Spear of Light (18 page)

Look toward the boats!
the Jhailing said

Projectiles raced toward the shield. Hundreds of them; a barrage. Fast.

Yi put a hand up as if he could stop them.

Defenses activated; shadows touched him, as small and fast things flew overhead from behind. A response from Nexity.

Missiles battered the shield.

Three boats exploded, water and fire both present for a shocking moment.

The shield cracked.

The Wall itself shuddered. Only slightly. And then it firmed.

A heavy projectile slammed into the shield. It bounced off. Again. Cracks grew. Ten strides in front of them, maybe twenty, the shield shattered. The fat little Next who had just passed them fell and rolled, falling inward off the Wall, toward the city. Its body crunched against the ground.

Two more boats exploded in gouts of water and splintered wood and broken metal. Another simply slid beneath the surface of the water.

Yi glanced up at the hole in the shield. The edges were growing, reaching to rejoin. But it shattered again, more pieces falling, clinking against the edges of the Wall, bouncing and falling over the edge.

The Jhailing stumbled.

He reached for it, bending to keep it from falling, falling himself as their shared momentum tripped him. He rolled.

Go! I will be safe, but you can't separate from that body. You can die! Go down and in.

I don't want to leave you.

A voice inside of him.
I have already left you.
The metal shell in his hands had become dead weight.

He left it and ran back the way they had come until he reached one of the many doors and followed the Jhailing's instructions. His thoughts raced each other around in circles, running outcomes from the fight. Whoever started it would be hunted down and killed; the Next would show no mercy.

He didn't want to be caught in that.

Family.

He fled toward his family, suddenly needing to know that everyone was safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NONA

Nona sat alone on the porch of her new house on Front Street. It stood near the middle of Manna Springs, so she'd had to pay far too much for the space. Still, it was close enough to town and big enough to impress. Late afternoon sun angled between the houses across the street and painted her front steps bright and welcoming.

She wondered what color flowers to plant by the steps.

A small pack of bicyclists rode down the middle of the street, weapons strapped to their muscular calves or to the bike frames. Three men and two women. They all glanced her way. Someone must have told a joke because they broke out in peals of shared laughter.

Skimmers hummed overhead, their shadows as noticeable as their nearly silent engines. They flew a constant search pattern, even though Nona could discern no reason for it. If the Next truly wanted to take the town, they would. The only possible conclusion was that they weren't interested.

Even though the restlessness in town made her nervous, Nona liked the house. Satyana had helped her choose it from among three options, even though she had been too busy for more than a few remote conversations and video pics in the last few days.

It was nearly done. She'd repainted it blue and white and created a sign that hung above the door, proclaiming it the “Embassy of the Diamond Deep.”

Most of the big stations had embassies on other big stations. This had been Manny's idea. After Nona suggested it, Satyana heartily approved and sent a missive down to the current leadership of Manna Springs declaring Nona Hall as the formal ambassador of the Diamond Deep to Lym.

She wasn't sure if it kept her safer or made her a target.

“Nona Hall!”

She looked up to see Jules and Amanda, the brother-sister twins who ran Manna Springs these days. Both were tall and thin, tanned from farming, and wore ranger's uniforms that had been slightly modified to add piping. Their dark red hair might have been color-matched.

She stood up and went to the stairs to greet them. “Jules and Amanda Night. Welcome. I'm Nona Hall.”

They didn't take her outstretched hand, and they stopped at the bottom of the steps.

“Come on up,” she encouraged. “Can I make you tea or stim, or pour you a glass of water?”

They looked at each other. A group of seven bicycle riders came up and surrounded them. A show of force.

“I won't bite, and I'm not hiding any robots in my house.”

A tiny smile quirked up the corner of Amanda's mouth, then disappeared.

Nona waited for a few long awkward moments before she said, “Surely you came here for a reason. Just come up to the porch. We can all agree to call that neutral territory, right?”

They came. She only had two seats out here so far, so she perched on the railing.

Amanda's dark blue eyes looked purple when she turned her head into sunlight. “We came to warn you. There are death threats, and we don't need to have anything happen to you.”

Nona noted the careful wording. “No diplomatic incidents?”

Jules looked mildly offended and didn't answer her directly.

“Are the threats specific? Are they from anyone in particular?”

They replied in unison. “No.”

“No one specific,” Jules amended. “They've come in writing. A few new ones came this afternoon.” He pointed up at the embassy sign. “They came after you hung that up.”

It was probably better than not being noticed at all. “Can I make you stim?”

Amanda was clearly the good guy, the one who was supposed to make friends. She asked, “Do you have any chocolate?”

“Not yet. But I've ordered some. Most of my supplies haven't come, so all I have is mint tea from your weekend market and some sweet stim that I bought from the Spacer's Rest.”

Amanda asked for tea and Jules wanted water. This was the first diplomatic visit to her new embassy; it mattered. Unfortunate that it had come before any of the help Satyana was sending her had arrived.

Nona added a small pile of cookies. Each of her guests took their drink, and the steam infused the air with a pleasant sweetness.

Amanda said, “We've never had an ambassador here. Of any kind. Much less from a Glittering station. What do you want?”

At least she was direct. “Information flow. There are things you know that I need to know. And there may be things I learn about what's happening out in the Glittering that you need to know. For example, did you know that the Shining Revolution destroyed a Next ship three days ago?”

Their faces betrayed nothing. She waited. It was their turn to offer something. After a time, Jules said, “We're going to fight the Next. There's nothing that the Glittering can say to keep us from that.”

A weak offering, a thing that had been stated publicly forever. Nona raised an eyebrow.

Jules sounded quite earnest as he insisted, “We can't cede the planet to them. They'll destroy it. They destroyed it before, and we haven't even finished cleaning it up.”

