Ragamuffin (41 page)

A day ago he’d been getting ready to fight for his life and was not sure he’d make nineteen hours.

The doors clunked open and men in deep blue armor walked in. Mirrored visors on protective helmets looked around.

They had red fists as an emblem over their chests.

One of the suits of armor puffed over, and the mirrored helmet slid open. A Slavic woman with short hair tapped her chest with three fingers in front of Pepper.

“On behalf of the League of Human Affairs I salute you,” she said. “Your incredible work has inspired many to throw off their shackles and rise up against their oppressors.”

Pepper stared at her. John had left with Nashara and the
Toucan Too
to return to Nanagada. He wanted to see what damage had been done, and what would be needed down on the surface.

She looked slightly discomfited by Pepper’s stare, but continued, “We are proud to offer you a medallion commemorating this historic event.”

Many high-ranking Ragamuffins had died, along with their ships. The remaining Ragamuffins that could fight clustered around the wormhole, checking traffic and stopping any but Ragamuffin ships from going to Nanagada. That irked the League.

But not enough for them to try to cross into Nanagada. Pepper had told Danielle in a brief meeting that New Anegada, or Nanagada, whichever one preferred, was Ragamuffin. It would not be joining the League of Human Affairs.

Though they would work with them. The League’s uprising had just begun, there was a long war for human independence in front of them.

Pepper took the medallion and pocketed it. “I need a ride to Nanagada.”

“There is a ship docked here for you, a
Takara Bune
.”

“Thank you.” Pepper grabbed the crate and moved.

“What’s in the crate?” the woman asked.

“None of your business.” Pepper floated out of the cavern with one last look around.

“Sir?”

Pepper wearily turned. The woman clenched her fist and held it up. “Humans first!”

Pepper licked his lips. Then held up a fist. “Sure.”

The human calculators had sat throughout the entire thing, staring at the abaci in front of them and waiting for their next instructions.

The Ragamuffins had won this battle, but somehow the League had come in and taken the clear victory away. It felt like a loss, Pepper felt, to hand this all over and walk down the corridor.

He didn’t like that at all.

Several League soldiers bundled him and the crate up in a vacuumproof baggie and tossed him out across a line to the
Takara Bune
.

Inside the lock, Pepper ripped his way out to find a small man waiting for him.

“I’m Etsudo.”

Pepper shook his hand. “Thank you for the ride.”

Etsudo cocked his head and looked at the strap of the medallion floating out of Pepper’s pocket. “You got a medal too?”

“Yes.” Pepper took it out. He clenched it in his fist and squeezed until it folded in half, then he tossed it into the grating. Let it blow out the next time the air lock opened to the vacuum.

“We’re tossing the line now and heading for New Anegada,” Etsudo said, and the ship rumbled as it accelerated.

Pepper touched down to the floor. Nashara appeared, projecting herself in front of them both. “Grandpa!”

“You seem to be everywhere these days.” Pepper walked up the ship’s center core.

He decided to skip going to the cockpit as he found the small galley. He rooted around the freezer locker and grabbed a dish. He pulled the top off and watched it heat as he squeezed into a seat.

Pepper wiggled his hands and pointed at the locked drawers. “Fork?”

“Yeah.” Etsudo fished one out.

“The League is asking everyone to rise against the Satrapy. With the
Gulong
they can close down wormholes to strong Satrapic areas. Already aliens are being deported from some heavily human habitats for those areas. They’re calling it ‘firewalling.’ They want to create a human government, and
human worlds.” Pepper looked down at the potatoes and gravy and wrinkled his nose. “What do you think the problem with that is?”

Etsudo leaned forward. “We can shut these artificial borders, but even at sublight speeds, sooner or later, we will deal with other species, and creatures stronger and more powerful than ourselves. If we don’t have models for dealing with this that don’t involve all-or-nothing antagonism, we will, not now, but one day, become extinct as a species.”

“Exactly.” Pepper stabbed the air with his fork. “Exactly.”

He looked around the
Takara Bune
.

Nice ship.

N
ine days had passed since Jerome’s death.

