by Rabia Gale
Her face, plastered on every news post for all to see. There was no trench coat big enough in all the world to hide herself in, no hat big enough to cover all of her dandelion-white-and-wild hair and ears and face. She wanted to rip all the posters off, not just for her own sake, but for Petrus’ as well. She didn’t want it rubbed into his face that his daughter had killed someone. She didn’t want him to feel guilty that it had taken him fifteen years to find her after her eiree mother abandoned her. That he had been unable to protect her when she needed it most.
Rainbird skirted a group of pipe-smokers, bumped against a couple whose guilty start made it clear that something illicit was involved, slunk and squeezed through narrow gaps to Kasir’s secondhand stall.
Even up here in the realm of the decadent, with the indulgence of every vice laid out like a feast, people still needed boots and pants and good stout coats that hid wings. Kasir’s stall was set far away from the usual haunts of pleasure-seekers and tourists, but his regulars knew where to find him.
Now he turned towards Rainbird, a bulky man with more girth than height, hairy and stout, with the powerful lungs developed by generations of high-altitude dwelling. His droopy mustache lifted in a smile. “Well, well, little Rainbird. What is it to be today? I have some pretty skirts that just came in from the estate sale of an opera singer.”
Rainbird shook her head. “I need cheris gum.”
“Cheris gum?” Kasir shot her a shrewd look. She didn’t elaborate further. “A specialty item, and the eiree aren’t much into trading it, either.”
“Please, Kasir, see if you can find me some,” begged Rainbird. “I can pay with sunmoss.”
“Eiree don’t care for sunmoss,” said Kasir, but he was already scribbling on a paper chit. Once he’d sealed it, he bellowed out, “Hey, boy!” His assistant, small and younger than even Rainbird pretended to be, came out from the backroom. “Take this around to Talar.” The boy took the chit and ran off on his errand.
Rainbird waited till he’d left. Then, low-voiced, she said, “I also need more sima for Petrus, Kasir.”
“Again?” Kasir’s mouth and mustache drooped. He shook his head. “Why couldn’t you ask for blueweed or sweetdust?” he grumbled. “There’s a dozen dealers out there who’d be happy to supply you.”
“Because I don’t fancy Petrus turning into a blank-eyed drooling druggie,” snapped Rainbird. “He needs to be healed.” The Company had plenty of sima in the Hub, but going to Company doctors would only reveal the extent of Petrus’ lungsickness. He’d be retired off the sunway for sure, and there was no way Rainbird was going to live downside ever again. Neither of them wanted to be separated.
Kasir heaved a sigh. “The only way he can be is if he gets off the sunway. You send him down, Rainbird.”
Glew, I have been so selfish. “I will. In the meantime…?”
“I may have some. An advance on that sunmoss you mentioned.”
Rainbird nodded vigorously.
Kasir ducked into the back, where he lived and stashed all those sad discarded garments he peddled. Rainbird had been back there a time or two. At least he would always keep warm, pressed in among all those clothes!
Kasir thrust a twist of paper out to her. “That’s the last of it, and I won’t be able to get anymore.” Rainbird raised her eyebrows in question. Kasir grimaced. “Morality League’s brought the binneys up with them. Always eager to enforce the laws, they are. They’ll be looking at my books and supplies soon. I have to stay clean for a while. I’ll wire Petrus if I get any leads on that cheris gum.”
“I understand.” Rainbird tucked the sima into her belt-pouch, pecked Kasir on the cheek, and left.
Rainbird felt very exposed as she hurried back towards the elevators. A vacuum, like the marketplace collectively held its breath, alerted her. A space opened up, as people gave a wide berth to the group of binneys that strode down the middle. Rainbird bit her lip on her outraged gasp, turned to examine a pair of shoes. The downsider policemen wore pressed black uniforms with tin buttons doomed in the cold and carried truncheons.
“Hey, you!”
Don’t look. Don’t turn around. Don’t act guilty, even if you are.
A youth nearby started, turned pale. “Y-yes?”
The binneys grouped around him.
“Turn over that bag, son.”
