The Thrones of Kronos (54 page)

Then he smiled. Why not? Lysanter’s demands for the shestek
were becoming more insistent.
Very well
then.

He tabbed his comm and issued a brief order. Then he sat
back, watching in horrified fascination as the membrane enveloped them both and
they subsided into immobility. Then he laughed in anticipation as the door
slammed open.

The white light of
unbelievable pleasure waned and to her utter disgust, Marim found herself back
on Desrien.

“I hate this
blungesuck of a cesspit,” Marim snarled, kicking at some kind of greenery
growing alongside the pathway.

She remembered it all,
the ugly sights, the revolting stinks! How could she be back here again? Fronds
scattered across the dirt before her, leaving a sharp scent in the air that
made her sneeze. She looked down at her toes and saw sticky greenish goo on
them.

“Gaah!” she squawked,
grubbing her toes into the dirt to clean them. Then she noticed small wiggly
things scrabbling wildly in the dirt she’d dug up, and she gave a bellow of
disgust. “I hate dirtside, and this place ranks the worst,” she wailed.

Everything about
planets offended her. The smells in the unfiltered air, the disgusting way
things degraded, and worst of all were the bugs.

Something touched her
shoulder. She started and looked. It was Ivard, his face blank, writhing his
arms and head weirdly. He honked at her. Marim grimaced and sprinted ahead,
shuddering, but Ivard didn’t follow her. Ugh! I bunnied with that?

Ahead, Vi’ya walked
along the pathway with the rapid stalk that indicated her own mood was bad. But
she did not look back, or say anything. And right on her shadow were the Eya’a.
Marim couldn’t guess what they thought, and she had no wish to find out.

Who could she complain
to? Lokri was with them again, but his mood was even more vile than Vi’ya’s,
and he refused to talk to anyone at all. Marim veered, catching a glimpse of
him walking at the very end of the straggling line, his arms folded and a grim
look on his face. His eyes stayed straight ahead of him.

Jaim, following behind
Marim, also did not speak, but unlike Lokri he scanned back and forth,
breathing deeply. He had grown up on Rifthaven, and dirtballs spinning around
suns were just as alien for him as for her. But he really seemed to like
weather and the unplanned clutter of geography. And he didn’t seem to notice the
rot or the myriad tiny creatures doing their best to eat him, she thought
irritably, slapping at a tickle on her cheek.

As for that cursed
Schoolboy—damn him anyway, for cheating her out of that coin—she hoped he
looked as sour as he usually did. His father was huffing and puffing, and
Montrose smiling.

As for the Arkad, who
knew—or cared—what he thought? He’s a prisoner, the same as us, she thought
with mean satisfaction as the greenery cleared away before a tall stone
building. She liked the Arkad as a person, thought he was attractive and
entertaining, but ever since Nukiel’s nicks had grabbed the Telvarna, Brandon
was no longer Vi’ya’s tame nick, he was one of
them
. You could see they all thought so. Including him. Only he was the
worst kind of nick, one with a flashy title but no actual power. He couldn’t
get them freed, so she hoped he suffered, too. Fair’s fair.

Ahead, Vi’ya hauled on
one of the big doors into the building and walked in. The others followed.

Of course they had to
go in. But Marim sidled glances here and there. With any luck, this place would
lull those Shiidra-chatzing Marine guards into looking at the sights, and she
could skip out altogether. Telvarna can be flown single, she thought with
satisfaction. I know. I rewired that myself.

She felt a brief
reluctance. She’d miss Lokri, even in his radioactive mood. And Montrose. And
Vi’ya. Though she wasn’t much company, she was a decent captain, and Marim
loved watching her in action. And then it was a jolt to think of leaving behind
her share of the take from the sale of the Palace artifacts. But then the nicks
might just latch onto that money; she didn’t believe in all the yabber about
them only taking outlawed or smuggled goods. She knew they’d gone over the ship
from bow to radiants, removing anything they considered illegal by their
inexplicable lights. Some of it she could attribute to outright thievery.
Except they didn’t take everything, which made little sense. She would have
stripped it clean if she’d been them.

