back.”
“Your mother is a wise woman, and a gracious employer.”
“Yeah! She’s wise, she’s in the parliament.” Elio sat back on his haunches, looking through the maze of chairs and table legs to where Mama sat talking with a woman in a black suit. “She’s over there, she’s got gold beads in her hair, see?”
“I see.” The man nodded solemnly, but he looked at Mama… fond.
When Elio glanced over to make sure he was looking at the right person, he found Mama looking back. She smiled at Elio, sad, and then turned that very same sad smile to the strange man.
Elio opened his mouth to ask some kind of question, but the man turned back to him and asked, “If not a pilot, may I ask after your plans for the future? Political aspirations, perhaps?”
He scowled, and then remembered he had to be polite and smoothed the scowl away. “I’m going to work at the museum,” he said, firm, because even if he liked parliament fine he didn’t like long meetings. “I’m going to be in charge of the groundcars. Polishing them and things.”
“Groundcars, hm? Do you have a favorite?”
So Elio told the man all about the antique groundcars in the museum and all the weird shapes of doors and wheel wells and hoods and how Hector was building one all by himself in his workshop and sometimes let Elio help, and when he remembered to check on Mama again she was smiling her own parliament smile and talking with two white-robed Erdura delegates.
The man stayed on the floor in the corner with Elio all through the afternoon. When everybody started leaving to get ready for dinner he stood with a creak and a groan, and shook Elio’s hand, and said, “It was my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Elio. I wish you the best of luck with your groundcars.”
*
Mama didn’t want to bring Elio to her meetings anymore, he could tell. She still did his hair with beads like hers but there was a wrinkle between her eyebrows when they left their rooms, and she squeezed his hand extra tight before she let go of him to go to her chair at the meeting table. He didn’t really want to go to the meetings anymore either, but he wasn’t allowed to stay in their rooms alone and M. Gomez couldn’t skip meetings to watch him. It was hard to focus on his ships though, so instead he sat still and quiet and watched.
The yelling was mostly over but now instead of polite-scared everybody was angry-scared, as rigid as their tall wood chairs. When it was her turn to talk Mama spoke in a low, sharp voice. Sometimes she would stand and pace, gesturing between the man glaring and growing slowly red at the foot of the table and the Erdura delegates who wouldn’t quite meet her eyes.
She hadn’t been trying to hide baby Mari before, but she had been hiding how much her back hurt, and her feet, and how often M. Gomez had to slip her headache medicine with her papers. Now she would rub her back or her side or pinch the bridge of her nose. Now it was like she wanted everybody to see.
*
The fancy dinners in the fancy white and black tiled room used to be Elio’s favorite, because even if they felt like meetings, he got to sit next to Mama and eat funny looking foods.
Mama stopped bringing him during the second week, and he had dinner in the sitting room with M. Gomez instead.
M. Gomez didn’t talk to him much. Or smile, ever. But, in the evenings when it was just the two of them eating she would take her hair out of its tight bun and shake it out over her shoulders with a sigh, and then ask him--in the same polite way she always asked Mama--if his day had been successful. He always said yes, because he couldn’t think of a reason to say no, and that was the closest M. Gomez ever got to smiling.
*
On the seventeenth day, after their dinner trays had been taken away by one of the servants in grey livery, Mama arrived back to their rooms with her jaw set and her eyes hard.
“Arela,” she called, ignoring Elio and his blocks, and M. Gomez came out of her bedroom-office twisting her hair back up, fast and neat.
“Is it time?” she asked, a pin in the corner of her mouth.
“It is time.”
M. Gomez hummed, and finished with her hair, and stepped right back inside her office.
“Time for what?” Elio asked, his city construction forgotten.
“Time for us to visit some friends,” she said, brisk.
“Friends?” Elio squinted at her, suspicious, but she was staring hard at M. Gomez’s door.
Mama had lots of friends, but they were all back on Erdura. She’s told him one of the rules of politics was to have friends who were not politicians. She was nice to everybody in parliament, but the only parliament person she ever invited to dinner was M. Nelada, and he hadn’t come to the conference.
M. Gomez came out with her briefcase and handed the whole thing to Mama. “I took the precaution of including two changes of clothes.” She glanced at Elio. “Your medicine and the boy’s things are there as well. I couldn’t pack anything like a meal, I’m afraid.”
