Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (17 page)

A hundred 'floor' models sagged in orange NI fields overhead. Maeve did not need to duck beneath them, but all three of her male companions walked stooped over like old men. Duaal slouched over to the corner, where there was a long counter covered in loose nuts and bolts and dust. A black-haired young Dailon in long beige sleeves was trying in vain to sweep up the sand without sending the bits of metal flying and looked up at the sound of customers. A grin spread across the blue face.

"Maeve!"

"Kessa?" Maeve braced herself as the Dailon girl dashed around the counter and threw her arms around Maeve.

No longer pregnant, Kessa had taken on the lean, androgynous look of her race; flat-chested and narrow-hipped, only her large, delicately almond-shaped black eyes belied her gender. To Maeve, at least. Dailons did not seem to have the slightest trouble identifying their own.

Kessa released Maeve quickly and backed away, blushing a deep sapphire color. "Sorry," she said.

"No apologies," Maeve told her and smiled. "It is good to see you, my friend."

Kessa returned her smile and tentatively gave the Arcadian another hug. She embraced Duaal and Gripper, too. She looked uncertainly at Logan. "Are… are you in trouble again, Maeve?"

"Yes, but not from Logan," answered Duaal. "You remember Xartasia, I'm sure."

"Oh yes." Kessa frowned. "So she lived? What about Gavriel?"

"He survived the cathedral's collapse, too. But Xartasia stabbed him on Prianus. That took care of the old bastard."

Duaal's voice was full of cold venom. Kessa's black eyebrows rose and she looked over them again. "Where are Xia and Captain Myles?"

"Silver is out there in Gharib, looking for the Arcadians who live here," Gripper said. He pulled on his shortened left ear. "Claws… he…"

"Tiberius Myles is dead," Logan finished. "Gavriel killed him."

Maeve looked up at Logan. His expression was not as hard as it usually was when facing death. She remembered him at the service on Prianus. Logan had respected Tiberius. Maybe even liked the surly old man. Maeve took Logan's metal hand in hers. A silent moment passed before he felt it and gently squeezed her fingers.

"Oh, no… I'm so sorry," Kessa said. "Captain Myles was a good man."

"He was," Duaal agreed. He wiped his eyes and then grinned roguishly at the Dailon. "But that's not why we're here. Is Xyn in?"

"Sure." Kessa nodded. "He's in the lab. Go on back."

Duaal gestured to Gripper, who squeezed through Unbreakers to a small, box-obscured door marked
Storage
.

"Where is Vyron?" asked Maeve. "And Baliend? Are they well?"

"They're at home. Actually, Vyron is usually here, but it's his day off. And Baliend is growing like a little weed. He's ready to start walking any day now." Kessa glowed with maternal pride. "Are you going to be on Stray for a while?"

"Yes," Maeve said. "We do not yet know exactly how long, but it will be some time."

"You have to come over for dinner!" Kessa said, clapping her dusty blue hands. "You will, won't you? Come have dinner with us?"

Maeve nodded and hoped that Kessa did not notice her mouth watering.

________

"Damned stubborn old fool," Xyn grumbled. He waddled to the mixer, set the timer and flipped the switch. "He was doing something stupid, wasn't he?"

"He was buying us time," Duaal told the fat little Ixthian man with pride. "Tiberius sacrificed himself to save all of Prianus. Maybe the whole dumb galaxy."

"Sounds like him."

Xyn didn't look at Duaal, or even at the confounding alien Arboran. He paced up and down the rows of steel tables covered in beakers and test tubes and bottles of chemicals. He opened a stout white refrigerator, closed it again and moved on. Eventually, Xyn returned with a green glass bottle. With some difficulty, the stout Ixthian man pried the cork free with a pair of tongs and held the wine aloft.

"You wouldn't appreciate this, you sour old bastard," Xyn said. "But rest well or fly fast or whatever you Prians do."

