alt.human (15 page)

She spent the nights cowering away from curfew patrols with the homeless, and returned to the Square every day, following Callo’s instructions. She had nowhere else to go.

The streets radiating from the square were full of bars and clubs, and it made Hope think of Tween, back in Angiere. The mix was different here, though. There were far fewer humans, more aliens, more that was strange to Hope’s eyes. She had felt at home with pierced Emerald, who had become something of a friend and guide. She had even felt comfortable with Marek and all his petty cruelties. She had understood those people, she had known how to get the right responses from them.

But here... she did not know what to make of a club where grey-skinned, bug-eyed aliens went to have their skin painfully flensed with metal graters, or where liquid was poured on a creature that was something like a slug on many legs, the liquid attracting a seething mass of bugs to eat the creature’s flesh. She was strangely disturbed by the alien scabs that latched onto buildings and watched everything that passed with individual slow-moving eyes, colours flashing across their crusty surfaces. She did all she could to avoid the humans she came to know as nearly-men, the ones with dead emptiness in their eyes and alien growths on their bodies, with twitching faces and limbs and naked bodies covered in scars and filth and bruises.

She kept a low profile, sleeping among the soulless and homeless on a tract of wasteland where a block of buildings had been razed. That scared her, too. Had she come to another city that was being subjected to the same kind of assault as Angiere? Would there be an end to this, other than inevitable destruction?

The only fixed thing in her life was returning to Precept Square for the middle of each day. And so she was there the day that Saneth brought Marek, Callo and two others through the transit station, and that was what set her on the path to Reed Trader.

Chapter Twelve

I
N THE MORNING
we sat in the great hall, drinking tea and arguing over what had happened.

I was exhausted. I’d spent the night with the others, herded into small groups on the roof terrace, penned in by jagwire, forced to stand while we waited to see what the watchers and their grunts were going to do with us. But catching up on lost sleep now was out of the question. Tensions were running too high. We were agitated, angry, scared. We’d lost Sol, Vechko, Jersy, Madder and the other elders, all taken up in the troopship, maybe never to return.

And somehow, I was the new elder, the new clan-father even.

“!¡
authority
¡! Enough,” I said. I hadn’t shouted, but still my clicks and words cut through the din and everyone turned to look at me.

It was in that instant that I started to believe that maybe they had turned to me as leader because they had some kind of faith in me, rather than simply because no one else wanted it.

“!¡
reasoning
¡! It’s no good sitting here arguing,” I said. “We were caught unprepared last night. We can’t let that happen again.”

“Tell them about Angiere,” said Divine.

She was right. Not everyone here knew the full story of the coastal city.

I nodded. “Sol was starting to prepare us,” I said. “Trying to pull the clans together.” I told them how raids like the one we had suffered last night had been only the start of things in Angiere.

“!¡
sceptical
¡! But how do we know that’s what’s happening here?” said Jemerie. “Why should we even believe what those four !¡
condescending | dismissive | insulting
¡! tell us about a city none of us have ever even seen? They were here last night, but they managed to avoid getting taken, didn’t they? Just what are they doing here?”

“!¡
patient
¡! We don’t have to believe a single word they tell us,” I said. “But answer me this. Would it be worse to be prepared for an awful event that never occurs, or to be unprepared for one that does?”

Jemerie wanted to argue further, but Pi stopped him with a look and a slight shake of the head.

“How do we prepare?” she asked. “!¡
scared
¡! What do we prepare ourselves for?”

“!¡
patient reasoning
¡! Last night...” I said, “we were exposed. Everyone was out on the roof terrace together, just waiting to be rounded up. We can be sure we’ll get raided again. We can’t make it so easy for them next time they come.”

“Everyone was out there, yes,” said Jemerie. He was a thunderbolt waiting to strike, his body a coiled ball of energy; twitchy, muscles taut, eyes wide and staring. “But who managed to get away, eh? The four so-called refugees from Angiere! How convenient was that? Who set that up, eh?”

