Beluga Fay (Dragon Bone Hill)

by Wellhauser, David S.

  It had been lucky Pym had brought the kid along because he would have almost certainly gotten himself turned around not only in the side streets of the dock but the labyrinthine network of pathways in the market. “You sure,” Pym asked, “it’s the Arran Market?”

  “Only one that does raw fish.” Simon continued ahead of him, down one row of stalls and up another. By the time the kid had told them they were getting close, Titus had no idea where they were or how to get out. The smells of the place were in some ways worse than the other markets. Here there were all the odors of the unwashed made worse by the smells of cooks and the increased sweat working over stalls and stoves. On top of this, one of the staples of country were fermented vegetables, and these created a unique body odor and flatulence made worse by the close quarters of the food courts at lunchtime.

  Soon they were leaving the sweltering heat of the open pit cooking, barbacoas, steamers, boiling meats and vegetables, used barbacoa bricks discarded in open refuse dumps at the intersection of pathways, acetylene torches used for braising, and ignited shot glasses of lamban. At one point, someone knocked a full bottle over, and this tipped several ignited glasses onto a plastic covered service area of a stall. The flame spread out with the liquor, and soon the plastic was burning as well. The pair edged by the gathering mob, all armed with Dixie cups of water, attempting to quell the immolation which had engulfed the canopy and was making a good go at the whole stall as well as its neighbors.

  Turning the corner, Pym was still following Aglibut, the shouts and screams were slowly folded into the general pandemonium of the new food courts. They were making their way into the cold food courts—the first of them they came across were noodles in bowls of ice and rice water; then a variety of cold soup stalls; raw vegetables and salad bars; following this there were the first of the raw fish stalls. “I don’t like running about so long in an area not controlled by the Beluga Fay.” Pym had not expected this to be so crowded, nor had he expected to be so lost so deep in the market with no clear way out. North was clear enough when he got to one of the broader pathways, but here, with the umbrellas and canopies blocking out most of the sky, there seemed little enough to choose from but the one in four hope you got it right. Titus didn’t like those odds.

  “I’d not expected this, either. The Birder was open enough, but this is nuts.”

  “This is...”

  “There,” Simon interrupted, “he is,” pointing down a pathway to their left. Craning his neck about and over Aglibut’s head to see, it struck Pym he didn’t know what he was looking for.

  “Which one?” Taking the kid by the arm, Pym pulled him back down the adjoining pathway. “Describe him.”

  Aglibut was turning as he asked the question. For a moment, there was confusion on the face, and then it seemed to dawn that he’d not described Kanor to Pym. Why hadn’t Pym asked before this—so caught up in trying to figure out if this was connected back to the Beluga or whether this was some new threat? The idea that the messenger might be as important as the message had not occurred to him. This wasn’t good. He wasn’t back home taking a stroll across the tracks to pick up a woman and get some shit before heading out for an evening of clubbing.

  “Shorter than you by about a head,” the kid began, “but not fat.”

  “Muscular? Thin?—what kind of body?”

  “A little muscular; thirties maybe with bits of grey in his hair; Kanor also has a thin mustache.”

  “And you’re sure he’s okay?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “The Birder was bad enough—this place is worse.”

  Simon understood, or seemed to, for he lowered his head and didn’t answer. Pym supposed he should give him a knife—at least a knife—but he still wasn’t sure about how this was going to go and whether or not Aglibut was involved. Titus was more worried about the kid than Kanor. He supposed he’d always suspected that. Though Pym had questioned what this was from the beginning, there was too much to be gained by coming to The Birder.

  Of course, this was different, but turning back wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Still, Kanor was not the problem—Simon was. If Simon had turned on him and was working for whomever Kanor was, then who else had had a good go with the truth? Lander, he knew for a fact. Synon he wasn’t certain of but doubted she’d turn on him. Bannly? The old man was a problem, because though he may not have wanted leadership, he had had this, until Titus. He had to be experiencing some sense of loss. What was happening here was a minor inconvenience, he hoped, but what was going on back at the warehouse—that would be something different. Too much time with Glenna and her pathetic spawn of disaffected politicos and bureaucrats.

  The plots and cross-plots—as well as everything he did not know or refused to see—were all whirling about him. All of these focused on the kid. Looking hard at Aglibut one last time, “Are you part of this?”

  “No, I am not. Why? Is something wrong?”

  Pym was going to have to take a chance. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a compact revolver, his backup, and pressed this into Aglibut’s hand.

  “If anything goes wrong, shoot anyone coming at me.”

  “We should leave.”

  “No, whoever this is has gone to a lot of trouble to get me here. Remember, anyone coming at me. Got it?”

  Simon nodded, but not with much conviction.

  “How old are you Simon?”

  “Sixteen, I think.” Pym nodded. The Beluga Fay attracted a lot of orphans, why not one more. Yet, they could be the least trustworthy because they were the least connected. But there was nothing for it now.

