Authors: Brenda Cooper
Ready for what?
“Two days is longer than I recommend.”
Marcus glanced at us. He looked as drained as I felt. “I bet we need two. Sim’s got to run forward ten or twelve hours before we know if we’re done here.”
“Could it have been that easy?” Stark mused. “A few days of work? And the fliers never got it done before?”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “A few days of work for us. Chance and others have spent years. It’s partly what they did that made it possible for us to do what we did. If we did it.” He glanced at me and Kayleen. “We don’t know yet.”
I nodded and squeezed Kayleen’s hand. We weren’t going to try anything again until we rested. It better have worked. It had felt like it worked.
Stark looked at us. “I’m sorry. Like I said, I wanted to spend some time with you all. I’m pleased to have you here.”
Kayleen’s face had gone white and her hand shook in mine. I wanted to hold her, to calm her, but I didn’t have the strength to move. I managed half a nod. There was no adrenaline left. I’d burned it all on the sim. My body didn’t care if the Port Authority and the Star Mercenaries and the bounty hunters were after me. Hell, it didn’t care if it took its next breath.
The table came up to meet my face.
D
arkness had transformed the Festival of High Summer to a sensory feast. As we slipped invisibly though the entrance, I stopped for a moment in a clear spot. Every tree branch or high protrusion of any kind had its hard edges dotted with multicolored lights. A soft yellow glow came from under the paths, as if they’d been built on light. Music rose and fell from multiple directions, drums and flutes and stringed instruments. The air was scented with wine and tomatoes and other fruits, and frying breads. I tugged Induan close to me, and whispered quietly, “It’s magical.”
All I got in return was sharp shushing sound.
Too bad she didn’t have a sense of wonder. But she was the trained strategist, so I shut up and walked fast and quiet toward where I’d promised Bryan I’d meet him. We passed Amile’s booth, still closed up. No sign of Jackson either, although his booth was open. A tiny blond woman chatted with customers across the table, a big smile on her face.
In another few minutes, we were near where I’d left Bryan. We couldn’t get close; impossible to stay invisible in a standing-room-only crowd. I climbed up on a tall rock, pulling Induan up behind me. From this vantage, we could see the performers, although they were still too far away to make out their features. A mixed band: human and fliers, two of each. The sight made me smile involuntarily.
In front, humans crowded near the stage, some swaying and stomping their feet to the music. In general, the fliers stood farther
back, needing room. All of the perches were full. Other fliers gathered in small groups. Rocks, like the one we stood on, often had fliers on them.
Pale light bathed the whole crowd, punctuated with the individual lights of features like chairs and a fountain, and with the bobbing moving lights of decorated hair and wings. Bryan’s blocky body should be easy enough to spot.
Nowhere.
Induan squeezed my hand and leaned in to me. “I’m going to look around. Stay here.”
So she could whisper and I couldn’t? “All right,” I answered quietly. There was probably no one looking for her. She left my side, and a few moments later I saw her emerge, visible, from a booth close to my rock perch. At first I tried to track her through the crowd, then I lost her behind a cloud of fliers and settled down to watch and listen.
The music sounded pretty good. I slid off my shoes and let them fall on the ground below, visible but not noticed. I stood on my rock and danced, liking the idea of dancing invisible. It felt good to stop worrying for a few moments and feel the wind in my hair and the stone under my feet, still warm from the day. The drums washed over me, rhythm, the flute adding melody. Even though the music was as bright and light as the music of the morning ceremony, it sounded better in the dark under the lights. I could never live with the Keepers under the hill, but I could run a booth here. It would be kind of like being a roamer on Fremont, only safer.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked from behind me.
I stilled.
“I hear you breathing.”
I turned and found a human woman I didn’t recognize looking quizzically in my direction. I leapt lightly from the stone to land near my shoes, not answering. Good thing, since a green-winged man landed right where I’d been. I used the noise of his landing to slip my shoes on and slide a few feet sideways, far from the woman. She stared at the top of the rock and the flier, until he said, “Excuse me?” and she blushed and stepped away.
