by Jo Anderton
"True, Uz, true," his brother answered. "We knew it was coming the moment he worked out who she was."
"You two." Sofia, face pale and hand shaking, made wobbly cutting motions in the air. "Stop it."
Kichlan seemed to be having trouble controlling his breathing. I watched a muscle twitching in his neck as he closed his eyes and squeezed his hands. "Where was I–?"
"Trouble," Mizra said.
"And a burden," Uzdal said.
"Brother?" Lad's voice was a small squeak in a room of loud voices. "Brother, please?"
If Kichlan heard Lad, he chose not to acknowledge him. "You–" he resumed his pointing-at-my-face violence "–should have listened to me. You're not too good to do what I tell you to, to come when you are called, to keep your mouth shut when I tell you to. To... to..." He seemed to have run out of words.
I looked straight into that red, panting face, and was calm.
Kichlan knew nothing about losing your temper. He did not understand putting the lives of others in peril. He did not know pressure, expectation, failure or horror. And he could not scare me.
"Have you finished?" I whispered.
The twitch started up again, fresh and violent. He opened his mouth; nothing came out.
"Then you will listen to me." I stepped so close his finger touched my forehead, just above my eyebrow. Right on a bandage. "Do not tell me what I think. Do not put attitudes in my head or words in my mouth."
"You–"
"No!" I cut across him, snapped at the air like I could bite it, like I could take a chunk of it into my mouth and tear at it with my teeth. "No! You have said enough. You will listen."
I was the head of a circle of nine, back in my life before Grandeur. I had kept the best under my control. The wealthy, the educated, the elite of the oldest families. This debris collector was a smudge on the bottom of my polished leather boot with the silver bear-head clasps.
"Whatever problem you think you have with me was yours before we met," I continued. "I fell far. I fell from wealth and status and you know that, and it eats you. Well, this is it. No more. Keep your attitude buried some where with your decency, somewhere the sun will never touch it. I don't want to hear about it again. The problem is yours, not mine. Not ours."
Sunlight glanced in through the narrow windows. A stray beam caught on the metal of an empty jar and sprayed across my face.
"I have not come here to wrest your petty leadership away. I do not want it, I do not want to be here."
"There, did you hear–?" Kichlan turned from me, imploring our small, silent audience. But I didn't let him. I reached up, grabbed his finger and jammed it against my bandage.
"What would you expect? That I would want to fall? That I would want this pain, this disfigurement? I have lost more than you understand. More than kopacks. More than status. More than the respect I worked so hard for so long to earn! What can you expect? That I should have wanted that all to happen just so I can be here, with you, chasing garbage for the rest of my life?"
He gaped at me, and had stopped trying to pull away.
"What else did you say? That I don't listen? That I don't do what you tell me to do? I have listened to what instructions you gave me, but do not criticize me for failing to follow the ones you didn't give!" I released his hand and waved my wrist in front of his eyes. "If you'd chosen to explain these things to me I might have known what to do when the call came, I might have known what a call was! As it is, you were lucky to have my help at all."
Not even Sofia leapt to Kichlan's defence.
Pale, still breathing quickly, as though he'd been running as I shouted at him, Kichlan lowered his hand.
"Now." I straightened, smoothed my sleeve and brushed my hair from my forehead. "Was there anything else?"
"You still need to fix the ceiling," Sofia ventured.
Stiff, I gave her a curt nod. "And I will. When I can afford to do so." The last words tasted dry, sandy.
"You need to learn to control your suit," Kichlan said, when he had stopped panting. He stood tall, hands by his side. All thunder was gone from his face, in its place a kind of understanding. Like a clear sky.
"And I will." I hoped he could see the same in my face. "You know I will."
"Yes, I do. I should have realised earlier, I should have listened to L–"
Together, we looked at his brother, and the argument was instantly banished. Lad was pale, shaking. He had wrapped his arms around his chest and wept silently.
As one, the debris collectors went to his aid. Kichlan spoke softly into his brother's ear. Sofia, one arm still pressed against her waist, patted him with her free hand. Mizra and Uzdal hovered like fretting pigeons. I pried Lad's hands from the nook of his elbows and held them tightly.
"Stop shouting. Can't shout. He says not to shout," Lad murmured, rocking from heel to toe.
It took the rest of the morning to quiet Lad down. Finally, when the noon sun was as yellow as a layer of cloud would allow, Lad was calm enough to be guided home.
I kissed Lad on the cheek and Kichlan graced me with a smile as we parted at the Darkwater street sign.
As it turned out the ferry did run on Rest, but its trips were few, slow and far between. By the time it had taken me to the second Keepersrill and I had walked the long streets home, Devich was gone. He had left a note under the remaining strawberries from the night before, and I ate them hungrily as I read.
Don't work too hard, my lady.
~ Devich
8.
The next morning I developed a system. I rose at dawnbell and pulled on loose clothes over my collector's uniform. Then I walked to the Keeper's Tear River and rode the ferry to Section ten. Each trip cost only twenty kopacks, but it meant a long trek down the eighth Keepersrill to Darkwater.