  “Hello.” Pym spoke quietly as he plopped down next to Kanor on a rickety stool. That almost cost him a spill as he heard one of the legs lightly crack. Kanor stopped eating, noodles halfway to his mouth, and looked sidelong at Titus—saying nothing. With the skip of silence, the noodles continued to his mouth where he noisily vacuumed up. With a smack of lips, Kanor went after more. “You’ve information for me?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Simon Aglibut spoke with you.” The noodles slipped back into the bowl, and Kanor’s hand sat on either side of this for a moment.

  “You are Pym?” Titus nodded. “I’ve information to sell you.”

  “I’ve diamonds.”

  “Show me.”

  “Not here.”

  “Here’s safe for me.”

  “Not me.” Pym stood, twisting back towards where he’d stashed Simon.

  “Where’s Simon?”

  “Not here.”

  “I know him, I don’t know you.”

  “I’m all you have,” walking away.

  “Alright, alright—wait a moment.” As Kanor stood, he twisted the chopsticks in his hands then jabbed them into the half-full bowl of noodles. Doing this, he took a step back from the stool and away from Titus. Seeing this, Pym took a step back and there was a scream from behind him near where he’d left Simon. The noise was inchoate as several others joined in. Being right was a burden, worse than this was the knowledge that all along this had to have ended like this—something like this, if not exactly this.

  The first round caught a woman next to Titus. She didn’t scream or fall backwards but simply went silent in mid-Tagolam babble and folded to her knees. For a brief moment, Pym watched as her head sagged forward and her whole body followed. She would have, if left alone, rolled forward onto the greasy cobbles. Titus didn’t have the time to watch though. Backing away, he bumped her and she rolled onto her side. Even as he was backing away, Pym was drawing his automatic. Perhaps he should have gone for the sawed-off, but this was still a closed space. He’d not be killing just Kanor and whoever was firing but several others as well.

  Kanor must have seen the initiative had been lost when the first shot had missed Pym. It was made worse by the fact the weapon had not been silenced and the rupture of the babble by the handgun—Pym was almost certain it was a handgun—this was the weapon of choice in so cl
ose—was followed by a silence which was waiting for a defining moment. Those closest to Pym and Kanor noticed that a woman had fallen and a young man was reaching down for her. Normally, no one would have done this, but the crowd, instinctively, knew something was wrong and in this was attempting to put order back into their lives. Pym, still watching Kanor, took another step backward, grabbed the man, and pulled him against him. Titus’s weapon was now out, but Kanor’s back was to him and he was breaking into a stride. Before the right foot could make landfall, Pym had squeezed off a round and the crowd became a mob.

  The scream was the initiating gesture, which was followed by Kanor toppling forward and to his left as the energy of the injury radiated out from his right shoulder blade. With Kanor down and out, Pym swept in an arc over the mob as it backed away. There was another crack of weapons fire, and the man he was holding jerked at the impact and groaned. As he went limp in Pym’s arm, the man kept him in place as he continued his sweep. Yet now the mob was becoming animate, and chaos opened over the tableau. What Titus was looking for now was those still not moving.

  In the search, another was dropped. Whoever was on the other end of this was bloody awful. Then another went down as a second round hit Pym’s shield at what seemed to be square in the chest. From the angle of the rounds, there was more than one shooter—this had not been what he’d expected. Dropping the man, Pym turned and fled. If there’d been just the one from the hold, he’d have dealt with that, but there were at least two and maybe more. There was more weapons fire, but he was in full tilt. At this moment, Simon stepped out from around the corner and returned fire. The mob that was flowing with him broke in all directions—some taking shelter against stalls, others diving over these, and some turning in the opposite direction and back into the oncoming fire. More died for their choices.

  Rounding the corner, Pym grabbed the kid by the shoulder. “Run!” Dragging Aglibut after him, Pym could hear him continuing to fire after the assassins but they were, Pym believed, around the corner and not pursuing. Pursuit in this mess would not be possible. Pym shouted to him to stop firing and in the screams, which seemed distant and emptying, they ran down one street and then another. Eventually Pym found them a quiet street of vacant stalls and a few stray men and women hiding from the chaos. They probably didn’t even know what was happening but knew enough to hide. “Wait.” Titus breathed hard. “Stay here.” As he turned back up the small alley, there was a scream from behind and Pym juked left and rolled onto the ground.

  A round breathed past him. In the roll, he was grabbing his automatic with both hands. And as he slid around, Simon was taking aim at him. Before the kid could get a clean shot, Pym had him by the center mass and let go a single round. The impact was a shock to the kid and he, as the woman, folded to his knees. Even as he was doing so, Simon squeezed the trigger and a round struck the cobbles to the left of Pym’s head. Not wanting to, Pym put a round in Aglibut’s forehead and he toppled backwards. The others in the alley were scattering, and after a heartbeat, the pair was alone. Standing, Titus walked over to Simon and took his backup from the light grip of the kid’s hand. For a moment, he looked down at him then turned back to the market. That had been a surprise, but it shouldn’t have been.

  “Why?” Pym asked, tracking the binoculars along the Wall.

  “You didn’t give them Lander—that’s the word, at least. Whether or not this is true I cannot say.” Glenna was resting on his shoulder; he could feel the shallow breaths the woman was taking and the tremble of her hand on the back of his neck.