“!¡
guilt
¡! It was Ruth and me... our coming together,” said Divine. She was tending Ruth’s bloodied face with a damp cloth, tenderly cleaning the dried wounds. “It was all our fault that the clan was so exposed.”

“!¡
assertive
¡! But whose idea was it that we all party in the open air?” said Jemerie, returning to his theme.

“Mine,” said Callo, appearing in the doorway.

Everyone turned to look.

“Sol said it was your coming together, Divine, and I said what a beautiful thing that was and that we should celebrate, not hide away. I thought it would be an affirmative gesture in difficult times, to celebrate what is good. !¡
guilty
¡! I’m sorry. I was wrong. It was no set-up. It was a misjudgement. No more.”

Jemerie still wasn’t satisfied. “!¡
aggressive | confrontational
¡!–”

“!¡
admonishing
¡! Sol got us away,” Callo continued, cutting Jemerie off. “She heard the troopship, realised what was happening, and bundled us into the nest before we could do anything. There was no conspiracy, young man. There was just one good nest-mother who was quick-witted and salvaged what she could from the situation. If the watchers had found that you were harbouring us, it would have been so much worse.”

“!¡
matter-of-fact
¡! So what do we do?” asked Divine. “How do we prepare?”

“!¡
calm | authoritative
¡! We spread ourselves out,” I said. “We know they targeted particular clans in Angiere, and now it seems to be our turn. We should never all be in one place at the same time. We should move around so that there are no predictable patterns to our whereabouts. We should post watch at both nests, all day and all night. We have one big advantage: the caves. We can use those to get about and to escape, if only we get enough warning.”

I paused, my head reeling.

“!¡
tentative
¡! We should continue Sol’s planning,” said Divine. “Contacting the other clans, giving them a chance to prepare too.”

I nodded, even though my only attempt to do that had ended up with clan-father Frankhay’s wrist-knife at my throat.

Callo nodded as she came over and sat with us. “!¡
sceptical | doubting
¡! All good,” she said, her clicks denying her words. “You can, and should, be better prepared for a raid like last night’s. But what will you do when they come with some weapon or creature, or both, that can chase you through the caves, something that can hunt you down? !¡
urgency | fear
¡! What will you do when they burn everything in this Ipp to glass? Will the caves protect you then? Will look-outs and escape routes save you?”

I glowered at her, willing her to stop.

It was bad enough that she was saying these things in front of everyone, when it had been all I could do to rouse them and stir their fighting spirits.

It was worse that she was merely echoing my own thoughts.

She met my look, challenging me to disagree.

I remembered the last time I had looked into those eyes... Callo peeling herself open, revealing her true nature, showing me that all was not as it appeared.

Who was she to be dispensing advice to us? What was she? She had said she was our protector, but could I believe that?

“!¡
frustrated
¡! So what do we do to prepare for a full-on onslaught?” I asked, adding, “!¡
harshly cutting
¡! What did you do in Angiere?”

“!¡
patient
¡! We moved people out,” she said. “We identified those we needed to save and we started to move them out. We didn’t move as many as we should have soon enough. When the last days came, it was all we could do just to escape ourselves. And even then !¡
deferential
¡! we needed help.”

“!¡
shocked
¡! You’re saying we should leave Laverne?” asked Pi. “But why? Why are they doing this?”

“The ones who don’t want to wipe us out altogether?” said Callo. “Maybe they
want
us to sort ourselves out, sifting out the few with the will to survive from the dull masses, the trogs and the nearly-men. Maybe it’s some kind of selection.”

“If we want to survive, we have to earn it,” I finished for her. “!¡
challenging
¡! But where do we go? You left Angiere, where they were hunting you down, and you came here, where they’re hunting you down. Where is there that they won’t be hunting us down?”

“Where did the others go?” asked Divine. “The ones you helped escape from Angiere. Did they come here?”

