The Lost Memories of Meriwether Klark Read online

  The Lost Memories of Meriwether Klark

  THE MEMORY THIEF SERIES

  BOOK THREE

  SARINA DORIE

  Copyright © 2016 Sarina Dorie

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1534812881

  ISBN-13: 978-1534812888

  DEDICATION

  To Charlie.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  1

  Chapter Two

  8

  Chapter Three

  13

  Chapter Four

  16

  Chapter Five

  26

  Chapter Six

  31

  Chapter Seven

  36

  Chapter Eight

  40

  Chapter Nine

  53

  Chapter Ten

  64

  Chapter Eleven

  68

  Chapter Twelve

  74

  Chapter Thirteen

  88

  Chapter Fourteen

  92

  Chapter Fifteen

  97

  Chapter Sixteen

  101

  Chapter Seventeen

  104

  Chapter Eighteen

  109

  Chapter Nineteen

  112

  Chapter Twenty

  126

  Chapter Twenty-One

  133

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  143

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  A Sneak Preview

  Afterward

  About the Author

  151

  165

  180

  101

  205

  215

  222

  237

  241

  255

  260

  265

  274

  275

  287

  290

  Chapter One

  With the rediscovery of spaceflight, we have crafted steam-powered vessels to carry us to distant worlds by way of hyper jump points. If we are to improve upon our current methods of ferrying people to distant worlds, we must successfully combine our knowledge with that of our ancestors in the first era of spaceflight to take us to newer hyperspeeds created by more powerful engines.

  —Charles Babbage, inventor, visionary and innovator of the steam-powered space craft, 1859

  The pink glow of sunset cast long ribbons of shadow from the buildings onto the townsfolk bustling about the street. At last, the day had grown cool enough that people dared to come out of their homes to shop, Mama and I being no exception. The wind blew and I coughed from the dust.

  The people around us were a mixture of native colonists and the settlers who had come to live on the planet of New Texas. The off-world women like my mother, in her long day dress, stood out against the dark-haired natives clad in the alien lizard hide that was common here.

  Mama and I passed the millinery shop, the general store and the post office with their flat roofs and dusty exteriors. The buildings were a mismatched array of wooden boxes built by settlers who had come to the Western arm of the Milky Way. Mixed in were metal pavilions from off-world that had recently been constructed by some baron of industry Papa was always swearing about.

  Mama held my hand so I wouldn’t get lost in the tide of people going about their business. She held up her skirts with the other hand, so the pale fabric and tatted lace wouldn’t become dusty from the red silt on the ground. Soon we would be going to another planet, one less dirty, she had promised.

  I pointed at the candy store. “Thweetth!” My lisp embarrassed me too much to tempt me to say more. I licked the uneven lump of my upper lip where it was cleft. It didn’t look like everyone else’s.

  “We’ll see, Meriwether,” Mama said. “Be a good boy, and we go in if we have time. We have to pick up supplies for our voyage first.”

  I toddled as fast as I could to keep up with her, no easy feat considering how the rigid bell shape of her dress pushed against me. It was as stiff as a cage and as strong as the sides of our spaceship. My shoe was loose and I stumbled on a shoe lace. I crashed into a passing man’s dusty legs, bounced off him and fell into the cushions of her skirts. The man in his cowboy hat cursed under his breath and kept going.

  Mama leaned over to stand me up. “Dear me! Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  Streaks of red dirt were smeared across Mama’s beautiful dress from where I had accidentally stepped on the cream lace at the hem. I pointed to the dirt, tears welling up in my eyes.

  “Hush, love. It’s nothing.” Her voice was made of honey and sunshine. It sounded like a lullaby even when she wasn’t singing.

  She tugged me out of the street, to the safety between two buildings. Halfway down the alley there was a step that led up to the door of one of the shops. Even resting my foot on the top step, I had to lean against the building so I wouldn’t fall over as she tied my shoe with her gloved hands. She smiled down at me. Her eyes lit up when they gazed upon me. I was certain she loved no one else the way she loved me.

  “Smile.” She kissed the wet tears on my cheek. “Always smile. Save the tears for another day.”

  Those words sank in. That and the sweetness of her voice and the tenderness of her eyes. The perfection of that moment imprinted upon my mind. It was the last happy moment before my life turned sour.

  Her golden hair was pinned up and sausage curls cascaded from under her hat. Her eyes were the same pale blue as her dress. There were few women on the planet, and those here had dark hair and dark eyes. The “natives,” Mama and Papa called them. I looked more like one of them than I looked like her or Papa.

  “Clementine,” a man’s voice said from behind her.

