Ninth City Burning (58 page)

“Rae's down in the city somewhere,” Kizabel says, apparently having noticed me searching the little crowd on the balcony and made an unnervingly accurate intuitive leap. She, too, has brought a group with her—most of them new faces I assume are gun-mates from her stint as an artillerywoman. “She went to check on her sister. Said she'd stop by a little later.”

“Sure, excellent,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed. By the knowing smirk on Kizabel's face, it's plain she isn't fooled one bit. “It's just that I've hardly seen her since we went back to Earth,” I explain lamely.

Kizabel and I worked together closely while the Keep was under repairs,
but in all that time, I barely had more than a glimpse of Rae, mostly at the Stabulum, where Snuggles was undergoing painstaking restoration. Re-restoration, rather. Kizabel was less than satisfied with the repair team's initial efforts and insisted on rebuilding everything herself. All company other than Rae could expect to be chased off in a hail of execration and dented machine parts. I'll admit to being more than slightly jealous that an equus had more visits from Rae than I did but also somewhat relieved. I did something to offend her sometime in the recent past, but because I haven't figured out what or when, my attempts to fix things have relied on reasoning that amounts to little better than random guessing. I'm a bit afraid to find out whether I still rate as scum. I put my chances of success at around one in twenty.

“Oh yes, absolutely,” Kizabel answers, now grinning openly. “Well, you're trapped on a floating island together, so odds are you'll run into each other eventually.”

It's an awfully big flying island, big enough that two people might not see one another very often if they don't make a point of it, and I'm about to say as much to Kizabel when I spot Fontanus Jaxten lingering at the edge of the balcony. Recalling the effect distinctions in rank had on this crowd, I opt for a comradely nod of acknowledgment rather than any greeting involving the word “sir.”

“Jax!” I call, motioning him over. “Glad you could make it!” I say this even though, in truth, I'm not very glad at all. A significant faction within the leadership—Curator Ellmore among them—believed younger legionaries ought to be categorically banned from MapleWhite, and while I don't completely agree, I have a hard time justifying the decisions that allowed Jax to take part. Granted, he and Naomi—another of the Legion's youngest fontani—were instrumental in our latest victory, defeating a Valentine Zero not far from where we're standing now. Jax does look more mature—taller, leaner, with fewer marshmallowy qualities than he had the first time we met, a seeming eternity ago but in reality only a few months—but he's still obviously a child. It may be a simple matter of perspective—no doubt I look as young to Curator Ellmore as Jax does to me—but still. He isn't even thirteen.

Jax's recent experiences have lent him a new self-assurance, and he converses confidently with the older legionaries around him. He is remarkably well informed on military politics and seems particularly interested in
my opinions regarding how the Keep will perform in the likely event of a second engagement with the enemy during our upcoming mission. When Kizabel launches into her by-now-familiar tirade on the churlish popular habit of referring to IMEC-1 as “the Keep,” he comforts her in a way that implies a shared understanding of humanity's natural ingratitude. We haven't been talking long, however, before he asks me for the time.

“I should go,” he says, after I've fished out my watch and showed it to him. “I told Naomi I'd watch the closing with her.”

The closing of Lunar Veil will mark the official end of our victory party and the beginning of our mission into the Realms—though I have no doubt the general celebration will continue in an unofficial capacity for some time afterward. Already, the Anchors holding Lunar Veil open have been disabled, and soon the Veil will collapse, sealing us off from Hestia. A moment before that happens, however, there will be a flash on the Veil, giving everyone gathered across the Keep one final glimpse of Earth.

“Did they cancel Reydaan's speech?” I ask. The flash is supposed to coincide with the climax of a laudatory homily from Dominus Reydaan, but my watch tells me we're only minutes away from our big farewell, and I have yet to hear a peep from the Dominus.

“It's been going on for a while,” Jax says. He indicates the corridor leading out to the Forum, and I recognize the faint whisper of Reydaan's voice echoing through. Whatever artifice has sealed us off from the Forum must also be blocking most of the speech; fine by me, since I've proofread the thing enough times to know we're not missing much.

Kizabel, who has drunk a little more than is good for her, begins teasing Jax about preferring the company of a female over that of his old and loyal friends. Having been on the wrong side of Kizabel's teasing myself, I decide to intervene. “See you later, Jax. Say hello to Naomi for us.”

