Rainbird Read online

  Outside of which Rainbird waited. Petrus stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

  “Come now, Petrus.” Turnworth thrust his fingers through his hair. He looked tired, as if he’d been roused too early from bed as well. “I am not so unaware as you inspectors might believe. I know you went downside two years ago and I know what you brought back with you.”

  “And what are you going to do about that, sir?” Petrus’ face had gone mask-like. Behind it, his thoughts wheeled in frantic circles, chasing their tails.

  Turnworth looked surprised. “Nothing, of course. As long as the work is done, there’s no harm, is there? If I’d wanted to do anything, I’d have done it a long time ago. I’ve had faith in you—now, trust me to handle this issue quietly. I assure you, it will get the full attention of the Company. We have a technical expert on the sunway even now. Once I get approval from the higher-ups, I’ll expect you to show him the bonerot.”

  “Of course, sir,” Petrus managed through stiff lips. Had the man just threatened Rainbird? He couldn’t be sure.

  “And Gallavant? Times are changing, even on the sunway. The Morality League has bent the government’s ear. The Company was pressured into bringing one of those blasted interfering women up on the sunway, to make sure that we are not a den of vice, it seems.”

  “That would be Third Rib, sir,” said Petrus without cracking a smile. “And it’s Free Territory, outside the government’s control—and the Morality League’s.”

  Turnworth’s smile was without humor. “Ah, Gallavant. The things they can do with lawyers. Don’t you know that wars of occupation are fought with pen and paper these days? No, the Morality League is bringing downside laws up to the sunway and won’t rest till even Third Rib knuckles under. Best be careful around Miss Levine. She’s got permission to interview all personnel and inspect all Company property.”

  Which meant pretty much all of the sunway and the people on it.

  Rainbird. What would happen to her? Confined like a wild animal to a few square markers on Third Rib?

  “We wouldn’t want Miss Levine to find anything amiss.”

  “No, sir.” A tickle rubbed down Petrus’ throat and he coughed, a slight muffled sound that he dared not let grow. Because then, he’d never stop.

  “I like you,” Turnworth said, abruptly. “You’re a good worker, you and your assistant both. Keep your heads down and your mouths shut and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Petrus woodenly, but already his mind was jumping to its own solutions. Cheris gum. An old eiree remedy for bonerot.

  I hope Kasir has a supply of it available. Otherwise I’ll have to go to the eiree myself. And for all his courage, he shrank from that.

  Rainbird sat against a crate of metal parts. After a late night and an early morning, the adrenalin rush of dance and the shock of being seen, finding that bonerot and arguing against Petrus coming to inspect it himself, she was tired and hungry and ready to fall asleep. Petrus would’ve left her in the egg, but she wasn’t about to let him make the journey to the Hub by himself.

  The Hub was the Company headquarters on the sunway, burrowed into this collection of thick bones, a place of joints where spine, rib, wing and leg bones all met. Hollowed out by serpentium drill heads, this cavity was pressure-sealed and insulated against the cold, a place where humans could shed their protective layers and gas masks.

  It was not too warm, though, that she didn’t need her trench coat.

  The door to a metal-and-brick building bearing the sign ARRIVALS swung open. Rainbird straightened with interest; the elevator from downside had arrived. A handful of men came out first. From the surety of their steps and their general comfort in the high altitude—and their sun-embossed uniforms—she pegged them as Company men, inspectors returning from some rec time downside. But what drew her attention was the woman who strode out behind them.

  You didn’t see many women on the sunway. Especially not ones dressed like this. Her deep purple-shading-to-black dress was high-necked and severely cut, but there was no mistaking the quality of tailoring and fabric. Smart boots clicked on the steps down, a smart hat was pinned on top of the woman’s dark updo. A yellow ribbon on the hat was significantly out of place.

  This was probably the woman’s first time upside. A ringsnake, shiny and supple in purples and blacks, circled her wrist, pumping oxygen into her system. A strange hybrid between plant and animal, ringsnakes were soft spongy coils that helped mitigate the effects of the thin air by injecting oxygen directly into the bloodstream. The Company used plain brown ones; this woman must have money and power enough to get one that matched her wardrobe.

