“All right, Failt,” Walker said firmly. “But why this ship in particular?”
“First ship came by since I came up from underground,” Failt said.
“What do you mean?” said Walker.
“Worked down below,” said Failt. “Pushing and pulling.”
Walker understood. Children were docile, and easily cowed. Perfect labour. She doubted, though, that anyone would be coming after Failt to collect him. Children’s bodies were cheap and plentiful. Fredricks probably had hundreds that he could slot straight into his place. “So what meant you couldn’t do that any longer?” she said.
“Got too big.” Failt waved his long arms. “So got sent up to the spaceport to push and pull there. Better than being down in the dark.”
“Pity you’re not still down there,” Yershov muttered. “Pity the bloody roof didn’t fall on you.”
“Shut up,” said Walker.
Failt grasped Walker’s hand with his own furry paw. “Tell you what, Missus Delia, you’re his boss, aren’t you? You showed him what was what. He should be glad you’re his boss. You’re the kind anyone would want to slave for.” He twisted his neck and looked up at her. His big bulging eyes were sad and loving. “I’ll do anything for you, if you ask. I mean it. Anything. I’m yours, Missus Delia. Just you ask.”
B
EHIND THE BATHROOM
door, Kit was once again on the comm with their benefactor. Maria stood close to the door and listened without shame. Kit was struggling alone, and had been since they’d left Braun’s World. Maria should never have let him shoulder all the burden of their escape himself. She hadn’t grasped the gravity of their situation, not at first, and she had always left the big decisions to him while she had taken care of their domestic life. She had become comfortable; lazy. But marriage was partnership, and when Kit had no more to give, it was her turn to step forwards, because she loved him and their daughter and she would do everything in her power to protect their frail little family. So she listened at the door, to take care of Kit, because he could no longer take care of himself, and because she did not think she would have many more chances.
The half of the conversation that she could hear did not make for happy listening. Their patron, apparently, seemed to think everything that could be done for the Emerson family had been done.
“You’re notlistening,” said Kit. “I don’t think we’re safe here—”
There was a pause as the person at the other end of the line presumably replied.
“From Braun’s World. I think we must have been tracked leaving... What? No, no, of course I didn’t! I wouldn’t do something that stupid! How? Because they’re bloody serious about nobody getting away!”
Maria sighed softly and wrapped her arms around herself. So it was exactly as she had feared and suspected: someone was following them, and had been following them long before they reached Shuloma Station, and they were getting close. They had been followed, and they had been found.
“Listen,” said Kit. His voice had gone low and Maria had to strain to hear. “You’ve got to help. You can’t abandon us! Not after everything I... No,
you
listen! My wife, my little girl—for God’s sake, she’s only four! No, I know that you said I shouldn’t... For God’s sake, what kind of a man do you think I am...? Yes, yes, it probably was because I went back. But I wasn’t going to leave them, was I? They’d have been murdered—”
Maria clutched herself more tightly. So he’d had the chance to get away without them, and he hadn’t. But that delay was the reason they were in trouble now. It’d given whoever was chasing them the chance to pick up their trail...
“You’ve got to help us!” Kit’s voice was getting hysterical. “No, I don’t want to put you in danger. But you’re
already
in danger. What you know
puts
you in danger... No, you listen to me! I’m not playing around now. If they catch up with me, I’ll tell them! I’ll tell them it was you!”
“Mummy?” Maria looked down. Jenny was tugging at her arm. “Why is Daddy upset? Is he sick?”
“No, sweetheart, but he’s very tired. Like you are.”
And me too,
she thought,
tired and very afraid.
She forced a smile onto her face, then reached into her pocket and drew out her little gold handheld. A gift from Kit for her last birthday: fashionable, and more extravagant than they could really afford. He could be silly like that, sometimes. “Hey, sweetheart,” she said brightly, passing the device over, “why don’t you draw me a picture of Monkey? Show me what you think he’s doing now. I bet he’s got into some kind of trouble!”
Jenny, thrilled, seized the thing and jumped onto the bed, hunkering down happily. Maria pressed herself back against the door.
“You can’t threaten me with anything worse than the trouble we’re in now, you understand that, don’t you...? You’ve got to find them somewhere safe.
