Chapter Seventeen

Timas scrabbled, grabbing at Luc, but Cen's brother was no xocoyotzin. He dominated Timas, his arms roped with muscle. He pushed Timas forward easily.

Already the air bit with acid and made Timas's eyes water.

All he could do was grab for Luc's forearm, hoping to hang on as hard as he could. Luc hit him again and again with his other fist, trying to force him to let go. The priest and Heutzin tackled Luc.

"What do you think you're doing?" Heutzin shouted into Luc's face. "You dishonor your brother's memory."

Luc struggled, but while he'd been that much larger than Luc, Heutzin had worked the docks for decades now. He pinned Luc to the grating as the priest rolled on the floor, gasping for air. Everyone gathered looked on, shocked, and moving slowly. From the ground where he'd fallen, Timas stared at the forest of their shifting legs.

"He killed him," Luc screamed from underneath Heutzin. "That little shit killed Cen. And you all know it."

"You shut up," Heutzin hissed. He pressed down on Luc hard enough that Luc coughed.

"Don't you hurt him," Chantico yelled, running to her husband's side. She grabbed Luc's hand. "Don't hurt him."

Ollin pushed people aside, his face ashen. He looked down at Luc like one would look down at a patch of mold, then stooped next to Timas.

He pulled Timas back from the edge. Three more feet and Timas would have fallen the long fall. He rolled onto his knees, head bowed and quite shaken.

"He killed Cen. He made him go out with him, out of the safe zone and into the debris field." Luc struggled once more to break free from Heutzin with no success.

Timas dropped his head to the foor. The tears weren't from the biting air, but from thinking of Luc's anguish. Luc was right. None of this would have happened if Timas hadn't convinced Cen to walk deeper into the debris zone. Somehow Luc knew.

"Come." Ollin pulled him to his feet. "Dry your face. Keep your head straight." Heutzin nodded at Timas as they walked past, and then Timas walked into the crowd in a daze with his dad at his side. Itotia joined them, looking just as dazed as Timas.

"What will happen to Luc?" he asked in the elevator on the way back up. Itotia grabbed Timas by the hand. "He's a grown man who tried to commit murder. The judges will not be easy on him. They should jail him forever. He threatened a xocoyotzin."

"He tried to kill my son. He will pay for that." Ollin brooded.

"I don't want anything to happen to him," Timas said.

"What?"

"Because what he says is true."

Ollin grabbed his shoulder. "Don't ever repeat that."

Timas looked out at the levels sliding by them and didn't answer.

Cen's death had to mean something. He couldn't throw it away by pretending they hadn't seen anything down there on the surface.

But speaking that truth out loud led both his mother and father to fall silent and distant. Disappointed. Itotia looked over his bruises and got ice for him when he returned to his room in the house.

"We have to go speak to the pipiltin about this outrage," Ollin said, and he disappeared.

"I'm following. You will be alone with the stranger, but there are Jaguar scouts all throughout the house and around his room," Itotia said.

And then he was left alone in his room, looking at the beams overhead and wondering how he'd been born so unlucky. He turned off the light and lay in the dark wondering why they refused to listen to him. When had he ever lied? Or shirked his duties? He put his life into the hands of the gods whenever he was dropped down to the surface. And yet he was the one punished with silence and disappointed faces. He wanted to feel more self-pity, but considering that Cen had lost his life, he couldn't feel that sorry for himself. It would have been far too petty.

Instead, he just simmered with frustration. The man who killed Cen and dragged this down on him also lay under their roof.

Timas wondered how much longer he could just hold things in. He needed to push back, not just endure. The glimmer of a plan floated by.

"Timas?" Katerina knocked on the door.

"Yes. I'm here. Let her in," he told the guard.

"Can I ask you to do a favor?" She shut the door behind her.

"Sure."

She moved closer and held out a hand. "Touch my hand."

Timas frowned. Maybe he should turn on the lights; he could get into trouble if someone walked in and assumed the wrong thing. He reached out and took her hand.

The moment they touched it sparked. Timas leaped back against his bed, stung, the palm of his hand throbbing. "What was that for?" he yelled at her.

She blinked when he turned on the light by his bed and held her hand up. "I'm sorry. I just needed to check."

"Check what?"

"I'm not defenseless. When they send us into foreign environments, kidnapping is a risk. I'm electrified. That was a test shock. The dose I gave Pepper should have killed him. He barely even noticed it. I was worried it didn't work."

Timas's fingers still tingled. "I think it works."

"And I did feel it," Pepper said. Both of them jumped at the sound of his voice. So much for being insulated from him; even crippled he had snuck around the house, evading the guards all around that were supposed to keep him in his room.

The guard lay asleep on the ground by the open door. Timas wondered how Pepper had done that. Pepper's crutch tip hit the ground outside the door, and he hopped out from the shadows. He smiled as he leaned against the inside of the door.

"You didn't show it." Katerina stood up.

"It's nice that they sent you out here with some protection." Pepper cocked his head. "Ah, Heutzin's here."

That was what he'd been doing out. Waiting.

Timas got out of bed and followed him. He had a question of his own for Heutzin anyway. The edge of Pepper's crutch struck him in the chest. "Where do you think you're going?" Timas looked at Pepper. "I need to talk to Heutzin."

"You've had a chance to talk to Heutzin your entire life. I need to talk to him now." The crutch lowered to the ground. Pepper had balanced on one leg easily enough. It didn't seem to hamper him as much as it should.

"I need to know how Luc found out that I led Cen into the debris field." Timas paused. As an outsider, Pepper shouldn't get as upset about what came up next as his parents did. "I need to talk to him about what I saw on the surface."

"Which was?"

"Aliens," Timas whispered.

Pepper looked at him like Timas might look at recycling scum. "Your father seems to think you were stressed, jumping at shadows."

"I saw something," Timas said.

"In tight situations, the mind gets overactive," Pepper said. "You can't trust it."

"Yes, you're right." Another person who didn't believe him. Timas let it go for now. He'd prove them wrong, somehow, someday soon, when he got back to the surface. "But please, just ask Heutzin why Luc knew what happened."

"Only if you tell that guard when he wakes up not to panic, that I'm in the courtyard. There'll be others I drugged. I prefer that my conversation with Heutzin be private for now."

"Sure," Timas mumbled. He'd shirk whatever duty required on the next visit to find the alien. He'd get proof, even if it cost him his life.

He owed Cen that. He owed Cen a lot that he needed to fix. Including the fact that Cen's killer wandered around Timas's house at will.

Chapter Eighteen

Heutzin looked like he knew groundsuits, Pepper thought. Greasy, burly, obviously used to working with heavy equipment. "The men outside knew I was coming," he said.

"The Jaguar scouts, yes." Pepper first encountered the warriors back in their country of Aztlan on New Anegada. Ressurected by aliens posing as gods, the so-called Azteca had certainly come far in their journey, taking to space and settling on Chilo, as well as habitats in orbit around New Anegada and Chilo. Many of them did their best to leave the memories of their ancestors' vastly inhumane wars on New Anegada far behind.

Pepper had rather expected that the destruction of their alien gods at the hands of the Ragamuffins would've destroyed their culture. Instead they declared the aliens false gods, made the divine more abstract, and proved to be the Ragamuffins' close allies against the League. Pepper would take allies that believed anything: from God, to gods, to Allah, to nothing. So long as they stood out of his way. "I told the scouts to expect you." Pepper had left Katerina behind, no need for the Aeolians to hear about this. Heutzin looked suspicious, and nervous. "What is it you had me called here for?" Pepper leaned in on his crutch. "I need groundsuits."

"Ollin and the pipiltin have already told us you are to get nothing."

"Let me modify my request"—Pepper dropped his voice down so that he sounded soothing, but confident—"I want your junked suits and any spare parts I can buy. In return, I'll give you several gold discs and an encrypted chip with enough of a credit line on it that you will be able to get all new spare parts, as well as whatever else you need to keep those few dozen suits you have left running." Pepper thought it an overly generous offer. The chit was reserved for bigger emergencies than this, the sort of thing Pepper could use to access a vast line of credit set up many years ago.

"Where is the chit?" Heutzin asked. He would know, like anyone else in the city, how important securing guaranteed usability out of their groundsuits was. Pepper knew they could hardly afford to turn him down.

So why hadn't he asked the pipiltin about this new offer of his?

Politicians. That's what the pipiltin really were. And he didn't trust them not to shoot themselves in the foot over some principle. Let the men on the ground like him and Heutzin work out what was really what. Pepper moved over to a bench and kicked it over with the crutch. He had gotten used to having one arm and one leg. He'd even remapped his neural tissue to help adapt.

It would hamper him in a fight for sure, but at least he had balance back.

"There." Pepper pointed out a long package.

Heutzin unwrapped it and then jumped back. "What is this?"

"A leg." Pepper dismissed the grim joke that leaped to mind: that he was paying an arm and a leg, or at least a leg, for Heutzin's services. "Deep in the center section of the thigh you'll find your payment."

"I can't . . ." Heutzin stepped back even farther.

Pepper slapped the crutch into the flagstone behind him. "Don't waste my time."

"You called me here."

"You came." Pepper's voice dropped, an instinctive response. But Heutzin looked harried and tired, and the whole deal was falling apart.

"What would you have a dockworker do, ignore a call from the grand house of a respected xocoyotzin?"

Pepper had to compose himself, pull in hard, and force himself to change tactics. This was not a place for action and intimidation.

He had to work people with words and deviousness.

Not something that came naturally.

"You love your city." Pepper repositioned the crutch. "I can see that in you. And you love your people. Do you want us to disappear like Chaco just did?"

Heutzin sighed. "I know your bargain is one that helps us. But that isn't all that is happening here. I know you are manipulating me: I'm a simple dockworker, not a stupid one. If the bargain is for our greater good, then will you mind if I tell the pipiltin your proposal?"

Pepper blinked. "I would mind. I would mind terribly."

"I thought so. So I risk what little reputation I have, my livelihood, and possibly something more, by aiding you in whatever it is you are planning."

Pepper grabbed Heutzin's oil-stained shirt and yanked the man closer. "I want to walk again. Is that so hard for you to understand?"

Heutzin stared back at him. "Is that all?"

"I'm crippled, Heutzin, and at a tremendous disadvantage. It's making me very irritable. And I'm dangerous when I'm irritable."

"Now you're making threats."

"That was no threat. I am no threat. Had I been a threat you would know." Pepper sat down next to his amputated leg. "Give me your knife."

"What knife?"

Pepper cocked his head. Heutzin could keep a straight face. He liked that. "The one in your left pocket." Heutzin shrugged and pulled it out. Pepper opened it with a quick flick of his one hand and retrieved the chit and gold discs with several quick surgical cuts.

He dropped the bloody payment in Heutzin's hands. "You're no longer a simple dockworker now." Pepper wiped the blade on the fabric, rewrapped the leg, and stood back up, fumbling slightly with the crutch. He watched Heutzin nod, then back away. He paused at a notch in the courtyard wall near a pair of torches and tossed one of the gold discs into the middle of rotting grapes and bananas. "Thanks to this house's gods, for their blessings."

"You are all annoyingly superstitious," Pepper said. "The boy's ramblings, your obeisance to a notch in the wall. I thought you a stronger man than that."

"Timas still refuses to change his story?" Heutzin turned back, concerned. "He will risk his family's status."

"He believes he saw aliens in the smog," Pepper said. "He's easily spooked." He turned to hobble inside and rest. Enough intrigue for one night.

"Not spooked," Heutzin said softly.

Pepper kept ambling along by crutch.

"The boy isn't mad." Heutzin's voice rose. "Don't dismiss him like that. There are things down there." Heutzin walked toward Pepper.

"Not just shadows in the mist?" Pepper said.

"I will never forget what I saw," Heutzin said. "You talk as if we're ignorant, but I worked the surface like Timas for years. I was the best. And I paid the greatest price for what I saw. So will Timas. When I returned speaking about things on the surface I was told to remain quiet. But I know what I saw. I even went out. I tried to find them. Almost died from running out of air. And they took it all from me. My suit, my life, my pride.

"Now I work on the docks, but only on the condition that I never blaspheme again. And if you say I told you this, I will lie and say it wasn't so. But you see me, Pepper, a direct man who's seen death and suffering and toil. You see me, and tell me if I don't believe I saw something real down there." Pepper stared at him, watched his pupils dilate slightly, listened to the rhythm of his breathing. "You may believe that you saw something, that does not make it any more real."

"It was a box."

"What?"

"The creature, it just wafted out of the mist, running at me. It gave me a box, a steel box, and it pushed its helmet against mine and spoke to me. It asked me to open the box and just mail the letter inside." Heutzin's eyes were wide with his eagerness to be believed. "It said I would save many lives if I were to post that letter."

"A physical letter?"

"The pipiltin said I was addled," Heutzin spat.

"And the letter?"

"Just a random letter, someone talking about the damned weather. I didn't understand that." Pepper blinked. The last detail sounded too jarring to be made-up. Made-up would be that the letter revealed something profound, not that it was useless. "Do you have the letter?"

"The pipiltin threw it away. But I have the box. I know it's alien, it has strange silver writing all over the sides. It's loopy, with lots of circles inside circles."

That sounded like Nesaru writing. The wrong kind of alien for the ones anyone on Yatapek would know much about.

It could be faked, but still . . . "Bring it."

