Jorge looked back at Inez. She remained quiet, having already let her opinion be known. “Same thing we were about to do,” he said. “We keep going, and hope for the best.”
They saw no one on Cambridge Avenue except for a feral dog who
growled at them from the doorway of an abandoned pharmacy, but just before they reached Irving Street, they were surprised to see a young woman on a bicycle pedal through the intersection ahead. She barely glanced in their direction, though, but kept on moving, her knapsack bumping against her back. Besides the two men and the boy they’d met at the dock, she was the first person they’d seen since entering Boston.
When they reached Irving and began to walk up the narrow, sloping street, they saw more signs of current habitation. The first two buildings on the block were boarded up, yet there were a couple of bicycles chained to a signpost in front of an apartment house, along with a small electric cart parked in an alley between the next two buildings. Greg noticed that the cart appeared to be in good shape and that it had been rigged with a small photovoltaic array. Although most storefronts were still shuttered, a secondhand clothing shop appeared to have been reopened for business, as was a hardware store across the street. Looking up, Jorge observed that the second-story bay windows had glass in their frames, and he could see light from within. Smoke rose from the rooftop chimney of the next building on the block, and more bicycles were chained to a rack next to its front steps. The sidewalks were clear of garbage and debris, and there were no abandoned vehicles at the curbs.
Clearly, there were people living on Irving Street, and although it was still a little too early in the morning for most of its residents to be up and about, it wasn’t long before they began to spot various individuals. A middle-aged man sweeping the front steps of an apartment house. A couple of teenagers smoking cigarettes in an alley. An old lady feeding her cat on the third-floor landing of a fire escape. None of them were dressed in rags or seemed to be on the verge of starvation; they regarded the newcomers with aloof interest, and while no one called out to them, neither did they run for cover or reach for guns.
But it wasn’t until Jorge, Inez, and Greg reached the end of the second block of Irving that they found the heart of the neighborhood. At the intersection of Revere Street, they came upon an open-air market. On both sides of the street were rows of tents and kiosks; wooden tables and bins had been set up within them, with local merchants and craftspeople setting out their wares. A couple of kids helped an adult unload crates of fresh vegetables from a cart; nearby, a thickset man with a long beard draped homespun shirts and sweaters upon a rope suspended above his table. From somewhere close by could be heard the clucking of chickens; a woman in a calf-length skirt carried a small wicker basket filled with eggs away from a stall. A pig was being slowly turned upon a spit above a barbecue grill, with a young man carefully basting it with sauce from a tin can.
“Could be home,” Inez said quietly as she leaned against the side of a building at the street corner. Like Jorge and Greg, she needed to catch her breath again; although the street they’d just walked up wasn’t particularly steep, none of them were yet accustomed to Earth gravity. At least Revere seemed level; above the rooftops, Jorge was able to make out the dome of the state capitol building. “If I didn’t know better,” she added, “I’d say we were in Bridgeton, or maybe Defiance.”
Jorge nodded but said nothing as he studied their whereabouts. As before, their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several residents were glancing in their direction. He already knew that their clothes would get attention; he now became aware of the fact that no one on the street was armed.
“We’ll probably have some questions before long,” he said. “Maybe we ought to start asking a few of our own.” He looked at Greg, who was still carrying his rifle in his hands. “It’d probably make things easier if you put that away. I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble here.”
Greg reluctantly slung the rifle by its shoulder strap, although he kept its stock under his arm, with its trigger within easy reach. Jorge made sure that his own rifle was less obvious; as an afterthought, he pulled off his headset and tucked it in his jacket pocket. “We’ve made that mistake once already,” he said, gesturing for the others to do the same. “No sense in doing it again.”
“You want to go on pretending that we’re from Long Island?” Greg gave him an incredulous glance. “That didn’t work before.”
“Better than telling the truth, don’t you think?” Jorge shook his head. “I’d rather not do that until it becomes necessary. Right now, I’d just like to see if we can learn anything useful.”
