by Rachel Caine
If she was, it seemed to be working. “Why?” the biggest one asked.
“You have the look of knowledgeable beings,” Chao-Xing said. “And perhaps, interested in the contests conducted in the Pit?”
The four of them made a sound that reminded me of bones breaking. Took me a second to identify it as amusement. “Interesting approach,” the biggest said, and took a drink from a bot that swept in bearing it. “You have until I finish this to make your case.”
“Nadim,” I whispered. “Is this a her?”
“No,” he said. “Male. Use male pronouns.”
“How can you tell?”
“Do you really need to know now?”
He was right. I cleared my throat and said, pitched to carry to both Chao-Xing and Mr. Lizard, “Sir, how about if I buy everyone a round while you and my friend talk?”
“Sir?” The reptilian eyes blinked. He had two sets of eyelids, and this one was weirdly transparent. “You dare make assumptions of gender?”
“I’m not assuming,” I said as C-X threw me a half-desperate glance. “Sir.”
That earned me another bone-grating cascade of laughter, and Mr. Lizard drained the rest of his glass. He tossed it straight up in the air, and before it could fall (slowly, in this gravity), a bot whizzed in and caught it on its tray. “Better understanding than most newcomers. Your mynt to spend.” His inner eyelids blinked again. “What gender are you?”
“What, you can’t tell?” I shot back, and this time, all four of them hissed.
Taking that for approval, I headed over to the order terminal, and I was ready when the glow-dots encircled my head, just like they had for Beatriz at the first information board. Nadim had been right; it didn’t feel like anything at all. I wasn’t prepared for one of the hovertrays to zoom by and swipe a saliva sample from my mouth, though. Gaping after the thing, I turned as the interface listed the things it could synthesize that wouldn’t poison me. Sweet. After minimal reflection, I ordered two Fizzy Riffles, whatever the hell that was, and when I thought about the lizards, a new bar selection popped up. Incomprehensible name, but the word REORDER was next to it, so I hit it four times.
The terminal asked for payment. Right. I hoped that Team Leviathan had come to an agreement at the bank. I pulled out my H2, and sure enough, there was a message from Marko. We have plenty of datamynt, he said, and provided an account link. I quickly held the link up to the terminal, and it must have worked, because nobody came to evict my ass.
A message came up on the board. Order in preparation.
I headed back to C-X, who was making small talk with the lizard aliens. Not a sentence I ever imagined myself putting together. I nearly got my head taken off by a hovertray bearing two neon-yellow drinks with white smoke roiling from them.
The lizards were laughing again. C-X was holding her own, and somehow, she’d acquired a drink already. It was a vivid pink, like the lights outside the place, and a faint fog drifted off the surface and over her hand. She hadn’t touched it. Free drinks? Suspicious. We’d be lucky if they didn’t drug us and haul our bodies off for science.
“Nadim?” I asked. “Still with me?”
“Always,” he said. “The being you are speaking with is from a race called the Bruqvisz. They are known to be aggressive. I have never met one myself, but be careful.”
I grinned. “Why don’t I promise to be clever instead?”
A FRAGMENT OF A RECORDING SMUGGLED FROM THE SLIVER, REPUTED TO CONTAIN THE VOICE OF BACIA ANNONT
NOTE: The validity of the recording is in dispute. However, no member of the rare Biiyan race has been seen beyond the Sliver for a thousand recorded galactic grand rotations.
Biiyan Elder: . . . honored by the light of your regard, O Majesty, please allow gifts of rarest value.
[Indecipherable sounds]
Biiyan Elder: I freely gift all this to you, O Majesty, for the favor of your approval. How may I serve you?
[Indecipherable sounds]
Biiyan Elder: More I may not give without indenturing my people to Your Majesty’s service.
BACIA ANNONT: Then it will be so. You serve me now.
[Indecipherable sounds and screams]
Biiyan Elder: Then let it be so.