I should be more careful. I spent the next few moments dodging people walking by. Induan didn’t reappear and I didn’t see Bryan.
Another two songs played before I jumped, startled by Induan’s hand on my arm. She’d become invisible again. She led me away from the crowd and whispered, “No sign of him.”
“Or Ming? Or anyone?”
“No.”
“Seeyan told me to find Juss.”
“I know where his booth is.”
“Take me.”
She didn’t answer but just went, her hand in mine slick with sweat even though it wasn’t very hot anymore.
Juss’s booth was near the center, just like I’d thought. It was a big square with bright purple and blue walls and silver display cases. Juss—if it was Juss in the booth—was a tall man with blue hair, a blue shirt, and a blue belt over black pants. I still wore my blue shirt, but of course he wouldn’t see.
He had customers; three Islan humans looking at clever metal pendants with small feathers. Most of the cases held similar items. One was all feathers, none the size of pinions, but some clearly from the bigger feathers that lined the wings rather than the small fluff that filled the other jewelry, or like Caro had gotten the first day we got here. He dickered with the customers a while, smiling the whole time. His face looked kindly, and his voice sounded gentle.
I didn’t trust looks.
I watched while two more sets of customers came and went. A Paradiser bought a long, slender mauve feather, which Juss set carefully into a wooden box that he wrapped in a red-and-gold ribbon. A failed flier with wing-bumps like Seeyan’s took a small trinket and leaned in a few times to talk to Juss in a tone too low for me to hear.
I crept in closer, waiting for the Keeper to go, ready to pop into sight and see how Juss took it. Induan would probably have a fit, but dancing on rocks aside, it was high time we made some progress. I looked around, checking to be sure no one besides Juss would see me. After all, I didn’t want to give Induan a reason to have a fit.
A tall slender woman came up the walkway to the booth with long, anxious strides, her face set in a worried look.
Seeyan.
I stepped back, bumping into Induan, who goosed me with a sharp finger.
Seeyan stepped up to him, glancing around just like I had been, as if making sure no one could overhear her. I tried to remember if she even knew we had the invisibility mods. Maybe not. Whatever. She leaned in. “Any sign of Alicia or Bryan?”
Induan slid an arm around my torso, pulling me in close.
Juss nodded. “They got in a fight down by the main gate—some idiot interface merchant down there heard about the bounty and was watching for them.”
Jackson and Amile were both interface merchants.
Seeyan picked up a small round pendant with a yellow feather in it. “Did they get caught?”
“I don’t know. Not then. I have four or five people out looking for them, but no one’s reported any sign.”
Juss still looked kind. I was beginning to doubt it. “Are Marcus and Joseph coming to save the day?” he asked.
“No.” Seeyan put the pendant down and picked up another one, this one a knotted string with beads and no feathers, although it had the suggestion of a feather’s shape in the way the knots fell. She held it up to her neck, looking in a mirror, a distracted look on her face. “Marcus is so focused on saving us that even Jenna being gone isn’t distracting him.”
Disappointment flickered across Juss’s face. “Joseph?”
“Does what Marcus says.”
Which I was fiercely glad of for the first time in my life, since it looked like Seeyan had been trying to trick them into something. But what? Chelo was the one who’d spent time with her. I knew Seeyan’s story—abused flier kid that no one wanted once she couldn’t fly. A lot of their stories were that one. But you’d think that would make her want the flier/baby situation fixed.
Seeyan put the pendant down and leaned into Juss, pecking him on the cheek. “Anything else for me to report?”
He shook his head. “I’ll let you know if we catch them. General Loni called asking, and she sounded unhappy.”
“Yeah, well, I am, too.”
I couldn’t ask who that was, but I filed the name away. General Loni. A woman.
Juss’s booth seemed to appeal to Islans since two more came up. Seeyan turned away, and he spoke to her back. “Be careful, little one.”
Whatever was going on, he cared about her. The tone of his voice made that clear. He turned to the Islans, and I noticed he seemed to know one of them. But Seeyan was getting away. She might lead us right to Jenna and Paloma and the others. I pulled Induan after me, following Seeyan.