They began to make their way down Revere, strolling through the marketplace as if this were something they did every day. By then, the street had become a little busier, as neighborhood residents began to show up to do their morning errands. Jorge and the others were unable to buy anything, even if they’d wanted to, but they went through the motions of looking over the various items on display. As they did so, Jorge noticed something else; trade wasn’t being done entirely by barter, as Vargas had claimed. Now and then, he saw money exchange hands, paper bills that, at first glance, appeared to have been recently printed. Apparently a system of currency had recently been reintroduced to Boston society, such as it was.
They went from stall to stall, making small talk with the various sellers and craftsmen, finally asking the questions that were foremost on their minds.
Do you know where we can find the
chaaz’maha
? Do you know anyone who would know how to find him?
The queries themselves seemed to raise little attention—at least no one asked whom they meant, or objected to being asked—but neither did they gain any useful information. Yes, the
chaaz’maha
had been seen in Boston, and more than once. In fact, he’d visited this very neighborhood, although that had been quite some time ago. But, no, he wasn’t there now, nor did anyone seem to know where he was.
It wasn’t until they reached the corner of Garden and Revere that they got their first solid lead. An elderly gentleman maintained a book stall on the street corner; his tables and shelves were lined with printed books, all old and often read, a few missing their covers. He was putting an ancient cookbook out for display when Inez asked if he’d seen the
chaaz’maha
lately. His eyes became sharp behind the scratched lenses of his glasses, and he peered at her with sudden interest.
“Yes . . . yes, I’ve seen the
chaaz’maha
,” he replied, his voice low. “In fact, I spoke to him myself, not long ago.” A grey eyebrow cocked upward ever so slightly. “And who may you be, if I might ask?”
Noticing that the bookseller seemed cautious in the way he spoke, Jorge moved closer. “We’re from out of town,” he said quietly. “We’d like to find the
chaaz’maha
very much. He . . .”
“There’s no reason to be alarmed,” Inez said, interrupting Jorge but keeping her voice low as well. “But it’s very important that we find him. A matter of some urgency.”
“Oh, indeed?” The old man shifted from one foot to another as he scratched at the potbelly beneath his frayed sweater. “If it’s enlightenment you seek, I can help you there. No need to talk to him personally.”
Bending beneath the table, he opened a box that was just out of sight. When he stood up again, in his hand was a small black book, clothbound and not much larger than his palm. There was no title or author’s name on the cover. “Everything you need to know is here,” the old man murmured, placing the book on top of the others on the table. “Read it, and it will speak to you.”
Jorge didn’t have to pick up the book to know what it was. Inez took the book from the table, opened its cover. “You realize, of course, that a
Sa’Tong-tas
is never to be sold, but only given away.”
The bookseller gave her a sharp look. “Then you’re already familiar with it?”
Inez smiled as she closed the book and handed it back to him. “‘The truth is always self-evident so long as . . .’”
“‘. . . You have the courage to search for it.’” The bookseller returned the smile as he completed the quote. “You’re a follower, yes?” She nodded, and his expression became quizzical. “Then I take it you’re with the TC”—he shook his head—“but if you are, then why would you be searching for the
chaaz’maha
since you’d already know where he is?”
Jorge glanced at Inez. She said nothing, but only nodded. “We’re not with the TC,” Jorge said. “In fact, we don’t even know what that is. We’re . . . well . . .”
The bookseller suddenly looked away from them. “Trouble coming,” he whispered, then he clamped a hand over the
Sa’Tong-tas
and made it disappear beneath the table. “I’d make yourself scarce, if I were you.”
From the corner of his eye, Jorge saw four men moving through the crowded marketplace. They were headed in their direction, each of them with his right hand in his coat pocket. As they came closer, he realized that one of them was Sam.
“That way,” the old man said softly, cocking his head in the direction of the street behind them. “Second alley to the right. Go down it till you reach the courtyard. Plenty of ways out from there. Now scram.”
