There were other people in the waiting room. He recognized a family that lived near his uncle Manny. When he smiled at them, the father looked away and the mother stared for a brief, excruciating second and then looked away herself.
He used to be popular.
He leaned on the window beside the woman and looked out. As he did, he managed to recall her name. “Luissa, I hope you’re well.”
After a few breaths she whispered. “No one is well anymore. They’re a plague on our lives.”
Her husband gathered her in his arm and sidled two steps away, pulling his wife close. Maybe this was why Manny had sent his own family into hiding. Didn’t anyone believe they’d done as well as they could?
Charlie didn’t try to say anything else, and a bubble of space persisted around him even as the room filled up.
The observation deck was far enough away from the Wall that it could only steal a section of sky, the change subtle but unmistakable. The view should be flat green or yellow fields all around: grains and vegetables hugging the tarmac on the far side and stretching all the way to the boundary between soil and beach, the ocean just barely too far away to really see. Instead, square ships that the Next used for cargo blocked part of his view, and the Wall shadowed the fields even this early in the afternoon.
A sweet female voice played over the loudspeaker. “Five minutes until Shuttle Three lands.”
The shuttle flew in low over the fields and slowed to a near hover before it set down on four legs and squatted on the tarmac like an insect settling flat onto the surface.
The waiting room doors opened, and Charlie and the others spilled out onto the pavement.
Nona walked down the ramp first. She wore a yellow dress and blue boots that matched the blue streaks in her hair. She stood with her feet braced and shaded her eyes from the sun, looking for him. He saw the moment she spotted him, the smile, the relaxation of her shoulders. Her simple dress showed off her blue and green dragon tattoo and highlighted the lacework tats on her wrists. She had a new one on one hand, possibly her captain’s sigil from the Sultry Savior.
He forced a casual walk, came up close enough to smell her (clean and oily, like all spacers). He stood with the width of an outstretched hand between them. He’d met her right here, the first day she set foot on Lym. He’d gone with her to the far edges of the solar system and come back. They’d been lovers for one night and separated the day after.
One night.
They each had their duty. He hadn’t seen her since before the system-wide vote on the Next, before he negotiated with the Next about Lym and turned the whole system against him, before the Shining Revolution murdered Chrystal, the new Next created from Nona’s childhood friend.
She looked almost the same. Beautiful. Still pretty enough to shock him. The jewel in her cheek looked like a cut diamond in the sunlight, and her hair sparkled as well, as if had been painted with tiny, tiny touches of reflective glass. The green and blue scales of her dragon tattoo matched the colors in her hair. The differences he noted were small. She looked tougher. Less vulnerable.
Nona smiled up at him. The sunshine of it pierced him and he smiled back, and then he couldn’t help himself anymore. He took her in his arms and pinned her to him, running his left hand along the small of her back and touching her jewel with his right. “I’m so glad you came.”
She pushed just far enough away to look up at him and then past him and above them. “The sky is as fabulous as the first time I saw it.”
He looked up. A few thin clouds painted over a deep blue field. After spending so much time locked inside a space ship, he’d sworn to appreciate the magic of sky every day. He smiled.
“It’s so good to be here,” she murmured.
This time he recognized her bag in the pile that had been offloaded and left on the tarmac. She stopped him before he could lead them toward Jean Paul and Cricket. “I brought a second one. I’ll be here longer.” She pointed out a large red bag on wheels.
He grabbed it, stuck her smaller blue bag on it, and took her hand with his free hand. The crowd split in two sections. Some walked directly toward the edges of Manna Springs, which butted up to the spaceport. He and Nona joined people headed toward the parking lot and the observation building. A double rope separated them from a line of robo-carts bearing cargo from the transport. The whirr and clatter of the machines made it difficult to talk, but he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Want to see a waterfall?”
“Always.”
“The same one I took you to before?”
“All of them.”