Induan didn’t complain.
I expected Seeyan to leave the festival. She didn’t. She went on through the middle, along the back of the concert where we’d failed to find Bryan (and where I still didn’t see him when I spared glances into the crowd), and through the crowd, carefully, until we came to a series of long, low buildings that looked like small warehouses. A few open doors supported that theory; boxes of goods stood stacked inside one, and another one had huge blocks of wood that would probably become fodder for another day’s sculpture.
Seeyan’s palm unlocked a gate in a tallish wooden wall and she slipped through a door. Before the door closed, I slid a finger in the last bit of opening, biting my tongue to keep from crying out as it tried to shut on me using some automatic mechanism. There must have been a safety built into it since it stopped, my finger trapped neatly and me swallowing hard with tears bunching in my eyes.
The door swung back open—undoubtedly helped by Induan, and we slid inside and let it close. Seeyen, steps away, looked back quizzically, but then shrugged and kept going.
Only then did I breathe out. Good thing my finger was invisible. Surely it was swelling and bruised.
Inside the big fence was a small compound of four or five buildings, a few tables and chairs and, here and there, perches. Dim lights set the buildings’ shadows and the perches’ shadows into each other at odd angles, and gave a few of the perches multiple shadows. Seeyan slid through a door into the nearest building. We didn’t make it inside before the door closed behind her.
Induan and I stood still, watching. The dark shape of a dark-winged flier took off from one of the buildings farther away from us, soon lost to view. That explained all the lighting around the festival; a way for fliers to avoid running into obstacles. From this distance I couldn’t tell if it was Tsawo. I wouldn’t think so, but I wouldn’t have expected Seeyan to be selling us short either.
Two people walked around the grounds together, talking in low tones. They were dressed in dark clothes and wore soft shoes. Guards?
A flier passed close enough over our own heads that I ducked when I felt the wind in my hair.
We needed to move. The windows in the building Seeyan had gone into were covered; I didn’t hold out much hope of seeing anything of interest. I tugged on Induan, angling us toward the building the flier had emerged from.
We made it two thirds of the way to the building before the guards, on another round, seemed too close to us for safety. I stopped, keeping my breathing down. Induan’s breath was barely audible, but her hand on my arm was warm and reassuring. Two other people walked by, too close for comfort, and I was glad we’d stopped. After the way seemed clear again, and the building we were headed for was between us and the guards, I started us forward again.
As we got closer, building details resolved. The outside was a dark color, blue or blue-gray, and it had small windows that looked like they might also be covered. Light leaked from the bottom of the windows, and from under a plain door. It was shaped slightly more like a house than a warehouse, but still one story and low-slung. The thickness of the roof on the side toward us indicated it was probably still wide open to the stars, and fliers. Flower beds butted up to the walls, most of the plants low and controlled, except along one side, where wide-leafed plants with tall-stemmed slender bells of flowers crept up trellises, scenting the air with something too-sweet that threatened to make me sneeze.
A rush of wings behind us made me turn and look around. The guards stepped around the side of the building and the two people who had passed us earlier now flanked us, too. We were inside a circle.
Uh-oh.
Our would-be captors stared at each other, except for one of the fliers, who looked right at me and Induan. He had gray eyes that clearly saw us. Or since they didn’t meet my gaze, saw where we were. How?
He pointed at us, and the wingless walked slowly nearer, surrounding us, their eyes wary.
Induan’s hand slid off my arm.
She didn’t need to tell me. Go in different directions.
But where? The four were close enough to leave little opening. I’d been trapped before. It wasn’t going to happen again.
The other flier had bloodred wings trimmed in gold. She was short for a flier, with cropped red hair to match her wings and gold pupils in her eyes. The gold in her wings sparkled even in the artificial light, and probably reflected sunshine almost blindingly when she flew. She watched the gray flier, admiration clear on her face. The guards and the others all looked at us, at where he pointed, and even though their slightly off gazes told me they couldn’t see me, I felt naked under their eyes. Prey. But she wasn’t even looking for us. So I charged her.