“This will do fine.” Mama’s voice softened a bit. “Thank you, Arela. You have everything you need for tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Mama finally turned to Elio, holding out her empty hand. “Ready, Elio?”
Reluctant, Elio stood and took her hand. She gripped it hard, and turned on her heel to lead him out the door.
He glanced over his shoulder just before the door slid shut, and saw M. Gomez standing in the middle of the room with her hands clasped at her waist, and the look she gave him was almost a smile.
*
Mama strode down the long, empty hall, Elio trotting to keep up. The main hallways were all panels of dark wood and polished silver. He tried to catch his reflection, but they were moving too fast.
The hall branched. Instead of turning in the direction of the meeting rooms, Mama pressed at one of the wall panels. It slid back. Elio startled. Mama didn’t so much as twitch, and pulled him along right into the wall. They didn’t slow down. Mama knew where she was going, and after a moment he realized where they were.
The servant and crew passages were the same dull steel and titanium of the bones of the cruiser. There was carpet so footsteps wouldn’t echo, same as the main halls, but it was dusty, and made Elio sneeze.
They walked without speaking for a few minutes and then Mama came to a halt, and knocked on the wall over Elio’s head. The panel slid to the side, and in the bright room behind it stood the man who’d asked him about groundcars.
“Candella!” he said, excited, and leaned right over Elio and hugged Mama tight.
Elio gaped, but Mama relaxed, hugging the man back and even leaning on him. He stroked a hand down her back and then let go, offering her a smile and an elbow. She let go of Elio to loop her arm through his with an answering smile, and the man helped her step over the lip of the door and into the room.
Elio followed, wary.
The room was small and square and empty, except for the woman Mama had been talking too when Elio had met the man. She was holding a kid. A little one, smaller than Elio, but not a baby. They were sleeping, fuzzy blond head resting on her black-clad shoulder.
The woman smiled at Mama and smiled at Elio, and Elio scowled at her because there was too much smiling happening for a meeting in a room in the wall.
He tugged at Mama’s robe and whispered, “How come we’re in the wall and not in the silver room?”
“Because we wanted to meet in here,” she whispered back. “This won’t take long, I promise.”
Elio didn’t think that was true, since M. Gomez had packed her briefcase for them, but before he could ask another question the woman said something too soft for Elio to hear. Mama said something back. She didn’t set the briefcase down and didn’t untangle her arm from the man’s, so Elio inched away to peer through the still open doorway.
Nobody in the hall. He sat down by the door and watched Mama and the strangers who were her friends talk, low. The woman was rubbing the kid’s back in circles.
Elio let his eyes wander. The glint of his mother’s gold necklace, the rumples around the waist of the woman’s black suit jacket, the man tapping his toe against the floor in a rhythm he couldn’t follow.
The man finally let go of his Mama, only to take the briefcase from her and slip a datachip inside it. He handed it back, and she took it with a nod, and then the man turned and looked right at Elio.
Elio blinked, but the man smiled--sort of small and sort of sad--and winked.
Elio blinked again, and looked away. When he glanced back the man was frowning, saying something to Mama. His toe still tapping, but faster now. Mama shook her head, and squeezed his arm.
The man stepped back and the woman stepped forward, and very carefully passed the sleeping kid to Mama.
The kid squirmed a bit, but the woman kept rubbing their back and after a few seconds they fell asleep against Mama’s shoulder. Elio watched her shoulders tense. She couldn’t carry him anymore, not with baby Mari in the way, but she was going to carry this kid even though her back already hurt.
The man leaned in and kissed Mama’s cheek, and the kid’s head, and then walked around her to come all the way over to Elio and kneel down on the dusty carpet in front of him.
“May I?” he asked, offering Elio his open hand.
Elio cautiously placed his hand into the man’s palm. It was cool and dry and the man didn’t try to squeeze it or shake it. Instead he pressed a very soft kiss to the back of Elio’s hand.
Before Elio could say anything Mama was there, brushing past the man and out of the room, briefcase swinging beside her and sleeping kid pressed against her chest. The man stood and gently gripped Elio’s shoulder, turned him around, and pushed him after her.
The door slid shut as soon as he was in the hall, and then Elio was almost running to catch up to Mama. She didn’t slow for him, only glanced back to make sure he was there. It took a few breathless twists and turns before he realized they were not going back to their rooms.