Heutzin tapped his forehead. "Of course. When I come with the parts."

"Now." Pepper looked at Heutzin. "Bring it to me now." And there was suddenly the faintest gleam of something in Heutzin's eyes. Relief that maybe, finally, someone believed him. And Pepper thought maybe, maybe there was something to the man's story.

If true, it would mean they sat on top of one hell of a big target.

Pepper watched the dockhand leave the courtyard and then set to burying his own leg in a patch of ground, underneath a set of flowers.

He was exhausted, and for a while he lay near the flowers, looking up through the clear dome at the stars. From down here, they looked peaceful, twinkling away. They didn't look at all like they harbored the sheer malevolence and ill will he'd come to expect of the universe. A small dart stung him.

Pepper looked at his good thigh and pulled it out. Normally he could accelerate his metabolism and burn through the sedative, but already exhaustion from healing and moving around had set in. He'd been teetering around all day.

He spotted the Jaguar scout who'd fired the dart.

Pepper picked up a crutch to throw, but then slumped to the ground. Fast-moving feet surrounded him, and then the edges of a reactive armor cape.

A man in an Aeolian helmet looked down at him. "I'm using nanofilament to bind your hand to your neck. Struggle and you'll cut your own head off."

Another Aeolian soldier tapped his helmet. "We have him. Get the ship warmed, we're moving now before any of the locals get any bright ideas."

Chapter Nineteen

The Aeolian soldiers had Pepper. They came for Katerina, and the moment Timas saw them he followed them out, Katerina just behind him. Pepper lolled in the back of the cart with Aeolians sitting alertly on either side, their feet dangling near the ground. One of them had his gun raised up as Timas stepped into the courtyard, tracking him.

Timas ignored the barrel and walked up to Pepper. "They captured you." Pepper straightened his head with effort, then slumped back again and groaned.

"What are you doing here, kid?" The faceless Aeolian with the gun raised it slightly. Timas stood up straight, as if standing before a large audience.

"Hey. Pepper! I wanted you to know who did this to you," he spat. Pepper didn't turn.

"I did it. I helped them," Timas yelled. "People like you don't care about people like us, down here. But at least this once, you'll remember the name when you get dragged back out." It felt good to let this loose. Let this killer see what happened to people who didn't care about the troubles they brought on others.

"And what do you think you accomplished?" Pepper shifted, and the cart squeaked.

"There are consequences to the things you do." Timas stood triumphant in the early morning sunlight of the courtyard. He'd done something, a measure of payback. A measure of justice for what had happened to Cen. And in some small way, him.

"A butterfly flaps its wings and on the other side of the planet, a hurricane develops," Pepper grunted.

"Everything everyone does has consequences, kid, not just the things that the people you're mad at do."

"You kill people." Timas pointed at him. "You killed Cen."

"And what do you think will happen to this city when I'm gone? You think you'll repel the Swarm without me? Remember this when your friends and family are screaming and dying all throughout this city of yours." Pepper leaned forward and snapped the next words out: "Remember that you chose to help get rid of me."

Timas flinched. "You're a bully."

Pepper shook his head, very softly. "Just hold this conversation in your head, child. Keep flapping those little butterfly wings. You're just as responsible as I am for anything that comes next." Child? He was no child. . . . Timas started to say something, but saw Heutzin carrying a dull black box with silver circles and loops scattered all over its sides. He cradled it in his left hand, walking quickly toward them. The dockhand looked at Pepper, concerned. "What's going on?"

"Bring the box over." Pepper paid no attention to Timas now.

"Hold it." The nearest Aeolian soldier swung and aimed at Heutzin, who froze in place.

"It's just a box. An empty box."

"Not damn likely, you keep your distance. Back up."

Heutzin did so. "He wanted me to show it to him."

"Move any closer and we won't fire a warning shot."

"I understand." Heutzin looked frustrated.

"Open it from there," Pepper said.

"Don't do that," the Aeolian said.

Itotia and Ollin came out. "Ma'am, stand back," another Aeolian said. A woman. Her voice sounded just as edgy as the others, Timas thought.

But Pepper ignored them all. His eyes never left the box. "Never mind, just turn it slightly this way, Heutzin."

Before the Aeolians could object, he'd done just that, though he looked ready to jump out of his skin at a moment's notice.

"Shit." For the first time Pepper looked surprised at something, though, Timas thought. Someone who fell out of the sky was probably hard to impress. And to Timas's surprise, Pepper looked right over at him. "You're right."

"I don't understand." Timas felt uncomfortable under Pepper's surprise. It felt so unnatural coming from the man.

"You're right. And so is Heutzin. There are aliens on the ground under us."

"Blasphemy," Ollin muttered.

Pepper snapped his head toward Ollin. "Oh for fuck's sake, man. Get your superstitions straight. You know aliens exist. You know one set posed as your gods once, and that they still live out there. Just because you reject the slavery they put you under on New Anegada doesn't mean you can't acknowledge some other batch might be on the surface of Chilo. That box has Nesaru writing on it." Timas felt like he was falling, his stomach rising, rising up past his throat.

"There are those in Yatapek who'd take that as an excuse to spill blood," Itotia said. "We ran away from that after our men fought alongside the mongoose-men against the League. We helped gain your independence. We reformed our beliefs, and some of us moved away from New Anegada to leave those memories behind us. And now you say something like that again has followed us here. It's a hard pill to swallow so quickly."

Heutzin looked down at the box. "Many used shadows to jump at, wanting the return of all that because it was better when we were on top, favored by them, instead of scrabbling here in this city, in the winds of this world. Not all who moved here did it because they reformed, but because they were with families they loved."

They all looked like they were wavering. Aliens were real. Timas hadn't been crazy. He'd seen something real. Cen hadn't died for a vision.

And maybe, maybe Pepper didn't deserve Cen's death on his hands. How could he have known Cen and Timas were under the city? Was Timas dooming him for something he couldn't have helped?

One of the Aeolians almost dashed Timas's hopes when he laughed. "Anyone could buy a box with Nesaru writing on it."

Pepper leaned back against the cart and spoke into the air. "Not this box. It has a return address on it." He looked over at Katerina who stood impassively by the Aeolian soldiers. "Query it, the encryption key will prove me right. It'll verify the handwriting on the side."

She looked a bit startled to be caught up in the scene, but stepped over to Heutzin and put her palm to the box, then pulled it away as if it had burned her. "You're right. It says it comes from Hulbach Cavern, on Chilo."

Timas had helped condemn the man who just proved that what he'd seen was real, and Katerina and her millions of fellow citizens just behind her silver eye had seen it. And yet, he'd also been proved right. He looked over at his parents, who didn't say anything back. A tiny, electric moment of shock rippled through him, and then Itotia smiled sadly.

Timas dropped to his hands and knees as his stomach continued its motion, and his last meal spilled out. He kept his eyes on the cart as Ollin and Itotia rushed to him, as well as Katerina.

"What's wrong with him?" She pushed through and grabbed his shoulder.

"It's nothing." Ollin pushed her back.

Timas sat back, breathing heavily. "I was right. I did see something."

"You're too stressed. You shouldn't be involved in things like this." Itotia pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his lips. "They should never have been brought here, Ollin." An Aeolian pulled Timas up by his bicep. "Come on, kid. We need you to come with us." Itotia moved between them both. "And why is that?"

"Legal maneuvers: another name has been added to the people this man is accused of killing. Cen. The accuser needs to be there. You will be witnesses."

Timas shook his head. "I take it back. I take it back."

"It doesn't work like that," Katerina said softly, still near him. " We all heard what you said. You made a good point, and although he's innocent until proven guilty, it is a fact that we now know Cen died because of his actions. You are right that he should at least be charged with this. You will face him."

"I don't want to anymore."

"He's just a child," Itotia protested.

Katerina looked at her. "So am I. But death is death, and Pepper is to be taken before the courts."

"Ollin, go with Timas."

Ollin stood up. "I have to stay here. The council will need . . ."

"Rot the council," Itotia snapped. "If you don't want to stand by your own son, I will."

"And meanwhile, Chilo is in danger from the Swarm," Pepper spat from over on the cart. "You're all wasting my time. We need to move, we now know why the Swarm is here, and what it's coming for. Bring Timas and his mother and let's get this pathetic show on the road. We don't have time." The Aeolians surrounded Timas and his mother and moved them forward. Timas looked up at Itotia, and she put her arms around him. "It'll be okay."

Timas didn't think so.

As the tiny cart moved forward with its strange accompaniment, Katerina asked Pepper, "You said it won't be long now, what did you mean?"

"Before the Swarm attacks here, in strength. This is its goal. Some alien presence below us. The League unleashed this to get at that. And Yatapek will be the focus of the Swarm's entire army as a last stop on its way to this Hulbach Cavern."

PART FOUR

Chapter Twenty

Aboard the Aeolian airship organized chaos reigned. Something had upset the three crewmen; they had sour looks as they dashed about. "This shows you how cheap this operation is." Katerina leaned in close to Timas and pointed out the window. "Prop-powered airship. They must have rented it. We're not even important enough to warrant an escort, particularly now that everyone is worrying about their own airspace." She again reminded him that these Aeolians were just bounty hunters. Yatapek wasn't important enough to rate real Aeolian military, just its retirees.

From inside the docks they'd walked out along a corridor, into a gantry, and then into a long docking tube straight into the airship's car. The peek Timas had gotten from a porthole in the docking tube showed him a sleek, cigarlike ship with the teardrop-shaped section attached underneath. The large propellers jutted out on struts, bracketing the airship's car. They started up as Timas watched.

"Why do they look so troubled?" he finally asked.

"City Lipari fell silent," Katerina said. "Just like the others."

"That's three entire cities," Timas hissed.

"We know. We feel it every second, their voices and votes are gone." Twelve Aeolians filled all the remaining seats of the tiny airship car. The floorboards up and down the aisles had been pulled up, bags of gear tossed quickly in, and the boards replaced. They squeaked as people walked over them to their seats.

A shudder rippled through the ship from the direction of the airlock in the back. Everyone bounced as the craft drifted away, passing through vortices left by the city's passage through Chilo's atmosphere. This would be a bumpier ride than just standing on the layer of one of the giant, implacable cities.

"Undocked!" someone to the rear yelled. The airship car stretched maybe twenty feet and had room for fifteen passengers and the pilot, strapped into a large chair at the front. Cables draped from the helmet over his head, a thought-control interface, but the usual assortment of panels, dials, and manual switches remained in front of him. Even a wheel and some levers.

In any other instance Timas would have been trying to look over the pilot's shoulder. Pepper sat in the row of seats in front of them with a pair of Aeolians on either side. Timas sat between Itotia and Katerina.

The Aeolian on their left swore and smacked the seat.

"Okay," Timas said. "What was that about?"

"Upper Alucido." Katerina lowered her voice. "It's happening just like Pepper described. People are breaking out of the lower levels and attacking citizens. Alucido's fighting back, though. It's messy."

"Isn't anyone going to help these cities?" Itotia asked.

"Yes." Katerina looked out at the propellers. "While some are going silent, or reporting Swarm outbreaks, others are refusing to let airships dock. There's also a general referendum to move to emergency war footing."

"Then why take us?" Timas asked.

"Pepper will be safer and more secure in an Aeolian city," one of the soldiers said. "And he may have more memories and observations that will help."

They watched from the portholes as the airship floated away. The winds buffeted it, and Yatapek's giant curved underside stretched over them. The props howled, chopping at the thick atmosphere outside, and soon Yatapek was a giant bubble in the distance, floating high over the clouds, its multiple decks visible behind its thick transparent shell.

One of the crew was so pale-skinned that Timas couldn't help staring. "Where's he from?" Katerina glanced at him. "He's all the way from somewhere deep in the League of Human Affairs. Rydr's World."

"How do you know that?"

"It's in the lamina." Katerina tapped the side of her head. "We'll have to get you a viewer when we get to Eupatoria, you'll be able to see all the layers of info. The world won't be so . . . naked to you."

"How long will it take to get there?" Timas changed the subject away from his inability to see hidden information she saw all around her due to his poorer background. It was like being illiterate.

"Six hours. Settle in."

He found a button that let the chair slide back. Six hours. Six long hours to try and figure out how to apologize to Pepper. Six hours to try and get used to the shaking, bumping, and rattling of the airship. Thankfully, it looked like they wouldn't put Pepper to trial now, at least. So really, Timas had only himself to save, and the honor of his family.

Chapter Twenty-One

Things, Pepper figured, weren't completely out of hand yet. They were headed back into the maw of the situation, closer to the range of the Swarm, true, but now he had more information to fight it with. And full medical facilities lay in his immediate future. The desperate plan to rebuild the groundsuits to make up for his somewhat limbless situation could be shelved.

The girl had said the Swarm was hitting whole cities. By now his brethren throughout the Ragamuffin centers of power had to suspect that something was going down on Chilo. But could he do anything to buy them time to arrive?

Pepper thought about the scorched planet that had so awed the crew of the Sheikh Professional . It was a glimpse of Chilo's future. Each and every one of the floating cities would have to get burned out of the sky, and the planet quarantined.

A lot of human suffering.

If the other airship passengers thought he leaned back and groaned because of his injuries, that was fine, but it was really the weight of seeing what was to come.

