by E J Frost
“There is a whisper underground,” the
rat-girl says, matching my tone. “That
Lightfoot has brought her Reaper-Man to the
Clouds. I came to see if it was true.”
I don’t see anything to be gained by lying.
“Yeah, it’s true. Who are you?”
“She’s Tiancha. Wisdom of the Deep
Whites,” Kez says. I didn’t hear her wake, or
roll over, but she’s lying propped on her
forearms, watching us. She rises from the
bed, pulling the thermoblanket around her.
Takes the few steps that separate us to stand
next to me, and offers me the edge of the
thermoblanket.
If she’s offering me the blanket, which
will prevent the ready use of my blade, then
she doesn’t think there’s any imminent
danger from the Wisdom of the Deep Whites.
To be fair, Rat-Girl doesn’t look particularly
threatening. Squatting, she’s at my waist-
level, but judging from the length of torso
and leg, even standing she won’t come up to
my collar. She has the long, black claws that
the rat-men of Kuus had and they might be
poisoned, but they’re hard to be afraid of
when she’s painted them with white stripes
and spots and chevrons, and on each thumb-
claw, fuck me if that isn’t a smiley-face.
She’s also got the thickest, longest lashes of
any creature I’ve ever seen, coupled with the
big dark eyes, she looks harmless.
But appearances can be deceiving.
Usually are, in my experience.
“Lightfoot,” says Rat-Girl. I like the way
the rats, and the surf-punks we’ve met, say
Kez’s moniker. There’s a certain respect to
it. Respect I know that Kez has earned.
Doesn’t hurt to be associated with that.
I put my arm around Kez and pull her
against my side. She wraps the blanket
around me, which is a relief because the
night air has developed a definite bite and
the cold is doing embarrassing things to a
place I’ve usually got nothing to be
embarrassed about.
Kez nods. Then she yawns, and covers it
with her hand.
“Apologies for waking you,” Rat-Girl
says. “I usually pass unseen.” She glares at
the cer-cer grass. I can’t help but smile. I
knew that would come in handy.
“S’okay.” Kez stifles another yawn. I
resolve to make this a short interview so we
can get back to sleep. “I’m sorry we have
nothing to offer you.”
“Nor I you. Not even the hospitality of
the Deeps. My alpha will not allow it.” Rat-
Girl washes her paws again. “I’d planned to
wait until dawn to speak with you. But now
that you’re awake, can I ask . . . have you
heard from C.J.? She’s mentioned you many
times. We were sisters in the change. I
haven’t heard from her in over a standard
month. There’s been no word from Kuus
except from Diamond, who says you’ve
broken the Underlaw.”
Kez shakes her head and mutters,
“Bastard,” under her breath.
Remembering Rat One and his exchange
with Kez, I say, “Kez wasn’t the one in the
wrong—”
“Leave it.” Kez knocks my shoulder.
“The Deep Whites won’t side with an
outsider against the Pack.” She shifts slightly
to address Rat-Girl. “Look, we’re on the
first hover in the morning, okay? Tell your
alpha. I stayed out of White territory last
night and we’re leaving as soon as we can.
Okay?”
“I will tell him. He didn’t send me. He
doesn’t plan to come against your Reaper-
Man unless you bring him into the Deeps.”
“I won’t. And C.J.? I’m sorry, but I
haven’t heard anything from her since Java
died. But—” Kez pauses and bites her lip,
then shakes her head as she comes to some
internal decision. I’ve seen her do this
before as she decides to do something that
worries her. “The Pack is in trouble. They’re
starving.”
Rat-Girl stands up – I was right, she’s
tiny – and trembles from her whiskers to the
tips of her toe-claws. “Starving, how?”
“The water riots. I don’t know where the
Pack gets their supplies, but the water riots
must be choking off their source somehow.”
Rat-Girl washes her paws faster, more
anxiously. “My alpha needs to hear this.
Please, if I bring him, will you speak to him?
Please? Nacht is his brother as much as C.J.
is my sister. He will listen to you if you can
tell him of Nacht.”
Kez shrugs. “I’m sorry, I haven’t spoken
to Nacht. I saw Java before he was killed,
but he didn’t say anything about this. I can
. . . I can tell you what we saw. Snow saw it,
too.”
I nod. I don’t owe the rat-men anything,
but if Kez wants to try to repair her
relationship with them, I’ll back her. Not at
the cost of what Kez and I both need, though.
“Bring him at seven. We’ll talk then.”
Kez looks up at me quizzically. I kiss the
tip of her nose. “We need more sleep.”
She’s about to protest, when her jaw
cracks in a huge yawn. She covers it ruefully.
“Okay.”
Rat-Girl shakes her head. “He won’t
come up after dawn.”