“Where are we going?” he asked, cold curling in his stomach.
“Home.”
“But we can’t go home yet! There’s meetings tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow I will be monstrously sick, and Arela will take notes for me.”
“But you’re not sick.”
“I will be.” Mama laughed, harsh. “I can feel a headache coming on right now.”
Elio didn’t ask anymore questions.
*
They didn’t go to the hangar they’d arrived in, they went to a smaller one. Only one tiny shuttle was docked, and no pilot, and no crew. Elio opened his mouth to ask where they were, but one look at Mama’s face stopped him.
She opened the hatch and groaned as she stooped to get inside. Elio followed, that cold in his stomach spreading through his whole body.
Inside the shuttle was all one open space, not split into cockpit and passenger seating. There was no co-pilot seat. There were no cushioned seats for kids, either. Or any seats, really. Just a bench along each side with some safety harnesses for adults. Mama set the briefcase down and pursed her lips. “Elio, take a seat.”
He climbed up on to the bench and sat, trying not to shiver. Very carefully, Mama knelt in front of him and adjusted her hold on the sleeping kid. Elio wondered if they were kidnapping him. One of Mama’s rules of politics was to never, never do something illegal, and he was pretty sure taking somebody’s kid home with you in secret was illegal.
“Remember when I showed you how to hold the doll, so you’d be ready to hold baby Mari?”
Elio nodded.
“Can you curve your arms like that for me, Spark?”
Elio curved his arms. Very gently, Mama placed the sleeping kid half in his arms and half in his lap. When she pulled her hands away Elio’s hold tightened.
“This is Luan,” Mama said, looking Elio right straight in the eyes. “I need you to take care of him until we’re safe home. Do you understand Elio?”
He scowled, stomach twisting, but he nodded.
Mama’s black eyes bored into his brown. “Say it.”
“I understand.”
“And?”
“I’ll take care of Luan until we’re safe home.”
“Thank you, Spark.” She stood, her face going tight and pinched like she’d tasted something sour. She breathed for a moment, studying the two of them, and then she kicked the briefcase under the bench and stumbled to the pilot’s chair.
Elio watched her get the engine started and then turned his attention to the warm bundle of blond hair and black clothes laying against him. Luan.
Luan’s cheeks were round and he didn’t have any eyebrows. He was heavy, but Elio was big, like Mama, and helped carry things in Hector’s workshop all the time. He wrapped his arms around Luan and held him firm against his chest.
The shuttle jolted, and Elio did too, and then they slipped through the narrow hanger doors and into space. There was a porthole right across from him. He counted stars and held tight to Luan and felt the warmth of another body chasing away his cold.
It wasn’t a long trip. They’d be home soon, and then Mama would be in a better mood because Hector would be there, and then Elio could ask his questions. This was a really important conference and Mama wouldn’t have left early without a good reason, and kidnapping was definitely not a good reason.
When they were far enough away, the shuttle rotated, and Elio could see the starcruiser they’d left behind floating peacefully in space. He breathed in, and breathed out.
The starcruiser exploded.
One second it was there, sleek and shining silver, and the next--a burst of red forced the ship apart from the inside. It shattered, like glass, into a thousand jagged pieces.
Mama screamed. The shuttle lurched as the force of the explosion reached them, debris like stars shooting past the porthole. Elio lurched too. He fell off the bench and hit the floor hard. Luan jolted, and wailed. Elio did not let go.
“Don’t look Elio!” Mama snapped. “Do not look! Close your eyes!”
Elio did not stop looking.
Luan cried and cried and cried, squirming and fighting, trying to get free of Elio's arms. Elio sat up and pressed Luan's face against his chest and snapped, “Don’t look!”
Luan did not stop crying, but Elio muffled most of into his jacket. “Don’t look,” he said again, and once he’d started he couldn’t stop. “Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.”
The hum of an accelerating engine itched his bones. The shuttle rocked as Mama rotated it again. Something thudded against the metal side, ringing hollow.
Elio sat on the floor tangled with Luan and watched larger and larger hunks of metal hurtle past. He was cold again from the top of his head to the soles of his feet and he wanted to throw up. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream.
He stared out the porthole and kept Luan’s face tucked against his chest and said, “Don’t look.”