Ten low, p.6
Ten Low, page 6
I can’t fathom her tone of voice.
‘The Cats, at first. And I don’t think so.’ I screw the lid on the canteen, hard. ‘I wasn’t a soldier.’
‘No,’ she says derisively. ‘None of you were. If you had been, you would have seen how stupid your little social experiment was. Did you truly believe people would give up what they worked for? Just hand it out to strangers?’ She stares at me, her gaze searching. ‘You would have led them into poverty and ruin. Do you see that now?’
I walk on without a word.
* * *
By the time we reach the Air Line Road station, it’s after noon. I go first, approaching with caution. This is civilisation of a sort, controlled by the Accord, or at least by the freelance Peacekeepers in their pay. Not a good place for a convict, ex or no.
Felicity, the sign reads. Someone has scratched is dead beneath.
To my relief, the station yard is empty of mules and vehicles. It is evidently hours yet before the Air Line is due, and the whole place is silent, the sun smacking down upon the rails with such ferocity that the air seems to ring.
Even the station building is near deserted. The only person there is the stationmaster, reeking of bad benzene. He barely blinks at my filthy, dust-covered state, seemingly interested in only two things: overcharging me, and continuing his nap. Eventually, I manage to barter a pair of dry-looking steaks, half a bucket of water, and an ancient waterproof poncho to cover the General’s flight suit. By the time I push the door open to leave, he’s already half-asleep and so doesn’t see me freeze at the sight of the wanted poster tacked to the wall.
It’s crudely done, a bad sketch on carbon paper, no doubt copied down from the wire bulletin, but the words are undeniable:
WANTED
------------------
THE WOMAN “LOW”
FOR THEFT, ATTEMPTED MURDER,
KIDNAPPING AND THE SUMMONING OF MALIGN FORCES.
LAST SEEN HEADING FOR LANDFALL FIVE.
THE BROTHERS KWALKAVICH OFFER
A REWARD OF
100 CREDITS
(OR THEIR OFF-WORLD EQUIVALENT)
I rip the poster from the wall and ball it in my fist. Thoughts race ahead of me as I shove my way outside. Perhaps the news has not spread far yet. Perhaps without the poster to remind them, no one here will think to look.
Keep your head down. One more day and it will not matter. You’ll be rid of her and you can go back to the Barrens where no one cares about a name if you can give them what they need.
I dump the food and water in front of the General without speaking. She doesn’t seem to notice my apprehension in her eagerness to eat and drink. The steaks are nothing but protein mulch fried in old fat. They turn to paste in my mouth and taste of nothing much, but they work to quiet the ache in my belly. Even the General doesn’t protest. I suspect she is in pain once again; her eyes look glazed and there are lines of strain about her mouth.
And what of me? My reflection looms in the bucket, almost a silhouette against the whitening sky. It shows a woman with a stubbled scalp, a grubby, sunburned face, framed by those two puckered scars. Something flashes across the light and, for an instant, I think I see the woman I once was: clear skin, sleek brown hair, a crisp twin-triangle tattoo upon my temple beneath a nurse’s cap. How I looked the day I made the decision that severed my life in two.
I plunge my hand into the water, shattering the image, and scrub hard at my face, careful not to disturb the scarves around my neck, even when the water runs down my back in rivulets. When I look up, I find the General holding the crumpled wanted poster.
‘What is this?’
‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘“Kidnapping”,’ she reads, and looks me over, amused. ‘They give you too much credit. Why would they say that, anyway?’
‘I told you, children are rare on Factus. If they can keep you for themselves, they will try.’
She strokes the poster. ‘Perhaps it would be better,’ she murmurs. ‘Perhaps I could have a life here, a real family, with parents who love me and would never make me fight.’ She meets my eyes, her own wide and brimming with tears. ‘Low, do you think I could? Is it too late?’
I stare at her, unnerved. Is her mind wandering again? ‘I am not sure…’ I start, only to realise that the General’s mouth is trembling with suppressed mirth. I sag.
‘You believed it.’ She laughs, wiping her eyes. ‘You actually believed it.’
