Half a mile down the road, I slip forward and tell Anton our change of plan. His group’s on its own from now on. At least, that’s how it will look to those watching. Anything happens, we’re there. Otherwise, Leona and I don’t exist.
Anton is in Sef’s hands for directions.
As Simone and Sef argue which route to take, we slip away. Simone has the brains, and Sef the sickly sweetness Anton finds so attractive. They both have that high clan smugness that makes me want to slap them.
Voices come from an upper window as we cut under an arch.
A dozen men talking, maybe two dozen. The voices mute as Anton, Sef and Simone pass without seeing us. I can’t shake the feeling they’re being watched, as they turn down streets that change their names halfway and bicker about which side of a square to walk.
As if it matters.
Blank colonnades stare at them as they tramp across flagstones.
Sef and Simone’s constant arguing, all done too loudly, and with an obvious high clan accent, acts as their passport. I hear men in a garden behind one of the walls. They fall silent. Just as the men in that upstairs room fell silent. Although two guards peer through a small gate.
Leona and I freeze.
The men stare at Anton and the twins. Anton nods, Serafina wishes them a good evening and Sef waves.
Still muttering, the men disappear.
In a courtyard beyond, troops wait. Fifty soldiers, maybe more. Sergeant Leona’s seen them too. Anton doesn’t notice. He’s too busy listening to Sef complain that her route is better. Although, as Simone points out, as they’re almost there it doesn’t really matter.
‘Fuckwits,’ Leona says.
Don’t think I’m meant to hear that.
Slipping after them, we find Anton, Sef and Simone standing by the river. They’re admiring its blackness. At least Sef is. Anton’s merely agreeing how very black it is. While Simone’s look is unreadable.
Should have known Vijay would have a mansion round here. For all that the river is stale and stinks, these are still the most expensive houses in the city.
‘I’ll go ahead,’ we hear Simone say. ‘Make sure it’s safe.’
We follow her.
She’s good, Leona. Moves swiftly, efficiently and silently.
Makes me wonder if she’s really militia. I’d have her pegged as elite, if I didn’t know the elites only take men.
‘Sir,’ she whispers.
‘What?’
‘Back at Paulo’s . . .’
‘You did see a blade?’
She scowls, then smiles when she realizes I believe her.
The sergeant and I are close enough to smell each other. And I notice the way her fringe slicks to the side of her head.
Another thing I notice is that the badges are cut from her uniform. I’ve only her word she’s a dispatch rider. Although why would anybody bother to lie about a thing like that?
‘On Paradise,’ I tell her, ‘people used ice daggers all the time.’
‘You were a guard?’
‘A prisoner.’
I watch her reassess me.
‘Sir,’ she whispers, ‘what do you think is going on?’
Her question takes me back to an evening a month earlier. Another soldier, although one of my own this time. The same hot wind and smell of stale sweat. I’m in the slums on the upper slope of the crater, staring down at the centre of a city that celebrates Indigo Jaxx’s promotion to Duke of Farlight.
Behind me, my bar is crowded.
A goat turns on a spit over a fire pit. The girl rubbing black pepper into its crisping sides is Aptitude. She doesn’t know I’ve asked OctoV for her parents’ freedom. She thinks this is her life now.
Maybe things should have been left like that.
As I sit, and watch the fireworks explode above me, the soldier next to me drains the last of our shared bottle and rests her head on my shoulder. She wants to know what I smell on the hot night wind.
Her, obviously. Although I don’t mention that.
People stink in the barrio. People stink on campaign. They stink in the desert. Face it, people stink anywhere they’re expected to exist without water. So I tell her the night smells of dog shit. Also, leaves, flowers and weeds. Plus a bush sour enough to be thorn. My childhood was ringed with razor thorn. This is less vicious, but no less pungent.
Shil nods, says she’s identified them as well.
It occurs to me now she was just making conversation. The way women sometimes do. So they can listen to you talk. At the time I thought she really wanted to know.
‘There’s something else,’ I tell her.
She looks interested.
Something ranker than all the other smells put together. It tugs at the back of my throat and wakes the kyp, making it spasm so violently I want to vomit.
‘What is it?’ Shil asks.
I’ve never seen the point of lying.
‘Trouble.’
And here, as soldiers hide in the shadows, and conversations still in upstairs rooms or behind the high walls of high clan houses, and Anton and Sef flirt, and Simone hurries towards the gates of a darkened mansion, I know I was right.
Trouble was what I smelt on the wind that night.
I smelt tonight waiting for me.
Don’t know how. Only know it’s true. The stink of unborn violence thickens the streets like cheap scent. Without thinking about it, I say the prayer for soldiers going into battle. Sergeant Leona looks across.
‘You think we’re going to die?’
My shrug asks if it matters.
From the look on her face it obviously does. So I toss her a fresh grin and add, ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’
Farlight’s volcano was extinct before machines landed to make earth from rubble and begin the process to create atmosphere. Drunks joke about it blowing again. No one expects it to. And yet, if ever a city felt on the edge of exploding, it’s this one. As Aptitude says, Farlight is proof ignorance isn’t bliss.
