TableofContents

by Low Bo

  Tussig nodded as if he understood. "What are you going to do with us?" he asked again.

  "Don't know. We were just supposed to evict you."

  "Fucken nid! Stop!"

  From one of the gangways, Raja can sprinted into the alcove. He skidded to a halt when he saw Tussig. Tussig opened his mouth, thinking to warn him, when one of the techs came charging out in Raja can's wake.

  The tech collided with Raja can and they tumbled forward, slamming to the ground in a heap. Raja can immediately began twisting and writhing and almost scrambled from the tech's grip. The tech-Tussig could not see which one-clawed at Rajacan's togs. Raja can drew up a leg and snapped it into the tech's sealed helmet. The tech paused, stunned, and Raja can managed to get to his feet.

  Bryce stood, reaching for his sidearm. Raja can looked frantic, momentarily frightened.

  The dazed tech stood. Tussig saw the rock he held just as he brought his arm up. He bashed Raja can in the side of the head. Raja can collapsed. A few moments later, blood flowed from within his hairline, covering his face.

  Tussig screamed.

  "Damn!" Bryce yelled. He stepped forward.

  The tech drew a weapon.

  "Don't you dare aim that thing at me, Sidge," Bryce said, pointing at the stunner.

  The tech-Sidge-staggered back a couple of steps. Bryce took another step forward and Sidge shot him.

  Tussig had never seen anyone hit by a stunner before. Bryce seized up as if about to have a fit, and then flopped to the polycrete, muscles utterly relaxed, consciousness gone.

  "Shit," Sidge said. A hand went to the collar and Sidge's helmet retracted.

  The woman. Her face was angry, confused. She still seemed rattled by Raja-can's blow. She shook her head and approached Bryce, holding the stunner out as though afraid he would get up. When he did not move, she looked at Tussig. She regarded him narrowly for several seconds, then shrugged and went to Raja-can.

  "Are they all dead?" Tussig asked, and immediately felt stupid and afraid.

  Sidge looked at the others laid out. "No," she said, her voice surprisingly even. "Just stunned." She frowned at him. "You were at the extreme range. Charge wasn't as bad. Not that you know what that means..."

  She rolled Raja-can over. His eyes gazed skyward, unseeing.

  Sidge glanced over her shoulder, then holstered the stunner. She still moved cautiously, with a degree of uncertainty. She started patting Raja-can's body, searching.

  Tussig wondered where the third tech was. He had seemed to be the leader. If he came back now and saw this, maybe Sidge would be disciplined. Maybe, with two useless people-one stunned, the other untrustworthy-he would let the buddle go. They might have time then to leave.

  But without Raja-can.

  Tussig watched Sidge's hands move over the lifeless body of what used to be Tussig's prime par, the head of the buddle, the man who had kept them centered, optimistic, and moving. Maybe, he puzzled, the stunner had numbed more than just his body, because he could not quite connect what he saw with anything he felt. The blow Sidge had struck had startled him, but now he seemed unable to react. There was a slow chill beginning to course through him, but that seemed a poor excuse for actual feeling.

  We're nids, he thought, we don't have feelings. It follows ... we don't have anything else, not even identities, that's what it means, after all, NID, No ID, no access, no stipend, no path, no facts, no life, just bodies no one knows what to do with, excess biomass with brains too big to be pets, too small to be dangerous, nuisances...

  Tussig had heard all these things said, spoken around pathetic campfires and in disused structures where a few of them gathered from time to time to pass what they had of goods and aid and news to each other. He was uncertain he knew what the words meant, but suddenly they implied much more than they ever had before.

  But why is she searching his pockets? he wondered. Doesn't she know we have nothing?

  Where is the third one?

  Tussig looked at Bryce. His stunner lay nearby.

  We could start freeriding, Tussig thought, and turned to see if any of the port could be seen from here. No, only more walls, broken or useless, supporting nothing. But this would be port one day, according to Bryce, which is why Raja-can lay dead now. The nids had to go. Squatters.

