The Crystal Eye

by Deborah Chester

  Although many Rejects lived in abandoned buildings in the heart of Vir, they were periodically rounded up by patrollers and dumped outside the city gates. It seemed to be the official hope that they would leave the city and go elsewhere, but they never did. Instead, the slum grew in size every year, as more and more Viis hatchlings were rejected as unfit for normal society.

  Although it had been many years indeed since Ampris left Vir, the imperial city looked unchanged—at least from out here. She recognized the distinctive tall buildings of the Zehava District, their outlines smudged in the polluted air. As a cub she had often stood at the windows of the palace, gazing at these same tall buildings and wondering what life was like in the rest of the city. Now her memories were a tangle in her mind. She had traveled across the empire and back, had seen amazing sights, yet she’d never expected to return to Vir.

  As she stood there in the heat, staring, a skimmer roared past her, whipping up a cloud of dust with its air jets. Coated in the stuff, Ampris coughed and slapped dust from her fur, then forced herself to hobble forward.

  Her heart began to beat faster with every step. At long last she was coming home.

  For the first few days of her journey she had denied that, telling herself sternly that the city had never been her home, that she was and always had been an outcast. But somewhere on that difficult journey, as her small food supply ran out and she had scant luck in hunting more, she stopped pretending anything to herself. She was coming home, and her growing anticipation had eventually been all that kept her going.

  This morning, when she rose to start the last few miles of her long journey, her leg had given under her, and she’d fallen hard, so hard the wind was knocked from her lungs. She lay on the ground a long while, aching and weak with hunger, her mouth withered with thirst. But finally she’d scratched together the remnants of her willpower and forced herself up once again. Slowly, with the city shimmering before her, she’d managed a small, excruciating step, then another, then another. After an hour of this painful progress, the knots in her muscles had loosened, bringing mercy from the worst of the pain, and she’d been able to walk without fear of falling again.

  She had one mouthful of water left in her water skin. She could hear it sloshing with every step, tormenting her. But she had sworn to herself that she would not drink it until she stood inside the city walls. Then, she would celebrate.

  In the distance, the Cuna Da’r River curled lazily toward the city from the opposite direction of Ampris’s approach. She could smell its marshy, fishy scent despite the dust clogging her nostrils. It made a loop around one side of the city before meandering on. She could not see it from here, but many memories of playtime along its verdant banks kept lifting into her mind like bubbles.

  She smiled to herself, hobbling along one step at a time.

  Another skimmer zoomed past her, its Viis occupants only a blur. Then a transport rumbled by, coating her with dust again. Ahead, traffic jammed and hovered impatiently, horns blaring, while security scans cleared each vehicle in its turn.

  Ampris picked her way carefully, angling away from the passenger traffic to the cargo area. More and more transports were lining up, at least a dozen now. Remembering Elrabin’s advice, she looked them over in search of one carrying metals or energy-plasma canisters. None of them looked right.

  She dodged another one pulling up and spied a cargo hauler parked on hover near a docking platform. Abiru workers, panting in the heat, were transferring a load of heavy crates to its bay.

  Excitement leaped inside her. This was the only prospect in sight. She inched her way forward, aware from the corner of her eye that three transports were now flying through the gates, along with twice that many skimmers. No other vehicles pulled up behind them, however, and Ampris worried that she would be noticed if the traffic thinned any more.

  Trying to be cautious and casual, Ampris skulked around the end of the docking platform. It was stacked with pods, crates, and cylinders awaiting transport. The cargo hauler itself looked almost full.

  Crouched against a pillar, she kept her head level with the top of the platform and watched the workers. If any of them saw her, they gave no indication of it.

  Her gaze moved to the hauler, gauging the distance. She would have to cross in the open. There seemed no way to climb aboard without being seen. She tipped back her head to look for any overhead scanners floating about. There was no supervision that she could see; that didn’t mean it wasn’t present.

