Kitabı oxu: «Into the No-Zone»

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

If it’s been a while since you read The Sign of One (volume one in this trilogy), here’s a brief reminder of some of the main characters, terms and locations.

PROLOGUE

It’s her turn outside. After all the hours spent hiding in the dark and staying quiet, the cold drizzle that greets her is almost welcome. It’ll be her first time at the lambing. Well . . . sort of.

Old Hicks takes them up the hill to the pens, her and a lad called Marat. Marat’s sixteen, more than twice as old as she is, and won’t waste time talking to a little girl. Fine by her, because talking is dangerous.

Talking can get you found out.

Tucked away in the gloom under the camo-netting, sheltered from the ever-shrieking wind, the girl finally gets to see the woollies close up. She’s a bit disappointed. They’re manky-looking and skinny, scraps of filthy wool still hanging off where they’ve been rough-sheared. Hicks flicks the beam of his shiner about and the girl sees sheep nursing a single newborn lamb each. But one ewe lies apart from the others, and seems restless. It gets up, bleats, paws at the straw-covered earth, then lies down again.

‘That un’s ready,’ Hicks says, squinting at her.

The girl hesitates, unsure. ‘Ready?’

‘To drop. Don’t just stand there gawping. Go see to it.’

Ready to drop. Oh yeah. She swallows and nods. Her sister’s done the telling from her turn outside yesterday. Now it’s up to her to do the remembering and play it so Hicks never guesses that today’s little girl is not the same as yesterday’s little girl.

So she scuttles around to the business end of the beast. Even though she knows what to expect, she still makes a face.

‘You like that, huh?’ Marat jeers.

See, it’s messy back here. A little white head and two tiny black hooves poke out of an explosion of red skin. The girl doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or be sick. Marat sniggers at her.

She gives him the finger, while Hicks isn’t looking.

Fortunately, the old ewe knows what she’s about. The girl watches, bug-eyed, as the lamb slithers out and thumps wetly on to the straw. Only a little woolly thing, but the girl’s amazed. It all goes exactly like her sister said it would. A new life, in front of her eyes. It’s so beautiful.

Hicks is watching her. His slash of a mouth twists into a snarl.

‘What you waitin’ for?’

The girl takes a deep breath and swats the fussing ewe away. Gritting her teeth, she pulls at the stuff on the lamb’s face. It’s hot and slimy, but comes away easy enough. She makes sure the newborn’s nostrils are clear of mucus, grabs a handful of straw and gives its face a quick tickle. The tiny creature – even littler than she is – sneezes. Its warm breath tickles her cheek back. ‘It’s breathing,’ she calls out, excited.

Hicks grunts something at her, which she doesn’t catch.

The worst bit is still to come. But her sister managed it, so she’ll have to manage it too, so nobody suspects. That’s the story of their two-pretending-to-be-one life. She lets the mother ewe back in to lick its newborn clean, fishes out her laser-knife and fires up its glowing green blade. Then, not waiting to think, she slices the cord close to the lamb’s navel, dials up full heat and holds the fizzing green blade on to the bloody end until she smells flesh burning. The lamb kicks a bit, but it’s not so bad. The bleeding stops. A dab of orange iodine from the pot and she’s done. Her first lamb, and it looks fine, shaking less then she is. As she powers the blade down, the lamb lifts its head, wanting to suckle. She reckons it’s a girl.

Hicks stomps over and gobs into the straw. ‘Not a bad job.’

The girl’s not listening; she’s staring at the old ewe. It’s lost interest in the lamb and is pawing at the ground again. Beside her, Hicks curses. The girl looks up, startled, to see him making the Sign of One. Marat comes over. One look and he makes it too – the sign against evil.

The girl’s blood turns to ice. ‘What’s wrong?’

Hicks turns his back, lurches off to a corner of the pen and picks up some filthy old sacking. More cursing as he throws it at her.

‘What’s this for?’ she says. Instantly realises this was a mistake.

‘Same as yesterday,’ Marat sneers. ‘You forget already?’

‘We’re cursed,’ Hicks growls, looking disgusted. ‘Two blasted sets in two days. We’ll be in the upper pens when you’re done at the river. And don’t lose the sack this time, you hear? They don’t grow on trees.’

Finally, the girl understands. This ewe being restless again – it has a second lamb on the way. A twin lamb!

The sack. The river. She can’t help shuddering.

One is good, two is evil. The words pound through her brain as Hicks shambles off swearing, pulling at what’s left of his hair. Marat looks at the girl, his forehead knotted, like he’s chewing on a bone inside his head. This makes the girl sweat. She does her dumber-than-dumb face and sketches the Sign of One. Not because she wants to: because she has to.

What was her fool of a sister thinking? Why didn’t she warn her?

The ewe lies down, strains and bleats. The girl glimpses a second set of tiny hoofs start squeezing out into the world. And then the gate bangs shut against its stone gatepost, making the girl jump. She looks up and Hicks and Marat are gone. It’s just her and the sheep now. She drops to her knees in the straw, shaking. The old ewe takes a break from straining to glare at her out of its dark-slot eye. She reaches out and runs her hand over its firstborn. The tiny wet thing butts her fingers with its snout, mistaking her for its mother. It cries out, desperate for milk.

How can this poor little thing be evil? the girl wonders.

Like everyone else out here she’s half starved. Her pale face is pinched, her stomach swollen. She can’t help thinking that this is two lambs for the price of one: two small bundles of wool and milk and mutton and hope – a blessing not a curse. She says this last phrase over and over again. It’s word for word what her mother whispers to her and her twin sister every night at their going-to-bed time.

