Trade Circle: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 3) Read online

  “Amanda, honey, you’re the one that’s hiding,” Danny said, giving her a pat on the back. It felt weird to call her honey. Danny could almost hear Johann’s voice in his head as he said it. For a moment, he was transported back ten years to the day she’d Disappeared, but he forced the memory away. The endearment got Amanda to lift her head and she stared at him, moon-eyed.

  “What’s the news, Danny?” she whispered. She’d gone back in time, too. Back to when she’d sit near him or on him and let him rant about the morning news, then tell him he had a funny accent. Her question prompted Danny to look at his Virp, compulsively checking the hourly feeds. Even after a week of seeing nothing but ‘connection error,’ he hadn’t broken the habit.

  “There is no news here,” he said, rubbing his face. “Will you come out of hiding today? Everyone’s in the galley right now. We can go see them.”

  “They’re all speaking Trade there,” she mumbled, laying her head on the table again.

  “Sky can speak any language you want,” Danny said, hoping the incentive would help Amanda get past her fear of Sky.

  “She tried to kill me,” Amanda muttered, picking at her food as though it was the source of her discontent.

  “Not recently,” Danny said, picking up a berry and holding it to her lips. “You don’t have to like her. You just have to sit in the same room and stop making life so damn uncomfortable for the rest of us.”

  “Fine,” Amanda said, chomping the berry from Danny’s fingers. Startled, Danny sat up straight, waiting for her to make the next move. Amanda snatched the plate and stalked to the door. Every day she got a little stronger, but the spasmodic ticks that plagued her muscles became more prominent with every hands-free step. Excited at the prospect of eating with the crew, Danny leapt from his seat to follow.

  Sky and Tray’s social chatter filled the air, but Tray stopped mid-sentence when he saw Amanda. Danny and Amanda hadn’t made it more than two steps out the door before Amanda’s body went rigid. Snaking a hand around her waist, Danny prepared to restrain her. He barely had time to catch her plate before she dropped it. She grabbed his arms for support, her fingernails digging into his skin, her body falling heavily against his.

  “Sit, sit, sit,” she whispered urgently, every limb twitching. He wasn’t sure if he was witnessing a physical ailment or a fear response. Danny slid onto the empty bench next to Sky, pulling Amanda next to him so that he was between them.

  “Her majesty emerges!” Sky teased, stealing the bread crust off of Amanda’s plate.

  “Whore,” Amanda snarled.

  “Amanda!” Danny exclaimed.

  “She traded my life for a lay!” Amanda cried. Danny doubted her memory.

  Sky smirked and licked her lips. “Doesn’t sound like me. I always demand cash.”

  Amanda threw herself out of the bench seat, but Danny caught her and braced her body against his. He could feel her blood pressure rising. She snatched a slice of toast from Sky’s plate, and the childish act of retribution seemed sufficient to quiet the name-calling.

  Please tell me Tray and I aren’t like this when we bicker.

  3

  Things were just starting to get interesting when the sun set. Brishen had to drag Laos away, and had she not been shoeless, she’d have kicked him off and stayed put. She didn’t need sleep, and she could find food on the trails if she got hungry, but he was adamant. By the time he got her to the medical tent, they were arguing. Fighting was nothing new, but today, Brishen’s insults cut a little deeper and he kept getting louder, not caring how badly his voice cracked or who overheard. Laos didn’t notice Dr. Kavari coming beside her to help her, and she would have jabbed the elder woman if Brishen hadn’t caught her.

  “Calm down, daughter,” Caira Hiron said, rushing into the medical tent to help keep the peace.

  “Mom?” Laos said, startled to see her mother dressed in huntress clothing. As far as Laos knew, Caira trained hunters, but hadn’t gone out since before Laos was born. “You left the camp?”

  “Everyone is geared up to run. I heard you had a front row seat when the travelers flew in,” Caira answered, smoothing her leather gear over her rounded hips.

  “She nearly got flattened,” Brishen said smartly. Laos made a face, but whenever she argued with Brishen in front of her mother, she lost. Brishen had dropped his voice to a respectful volume, and lowered his pitch to sound older.