CHAPTER FOUR
Binding Promises
THE ROUND OF drinks arrived with a hiss of approval from the lizards. Two of them raised hoods at the back of their necks, which flared sunbursts of gold. I guessed/hoped they liked the gesture. C-X quietly replaced the pink drink on the hovertray and took one of the Fizzy Riffles. She passed the other to me. I wondered how we were supposed to drink through our masks, but my helmet feed said I could remove it briefly, though I’d soon suffer from the imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. I lifted it just enough to bare my mouth and tasted the concoction. It was both bitter and peppery, nothing I’d choose to have again, but low toxicity was an excellent quality in a place like this. Following suit, Chao-Xing downed hers like medicine, and even the lizard dudes seemed impressed.
“Cheers,” I said. They echoed it, though beyond the translation matrix, they might be bidding me to drink the blood of my enemies. At that point, introductions seemed natural. “This is Zhang Chao-Xing. And my name is Zara Cole.”
“Zeerakull,” he repeated. “And JongShowJing.”
I guessed our names had no literal translations. Close enough. Zeerakull sounded badass.
Then Big Lizard gave me their names in return: Followshome, Ghostwalk, Fairweather, and Suncross. He spoke them all so fast that I couldn’t match them with faces, but I felt 90 percent sure that the large guy speaking was Suncross.
“Now to business,” Suncross said. “Your offer of beverage has earned time. Go. Tell me why we risk fita to sponsor such . . . small creatures. The Pit is no place for weakness.”
“Small doesn’t mean weak,” C-X said.
That got a grunt in agreement. “True, true, I know fierce opponents smaller than you. But they have poison and more legs than two. We have a large fund of fita. Sponsorship splits your winnings with us, fifty percent. Need proof of your skill, of course.”
“Of course,” she said, and didn’t even lose the little smile she was holding. “But we keep seventy-five percent.”
I’d have started at ninety, but she was new at this. I kept quiet as they went back and forth . . . and then, I realized what Suncross was doing.
Misdirecting us.
When the one next to him—Fairweather, I thought—came out with a knife and lunged, I was ready, though I wasn’t looking. Didn’t need to be. I grabbed the arm, felt the scary-thick muscles tensing underneath, and let momentum carry the weight across the table, with me guiding the creature face-first down onto the floor. I grabbed the knife as he fell, and buried it point-first next to the Bruqvisz’s head. Good knife. It didn’t even break.
I’d like to say the bar went quiet, but in truth, we were totally ignored . . . except for C-X, who’d paused to look down at us, and Suncross, who’d jumped to his feet. The other two followed his lead.
I was leaning my entire weight on the point of my elbow at the nape of Fairweather’s neck, and the Bruqvisz was squirming. But not getting up. “Sorry,” I said. “Please go on.”
Chao-Xing looked at Suncross. Suncross looked at her.
And then he let out a low rumble of a growl, and I thought, Well, shit, had to go this way, didn’t it?
Then Suncross picked up his drink and raised it. “To a marriage,” he said. “Us to you.”
“Uh, what?” I blurted.
Suncross thought that over. “Partnership,” he said. “Is better? Sixty percent to you. Forty to us of any winnings. You will make first round, maybe second before you are taken seriously. Then . . . ?” He shrugged. “Then we see.” He glanced down at Fairweather and said, “Let my friend rise. He will buy drinks to seal this celebration.”
“I’m keeping the knife,” I said, and pulled it out of the floor as Fairweather rolled up.
&nb
sp; “Fair,” Suncross agreed. “Will take it off your percentage, though.”
“Come on.”
“Is family treasure.”
I handed it back. “So, how fast can we start in the Pit?”
“You are in a hurry?” Suncross sounded surprised this time, if the translator got it right. “Most not so eager for pain.”
“We’re not masochists,” Chao-Xing said. “We have injured Leviathan to care for. They are the only survivors of a Phage attack.”
Silence dropped on the table like a tarp. Suncross and Fairweather sat down, and as one, the four Bruqvisz’s hoods slid up and turned dark. “Was not aware,” Suncross said. “We mourn. The Singers are important to all of us. You are Honors?”
That startled me, and Chao-Xing too. “Yes,” she said. “We are.”
“Bonded?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will advance you the cost of healing stars,” he said. “A loan of fita, from the Bruqvisz. The Singers should not suffer.” There was some murmur from the other three, but Suncross rapped two of his four fists on the table, and it died down. “Is a great gesture for us. You understand? But you must repay in the Pit.”