It’s only the rest of the world that disagrees . . .

The old ewe tires and needs help. The girl pulls the second lamb out by its hooves, sorts its breathing like before and sees to the birth cord. Without thinking, she helps give the poor little doomed thing life. As the ewe starts licking and nudging it, she fights not to think about how she’ll soon be sticking them both in the sack. Or how it will feel as the sack thrashes in the cold water. Most of all, she tries not to think about what will happen to her and her twin sister if they’re ever found out. It won’t just be a bag over their heads and a trip to the river. They won’t get off so lightly.

The girl almost never cries. She has a quick cry now.

Stones crunch and rattle, dislodged by a boot. She looks around and Marat is back. He leans on the gate, chomping on a piece of bindgrass. Says nothing. Just stares at her. Real hard.

Does he see her tears in the gloom? She can’t be sure.

Quickly, hating to do it, the girl stuffs the lambs into the sack. She shoves her way out and past Marat, shutting her ears to the ewe’s frantic bleating. She runs down to the river, finds a quiet spot. Only she can’t drown them, like her sister did. Instead, she takes a desperate chance. She hides them inside a dead tree, covering them with grass and leaves to keep them warm. She whispers to them that she’ll come back when it’s dark and sneak them home. Her mother will know what to do.

‘You’re a blessing not a curse,’ she tells them.

But as she turns around, the girl sees Marat has followed her . . .

PART ONE

1
SO MUCH FOR BEING A HERO

I’m getting the hang of this being beaten to a pulp thing. They haul me to my feet. I shuffle forward in the fighting crouch I’ve been taught. And then our combat instructor, Stauffer, knocks all kinds of lumps out of me until I fall down again.

He’s hammering me, laughing while he does it.

Plenty of other instructors and trainees are loving it too, watching the ‘hero’ of the Facility raid have his head kicked in.

Why not? If I were them, I’d hate me too.

It’s Ballard’s fault. He won’t let me or my brother Colm fight for real, says we’re too valuable to the Gemini cause to be risked. So while these guys we train with go off on hit-and-run raids, we sit tight here in our hidden base in the Deeps. That’d be enough to get us hated, but there are his speeches too. Rebel units from all over Wrath are flown out here to be rested, or for training. None of them escape Ballard’s we’re-all-in-this-together-and-fighting-for-the-future-of-idents speech. I get shoved in front of them, called a hero and made to tell my edited story – from finding out I was myself an ident and a nublood, through to how I ‘volunteered’ to let myself be captured, knowing I’d be taken to the secret Slayer base known as the Facility; breaking out with my brother’s help and activating the beacon buried in my arm so our rebel forces could destroy the base and rescue the hundreds of nublood kids enslaved there.

Ballard says my story inspires them. Says it’s important.

Yeah, right. He should ask Stauffer if I inspire him. This was a regular empty-hand skills session until he’d picked on Colm even worse than usual, to wind me up. I can keep my temper when I’m taking the hits, but I lost it and called him out.

‘Stay down, Kyle. Don’t be stupid,’ Colm hisses.

‘I can take him,’ I mumble.

I spit a gobful of red on to the dirt and groan. Something scrapes painfully inside me, like one of my ribs is bust. Above me, the bigmoon is already above the overhanging cliff, its crescent and rings bright in the darkening sky. Sky lizards circle in the last of the day’s updraughts, their shrill whistling calls drifting down.

Even they sound like they’re jeering.

‘Hey, Kyle, we need to talk,’ a familiar voice shouts.

I groan again as I see Sky elbowing her way through the watchers, breathing fast like she’s run here. Only before I can say anything, I’m thrown back at Stauffer. Maybe I fight harder now she’s here. Anyway, I nail him once – hard enough to pull a grunt out of him – before he knocks me back down again.

Sky squats beside me. ‘You’re the punchbag today?’

I shrug, so big-gob Colm answers for me, nodding towards the grinning Stauffer. ‘Kyle challenged him.’

She scowls. ‘Challenged your instructor? Smart move.’

Scowls are all I get from Sky these days. Not that we even see each other that often, now she’s flying combat ops.

‘Yeah, like you’d take his shit,’ I growl.

‘Make yourself useful,’ Colm says, chucking her a wet cloth.

Sky dabs carelessly at my face. ‘I’ve got news about my sister,’ she says, all excited. ‘I need to show you something.’

Around me, I hear the trainees muttering. Laughter too.

I grab the rag off her. ‘I’m busy.’

‘You swore you’d help me find Tarn. Remember?’

‘How could I forget?’

I grit my teeth. Mistake. One’s gone. I can wobble others with my tongue. Crap. Teeth take days to grow back.

‘Hey, skinny girl,’ Stauffer yells. ‘After I’m done with your boyfriend here, how about you and me have some fun, huh?’

He makes it clear what kind of fun with hip thrusts.

Sky flicks him her middle finger.

‘Quit messing,’ she tells me. ‘Finish him.’

My turn to scowl. ‘Don’t you think I’m trying?’

The look of scorn on Sky’s face – bottle it and you could sell it as battery acid. ‘You’re being dumb, fighting like they trained you to. Arse-face is catching you because he sees you coming.’

‘So how should I fight?’

‘Like a Reaper,’ she says. ‘Dirty.’

