“What language are you speaking?” asked Kitten.
“Tahitian,” said the woman. “He was reminding me it’s karaoke night at the Seahorse.”
“Kare-ee-oh-kee…” Kitten said. “Is that a form of martial art?”
“It is when she sings it,” said the younger man, and he got a punch in the arm for that.
“Sings!” Kitten put her front limbs on the back of their seat. “It’s for singing?”
The young woman raised a finger in her comrade’s face before he could make another joke at her expense. “Sort of,” she said. “There’s a music track, and you sing along with it.”
“That sounds like high civilization!” said Kitten.
All three officers laughed at that. “You like to sing?” asked the woman.
Ashur, Dragonette, and I exchanged amused glances. Then Kitten began to sing “Bali Ha’i” from South Pacific.
She did a respectable job of it, though I still prefer her rendition of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” It turned out to be the right song as we drove out of town on that road, toward a horizon where storm clouds were unloading in one spot and the sun was blazing through in another, until we passed a sign that said JOE’S CANYON, 13 KILOMETERS. The road bent west, and on the northern side, a tributary canyon peeked out from a tangle of trees and shrubs that seemed to be growing thicker as we gained elevation.
MAISY NORTH said a sign by the road. “This is Maisy Canyon?” I said. “I thought it was Joe’s Canyon.”
“Maisy River,” said the woman. “She flows all the way through the canyon, but on this end, she’s fed by springs. Her water is good up here. Farther south, it gets real muddy.”
As we approached the canyon, the day progressed, the storm clouds developed gaps, and bright sunlight shone through more spots. Creatures flew past our windows, flocking in the trees and making chirpy noises, but we saw some that traveled on paws and claws, too. When we turned another bend, a family of hoofed animals stared at us from a hillside, and one of them had three sets of horns.
Ashur had wondered why this place looked so empty. Now that we were in the middle of it, we saw life everywhere. What we didn’t see was alien spaceships. We couldn’t even see the Three, who still hid behind the rain. The picture I had in my head of the graveyard must be wrong.
Then we turned another bend and saw a sprawling parking lot, and the entrance to Joe’s Salvage Yard, and I knew that my original impression of weird spaceships crowding the landscape hadn’t been so wrong, after all.
If anything, it was an understatement.
17
Unsorted Apocrypha
Orderly disorder might be the best way to describe the front section of Joe’s Salvage Yard, the interface between customers, employees, and odds and ends from spaceships. Everything that couldn’t stand on its own was piled, stacked, sorted in bins, or hung on racks that towered far overhead. Customers and employees examined parts, haggled over prices, and climbed on catwalks to explore the uppermost offerings.
Standing behind it all, the Three glowed in the morning light as the storm began to clear.
I said.
I stared at our (alleged) ancestors. If they were aware of us, I felt no hint of it.
The entities are in agreement.…
Once we had parked, the officers walked us straight down the middle of the lot, a wide aisle between rows of objects whose purpose must be obvious to engineers and technicians, but not so much to me. It bestowed a veneer of mystery on items that might otherwise seem utilitarian. As we passed under a sign that said DANGER! UNSORTED APOCRYPHA!, a group of men standing near a security gate stared at us long and hard enough to make me uncomfortable.
There were three of them. They stood out because they didn’t look like the typical Belters and Graveyarders we had met so far, the people whom Fire had said were descendants of colonists from Oceania.
Beyond their general otherness, I couldn’t tell you much about two of those men, because the third dwarfed them. He stood well over two meters and had the muscular build of a cross-training athlete. His skin was ruddy where it wasn’t pale, though his hair was black. He had vivid blue eyes.
Sounds sort of handsome, doesn’t he? Yet he was wearing an expression I didn’t like, on a face that looked like it had been shaped by emotions I didn’t want to know about, and I would have been happy to walk far away from him.
A vehicle rolled through the front gates and onto the lot, parting the crowd of shoppers with little regard for their safety. It reminded me of the limo Medusa had climbed into, except that it was bigger, and its panels were the color of storm clouds. It rolled to a stop next to the giant and his forgettables. The driver jumped out and ran around to the side, where he unlocked a door and pulled it open to allow the passengers to disembark.
Ashur stopped dead, so I walked right into him. When the officers noticed we weren’t following anymore, they paused to see what was holding us up.
“Is that Lady Sheba?” said Ashur.
He had seen her only once, in the transmission from Itzpapalotl, but once was enough. Sheba allowed the driver to help her from the vehicle. She stood tall when her feet were on the ground. Bomarigala climbed out beside her.
Or was it? He resembled the man who had sparred with me when I rejected the offer of the Weapons Clan. Somehow he looked younger, less sure of himself. Could this be his son?
