Honor Among Thieves

by Ann Aguirre

  DEDICATION

  For everyone who marches to the beat

  of a different drummer.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prelude: Nadim

  Part I Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Interlude: Nadim

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Interlude: Nadim

  Part II Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Interlude: Nadim

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part III Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Interlude: Nadim

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part IV Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Authors

  Books by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prelude: Nadim

  I feel the stars.

  Energy pulses against my skin, murmuring secrets about this small galaxy, about orbits and alignments and asteroids streaming in space. Impulse makes me want to dive and cruise those currents, but I control these urges.

  I shift my attention to the flutters of life within my skin.

  Marko glows orange with crimson streaks. He is warm, always the easiest to find. Just now, he stands and stares at the blue-green orb swirling below us. I cannot swim down to see what he remembers of this place. The planet’s gravitational pull would break my bones. But he shows me flashes: smiling faces, a field of flowers, an old woman with eyes like slices of sky.

  “I’ll miss you,” I tell him.

  He flinches a little, surprised to hear me, as if he’s ever truly alone. “Me too. It was a good run.”

  He once told me that it’s strange when we talk; he thinks I should find him as insignificant as he does the bacteria in his stomach. But I have had time to acclimate to the strangers in my system. I safeguard the small voices, as is my privilege and duty. There will be more to my life, but only when I’ve proven myself.

  The stars sing again, this time in sleek, seductive harmony. I resist their melody, but the call is growing stronger.

  Despite my passengers, I am empty in a way I cannot name. Marko tells me it is because our voyage is over; he calls this sadness. Perhaps I have learned this feeling from him. My first Honor gave me a human name, Nadim, and I have kept it safe, along with the other words and shapes and colors that shade my new existence. Like sadness.

  I do not like this low orbit, but I must wait. I have been ordered to wait.

  My new Honors will come.

  Will they be warm and orange like Marko, or crisp and gray like Chao-Xing? She is harder to find, a shadow in my skin, and her silence feels like scraping. Yet her thoughts tap at me endlessly, asking questions I am not permitted to answer. Some answers have not even been given to me, so she can scratch as deep as she wishes. There will be no sudden brightness at the bottom. She is an itch I cannot shake out and I will not be sorry to see her leave. Marko touches where my skin is thin. Such gentleness, I should not feel it, but his feelings amplify at the point of contact. Warmth rolls through me, through layers of muscle and bone, until there’s a happy shiver in my depths.

  “Please take care,” I say in his native language.

  “You too. Bye, Nadim.” With a final pat on the surface near him, he turns.

  A mechanical ship buzzes about me; I check the urge to play. Their constructs are fragile, they have no instinct, and a nudge from me would destroy the craft. I must be docile. I must comply to complete my training. I’m close now. I’ve learned so much.

  To my other Honor, Chao-Xing, I say nothing. She has no words for me, no spare feelings either. Only questions, still, questions that I can’t answer. I open so the shuttle can land. There is a burst of cold, swirling energy, which compensates for the minor discomfort. I think this is what yawning must feel like. The humans speak, but not to me. And then they go.

  For the first time in one solar year, I am alone. No warmth. No shadows, either.

  The elder makes contact, stern and determined. Be mindful. Stay alert. Now, we wait.

  Yes, Typhon.

  I am ready.

  PART I

  Transcript from Good Day, New Detroit, with hosts Kephana Washington and Saladin Al-Masih, August 12, 2142

  WASHINGTON: Welcome to today’s show! We’ve got news from the Honors Selection Committee about upcoming picks, footage of the Leviathan arrival in the solar system and Mars flyby, the latest on that new Heart of Fire release. . .

  AL-MASIH: . . . Plus, a fantastic, fresh, local-grown farming co-op right in the city center, the Kanda School choir, a special profile on returning Honor Marko Dunajski, and a cat who might be the next Pawcasso. So let’s get to it!