  Then Rainbird drew in her breath, for behind the woman, hunched under the weight of luggage, was a short, stocky, hirsute figure. It was covered in pale brown fur, and its eyes were deep-sunk and black. It looked at the ground as it shuffled behind its mistress.

  A dracine.

  “Young man.” The woman stopped in front of Rainbird and fixed her with a stern look. “How old are you?”

  A tart reply jumped to the tip of her tongue, but Rainbird swallowed it back. Be anonymous. Don’t borrow trouble. She shuffled her feet like a schoolboy. “Um, fourteen, ma’am.” She kept her voice low and gruff, and hoped her refusal to make eye contact would be read as boyish boorishness.

  “You should be in school,” the woman informed her. “There are laws and they apply to everyone on the sunway. Especially Company personnel.”

  “I’m nearly fifteen.” Rainbird wished she’d advanced her pretend age by another two years in spite of her small stature.

  “Hmm,” snorted the woman. “A runaway, most likely. No, don’t give me the story. I’m sure you have one all wrapped up shiny with a bow. I’ll talk to your inspector myself. He should know better than to aid runaways. What’s his name?” She pulled out a pen and pad.

  “Um, Gallavant. Petrus Gallavant,” said Rainbird weakly, watching the woman write. She had, as expected, elegant schoolteacher handwriting.

  “We’ve had lawlessness on the sunway long enough. It’s become a haven for criminals and tarnished the reputation of the Company.” The woman clicked her pen shut and gave Rainbird another steely look. “We’ll see about that.” She took a stack of paper from the dracine’s burden and marched to the bulletin board. She tacked up a sheet of paper, covering up notices of checkers nights and pleas for returns of missing items. Then the woman strode away and knocked on the door of the supervisor’s hut. Her yellow ribbon fluttered behind her as she was admitted, and something clicked in Rainbird’s mind.

  Morality League. Oh, poor Papa. She hoped that he’d get out of his interview with Turnworth before the dreadful woman cornered him.

  Rainbird eyed the dracine. The creature was halfbreed like she was, but dracine were combined in labs. They were the sterile offspring of humans and the thyrine, an underground species that was fiercer, faster, and much larger than the dracine. They lived on the Dark Side and traded their life strands to entwine with humans’, creating a race both strong and docile.

  Usually docile. Dorak hadn’t been. A pang went through her.

  Dracine were the original chattel, created with one purpose: to be meek, productive slaves. Thyrine despised them, humans used them.

  Don’t get involved. Not again. No, her revolutionary days were long over, but still…I owe Dorak. For…She cringed, remembering.

  The panic blooming red in her vision. Her own breath, tight in her chest. Hands grasping, fingers curling around a cold hilt. Lashing out, feeling the give of parting flesh. Blood spurting everywhere. Marvelo’s eyes, wide open and fixed.

  No. She shoved the memory behind a door, locked it tight. That was then. This was now.

  “You know,” she said, staring ahead, not looking at the dracine beside her, “you’re on the sunway, not far from Third Rib. This is the closest you’ll be to freedom all your life. You just have to reach out and take it.” She left her words
dangling, like low-hanging fruit.

  The dracine didn’t respond.

  “I—I knew a dracine once. He had visions of freedom, freedom for all his kind. He was my friend, and for his sake, I’ll help you, if you want it.”

  “He was a fool,” said the dracine. Flatly. Wearily. “And so are you. My kind is not meant to live up here, even if yours is.” At Rainbird’s start, it added, “Yes, I can smell you. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Not that anyone would ask me. You should be careful, though, especially now.”

  “Why? What do you know?”

  The dracine said nothing. Rainbird gave it a frustrated glance and walked over to the bulletin board, more to get away from its silent stubbornness than anything else.

  And froze. For there, staring back at her from the Morality League woman’s poster was her own face, one among ten. Under it was written, “Runaway halfbreed eiree. Wanted for murder.”

  In Deep Night, Rainbird sat on the sunway, too tired to dance and too anxious to sleep. She’d picked a spot with no eiree wire in sight, but she couldn’t help feeling it was too late for such precautions now.

