Finally he reached the camp. The place he had been seeking for days and nights.
They stared at him from the trees, coated in leaves and branches. They vanished into the foliage. They made not a sound. They wore mud to hide their scent and heat. But Ernesto had been one of them, and he knew they were there. A dozen or more. Patriots. Warriors of the Kalayaan.
He dropped the greendeer carcass onto the forest floor.
"Comrades, I bring you a feast!"
For a moment—silence.
They stared from the trees. Every rifle, meticulously disguised as a branch, pointed at him.
Then one man leaped down from the trees. He wore a suit of leaves, vines, and moss, but black eyes peered from the verdant cloak. He approached Ernesto, rifle in hand.
"Who are you? How do you know our trails?"
"I am Ernesto Santos, an officer of the Kalayaan. My men were killed. I was wounded. I've come to lead your unit."
He rolled up his sleeve, showing them his tattoo. A sunburst among three stars. The sunburst was fully inked rather than hollow, the sign of an officer, a leader of men.
More guerrillas leaped to the forest floor. They talked amongst themselves, shooting Ernesto glances.
"It's him," one whispered to his friend. "Ernesto Iron Santos. The man with the iron skull."
They all stared at him, a blend of awe and fear in their eyes.
"Actually, the plate in my skull is steel." Ernesto tapped it. "I'm named Iron because I carry a clothing iron." He pulled his iron from his pack and displayed it. "Useful for interrogating prisoners."
They whispered amongst themselves again.
"It's him."
"They say he's crazy."
"They say he's killed a thousand putes."
"The stories are all true!" Ernesto said. "You have no officer here. He was killed in battle. And I'm in need of more men. I have a mission for you."
They looked at him, then at one another, uncertain. One among them, perhaps their leader, stepped closer. He had a dark mustache and darker eyes.
"What mission?"
Ernesto smiled. "We will raid Mindao."
The men mumbled amongst themselves.
The mustached man laughed. "You really are crazy, comrade! There are many thousands of Earthlings in Mindao. We don't go there."
"Oh, but we will." Ernesto's grin widened. "We will be heroes. There is a treasure in Mindao. A precious jewel I crave. You will help me fetch it. And you will be legends!"
The men looked at one another, then saluted him.
"Kalayaan para sa Bahay!" they cried.
Ernesto returned the cry. "Freedom for Bahay! Now feast, comrades. Feast on this gift from the forest. At dawn, our battle begins."
They built a campfire, roasted the deer, and feasted. As Ernesto ripped through the meat, as he drank the juices and hot sizzling blood, he thought of Maria. He imagined the taste of her flesh. And he smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Shadow Market
She waited for him under the bridge.
He came here every Sunday to see her.
Bridges in Mindao, this city overflowing with humanity, developed their own unique ecosystems. Jeepneys, tuk-tuks, and rickshaws rumbled and clattered above. But beneath bridges, life spread like insects, mold, and mushrooms thriving under a fallen log.
A shadow market grew under this bridge, a place more dazzling even than Merkado Bayan, the city's main marketplace along a wide boulevard. Here, under the bridge, was a bazaar of the forbidden, the dark, and the magical.
An old man with a tattooed face, long white beard, and brilliant azure eyes stood by a cart. He was selling scrolls of luminous ink, spells guaranteed to heal your illness, win your love's heart, or strike an enemy dead. A wise old woman stood nearby, wearing many beads and tassels. She beckoned for travelers to enter her den, a hut clinging to the bridge's pylon. The plywood door was ajar, revealing tarot cards, crystal balls, and shrunken heads. Maria hurried past both wizard and soothsayer, for she feared sorcery.
A scrawny, shirtless man stood by a chained android. Maria had never seen an android up close. She had heard that Earthlings sometimes used them for dangerous missions. But not too often; hardware was expensive, and humans were cheap. This android was battered, chipped, and rusty. It wore a straw hat, Kalayaan style, and held prayer beads with its rusty fingers. Some entrepreneurial Bahayan must have grabbed the machine from a smoldering battlefield. A cardboard sign hung around its neck: ASSASSIN FOR HIRE.
