Timas looked over at her. She pulled the rumpled edges of her blue dress over her lap.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say to her.
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Timas, or your place to apologize to me. I apologize to you. And to Cen’s family.” Itotia stood up, and in a low voice, continued, “Though I’ll never tell them to their face, I was relieved when Heutzin called.”
“Relieved?” Timas blinked.
“Relieved because it wasn’t you. At least Cen’s mother has more than one son. I do not.”
Timas grabbed her elbow. “How can you say that?”
“I don’t forgive myself, but I can’t lie to myself either, Timas.” She kissed him on the forehead and left him standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, his stomach churning.
Pepper hobbled his way over and leaned close to Timas. “Who do you know who knows the docks and the suits well?”
Timas looked up at him, scared to answer and be drawn into some plan the man was spinning that would no doubt get him into trouble.
“Tell me and I can help you,” Pepper said.
“Help me with what?”
“Your problem.”
“I don’t have a problem,” Timas hissed. “I have a duty.”
“I can make holding to your duty as easy as it is for Katerina.”
Timas gave Pepper Heutzin’s name, and instructions on how to contact him. “You should come to the funeral, he’ll be there.”
“I’m not going to any damn funeral.” Pepper turned around.
They left Pepper with Katerina and a host of the city’s Jaguar scouts who had arrived late in the night now lining the walls like brightly colored decorative statues against the house.
They walked to the atrium. The massive throat of the city sang its mélange of echoes, shouts, and combined hubbub of its people. Behind that the clanking metal on metal thud of the city’s sturdy and simple machines bubbled up. The elevators plunged the family down the levels to the bottom of the city and the docks.
The docks seemed eerily unfamiliar and dreamlike, Timas thought. Here the industrial stench of foundries, oiled lubricants, and acid seemed at odds with the growing river of white-clad mourners.
Boots and shoes scraped gridded iron, and the cries of swaddled and upset children echoed throughout the looming gantries of steel overhead.
The priest stood up on his altar, carried down and assembled by a pair of acolytes that now stood behind him. Behind him lay Cen’s body, wrapped in red and yellow cloth.
A single ray of light pierced through the windows, dust motes dancing across it, as the priest raised his hands to the gods to begin the ceremony. Timas shuffled forward with the crowd to lay down their remembrance gifts.
For Timas it was a box of wooden blocks Cen and he had played with as little kids. He set it next to flowers, money, fresh fruits, and other offerings from families.
Up close, the pile looked large and colorful. A testament to Cen and the people who loved him.
From a distance, it was a small pile of odds and ends in front of the large altar.
Luc walked up to the offerings, but he didn’t place anything down. Timas frowned at the insult to his friend’s memory, but it was not his place to say anything.
And anyway, back on the planet of New Anegada, their cousins would have heaped the altar even higher with offerings. This was what they had, what they could spare. Who was he to judge Luc? Their family faced hardship now that they were not the family of xocoyotzin. They would be working in the lower levels.
The priest picked up a tiny wooden box and opened it. A bird fluttered in his hands.
He used a long jade blade to kill it, scattering the blood over the altar. “Our gifts will help Cen’s soul find favor, but it is blood that the gods respect most. With this offering, we plead for them to look to him with kindness.
“But even as we do this, remember that the gods look with disdain and hatred upon those who seek to shed human blood.” The priest looked angrily out at them all. “For that is the worse sacrifice, and not one that should ever be given.”
Timas was sure that his people would never make that mistake again. It had not been long since the people on Yatapek had flown to space with the other New Anegada peoples and fought the dangerous aliens around Chilo and New Anegada.
They had changed, the Azteca who had done that. They had chosen to settle here, start a new life. They put all the horrors behind them that they had perpetrated and done in the name of the false gods, the aliens who claimed to be gods on New Anegada and demanded human blood.
Yatapek steered its own course, worshipped true gods, ones that didn’t appear in physical form.
Here they were pure.
Several acolytes walked out and removed the altar. The priest stepped off into the crowd.
He gave the command. Off in the distance Heutzin, barely fitting in his own white mourning garments, pulled a long lever with a loud grunt.
The floor underneath Cen and the offerings swung open. Cen’s body fell down toward the angry red clouds beneath, a rain of bounty following him toward the very environment that killed him.
A burning mist rose up from the exposed hole. The air in the city wouldn’t be rushing out because both city and the outside had the same pressure at this height. But some of the toxic, unbreathable outside was seeping in with the strong wind.
Timas stepped back for a more air-rich breath. A large hand clapped him on the shoulder.
He turned to see Luc, face twisted in rage and his other hand curled into a fist.
The first punch left Timas stunned. As Luc forced him forward, Timas realized what Luc was trying to do.
Luc was going to throw him down into the clouds after his brother.
And unlike the idea of falling gracefully from the city, making that final choice, he found that fear and anger spurred him to desire life. Not the long fall.
CHAPTER SEVEDTEEN
Timas scrabbled, grabbing at Luc, but Cen’s brother was no xocoyotzin. He dominated Timas, his arms roped with muscle. He pushed Timas forward easily.
