Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (22 page)

“Where we going?” Elrabin asked.

“What do you care?” Scar replied grimly, marching him along. “You wanted me to take you someplace, yeah, you wanted that. So I’m taking you.”

Suspicion flared inside Elrabin’s chest. “You turning me in? Or giving me a home?”

Scar’s laugh was unpleasant. “Yeah, a home. You call it that, stupid. You call it anything you want.”

Elrabin planted his feet, halting so abruptly that he nearly threw Scar off balance. “If you turn me in, I’ll turn you in,” he said desperately. “I’ll tell the patrollers that you work for—”

“Shut up!”

Snapping, Scar lunged for him, but Elrabin dodged. He got two steps before Scar caught him and gave him a shaking that made him dizzy.

“Keep walking,” Scar said gruffly. “You threaten me or Barthul again, yeah, I’ll use my sticker on you.”

“I—”

“Quiet! Maybe Barthul can use you as a runner.”

Fresh alarm filled Elrabin. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d asked for help. “Dust? No way!” he said sharply. “I won’t risk the death penalty for—”

“You’ll risk anything you’re told to risk. You’ll do what you’re told.”

“But I—”

Scar nipped his ear, sending a sharp flare of pain into Elrabin’s skull. “First thing you learn, stupid, is you keep quiet when you’re told, and maybe you won’t get your tongue cut out. You do what you’re told, and you do it quick. No double action on the side. No pulling in the patrollers. You stay in the territory you’re told to stay in.”

Elrabin tried to shut out the gruff lecture, without success. He was being given the rules, whether he liked them or not. But strict rules, strictly enforced, were a way of life he understood. Cuvein’s simple ones had provided him with structure these last ten years. Despite his fear of Scar and gangs in general, Elrabin felt something inside him responding to what Scar was saying.

Less than an hour later, Elrabin found himself being dragged down a short flight of crumbling steps into deserted basement lodgings.

Inside, a rickety set of wooden steps led even lower beneath the ground. At the bottom, Scar eyed a bulky Aaroun standing guard with an illegal sidearm and spoke a single word that was incomprehensible to Elrabin.

The Aaroun sniffed Elrabin suspiciously but let them pass. They walked over a magnetic plate, and the scan registered nothing on Elrabin. Scar’s tense shoulders slumped a little.

“So you ain’t wired after all,” he said, and gave Elrabin a grudging little twist of a grin. “Guess you be what you been saying.”

“Of course.” Elrabin glared at him. “If I’m running a scam, no one catches—”

“Sure.” Scar narrowed his eyes. “Bragging don’t mean dirt here. You keep your scams to yourself.”

They walked on along a roughly hewn tunnel, their foot-steps barely echoing.

“Patrollers train undercover agents all the time and send them in,” Scar said. “We always catch them. We’re careful, see?”

Elrabin nodded. After a moment, Scar pulled out a food bar from his pocket and handed it over. Elrabin snatched it without even a word of thanks and wolfed it down in three bites, barely chewing as he gulped it. Then he licked the wrapper to get every last crumb.

Scar watched him eat from the corner of his eye but said nothing. Pausing before a door, he opened it and shoved Elrabin inside.

The tiny room contained nothing save a dim light globe in the ceiling overhead, a stool, and a small cabinet. Elrabin looked around, then glanced over his shoulder at Scar.

“What—”

But Scar retreated without a word, slammed the door shut, and bolted it, effectively locking Elrabin inside.

Alarmed again, Elrabin pounded on the door and shouted, but Scar was gone.

After a moment Elrabin gave up calling to him. He circled the small room and thumped the cabinet, which was locked. How stupid could he be, telling a stranger his real name, letting himself be led right into a trap. Now he was locked in, and all Scar had to do was sell him down the—

The door opened without warning. Scar stood there. With him was a short, rotund Myal with a shaggy black and gold mane that hung over his dark, beady eyes.

“Barthul,” Scar said by way of scant introduction.

The Myal advanced bowlegged into the room, sticking out his paunch, and cocked his head as he looked Elrabin over. His eyes were cold and shrewd, utterly without mercy. “What’s your real name?” he asked at last. “What’s your registration number?”

Elrabin met his gaze with all the defiance he had left. “If I’d wanted that known, I wouldn’t have had my implant cut out.”

“Try again,” Scar said quietly. It was a warning.

Elrabin said nothing.

