Sly Mongoose (17 page)

“Move any closer and we won’t fire a warning shot.”

“I understand.” Heutzin looked frustrated.

“Open it from there,” Pepper said.

“Don’t do that,” the Aeolian said.

Itotia and Ollin came out. “Ma’am, stand back,” another Aeolian said. A woman. Her voice sounded just as edgy as the others, Timas thought.

But Pepper ignored them all. His eyes never left the box. “Never mind, just turn it slightly this way, Heutzin.”

Before the Aeolians could object, he’d done just that, though he looked ready to jump out of his skin at a moment’s notice.

“Shit.” For the first time Pepper looked surprised at something, though, Timas thought. Someone who fell out of the sky was probably hard to impress. And to Timas’s surprise, Pepper looked right over at him. “You’re right.”

“I don’t understand.” Timas felt uncomfortable under Pepper’s surprise. It felt so unnatural coming from the man.

“You’re right. And so is Heutzin. There are aliens on the ground under us.”

“Blasphemy,” Ollin muttered.

Pepper snapped his head toward Ollin. “Oh for fuck’s sake, man. Get your superstitions straight. You know aliens exist. You know one set posed as your gods once, and that they still live out there. Just because you reject the slavery they put you under on New Anegada doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge some other batch might be on the surface of Chilo. That box has Nesaru writing on it.”

Timas felt like he was falling, his stomach rising, rising up past his throat.

“There are those in Yatapek who’d take that as an excuse to spill blood,” Itotia said. “We ran away from that after our men fought alongside the mongoose-men against the League. We helped gain your independence. We reformed our beliefs, and some of us moved away from New Anegada to leave those memories behind us. And now you say something like that again has followed us here. It’s a hard pill to swallow so quickly.”

Heutzin looked down at the box. “Many used shadows to jump at, wanting the return of all that because it was better when we were on top, favored by them, instead of scrabbling here in this city, in the winds of this world. Not all who moved here did it because they reformed, but because they were with families they loved.”

They all looked like they were wavering. Aliens were real. Timas hadn’t been crazy. He’d seen something real. Cen hadn’t died for a vision.

And maybe, maybe Pepper didn’t deserve Cen’s death on his hands. How could he have known Cen and Timas were under the city? Was Timas dooming him for something he couldn’t have helped?

One of the Aeolians almost dashed Timas’s hopes when he laughed. “Anyone could buy a box with Nesaru writing on it.”

Pepper leaned back against the cart and spoke into the air. “Not this box. It has a return address on it.” He looked over at Katerina who stood impassively by the Aeolian soldiers. “Query it, the encryption key will prove me right. It’ll verify the handwriting on the side.”

She looked a bit startled to be caught up in the scene, but stepped over to Heutzin and put her palm to the box, then pulled it away as if it
had burned her. “You’re right. It says it comes from Hulbach Cavern, on Chilo.”

Timas had helped condemn the man who just proved that what he’d seen was real, and Katerina and her millions of fellow citizens just behind her silver eye had seen it. And yet, he’d also been proved right. He looked over at his parents, who didn’t say anything back. A tiny, electric moment of shock rippled through him, and then Itotia smiled sadly.

Timas dropped to his hands and knees as his stomach continued its motion, and his last meal spilled out. He kept his eyes on the cart as Ollin and Itotia rushed to him, as well as Katerina.

“What’s wrong with him?” She pushed through and grabbed his shoulder.

“It’s nothing.” Ollin pushed her back.

Timas sat back, breathing heavily. “I was right. I did see something.”

“You’re too stressed. You shouldn’t be involved in things like this.” Itotia pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his lips. “They should never have been brought here, Ollin.”

An Aeolian pulled Timas up by his bicep. “Come on, kid. We need you to come with us.”

Itotia moved between them both. “And why is that?”

“Legal maneuvers: another name has been added to the people this man is accused of killing. Cen. The accuser needs to be there. You will be witnesses.”

