The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (38 page)

"We will see if Hold House has any surplus," Diem said, but Eon shook his head.

"You know they don't..."

"I don't know anything until I ask directly."

Eon's laughter bordered hysterical.  "They don't!  Of course they don't!  Ice House and Hot House would be the places to ask, and you know neither of them will help us!  They aren't going to insure our numbers, when they are Hope Marketing themselves!  We will be the ones with shortages!  They're going to take Karma!"

But Eon's gaze swung to Maeve and the man beside her.  His eyes narrowed, his features became pointed and shrewd. 

"But we do have humans now, Diem.  Fifty-three of them," Eon said.

"You are not selling any of us!" Maeve hissed at him. 

"What's this all about?"  Steven asked.

"The Plutians are trying to start a human trade.  Selling humans for servants."

"To who?" 

"The other planets," Diem said.  Steven stood perfectly still for one moment and the next, he was lying on the ground at Maeve's feet, out cold.  Maeve stepped over him to get to Diem, standing chest-to-chest, her defiant face tipped toward his chin.

"You are not giving up any of my people," she said.  Eon stepped in close too. 

"It's better than starving, isn't it?" he said. 

Diem stood firm between the two, both of them seething as they stared at him.  Diem moved Eon back with one hand, but left Maeve standing near him. 

"No human will be given to the Plutian harvest," he said.  "Not one."

***

When Steven came to, he wanted to gather Maeve in his arms.  He had imagined himself doing it, but the scenario had been a million times different, with him pulling her lifeless body from the collapse of pebbles and weeping over her.  That she was standing beside him and he could nearly see up her skirt as she did, was a thousand times better.  But, then it all came back to him as he saw the two mountains of men hovering at either side of her, talking nonsense about aliens selling humans, as if this were some ridiculous sci-fi movie.

Steven tugged on Maeve's ankle.  "Tell me this is a joke."

She glanced down at him, caught his gaze flicking away from the edge of her skirt and moved away. 

"It's not," she said.  She added a little bit of a glare.

"Casper should be up here," Steven said, getting to his feet.  "He'd love to play along."

"It's not a joke," Maeve said.  Her tone nearly separated him from his spine.  Solid and strong, he realized in a blink that she wasn't fooling.  Somehow, this was the real thing.  He scanned around, noting the dragon that hadn't advanced across the field first.  Then, he inspected the weird trees.  The melted leaves.  A rickety shack across the way.  Maeve drew his attention back, motioning to the gun at the feet of the one Steven had shot.  "How many of those do we have in the Archive?"

Steven shifted his weight from one hip to the other.  There were things you didn't speak of
—how much money you have in the bank, what the sex was like with your wife, and where you kept the guns that could blow the heads off the mountain men who were standing beside Maeve.

"There are more?" the one closest to Maeve asked. 

"Tell him what we have, Steven," Maeve pressed.  When Steven hesitated, she snapped, "They're on our side, for God's sake!  I know there were at least a hundred guns in that room down there, but you know the exact count.  I know you do.  Tell Diem what we've got."

Diem was the one who had already grabbed Steven's throat and now Diem stepped forward like he was going to do it again.  Steven shuffled backward.

"About two hundred and ten," he squeaked.  Diem stopped. 

"I've heard of guns, but never seen the weapon work.  How do you fire it?"

"How?"  Steven grinned at the absurdity.  He was a gentleman and even he knew how a gun worked.  Sure, he wasn't confident in all the mechanics, and he'd never tried his skills aside from the shot he'd fired at the other man who took the gun, but when the other man scooped it up from off the ground, Steven squawked.  "Don't aim it at anyone for God's sake!  You're going to kill someone!  You point a gun and you shoot it, that's how it works!"

"Whoa, Eon!"  Maeve ducked out of the way, pushing the barrel to the ground.  She pointed to the chamber, describing how bullets were loaded and fired.  Steven listened, in awe, as Maeve explained technique, how to work the scope, how different guns and bullets were used for different purposes.  His jaw was loose until he caught a glimpse of how Diem was watching Maeve in the same way.  The man was also enchanted.  Steven clamped his jaw shut with a grumble.

"The Plutians have venom, but this gun could shoot further than they can," Eon said.  His face broke into a grin.  "We have a chance."

"We have to dig down to your people," Diem said, but Maeve stood in his way.

"Give me your word, that no one from the Archive will be hurt or handed over to the Plutians."