The drone of the propellers continued on as time painfully inched by, the crew growing more and more agitated. Pepper finally looked back at Katerina. The distant sun glinted off her polished eyepiece, but both her eyes were closed. She wasn't sleeping, but reading. Her eyes flicked up and down, left and right, processing information. "They're more nervous."

Katerina opened her eyes. She snatched a cup of water and held it until a patch of turbulence passed, then let it sit by itself. "Emergency martial voting sessions all over the Aeolian Consensus. We're all trying to decide exactly what to do about the Situation."

He could hear the capitalized name in her speech. "The Situation . . ."

"Three cities, of the twelve now. No traffic, and no traffic with the citizenry." Katerina licked her lips.

"We know we face some threat. A quarter of our voting public has just disappeared. It's unprecedented and we're in sort of a panic. Alliances and political action groups are springing up all over the place. Debates are everywhere."

"Democracy in inaction," Pepper said. "Everyone has an opinion on what to do, so few have action." Katerina hit the back of his seat, annoyed. "A referendum is being called on creating an action force. We have argued once, why continue?"

"Because you're only now finally getting around to creating an army."

"Weapons are being fabbed by volunteer manufacturers on citizen pool loan groups in anticipation of an all-out assault. My recording of your story is being widely circulated as a call to action." Katerina looked out over Timas and Itotia to the porthole. "Don't underestimate us."

"I'm not." Pepper smiled. "I just don't want us to show up at the wrong city."

"Me either." Katerina looked down and closed her eyes again. "I'd like to go home, but they just shut their docks down and declared quarantines throughout the city. There are reports of infiltration by these things."

Timas had been listening in; now he jerked his head up. "Your family?" Katerina bit her lip. "They're okay for now. But the other cities are only taking essential traffic. There's nowhere for them to run. The betting and odds pool is calling for my home to be dark city number four." Pepper nodded. "Katerina, is there a pattern?"

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The cities, in which direction is the Swarm spreading?"

Katerina didn't answer for a long moment. "You suggest it is spreading toward us?" A bit of turbulence hit. The airship rumbled and kicked against them. Timas gripped the edges of his seat, and Pepper looked around at the crew.

They were inching toward the portholes.

Looking for something visible.

Pepper sat up. "What is it?"

The airship pitched, gaining altitude in a hurry while doing a slow figure eight.

"I'm cut out!" Katerina grabbed the backs of their seats. She looked panicked. "I got dropped. I can't reach anything Aeolian outside the ship."

Pepper looked to the front. "Captain!"

An Aeolian stood up. Pepper remembered her voice from back in the courtyard. "We're being followed. The blimps won't identify themselves, so assume the worse. And we can't get anything out. You're right, we're being jammed."

The Aeolians all stood now, crowding the aircar as their cloaks shifted around. They pulled up the floorboards, unzipping their large duffel bags.

"Boarding party? Or worse?" Pepper asked. "And you're leaving me all trussed up!" The Aeolian who'd spoke removed her helmet. Her hair had been completely shaved to let the helmet make contact with skin. Green tattoos of scimitars ran up the side of her neck and the back of her head. Outside of the helmet's protective visor her brown eyes scanned the aircar with a few blinks. "We caught you, that should speak to our abilities. The boarding party will be in for a nasty surprise." Pepper cocked his head. "You're really going to leave me to be delivered like a wrapped gift?"

"You really are so arrogant to assume you're the only thing of value on this airship?"

"How often does this sort of thing happen out here, then?" Pepper asked.

"Not often," Itotia spoke up from behind him. "There is a lot of smuggling. The Ehactl cities like Yatapek, around the Great Storm, allow the smugglers safe harbor, we often need the goods. But outright attacks like this haven't happened in years."

"Yeah, but you still have guns mounted around the city docks."

"Rare doesn't equal none," Itotia said.

Pepper looked back at the Aeolian. She rubbed the top of her scalp and pulled her helmet back on. Green light danced over her eyes. "Tennaes, Andrew, Shella, Joquim, get up in the airbag." They didn't respond verbally, but the four Aeolians stood up and walked over to the crew. One of them undogged a hatch at the top of the aircar and pulled the ladder down.

"After you."

The four Aeolians clambered up, pulling their bags after them. All without a word. Pepper looked back at the woman he suspected led this small group. "Just promise me, if it gets dire, you'll let me stand for myself."

"Of course." She walked up the aisle to stand behind the captain and looked forward. No doubt she could see more information through her helmet, but that human core that wanted to see out at the situation with real eyes and real senses always overruled, Pepper knew.

"How did they find us?" Timas asked, his eyes wide.

"We're pretty high profile, all they had to do was listen carefully to public Aeolian democracy in action. A kidnap and ransom, with high stakes; whoever is planning this knows things are crazy enough right now." Katerina looked disgusted and had folded her arms. "They take advantage of us at the weakest point. As representative, I'm empowered to say that we'll do everything in our power to hunt them down and bring them to justice, but that we can't get any official help out to us in time."

"Everything is changing around us very quickly," Pepper said, trying to reassure her. She was feeling left out to dry, no doubt, and regretting that chance had put her here. He couldn't blame her for the emotions obvious on her face.

"You live this sort of life." Katerina looked at him like he was a bug of some sort. "And you're the valuable resource here. You'll get ransomed. Timas, Itotia, and me, we all stand a chance of getting caught in the crossfire."

Far from being the calm ambassador to the Aeolian body, she was an angry young girl right now, facing the prospect of death by herself without the protective embrace of her entire civilization. At least she had a self-defense mechanism, Pepper knew. Timas and his mother didn't have anything, and both of them seemed calmer to him. They both faced a harder life, and Timas, every time he was dropped to the surface in some ancient, substandard groundsuit, faced dangers that most men Pepper knew couldn't handle.

He looked back at her. "You'll be fine. You're a living avatar. You'll fetch a nice ransom." Then he realized what he'd said and glanced at Itotia, who just shook her head at him. Timas, to his credit, bit his lip and said nothing.

The captain held up his hand and looked back, goggled eyes blinking. "You'll feel some thumping and shaking. We're dropping cargo and then chaff."

"We're only an hour away from Yatapek," Timas said. "Shouldn't we be returning?"

"We are." Katerina pointed at the sun. "Part of the figure eights. Your people already scrambled a couple fighter blimps our way."

"Then why are we still climbing?" Timas's frustration filled the words.

"So that when they hit us, we'll have more time to fall," Katerina said. "They're underneath, blocking our way to the clouds in case we try and run to hide in them. The heavy metals in the cloud vapor wreaks hell with radar."

Itotia fingered a small bracelet and muttered to herself. Prayers for their survival. Pepper chose not to castigate her. It was as productive as anything else they could do for the next fifteen minutes as they waited for their predators to rise up to them.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The airship made one particularly hard turn toward the oncoming pirates behind them. The sound of compressors filled the cabin, sucking lifting air into heavy bottles. Everything shivered as the airship props pitched down and struggled to keep them in the air now that the bag lost more and more buoyancy.

"I'm so sorry. So sorry," Timas said to Itotia. He'd tried to make his own way, make people pay, and now he'd caught his mother up in the damage he'd done.

"Don't apologize. I'm the one who let you down. I let this man into our house." She gripped his hand, and he squeezed back.

"Okay," the captain murmured over the speakers in the cabin. "The oncoming ships are popping up fast and calling for us to heave-to. Make sure you're strapped in, we're going to be dropping really quickly any second now."

Timas grabbed Katerina's hand. She looked confused for a second.

The engines swung back to their normal orientation with a thud. The pilot pitched the nose of the airship down and dove. Timas's stomach hit the back of his throat, but not in the normal queasy manner he knew all too well.

Despite a well-snugged belt, he rose off the padded seat. That changed as the pilot angled the nose of the airship down even farther and Timas pressed into the back of the chair. Looking ahead at the long sets of chairs and over the back of the pilot's large chair, he could see through the pilot's windows. The familiar orange clouds lurked below them.

"Five thousand," Katerina whispered.

"What?" Timas looked over at her. She had closed her eyes tight.

"Feet. The ones chasing us are just seconds below us at this dive rate." The propellers wailed, trying to help them as they gained enough speed to hopefully flash past the attackers underneath them.

"Captain says that they've stopped ascending now," Katerina reported. "They figured his tactic out." The previous announcements had just been for Timas and his mother. Now the pilot was too caught up in his world to remember to voice this out loud.

Katerina grabbed Timas and pointed ahead. He could see five shiny darts in a loose pentagon. They grew larger as the pilot dove right at them. A bold move.

Tiny bits of dust twinkled in the air between the approaching airships and Timas.

"They're firing on us!" Katerina gasped. At the same time three Aeolians broke out of their chairs and jumped in front of everyone. They threw their cloaks wide open.

Small smacking sounds filled the cabin. The cloaks protected them, a shield that flared and rippled as if stones had hit calm water, dissipating the impact of weapons fire.

"Small caliber warning fire with tracers," the captain said. "They're repeating surrender demands."

"They need him alive," the woman Aeolian said. "They know we're armored. They won't do anything much more serious, but it will force us out of the cabin."

Acrid sulfur-tinged atmosphere leaked in through the bullet holes. They'd dropped far enough down that Chilo's atmosphere pushed in through the tiny punctures. Timas started coughing. Masks dropped from the ceiling with oxygen, and Timas grabbed the first one and took a deep breath. Itotia had hers on, and Katerina did, too.

The sounds quit, but as one all the Aeolians looked at the ceiling and airbag. All three of them chorused

"shit."

Distant popping sounds and one minor explosion, the sound of rigging shaking and slapping, made Timas shrink farther down into his chair. The airship struggled to maneuver.

"We're through them." Katerina sounded muffled through the emergency oxygen mask. The acidic air made her eyes tear up.

The Aeolians behind them leaped up, cloaks spread out, covering them from the rear. More popping made Timas jump, but no more shots hit the cabin—they all hit the airbag above. The other ships were trying to get them to lose enough buoyancy to surrender and be taken off, but not enough to send them plummeting into Chilo's unsurvivable depths.

Katerina, Itotia, and Timas scrunched down, trying to keep a low profile. Timas heard a chuckle from Pepper in the chair in front of him.

Gravity hit Timas and shoved him deep into his chair. The airship had leveled and straightened out.

"Twenty thousand feet lower now." Katerina looked out the porthole. "The pilot found some cloud cover."

"Go go go." The Aeolian behind Timas unbuckled his straps and then wrenched him up. "We need to get out of the cabin."

Timas took a deep final breath from the mask and scrambled out with Itotia to follow. The ladder had been pulled down again. He was picked up and handed to a pair of hands that yanked him up into the airlock.

"We stay here, the cabin's damaged and won't survive the next trick," said the soldier who pulled him up. Itotia came next, then Pepper, and finally Katerina.

Pepper slumped in the corner of the tiny airlock.

Timas looked through the porthole in the upper door. Overhead three large round balloons hung, cradled by catwalks and rigging, pipes and hoses that threaded all throughout. Several large generators sat mounted on bellowslike suspension rigs between each balloon.

"Coming through." The Aeolians pushed through the lock and past them up the ladder. They fanned out into the interior of the airship's giant bag.

In the cabin they'd been lined up in the chairs and cramped. Now among the trembling catwalks, it felt like just a handful of them were up there, lost in the airship's innards. The pilot shouldered his way up last. His data goggles trailed cables that he'd slung over his shoulder.

"Come on come on," he hissed as he shoved past. The airship still dove, but not as rapidly. Pepper needed to be pulled through, which the two Aeolians left in the lock did. Once Pepper was up, Timas, Itotia, and Katerina joined everyone.

"There aren't any seats." One of the Aeolians tossed straps and rope at them. "Find a railing, bind yourself to it."

The pilot ran toward the nose cone where he sat down on a tiny jumpseat, strapped himself in, and plugged his goggles in.

Without the insulation of the cabin everything sounded louder, more mechanical. Everything echoed several times inside, bouncing off the sides of the giant balloon. The drone of the propellers outside permeated the air and reached into the back of Timas's throat.

"It's weird," Katerina said as the three of them huddled around Pepper. His guards lashed themselves to the railings as best they could.

"That we're being attacked?" Timas saw that she stared down at the catwalk, and at the airlock they'd just come through.

"I've never been cut off for this long. From everything Aeolian." Timas stared at her. They might both be teenagers, but their worlds were so far apart. She had her perfectly engineered body, modifications available for the right money, and the constant babble in her head that linked her to the ghosts of her entire city and the Consensus it belonged to. What a strange thing to be.

The airship leaned to the right. The catwalk shifted and twisted underneath them. Smacking sounds made Timas jump. "We're being shot at again?"

Itotia looked up. "I don't see any new holes."

"No, it's the pressure, we're still dropping a bit," Katerina said. "We're deep in the clouds now. But this airship isn't made for it."

The skin of the airbag looked like it was being sucked inward. It strained against the metal skeleton. Tiny jets of Chilo's atmosphere seeped in through bullet holes in the outer fabric. Eventually that would affect the air in here, making it dense, and less able to lift them.

A distant explosion thudded. The shock wave shook them. Another random pop from even farther away made them all jump. For a few moments the distant explosions continued in rapid fashion, then stopped.

"Balloon charges," Timas said. "They're under us." The pirate ships were tougher than this airship. They were designed to drop into the clouds as they hid and smuggled their goods. That was why they'd gleamed silver when Timas had spotted them. Their hulls had been stripped clean by flying through clouds laden with sulfuric acid. Another balloon charge exploded, closer, and the entire airbag rippled. To the rear a pipe exploded. Acidic steam shrieked out into the catwalks.

