Tad shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to live like this, Blaze. When Braden, Phoenix and I leave in the spring, we could take you with us to one of the colony worlds. You could have the sort of decent, civilized life that you deserve.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You seem to have forgotten that I belong to the Earth Resistance.”
“I realize that any colony world would be reluctant to accept an Earth Resistance member, especially Sean Donnelly’s daughter, but I know some powerful people so I should be able to …” Tad seemed to notice the look on my face at this point, because he let his sentence trail off.
“So you’re offering to use your influence to get me a place on one of your bright new worlds?” My brief liking for Tad changed to fury, and I glared at the leech. “And what favours are you planning to ask in return for your generosity?”
Tad looked horrified. “Nothing,” he said hastily. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to bribe a girl into …”
I wasn’t listening to him. I was outraged that Tad thought I was like my brother, that I’d turn traitor and betray everything and everyone to grab at the chance of a place on a new world.
“Whatever your plan is,” I ranted at him, “there’s one big flaw in it. I’m not interested in your bribe because I’d never leave Earth. You may not think much of this planet, Tad. First people ruined it with centuries of over-population and pollution, then they callously ran off and left it, but this is the home world of humanity and some of us love it!”
Tad cowered, pressing himself into the side of the tent to create more distance between us. “Please forget I ever suggested you going to another world. I assure you I wasn’t trying to bribe you to be … affectionate to me. I was just worried about how difficult and dangerous your life is here in New York.”
Affectionate to him? I realized I’d got things completely wrong. Of course Tad hadn’t been assuming I’d turn traitor like my brother. Tad didn’t know how Seamus had betrayed us to the off-worlders in exchange for a place on one of the new colony worlds. Tad didn’t even know I had a brother.
“I apologize,” I said, in a much calmer voice. “I didn’t think you were trying to bribe me into sleeping with you. I overreacted because I care about Earth, and because what you said reminded me of something bad that …”
There was a sharp movement from one of the fishing lines. “Fish!” I said, and crawled hastily out of the tent.
There was a brief distraction while we reeled that fish in, and put new bait on the hooks, then Tad spoke again, choosing his words with paranoid care. “I accept you want to stay on Earth, but there must be better places to live than in New York. Couldn’t you come to Fence with us and join one of the settlements there?”
I shook my head. “When the last of the citizens left New York, a lot of them withdrew to those settlements behind Fence. They won’t have forgotten how they fought a losing battle to defend their neighbourhoods from the looters, or how some of their friends died on the barricades. They wouldn’t let a looter’s daughter into their settlement, they’d shoot me!”
“We wouldn’t have to mention your mother,” said Tad. “We could just say you were from the Resistance.”
I groaned. “The citizens would shoot me for that too.”
“But your father mentioned sending Resistance members to join the citizen settlements.”
“The citizens used to let Resistance members join them so long as they weren’t on record as political criminals,” I said. “That all changed when they found out the Resistance had formed an alliance with the old criminal gangs. Allying with the citizens’ bitter enemies meant we became their enemies too, and …”
I broke off my sentence because something was moving high above us on the undamaged apartment block.
“Look!” I pointed. What had seemed like just another aging piece of concrete on the side of the building had detached itself, and was gliding steeply downwards. “Falling star on an attack run!”
Chapter Eleven
Tad put down the fishing line that he’d been reeling in, and looked upwards.
I saw the falling star bank slightly, turning to the left. “It’s not coming for us or the other fishing pairs,” I shouted. “It’s after something on the other side of the building. Come on!”
I climbed onto the concrete block, then the wall, and finally the roof. I ran across to the other side, and checked Tad was following me before heading down the ladder. I arrived on the ground, waited impatiently for Tad to catch me up, then ran along the front of the burned out apartment block.
As I rounded the corner, I nearly fell over a heaving, grey mass on the ground. Whatever the falling star had been hunting, it had caught it.
“Get your knife out!” I yelled.
I grabbed my own knife from its sheath, fell to my knees next to the falling star, and started stabbing its centre. A moment later, Tad was hacking away with his knife as well. For a few seconds, there was no reaction from the falling star, then its tentacles started lashing out. One of them hit me hard, knocking me sideways into the slushy snow, and Tad turned his head to look at me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Kill it!”
The falling star had released its prey now. I ignored the pathetic heap of wet, black fur, picked myself up, and rejoined the attack. For another minute, we battled to dodge the flailing tentacles and stab the centre of the falling star, and then it abruptly went limp. Tad kept stabbing it until I pointed out the obvious.
“It’s dead.”
Tad stood up, and made a retching noise as if he was going to be sick. “What’s that dreadful smell?”
“Digestive juices. If you think this is bad, imagine what it’s like for the prey being smothered in them.”
“Oh yes.” Tad turned to look at the black-furred object that was lying on its side, gasping for breath. “Is that poor cat all right?”
He stretched out a hand towards the cat. It struggled to its feet, flattened its ears against its head, and hissed at him. I laughed.
“I thought cats were kept as pets,” said Tad, in a wounded voice.
