Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (8 page)

CHAPTER
•FOUR

Elrabin’s stomach hurt so much he could barely concentrate on the display of meat globes just a few feet away. Crouched behind a stack of rotting, smelly fruit crates, Elrabin flicked his ears against the swarm of buzzing flies and peeked around the edge of the crates again.

Yes, the Gorlican shopkeeper was still haggling with his customer, a scrawny old green-skinned Viis with a heavily laden market basket. The Viis was clearly a cook in a small household. He gave himself far too many airs for his rank, and insisted on squeezing, sniffing, and haggling over every item.

Elrabin didn’t mind the performance, for it distracted the shopkeeper, but the two adults were standing next to the meat globes. Elrabin could have stolen half the contents of the shop by now, but he wanted meat—juicy, synthetic, and flavored with spices to make it taste real. His mouth watered with anticipation, and he had to press both hands against the fierce ache in his stomach.

Gods, he was hungry. After a rough night crammed in bed with his younger lits, who yipped, kicked, and twitched in their dreams, Elrabin had awakened this morning to an empty larder and a note from his mother blinking on the data screen, saying to get two measures of Quixlix from the market on her payment card.

It was strange the way a sudden cool certainty had flowed through him. He stood there in the galley, staring at the open door to the bare larder, the grease-smeared cooker, the scuffed, cheap table, the grimy floor, and the fly-specked window that overlooked the next tenement building, and he felt suddenly calm and at peace with himself.

His lits, Vol and Mikar, were yipping in the other room in shrill argument, but even the noise seemed to dampen down and become insignificant in his hearing. He saw as clearly as though he gazed into a sivo crystal.

Their lodging stank of dry rot, rancid meat grease, and unclean fur. They had two rooms, both too small. The security locks didn’t work. The bath sprayer didn’t work. The water pipe leaked. The cooker was down to its last working burner, a bomb waiting to explode. The bottom panel of the door had been kicked in the last time Elrabin’s da came by, drunk and howling for admittance. Maintenance had never repaired it. They had an old data screen that was illegally hooked up to the building’s incoming vid signal feed. One of Elrabin’s daily chores was to monitor any scans and keep the screen switched off at random intervals to avoid detection.

Yeah, like the building supervisor was going to be able to squeeze a fine out of Elrabin’s mother if they did get caught. All he could do would be to evict them, and that was fine with Elrabin. The hopelessness of the place sometimes drove Elrabin to fury, and sometimes to despair.

“When things look up, we’ll move,” his mother often said. “When things look up, I’ll change jobs, get a better shift. When things look up, we won’t have to worry.”

This morning Elrabin understood that things would never look up. Nothing changed in the ghetto, ever. His mother already worked double shifts, which meant she was never home. She slaved out there, breaking her back doing work too hard for her while she got the worst wages in the world. They came up short every pay cycle. Most of the time all they could afford to buy was Quixlix, and if Elrabin had to synthesize one more meal out of that stuff he would puke.

So he just stood there in the galley, with his heart thumping a little and his ears roaring and that strange calmness flowing through him. He picked up his mother’s payment card, which had maybe one credit on it. He put on his coat. He switched the data screen to vid signal so the lits would have something to do when they came scrounging in for the breakfast they wouldn’t get. And he walked out.

Just like that. He wasn’t going back. Ever.

“Here, then, is all I will pay you!” declared the Viis cook to the shopkeeper. Flicking out his tongue, he fitted his purchases into his basket and left. Another customer came up.

Exasperation welled up inside Elrabin. He couldn’t wait here much longer. Good thieving involved a quick dart, grab, and run. Lingering meant being seen. Being seen meant getting caught.

If luck rode on his shoulder, the patrollers would be kind, understanding individuals who would haul him home, strung up by the heels for all the neighbors to see. They would force his mother to leave work and make his bail. She’d lose pay. Elrabin would get an arrest mark on his record sheet. After that, if he got caught again, it was loss of a hand or sale to hard labor. That was the lucky scenario.

The unlucky one meant the patrollers would skip ahead past warnings and reform efforts and just cut off his hand on the spot for a first offense.

Not a good start to his first day as a thief.

But Elrabin had no intention of being a failure.