He took a long drink and wiped his mouth, then held the bottle out. Gripper accepted it and took a sip. He made a face. "This used to be grapes?" he asked. "Gross."

But Gripper drank again, longer and deeper before passing the bottle to Duaal. "Do you have glasses?"

"Don't push your luck," grunted Xyn.

"We miss you, Tiberius," Duaal said quietly. He drank.

________

Panna coughed. She wished she had taken Xia's advice and brought a scarf. Sand and dust were everywhere. It was gritty on her tongue and she had to stop every few minutes to scrub it out of her eyes. How did anyone manage to breathe on Stray?

"Arcadians actually live here?" Panna asked.

Xia nodded. She had wrapped a pair of scarves around her head and face, leaving only her colorful compound eyes squinting out across Gharib. "I've met a few," she said. "We got some information from them when we brought Kessa a year ago."

The two women made their way down the cracked and sandy sidewalk. Cars and other pedestrians passed them by, all hurrying to get back indoors. Panna shielded her eyes and looked up into the late red and violet afternoon. A pair of Arcadians flew by overhead, but she couldn't tell whether they were some of Queen Maeve's.

Panna watched the winged shapes vanish into the brackish clouds. It was a bitter irony that it was the removal of her own wings and ear tips that had made Panna suddenly curious about her own culture. As a child, it was the only world she knew. But once she left it, when she could look in instead of out, only then did Panna begin to wonder what she had given up. She did not regret the decision, but neither could she forget the irony of it.

"How did you get caught up in all that?" Panna asked, turning her attention back to Xia. "The whole thing with Kessa, I mean."

The Ixthian stepped around a man sitting in the lee of a stairwell, his head down and a hood pulled down over his face. "I thought you read all about it. You certainly seem well-educated on the issue."

"I read all of the news, sure. Everything I could find. I had no idea until then that anyone from the House of Cavain had survived and I was fascinated by the sociological implications. But none of you did interviews."

"No one asked. It wasn't exactly huge news."

"So what happened, then? How did you end up bringing Kessa here?"

"Maeve and Coldhand brought her," Xia said. "They found her on one of the lower levels of Axis. She was running from her gang, the Sisterhood."

"Maeve and Logan?" Panna shook her head. "Really? When I met them, they didn't seem to care about much. Well, that's not true… Logan cared about finding Maeve. But not much else."

"We were surprised, too," Xia said with a shrug. "But those two are the only reason we got involved in this whole thing. Even if I don't entirely understand why."

"Me, too, I suppose." Panna turned up her collar against the wind.

"I thought that would have been Xen."

Panna's eyes stung and they walked in silence for a while. A human man tried to sell them bread wrapped in sheets of mycolar. Panna wished she could afford some, but the fines on Sunjarrah had bankrupted them all. She waved him off regretfully.

"Professor Xen was why I went to Prianus," Panna said at last. Her throat was dry and her voice seemed to stick. "I didn't know there was a Waygate until we arrived. He was a good teacher and a good man… I guess you know that. You knew him better than I did, Xia. But if you really want to trace it back, it was my parents."

"We can all trace our lives back to our parents," Xia pointed out. She pulled down the scarf across her face so Panna could see that she was smiling.

"Trust an Ixthian to think I meant biology," Panna said. She smiled, too, but not for long. "They were so unhappy, Xia. All the Arcadians on Cyrus were. It wasn't a bad planet and the human colonists there didn't treat us particularly poorly. They worked any Arcadian laborers hard, but Cyrus is a farming world.
Everyone
worked hard.

"But that didn't stop every fairy there from being miserable. When I was a girl, I couldn't understand why. Hells, I'm not sure I do now. Maybe I can't. I'm not sure anyone born since the fall can truly understand."

The two women waited for a traffic light and then hurried across the street to a long series of empty lots, all overgrown with wiry weeds and white-green lichen. Panna followed Xia and hoped the Ixthian had some idea where she was going. They scrambled over the remains of a crumbling ashblock wall. Several scruffy Lyrans snarled from inside their tent until Xia and Panna hurried on.