Timas shook his head. “I take it back. I take it back.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Katerina said softly, still near him. “
We
all heard what you said. You made a good point, and although he’s innocent until proven guilty, it is a fact that we now know Cen died because of his actions. You are right that he should at least be charged with this. You will face him.”

“I don’t want to anymore.”

“He’s just a child,” Itotia protested.

Katerina looked at her. “So am I. But death is death, and Pepper is to be taken before the courts.”

“Ollin, go with Timas.”

Ollin stood up. “I have to stay here. The council will need . . .”

“Rot the council,” Itotia snapped. “If you don’t want to stand by your own son, I will.”

“And meanwhile, Chilo is in danger from the Swarm,” Pepper spat from over on the cart. “You’re all wasting my time. We need to move, we now know why the Swarm is here, and what it’s coming for. Bring Timas and his mother and let’s get this pathetic show on the road. We don’t have time.”

The Aeolians surrounded Timas and his mother and moved them forward. Timas looked up at Itotia, and she put her arms around him. “It’ll be okay.”

Timas didn’t think so.

As the tiny cart moved forward with its strange accompaniment, Katerina asked Pepper, “You said it won’t be long now, what did you mean?”

“Before the Swarm attacks here, in strength. This is its goal. Some alien presence below us. The League unleashed this to get at that. And Yatapek will be the focus of the Swarm’s entire army as a last stop on its way to this Hulbach Cavern.”

A
board the Aeolian airship organized chaos reigned. Something had upset the three crewmen; they had sour looks as they dashed about.

“This shows you how cheap this operation is.” Katerina leaned in close to Timas and pointed out the window. “Prop-powered airship. They must have rented it. We’re not even important enough to warrant an escort, particularly now that everyone is worrying about their own airspace.” She again reminded him that these Aeolians were just bounty hunters. Yatapek wasn’t important enough to rate real Aeolian military, just its retirees.

From inside the docks they’d walked out along a corridor, into a gantry, and then into a long docking tube straight into the airship’s car. The peek Timas had gotten from a porthole in the docking tube showed him a sleek, cigarlike ship with the teardrop-shaped section attached underneath.

The large propellers jutted out on struts, bracketing the airship’s car. They started up as Timas watched.

“Why do they look so troubled?” he finally asked.

“City Lipari fell silent,” Katerina said. “Just like the others.”

“That’s
three
entire cities,” Timas hissed.

“We know. We feel it every second, their voices and votes are gone.”

Twelve Aeolians filled all the remaining seats of the tiny airship car. The floorboards up and down the aisles had been pulled up, bags of gear tossed quickly in, and the boards replaced. They squeaked as people walked over them to their seats.

A shudder rippled through the ship from the direction of the airlock in the back. Everyone bounced as the craft drifted away, passing through vortices left by the city’s passage through Chilo’s atmosphere. This would be a bumpier ride than just standing on the layer of one of the giant, implacable cities.

“Undocked!” someone to the rear yelled. The airship car stretched maybe twenty feet and had room for fifteen passengers and the pilot, strapped into a large chair at the front. Cables draped from the helmet
over his head, a thought-control interface, but the usual assortment of panels, dials, and manual switches remained in front of him. Even a wheel and some levers.

In any other instance Timas would have been trying to look over the pilot’s shoulder.

Pepper sat in the row of seats in front of them with a pair of Aeolians on either side. Timas sat between Itotia and Katerina.

The Aeolian on their left swore and smacked the seat.

“Okay,” Timas said. “What was that about?”

“Upper Alucido.” Katerina lowered her voice. “It’s happening just like Pepper described. People are breaking out of the lower levels and attacking citizens. Alucido’s fighting back, though. It’s messy.”

“Isn’t anyone going to help these cities?” Itotia asked.

“Yes.” Katerina looked out at the propellers. “While some
are
going silent, or reporting Swarm outbreaks, others are refusing to let airships dock. There’s also a general referendum to move to emergency war footing.”

“Then why take us?” Timas asked.

“Pepper will be safer and more secure in an Aeolian city,” one of the soldiers said. “And he may have more memories and observations that will help.”