  Mama stiffened and her eyes went wide. She stood quickly, hiding me from view with the width of her bell-shaped skirt. I knew she meant for me to be quiet when she put her finger to her lips. I was good at being quiet. I’d been a good boy plenty of times for her and Papa as they talked about grownup things on the starship and while busy with barter on the planet.

  Mama turned to face the man. She stepped back against the building, squishing me between her skirt and the dusty wall. Even more red dirt smeared across the pale blue and cream fabric of her skirt. I wanted to tell her, but I bit my tongue. I would show her what a good boy I was.

  Mama’s voice was light and airy, but her words came out in a rush. “However did you find me?”

  “Never mind that. I’m here for my property.” The man’s voice was deep and severe. He had an accent like Papa’s, only this man sounded stuffy and silly. I covered my mouth so the giggles wouldn’t escape.

  “Do you mean me?” Mama asked.

  “You would say something like that.” He snorted. “No, I learned a long time ago you couldn’t be possessed.” The soft sorrow in his voice turned hard as he went on. “I have no time for sentiment. Tell me where the prototype is.”

  “What prototype?”

  I tried to squirm out from behind her so I could see the man. She held me behind her to keep me still. Her hands trembled, and that alone was so unusual it gave me pause.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean,” he said. “Where is it?”

  She
laughed, sounding haughty. “I don’t know anything about a prototype. I’m just a dim-witted woman, too silly to understand science.”

  “You are trying my patience.”

  “Now that I think of it, I don’t even know what a prototype is. Such large words give me headaches. I only know about a certain artifact you stole from the native colonists in the hope of furthering your own advancements in hyperspeed technology. Quite different from a proto—what did you call it?”

  The man’s gloved hands gripped her shoulders and shook her. The force knocked my head back against the wall and my face bounced into Mama’s skirts. My neck hurt and it was all I could do not to cry.

  “I don’t have it,” she said. “We sold it.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Unhand me this instant. I don’t have what you want.”

  The fear in her usually confident voice unnerved me. My stomach quaked.

  “Or what? You’ll scream? Ha! Do you see those two men?”

  I pushed aside enough of the blue fabric to see the men standing on the sidewalk between us and the bustling street. A man in a cowboy hat drew a laser pistol. The other was faced away into the street. He barred the way with his rifle.

  The man before my mother laughed. “I have more of them posted outside your ship. It would be a tragedy if one of them accidentally shot your husband.”

  Mama gasped.

  “Oh yes, I know about you and William Earnshaw. My spies have had their eyes on you since you landed. Did you truly think you would be safe anywhere the East Milky Way Trading Company has posts? Now tell me where you’ve hidden the prototype. Tell me and I might let you go free.”

  Mama’s fingers trembled as she held me. “We sold it to the French in exchange for their assistance. How else did you think we could have escaped the Oregon Territories?”

  “I don’t believe you. What’s that you’re hiding behind your back?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  He yanked Mama away from the wall and she stumbled into the other building. I coughed at the plume of dust she kicked up.

  I stared up at the man. His thick hair and wiry dark brown sideburns stuck out from under his top hat, making him look like a wild animal. His complexion was tan, like he’d spent a great deal of time in the sun, though still he was fairer than I was. I giggled at his silly frown and wild hair.

  “A child?” He crinkled up his nose at me. “Ugly little thing, is he not? What’s wrong with his face?”

  “Nothing is wrong with his face.” Mama lifted her chin. “I think he’s precious.” She opened her arms to me and I ran to her. She lifted me, even though she usually told me I was too big for her to carry. She squeezed me so tight I could scarcely breathe. She leaned her face close to my ear. “When I say run, go out the back of the alley and hide. Understand?”

  I nodded. She lowered me to the ground, but didn’t release me right away. With the hand furthest away from the man, she fumbled for something in her white boot.

  He sneered down at us. “This child is yours, I take it?”

  She rose to her feet. She held something in the folds of her skirts. The metal glittered as it caught the dying rays of sunlight. She blocked the man from my sight again with the voluminous bell of her skirt.

  The man said, “I’ll wager he gets that black hair from his father. He’s dark enough to be a half-breed. Perhaps your husband kept a few secrets from you about your lineage.”

  “You’re such a hypocrite. I’ve seen your family tree. I know your great-great-grandfather married a slave from the planet of Louisiana.”

  “How dare you insinuate I have inferior blood in my line! I will have you know I come from the most elite and noble lords in the British Empire of Planets.”

  “I think you mean the most conceited and vain,” Mama started. “Perhaps if you were not so concerned with appearances, you might—”

  “Hold your tongue, woman! I will not have you sully my family’s name. It’s about time someone taught you some manners.” He stepped in closer, his hand raised to strike. I cringed and buried my face in her skirt but I could still hear the slap.