The pilot glanced back and a pair of Aeolians converged on the pipe at his silent order. They used a wrench to close a valve, and the steam subsided.

But the next explosion Timas felt in his chest. Three pipes exploded, and shrapnel bounced, clattering to the floor.

After ten more minutes of balloon charges even Timas could see the inevitable. The air around them was filling quickly with Chilo's own substitute. They all coughed constantly and struggled to breathe. The skeleton of the ship creaked, stresses ready to snap it, and the pipes providing air and managing the airship's lift abilities leaked all throughout.

This was a dying airship.

The pilot confirmed it. "I have the fans revved up at full throttle to keep us in the clouds. But when I run out of fuel we'll start falling if we have to depend on just lift. I have enough to limp us to the Yatapek rescue party if we give our guy up, or to just surrender. Either way, I don't intend on committing suicide for you people, risk bonuses only go so far." He looked over at the Aeolian woman leading the group.

"And, Renata, I'm sure your bonus pay doesn't extend out that far either." She had a name. Timas guessed he could have asked Katerina. The Aeolians wouldn't think to introduce themselves, it was true. They assumed if you wanted to know, you would be able to find out. Renata nodded at the pilot and walked back to Pepper. "I guess you're going to have to meet some new friends."

She tapped the loops around his neck and wrist. As they fell away Pepper stretched. "You're going to offer no resistance?"

"From what we saw before we took you, your information about this threat is needed. No doubt my fellow citizens will front the ransom money the pirates want for you. As far as the Consensus is concerned, it's just the price and people who bring you to them that has changed. Ultimately the will of the people doesn't care how you get to the cities."

Pepper smiled. "I hope the pirates are as accommodating as you expect." The fans howled as the pilot tried to climb out of the clouds.

"I have no idea what to expect right now," Renata said. She walked away as if washing her hands of it all, leaving them alone to wonder what came next.

Itotia leaned against Timas. "And what does Yatapek have to give for us? Nothing like what the Aeolians have."

Timas didn't answer. He didn't even want to think about what the pirates would do. The airship shuddered and turned.

"They're docking with us." Katerina looked down at the airlock where the pirates would appear soon. Timas moved closer to Pepper. "My mother is right. We are nothing to the Aeolians or the pirates." Pepper's dreadlocks twisted with his head as he looked over at Timas. "And?"

"Heutzin saw the aliens under the storm so many years ago. Can he remember where it was? Will our records be easy to find, the date easy to backtrack?"

Pepper grinned, a sudden flash of perfect teeth. "You bargaining with me, Timas?"

"Yes. You put me on the surface, I'll find where I saw that alien in relation to where the cuatetl is on the surface. I'll take days off your search. Days you claim we can't afford."

"So what do you want me to do?"

Timas stared at him. "You're quick, you're dangerous, you're a soldier. You fight."

"You think I'm going to be able to do much with one arm and one leg?"

"Are you saying you have no plan, that you are going to let these pirates take you? I don't believe that of you. No, you say you don't have time, time for all this, time for ransoms and negotiations. But I look at you, and I think you're free to move again, and you want to make things happen." Timas stared at him. Pepper grabbed his shoulder, one-armed, and pulled Timas's face close to his. "Are you willing to help?

If I put a gun in your hands, will you be willing to take someone's life? Because the easier route is the Aeolians' right now."

He was up to something. Timas trembled slightly. He felt like he'd stepped off a cliff, moving to help someone like Pepper. This would be dangerous. "Yes. I think." The grip Pepper had on his shoulder increased, squeezing until Timas bit his lip. "You think? This isn't

'think' time. This is yes or no time."

"Yes."

Itotia looked at them, not close enough to hear the whispering. But she suspected something. She unstrapped herself and shuffled over. "Timas!"

Someone rapped on the cover of the airlock down to the cab. Pepper used his one good hand to push himself back.

"Open it," he told Timas. "They're being cautious and want to see a face first to make sure it isn't a trap. So open it, peek over the edge, and make sure you end up standing behind them." Itotia shook her head. "Timas, no. Don't get involved with him."

"But we already are," Timas said, and turned to let the pirates in.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Pepper waited for the pirates to come through as Timas leaned forward. The boy offered a friendly, if somewhat nervous face to whomever came up the ladder.

The rage bubbled just underneath, but now Pepper wondered if it controlled him too much. He'd been pent up, prevented from acting, and forced to use people around him as resources. Pepper hated that. It wasn't him. He was never the man who sat there and schemed, and convinced, and maneuvered. Being . . . sly . . . that didn't fit him.

Timas had just offered him his life in the hope that Pepper had a careful plan. And the truth was, Pepper didn't have a plan. Just an aching desire to hurt back, right now. Plans came when one had options, not when events forced themselves down one's throat. For some reason events always forced themselves down Pepper's throat.

He liked it that way, he thought, as the spiked, armored head of the first pirate poked through and regarded them. Clean, simple. An arrow of action.

The pirate wore night-black armor. A fashion statement.

So did the next.

But at least the third had chosen red.

"Who's in charge?" The voice boomed out from amplified surfaces on the suit's chest and bounced all around the balloons, catwalks, pipes, and surfaces of the airship's bag. Pepper looked at Timas, who jumped slightly, then stepped carefully behind the men. As he did so Renata leaned over one of the catwalks above them and removed her helmet. "I am." The man in the suit on the left shot her. The other two men quickly took out five of the other Aeolians. Renata swore and dropped to the grillwork, and while the pirate lined up another shot at her, Pepper launched himself.

They didn't expect a man with only one arm and one leg to cross the distance that fast. He'd counted on that.

They didn't expect that same man to snag the fired weapon so quickly. Or for him to shoot the gun out of the second black-suited man's hand, and then for him to kick that man back down into the airlock. Pepper turned and grappled the red-suited man. It took a second of squirming, grunting chaos as the second pirate with a now-ruined hand jumped on his back to rip him off, but Pepper found the release catch on the crimson helmet and ripped it off. The pirate's curly hair had been pulled back with a band.

"Hello," Pepper said, jamming the gun against the stubbly beard in the man's neck. "Both of you freeze. Aeolians, do not shoot!" He could hear seven of them moving through the shadows to pick a good position to begin shooting.

The man on his back let go.

"I don't know what you're thinking you'll do," the man Pepper held spat. "You still are surrounded in the air."

"Yes, but now we get play the game of hostage chess. And you are clearly not very trustworthy, are you? Hand your gun very carefully over to that young man standing by you." Timas took the gun.

"Now point that at the man by you," Pepper said. "The safety is off, you pull the trigger, he dies. So don't get jumpy. But if he does move, squeeze."

"If they hadn't shot me, Pepper," Renata yelled down through the catwalk, "I'd be shooting you."

"They were going to kill you all and take me alone. Be grateful you're alive."

"So what now?" the red-suited man grunted.

"Good question. Pepper, what's your plan?" Renata asked. He could hear the pain in her voice. She'd been quick, literally realizing they were going to be shot and twisting enough to get shot somewhere survivable. Her companions, not so quick.

Pepper whispered to the pirate, "She thinks I have a plan. I had only thought ahead to enjoying killing you. The problem is, I've had hundreds of years of trying to die in a blaze of glory that takes everyone who's pissing me off with me, and for some damn reason people keep getting in the way with plans. It's strange."

"Look," the red-suited man said quickly. "People like me and you, we understand each other. We can work something out."

"Me and you?" Pepper grinned.

"Yes." The man nodded. "Yes."

"How important are you to the ships outside?"

"Important enough."

"There's not much honor among thieves, or command structure. Sure you won't just get written off?"

"It cost a lot of fuel to get out here on an intercept this quick. We had a tip that the Aeolians were transporting someone very important back to their cities. Look, we're all almost broke. We need to make money. If I can offer them money, they'll consider almost anything." The man begged for his life in calm, rational terms. He kept his cool. He was part of this group's leadership. "Next time you board a ship," Pepper said, "you shouldn't lead the rush in."

"And that would lead to respect from these men how?"

Pepper let go. "Captain . . . ?"

"Yes." Pepper got a somewhat hangdog look from him. Not often one stared down a sheepish pirate captain. "Scarlett Riviera."

Scarlett was having a bad day, and that made Pepper feel much, much better.

"Scarlett, you stay with me." Pepper pulled himself up to stand using the railing. "Together, we're going back with the crew of this little airship to meet the rescue ships from Yatapek."

"To be handed over?" Scarlett shook his head. "I don't think so."

"I know: you'll die before that happens, and so on. Here's what I'm offering. You'll pick three of your crew. They'll fly this airship back after it gets refueled and you're set loose." The pilot from the front of the airship objected. "This is my ship you're giving away."

"A second ago you were wondering if you would live," Pepper snapped. "Shut up."

"But that still doesn't give me anything." Scarlett glanced around.

"We're not done playing 'trade the hostage' yet." Pepper leaned forward. Negotiation annoyed him. Everyone kept popping up objections even before the final lay of it had been set out. If they'd all shut up and wait it would go quicker.

"That takes care of you getting back out of this. What do we get?" Scarlett folded his arms.

"Money." Pepper named a sum. Scarlett shook his head. Pepper doubled it several more times.

"That's nice, if you ever come through with it."

"You'll take all them with you." Pepper waved at the Aeolians. It would do him good to get rid of them.

"That gives us more money in the form of ransom from the Aeolians, yeah. But if you pull a stunt when you get out of here, it leaves us still pretty dry. I'd be crazy to bring that back to my crew."

"You can't throw us to them like that," Renata said.

Pepper laughed. "Oh, who cares how you get home? Whether it's through your own efforts or escorted by these gentlemen for some escrowed money, as you said not too long ago, what difference does it make?"

"Go to hell," Renata grunted.

She didn't sound too convinced. She probably knew this was the best option. She didn't seem clueless. Pepper handing them over as hostages probably meant they'd live.

Back to the trade-offs. "If the Aeolian mercenaries aren't enough, then consider this." Pepper moved over to Katerina, using the railing to hold himself up. "An Aeolian avatar." He grabbed her chin to twist her head and show the captain the silvered eye. She had quite a glare on her, but kept quiet. Scarlett nodded. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere, she's a symbol, important, they'll pay well for her. We had no idea she was aboard." He looked relieved. "I'm willing to play."

"Good." Pepper glanced at Timas, still holding the gun. He looked upset, but somewhat relieved. Welcome to the world of compromises, Pepper thought. The world of things you'll regret, if you didn't keep your eyes on the bigger picture: that Chilo needed saving, that they were all on the brink of destruction.

Everything was weighed against that.

"Then let's do this." Pepper hobbled toward the airlock.

Scarlett grimaced. "One small thing."

Pepper stopped. "Yes?"

"The boy." Scarlett jutted his chin at Timas. "The boy comes with us."

"Why?" he growled.

"He was promised."

"Unpromise it. I can pay you." Pepper looked at Timas. The boy's hand trembled, the gun visibly shaking.

"I wouldn't look like a man of my word. He at least stays with the hostages until you make good on your ransom. Then we send him back, with the Aeolians and the girl-avatar." Pepper looked at Scarlett. The man was quite serious. "Timas, hand me the gun." Timas backed up. "You promised me that if I helped, you'd take us with you." He glanced at his mother. He gained some sort of inner resolve, straightening the gun. "You promised." With a quick hop Pepper covered the distance and snatched the gun away. "Don't make this harder."

"You promised."

"I can only do what I can do. Now"—Pepper leaned in close and dropped his voice to a whisper—"tell me where you saw the alien, in relation to the mining machine."

"And then I am useless to you," Timas said.

"I'm offering to save your mother and your planet. I will try to come back for you. I will try to get the money for you. But now you need to step up and think about what is really important and what you care about. Do you love your city? Is that why you make yourself throw up, to fit a groundsuit, and risk your life on the surface? Or is it your family you live for? Is that your responsibility? If so, Timas, do the right thing, right now."

Timas closed his eyes, shaking, and then whispered the direction and distance. "Tell my father everything I did."

"I will." Pepper smacked Timas on the head with the stock of the gun and the kid dropped to the grating, out cold.

Itotia ran forward, but Pepper put his hand around her with the gun, hopping with her to pull her back.

"He's brave, your son, leave it be. Listen," he hissed, "Yatapek is in the way of the invasion. Timas will be out of the way where he is going. If we live, we can get him back. If we don't, then at least he's alive. Trust me on this. It's better to live to fight again. Don't die needlessly for some cause. If you really believe in it, harbor your energy, and bring it to bear when you can do the most damage. Later." She pushed him off. He let her. It refocused her on him and kept her away from Timas. "You can not just hand his life away," she said. "You can't do this."

Pepper looked at Scarlett. "His mother remains with me. You take him. But if he's seriously harmed, disfigured, or anything of the sort, you will pay. I will be back for him." Scarlett nodded. "I'll pass that on."

Pepper looked down the airlock. "Then let's get moving, this airship doesn't have long." The pirates in the cabin retreated, taking their Aeolian prisoners, a dour-looking Katerina, and the unconscious Timas. They left Scarlett, whom Pepper tied to the railing. Itotia walked to the far side of the catwalk and curled up into a small ball by herself as the pilot got them underway again.