Jax gives me a grateful look. Kizabel, by way of adieu, shouts at him, “And tell Rae she needs to stop prancing around the city and get over here!” I can't be sure, but Kizabel seems to have intended this comment more for me than either Jax or Rae. There are a few snickers, but Jax simply nods, as though in confirmation of an order, and vanishes, leaving only a puff of air and a hiss of static.

“Fontani,” Kizabel muses wonderingly, while along the balcony people holler with drunken approval of the display. “What I wouldn't give to be able to do that.”

“It would make life more convenient,” I agree. As if in illustration, the air crackles again, rushing this time like a miniature tornado. The sound of howling wind is quickly replaced with an excited whoop, followed by delighted laughter, as of someone who has received a startling but not unwelcome surprise.

Rae has appeared out of thin air, not much more than an arm's length away. It turns out Jax delivered Kizabel's message as instructed, then took the extra step of bringing Rae directly to our balcony. I'm not sure if he did this out of courtesy or as part of some treacherous conspiracy with Kizabel, and I don't particularly care. Either way, it means Rae is here.

Kizabel's reaction leads me to suspect collusion on some level: She's the first to respond to Rae's arrival and gives the strong impression of not being taken entirely unawares. Her greeting consists of a broadside tackle, which Rae absorbs easily, squeezing her arms around Kizabel's shoulders and lifting her several centimeters off the ground, the two of them cackling maniacally over what can only be some inside joke between them.

The full roster of the 126th Equites is next to crowd around, jostling in with boastful salutations, hearty embraces, and sloshing cups of aquavee. I am at once stunned and unsurprised to see Kizabel directly in the middle of it, trading backslaps and good-natured verbal abuse, a head shorter than anyone else but solidly holding her own. There was some tension between Kiz and the 126th a while back, a falling-out in which Rae, if I recall correctly, played a supporting role, but it looks now as if all unpleasantness has been relegated to the world of bygones, brushed away as petty differences tend to be when the world is on the brink of obliteration.

That's my impression, in any case, until Imway wades into the scrum, wearing the magnanimous grin of a host arriving late to his own party. For the most part he is received exactly as his demeanor anticipates, with toasts and clasped hands and loud laughter, but a few steps from the center of the group his gallant warrior's smile abruptly drops, replaced by an expression of confusion and dawning outrage. In the next instant he is all hail-fellow once again, fist raised to accept a cup of aquavee passed his way by shouting comrades, but there remains a slightly petulant set to his jaw, easily missed by anyone who hadn't witnessed this brief interruption to his bonhomie. Of the sight that upset his usually unconquerable confidence,
I've caught only the tail end, but it's telling enough: Kizabel wedging her way from Imway's pack to rejoin her new gunner friends.

So far as I can tell, the only other person who took note of this exchange is Rae. She catches my eye across the crowd and, with a single look, manages to convey not only that, yes, I did in fact just see what I thought I saw, but also that there's a good deal more to the story. Whatever that is will have to wait, however, because several equites of the 126th have taken it upon themselves to include me in the festivities, by force if necessary.

“You do always travel in style,” I say to Rae, once her welcoming party has absorbed me fully enough that I can speak to her directly.

The comment is well received among the equites, for whom traveling in style is an occupational ideal. It strikes them as the highest form of praise, inciting a raucous round of toasting “to traveling in style.” A bottle of aquavee begins making the rounds, but when it settles in Rae's hands she passes it on without drinking, receding a few quiet steps from the crisscross of laughter and clinking glasses.

“Don't feel like celebrating?” I ask.

“Just the opposite,” she says, wiping one laughter-induced tear from the corner of her eye. “Today, I'm doing nothing but.”

“I was afraid we wouldn't see you.”

She looks over at me, smiling. “Oh, I wore out my welcome pretty quick everywhere else.” She glances over toward the other equites, half of whom have, for reasons not entirely apparent, descended into fits of laughter. “I'd have shown up earlier if I'd known what kind of welcome I'd get. Had a notion Sen would want a go at me once she got into the hooch. Thought you'd be gone, too, off in some smoky room somewhere with all the other bigwigs.”

“Wore out my welcome,” I say with a shrug. And then, carefully, “And you weren't the only one concerned about venturing into dangerous territory.”

“Oh?” Eyebrows raised; brown eyes playful. “Dissension in the ranks?”

“No. You.”

“Me?” She looks surprised, but that sense of play hasn't totally gone.

“I had this idea you were angry with me.”

The expression that crosses her face is one I've never seen on Rae. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it could be embarrassment. “I did, too,” she
says. “But I wasn't. I was angry, and you were there. It looks the same from a lot of angles.” Rae shakes her head as though clearing away a thought. “It wasn't your fault. I was just so goddamn tired of good-byes.”