I’m grabbed and thrown back at Stauffer. His mates want blood, not chat. He comes at me, gob hanging open, maybe wanting to finish me quick and show Sky what a big, tough man he is. Nearly does too, with me still thinking about Sky. Only he slips and misses, and I come to my senses. I duck and weave and throw jabs to get him to back up. I don’t let him get close enough to hurt me.

‘Come here, you little shite!’ he snarls, starting to blow now.

Just as I begin to hope, I step back too far, straying across the rope on the ground that marks out our ring. Hands thrust me back at Stauffer, straight into his punch. He rattles my bones.

Down I go again, on to my knees.

And he’s laughing at me again. They all are.

That’s not what lights me up. These gommers can laugh all they like – what do I care? No. It’s seeing Sky standing there, watching with her thin arms folded, contempt twisting her lips. Something rips inside me that isn’t my cracked ribs. Before, I was fighting for Colm, and to wipe sneers off faces. Now I’m possessed.

I stagger back to my feet, spitting curses.

Stauffer stops his strutting and closes on me. I fake a half-hearted spin kick. He leans back, leaving his front foot planted. Careless. I pull out of the kick and stamp down hard, crunching the bones along the top of his foot. He screams and goes down, clutching at it. The fight’s over there and then, but I treat him to a few kicks anyway as he rolls around in the dirt. Afters, we call this in the Barrenlands where I grew up. It sends a message. Mess with me again, Stauffer, and this is what you’ll get.

‘Cut that out!’ Andersson, another combat instructor, shouts.

I glare at him, my chest heaving. ‘Or what?’

Colm jumps between us. ‘Take it easy, Kyle. You don’t have to fight them all. Leave some for tomorrow, why don’t you?’

He hangs his fist out. We bump stumps.

Even now I still cringe seeing my brother’s finger gone. Took it off himself using a wood-chisel after Sky told him that’s what was used on me. Says he did it to show he’s Gemini now. Sky says it shows that Colm’s even more of a gom than I am.

‘C’mon, let’s go!’ Sky chucks my boots and shirt at me.

Andersson moans at us for clearing off before the training day is over, but Sky’s a windjammer captain now and outranks him. She tells him to shut his face.

I give him a wink. I’ll regret that later, but it feels good now.

Triumph wrestles with guilt. ‘Dirty enough for you?’

It’s a few minutes later. The pounding in my head has stopped and I feel less like tearing the throat out of anybody who so much as glances at me. A cold drizzle has started. It helps in a weird kind of way, cooling me down inside and out.

Sky shrugs and keeps walking. ‘That loser had it coming.’

‘I should’ve stayed down, like Colm said.’

My brother nods, bites his lip and looks away.

Sky blows air out of her mouth. ‘What good would that do?’

I sigh, my ribs killing me, not needing another row about how I always take his side against hers. Which is crap anyway.

‘Stauffer will heal, then he’ll kill me.’

‘He wouldn’t dare.’

‘Maybe we should tell Ballard what happened,’ Colm says.

‘I can’t go running to Ballard the whole time.’

‘Seriously,’ Sky mutters.

We all shut up for a while as we trudge down the trail from the training grounds to the canyon floor. Scraps of golden evenshine strobe over us, sneaking through the camouflage netting that’s hung overhead to hide us from any eyes in the sky. I clutch my hurting ribs, glare at Sky’s back and think dark thoughts.

She glances back at me. ‘What?’

I’m so startled, I blurt it out. ‘When you hooked me up with Gemini, you swore we’d be among friends, all fighting together for the nublood cause. Hasn’t worked out like that, has it?’

Sky snorts, her wet face glistening.

‘Get real, Kyle. Nublood makes you faster and stronger, but it doesn’t stop you being an arse like Stauffer.’

‘Never said it did. It’s just – oof ! ’

I trip. My ribs have another go at me, shutting me up.

Sky stomps off again, limping as fast as she can on her bad leg. Behind her back, Colm rolls his eyes at me. Not helpful. Ever since we were flown out here to the Deeps after the raid, this is how it’s been. It’s like they can’t stand each other and I’m stuck in the middle, dodging glares and making excuses. I’m not saying it’s his fault that things have cooled between me and Sky – that’s more down to the way things have worked out – but he doesn’t help.

‘What’s the rush?’ I call out, not thinking.

She turns, her face one big snarl. ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’

‘Okay, okay,’ I say, not wanting to get hit again. ‘You’ve got news about Tarn. Can’t you just tell us?’

‘I figured you’d like to see!’

She takes a deep breath and looks away real quick.

Not quickly enough. I glimpse the bitter disappointment in her eyes and my guts twist themselves into knots. A winter ago, I swore I’d help her find her sister, Tarn. We bumped stumps on it. One way or another though it hasn’t happened. There’s always another mission for Sky to fly. I’m not allowed out of the Deeps. As excuses go it’s a good one, but I feel I’ve let her down.

‘Sky, I’m sorry. I –’

‘What’s that doing here?’ Colm says, pointing.

I look. And my next heartbeat is a long time coming. On the landing field squats a matt-black Slayer windjammer.

‘Relax,’ Sky says. ‘We forced it down a week or so ago. Took a while to get it launched again. I flew it in here today.’

‘It’s massive,’ I say, taking in the bulk of it.

Sky’s not listening. ‘Hurry up. We’ll hitch a ride out.’

Just then I hear the whoosh of a steam boiler. Seconds later I smell coal smoke. Gears grind and tracks clatter. Sky sets off at a stiff-legged run. Colm and I go after her, me clutching my side. As we emerge from the trail gloom I see a battered tractor chugging away from us. We chase after it, hang off the back.