They watched from the portholes as the airship floated away. The winds buffeted it, and Yatapek’s giant curved underside stretched over them. The props howled, chopping at the thick atmosphere outside, and soon Yatapek was a giant bubble in the distance, floating high over the clouds, its multiple decks visible behind its thick transparent shell.

One of the crew was so pale-skinned that Timas couldn’t help staring. “Where’s he from?”

Katerina glanced at him. “He’s all the way from somewhere deep in the League of Human Affairs. Rydr’s World.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s in the lamina.” Katerina tapped the side of her head. “We’ll have to get you a viewer when we get to Eupatoria, you’ll be able to see all the layers of info. The world won’t be so . . . naked to you.”

“How long will it take to get there?” Timas changed the subject away
from his inability to see hidden information she saw all around her due to his poorer background. It was like being illiterate.

“Six hours. Settle in.”

He found a button that let the chair slide back. Six hours. Six long hours to try and figure out how to apologize to Pepper. Six hours to try and get used to the shaking, bumping, and rattling of the airship. Thankfully, it looked like they wouldn’t put Pepper to trial now, at least. So really, Timas had only himself to save, and the honor of his family.

T
hings, Pepper figured, weren’t completely out of hand yet. They were headed back into the maw of the situation, closer to the range of the Swarm, true, but now he had more information to fight it with.

And full medical facilities lay in his immediate future. The desperate plan to rebuild the groundsuits to make up for his somewhat limbless situation could be shelved.

The girl had said the Swarm was hitting whole cities. By now his brethren throughout the Ragamuffin centers of power had to suspect that something was going down on Chilo.

But could he do anything to buy them time to arrive?

Pepper thought about the scorched planet that had so awed the crew of the
Sheikh Professional
.

It was a glimpse of Chilo’s future. Each and every one of the floating cities would have to get burned out of the sky, and the planet quarantined.

A lot of human suffering.

If the other airship passengers thought he leaned back and groaned because of his injuries, that was fine, but it was really the weight of seeing what was to come.

The drone of the propellers continued on as time painfully inched by, the crew growing more and more agitated. Pepper finally looked back at Katerina. The distant sun glinted off her polished eyepiece, but both her eyes were closed. She wasn’t sleeping, but reading. Her eyes flicked up and down, left and right, processing information. “They’re more nervous.”

Katerina opened her eyes. She snatched a cup of water and held it until a patch of turbulence passed, then let it sit by itself. “Emergency martial voting sessions all over the Aeolian Consensus. We’re all trying to decide exactly what to do about the Situation.”

He could hear the capitalized name in her speech. “The Situation . . .”

“Three cities, of the twelve now. No traffic, and no traffic with the
citizenry.” Katerina licked her lips. “We know we face some threat. A quarter of our voting public has just disappeared. It’s unprecedented and we’re in sort of a panic. Alliances and political action groups are springing up all over the place. Debates are everywhere.”

“Democracy in inaction,” Pepper said. “Everyone has an opinion on what to do, so few have action.”

Katerina hit the back of his seat, annoyed. “A referendum is being called on creating an action force. We have argued once, why continue?”

“Because you’re only now finally getting around to creating an army.”

“Weapons are being fabbed by volunteer manufacturers on citizen pool loan groups in anticipation of an all-out assault. My recording of your story is being widely circulated as a call to action.” Katerina looked out over Timas and Itotia to the porthole. “Don’t underestimate us.”

“I’m not.” Pepper smiled. “I just don’t want us to show up at the wrong city.”

“Me either.” Katerina looked down and closed her eyes again. “I’d like to go home, but they just shut their docks down and declared quarantines throughout the city. There are reports of infiltration by these things.”

Timas had been listening in; now he jerked his head up. “Your family?”

Katerina bit her lip. “They’re okay for now. But the other cities are only taking essential traffic. There’s nowhere for them to run. The betting and odds pool is calling for my home to be dark city number four.”

Pepper nodded. “Katerina, is there a pattern?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The cities, in which direction is the Swarm spreading?”

Katerina didn’t answer for a long moment. “You suggest it is spreading toward us?”