Shel

After spending the afternoon with Minmin in the arboretum, I returned home to my mom packing my dad's things. That was not what I first noticed. What I first noticed was her bloody ear. All 5 studs were still in her ear, but the top one looked like someone had tried to rip it out. Her ear was torn and bloody there. The top stud was askew.

She didn't look at me when I entered. She didn't say anything, but she knew I was there. She always knew.

"What happened?" I made sure my voice was low and void of emotion. She wouldn't like it if I seemed concerned.

Her lips pinched. The ridge above her left eye raised slightly. In her hands was the spare captain's uniform. She paused. Breathed in. Closed her eyes.

I waited. Only one person could have got close enough to her, to surprise her enough to hurt her. I wondered where he was at that moment. My dad. He wasn't in the quarters.

Red heat welled inside my chest. My dad had changed too much. He would never have hurt my mom. A year ago the thought would never have entered his mind. But now...I started locking my bedroom door when I was inside after I woke up two weeks ago to see him staring down at me in the darkness. Pink had been in his eyes. He left without saying a word. I hadn't told my mom. She had enough issues with him as it was.

Her eyes flashed open and she tossed the uniform into the suitcase. She closed it hard, walked passed me and tossed it out into the corridor. It banged loudly against the opposite wall.

She walked passed me to the food terminal.

I stood still and waited as a good son should.

She came back and handed me algae food disguised as an apple. She turned to walk away.

I broke protocol. "Mom," I grabbed her wrist.

She looked at me and for a moment I saw it in her eyes. Saw that she wanted to hug me and cry. And why wouldn't she? She didn't have any friends onboard. No one to talk to. My dad had betrayed her. My dad had hurt her. She had given up her position as a Jo-Dinun - an elite warrior - to marry him because she loved him.

The moment passed. I let go of her wrist and she walked into her bedroom. I waited. She hadn't answered my question or dismissed me. She reappeared with a first aid kit. She handed it to me and sat on the gray couch my dad had been using as a bed.

I sat next to her and placed the algae apple on the couch beside me. I opened the kit. "I should take out the ear stud to clean your ear," I said. I didn't move to do it though.

"No," she said. Her voice was low and void of emotion. "It must never come out."

I pulled out the saline solution. "I'll work around it," I said. I poured the solution over her ear. She didn't move as the liquid moved down her ear and dropped onto her shoulder. The purple shirt she wore darkened with the moisture.

I put away the saline solution and took out the liquid adhesive. I carefully spread it over the cut on her ear. Her skin fused together. I put away the adhesive and closed the first aid kit. I put the first aid kit on the couch next to the algae apple.

"I should have sent you to the accelerated program years ago," she said quietly.

"I didn't want to go," I replied.

I should have. I fit all the requirements. I hadn't wanted to leave my family. Sometimes I wondered if I was strange for that. Bundu-Jo's should be pleased to go to the accelerated program. Other times I wondered if I wasn't strange and all Bundu-Jo's felt the same as I did, but like me, couldn't express it openly. The accelerated program was a Gathering program not a Bundu-Jo program, but the Bundu-Jos in particular felt it an honor to be accepted.

She reached out and held my hand. The blue of her skin was the same as mine.

I heard him then - out in the corridor. My mom's hand tightened in mine. When the door opened, my dad stood there with his suitcase in hand. He didn't come in all the way, just stood in the doorframe.

"I'm sorry, El," he said.

She didn't reply. Her jaw clenched.

There was a long pause as my dad looked across the distance to my mom. She stared back, but didn't blink. His eyes drifted to her ear. The pink shown in his eyes for the briefest of moments.

"I'm sorry," he said again. He was met with only silence. "Shel," he said.

I turned away from him. It had become more and more obvious he wasn't the same, but hurting my mom was too much. Burning moisture came to my eyes. I blinked them away, but not before one tear fell onto my cheek. I was turned away enough from both of them that I didn't think they noticed.

"How will it look for the captain to be kicked out from his own quarters?"

But my mom didn't speak, didn't move.

The tear on my cheek had dried enough I turned to face my dad once again.

He took a step inside. "I'm sorry," he said for the third time. "I had no choice. I . . ." Pain washed over his face. Not pain as in emotional pain, but physical pain. I had never seen him show physical pain. He doubled over as if he had been punched in the stomach, but one hand grabbed his head as if trying to keep it from splitting open.

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My mom stood, rapidly closed the distance to my dad and pushed him out the door. "Yes you did," she said in a low, rough voice. "Even if the choice was to die."

She closed the door between them and changed the password to the door. My dad was captain, he could override it if he really wanted to. My mom turned and for the first time in my life I saw tears on her cheeks. I couldn't help it then, the tears came to my own eyes. She rushed passed me into her bedroom. The door slid closed behind her.

For a long time I sat there waiting to hear my dad leave. Waiting as my insides turned and split and mashed. Finally, I heard him leave. My teeth grinded together as my heart split and split and split. Someone had told me to wait for answers and the only reason I had was to protect my mom. But it hadn't mattered. She had been hurt to her very core.

I went into my bedroom and locked it. I placed a three way call. Minmin answered first. She always did. The only one I was sure I could rely on. She was in her bedroom. Vai answered immediately after. Owen was beside him. They weren't in their quarters. I wasn't going to wait anymore.

"Meet me in my refuge. Five minutes." I hung up. I would get answers even if I had to get a shuttle, go to the Shadow and tear it out of Vai's lips myself.