Sky cheers up enough to nearly smile.

‘Like hopping a windjammer!’ she yells over the noise.

As we lumber across the field I check out the transport. Apart from some impact damage from a hard landing, and blast scars from the firefight that followed, this is one hell of a machine. It wasn’t cobbled together from scrap in a back-of-beyond workshop. Our rebel jammers are rust buckets by comparison.

We drop off as the tow-tractor chugs around to the bow end. Sky has a word with some heavily armed guards. They nod, she waves at us, and we follow her inside the windjammer through a hatch high on its side, hauling ourselves up handholds set into the hull. Easily done any other day, but my ribs are killing me.

Colm offers a hand. I wave him away.

Techs are poking around inside. Sky ignores them and leads me through an internal hatch into the cargo bay. ‘It’s in here!’

‘What happened to the crew?’ I ask.

Sky shrugs. ‘Killed or ran. What’s it matter?’

Over to one side is a metal cage. The light from the few glowtubes in here doesn’t reach, so she pulls out a shiner and thumbs it on. By its light I see the cage door gaping open. The lock’s all melted as if someone’s taken a plasma lance to it.

Sky clambers inside, squats down and shines the beam on to the hull at the back.

‘Her tag,’ she says, looking back at me, her green eyes shining.

2
TARN WAS HERE

All I see, after I clamber into the cage after her, is a bunch of scratches on the grey-painted metal of the hull.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘These!’ Sky says, pointing.

Amazingly, it is the scratches she’s mad keen to show me. There must be hundreds of them, scored and gouged into the metal. Most are old and tough to see clearly, as if they’ve been painted over. Others are fresher or deeper, still shiny. Sky points out one set in particular, tracing the lines with a shaking finger.

‘Her tag,’ she says again, biting her lip. ‘Tarn was here.’

I lean in and squint, but still all I see is a bunch of random scratches. ‘How can you know that?’

Sky’s breathing catches and she stiffens.

‘Look, I believe you,’ I say quickly. ‘I don’t see it, that’s all.’

She scowls at me. Again. ‘A tag is your mark. Only you and your mates know it; that way it can’t be traced back to you. In the camps we all tagged. The kick was to piss the guards off by tagging as many places as you could without getting caught.’ She stares into space and shakes her head. ‘Nobody tagged more than Tarn. My sister scratched her tags in places no one else dared.’

I can’t help wondering if she’s just seeing what she wants to see. No way I’m saying that though. Next thing I know, Sky’s back on her feet and shoving past me out of the cage.

‘There’s something else,’ she says.

I go to follow and my ribs take another shot, doubling me up.

‘After that, can I go and get patched up?’ I say.

Sky’s hunting for something, flicking her shiner beam about and muttering to herself. I hear her snort.

‘For a nublood, Kyle, you sure whine a lot.’

‘Just because I heal fast doesn’t make it hurt any less!’

There’s a loud clunk sound outside and the windjammer lurches violently. I have to grab the bars of the cage to stay on my feet, which doesn’t do my ribs any favours. Next thing, the floor sways and bumps under me. My guess is the tractor is hauling us away to a dispersal area in one of the Deeps’ side canyons.

Sky finds what she’s looking for. ‘Gotcha!’

As I make it out of the cage, Colm catches my eye. He nods at Sky where she’s messing with some device like a blaster crossed with a cleverbox. It makes a clicking sound. Looking satisfied, she aims it at the cage. The clicking swells to an angry howl.

‘Hear that?’ she says, like I’m deaf.

‘Kill it, will you?’ I say. ‘My head’s hurting enough as it is.’

She points the device away from the cage and it calms down.

‘Look!’ She shows me the screen on top of it.

‘What’s it show?’ Colm says.

‘Promethium-148,’ I read, slowly. ‘What’s that then?’

One of the techs looks around. ‘The old Earth name for darkblende. Those kids you rescued from that Slayer Facility – it’s the stuff they had them mining. Lethal stuff, toxic and hot. Pumps out loads of nasty gamma radiation.’

I scramble away from the cage triple-quick.

Tech guy sniggers. ‘Relax. We’re safe enough. The counter’s only showing raised rad levels. Nothing hard enough to burn us.’

I stare at him. He looks cool so I quit backing up.

And now I take in the eyeglasses, the tangle of headphones around his neck, the flame-red hair. I know this smart-arse from Bastion, the Gemini base hidden beneath the Blight shanty town. He’s the guy who picked up Rona’s distress call.

‘Hey, Ness, it’s me, Kyle.’

‘Oh yeah.’ He peers at my face. ‘What happened to you?’

I wipe my mouth. My hand comes away smeared with blood.

‘Forget that,’ Sky snaps, waving the counter-thing under my nose. ‘Darkblende gamma readings only show up inside the cage, and nowhere else. So this cage held prisoners contaminated from mining the stuff. Tarn’s tag tells us she was one of them.’ She grabs my hand and squeezes it. ‘This Slayer transport has to be the one they shipped my sister out of the Facility in!’

I try to share her excitement, honestly I do. Only I’m hurting and my head’s still full of nasty thoughts from the fight.

‘That’s great.’ I force a smile. ‘But –’

‘But what ?’ she says, real low.

‘Look, I get it,’ I say. ‘This freighter here flew your sister out of the Facility. So what? I don’t want to piss on your fire, but without the crew to ask we can’t know where it took her.’