This more to herself than me. I think I know what she means, but I can't imagine any way to tell her so without sounding like an idiot. Claiming I understand even a tiny part of what Rae has been through could very well be the biggest lie I've ever told. I rack my brain for the right thing to say, trying to spot the potential pitfalls, to chart a way through. But my only certainty is that Rae is a spoiler of strategy.

I'm saved from just blurting some clumsy, half-formed reassurance when the light all across the Keep—from the twilight sheen of the sky to the ambient illumination glowing around our balcony's edges—begins to pulse, first welling up so that every shadow and crevice is momentarily filled, then dimming almost to blackness. The same thing is happening everywhere on IMEC-1, I know; it's the call for our attention. On the third ebb, the lights stay down, putting the dark sky of Dis and its great catalogue of stars on full display. The music coming from the Forum has stopped, I realize. Reydaan must have finished his speech. Laughter and applause flicker back and forth over the city in the gathering quiet. The grand finale is about to begin.

Suddenly, the Earth is there, a blue-white balloon of oceans and swirling clouds. It's about the size the Moon appears back home, the slightest crescent slice peeled off from one end. It reflects a pale aquamarine down onto the city, the light shining on the upturned faces looking back. The nascent pockets of cheering around us fade out, and for a second or two, everything is totally silent.

If Rae is not in the mood for good-byes, she won't enjoy this next part.

I'm going to say something, ask if she wants to sneak into a smoke-filled room of bigwigs with me, or just grab her and drag her back to the Forum, anything so she won't have to watch her home disappear, but before the impulse can gather into action, I feel something press against my hand. It's only a brief touch—her palm against mine, the pressure light but firm—but the message it carries is clearer and more powerful than anything I could have thought to say or do. The simple communication of a single, pure idea: possibility.

My first indication that the show is over, the ceremonies officially at an end, is the sound of wild cheering all around. I get the feeling it's been
rising steadily for some time. I'm still looking toward the sky, but when I search the spot where our little blue planet had been, I see only a scattering of foreign stars. Earth has come and gone, and we're on our way.

“Don't worry,” Rae says, leaning close to be heard over the sounds of celebration. “It'll be there when we get back.”

I
'm still here. Sometimes I don't totally believe it, even though it's obviously true. Like maybe there was some mistake or something. For one thing, only about half of us from Twelfth made it out of the Battle of Dis alive. That attack on the ratters was what did it, though if you'd asked me right before we launched off after those nests, I'd have said we were
all
about to get blued, not just like 50 percent of us. Maybe that's why everybody from the Legion was so impressed with us afterward—because we'd charged in knowing we had basically no chance at all. Really, though, I wasn't thinking about whether we were going to die. I was mostly just thinking about jumping off that stupid platform. A lot of people from Twelfth say the same thing. And it wasn't like we could have run away or anything. There wasn't much of anywhere to run to.

But, anyway, we all got this big unit citation for valor and gallantry and so forth, the whole Third Cohort, Twelfth Century, I mean. I got the feeling that if you'd been in the Legion a long time, you'd be pretty thrilled to get an award like that, but most of us in Twelfth had never even heard of it. Generally, we were just glad to be alive, the ones who made it back. In fact, the only person I know who'd have been all that thrilled to get an award for gallantry is dead, which as it turns out means he got even
more
awards than anybody. That doesn't make him any less dead, though.

Optio Sorril told us we could take Mersh home if we wanted, me and Hexi and Spammers. I was pretty surprised she even knew the four of us were all chummies. Like, it was obvious we'd all been called up together and everything, since we came in on the same train from old S-225, but there were about a hundred other people on there with us, and somehow Sorril figured out we were the ones to ask if she ought to send him back.
That was what she meant by “home.” Old Granite Shore. We talked about it, though, and we decided it wasn't such a good idea. Out of all of us, Mersh was the only one who actually wanted to leave in the first place.

What we couldn't agree on was what to do instead. Spammers didn't want to do anything at all. He said Mersh was gone, and it didn't matter what happened to whatever part was left over. As far as he cared, the Legion could just do whatever it did with everyone else it'd gotten killed. That made Hexi pretty furious. She said Mersh was our friend, not some pile of trash, and it was up to us to do what he would have wanted, and Spammers would have known that if he wasn't such an insensitive turd. I kind of agreed with both of them. Like, Mersh was dead, so he probably didn't care what happened to him anymore, but I didn't want to just leave him with the Legion, either. Also, Spammers really
was
being a turd. The weird thing was, it turned out he and Hex could both have it their way.

