Alight (46 page)

The spider on the left: a circle-star lowers her bracelet. Next to her, a circle-star boy takes his hands off the cannon’s controls and steps back. The spider crew on the right does the same. The little gear girl driving Aramovsky’s spider swings a leg over the rail and descends, abandoning him.

Aramovsky watches them all, eyes cold and consumed with rage.

He’s lost. He knows it.

A tap on my arm. It’s Barkah.

“Hem
.
”
He gestures toward Aramovsky.
“Move.”

We do. Barkah and I walk to Aramovsky’s spider. I climb the rungs. I stand before the red-robed “leader” of our people. Barkah climbs up as well, then stands next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Human and Springer together, facing down a common enemy.

Aramovsky sneers at me. “The food doesn’t matter, you gullible idiot. Don’t you understand?
They…aren’t…human
. This war will happen now, or it will happen later. Someday they will come for us. They will kill us because
we…aren’t…them
. And if you’re still alive, you’ll know you sold out your own people to these monsters.”

“The only monster here is
you,
” I say. “No more fighting. No more death.”

Aramovsky’s chest heaves. There is a scream inside him, a scream that has no voice, no home. I know he is thinking the same thing I thought when he took the spear from me, that he can run me through, fight to keep what he believes is his and his alone.

Slowly, gently, Barkah draws the knife given to him by O’Malley. The knife with the double-ring made of red stones. The knife with the blade as long as my forearm. The Springer prince keeps the knife at his side. The tip points down, not at Aramovsky, but the message is clear.

Aramovsky stares at it, eyes wide. Threatening an unarmed person is one thing—facing an armed opponent is another.

“Barkah and I are in this together,” I say. “You attack one of us, you attack
both
of us. You wanted to kill Springers, Aramovsky? Well, here’s your chance. If you’re going to fight, then do something with that spear besides just pose with it.”

The fingers of his bracelet hand twitch. Maybe he’s wondering if he can fire twice before one of us gets to him. But I don’t think he’ll try. For him, the bracelet and the spear are little more than props. He is a leader, yes, but he is no warrior. When the time for speeches is past, when he must kill or be killed, Aramovsky’s conviction turns to cowardice.

He doesn’t move. I wait, let everyone see he’s afraid to back up his words with actions.

I hold out my hand.

“If you won’t do yourself what you ask others to do for you, then
give me back my godsdamned spear,
you murdering bastard.”

We stare at each other. The universe fades away: there is only the two of us.

Infinite moments pass by.

Aramovsky breaks. He looks away. Without another word, he tilts the spear toward me.

I take it. The cool wood feels nice in my hand.

“Remove that bracelet, Aramovsky—and get off my spider. I’ll deal with you later.”

He slides the bracelet from his arm, lets it clatter to the spider’s metal deck.

As I watch him descend the rungs, I hear sounds of surprise and alarm from my people.

While Aramovsky and I faced off, the Springers—
thousands
of them—quietly closed in. Their line runs under the shuttle, winding around the landing gear, spreading out wide on either side. Some of them stare at the shuttle in open amazement, gawking at something their kind hasn’t seen in generations. Far more stare at us, muskets leveled, enough that one volley would probably kill everyone.

My people reply in kind, leveling bracelets, climbing to spiderback and manning cannons or crouching low with hoes and picks and axes and shovels. Even if all of us die in that first salvo, Spingate and Gaston remain safe inside the shuttle. If the Springers attack, I know she will unleash the shuttle’s weapons, try to wipe out this violent species so that her unborn child may someday live safe and free.

If I don’t do something now, I haven’t stopped the slaughter, I’ve only delayed it.

“Lower your weapons,”
I shout at my people. “This fight is over!”

Some comply, some don’t.

Barkah yells at his kind, loud and commanding. I don’t know what he’s saying, but the result is immediate: most of the Springers lower their musket barrels. They haven’t put their guns down, but they aren’t aiming them at us, either.

We’re doing it. Barkah and I, together, we’re going to stop this.

Then, a bark of command from behind the Springer lines. The muskets snap up again, each one dead-level, aimed at me, at Bishop, at the spider riders, at the children holding tools. My people do the same: we’re one trigger twitch shy of a bloodbath.

Another bark from behind the lines, somewhere under the shuttle. Straight out from my spider, the Springer line splits.

Four of the biggest Springers I’ve seen yet hop forward, their muskets aimed at me. Bluish-red skin marked with scars, weapons strapped to their bodies: axes, knives, swords. Any one of them looks like a match for Bishop when Bishop is at his best.

Two of them move slightly to the right, two slightly to the left.

From between them hops forward an old Springer, one whose blue skin is turning ashen and gray. Hanging from his neck is an ornate copper plate.

Barkah’s parent: the Springer king.

I angle my spear toward the Springer prince.

Barkah looks at it. After watching Aramovsky give it to me, I think he understands the weapon’s significance.

“Your turn,” I say. “I’m afraid I can’t do the talking here.” I give the spear a little shake. “Together. We do this
together
.”

His two good eyes—two alert, pain-filled eyes—look at me.

“Hem…peace.”

I nod. “Peace.”

His right hand reaches out, grips the spear. As one, we raise my people’s symbol of leadership.

Barkah talks. I don’t understand a word he says. I see Springers’ guns waver, see the aliens looking at each other, looking at their ruler. Perhaps some emotions are constant in any intelligent species—these Springers are confused, they are being told two things and don’t know which is true.

The Springer king’s entire body contorts. His eyes widen, his lips angrily curl back, show teeth. He screams at Barkah. He turns and screams at his people, first to the left, then repeating the same thing to the right.

And then I hear something soft, something nearly silent. If I wasn’t standing right next to Barkah, our arms together raising the spear, I wouldn’t have heard it at all. The sound sends a chill up my spine, tells me that something is horribly wrong.