To his credit, the man didn't hesitate.

"I give you my word, that I will do everything I can to keep every human safe," he said and Steven cringed at the tenderness with which the man looked upon Maeve.  "But I can't tell you what will or will not happen.  This will be a battle.  I don't know what the Plutians will do.  We have some dragons, but I don't know what the Plutians will bring.  We may have your guns, but they have weapons too.  We may all be sold in the end.  We may all be killed.  I don't know what our fate will be, but I will promise you...I will die before I let it happen."

"Good enough," Maeve said.  "Let Steven and I go back down into the Archive and tell the others what is happening."

"No," Diem said.  He pointed to Steven.  "He can go, but you stay."

"They might not believe St
even," Maeve argued.  Steven balked.

"Why wouldn't they?"

Diem quirked an eyebrow at Maeve.  "Yes, why wouldn't they?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Sure. Fine.  Go.  Go and tell them about aliens taking over the Earth.  They'll beat you bloody."

"I'll take back some leaves, to prove I've been up here," Steven said. 

"Here," Maeve stepped forward, sliding her eyebrow ring free.  She put it in Steven's hand.  "That might help."

Steven saw how Diem watched every move Maeve made and how the man also kept tabs on Steven's muscles as he got near her.  Steven noticed how Maeve's lips twitched, how her eyes widened, how she was just as aware of the other man as he was of her.  He glimpsed her short skirt again.  Steven shuddered.  It was quite obvious now that Maeve probably hadn't returned because she had been up here doing that man. 

Steven realized in that instant that any feeling Maeve may have ha
d for him had completely died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Final days of Hot Season Six, Year 2095

Maeve watched Steven disappear back into the hole.  He stood in the lowest point of the excavation and his feet disappeared, then his legs.  Steven slowly sank away, into the rocky quicksand.  Maeve found it jarring to watch his face disappear, right after he screeched, "I'll be back!"

No matter how creepy Steven could be, the moment he was gone, Maeve felt unnaturally hollow.  As if she were homesick at a sleep over.  She thought of the others in the Archive, and even though she barely knew them, she suddenly thought of them as a warpy little family—Steven, Amber and Amy, Casper, Nearly Dead Dave, Phil the braggy Centurion.  As Diem and Eon and Forge righted the spindling to conceal the hole where Steven had just disappeared, Maeve found herself wanting to slide back down into the Archive behind him.

It was crazy to miss anyone this much.  She was sure they weren't thinking of her.  But she couldn't stop thinking of them.  She had to get a damn grip.

"You watch the hole, I'll take the dragons to Phuck," Eon said. 

"When you finish up there, head back to Fly House, alright?  I'll keep Phuck away from the eggs, but I want a close eye on Breathe and Karma.  And Journey," Diem added.  "He's Linked to Breathe, so he's my family too."

"You think the Plutians are going to try something, even with the full shipment?"

"I do," Diem said grimly.

Eon nodded.  "Journey's going to hate me hanging around him.  He's crustier than an ol' heathen."

"Yes, he is.  Just be quiet about it."

"Like he won't notice.  No matter how old he gets, that ol' Taleor is still sharp as a dragon's claws." 

Diem laughed, but it sounded hollow.  Maeve wondered if Diem might be a little homesick too, being out here in his shack with her when his House needed him.   She preferred to think they were both just homesick for the Earth like it used to be.  Or how it should be now. 

Eon guided four of the six hens away into the spindlings, with a call that had the small dragons following behind him as if they were enchanted.  Trust and the remaining young sheathen stayed behind.  Forge nudged the remaining young further into the depths of the cave. 

Maeve watched the other
dragons go; she'd never been good with goodbyes.  She didn't cry.  She wouldn't.  But she felt the loss of them as their tails disappeared among the spindlings.  It took a moment, after they were gone for her to meet Diem's eyes.  She felt them on her, studying her, waiting for her to notice him, but she kept her gaze elsewhere until her eyes stopped stinging. 

"That makes you sad?" he asked.

"No."

His lip jumped, as if he would challenge her answer, but he hesitated.  He rubbed his jaw.

"Are you hungry?" he asked instead.  The sexy timbre of his voice sent darts of hunger ripping into her.  But this was a particular hunger that even a whole warehouse of food could never cure. 

"Yes," she said. 

