Outcaste: Book Six in the Chronicles of Alsea

by Fletcher DeLancey

  She was fourteen decks above the waterline, with a riot behind her and no easy way out. Quickly changing direction, she raced past the stairs and across to the starboard rail, looking for the lifeboats that hung below. If she could jump into one and then lower it into the water—

  The crew chief appeared out of nowhere, his lip bloody and a cut over one eye. “You’re dead, girl,” he snarled.

  He was much too big to fight in her condition. She was at the end of a very long day of hard physical labor, exhausted and weak and wishing that she hadn’t made a habit of leaving her stave at home for fear of losing it while working.

  She dodged and weaved, keeping out of reach of his massive arms, and realized too late that he was herding her toward an open section of the rail. When he lunged, she had nowhere to go.

  It was pure instinct to duck under his reach and wrap her arms around his body. But the additional weight did not stop his rush. It overbalanced him instead, sending them both over the edge.

  Hitting the water from this height would be no different than hitting a brick street unless she could get her body vertical. She let go of the crew chief, swung her legs down, and pointed fingers and toes toward the water. Wind whistled past her ears.

  The shock of impact left her stunned as all sound vanished and the water closed over her head. Her descent seemed endless.

  Far above, the ship’s spotlights gave her a target in an otherwise black world. She kicked up and used the arm-sweep stroke Mouse had taught her, powering through the water while her lungs strained and the need for air became urgent. She had almost reached the surface when a hand closed around her ankle.

  The sudden weight jerked her to a stop. She turned to find the crew chief’s pale face looming in the darkness, contorted with horror and pain.

  Terror lent strength to her exhausted muscles, but no amount of kicking could break his hold. She was desperate for air by the time her training overcame the blind panic. Curling into a tuck, she reached down, jammed her thumb into the pressure point between his forefinger and thumb, and leveraged her grip to pry him loose.

  It was like bending metal. She dug in deeper, ruthlessly gouging the pressure point, and almost sobbed when his hold finally broke.

  He grabbed for her again, but she was already kicking away. The last thing she saw before breaking the surface was his ghostly face, the black holes of his eyes staring up in accusation.

  She surged into the air, sucking in loud, shuddering breaths that were not enough. It took several lungfuls before her body reset itself, her breath still coming hard but no longer overwhelming her system. Gratefully she treaded water, watching the spot where he would surface.

  As the panic receded and her mind began working normally again, she realized that he was never coming up. More than two cycles of training had given her the control and instinct to position herself as they fell. Without that advantage, he must have hit the water at an angle or even flat. He would have broken bones, probably suffered internal injuries. While she was here, breathing the sweet, cool air of a summer evening, he was drowning in the depths of Wildwind Bay.

  It was justice, swiftly meted out by fate or Fahla. He had tried to murder her.

  She could not forget the black holes of his eyes.

  With one more deep breath, she turned and swam along the length of the ship’s hull, heading for the dock. Her whole body felt pummeled, and she wasn’t sure if the violent shivering was from the water temperature, the adrenaline drain, or the realization that she had watched a man die.

  It seemed to take a hantick before the dock ladder appeared in her vision, shining like a metallic beacon in the black waters. She gripped a rung, rested her forehead on the backs of her hands, and could go no farther.

  “Come on, warrior,” she whispered. “Get up and go home.”

  The water rose and fell as she clung to the ladder. Wildwind Bay was breathing, just as it always did and always would. It had taken a new victim into itself, but it had spared her.

  She breathed with it, recovering just enough strength to climb the ladder and sprawl onto the fragrant wood of the dock. That was far enough for now. She was safe. She could sleep for a few ticks.

  Perhaps she did; it was hard to say. But at some point she became aware of a new, flickering light to the left. Rolling her head to the side, she stared at the flames high above without understanding why they were there.

  When the realization hit, she sat upright. The riot. They had set fire to the ship. She couldn’t sleep here; this dock was going up in flames if the fire wasn’t put out. There were probably firefighters and City Guards and who knew what other officials and agencies on their way right now. She could not be caught, dripping wet and without caste ID, beside a vandalized ship.

  Energized by a fresh surge of adrenaline, she jumped up and took two steps, then sat down to hurriedly undo her boots and pour out the water. With much lighter feet, she trotted the length of the dock and slipped into the shadows of the bayfront road just before the first transports arrived.

  “Where have you been?” Mouse exclaimed when she opened their door. “Isn’t that the ship you were working today?” He was standing at the window, watching the fire. When he turned and saw her, his fear made her own heart skip a beat.

  “I’m all right,” she said as he rushed over.

  “You don’t look all right. Or feel all right, either.” He reached out, then drew his hand back. “We have to get you out of those clothes. Stay there, I’ll get you dry ones.” He almost tripped while running into her bedroom.

  Slowly, with fingers that weren’t working well, she undid her vest and pulled it off. The bulge in her inner pocket reminded her of what had set off the whole nightmare.

  When Mouse returned, she was staring at the two soggy envelopes in her hand.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She looked up at him. “Mouse. I’m done.”

