Her Darkest Beauty: An Alien Invasion Series - The Second Generation

by Patricia Renard Scholes

  "You do. Any chance you get."

  That seemed to make Peeti very happy. "Y'just don't give me enough chances, love." He placed the drink he was holding in front of her.

  "What's this?"

  "Your lolliboy. He also said t'fix you supper. Paid for it himself. So what'll it be?"

  "Soyham and cheese?"

  "On rye?"

  She nodded, her mouth watering. The smoked fish and greens, then the biscuits and apple had been a long time ago. "And milk," she added hopefully. Tomorrow was soon enough to argue about giving favors in Peeti's back room.

  Peeti chuckled. "True love.”

  The next evening, dressed in a shiny, skin-tight dress and heels, Karra walked to Peet’s Place. Intending to argue with Peeti about using the back room, she entered the tavern, and stared. His red lights flashed at a scant handful of customers not dancing to the pounding band. She saw Peeti scowl at her, and gesture at the bouncer closest to her.

  "It's best you leave, Mirra," the bouncer told her.

  "But it's me—Fancy."

  "It's you, especially, he don't want." The man blocked her way.

  As the door shut, Karra backed into a man who must have been trying to enter.

  "You not registered?" the man asked. "Is that why they tossed you?"

  "Must be." Peeti was choosing not to see her, because if he did, he became an accessory to murder. She barely glanced at the man she had backed into.

  "Who needs 'em? I got a place…"

  Smiling, she placed her hand on his arm—just as she noticed the corner of a white ID card sticking out of his vest pocket. Security!

  As if he expected resistance, he gripped her wrist. His other reached for plasticuffs at his belt.

  Heart racing, she twisted away just and ran, leaving her heels behind.

  Years ago, Karra decided that shoplifting, especially in her own neighborhood, was not acceptable. She had not come to that understanding on her own, but was told so by a strange Krindarwee man. His words still pressed on her thoughts frequently. But the first time she met him was just after her mother’s death.

  After seeing her mother lifeless and cold, everyone crowded around her in tears, Karra wanted to join them, but they were all in her way. No place remained for her at her mother’s side, so she stood back, scowling, and watching them cry. Her heart screamed for her mother. Her chest felt too heavy to hold all the grief pressing down on her. Never again would Mama brush her hair and tell her that she was sweet and lovely. No one remained who would touch her tenderly, or thank her for bringing home a bit of sugar for an apple dessert.

  Carlon glared at her as if at a stranger. He knew she stole the sugar. He never thanked her. He never held her. He lectured her, and when that failed, he hit her. Suzin also stared at her, her eyes swollen from weeping. She wanted to hate Su like she hated Carlon, but the incredible sadness of the moment took it away. Her hands in her pockets, still scowling, Karra realized that Mama had been her remaining tie to the family. With Mama gone, she felt as if all love had been removed from the world.

  Karra left the apartment never intending to return. Carlon could keep his one-room place. She would find another way to survive. By then she knew how to shoplift without getting caught. Just as easily, she slipped her hand into pockets unnoticed. She felt a brush of energy, what she called frisson because the word sounded the way her skin felt when she used it. Within frisson, she slipped in and out—she didn’t know what—but one minute she pushed her hand into one reality, and a second later, the contents of someone’s pocket or purse would be hers.

  One night, a dark man watched her from the shadows as she picked the pockets of customers before they entered a bar. She appeared to be one of a number of beggars to be pushed aside. During that push, Karra used the frisson of energy. Most people never noticed that her hands loosened money belts or found the special pocket that held a few wens. But the dark man noticed. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew. Odd that there was also nothing about him that cautioned her. She wondered what he intended to do about it, maybe lecture her, or threaten to notify Security.

  He did neither of those things.

  After watching her for about an hour, he approached her.

  “You steal from your own,” he said. “Your people are not the enemy. Would it not be better to take what our enemies believe is theirs?”

  “How?”

  “Follow me.”