If it was, we’d all be happier.
Simone can’t see us. Because we’re in shadow, and she’s not looking. Nor is the man who opens the gateway to greet her.
‘Took you long enough.’
‘Little bitch is with me.’ This is her sister Simone is talking about. Like I said, most families are more trouble than they’re worth.
Morgan looks at her.
‘Don’t ask,’ Simone says. ‘She had back-up.’
‘Supplied by Luc?’
‘Imagine so. Where’s her fiance?’
The U/Free shrugs. ‘Not here, anyway.’
‘He must be.’
‘I’ve searched.’
She grabs his arm. ‘But-’
‘Don’t you understand?’ Morgan hisses. ‘He crossed the river before curfew. Looking for Serafina.’
‘So he’s still trapped?’
‘The bridges are shut. The boats are all on this side. Paper’s locked down airspace until tomorrow. What do you think?’
Sounds like more than a lovers’ quarrel to me.
A couple of soldiers appear at Morgan’s side. City militia. Armed with Kemzin 19s, body armour and night helmets, visors flipped up.
One of them asks a question. Morgan nods. They disappear.
I’m thinking this is getting interesting, and Morgan is opening his mouth to say more, when Sef comes hurrying up. With Anton following. They don’t see us either, and they don’t see Morgan swap his scowl for a sympathetic smile.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Vijay isn’t here.’
Sef’s lips tremble.
At the last moment, Anton resists wrapping his arm round her shoulders. Just as well. The U/Free is watching closely. Stepping forward, Morgan holds out his hand and his smile widens.
Anton shakes.
‘Don’t think we’ve met.’ Morgan’s voice is casual, friendly. The impatience and anger we heard earlier is gone. Reminds me how dangerous he is.
‘No,’ says Anton, smiling. ‘I don’t think we have.’
Morgan can demand a name or let it go.
‘Anton is a friend of Vijay’s.’ Sef’s voice is bright.
She’s got over her disappointment at not finding her fiance at home. Grasshoppers have better attention spans. This is what happens if you inbreed for generations, with an emphasis on looks. You get beautiful little idiots.
‘Really?’ says Morgan, his voice thoughtful.
Simone and Morgan exchange looks. ‘You should go,’ Simone says. ‘It’s going to be a busy night.’
The U/Free scowls at her.
Sef is oblivious, of course.
As for Anton, he’s so busy looking at Sef’s magnificent chest he barely notices Morgan leave. It’s possible he’s running a clever bluff. But I wouldn’t stake my life on it.
Wars have good and bad sides.
The good guys fight for freedom, justice and most words that don’t put food on the table. The bad fight to scrub those words from our speech. Only problem is, both sides claim to be good.
Stay with me, there’s a point to this.
Now, I’ve seen cities after the Uplift finished with them. I’ve walked down alleys the Silver Fist have filled with ripped-open bodies and stepped over the dead children who’ve had their brains cored. I’ve seen braids sprout from the skulls of sobbing captives as the Enlightened virus corrupts flesh to metal.
And if I haven’t raped children myself, or tortured dogs for fun, when all the humans are gone and animals are the only thing left, then I’ve looked the other way while people on my side did so.
I’m not saying we’re better. I’m saying we’re not worse.
The United Free are meant to be better.
They have no emperor or hundred-braid to issue orders. Death is not their automatic punishment for disobedience. They are a commonwealth, united in their love for art, culture and freedom. Concepts that never trouble our glorious leader, or his triple-damned enemy Gareisis.
Kite-flying is a career for the U/Free. So is breeding goldfish, or collecting ancient silicon chips, ferox furs or every kind of jade in the galaxy. Most of which they own anyway. Their ships rip holes in space to arrive before they leave. No one carries a bigger stick or speaks more softly.
We believe we’re the good guys.
The Uplifted believe the same.
Only the U/Free know they’re on the side of right and justice. And they don’t need fancy words to make up for lack of food on their tables, because the Commonwealth of the United Free is the richest civilization ever to exist. Their tables put food on themselves, and their clouds rain to order.
You think I’m joking?
I went to Letogratz once, their capital.
It’s vast and crowded and full of buildings that turn into what you want them to be. Most of the women spend their time discussing poetry, parties or politics. The men waste their lives building elaborate kites.
Almost everyone is bored out of their skulls.
Until I met Paper Osamu, I believed the U/Free were better than us.
It was as simple and non-negotiable as the fact that the sun rises and the sun sets. Now I know the only reason the sun never sets on the U/Free is that Legba doesn’t trust them in the dark.
They’re just richer and better armed than us.
Although it helps that they talk nicely. Morgan has the morals of a rattlesnake. That is, no morals at all. He feeds, he lies in the sun. If threatened he bites. He’s just not used to lowlifes like me.
Who hit back.