Snake Keeper by Alexandra Norton
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I BOLTED THROUGHthe dim hallway. My lungs burned as I struggled for air and willed my legs to go faster. I counted Doors. Two… three… four…
It was eleven doors to the cable. I knew the one. I slammed into it, pulling at the edges as it slid open, slipping through the crack.
The cable bay was empty. I didn’t know how to work the shuttle. I didn’t know the time, either, but intuitively knew that this was around the time of night that several servants went to the ring to do their nightly supply run. They would be here soon. I forced my shoulders to relax. I brought my ragged breaths under control, turning them into deep, calm inhalations. My hands flexed into fists and back. I shook them to relax. It would be fine. I had been allowed run of the planetoid for weeks - this would just be the next step in my integration.
“Emily? What are you doing here?” I spun toward the familiar voice.
“Zeetha!” I forced myself to smile, forced the corners of my eyes to crinkle.
She walked toward me with two other Snakes, winding up thick ropes in their hands.
“Are you off on the supply run?” I probed.
She nodded: “Yup! Weren’t you meant to be at dinner?”
“We’re long done. Xioumar was a bit worn out from an evening with his brother, it seems,” I gave her a knowing look.
“Oh yeah, I can imagine,” she laughed and walked up to one of the walls of the bay, drawing invisible patterns on the surface to bring forth the cable shuttle.
“He said I should accompany you on the run tonight. Said it would be a good learning experience. And I think it’d be interesting to see the ring when everyone’s asleep!”
“Oh, the ring doesn’t sleep,” Zeetha shook her head, “It is packed as ever at night.”
“Sounds exciting!” I clapped my palms together.
“Alright then, let’s go,” the cable shuttle arrived and the four of us got in. It was a tight fit. I tried to look nonplussed as I sat down, back pressed firmly against a wall. I tucked my hands under my knees so that they wouldn’t see them shake.
It felt like an infinity before the cable shuttle reached the landing bay in the ring. It took all of my self-control not to bolt into the bowels of the ring right there. When we entered the packed market (Zeetha was right), it was easy to slip into the crowd while the Xiorn were preoccupied with discussing what they needed to bring back to the planetoid.
I knew better how to move between the Snakes now. I shifted fairly easily, making my way to the only place I thought had any chance of being a refuge: the kind eyes I remembered on my first visit to the ring. I just hoped she’d be there at this time of night.
She was. I hovered tentatively at her stall as she handed a set of twisting vines to a young male Snake.
When she was finished, she turned to me, thin lips spreading into a wide smile: “How is your flower doing, Kept?”
I didn’t have time to answer before her smile faltered. She noted my hand rubbing my wrist, my bottom lip quivering, the tears threatening to finally spill from my eyes for the first time. “What’s wrong?”
“Can you hide me?” my voice cracked, and I doubled over as a sob raked through my body. The old woman wasted no time. She rushed to me and put herself under my shoulder, leading me farther into her tent.
“Of course,” she reassured me as she guided me towards the back. She led me behind a table at the back, stacked with flowers. There was a door in the floor. She bent over to press her hand against its surface. The door slid open, revealing a set of granite-like stairs.
She guided me down the stairs into a compact room with a small foam bed and a tiny bathing area off of the side.
“This is where you live?” I mumbled between tears. The room was tiny, but homey. I saw no kitchen, but imagined she probably got her food at the bustling market around her.
“Yes, dear. Sit,” she directed me to the bed and pulled up a foam cushion for herself. “What happened? Where is your Keeper?”
I tensed. “Far away, I hope.” I stared up the stairs we had come from, as if expecting him to descend them at any moment.
“Don’t worry,” she followed my gaze, “you are safe here. I promise.”
It seemed like forever, but my tears slowly ran dry. Anger and a determination to get the fuck out of there replaced my grief. My rescuer, my partner in escape, had left a hydrating bulb fruit near the bed before going back up to her stall to finish her duties. I drank as I planned. My mind fit together different scenarios like puzzle pieces. What could I do? Return to Earth was unlikely. I doubted the Federation would return except in five years, if at all. I couldn’t hide in this tiny room forever.
Could I start a new life of my own in the underbelly of the ring? Or maybe sneak onto a ship and escape to one of those planetary worlds Xioumar had told me stories about as we lay in the nest some nights? My heart ached at the memory. To think I’d grown to trust him.
“Fuck!” I screamed at the granite walls around me, punching the bed with a fist.
Yes, escaping to one of the planets seemed like the best bet. Xioumar had told me about a planet named Sylva, supposedly “only” three million light-years away, to which the Snakes sent ships to gather rare wood and kor meat. This was the only animal they actively hunted - the rest of the meat served at the station had been lab-grown within the ring.
He described the planet as industrial and full of lumber on one hemisphere and lush, untamed forest on the other. He mentioned rumors of Federation outcasts escaping to live in that wilderness because it was so difficult to find anything in there.
With outcasts sounded like exactly where I belonged. Better an outcast than a Snake.
The flower keeper would probably have some idea of how to get on one of those ships. I’d just moved to go back up to ask her when I heard her slide the door open on her way back down.
But the feet I saw descend the staircase were shod in black armored boots. And it wasn’t blue, kind eyes of the old female but crimson, violent orbs with enraged pupils thin as needles that pinned me in place as Xioumar entered the room.