The pilot kept them in the air, barely, as sulfuric acid bit in the air around them. The airbag whistled and distended, the engines chopped away at full throttle, using the airship's minimal aerodynamic properties to keep it aloft.

It was a coin flip, Pepper thought, whether they'd make it before the whole damn airship just gave up.

Chapter Twenty-Four

A sharp smell shocked Timas awake. One of the Aeolian soldiers, a slender man with green eyes and close-shaved head, waved a pill of noxious smoke under his nose.

They'd been stripped of their armor, capes, and weapons. Renata sat next to Timas. They were all crammed into a small hold along with crates on a subfloor of a large airship car. Brown light streamed up through tiny glass slits in the floor, giving everyone ghastly, underlit expressions. Timas rubbed his forehead. "He knocked me out."

"Then they dragged us over to this airship and dropped us through the floor." Renata pointed up at the hatch above them. "We're still in place, they're shifting crew around. Maybe arguing about whether Pepper's deal will hold or whether just to do whatever they want with us and ditch their old leader."

"Then what happens to us?" Timas looked at her.

"It's tricky right now."

Timas stood up, wobbly on his feet. He could feel the swaying of the airship under him. It trembled and bucked about in the air.

He made his way, leaning against the wooden crates, to the prow where Katerina sat in a ball, hugging her knees.

"Katerina."

"Go away." She didn't look up. Her hair hid her face.

"I'm sorry about all this." He felt horribly guilty, knowing that for a moment he had condemned her to this while hoping to avoid it himself. It felt slightly right that he'd been hit and dumped here. She pushed her hair aside. Tears dripped around the edge of the silver eye. "I had a life . I had a life. And I got unlucky enough to be thrown in with you in this primitive mess. I'm a damn hostage, Timas. And everything I know and love has disappeared. There is nowhere else to go. No lower."

"We'll all get through this."

"It's all lost. That man, he just gave me away like I was property . Take her, she's an avatar, he said. But I'm not anyone's property . That's what you people out in these ramshackle cities are like, maybe, but I'm an individual with rights."

She covered her face again.

"Besides, who can trust you?" she murmured at her knees. "I saw you bargaining with Pepper. Didn't work out the way you had planned, did it? And now who trusts you. Not me." Timas turned around. She was right. He'd not earned her trust.

The hatch opened, a thick shaft of light spearing out from it. A ladder rolled down, and several armed pirates climbed down with it. They pointed at Timas. "You, come with us." Timas looked at Renata, who shrugged. Nothing she could do.

The men hauled Timas up onto the next floor of the airship, a long corridor with rooms off to every side. The airship had once been a large passenger ship.

"Hello, Timas," said Luc.

Timas turned around. Luc stood there, wrapping a thick, heavy strap of leather around his right fist. Several pirates stood around him with big grins.

"Luc . . ."

"I said I'd make you pay." Luc stepped forward as the hatch dropped shut. The pirates who'd pulled him out stepped back, giving both boys plenty of room.

"They were real." Timas held his hands up. "We saw aliens. Pepper proved it, they're hiding on the surface somewhere."

Luc hit him in the stomach. Timas folded to the ground, the breath punched right out of him. "You tore me away from everything, Timas. My brother, and then my family."

Timas gasped for air as the next punch came. The pirates laughed as Luc continued hitting him. Timas fended it off as best he could, but each punch bruised his arms and shoved him to the ground. He kept his head protected and curled into a ball. The pirates laughed. "Get up, fight back." Timas didn't give them that; they'd crowded around hoping for a spectacle. He didn't have the strength to fight Luc, they were mismatched in every sense of the word.

But if he could survive this beating, maybe he could find something down below to carry on him for the next one.

The pirates got bored and pulled Luc off Timas. "He's still worth something." One of them pushed Timas back to the hatch. "You'll get your fun, Luc, just take it a piece at a time." Luc stood, blood from Timas's busted lips and cuts staining the leather strap. His hair hung disheveled around his eyes. "You had me banished," Luc spat. "But I still had friends in the upper layers. I came to the smugglers sniffing around and told them Pepper would be transported out as soon as I heard. When I found out you came with them, that became my price for helping out." Timas let them lower him back among the Aeolians. Renata looked up at them. "Is this what we can all expect from you, beatings?"

"So far it's just him," the pirate shouted back. "But keep making noise, I'm sure we can come up with something for you."

Timas flopped to the floor. "Don't antagonize them," he whispered. Renata stood over him. "This is unacceptable."

Timas crawled away from them, ashamed of seeming so weak. His ribs ached, his arms hurt from the punches and kicks, and his face was cut up.

He found a corner between the curved wall and two crates and curled up there. In the dark, time passed swiftly. Renata came to him with a bowl of meat and potato soup. Timas swallowed the whole bowl's contents and gave it back.

Half an hour later he looked around and crawled behind a crate near what looked like a drain. He was too nervous, his stomach roiled, and he found himself using a finger to provoke the response he craved. He saw Katerina moving around to stare at him from the front of the storage space. He looked away. Listless after throwing up, he just lay staring at the ribbed ceiling, listening to the footsteps of their captors and distant laughter.

At least his mother had left with Pepper.

That was a small thing.

And they would all know he had been right, about the aliens. There was a small measure of satisfaction in being proved right.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Pepper sat on the docked rescue ship, Jaguar scouts guarding him. Ollin had taken Itotia to meet the pipiltin. No doubt a meeting to discuss what to do about the current situation. Itotia returned through docking tube after a good hour. She'd not talked to him for the entire flight. "The pipiltin want to turn you back over to the Aeolians, for goodwill. They've confiscated Heutzin's gold and the credit you gave him. They're trying to use it to get Aeolian help to repair the cuatetl." Pepper shook his head. "They're too focused on the micro."

"They won't consider paying for Timas's ransom with your own money." Each word cracked out from Itotia's thin lips. "The welfare of Yatapek comes first, they say."

"Politicians," Pepper muttered, disgusted. "The mining machine is unimportant."

"Even the pipiltin know things are getting crazy out there." She sat on the seat next to Pepper. "The Aeolians aren't responding. The pipiltin are getting ready to take an airship to one of the nearest Aeolian cities. They want to send an envoy."

"I'm sorry," Pepper said.

Scarlett looked at them both. "Not as sorry as your son will be. I want my damn money." Itotia stood up. Pepper would have expected a slap, but Itotia punched the pirate captain in the stomach. It caught him off guard. He staggered back, winded. Itotia turned and grabbed Pepper's shoulder. "What can you do?"

Kill the pipiltin. Destroy the envoy's airship. Instigate a coup. Kill everyone who kept annoying him. Pepper rubbed his forehead. "Get me Heutzin and the spare groundsuit parts." If he could get properly mobile, all of those options opened up. Including going to the surface and leaving this circus behind. Finding the aliens would give him a better handle on what exactly the Swarm was looking for.

He looked back up at her.

"And then what?" she asked.

"Then I can do something about it all. No more dicking around dealing with people, but something serious." He locked eyes with her.

"And my son . . ."

"Getting me a groundsuit is the best thing you can do for your son." In the big picture of things. Pepper had no idea what the pirates wanted with a particular young boy like Timas, but it couldn't be good. But he wasn't lying to her, not in the big-picture sense.

"Then you'll get groundsuits. But you know you can't fit in one, what limbs you have are too muscular." She stared at him, and Pepper stared back. He'd revved his body's metabolism up. Already his temparature burned. Sweat trickled down his back and stomach as his body literally began eating and destroying the weight and tone he'd been putting back on. He'd fit. If it meant mobility, he'd walk into the room tomorrow looking like a scarecrow.

Usually he only burned himself up like that for energy. In desperate combat. But now, Pepper only warred with himself to become xocoyotzin.

The staring contest ended. Itotia folded her arms. "I'll make Ollin delay the flight a full day. You have twenty-four hours. Heutzin will come pick you up and get you to the parts." She walked back out, sweeping past Scarlett without a second glance. Four Jaguar scouts came in after her, but they surrounded the pirate captain instead of Pepper.

Itotia came later in the night to Heutzin's workshop. She stood in the doorway. "You look sick," she said.

"I'm burning my body up"—Pepper raised a hand up—"to fit the suits." She looked around. "You could have the house, on the upper deck." Metallic air, dingy light, grease, and oil hung heavy throughout the workshop. Pepper gestured at the hundreds of pieces of groundsuit scattered across the tables set against the cramped walls. "I'm happy enough."

"Do you have everything you need?"

"I have all I need, plus more tools." He used his leg to push the wheeled stool he sat on over. "What are you doing down here?"

"Checking up on you."

Pepper picked up a helmet visor and peered into it. He plugged it into the thick, rusty collar of a chassis. It lit up, green diagnostics scrolling over Itotia as he looked through it at her.

"You know, even if I get this thing working, you'll need to prepare for the Swarm." Over the last few hours the silent cities had come back to life. They broadcast a bewildering array of claims throughout Aeolian information space. Everywhere Aeolians gathered a new element of confusion brewed. The cities sent out information saying Pepper was a League agent, trying to undermine the cities. Others claimed a Ragamuffin invasion neared. Or a League invasion neared. People talked to odd-sounding, stiff, and familiar faces of old family members or friends who told them that everything was okay aboard these cities and the Aeolians could return.

Some Aeolians believed them, enough to confuse the matter further when the Swarm began to add its votes to the Consensus. Aeolians agonized over how to withdraw the right to vote from its own physical citizens on suspicion of being part of the Swarm.

All this visitors relayed to Pepper in snippets. If the Consensus kept falling apart, invaded physically and democratically, Pepper realized Yatapek soon stood alone.

"How do we prepare for the Swarm?" Itotia snapped. "You failed against them. The Aeolians are failing against them. What can Yatapek do?"

Pepper set the visor down and picked up a piece of paper. "You have metal and wood. You can make these."

She took the diagram from him. "What is it?"

"It's called a billhook. An ancient polearm, used very successfully in several battles on Earth. The edged bit on the end should let you form up formations with a good reach against the Swarm. Eight, ten feet, you can lop heads quite nicely if it lets us get close enough for hand-to-hand combat. I assume you don't have too many personal firearms in the city?" And the Swarm couldn't arm every one of its members. The clumsiness of individual Swarm units suggested to Pepper that fast, effective marksmanship from their side wouldn't be something Yatapek would have to worry about.

Itotia shook her head. "Rifles for the Jaguar scouts, but there are, maybe a few hundred of them."

"You'll need to arm everyone: women, children."

"You think it will come to this?" She leaned against the door frame. Pepper nodded.

"The pipiltin will not allow it," Itotia said. "They think we will remain safe by obscurity."

"I gave you the design. If you choose to build them, or use them, that is your decision. If you choose to wait and see what will happen, that is also yours. I just know that if it were me, I would at least like to die doing something to face my killer."

Pepper blinked away sleep. He had a long night ahead of him. When he'd rubbed his eyes and looked back up, Itotia had left.

Heutzin arrived just after she left, carrying two large boxes full of spare bits, electronics he'd scavenged from all over. He dumped them onto the table.

"Good." Pepper knew the suit models. Somewhere deep in his past he'd used similar enough designs.

"You'll be glad to hear that one of the units still has a lot of juice, it was disconnected in an accident. It's working again."

Heutzin glanced at the half-assembled mechanical torso on the bench. "Just like that."

"Don't think lower of yourself. I have centuries of battlefield experience, including stripping and reusing crap like this. Get some of your assistants in here. This needs to be reassembled by dawn. In the meantime, I need you to help me to a communications center. I need to see if I can talk to any Ragamuffins in orbit."

Heutzin still stared at the groundsuit pieces. "Are there any units that will fully power up?"

"No." Pepper shook his head. "We have about four hours power on the one that is working."

"That's not a lot."

Pepper agreed. But four hours of mobility would be better than none. And with some tweaking of the suit's design tolerances, four hours could be a lot of havoc.

"Get me that communications setup, Heutzin."

Heutzin shifted his belt. "I could get in trouble."

"You'll get in more trouble if you don't help."

"Again, you threaten."

"I just need things to move, Heutzin. We're still sitting around, waiting for fate to decide for us, when we need to be forcing fate's hand."

Without the strange avatar, Katerina, to help him figure out what was going on in the outside world, Pepper felt a bit nervous about timetables. The Swarm could be on its way already. Most of the dilapidated cities near the Great Storm, like Yatapek, settled by Azteca immigrants from New Anegada, used shortwave radio to communicate back and forth. An ancient standby. Through the crackle and hiss Pepper found that four of those cities still remained online. A third of the Aeolian cities remained online and chatty, but they were buried deep in planning how to repel the Swarm and keep its infection contained.

Too little too late.

It took three hours to get things set up to scan orbit and call out, but eventually Pepper found a Ragamuffin ship. A few moments were spent exchanging prompts and codes, and then the familiar dialect of someone from New Anegada came through the tiny speaker.

"This the Midas Special , Jack Richardson speaking. Pepper, you all the way down there for real? We been hearing all kinds of reports about you getting move about, jailed. What the hell going on?" He caught them up. The Ragamuffins had picked on some of what was happening, biological warfare of some sort. But they weren't sure if a League threat had arrived.

Pepper wanted to know about the Ragamuffin response. "Is the Dread high council moving any big ships closer?" They would have been hearing cities go silent, and picking up on some of the chatter. Anything suspicious usually prompted the Dreads to get some military might close to the problem in case things went sour.

