Authors: Tobias S. Buckell
“One last thing, Pepper. Tell me once more, promise me, you don’t have no bite, no infection on you. I just need to know. I need to hear you say it.”
“I swear to you,” Pepper’s voice was calm and emphatic. “I am not infected.” Already the
Sheikh
was little more than a tiny needle glinting in the sunlight. The glow of its main engines suddenly lit up the darkness with actinic light for a full minute.
Pepper shielded his eyes until it faded.
“Thank you.” Canden’s voice sounded fuzzy with static as they fell farther apart. “Final vector laid in. We clearing Chilo now, with an extra boost. That thing, that infection, will burn up with us when we eventually spiral into the sun, and with them when they hit Chilo’s atmosphere. If they make it to Chilo, well, I did everything I could. . . .”
Pepper flinched at the sound of the gunshot.
She died before turning into one of the infected. She’d secured the cockpit. The
Sheikh
was hopefully headed out of harm’s way.
Now he had to catch up to that last member of the Swarm and take its heat shield away. Then follow the spacesuit’s solutions to deorbit.
After he killed the escaping Swarm member and sliced it free of the heat shield, Pepper found, much to his consternation, that the Swarm had not provided its spore with a parachute.
T
he phone on the wall rang, startling everyone in the room, including Timas. Ohtli leaned in to answer it. He turned back to the room. “Aeolian soldiers are on the outside shell.”
Angry words filled the room. “Who the hell do they think they are?” Tenoch spat.
When Timas turned to Katerina she shrugged. “Yes, they’re coming for him.”
Despite his stories about fighting in space, Timas couldn’t think of the one-legged, one-armed man in the bed as particularly dangerous.
“And how long did you know?” Timas asked Katerina.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her shift uncomfortably. “Halfway through his story the vote started. Citizens demanded that we retrieve him. No further negotiating. They want better debriefing facilities.”
Necalli shook his head. “You were going to torture him to see if he kept to his story?”
Katerina looked disgusted. “Torture, no. But detailed scans of his brain and physiology, testing to determine he is who he says he is, yes.”
“And you couldn’t just, you know, ask us formally to hand him over.” Timas’s dad also looked disgusted. “You’re all arrogant, you know. To just assume that you can walk into our homes and take what you want.”
“One,” Katerina said. “The citizenry voted that you were likely not to turn him over based on past interaction. True, it’s a small margin, but it was enough to trigger an action request that then passed by a large margin. Two, he’s a criminal; why do you care?”
“And what did you vote?” Timas looked into her other eye, not the silvered one.
“Oh, that’s none of your business!” Katerina stepped forward into the center of the room. The one light in the ceiling acted as a spotlight on her. “And quite rude of you to ask.”
“Well, it’s not your courtyard soldiers are dropping in on, little girl, is it?” Ollin folded his arms and glared.
“Little girl?” For a moment Katerina looked ready to rip Ollin in two. Timas wagered she might have enough outrage to try.
The phone rang again. Ohtli lifted the handset. “The guards outside ask if they’re to fight back when the Aeolians come.”
Camaxtli shook his head. His raspy voice cracked. “What can we do against them? It would be a waste of lives. They’re coming in. We will pick our fights, and this is not a good one.”
Ollin unfolded his arms and looked down at the ground. Timas sighed. He knew that posture of regret, weariness, and anger held in check.
“I’m very sorry about this,” Katerina mumbled to Timas. “You have to understand, I’m the will of my people, I didn’t choose it this way, I promise.”
Footsteps got louder outside.
“So you believe him?” Timas asked.
“Enough of us are intrigued. Yes. And going back over tracking logs shows that several other organic objects the rough size of a human body deorbited during the same period. We have to check this out.”
The doors burst open.
The three Aeolians wore large flanged helmets. The cross-shaped blank space in the front glittered. Reflected back on the Aeolians’ eyes was shifting text and other information: objectives, maps, tactical details. Their protective gear had reshaped itself into cloaks that could absorb any shots or thrusts.
“We carry no weapons in our hands,” the one on the left said.