“B-but…” The youth clutched a distinctive red-and-white-patterned bag close to his chest. “It’s Third Rib! I’m allowed to!”
“Not if you’re underage. And not if you’re going home tomorrow. You can’t bring that stuff downside, and you can’t consume it all yourself before then.”
Reluctantly, the youth gave up the bag of Palli’s Fairy Dust to the binney. Rainbird let her gaze travel the bazaar, noting the checkpoints at the exits, near the elevators that took downsiders back home.
She put down the shoe she’d been turning over and over in her hands, and looked away.
Right into the eyes of a stall keeper watching her narrowly.
Rainbird hunched, instinctively, and her wings rippled under the coat. The too-big hat slid to one side. Rainbird hastily straightened it.
Understanding flashed in the man’s eyes—too-big coat and hat, whitish hair, body shaped all wrong under her layers—and hardened to resolve as he stared at the nearest news post.
This wasn’t the way things happened. Third Rib was supposed to be safe, just like the nightside during Deep Night was supposed to be empty.
Great Glew! I’ve been so careless around here! She didn’t button up her coat all the way in the market, often went unhatted. Rainbird turned and walked away, briskly, shoulders tight with nerves. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man snag a wanted poster, walk up with it to a binney, his stare never leaving her figure.
Third Rib was turning against itself.
When the yell came—“Hey, you! In the big brown coat!”—Rainbird bolted.
She swerved around an herbalist, dodged between rows of cages filled with rodent-catching mongooses. Whistles screeched behind her.
A procession of orange-robed mystics bore down upon Rainbird, swinging perfume in censers and chanting. Rainbird charged straight at them, but they pushed back, grabbing at her sleeves. She shrugged out of the coat, left it in their hands, and broke through the pack. A binney appeared right ahead, and she turned sharply, wings lifting behind her.
If only she could fly right out of here.
Oh, God of Small Things, help me! That was Dorak’s God, the one he’d dreamed up to help those like themselves—chattel, slaves, sub-human, sub-everything else. She’d never believed in him, but she could use the help. Right about now.
Rainbird ran for the rib, a massive yellowish-white trunk rising into the sky. She brushed her fingers against its pocked and bubbled side as she sprinted around it, searching for—there!
The rib had been sliced and cut into for platforms, machinery, support structures, and the power and communication wires that piggybacked on the nerves of the long-dead dragon. It splintered where it met the platform, like a trunk branching into roots. Rainbird dove into a small and skinny crack. Her shoulders stuck; she wiggled and they popped loose. She scrabbled into the opening.
An odor of mold and ancient bone hit her. The air was charged with the residual electricity that flowed up the wires and nerves. Rainbird huddled close to the crack, straining for the fresh outside air.
The binneys shouted and whistled. “Not in the huts.” “Over here!” “Check all the openings. She can’t have gone far.” Metal rattled as they stuck their truncheons into gaps.
Twice. In a night and a day, she’d revealed herself twice. What would happen to Petrus if she were caught, with his sima at her belt? How would he feel hearing of her capture over the wire as inspectors casually traded news with each other?
No. She would get away, she would be more careful, and Petrus would never know of her near-escapes. Worry was already taking years off his life.
Rainbird scooted backwards. Metal bit into her back. Rungs, leading up. She hesitated, staring at the crack, as if to memorize that line of light, then clambered up the ladder.
The ladder took her up to a ledge, which angled into a narrow tunnel, that poured her out into yet another labyrinth of cracks. The bone was so riddled with them it was a marvel the rib still stood.
She didn’t like it here. Didn’t like being boxed in. Didn’t like the way her wings pressed into her back and arms. Didn’t like it when they snagged on protrusions and she couldn’t tell if they ripped or not. Marvelo had torn them, fearing that as she grew she’d somehow fly away from him, and they’d been nerve-deadened ever since then.
Most of all, she didn’t like being inside the beast. It was one thing to live on the outside, to skim its bone and dance on its spine, quite another to burrow into it. Eiree instinct pulled her back towards the air, to the stars, to Glew, the sun they still clung to. Rainbird half-swam, half-crawled towards the scent of fresher air coming from another narrow crack.
