Abendau's Heir (The Inheritance Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

he’d hear his dad or accusing silence, or the thought of leaving her, he couldn’t tell. He walked up the access corridor, taking it in a way he rarely did, as if searing it into his memory, this ship of theirs. The wiring hung loose along the ceiling, the lack of covering making the steady noise of the ship’s coolant systems louder than it should be. His dad had talked about boxing it in since they’d first left the base, but never had. His shoes echoed in the metal corridor, the steady beat of his childhood, and the air was dry. When he went into the base his throat would feel clagged the way it always did. He got to the hatch and stared at it before reaching for the controls and putting in the code. It opened slowly, dropping down, the short walkway extending after the hatch had folded against the ship.
    The dock was in darkness, silent. In a few moments the dock-hands would arrive, but for now it was just him in the giant bay. It made him feel small, like the child he was supposed to be, the child he’d left behind a week ago. He walked down, feeling the walkway bounce beneath him, and stopped at the bottom.
    The spell of unreality broke, and he ran. Through the dock, crashing against the heavy, sealed doorway, spilling into the sparse corridor beyond, which linked the port to the main base. He knew the way– they’d been coming and going from the base for years– and he sprinted. A dock-hand passed him, and then another, but none of them stopped him. They were used to him and Karia coming off the ship; no one knew their world had been turned around and changed.
    He pushed through another door, into the accommodation section. Doors stretched along either side of the corridor, all the same grey metal. Once, one of the doors had been theirs, before his dad had decided to take them into space, returning to base only for rare maintenance runs. He couldn’t even remember which door it had been.
    But he knew Darwin’s, at the head of the corridor. He could see it. He was close to getting help, to handing this mess over to someone else. He sprinted, bashing off a woman who said ‘hey’ but didn’t stop him, and reached the door. He fell against it, banging with the flat of his hand. It wasn’t until the door opened and Darwin was there, tall as ever, broad, a quizzical smile in place, that something broke and he found himself telling Darwin what had happened, the words spilling out, coming round to the same place, time and again– that his dad was sick, and they didn’t know what to do.
    Darwin took him into the apartment and sat him down. His three children were there: Eevan, dark and brooding, Sonly asking for Karia, Lichio, the little one, watching with his big eyes. And then Darwin said the only thing that was needed.
    “It’s okay. You’re back. And we’ll take care of everything now.”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Kare followed his father and Darwin down the corridor to their ship, waiting where they’d docked it two weeks previously. The last conversations were over, his father’s pleas to Darwin and the military leaders of the Banned ended: they had to leave the base. This time, there had been no school, nothing except Darwin’s apartment and the hospital block until Dad was released. That and whispered voices making decisions deep into the nights, talking of base security, of options, and what the Empress would unleash against the rebels if she knew he and Karia were back.
    He snuck a glance at his twin, walking on the other side of Major Rjala, head of base security. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the sealed entrance to the dock. Karia had been forced to say goodbye to a crying Sonly not ten minutes before, a Sonly who’d begged her father to do something, not send them back out into space. And all Darwin had said was that he couldn’t, that it wasn’t just his decision, that he’d done what he could.
    Kare narrowed his eyes, focusing on the Banned leader. He’d lied. He’d taken