“The ones round here have been feral for generations.”
Tad watched the cat stagger off into the building. “It could have shown a bit of gratitude for us saving its life.”
“Forget the cat,” I said. “We keep some carts in the entrance to the intact apartment block. We’d better get one and load up the falling star, so it’s ready for us to collect after we’ve finished fishing. Now most of the snow has melted, there shouldn’t be a problem getting the cart along the path home.”
I headed for the building, and gestured at the carts. “We’ll use the nearer one because it has the best wheels.”
“Why do we want to take the falling star back to …?” Tad broke off and groaned. “Please don’t tell me that we’re going to eat it.”
I grinned at him. In the last few minutes, my emotions had swung wildly between liking Tad and loathing him, and now fighting a common enemy had made him, at least temporarily, my ally. “They try to eat us. Why shouldn’t we eat them?”
“The stink!”
“You have to drain the digestive juices, soak the falling star in water for twenty-four hours, then skin and boil it. By the time you’ve done that to a baby falling star, there’s nothing left to eat, but a big one like this has plenty of meat on it.”
Tad collected the cart, and pushed it back to where we’d left the falling star. I eyed it dubiously. This was one of the biggest falling stars I’d ever seen. Tad might be able to lift half its weight, but I couldn’t.
“We’ll have to cut it in two pieces to get it onto the cart,” I said.
It took us a quarter of an hour to hack through the leathery skin and get the pieces of falling star into the cart. I was ready to drop from fatigue by the time we’d got back over the roof to start fishing again, and desperate to hear the whistled signal from Natsumi that would order us to head home.
r /> When the longed-for whistle finally sounded, we still had to pack up, and then struggle over the roof yet again, this time with the extra burden of bags of fish. When we reached ground level, I looked dubiously at the cart with its heavy load of falling star pieces, and then at the heap of fish bags.
One of us was going to have to push the cart along the badly rutted path home, while the other carried the fishing bags. Pushing the cart would be an equal strain on both arms, and my left arm was already painful. If I carried the bags, I could take most of the weight on my right shoulder.
“Tad, you’d better push the cart.”
He started picking up the fish bags.
“I said you’d better push the cart,” I repeated. “I’ll carry the bags.”
Tad piled the fish bags on top of the cart. One fell off, but he picked it up and wedged it between a couple of falling star tentacles. “I can take the fish bags as well. You’ve had to do most of the work today, showing me how to do everything, and you look exhausted.”
I hesitated. “You’ll find it difficult pushing that cart without overloading it as well.”
Tad got the cart moving. “I’m much stronger than I look.”
I stopped arguing. I didn’t like accepting help from an off-worlder, but Tad was right about me being exhausted.
“I’ve been doing weight training at the gym for the last year,” Tad added. “That’s how I met Braden.”
I blinked. Yesterday, Tad had claimed that he, Phoenix and Braden were a team working for the Adonis Institute of Cultural Heritage. Now he’d just let slip the fact he’d met Braden at the gym.
The cart juddered to a halt and tipped sideways, one of its wheels firmly jammed in a hole in the path. I turned to help Tad free the cart, but saw him casually lift it out of the hole himself. Whatever else he was lying about, it was true that he was much stronger than he looked.
I saw Natsumi and Phoenix standing on the path ahead of us. Natsumi gave a nod of approval at Tad pushing the over-loaded cart.
“I’m glad to see you’re making the leech work hard for his food, Blaze.” She gestured at Phoenix. “You can take charge of this one too.”
Phoenix instantly moved to stand by my side, and I heard her give a faint sigh of relief. Our group walked on down the path to where three more figures in heavy coats were waiting. One of them was Himeko, but I couldn’t see Hannah.
“Why isn’t Hannah with you, Himeko?” I asked anxiously. “Has there been an accident?”
Himeko shrugged. “No. Hannah decided to go back with a couple of the other women.”
Hannah hadn’t been hurt then, but I still frowned. Phoenix had clearly had a grim time fishing with Natsumi. Judging from the cold tone of Himeko’s voice, Hannah would have had a bad day as well, bad enough that she’d chosen to head back with another fishing pair to escape from Himeko.
Tad, Phoenix and I moved on with the others. Phoenix was pale and silent, while Tad was too breathless to talk. When we finally reached the Parliament House and went inside, he stopped pushing the cart and groaned.
“We weren’t the only ones to get a falling star then,” he said. “I thought we’d done brilliantly, but …”
I turned to look at a row of carts by the wall, each half-buried in the unwieldy bulk of a falling star. Fifteen of them. Sixteen with ours. I was torn between delight at the sight of so much potential food, and anxiety that sixteen adult falling stars had come across the river from Manhattan to attack us in a single day.
During my first year in New York, we’d only killed one or two large falling stars a week. The number had gradually increased since then. Last year, the record in a single day was ten falling stars, and now it was sixteen. Would we reach the point where falling stars didn’t just make life difficult and dangerous for us, but totally impossible?