Barthul croaked out a laugh and curled his prehensile tail tightly against his backside. “He’s useless. Too old for training. Too sick. Look at his eyes. He’s no fighter.”

Elrabin squared his shoulders with his last remnants of pride. “I can run any gambling table you got. I can mark Junta cards. I can work the—”

“Useless.” Barthul turned his back on Elrabin and started to walk out.

Scar was leaning against the wall, cleaning his claws with the tip of his sticker. He let Barthul get to the doorway before he said, “How about a dust runner?”

Barthul halted on the threshold and stared at Scar incredulously. “A runner? Him?”

“Why not?”

“He’s got worker grade stamped all over him. Look at him. He couldn’t fool a patroller one minute.”

“Doesn’t have to. Clean him up. Put him on the citizen run, yeah, and let him work that route. He looks employed, acts honest, blends right in with the rest of the citizens, only he’s out in plain sight. Might work. The patrollers ain’t expecting that.”

It was the most Scar had ever said at once since Elrabin had met him. Elrabin stared at the youth, astonished that Scar was actually speaking up for him, trying to get him a job. Not that it mattered.

“I’ll do anything but sell dust,” Elrabin said. “I can get you into any dock warehouse you—”

“Nah,” Barthul said, cutting him off with a gesture. “Docks ain’t my turf. Stay away from there.” He stared hard at Scar. “You think so?”

“Sure,” Scar said easily, still cleaning his claws. “Worth a try, once he’s straightened out.”

Elrabin glared at them both. “Look. I asked for a job, but not—”

Barthul grimaced, making a curt gesture. “Too much trouble. Kill the
nolo
.”

“Wait!” Elrabin said, lifting his hands even as Scar’s eyes went intense, cold, and scary. Inside, Elrabin was cursing himself for getting into this. “My apologies. I can learn your rules. Selling dust is better than starving. And I need your protection.”

Barthul and Scar stared at him a long, tense moment. “Glad you see it our way,” Barthul said. Peeling up his broad lip, he dug out a string of food from between his teeth and flicked it away. Then he gestured at Scar, who went back to leaning against the wall.

Elrabin stared at the youth doubtfully. Could he just switch it on and off—the willingness to kill? Did taking life mean so little to him that he actually didn’t care one way or another?

Elrabin panted. “I’ll follow orders,” he said, feeling ashamed of himself. But desperation canceled out good intentions every time.

“See?” Scar said.

“Nah,” Barthul replied. “This one’s a
nolo
, a fool.”

“So?”

Scar grinned in his lopsided, insolent way, and after a moment Barthul tilted back his head and guffawed, holding his round sides. “I got you,” he said in approval. “Run a double blind and bluff them.”

“Yeah.”

Barthul nodded and slapped Scar on the shoulder. “Good, good,” he said. “Train him and put him on the run.”

He handed Scar a slim pouch of something, and Scar slipped it out of sight fast into his pocket. Satisfaction gleamed in Scar’s eyes and he went on smiling to himself as Barthul walked out.

Elrabin watched Scar warily. “So I’m in?” he said.

The smile faded from Scar’s eyes. He looked almost angry again. “Yeah, no thanks to you,” he said with a growl. “You really that stupid or is it fever you got?”

Choosing not to answer that one, Elrabin glanced around. “Do I stay here?”

“No.” Scar walked over to the cabinet and unlocked the top drawer with a quick punch of numbers on the keypad that he concealed from Elrabin with his body.

The drawer popped open, and Scar pulled out a basin and a couple of medical packets in bright pink foil.

Seeing them, Elrabin’s eyes widened. Those were medical packets from an actual Viis clinic, the kind of place he couldn’t afford back in good times, even if they admitted abiru, which they didn’t. He watched Scar’s nimble hands break the seals and spill out the stolen contents.

“Real medicine,” Elrabin breathed, impressed. This wasn’t the synthetic, cheap stuff. This would do him good. He couldn’t believe Scar’s generosity. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Scar said irritably. He slapped a medicine patch onto Elrabin’s left shoulder with more force than was necessary for it to stick.

The effect on Elrabin’s bloodstream was immediate and soothing. He stopped bracing himself against the pain, feeling it fade, and let out his breath in a long whoosh.

Scar put the basin in Elrabin’s lap and draped his septic arm across it. “Hold still. This ain’t pretty, but it works.”

He swiped the needle-thin blade of his sticker with disinfectant and slashed down the infected streak in Elrabin’s arm. Despite the painkiller, Elrabin felt the cut burn through him.