  Maybe the workers would ignore her. Maybe they wouldn’t sound an alarm if she stowed aboard.

  Those were big maybes, she told herself, panting worriedly.

  A hand grabbed her from behind, yanking her off her feet and dragging her backward.

  Snarling in surprise, Ampris tried to twist free, but another set of hands seized her by the ankles, and she was lifted bodily off her feet. She saw this one, a Toth. For a moment she was frozen with fear. He was huge, even for one of his kind, and flies swarmed his head of matted dark hair. Grunting to his companion, who had her by her shoulders, the Toth said, “Now,” and together they slammed her hard against the ground.

  The world spun around her and went momentarily black. Ampris could not hold in her grunt of pain. Fighting off unconsciousness, she glimpsed one of the dock-workers glancing down at her with complete indifference before resuming his job.

  “Help me!” she shouted, but one of the Toths hit her in the jaw with a fist like a hammer. Pain exploded through her head, and again the world spun.

  Through a blur, she could feel hands patting her expertly, hands ripping impatiently at her jerkin and stripping off her water skin and pack. Her old fighting instincts awakened, and she was suddenly driven back to consciousness by a surge of fury.

  Roaring, she reached up and gripped the wrist of one of the Toths, snapping it.

  He bellowed and slung himself around, dropping her pack and clutching his arm. Ampris sat up and tried to scramble free, but the other Toth butted her in the side with his massive head.

  All the wind whooshed from her lungs. She collapsed, struggled up, whooping for breath, and tried to crawl under the dock. The Toth grabbed her crippled leg and dragged her out.

  The pain blazed up her leg, making her yelp. She twisted around and swiped blindly with her claws, but the Toth hit her again, knocking her flat.

  She lay there, heaving for air, unable to make her body move. Fool, she thought in a dim corner of her brain. Should have been more alert for trouble. She’d been caught flat-footed, like an arena trainee, and she was ashamed of herself.

  A tug at her neck brought her around. The tug came again, and she realized the Toth was trying to take her Eye of Clarity. His comrade with the broken wrist grunted encouragement and bent to pick up her pack. Holding it by its broken strap, he said, “Take the necklace now. Get good price for it.”

  “No!” she shouted, surging up and sinking her teeth into the arm of the Toth trying to take her necklace. He bellowed with pain and jerked back. Savagely, she didn’t let go, but gnawed and worried flesh and muscle, her strong jaws crunching down on bone. The taste of Toth blood filled her mouth, and then she was slung bodily to the side and slammed into one of the docking platform’s pillars.

  The Toth pulled away from her, bellowing curses and gripping his bleeding arm. Ampris got to her knees, her eyes aflame, her mouth smeared with his blood. She roared, and the Toth ran off awkwardly, still holding his arm. Of his companion, there was now no sight.

  She looked around, breathing so hard she thought she might pass out. She was coated with dirt and blood, and all her belongings were gone except her necklace. Desperately, she gripped it with shaking hands, and felt relief spread through her. She could bear losing everything but this.

  Holding it calmed her. After a few seconds her spinning senses steadied, and she tucked it out of sight inside her jerkin. She drew in a deep breath, then another, and finally raised her head. The dockworkers were gone. The
cargo hauler was just floating through the gates.

  Dismay drove her to her feet. She swayed and nearly fell, but managed to catch herself against the side of the dock. Unable to believe it, she watched the cargo hauler pass from sight. The gates, sheathed in a glowing, sparking force field, slowly swung closed.

  “No,” she whispered and spat in disgust to clear the taste of Toth blood from her mouth.

  She glanced at the area which had been jammed with transports and skimmers only minutes before. They were gone as well. Backing her ears, Ampris straightened despite a sharp ache in her ribs and limped along the edge of the dock while keeping a wary eye out for scanners. Her lack of registration would identify her immediately as a renegade, and the bounty hunters would come after her.

  At the end of the dock, she found a female Kelth lit, about half-grown perhaps, busy sweeping the platform clean of metal shavings and other debris.