"Moving slowly, but moving, man," Jack replied. "This still the DMZ, seen? They don't want provoke no war with the League. But all the merchant ship up here, fifteen standing to."

"Doing what?"

"Keeping it lockdown. No traffic allowed between habitats up here, no traffic allowed into orbit. You move, we fire."

"That violates the DMZ also." Cautious leaders everywhere, on Yatapek, throughout the floating cities, and back home.

"Only because we trying help Chilo. The other problem, ain't a single League ship here in orbit. They all hiding. We think they getting mass up for a big push, we seeing ghost images, that kind of thing." So a fleet was building itself up out there. No doubt the League used their merchant ships to house military elements as well, camouflaging intent. Now it waited.

The Swarm would destroy Chilo, and the League would mop up.

"Nothing entering, nothing leaving," Jack said from orbit. "We waiting. Worse comes to worst, we clean from up high after we figure out what the League trying. You on your own for a good while if you staying down there."

Pepper could only think about the images of the sterilized planet the crew aboard the Shiek Professional had seen.

And on this open channel, he couldn't talk any further specifics. He faced the Swarm alone if he didn't leave.

And then Jack added, "You get youself high enough and hail, we pick you up. We be around." Pepper squeezed the old transceiver in his fist and left the pieces on the bench by the radio and had Heutzin take him back to the workshop.

Time to see about getting him to the surface to contact these aliens. If he could figure out exactly what the Swarm was after that would help. And he would have to see about recruiting these secretive aliens into the fight.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Another beating. Timas again offered no resistance, choosing to protect his head as best he could while Luc exacted his revenge before a laughing crowd of pirates.

This time Timas woke up on the bottom of the storage space when the Aeolians splashed water on his face to revive him. One of the men had a large bruise across his face.

He didn't want to talk to them. He took his soup and scuttled off into another hiding spot. Timas found himself unable to keep down yet another meal, though. He found the drain again and jammed his index finger down his throat. It came easily.

Katerina, instead of pretending to ignore him, got up from her own corner of despair in the gloom.

"What the hell are you doing? Are you sick?"

He held up a hand. "No, I'm not sick." He felt good. Light, ready to fight, and in control. That's how he felt. He might be locked up in the storage area of the airship, headed who knew where, but Timas never felt freer.

None of this was on his shoulders anymore.

"Are you doing this to yourself?" Katerina grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

"You don't understand. It's expected." And he couldn't stop. He pulled his hand from her. "We're not like you: rich, brimming with technology. I can't take a pill and thin my waist, I can't ask for a bigger chest for my birthday and," he snapped his fingers, "make it so." Katerina put a defensive arm over her breasts. "You're being crude, Timas."

"I'm being true. We don't have your advantages, and as we got poorer we couldn't fit in the suits when they got handed down. Used items that our grandparents got, not even realizing we'd be normal ." He hissed the last word. "So we do this to fit."

"There are other ways."

"Maybe, but this is being xocoyotzin and what we do. Leave me alone."

"You don't need to fit in a groundsuit, Timas, we're prisoners right now. You need your strength." Katerina sat next to him.

Timas leaned back against the wall. The sour smell of half-digested food made him feel queasier. "It's not that easy. Doesn't just turn off."

"Listen, there can't be that much food around here. They'll stop feeding you if they find out you're doing this."

"I'm sorry."

Katerina grabbed his hand. "Don't be sorry. Just please stop it for now." She pulled him to his feet.

"Now come."

"What are we doing?"

"This can't continue, what they're doing to us. I asked us all to take a vote. We can't check back into the Consensus, but we can certainly run one of our own. We don't think this treatment should continue."

"What can you do about it?" Timas asked. They had no weapons and were cut off and outnumbered.

"And what do you mean, 'us'?"

"They wanted to grab Renata and take her upstairs," the Aeolian with the black eye said.

"And risk their payments?" Timas didn't understand. But he felt his mouth go dry. They lived at the mercy of these people up there. What if they stopped caring, and let Luc kill him?

"They're having trouble getting a Consenus focus, the cities are distracted by the Swarm. There's jamming, and their captain, Scarlett, hasn't called back. They're starting to think Pepper double-crossed them." Renata, Timas saw now, had a long and bloody tear running up her forearm.

"I think Pepper's right," one of the men said. "We're all on our own now. The Swarm is sweeping through everything."

"We'll need your help, though, to do anything," Renata said to Timas. He looked at all of them and felt the heaviness settle on his shoulders. He always helped. It was what he did.

"What do I need to do?"

"Fight back." Renata folded her arms. "We need ten minutes the next time you get dragged away to get ready to jump them."

"Ten minutes." Timas stared at them. That was an eternity.

"Can you do it?" Katerina looked at him hopefully.

Timas looked down, scared to meet their eyes. "Yes." He hadn't started out hating Luc. He'd felt sorry for him. Now Cen's brother had distorted himself and lost all self-control. Timas couldn't afford that pity anymore. It had been beaten out of him.

Renata showed him several long planks of wood they'd pulled off the crates. "Just last ten minutes. When they come to throw you back in, we'll have the crates stacked to reach the hatch."

"Okay." Timas nodded. "I understand." He sat crosslegged under the hatch with them and waited for the next round.

The hours passed. Eventually shouting from above startled him. Feet pounded about.

"Come look at this." Katerina had her face stuck against one of the slits in the belly of the airship. They all joined her. Timas cupped his hands around his eyes and looked down at the whipped, rusted-out clouds below them.

A ponderous creature flew below them, made of canvas and spars, an airbag at its center, a spiked nose, and large finned sails stretched out around its circular core.

The wings flapped, pulling the contraption up closer in jerking motions. Timas could see thousands of gears, and equally as many articulated joints pumping and shuddering.

"Strandbeests," Renata said. "I've never seen one this close, they usually make a run for it if they notice an airship."

Timas had never seen, or heard of one. "I didn't know there were living creatures in the clouds," he breathed.

"They're not alive, they're all gears and pulleys and joints." Katerina stood back up. "Analog machines, but they self-replicate. Or so we think, they're pretty hermitlike." A cluster of them beat their canvas wings away from the airship. They wheeled about each other, flocking in a weird, grouplike pattern.

Eventually they dwindled away.

Timas had moved back to the end window in their compartment, pressing his face at an angle to try and see the last one, when the hatch opened.

Luc stood in the light of the square opening. He tapped the button that dropped the ladder down.

"Get up here, you little shit. We aren't done. Now that we've gone this long without Scarlett calling in, they're not as concerned about what happens to you."

Timas walked, step by careful step, to the ladder. His ribs ached, his face felt puffed up, and he hurt all over.

"Ten," Renata mouthed silently to him.

Ten.

Timas pulled himself up toward the decking.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Luc wasted no time in kicking Timas. The moment the hatch slammed shut with a metallic clank and a bounce he had knocked Timas over.

Timas covered his head, but scrabbled backward like a crab. He groaned as he stood back up.

"You're going to stand up to me now?" Luc shook his head. "Maybe you should have stood up for Cen!"

Timas glared at him. "He was my best friend. You know what it's like to lose your best friend?" He balled his hands up into shaking fists.

"Is it anything like losing a brother?" Luc wiped away tears. "We were close, too. Cen dragged himself up to xocoyotzin, running every night since he was four. Four. Already at that age he knew what he wanted to do, and how he wanted to save us from the city's depths." Luc attacked, smacking a fist into Timas's nose. Timas wheeled back, bouncing off a door, then staggered around until one of the four pirates now watching grabbed him. They shoved him forward.

"I know what it's like," Timas said. "I do know what it's like for him. Always with your family on your back. Feeling like everything is your responsibility. I knew Cen better than you. We were the same." Now Timas ran forward and hit Luc. Luc absorbed the body blow easily enough. He twisted and threw Timas to the floor. The deck burned his hands as he fell again.

"You didn't know Cen, you just worked with him."

Timas struggled up. "You know why you're mad?" He looked through Luc like he didn't even exist.

"You're like all the others, the parasites around the xocoyotzin. The parents forcing them to stay thin in the hope that they'll remain on the top level. The distant family that feeds off them, depends on them. All of you crushing him as you stand on his shoulders."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're angry because you lost your free meals," Timas spat. "Your undeserved status by just being his brother and nothing more."

Luc's eyes widened. Timas smiled. He'd struck way too close, and Luc ran him down. The previous beatings had been nothing, Luc screamed his rage out while the pirates laughed and bet on how long Timas would remain conscious.

Timas wriggled, trapped beneath Luc's bulk, but suddenly full of fear as the desire to flee and the need to breathe took over his entire world as he was crushed.

A pair of mismatched wrestlers, the awkward contest of wills continued, Timas dragging it out for as long as he could.

At the ten-minute mark, with Luc still hitting him from a kneeling position, Timas rolled toward the hatch.

"Please."

"Please what?"

"I'm done, I can't take any more," Timas said with bruised lips, a bloody nose, and throbbing body.

"Damn right." Luc leaned down and yanked the hatch open.

Renata reared up from under the edge, standing on a set of crates stacked and laid out like stairs. She grabbed Luc by the collar of his shirt and yanked him down into the hold headfirst. Just as quickly two of her men crawled up the boxes past her onto the deck and sprinted at the pirates. Caught off guard, they jumped back. The Aeolians raised their slender wooden stakes. Timas looked away as they impaled all four of the pirates.

The pirates thrashed about on the floor, slowly dying as they bled out and gasped for air that wasn't coming.

Timas climbed down past Renata to Luc's side. But Cen's brother didn't stir. Timas looked back up at Renata, and she shook her head.

For her, a minor regret. For Timas, he now had gotten both his best friend and his best friend's brother killed. He sat next to Luc, fighting the sick feeling deep in his stomach. Katerina walked over. "You're hurt badly."

"We'll never get them back." Timas took the piece of shirt she offered him and dabbed at his face.

"He wanted you dead. This isn't your fault."

Timas put the bloodied cloth over Luc's face. He'd been to many xocoyotzin funerals and watched the families of distant friends collapsing. Everyone carried the burden that pervaded the top level, the fear of constantly wondering if their children would return to the surface alive after every trip. Timas could only accept the responsibility of others' burdens for so long. Was it not also the responsibility of the creature he'd seen in the mist, for getting caught out when the aliens had stayed hidden for so long? Or the fault of his grandparents for making bad choices that led to their citywide poverty?

Didn't the League, all those wormhole junctions away, bear the blame for the aliens' persecution, the only thing that would drive aliens to hide here?

Katerina was right. It was time to let it all go, Timas thought, lest it eat him up like it ate Luc up.

"Come on." Katerina stood. "They may need our help." Timas followed her up the crates. They'd bury Luc in the clouds with his brother later. Timas and Katerina found the other six crewmen already tied with rope to chairs in the galley, taken by surprise. Pots of rice and stew still sat on the table that the chairs ringed, half-eaten bowls steaming in front of them.

Timas felt his stomach rumble.

"Let us go," one pirate begged. Timas hadn't seen him before, but bits of moss grew all over him. He looked dark green instead of brown. Bits of chapped moss flaked off as he pulled against the ropes keeping him trapped.

This happened to people who worked outside cities or on the outside of ships. Tiny particles in Chilo's atmosphere in the clouds would grow on you.

Gross.

"We'll pay you well," another promised.

Katerina snorted, and they brushed through a bulkhead and past sweaty-smelling unkept beds bunked up three high against the wall. Small canvas lace-up flaps hung down to prevent sleepers from being tossed out of the beds when turbulence hit.

After that, the chart room, where Renata sat looking down at several sheafs of paper with pencil marks all over them. She used a pair of rulers joined together to mark out lines in rapid strokes of the pencil.

"The pilot spotted us before we got to the cockpit." She pointed forward. Timas leaned out of the nook the chart table was in to look forward. Down past the next bulkhead where two of her men were, the pilot lay dead, sprawled facedown.

One of the Aeolians turned back and waved. "Renata! We're ready." Renata grabbed Katerina. "We're making a run for it." They banked hard right, the small cluster of pirate airships in front of them sliding away to their side. "But they'll be able to keep pace. It'll be dicey. You're an avatar, randomly picked for this. As for us, we chose this. Because of that we feel you should have a choice now in what comes next for you."

Katerina frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We have guns to shoot back, charges to fire, and this is an attack airship. My men are up in the airbag to man guns there and on the airship's car. Things are falling apart all across Chilo, that much is obvious. We're in a good position to fight the pirates here, and maybe, maybe get back and help our cities. But we may get shot down.

"You can stay with us, or, we can get you aboard an emergency bubble. Three days air, food, and an emergency beacon." Renata shoved the map toward them. "After we drop you out the lock, which we'll do at cloud level, we chaff the area. We're headed back toward the strandbeests, between them and the chaff, the pirates will be hard pressed to stop and hunt for you. After we pass through, you increase the air and heat in your bubble, expand it a bit, and pop up five thousand feet. There's a strong air current that feeds into the Great Storm. That takes you back toward Yatapek. Fire off your emergency beacon after fifteen hours."

"I want that option," Timas said. "Whether she goes or not."

"I figured." Renata rolled the chart up. "But we here owe her that choice. She made a big sacrifice to serve the Consensus."

Katerina looked down at the rolled-up wind map in Renata's hand. "I'm not sure what to do. No friend polls here, huh?"