We all agreed that if Mersh was going to plan his own funeral, he'd want something big and heroic, and when I asked Optio Sorril about it, I found out that was basically what the Legion was doing for
everyone
. It didn't matter if you'd died fighting off ten million Valentines or two seconds into the battle of a heart attack or like severely impacted bowels or whatever, you were still a hero getting a hero's funeral. Spammers tried to talk us out of it at first. I don't know who he was madder at: the Legion for acting like making a big deal over a bunch of dead people would make up for them being dead, or Mersh, because he really would have just loved the whole sappy thing. Even Spams had to admit it was a pretty impressive affair, though.

It was the first thing we did after the Keep took off from Earth. They had everyone go over to Green Side, because that had the most open space for people to spread out. Green really does feel a little like being out in the wilderness somewhere, with all the trees and lakes and everything, especially since most of the taller buildings are on Red Side, so they're completely out of sight. When we were all there, out in the middle of the woods, all these Legion people started making speeches one after the other about how brave we all were and everything, but especially those who like sacrificed themselves so humanity could live on. All strictly crap, of course. I mean, I'd been in the battle. I knew I wasn't all that brave, and I
definitely
wasn't sacrificing myself for humanity. The only reason I didn't die was that I was
lucky
. The rescue people said if the cuts they found in my D-87s had
been any deeper, I would have been blued right along with Mersh, and I doubt that would have made me any braver. What those legionary guys said wasn't all that bad, though. I know Mersh would have liked it.

Once the speeches were done, they let everyone who'd died just float away into space. That morning, me and Hexi'd gone to pick up what was left of Mersh, which turned out to be just ashes in a little stone container, kind of a tube with a raindrop-shaped bead at each end. I should have expected that, since they cremated dead people back in Settlement 225, too, but for some reason I'd thought we'd see Mersh just how they found him. I was pretty glad we didn't. After those skirmer Type 3s got hold of him, there wasn't much left. Spammers says old Mersh came back in three different pieces, and not very big ones, either. This little stone thing was a lot better, real clean and nice-looking and so forth.

We'd given the tube with Mersh in it to Hexi before all the speeches started, and when the last speech was over, the raindrop-shaped beads started to glow, and the thing just lifted out of her hand. It was happening to other tubes all over Green Side, too, and pretty soon there were all these lights rising up above the trees. I couldn't believe how many there were. It was very pretty to look at, but also really awful, if you thought about it for even a second. Every one of those lights had been a person, maybe someone who'd been dragged out of some settlement somewhere and sent off to fight and just wasn't lucky enough to make it out alive.

The tubes kept floating up and up, swirling like some big, glowing river, until finally they just faded away. What really happened was they'd passed out of the umbris surrounding the Keep, so there was no thelemity to make them glow. They were all still out there, floating on their own now. They'd keep going around and around Earth, maybe for hundreds or thousands of years, maybe forever, or maybe they'd eventually fall down into the atmosphere and burn up.

It left me with this crazy feeling, when the lights were gone and there were just the stars and Earth hanging there with just one little sliver missing. I didn't start crying, the way a lot of people did. I was sad, sure. But everything bad that would ever happen to the people in those tubes had already happened. I was feeling sorry for myself, probably. It was dumb, I know. I mean, I was still alive, right? But that was how I felt.

When the lights were gone, people started heading over to Red Side, because there was going to be a huge party at the Forum to celebrate
winning the Battle of Dis. Hexi wanted to stay behind for a while, to just sit around and tell stories about Mersh, but Spammers said he'd had enough of this remembering crap, and now he wanted to get drunk. And the truth was, me and Hexi were in the mood to get drunk, too, or at least Hexi was. So we all went to Red Side, and Hexi got one sip of aquavee and started telling stories anyway, and Spams joined in eventually. They looked like they were having fun, but I just started feeling weird and a little sick.

I think I was the only person who even noticed when we finally left Hestia. We'd only been at the Forum a little while, maybe an hour. They had practically everything you could think of to eat and drink, and people were going a little berserk. I think they were all just happy to be alive, especially after that memorial thing with the lights. Hexi had given up on the stories and was just showing off her arm to anyone who would look. It'd been cut off just below the elbow after we blew up that nest, but once they got her to the infirmary, it only took a few days to grow back. She said it still sort of tingled sometimes, but the pink, shiny look it had at first was almost gone, and you could barely see the whitish line where her D-87s had sealed the skin over to stop her from bleeding to death. She kept saying, “It still looks better than beet juice!” and punching me with her new hand. It was funny, I guess. At some point, though, I noticed the stars overhead starting to swim around, and when they stopped, they weren't the stars you'd see from Earth anymore. They were the stars in Dis.