  Petrus had been exhausted and coughing by the time Rainbird got him home. Only Turnworth’s intervention had saved him from an extended interview with the Morality League woman. Miss Levine had promised him another opportunity, though. Rainbird had tried to hustle Petrus past the bulletin board, but as bad luck would have it, he’d stopped right there for a brief rest. He’d got an eyeful of his own daughter’s face on a wanted poster. He’d gone even grayer, a tic spasming at the side of his mouth, while Rainbird stood there, wishing she could sink into the floor.

  The last thing she wanted was for him to look at her and see a murderer.

  The damned dracine had stood there, saying nothing, just watching out of its deep-set black eyes.

  Could she really trust it to keep her identity to itself?

  Back in their egg, Petrus had squeezed her shoulder with his thin, long-fingered hand before going to the wire to warn the other inspectors about Miss Levine. Words, the soul-scouring, heart-baring kind, didn’t come easily to either of them. Petrus still loved her, in spite of what she’d done. And that was enough.

  Both of them were restless, Petrus coughing fitfully. Rainbird tipped the last of his medicine into him and then stared at the empty cup, worrying. Hoping that Kasir would advance her another twist of the powder. Hoping that she’d be able to get that sunmoss soon. Worrying that whatever she did was not going to be enough.

  Worrying that she’d be captured, Petrus would die, the sunway would fall.

  And behind it all, a crushing sense of being watched.

  Petrus had slept, finally. Rainbird was too wound up, so she crept out onto the nightside and let the stars sing to her in their cold, white voices.

  It helped, a little, but it didn’t quite alleviate the feeling of doom pressing in from all sides. She avoided looking at the red wanderer in the sky.

  Had it spoken to her? Had it really said am coming? If stars could sing, could they not also talk?

  The sunway quivered and Rainbird froze, desperately hoping that no one had noticed, that it hadn’t registered on the wizzes’ instruments in the Hub.

  “Be still,” she whispered, laying her hand on the bone. “Hush, there. Everyone needs their rest, even you. Tired inspectors are stupid inspectors. Let everyone sleep, all right?”

  A sharp crack sounded, not through bone, but through the air. Rainbird jerked her head up. The sunway itself was still. Not a tremor.

  Someone else on the sunway? In Deep Night?

  A muffled grating noise came to her ears. Rainbird ran towards the sound, then stopped on top of a rounded protrusion. There were no inspections scheduled for this section of the sunway—and who would be out in the thin air and bitter cold, this long from sunpass, when the heat from the Day Sun had long dissipated? She was used to being the only person up here at night, a dancing spark among white mountains of bone and deep valleys of shadow.

  A midnight rodent, nuzzling around for bone maggots and whitefrill?

  “You’re out of luck, little one,” Rainbird’s whisper didn’t extend much past her mouth. “We sweep the area clean. No food for you here.”

  A shaking of the shadows, a flash of light.

  Not a rodent.

  Rainbird leapt off her peak, bounded down into the valley, ran-tiptoed up to the next summit. There. A figure, potbellied and thick-handed with layers, face elephantine with the oxygen mask, wrestling with cables at the edge of the sunway.

  Smugglers? On the sunway? Oh, you heard rumors, but why bother to smuggle onto Company land when Third Rib was free, forgiving, and so much easier to get to?

  A wrenching sound ripped the air, ropes whipped, the figure grabbed for them and caught.

  And the whole mess of person and wire and whatever was weighing it down went sliding over the edge.

  Rainbird was running before she’d even registered what had happened. She twitched her shoulders. Her coat fell behind her. Unfettered by its folds, she sprinted towards the stranger.

  Smuggler or not, plummeting several markers to the ground was not a pretty way to die.

  She jumped over a contraption—sled!—, dodged a dark shape—wire cutters!—and snagged one hand into the collar of a Company-issued insulated coat.

  She’d been prepared for weight, but not this much. She nearly lost her balance but managed to grab the stranger’s arm, brace herself against bone, and pull. The tangle stopped its mad slide for the edge, but her muscles screamed with strain.