He jerked in a breath, but Scar glared at him and after his initial flinch Elrabin didn’t move again.

Blood, bright and filled with angry pus, splattered into the basin. Scar opened the infected incision with another quick, sure slash of his blade, as delicate and precise with it as a surgeon. Then he uncapped a bottle of brown liquid and poured it liberally over the cuts.

Elrabin expected that to hurt like fire, but it didn’t. The liquid felt cool and soothing. He relaxed again as the drugs took hold in his system, and without concern watched himself bleed into the bowl.

After a short time, Scar bandaged him, ripped off the painkiller patch, and applied something else instead. He emptied and cleaned the basin, and threw out the used foil packets. Locking the cabinet once more, he hoisted Elrabin to his feet.

“You come,” he said, supporting most of Elrabin’s weight.

Elrabin was floating. If his feet moved at all, he couldn’t feel them. They went along the tunnel to another room, a larger one fitted with several bunks. Most of them were occupied. Snoring buzzed in the room.

Scar lowered Elrabin to a bunk and tossed a blanket over him. “You sleep,” he ordered. “In morning, no fever. You be ready to work, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Elrabin mumbled drowsily. He wanted to find the words to thank Scar for his help, but his tongue felt too large and clumsy to talk now.

Scar stood over him a moment longer, a silent, slim shadow in the gloom. “Yeah,” he said softly, his tone low and grim. “Stupid little citizen. Think you found a home. You ain’t found nothing but trouble.”

Elrabin heard Scar’s voice from far away, a sound too distant to listen to. “Scar?” he said, seeking reassurance.

Scar leaned over him and put his hand briefly on Elrabin’s brow, where Magathin used to lick him when he was little. “Sleep,” Scar said gruffly, and walked away.

CHAPTER
•THIRTEEN

The Kaa shifted on his high-backed chair and sighed. Kneeling at his feet, Ampris dared steal a quick peek at his face, then quickly looked down again. He looked so bleak, like a stranger. With all her heart she wanted to ask about Israi, but she dared say nothing. Without turning her head, she tried to look toward Israi’s bed to see how her friend was doing, but the angle was all wrong.

“Ampris.” The Kaa’s deep voice made her jump. “This is a terrible day.”

Gaveid prodded her again with his staff, and Ampris bowed lower until her head nearly touched the floor. “Yes, sire,” she whispered. Because she was Aaroun and not Viis, she could not call him Imperial Father as the others at court did. “A very terrible day.”

“You are beloved of the Imperial Daughter,” the Kaa said. “For her sake, we will allow you to tell us what occurred on the side of the mountain.”

Although stern, his voice held no anger, no accusation. Relieved, Ampris looked up. “Will she be all right? Is she badly hurt?”

The Kaa’s rill lifted, and Chancellor Gaveid cleared his throat in hasty warning.

Ampris gulped and lowered her eyes at once.

“It is the Imperial Father who asks the questions,” Gaveid told her. “Not you.”

She nodded, keeping her gaze down. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, trying not to whimper.

Silence fell over the room, and the chancellor sighed. “Perhaps another approach is needed, sire.”

The Kaa gestured assent and leaned his head back wearily against his chair.

“Ampris,” Gaveid said in a gentle voice, “why did you and the Imperial Daughter avoid the main trail?”

It was easier to talk to the chancellor than the Kaa. In relief, Ampris turned to Gaveid. “The shortcut is quicker and more fun.”

“It is dangerous.”

Ampris shrugged. “We’ve been up it before.”

The Kaa made a faint sound but gestured for the chancellor to continue.

“Was it your idea to take the Imperial Daughter up this trail?”

“No,” Ampris answered honestly. “We were trying to hurry to avoid Lady Lenith. We were going on a picnic, you see, and she would have had us spend the afternoon doing needle art or something boring.”

“Why did the Imperial Daughter not take her guards as she was supposed to?”

Ampris backed her ears, wondering how to explain the obvious to an adult. “We were
pretending
,” she said at last. “It’s hard to do that with them along.”

“Why did you urge the Imperial Daughter to keep climbing when Lord Fazhmind called out to her to return?”

“But I didn’t.”

Gaveid’s cynical yellow eyes grew quite cold, and he inflated his air sacs. “On the contrary, cub,” he said very gently. “Lord Fazhmind witnessed you doing exactly that.”

“I didn’t.”