Sky turns her gaze on Ness. ‘Tell Kyle what you told me.’

The tech’s eyes go extra big behind his glasses. ‘Hang on, Sky, I only said I’d take a look. I’ve got lots of other work to –’

She sighs. ‘Just tell him.’

Ness glances around, as if making sure his tech mates aren’t listening. ‘Okay, okay,’ he whispers. ‘So, like I said, I ran a scan on this jammer’s nav-track and the crew didn’t scrub its memory before our guys got to them. The data’s scrambled, to level seven at least. It’ll take some time, but I should be able to break it.’

We must be towed over a ditch or something because the floor leaps up under us. Ness staggers into me.

I push him away, harder than I need to. ‘What’d he say?’

‘He can hack into the transport’s navigation system and track where it’s been,’ Sky explains. And Ness nods.

Colm, watchful and quiet up to now, mutters something under his breath that sounds to me like a disgusted: ‘Great.’

Sky takes a deep breath and lets it out. Her green eyes drill into me. ‘So we can find out where the Slayer bastards took Tarn. Then go bring her back, like we agreed.’

Even though I saw it coming, I still twitch. ‘Just like that?’

I expect Sky to blow up at me. No. She just pulls her hand away and looks hurt. I’ve seen that expression a lot lately. Feeling guilty, I pick up the rad-counter from where she put it down.

Ness makes a grab for it. ‘That’s no toy.’

I fend him off, press the trigger and it starts ticking. Ness makes another lunge and knocks my hand. I end up accidentally aiming it at Sky. Only I must have the thing set wrong, because it howls so loudly I drop it. It hits the deck, squeals and cuts off.

Ness picks it up. ‘Look what you’ve done. You’ve broken it!’

Sky gives me her best scowl. ‘You’re such a gom, Kyle.’

The Deeps are a maze of narrow canyons between sheer cliff walls. In this main canyon we now call home, the cliffs to the east overhang a rocky shelf, forming an immense natural amphitheatre. That’s where all our tents and shacks are. The rocks below the shelf are riddled with caves and tunnels. These are too regular to be natural, but nobody knows who dug them out in the way-back-when before Wrath became a dump world and humans started arriving. Nobody cares much either. We just use them. Like this healer chamber I’m in now.

Shirt off, I’m sitting on an icy-cold metal table with my chest all strapped up. Rona’s bandage is wound so tight around me that breathing is a battle. Just my luck that it was my foster-mother on duty. I figure she’s strapped me extra-tight because she’s so mad at me.

I hate this room’s stink of soap, antiseptic and blood. It reminds me too much of the Facility lab where Slayer medics kept me prisoner, pumping my blood into my father, the Saviour.

Now she’s stitching a gash above my eye.

‘Kyle!’ Rona scolds. ‘Quit wriggling about, or I’ll give you a mirror and you can stitch the damn thing yourself.’

‘It hurts,’ I say, staring at the curve of needle she’s holding.

‘Course it bloody hurts. Taking on a combat instructor . . . you’re lucky he didn’t kill you.’ She frowns and leans in again. I feel the sting of the needle, a plucking at my forehead as she tugs the thread through. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘I lost my temper.’

‘Your mind more like.’

‘The guy was giving me a hard time,’ Colm says.

‘He doesn’t know you’re –?’ Rona lets the question hang.

We never talk about Colm and me being the Saviour’s sons. Apart from us, I think only Ballard knows. We leave that little detail out of the speeches he makes me give. Could be awkward, he says. Awkward? Colm reckons we’d be torn limb from limb.

It’s a constant worry that we’ll be found out.

‘If he knew that, you’d be sewing me into a body bag,’ I say.

Rona breathes out sharply, warming my ear with a tut. Six more stitches and she ties a knot and bites the end off. I brace myself to be bitched at – it isn’t the first time she’s had to fix me up.

‘Oh, Kyle,’ she says, sounding tired. ‘I know it’s tough with the grief you both get. But fighting will only make things worse.’

I squirm away, feeling all tight inside.

‘Sometimes you have to fight. You don’t understand.’

‘I understand all right.’ She hands me my blood-spattered shirt, and rubs her eyes. ‘I’m just sick to death of fighting and war.’

‘Ballard says we’re winning,’ Colm says.

‘Don’t you start! If we are winning, it doesn’t feel like it. All us healers see are windjammers bringing us cargo bays piled high with wounded fighters to patch up. There’s no end to it.’

She’s not wrong; we’ve all seen them. It’s six bigmoons now since the Facility raid and I guess it’s like Murdo says – you go poking a stick into a wrathmite hole, don’t be surprised when the bugs swarm out and bite you. The word reaching us out here in the Deeps is that Gemini’s taking some serious heat. The Saviour’s Slayer army has gone on the offensive, trying to wipe us out. The Blight is a smoking ruin and Bastion has been evacuated.

Rona sighs. ‘So many die. Maybe they’re the lucky ones.’

‘You call dying lucky?’ I say.

She looks through me. ‘I had one nublood kid in here a week ago. Gut-shot. Screaming and bleeding all over the place. We fixed him up. He healed so quickly he was sent out again.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ I say, confused.

‘Is it? He was back yesterday. Blaster-burnt this time. What must it do to these kids’ heads, being so badly wounded, patched up and sent back out to fight, or die? They’re all so . . . young.’

Younger than me. Yeah, I know.

‘You can’t fight wars without taking losses.’