But right now the guards
were vigilant, so she couldn’t linger and duck aside.

Inside, the others
stopped, not because of imminent danger, but simply from the size of the
building.

She glanced upward, at
the vaulted groins curving overhead, and then away; to someone who had lived in
an environment whose dimensions measured in kilometers, this building was just
a typical dirtbound construct, small and gloomy.

Mutters of awe, made
in hushed tones, banished her annoyance.

Watching the others
stare upward tickled her humor. She wished that they were all at the Scerren
habitat, looking at some real dimension.

A small woman dressed
in black approached. Marim sneaked a look at the guards. They were watching the
woman. She grinned, then turned around to look the place over for possibilities.

Spotting a narrow door
on the other side, she sauntered toward it, quickening her step when she saw
narrow stairs within.

The bell tower!
Wouldn’t these robed nullwits keep their treasure up high? And wouldn’t they
have a treasure? Her vague recollection of religious folk was that they were
enormously wealthy.

Bounding up the long
series of steps, she arrived, breathless, to discover a huge room with many
bronze bells clustered overhead. There was nothing to be seen in the room but
the ropes running to the bells, disappearing through the floor, and around her
four windows looking out on the disgusting greenery clogging the landscape, all
random and unkempt.

Disappointed, she
considered what to do. Maybe they’d forget about her; Downsiders didn’t like
high places. She yawned, suddenly sleepy. It was warm up here. She could worry
about escape later.

She shut her eyes.

Vaguely she remembered
being here once before, but dreams had a way of repeating, didn’t they? And it
was so vivid.

Yes. She saw where she
was, and stretched out her dream-arms: she was home again. It didn’t matter
that she’d run off the first chance she got, anyone would, to escape the
debt-load she’d run up without meaning to.

Anyway, she thought. I
wanted ships, and freedom, and I’ve got that. So a visit home can be fun. It’s
only a visit.

She scanned the outer
rim, with its carefully planned agricultural areas, parks and green-lined ways
between the buildings. Bug-free, all of it, and the green things growing where
they did some good. She thought about her creche, but what she really wanted to
see was the free-fall kiting park up at the spin axis.

Breezing upward past a
fantastically constructed nuller palace, she saw old Benewel hovering above one
of his windows, looking at her. She looked away quickly. She’d never liked
nullers. They lived too long, they saw too much. And most of them were rich as
any nick, which compounded their repulsiveness.

She remembered when
her creche had gone to visit Benewel to hear stories about the building of
Scerren. He’d watched her, those old eyes missing nothing among the mass of
wrinkles that were his face, and then he’d made her sit in the front while he
told some silly stories about Lost Earth.

One in particular was
really stupid, about some boy who flew too high, ruined his wings, and smashed
up. Marim snorted. Anyone knew it was flying too low, towards the higher gee
areas away from the spin axis, that was dangerous. She shrugged away the
memory. Planets were different, upside down, even. One more reason to avoid
them.

“You there,
creche-rat,” Benewel called, his voice strong, and not old and rusty like she
remembered. “You want to live long, like me?”

“Leave me be, you old
carcass,” she yelled back. “I done nothing to you.”

Benewel cackled. “It’s
your creche I’m thinkin’ of,” he said.

Though she was trying
to get past him as quickly as possible, his voice followed her. “You stay with
them, you stay by them, you live. You stay away from those Dayda-Loos, you live
longer.”

Dayda-Loos! Someone
got them? She exulted, young again, and the most important thing was flying.

And Dayda-Loos were the
best freefall wings made, usually only those as rich as Benewel could afford
them. She put on a burst of speed, heading upward. Surprised, she saw that in
the time she had been gone someone had moved her creche up to the spin axis.

Her creche? Why was it
up here? Unless they’d finally figured out that this was where all the fun was,
not down there where all you did was work.

As she approached the
familiar doors to the creche, she saw that no one was around. It seemed odd:
usually there was a crowd of children of various ages playing in and around it.

She found herself
scanning for her old mates. What had the old rodent said? Something about her
creche-mates?