It is the sound of broken glass.

Quietly, to himself, Barkah is
laughing
—laughing like a person who is watching a plan unfold, like someone who knew exactly what was going to happen.

The Springer king turns to face us. He says something, and the bodyguard on his right hands over his musket. The Springer king puts the butt to his thin shoulder: he aims it at us.

He says something else, something angry, definitive and commanding.

I again hear Barkah’s tiny broken-glass laugh. The prince raises his left arm.

He’s wearing Aramovsky’s bracelet.

I freeze. I didn’t even see him pick it up.

I stare. So does the king. That sense of command, of absolute authority, it leaves his eyes. For a horrible moment, I can read his emotions: shock, disbelief…betrayal.

Barkah flicks his two fingers forward.

The beam lashes out. White fire engulfs the king. The alien scream—a sound I will
never
be able to forget—lasts only a split second, then ends forever as his body rips into a hundred pieces. Blue blood and meat chunks splatter on the Springers behind him, splash his bodyguards with charred gore.

The spear is yanked from my hand.

Barkah raises his arms, the spear held in one hand, the other hand outstretched, letting the morning sun glisten off his bracelet.

He talks for a few seconds. Again, I don’t know what he says, but I don’t have to understand the words to see their effect: the long, seemingly endless line of Springer guns hovers, flutters, lowers. One or two at first, then in a wave, until all the muskets point down at the ground.

One by one, the Springers lower their heads. They drop.

They
kneel
.

There must be a hundred bodies scattered across the battlefield. Humans and Springers alike, shredded by weapons both primitive and advanced. And I suddenly wonder if it didn’t have to be this way, if Barkah could have stopped all of it—but he didn’t
want
to.

Maybe what he really wanted was to become the leader of his people.

As with many things, maybe our two races are more alike than we are different. Barkah wanted
power
.

The Springer prince—no, the new
king
—turns to me. He thonks the spear butt on the deck, leans the tip toward me, offering me the weapon.

“Hem…peace.”

Yes, peace. At what cost? And for how long?

I take the spear.

While I don’t know what the future holds, this battle, at least, is finished.

I
t is a beautiful day on Omeyocan. The reddish sun beats down. Blurd wings sparkle in the light. I smell fresh-baked bread and roasting meat. We will eat well tonight.

A short distance from the Observatory, Muller slows my spider. He’s done this enough times now that he doesn’t need to be told what to do. The child soldier stops us in front of the black X, lowers the machine’s belly. Metal clangs against stone; no more vines on this street, as we cleared them away.

Muller—or
Victor
, as he prefers to be called—missed the battle entirely. Matilda locked him in an Observatory cell. Once things calmed down, we found him and let him out. He’s a circle-star, so he’s still somewhat bitter he didn’t get a chance to fight. Like most kids with his symbol, he’s constantly eager to prove himself. If I have my way, he’ll never get that chance, because we’ll never fight again.

I hand him my spear.

“Hold this for a moment?”

He takes it, holds it as if it’s a magical talisman. Maybe he’ll hold it permanently one day; if so, he’ll find out it’s far more burden than blessing.

I climb out.

The black X is bent and twisted from the fire’s heat. We moved it out here into the open, where it serves as a monument to the people and Springers who died in that fire.

“Hello, Kevin,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it yesterday. Or the day before. Kalle and Walezak got into a fight. Kalle is working to see if there’s a way to get our Bello back. She might be in there, somehow—just like you were. Walezak says it’s a sin, and that Grownup Bello’s wisdom and experience are too valuable to lose. Something like that. Anyway, they got into a fistfight, if you can believe it. Oh, and I had to check on the first crops. I told you they found corn seeds in the food warehouse, right?”

Kevin doesn’t answer, of course. He never does. His bones are buried here along with his progenitor’s, Coyotl’s, Old Bishop’s and those of the other Grownups who died in the Observatory battle. I wonder if they, too, listen to me when I talk.

“I can’t stay long today,” I say. “Spingate sent for me, said she found something really important. She wanted Borjigin and Barkah, too. I’ll come back and tell you what it is as soon as I can, okay?”

Kevin doesn’t answer.

“Spin is really close to having the baby,” I say. “Smith says it could be any day now. Hard to believe how much time has passed since Gaston told everyone she was pregnant. He said if it’s a boy, they will name it after you. Isn’t that nice?”

Kevin doesn’t answer.

I reach out, lay one hand on the twisted black metal. It’s hot from baking in the sun. The first few times I did this, it made me cry, but I don’t cry anymore.

Not every time, anyway.

“I miss you,” I whisper. “I miss you so much.”

Muller softly clears his throat, reminding me I’m already late.

I turn away from the X, scale the spider and stand next to the young circle-star. He hands me my spear, then urges the spider on without saying a word.

Since the standoff in the clearing, Muller has become my driver and assistant, of sorts. Bishop calls him my “bodyguard.” Muller is taller than me now. He’s our best marksman, and I’ve seen him training with knife, hatchet and fists. His lanky frame belies his ability as a gifted, deadly fighter. I hate to think I actually need a bodyguard, but I know I do—as the leader of my people, I’m a target for the Springers that want to drive us out. We still can’t fully trust them. Perhaps we’ll never be able to.

And then there is the constant fear that Matilda and the Grownups will return. For all we know, they’re here already. Gaston thinks they could fly a ship to the far side of Omeyocan and land without us knowing. The thought is terrifying, but also galvanizing: Barkah and the Springers understand the Grownups are the ones that savaged their race for generations—not us. If Grownups attack, they will be met with unified resistance. While our problems with the Springers are many, having a common enemy outweighs them all.