He felt better than he had in a very long time, maybe since they had separated. It surprised him. He had expected to feel awkward. Instead, he felt like they were a couple. Even though they had spent a lot of time here and in space together, they’d mostly avoided each other. He’d barely started to feel safely intimate on the Savior when they’d been ripped apart by the need to be in two places, and by the pursuit of what turned out to be Shining Revolution ships.
As they entered the waiting room, a female guard blocked their way. Again, someone Charlie recognized; Farro had worked beside him on Desert Bow Station, a ranger base on Entare. Years ago, when they were both newly minted in their jobs. Even though he hadn’t seen her for at least a decade, she looked very much the same: small and slight, with wisps of curly black hair escaping her ponytail to frame her dark face. The black uniform of the Port Authority barely contrasted with her skin. She didn’t look angry like Kyle had, or confused like the woman near the big window earlier. If anything, she looked concerned and determined.
He held his hand out. “Hi Farro. I’d like you to meet Nona.”
“Hello.” She kept her eyes on Charlie. “Are you going into Manna Springs?”
“Yes.”
“It might be dangerous.”
“I’m just going to Manny’s. He’s already told me to be careful.”
She swallowed, and for a moment her features showed what looked like an internal fight. “There are things Manny doesn’t know. I don’t want you to be hurt; I don’t believe everything they’re saying about you.”
He took a step closer to her. “Is Manny safe?”
Her eyes widened. “Maybe.”
She was trying to tell him more than she was willing to put into words. He hadn’t seen Manny for a while, but he’d talked to him. Manny had described the town as tense. He’d know; he ran the place. Sensing he could still trust Farro, he asked, “Is it safe to take Nona there?”
She thinned her lips and gave the barest shake of her head.
He glanced at Nona. She looked calm. Like always. Her emotions ran deep, but they didn’t spike the surface of her face when she was around strangers.
“Thank you. We’ll be careful.”
Farro hesitated.
“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s me.”
She stepped out of their way, and they went through the door and back under the blue sky to find Jean Paul and Cricket. He slid his hand over Nona’s, hoping that he wasn’t telegraphing how worried he felt.
CHAPTER TWO
NONA
Nona didn’t know what to make of the pretty guard’s warning to Charlie. Or of Charlie for that matter. It felt fabulous to see him, to touch him. She’d lost sleep the night before, woken up over and over from dreams of him, some warm and some chilling. She loved being inches away from him, seeing the curve of his jaw and the shock of sand-blond hair that kissed his forehead. He looked a shade older than she remembered, thinner and more wary.
Before she got a chance to ask him about the guard’s warning, a low growl drew her attention to the right. Cricket. She smiled briefly at Jean Paul, who stood beside the tongat in all of his scruffy glory, and then turned her attention entirely to the huge predator at his side. She let go of Charlie’s hand and knelt so that her head and Cricket’s were the same height. Cricket looked hopeful, like a small child. This huge black animal, who could destroy her, who wa
s unlike anything Nona had ever known in space. She watched, still as possible, then whispered, “Cricket.”
The tongat hopped toward her without hesitation and butted her gently, so Nona lost her balance and fell back, laughing as she sat, spraddle-legged. Cricket came in closer and stood over her, protective. Nona arched a hand up and stroked the animal’s coarse fur, utterly happy in the moment. The slightly longer fur of the white tip on Cricket’s tail fluttered in the wind.
Robotic Next and murdering terrorist organizations and edgy dreams all fell away, as if the tongat enveloped her in a bubble of pure adoration.
Jean Paul laughed. “Did Charlie get that enthusiastic a greeting?”
“He got a better one.” She kept watching the big predator.
Charlie told Jean Paul, “Farro just gave me an odd warning. I got the impression she wants me to stay out of town. Did you check the news?”
Jean Paul’s vid rang, an annoying high trill.
“No. Maybe this . . .” Jean Paul pulled the device out of his pocket. A woman’s panicked voice shrieked through the speaker. “We’re being attacked!”