"Got a couple million of these?" Maria asked the android salesman. The man smirked.
A feline alien stood at a stall, a creature of shimmering orange fur, bright green eyes, and a grin filled with fangs. He held out his paws, displaying thousands of crystals in baskets. Crystals for good fortune, for love, for foresight, for long life, crystals of every kind from worlds across the galaxy. Maria, who had never traveled farther than Mother's Womb in orbit, gazed upon this alien in fascination, but she shied away when he turned his gleaming, catlike stare upon her.
Past the alien cat, Maria saw beings even stranger. Conjoined twins stood on a crude stage. Their torsos were linked at the bellies, and they had no lower halves. They formed a long body with heads and arms on each end. They reminded Maria of the figures drawn onto a playing card. The conjoined twins walked back and forth across the stage like a crab, using their four hands, and people tossed them coins. Nearby, a man sat on a tasseled rug. Tumors had swelled his face to grotesque proportions. His entire face seemed to melt halfway down his chest, forming a lumpy trunk. A few poor Bahayans knelt before him, worshiping him, while the elephant man blessed them. Farther back, a strange girl hissed inside a cage, clawing at the bars. She had a tail, horns, and scaly red skin. A man stood on crate, his torso twisted like a wet towel, a corkscrew of skin and bones. He looked at Maria and smiled.
Here under the bridge lived the unwanted. The freaks. The mutants and aliens. In this city of misery and poverty, they were the untouchables among the untouchables. Under the bridge, they thrived.
Maria walked through the shadow market. She passed a stall that sold enchanted brass instruments—all curving, coiling, spiraling pipes, a madman's vision of trumpets, guaranteed to summon the ghosts of loved ones with their eerie song. She walked by a shop that sold alien pets in cages. She saw little metallic birds with feathers like precious metals; glowing mollusks who peered from shells shaped like serpent heads, perhaps evolved to deter predators; and tiny humanoids with blank faces and tattered butterfly wings, hissing between silver bars, their teeth like needles. Another shop sold the roots of living mandrakes. The strange plants hung in cages, looking like wooden babies, sending twisting, coiling roots between the bars. Whenever a client paid a coin, the merchant snipped a root off a mandrake, and the strange baby cried.
Normally, Maria might linger among these wonders. She could spend hours exploring the shadow market under the bridge. But today, like every Sunday, she had a meeting.
She stepped toward a shack nestled between two pylons. The walls were plywood. A sheet of tarpaulin formed a roof. Jeepneys rattled above along the bridge, and a stray cat hissed among weeds. It seemed like just another shanty, one of countless in the city. But Maria knew this was a special place.
There was no sign on the door. But everyone in the shadow market knew this shack. Here was Theodora's Teashop.
When Maria stepped inside, she found herself in a new world.
The teashop was far larger on the inside. Maria did not know how that worked. Perhaps Theodora had carved room into the pylons, or perhaps it was a trick of mirrors. Perhaps it was alien technology. Or maybe a touch of magic. From outside, the shack seemed barely larger than an outhouse. On the inside, it seemed as large as an Earthling house.
In this strange house, Theodora had constructed a vintage teashop, hinting at Earth's past. Not the modern Earth, the planet of invaders and killers. But Old Earth, a lost era of innocence. Pastel murals covere
d the ceiling, featuring cherubs frolicking among fluffy clouds. Tables were set across the room, topped with embroidered linens, plates of scones and crumpets, and porcelain tea sets. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, its crystals scattering shards of light. Shelves covered the walls, brimming with boxes of tea, jars of raspberry candies, and bags of aromatic hintan, a luxurious drug favored by merchants and space travelers.
Hintan was milder than shabu, more relaxing than euphoric, and far more sophisticated, though just as addictive. Maria avoided both. She had seen the damage drugs wrought across the city. What they were doing to her friends. It was just tea for her, thank you very much. Herbal.
The shop was full of patrons, not all of them human. Most aliens on Bahay were Santelmos. Sometimes other alien species visited: merchants, military contractors, galactic anthropologists, even the rare tourist. But not often. Bahayans had no starships of their own, and they feared space. They scorned aliens, called them demons or ghosts. An alien walking along the streets of Mindao was likely to cause hysteria.
