The mess hall was a cathedral hidden in the heart of Copernican. Nests of tunnels wound tightly around this mighty space so that it could stretch higher than most trees I'd seen.
Bathed in echoes, the room was a luxurious waste of oxygen and light so bold that it had to have been taken from a Very Important Person in command of more power than sense. Maybe a chancellor or even a prime minister.
"A sector warden, actually," Snow whispered – his voice a hush as we both worshiped the open air.
"Albo took command when I was just small; won it in a fight from ship smugglers."
"It was a chess match!" the old man's voice hooted, "Dammit all, Snow, you got a voice travels a light year."
From the far end of the long hall an arm waved us to the table. Satinwood, crisp tablecloth and proper plates – not trays – had been laid. A clutch of squints already seated weaved in animated, silent, conversations. A tall woman, her thick hair illuminated under the lights, motioned us to the seats closest hers. Her lips were a hard, colourless slash – things unused to pliant working.
Along the spot lit-length of bright white service I could feel eyes and minds flicking over me. There were maybe fifteen, twenty here. Whispers of shadow and light glimmered behind my eyes – not words, but hopes, flashes of texture and emotion. All giving me the same hair-crawling message: silencepleasesilencenotalesnodangertellnonesilence
And it felt for all the world like a soft lifting wind along my arms and skin.
Turns out the mad orphan all those years ago had some grip on the truth.
In a singular fluid voice Albo first said, then showed, that in initial culls the mercs cut throats and tongues to mark squints they couldn't carry back for rewards. And, he added – tapping his legs, which were not legs after all but two jointed steel rods – those who did not go quietly lost more than voices. Without words from the parents, children never learn. And so a new generation came up speaking in colours and sensation from behind wondering eyes.
Down the end of the table I caught the bottomless stare of an iron-haired boy who nodded, telling me bright yellow light and a scrap of laughter from a past sunny day. It was not a punishment to have no words – it was a new language.
My voice was a harsh, scuffed grate on the silent dinner party, "I'm sorry for that. It weren't my people but – like – it was our sort..."
Snow shook his head, moved his hand to cover my own – stopping as he realised what he was about to do and I was left with the ghost-warmth of a hovered palm.
Plates were passed in clinking quiet. Albo's old dog pushed a shaggy head between knees and chair legs, wagging and panting for attention.
There were no words, but an operatic amount of food. I stared in stunned reverence at the wealth of it all – salads and hot bowls of sauces and stews that made me reel from the smell. Whole plates heaped with scarlet radishes, slick onions, glossy green cucumbers and skin-tight tomatoes blushing a high red and twinkling buff seeds under the rich light. Glass jars recycled as mugs caught the deep plums of syrupy juice and clarifying cold teas. No meat, but thick bean paste fried to a consistency that held dressings but melted under knives.
The woman at my elbow flickered a look into an oxygen garden at the crown of the ship– a breathing, humid paradise of resurrected vegetables and fruits.
Tastes, herbs. Salts and peppers and sweet and sour burned my tongue and throat after what I only knew as years of blank nutrient pastes and cloudy colony water. Beside me Snow sighed, eyes shut as I knew he savoured my dinner. I wondered who else tasted my meal.
A spark then – a match struck in the dark – memory of the dark-haired Kyra and her creeping, strange hunger I knew had little to do with nutrition.
Tension in Snow's arm vibrated the space between us, then stillness and cold. If I had looked up from my plate I would have seen the eyes at the table all darting, wondering, fixing on me and flitting away. Something strange was unsaid there – an agreement made that I had no party to. It was not fair.
My fork dropped, it's heavy handle like a gong or gunshot.
"What's the story then, folks." I was sharply aware of how easily they would be able to smell panic or fear, an uncertain heartbeat or a flutter of my hand.
"No story, kiddo. We don't..." he tried again, "Kyra is – special."
My mouth tasted vinegar and dust. For all their wish for my silence, it seemed there was an awful lot of noise floating around. I balled my free hand into a fist, laying the fork down and pushing away from the table.
"I think till there's more talk about the things I need to know here, I'll just keep myself to myself."
I nodded briefly to Albo before pushing my chair out maybe a little too far and taking my leave.