“I understand.”

Amanda looked doubtful, and Jules said, “You can't.”

“Lym is very beautiful,” she said. “I had never thought I would come here, but even before I came to Lym and fell in love with waterfalls and tongats and open space, I knew it needed to be protected. They teach us that in elementary school on the Deep.”

Amanda sipped her tea, apparently fascinated with the growing shadows. Once again, Nona waited her out. She said, “We thought you wanted to turn it into Mammot.”

Nona smiled. “A few might.” She thought of Gunnar, who owned the whole business of transporting minerals from Mammot to the stations of the Glittering. “Most do not. There are billions of us. We don't all want the same thing any more than you all do. For example, the gleaners want to die, and you do not.”

Jules stiffened. “But we all want to protect Lym. Every gleaner, every ranger, every shopkeeper.”

“Perhaps.” He had all of the stupid certainty of youth. She gestured toward the bicyclists standing across the street, their bikes leaning side by side against a fence. “What about your guards? Are they all perfectly aligned? Do any of them want to fly on a starship or see the world?”

“We're all first families.” Jules said it as if it meant they were all gods.

She had met a gleaner child who wanted to see the Diamond Deep once. But maybe this wasn't the moment for that conversation. “And we thank you for all of your generations of work.”

They seemed surprised at her answer. But Charlie was first family, too. She had run into his own version of this same prickliness. Being a first family member was definitional. They must be here for more than a surface conversation. “Is there anything that the Deep can do for you?”

Amanda leaned in, her eyes alight as if she were a young girl with no common sense being asked out on a date. “We need help. Will the Deep give us any defensive weapons?”

She covered a desire to snort by turning back to the kitchen to pour more hot water. When she got back she'd managed to control her features. “What do you want to defend yourselves from?”

Amanda and Jules shared a look. Jules said, “The Shining Revolution.”

“I'll have to ask. We didn't anticipate that question.” The question had tentacles. “Do you have intelligence that suggests they're coming here?”

The look she got from Jules suggested the question was naive.

“Well, do you?”

“They're already here. There's a chapter of at least twenty-five of them in Manna Springs. They meet at Lookout Pub from time to time. There's also a handful out at the spaceport. I'm not even sure how many.”

She had to hide her surprise. Perhaps they were less naive than she had thought. “Do you think more are coming?”

“Yes. And more people from here are joining. There's talk they might move the next meeting to the town hall. They're outgrowing the common room at the pub.”

Manny had been right to send her here. “Will you keep me in the news about this?”

“Will you tell us if you learn anything?” Amanda asked.

“Yes.” Nona stared at her empty teacup and then looked back into Amanda's eyes. She looked truly worried. “So we can both agree to oppose any action by the Shining Revolution here?”

Amanda smiled. “Yes.”

“Until we say otherwise,” Jules added. He didn't look as pleased as Amanda, and Nona got the impression that there was daylight between the two of them on the topic of the Shining Revolution.

Neither of them had an ounce of political savvy compared to anyone on the Deep. Their thoughts might as well be pasted onto their faces.

Still, Nona smiled and held out her hand. “Deal?”

Amanda took it, and the two women shook hands to seal the first agreement between the newly formed embassy and the town.

Jules and Amanda stayed for a little more small talk and then offered their empty glasses to Nona. She took them in and came out to say goodbye.

She found her two guests at the bottom of her stairs conferring in hushed tones with three of their bicycle guards. Jules turned to look at her. “Did you know?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“There's been an attack on Nexity.”

She grew cold. “By who?”

Amanda shook her head. “We don't know anything yet. We have to go to City Hall.”

“May I come?”

For the third time, the two of them exchanged glances. This time, they shook their heads. “It's not safe for you.”

Clearly they didn't want her there. She didn't blame them.

“We'll send a runner as soon as we know anything. We promise.” With that, two of the bicycle guards dismounted, and the current leaders of Manna Springs jumped on bicycles and sped away, followed by their entire entourage. The two who had given up their bicycles jogged behind the pack.

Sunset had started to paint the clouds orange and yellow. Nona looked toward Nexity. There were roofs in the way, but she could still see the top of the Wall. Everything looked normal.

Nona went inside and set her safety alarms, mindful of the warning the two had brought. She wanted to race to Nexity right now, to see what was happening, to drink in whatever news she could find, to know that Charlie and Manny were safe. But Satyana had warned her to go slow. The current leaders of the town had warned her to stay put. She didn't have any weapons that could be useful in an attack, and no training for one either.

She paced for an hour, torn, and then sat at her new diplomat's desk. She started taking careful notes and preparing a missive for Satyana, but her thoughts kept going to Charlie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHARLIE

Charlie huddled behind a rock, holding Cricket close to him. Shattered shards of the Nexity shield fell around them, struggling to change shape even as they banged into rock. Cricket howled and Charlie held her even closer, feeling her quiver with the desire to break away and run.

He wouldn't be able to hold her much longer.

The fighting above them paused for a moment.

In the breach, he stood over his beast, looming as much as he could, risking evisceration. He held her gaze and gave her the follow command, waiting until she looked away.

He bolted for the Wall.

To his relief, she followed.

He hugged the Wall as he led them toward Hope, afraid to stop or even to slow, afraid she might run away from him.

The shattered shield spoke of at least some victory on the part of the attackers. A few of the attackers' boats had been blasted to sticks in the water, but others had still been floating when they left the beach behind.

Noise came from ahead of them, a loudspeaker barking commands. He couldn't hear details, but people were gathering near the Wall, calling one to another. They were already near, but he slowed, not wanting to mix Cricket with crowds. Her ruff was still up, her tail curled tightly around her back haunch, and she loped along with her head up. He signaled her to slow and slowed himself, his breathing ragged.