  “You said you were all right,” he whispered, afraid once more.

  “I am.” She let out a wheezing laugh. “As much as I can be. But I’m never going back. Fifteen percent, Mouse. He died for fifteen percent.”

  14

  THE HONORABLE OPTION

  Rahel slept half the next day, just as she had planned in a happier time. When she woke, she neither visited Deme Isanelle nor sparred with Hasil. Instead, she went to Dock Thirty-One, cashed in one of her free salterins from Jacon, and ate her midmeal while staring across the water at the still-smoking remains of the ship she had loaded yesterday.

  Behind her, Jacon’s customers sat and stood around his food cart, chatting as they ate. No one spoke of anything but last night’s excitement.

  “Friend of mine worked that job. He said it was a girl who started it.”

  “The fire?”

  “No, the riot. Half those muscleheads never finished school; they didn’t know they were being hooked out of wages. Some girl figured it out and told everyone. Place came apart after that.”

  “I heard the crew set the fire,” said a new voice.

  “Nah, where’d you hear that?”

  “They were trying to keep the workers from leaving.”

  “By firing their own ship?”

  A gruff voice joined in. “Wasn’t the crew. Was an accident. Dockworkers weren’t getting paid, so they paid themselves. Started carrying out the cargo they carried in. Some grainbird grabbed a crate of oxygen cylinders, got as far as the corridor by the galley before checking the crate, then realized he couldn’t sell them. Got yanked and threw one into the galley.”

  “He threw a cylinder of compressed oxygen?” someone asked in a disbelieving tone. “On purpose?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, grainbird. Broke the valve, leaked oxygen.”

  “How would that start a fire?” asked one of the first speakers.

  The more educated voice spoke again. “The stove was probably on in the galley. Add concentrated oxygen to that, and . . . whoosh.”

  The gruff speaker adde
d, “Yeah. And that galley wasn’t exactly sparkling. Started a grease fire. Big one. Got into the vents, too.”

  “I’ve seen that,” said the educated speaker. “Those grow fast. You can’t put them out with water. You need the special equipment.”

  “Aren’t they required to have that in the galley?”

  Several people were amused at this display of innocence.

  “You think a crew that cheats its workers is going to keep all their equipment up to date?”

  “Yeah. They got what they deserved.”

  This was a universally approved conclusion.

  “They find the crew chief yet?”

  “Nah. He probably ran with the missing wages. They’ll never find him.”

  “Bet he’s halfway to Port Calerna by now. Time for a new shipping route.”

  The conversation drifted off as most of the customers finished their midmeals and began walking back to work. Rahel popped the last bite of salterin in her mouth and dusted off her hands, her gaze on the water.

  How long did she have before the body came back to the surface? She had read something about that in one of her ocean exploration books. It took longer in cold water, she remembered. Here in the warmer summer waters of Wildwind Bay . . . perhaps five days.

  For once, there was an advantage to being outcaste. There was nothing linking her to that ship or that job. Judging by the conversation she had just overheard, no one had seen her and the crew chief going overboard. She could probably go back to work on the docks without fear of being tagged for his death.

  But someone, somewhere would recognize her as the person who had started the riot. Her life wouldn’t be worth two cinteks if she were trapped on a ship with a crew that identified her. It didn’t matter that last night’s crew had deserved what they got; what mattered was that ship crews were almost a caste of their own. They did not take kindly to outcaste dockworkers starting riots that ended with a burned ship and a dead crew chief.

  She couldn’t go back even if she wanted to, and she did not want to. The past two and a half moons had been awful; last night was just the blow that ended her losing fight. She had to find new work.

  For several hanticks she sat there, gazing over the water and thinking. Jacon checked on her two or three times, but eventually left her alone.

  In the end, she had just two options. She could steal, or she could sell.

  Only one of those would allow her to retain her honor.

  Mouse had already finished with his afternoon client when Rahel returned to their apartment. He bustled around her, fussing and demanding to know if she had any lingering effects, but she shook him off.

  “I’m fine. But I need to ask you something, and I need you to take me seriously.”

  He frowned, then flopped onto the couch. “Taking you seriously now.”

  She sat next to him. “Do you think there are clients out there who would want me?”

  His every thought was displayed both on his face and in his emotions. He grasped her meaning instantly, hated it, understood it, and then accepted it.

  “Yes. Not the same ones who want me, but you don’t want the ones who want me.” His too-smooth brow furrowed as he added, “You don’t want any of them, really, but . . .”

  “But it pays a lot more, it’s better than stealing, and I won’t be exhausted every day. And I’ll have time again. Time to do the things I want to—that I need to.” She glanced out the window, where the late-afternoon sunlight sparkled on the bay. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. It’s just another job. And much better than what I’ve been doing. Even if I could go back to the docks, that job was . . .”

  “Killing you,” Mouse said.

  She nodded. “But I don’t know anything about finding clients, and, um . . .” Looking down, she finished, “I don’t know anything about joining.”

  “That’s the easy part.”

  His calm soothed her, enough for her to meet his eyes.