  WASHINGTON: Our first guests this morning are Sarah Simms and Ivor Johanssen—that’s right, we’ve got two of your favorite Honors!—who are going to walk us all through the exciting process inside the notification and training of this year’s new set of those chosen to represent humanity with the Leviathan. Sarah and Ivor, hello and welcome. You were both chosen four years ago. Can you each tell me, what did you think would happen, and how did it differ from the reality of going out aboard one of the Leviathan ships?

  SIMMS: Well, for my part, I’d been training for this my entire life. Hoping for a chance, I should say, but working for it too. I had pursued a doctorate in biology, and I was really hoping that if I was lucky enough to be chosen, I’d get a chance to study the inner workings of these living ships in a way no one had before.

  JOHANSSEN: [laughs] How did that work for you?

  SIMMS: [laughs] Not very well, I admit. But the experience was breathtaking! These creatures truly are beyond classification, beyond anything that I can describe, especially once you’re close to them and living within their bodies. I’m a little chagrined to admit I didn’t get too far with my research. There’s too much to keep you busy with assigned duties, and once you’re out there seeing other worlds, experiencing what these Leviathan do . . . It changes your perspective.

  AL-MASIH: And you, Mr. Johanssen?

  JOHANSSEN: Sarah and I were aboard different ships, of course, but I would say my experience was similar. There is a certain . . . wonder to being on board a living ship that is so hard to describe. It makes you feel both very privileged and also very insignificant at the same time.

  WASHINGTON: And your favorite things?

  JOHANSSEN: Setting foot on another world. I know, we can do that on Mars, and colonization of Io isn’t far off now, but the feeling of being quite alone on an alien world is overwhelming. It makes our own differences here on Earth seem very petty.

  SIMMS: Absolutely. I suppose also the idea that the Leviathan sing to each other . . . that was truly something that captivated me too. We have a love of music in common.

  WASHINGTON: I know this might be a touchy question, but it’s something so many people have messaged in that I have to ask: neither of you continued after your Honors year, going on the Journey farther out into the universe. Can I ask why?

  SIMMS: For me, I knew from the beginning I would not go on the Journey. It was a family decision. I couldn’t leave my parents and my brothers and sisters behind, not for a lifetime. It was just too much to ask. [laughs] It was quit
e an honor to be chosen for the year, and quite enough for me.

  WASHINGTON: And were you asked to continue?

  JOHANSSEN: I would rather not answer this question. It was a very personal decision.

  SIMMS: I was not, but I was happy with not being asked.

  WASHINGTON: Sarah, can you explain why?

  SIMMS: No, not really.

  WASHINGTON: But I think our viewers really want to know—

  JOHANSSEN: This isn’t what we came to discuss. Let’s go on to what happens once the selected names are received at the Selection Committee HQ. Of course, the Elder Leviathan choose the names from the database we send them once a year, but once the names arrive, the prior-year Honors are dispatched to do the formal notification—

  WASHINGTON: I’d really like to return to this question of the Journey, about which we still, a hundred years in, know so little. Can either of you shed any light at all on—

  AL-MASIH: [interrupting] Unfortunately, we’re just flat out of time for these fascinating questions, Kephana! Thanks to the biotech supplied by these amazing living ships, humans have not only survived a global crisis that threatened to destroy us, but we now have clean energy, safe food and water, and incredible advancements in medical care. We continue to be grateful to them, and excited about the annual Honors selection process.

  WASHINGTON: Across the board technological gains have led to the booming space program and the shining beacon of hope that is Mars colony. And speaking of Mars colony, let’s get the latest gossip on what’s hot in the dome! [offline] What was that? You cut me off!

  AL-MASIH: [offline] What did you think you were doing, Keph? You can’t go off script like that! Look, Ms. Simms, Mr. Johanssen, I’m sorry on behalf of my colleague—

  WASHINGTON: [offline] Don’t apologize for me, you jerk. I was asking what everyone wants to know!