  For the next several nights, Karra and the dark man burglarized Inner City establishments. He never took their goods, only money. He opened locked doors with a flash of energy, far more potent than frisson. His easy use of power frightened her, causing her to watch him warily. But he also showed her where to look for the cashboxes, and smiled with delight at the ease with which she learned her new trade. He called her Kid, not asking for her real name. She called him Snake because when he worked his movements rippled like silk, and were as silent as a snake’s passing.

  On the fifth night after Snake divided their spoils—equally, as he had from the first—he invited her to his home. The front of the home was an herbalist’s shop where his sister worked. She also sold potions in addition to many herbal remedies. She was a large woman who dressed in many layers of fringed cloth. Red seemed to be her favorite color.

  “Berita,” Snake said. “Meet my partner. I call her Kid. She has never told me otherwise.”

  “And I call him Snake because sometimes he moves like one,” Karra quipped, smiling. Snake made her smile. It felt good to feel something besides anger.

  Berita laughed, a big joyous sound that rang throughout the house.

  “Well, you erren’t more than just a kid,” Berita said. “And Snake fits him just fine. Pleased to meet you.”

  Karra nodded.

  “I’m just asking,” Berita said, a thoughtful expression on her face. “How would you know about snakes, since no snakes live in this northland?”

  “The crystal icesnakes do. You never see them except in winter, melting the snow as they move. They like rat burrows best. It’s the only way to hunt rats in the winter, by following an icesnake.”

  Berita blinked in surprise.

  Karra paid no attention to her reaction. She was too busy enjoying the warmth of the apartment. She knew these two were Krindarwee just by looking at them. Her father had told her that the Krindarwee lived far to the southeast on the main continent, so it was no surprise that they knew nothing about icesnakes, but everything about keeping warm. She felt the heat penetrate her coat and warm her skin. Even her nose was getting warmer. It had been a long time since felt this comfortable.

  Maybe the Nevians caught them roaming the wilderness for some reason rather than keeping to their southern villages. Daddy told her that the Nevians refused to allow any Homelander, including the Krindarwee, wander outside of the prescribed Sector cities.

  When she asked him about Sectors, her father informed her that the Nevians divided the main continent into four Sectors, with the southeasternmost, probably Krindarwee territory, as Sector One. The planet’s capitol city lay in Sector One. Sector Five, he continued, in this place off the mainland, was their prison sector. They had destroyed the landbridge that at one time connected this peninsula to the main continent, then called it Sector Five. Afterwards they built a huge wall around the city proper. Anyone caught roaming the lands outside of the prescribed Sectors were brought here and abandoned to their own devices. That had been Karra’s one lesson in the way the Nevians rearranged the geography of her homeworld to fit their desires. The Nevian schools never taught Homelanders how they divided the land.

  But Karra wasn’t really interested in how the Krindarwee couple came to live in this city. She was far more interested in their house. They owned no couches or chairs. Large pillows, scattered across the room, were also piled into corners. Soft rugs covered the floors. Heavy quilted drapes kept the cold from leaking through the windows. A couple of woven cloths divided the living space from the kitchen, a
nd another two divided the shop from their living quarters. In the kitchen, she found a low table with two significant cushions opposite each other. Cloth hangings also separated communal living space from Berita’s shop. Berita’s private bedroom was the only room closed off by a door. Snake, they told her later, slept upstairs, in an attic as large as the whole downstairs, including the shop. Karra had never seen so much space for so few people. Privacy, a luxury where Karra’s siblings lived, appeared to be ordinary here.

  “This is nice,” Karra said.

  “Where do you live, Kid?” Berita asked.

  “No place.” She wasn’t about to tell them about Carlon’s tiny apartment and her seven siblings, six now that Jem had moved away. Since leaving, she had found a corner in an abandoned warehouse where she kept a few blankets and some extra clothing, but other homeless people used it too, and she knew it was not a safe place.

  Snake and Berita exchanged glances.

  Karra felt a brush of frisson in that glance. What was happening? Even though it set her teeth on edge, she understood using the energies, or whatever it was she used when picking pockets, but as communication? As a part of everyday life? She now faced two people far more skilled than she was.