No light from this one, though. When Rainbird cautiously poked out a few fingertips, she met resistance of the full-burlap-sack kind.
This was storage space. She’d probably come out on one of the supply platforms, the old stubby ones formed in the early days of bone-coaxing, too small for the market and too run-down for the tourists. Rainbird flexed her fingers, then put her hands on the sack.
A voice spoke. “You’re sure about that cheris gum?”
Rainbird went still. She knew that voice. It gave out paychits and schedules and allowed or denied sick time, leave, or Company benefits. Turnworth?
Another answered it, a cold, high voice with an echo in it. An eiree voice. “We rarely trade it in the markets down here. We make few exceptions.” Rainbird’s teeth clenched. Of course the eiree would be only too glad to see the bone rot, if it meant that humans would take their Day Sun and clear off the sunway.
At least Turnworth had listened to Petrus about the cheris gum. At least he was trying.
“I assure you,” Turnworth again, wheedling, “you will be well-paid.”
The eiree made a delicate sound that in a human would’ve been called a snort. “There is very little we need from—” He broke off.
“What’s wrong?”
“I sense something.” Rainbird could picture the eiree, stiff-backed, straight-necked, scenting the air. She squeezed deeper back into the bone. She would not help Turnworth’s negotiations by turning up here. “You’ve secreted spies to monitor this meeting?” Cold contempt filled the eiree’s voice.
“Nonsense!” protested Turnworth. “There’s nothing here. See for yourself.” There were sounds of sacks and crates being dragged across the floor.
How deep could the eiree sense her? Heart pounding, Rainbird dove into places she’d skirted, into the honeycombed center of the bone, filled with tubes through which the dragon’s tissues had been teased and stretched into carrying messages. Beast odor overpowered her, like the glare of the stars. Rainbird’s fingers brushed a poly-coated nerve, taut as a harp string. A zing traveled up her arm and she saw…
Marbles of many colors on a backdrop of black velvet, spinning to music that stroked the edge of her hearing, a music that swelled in her muscles, made her want to…
No! Rainbird squirmed out of the tube and into an empty one, desperate to find another exit, any exit.
She’d rather face the eiree than the dragon.
“You’re not going down there, Papa.” Rainbird, perched on a high stool, swung her feet back and forth. She looked like a schoolgirl, cheeks red and eyes bright above her collared shirt. Her skirt—secondhand of course—had once been part of a co-ed’s uniform. It was dark blue, straight, severe, mid-calf.
She also, thought Petrus, had the sunny assurance of the very young.
In his nest of musty woolen blankets, he stared up at the ceiling whose every spot and stain he knew intimately. Worry about the sunway, about Rainbird, swirled in his mind. While she’d been at Up-High Market, he’d been on the wire, hunting down old contacts, trying to find the cheris gum, even if it was only enough to seal the infection so it wouldn’t spread. No one admitted to having any. Earlier this evening, Kasir had wired a terse Unavailable.
Another closed tunnel. Time was he had a supply of cheris gum laid by, but smaller infections had nibbled it away and he never replenished his stock. Now half his contacts were gone and the market’s supply had evaporated.
Gwipper take it! I’ve been too easy on myself, relying too much on Rainbird, putting her at risk. Petrus didn’t need an argument right now, but he had to make her understand. Her face was on wanted posters from Headside to Tailside. “The wiz is expecting me tomorrow, not some midget apprentice. You’d have a hard time passing yourself off as me.”
Rainbird giggled. The only thing they had in common was that neither of them could be called fat. Petrus was gaunt, and Rainbird slender. Then she sobered. “Still. It’s no good if you were to lose your grip or have another coughing fit. I’ll come up with something—like maybe an emergency at Marker 71. You know how those new alloy beams always need massaging.”
“They’ll check that, Rainbird,” Petrus warned.
“Of course,” said Rainbird sunnily. “Which is why I’m going to go out there after sunpass and persuade it that it’s sick.”
