Burn Bright (3 page)

Until Joel had gone.

She wound her hair up again, reattached her veil and shifted her heel from the door. She'd return to the bow of the barge, and sat there, away from Cal and Markes. In the quiet she'd be able to think and plan.

The Riper came for her at dawn. She'd been drowsing, unable to really sleep for the chill, and he'd jerked her from awake with shrill words.

‘Come below. Now.'

Cal had been admiring of him earlier, but Retra couldn't see anything appealing in the empty eyes, and the lifeless-cold hands that pulled her to her feet. She noticed a tear in his leather coat and, underneath, a glimpse of something not quite flesh.

It started her trembling again. She snatched her arm back and stabbed her nails into her palms to calm her fear.

‘We pass through the edge of the Spiral soon,' he said. ‘It won't be safe atop.'

Retra followed him along the deck through the pink fingers of early light that reached as far as the narrow steel steps. As she descended into the cabin, she saw streaks of dark blood smeared the wall, as if someone had missed them while cleaning it in haste.

At the bottom, though, warmth and the buzz of conversation enveloped her. The cabin was brightly lit and crowded with nervous, blinking, talkative Grave runaways. For a moment their anticipation lifted her heavy mood.

She found herself searching for Markes. He leaned against the bulkhead, Cal hanging at his arm, their earlier differences already forgotten.

Retra moved to the opposite side of the cabin, away from them, but Markes caught her eyes and smiled.

Then a Riper began pounding on a drum. Other Ripers descended the steps and spread among the crowd. The tallest ones stooped by the low ceiling, all wearing the same blank stares.

‘Sit, all of you,' said one of them. ‘The Spiral is not a thing to stand through. You will be perfectly safe from hyper-reaction as long as you stay seated.'

The cabin crowd dropped to the floor in one mass,
laughing and falling on each other. Retra squeezed herself into a small space against one wall, trying not to touch the people around her. She wasn't used to crowds; the smell of their bodies made her feel sick.

‘What's hyper-reaction?' she heard someone ask.

‘It happens when you cross the Spiral. Some get blissed out or real down. But it lasts … like forever,' answered the girl on one side of her. ‘Some even get it afterwards.'

The Riper started speaking again. ‘Once through the Spiral, you'll leave the barge and pass into the Register. There you'll be fitted with your badge. After that your life – your pleasure – is your own.
Burn bright!
' The Riper's eyes glittered with strange comprehensions.

‘Burn bright!'
the crowd shouted in enthusiastic response.

Retra glanced to the small, high windows, seeking the sunrise. How long until she saw it again? She suddenly felt thirsty for daylight.

But the hum came.

The cabin lights snuffed out and the barge rocked, gently at first, then wildly – jarring her spine, throwing a boy onto her lap. His red curls brushed against her throat and he cheekily burrowed his freckled face between her breasts. With the roll of the barge he fell backwards again before she could react.

She hugged her knees for protection as the air got
thick and heavy and the dawn turned abruptly back to dark. The crowd's eagerness shifted to something fearful.

‘What's happening?' shouted one.

Another. ‘We're sinking!'

‘Fross!'

Huddled in the pitch-black, fear-stink of the cabin, the cries unnerved her. She shut her eyes.
Joel.
She chanted to herself.
Joel.
Saying his name made her feel safer.

Heaviness came next, as if gravity had altered. Breathing got hard. The fear-shouts dwindled.

Then the pain from her obedience strip returned, worse than before. An obscene, tearing hurt that burned from her thigh up to her vertebrae and into her chest. She curled into a ball, biting her tongue to stop from screaming, gouging the flesh of her upper arms with her nails.

Her mind became all; a giant slug filled with ugly, crawling creatures and bad places. And … noise … music, she guessed … but not like anything she had ever heard before.

She pressed her hands to her ears to shut out the raw, thick pulse of it. It stripped her mind of everything and lodged in her belly, churning and quivering. It made her
want
the boy to put his face back between her breasts. She pressed her nipples to stem the sensation. She couldn't bear the wildness of her thoughts.

Then, abruptly, the pain dulled and the music quieted. The barge steadied to a gentle roll and the cabin
lit. Retra's eyes flew open, released from the transition. The Riper stood, poised amongst the scatter of bodies, his pale face raised in ecstasy.

‘Welcome to Ixion.'

They filed from the barge, winter refugees in boots and coats, into an unnatural, sticky heat. Music spread across the surface of the night air like spilled oil, and the flitting shapes of thousands of bats partly obliterated the stars. Retra watched them pour above the barge like a black rainbow across a dark canvas.

So many
. Their moist, musky scent assaulted Retra's
senses. Between her legs and under her arms became damp with perspiration.

‘Look forward,' said a cold voice.