  When she started to back away, Snake moved toward her. “It is all right, Kid. We never meant to frighten you. But we thought, since you also use ambigah, that you would understand.”

  “Ambigah?”

  “She may not be aware,” Berita said.

  “No. At one time, she was trained. I felt it. She is not wild.”

  She felt another brush of frisson, and backed further away.

  “She does not remember,” Snake said, an amazed expression on his face. “Kid, please do not leave. We want you to know that you are welcome here.”

  “Enough!” Berita almost shouted. “I’m hungry. Kid, you’re hungry too, so let’s forget all the ambigah nonsense and enjoy a meal together. Sound good?”

  As if a door had been closed, the brush of energy ceased. Karra relaxed. Besides, she was hungry, and as it turned out, Berita was as good a cook as Su. For the first time since her parents’ arrests, Karra allowed herself to feel pleasure. No one watched what she ate or told her to save something for another meal. They laughed and talked during the meal, not holding their food close so as not to spill a single crumb. For the first time in a year, Karra ate enough to feel full. She had forgotten that feeling, it had been so long.

  After dinner, Snake pulled out a bottle of homemade brown, a liquor found in many Area homes. He and Berita shared a glass, but they did not pour one for her, even though she would have liked a taste. He settled back into some pillows.

  “What are you going to do with the money you make, provided, that is, we remain partners?”

  She hadn’t thought about it. She did, however, remember that Carlon worried about the cost of housing. And she did like living inside better than in the corner of a warehouse. “How much does it cost to rent an apartment?”

  “You could stay here,” he offered.

  “No.” Karra stood. Words to make him understand that, more than anything, she needed to rely on no one except herself, refused to come. “How much does it cost to rent an apartment?” she repeated, this time with emphasis.

  “You need a deposit and be able to sign a lease. Since you will not reach your majority until you turn sixteen, you are too young.”

  “How much?” she persisted, getting angry.

  “Three hundred wens a moon cycle would get you a one-room place, I suppose. Why?”

  Not explaining, she stormed out of their home and back into the street. He was just like everyone else, like Carlon. He wanted to control her. He wanted her to live in his house so that he could keep his eyes on her. Somehow she would find a way to get her own place. She would ask around.

  She did not find out how to get her own place that night, and as she slept in the cold warehouse, she wished she had at least let herself spend the night in the strange Krindarwee couple’s home.

  But Snake did not seem offended that she had refused his offer, and remained willing to partner with her a few nights later. Neither did he mind that she invited herself to supper occasionally.

  Although she continued as Snake’s frequent partner, she learned from others as well. From one she learned how to use tools to break into a lock, from another how to get around alarm systems, and from yet another how to sell stolen merchandise. During the next several years she learned far more than simply picking food off grocery store shelves or picking pockets. She learned to use her knife with a skill that amazed even Snake. With a gun, she never missed. She rolled drunks. She sold anything that would move, from legal to counterfeit, from tangible to intangible.

  In the end, she even sold herself.

  Karra returned to her basement apartment with tonight’s takings. She made sure she ate the things that would spoil first and put the remainder in her small cupboard. The coldbox was now completely empty. It was getting on toward morning, and Karra wanted to get some sleep before she left for Su’s dinner party to honor Carlon’s intended. In order to eat, she had ignored Snake’s caution and had shoplifted her groceries, but only at night. During the day she slept until Chalatta came to her after school. They played on the exercise equipment until exhausted. Then Karra sent her home. After sunset, she crept through the streets, trying to avoid the frequent Security Watch patrols.

  Living like a shadow irritated her. If not for the party Su planned for Carlon and his intended, she would have left the neighborhood altogether.

