Katerina walked over to a man who was using a pair of joysticks. “Really?” She was answering a question he’d asked her. “Sure, I’d love to.”
The man stood up and waved at the joysticks. “It’s the last run.”
“What’s she doing?” Timas asked Achmed.
“Here.” He tapped a screen and dragged the edge larger so that it took up the better part of the control panel surface between them.
They looked down at the surface of Chilo. Timas looked up, and Katerina had closed her eyes, accessing information on how to operate the device. She grabbed the joysticks and the surface jumped toward them.
A giant, serrated revolving band drilled into the ground and the whole picture vibrated as rock and debris rolled into the mouth of the hopper.
“The crew thought that someone honored by chance to be an avatar should also get honored with the chance to bring up the last load. She’s safe. It’s easy enough to operate.” Achmed grinned. “Just needs a human nudge and oversight.”
Five minutes later the crew broke out into applause as the dredge pulled the band back itself, like a giant tongue, and the ground dropped away. It began its slow climb back up.
Katerina let go of the joysticks and shook the controller’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Our pleasure.”
Achmed cocked his head. “Well, it’s going to be a few minutes while it rises. Lunch.”
Katerina walked past Timas, and he hurried up to catch her. “Are you ignoring me?”
She walked faster. “You asked if we used any nasty words to describe you. As if that somehow might excuse your using similar words. That’s deflecting the issue, Timas.”
“I’m sorry!”
She ignored the apology.
Timas sat at the table with the crew, but he was an outsider. Katerina laughed at unspoken jokes shared between them in the silent air, and spoke to them about cities and places he’d never been.
At least the small boxes of tasty orange-flavored chicken and rice with fried vegetables filled him.
Achmed must have noticed the weary look Timas had, because he leaned over. “The carrier will be here in the morning. You’ll be home soon enough. It’s all okay.”
But Timas wasn’t so sure. Not after what he’d been through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The two pipiltin and their escorts, warriors, Ollin, and Pepper had all gathered by the elevator exit to the topmost layer of Yatapek. Pepper figured that two hundred stood ready. The beginnings of the coup, all ready to move out.
“Pepper!” Itotia pushed her way through the crowd. “You can’t do this. Where’s Ollin?”
“On the elevator, coming up.” The groundsuit whined as it restarted and walked to meet her halfway through the loose crowd.
“I told him to wait,” Itotia muttered. “But maybe he was right, and we should have tried sooner.”
“What?” Pepper saw that some of the warriors paid very close attention to their conversation.
“We can’t do this anymore. It would split the city, and we need to remain whole. We can’t afford a coup, and more importantly, we simply have no time for something like this.”
“What happened?”
“The Swarm is moving out in an armada of airships. We’re getting radio reports from private airships passing by. It’s coming toward us.”
“When will it get here?”
“Between twenty-four and forty hours. They’re staying together, but the ships that spotted them say it looks like hundreds of airships are flying in formation, maybe thousands. We’re offering refuge for noninfected ships and people.”
Everyone nearby muttered. Pepper ignored the word spreading through the crowd. “You have to get xocoyotzin on the ground, now, if you all want to live. That was my reason for following your husband. We have to confront your leaders. There’s a chance the Swarm may go straight to trying to find the aliens and leave your city alone, but it’s not likely.”
“I can do that. Let me talk to Camaxtli. I’m like a daughter to him, and Ollin really rubs him the wrong way.”
“And then we need real battle plans for their attack.” Pepper raised his voice for all to hear. “Every person in this city needs to be armed. Every nook and cranny has to be a place to kill the infected. Fallback points, zones, you name it. The Swarm must pay such a high cost, it decides you are not worth it.”
“You think we stand a chance against it?” a warrior asked.
“If you throw yourselves into it.” Pepper looked at them all. “When I faced the Swarm in orbit, it asked for a truce from me. It was scared of the price a direct fight would be. I say you force it to make the same offer again.”
The warriors nodded. “Yes. Make it pay for every inch.”
“We need to start getting weapons made.” He wanted people armed with the billhooks he’d shown them how to make. “And women and children armed. We have little time to prepare.”
Itotia nodded. “We start spreading the word. And Pepper, I promise we’ll get xocoyotzin on the ground now, just as soon as the weather lets us drop the elevator and anchor. We’ve circled around the Great Storm to the point that we’re close to where the cuatetl is. It is doable.”
She left, and Pepper looked around at his new army.
And smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Timas woke up to the sound of thunder, and then a series of thuds. He shot up out of his bunk and stood up, swaying to the motion of the carrier.
“It’s okay.” Katerina held on to the side of the bed. “They’re adjusting height.”
The carrier was about an hour away and had hailed them, Katerina said. “We should eat breakfast, and then go meet it. And you should put your shirt back on.”
He’d been too hot last night, and only she knew how to change the room’s temperature. Timas pulled his shirt on. She was still angry with him.
Several scrambled eggs and bacon strips tasted heavenly. And there were sticky buns, sugar-crusted. As well as biscuits, which he piled with butter and honey.
The crew crammed in the galley, in good spirits, talking about what they’d do with their money as they rotated out and the next group came in.