  “Hello,” Ampris said quietly. It hurt her ribs to talk. She pressed her hand gingerly to her side, hoping nothing was broken. “When will the next transport come through?”

  The lit appeared to ignore her as she continued sweeping, but she glanced at Ampris from a corner of her eye. She was a skinny little thing, with brindled gray and brown fur that was falling out in patches down her arms. “You fought them Toths good,” she said in a voice even softer than Ampris’s. “Ain’t never seen Toths whipped before.”

  Ampris winced. The way she hurt all over, she wasn’t sure she’d call it a victory.

  “What about the transports?” Ampris asked. “How long do you think before another comes by?”

  “Ain’t the way to get in the city,” the lit murmured and swept harder.

  “How then?”

  The lit said nothing.

  Ampris glanced around swiftly, aware of the need to be cautious. No patrollers seemed to be in sight. No scanners were hovering. A sort of quiet had fallen over the area, broken only by the sound of sweeping and a distant quarrel deeper in the slum.

  “How do I get in?” Ampris repeated.

  The lit glanced at her unwillingly. “Catch you on a cargo hauler or a transport, they shoot you on sight. I seen it happen.”

  “Tell me another way,” Ampris said, beginning to feel a little desperate. She’d come so far, and she was going to get inside, no matter what it took.

  The lit giggled. “Ain’t no other way,” she said. Whirling around, she trotted out of sight.

  “Wait!” Ampris called after her, forgetting caution. “When’s the next transport due?”

  But the lit was gone, and the platform stood deserted. Ampris swore to herself, then trudged away, heading for the edge of the slum. It was a filthy-looking place, with crooked dark streets and the unmistakable look of being dangerous. In the distance she saw a light flashing, and heard the mechanized patter of a huckster trying to lure the unwary into a gambling den. As Ampris walked closer, the stink grew into a terrible effluvia of unwashed bodies, rotting garbage, and open sewage. It mingled with the dead-fish stench of the river. The smell seemed to pervade her fur and skin, clinging to her like the dreary despair of this place. Every breath she unwillingly inhaled coated her tongue with a sour, vile taste. Yet threaded through the fetid odors came the smells of food and cooking. Her mouth watered, and she panted with thirst.

  Ahead of her, a gang of Reject males stood clustered together, chattering loudly.

  She skirted them warily, keeping plenty of distance between herself and them.

  Behind her, she heard the echoing thump of the city gates sliding open. She spun around, wincing as she moved too fast, and saw a battered, decrepit transport rumbling out of the city. It stopped as soon as it was through the gates, and disgorged a load of Rejects, all of them coated with plaster dust and looking weary from a hard day’s work.

  The gang scattered to meet the new arrivals, calling out a mixture of greetings and insults. “You get paid?” someone called.

  “You get fed?”

  “You bring any food?”

  One of the workers powdered in white slapped at his ragged clothing and raised his rill. “None that I’m going to share with the likes of you.”

  The two of them went at it in a fight, while the others circled them and shouted encouragement.

  Ampris slipped down a narrow street and saw an Aaroun female standing in the doorway of a shack constructed of crate and packing materials held together with pieces of rusting wire. It looked like it might fall down at any moment.

  “Excuse me,” Ampris said politely to her. “Will any more transports be going into the city soon?”

  The Aaroun looked at her blankly for a long while. One of her eyes was blue with blindness. The other eye, brown and vacant, held only bleak despair. But she finally seemed to rouse herself.

  “Ain’t no more for th’ night,” she said. “Shift over. Din’t you see?”

  Ampris probed at her aching jaw. “No, I guess I didn’t notice. When will they—”

  But the Aaroun turned and stepped inside her shack, leaving Ampris in mid-sentence.

  Backing her ears, Ampris glanced around and tried to figure out what to do next. She hurt. She was desperately hungry, and every scent of food made her stomach rumble painfully. The sun was going down, and she needed to find a place to spend the night.