  But she wanted one last farewell with family, especially with her daughter and her sister. Su had turned the two-bedroom apartment into a home. Over the years, she found items of used furniture, a broken couch that Dugaan fixed, a dining room table with six matching chairs and a tall chair for Chalatta, curtains, and a couple of beds. One year Dugaan made bunk beds, one set for each bedroom, so Carlon slept in the single bed, and Dugaan and Benej used the bunks. The girls’ room contained a similar arrangement. Su slept in the bed with Chalatta, and Saril and Kata each had bunks. The fact that there was no bed for her and no place at the dining room table confirmed her belief that her place in the family ended with her mother’s death.

  Still, she loved their apartment. If Su ever asked her to stay, she might have. In fact, one reason she for going back to school was hopefully to earn a place of admiration in Su’s affection. Karra yearned for one word of approval. She loved being in Su’s presence. Her sister turned anyplace into something warm, seasoned with her own brand of safety. In that respect, Su was like Mama. She carried with her a sense of peace. People should find a way to bottle Su’s and Mama’s peace and douse everyone with it, like fine perfume.

  Every time she arrived, she wished Su would simply ask, just once, for her to remain. But Su never did.

  Now that Karra was older, she understood how unfair life was for Carlon. Not eighteen yet, he became saddled with seven more mouths to feed. She understood, but when Carlon returned from work, the apartment suddenly felt too small, as if they still lived in the one-room place they had all shared that one year.

  Tonight was Carlon’s party. At least tonight, even if Carlon wanted to turn her away, Su would let her stay for the meal.

  Karra curled into the blankets in her bunk, and still thinking of Su, drifted into sleep.

  The ragged blonde girl hangs back from the rest of the beggars. She watches the bolder children push their way through the constantly moving crowds to approach the ones who seem the richest. The richest, though, never enter this part of the city, Daddy has claimed.

  But other beggars are getting dit coins. Just tug on a sleeve, she tells herself. Hold out your hand for a few coins.

  She runs nose first into a leather longcoat that smells like the inside of the piece of rellis fur Mama used to keep in her jewelry box.

  "What do we have here?" the man in the leather coat demands.

  "A red, Sirra, or maybe a blue dit?
" she manages to ask before her courage deserts her. Too late she notices he is Nevian.

  "Sirra?” The man's face darkens. "You dare call me by that Homelander title?”

  The girl flushes. Tears of fear sting her eyes. "Forgive me, kind Master."

  "I may, at that." His attention turns toward her with interest instead of contempt. He pulls a red full five-wen note from the pocket of his longvest. "Yes, once I show you what you were born for.”

  The nightmare woke her. With a cry of alarm sat up in bed, blinking, gasping for breath, her heart dancing a tattoo in her chest. Claustrophobic air filled the room. Karra no longer felt safe, even within the expansive structure she had designed. Something stole the air and caused the walls to move inward. She must escape! Must escape before…

  She put on her boots and a jacket, and slipped her pistol into her jacket pocket, patting the knife at her thigh for reassurance. Then, satisfied, she let herself out.

  Chapter 9

  Weak sunlight hesitated at the alley's entrance. The wind whispered a winter warning, encouraging her to pull her jacket closer. Before she strode into the crowded Area streets, she removed the blue rag. I'll be at Su's today, baby.

  A little later, almost soundlessly, Karra entered Suzin's kitchen. The sweet and spicy scent of an apple dessert filled the room. It took all her resolve to ignore the dessert and pick up a rosy apple instead. It crunched loudly as she bit through its crisp skin. Suzin appeared in the doorway, a startled expression on her face.

  "Karra?" Suzin sounded both annoyed and afraid.

  "Relax." Please don’t be afraid of me. "No one saw me come up here. They've pulled all the Security. No aircars. No foot patrols. Not even any plainclothes. It's weird out there." Then she saw the remains of the bruised eye. She winced. "Su, I'm sorry they hurt you.” She meant it, even though Suzin continued to regard her with distrust. “Was it bad?”

  "You'd care? They said you killed someone, Karra. That’s not just getting drunk or fooling around with Drakes. It’s murder! I don’t care what he did or who he was, you had no right. And you knew they’d come here looking for you. Was it bad? What does ‘bad’ mean to you?”