Nona looked up at Charlie, trying to remember if that voice went with either of Manny’s wives.
Charlie’s face tightened with worry. “Amfi?”
Was that a name?
“In Ice Fall Valley.” The woman’s voice sounded thin with fear. “There’s shooting. Killing shooting. Davis is dead.”
“Where are you?” Charlie asked. “Are you inside?”
“Can’t get there.” The background noise sounded like movement, kinetic but unspecific.
Nona got a glimpse of the screen. Green and sky, then green again. No face.
“Why?” Charlie demanded.
“Anger.” She was panting. “It’s about us. That we helped you.”
“Who?” Jean Paul said. “Who’s hurting you?”
Another glimpse of the screen showed an eye wreathed in wrinkles. A gleaner’s eye. Then they heard a whiff of air and a clatter from the other end. “Amfi!” Charlie grabbed the device from Jean Paul and practically screamed at it. “Amfi, are you okay?”
Jean Paul held a hand out to Nona, his face grave.
Charlie looked stunned. “Maybe she just dropped the phone.”
Nona let Jean Paul pull her up. Cricket hopped next to Charlie, staring up at him in attentive silence.
“Amfi.” Charlie shook the device as if that would produce an answer. “Amfi!”
“Dammit,” Jean Paul cursed.
Charlie started walking, turning over his shoulder to tell them, “Now. We have to go now.”
He still clutched her luggage. Cricket hopped on his other side, leaning into him a little. She and Jean Paul struggled to keep up. Her colorful dress suddenly seemed like a bad idea.
Maybe she should have come to Lym dressed in camouflage.
When they came up on the skimmer, everyone but Cricket sounded slightly winded from the fast walk. It looked like the same one they’d used on her last trip, with two rows of seats and some cargo space, and wings that changed shape and angle from time to time. The two men clearly needed to talk. “Can I sit in back?”
“Thank you.” Charlie handed her up after Cricket.
He sat staring at the dash as the machine ran through its start-up checks. As soon as they cleared the spaceport, he asked Jean Paul, “Can you find anything? Any news?”
“I’m looking.” The other ranger poked at something glowing in front of him and muttered in low tones.
“I’ll call Manny.” Charlie gestured to start the call, keeping his eyes on the ground as they flew over Manna Springs. “There are a lot of people in the streets.”
Nona peered out the window. The sunlight bathing the streets reflected from windows and forced her to squint. Manna Springs was the capitol of Lym, but even so it would fit inside of many of the bigger common spaces on the Deep. A few thousand buildings lined neatly gridded streets with lots of green spaces between them for gardens and planting. Most of the streets were full of people and bicycles.
“Hello.” Manny’s voice filled the cabin, sharp and urgent. “Did Nona make it?”
“Yes.”
“Stay out of town. There’s trouble. Take her to the ranger station.”
“We’re going to Amfi. She called us for help.”
“Go to the station.”
Charlie glanced at Nona, but she shook her head at him and mouthed, “I’m going with you.”
“No,” Charlie said. “There’s shooting. Davis is dead.”
Manny cursed, then asked, “Is it the robots?”
Charlie hesitated. “I don’t see why. Amfi didn’t say, but the Next wouldn’t get anything out of violating our contract.”
“Watch yourself. Tell me what you find. I’ll manage here.”
“You’d better. Stay safe.”
The connection closed, and Charlie glanced at Jean Paul. “Did you find anything else?”
“Calls to remove Manny. They got bad starting today. Lots of agreement.”
“Anybody against it?”
Jean Paul shook his head. An odd light from a screen Nona couldn’t quite see made him look white and pasty. He was never as neat as Charlie anyway, but his scraggly long hair and thin face made him look poor. He wasn’t; by definition no one on Lym was rich or poor. But he looked like someone near an economic edge.