  Freeriders... the idea carried a romantic patina... they told stories of the freeriders, nids like themselves who hopped aboard shuttles and caught rides on starships. They were more myth than reality, according to Raja-can, but even he had grudgingly admitted that some truth adhered to the stories. All you needed was a kit and a breather and the tech on your back to survive the transfer upwell to the waiting ships and then the luck to hide out in cargo or some corner of engineering. Tussig had even heard of freeriders who carried along a change of fine clothes and slipped into passenger sections of luxury liners and rode from star to star in comfort, sleeping on a good bed, and thumbing their noses at the invested, living on the fringe of overlooked credit and-

  And Raja-can was probably right, they were all myth and madness, exaggerations based on a few reckless coes who might have managed it once or twice, but hardly as a lifestyle.

  Raja-can had been right about a great deal. But he had never known he would die so soon. None of them had and now Tussig knew how wrong Raja-can could be.

  Sidge shifted her position to more easily dig in Raja-can's pants, turning her back to Tussig.

  The idea came as clear and clean as Bryce's water. Tussig got to his feet and stepped silently over Bryce. In a smooth motion, he swept up the stunner, walked up behind Sidge.

  She began to stand. Tussig placed the stunner against the back of her head and pulled the trigger.

  It was shockingly loud.

  Her skull seemed to expand. She lunged forward, over Raja-can, and landed, face down, with an ugly slap.

  Tussig squatted before her and gingerly raised her head by the hair. Her eyes bulged hugely and her tongue jutted. Blood ran freely from her nose. He released her and let her head smack the ground.

  He tossed the stunner back over by Bryce and sat there, thinking.

  He thought: I'm twelve years old and I've just killed someone.

  He thought: I have nothing anyone can take from me anymore.

  He thought: I'm terrified.

  The rest of the buddle came to before Bryce did. As each one woke up and remembered what had happened, they saw Raja-can and the dead tech, and each one reacted differently.

  Shimmer checked Raja-can's pulse, then looked at Tussig, eyes wide and terrified. The other sibs, all younger than Tussig, started to cry until Shimmer hissed at them. Kess gathered them to her, holding them.

  "You?" Shimmer asked Tussig, tapping the tech on the back.

  He nodded, unwilling to speak.

  Shimmer shook his head. "Bad." He looked at the others, all watching, huddled together, waiting for Shimmer to tell them what to do. He wiped at his head and scowled at the blood.

  "Got to assume Fera got away," Shimmer said. He sighed. "We can't have law after us, Tussig. Not this way. They ignore us mostly, but this..." He shook his head again, eyes sad, then turned toward the others. "Get the tent, gather our possibles. We're moving."

  "Shimmer," Kess said, "we can't leave Tussig-"

  "We can't have law after us!" Shimmer hissed. "We got them to think about. And it seems I'm prime par now."

  "So the first thing you do is abandon someone?"

  "A murderer, Kess. Think!"

  She shook her head, but lapsed into silence.

  "All right then," Shimmer said. "Move."

  Tussig watched his sibs react. Within a couple of minutes they had found the chamo tent, decloaked it, and broke it down. Packs were gathered, the tent folded into its pouch, and camp, such as it had been, was struck.

  "You're young," Shimmer told Tussig. "That counts for mercy."

  Tussig watched his place in the buddle eliminated and thought: I have even less now .

 
Shimmer organized the buddle quickly, gave Tussig a last, pained look, and then led them out of the factory. Kess did not look back.

  It took another ten minutes for Bryce to revive. He sat up, groaning, and held his head in his hands for a time. When he looked up, color leached from his face.

  "Fuck," he breathed, scrambling forward. He checked Sidge quickly, then Raja-can, and sat back. He glanced at Tussig, eyes wide, then searched for his weapon. He crawled to it and grabbed it, then stood. He aimed it first at Tussig, then at Sidge. Finally, he holstered it and looked around.

  "Where the hell is Ridel?"

  Tussig shrugged when Bryce looked at him.

  "You stay here," Bryce said as he walked toward the gangway.