I knew, somewhere at the back of my weary brain, that I couldn't keep doing this forever. Travelling each morning was hard enough, and I couldn't afford the apartment itself for much longer. But it was my home, and so exclusive I had acquired its lease solely through the veche contacts of a member of my nine point circle.
I would hold onto it as long as I could.
The smell of food coaxed me down to the Darkwater sublevel. When I came to the bottom I realised some of the furniture had been moved. The table that held the empty jars was shoved inelegantly into the middle of the room, up against the end of a couch. The shelves had been pushed over to a corner. All this exposed an ancient, blackened fireplace, around which the entire team was huddling.
"What's this?" I called as I approached them.
"Morning!" Lad bellowed, and left the fireplace long enough to sweep me into a brief, crushing hug.
"Morning," I croaked once he had let me go.
Large, dusky embers glowed inside the fireplace, beneath two heavy iron pots. Something bubbled away under their half-closed lids and that was where the smell was coming from. The smell that set my stomach rumbling.
"Guess what?" Lad, torn between me and the allure of the embers, rocked as he shifted his weight between the two of us.
"What?"
"Guess what Kich did? He said we all did something wonderful last night and he was going to give us something. So, you know what he did? He cooked!"
"Did he?" The pots reminded me pointedly of Eugeny.
Kichlan smiled at me over his shoulder. "When Lad and I first came here the old team leader would complain about the loss of his fireplace. A lot. You know how some people can't stop griping about the same, small, pointless–"
Sofia cleared her throat discreetly.
"Anyway, before we weighed down the shelves with yesterday's jars, I thought I'd give them a bit of a push and see if the fireplace still worked."
Lad made inarticulate spluttering noises.
"Well, I asked Lad to give them a good push. Better?"
His brother nodded wildly.
"Big sixnight ahead of us, and nice to have hot food before we head out, don't you think?"
As th
e embers warmed my face I wondered how early Kichlan and Lad had arrived here, to get this all organised.
It was worth the effort. Lad collected seven wooden bowls into which Kichlan spooned a kasha of buckwheat and raisins, thick with butter, crunchy with pecans, spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with honey. On this he poured apricots stewed in vanilla and a splash of what had to be brandy. I ate it hurriedly. It made me warmer and more comfortable than I had felt for a long time.
Kichlan ate little, and gave most of his bowl to Lad. Before the rest of us had finished eating Kichlan was up, filling his leather bag.
He waited, bag over his shoulder, for us to stack used bowls, lick spoons dry and give him our attention. Then he crossed his arms, lifted his chin and addressed us like a general to his troops. "We have a lot to catch up with. Thankfully, due to yesterday's emergency we have managed to bridge the gap somewhat, but you can be damned sure the veche will take that into account. So we need to work hard. I see long days ahead of us this sixnight. We must stop at every corner, look under every lamp–"
Behind me, Natasha groaned. To my left, Mizra and Uzdal shifted simultaneous feet. Lad was watching his brother with something close to awe, and Sofia wasn't much different. All I could feel was a tired ache in my legs, but resolved not to let it show. This was my fault. I would help Kichlan correct it.
"–we must find every last grain of debris there is to be found!" Kichlan's voice rose, it echoed from the sublevel walls. Did he expect us to start cheering? "And we will rely on you, Lad, to do that." He stepped forward. He placed a hand on Lad's shoulder, looked him in the eye. "Can you do it? Can you help us?"
"Yes!" Lad shouted. Wincing, I pressed a hand to my ear.
"Then it's time to start." Kichlan pointed to the stairs. "Let's move."
Lad bounded out of the sublevel. Kichlan strode behind him with Sofia fluttering in his wake. The rest of us followed grudgingly.
"It's all for Lad's sake," Mizra murmured. "Just so you don't think we've all completely lost our minds." As we emerged into the sunshine he cast a hard look at Sofia's beaming, enthusiastic face. "Well, not all of us."
Lad was already ahead, pushing his way past boxes and down a narrow alley. I immediately understood why an eager Lad was an asset, and why keeping him happy so very important.
It didn't take him long. At the end of the alley he found a broken pipe, and smiled proudly as Sofia scooped a jar's worth of debris from its jagged hole. I didn't think he noticed when she got too close, however, and caught the back of her hand on its rusted edge. "Other," she whispered a curse, dug a kerchief from her pocket and wrapped the wound tightly.
The next cache squirmed with a nest of rats, beneath a large crate overflowing with rubbish. Sofia refused outright to collect from it. Mizra and Uzdal played some kind of complicated game involving hand gestures to decide which of them had to do it. I gathered the task was given to the loser.
By the time Uzdal, looking pale, had collected it all, we had another three full jars. I held back a sigh. Was this my life now? Rummaging in rubbish with vermin?
As we continued, Kichlan walked beside me. "I have done you a disservice." He clasped his hands behind him.