A wagon comes into view around the station house, a charabanc, filled with passengers.
‘Cover up,’ I snap, shoving the poncho at her and cramming the hat back onto my head.
She grimaces at the garment. ‘It stinks.’
‘You want to be caught by Peacekeepers? Then go ahead and ignore me.’
Huffing, she pulls the thing over her head. ‘When I get to Landfall, I demand a bath, no matter what.’
The passengers on the wagon are the first of many. Soon, other vehicles arrive. There are mules bearing whole families, towing goods behind, other folk on foot with nothing but a bag on their backs. Before long, the Peacekeepers show up, with their ex-army vests and Accord-issue rifles. I watch them pass from beneath the brim of my hat as they head straight for the board where the wanted bills are posted. I shuffle down a little further in my patch of shade.
Talk and noise fill the station, and the smell of food: fresh protein and frying fat, even coffee. My stomach groans for it, but I can’t take the risk. The Air Line is due within the hour, some say, others insist it won’t arrive until dusk. There is little anyone can do but wait. Once again, we’re at the mercy of the First Accord and their failed promises: of land, of space, of faster travel than we could imagine. Of freedom. I slide a glance at the General. She is staring darkly at a pair of children who stand, pointing at something and laughing.
Abruptly, she’s on her feet. I catch the edge of the poncho.
‘Where are you going?’
She jerks free without a word. Swearing, I follow. The children are part of a cluster of people, all staring down at the same thing.
A sideshow. For a second my stomach reels, remembering Valdosta, the snakes, the clatter of bone dice on wood and the chaos I left behind in Redcrop. But this is nothing so grand. A showman – if anyone would call him that – crouches in the dust, theatrically cracking a miniature whip. Before him two warrior ants are doing battle. They’ve been allowed to work themselves into a fury, and now the tiny hairs that cover their carapaces glitter in the afternoon light.
‘See them now, see them, gentle folk, they are in their red rage,’ the showman patters, cracking the whip. ‘See how they wish to fight and die, beautiful and fierce.’ He points to the larger ant. ‘This here is Roseinvale, named for the great conflagration of that moon, and the other is the Tragedy of Tamane. Two great battles between the First Accord and Free Limits and now, which will win? Now will history be rewritten? Do I have a bet from you, madam? Roseinvale or Tamane? Choose now for there shall be no other chance!’
Some people shake their heads and hurry away as fast as possible. The showman’s game is too much like chance, enough to tempt the Ifs. But others stay, their fear dulled by life in the Barrens, by their hunger to see anything new. There’s always money to be had from those who can stand a little danger.
I know I should turn away, but the man’s words ring in my head, the Tragedy of Tamane. I watch as the two ants snap at each other, shimmering in fury. The General watches too, her eyes – like mine – fixed on the ant the man has named for Tamane. It struggles until finally, the larger ant strikes, opening a seeping wound in its abdomen. As it falls, my skin turns cold, despite the sun.
‘Roseinvale! Roseinvale has taken it! The champion, and a victory for the Free Limits at last! Come folk and collect your winnings…’
People move away, muttering or grinning and shoving pieces of metal into their pockets. I tug on the General’s arm but she does not move, not even when she is the last one left and the showman starts to pack up the ring. The defeated ant is still alive, still trying to fight, dragging itself towards the other, now safely stowed inside a tiny cage.
‘Don’t be sad, little lady,’ the showman leers, revealing scratched fibreglass teeth. ‘Old Tamane here had a good life while it lasted, full board, all the leaf litter he could eat.’
‘How dare you.’
The General’s tone does not belong to a child. Before I can move, the man is in the dirt, the General’s knee pressing down on his windpipe.
‘Stinking maggot,’ she spits into his face. ‘How dare you? Those who fell at Tamane were heroes; they were beaten not through strength but through cowardice! And you mock them!’
The man is turning purple, his eyes wild. Using all my strength, I grab the General and haul her back, digging an elbow into her sternum. The air goes out of her and she lets go.
‘I am so sorry, sir,’ I babble to the man, ‘so sorry for my daughter. We lost my wife, you see, to the germ warfare on Tamane, the girl saw some terrible things.’
