‘Are you insane?’ Artyom all but spluttered. I noticed that the House of Suns’ symbol had been stitched on the shoulder of his spacesuit. ‘What, you think they’re going to listen to me?’
‘No. But they’ll listen to me. I’ll make sure of it.’ I pushed out the words as fast as possible, while I still had the opportunity. ‘You give up this place and what they’re doing here, help me give up Sokolav, we hold the cards. We can get you out. I can get you out.’
Something unreadable rippled over Artyom’s face. ‘It won’t be enough,’ he whispered, but I sensed my words taking root in him, growing something past the stubbornness and past the fear.
‘It will if we hand Sokolav over,’ I urged, feeling a nugget of hope and willing my words to reach him. ‘One life for another. You never betrayed Harmony. You’re a civilian. You never enlisted. He did. They’ll take him over you.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Artyom.’ Sokolav’s grey eyes glinted under his mop of hair.
‘Shut up,’ I growled, aware of the minutes burning away, aware of the many entrances cultists could be rushing through any second.
‘Your brother left you behind, dumped you when it suited him.’ Sokolav talked over me, as if I’d never spoken. ‘But we’ve taken you in. We adopted you into our family and tore down the lies.’
‘I’m your family, Artyom,’ I said. ‘The only one you’ve got left.’
‘And yet he abandoned you!’ Sokolav countered.
‘Yes! I did.’ Artyom’s head snapped up at my confession. ‘I abandoned my brother. My own brother. I left you behind like a burden. That’s on me. It always will be.’ I spoke past the sudden lump of concrete in my throat. My brother stood there quietly, eyes darting back and forth. I slipped my helmet off with a hiss of air and let my brother see me. ‘The way out is right behind us, Artyom. Once we’re onboard, it’ll be over. It won’t fix everything, but it’ll be a start. We owe it to each other to try. We just have to walk away.’
The words echoed between us. The shadows of distant passing asteroids swept across the spacedecking. The stormtech itched like tongues of wildfire under my ribs, but I refused to unlock sights with my brother.
Artyom’s eyes pinned me beneath his matted black hair. ‘And you can get me a deal? Let them do a swap?’
Kindosh would, if that’s what it took to regain custody of Sokolav. ‘I swear it. I’ll negotiate it myself, and I won’t let them touch you until I’m happy.’
Sokolav’s breathing turned shallow. ‘Artyom. Think, my boy. Think.’ For the first time, I heard genuine apprehension in my former Commander’s voice. ‘Think very carefully.’
Arytom didn’t seem to hear him. The defiance slumped from his shoulders, like an old building finally collapsing. I felt Sokolav tense beside me.
I let go of a breath it felt like I’d been holding for years.
I did it.
I found my brother again.
Together, we could finally put this right.
Artyom unzipped the front of his spacesuit, revealing an underskin beneath as he hiked up the chainship’s disembarkation ramp towards me. His face was world-weary and crisscrossed with scars and painful memories. But among them were also the nights we’d shared on the mountain peaks together, the brief fragments of peace we’d shared in a childhood filled with pain. And between all those was the possibility of a future, a chance to put things right.
He reached to push Sokolav into the chainship and I turned to follow.
And that’s when I saw the alert transponder in Artyom’s hand, blinking the colour of blood.
He darted forward, scything my legs out from under me and slamming my face into the hard metal ramp. Sokolav stomped on my hand until my grip weakened and he could tear the handcannon away. I kicked out at them, furiously twisting out of their grip and scrambling up the ramp. I’d reached the entrance, my fingers inches from the switch that would lock-down the hatch when Artyom tugged me backwards with a grunt, holding me down against the cold metal. The pounding of angry footsteps echoed through the dock as cultists arrived to Artyom’s alert. Their smiles were wide and eyes bright as they saw me. Unable to believe their luck, giddy with excitement. Artyom grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head upwards as they came running.
He’d played me.
The cultists swarmed over me like a human net. Grabbing an arm and a leg each and dragging me away. I caught a glimpse of Artyom’s face between the seething crowd. Twisted in anger and loathing. Empty of anything resembling the person I’d known. He met my eyes with a disbelieving scoff, like he was disgusted I’d been so gullible, and vanished into the crowd.
And something already cracked inside me completely broke.
41
The Captive
‘Put that on.’
I glanced down at the one-piece, dark-blue prisoner’s suit dumped at my feet. A ring of cultists surrounded me, the Jackal at their head. His dark eyes watched my every move, the expression unchanged between the time they’d cut me out of my armour and underskin and when they’d dragged me to this metal box of a prisoner’s bay. Hideous yellow lighting sleeted down like tendrils of radiation. A dark brown stain had coagulated around a drain grate at my bare feet. Claw and nail scratches on the metal walls. Nothing but madness and misery here. My skin shivered as I looked again at the prisoner’s suit, remembering how I’d been forced to wear something similar for over a year when I was a Harvest prisoner. The cult’s symbol was stitched on the back and shoulders, underscored with the words High Risk Prisoner.
‘Put that on,’ the Jackal repeated.
I drew my head back and spat in his eye.
The Suns behind him gasped. The Jackal smiled mirthlessly and wiped away the offending blue saliva. Then he