  “Are you injured?” Dr. Kavari asked. Kavari was an elder of the tribe, freckled and thin-haired from excessive sun exposure in her youth.

  “No,” Laos said.

  “Yes,” Brishen countered.

  “I broke my Occ.”

  “She twisted her knee.”

  “Hours ago. I’m fine!” Laos insisted. With two other nomadic tribes and the new travelers in the area, an injury that kept her from running would keep her from scouting as well.

  “Sit down and let the doctor look,” Caira said.

  “She’s being impossible,” Brishen said importantly.

  Caira smiled maternally and motioned him closer. “You are a good friend, Brishen. Please stay with my daughter and escort her home once the doctor has tended to her.”

  Brishen raised his brow and took Laos’ arm. Laos yielded. Protesting her mother’s command would have been pointless.

  “Mom, I need to talk to you,” Laos said, limping after her.

  Caira paused at the door, waiting for Laos to say more, but Laos couldn’t say anything with Brishen standing over her. With a sigh, she shook her head and leaned into Brishen, overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness.

  The medical tent was wide and open, sheltering twenty beds. It was the only tent with a raised floor and sealed edges for climate control. It was filled with medical machines scavenged and stolen from Domes, airships, and other tribes. Kavari could treat most anything here, but small things like cuts, strained muscles, and twisted knees still relied on the old-fashioned remedy of time and rest.

  Brishen guided Laos to the second mat from the left. It was the one she unconsciously gravitated toward when she had a choice, and Brishen knew that about her. He kept his distance while Kavari asked her questions about the injury and then proceeded with more invasive medical questions. Laos hadn’t let Kavari fully examine her since the doctor aborted her pregnancy several years ago. Laos answered tersely and dismissively, and Brishen pretended not to hear. He kept his back turned as a sign of respect, but it felt like in his eyes, her mother’s eyes, and the eyes of the whole tribe, she was already joined to him.

  “It’s evening,” Brishen pointed out after Kavari left the tent. He used his normal, squeaky voice again, and she realized she’d only ever heard it in private conversations.

  “I know.” Laos worried her hands and stared at her feet. She was supposed to sit there with skin-chilling plant oils on her knee for another twenty minutes before she was allowed to walk home.

  “Your answer is no,” Brishen said, crossing his arms as he paced the medical tent. Laos had been hoping he’d let it go for the evening, given everything that had happened. She wanted to talk to her mother.

  “It’s not . . .” she began, but stopped herself. She did not want to give him false hope. “I do love you.”

  “Then why do you hesitate?” he challenged.

  “It scares me,” she admitted. “Being tied to you. My parents are only secondaries, and the way they touch each other, the way they yearn . . . I’m afraid I’ll never feel that strongly—”

  “Are you going to spend the rest of your life afraid?” Brishen interrupted.

  Laos ducked her head and squirmed uncomfortably. The cool, tingly feeling of the ointment on her leg was wearing off and her skin was starting to burn. She reminded herself that she was not powerless, and she could leave this tent whenever she wanted.

  Brishen knelt across from her, keeping a respectful distance, but an open expression. “Is it me?”

  “Of course not,” she said. Laos didn’t know w
hat it was. Her entire life, she’d been told that one day she’d fall in love, and she had no idea why it hadn’t happened yet. Fear made sense. “When the Nayak kidnapped me—”

  Brishen huffed and rolled his eyes. “Us. The Nayak kidnapped seven of us. You were not the only one who suffered. That month was hell for me, too. For a lot of us.”

  Laos reeled and clammed up. She had never tried to talk to him about what happened when the Nayak raiding parties had kidnapped her and half a dozen other teens from their tents. She was the only girl they’d taken, and she didn’t know if it was an accident, or if it was because of her father. She could still hear Brishen and the other boys screaming at their captors to leave her alone.

  “The reason I don’t attend the joint tribe celebrations—the reason I won’t scout near their camps—” Laos’ throat tightened. The whole incident had been politically swept under the rug ages ago, and Laos didn’t understand why. “When they separated us . . .”