‘She’s crazy!’ the man chokes, rubbing at his throat. ‘Keep her away from me, I should call the Peacekeepers.’
People are starting to look. Swiftly, I drag the pouch of breath beads from beneath my clothes and throw it at him.
‘Here, sir, for your trouble.’
He opens his mouth to yell, until he sees what’s inside. ‘Well,’ he croaks, hauling himself up from the ground. ‘We all saw terrible things.’ He shoots a glance at the General, still wheezing in my arms, and for a moment, his face drops into the lines of grief it must wear when he is alone. ‘Think yourself lucky you still have her,’ he says. ‘My family were on one of the ships heading for Brovos. Got caught in the strikes. I only escaped ’cos I was on the hulks.’
I bow my head. ‘May your thoughts be clear.’
His hollow laugh follows me across the yard as I haul the General away. ‘Best that they are not.’
* * *
The General sits in the corner of the Air Line car staring at the gritty metal floor. I had been so concerned with boarding, with avoiding further scrutiny, that I had taken no notice of what she did, so long as she kept quiet and walked when pushed. Now that we are underway, the Air Line hurtling along the tracks and the air growing thick with the smell of sweat and breath of many passengers, I look at her.
At her feet, a tiny creature crawls: the wounded warrior ant. It pulls itself around in circles, one of its pincers waving, seeking to fight even as it dies.
‘Why did you take it?’ I ask.
She shrugs and pokes the ant. It swipes at her, attacking blindly.
‘Don’t taunt it,’ I say. ‘It will fight until the end. That’s what they’re bred for.’
She ignores me and continues to goad the ant, letting it roam in wretched circles.
‘Were you ever a child?’ I hear myself ask, over the rushing of the rails.
She doesn’t look at me. ‘I was conscripted at seven. Childhood as a concept was deemed unnecessary.’
‘Unnecessary.’ I repeat the word, to test its reality. No doubt the Army of the First Accord have used that word on their paperwork, stamped it with approval and sent it out to families across the settled planets.
‘What would you have had us do?’ The expression on the General’s face is almost like grief. ‘Should I have waited out the war, weak and unprepared, like your children? Sitting huddled, silenced, kept away from every possibility of action?’ Her lips shake. ‘You would have had others fight and die for me. You would have left me to grow up drenched in the blood of my elders. It was right we took part. It was our fight. Our future. And the Accord let us shape it.’
Deep within me, something trembles at her words. ‘What they did to you was barbaric. I am not going to argue about that.’
‘Worse than what your forces did? Worse than killing thousands of innocents?’ She smiles, cruelly. ‘They gave me a gift. They gave me tactical skills that people like you couldn’t dream of. They made me unassailable. They knew that even the enemy would stop short of attacking a child, or risk being forever shunned by their own. It’s why we’re so valuable. You find it too hard to fight us.’
As if in triumph, she shoves the ant and it falls on its side, its legs twitching, trying to reach her.
‘Pathetic,’ she murmurs.
We are silent after that. What more can we say?
I think the General might have been asleep, but when I glance down her eyes are open, staring blindly at the strips of light that come through the scratched windows. She looks a thousand miles away. But where? On the command bridge of a ship, watching in grim satisfaction as the Free Limiter field hospitals on Roseinvale are bombed, one after another? Behind a desk in a glass-and-chrome office, ready to give a killing order? On an operating table, smiling as the Accord surgeons cut into her body to make it stronger and faster?
And where was I? I close my eyes. I was a young woman again, dreaming of life beyond a small cluster of satellites, hearing discussions of liberty and autonomy and new ways of living that made my heart beat faster. I was on Prosper, in the hospital vault, about to become a murderer. I was on Tamane, surrounded by the fallen, by the evidence of my sin. I was in the cell on the hulks. I was staggering, wounded from a lifecraft. I was here. I was nowhere. Is that why they follow me?
The hours pass with neither of us speaking. I twitch, sorely regretting giving the showman my remaining beads. The sun slides across the carriage, people barter and laugh and sob and argue with each other, and on the walls above us the Accord posters speak of loans to repay our war debts, advertising seed banks and land grants, emblazoned with slogans like Time to Heal, and For the Future. I turn my head away.