Renata laughed. "No. We're all cut out. I guess you've never had that happen, have you?"

"No." Katerina shook her head. "I miss everyone."

"You'll have about fifteen minutes before we get near the strandbeests again, we're gunning the engines here. Make up your mind by then. I'll leave you some quiet time."

Katerina glanced at Timas and then back to Renata. "I want the bubble. I think Timas saw something important. I think I'll best serve Consensus by getting back to Yatapek."

"Okay." Renata stood up, her arm around Katerina's shoulder. "Let's get you ready." She led them down to the bunks, to another hatch Timas had not noticed on the way up. They clambered down the ladder into the bowels of the airship's car once again. A small airlock jutted out of the bottom of this compartment, though. And inside of it would be their escape bubble. After a quick delay, Renata came down the stairs with a tightly wrapped box. "Food and water. There are . . . expandable bags for both of you in the bubble already."

"Expandable?" Katerina frowned.

"If it takes much longer than fifteen hours, you'll need to use the bathroom. It'll be uncomfortable in such close quarters, but many others have survived it."

Timas blushed as Katerina nodded.

"One of you in first, then the next. It's tight right now."

"I'll go." Timas took the lead and spun the hatch open. He dropped his legs through and then crouched in the tiny lock. He pushed his back up against the wall. It crinkled. He was inside the bubble lining, hanging from the insides of the airlock.

Katerina's long legs slid through, and then she dropped in. They were pressed up close to each other. Embarrassingly close, hips brushing.

Renata leaned in, her puffy hair bobbing against the metallic rim. "Okay, usually these drop, wait, then shoot straight up. But you're trying to avoid that and lay low. So I pulled the climb sensor. You have to yank on this ripcord to initiate the climb."

Timas looked at the red cord nestled inside four dials, and several gauges mounted on the solid plastic floor under his feet. "Okay."

"This dial here adds air pressure from the tank under your feet. The walls are pretty flexible, just watch the pressure dial and don't go into red." Then there was the heater, which added lift, a vent to drop, the ripcord for the emergency beacon, and the tiny cupboard/trash can for waste. Including human waste. Ballast weights on the bottom, little bags of lead that could be dropped by another switch if needed, but the balloon would unbalance and tumble. Those were only for a desperation climb.

"We got it all," Katerina said.

"If you inflate the ball out hard, there's room for some five or six people, it should be comfortable." Renata pointed out the webbing on the edges of the plastic floor. They'd have room to lay out and sleep as it stretched out fully. "Now zip up your top. I'll fire you guys off when I hear we're in position." She slapped the rim, and Timas stretched up and zipped the clear plastic around the edge of the rim. They sat on the floor, knees knocking, facing each other in the tiny space.

"Are you scared?" Katerina asked.

Timas considered lying. He decided against it. "I'm terrified." She laughed. "Me too."

Renata slammed the hatch shut and dogged it. They were truly alone. "But it's easier, with someone else." Timas bit his lip.

"Yeah."

The wait dragged on. Timas felt his mouth go dry. It ranged from seconds to an eternity, just sitting there waiting, his heart hammering.

"It's been a few minutes."

Timas nodded. As he did so the bubble lurched and then dropped out of the bottom of the aircar. He glanced up, reaching out to grab the sides instinctively, and saw the airship shoot up away from them. Several thousands of tiny twirling bits of chaff exploded at random points in the sky. They tumbled slightly as they fell, the grungy brown clouds swirling around them. Timas caught a glimpse of the pirate fleet far overhead.

The bubble stopped tumbling, inflating slightly with a hiss from under their feet, popping their ears. Then dropped through cloud wisps as the bubble slowed down, shook, and then steadied. A glance at the altimeter gauge confirmed that they had stopped falling.

"We made it out!" Katerina smiled. Timas stood up, the edges of the floor stretched with webbing around it. He could even walk around Katerina a bit if he wanted.

He walked over and leaned against the edge, looking into the murk. "I wonder how long these walls can handle the acid in the clouds." Acid beaded up on the outside already. The clouds dripped with it, and the beads of acid started congealing into rivulets that dripped off the large balloon.

"We'll give it fifteen minutes," Timas said, watching the tiny rivers of acid. "I'll watch the balloon, you let me know when time's up."

She counted down, minute by minute, as he walked the edge of the platform, poking the skin with his finger to figure out if the sections in contact with acid were weakening. By ten minutes he could tell that there were differences in give.

"Let's ascend." Timas poked at one part near the zipped top where acid had sat and weakened the skin enough so that his finger left an indentation when he poked hard enough.

"Timas? I think I see something."

He turned. Something was moving through the gloom at them, a large shadow. Timas scrambled for the ripcord. A fast enough ascent to get over it, and maybe whatever it was wouldn't notice them in this muck.

But he paused at the last second as the shadow became a giant strandbeest, dwarfing their tiny bubble with its slow-moving canvas wings and slow trailing tail.

The giant spiked nose gently turned toward them and bumped them.

Katerina jumped back. "Can it poke through?"

"I hope not."

"It's like it's curious. The acid in the clouds can't be good for it." The mechanical monster tapped the ball like a toy, nudging it along up out of the clouds. A second construction pushed through the clouds and joined it.

Timas grabbed the webbing as they jostled the balloon around.

"What are they doing?" Katerina asked.

"I don't know," Timas snapped, scared that they might break the balloon with their giant nudges. "Pull the ripcord for a few seconds, let's see if we can get higher and left alone." Katerina gave the ripcord a long tug and the balloon filled out more. They rose, lifting out of the clouds, and the strandbeests followed.

Timas looked up, and to his dismay saw several more descending on them. He stood up.

"What are you doing?" Katerina asked.

"Trying to see if maybe someone is controlling it."

"There's nothing there but gears and arms," she said. "It's a giant clockwork toy." Another insistent nudge spun the balloon upside down and threw him off the walls. Katerina smacked her nose against his knee. As the balloon righted itself, she clutched it. "It hurts."

"Quit moving about, lock your arms in the straps," Timas said. Looking up he could see more strandbeests surrounding them.

The flock of giant machines closed in, completely blocking out the entire world. A creaking, whirring, gigantic mass of strangely articulated parts, airbags, and motion that had decided to take them . . . somewhere.

PART FIVE

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Heutzin held true to his word. Pepper found an almost knightly suit of armor waiting when he returned to the workshop. He set his crutch up against the door and flopped down on the wheeled chair to scoot his way up to it. They'd even mounted a helmet on it.

Pepper checked it over, and then plugged the visor in to boot it up and run it through diagnostics. And damn if it didn't keep failing its integrity tests. Leaks. All the different parts and the adjustments to make them fit Pepper, even with him being so thin, and they still didn't have a proper groundsuit for him.

"These are the best seals we can get?" Pepper looked at Heutzin.

"You took all the spare part suits down yourself. It still isn't sealing?" Pepper leaned in close at the suit. The seals could be replaced, but the low-tech crap Yatapek made didn't self-lubricate, so the suit's mobility would be nil. He'd break the new seals trying to move around. He needed the nanoscale frictionless seals, but they were letting air in after decades of use. That wouldn't work for getting down to the surface.

Another Aeolian city had broadcast images of the Swarm invading. Bloodied corpses stumbling toward people with blind, rabid purpose. In the video Pepper saw that the Aeolians who kept shooting back at them could hardly keep a line in the chaos. The Swarm moved implacably closer now, city by city. He considered stealing a working suit. But looking at the extensions Heutzin and he had also grafted on to fit his height, he doubted any of them would work. He would have to be thankful for mobility.

"Let's suit up anyway," he growled. "See how she moves." The assistants moved around him, like squires from the days of old, and started taking the groundsuit apart.

They began with getting his leg in, and then the stump of his other leg. He stood on his own in the heavy device for the first time as they encased his trunk in the next sections. Pepper raised his arm out, and they started strapping the upper section on.

He smiled.

Segmented gauntlets on, and then the familiar prickle of contact via his lower spine as the suit asked permission to meld itself to his body's own information systems.

Pepper nodded, and he no longer needed the visor. The suit's diagnostics appeared over his own vision. Boot-up went smoothly with the suit's designer logo splashing over his entire visual cortex and then fading after some brief pyrotechnics.

As the workshop's interior faded back into view Pepper gave the command to conform, and the suit snipped and snapped as currents gave the metallo-ceramics commands to shrink, stretch, and flex until the suit felt fitted: a bulky second skin.

"This brings back memories." Pepper he clenched his good fist, flesh and metal acting as one. Now for the moment of truth. He clenched his other fist, and the empty metal curled up. Heutzin grinned as Pepper reached out and tapped his shoulder with the nonexistent arm. "Not bad." The movement jerked a little. It'd take some practice to get used to it, but it would work. Pepper took a few tentative steps forward, then back. As each footstep hit the grated floor, tools jumped off the benches.

He hopped into the air. This time he dented the floor when he hit, and knocked boxes of parts onto the floor.

Four hours of freedom.

Pepper walked out of the workshop, then jogged down the catwalk outside toward the edges of the docks. The walkways shivered and shook underneath him, and people going about their business stopped and stared.

He threaded his way out, holding his breath as he broke out into the open areas. The acidic air bit at his face and made his skin crawl. His dreadlocks slapped the collar ring of the suit. Back inside, he cycled through a set of doors into air. He walked over to an observation window. The giant body of a docked airship wallowed at the end of a twisting tube, and far below, the dreary clouds mocked him.

The surface of Chilo was just as far away from him right now as when he'd started working on the suit. He bent the rail in front of the window as he clenched his hands. Heutzin and his assistant mechanics burst through into the room, air masks held over their faces.

Heutzin panted. "What now?"

Pepper was still thinking about it, reaching for some plan. He enjoyed the surprised faces as he stormed down the walkways, and then he thudded over to a mechanic. He snatched an air mask from him. "Let's go say hello to the pipiltin."

Maybe this time he could shake them into doing what he needed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After the first hour of being shoved along by the machines, Timas and Katerina relaxed. As the strandbeests rose, the lower ones bumped the balloon from below, and Timas or Katerina would yank on the ripcord to add air and stretch their balloon out further and rise with the flock. By the second hour the great bumps of the clouds receded into tiny crenulations. They'd discussed triggering the beacon, but it was too early. They didn't want the pirates getting a strong signal, and the strandbeests hadn't hurt the balloon.

"This about as high as we can go," Timas said, looking at the altimeter.

"Look, they're thinning." Katerina pointed up above them.

The strandbeests fell away to reveal a great raftlike triangle, festooned with platforms and canvas wings, cranes and antennae and all sorts of junk. Half of a strandbeest hung suspended from the center of the triangle by a web of ropes and pulleys.

A large net dropped out and enveloped them, then pulled them up into the structure next to the desiccated strandbeest. The net fell away, and a thin man in plastic coveralls and an air mask with round goggles scrambled his way across ropes, nets, and walkways toward them. He pressed his mask against the bubble and looked in at them, then pulled a pair of masks out of a pouch dangling off his waist.

"Take a deep breath, then," Timas said. He waited until Katerina did, and then he grabbed the zipper at the top and ripped it open.

He closed his eyes as the balloon deflated and fell around them. Their host shoved a mask in his hand, and Timas pulled it on.

Then the man gestured for them to follow him. Timas kept a hand on the various lines that were draped everywhere.

From below, with the strandbeest trapped in its center, the triangular floating platform hadn't looked too large. But Timas realized the strandbeests were just as big, and the platform could have housed fifty people.

Inside an airlock leading into the nearest pontoon the thin man pulled his mask down. His skin cracked like leather left out to cure too long, with a strong ebony tinge.

"Hello, hello." He ran a hand over his shaved head, then changed his mind and pulled at a scraggly beard. "Van VerMeer's me name, and you two, look at you, you just kids. You're lucky I'm not hiding in the clouds today. They sting. They rot the canvas wings, even with my protective paints, so they don't like it. But we've never liked the big cities."

Katerina stepped forward and introduced herself and Timas, and explained that they were fleeing pirates as Timas looked around.

There was little rhyme or reason to the chaos. Machined parts, light tubing, rubber, canvas: all the basic elements of the strandbeests cluttered walls, floors, and any available counterspace. The old man wobbled over to a bench. "I am deeply sorry, I don't get many visitors."

"We're not visitors, we were dragged here, by the machines." Timas moved over to Van's side, trying to distract him from the parts he fingered.

Van cocked his head to regard Timas. "Machines? Machines?"

"The strandbeests," Katerina said.

A big smile. "Strandbeests. They're good-hearted." He looked wistful. Katerina and Timas glanced at each other. "Why did they bring us here?" Katerina took the man's leathery hands in hers.

"You were spare parts." Van switched to looking at her. "You were in a bubble. They look for spare parts, they scavenge from whatever they find out there. Bits and pieces off cities, old dead airships, passing through airships. I barter for what I can here. Not a lot of flotsam anymore, they're all slowly dying from lack of parts. One day soon there won't be any."

"Well, thank you for letting us come aboard." Timas said each word carefully. "Can we use your radio, or whatever you have, to call for help?"

"Help? No . . ." Van shook his head. "No outsiders. Not now, not until that last one is repaired. See the trick is that no one knows I maintain them, and maybe they'll be able to do it for themselves, some day, but for now, they still need me."