If Sky were here she’d be nodding, but Rona snorts as she swabs stuff on to my stitches.

‘Oh, listen to you. Those losses have names, and mothers too. But I’m wasting my breath. You won’t listen. The young think that dying only happens to other people.’

I duck away from her swabbing. Whatever she’s putting on me stings like crazy. ‘You’re saying we shouldn’t fight?’

She dredges up a sad smile. ‘I’m not. Kyle, I’m a healer, not a fighter. Even when I was your age I couldn’t kill, whatever the cause. That’s why I served the way I did, looking after you.’

Before I can stop her, she messes up my hair.

That does it. I have to tell her.

‘They hate me. Colm too. We train the same as they do, but while they go off to fight we sit on our hands, safe here. You should see the looks they give us – like we’re cowards!’

I glance at my brother. He seems more interested in the floor.

‘That’s nonsense. You serve in other ways, that’s all.’

I taste bile in the back of my throat.

‘Yeah? Tell them that. Making stupid speeches for Ballard. Him banging on about what a hero I am. Why can’t we be fighters like the rest of them? Fighting Slayers would be easier.’

‘Now you’re being stupid.’

‘At least we’d know who our enemies are.’

Rona clicks her tongue. ‘Your work is important. So is Colm’s. People here are scared and anxious. We’ve taken a hammering and Ballard needs you to remind people that we can win.’

She goes to help me into my shirt.

‘I can manage.’ I jump down from the examination table.

‘Suit yourself.’ Rona starts tidying away the bits and pieces of her healing trade. ‘Do you want something for the pain?’

‘No. I don’t want anything. I’m done here.’

I struggle into my shirt, even the buttons wanting to fight me.

‘How’s Sky?’ Rona says, watching.

‘How should I know?’

My foster-mother’s grey eyes meet mine. ‘She was here not long ago, fired up about something. I told her where to find you.’

I hesitate, wondering if Sky’s said anything to her. I bet she has. She’s here loads – they get along big time. Rona never says it, but I know she wishes Sky and me would get back together again.

‘Sky’s got a lead on her sister,’ I tell her reluctantly.

‘That’s great news!’ Rona’s face brightens. Only now she must notice my scowl. ‘Don’t you think?’

How can someone who’s seen forty summers be so dumb?

‘She wants me to help her rescue Tarn and bring her back,’ I say.

‘Ah. You did say you would.’

‘Yeah, but I can’t. Ballard would never allow it.’

‘You’ve asked him?’

I scowl at her. ‘There’s no point.’

‘Why not?’ Rona says. ‘If you find Tarn, there’s a good chance you’ll find the other missing nublood children too.’

‘Hasn’t Ballard got enough on his plate?’ Colm says, as he sets off towards the exit tunnel. ‘Like making sure Gemini survives.’

Rona sighs. ‘I was just thinking of Sky, that’s all.’

‘All Sky thinks about is Tarn,’ I say, unable to hold it in.

‘You’re wrong there,’ Rona says, shaking her head, lips pursed. ‘Think what Sky’s been through. She doesn’t shout about it, but she still cares for you. Take my word for it.’

‘If you say so.’ I go to follow my retreating brother.

‘And I thought you cared for her,’ she says.

I look back. ‘I do. Or I try to. These days, it’s . . . tough.’

‘Try harder then. You two should squabble less and talk more. Sky was there for you when you needed her, remember? And she needs you, more than you know.’

‘Are you coming or what?’ Colm calls.

Rona smiles, but it’s a troubled smile. Even I can see that.

‘And please, no more fighting,’ she says. ‘I’ve enough to do without stitching you up. Another windjammer’s on its way.’

She goes back to cleaning and tidying.

Colm is waiting for me where one of the shafts leads up towards the surface, leaning against the wooden ladder.

‘What was that about Sky?’

‘Nothing. Let’s go find Squint, then feed the dragon.’

3
RUMOURS

These days of early firstgreen, with dayshine sticking around longer, warmth in the air and leaves uncurling on the trees, Squint is put to work in the hidden fields down-canyon. Alongside some half-starved fourhorns, our food growers have him hauling ploughs and wagons. We worry he’ll pick up damage we can’t fix, but don’t get a say. Funny how it works. Nobody wanted the rusty metal and burnt-out electronic junk that Colm and I cobbled Squint together from. Sneered, they did. Yet soon as they saw him up and running, they stole him off us. Requisitioning, they called it.

For the cause. Everything for the cause.

When we find Squint he’s done for the day, lashed to a ground-anchor while a man hoses mud off him. He sees us coming, whips his tail about and buzzes his head off.

‘How’d he do?’ I ask.

The man shuts off the water and shrugs. ‘Not bad. Crashed on me once in the morning. Worked fine after it warmed up.’

‘Do you need him tomorrow?’

‘They don’t plough themselves.’ The man glances at the fields, stubble sticking up into the gloom under the camo-nets.

‘Okay,’ Colm says. ‘We’ll check him over.’

The man nods and hurries away. No thanks or nothing.

Soon as he’s gone I pull a bone-carved tube from my pocket and blow gently into one end. It makes a hissing sound.

Squint’s head lifts and his tail thrashes.

Colm grins. ‘Do you have to?’

‘I do.’ I blow the whistle much harder now, three times.

Squint hurls himself towards us, ripping the ground-anchor right out of the ground as if it were fixed into butter. He very nearly knocks us both over with all his excited jumping up.

‘Pleased to see us, huh?’ I say, trying not to laugh because laughing hurts, even with my ribs strapped.

