Rift (18 page)

The blond woman snorted at this claim, advancing and looking down at him from a considerable height advantage. “You
were
going to die fast,” she said. Then she struck him a hammering blow, sending him to the ground. He heard her say before he passed out, “With lies like you got, I just changed my mind.”

When Reeve opened his eyes again it was dark. He woke with a start, remembering his capture, and now afraid for his companions. Where was Marie? He thrust himself up on one elbow and came face-to-face with a black man sitting in a chair next to his pallet.

“Marie …,” he croaked.

The man wore a velvet shirt with the sleeves cut out and dark baggy pants tucked into boots with silver tips. As he sucked on a small bone, he regarded Reeve with a seemingly casual curiosity. When Reeve stirred, the man tossed the bone onto a heap of others in the corner. Despite the grease on his face, he was a handsome man, in contrast to his shipmates.

“Glad you woke up,” the man said. “I dislike to kill sleeping men.”

“My friends?” Reeve asked.

“Alive, for now. Maybe not for long. Depends.”

“On what?”

The man sat back in his chair, his feet on Reeve’s pallet, leaving the question unanswered. From the size of the boots and their nasty-looking prows, Reeve guessed this pirate had weapon enough if he tried to bolt. While the man regarded him, Reeve took a moment to take in his surroundings. They were in the depths of the ship, in a small room with a bright sun cutting through a lone portal. The place stunk of urine and incense, while the ship pitched in a dreadful rocking motion, sending his stomach into paroxysms.

“I’m told you claim to be of the space station.” The man spoke with a deep, modulated voice and good grammar, which made Reeve trust him even less than he would a regular claver. He had a primal contempt for brass, and this was likely the captain of the ship, or close to it. “Some are for cutting you and tossing you to the sharks.” He raised an arched eyebrow into a sharp gable over his left eye. “And by that I mean fish, not my men.”

Reeve wondered if he was supposed to laugh. He decided not. He rubbed his head, which had gone soft as a cooked egg on one side. His forearms were bandaged, wrapped in clean white cloth. Above, he heard the thudding of feet and the occasional shout of the crew.

“How long have I slept?”

“A full day. You are either sick, like your friends say, or you are a weakling. Perhaps both, I begin to think.”

Reeve didn’t bother to pursue this line of talk, his mind racing to Marie, Loon, and Spar, and if they’d been harmed. If Spar even lived.

The man reached down and grabbed a bundle by his chair. Slowly, he took off the worn cloth, revealing a
black, shiny box. Looking up to be sure he had Reeve’s attention, he slowly opened the box, leaving it nested in his lap.

“Nothing,” the man said. “Nothing happens.”

In the silence, Reeve finally asked, “What’s supposed to happen?”

The dark man frowned, watching Reeve with hooded but intense eyes. “You don’t know?”

Reeve tried to think of what a box might fail to do upon opening. If it was a toy, a clown might jump up from the box; if it was a computer, a screen might activate in the lid.… But this box had an old-fashioned and delicate look, and appeared to be neither for children nor computing.

“It makes music,” his captor said. He closed the lid and held it in a delicate grasp. “It used to be a music box.”

“Tab might be corroded,” Reeve said.

The man’s eyebrows furrowed a bit closer, as though straining to meet. “Can a corroded tab be fixed?”

“Sometimes,” Reeve said, “you can clean the tab. Or I might be able to replace it with one from my flashlight, if the platforms are compatible. If not, it would take the right tools, but I could rework the program.” He reached out his hand and gave the man an inquiring look. The dark man handed over the box.

Reeve sat up and opened the contraption. The inside was lacquered and empty. Turning the box over, he felt for a release latch, but the sides were smooth. “Call for release of the backing,” he told the box. From the object came a whirring, a straining to obey.

The pirate cocked his head upon hearing the noise. He leaned in closer to watch.

This wasn’t going to be a great dramatic moment. The commands were gluey, the tab was likely ruined, and he was going to have to pull off the backing like an
ordinary human. “How old is this thing?” he asked, playing for time.

“You don’t ask questions,” the man said, nice enough to raise the hairs on Reeve’s arms. “You fix the music box, and earn a day’s life. My ship. My rules. Yes?”