  Laos trailed off again. After five years, she should be able to tell her best friend that she’d been the victim of a crime.

  “You were raped,” he said. His disinterested tone made it sound like there was no crime involved and she was overreacting. The little voice in her head kicked her and told her to get over herself. Then Brishen took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Have you known all this time?” she asked. She hadn’t thought it was obvious. Her rapist had been gentle and apologetic, telling her over and over that what he did was for the good of both their tribes. The boys had worse injuries than hers just from fighting with the guards. Brishen had scars all over his body from being whipped.

  “Of course I’ve known. I was raped, too,” Brishen said. Laos’ jaw dropped and she stared at him, horrified. She’d never considered that he’d faced something more horrific than daily beatings. It had never occurred to her that a boy could be raped.

  “That’s the reason I go to all those joint celebrations and why I scout their camps and never miss a chance to see past their borders. Somewhere in their boundaries, some woman is raising my child,” Brishen ranted, pumping his fist and jumping to his feet. “More than one woman. More than one child. I’d know them if I saw them.”

  Brishen pressed his lips together and his eyes misted. It was only in the last fifty years that the tribes had separated into eight smaller sects. It was partly to ease the burden on the land where they gathered food, but mostly religious fights. Intermarriage had been common in the first generations when they spent more of the year on common grounds. Then the Nayak got a Seer and had to move further out to support their numbers. The Chanti—one of the smaller sects—fled and went into isolation until their numbers were dwindling. The Drava was the only tribe with stable food and technology. As their cultures diverged, the newer generations became less interested in crossing tribal lines.

  “Every time the Nayak enter the Trade Circle, they want new blood,” he rasped. “No one would give it to them, so they took it from us. Every one of us who was taken that month was . . . taken.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper on the last word, as if he were suddenly concerned that they’d be overheard.

  “I didn’t know,” she apologized, hobbling across the room and embracing her friend.

  “You didn’t want to,” he said, pushing her away. “You wallowed in self-pity and never looked at anyone but yourself.”

  “I was thirteen and pregnant,” she snarled. “I wasn’t even allowed to join the discussion on whether to keep the child.”

  Brishen threw up his hands. “What do you want, Laos? What do you want from me? From anybody?”

  She crossed her arms, shifting uncomfortably, trying to keep the weight off her injured knee. What she wanted was to comfort her friend, but his pain was old and scabbed over. She was too late.

  “Do you want to be left alone to wither and wallow? Rejecting any man or woman that offers companionship?” he demanded. “At least with me, you’re safe. You’re part of the discussion on whether to have a child.”

  Laos shook her head. She didn’t want to wither and wallow, and she didn’t believe she was safe with anyone. Her whole perception of Brishen had changed with his confession, and she wished it hadn’t. He wasn’t the strong man who’d mouthed off to the Nayak until they got sick of hearing him and sent him home. Now he was a victim, like her.

  Her eyes welled with tears, and she wiped them away quickly. She dropped back to the ground and curled up on the mat.

  “I didn’t mean to be callous,” Brishen said, sitting next to her and folding his hands in his lap.

  “I’m tired of crying over nothing,” she hiccupped.

  “Not nothing. Something horrific. Something life changing. I still cry, too, sometimes,” he said. He stroked her shoulder, then retracted his hand, hunching over. “Let me take you home.”

  Laos shook her head. She reached out tentatively, glad when he reached back, lacing his fingers with hers and letting her shimmy her head into his lap. His fingers combed through her hair, then trailed down her shoulders. “If we were primaries, I’d be doing exactly this right now. Nothing scary or weird. The only difference would be when we fight, and people say we’re acting like an old married couple, we could say ‘but we are an old, married couple.’”

  Laos laughed through her tears and hugged him around the waist, wishing she’d had the courage to talk to him five years ago. She wanted to talk to her mother before she said ‘no’ to him again. Her mother would have known about the other kids that had been taken by the Nayak; her mother should have told her about Brishen.

  4

  Sky called him Hawk. They all did now. It seemed fitting that Douglas accept a new name as he stepped into his new life. He could count on one hand the things on this ship that were his: the clothes on his back, the glider in the bay, and the few resources from home he’d brought to trade for medicine.