"Then let's go."  He gave a whistle and Forge snorted from the opening of her cave, but didn't come out.  Trust poked his head from the opening and Maeve smiled.  "Tell him to stay," Diem said.

"How?"

"Make the whistle that means stay. The one that will always mean it."

"How do I remember which one is which?"

"You make up your mind," he said.  Somehow, those words made it clear.  She did a short, sharp whistle.  The small dragon's ears flattened as its head sunk to the ground. 

"He's like a dog," Maeve said.

"A dog?  What was a dog like?"

"Smaller," Maeve said.  "Hairy.  They didn't snort fire.  They wagged their tails, or licked you if they liked you
—bit you if they didn't."

"There is so much to learn about you."

He held out his hand and she took it, but when he led her past the shack door, she tugged him to a stop.  She assumed they would go inside and eat his warm gorne cereal.

"Where are we going?"

"To get some food.  I want to show you how we do it," he said.  His smile was so inviting, she let herself be led through the trees.  They walked until they reached a huge pond.  Diem took Maeve to the edge where the water drifted onto a pebbled beach and a grouping of boulders.  He put his hands on her hips.  It could've gotten interesting, until his muscles flexed and he tried to lift her to the flat top of one of the three boulders.

"Stop," she said, slipping out of his grasp.  "What are you doing?"

"You're going to want to be..." he began, just as something padded out of the water behind him.  Maeve caught the movement from the corner of her eye.

"There's something behind you..." she said and then she saw it.  It was a fish, she first thought, that skittered up from the water on four, long, webbed paws.  The grisly thing shook itself dry as Maeve stared in horror.  The animal had the face of a rat, but a w
ide, dark fin ran down the mangy, gray fur of its back.  A barb was embedded in the sharp tip of its whip-like tail. 

The thing turned toward Maeve and Diem and hissed.  That was enough.  Maeve scrambled up, on top of the boulder, all on her own.  This was Diem's world and she was going to let him handle it.

"Ahhh," Diem said as he faced the animal.  "They know it's the last day of Hot Season too.  The ratfish are ready to bite."

Maeve stood on the boulder, wishing she could get even higher and wishing Diem would join her.   The thing hissed as it advanced on Diem.

"Get away from it!" Maeve shouted. 

"It's just a little ratfish," Diem laughed. "I don't want to get away from it. I want to catch it, so we can eat it."

"I'm not eating that thing!  It looks like it has rabies!"

"What's rabies?" Diem asked as he and the animal began to stalk a shifting circle around one another.

"It's going to bite you!"

Diem laughed again, but he didn't take his eyes off the thing.  "It's going to try.  It's the last day of the season and they're going to be under the ice soon.  He wants to tear off a good chunk of me to feed his family through the seasons.  Let's see if we can make this work."

"Make what work?" Maeve howled.

Diem made a funny sound, a low growl like a chica chica chica in his throat.  Another ratfish emerged from the water.  Then another. 

"There are two more!" Maeve hollered.  "They're getting around you!"

"That's what I want," he said.  She was sure he had lost his mind.

"They're behind you!"  She was helpless up on the rock, pacing over the tight space in a furious panic.  The animals circled Diem, growling as they gnashed their razor teeth.  Maeve yanked off one of her boots.  Diem glanced up at her.

"What're you doing?" he laughed. 

"I'm going to bash at least one in the head!"

"Stay up there, I'll be fine," he said, just as one of the ratfish lunged for his calf.  B
ut Diem was faster than a lightning strike.  He jumped clear of the first creature and the second lunged.  The two animals collided, instantly clamping onto one another.  They twirled, growling between their set jaws, twisting to strike one another with their claws and tails.  The last fish launched itself into the pile. 

Diem held his finger to his lips, signaling Maeve's silence as he skirted the whirling pile of fighting ratfish.  There was a loud snap.  One of the animals dropped, limp.  The remaining two fought only a moment more and then there was a second snap!  Another one of the animals fell dead and the last standing snatched up the closest corpse by the tail. 

"Oh, no you don't," Diem jumped toward the live ratfish as it dragged one of the two dead animals backward, toward the edge of the water.  Diem brought his boot down on the tail of the dead animal, near the live creature's snarling teeth.  The live ratfish unclamped from its dead prey and lunged at Diem's foot, attacking the protective toe of the boot.  The second the animal clamped on solidly, Diem lifted his foot and with a hard flick, sent the ratfish flying.  The thing landed, out in the center of the water, with a plop.