Beside me, the General sleeps, the dead ant crushed at her feet.
* * *
I’ve not been to Landfall Five in many months, and sure enough it’s already changed. Here is the new-found prosperity brought by restitution payments; here are real blacktop roads and buildings made from girders and concrete. There are mules and crafts that aren’t a decade old and clogged with dust. Here there’s trade, official and bootleg, pumping life onto this dry moon. Here are people from across the now-Accorded Nations, more than I have seen in a long time, all scrambling to make a home, to remember themselves and their ways however they can.
At the edges, the original stinking, hardscrabble town of Landfall remains; evidence of those who first arrived here as convict work parties, huddling against the army for food and warmth. Had I been on my own, I would have run for those shadows. As it is, I have no choice but to keep my head down and walk the new, sticky roads towards the centre of the town: the army base where the ships had first touched down, thirty years ago.
It’s almost night. Out in the Barrens the sands sigh, the air is cold blue and voices from between the stars ride down on the winds. None of that here. The smell of cook-smoke and pepper and unnamed meats from the Chuan stands mixes with the hot oil and frying protein-maize from the arepa sellers to remind my stomach it once knew real food. The air fizzes with sparks from engine repair shops, competing with the lights of the snake-soup canteens, the wire-and-picture sellers, liquor stores hawking scorpion whiskey and snake wine and distilled venom “for medicinal purposes only”. At a metered water fountain, people queue with their drums and buckets, gossiping, coughing, glancing at the sky. Folk aren’t so afraid of the Ifs, here. With enough activity, the implausible is just that: happenstance, coincidence, bad luck.
I’m glad of it. I don’t want them here, not now, when this business is almost done. Perhaps they will transfer their interest to the General. Perhaps they will follow her to whatever planet she is posted to next and leave me be. Did they venture beyond Factus? I have never heard reports of them anywhere else.
I sigh. ‘We are almost there.’
The General nods. Though she looks around with narrow, searching eyes, I can tell she is struggling. Her jaw is tight, beads of perspiration on her forehead. Not my problem. Her people can heal her, with the seemingly unlimited resources they so rarely share with the rest of us.
Soon, the base comes into view, high metal and wire fences surrounding clean-edged, utilitarian buildings. A flag flutters in the faint wind that finds its way here from the desert.
‘About goddam time.’ She strides forwards. When I don’t follow she turns, impatient. ‘Well?’
‘I am not going in there.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Tiresome. What of your payment?’
‘I will wait.’
‘It’ll take time to make an inventory of supplies, to see what can be spared.’ When I don’t move, she sighs. ‘Alright. I’ll order it to be delivered to you. Where will you be?’
She has become a military official before my eyes; that flag, with its golden triangles, has swallowed up any part of her that seemed lost or in pain.
I jerk my chin. ‘There’s a benzenery, in Tiger Town. Malady Falco’s. They will know of it at the camp.’
‘Just the sort of place for you. Fine. Expect delivery there by 2230.’
‘And if it does not arrive?’
‘I made you a promise by the First and Last Accords. Or have you forgotten what honour looks like?’
I half smile and shake my head.
She frowns at me for a moment longer. ‘I won’t say it has been a pleasure, knowing you. But even if you are a traitor, you kept your word. Perhaps the times are changing, after all.’
With that, she turns smartly and walks towards the gates, her head held high. No thanks, no emotion. I watch as the soldiers level their guns at her, as she makes a dismissive gesture, flicking her head to show the tattoos. They snap to attention. I watch as the huge, riveted gate slides open and she walks through, her small figure swallowed by the dark.
There is a pain in my chest and noise in my head. I don’t want it there, and so I go to find myself a drink.
* * *
Landfall might have changed, but Falco’s is the same.
The bar had once been a container used to ship arms for the Accord. Falco has decorated every inch of the walls with bright, brash, obscene graffiti, at odds with the drabness of the Accord base. They might have built this moon, she once said with a laugh, but that doesn’t make it theirs.