I felt short of breath. The urge to blurt out yes nearly strangled me, but I stayed quiet. I could feel Nadim hovering on the fringes of my consciousness. Maybe he was listening. I didn’t know. But Chao-Xing was cool and formal as she bowed toward the Bruqvisz and said, “We take this as a matter of honor. How may we arrange this treatment for our ships?”
For answer, Suncross tapped Fairweather on the shoulder, and the other Bruqvisz left the bar. “Will return once order is placed,” Suncross said. “Do not let us down, little beings. Loss of fita is a serious business on the Sliver.” He took a drink of his new concoction and fixed his eyes on me. “Why the Pit? Why not safer way, like Sliver service?”
I shrugged. “This way’s faster.” I didn’t want to tell him the other reasons, like I like to fight and I’m not that good at taking orders, both of which were true. “You made a good decision,” I added.
Suncross grunted. More drinks arrived. The other Bruqvisz started to talk, finally, and I was surprised to find that they were discussing what sounded like . . . music. The merits of the terrible bar band we were enduring. Apparently there was a great deal of pride involved. It didn’t quite come to blows.
Fairweather came back in a few minutes and took his seat with a nod.
“Done,” Suncross said. “Your ships have healing stars as long as you win in the Pit.”
No pressure, right?
As soon as we stepped out of Pinky’s, I felt the vague connection to Nadim strengthen. “Hey, Nadim,” I said. “Did you catch all that?”
“The Bruqvisz have loaned you the fita to purchase the use of star baths for the two of us,” he summarized nicely. “I don’t like this idea of fighting for money, Zara.”
“You’d rather I do it for fun?”
“Zara.”
“Okay, point taken, but . . . look, we will run into the Phage again, right? You saw the effort it took for us to survive them. Sharpening my skills isn’t a bad move. Plus, if it earns you healing, armor, weaponry . . . I’m willing.”
I could tell that he wasn’t, not entirely, but he let it go. “Marko has located a possible source of medication for Yusuf.”
“Where?”
“Tier One,” he replied, and when I glanced at my H2, it showed the location. Amazing that their tech could integrate so swiftly with ours; theirs must have been incredibly advanced. I tapped Chao-Xing and showed her; she nodded and surged ahead.
I was a couple of steps behind as she dove into the grav well, and I admired the graceful arch of her body as she fell. It was amazing there were no midair collisions; traffic was pretty heavy. I picked my spot. Then I hit the tier selection and plummeted, wishing I could feel the freefall on my face, in my curls; the suit muted all that. I bounced twice on landing at Tier One, and then we headed for the glowing dot where Marko, Bea, and Starcurrent were clustered.
It was a junk shop, unsurprisingly. As we rolled up, Chao-Xing dropped a hand to her weapon and I was about to draw mine, because the last time I got this vibe from body language, Deluca’s man Enzo died in an alley. I couldn’t see Bea’s face, but the rest of her body language telegraphed terror. Marko looked tense as a suspension bridge. And Starcurrent was strobing colors down zis fronds like ze’d been plugged in as a glitter ball, tentacles waving all over.
The Abyin Dommas was saying frantically, “No, the human girl is not for sale. I repeat, not for selling.”
“Well, shit,” Chao-Xing said.
For once, she spoke for both of us.
The booth owner—a big, protean thing that I instantly nicknamed Blobby—oozed toward Beatriz, and she tried to head for the safety of the exit. It extruded a limb to block her path. In the flashing, glowing lights of the Sliver, the limb shone silvery on the surface, with flecks of gold and black tumbling inside like a living snow globe. Could have been pretty, if it wasn’t boxing in my friend.
“Hey!” I charged. “Appendages to yourself, and nobody’s for sale, get it? Nobody!”
Blobby retracted, rolled around for a second, then expanded again into an alarming explosion of sharply pointed spikes, a snow globe with anger issues. A growl rattled the metal around us, and I could feel the vibrations through my boots.
In my comm Nadim said, “Zara? Are you in danger?”
I registered his tension, struggling to keep myself calm. “Nope,” I told him, and was proud that my voice sounded so even. “We’re okay. We’re fine. Right, Bea?”