So Bahay's aliens came here. To this teashop under the bridge. Here they were welcome.
A Menorian—an alien mollusk with purple skin—sat at one table, holding seven teacups with seven tentacles. Menorians had built the spiraling shuttle Maria had flown into space, she remembered. A burly stone giant hunched over a table, struggling to raise a porcelain cup with a hand like a boulder. It shattered between his granite fingers. What looked like a medieval knight, all in shining armor, sat at one table, talking to a beautiful woman with indigo skin and golden eyes. A group of dwarfs sat at another table, bearded and red-nosed, sorting through gemstones between sips of tea. A furry albino slumped in his seat, long legs stretched out, a sword hanging from his side. A reptile sat across the table from him, devouring mice from a jar, one by one.
A woman in pink lace and ribbons emerged from a back room. Her frilly skirts rustled as she navigated between the tables.
"Theodora, my love!" cried a man. He wore a monocle and top hat, and his handlebar mustache curled halfway up his cheeks. Tattoos covered his right arm, and his left arm was a wondrous prosthetic, all brass gears and pistons and vials of bubbling liquid. "Will you finally marry me today?"
The woman in pink blew him a kiss. "As soon as you buy me that starship you promised, darling."
Maria watched the woman approach. Theodora, owner of the teashop, looked like a rococo doll dipped into a vat of kitsch. Enough makeup covered her cheeks to shame Marie Antoinette. Her lips were bright red, shaped like a heart, a beacon in a powdered white face. A lacy hat topped her head, rich with feathers, and crystals hung from her ears and neck. Her breasts nearly burst out from her corset, and her skirt was so wide it threatened to knock over tables. Roses were sewn into her gown, blooming and filling the room with their scent.
It was testament to her outrageous costume that people noticed it before her four arms.
She was a Bahayan woman, Maria thought—at least she had the almond-shaped eyes of a Bahayan. But Theodora spoke with an accent from old Europe, highborn and sophisticated. And four arms were certainly not Bahayan. Maria didn't know if the extra arms had been surgically added, whether Theodora was a mutant, or whether she was part alien. Perhaps Maria was putting too much thought into it. In the shadow market, it was best not to question but simply to accept.
"Ah, Lady Maria!" Theodora's eyes lit up. "My most adorable customer. How are you, darling?"
Theodora minced toward her in her pink slippers. She kissed Maria on each cheek, her jewels chinking.
"Good morning, Theodora." The woman's perfumes spun Maria's head. "Did you finally receive that shipment of dragon tears tea?"
Theodora smiled. "I have indeed!" She reached between her breasts and plucked out a vial of liquid. "Dragon tears! Real dragon tears. One drop in your tea infuses it with magic. Would you like a cup?"
Maria laughed. "Oh, I was just curious! I could never afford such fancy teas myself. I'd like rooibos tea today."
"Excellent choice! I sell the best rooibos tea in the galaxy, you know. Grown in the savannas of Rigel IV." Theodora flicked open a bamboo fan, revealing an illustration of pandas frolicking among cherry blossoms, and fanned herself. "Seasoned with a little hintan, perhaps?"
Maria smiled thinly. "I don't do drugs."
"Darling!" Theodora caressed her cheek. "Hintan is not a drug. Nothing crude like shantytown shabu. Heavenly hintan is a gift of the cosmos! A whiff of its aromatic lavender fumes, and your soul explores the galaxy."
"Just rooibos tea please." Maria peeked over Theodora's shoulder. "Is he here?"
"Yes, my dear. Your gentleman caller is early as always, waiting for you at his usual table."
Maria walked between the tables, dodging tentacles, wagging tails, and long trailing beards. She saw him sitting at the back—an Earthling soldier.
Maria grinned.
"David!"
He rose from his seat, tall and gangly, and banged his head on a chandelier. He winced, tried to sit back down, and knocked over his chair. He struggled for long moments, rubbing his head with one hand, reaching for the chair with the other, only to knock over an empty teacup. Maria caught it before the porcelain could shatter.
