If I was annoyed by my personal tag, then Cage must be totally infuriated by the one he’d had on his belt and bow for the last six years. It showed a set of teeth marks that perfectly matched the scar I’d left on his arm.
Cage was too clever to risk complaining to Marsha about it though. She chose her tags to highlight something about your general reputation, so attempting to get one changed always did more harm than good. It focused the attention of the whole alliance on whatever you wanted forgotten, and one annoying painted tag could be replaced with something even worse. If I ever hinted that I didn’t like the flames on my belt, then they’d probably be replaced by a reference to my brother.
Tad watched Hannah pick up her belt. Inevitably he made a tactless comment about that one as well. “I see there’s a hand for your personal tag, Hannah, but there’s no division tag.”
She glared at him. “I’ve no division tag because I only have trial membership of the Resistance.”
“Oh.” Tad took a hasty step backwards. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to …”
Phoenix hastily intervened. “I’ve found what must be our belts. Three of them marked with a star for off-world.” She laughed and held one out. “I think this one must be yours, Tad.”
He took the belt, and looked at the open mouth next to the star. “That’s a bit unfair.”
Phoenix ignored him. “The belt with the limping man must be for Braden since he’s hurt his leg.” She handed the second belt to Braden, who accepted it without comment.
“That means this one is mine.” Phoenix picked up the third belt and tried it for size on her waist. “I don’t understand the tag though. It looks like a crown.”
“That’s because Donnell finally seems to be thinking of marrying again.” Hannah’s tone was acidly resentful.
Phoenix’s face flushed with embarrassment, and I felt horribly uncomfortable. I wanted to reassure Hannah that Donnell was only faking an interest in Phoenix, but I couldn’t repeat things I’d been told in confidence.
I hid my confusion by stooping to grab some net bags from the heap on the floor. I handed them to Tad and Phoenix, and saw their noses wrinkle in disgust at the stink of fish.
“Let’s get outside now,” I said.
I headed through the door and the others followed, the off-worlders still buckling their knife belts round their waists. The snow outside was melting fast, and water was dripping from the row of portals. I led the way past the vast glass front of Reception, and turned to study the end wall of the building.
“I don’t understand how there can be predators in New York,” said Tad. “Didn’t people get rid of all the dangerous animals on Earth centuries ago?”
“There were a few left,” I said, “and they are increasing in numbers now, but the real problem in New York is from off-world creatures. Falling stars.”
“Off-world creatures?” asked Phoenix. “How did they get through the interstellar portals to Earth, Blaze?”
“They didn’t get through the portals. They were brought through them to be zoo exhibits. In the confusion of huge numbers of people heading off world, some falling stars got loose.”
“I’ve never heard of an alien creature called a falling star.” Tad seemed surprisingly annoyed that he didn’t know every single life form on hundreds of colony worlds.
“When the temperature is below freezing, all the falling stars find shelter and go dormant. Today things are warm enough for them to wake up and come out to hunt. There’s one of them.” I pointed out a bright scarlet patch on the wall.
“It looks too small to be dangerous,” said Tad. “Do they have poisonous bites, or stings, or …” He watched me pick it up and let his words trail off. “Evidently not.”
The falling star was almost big enough to cover my right hand, the scarlet contrasting with my black glove. “We call them stars because they look a bit like an Earth starfish with six arms. We call them falling stars because of the way they hunt. If you look closely, you’ll see there are suckers underneath the arms. They use those suckers to climb up the side of buildings. They don’t seem to have proper eyes, so maybe they hunt through scent or sound. Whatever the method they use, when they spot their prey they let go of the building, and spread out flaps of skin between their arms to slow their fall. Watch!”
I tossed the falling star into the air. It fought to get itself the right way up, and glided towards the wall.
“It looks a bit like an old-fashioned parachute,” said Tad.
The falling star landed neatly at the base of the wall, and reverted to starfish form to start climbing up it again.
“As you just saw, they can control their fall,” I said. “They silently swoop in, land on top of their prey, and smother it. After it dies from suffocation, they sit on the corpse for hours, slowly eating away the flesh with their digestive juices.”
“It’s a starbird from Danae in Alpha sector!” Tad seemed hugely relieved to have worked this out.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“They live on the sides of cliffs on Danae, so I can see they’d like the sides of buildings here,” he continued, “but they’re perfectly harmless. They hunt the local equivalent of mice.”