Retra pulled her gaze from the sky to the Ripers. They were watching everyone walk down the drawbridge as if memorising faces. The one who had hauled Retra aboard the barge gave her a mock bow as she shuffled past. She shrank from him, not wanting to be remembered.

The bridge led straight to the back of a large, plain building. Retra tried to see beyond it but bright spotlights along the bridge confused her vision.

Ahead of her in the queue stood Markes and Cal. He had a bulky case slung across his shoulders, an instrument of some kind. Retra wondered if he'd stolen it. In the Seal compound, only Elders were allowed to own such things. Perhaps it was different in Grave North.

The pair was nearly at the Register. She wanted to get closer to Markes – just to say good luck, she told herself – but that meant speaking to Cal as well, and the girl's manner made her uncomfortable.

Instead, she stopped at the foot of the bridge, suddenly not wishing to leave the barge. Something from out in the dark brushed her throat, damp fingers smearing her with warm wetness. She started, raising a hand against it, but touched nothing.

A teasing whisper in her ear – no, more a thought.
Come to me …

She glanced around to see if anyone else had heard, but those near her gazed eagerly ahead. Except the Riper; he watched her.

She bowed her head and hurried on.

The queue split into three lines, each siphoning into a closed booth. She found herself in the line next to Markes just as he disappeared into one with Cal.

At the same time a hand tugged at her shoulder. ‘Want to do the same as them?'

It was the boy who'd fallen against her in the Ixion crossover. She recognised his freckled skin and the way his red curls corkscrewed off in different directions. Now that he was standing, she could see that he was taller than her but not nearly as big as Markes. She blushed, remembering her thoughts during the transition.

‘Hey, I know you! You've got soft whatsies.' He leered at her chest, unashamed. ‘I'm Rollo. Looks like you can go through the Register in pairs. Wanna do that?'

Retra shook her head.

His leer deflated. ‘Hey, I didn't think girls came here to give knock-backs.'

She turned away, offended. Maybe Cal was right about Seals. She hadn't talked to any boys, other than Joel. Seal boys and girls were always chaperoned. Crossing her arms tight across her chest, she ignored Rollo's fake heavy breathing down her neck.

Jerk!
A forbidden word but it felt good to say it in her mind.

Rollo's teasing stopped abruptly, though, when the boy who'd gone into the booth before them burst back out, moaning and crying. He threw himself to the ground near her feet, tearing at his face with his fingers, trying to gouge his own eyes out.

Two Ripers appeared and carried him away.

Hyper-reaction
, the whisper went round.

Dread wound around Retra's stomach.
Will that happen to me?

She forced herself to step into the vacant booth. It was empty other than a black circle painted on the floor and an articulated metallic arm that hung from the ceiling.

As she stepped into the circle the door closed behind her and the mechanical arm dropped down, a hand of instruments unfolding from it. A brace snapped tight around her head and probes skittered into her ears and nose. She felt pinpricks at the base of her spine and neck.

Biological age 6387 days. Health – acceptable. Adrenal modifications successful. Psychological/neurological profile recommends faux badge. Proceed. Place your hand between the plates,
said a disembodied voice.

She complied with the voice and the plates closed together, locking her hand in position. A probe punctured the skin at the centre of her palm, making her twist in pain.

Faux badge administered. Test orientation download … starting … now …

After the blackness passed, she woke up on the floor in another bare room. She was alone in it, apart from Markes. He leaned against the wall, hands in his coat pockets, hair curling over his eyes, watching her.

Her tunic had ridden high up her thighs. Embarrassed, she smoothed it down. She wanted to move closer to him, as if proximity might ease the dull throb in her thigh and the sharper, newer, sickening pain in the palm of one hand.

She rose up onto her elbows.
Better not.
The last thing she wanted was to be sick on Markes.

He came to her instead, kneeling, grasping her shoulders, giving them a little shake.

‘How are you?' he asked

‘W-what happened to me?'

‘The probes give some people grief.' He shrugged his hair from his eyes long enough for her to get a shiver from their liquid warmth. Then he moved his face closer, as if he might put his cheek to hers. ‘Why do I get the feeling you're here for a different reason than the rest of us?'

Retra turned her head away from his. His closeness suffocated and elated her; stirred things in her.

‘They put something on my hand. Th-then they tested it and … I woke up in here with you,' she said.

His fingers tightened, crushing her shoulder bones. His lips hovered near her earlobe, breath so light she could barely … No! She
couldn't
feel it.

He persisted with his question. ‘Why are you here?'

‘I –' Her desire to tell him the truth compelled her to speak, as if confession might absolve her of guilt and the fear, but a sliver of suspicion pierced her consciousness as she opened her mouth.

No breath. He has no breath.