  “It really is,” he said with a nod. “It’s just physical. People are pretty simple in their needs. The hard part is the emotions. They’re in skin contact with you; there’s not much you can hide.”

  She understood. Physical contact bridged the empathic centers, bypassing the front in most cases and making it difficult to conceal emotions. It was why a palm touch was such an important part of a greeting, and why a double palm touch meant so much.

  “The thing is,” Mouse added, “they can’t hide much, either. Not unless they’re a high empath, and I don’t see too many of those. So the real trick is sensing what they want and giving it to them.”

  This sounded far more difficult than joining. She hadn’t expected it to be complicated. “How can you give them what they want if you don’t want it? They’ll sense it when they touch you.”

  “You’re just thinking about the physical part. Here’s the secret to being an illegal pleasure provider: your clients will assume that you don’t completely want it. If they wanted lovers who knew what they were doing—lovers who really want it—they’d go to the pleasure houses and get it legally. Otherwise, why run the risk of prison?”

  Rahel stared at him in dawning realization. “You mean . . .”

  “They want you to be reluctant. Maybe even a little scared.”

  “Oh, Fahla. That’s disgusting.”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is. They think I’m twelve or thirteen, Rahel. What normal person wants to join with a child that age? These aren’t normal people. That’s why I make so much. I join with five, six clients per nineday and I’m paying half the rent on this place, plus all my other needs. That’s six, maybe ten hanticks of labor. How many hanticks were you working on the docks?”

  Far more than that.

  “Fine,” she said. “So I can be . . . less than excited and that won’t be a problem.”

  He shook his head. “But you need to know the other part of it. Some clients want more than reluctance. Some want pain.”

  “They’ll want me to hurt them?” she asked incredulously.

  He gave her an odd little half smile and shook his head. “They’ll want to hurt you.”

  She remembered all of the times she had come home from work and seen him moving too carefully, sitting too gingerly. Her fingers curled into her palms. “I don’t think I can see those clients.”

  “They pay more.”

  “They—shekking Mother! You know it’ll happen, and you let them do that to you?” She could not do that. There was no possibility that she could tamp down her instincts or the skills she had spent the past two cycles training for.

  “They pay more,” he repeated. “Is it worth it to me to be uncomfortable for a few hanticks and not have to work for three days? Shek, yes.”

  “What happens when someday it’s not just a little? How will you stop them, Mouse? You’re . . . you’re trusting that they won’t take it too far!”

  “I carry the knife you gave me.”

  She remembered the large serrated blade she had taken off one of the first bullies she had ever fought. That seemed like a lifetime ago; she had much better taste in weapons now. She had given it to Mouse shortly afterward, telling him to stay safe, but never dreamed he might use it for this.

  “Have you ever . . . ?”

  “Only once,” he said. “Most people aren’t like that, really. I don’t want you to go into this with any fantasies, but you shouldn’t have nightmares, either. Most people just want a young, slightly scared child. They don’t want to hurt you. They want you to satisfy their need, and they can’t do it legally.”

  She dropped her face into her hands. “I thought it would just be physical.”

  “Nothing’s ever just physical when there’s that much skin contact. You have to be ready for the emotions, too.”

  “Ugh.” She took a deep breath and raised her head. “Fine. Tell me everything. Tell me how to do this.”

  For the next three hanticks, Rahel received an education on aspects of Alsean anatomy, bio
logy, and psychology that she had never even thought about. She spent the first half hantick in a state of horror at the reality of what Mouse had been doing since he was fourteen, but even the worst concepts were made easier by his acceptance. Mouse was long past self-pity. He was a sharp observer of behavior who effortlessly manipulated the needs of his clients while they thought they were taking advantage of him.

  At the end of a discussion on how to find clients and where to take them, Mouse said, “You wouldn’t have any problem finding them even without my connections. You’re just the right age—”

  “Sixteen is just the right age?” She had thought she might be too old.

  “Oh, sister. Sometimes you’re still a newborn winden. I have a very specific clientele, people who want a child. But you’re on the edge of that shift to adulthood. Sixteen is old enough to join with your lover from school and not worry about your parents killing them. Sixteen is when normal Alseans start exploring.” He put a slight emphasis on normal, and she had to smile with him. That was one thing they would never be.

  “If I’m a sin against Fahla,” he continued, “you’re a . . . a guilty pleasure. Not really acceptable, but not a true child, either. Which means there are a lot more people who will want you than want me.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” she muttered.

  “It’s good.” He looked her over with a critical eye. “Besides, that body will draw them in like fantens to the food dispenser.”

  “Well, that’s flattering.”

  He laughed. “Fairy flies to the winterbloom?”

  “Better.” Now she was curious. “What about my body?”

  “You’re very fit. And you’ve got that ‘just turning into an adult’ look. Count your blessings from Fahla that your breasts aren’t larger; that would ruin the effect. Red hair is rare around here, and those slanted eyes . . . You look like you come from Last Port. Very exotic.”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever thought of myself as exotic before.” She lived on the Whitesun bayfront; exotic was everywhere.