Jorge didn’t need any more prompting. Taking Inez by the hand, he quickly walked behind the bookseller’s stall, with Greg hard on their heels. For a moment, they had the bookshelves between them and Revere Street; Jorge dropped Inez’s hand as they darted for Garden Street, dodging a couple of pedestrians as they put the marketplace behind them.
They hadn’t fooled Sam and his companions, though. Looking over his shoulder, Jorge saw the four men turn the corner and come after them; they were only a couple of dozen yards away. “Don’t run until I tell you,” he whispered to the others as he sought to keep a steady, unhurried pace. “Just keep walking, and don’t use your guns unless . . .”
“Take ’em!” Sam yelled.
Running footsteps from behind them, and Jorge looked back to see the four men charging toward them. Their hands had appeared from their coat pockets, and he could see the pistols they carried.
“Move!” he shouted, then he and Inez broke into a run. But they hadn’t gone ten feet before he realized Greg was no longer with them. Glancing back, he saw that the sergeant had turned, stopped, and dropped to one knee.
“Dillon . . .
no
!” he snapped, but Greg was already bringing up his rifle barrel. Yet he was a second too slow; two loud cracks of gunshots that reverberated off the brick walls of the buildings around them, and Greg sagged forward, his rifle still clutched in his hands.
“Greg!” Inez screamed. She skidded to a halt, and Jorge realized that she meant to go back for him. But one glimpse of the blood on the sidewalk beneath the sergeant’s body told him that doing so would be pointless. Grabbing Inez by the arm, Jorge pulled her away while at the same moment unlimbering his own rifle. The men were still running toward them when he squeezed the trigger, not bothering to aim but instead firing from the hip.
His shot didn’t hit anyone, but it was enough to make his pursuers drop to the sidewalk or press themselves against the walls. “Go, go!” he yelled, turning to shove Inez ahead of him. “Keep running! Don’t stop.”
Another gunshot rang out behind them as they dashed down the sidewalk. Jorge was tempted to stop and return fire, but then he saw that they weren’t alone. Across the street, two teenage girls huddled together in a doorway; a little farther away, a man and a small boy were crouched behind a bicycle rack. Any one of them could be caught in the cross fire or hit by a ricochet; he couldn’t risk a firefight, even though Sam and his pals didn’t share the same reluctance. Their only remaining choice was to keep running.
An alley appeared before them, and Jorge and Inez dove into it. Within seconds, though, he realized that they’d made a mistake. The old man had told them to take the second alley to the right; this one ended in the rear wall of a building, with no courtyard or escape route ahead.
Doors led into the buildings on either side of them. Jorge jiggled the knob of the one to the right, found that it was locked. He was about to try the one to the left when he heard footsteps at the mouth of the alley. Whipping around, he started to raise his rifle, but before he could, he heard a hollow
whump!
from behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Inez had flattened her back against a wall. She’d unholstered her airpulse pistol and, with her arm straightened level with her shoulder, was taking aim at the alley entrance. Someone darted across the sidewalk and she fired again, but her pursuer had managed to take cover before the invisible bolt did little more than knock dust from the bricks.
The door to the left was locked, too. A fire escape rose above it, but the bottom rung of its iron ladder was too far overhead for him to reach. Crouching beneath it, he started to aim the barrel of his rifle at the alley when he heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, in there!” It was Sam, calling to them from just around the corner of the building to their right. “Give it up, or you’re gonna get the same thing as your bud!”
Jorge didn’t respond. With his free hand, he fumbled for the headset in his pocket. Not bothering to put it on, he held its earpiece and mike prong to his face. “
Mercator
, come in,” he said, keeping his voice low enough so as not to be heard by anyone outside the alley. “Emergency . . . come in!”
“Look, I know you’ve got guns,” Sam went on, trying to sound reasonable, “but so do we, and more than you do. And forget about anyone coming to the rescue. People around here know better than to mess with us.”
“
Mercator
, do you read?” It was hard to handle the headset and his rifle at the same time; Jorge braced the stock against his knee as he kept talking. “Hugh, come in! We’ve got an emergency!”