  SIMMS: [offline] All right. You want something off the record? I wouldn’t go on the Journey even if I had been asked. And you wouldn’t either.

  WASHINGTON: Why—

  [recording ends]

  CHAPTER ONE

  Breaking Point

  New Detroit

  The Lower Eight

  MY MARK MOVED with an expensive, high-heeled strut, the kind that said she’d grown up fed with a silver spoon. That tracked with the haircut and outfit that tried to look edgy but just looked money instead. Not much older than I was—eighteen, max. I’d been trailing her for blocks, but she’d never once looked around for trouble.

  Dumbass.

  This one, she belonged in Paradise on the other side of the invisible wall, where the suckers thrived—full of brand-name merch and clean, wide streets. Full of polite good mornings and how are yous.

  But she was in the Zone, my Zone: gritty, dirty, the shops full of knockoffs and people Paradise didn’t fit. Like me.

  My mark swaggered down the cracked sidewalk and clearly expected others to make way and . . . they did. An old lady hobbling on a walking stick flinched to avoid a shoulder check, and my target didn’t even break stride. The street, she felt, was hers. With a designer bag dangling, she looked like the tastiest score I’d seen in months. She deserved this. Plus, she had to be up to no good, slumming in my neighborhood: the Lower Eight, the only blight still remaining on the ripe peach of New Detroit. We could see the graceful old lines of downtown, preserved and refined, from where I stood. That didn’t mean we were part of it.

  Moneygirl seemed to be aiming for a dive a block down. I moved faster, got closer, and before she could dodge inside, I flicked the knife open that I’d been holding ready in my hand. I quickly reached out and sliced the strap on her purse. Hardly a hiss of resistance, and no security cable in it at all. The prize fell into my hands like a ripe fruit, and I kicked off the broken sidewalk to a run.

  I raced around the corner and pushed against the side of the building.

  “Thief! You’re dead when they catch you!” Good luck with that. Enforcement drones were hard to come by in the Zone because people were always trapping and scrapping. She’d have even less luck finding a human patrol officer. Her shrill cries faded as I bounded over a fence and cut through an alley, high on success.

  With this haul, Derry and I could eat and drink for a week. One more week of freedom. I crouched in the shadow of the VR porn studio and wedged myself in to take a quick inventory. It was every bit as lush as I’d hoped—all kinds of tech, some meds that would sell high, and . . .

  I pulled out a metallic box. It had a thumb lock on the lid, but that was a fancy’s ignorant precaution; I popped the hinges and got the thing open within seconds. Inside, there was a single clear pack that quickened my pulse. Glittering crystals, flashing multicolored in the weak sun. Some kind of chem. Definitely nothing I’d seen on the street before, but new ones showed up all the time. Might be worth coin. Under that, a slender little data tab. Only a right fool would take traceable tech, so I stuck the chem in my pocket, stashed the metal box with the data tab still in it under some bricks, and bolted.

  I crisscrossed twice and backtracked once before darting down a crumbling set of concrete stairs. Constantly glancing over my shoulder, I knocked on a rusted metal door in code reserved for Conde’s clients. A bony hand reached out and dragged me into the den, but I’d done this before, so I just shrugged out of Conde’s grasp and offered him the heavy embossed bag. The leather—real leather!—rippled like silk. Buttery soft. Cash in every inch.

  “Make it quick, man. It’s warm,” I said.

  Conde didn’t like to be told what to do. He was a skeletal old fence, pale as spoiled milk, gray hair ratty around his shoulders, but he was smart, and he didn’t argue. He shuffled to the counter, which looked like it had been ripped out of a kitchen. That was the only homey touch, though, as electronic guts, glowing screens, and dangling wires covered every square centimeter. His den swam with shadows and smelled vaguely of piss and rodent droppings, but Conde was the best in the Lower Eight, we all knew it.