Already the air bit with acid and made Timas’s eyes water.
All he could do was grab for Luc’s forearm, hoping to hang on as hard as he could.
Luc hit him again and again with his other fist, trying to force him to let go.
The priest and Heutzin tackled Luc.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Heutzin shouted into Luc’s face. “You dishonor your brother’s memory.”
Luc struggled, but while he’d been that much larger than Luc, Heutzin had worked the docks for decades now. He pinned Luc to the grating as the priest rolled on the floor, gasping for air.
Everyone gathered looked on, shocked, and moving slowly. From the ground where he’d fallen, Timas stared at the forest of their shifting legs.
“He killed him,” Luc screamed from underneath Heutzin. “That little shit killed Cen. And you all know it.”
“You shut up,” Heutzin hissed. He pressed down on Luc hard enough that Luc coughed.
“Don’t you hurt him,” Chantico yelled, running to her husband’s side. She grabbed Luc’s hand. “Don’t hurt him.”
Ollin pushed people aside, his face ashen. He looked down at Luc like one would look down at a patch of mold, then stooped next to Timas.
He pulled Timas back from the edge. Three more feet and Timas would have fallen the long fall. He rolled onto his knees, head bowed and quite shaken.
“He killed Cen. He made him go out with him, out of the safe zone and into the debris field.” Luc struggled once more to break free from Heutzin with no success.
Timas dropped his head to the foor. The tears weren’t from the biting air, but from thinking of Luc’s anguish. Luc was right. None of this would have happened if Timas hadn’t convinced Cen to walk deeper into the debris zone. Somehow Luc knew.
“Come.” Ollin pulled him to his feet. “Dry your face
. Keep your head straight.”
Heutzin nodded at Timas as they walked past, and then Timas walked into the crowd in a daze with his dad at his side. Itotia joined them, looking just as dazed as Timas.
“What will happen to Luc?” he asked in the elevator on the way back up.
Itotia grabbed Timas by the hand. “He’s a grown man who tried to commit murder. The judges will not be easy on him. They should jail him forever. He threatened a xocoyotzin.”
“He tried to kill my son. He will pay for that.” Ollin brooded.
“I don’t want anything to happen to him,” Timas said.
“What?”
“Because what he says is true.”
Ollin grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t ever repeat that.”
Timas looked out at the levels sliding by them and didn’t answer.
Cen’s death had to mean something. He couldn’t throw it away by pretending they hadn’t seen anything down there on the surface.
But speaking that truth out loud led both his mother and father to fall silent and distant. Disappointed.
Itotia looked over his bruises and got ice for him when he returned to his room in the house.
“We have to go speak to the pipiltin about this outrage,” Ollin said, and he disappeared.
“I’m following. You will be alone with the stranger, but there are Jaguar scouts all throughout the house and around his room,” Itotia said.
And then he was left alone in his room, looking at the beams overhead and wondering how he’d been born so unlucky. He turned off the light and lay in the dark wondering why they refused to listen to him. When had he ever lied? Or shirked his duties? He put his life into the hands of the gods whenever he was dropped down to the surface. And yet he was the one punished with silence and disappointed faces.
He wanted to feel more self-pity, but considering that Cen had lost his life, he couldn’t feel that sorry for himself. It would have been far too petty.
Instead, he just simmered with frustration. The man who killed Cen and dragged this down on him also lay under their roof.
Timas wondered how much longer he could just hold things in. He needed to push back, not just endure. The glimmer of a plan floated by.
“Timas?” Katerina knocked on the door.
“Yes. I’m here. Let her in,” he told the guard.
“Can I ask you to do a favor?” She shut the door behind her.
“Sure.”
She moved closer and held out a hand. “Touch my hand.”
Timas frowned. Maybe he should turn on the lights; he could get into trouble if someone walked in and assumed the wrong thing. He reached out and took her hand.
The moment they touched it sparked. Timas leaped back against his bed, stung, the palm of his hand throbbing. “What was that for?” he yelled at her.
She blinked when he turned on the light by his bed and held her hand up. “I’m sorry. I just needed to check.”
“Check what?”
“I’m not defenseless. When they send us into foreign environments, kidnapping is a risk. I’m electrified. That was a test shock. The dose I gave Pepper should have killed him. He barely even noticed it. I was worried it didn’t work.”
Timas’s fingers still tingled. “I think it works.”
“And I did feel it,” Pepper said. Both of them jumped at the sound of his voice. So much for being insulated from him; even crippled he had snuck around the house, evading the guards all around that were supposed to keep him in his room.
The guard lay asleep on the ground by the open door. Timas wondered how Pepper had done that.
Pepper’s crutch tip hit the ground outside the door, and he hopped out from the shadows. He smiled as he leaned against the inside of the door.
“You didn’t show it.” Katerina stood up.
“It’s nice that they sent you out here with some protection.” Pepper cocked his head. “Ah, Heutzin’s here.”
That was what he’d been doing out. Waiting.
Timas got out of bed and followed him. He had a question of his own for Heutzin anyway.