Sheba surveyed the lot, her head tilted at a regal angle. She was dressed for hiking, and her hair had been bound in a tight braid. When her eyes found our motley little group, she flashed a predatory grin. She knew exactly who we were. The Bomarigala look-alike noticed her expression and looked at us, too. He didn’t smile, and I got the impression he wasn’t impressed with us.
Kitten stretched her neck.
Dragonette hovered overhead.
A moment later, a small motored cart rolled past us and circled around to Sheba and her entourage. The giant and the forgettables climbed into the seats behind Sheba and Almost Bomarigala.
Others will be journeying into the canyon, too, with the permission of other entities.…
Apparently with their own guides. As they rolled past, Sheba ignored us, but her henchmen watched us, their eyes gleaming.
The port officers started to walk again. It looked as though we weren’t going to be riding anywhere, so we had no choice but to follow.
* * *
People drove past us in a variety of vehicles, from small, moving platforms big enough for the feet of one person to a house-sized thing whose purpose I could only guess. We walked until the heat began to oppress me, and I longed for a vehicle of our own. The landscape around us widened, revealing bigger objects that looked more like alien spaceships—or at least pieces of them.
“How many people work here?” Ashur said.
“Maybe a hundred?” said the female officer. “It varies. My mother-in-law works h
ere. Just about everyone has a relative who does.”
A hundred people would be lost among the wrecks in Joe’s Salvage Yard, but they had plenty of machines to help them out, and many of those looked like salvage, too. Farther in, the catwalks and the racks they accessed morphed into more complex structures, some of them linking with ships that seemed to have become part of the permanent landscape. They formed bridges over our main pathway, casting shade that might provide some relief at midday, though for now the sun slanted under those structures and right into our eyes. The port officers slipped protective eyewear onto their faces without breaking their stride.
We walked for perhaps half an hour, until we saw Fire and Queenie standing next to three large bundles supported by frames. Our guides straightened their shoulders.
If I thought the Port Authority officers had looked upon us with awe, the high regard they seemed to have for Fire was an eye-opener. She might have been a general reviewing her troops. She looked the part, standing in the center of that yard with Queenie towering over her head.
“Welcome,” she said when our group was within hailing distance.
The port officers stopped and formed a loose circle around Fire and her supplies. They didn’t greet her, but turned to look at us expectantly.
I felt shy again, despite the warmth of her smile.
Fire indicated one of three framed packs. “I’ll carry this one for you, to the junction. I can’t go past that point. Ahi will meet you there.”
“We don’t get to have a nice supper and sleep on a bed tonight?” I said, feeling a bit put out.
“Nope,” said Fire. “The entities in that graveyard don’t have much patience for human considerations. As far as they’re concerned, once your wheels hit the ground, you need to get to it.”
“Then we’ll be camping tonight,” said Ashur. “Under the stars.”
From his tone, he thought that was going to be wonderful. Even though I had known accommodations inside the graveyard were going to be rough, the reality didn’t sink in until I had my feet on solid ground. Very hard ground, air mattresses notwithstanding.
“First,” said Fire, “you two get changed. I brought clean-wear for you.” She opened the top of two of the packs and pulled out packages. After a brief inspection, she handed one to me and one to Ashur. “That silk-and-cotton stuff you have on is pretty, but it’s going to stink after less than a day. The clean-wear will always smell good, and you can shake it out if it gets dusty. That’s why it’s so rare.”
Ashur inspected his. “What’s it made of?”
“Proprietary stuff.” Fire winked at him. “The people who own the patent aren’t saying.”
“Is it made from salvaged technology? From the graveyard?”
She frowned at him. “No! You know we can be smart all by ourselves, right?”
“I didn’t mean—I know that!” Ashur stuttered.
Fire grinned. “I’m kidding! Go put those on, and take these.” She handed over two pairs of low boots. “They’ll conform to your feet. They’ll save you a lot of pain down the line. Put these on last.” She handed us each a hat. “It’s spring, but you two have spent your whole lives on a generation ship.”
We piled the boots and hats on top of the clothing. Fire pointed to a building. “Those are bathrooms, so take advantage.”
I didn’t have to hear that twice. We made a beeline for the facilities.
* * *
When we emerged again, the port officers had left. I was not surprised to find that Dragonette had perched atop one of Queenie’s horns and Kitten had made herself comfortable on Fire’s shoulders.
“Looking good!” said Fire as she inspected our new clothes. “You’ll be glad for those. Give me your discards, and I’ll have them laundered for you.”
We handed her our Olympian garb, and she placed it in the packages that had held the clean-wear. “You know,” she said, “this cloth is beautiful. That’s another thing you can trade, once you get that going.”
I was glad to hear that someone thought we had good stuff, but I was also glad to hear the formula for the clean-wear cloth was secret. I didn’t think Olympian textiles could compete in that market.
“This one is yours.” Fire pointed me to one of the packs. “That one is Ashur’s.”
She watched as we shouldered into the frames, then helped us with our straps. The weight was substantial, but not unbearably so.