The shopkeeper turned his back to rearrange the scarlet pomas into a small pyramid, and Elrabin seized his chance.

He sprang forward, running right under the shopkeeper’s coattails, and grabbed as many of the meat globes as he could. Stuffing them into his pockets, he wheeled toward the back of the stall.

But the customer saw him. “A thief! A thief!” she shouted, pointing.

The shopkeeper whirled around, banging the edge of his torso shell against the counter. “Thief! Stop! Robber!” He slapped a button, and a portable alarm blared.

Cursing them both, Elrabin flung himself through the slit he had cut in the back of the tent stall. Cloth ripped as he forced himself through the hole. The shopkeeper, hard on his heels, gripped his coat and dragged him back.

Fear burst in Elrabin’s chest. He squirmed desperately and pulled free, only to trip flat. Several of the meat globes squished in his pockets, soaking him with juice and filling his nostrils with their aroma. The shopkeeper grabbed him by his left ankle now and held on, shrieking for assistance.

Elrabin twisted in the shopkeeper’s hold and kicked free. He scrambled backward, scooting right under the Gorlican, then stood up. The move toppled the Gorlican off-balance. Staggering to one side, the Gorlican snapped with his beaked mouth, but Elrabin was already scrambling through the tent slit on all fours.

The alarm was still blaring. Gaining his feet in the filthy alley behind the food stall, Elrabin heard the sound of running footsteps. The shopkeeper’s shouts for help grew louder. At any moment the patrollers would arrive.

Elrabin gulped in air, flattened his ears, and ran for his life. If he was lucky, he could reach the end of the alley and make the corner before anyone spotted him. All he needed was a head start and he could lose the patrollers.

“You!” an amplified Viis voice boomed behind him. “Small Kelth in the brown coat. You will stop and submit to arrest!”

Elrabin glanced over his shoulder and saw black-suited patrollers coming after him. He couldn’t count how many. One or twenty, it didn’t matter. In moments they would have a sniffer locked onto him, and then his chances would pretty much be over.

Panting for breath, fear running hot weakness through his pumping legs, he ran in a zigzag pattern, trying to elude the sniffer and knowing he had scant chance of success in the narrow alley.

It was stupid to head for the corner. They expected that. He could hear them talking into their comms behind him. Probably they were calling up more patrollers to block his path.

Abruptly, Elrabin turned left and ran through a narrow gap between two of the stalls. He jumped over tent ropes and ducked past a precarious stack of crates, spilling them behind him. A startled Skek burst forth, cutting directly in front of Elrabin on its stick-thin, multiple limbs.

Elrabin tripped over it and went rolling into the soft side of a tent. He scrambled onto his knees, and for a moment he and the Skek stared directly into each other’s eyes. Then the Skek lifted its skinny arms high over its furred head and ran, hands flopping almost bonelessly as it went.

Elrabin ducked and rolled in the opposite direction, scooting beneath the edge of the tent and finding himself wedged between another stack of crates. Baring his teeth, he squeezed through, waited until the shopkeeper stepped outside to watch the patrollers go by, then darted out past her and cut across the plaza.

People shouted and pointed, but Elrabin didn’t care as long as he shook off his pursuers. He ran down another alley, sauntered casually through a crowded shop with his hands innocently in his pockets, lifted a comb adorned with fake jewels, and skipped out the back door without being noticed. Outside, he broke into a steady trot and headed into the dirty streets of the east side of the ghetto. Sounds of pursuit faded completely. He couldn’t even hear the alarm now.

Elrabin’s pounding heart slowed down. He drew in several deep breaths, glancing back often. A grin lifted his lips from his teeth. Now that the danger was over, his fear vanished, to be replaced by a rush of elation. Whirling around to face the direction he’d come from, he licked his palm and made the universal gesture of disrespect.

So much for the patrollers. They weren’t so scary. Even with all their comms, sniffers, scanners, and surveillance nets they hadn’t been able to catch one third-grown lit. Clearly he had been born to be a master thief. He had the moves; he had the talent. From now on he would be known on the streets as Elrabin the Quick. Everyone would soon admire how he could outthink and outrun the patrollers.