Charlie turned the skimmer’s autopilot on and turned to her, his worried face breaking into a warm smile when he noticed Cricket’s big head resting on her lap. “I’m sorry to drag you way out here. It’ll take us two hours to get there. But after Farro’s warning I didn’t want to just leave you.”
She’d come to be with him. “I’ll go. Lym feels a lot different, scarier.”
Jean Paul grunted, and Charlie said, “I haven’t been to town for a few weeks. I’m surprised, too.”
“Who’s Amfi?”
“She helped me negotiate the terms for the Next here. What they can and can’t do.”
She fell silent for a moment, letting that sink in. A gleaner had helped him? She took his hand, ran her fingers along his rough palm. “That’s why no one was nice to you.”
“Was it that obvious?” Jean Paul asked.
“Yes.” She glanced at Charlie. “They used to flock around you, greet you. Last year, everyone in Manna Springs looked up to you. Tonight was all ‘avoid Charlie or warn Charlie.’”
“She’s sharp,” Jean Paul said wryly.
“What are the terms?” Nona asked. “What do they hate so much?”
Jean Paul answered her, his voice edged with bitterness. “It’s not about what Charlie and Amfi and Manny ‘gave’ the Next. It’s that they’re here at all. Every law in the Glittering protects Lym, and the damned Next just barged through all that and landed.”
Charlie spoke more calmly. “They get to build three cities, including the one going up by the spaceport, access to the spaceport, and some mining rights. They get to bring new people down here to be turned into them—all volunteers of course.”
“I heard about that,” she mused. “People are lining up to die trying to transform. Idiots.”
“I’ll never do it,” Charlie said.
“No.” Her voice trailed off, and she remembered Chrystal, who had been turned and died, and then reborn from a backup copy. A thing the Next could do. “Do you think it’s so they can live forever?”
Jean Paul shrugged. “Is that life?”
Cricket raised her head, apparently feeling Nona’s unease. Nona calmed her before answering. “In some ways Chrystal thought so. She didn’t want it to happen, and she told me never to do it. But she told me once that it was better than being dead like so many of the other people. That she even liked some bits of it, like how strong she was. But she always made sure I knew being human was better. Always.” She stopped a moment. She’d already cried about this, and she didn’t have tears left for it, just an empty cold spot that felt mystified at the resurre
ction of her friend.
Neither man said anything. Jean Paul stared at his screen again, and Charlie reached over the seat to touch her face, his fingers a trail of heat.
The spell broke as Jean Paul tried to call Amfi back again. When it was clear there would be no answer, Nona started again. “That Chrystal. The one we all knew? That Chrystal was murdered. She is as dead as everyone else the Next destroyed.”
Charlie let go of her, but his eyes lingered on her face. “I know.”
CHAPTER THREE
NAYLI
Nayli watched the lights around the space station High Honors as they approached it in the Free Men. She sat alone in one of the ship’s small conference rooms, staring at the silent output from a camera. The images playing in the air in front of her created the only light in the dark room, holding all of her attention. In the center, the station glowed brightly, and strings of lights entered and left it, some winking out and others growing slightly larger. Other ships, coming and going.
The leaders of the Shining Revolution had been running stealth ever since the fight aboard the biggest space station of all, the Diamond Deep. They had neither received nor given any news, hiding under cover of the boring information cloak of a cargo ship. On the Deep, they’d lost and they’d won. Only she and the other leaders had ever expected the Shining Revolution to take over even a part of the Diamond Deep. They had, and they had held it for more than a day. They had captured a great prize, a pet Next.
Nayli shivered when she thought about the robot.
The dark felt good and cold; exactly what she deserved.
Legend insisted that the Next had all started as human. Chrystal had been a robot for almost a year before Nayli and Vadim captured her on the Deep. But she had been a human before that, had breathed and bled and made love and dreamed. Nayli had seen how scared she was when the crews roughed her up. She ran away from Nayli and Vadim in fear, she killed by accident.
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