The pain in the palm of her hand snaked up her arm to her skull and stung the bridge of her nose. But Retra knew pain. Knew how to think through it.

‘I-I want to have a good time, that's all,' she stammered.

She reached a hand out to his lips, to test their moistness, but Markes and the room dissolved before her eyes. A heartbeat later the pain stopped and the Register released her from the cubicle into the dark.

She stumbled out of the exit, dazed, and was caught by the chill hands of a Riper – the same one who'd pulled her aboard the barge and then watched her leave it. She found herself unable to struggle, as he carried her from the Register to a narrow path strewn with rock and encroached upon by the undergrowth of the darker dark. He knelt, laying her onto the ground.

She had a vague impression of movement in the twilight to the side of them.

Smell good,
said the invisible voice/thought again.

The Riper made a hissing noise. He leaned over her, his hair falling across her face, filling her vision with his ashen skin and hollow eyes. ‘The Register is satisfied but I
am not. I'll be watching you. You remind me of someone,' he said.

His touch triggered a bottomless fear in her. When one long, pale finger looped a strand of her hair, she lapsed into shivers.

‘W-what d-do you m-mean?'

He lifted the strand to his mouth and slid it between his lips as if tasting it.

Growling, unearthly noises crawled into the air around them and the Riper let go of the strand.

Mine
, said the thought/voice.

The Riper stiffened and backed away from her then he vanished into the dark.

Retra lay trembling. As her body began to calm, nausea claimed her and she rolled on her side and vomited.

‘Is someone over there?' called a voice.

‘Here,' she managed.

Rollo stood on the edge of the lit area, squinting over to where she lay. ‘It's you. What happened? You're s'posed to stay on the main paths.'

He walked over to her and bent awkwardly to avoid stepping off the path.

Grateful, and ashamed at her earlier opinion of him, she reached out and took his hand.

‘The Register … made me sick,' she said. ‘I wandered a bit, without meaning to.'

‘Lucky I heard you. You could have gotten lost.'

He pulled her up and helped her back to the wide, well-lit path, considerately not mentioning the sour vomit smell about her.

‘You all right?'

She nodded, straining away from his contact, now that she was upright and the dizziness had passed.

He didn't seem to notice her discomfort. ‘Wow, would you look at that!' He pointed ahead.

Retra glanced up. Despite her nervousness a thrill pimpled her skin as she absorbed and made sense of the view: lights of every colour, some in soaring arcs, some in clusters, others scattered – ruby, glowing cobalt and bullion gold. A streak of emerald snaked through the middle, dividing the vista in two. The light haloes bled into each other, forming misty night rainbows.

‘Are they dirigibles?' she asked, uncomprehending. ‘Or levia-flies? I've heard they come this way.'

He laughed. ‘Those are the clubs. Set into the cliffs.' He whistled in awe. ‘Must be some big crater.'

She turned back to him for an explanation.

He stuck out his chest as if pleased that he knew more than her. ‘The island is the tip of a volcano. Came up out the sea one day. That was a long time ago, even before the Elders came to Grave.'

‘The Elders wanted to start again and build a better society so they left the Old Place,' she said, automatically. ‘The Old Place had no rules and Technology was an evil God.'

‘Maybe,' said Rollo. ‘If you believe our history lessons.'

Retra stared at him, astonished. ‘Don't you believe them?'

Rollo shrugged. ‘It's one version of things.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, take this place. Some say that when it rose up out of the sea, people thought it was a holy place. That's when there was still day and night. Monks from different provinces came here and built churches. They tried to outdo each other and impress God. God didn't like what they were doing so he took the light away.'

Retra kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt the story by asking him what a province was, or how he knew these things.

‘Another version reckons that all the nearby provinces wanted to claim Ixion as their own land, so they fought over it. Every time one of them won a battle they built their own holy place. Then someone would come and fight them for it, take it and build another church. They say there was so much death that the colour leached out of the sky.'

‘Can that happen?' Retra didn't think so, but the stories entranced her.

‘Dunno. Sounds pretty stupid to me. Whatever happened, the monks that lived in the churches vanished.'

‘How could they vanish?'

‘Maybe demons got them.' He pulled a horrible face at her and she wanted to scold him for his silliness.

‘Don't make light of such things,' she said.

‘You Seals take stuff too serious.'

‘How did you know I was a Seal?'

‘Easy. Seals don't get taught anything much. Your Elders think it's dangerous and the Council likes it that way too. Plus you've got that look. The way you look down all the time. The girls in Grave North aren't so timid and they look at you when they speak.' He held out his palm and drew invisible lines on it. ‘Ixion's like this. The barge comes in on the low, submerged side of the crater and the clubs are built up and down the cliffs of the higher side.'

‘How do you get up there to them?'

He grabbed her hand. ‘Dunno. But let's find out.'