“You will not.” Petrus raised himself on his elbows. “You will not tamper with the sunway.”
“It’s a tertiary beam, and it’ll be fixed before the next sunpass, Papa!”
“If that is your attitude towards the sunway…”
“Why do you always act as if the sunway is this sacred place?”
“It’s what keeps our entire world alive!”
“The world that hates me.” Her voice took on a bitter edge he’d never heard before. “What do I care about that world? If I were to step off the sunway, I’d be hung for a murderer.”
Guilt throbbed along with the pain in his chest. “You were young, you were afraid. You were only defending yourself.”
“Was I?” she flung at him. “How do you know what I was, what I did. You weren’t there!”
Petrus went still, his chest squeezed tight. Then, slowly, haltingly, he said, “You’re right. I wasn’t there. I should’ve been, but I wasn’t.”
Rainbird flushed. “That’s not what I meant,” she said, in a rough, sandpapery voice. His Rainbird, close to tears? “You came for me as soon as you could. But I wasn’t an innocent little girl. I’ve shed blood, done things, seen things, stood by and watched others do them—”
“Marvelo was a monster,” Petrus broke in, fighting to keep his voice steady. “They should be thanking you for ridding the world of him. And if you hadn’t killed him, I would never have heard about you on the news, never have come off the sunway to see if you were my daughter. I would have never found you.”
I would have never gone looking for Diamada. Never have wrung the full truth out of her. Even after two years, the memories of that encounter made his heart ache.
Rainbird turned her head away, not looking at him. “And look where finding me has gotten you. Kasir is right. You should own up to the lungsickness. Go down, get off this altitude. Eat better food.” She indicated their pantry, which consisted mostly of dried legumes and canned fish.
“You know I can’t leave you.”
“Why not? I’ve been looking after myself for years, long before you came along. How long since you had roast beef and bread fresh from the oven? Tumbled a woman, seen a circus show?” She smiled with black humor.
“Rainbird—”
Someone rapped on the hatch. The nightside hatch.
Petrus froze, hands clenched around his blanket. Rainbird, after a startled moment, swooped her coat around her shoulders and crammed a hat on her head. She scooted the stool into the corner, away from the door, and half-turned towards the table.
She was Petrus’ slow-witted helper. That was the story they’d d
evised, and the persona she always played.
The someone outside the egg was not used to waiting patiently. The knocks came hard and swift.
Surely the Levine woman wouldn’t bother us this late at night. Surely she wouldn’t be out on the nightside. But since he couldn’t put anything past the woman, Petrus struggled to sit up. He snatched up a book and put on his spectacles, to make it look like he was reading in bed. “Come in.” He put strength into his voice, but it still came out weak.
The hatch door groaned open, and Diamada swung inside.
Or rather, she floated in, light on her bare feet. Her wings, high and arched, spreading even when folded, brushed the sides of the opening. She brought with her the scent of ozone, the chill of stars, the thinness of high-altitude air.
The sight of her was like a punch to the stomach.
She stopped just under the hatch. Twists of clothing around her chest and waist bared skin, soft and downy with fine white fur. He’d known how touching it had felt like, once. “Hello, Petrus.”
Rainbird stifled a gasp. Diamada didn’t so much as glance her way, her luminescent gray eyes focused on Petrus. She looked just the same as she had nearly two decades ago, with her star-shimmer hair pulled back from her head in a chignon.
Petrus exhaled, slowly. His insides had gone to jelly. “Diamada.” He lifted his hand to her.
Diamada ignored the invitation and Petrus let his hand drop. His fingers clenched into wool. “What are you doing here?”
Diamada tilted her head. “I’m here to warn you.”
“What about?”
“You found bonerot in the sunway.” It was not a question. “Leave it be, Petrus.” Her voice softened a notch, caressed his name, and desire stabbed at him, sharp and insistent. He could not look away from her beautiful otherworldly face, too angular and sharp to even pass for human. “Do your inspections, your polishing and oiling and welding. Stay out of the deep recesses and the cavities. Don’t go looking for bonerot. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