  She couldn’t do it.

  A real eiree could’ve.

  The stranger flailed and kicked off the ropes from around his boots. His feet found purchase. Rainbird let go off his collar and lunged for a cable instead. Hanging over the edge of the sunway, sagging between the pincers of a balloon catcher, was a flabby envelope of canvas. A resupply balloon, clumsily caught, its fabric pierced. Now its burden dangled from ropes off the sunway itself.

  The man freed his arm—Rainbird immediately put both hands on the ropes—and hurried off.

  Rainbird glared at his back. Why is he leaving me and why am I still holding on? She thought about letting the cargo drop—it was no concern of hers—but the man was back with the sled, a winching machine atop it.

  Together, they got the cables attached. Together, they pulled on the crank, though halfway through, the man stopped, hands on his knees, breath harsh and gasping through his mask. His goggles had steamed up.

  Humans in high altitude. The cold, the lack of pressure, the thin air—it got to them all.

  Rainbird cranked the wheel one more time. “Almost got…THERE!” The cargo came up over the edge. Rainbird kicked the wheel-stopper in place and dragged on the ropes to get it safely up on the sunway.

  And then noticed the man was staring at her from behind his goggles. “Eiree.” The word, even muffled behind his mask, was unmistakable.

  Rainbird gasped, spun, and fled. Panic roared in her ears and her useless wings hammered against her back. Behind her, the man shouted—something—but all she heard was the bludgeoning of her own blood against her brain, beating out Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  The Up-High Market on Third Rib was halfway between the sunway and downside and reached by elevator. If any of the eiree-grown cheris gum could be bought or bartered for, it would be here. Petrus was convinced the cheris gum would help heal the bonerot. Rainbird was not so sure, but she knew that if she didn’t make the trip, Petrus would, lungsickness or no.

  She swayed on the wooden platform as it creaked slowly downwards. The air felt dense, humid, cloyingly rich with oxygen, with a hint of sea-brine. The warmth sank into her bones in a deep-seated fatigue. She propped herself against a railpost, relaxing into a grey half-drowse, mind expanding like mist.

  And in the edges beyond herself, movement, stirring. A reddish tinge in the dim light. Diamond hardness, star brilliance, volcano heat arrowed in on her. A great
pressure against her skull, a not-voice swelled in her head. I am coming.

  For you.

  Rainbird jerked upright with a gasp. Several of the people she shared the elevator with glanced incuriously at her, then their gazes slid away. The elevator ground to a halt. The metal grill squealed aside and they trickled onto Third Rib.

  Rainbird, cheeks flushed, tucked her coat tight around herself.

  Guilty conscience. Only that. But she forced herself to alertness as she stepped into the market. Even in this crowd of freaks, undesirables, and people whose past it was best not to inquire into, she felt unsafe.

  And she thought she’d escaped all that by coming onto the sunway.

  Third Rib ran by its own rules, anchored as it was in the seafloor. Scallop-shaped platforms jutted from the gnarled bone of the rib at various intervals. They’d been induced to grow in the early days of sunway habitation, before so much of the dragon’s remaining soft tissue had been destroyed in the construction. The market took up the largest one, while hotels, warehouses, and elevator machinery took up the rest.

  Rainbird wound through the various stalls. Priests officiated one of the eight different types of marriages legal on Third Rib. Transvestite oracles with painted faces and falsettos chanted garbled messages from the aether. Hundreds of different mosses could be found here, the most popular being the ones with hallucinogenic properties.

  Rainbird stopped longingly by the vitality elixirs, pure jolts of energy that some inspectors swore by, but moved on when the stall keeper’s hard gaze flicked at her.

  There were fewer wares and less chatter than usual. A palpable layer of strain overlaid the market. Rainbird’s shoulders twitched against it.

  There was a lot of yellow. Yellow ribbons on women’s hats, yellow armbands, yellow pennants on stalls.

  The Morality League.

  Rainbird’s stomach clenched as she glanced at the news posts, many-armed metal poles sunk into bone. Information sheets fluttered from those. Today most of them were the thick stiff paper of Miss Levine’s wanted posters.