The last thing I needed was for two wounded Leviathan to decide they needed to charge to our rescue. The Sliver looked like a ramshackle wreck, but I doubted it was. And it certainly would have defenses suitable to protect the criminal activities conducted inside it.
Bea nodded. “Stand down, Nadim. We can deal with this.”
The translation matrix field cut in, and Blobby said, “I didn’t say I’d buy the thing. I said I’d rent it, squid.”
I was pretty sure squid wasn’t what Blobby had called Starcurrent, but it was probably an insult that had to do with tentacles. Close enough. Starcurrent’s tentacles flared out in a threat display, and instead of the strobe effect of anxiety, they went a thick, dark blue.
And sprouted stingers. Every single one of them produced what looked like a thin, curved spike. As I watched, liquid formed at the tip of one, and dripped off to the floor. I half-expected it to hiss and bubble like acid.
“Hey!” Chao-Xing shouted. “Put it away. We’re talking! That’s an order!”
I didn’t know that C-X had any kind of rank to pull, but it seemed to work; Starcurrent’s stingers retracted, and zis colors faded from a violent navy to a more serene, but still disturbed, blue. “Apologies,” ze said. “I will not see friends hurt again.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that Starcurrent, like Yusuf, was going through PTSD, but that was what it looked like: outsized reactions to stress and stimuli. I’d seen it in the Zone. I was willing to bet that Starcurrent hadn’t pulled those stingers out for years, if ever, but ze was shaken and prone to overreactions right now. Which nobody had counted on, least of all me. I’d thought of zim as the steadiest among us.
Blobby must have understood the value of de-escalation, because the spikes sank down, and the central mass expanded and formed something roughly bipedal. Roughly. It looked like dirty cooking oil inside a transparent human skin, which was severely not right, but I managed to keep my hand away from my weapon, though my fingertips ached to skim it just for reassurance.
“Tourists,” it scoffed. “Amateurs. Barter offer rescinded. I sell you nothing. Out!”
“Wait a second,” Beatriz said, carefully pushing past Starcurrent to put herself front and center. “What are you talking about?”
“Livesong,” Blobby said. “Lost my last livesinger to another booth. Nobody has heard your kind. Will draw bu
siness. Will trade information on healer for this.”
Marko glanced at Bea. “What do you think?”
She answered, a touch uncertain. “As long as it gets us the meds Yusuf needs . . .”
“This job come with fita?” I asked.
“Can,” Blobby said, very smoothly. So smoothly I didn’t trust a word of it. “I know those in high places.”
I didn’t doubt it. “How much?”
Blobby did not like that question, or maybe it just didn’t like me, because its form expanded again, and now the spikes were on hands and shoulders, and bristling like a beard from the vague shape of a jaw. “I offer legal employment,” it said loftily. “Fita is Tier Two.”
I muttered to Chao-Xing, “How many tiers are there?” She shook her head. “Nadim? Can you find out?”
It took him just a few seconds to reply. “Seventeen,” he said. “Tier Two is low.”
Chao-Xing smiled and said, “We’re strangers here, friend, but isn’t a fresh livesinger worth more than merely two fita? Many singers start at ten.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I whispered.
She kept it equally low when she said, “I don’t.”
She kept smiling and waiting while Starcurrent’s blue digits slowly faded to a color like Earth sky, and finally, Blobby plopped its aggressive spikes back in and said, “Eight fita is fair. But no more. Full work cycle of livesong, two breaks for nourishment. Contract renewable daily, either party can cancel. Piracy-proof field.”
I gave Beatriz a look. “Your call,” I said. “What do you think?”
“Three breaks,” she said. “And I decide what to sing. In addition to the fita, you introduce us to the healer who has the medicine we need.”
“Agreed,” Blobby said.
We were already earning fita, we had treatments for our Leviathan, and were on track to finding Yusuf’s meds. Sweet. This outlaw station wasn’t that different.
“Employment begins,” Blobby said. It sprouted about a hundred little appendages and began putting things out on the rough, uneven surface of the booth’s table—parts, pieces of shiny objects, tubes of liquid, nothing I could identify at a glance. “Sing.”