“We save some of the good stuff for the last big meal,” one of them grinned through his eggs. “A celebration.”
They talked about pools and beaches in bubbles floating near their cities. A few said they wanted to take trips up elevator strings to space.
These hardworking, dust-covered men, were rich beyond Timas’s imagination. And they were hardly at the apex of Aeolian life.
They called his people poor.
Katerina hadn’t even been trying to be cruel, it was just a fact, he thought.
He left his last biscuit uneaten and returned to the room while Katerina was distracted and laughing with one of the crew. He closed the bathroom door behind him.
Things seemed normal. The madness of the pirates, of Pepper and his crazy stories, aliens on the surface, that all felt distant, like it had hardly happened when he thought about it now here in the strange calm of the giant processor. Maybe the Aeolians had contained the Swarm with their advanced technologies.
If so, maybe xocoyotzin would be needed again.
All those sweets.
He had overeaten, and he needed to take care of it.
Katerina kicked the door in and grabbed his collar. “No you don’t.”
Timas squirmed and slapped her hands away. Light from the room glinted off her silvered eye as she reached back in and pulled him out. “You need to stop doing that.”
“First you’re angry with me, now you’re here dragging me out of the bathroom. Suppose I wasn’t just standing there . . .”
“About to throw up again? I had a feeling.”
“Leave me alone. You don’t understand.”
“That you need to be thin to fit in those suits? I understand. But you’re damaging yourself, Timas. You can’t do this.”
“I h
ave responsibilities to the city.”
She hadn’t let go of his collar. “When we get to the city, on the carrier, we’re going to get you to see a doctor. There are things that we can do for you.”
“Oh sure. And do those things come free of charge?” Timas twisted free. “I am, as you pointed out, poor. We can’t pay to have technology injected into us that turns our bodies into perfect figures.”
“Be a dick about it, Timas. Just keep at it. I can’t fix everyone at Yat-apek, but I do have enough to help you.”
Timas walked out of the room. “I don’t need your pity.”
“You never had it.” The hull shuddered. Katerina paused to look up into the air. “The carrier is here.”
They dropped the argument to leave the room. As they walked down the corridor Katerina frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Timas asked.
“It’s weird. The carrier isn’t talking to us, usually by now their crew would be part of the immediate Consensus. Or at least all over the lamina.”
Katerina raised a hand.
“It’s the Swarm, isn’t it?” Timas said.
“I don’t know, but let’s go to the control room.”
“Good idea.”
They detoured. Katerina led the way, as Timas had only figured out the relatively straight route from the galley to their room. Achmed, alone in the control room, didn’t even look up when they entered.
He slapped the console and swore.
“Swarm.” Katerina grabbed Timas by the elbow and pulled him over to a screen.
One of the pale-skinned Aeolians lay on the floor near the middle of the docking tube. He held on to his arm and groaned. Four men shuffled down the dock, chasing the miners who retreated.
“Shut the airlock,” Timas said.
One of the miners stepped forward with a pipe wrench. He hit the first one of the Swarm, but the other three piled on him.
The entryway slammed shut. Or at least, partially shut. One of the Swarm had shoved the pipe wrench taken from the miner in between the door and the frame.
“Shit.” Achmed spotted it as well. He ran out into the corridor. Smashed glass tinkled to the floor, and Achmed peered back in, ax in hand. “I’m going down to help force them back, then unconnect the dock.”
Katerina nodded as Achmed ran down.
“Tell them not to get bit,” Timas shouted after him. On the screen the Swarm members were forcing the door open now, one of them breaking its arm from the effort.
“There are more of them.” Katerina pointed to a monitor showing the other end of the dock by the carrier. Fifteen Swarm shoved their way down the tube.
“Not good. Not good.” Timas watched them join the effort to force their way into the processor. “Why isn’t Achmed disconnecting the tube?”
“The tube is open on the carrier’s end and ours. The safety programs won’t allow it to be disengaged.” Katerina stared at the screen. “He needs to shut the door. Then they can manually disconnect.”
More bodies piled up, the Swarm mass trying to get into the ore carrier. Timas took a deep breath. What would Pepper do?
Kill them all, somehow. That seemed his sort of thing.
Timas looked over at the joysticks. “Katerina. You need to destroy the docking tube.”
“What?”
“Use the dredge. Now. It’s us or them.”
Her eyes widened. She ran over to the control panel and grabbed them. “Achmed says you’ve got the right idea. It’s got control jets on it, hydrogen peroxide thrusters.”
The screen by the joysticks lit up. The dredge looked down into the clouds below. Katerina closed her eyes and the camera position jumped to facing forward, then dissected into views facing up, sideways, and to the rear.
“Come on, come on,” Timas muttered.
The dredge came about slowly, dragging hoses and belts with it. Kate-rina winced. “I’m causing lots of damage.”
“There’s no time to worry about that. We’re under attack!”
She dropped the giant rock-eating belt out in front of the dredge and turned it on. The vicious teeth blurred as they spun past the camera. The dredge lumbered out from under the shadow of the processor and rose up into the space between it and the carrier. It twisted slightly in the turbulent space between the two craft.