  Tussig considered running off while Bryce was gone, but it seemed pointless. His fear had blended with a profound ambivalence, a strange mix of hopeless euphoria and desperate anger that kept him fixed in place.

  Bryce was gone for less than five minutes. When he returned, he looked furious. Tussig recognized the tight set of his jaw, the muscle working it between ear and mandible, the coldness in his eyes. He had seen that look in others and it had never meant anything but trouble.

  "Come on," Bryce said, grabbing Tussig's arm and pulling him to his feet.

  "The other tech?" Tussig asked.

  "Dead. Maybe Sidge, maybe this one. Come on."

  Bryce walked him out of the ruined factory, setting a quick pace. He said nothing till they reached the old road that ran alongside the abandoned compound. A transport waited there. Bryce touched the panel on its side and the hatch unsealed and opened.

  Bryce hustled Tussig into the vehicle. He followed and closed the hatch, then sat down at the pilot's station. Tussig listened to his breathing, labored and loud, and slowly realized that Bryce was terrified.

  "The others," Bryce said finally. "They left?"

  "Yes."

  "Left you?"

  "They-yes."

  "Not much different than anybody else, then. Too much trouble, cut a co off, leave him behind. No different at all."

  "You don't know what we're like," Tussig said. "You don't know anything about us. All you're worried about is your precious dispenser."

  Bryce swung out of the seat and faced Tussig. "Yeah? So what? Before today, would you have believed your buddle would abandon you?"

  Tussig glared at Bryce, but he could not sustain the rage. Not at Bryce. He looked away.

  "Thought not. So don't give me any shit about not knowing you. No one knows anyone till they're desperate. Then you find out. Eh?"

  Bryce returned to the pilot's seat and started up the transport. As the vehicle began to roll, Tussig moved into the seat next to Bryce.

  "Where are we going?"

  Bryce steered the transport through a half circle and headed for the towers of Charic, visible distantly at the end of the road.

  "Were you really trying to make it here for the migration?" Bryce asked.

  "That's what Raja-can told us."

  "One of you might make it, then."

  "Where are you taking me?"

  "Home. My dom. I have to sort things out."

  Tussig's heart raced as he watched the main city draw near. It seemed his vision was clearer and his hearing more acute. He licked his lips.

  "Are you going to try to balance it all?" he asked.

  Bryce frowned deeply but did not look at Tussig. After a time, he nodded.

  "Maybe. Whether it wants to be or not."

  Tussig did not speak the rest of the way.

  Bryce lived in a small dom, three rooms and a hygiene cube, on the outskirts of the port. The place was clean and the air tasted pure. Bryce sent Tussig to the cube.

  "I got some things to check out," he said. "You get cleaned up."

  Tussig stood in the hot spray or a long time. When he came out, Bryce had set out new clothes on the couch. Tussig examined them, amazed, and then carefully slipped them on. He felt new, reborn, and wondered if this was the goal of all those ecstatics in their enclaves along the rivers. Probably not, he decided, since if it were so simple as new clothes they would all have abandoned their self-loathing long ago.

  Bryce came into the dom in a hurry.

  "There's ships leaving for the frontier every day," he said. Sweat glistened on his scalp. He held up a disk. "Passage out." He handed the disk to Tussig. Then he held up his own disk. "If you don't mind the company?"

  Tussig stared at him, gnawing his lower lip. Bryce grinned.

  "Been thinking about it for a long time. Charic's getting too fussy with its rules and people like Sidge and Ridel don't make me feel any better about living here. Time maybe to move on."

  Quickly, Bryce began packing a bag for himself. Tussig had nothing but his old clothes, so he sat and watched, dismayed. He slipped his disk into a breast pocket and tried to sort out what was happening.

  Leaving...

  Bryce finished and sealed his pack. "Ready?"

  Bryce left his transport beneath an enormous shed at the perimeter of the port and led Tussig, a hand firmly on his shoulder, to a walkway that carried them into the port proper.