‘The Cats, at first. And I don’t think so.’ I screw the lid on the canteen, hard. ‘I wasn’t a soldier.’
‘No,’ she says derisively. ‘None of you were. If you had been, you would have seen how stupid your little social experiment was. Did you truly believe people would give up what they worked for? Just hand it out to strangers?’ She stares at me, her gaze searching. ‘You would have led them into poverty and ruin. Do you see that now?’
I walk on without a word.
* * *
By the time we reach the Air Line Road station, it’s after noon. I go first, approaching with caution. This is civilisation of a sort, controlled by the Accord, or at least by the freelance Peacekeepers in their pay. Not a good place for a convict, ex or no.
Felicity, the sign reads. Someone has scratched is dead beneath.
To my relief, the station yard is empty of mules and vehicles. It is evidently hours yet before the Air Line is due, and the whole place is silent, the sun smacking down upon the rails with such ferocity that the air seems to ring.
Even the station building is near deserted. The only person there is the stationmaster, reeking of bad benzene. He barely blinks at my filthy, dust-covered state, seemingly interested in only two things: overcharging me, and continuing his nap. Eventually, I manage to barter a pair of dry-looking steaks, half a bucket of water, and an ancient waterproof poncho to cover the General’s flight suit. By the time I push the door open to leave, he’s already half-asleep and so doesn’t see me freeze at the sight of the wanted poster tacked to the wall.
It’s crudely done, a bad sketch on carbon paper, no doubt copied down from the wire bulletin, but the words are undeniable:
WANTED
------------------
THE WOMAN “LOW”
FOR THEFT, ATTEMPTED MURDER,
KIDNAPPING AND THE SUMMONING OF MALIGN FORCES.
LAST SEEN HEADING FOR LANDFALL FIVE.
THE BROTHERS KWALKAVICH OFFER
A REWARD OF
100 CREDITS
(OR THEIR OFF-WORLD EQUIVALENT)
I rip the poster from the wall and ball it in my fist. Thoughts race ahead of me as I shove my way outside. Perhaps the news has not spread far yet. Perhaps without the poster to remind them, no one here will think to look.
Keep your head down. One more day and it will not matter. You’ll be rid of her and you can go back to the Barrens where no one cares about a name if you can give them what they need.
I dump the food and water in front of the General without speaking. She doesn’t seem to notice my apprehension in her eagerness to eat and drink. The steaks are nothing but protein mulch fried in old fat. They turn to paste in my mouth and taste of nothing much, but they work to quiet the ache in my belly. Even the General doesn’t protest. I suspect she is in pain once again; her eyes look glazed and there are lines of strain about her mouth.
And what of me? My reflection looms in the bucket, almost a silhouette against the whitening sky. It shows a woman with a stubbled scalp, a grubby, sunburned face, framed by those two puckered scars. Something flashes across the light and, for an instant, I think I see the woman I once was: clear skin, sleek brown hair, a crisp twin-triangle tattoo upon my temple beneath a nurse’s cap. How I looked the day I made the decision that severed my life in two.
I plunge my hand into the water, shattering the image, and scrub hard at my face, careful not to disturb the scarves around my neck, even when the water runs down my back in rivulets. When I look up, I find the General holding the crumpled wanted poster.
‘What is this?’
‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘“Kidnapping”,’ she reads, and looks me over, amused. ‘They give you too much credit. Why would they say that, anyway?’
‘I told you, children are rare on Factus. If they can keep you for themselves, they will try.’
She strokes the poster. ‘Perhaps it would be better,’ she murmurs. ‘Perhaps I could have a life here, a real family, with parents who love me and would never make me fight.’ She meets my eyes, her own wide and brimming with tears. ‘Low, do you think I could? Is it too late?’
I stare at her, unnerved. Is her mind wandering again? ‘I am not sure…’ I start, only to realise that the General’s mouth is trembling with suppressed mirth. I sag.
‘You believed it.’ She laughs, wiping her eyes. ‘You actually believed it.’
A wagon comes into view around the station house, a charabanc, filled with passengers.