  She had the feeling of being watched, although she saw very few Rejects or abiru stirring. Behind her. she could still hear the sounds of the fight going on, louder even than the mechanized come-ons of the gambling den. A female Reject with hostile, cynical eyes brushed past her, and Ampris felt the quick fingerings of a pickpocket.

  Growling, she slapped the thieving hand away, and the Reject hurried on without a backward glance. Ahead of Ampris, a yellow light glowed dimly in the gathering shadows, marking a brothel.

  Ampris veered away from it too, wanting to avoid all trouble. She realized she was lost, and her poor physical condition was keeping her from thinking clearly. She shouldn’t have ventured into Reject Town, she thought. She should have stayed near the city gates. Now it would be dark soon, and if she stayed here she would be easy prey for whatever hunted in these squalid streets.

  Thirst made up her mind for her. She headed deeper into the slum, intending to find the river. The water was probably unsafe to drink, but Ampris was past caring. She would sleep on the bank somewhere, in the freshest air possible, away from this fetid place. Come morning, she would try again to slip inside the city. She might even look for sewer tunnels, although Elrabin had warned her against trying to enter the city that way. He’d told her tunnels were guarded by ruffians and thieves who used them for hideouts and storage of stolen goods. They were well-guarded, no place for an amateur.

  She would decide in the morning; that is, if she survived that long.

  Following her nose, she blundered down dim, twisting little streets, trying to find the river, and coming to dead ends far too often. There was no kind of order here. Shacks had been built anywhere their owners wanted, facing in haphazard directions, and sometimes planted right in the middle of the street itself.

  Of course, “street” was too generous a word for these trails through filth. Skeks sorting through garbage squeaked and fled from Ampris’s approach, only to follow at her heels. She tried several times to shoo the short, multilegged vermin away. They would scatter momentarily, waving their boneless hands stupidly over their heads, and come right back.

  Then she heard the scrape of a footstep behind her. Instantly the fur bristled around Ampris’s neck. She glanced back and saw a Reject in a stained coat following her. She tensed, wary and alert now. When she looked forward, she saw another Reject blocking her path.

  He had emerged from nowhere, melting into sight like a shadow. From her left came two more; from her right, at least three or four.

  Ampris’s heart started pounding. She panted, her ears flicking back nervously. She was standing in one of the wider streets of the slum. On one side rose a section of the city wall,
tall, smooth, and unassailable. On the other side, a pair of shacks that had fallen in some time ago had created a clearing of sorts. The rubble and debris, however, made the footing unstable. It would be easy to stumble and fall if she tried to run or fight.

  As the Rejects closed in on her from all sides, they began to make a peculiar hissing, humming sound. Her lips skimmed back from her teeth instinctively, and she growled low in her throat as she turned slowly around to face as many of them as possible.

  “I have nothing to steal,” she said, aware of the Eye of Clarity tucked inside her torn jerkin. She hoped it hadn’t slipped into sight to betray her. “The Toths already stole everything I had.”

  “You don’t belong here,” one of the Rejects said, while the others hummed and hissed with increasing menace. “Abiru filth, taking our space. Eating our food.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “This our place,” the Reject said. As he came closer, she saw that he had red eyes. His square pupils were dilated and huge. Flicking out his tongue, he did something clever and quick with both hands, and two knives slid from inside his sleeves to appear, shiny and lethal, in the expert clutch of his fingers. “This our place!” he repeated. “Not for abiru. You get out!”

  Ampris forgot that she was weak with hunger and thirst. She forgot that her crippled leg was aching and nearly useless. She forgot the blisters on her feet and the bruises on her body. She looked around to where the circle was the thinnest, and she ran for her life.

  With less than three hours left before her scheduled departure, Israi was still seated in private audience with Lord Nalsk, head of the ominous Bureau of Security. He had brought her the latest dispatches of intelligence from the rim world rebellion.