I shrug. I don’t really give a shit about the
rats. We need at least an hour to get in
another deep-sleep cycle. Anyone who
disturbs us between now and then is going to
have a close encounter with the business end
of my knife.
“If I can guarantee you safe passage, will
you come to the Deeps?”
“No,” I say firmly before Kez can
answer. Last time we went into the Deeps
with guaranteed safe passage, it cost Kez a
liter of blood. She can’t afford to lose
anymore and I’ll be fucked if anyone’s
getting mine.
“Snow,” Kez says softly, looking up at
me. I know that tone, and that look. She’s
trying to plead with me without letting Rat-
Girl know she’s pleading.
Fuck, she knows how to manage me.
“Dawn’s at zero-six-twenty,” I growl. “If
he’s here at zero-six-hundred, we’ll talk to
him.” We can go back to sleep afterwards.
Rat-Girl nods and drops onto all fours.
“I’ll go now and try to persuade him. Thank
you.” She scrambles up the slope, moving
much faster on all fours than I would have
expected. I file that away for future dealings
with the rats.
Kez nods at Rat-Girl’s departing
haunches and yawns again. Definitely time
for bed. I sweep her up off her feet,
wrapping the thermoblanket around my arm
to avoid tripping in it. My shoulder twinges
but holds as I carry her the few steps to our
bed and settle her in it. She flares the
thermoblanket over us when I climb in next
to her. Rolls onto her side and puts her arm
and leg across me. Bare skin on bare skin.
Where’d her dress go? I run my hand down
her back until I find it hiked to her waist.
“Sex,” she says.
“Behave,” I tell her. “You can have sex
after you’ve gotten another hour of sleep.”
She kisses my shoulder, props her chin
on her hand and pouts up at me. “Delayed
gratification isn’t my best thing.”
“Neither’s your tiger breath. We all have
these little trials to endure.”
She claps her hand over her mouth and
buries her face in my shoulder. Her breath
isn’t actually all that bad, although there’s a
buggish acidity to it that’s off-putting, but if I
take her from behind, it won’t bother me.
What’s more important is that she’s still
hollow-eyed with exhaustion and we’ll both
enjoy the sex a lot more when she’s not so
tired. I’ve also got this idea rattling around
in the back of my brain about where I want to
fuck her next, and it’s not in a sandy sewer
pipe. “You’re such a prick,” she mumbles
into my skin.
“Which is why you want to fuck me when
you can barely keep your eyes open,” I say.
“Have you always had a thing for bad boys?”
She turns her head so her mouth’s
downwind. I curl my hand around the back of
her head and cuddle her against my shoulder.
Pull her a little more firmly on top of me.
We’ve slept this way before so I’m confident
she can fall asleep in this position, and I like
her warmth and weight on me. She stretches.
Sides her arm around my neck. Nice and
tight. Only thing better would be sleeping
inside her, but there’s no way I’m going to
manage that without fucking her first. I’ve
never slept inside a woman, but I’d like to. I
tuck that idea away for another time.
Oblivious to the little monster’s designs,
Kez murmurs, “I’ve actually always gone for
guys who seemed sweet. At least at first.”
No wonder they didn’t last. “Look at me,
kitten.” I want to see her eyes before we
sleep.
She turns her head, looks up at me,
puzzled. I stroke my fingers down the side of
her face. Admire the sweet curves of her
forehead and cheek. The pale lids of her eyes
when she closes them. The fan of her lashes,
sooty in the soft light.
“I’m not sweet,” I whisper to her. “But
I’ll never fuck you over.”
“Never?” It’s not really a question.
“Ever.” I’ve never promised anyone
forever before. Right now, it doesn’t feel
long enough. “’Course, you might get bored
and dump me before then.”
She snorts. It could be a snore, but then
she murmurs, “I didn’t stalk you for three
months to dump you when I finally got what I
wanted.”
“So you were stalkin’ me.” I stroke her
back, gently over her scar, but including it in
the caress. So she knows I accept every part
of her. “Psycho kitten.”
Her next response is a snore. I stroke her
until I fall asleep.
I’ve always been able to wake when I
needed to. Even before I had the chrono
implanted. Which doesn’t have an alarm
feature. That was more credits than I had at
the time.
So I wake at zero-five-fifty. Smoothly.
Transitioning from sleep to wakefulness
without disorientation. I know exactly where
I am. Who I’m with. And that we’re not
alone.
Fucking rats are early.
I roll slowly and settle Kez on the
ground. Smooth the thermoblanket over her.