“There must not be much water in here,” worried Ashur.
“You’ve got a liter bottle in there that you can refill,” said Fire. “Ahi knows where all the water stops are. This end of the Maisy River is okay for drinking. Now”—she patted Kitten—“I love you Minis, but it’s time for you to vacate your perches so Queenie and I can carry the extra pack to the bridge.”
“The bridge?” I said.
“It spans a small gorge over the Maisy River,” said Fire. She turned her back to the remaining pack and went down on one knee. Before I could ask her what she was doing, Queenie grew tendrils that seized the pack and pulled it close. Fire stood again.
“Is Queenie made of biometal?” said Ashur.
“Nope,” said Fire in a tone that suggested no further queries should be made into the nature of Queenie’s substance.
“Proprietary,” suggested Kitten.
“Very,” said Fire. “This way, Olympians.” She marched up the central aisle, toward a point where the catwalk maze seemed to twist into a jumble.
* * *
The jumble was an optical illusion, but the maze still turned out to be fairly maze-y.
“Don’t people get lost in here?” I wondered.
“Sure,” said Fire. “This isn’t even the tricky part of the canyon. Most of the ships on this end are modern. Those big ships you see holding up parts of the catwalks? We call them the Sentinels. The youngest of those are over eighty thousand years old.”
One of those giants loomed to our left. Its panels reflected the morning light, dulled in the spots where catwalks intersected it. A large door in its hide loomed open, but it didn’t look like a pressure door. It appeared to be part of the structure, rather than something that was cut into it later, by humans. I entertained the notion that this Sentinel had grown a door to accommodate the catwalks.
Light dappled the worn pavement where the sunlight shone through the structures overhead. My eye caught movement among those shadows, something sinuous and graceful that flowed over the broken patterns, imposing a shape I thought I knew.
Tentacles.
It must be moving on the catwalk. It passed right over our heads, and I looked up in time to see something disappear inside the open doorway of the Sentinel.
Something rebuffed me. The sensation felt odd, as if I were a moth that had fluttered up against a windowpane.
I quickly schooled it. “I thought I saw something going into the Sentinel.”
“They don’t let just anyone in,” said Fire. “The Sentinels like us. They sort of look after us. They even talk to us sometimes, if we can access the machine parts of their brains.”
“What about the nonmachine parts?” said Kitten, craning her flexible neck so she could study the old ship.
“What, indeed?” said Fire. “That interface is harder—and well protected.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Dragonette remarked from her perch on Ashur’s pack frame. “It’s not nice to poke at the organic parts of people’s brains.”
If that had been Medusa I had seen, she didn’t seem inclined to stick a tentacle out the door and wave at me. Now I wasn’t sure I had seen anything at all. I squared my shoulders and adjusted my pack. Fire took that as a signal, and we resumed our march.
“When does it start to look canyon-y?” Ashur said.
“When you get to the edge,�
�� said Fire. “The canyon is a surprise when you see it. This terrain bends upward, all the way to the South Rim. The North Rim is five hundred meters higher than the South Rim, so you’ll see that first.”
“It’s like a long climb down into a big crack in the earth?”
“Into a wide crack,” said Fire. “Almost sixty kilometers at its widest place. There’s a world in there: spires, buttes and plateaus, massive ledges and giant staircases. You can find deserts and oases, but there are narrow places, too, and slot canyons.”
The mention of slot canyons reminded me of our talk of flash floods, and I scanned the horizon for rain clouds. The morning storm had shredded into tatters, and that side of the sky shone back at me, almost cloudless and vivid blue. The Three shifted color in that light, looking more like the rocks in the canyon below them, but their details were no sharper. I could see no features I would expect to find on the hull of a spaceship.
“Everything has to start someplace, right?” said Fire. “Joe’s Canyon starts at the bridge, where the Maisy River eats through the Clementine Plateau.”
“Joe, Maisy, and Clementine,” said Ashur.
Fire grinned. “They were colonists in the first wave of humans on this world. That layer of red sandstone”—she pointed to a slab of red rock ahead—“is the Ernie Sandstone.”
I had thought that structure was a mountain. As we worked our way closer to it, I realized it was part of the North Rim we had seen earlier. Catwalks and spaceships obscured the rest of the rim, but as we got closer, we could see more of it, and less of the salvaged items in the yard. It didn’t look like a canyon yet, but I could see how one might emerge from that landscape.
A breeze wafted past us, and I smelled flowers. Clumps of them grew wild in patches around the structures, but some were enterprising enough to colonize cracks in rock surfaces. “Which wildflower am I smelling?” I said.
“Those are the twistifer trees. There.” Fire pointed to a shrubby plant that seemed intent on falling over a ledge. “Their bark smells good this time of year.”
Medusa in the Graveyard (The Medusa Cycle) Page 20