Still grinning to himself, he paused in a doorway and checked the contents of his pockets before fishing out a meat globe. It was sadly squashed, with most of its flavorful juice gone, but he ate it anyway, smacking his jaws and savoring every bite. He was tempted to eat all the globes; after the danger he’d eluded he deserved to treat himself like a kaa.

But he held back. He had to take care of himself, now that he was out on his own. He had to plan and think ahead.

Only for a moment did he remember his two younger lits at home, probably howling with hunger right now and wondering when he’d return.

Elrabin felt a tide of guilt surge through his throat, and his ears swiveled back. He could go home, take them the food, spend the rest of the day watching illegal vids. He could give his mother the comb he’d stolen from the shop. Pulling it out, Elrabin turned it over in his hands, watching how the fake jewels flashed in the morning sunlight. Even with jewels made of colored glass that were glued on, the comb looked bright and pretty to Elrabin, something that should belong to a fine lady. He felt sure that if he gave it to his mother, her tired eyes would light up. She might even smile and give him that fond lick between the ears the way she used to when he was really little.

A skilled thief could make forty times as much as a street sweeper, not that Elrabin was even old enough to hold a legal job. As long as he brought home food and gifts, useful items they all could use, why should she mind?

She would, though.

Elrabin closed from his mind the memories of his parents snapping and fighting, the stolen loot from his da’s latest escapade lying glittering on the battered table in the galley, the dust pouch dropped carelessly next to it in plain sight. They fought over everything, including Cuvein’s inability to support his family, his dust habit, his gambling. He would stand there, leaning against the counter, charming and rakish with his head tilted to one side and his brown eyes gleaming. Now and then he would grin a little at her, then roll his eyes to the lits, crouched in the doorway in a watchful huddle. She would rail at him, her body worn and her fur dull, too many disillusionments in her eyes. He never listened. He never changed. Finally he stopped coming by altogether.

That’s when she started working double shifts and talking about how things would change.

Yeah, Elrabin thought resentfully. Things had changed, all right. They had gotten worse.

Whining softly through his teeth, Elrabin tossed the comb in the air and caught it, then tucked it safely away in his belt pouch beneath his tattered brown coat. He was a gangly youngster, longer of leg and lighter-boned than most lits his age. Even at seven years, Elrabin was bright and observant, with a measure of cynicism worthy of one far older. His fur was short and dense, brindled a pale gray-brown color, and his eyes were a light, golden brown filled with mischief. His coat had belonged to his father, and was his only inheritance. Worn and grimy, the garment was made of strong, well-woven linen stolen and handed down many times until it turned up at a ragpicker’s and was bartered for by Elrabin’s mother. It was the only thing his da left behind, and Elrabin had claimed it immediately for his own. The sleeves were rolled up to hide their missing cuffs and tatters, and if it needed a good washing or if the lining had long since ripped out or if the pockets were stretched from having too many objects crammed into them, he didn’t care.

“I’m not going back,” he said defiantly to the empty street.

He had the spare meat globes in his pockets for lunch, and he would sell the comb to Berv, the junk dealer who worked near the docks. That would bring him enough to pay for his supper. A heady sense of freedom swept Elrabin as he turned his steps toward the far side of the ghetto. Life was getting better already.

“Come on, Ampris,” the melodic voice crooned to her. “Come to me, my sweet. Ampris,
come
.”

Crouched beneath the white, bell-shaped flowers that drooped becomingly on fragile stems, Ampris heard the voice calling to her but ignored it. She had discovered a fat worm with multiple tiny feet and a set of horns on its head, and the creature fascinated her. Rainbow-hued, it inched its way across the lower petals of a white flower, distracted neither by the twig Ampris held across its path nor by her gentle thumping of its posterior. She laughed at it and leaned closer, sniffing its length to gain a peculiar, leafy odor.

Lately Ampris had been collecting scents. Her nostrils were filled with a bounty of fragrances, some exhilarating and some pungent, some simply awful. She had to trace each smell to its source, so she could identify and learn.

Now she had learned what a flower worm smelled like. Pausing on the rim of the blossom, it reared up three-quarters of its plump length and reached for a leaf suspended above it. Ampris helped by moving the leaf within the worm’s reach. It crawled onto the green surface, paused there, and began to eat steadily, again letting nothing she did distract it from its purpose.