Stone in the Sky by Cecil Castellucci

“I wasn’t on the ship.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI’d been left here.”
    â€œWhy?”
    I couldn’t tell her the truth. It wouldn’t help me right now to accuse Brother Blue.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    She made a note in her datapad.
    â€œWhy did you stay here? Why not try to join one of the other colonies?”
    That startled me. I examined her face. She was being serious. Could she really not know that they were scams that Brother Blue had pulled? I was beginning to think that I was in a lot more danger than I thought.
    â€œI couldn’t…” I was at a loss. “… reach them. I had no credits. The Imperium came, and I found it difficult to get off the station.”
    â€œI understand that returning to Earth was not an option, but you didn’t try to join the Wanderers?”
    I didn’t answer because it had never struck me as a real idea to join them. It was more like they were an abstract idea of how I could get to Brother Blue one day when I left here.
    â€œI didn’t know how to find them,” I admitted.
    Tell the truth as much as you can, Heckleck always said.
    â€œYou’ve been here for a few years, yes?”
    I nodded.
    â€œHow did you survive?” she asked.
    â€œBarter,” I said.
    â€œThe Imperium frowns on black market activities,” she said. “That will have to be another charge to your crimes.”
    She made another note in her datapad.
    â€œWhy did you start the riot?” she asked. “Do you resent the aliens that you live with?”
    â€œNo! And I didn’t start the riot,” I said.
    â€œThat’s not what the eyewitnesses said.”
    â€œYou were an eyewitness,” I said. “What did you see?”
    â€œI’m here as a neutral party,” she said haltingly. “I can’t be called upon as a witness.”
    â€œWho is called then?”
    She flashed her datapad to me, and I could see some of the names.
    They were aliens that I knew who were down on their luck. Who hadn’t had much of a break in the rush. Or lived in the underguts. I couldn’t blame them for saying they saw something. They were trying to survive. They had likely weighed the worth of staying loyal to me. And if there was one thing I knew was that a favor owed to the dead was not worth anything at all.
    I needed to change this conversation quickly before I drowned.
    â€œHow’s Earth?”
    I saw her wince at the mention of home. She looked up from her datapad.
    â€œEarth and her colonies are thriving under the Imperium,” she said. “Earth is stable. All rebels destroyed.”
    â€œWhat colonies have you visited?” I asked. “What do they look like? I’ve always wondered since I never made it to mine.”
    Killick. Kuhn. Marxuach. Andra. Beta Granade.
    Her eyes snapped to me.
    â€œI’m the one asking the questions,” she said.
    â€œWhich one have you seen?” I asked.
    â€œI have not yet had the pleasure,” she said. “I was to accompany Brother Blue to Kuhn last season, but I came down with a stomach virus the night before and could not leave. But they are thriving.”
    I was about to open my mouth and tell her what I knew. I was going to tell her to check my data plug for the information. At least if I was going to die, I wanted someone of my kind to know that I knew about Brother Blue. If it was the last thing I did, I would plant a seed of doubt in her mind. It would be a slow poison from within. If the Imperium found out, then she would be in jeopardy. Her ruin was a small comfort. But at least it would be something.
    Really I was just taking swings in the dark.
    Before I could speak, the door slid open and Tournour stepped into the room with barely a glance at me.
    I wished we could be alone. I wished he would tell me that he’d killed Brother Blue and that he was now going to kill this Human girl. But to kill them