  “Sorry,” still not turning from the Wall, “but Lander has gotten too strong to hand over.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He has a following—even more since that incident down in the fish markets.”

  “That was you?”

  “Not precisely, but someone was after me; they lured me down through one of the Beluga Fay.”

  “How does that affect the Beluga’s attitude toward you?”

  “The question,” lowering the glasses and looking over at the woman, “is complicated.” Glenna raised her eyebrows. “Okay. After, it turned out that the kid who’d told me someone had information we needed,” he lied, but Pym wasn’t about to tell her what was really going on, “was working for the Cartel.”

  “How do you know? He could have been working alone.”

  “His friends were interrogated; turned out several had been working for the Cartel.”

  “The Fay is taking in a lot of new members; this sort of thing was bound to happen.”

  “Because the Cartel is afraid of us?”

  “The government too.” Ignoring the observation, Pym continued. “Lander used the betrayal to argue I am responsible for not properly vetting the new members. Didn’t matter that I’ve had next to no input on these matters.”

  “Who has, then?”

  “Synon, Bannly, and, increasingly, Lander.”

  “But...”

  “Politics.”

  “Still, how can they blame you?”

  “Synon and Bannly do not, but many in the membership are unhappy with my disappearances and lack of leadership concerning what direction the Fay should take with our growth in membership and power.”

  “What do they want?”

  “The membership doesn’t know what they want—they are just afraid and angry. Lander is using this as leverage to get himself a seat on the committee and to put a couple of his people on this as well.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing—there is nothing to be done.”

  “Won’t he kill you?”

  “Maybe, but I cannot move against Lander, or his people, until they do something to destroy themselves.”

  “He sounds too good for that.”

  “Lander is a bully and a sadist, sooner or later he will trip himself up, then one of two things will happen...” Stopping, he continued to scan the Wall. “Looks too strong here.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Exploitable structural weaknesses.”

  “You won’t find any—the Wall is new and well maintained.”

  “There’s always some place that is vulnerable.”

  “That would be the guards.”

  “What about tunneling?”

  “Dig down and you’ll run into water. It is, technically, doable, but it would take a lot of work, and there is no way it would remain secret for long because of the labor force needed—then we’d also need engineers to design and build it.”

  Pym nodded and stood, putting the glasses back in his pouch.

  “What about the kids?”

  “Which kids?”

  “The ones working for the Cartel?”

  “Lander made certain everyone knew he would take care of that.”

  “But doesn’t the committee...”

  “Too much fear—Lander took care of that when I was away one day and hung the bodies outside the main warehouse.”

  “He just...”

  “All seven.”

  “What about Simon?”

  “I killed him in the market.”

  “Titus, he was a child!”

  “I know,” turning back as he walked down the rise looking out over the Wall, “but he’d already tried to kill me and was taking aim again. It was a simple choice but not one I’d wanted to make.”

  The woman seemed to understand he was not having an easy time with what he’d done—Glenna even appeared relaxed by this. “What now?”

  “There may be a referendum on my leadership.”

  “But they have to remember what Lander had done to the women and the weak when Bannly was in charge.” Over their time together, Glenna had wheedled much of his life in the Beluga Fay out of him, and Titus had not wanted to hide much of it. However, how he got into the city, beyond escaping from the burning freighter, and why he’d been elliptical about this was another matter. She had pressed Pym on occasion, but he either changed the subject
or flatly refused to answer for a variety of reasons—not least of which was that he wasn’t certain how far he should trust the woman. This wasn’t the actual reason—he was not going to share with her what was really going on in his life—but it was a good enough one to keep her from burrowing too deeply into his past.

  It wasn’t that there was anything there which Glenna, at this time, could have acted upon, but if she, and her cabal, got him out of the city, this might be traded on somewhere down the road if they ever made it out of the country. That had to be the next step—because it was, as far as he was concerned, only a matter of time before the Sweats jumped the Wall and spilt across the country. This was assumed by the blockade of the country and, especially, the main islands. She might have protested this, but the woman was only looking as far ahead as the other side of the gate. At least, that was all she shared with him. In itself, this made Titus nervous because Glenna wasn’t a stupid woman. Naive, of course, but she would have to have a goal for the other side. The goal would have to include her brother and probably elements of the cabal—more than this, Titus was uncertain of.

  “They do remember, don’t they?”

  “Come on. Don’t want the guards seeing you hanging about.”

  The woman trotted down the rise and after him.

  “We’ve grown,” Titus continued, “by several factors since then. Most of the new members have heard the stories but either don’t believe them or believe he has changed.”

  “But how do you hide that kind of a character?”

  Smiling to himself Titus stood beside the car, but did not turn. “Men can hide all sorts of character flaws until they got you hooked and helpless. Slowly the truth will come out, but what is there to do then? He’ll have the leadership, unless he fucks up or moves too fast.”

  “This is beginning to make sense,” she answered, following behind Pym.

  “What is that?”

  “Do you think Lander has been in contact with the government or Cartel?”