"So did you ever figure it out?" Xia asked.

"Anthropology isn't an exact science. No, not really. But it's why I think we need Queen Maeve. Or why we would need Xartasia, if she weren't crazy. Only a Cavainna can unite us, can give us back the sense of pride and unity we once had."

"This isn't just about stopping Xartasia for you, is it?"

Panna blushed and ducked her head. "Don't misunderstand… I don't want her to succeed in whatever she's up to. But even without wings, I'm an Arcadian first."

They came around a chipped and graffitied corner to a leaning light post with a flickering yellow tube. An Arcadian man wearing little more than a stained and transparent skirt slumped under it. Not provocatively, Panna thought, just tired.

Xia shook her head and sighed. "I don't think that's one of the ones I met before, but I'm guessing this poor fellow is in the same line of work. Let's go talk to him about your ideals of cultural unity."

She probably meant it as a joke, but Panna grinned sincerely and hurried to speak to the other fairy. He looked up nervously, darting furtive looks up and down the sandy street. Panna raised her hand and called out a greeting.
"Sua cerri shae!"

The expression on the man's face when he heard his own language was of such painful relief that it broke Panna's heart. But he raised a dirty hand in reply.
"Sua aes'ii."

"Our duties to our families are a model for our place in the rest of the world."

– Cendra Hallos, Sunjarran consul (48 PA)

Xia was on the Blue Phoenix when Maeve returned, but Panna was not with her. The Arcadian girl was still in Gharib, talking to the other fairies they had found. "Panna said that she would call if anything happened," Xia told Maeve.

"Her loss," Duaal said with a shrug. "Kessa's invited us to dinner."

"How is Baliend?" asked Xia.

"We'll find out tonight. Gripper, put that over here."

Duaal pointed to a relatively uncluttered corner of the cargo bay. Gripper set down the heavy canister of phennomethylln with a grunt. It was about the size of a small barrel, with handles welded to each side and a red nozzle on the top.

Maeve looked outside. It was growing swiftly dark and the night was cooling. The Arcadians were returning to the Blue Phoenix, one by one and then in small groups. They lowered their wings and bowed their heads to Maeve as they came inside before going to their scattered blankets.

"It hardly seems fair that we go to dinner while they have only a spoonful of beans and nutrient injections."

"No, it doesn't," said Duaal. "But going hungry ourselves won't help. And you said that you want to coo over the baby. What else can we do? We have no money."

Logan stood at the top of the open cargo ramp, arms crossed and watching the sky as the stars flickered against the violet evening sky. He turned back to the Blue Phoenix. "What about that?"

Maeve looked back to where he pointed – the canister of phenno. Xia and Gripper looked, too. "That?" Duaal asked. "Xyn always gives us a fresh batch when we come to Stray. What about it?"

"That's an expensive gift," Logan pointed out. "You could get at least a thousand cenmarks for that much phennomethylln."

"Not enough to found a kingdom, but it is enough to eat for a while," Maeve agreed.

"You want me to sell it?" Duaal protested. "What about the Phoenix?"

"You're not planning on diving into another star anytime soon, are you?" asked Logan.

"Well, no…"

"We need to sell it," Maeve said. She gave Duaal a small smile. "I am sorry for your loss, captain, but I thank you for saving my people."

Duaal scowled for a long moment and looked as though he might start screaming at Maeve, but at last, the young mage laughed. "You really are turning into a little queen," he said. "Fine, I'll sell the phenno. I assume sooner is better than later?"

"They are hungry," Maeve said. She gestured around the hold. "Our dinner can wait."

Gripper nodded and checked his pockets until he found his com. "I'll call Blue and let her know we're running late." He smiled. Gripper began delicately pressing the tiny – compared to his huge claws, at least – buttons. "I think that will be all right. She wasn't sure she could get dinner ready in time, anyway."