Reeve nodded quickly. “Yes. Can I take the bottom off the box, and look inside?” If he was dealing with the captain of this vessel, he might just have a chance to earn some favor.

The captain considered his request. “First you take apart the flashlight. Then we’ll see.”

At the captain’s command, Reeve’s pack was brought, and he was allowed to plow through its contents. He retrieved the flashlight, then exposed the power panel. “See,” Reeve explained, “in here is the miniature board with the smart tabs. The tabs are layered with parallel commands, so each tab contains the full instructions, and the extras act like a power supply and backup computing. If one of these is compatible, I could transplant it to the music box. But that would only be a temporary measure. If you want it to work a long time, I’d need to overhaul the whole system.”

The pirate gazed at him a long while, then took the flashlight from him, closed the power panel, and put the light back in the pack. Apparently the test was over, and whether he had passed or failed was completely uncertain. In any case the captain was in no hurry to have his music box fixed.

As the captain carefully wrapped the music box in its length of fine cloth and set it under his chair, Reeve asked: “The girl … Is she harmed?”

The captain shrugged. “I gave her to my first mate, but he says she is unhinged, and will have nothing to do with her. You travel with strange companions. Very strange.” He watched Reeve for a reaction, so Reeve decided not to give him one.

“Perhaps this is why you are still alive,” the man said. He sat with both hands on his knees. “So,” he said. “Tell me about the space station, Reeve Calder.”

“You know my name?”

The captain shrugged. “The old woman told me.”

Reeve had been sensitized to manners by a harsh taskmaster, and he made use of that now. “Will you tell me
your
name, if it’s not rude to ask?”

This produced a wide grin from the captain, featuring the best set of teeth Reeve had yet seen on Lithia. “It
is
rude to ask, given that you are a slave and I am your master.” He dipped his head in courtly largesse. “However, considering that you are from … a foreign land, I will overlook some things. My name is Kalid. And I would know of the great Station.” He nodded once at Reeve, by which he knew to start talking.

He began by saying that the Station was in orbit around the planet, and didn’t fall to the surface because of the weightlessness of space.

At this, the captain grinned and in a most unfriendly fashion leaned in closer to Reeve. “I am no barbarian, Reeve Calder. I know these things. Tell me something I do not know, and do so quickly.”

Reeve sat cross-legged on his cot and tried to marshal his thoughts. So he began. He told of life on Station, its wonders and its routines. How the air filtration system was interconnected with ponics for oxygen, and how the heat exchangers worked to dump off excess heat, and how they synthesized much of their food in the chem lab, and kept to a strict schedule that allowed them to share quarters meant for far fewer. How his bed was the same bed that Geoff Lederhouser shared on second shift, and Amee Ryan on fourth. And the routine that dictated his slot in the gym and in electrical systems and in training labs. He told of how the old-generation ship’s order of command had been agreed upon for Station, and the system
of officers and crew, and the politics of reterraforming, and how they listened for radio transmissions from the planet, eager—he threw in that part for effect—to hear of their comrades below. He made Captain Bonhert out for a great villain, “descended from the criminals who decided to grab Station for themselves,” and told of his father, who had the competing idea of building a craft big enough for everyone, including the clavers, of course. He told of being ashamed of the Station and all it stood for, and that he had escaped, he and his father, and Marie, and that his father had died in the crash of the shuttle. He left out the part about the destruction of Station, figuring it gave him more power to be from a clave that still existed.

All in all, he thought that his mixture of truth and fiction was not too bad, considering he was half goofy from a vicious blow to the head and had to knit up his story as he went along.

After a time, Kalid rose and called for a guard. “Take him to the hold,” he commanded, causing Reeve to wonder if he had offended or merely run out of time.

As Reeve was being hauled off, Kalid said, “We will talk again, Stationer. Next time, each lie will cost a finger.”

The guard, reeking from sweat and the rancid grease stains on his clothes, hauled Reeve down a narrow passageway to a door barred with a great timber stuck into slots. He opened the door and shoved Reeve inside. When he slammed the door, all light was extinguished except for that allowed in by a small grate near the ceiling. He saw many shadowy figures huddled.

“Reeve!” Marie said. “We’re here.”