Confused, she thought
of Shral with the long black hair, and silver-eyed Norb, and little Jurgan with
his ugly red freckles . . . Except Jurgan didn’t have freckles,
and Shral’s hair was short and dyed green, wasn’t it? And she’d been here
before. Hadn’t she?

The confusion made her
dizzy. She hated that sensation, and anyway, the creche could take care of
itself. She had those Dayda-Loos to fivefinger before someone else got to them.

She burst into the
creche, which was empty except for her old creche-mother.

“Nanna,” Marim
exclaimed in surprise.

Nanna still hadn’t
changed.

“Marim,” Nanna said,
holding out her arms.

Marim hugged her
fiercely, but then let her go and spun around. “We got Loos? Show me! Show me
quick before the others net them and I never get my turn.”

“I made them for you,”
Nanna said, smiling. “My favorite.”

Marim laughed. “You
told me the only way out of Scerren was to grab the future, and I grabbed it
good, along with Tee-Kyung’s courier ship. But here I am again, and you know, I
like the spin axis. I want to go flying again.”

“We’ll go together,”
Nanna said. “See! I got some Loos for you.”

Marim looked behind
Nanna and saw the shining wings resting on the floor.

“Let me put them on!”
Marim jumped up and down.

“You must listen to
the instructions,” Nanna said, her fingers working quickly. “They’re faster
than the old Hlains you’re used to. There’s danger . . .”

“Well, tell me as we
go,” Marim said, impatient to step to the edge of their platform and soar into
freedom. Nanna talked, but Marim kept her eyes on the spread of the wings, the
whine of the servos augmenting and stabilizing her movements.

They stepped to the
edge of the platform, holding hands, and dove.

Marim soared downward,
speed making her vision blur and her hair ruffle around her face. Nanna tugged
at her fingers, and impatient to be free, Marim let go of the restraining hand.

Her speed increased.
She fell toward the faintly glowing diffusers stretching down the axis a
half-kilometer below, like the pathways to hell. It was just sunset: the
perfect time to fly. During the day, the diffusers set up unpredictable
convection currents, even up here on the low-gee regions.

She saw light fading
to silver as she sped toward them—and before she was ready, she recognized the
pattern of the diffusers’ construction. She’d fallen fast. Arcing her back, she
pulled up reluctantly, feeling drag at her limbs. A spark of fear thrilled
through her: the speed really was greater than she’d ever experienced.

Nanna caught up then,
panting as she braked. “You can’t dive like that,” she cried. “You go too low,
you don’t get a second chance.”

“I want speed,” Marim
said. “I want to go lower and faster. Why have Loos if we’re going to poke
around next to the creche like a pair of groundslugs?”

“Marim, I trusted you
with my Loos,” Nanna said, drifting close.

There she goes, on
again about the ‘trust’ and ‘owe’ and ‘honesty’ rules, Marim thought. Rules
only work for the haves, for the bosses, to hand out to the underlings and
ignore for themselves. All I want is speed, and to have a good time. There
ought to be no rule against that!

Turning her head, she
called, “Nanna, I love you dearly, but your rules don’t work.”

And she folded the
wings close, dropping to pick up speed. Veering expertly, she laughed as she
buzzed across the tops of people’s heads on one of the catwalks between two
swimming globes, and she sailed between two emporia, dodging signs and
protrusions, then swooped upward again, the great wings beating.

She passed through the
axis, brought the wings in and dove straight through the diffusers.

Faster . . . faster . . . Her acceleration increased as she dove away from the spin axis, air
resistance matching her vector to the spin of the habitat, increasing the gee
force.

Tears stung her eyes,
wind buffeted her body, her heart banged against her ribs. I want pleasure, she
thought. And with a fearful joy, This is pleasure.

How to use it?

She had to push the
limits, to know more about the Loos than anyone else. So instead of pulling up,
she stayed just a little longer. I’ll take these to Rifthaven, she thought.
I’ll say I invented them, and if I have their specs, who’s to know? She looked
back at Nanna laboring far behind, her mouth open as she called protests.
She’ll never leave here. She doesn’t need these Loos. I do, so they’re mine.