John stood in the garden, the Wicked High Mountains just peeking over the trees, the distant boom of seawater hitting the rocks by the road regular and almost reassuring.

He looked back at the sea of faces. Friends of Jerome’s, such as Daseki and Swagga, shook his hand and walked on. Friends of the family came from all over Brungstun, the small town, dressed in their best.

Nashara stood beside him, with the dinged-up mobile unit using wheels to follow her up to the graveyard.

The priestess, dressed in her robes and colorful earrings, handed John the jar that she had declared held Jerome’s spirit.

Everyone followed John down the road, to the point where it crossed with the path leading down to the beach, and John threw the jar in the crossroads where it broke.

The crowd sighed.

Kara stood there after the crowd dispersed, looking tired. The first day on the surface she’d stumbled around a lot, staring up at the sky, falling to the ground as she adjusted to the perspective of standing on the surface of an entire world. They’d given her drugs for mild bouts of agoraphobia that left her huddled inside rooms at times. “Why did you throw the jar?”

“Here they believe his soul was in it,” John said. “When we smashed it by the crossroads, we released his spirit to the land of the dead, where it belongs. It’s old Vodun, strong in these parts of Nanagada.”

“And you believe this?” Kara cocked her head.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe.” John smiled. “It’s a ritual. It’s . . . somewhat therapeutic. It’s important to many that came here today.”

“John?” Kara’s voice trembled. “Jared still isn’t here yet.”

John looked at her. “He’s on his way.”

“If he’s dead, I’d like for you to tell me. Don’t treat me like a child. I’m not a child.” She looked straight at him, like a small soldier.

Nashara walked over just as John reached out and put a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “I swear he’s alive, Kara. We’re going to go see him as soon as he arrives.” He looked up at the sky. “The League is doing a good job. They’ve stopped the fighting out here, and Jared will be able to come to you soon.”

She stepped back. “Okay.”

But she didn’t look convinced. She turned and walked back up the road toward John’s Brungstun house.

He hadn’t been there in years, but had cleaned it out and given Nashara and Kara rooms.

“She doesn’t believe you,” Nashara said. “She assumes the worst.”

“She’s seen the worst,” John said. “When are you going to be leaving?”

“I’m loving being here, for now. I’d like to stay a little while and relax, unpack everything, you know?”

“The room is there for you as long as you want it.”

This time Nashara grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, things are going to be okay.”

John smiled. “I keep telling myself that.”

And soon enough, he might even start believing it. He turned to go walk back up to his house, leaving Nashara near the shards of glass.

P
lanets were beautiful, Nashara decided. She spent every day of the next week luxuriating in just trundling around with the mobile unit: walking off into the bush, smelling the mango scent on the wind from John’s backyard trees, and even going down into town to the market despite the stares she got.

And after a week, John started coming out of his shell.

And several days after that, he found her on one of the piers watching the boats bob at anchor in the harbor.

“You ever been sailing?” he asked.

“No.”

So John helped her into small boat that shook alarmingly and creaked. Water sloshed around the bottom.

The wind was brisk, but it didn’t seem to bother John when the whole boat tilted over as they sailed out. Nashara swore and grabbed the mobile unit, in case they got dunked, but he laughed and let one of the ropes out, and the boat leaned back to normal.

They sailed far out past several reefs, to a private sandy beach, where John shouted in surprise as Nashara let herself fall backward and hit the cold, turquoise-clear water.

The
Toucan Too
was parked several miles away, near a massive clearing outside this small town that perched on the rocks near a natural harbor. Her brain sat inside it, she knew that. It broadcast itself through the mobile unit, and her sensations were sent back to the ship’s lamina by her body, with its Chimson-manufactured implants. It was all an illusion.

And yet, unless she actually chose to sever it, it felt real enough to hold her breath and fall away from the mirrorlike surface of the water until her back hit the sand.

Yes, this felt good, she thought. Felt right.

She was going to stay on Nanagada. Stop moving.

This was home.

S
omeone shook Kara awake. A large man, with a top hat, and dreadlocks, and a coat that seemed to swirl on its own.