“The people who brought them to Earth thought they were harmless too,” I said. “An alien creature that came in lots of different colours, and looked pretty floating through the air. They were ideal novelties to entertain the public. Easy to breed too.”
I pulled a face. “Then they got loose, and they bred in the wild on Earth as easily as in the zoos. That was when people learned something new about them. Apparently there isn’t much iron in their diet on their home planet, and that limits their growth. Once they’re free in a city, they can feast on pure metal, growing far larger.”
I turned and looked across at the other side of the river. “The falling star I just showed you is one of last summer’s hatchlings.” I pointed towards Manhattan. “Take a look at the grey thing gliding between those two skyscrapers.”
“Is that as big as I think it is?” asked Tad, in a stunned voice.
I nodded. “The adult falling stars in New York don’t just hunt mice. They hunt people!”
Chapter Nine
“But why didn’t the United Earth authorities do something?” asked Tad. “As soon as they found out the falling stars were dangerous, they should have hunted them down.”
“They tried,” I said. “The problem was the falling stars had escaped from zoos in New York and Cairo, and both cities already had large abandoned areas controlled by criminals. When the authorities realized they couldn’t deal with the falling stars themselves, they tried importing a natural predator of the falling stars from their home planet, and let some of those loose in New York and Cairo. Small, blue, flying lizard things.”
Tad blinked. “The authorities had a problem with one alien creature loose on Earth, so they let loose a second one! That was pretty … desperate.”
“Perhaps, but it worked beautifully in Cairo. When the lizards attacked as a group, they could kill even the biggest falling stars. It didn’t help the situation here in New York though, because the lizards all died of cold in their first New York winter. The falling stars found their ideal home on the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and have been steadily increasing both their numbers and size. When I first arrived in New York, they rarely glided across the river to bother us, but now they’re a constant threat.”
Tad started asking another question, but Phoenix interrupted him in a strained voice. “We don’t need to know details about how this happened, Tad, or how people tried and failed to deal with it decades ago. We do need to know how we fight those things. If one of them drops on me, what do I do?”
Chaos take it, I was starting to admire Phoenix. She’d been used to a safe, secure life on Adonis. Now she was among hostile strangers, faced with the prospect of having to hunt for food while falling stars were hunting her. She was clearly scared to death, but she was working hard to adapt and surv
ive. I’d feel far safer if I was going fishing with her today rather than Tad.
“If a falling star catches you off guard,” I said, “then you won’t be in a position to do any fighting. It won’t just be covering your head, but most of your body as well, pinning your arms to your sides. That’s why we always work in pairs when we’re outside. Falling stars hunt solo, so if you’re caught then your partner is still free to do the fighting.”
I pointed at the scarlet falling star that was slowly creeping up the wall. “The brain and central nervous system of a falling star are in the middle of its back. If you stab it there a few times, it will go into spasms and release its prey. If you keep stabbing it, then it eventually dies.”
I turned to Braden. “If your objections to violence prevent you from fighting falling stars, you’d better say so right now before you get someone killed.”
“Fighting to save a human life is ethically justifiable,” said Braden earnestly. “Fighting to take a human life is not. Don’t you agree?”
I lived in a world where verbal arguments often turned into physical fights. I’d never spent much time worrying about the ethics of that, because I was too busy staying alive. I ignored the question and drew my knife from my belt.
“You want to stab the falling star, but not injure the person being smothered. That’s why Marsha’s job with the knives is so vital. She grinds the blades to exactly the right length, slightly longer than a man’s thumb. If a falling star is big enough to be a threat to a human being, then your knife will stab deep into the middle of it but not come out the other side.”
Tad, Phoenix and Braden all drew their knives and studied them. Tad and Braden put their knives back in their sheaths after that, but Phoenix kept hers out.
“In theory, it sounds simple,” I said. “In reality, it can get totally chaotic. The person being smothered has to try to keep perfectly still, which takes a lot of self-control when you’re suffocating, but panicking and rolling around can make your partner miss the middle of the falling star. If they stab somewhere thinner by accident, they won’t just hurt the falling star but you as well.”
“So if you’re the one doing the stabbing, it’s vital to aim for the centre,” muttered Braden.
I nodded. “Once the falling star starts flailing its arms, you stop stabbing for a moment to let the trapped person get free. Ideally, they’ll join in the fight after that and help kill the falling star, but they’re usually too busy being sick.”