‘Thought you’d dumped the jumping-up code,’ Colm says.

He’s laughing too now as he tries to fend Squint off.

‘I stuck it back in again.’

‘Why? You like being covered in mud?’

‘It’s fun, him making a fuss. Like having a dog.’

After a struggle I unclip Squint from the anchor trailing behind him. Squint calms down and drops into his ready-state crouch, hydraulics hissing. I pocket the whistle and watch Colm as he goes and screws the ground-anchor back into the dirt. Me, I’d leave it where it fell, but not him. Same skin, different thinking.

‘Good little boy,’ I tell Squint, scratching him behind his ears. Not real ears of course, just microphone mounts.

He hoots, sensing my touch.

‘You do realise it’s not alive,’ Colm says. Like always.

It’s been a tough day and I almost get cross with him, but catch myself. I think Colm’s often too clever for his own good; he thinks I’m too hot-headed. Rona says we’ve only had six months’ practice at being twins, unlike the other idents here who’ve had a lifetime, so we’ll both still be working it out. Whatever. All I know is that looking and sounding the same is easy; putting up with the differences is harder. I’m trying to get better at that.

‘Don’t you listen to him, Squinty,’ I say.

Squint beeps twice, which means ‘I don’t understand’. Work-bots only recognise verbals like Lift, Forward, Drag and Drop as standard, but we’re working on that. His crude vox-box doesn’t run to speech, only beeps, hoots and whistles. What we really need is to get our hands on one of those flash units out of a windjammer, the ones that warn the pilot if she’s stalling or landing with the gear up. Splice one of these in and he could talk.

‘What d’you think of his new leg? Not bad, huh?’

Colm hasn’t seen Squint’s new foreleg yet. This one’s by far the best I’ve scavved yet, and a decent match to his other legs too.

‘Where’d you get it?’ He sounds impressed.

So he should be. The casings are hardly rusty at all, just some light pitting. The hydraulic lines look good too, no patches. Look real close, there are even some shiny bits on the pistons.

‘Traded welding work for it with one of the steam-winch crew.’

‘Maybe he’ll walk straighter now.’

‘He does,’ I say, pleased. ‘C’mon, let’s go. It’s getting dark.’

‘Shouldn’t we check him?’

‘No. I’m beat. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about him crashing. You’d crash too if you had two brains.’

See, no way could we scav a proper processor for Squint. Too rare. Too valuable. Instead we patched together two half-trashed boards nobody wanted. The least damaged one acts as master, passing stuff it can’t do to the other board. Only sometimes they trip over each other, and that’s when poor Squinty crashes.

Colm shrugs and we head off together. I click my fingers and Squint follows along, still dripping.

Night settles on the Deeps as we walk and dark shadows pour in to flood the canyon. We skirt round the big cavern at the bottom of the cliff where off-duty fighters hang out. You can trade rebel-minted creds in there for snacks, or – if you’re dumb enough – for gut-rot liquor brewed from potatoes. In the smoky lantern light I see the place is heaving with people already.

‘Big crowd,’ I say. ‘Wonder why?’

‘Let’s go find out.’

‘Later maybe. We should feed the dragon first.’

Truth is – my head’s still too dark to want company. And Stauffer might be in there on crutches, or some of his psycho mates. So we carry on to the kitchen tents, raid the bins and bag some fresh chicken guts, her favourite.

Halfway up the trail to where she’s penned we stumble across a pack of youngsters playing the Peace Fair game. A bored-looking older boy has been roped in to act the Slayer and do the Cutting and Unwrapping. Two little girls, so spit-alike I bet their own mother can’t tell them apart, are already wrapped. The ‘twist’ will have a cut drawn on her forearm under the bandage, the ‘pure’ won’t. I played it when I was little, but it freaks me out after seeing the horror of the real thing. And they’re not supposed to be playing it, not here in a rebel camp.

I can’t help scowling. ‘Can you believe that ?’

Colm shrugs. ‘They’re just kids.’

The guessers turn their backs and the older boy swaps the two wrapped girls about. They squeal with fear and excitement. And now the guessers start clapping and chanting.

‘One good, two evil! Cut them, bind them, unwrap them!’

The older boy sees us. He grins and shrugs as if to say, This wasn’t my idea, puts a finger to his lips for the girls to stop squealing and calls to the rest that they can look again. As they turn, he pulls out the knife for the pretend Unwrapping and brandishes it.

‘One good, one evil!’ he hisses. ‘Which is which?’

The kids shout their guesses, spit flying from their mouths.

I grab Colm’s arm. ‘I don’t want to see this.’

‘It’s only a game,’ he says, but lets me drag him away.

The stone-walled corral is built into the cliff ’s overhang. By the time we get there it’s full night-dark, but just enough of the bigmoon has hauled itself above the western clifftops to throw some useful shine down. Colm hangs back, looking after Squint while I creep up to the gate and peer through it. A lump of darkness stirs at the back wall. I hear a hiss, a warning rattle of neck feathers, her chain scraping. We only call her a dragon for fun of course. Really she’s a sky lizard. And not just any sky lizard – she’s a queen. Twice the size of the males, ten times as vicious.

I’m waving the bag to give her the smell of the chicken guts when I hear footfalls behind me. I whip round, blade out.

‘Thought I’d find you here,’ Fleur says.

She’s got a fake-scared face on. Behind her are some of her deadhead mates, watching, swapping grins. That’s what they call themselves, the kids we rescued from the Facility.