I tried to concentrate on the positive thought that this was a huge boost to our food supplies. “We did well,” I told Tad, “which is far safer for you than doing brilliantly. People would be grumbling if you hadn’t brought back your share of food, but they wouldn’t like an off-worlder outdoing them either.”
Marsha was on duty by the door as usual. Phoenix and I handed our knife belts to her, but Tad was still staring gloomily at the carts. Marsha pointedly held out a hand towards him. “Knife.”
“Sorry.” He hastily unbuckled his belt and handed it over. “I forgot.”
She shook her head. “You must never, ever forget. Only Donnell and his officers are allowed to carry weapons on common ground. If anyone caught you wearing your knife belt in Reception, they’d be entitled to kill you and claim self defence.”
Marsha limped away to put the knife belts with the others lying on the tables, waiting to be cleaned and locked away for the night.
Tad gave me an uncertain look. “She was joking, wasn’t she? People couldn’t kill me just for forgetting to hand in a knife belt.”
“Yes, they could,” I said. “That rule is vital. There are back doors to every wing of this building. Each division can smuggle anything they like in through them, so they’ll all have vast numbers of hunting bows, knives, swords, and chaos knows what else in their private storerooms. If we let people carry those weapons on common ground, then a casual fight could escalate into a mass bloodbath.”
Several women arrived, grabbed the fish bags, and wheeled our cart to join the others. I saw Hannah standing over by the Resistance tables, and was reminded that I must talk to Donnell about her as soon as possible. He didn’t seem to be in Reception at the moment, but Aaron and Braden were walking towards us. I noticed Braden’s limp was much worse than it had been at breakfast.
“Can you take charge of Braden now?” asked Aaron. “I’ve got another job to do.”
I nodded, and Aaron went hurrying off.
“How is your leg, Braden?” I asked.
“A little sore after so much walking.”
“I’ll ask Nadira to check it again after …”
I was interrupted by a sudden outbreak of jeering. I turned and saw Rogue of Queens Island division being dragged through Reception by a group of ten men.
Chapter Twelve
Rogue was in his mid-twenties, with black hair in dreadlocks that hung past his shoulders. He was a muscular man, but stood no chance of resisting the ten men forcing him across the room.
“What’s going on?” Phoenix asked in an anxious whisper.
I pulled a face. “You remember what I told you about general justice rules?”
“You mean he’s …”
Phoenix let her words trail off as a girl stepped forward from the Queens Island division area. That was Rogue’s girlfriend, Raeni, a year or so younger than him, her hair and skin even darker. She called out his name in a tense voice, saying the single word as if it was a question. Rogue glanced at her, and gave an odd shake of his head, before being dragged outside.
I sighed. I didn’t want to watch this, but the off-worlders probably needed to see the punishment. It was the only way they’d really understand how important it was for them to prove themselves useful.
Rogue was briefly out of view, then appeared again as his captors dragged him to the post positioned outside the glass-walled front of Reception.
“Why are they tying him to that post, Blaze?” Phoenix had an edge of panic in her voice. “What are they going to do to him?”
I was too worried about what was happening outside to answer the question. A general justice punishment squad included two men from each division. Normally the two men from Rogue’s own division would be trying to protect him from the others, making sure they were the ones to tie him to the post. Instead, they were pointedly standing well away from him, letting the two men from Manhattan division, their most bitter enemies, enjoy the chance to tie up a man from Queens Island.
I frowned. When general justice was called against someone, there was always a delay of a week to gather evidence, so Rogue’s trial had been held during the last blizzard. The whole o
f the alliance had watched as his division leader, Major, had refused to speak in his defence.
Now it was obvious that Major had ordered his men not to defend Rogue during the punishment either. The Queens Island division leader had a reputation for that sort of underhanded, vicious behaviour when he was displeased with one of his people. I deeply pitied everyone who had to live under his rule.
Rogue was totally helpless now, tied to the post with his arms behind him. The Manhattan men laughed at him, and one of them grabbed hold of Rogue’s hair, yanking his head brutally backwards, and leaned in close to whisper something in his ear. Why wasn’t one of Donnell’s officers out there supervising this situation?
Then I saw Aaron stroll up to join the group of men. He must have already been outside, but blocked from my view by the wall of the building. He said something to the Manhattan men, and they moved away from Rogue. I relaxed. Aaron would keep this under control.
“What are they going to do to him?” repeated Phoenix.
“They’re punishing him by using him as bait,” I said.
Tad looked horrified. “Bait? For falling stars?”
I nodded.
Rogue was alone at the punishment post now, face tense, eyes desperately looking upwards. The men were chatting cheerfully to each other as they watched and waited. The off-worlders watched too, caught in a sort of horrified fascination.
“They won’t actually let the falling star eat him, will they?” asked Braden.
“No,” I said. “The punishment squad always move in and kill the falling star, but how fast they do that depends on whether they have a grudge against the person being punished and want to see them suffer. That’s why Aaron’s out there. If the squad waits dangerously long to attack the falling star, Aaron will start killing it himself.”
There was a short silence. “The sun is setting,” said Tad. “Falling stars don’t attack in the dark, do they?”