  Gloves were a novelty to Douglas—most of the clothes Danny gave him were in some way. Everything that came from Quin was thickly woven. Among the aliens, worn clothing was soft, not threadbare. Danny’s gloves appeared thin, but they were insulated. The temperature wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been outside of Rocan, and with the puffy coat and thick socks, Douglas felt warm all over. He smelled like the captain too.

  Douglas laughed as he rolled the thought through his mind. He couldn’t believe he’d finally left Rocan and was traveling between the Domes on a spaceship with real live aliens! Douglas’ father had told him stories about big ships with ten man crews, but it had always seemed like a fantasy. It was a miracle that he knew Trade language, and Douglas still missed an awful lot of the conversations that happened on Oriana. Even Sky was using Rocanese less and less, forcing him to learn and keep up.

  The forestland outside was greener than anything Douglas had ever seen before. The air was shockingly humid and his feet sank into the soil. It wasn’t as bad as the lakes where they had buried Corey, but it made him jump. The boots that Tray had given him were a little big, and every time he lifted his foot, it felt like he’d lose a shoe. The sun was low and the trees were . . . were they even trees?

  “Kerf, Aquia, what have you created?” Douglas murmured, stumbling to the nearest one. The trunks were rough and ridged, wider than two grown men. The branches grew up and out, lacing together with neighboring trees. As he came closer to them, the ground became rockier, and looking back, he realized Oriana was resting in a dried creek bed.

  “Head into the trees; that’s where you’re most likely to collect nuts,” Sky said, pointing deeper into the forest and turning on her flashlight.

  “The ruins of the Dome wall go through the forest,” Tray observed. “Maybe we can follow the border around and find the entrance to the Farm Dome.”

  “The Farm Dome?” Douglas repeated.

  “Hate to break it to you, Skipper, but most older cities only span one Dome,” Sky said, clapping Tray on the back and provoking Tray’s patented glower. “There may be a far
ming quadrant or a hydroponics building. Unfortunately, the foliage is too overgrown to trace the source, and has been for as long as I’ve been coming here.”

  “Take pictures of any artifacts and mark your map where you find them,” Danny said eagerly, brushing past Tray and shining his Virp light into the forest. “My old professors in Quin are going to love this!”

  “Thought you hated everyone in Quin,” Tray muttered. “Survey for food tonight, keep markers on your Virps, and bring back a few samples. We’ll determine what’s edible and tomorrow we’ll collect.”

  “Tray and Hawk, come with me,” Danny ordered. “Saskia and Sky, go that way.”

  Douglas was sure he heard his name in those orders somewhere, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the trees. He could reach the lowest branches and they were strong enough to take his weight. There were sounds everywhere—chirps, rattles, warbles . . . sounds that defied description. Tugging the fingers of his gloves, he stared up the tree wondering just how high he could climb.

  “Hawk! Gloves on!” Danny snapped, grabbing Douglas’ wrist.

  “You’d think he’d never seen a tree before,” Tray commented snidely. “Isn’t Rocan agrarian? With all those fruits, you have to have groves and orchards.”

  “We don’t have trees like this,” Douglas said, tripping over the tree’s roots. “These trees are tall. And they sing. Is it only the tall ones that sing?”

  “Those are the birds,” Sky said warmly, her eyes twinkling.

  “Birds?” Douglas repeated, awestricken. In Rocan, birds were mythological creatures. He’d seen pictures in books and heard stories. Tray had mentioned birds in Quin, and he’d promised to show Douglas a live one. “They’re like the . . . the chickens you raise? They sing?”

  “Chickens don’t sing quite like that, but yes, chickens are birds, too,” Tray laughed.

  Sky picked up a rock and chucked it up into the tree. Suddenly the leaves rattled, the birdsong turned to screeching, and a few creatures took flight. Startled, Douglas shoved Sky behind him, in case the birds attacked, but they flew away. He stared, mesmerized by the flying birds. They didn’t look like the pictures Douglas remembered seeing, but they were amazing.