  Tussig had never been in such a huge, clean space. The white of the walls and supports, the pale, veined stone of the floors, all seemed to glow. People in beautiful clothes stood in lines or strode purposefully through the galleries. The ceiling arched high above. Throughout, Tussig felt the occasional vibration of rising shuttles heaving out of blast pits. The air was cool and curiously rich. He had never been in a place like this, never thought to walk in such a world.

  Bryce's grip tightened briefly. Tussig looked around and spotted a group of police officers near one of the queues, asking questions.

  "Keep walking," Bryce said. He pointed. "That's where we're going."

  Tussig saw a booth serving a line of about a dozen people, all of them carrying bags like Bryce's. Bryce let go of Tussig's shoulder then and handed him his own bag.

  "Hang onto this till we get our ship," Bryce said.

  Tussig sensed the tension in his voice. Uncertainly, he shouldered Bryce's pack and drifted a few paces away from him. They walked on, parallel to each other.

  Then the police came toward them. Tussig's pulse jumped up, but he held back the urge to run. He looked at the booth, the queue, and kept walking.

  "Sir," one of the officers called. "Excuse us, co."

  Bryce slowed. Tussig continued on, heart pounding. After several paces, he risked a backward glance.

  The police officers were putting restraints on Bryce's wrists. The big tech scowled unhappily. He looked up, catching sight of Tussig, and gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Tussig snapped his gaze around and continued on. He reached the queue and stood in line the way everyone else stood in line and waited for the official request to step away and come with them for questions, removal, disposal-

  "Can I help you, co?"

  Tussig blinked, startled. He was standing before the booth and a woman waited for him to answer, smiling innocuously. Tussig swallowed hard and took out the disk. He handed it to her and waited while she read it.

  "Very good, co," she said, handing it back. "Gate ninety-seven. You have one hour before your shuttle lifts."

  Tussig did not speak. He slipped the disk back into his pocket and stepped away from the booth. Bryce was gone, taken away, and he saw no other police.

  He felt tears well up, but he caught them, pushed them back. Not knowing what else to do, he turned and headed for Gate 97.

  Tussig sat in a cushioned chair beside a woman who toyed with a palm reader intently for several minutes. A tall window gave a view across the shuttle field. The mushroom-shaped vehicles lifted on shafts of shimmering agrav beams, displaced air returning to give a clap of thunder, awed and frightened.

  "Inside," " the woman said. "They say you can't hear a thing."

  Tussig blinked at her. "That's good."

  She smiled. "Where are you going?"

  T
ussig pulled the disk from his pocket and looked at the label. "Diphda."

  "Hmm. Never been there myself. Why are you going there?"

  Tussig thought about the question for a long time before he answered.

  "Balance."

  MORE TO GLORY

  Patrice Sarath

  The night Jenn came home was just like any other: I was holed up in my bedroom, trying to ignore my parents fighting. I was looking at a book, but I wasn't reading it; I just stared at the picture of the sailing ship on the flat blue screen. Its broad cloth sails billowed with the winds of the Glory Sea, the rigging creaking and the hull slapping rhythmically on the waves.

  For a moment second pop's voice rose above everyone else's . I heard, "I know he's just a boy! He needs to face up to facts, that's all!" I turned up the volume on my book. I didn't want to hear what second pop had to say about me.

  Tapping at the window caught my attention and I looked up, frowning, unable to see through the wavery plastiglas into the night air. I slid off my bed and went over to it, putting my face close to the surface.

  Two bug eyed faces came into view, alarmingly magnified. I started back.

  "Shit!"

  Giggling came from the bugs. It was the twins, Dallas and Austin. Heart still hammering, disgusted that I was taken by surprise, I grabbed my respirator, glanced to make sure my door was cycled shut, and slid open the window.

  "What are you two idiots doing here?" I whispered. "If my parents find out-"

  "Guess who's back in town?"

  I looked at them with narrowed eyes, determined to wait them out. Dallas gave in first.

  "Jenn,'' he said. "She just got in."

  This time I thought my heart stopped for good. Jenn. My best friend Jenn. Ship's apprentice Jenn. Her parents bought her a spot on a space cruiser and she shipped out six months ago, just after she turned twelve.