“Here we go.” Katerina tapped the console, and the dredge slipped forward and struck the docking tube.
It pierced it, sending shards of metal flying. Air puffed out in a spreading cloud.
A faint mist of red covered the camera and Timas winced. Katerina groaned, probably seeing something similar in her internal world.
As the dock collapsed, Timas saw bodies tumbling out and falling slowly down toward the clouds. Ruddy Chilo air burst inside through the half-open airlock door. The miners struggled to force the nearest Swarm back through the door, and Achmed showed up, swinging the ax and using it to help them.
Katerina’s hands shook. She let go of the joysticks. “I don’t feel so well.”
“You did it.” Timas looked at the screens. The miners had shut the airlock door now, although several of them looked hurt.
Achmed ran through the door of the control room, out of breath, his shirt covered in blood. He didn’t have any bite marks, though. “This is insane,” he said to both of them. “Tony’s dead! Tony was on the docking tube, they bit him and left him in the tube, whatever they were.”
Katerina pursed her lips. “Tony was dead the moment those things bit him.”
On the screen the crew cursed and nursed their wounds, breathing fresh air out of a pair of emergency oxygen masks they passed back and forth.
“We told you,” Timas said to Achmed. “This’s happening all over the planet. Now some of your crew’s infected, and there might not be any cities for you to return to.”
“He’s right.” Katerina stared at the screens. She put her elbows on the edge of the panel and pushed her face into her hands.
“The carrier is moving.” Achmed looked around at the screens. “And there’s a second airship, off in the distance, not talking to us.”
“More Swarm,” Katerina predicted.
The carrier lumbered at them. “They’re going to ram us.” Achmed blinked. “They’re actually going to ram us.”
“Do something,” Timas said. “Drop the ore.”
Achmed looked startled. “You’re talking about bankrupting us.”
“It’s the ore, or your lives.” Timas leaned across the panel to stare at Achmed. “They’ll ram us, then throw more of them through. You’ve seen these things face to face. They’ve taken whole cities. Do they look human to you?”
“You’ve got to do it now.” Katerina walked over. “The cities will understand later, they’ll work something out. But time it well, you don’t want them trying to rise over us. You dump half your load now, then half when they pass underneath us. As an avatar, I beg you.”
Achmed stared at her, then nodded. “You’re right, that kind of load, all at once. We’ll shoot right up.” He turned back and stared at the screen as the carrier, long and tapered, grew larger.
Timas thought he was waiting too long, but then Achmed tapped the screen several times, and hatches along the underside banged open. On the screens Timas could see that they rose, the carrier falling below them.
“He’s under us,” Achmed said.
The rest of the hatches on the underside swung open. Metal and metal-rich rock, slurry, and ingots tumbled out and hit the carrier, now several hundred feet below them.
Parts of the skin crumpled and the entire carrier shook with the impact of the sudden weight. It fell hard as the Triple-Two continued to ascend. Not too fast, however. Achmed tapped away, dumping air.
The carrier folded at the center now, and then began to spin. Air vented with occasional bursts of fire that extinguished the moment Chilo’s atmosphere snuffed it out, giving it no oxygen to burn.
“The other ship’s coming,” Katerina said.
Achmed strapped himself into the seat by his consoles. Now he wasn’t tapping commands out manually: his eyes rolled back up into his head, concentrating. He looked posessed. “We’ve got a jump on it.”
“What are you going to do?” Timas asked.
“We’re a processor. This thing’s built like a tank, ready to get down to fifty thousand feet easy, forty maybe. We dive low, gain us speed, and keep ahead of him.”
“They might have bombs to drop, or missiles,” Katerina said.
“Not that ship. It’s a passenger ship. I don’t see anything mounted on it that looks like that.” Achmed had his confidence back, Timas noticed. For a while there Achmed had been trying to process what was happening and he had looked dazed.
But then if Timas hadn’t heard Pepper’s story, what would he have done? Timas grabbed the control panel as the floor shifted, the entire ore processor angling down until Timas felt like his feet would slide out from under him.
“We’re diving. But where should we go?” Achmed looked at Katerina.
“Yatapek,” Katerina and Timas said at the same time.
“Yes.” Katerina stumbled back across the floor to the chair by the panel with joysticks. She snapped herself into it. “Timas, get in.”
“What about the crew?”
“They’re safe in the room, it’s small. . . .” Achmed stopped and locked eyes with Timas.
Timas swallowed. “It takes four hours, Pepper said. They start off with a heavy fever, then pass out. They awake as part of the Swarm. There are bitten people down there. What are you going to do to protect us from them?”
A long moment passed in the control center, and then Achmed tapped his throat for an announcement.
“Would everyone bitten hold up your hand?” he said.
Everyone in the hold raised their hands. Only Achmed, with his ax, had held the infected away from him.
Achmed sighed. “I have to ask you all a favor,” he said, voice catching. “Please get in the airlock, because you’re all infected. In four hours, you’ll be like . . . the things that attacked us.”
Confusion bubbled out, and then anger, and then finally, after a series of silent, fast arguments, they all moved into the airlock. Three of them walked to corners, arms gesturing as they talked into the air.
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