Callo shook her head. “!¡
tentative
¡! They headed east,” she told us. “To a place called Harmony. A city where humans live as equals with others. A city where we don’t subsist on the scraps of other cultures. A city of twisting spires, in the mountains a long way east of here – I don’t know how far.”

“!¡
disbelieving
¡! You’re saying we should leave?” I asked. “Leave here for a city you’ve only heard rumour of?”

“!¡
patient
¡! If it reaches the point that we must leave Laverne,” said Callo, “will you have a better alternative?”

W
E STAYED AND
discussed the options, and slowly the conversation wound down, all of us exhausted and angry and scared from the events of the night before.

After a while Callo rose and went to the water channel to refill her cup.

I followed her. There was a question I hadn’t wanted to ask in front of the others. Jemerie had already been open in his hostility to, and suspicion of, the four refugees from Angiere. I didn’t want to fuel his divisiveness.

“!¡
discreet
¡! Where are the others?” I asked her now. “Marek, Lucias, Pleasance? Where’s the chlick who got you through transit and then pretty much vanished? Saneth – where’s Saneth?”

“!¡
factual reporting
¡! They’re out there,” said Callo. She took a sip of her water, and then continued: “They’re out there in the city, doing what I have been doing here. Preparing the ground. finding people who have that spark of difference, people who might just have the spirit to survive.

“!¡
trust-inspiring
¡! You know I’m different, Dodge. This is what I do. This is what
we
do.”

I didn’t ask the one remaining question.

Why should we trust you, Callo Hart?
Why should we trust you when you pass as a human but are not, and when you appear to know far more than you ever let on?

S
OL WAS RETURNED
to us a few days later, just as the city was starting to tear itself apart for good.

I was sitting with Divine, Pi and Jemerie in a chamber just off the main hall in Villa Mart Three. Jemerie had come in with stories of fighting in Satinbower, some kind of attack against Satinal clan in retribution for their close relationship with the watchers.

Humans fighting humans. This was the way things were going. So much for Sol’s plan to unite the clans: the pressures were setting us at each other’s throats.

Just as Jemerie was telling us what had happened, one of the pups came in, a pony-tailed boy of about seven years. One of Jude’s kids, I thought.

Big-eyed, he stood in the doorway, twitching from foot to foot as if unsure whether to say something or run. Then he caught Pi’s eye and she gave him a reassuring click and he said, “Hey, people... Hey, people, have you seen the
city
?”

He wouldn’t say any more, just scampered off into the depths of the nest, leaving us to make our way up to the terrace.

The afternoon sun was blinding after the dim light of the interior and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust as we walked across to the wall, where Ruth and a few others were gathered.

Ruth pointed as we approached but there was no need. Black smoke hung over the city to the west.

“!¡
shock
¡! Is that Satinbower?” asked Divine.

I nodded. Jemerie had just been telling us about Satinbower... the reprisals. An attack by a neighbouring clan, was what people were saying.

Through the smoke I could see troopships buzzing about and it wasn’t clear if they were responsible or merely monitoring the situation.

I looked down at the ground. It was hard to believe this was happening.

Then I remembered my responsibility. I had to offer some kind of lead.

But, just as I opened my mouth to speak, not even knowing what words I might find to turn this situation around, there was a sudden loud drone, heavy engines, motion, and a troopship reared its bulbous head over the crag at the back of the terrace.

“!¡
urgency | command
¡! Cover, everyone. To the caves!”

We ran, and this time everyone reached the entrance to the caves in a moment. I hung back, the last to retreat. The troopship was dark green, smudged with black as if it had flown through fire. I wondered if it had come from the trouble in Satinbower, although it was hard to see why it would come here from there.

Three door panels dematerialised on the troopship’s flank. Floating pads popped out, mounted by a handful of grunts. On the central pad, a chlick officer stood with Sol.

I stood facing them, my back to the cave entrance.

The pads floated down to the terrace and landed, just as another emerged from the troopship, this time bearing Jersy, Madder and Petro, accompanied by two more grunts.