Yeah, but no doubt dangerous guns and explosives in various forms lay under those flowing cloaks. The last time Timas saw them during the Octavia tourist incident they’d thronged through the city in pairs hunting the murderer, unwilling to wait for the city to bring the perpetrator of that crime to justice.
“Just hand him over,” Katerina said. “Then you won’t have to deal with us anymore.”
Timas bit his lip and turned around. This would be over soon. And then he could talk to the elders about the more pressing thing on his chest: what he’d seen on the surface. Surely the criminal from space was the least important of the two.
Pepper lay on the bed, sweat beading his forehead.
He didn’t look worried, just very serious as he sat up using one arm. “I can’t walk. Someone will have to help me here.”
The soldier on the left stepped forward, his cloak swirling to become a second skin that flowed over his insanely muscular body. He almost dwarfed Pepper. “Don’t try anything stupid.”
“I’m not a fan of stupid.” Pepper grabbed hold of the man’s shoulder. He hopped up, and Timas realized that Pepper stood almost as tall as the regal and faceless Aeolian he leaned against. His dreadlocks cascaded down around his shoulders as he struggled forward.
“We’ll have someone bring a cart up,” the Aeolian said. Then he spoke to some unseen voice. “Yes. We have custody.”
Katerina turned to walk out the room.
As she did, drawing attention with her movement, Pepper cracked the Aeolian’s helmet in the crook of his arm and twisted the man’s neck.
Even before the Aeolian’s body hit the ground Pepper leaped, not for the other soldier, who had already whipped a wicked-looking gun free, but for Katerina.
She screamed as he hit her and spun so that his back hit the ground. He held her like a human shield with his one good arm.
“I’ll snap her neck.” Pepper still looked calm and unworried. He’d moved so damn fast Timas hadn’t even taken a breath.
“I still have a shot.” The remaining soldier’s cloak had become a second skin of mobile armor.
“Yeah, but she’ll be dead. And while you’ll accept the loss of a professional soldier, this innocent civilian avatar is a child that your citizenry would howl to see die.”
The Aeolian lowered his gun. “What now?”
Pepper used his one leg to push himself up to the wall. He sat back against it. “I won’t harm her.”
“This is unacceptable.”
“The moment you chose not to try and take the shot you had you were no longer in control of the situation, so shut up.” Pepper frowned as Katerina tensed. Maybe trying to pull away from him. She stopped trying after a second, and then Pepper took a deep breath and continued.
Take off the armored cape and helmet. Drop the weapon as well. I like the look of it.”
Timas thought the Aeolian wanted to protest, but then cocked his head as someone gave him orders. “Okay.”
Underneath the helmet was a green-eyed man with scarred cheeks and tight, curly hair cut close to the scalp with a lightning bolt pattern on the left side.
He dropped the cape and helmet, eyes narrowed with the frustration of a soldier unable to act.
Pepper smiled and looked over at Camaxtli. “Don’t worry, if the Aeolians refuse to pay you whatever they offered, I’ll match.”
Necalli moved closer to Pepper, his head cocked, thinking. Camaxtli cleared his throat. “You promise a lot, but even if what you say is possible for one man, what happens after you leave and we still have to face the Aeolians?”
“I’m not asking you to directly help me, I’m just reminding you that I’m also your friend.”
Ohtli shook his head. “And if we take your offer, what about the next criminal who flies in here who happens to be rich? Do we shelter them as well? That’s not who we are.”
Necalli folded his arms. “So again, we lean back and let the Aeolians tell us how to run our own city, do what they want. Why not just ask for a silvered eye of your own, Ohtli?”
Ohtli looked startled at the vehemence, and Timas wondered where that had come from. Necalli harbored a lot more rage at the bossy Aeolians than anyone else in the room, it seemed.
Ollin, Timas saw, scanned the elders, taking in who wanted to show the Aeolians up, and who wanted to keep their course. His dad, the gears in his head always twirling.
“This’s all beside the point,” Pepper said. “I have the girl hostage, so for right now, the Aeolians are doing what I ask them. Who else will you ever entertain that can face them down?”
He had a point.
“Besides, we need to get Raga involved now.”
A few seconds passed, and then Katerina raised her hand. Pepper still
held her in a close grip. “I’m sorry, but we feel that would be a violation of Chilo’s charter between New Anegada and the cities of Chilo.” She raised an eyebrow. “In fact, we feel that overwhelmingly.”