Really
safe... No. No. I know. But that’s the way it is... Okay. Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.”
There was a pause—while the other person spoke, presumably—and then Maria heard Kit sigh and move. The call must have ended. Quick and light as a feather, she hopped onto the bed beside Jenny and began to admire the child’s picture.
The bathroom door opened, but Kit didn’t speak straight away. Maria looked up and saw him standing in the doorway, one hand pressed against the door frame, the other tugging at his upper lip. She smiled at him. “Everything all right, love?”
“Yes,” he said. “I think things are going to be all right now.” He gestured to her. “Quick word?” he said. “In private?”
She joined him in the bathroom and he closed the door behind them. She thought:
What would he say if I told him I’d been listening? Would he be angry? Relieved?
But she wouldn’t tell him. His pride... She would leave him his pride.
“This place,” he said. “It’s not safe. But I’ve found somewhere else.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Not back to the Expansion, I guess.”
“No,” he said. “No chance of that. Still here, on the station.” He took a deep breath. “Maria, there’s something else...”
She put her fingers gently against his lips. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to say it. I know what you’re going to say.” She took hold of his hand. “I love you, Kit Emerson. I loved you the first time I set eyes on you, when I thought all you could see was Katie Levinson in that stupid tarty skirt.”
He laughed—couldn’t help himself. “Sweetheart, I didn’t even
see
that skirt!”
“So you say!” They were both laughing now, and crying, all at once. She loved him so much, and this was goodbye.
He was pressing a datapin into her hand. “Here’s the address,” he said. “It’s not far, but—”
“We’ll need to take the long way round.”
He leaned back to look at her. “Ah,” he said. “I see.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I shouldn’t forget how smart you are.”
“When it comes to you and that little girl, I know everything.”
He tapped the datapin she was holding. “There’s more than an address on there, Maria. There’s an explanation. That datapin. It explains everything. I can’t tell you... And please, don’t look, don’t look...” He shook his head. “Someone will contact you, I’m sure about that. They’ll want what’s on the datapin. When they get close, it’ll give you a signal. You’ll know they’re close, and you’ll be able to trust them.” He folded her hand around it. “Keep it safe, sweetheart. It’s cost me...”
...everything. “I promise,” Maria said. “I’ll keep it safe.”
“You’re not going to ask any questions?”
She kissed him, full on the mouth. “I trust you, love. With my life.”
In a halting voice, he said, “I know where the place is, if things go well here...”
She shushed him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. We’ll stay as long as we dare, and then we’ll move on.”
“You can’t go home, Maria.” He had started to cry—noiselessly, tears slipping down his face. “You can’t go back.”
“We’ll make do. We’ll cope. Haven’t I always made a home for us, wherever we’ve been sent?”
He pressed her hand. “On the datapin. There’s a number you can contact. But only if things get really desperate. I’ve called in so many favours to get us this far...”
She kissed him gently on the cheek and then turned to Jenny. “Hey, sweetheart! Daddy needs to get some sleep. Let’s go for a walk!”
It was a measure of how bored the little girl must be that she was off the bed in a trice, grabbing her mother’s hand and pulling her towards the door. But it broke Maria’s heart all over again. Kit started to say, “I’ll come and find you—” but she stopped him before he could finish with a finger on her lips. She grabbed one of their still-packed bags, and was out of the door in no time. She looked up and down the long corridor, but there was nobody to be seen. She put the datapin into the handheld, and a series of directions began to unfold. She tugged at the strap of the bag until it was comfortable on her shoulder, then turned Jenny round to face the right way. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s see what we can find.”
She led her daughter away into the unknown, and she kept a brave face on all the time while the little girl laughed to see all the new strange things in the strange new world crowing all around them.
Goodbye, Kit. I love you. I’ll love you for as long as I live, and I’ll never let Jenny forget you.