‘Cover up,’ I snap, shoving the poncho at her and cramming the hat back onto my head.
She grimaces at the garment. ‘It stinks.’
‘You want to be caught by Peacekeepers? Then go ahead and ignore me.’
Huffing, she pulls the thing over her head. ‘When I get to Landfall, I demand a bath, no matter what.’
The passengers on the wagon are the first of many. Soon, other vehicles arrive. There are mules bearing whole families, towing goods behind, other folk on foot with nothing but a bag on their backs. Before long, the Peacekeepers show up, with their ex-army vests and Accord-issue rifles. I watch them pass from beneath the brim of my hat as they head straight for the board where the wanted bills are posted. I shuffle down a little further in my patch of shade.
Talk and noise fill the station, and the smell of food: fresh protein and frying fat, even coffee. My stomach groans for it, but I can’t take the risk. The Air Line is due within the hour, some say, others insist it won’t arrive until dusk. There is little anyone can do but wait. Once again, we’re at the mercy of the First Accord and their failed promises: of land, of space, of faster travel than we could imagine. Of freedom. I slide a glance at the General. She is staring darkly at a pair of children who stand, pointing at something and laughing.
Abruptly, she’s on her feet. I catch the edge of the poncho.
‘Where are you going?’
She jerks free without a word. Swearing, I follow. The children are part of a cluster of people, all staring down at the same thing.
A sideshow. For a second my stomach reels, remembering Valdosta, the snakes, the clatter of bone dice on wood and the chaos I left behind in Redcrop. But this is nothing so grand. A showman – if anyone would call him that – crouches in the dust, theatrically cracking a miniature whip. Before him two warrior ants are doing battle. They’ve been allowed to work themselves into a fury, and now the tiny hairs that cover their carapaces glitter in the afternoon light.
‘See them now, see them, gentle folk, they are in their red rage,’ the showman patters, cracking the whip. ‘See how they wish to fight and die, beautiful and fierce.’ He points to the larger ant. ‘This here is Roseinvale, named for the great conflagration of that moon, and the other is the Tragedy of Tamane. Two great battles between the First Accord and Free Limits and now, which will win? Now will history be rewritten? Do I have a bet from you, madam? Roseinvale or Tamane? Choose now for there shall be no other chance!’
Some people shake their heads and hurry away as fast as possible. The showman’s game is too much like chance, enough to tempt the Ifs. But others stay, their fear dulled by life in the Barrens, by their hunger to see anything new. There’s always money to be had from those who can stand a little danger.
I know I should turn away, but the man’s words ring in my head, the Tragedy of Tamane. I watch as the two ants snap at each other, shimmering in fury. The General watches too, her eyes – like mine – fixed on the ant the man has named for Tamane. It struggles until finally, the larger ant strikes, opening a seeping wound in its abdomen. As it falls, my skin turns cold, despite the sun.
‘Roseinvale! Roseinvale has taken it! The champion, and a victory for the Free Limits at last! Come folk and collect your winnings…’
People move away, muttering or grinning and shoving pieces of metal into their pockets. I tug on the General’s arm but she does not move, not even when she is the last one left and the showman starts to pack up the ring. The defeated ant is still alive, still trying to fight, dragging itself towards the other, now safely stowed inside a tiny cage.
‘Don’t be sad, little lady,’ the showman leers, revealing scratched fibreglass teeth. ‘Old Tamane here had a good life while it lasted, full board, all the leaf litter he could eat.’
‘How dare you.’
The General’s tone does not belong to a child. Before I can move, the man is in the dirt, the General’s knee pressing down on his windpipe.
‘Stinking maggot,’ she spits into his face. ‘How dare you? Those who fell at Tamane were heroes; they were beaten not through strength but through cowardice! And you mock them!’
The man is turning purple, his eyes wild. Using all my strength, I grab the General and haul her back, digging an elbow into her sternum. The air goes out of her and she lets go.
‘I am so sorry, sir,’ I babble to the man, ‘so sorry for my daughter. We lost my wife, you see, to the germ warfare on Tamane, the girl saw some terrible things.’