Maeve couldn't even move as Diem turned and picked up the two dead animals by the tails.  It was the most bizarre
road kill she'd ever seen.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's go eat."

He waited for Maeve to put her boot back on and slide down off the rock.  She kept her eyes on the waterline as she did, in case more of those things came up on the shore, but the top of water remained a smooth pane of glass.

"I don't want to eat those things.  I don't even know what I just saw," she said as they walked back into the spindlings.  She was jumpy now, startling and ready to kick something's ass at every twig snap, sure that ratfish were going to rain down on her from the trees. 

"That was ratfish trapping," Diem said.  "If you can get at least two on land, they'll do the work for you.  Wait until you smell them cooking.  You won't be able to resist them."

"I bet I can," she said.

"We'll see," he said, with a tilt to his mouth that made her lips itch to investigate.  She was a little disappointed that he didn't propose a more interesting bet that she might be happy to lose. 

***

Diem knew what he was talking about.  He dressed the ratfish and dug a small pit outside the shack.  He brought out a fire seed and his chair, setting it down beside the fire and motioning Maeve to sit.

"You can watch as I cook for you," he said.  He was more than shocked when she obliged him and eased down on the chair.

"I hope you're not thinking of this as a cooking lesson," she said.  "Because I'm never going to cook for you."

He chuckled, his eyes sweeping over her once before he went back to placing the ratfish on a crude rotisserie over the spot where a fire would be.  "No, you won't," he said.  "You are built for doing much better things for me than cooking."

"Fuh..." The curse dwindled on her tongue with one sharp look from him.  Her eyes flashed; she wasn't going to be shut down either.  "Funny," she substituted with a sour, but playful, glare.

She watched as he ripped a piece of the fire seed from its pod.

"What is that thing?" she asked.  She was all eyes and nose, he thought, her curiosity enchanting.

"It is fire seed," he said.  He dropped the piece of the wrinkly, bloated pod into the pit.  He stomped on it and jumped back, out of the way, just as the fire blazed up as high as his knees. 

Maeve watched as he positioned the spit more precisely over the fire.  He could feel the heat of her gaze moving down his back.  The thought of it made him twitch in his pants, until her stomach growled.  Dessert would have to wait.  He dragged a spindling stump close to the handle of the spit, so he could twist the meat over the flames.  Maeve watched.

"That works the same," she said, motioning to the turning spit.  "People used to use those in the olden days."

"Olden days?  You mean during the time of the archaic Earth?" The phrase sounded funny to him and strange, considering how old she really was herself.  She only nodded.

"Yeah.  More archaic than me even," she said, staring into the fire.  It was sad to her how the term old had become so strangely relative.  "They used them waaay before I was even born."

"It's hard for me to imagine time before you."

She laughed.  "There should be more shame in your game.  Anyone ever tell you that you're a player?"

"No." 

"Well, you are."

"Is that good?"

She thought for a minute.  "Maybe."

"Good," he said with a smile.  He turned the fish and the smell rose up, delicious and heavy, as the oil dripped down from the meat, snapping as the fire swallowed it up.  Maeve sniffed the air.

"That's really weird," she said.  "It smells just like beef.  Like a steak."

"Beef was from cowes, right?"  The word bounced oddly on his tongue.

"
Cowes
?  Not
cowes
, it's cows," she said.  "You’ve never seen a cow before, have you."

He shook his head.  "Never."

"It's so different now," she sighed.

"Wait until tomorrow when Cold Season One begins," he said. "I'm glad Eon brought you some clothing."

"I'm used to seasons changing.  That's not different, except that you know the exact day it's going to happen."

Diem's eyebrows lifted as he turned the meat.  "We'll see."

The ratfish was done fairly fast.  Diem retrieved plates and gorne, mixing the gorne with some spices and water and cooking it over the fire until he'd made four round, raised rolls.  Maeve took the bun he offered her, but hesitated with the ratfish.  Diem took some in his own bowl and blew on it.

Maeve nibbled at the roll. 

"Do you like it?" he asked and she nodded.  He held out his fingers with some of the cooled ratfish meat on them.  "Try it," he said.

He didn't think she was going to do it, but then she leaned forward, her hair glowing like a halo in the firelight.  She closed her eyes.  Her soft, pink mouth opened to him.  Diem had to focus on feeding her instead of leaning in to taste her himself.