"And how long will that be before the repairs are done?" Katerina asked. A shrug. "A month?" Van smiled. "There are new things to put in its brain." He held up a complicated series of tiny cogs and wheels.

"A month!" Timas looked at Katerina, but she was moving through the benches, eyes narrowed, taking everything in. "We need to call for help sooner."

"Maybe more!" Van pulled in close. "You know how to program in analog-varient-viscous?"

"Viscous?" Timas shook his head.

"V.I.S.C.O.U.S." Van sighed. "A lost art. Used to be a popular hobby among academic artificial intelligence researchers. Using gears to model more precise neural decisions, not just ones and zeros, right? Babbage machines. The most complex behaviors can be modeled by a series of simple sets. Oh, what do you care, you're a regular, outsider, boring."

He meandered back through his bits and pieces, and Timas walked down toward Katerina. "He's been on the platform by himself too long."

"Yeah, longer than you think." She pulled a small paper brochure off the wall and waved it at him. "This shows him building similar things in orbital habitats. A hundred years ago. He's one of those spacers with alien technology in him. He's probably hundreds of years old."

Timas looked back at the doddering, odd man with a bit of awe. "And he's been building these things all that time?"

"I have." Van looked sideways at them with a grin. "The machines, they were first built by Theo Jansen." Katerina walked forward. "I'm sorry, I've never heard of the man." Van grinned. He looked sharp now, not so dreamy and focused on the work. "He lived on Earth, a very long time ago. Before Earth shut itself away and hid, destroying the wormhole there. Bit of a drag that. It stranded me. I was a traveling performance artist, resurrecting the greatest of the old Earth peculiarities for my alien owners."

"He built these things?" Timas asked.

"Machines that took the wind and converted it. They would walk across the beaches. Beach machines. Strandbeests. He did those. The Satraps kept me in an artist's zoo, had me build them strandbeests for their beaches. When the Raga freed the habitat I was in, I flew here. Now I build them around floaters, let the wind hit their wings and power their coils inside, and release the energy when they need it. They float and fly around, seeking spare parts. You see: I freed them." His eyes got wet and shiny.

"You did free them." Katerina folded her arms. "Congratulations." Van gathered up an armful of parts, still teared up. "Thank you, sister." He passed them both on his way deeper into the pontoon.

"He's lost it," Timas whispered to her.

"Come on." Katerina grabbed his sleeve and whispered back, "I know he's a bit out of it, but he has moments of clarity, and he's harmless."

"I wonder if it's just because of so much time and his being alone for so long?" They followed the old man, hanging back to continue their hushed exchange without him hearing. The old man flipped on lights as he went along.

"Maybe, but if aliens held him for a long time, and gave him life-extension technology, I can't imagine his life was too great before he came to Chilo. The Satraps were wicked." Timas nodded. He didn't have much schooling, but one thing almost all humanity knew, it was that. And then it hit him. "That's how we get him to let us use his radio."

"What?"

"Tell him aliens are attacking."

"Good idea." Katerina grabbed him as Van ran back at them, spilling nuts, bolts, and slender shafts to the ground. They clattered about at their feet.

"Aliens? Where?" His eyes bugged out.

Timas stood still, nervous. "The cities. There's an infection, it's . . ." Van grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. "An alien infection?" Timas nodded. Katerina had her hand on a pipe. "It turns people into something else. It's called the Swarm. And now they're attacking. Haven't you been listening in on the airwaves?"

"I'm a hermit," Van said. "I don't listen to people I don't care what they're doing. I'm my own empire, my own thing. I'm not even supposed to be paying attention to you. You're wasting my time and making it longer to do this. I can't even think the programming straight. How can I concentrate with all this crap going on around me?"

He let go of Timas, and Timas took the opportunity. "We want to get out of your way so you can continue. The best way is for us to get off the platform. Can we use your radio to call for help?"

"You don't need to call for help." Van shook his head. "Come, we'll get you the hell out. You'll go with the miners. They'll know what to do with you. Yes."

Timas looked at Katerina, but she was just as mystified as he was.

Chapter Thirty

It turned out that even an eccentric hermit like Van needed contact. Food, parts, medicine. He refused to allow people to venture aboard his domain, but he did venture out. In a disguise. "You have to understand"—he slapped the side of his head—"it's sideways up there, after the aliens were done crawling around in it. Don't want them around again."

He donned an air mask with silvered lenses, grabbed a wig of frizzy hemp, and shrugged on a giant, heavy leather coat that dropped to his ankles. He looked like a tiny child, lost in the coat's weight. Railings, mounted haphazardly all over the place, let him hang on as he walked. Timas followed suit. The platform occasionally leaned when a very strong gust hit it.

Maybe that explained the messiness.

"Hey." Van popped his mask up off his mouth to speak. "Get masks, let's go. What are you waiting for?

We have a schedule to keep."

Right. Timas fumbled about for the masks he'd given them when they boarded. Back outside, with acrid Chilo air forcing itself around the edges of the mask, Timas followed the old man across the surface of the pontoons to a tiny hangar.

Inside, revealed by the doors Van swung aside, hung a small airship. It was just large enough for the three of them to cram into.

The envelope, a dull metal globe, lay nestled between four very large rockets strapped to it.

"That can't be safe," Katerina said.

"Fast." Van walked up to the tiny cab underneath. "That way no one is sure where I came from." Timas looked at Katerina. This was their only way back. She seemed to think so as well. They both climbed in the one door into the small cab.

The tiny bench seat inside forced them all together, elbows and knees touching, facing forward to look out several industrial-looking portholes at Chilo's cloudy yellow-orange horizon. Timas was the last in. He shut the door, spinning the wheel to seal it until he couldn't force it any farther. Pumps forced Chilo air out and filled the cab with breathable air. They removed their masks. Katerina's skin was dry. Timas was very conscious of her arm touching his. He did his best not to move and draw attention to the fact. He liked it.

Van slapped a switch and the platform fell away from them as they shot up. Timas bit his lip and pushed his face against the tiny window to his right and looked at the triangular platform get smaller and smaller.

"Okay," Van said.

He flipped a series of switches. Pumps whined, and then a steady roar developed. Timas was shoved back into his seat. The strange contraption thundered its way along for a good hour, with their eccentric pilot making curving wiggles, crescents, and loops. The entire contraption shook to a steady rhythm of pings and creaks as the rockets slammed the large sphere through the thick atmosphere. Several chirps from the instrument panel got his attention, and he flipped the rockets off. "Back in my day these things were always one shot. You turned them on and they just kept going until they ran out of fuel." He slapped the dashboard. "These ones, they're slicker." More switches, Van even consulted with a small check board, and then finally he got the sequence right after some grinding sounds came from the sphere above them.

They dropped toward the clouds. Timas felt his ears pop.

After passing through the clouds, scattering wisps, Van snapped off switches with cool efficiency until they slowed, stopped, and hung just below the cloud layer.

"There." Van pointed at a distant chunk of black cloud. They coasted toward it. It grew larger, massive smokestacks pumping out black smoke, cables rising up to extra balloons hanging above it.

"What is it?" Timas could see that underneath, clouds of fine dust showered out of several chutes, slowly dissipating in the air under the hulking, industrial complex.

"Ore processor," Katerina said.

"The Triple-Two ," Van said. They slowly drifted into a giant floating net hung around the processor like a skirt. It rippled, and that produced a reaction. A tube festooned with airbags disengaged and snaked its way toward them, tiny puffs of propellant from the mouthlike dock steering it precisely to the cab. Van's airship shuddered as it attached. It whistled as it blew out Chilo air from between it and the hull to make a seal.

Timas looked over at Van, who jabbed in the direction of the door. "Yes, open her up." He did so. On the other side stood a man by a control panel. Covered in black soot, wearing blue coveralls, he looked at Van suspiciously. "What the hell, man, you know we are at the end of this rotation. No food, nothing to barter." He frowned at Timas and Katerina. "Who're they?" Van shrugged. "Rescued them. They were in an escape bubble." Katerina leaned over Timas. "I'm an avatar for the Consensus." Something passed through the air between them, invisible to Timas. It changed the man's posture. Katerina might talk about democracy and Consensus, but apparently even the Aeolians had some sort of respect for special people in their strange government, like avatars.

The man nodded and stepped forward. "Let me help you out. We're in the final thirty-hour rush before the carrier comes for the ore. You can stay here until it swings by and ride back to the cities on it." Timas scrambled out. Katerina followed, back in her element.

Van waved and then slammed the door shut between them.

"Come on," the man said. "Let's retract the dock tube before he fires off those damned rockets to head back wherever the hell it is he hides out."

Timas looked out the tiny porthole as they pulled back from the nets. He blinked when the rockets fired. The strange artist-hermit disappeared up into the clouds riding a fiery trail of smoke. He turned around. "I'm sorry, what is your name?"

Katerina and the man exchanged quick glances, then he nodded at Timas. "She's right. You're certainly not from one of the Aeolian cities."

"No." Timas shook his head.

"I'll let the crew know to verbalize more around you." He reached out for a handshake. "I'm Achmed, the foreman of this sorry little operation. Sounds like you're both lucky to be alive. Certainly you're the weirdest thing Van's ever dropped off here."

Timas was just grateful to be somewhere safe.

"I'll show you around quickly, then get some food and drink in you. After that, it's back to work. We're on a tight schedule."

Food sounded like a wonderful idea, Timas thought.

Chapter Thirty-One

Pepper thudded his way off the dock elevator and cycled through the airlocks onto the lower decks. He removed his air mask, and looked out at a crowd of Yatapek dwellers. Many carried guns, others machetes.

Near the front, a pair of Jaguar scouts in baggy pants and vests trained their rifles on him.

"What's this?" Pepper stood still, running a rough count. This part of the city resembled a warren, and the atrium and elevators stood on the other side of the crowd.

A hundred angry people stood between him and the way up.

"Make him pay!"

"Pay!"

"Pay."

A bottle hit his suit and broke. Pepper reached under his chin and pulled out a sliver of glass. He should have brought the helmet along. He'd have to consider how to protect his head. Plowing through the crowd, it could be ugly.

Another bottle shattered against his suit, and a pair of scruffy-looking guys moved forward, machetes off to the side.

" Stop!"

The voice came from behind the crowd, by an elevator that had just opened. People back there stirred and shifted, turning to face the voice.

"Stop it!" Ollin forced his way through the crowd. Out of breath, he grabbed Pepper's armored shoulder and turned to face the crowd. "None of this. Not now, not ever." The old pipiltin followed him, three of them in boldly colored clothes.

"Go home, get out of here," the pipiltin yelled. One of them used a cane to smack several nearby bystanders. "You ignore your elders?"

Several Jaguar scouts arrived. They moved through the crowd and pushed people to head back down corridors or get in line for an elevator.

Pepper listened to the grumbling and swearing.

"I gather I'm not popular."

Ollin turned to him. "Things haven't gone well for anyone since you arrived. Can you blame them?" Pepper brushed glass out of his locks. "Not really."

"We've lost people, as well as the cuatetl. Now all over the city people are getting radio reports from Aeolian cities about the madness that's spreading. No one knows what to think, but they do know you're involved. Some think you're maybe even responsible for it."

A handful of people remained now.

Ollin gathered the three pipiltin around. "Eztli and Necalli here, they stand with me." Eztli nodded. "We've been listening to the radio reports, what the airships passing near the Aeolian cities are saying. Already our docks are crammed with ships paying us extra fees to just sit and wait. They want to see what happens. But I don't think they'll have cities to return to. This Swarm, we think it's what you say it is. We're convinced."

The other pipiltin nodded agreement.

"Good." Pepper leaned in with them. "We need to get your xocoyotzin on the ground right away then. I have a rough map, thanks to your son." He looked at Ollin.

Ollin grimaced. "We have trouble, though."

"The other pipiltin refuse. It is their three against our two. That was why there have always been five." Necalli spread his arms.

"But you can at least get xocoyotzin on the surface." Pepper folded his arms.

"Not without one more," Ollin said. "There is no more surface travel allowed. Since you talked about aliens, people have been seeing them everywhere on the station. In shadows, in dreams. It's hysteria and it's spreading. It's heresy, so the pipiltin want a cooling-off period. The xocoyotzin can be impressionable. We can't afford them disappearing off into the storm or fog just because they think they saw an alien." Pepper sucked his teeth in frustration. "Then why are you standing here teasing me? If we can find the aliens, bring one back, we have a turning point. I can promise you serious Ragamuffin support." Ollin licked his lips, glanced at the two pipiltin. "We think you are right. And we need your help to get these things you need."

"My help?" Pepper looked at the two, and then he shook his head slowly. "You know what you're asking?"

Ollin looked him right in the eye. "Yes. Will you help back us against the other three pipiltin? We know you were once called the god-killer, back on New Anegada, and that you're revered among the Ragamuffins. We know that you're hundreds of years old. You will serve as a fellow pipiltin, and we'll be able to save the city."

"You sure that's what this is about?" Pepper arched an eyebrow. Ollin flushed hot in infrared. They all fidgeted, distressed, worried.

"It's all for the city," Ollin said. "If we don't act to save it we'll fall silent, just like the Aeolians." Pepper smiled.

There would be a price paid to get control, but here they were, finally coming to their senses and handing him what he needed.

The house of cards was falling in his direction.

"We'll need guns." Pepper pivoted the suit and looked at the warriors standing around them. "I think I left a sword up in your house. I would like that as well."