‘She’s crazy!’ the man chokes, rubbing at his throat. ‘Keep her away from me, I should call the Peacekeepers.’
People are starting to look. Swiftly, I drag the pouch of breath beads from beneath my clothes and throw it at him.
‘Here, sir, for your trouble.’
He opens his mouth to yell, until he sees what’s inside. ‘Well,’ he croaks, hauling himself up from the ground. ‘We all saw terrible things.’ He shoots a glance at the General, still wheezing in my arms, and for a moment, his face drops into the lines of grief it must wear when he is alone. ‘Think yourself lucky you still have her,’ he says. ‘My family were on one of the ships heading for Brovos. Got caught in the strikes. I only escaped ’cos I was on the hulks.’
I bow my head. ‘May your thoughts be clear.’
His hollow laugh follows me across the yard as I haul the General away. ‘Best that they are not.’
* * *
The General sits in the corner of the Air Line car staring at the gritty metal floor. I had been so concerned with boarding, with avoiding further scrutiny, that I had taken no notice of what she did, so long as she kept quiet and walked when pushed. Now that we are underway, the Air Line hurtling along the tracks and the air growing thick with the smell of sweat and breath of many passengers, I look at her.
At her feet, a tiny creature crawls: the wounded warrior ant. It pulls itself around in circles, one of its pincers waving, seeking to fight even as it dies.
‘Why did you take it?’ I ask.
She shrugs and pokes the ant. It swipes at her, attacking blindly.
‘Don’t taunt it,’ I say. ‘It will fight until the end. That’s what they’re bred for.’
She ignores me and continues to goad the ant, letting it roam in wretched circles.
‘Were you ever a child?’ I hear myself ask, over the rushing of the rails.
She doesn’t look at me. ‘I was conscripted at seven. Childhood as a concept was deemed unnecessary.’
‘Unnecessary.’ I repeat the word, to test its reality. No doubt the Army of the First Accord have used that word on their paperwork, stamped it with approval and sent it out to families across the settled planets.
‘What would you have had us do?’ The expression on the General’s face is almost like grief. ‘Should I have waited out the war, weak and unprepared, like your children? Sitting huddled, silenced, kept away from every possibility of action?’ Her lips shake. ‘You would have had others fight and die for me. You would have left me to grow up drenched in the blood of my elders. It was right we took part. It was our fight. Our future. And the Accord let us shape it.’
Deep within me, something trembles at her words. ‘What they did to you was barbaric. I am not going to argue about that.’
‘Worse than what your forces did? Worse than killing thousands of innocents?’ She smiles, cruelly. ‘They gave me a gift. They gave me tactical skills that people like you couldn’t dream of. They made me unassailable. They knew that even the enemy would stop short of attacking a child, or risk being forever shunned by their own. It’s why we’re so valuable. You find it too hard to fight us.’
As if in triumph, she shoves the ant and it falls on its side, its legs twitching, trying to reach her.
‘Pathetic,’ she murmurs.
We are silent after that. What more can we say?
I think the General might have been asleep, but when I glance down her eyes are open, staring blindly at the strips of light that come through the scratched windows. She looks a thousand miles away. But where? On the command bridge of a ship, watching in grim satisfaction as the Free Limiter field hospitals on Roseinvale are bombed, one after another? Behind a desk in a glass-and-chrome office, ready to give a killing order? On an operating table, smiling as the Accord surgeons cut into her body to make it stronger and faster?
And where was I? I close my eyes. I was a young woman again, dreaming of life beyond a small cluster of satellites, hearing discussions of liberty and autonomy and new ways of living that made my heart beat faster. I was on Prosper, in the hospital vault, about to become a murderer. I was on Tamane, surrounded by the fallen, by the evidence of my sin. I was in the cell on the hulks. I was staggering, wounded from a lifecraft. I was here. I was nowhere. Is that why they follow me?
The hours pass with neither of us speaking. I twitch, sorely regretting giving the showman my remaining beads. The sun slides across the carriage, people barter and laugh and sob and argue with each other, and on the walls above us the Accord posters speak of loans to repay our war debts, advertising seed banks and land grants, emblazoned with slogans like Time to Heal, and For the Future. I turn my head away.