“The charter can be revoked in case of war,” Pepper said. “And if you’d been paying attention to what I told you happened aboard the
Sheikh Professional
you know the entire DMZ is going up for grabs. The League unleashed this Swarm on us. That’s war.”
“These are just stories by you so far.” Eztli spoke up from a long period of silence. “We have heard of no attack by mind-dead people, nor has the avatar there seen or heard of any such attack.”
“So far, correct, no reports,” Katerina said.
“None the less. We’re all going to move to a nice location. A house out in the open. The avatar comes with us, my hostage. The rest of you as well.” Pepper looked at the Aeolian soldier. “How many outside?”
“I’m sorry?”
Pepper shook his head, the long locks slapping his wide shoulders. “Don’t play games.”
“Fifteen.”
“Good. They’ll come with us.” Timas found that a surprising twist from Pepper. “We’ll need protection within a few days here. You sending more our way?”
Katerina nodded.
“Good. And now, the final demand: I want a nice house, in a nice large civilian area, somewhere the Aeolians will not want to drop a large bomb on or use unnecessary force.”
Ollin stepped forward. “My house, I’ll offer my house.”
The elders were taken aback. “Ollin, you put your family in danger.” Camaxtli grabbed Timas’s father by the shoulder.
“No more danger than we face any day with our only son on the surface.” Ollin returned the gesture.
Of course Ollin would do this, Timas realized, looking at Camaxtli. How many more years would Camaxtli remain an elder? Five at best.
And then there would be Ollin to take his place.
Even if it meant risking his family by bringing all these people into their courtyard.
Pepper insisted they bring one last item. A long bundle, wrapped in crinkly tarp.
“What’s in there?” Timas asked as they all prepared to leave.
“His limbs,” said Ohtli. “He insisted.”
T
imas finally got Ollin alone. “I need to tell you something. Something the elders will need to know about.” The intimidating Aeolian soldiers, servants, and even a few neighbors who had wandered to the lip of the courtyard gates remained just out of earshot.
“Speak.” Ollin folded his arms and looked out over his piece of the world, their home, with a faint smile.
“Not here.” Timas shook his head.
“Then where? This is as good a place as any.” Ollin walked over to the table at the center and poured himself a cup of pulque.
“On the surface.” Timas lowered his voice. “Cen and I saw something . . . important.”
Ollin sighed and leaned close. The bitter smell of his breath filled the air between them. “Heutzin told me you came up babbling about aliens.” Ollin lowered his voice as well. “You shut up about those things.”
“But we both saw things on the surface. We saw something, in a suit like ours but smaller, running into the murk.”
“Gods, son, everyone sees things in the mist down there. It’s the heat, the exhaustion, the loneliness. It doesn’t mean they’re real.”
Timas fought anger. “It
was
real. If I can go back down I can get you proof.”
“Don’t say these things, Timas. You know our history, what our people have done and have been through. People may think our gods are really physical and can appear to us, but that is
heresy
now, and people who think ancient gods or aliens hide in the mist down below, waiting for the faithful, are troublemakers. You understand me?”
Timas swallowed and looked around. The pallet Pepper lay on creaked. The dreadlocked man stared at them both. Could he be listening from that far away?
Ollin shook Timas by the shoulder. “Do you understand?” he repeated.
Timas’s great-great-grandfather had been a high priest. On New Anegada he had taken out the hearts of living people, sacrificing them to serve the alien beings who claimed they were gods to the Azteca who lived
there, the aliens who had birthed Timas’s ancestors to that land many centuries ago.
But the aliens hadn’t been gods. Other families had similar stains on their histories, and some in the lower decks of the city still believed that aliens were gods and would return to save them all and raise them up to their proper place as rulers.
“I know what I saw.” Timas didn’t believe in godly aliens, he’d seen something else. But he knew he’d seen
something
.
“Yes, you and half the other jumpy xocoyotzin from lower families. Pull yourself together, Timas.” When Ollin was disappointed he called Timas by name. “There are far, far larger things at stake here than shadows that spooked you down on the surface.”