Falling Sky (15 page)

Things seem even better when I enter and find half of the wooden tables occupied. All of them with cups in front of them. A promising sign, I think, and sink into a chair in one corner. A couple of the people in the place look up at me, but there's nothing much to look at. I'm just another scavenger on the bones. Just like all the rest.

A woman comes over to me, short black hair tucked under a weathered bandanna. “What can I get you?” she says.

“What do you have?”

“Dark ale or light ale.”

I think back to that first beer and know what it has to be. “Dark.”

She returns with a cup of an ale so dark I can't see through it in the cup. I sniff at it and can smell something earthy and roasted. Then I take a sip. A flavor like the smell, something with a smoky, woody flavor at first, then a deepening almost chocolaty bitterness that finishes slightly sweet. It's remarkable. The bubbles leave my mouth feeling crisp.

I realize that my eyes are closed, so focused am I on the flavors.

As I toss back the mug again, taking care to try to disassemble the flavors in my mouth, I open my eyes and realize what's so different about Tamoanchan. People are walking around with their faces uncovered. I suppose it makes sense—entry is carefully controlled. Everyone here is confident they can't get the Bug. I find it almost dizzying. I scan the faces all around me, drinking them all in.

Then I see one staring at me. Frowning at me. Diego. He gets up and walks toward me. Maybe it's because I'm sitting down, but he looks even taller and broader than I remember. He takes the seat opposite me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he says, his eyes hard.

“Look, Diego—”

“You didn't tell me you were bringing that thing with you.”

I shrug. “I figured we'd keep you out of it. Clear it with the inspector first.”

“And how did that go?” he says sarcastically.

I shrug again. “I'm here.”

He shakes his head, his mouth tight in a frown. “I vouched for you. I said you were bueno. Clean. That stunt you pulled reflects back on me.”

“Look, I'm sorry,” I say. “Yes, you stuck your neck out. But it's sorted now.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Give it a little time,” I say. “Once they see that the boffins are no threat, this will all die down.”

Diego slams his fist on the table. More than a few heads turn to look at us. “Damn it! This is my life.”

I look down at my beer, then finish it in one long draft. I think about how I would feel if our situations were reversed. I wouldn't much like it. “I'm sorry,” I say. “Like I said—we were desperate. And believe me, I asked them to dump that thing more than once. But . . .”

He raises his eyebrows. “But?”

“Miranda's a crusader.”

He purses his lips. “So why aren't you with her?”

“We had to part company,” I say. “I'm just trying to figure out my next move. I need to get back into the sky.”

“You just got here!”

“Yes, but I'm no good on the ground. I'm a zep. I belong in the sky with a ship around me.”

He harrumphs and shakes his head.

I lean forward. “C'mon. You said there were opportunities for pilots around here. You said you needed me.”

“That was when you had a ship,” he says.

Ouch.

“That was also before you fucked me,” he says. For a moment, I think he's going to hit me. Then he stands up. “Whatever you do from here on in, leave me out of it.”

I sag back in my chair.

He turns before walking away completely. “You may want to get back into the air,” he says. “But do you really think anyone's going to take a chance on you now? After what happened?” Then he leaves.

I feel like shit warmed over. That's it, Ben, the voice says. Keep making friends.

It's after my third beer, bought with the corn kernels from the farmhouse, that I realize I don't have a place to stay. And I didn't really plan on finding one. I was only hoping to be here long enough to find a ship to take me back out.

Of course Diego rightfully squashed that idea. Seems like Miranda's Feral has made me radioactive. And I can't imagine them trusting me to leave after that.

So I'm still grounded and I lost my one shot at getting back into the air.

So I buy a fourth beer and nurse it for as long as I can. Like most of these types of places, the people there stick around as long as they can manage. Dad used to tell me there were regular hours for bars back in the Clean. I can recall reading about that somewhere, too. In the Sick, though, if you have the barter, they'll serve you. Barter is just too damned important.

So it's a can of beans for a cup of the light ale and a long march toward the morning. At some point all the beer catches up with me and I have to dash outside for a piss. The Frothy Brew has its own outhouse, which I'm sure sees a lot of use. So I piss, this time without fear of a Feral biting off my cock, and then, as I walk back inside, I hear something I haven't heard in years.

I hear someone speaking Hebrew.