The edge of Pepper’s crutch struck him in the chest. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Timas looked at Pepper. “I need to talk to Heutzin.”
“You’ve had a chance to talk to Heutzin your entire life. I need to talk to him now.” The crutch lowered to the ground. Pepper had balanced on one leg easily enough. It didn’t seem to hamper him as much as it should.
“I need to know how Luc found out that I led Cen into the debris field.” Timas paused. As an outsider, Pepper shouldn’t get as upset about what came up next as his parents did. “I need to talk to him about what I saw on the surface.”
“Which was?”
“Aliens,” Timas whispered.
Pepper looked at him like Timas might look at recycling scum. “Your father seems to think you were stressed, jumping at shadows.”
“I saw something,” Timas said.
“In tight situations, the mind gets overactive,” Pepper said. “You can’t trust it.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Another person who didn’t believe him. Timas let it go for now. He’d prove them wrong, somehow, someday soon, when he got back to the surface. “But please, just ask Heutzin why Luc knew what happened.”
“Only if you tell that guard when he wakes up not to panic, that I’m in the courtyard. There’ll be others I drugged. I prefer that my conversation with Heutzin be private for now.”
“Sure,” Timas mumbled. He’d shirk whatever duty required on the next visit to find the alien.
He’d get proof, even if it cost him his life.
He owed Cen that. He owed Cen a lot that he needed to fix. Including the fact that Cen’s killer wandered around Timas’s house at will.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Heutzin looked like he knew groundsuits, Pepper thought. Greasy, burly, obviously used to working with heavy equipment. “The men outside knew I was coming,” he said.
“The Jaguar scouts, yes.” Pepper first encountered the warriors back in their country of Aztlan on New Anegada. Ressurected by aliens posing as gods, the so-called Azteca had certainly come far in their journey, taking to space and settling on Chilo, as well as habitats in orbit around New Anegada and Chilo. Many of them did their best to leave the memories of their ancestors’ vastly inhumane wars on New Anegada far behind.
Pepper had rather expected that the destruction of their alien gods at the hands of the Ragamuffins would’ve destroyed their culture. Instead they declared the aliens false gods, made the divine more abstract, and proved to be the Ragamuffins’ close allies against the League. Pepper would take allies that believed anything: from God, to gods, to Allah, to nothing. So long as they stood out of his way. “I told the scouts to expect you.” Pepper had left Katerina behind, no need for the Aeolians to hear about this.
Heutzin looked suspicious, and nervous. “What is it you had me called here for?”
Pepper leaned in on his crutch. “I need groundsuits.”
“Ollin and the pipiltin have already told us you are to get nothing.”
“Let me modify my request”—Pepper dropped his voice down so that he sounded soothing, but confident—“I want your junked suits and any spare parts I can buy. In return, I’ll give you several gold discs and an encrypted chip with enough of a credit line on it that you will be able to get all new spare parts, as well as whatever else you need to keep those few dozen suits you have left running.”
Pepper thought it an overly generous offer. The chit was reserved for bigger emergencies than this, the sort of thing Pepper could use to access a vast line of credit set up many years ago.
“Where is the chit?” Heutzin asked. He would know, like anyone else in the city, how important securing guaranteed usability out of their groundsuits was. Pepper knew they could hardly afford to turn him down.
So why hadn’t he asked the pipiltin about this new offer of his?
Politic
ians. That’s what the pipiltin really were. And he didn’t trust them not to shoot themselves in the foot over some principle. Let the men on the ground like him and Heutzin work out what was really what.
Pepper moved over to a bench and kicked it over with the crutch. He had gotten used to having one arm and one leg. He’d even remapped his neural tissue to help adapt.
It would hamper him in a fight for sure, but at least he had balance back.
“There.” Pepper pointed out a long package.
Heutzin unwrapped it and then jumped back. “What is this?”
“A leg.” Pepper dismissed the grim joke that leaped to mind: that he was paying an arm and a leg, or at least a leg, for Heutzin’s services. “Deep in the center section of the thigh you’ll find your payment.”
“I can’t . . .” Heutzin stepped back even farther.
Pepper slapped the crutch into the flagstone behind him. “Don’t waste my time.”
“You called me here.”
“You came.” Pepper’s voice dropped, an instinctive response. But Heutzin looked harried and tired, and the whole deal was falling apart.
“What would you have a dockworker do, ignore a call from the grand house of a respected xocoyotzin?”
Pepper had to compose himself, pull in hard, and force himself to change tactics. This was not a place for action and intimidation.
He had to work people with words and deviousness.
Not something that came naturally.
“You love your city.” Pepper repositioned the crutch. “I can see that in you. And you love your people. Do you want us to disappear like Chaco just did?”
Heutzin sighed. “I know your bargain is one that helps us. But that isn’t all that is happening here. I know you are manipulating me: I’m a simple dockworker, not a stupid one. If the bargain is for our greater good, then will you mind if I tell the pipiltin your proposal?”
Pepper blinked. “I would mind. I would mind terribly.”
“I thought so. So I risk what little reputation I have, my livelihood, and possibly something more, by aiding you in whatever it is you are planning.”
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