I stretched out on the bed and reshaped my okulus to fit over my head. I entered the ansible. I double checked my avatar's settings to be sure if I happened to cry in real life, it wouldn't be reflected in the ansible.

I entered my refuge. I got rid of most of the clothes I was wearing and entered the ocean. The cool waves washed over me. I had programmed a drop off shortly off the beach so I could dive down and see all the colorful fish I would normally find on Bundu IV. Even the large dangerous ones - they wouldn't attack in the program.

I swam among the corals and fish. I stayed there until the water cooled the heat of my anger and pain. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but when I came back to the beach Minmin and Owen sat on the silver sand. Vai was next to a green tree staring up at Leela - the blue and silver bird. She was fashioned after a childhood pet with the same name.

I held my arm out and she flew from the tree to my arm. She was fake. I knew that, but she still brought me comfort like the real Leela had before she had died.

"You were already here?" Minmin said. "You were in the water?"

"Yes," I said. I gave my arm a small push and Leela flew back to her perch in the tree.

Vai and Owen glanced quickly at each other after they saw me. Clearly, they still weren't ready to tell me everything.

"Just tell me," I said. "Tell us," I indicated Minmin with a wave of my hand.

"What do you want to know, friend?" Owen said with an innocent blink of his eyes. Vai frowned at him.

"Let's start with Esther."

"She's training us," Vai said.

"Training you how?" Minmin asked. She stood and walked by my side. I could always count on her.

Vai and Owen exchanged another glance.

"The dangerous alien then," I said. "Tell me."

"When the time is right," Vai said. "It's dangerous . . ."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" I said.

Vai swallowed hard. Owen's hands began to grab fistfulls of sand. They didn't say anything.

"Fine," I said. "I'll tell you about the dangerous alien." They looked at each other in surprise as if suspecting each other of telling me without notifying the other one.

"This dangerous alien Esther warned you about," I said, "can take over people. Make them do what they want. They have infiltrated top people in the Gathering government. They have infiltrated the G.E.F. Including the captain of the Armstar - my father."

Minmin didn't react. She probably had figured it out like I had. I was sure she could have also gone into the accelerated program if she had wanted.

Vai and Owen didn't say anything, but I was correct. I knew I was.

"What does Esther call this dangerous alien that can take over people?" I asked.

"The Corruption," Vai said.

"How do I get it out of my dad?"

"You can't," Owen said quietly.

My heart tumbled down.

"You can, but only temporarily," Vai said quickly. "Those infected by them - once they've bonded, they can never unbond."

"So what have you been training with Esther to do?" Minmin asked. "What happened to that officer and mechanic that went missing on your ship?"

Neither Owen nor Vai answered for a long time. They both looked down at the silver sand. Finally, Vai closed his eyes and sighed out low. Then his eyes slowly opened and focused on me. "We killed them," he said.

I wasn't expecting that answer, but I quickly readjusted my head and heart to all this new information.

"What do you mean when you say the Corruption needs to bond with them?" Minmin asked. "Does that mean if you have the Corruption inside you, but you haven't bonded yet, then you can get rid of them?"

Owen looked up at Vai. Vai hesitated. "I had them inside when I left Mars and came to the Shadow. I didn't know then what it was. I screamed the entire time because of the pain. The Aether field killed them when I came onboard. I hadn't bonded with them yet. Esther said once you hear them, they give you the greatest pleasure when you obey and the greatest pain when you disobey. She said it's impossible to resist them."

My mom had told my dad he had a choice even if that choice was to die. I closed my eyes. Minmin's small hand slid into mine. My mom knew. She knew about the Corruption. I reached up with my free hand and fingered the studs in my ear. Vai's father knew too.

"These must keep them out," I said and opened my eyes again. "That's why my dad tried to rip them out of my mom's ear."

All three of them gasped around me.

"I have to kill him," I said.

"No," Owen and Vai said at the same time. Owen stood up, but Vai stepped in front of me and grabbed the wrist of the hand that was at my ear.

"A mechanic and officer won't send a panic through the Gathering government and the Corruption," Vai said. "Missing captains of the G.E.F. will." He slowly let go of my wrist and took a step back.

"Is that why you haven't killed your captain yet?" I asked.

"Yes."

Part of me was relieved I didn't have to kill my dad, but another part remembered my mom's bloody ear and her tears.

"Besides," Owen said, "killing your father won't kill the Corruption inside him. They'll just come out and go inside someone else."

"The Aether field kills them," Minmin said.

"Yes," Owen said.

"What else are you keeping from us?" I asked.

"The light," Owen said. He stepped in to stand next to Vai. He told us about the Lion of Judah's Research Station, the Awakened One, the light, the Corruption killing all of them except Esther who escaped, and the second Awakened One Esther was trying to get to.

"We talked to Esther about opening the light in both of you," Vai said, "but you're on a different ship and she's a stowaway. She can't just get on a shuttle to go to your ship or meet you planetside."

"I need to tell my mom about all this," I said.

"No," Vai said. "She'll tell my father and he'll lock me up forever."

"She already knows about the Corruption," I said. "She's been hurt by them at the hands of my dad."

"Just wait," Vai said. He put up both hands for emphasis as if that action alone could make me wait.

"I'll use my own discretion whether to wait or not," I said. I logged out leaving the three of them alone. I was done arguing, done waiting, done not knowing. Done being helpless.