Dad drilled me in Hebrew growing up. Mom probably, too, though I don't remember that. I learned it just as I learned English, and for a while I never questioned it. It was something my father was teaching me—that was enough.

It wasn't until I got a little older that I started asking him. What it meant. Where it was from. Why I needed to know it. It's not like we ever met anyone who spoke it.

He responded by giving me a copy of the Torah. Which was in English. But I was captivated. I'd never read anything like it. He explained its significance, started teaching me about Judaism. What it used to mean to people back in the Clean.

The story of Noah was probably my favorite. Followed by Moses. I was captivated by the image of God using water to cleanse the earth. I became convinced it would happen again. That God would wash away all the chaos and blood and tears of the Sick and we would sail through the air above it, safe on our own little ark, until the world was clean again.

Needless to say that never happened.

When I was older I wondered if maybe the Bug
was
the Flood. Not a literal washing away but a figurative one. Drowning humanity and leaving only mindless Ferals behind.

I didn't mention that theory to my father, though.

I remember once hitting a small town when I was a teenager. Foraging in small towns was often made more difficult by the overgrown vegetation that quickly took them over. It made them less desirable targets. Not to mention they were almost always infested with Ferals. But both those things meant they usually still had valuables, and when you were desperate, they sometimes seemed like a good idea.

So we went down and used our machetes to hack through the plants to get into a stretch of stores to see what we could find. I remember there being some reasonably good salvage but not what it was. We also stumbled into a Feral nest.

They came for us. At us. All limbs and teeth. The strobing of our muzzle flashes lit up the dark interior. I could barely see a shape before it was on me, pulling the trigger of my pistol again and again. Reacting mostly on instinct.

My pistol went dry. Then my backup. And I began using the machete, the only other weapon I had, conscious of the blood flying everywhere, hoping none was hitting me or Dad.

Then . . . it was done. We stood there, the only moving objects, heaving, sweating. I turned to look at Dad and saw his expression—a mix of relief and fear, but fear unlike any I'd seen before. His eyes were wide, haunted, as if he were still seeing the attacking Ferals.

Then I looked where his gaze was and saw them. Tiny broken bodies. Young Ferals. Bleeding. Torn up by bullets or machetes or both. Some were maybe my age, but many were younger. I remember understanding then the ferocity of the attack. They were defending their offspring. I knew they were Ferals. I knew they wanted to kill us, but . . . I felt numb.

Then Dad grabbed me and turned me to face him, checking me for blood splatter, for wounds. The strange detachment still had hold of me as his gloved fingers examined me, as his flashlight shone in my face. Then, when he was satisfied that I was okay, he pulled me to him and held me for a time. My father wasn't a cold man, but that kind of thing wasn't common. I let him hold me until the numbness started to fade, then we grabbed our findings and prepared to leave.

As we were getting ready to climb the ladder to the
Cherub
, Dad stopped suddenly, his gaze on the building next to us. “Dad?” I asked. “We should go.”

“Wait,” he said. And I worried. Had he been infected? It wasn't like him to be so distracted. But he walked toward the building and hacked his way through to the door. As I followed him, I realized that I could read the words above the entrance, and that they were in Hebrew.

It was a synagogue. Long wooden benches filled it, with a raised podium on one side. “People used to pray here, didn't they?” I asked.

Dad nodded. “Ben, go back to the ship,” he said.

“Dad?”

“I'll just be a moment. Take everything up to the
Cherub
.”

“Okay,” I said. Usually I did what he told me to without question. Only this time I didn't. This time I hid in the entrance to see what he would do.

He moved down the aisle until he was right in front of the raised podium. Then he fell to his knees.

I have no way of knowing for certain, but I'm sure my father was praying. The man who didn't believe in God was praying. And it unnerved me. I hurried out to the ladder and our stash and headed back to the
Cherub
.

I never asked Dad about that. Never felt comfortable bringing it up.

But right here on Tamoanchan, right now, hearing the Hebrew drifting on the night air, I wish I had.

I follow the sound, not too far from the Frothy Brew, to a simple wooden building with a Star of David hanging above the door.

Inside, there are rows of wooden benches and a scattering of people sitting on them. Up at the front of the room stands a man in traditional rabbi garb. He wears a wide-brimmed flat hat and hair curls around his ears almost merging into his long beard.