W
ALKER ABANDONED HER
reading on her handheld and stretched in her sling. Failt, who had been sitting on the floor next to her, as close as he could get, shifted to accommodate her. She looked down at him, curled up on the floor, staring at Yershov. Yershov was slumped in his sling, eyes closed, drumming his fingers against his chest and muttering profanities under his breath. After Failt had been brought up from the hold, there had been a short but very thorough and professional search of the flight deck and Yershov’s cabin. The alcohol was now under lock and key, as were Yershov’s painkillers, subject to Walker’s control and administration. Yershov shifted slightly, and Failt gave a low growl.
Then there were three,
thought Walker. And a happy little band they were.
“Why are you here, Missus Delia?” said Failt, suddenly. “You don’t belong.”
She looked down at him. His gruesome little face was staring up at her.
Missus Delia.
She had no idea where he’d learned that form of address—perhaps it was something his overseers had insisted on—and she didn’t have the heart to correct him. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re not Reach-people. You’re not slavey and you’re not boss.” He glared at Yershov. “Him now—he’s slavey if ever I met one. But you? You’re like boss—I bet when you say things people do them, and I bet that sometimes you’d have them hit if they didn’t do what they were told. But you’re not bad like the bosses.”
That, thought Walker, was a pretty good assessment; apart, perhaps, from the final qualification. “Thank you,” she said.
“So why are you here?” said Failt. “You should be home with famblee.”
“With what?”
“Famblees,” Failt said. “Isn’t that what they’re called? The human kids, sometimes, they talked about famblees. Two big ones and a handful of little ones altogether overground in one big room. Sounded nice.”
Families.
Christ
, thought Walker,
out of the mouths of babes
... “Well, Failt, I’m looking for somewhere.”
“All of us looking for somewhere. So what you looking for in particular?”
Walker sighed. Her searches through the datanet were proving fruitless, not least because her access to the more informative parts had been revoked. All her resources had disappeared—including her mode of working. Still, it was what she knew, and she couldn’t stop now. The procedure at the Bureau when your analysis reached an impasse was to stop and present your thinking to a colleague, in case a fresh mind could see a way through. Walker was pretty short on colleagues at the moment. A runaway Vetch child would have to do.
“Have you heard of the Weird, Failt?” she said.
He swung round to face her, his little body suddenly all screwed up in tension. “Have I heard of them? Everyone’s heard of the Weird, missus, even us underground! Everyone’s scared they’re coming!”
Well, at least she didn’t have to explain that. “Back in the core—”
“What’s that?”
“The core,” she said, slowly. “That’s where I come from. The main human worlds—”
“You’re from there?” Failt goggled at her. “The big rich worlds?
Said
you weren’t slavey! If I was from there, I would never have left. You should go back home, missus!”
“Perhaps I will, one day. In the meantime, do you want my story?”
Failt hunkered down. “Sorry, missus.”
She rubbed the back of his paw. “I’m not cross. Just teasing. Anyway, back in the core, we heard rumours about a world where humans and Weird are living together.”
Failt shuddered. “Bet that weren’t good for the humans.”
“That’s the thing—it was good. It’s co-operative.”
His tentacles twitched. “What’s that, missus?”
She sighed. “I mean, that on this world, the Weird aren’t absorbing the humans. They simply... live alongside each other. Like humans and Vetch do now.” More or less.
“Like you and me.”
Walker smiled. “That’s right, like you and me.”
“I haven’t heard of a place like that, missus. Sounds make-believe to me.”
Walker sighed. “I’m beginning to think that may be the case.”
They were quiet for a while, and then Failt said, “There’s a story on Shard. Everyone told it. About someone who used to smuggle people off Shard and take them away, take them away to be free, not make them work till they drop like the bosses do. They went to a safe place to ‘live-in-peace-and-harmony.’” Failt chanted that in a singsong voice, as if the words were memorized rather than understood. “I thought that sounded nice, so I kept on asking. Some people said it was a trick, the way for bosses to find out who the troublemakers were. Show up those who were going to try and do a runner so that they could be put down below, as deep as deep can go, and could never ever get away ever. But some people said it wasn’t a trick, it was true. And then others said be careful what you wish for. They said, ‘live-in-peace-and-harmony’ wasn’t always as good as it sounded. Like the Weird-folk, those people who been done over in the head. They think they’re happy, but they’re not. They’re slaveys like everyone else, only they don’t complain any more. But I don’t know what was true.”