"Sorry, sorry!" David said. "God, I'm normally not such a klutz, I promise."
Maria's smile widened. When she had first met David, taking him captive in war, she had thought him a giant—intimidating and fierce. But now she saw the truth. He was all jutting elbows and clumsiness, more like an awkward bird than a beast.
An image flashed through her mind—David chained underground, Ernesto torturing him with a clothing iron. She pushed that memory aside.
I saved your life once, David, she thought. Maybe you can now save us all.
They sat down, and Theodora served them aromatic rooibos tea—with just the slightest sprinkle of hintan, just for flavor, not enough to get anyone high, she promised. Maria sighed and accepted the beverage. She and David sipped the tea. It was delicious and swirled in their cups with all the colors of sunset.
For a few moments, David talked, updating her on news from Earth. Not much news from Earth was reaching Bahay these days, and if it was, it was heavily censored. But David had his sources. He shared the scuttlebutt.
Over the past few weeks, Maria had learned a lot from David.
Lizzy—dead and presumed murdered.
Etty—freed from prison.
Hale—still reigning with an iron fist.
Jon—still alive, fighting with the Apollo Brigade in North Bahay.
News tragic and triumphant. News that shook Maria to her core.
Thankfully, this Sunday, the news was ordinary. David reported about bombings in the north, a Kalayaan raid in the south, and Hale's poll numbers. Nobody Maria knew was dead. Every Sunday without a shocking death was a good one. Well, maybe not good. But at least less tragic on a personal level.
She met David here every Sunday to share tea, a few laughs, and news. This gangly soldier, once Maria's prisoner, had become one of her best friends.
"Well, that's all I've got today." David sipped his tea. "Mmm, still a bit bitter." He added more sugar. "It's not much, and it's not great. That news, that is. The sugar is lovely. What news do you have from your network?"
David knew many Earthling soldiers, including in military intelligence, and they trusted him with information. Maria had other sources. She knew the urchins, the bargirls, and the gravedwellers, and they knew more than many intelligence officers.
Maria pulled the codechip from her pocket. The one with General Ward's confession.
"David, this codechip contains a priceless message. I need you to deliver it to Jon Taylor."
David winced. "Is it… a love letter?"
"What?" Maria blinked. "No, it's…" She took a deep breath. "It's a long story."
David poured more tea. "It's a deep pot. I have time."
So she told him. About the long days with the general. Seducing him. R
ecording him. As she spoke, David stared, eyes growing wider and wider.
By the time the teapot was empty, she had finished her tale.
"I have Ward's confession in my hand," she said. "And I need you to deliver it to Jon."
David blinked, and pain filled his eyes. "Why Jon? What can he do that I can't?"
Maria smiled softly. The boy sounded almost jealous.
"Can you break into Fort Miguel or Little Earth and hijack their wormhole generators?" she asked.
David grimaced. He was stationed at Fort Miguel just outside the city. It was the largest HDF base in South Bahay, home to countless soldiers.
"No," he said. "Their wormhole generators are guarded around the clock."
"But Jon's fighting in the wilderness up north," Maria said. "Their wormhole generators are portable machines. We'd never reach a wormhole generator down here. Not if the entire Kalayaan fought with us. But in the north? Jon might just have a chance."
"So…" David fiddled with his teaspoon, eyes downcast, then dared glance into her eyes. "It's not because… you love him?"
Maria couldn't help it. She laughed. "Of course I love Jon. This isn't about that, though. It's about the best way to end this war."
David put down his teaspoon, took a deep breath, and seemed to be steeling himself. He suddenly stood up, banged his head against the chandelier again, but pretended it never happened. He knelt before Maria and held her hand.
"Maria, I want to tell you something." His voice shook. "A year ago, you took me captive. You marched me through the jungle at gunpoint. But then you saved me from torture. You saved my life. And you became my best friend. Working with you this summer, struggling to end this war—these have been the best days of my life. Because I was with you."
Earthling's War (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 3) Page 24