  She cried out and made to turn away, but he wouldn’t let her. My fear turned to anger. I would not let this horrible man hurt her. I lunged, but Mama yanked me back and pushed me behind her. She swatted at me and pushed me farther behind her with her skirt. I thought maybe she wanted me to run, but I wasn’t sure, since she hadn’t told me.

  He held her face in his hands, not unkindly now. “Do you see the things you drive me to do? If only you hadn’t angered me, Clementine. I would have forgiven you if you had admitted your folly and given me the prototype. I could have overlooked your bleeding-heart tendencies for the native colonists and trusted you’d outgrow this phase. I would have let you divorce that dreadful scientist and taken you back. But instead, you break my heart for the second time.” Tears filled in his eyes. “There’s only one thing left to be done. I must punish you for betraying me. Pray, how can I leave your heart as broken as you have left mine? Shall I kill your husband and your child and let you rot on this godforsaken planet?”

  Mama pushed me back with her foot. “Meriwether! Now!” She dove at the man. She lifted the knife.

  I ran. The man’s chuckle echoed behind me, sinister as thunder. Just as I made it out of the alley to the back street, a man snatched me up. Three more men stood there, weapons drawn.

  One of them, Mr. Price, I knew from our ship. Surely he would help us. “Mr. Prithe!” I cried. “You’ve got to help Mama.”

  He kicked at a clod of dirt. He didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Prithe, pleathe help me!”

  My mother screamed. I tried to twist in the man’s arms, but I still couldn’t see what was happening. I kicked the man holding me and hit him harder, but he wrapped his burly arms around me and held me as I struggled. I exhausted myself fighting. A moment later the man in the top hat emerged from the ally. Two men dragged Mama after him. She screeched and kicked at them like I had.

  “Lord Klark, what do you wish us to do with this brat?” the man holding me asked.

  That name … I knew that name. Mama and Papa had spoken of this man in hushed whispers, though what they had said I didn’t know. Often his name was accompanied by curse words.

  “Set him down.”

  The man did so, keeping hold of my arm.

  Lord Klark drew his gun. He aimed it at me. “Where is my prototype?”

  I went rigid with fear. I wasn’t too young to understand the damage a laser pistol might do.

  “He’s your son,” she blurted out.

  “Impossible.”

  I stared from Mama to this stranger in confusion. He wasn’t my Papa. I already had a father. He was kind and quiet and would never try to hurt us. Why would she lie and say I belonged to this horrible man?

  “No, it isn’t impossible.” Mama spat out. “Not when a man would dispose of a woman after he’s finished with her. You should be ashamed of the way you behaved back on the planet of Louisiana. I count myself fortunate I saw your true character then, rather than after I married you.”

  Shock crossed his face. “You women have such a gift for misremembering things. I didn’t dispose of you. It was the other way around.”

  “I’m not talking about myself. I’m speaking of Josephine. What you did to her was unforgivable. It showed your true character.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I was never in love with Josephine. You were the one I wanted.”

  “As if your plot to steal those ancient artifacts wasn’t enough to make me despise you! Did you think I would just throw myself at your feet and beg for you to take me back after I saw how you treated my cousin?”

  “I made it quite clear I had no intention of marrying Josephine. She had no money and no title, for God’s sake. That night with her was as much her mistake as mine. I was drunk. End of story. I thought I had been more than ample in my … ahem … methods of making it up to you.”

 
Mama didn’t answer. The men around them looked away. Mr. Price kicked at a dirt clod that shattered into dust. The thickness in the air made me uncomfortable and I shifted from foot to foot.

  Lord Klark crouched down beside me and took my chin in his hand to examine my face. He must have seen something there that surprised him because his eyes widened and he looked from me to her. He was so close that I could have spit on him. I thought about it, but glancing down at his laser pistol changed my mind.

  “It’s true then. This is our child?” Lord Klark asked softly.

  She didn’t answer. Hope alighted in my heart that it wasn’t true. It was all a game. She’d told me about the games adults played with words to keep themselves safe. This was a lying game, surely.

  “William Earnshaw was still willing to have you after you had my child?” Lord Klark snorted in derision. I hated him even more.

  Mama grimaced and looked away. I was so confused. Or perhaps I only wanted to be confused and didn’t want what I was hearing to be the truth.

  He turned to his men. “Leave us so that we might have a moment of privacy.”

  The men withdrew. The one holding me started away with me, but Lord Klark stopped him. The lord grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and yanked me to his side. My legs felt shaky and weak. The sun had gone down and shadows behind the buildings were cold with the coming night. The men stood next to the building, pretending not to watch. They reminded me of the jackal swans that lived out in the desert and gathered together in an unassuming flock when predators went out hunting the lizard-like deer. These men would be ready to swoop in as soon as blood spilled.