He followed the voice and found Marie, Spar, and Loon, in grim moods. Marie had bound Spar’s wounds and he seemed hale enough. Reeve hugged Marie, and nearly hugged Loon, but said instead, “Mam.”

“What that pie rat want you for, Reeve?” Spar asked.

Reeve smiled in the darkness, hearing his real name at last from the claver.

He crouched down next to them. “He wanted to hear stories of Station. I told him some.” He looked around to discern the other prisoners, careful not to say too much. “Who are you?” he said to the shapes—he counted four—sitting as far from his group as they could all manage.

“Your clave first,” the biggest shadow said.

“Stillwater,” Spar answered for them. “Up north.” Reeve had never heard Spar name his clave, having assumed it was the same as Loon’s, the Stoneroot.

One of them spit. “Food for orthong, if you’re from the north.”

“And your clave?” Spar asked.

“Whale Clave,” the big one replied. “Of the great ocean.”

“Well, we gonna be Pie Rat Clave from now on,” Spar said, “for as long as we last.”

One other said bitterly, “Rat Clave it is. You ever been fucked by a rat, you women?”

Marie replied dryly, “Once or twice.”

“Well, take it from Eiko, you’ll get used to it here.”

“A fate better than death, I would imagine,” Marie said.

A new voice joined in from the mystery group. “Now, that is a matter of opinion.” She seemed to be holding a child next to her, and Reeve hoped that the child was not subject to rat attentions. The woman continued, “What did I hear of this matter of a station?”

Spar started to speak, but Reeve put out a hand to stop him, hoping to get their stories lined up. “Marie and I are from the Sky Clave. The Station in the sky, which looks down on us even now. We escaped, we two along with my father, who was killed in the crash
of the shuttle. We came to join a better clave, much good it has done us.”

A long silence then as his companions no doubt sorted through this new version of his background, and the newcomers kept their own thoughts. Then one of the strangers said: “So you are a zerter, then.” The way she said
zerter
told Reeve what her opinion of him was.

“If that’s what you call us. We can’t choose our parents.” He hadn’t meant to say that, and he wondered at himself.

“Easy to blame your parents when they aren’t here. And recently
dead
,” the woman said contemptuously.

The big woman said, “How’d you get from the big wheel to the ground?”

“An airplane.”

Spar interjected: “And you—you’re runnin’ from your clave, if I guess right?”

“What we are we don’t share with
zerters,”
the one with the child said. “Or rats either. Right now, I have to think hard about which is worse, zerters or rats. Never thought I’d have to decide.” She crawled to the far corner, urging the child with her.

Reeve turned from the hostile group and settled next to Loon, speaking low: “Did they hurt you?”

“They leave me alone,” she said.

Evidently their voices were carrying well enough, for the woman in the corner said, “Yes, your women are spared the attentions of the rat men.” She didn’t bother to hide her bitterness.

“One is too young and one is too old,” Reeve said, “thank the Lord.”

The woman shot back, “
That
one is not too young; she is of age, the same as us. I’ll be sure to remind our rats when they come for us tonight.”

In a spurt of anger, Reeve stood up and stalked to her corner. “No,” he said, “you won’t remind them.” He leaned down and grabbed her shirt, hauling her
close to his face. “I’ll make you wish you’d kept your mouth shut.”

In the next moment her fist shot up between his clenched arms and punched him in the cheek. As he faltered backward, she completed her move with a foot in his groin. He drew his knee up just in time to deflect the worst of it, but lost his balance, thudding heavily onto the floor.

Looming over him, she spat, “I should teach you a lesson, zerter.”

“Like you taught the rats?” he said, regretting it the instant the words left his mouth.

As she kicked at him, he rolled to grab at her knee, using her momentum to pitch her forward onto her face. Spar and one of the women, a big-boned individual, stepped in to be sure they didn’t come at each other again.

“When the wolves ain’t around, the rabbits bite each other,” Spar said in disgust. “Save your fight, Reeve. This ain’t your last stand.”

With a long, shaky breath Reeve divested himself of the fury he’d felt a moment before. The woman, after all, was brutalized and desperate. “I’m sorry for what they’ve done to you,” he muttered, and turned away.