I clutch my side. ‘What you doing, creeping up on us?’

‘Heard you took a kicking,’ Fleur says. ‘Ouch. Look at you.’

I put the blade away and straighten up.

‘You should see the other guy.’

‘Hey, Fleur,’ Colm says, and shifts his feet.

She smiles at him. ‘Hey, Colm. How’s it going?’

While they talk, I scan her face like I always do, looking for any hint of accusation or blame. But not a bit of it – just the same fair hair, freckles and sad expression as her ident sister, Fliss, the girl who sacrificed herself to lead away the Slayers hunting Sky and me near Drakensburg. Reassured, I open my mouth to mumble the same question I always mumble. Before I can get it out though she glances my way and shakes her head. Still no word on her sister, that tells me. Still missing, presumed to be dead. Yet here Fleur stands, looking pleased to see me.

Okay, so I played a part in rescuing her and her mates from the Facility, but still . . .

‘They say you smashed Stauffer’s foot,’ she says. ‘Lamed him.’

I shrug. ‘Tosser had it coming. Anyway, he’s nublood same as us, so he won’t stay lame.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Colm mutters.

‘Think he’ll come after you?’ Fleur says.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ I say, a little more edgy than I meant.

Time to change the subject.

‘You here to help feed the dragon, Fleur?’

‘No way. I’ve lost enough fingers already, thanks.’ She grins, holds her fist out and bumps stumps with me and Colm. ‘Wouldn’t want to come between you and your lizard girlfriend.’

‘Scared, huh?’

‘Whatever. Look, hurry up. I’ve got big news to tell you.’

‘Oh frag, not you too.’

The smell of rank breath hits me and I hear the snap of powerful jaws. I turn to see the huge, leathery bulk of the queen sky lizard facing me, her triangular head rammed against the bars of the gate, long snout poking through. Her four big compound eyes glitter in the moonshine as she watches us. Her sting-tail swishes dirt back and forth. They hack the stinger bit off every so often. I check to make sure it hasn’t grown back, and it hasn’t.

‘Hungry, are you?’ I whisper.

She jaw-snaps again and whistles. A milky-white membrane flicks across her lower eyes, fastened on the bag of offal. She’s fed on live goats. I give her treats because I feel sorry for her.

‘Hurry up,’ Fleur says, wrinkling her nose.

Braced to fling myself away if she goes for me, I peel the bag of chicken offal open and hold it out. The lizard tilts her huge head, flares her snout-slits and sniffs, sucking air into her lungs with a sound like a blast furnace. Now she gapes, showing me row after row of razor-sharp fangs. Her crazy-long tongue flicks through the bars and explores the bag. By the time I quit flinching it’s already coiled up back inside her mouth. She tail-thumps, her dark neck feathers lifting and spreading. In better light we’d see them go all sorts of colours. Holding my breath I lock eyes with her and push the bag through the bars.

‘Chicken’s your favourite, isn’t it?’

Behind me, Fleur groans. ‘Can’t you just throw it?’

Whoof ! The big lizard lunges and plucks the bag out of my hand so quickly I hardly have time to twitch. I swallow. With my ribs hurting and strapped, no way would I have been fast enough to dodge if she’d gone for me. She could’ve had my arm off easy if she’d wanted to. That was dumb, no three ways about it.

‘You’re crazy, you know that?’ Fleur says.

‘It’s not right, caging her like this,’ I say, backing off, a bit shaken. There’s lizard drool on my sleeve so I crouch to wipe it off in the dirt. I watch as the lizard wolfs the scraps down in one big gulp. Inside my head I see other cages, holding ident children. If that’s so wrong, why isn’t this?

Colm half smiles, half winces. His thinking smile. ‘Maybe not, but let her go and they’d all go. We’d lose our cover.’

He’s right, as always. Sky lizards and people don’t mix. The local sky lizard colony would have cleared off as soon as we moved in, but with their queen trapped down here and her stink calling to them, the males stick around. When the occasional Slayer windjammer comes scouting, they see the sky lizards circling, and their droppings white-scarring the rocks, and look no further.

Cunning and necessary, I guess. Still can’t say I like it.

Fleur huffs. ‘You ready to listen now?’

In the moonshine her eyes look massive. Like Sky inside the Slayer transport, the girl can hardly stand still – she’s so full to bursting with news. Behind me the massive lizard hisses and slams into the bars, hungry for some more chicken guts.

‘Listen to what?’ I say, distracted.

She grins. ‘You ain’t heard about the peace deal then?’

‘The what ?’ I glance at Colm, but he looks as stunned as I do.

Fleur laps up our surprise, her grin even wider. Behind her, the deadheads nod and mutter among themselves.

‘Seriously,’ she says. ‘That’s the buzz going around – a peace deal’s on the table. There’s already a ceasefire. The Council’s meeting to discuss it right now. Our hit-and-run raids must be hurting them more than we thought.’

Colm gets his voice working. ‘How come we didn’t hear about this?’

‘It only happened a few hours ago, that’s why. While Kyle was getting his ass kicked. It’s all everyone is talking about.’

‘What happened a few hours ago?’ I say.

‘An encrypted message came in. Soon as our comms guys unscrambled it, Ballard, Mendela and the other top people all shipped out on our fastest scout windjammer. One of the launch crew overheard them. They’ve been summoned to an emergency Gemini Council meeting to discuss a Slayer peace offer!’

Fleur sighs, long and hard. ‘Seriously. The war is over.’