  “Nice,” he grunted. Not a big talker, Conde.

  As he unpacked the bag’s contents, one of the wired-up screens on the bench lit with a broadcast, and a woman as flash as the one I’d ripped off smiled at me from the screen. The holo title pulled out and expanded into the room so you couldn’t miss the thing as it spelled out HONORS in spinning, swirling gold. Damn. It was that time again. This was Countdown Season, close to Honors Return.

  Ugh. The Honors. I was already sick of hearing about them, and the season had only just started. Sure, when I was little, I believed all the hype about the arrival of the live ships; unlike SF invasion vids, these aliens were good, helped us out with discoveries and knowledge, and healed the planet that we’d screwed up. But one thing I’d realized about the histories they fed me in school: they weren’t the real story. They were polished and half-true at the best.

  Earth was still spilling over its banks, Mars could only take so many, and there was a waiting list for the moon, which had basically become a country club. While the Leviathan had solved a lot of problems for humanity, they couldn’t create additional landmass.

  The planet was all nice again, thanks to their tech, but it wasn’t like we’d earned our redemption. The Leviathan showed up out of the blue, offering salvation, and asking for volunteers in exchange; they picked a hundred humans a year to ride along in some alleged cultural and scientific exchange. The way the media spun it, it sounded like the Honors spent their year abroad riding unicorns and farting rainbows, and I was sick of the whole spectacle.

  Right then, the announcer was offering a boring retrospective. “Thanks to the biotech supplied by these amazing living ships, humans have not only survived a global crisis that threatened to destroy us, but we now have clean energy, safe food and water, and incredible advancements in medical care. We continue to be grateful to them, and excited about the annual Honors selection process.”

  His costar added, “Across the board, technological gains have led to the booming space progra
m and the shining beacon of hope that is Mars colony. And speaking of Mars colony, let’s get the latest gossip on what’s hot in the dome!”

  And off they went, to another segment that I immediately tuned out. I’d always wondered why nobody back in the day questioned the Leviathan’s motives, but the world was so screwed that it must’ve been like dying slowly in a pit; you don’t ask questions of somebody tossing down a rope. In my world, there was no free lunch, and eventually the bill for saving our world would come due. I could feel it.

  Not that it mattered to me. Those were Paradise problems. I’d never seen an Honor except on the vids, and I didn’t care about their magical lives and media-friendly adventures. Let the rest of the world throw parties and consume every bite of the media crap. I just wanted some food and maybe a drink and a place to sleep. I’d lived in their picture-perfect world and I turned my back on it. I’d rather be cold and hungry than trapped and steeped in propaganda.

  Not that it was easy to escape it, even here where people rejected most of the alien-driven advancements that made living on the other side of the fence so nice.

  I hated nice.

  Conde growled and yanked wires to short out the holo. He wasn’t a fan of the show either, I guessed. I could see him tallying the value of each item he pulled out of the bag I’d brought—a brand-new H2, tricked out with shimmery crystals. Damn, I’d never had anything but an old tablet; this was next-gen holo-tech. There was also a nice case of nanotech makeup and some device too new for me to even recognize. When he finished, he named a figure that seemed a little low.

  “Are you kidding me? You’ll get twice that just from components.”

  “I’m taking all the risks here, kid.”

  “I could offer this haul to Gert instead.” That was Conde’s primary competition.

  With a little growl, he upped his offer. “Final bid, take it or leave it.”

  “Deal.” I hid my smirk. Haggling was just one of the charms the Zone had to offer. Before paying me, he popped open the H2 and snapped the tracking chip. He’d also strip and crack the other devices before resale, but that didn’t concern me. He paid in old money, no longer minted but still accepted by vendors in the Lower Eight. The other roamers would be convening in the squat by now, and I pictured Derry’s grin when I showed up flush. We didn’t mess with e-money in the Zone: too easy to track, and we’d worked out our own system, different values than anywhere else.