"Are you about to lecture me again?"
Lad pushed ahead, crossing a wider street and down another alleyway. He looked intent, head down, whispering under his breath.
"I should have done the first one properly." As we followed his brother Kichlan explained about the symbols, about the map, things I should have learnt from the start. I listened, nodded, and didn't mention that I had heard most of this before. Or where I had heard it.
We stopped by a sewerage vent. Even I, with my untrained debris-collecting eye, could tell this would be a good spot: steam lurched haphazardly through the bars. Mizra used his suit to lift the grate without standing too close. Together, he and Natasha lay on the wet stones, shuffled as close to the edge as they could without burning their faces in the steam, and sank long, wide spades from their suits into the sewer. Unable to see what they were collecting they simply dredged up everything that was down there, and Sofia picked grains of debris from the mess. I looked away.
"What about the other ones?" I asked Kichlan, determined to do anything to try and ignore the smell rising with every spoonful Mizra and Natasha scooped up. I peered down at the turning and glowing of the ciphers on my wrist, their rising and sinking.
He was looking pointedly away from the sewer as well. "The other ones?"
"The other symbols. What do they mean?"
"Don't know. The map finds debris, that's what we're all told at the beginning. All we need to know is how to find and follow it in a crisis. The other symbols don't matter."
"Oh." Unsatisfied, I ran a finger along the smooth edging of the suit, brushing both metal and skin. Almost in response, two signs turned over and rose to the top. They shone brighter than any of the rest, but I had no idea what they were saying.
Even Lad was subdued when Natasha and Mizra finished with the sewer, and Uzdal replaced the vent. Four jars that time, but it took a whole bell to get it all.
Mizra stood, patted his wet, fragrant coat down. "Next time you see one of those, Lad my boy, ignore it. Please."
"Sorry." Lad sagged even further.
"Now, now." Kichlan hurried to his side. "That was the best haul we've had all day! It was worth the effort, and no one else could have found it."
Lad managed a small smile. I noticed Kichlan had positioned himself between his brother and Natasha, who looked decidedly unimpressed by his miraculous find and wasn't likely to be diplomatic about her opinions.
"So we'd better keep going," Kichlan continued. "Lots more to collect today."
Lad glanced around and lifted a cupped hand to his ear. "This way!" Again he was leading us, out of the alleyway and into a street lined by roaming food stalls. I was struck, suddenly, by the contrast between the dank lanes where we had spent our morning, and the bright, open, delicious-smelling street.
The food stalls looked very odd without their pions. Essentially a large box of clear poly inlaid in parts with steel, about four feet high and four feet wide, each one was attended by a three point circle. Together, the three pion-binders prepared the food and kept the stalls floating above the street, moving gradually so they could cover as much of the city as possible in a day.
The nearest circle was selling sweet potatoes. Deliciously hot, crunchy-looking, golden sweet potatoes. The vegetables were stored at the bottom of the poly, where they could be easily seen. For ten kopacks customers could choose their own potato. It would rise, tied in bright pion threads, to be roasted behind a metal screen, before finally emerging wrapped in a fresh, white napkin.
Without the entangling, driving lights the whole contraption was disconcerting. Hovering boxes, floating food, heat that seemed to come from nowhere. But despite how strange it all looked to me now, my stomach still urged me to slow. And as I turned to the food and the warmth, a man who had just bought one glanced at me. And dropped it.
I knew him. He knew me. And he left his food in the street, spun, and hurried away. I watched his back, his furtive glances over one shoulder, until he disappeared inside a building on the corner.
Construction for the Furtherment of Varsnia. Just some administrator, always behind a desk, pushing around kopacks and making sure I, and my circle, was paid on time. I couldn't remember speaking more than a few words to him. Certainly no reason for him to drop his food and run.
"Tanyana?" Kichlan called from far down the street. "Hurry up!"
I stared at the building for a moment longer, before shuffling as fast as my tight skin would allow to catch up with my team.
"What was that?" Kichlan asked.
Lad had found debris at a faulty heating valve. Of course, the valve was on the roof of a six-story-high building and surrounded by scraggly pigeons attracted to the warmth. Apparently, it was my turn to collect it.
"Someone I recognised," I answered
, as I sent poles into the ground from the bands on my ankles to propel myself upward. Like I had done the other night, only this time on purpose. The birds flew away, I scooped the debris in a deep pot I made with my hands and was down again in a moment. Natasha looked disgusted, Uzdal gave me a nod.
Kichlan held out jars for me to fill. "A pion-binder?"
"Yes."
"Someone you worked with?"
"In a way." I hesitated. Torn. I needed to turn back, I knew it, I needed to find that man and all the veche representatives he worked for. But the quota... and Kichlan had gone to so much effort to make us dawnbell supper in the morning. "I need to talk to him." I swallowed guilt in my throat like a lump. "Now." I had to find that building, that administrator. I needed to pin him down and get answers.