I used to think stars were stars, just tiny glowing dots and whatnot, and I couldn't believe how
different
these were. I tried to point it out to Hexi, but she only kept punching me. It was like no one cared except me. And then I started to feel real sick, like if I didn't get out of there right away, I'd puke. I felt like I was back at Limit Camp, running some topsy-turvy obstacle course, and I couldn't tell which way was up.

I'm almost to the edge of the Forum when someone grabs me by the arm. I'm sort of upset, because I'm still feeling pretty lousy, and I thought I'd gotten away without anyone noticing, and I kind of shove back before I realize the person grabbing me is Optio Sorril. I don't know where she came from, but she isn't happy about getting shoved. I give her the old salute, and say, “Sorry, ma'am. I didn't know it was you.”

“Not a problem, Miles,” she says. “We've all been on edge the past few weeks. That's what tonight is for, though I'm afraid some of us are already celebrating rather too much.” She means everyone around here getting
blind drunk, I can tell. I'm probably not the first one today to shove her by accident. “And I have the sense some aren't celebrating quite enough.”

“I don't really feel like it, I guess, ma'am.”

Old Sorril nods slowly. “It's not too late to change your mind, Torro. I can have a velo ready in ten minutes to take you back to Earth.”

Mersh wasn't the only guy from Settlement 225 who had the chance to go home. The day after I got out of the infirmary, Optio Sorril called me to her office. I'd been in there almost a week, way longer than I needed to be. I wasn't even all that hurt. A few patches of skin had gotten messed up from being exposed to outer space, which was easy to fix, but I'd been low on oxygen for a while, so they made me wait around to be sure I didn't have any like permanent brain damage. Anyway, old Sorril and me chatted for a while, then she asked me if I'd like to go back to Granite Shore. I thought she meant with Mersh, to take him home and everything, and I told her me and Hex and Spammers had already decided we weren't going to do that. But that wasn't what she meant. Old Sorril was offering to send me back for good.

The Legion was trying to change the way it managed relations with its settlements, was how old Sorril put it. If we wanted to build a Legion strong enough to fight off the Valentines, we'd need everyone cooperating as much as possible, and the Legion had decided the best way to do that, to like get everyone on the same side, was to be totally honest about the war. They were going to tell the settlements everything—about the Valentines, thelemity, the whole deal. And they figured all of that would sound a lot less like abominably insane if people heard it from someone they knew, so they were looking for legionaries they could send back to their old settlements to explain things. If I wanted, I could be the guy for S-225, what Sorril called a “liaison.” She said I'd be good at it because I was so empathetic and personable and whatnot.

It actually sounded like a pretty good deal. All I had to do was tell everyone on Granite Shore how this crazy, made-up-sounding stuff the Prips were feeding them wasn't a complete and total lie, and maybe demonstrate thelemity by showing off with lazels and trenchers and so forth. And since I'd be an officer in the Legion, I'd outrank all the local authorities. I wouldn't have to worry about Qu or Ghalo. I could order around that fathead Gemt whenever I wanted. I could even get Cranely for what he did to me. And I could be with Camareen. Sorril didn't come
out and say all that, but she let me know I could kind of pick up where I'd left off. And after ten years, I could choose to stay in the Legion or go and do whatever I wanted. Deals don't get much better than that.

I turned her down, though. I knew even before she finished talking that I wasn't going to do it. I wanted to go home more than I'd ever wanted anything. It was just that I couldn't, not when everyone else was going off to fight. It's crazy, I know. If I'd asked Hexi or Spammers, or anyone from Twelfth, they would have told me to go. I could have said, “Listen up, kiddos, I'm going home to Granite Shore, good luck with the war and everything,” and they would have thought that was just great. They'd have been
happy
for me. But I still couldn't do it, and I can't leave now, either.

I tell Sorril thanks, but I'm part of the Keep, and that's all there is to it. I think she understands, the same way Hexi and Spammers would've if I'd gone. She'd have been glad to see one of us get out, but she knows why I can't. As I'm leaving, she says, “Well, Miles. It seems you turned out to be a volunteer after all.”