She blinked. “Pepper?”

“Come on,” he said. “I have someone for you to meet.”

Kara followed him out of the medieval-feeling stone house, but before she got to the front door, Pepper grabbed her shoulder. “Do you like it here?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“John, and Nashara, they’re going to let you stay. Do you want to stay?”

She looked around. “I just want to find out whether Jared is alive. I don’t have anywhere else to stay, so it’s a stupid question.”

“Okay.”

Pepper opened the door, and Jared stood there with his stupid, dirty Raggedy Andy doll.

She almost knocked him over with her hug. “Thank you, Pepper, thank you. Are you okay, Jared?”

Her brother nodded. “I was scared you were gone too.”

“I know. Me too.”

“Where’s John?” Pepper asked her. “I need to talk to him.”

P
epper stood on the pier, waiting as they pulled in. His coat flapped in the wind.

“The
Lucita
,” he said, nodding at John’s boat.

“Where were you for his funeral?” John asked.

“Not here. And that’s all we’ll say about that.” Pepper leaned over and helped Nashara push the mobile unit out, then gave her a hand.

He lifted her up completely, then deposited her gently on the pier.

John tied the boat up, then jumped up himself. “I hoped you’d be there.” They’d seen so much together, and Jerome had looked up to Pepper like an uncle.

Pepper ignored it. He walked ahead. “I have something for you, John. A present.”

He led them to a small warehouse at the edge of town. Rows of doors ran along the palm-tree shade.

“Stay outside, Nashara.” With a boot he nudged the door open and walked in.

John followed him into the murk as the door closed behind them. Pepper clicked on a gaslight in the corner of the room.

A large crate sat on a bed of straw in the corner.

Pepper grabbed a corner and ripped it off with his bare hands and a grunt, then grabbed the top and tore it off, tossing it aside.

The crate fell apart, revealing the Teotl Metztli, sitting in its own filth and blinking at them. It mewled and scuffled back, pushing itself until it was up against the corner of the wall.

A fetid, rotten smell hit John.

Pepper slapped a gun in John’s hand. “I told you there would be a reckoning later. You insinuated just now that I didn’t care for Jerome, but don’t you ever make that mistake.” He gripped his hands over John’s on the gun and squeezed. “I forget nothing. This is my gift.”

John squeezed back, fighting back tears again. “You loved him too?”

Pepper brushed the arm away and looked away. “Wouldn’t go that warm and mushy, John.”

“You felt
something
.”

“I protected him. I protected him for you when I first met him. Kept an
eye on him later. And here I failed. I don’t like to fail. We should have left him in the bush outside Capitol City.”

“I know.” But then there he might have died too, attacked by Azteca, or by an accident, or by something else. There were no guarantees.

“Then there it is. That’s done. You have this, and I’ve done this for you.”

John shook his head, not sure what to say.

“There’s something else.” Pepper pressed something into John’s other palm. A broken vial.

John looked up. “Pepper. That’s genocide.”

“Maybe.” There was an expression on Pepper’s face. Anger? Or hurt. “You and I disagree about the League. So I’ll give you a question with that piece of glass. Do we choose to try and live with these aliens, or any aliens? Do we learn to adapt and grow with them, because more powerful creatures will come to us one day? Or do we go it alone, fighting to the brink and never pulling back? The Ragamuffin ships are creating a cordon near Chilo that they’re not allowing the League to pass through, because the League wants all the Teotl and their technology as well as whatever remains of the nest. They already have the
Gulong
, Raga won’t be giving them anything more. But that’s a big issue we need to solve.”

“Pepper . . . the vial.” John was more worried about that.

“Some of them will figure it out and quarantine themselves from other Teotl. It’ll just be a lonely existence for them.”

“I can’t . . .”

“Anyway.” Pepper walked to the door. “I did what I did. If you feel merciful, let the Teotl all know what I released, it’ll take a few weeks to make its way across the various ships and population centers, and if you tell them now, they can prevent the spread and live. But you can think about that later. First . . .”