Beside me, the General sleeps, the dead ant crushed at her feet.
* * *
I’ve not been to Landfall Five in many months, and sure enough it’s already changed. Here is the new-found prosperity brought by restitution payments; here are real blacktop roads and buildings made from girders and concrete. There are mules and crafts that aren’t a decade old and clogged with dust. Here there’s trade, official and bootleg, pumping life onto this dry moon. Here are people from across the now-Accorded Nations, more than I have seen in a long time, all scrambling to make a home, to remember themselves and their ways however they can.
At the edges, the original stinking, hardscrabble town of Landfall remains; evidence of those who first arrived here as convict work parties, huddling against the army for food and warmth. Had I been on my own, I would have run for those shadows. As it is, I have no choice but to keep my head down and walk the new, sticky roads towards the centre of the town: the army base where the ships had first touched down, thirty years ago.
It’s almost night. Out in the Barrens the sands sigh, the air is cold blue and voices from between the stars ride down on the winds. None of that here. The smell of cook-smoke and pepper and unnamed meats from the Chuan stands mixes with the hot oil and frying protein-maize from the arepa sellers to remind my stomach it once knew real food. The air fizzes with sparks from engine repair shops, competing with the lights of the snake-soup canteens, the wire-and-picture sellers, liquor stores hawking scorpion whiskey and snake wine and distilled venom “for medicinal purposes only”. At a metered water fountain, people queue with their drums and buckets, gossiping, coughing, glancing at the sky. Folk aren’t so afraid of the Ifs, here. With enough activity, the implausible is just that: happenstance, coincidence, bad luck.
I’m glad of it. I don’t want them here, not now, when this business is almost done. Perhaps they will transfer their interest to the General. Perhaps they will follow her to whatever planet she is posted to next and leave me be. Did they venture beyond Factus? I have never heard reports of them anywhere else.
I sigh. ‘We are almost there.’
The General nods. Though she looks around with narrow, searching eyes, I can tell she is struggling. Her jaw is tight, beads of perspiration on her forehead. Not my problem. Her people can heal her, with the seemingly unlimited resources they so rarely share with the rest of us.
Soon, the base comes into view, high metal and wire fences surrounding clean-edged, utilitarian buildings. A flag flutters in the faint wind that finds its way here from the desert.
‘About goddam time.’ She strides forwards. When I don’t follow she turns, impatient. ‘Well?’
‘I am not going in there.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Tiresome. What of your payment?’
‘I will wait.’
‘It’ll take time to make an inventory of supplies, to see what can be spared.’ When I don’t move, she sighs. ‘Alright. I’ll order it to be delivered to you. Where will you be?’
She has become a military official before my eyes; that flag, with its golden triangles, has swallowed up any part of her that seemed lost or in pain.
I jerk my chin. ‘There’s a benzenery, in Tiger Town. Malady Falco’s. They will know of it at the camp.’
‘Just the sort of place for you. Fine. Expect delivery there by 2230.’
‘And if it does not arrive?’
‘I made you a promise by the First and Last Accords. Or have you forgotten what honour looks like?’
I half smile and shake my head.
She frowns at me for a moment longer. ‘I won’t say it has been a pleasure, knowing you. But even if you are a traitor, you kept your word. Perhaps the times are changing, after all.’
With that, she turns smartly and walks towards the gates, her head held high. No thanks, no emotion. I watch as the soldiers level their guns at her, as she makes a dismissive gesture, flicking her head to show the tattoos. They snap to attention. I watch as the huge, riveted gate slides open and she walks through, her small figure swallowed by the dark.
There is a pain in my chest and noise in my head. I don’t want it there, and so I go to find myself a drink.
* * *
Landfall might have changed, but Falco’s is the same.
The bar had once been a container used to ship arms for the Accord. Falco has decorated every inch of the walls with bright, brash, obscene graffiti, at odds with the drabness of the Accord base. They might have built this moon, she once said with a laugh, but that doesn’t make it theirs.