She might get a few more minutes of sleep
while I play meet-and-greet. I shake out the
skirt, dislodging any crawlies that might have
bedded down in it overnight, and wrap it
around my waist. Tie it off as I rise. I don’t
look up yet. I know where the rats are from
their breathing. They’ve come in the back
entrance again. Picking their way through the
cer-cer grass to prevent it rustling. I hear two
distinct patterns of breathing. One faster and
shallower than the other. Probably Rat-Girl
and a male.
I scoop up the knives, tuck them into the
kukris’ sheaths. They don’t fit, but it’s better
than having the naked blades rattling around
under the fucking skirt. Dressed and armed, I
walk towards the rats.
Rat-Girl is back, sitting on her haunches
again, with her head bowed. She’s brought a
huge male with her. I’ve always thought of
rats as small, but he’s easily as big as I am.
Jet black fur covers him, but doesn’t hide the
muscles of his arms and chest. He carries a
sickle slung over one shoulder, and a
sheathed sword at his waist. A full set of
orclas teeth decorate his furred chest like
medals. His fur is rippled and pocked with
scars, so maybe he won those teeth himself,
although I didn’t know rats could swim that
well. The top half of one of his large, pink
ears is missing, and the other one is pierced
and hung with more rings than Kez has in her
entire collection, shading from titanium at the
top to cobaltymer at the bottom, glowing
with its dark, radioactive light. I’ve got no
doubt he’s Alpha Rat, but I wait for the girl
to introduce him.
He doesn’t wait. “I’m Acker,” he says.
His voice is deep and resonant. Not ratty at
all. And he pronounces it ‘Acre’ rather than
‘Acker.’
I nod at him. “Snow.”
He tilts his head to the side. Regards me
unblinkingly.
“Here-and-now,” I admit. “I used to have
another name.” I don’t give it to him.
“So did we all,” Alpha Rat says slowly.
I nod in acknowledgement. Let the
silence stretch and wait to see how he fills it.
He does by taking one of my kukris out of
a bag he’s set at his feet and laying it on the
sand between us.
“You buy that from Evvan?” I ask,
naming the knifeseller. If the rats stole it, or
hurt Evvan to get it, that’s going to piss me
off, and this meet-and-greet is going to come
to a fast and messy conclusion.
“It is you brightworlders who are without
honor,” Alpha Rat says stiffly.
I consider that for a moment. He’s trying
to provoke me. But my question wasn’t all
that subtle, either. I shrug it off. “Enjoy it.
It’s a good knife.”
“It is. Why did you bring your good
kni
ves to the Clouds, Reaper-Man?”
I tilt my head in Kez’s direction. “To
protect her.”
“And why has Lightfoot come to the
Clouds?”
“Just dropping off a package. Nothin’ to
do with you.”
He chuckles, and there’s a dark edge to
it. “Sooner or later, all things that come to
the Clouds concern me. There’s blood in the
air, Reaper-Man. Cloudlander blood. Did
you spill it?”
No, but Erin might have. I hold up my
hands, palms to him. “Lotta blood here. None
of it fresh.”
Alpha Rat nods. “My Wisdom says there
are things I must know. Things you can tell
me.”
“It’s really Kez’s story to tell.” I glance
back over my shoulder. She’s curled on her
side. Thermoblanket pulled up to her chin.
“I’ll wake her.”
Alpha Rat shakes his shaggy head. “We
have come early. Let her sleep while she
can.” He reaches out and runs his clawed
hand over Rat-Girl’s head. “A man may be
measured by how he cares for his women, I
have found,” he says, and I realize that
whatever a Wisdom is and does, Rat-Girl is
more than that to her alpha.
“Absolutely,” I agree.
He squats down, reaches into the bag and
pulls out a metal cylinder. He unscrews
several sections, passes a metal disk to Rat-
Wisdom and another to me. Rat-Wisdom
twists hers, and it pops up into a cup. I
follow her lead and hold out the cup to
Alpha Rat, who pours me a measure of dark,
scented liquid. I sit down across from Alpha
Rat and take a sip. Chok. Richly spiced with
cinnamon and a sweet heat I don’t recognize.
Delicious. I swirl it around in my mouth
appreciatively before swallowing.
“Nice,” I say. Thinking of Kez’s constant
apologies for her failure to supply food, I
continue. “Sorry we don’t have anything to
offer you.”
Alpha Rat nods, roots around in the bag
again and pulls out a crinkly plaz packet. He
unfolds it to reveal a small pile of fried,
powdered fritters. I swallow back a sudden
rush of saliva.
“Chok and wahda,” Kez says quietly
from our bed. “I’ve died and gone to
heaven.”
“C’mere, kitten.” I pat my thigh.
“Brekkie.”
She climbs out of bed and joins me,
sitting curled at my side with the blanket
wrapped around her, rubbing her eyes.
Alpha Rat nods at her. “Lightfoot.”
“Acker.” She pronounces it the way he