I turned and started heading back to where the groups of men were standing outside the building. Tad, Braden and Hannah followed me, but Phoenix glanced back at the baby falling star.
“Shouldn’t we kill that one?”
“There’s no point. It’s too bright a colour to survive the winter. Falling stars are cannibals, killing and eating smaller ones of their own kind, and some Earth creatures hunt baby falling stars as well. The ones that make it to adult size are always a colour close to that of the buildings around here.”
Tad gave a paranoid look upwards. “I thought all the darker patches on that wall were the concraz ageing, but …”
“Most of them probably are,” I said, “but sometimes one is a falling star.”
Phoenix reluctantly put her knife away, and we walked on.
“If someone gets hurt in a fight with a falling star,” I added, “there’s a whistle attached to your knife belt. You blow that to call for help. Three short blasts, three long blasts, three short blasts.”
“Like the old Morse code signal,” said Tad.
I was startled. “How do you know about Morse code?”
Tad and Phoenix exchanged glances. “I came across it in a history text,” said Tad. “Braden is going to be with a whole group of men who know how to fight falling stars. Wouldn’t it be better if Phoenix and I were each with at least two people who knew what they were doing as well, rather than just one? At least for the first couple of times we go fishing? I’m worried I’ll mess things up and you’ll get hurt.”
“I’m pretty worried about that too,” I said, “but Donnell told you the reason for it last night. We have to show people that you aren’t just leeching food, but helping hunt it, and bringing along someone extra to nursemaid you would scream the fact you’re a burden.”
The depressed grunt from Tad seemed to mean he accepted that.
“Braden’s belt is already tagged with the limping man symbol,” I said grimly. “If you and Phoenix get warning tags as well, then there’ll be real trouble.”
“Are the knife belt tags really that important?” asked Tad.
“They’re incredibly important,” I said. “You shouldn’t have asked questions about personal tags because that upsets people. You shouldn’t have asked about Queens Island’s name in front of Marsha either.”
Tad gave a bewildered wave of his hands. “Why not?”
“Because Marsha was the leader of Staten Island division before it merged with Queens. There are two different stories about what happened back then. One version says Marsha’s people deliberately betrayed her and left her behind because they’d had enough of her vindictive nature. Another says that Queens had promised to accept Marsha, but changed their minds when they found out that she’d injured her leg in the fighting at the citizens’ barricades and it hadn’t healed properly.”
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea which is true, but Marsha was left without a division. A few months later, someone was attacked by a falling star and badly injured by their partner’s knife. There was a huge argument about whether the partner had chosen a knife that was too long by accident or on purpose, and Marsha offered to take full responsibility for the knives in future.”
I pulled a face. “She was risking her life doing that, because she had no division leader to speak in her defence if she made a mistake and someone got hurt. It took Marsha a long time to get everyone’s full trust, more time to build up the tradition of the painted tags on the knife belts, but now she holds a powerful position as the judge of the reputation of everyone in the alliance. The personal tag on your knife belt sums up her verdict on you. No one wants to offend her in case they find something especially embarrassing painted on their knife belt, or even one of the warning tag symbols like the limping man.”
Phoenix looked even more anxious than before. “Braden has the limping man painted on his knife belt. You say that’s a warning? Of what exactly?”
“The limping man means people think you aren’t contributing your share,” I said. “It’s a warning that you need to change your ways quickly or very unpleasant things will happen.”
“Very unpleasant things,” repeated Braden nervously. “Aren’t we under the protection of the Resistance?”
“Yes, but the alliance rules on general justice still apply to you.” I sighed. “You need to understand how our justice system works. Each division has the absolute right to deal with internal problems however they wish, but anyone committing crimes against people outside their own division is subject to the general justice rules. Those were originally intended to stop any division sheltering someone who attacked or stole from people in other divisions, but any alliance representative could use them to call general justice against you for taking food without contributing.”
Tad frowned. “Who are these alliance representatives? The division leaders?”
“Each division has eight alliance representatives. The Resistance representatives are Donnell and his officers.”
“You mean that any of thirty-two people in the other divisions could demand we were put on trial, and Donnell wouldn’t be able to stop it?” asked Phoenix, in a shaky voice.
“Donnell has to follow the alliance rules,” I said, “but it would take more than one alliance representative to get you put on trial. Any call for general justice has to be supported by at least four more representatives, including representatives from two other divisions, before things move on to a formal trial.”
“But there’d be plenty of repres
entatives eager to support a call for general justice against off-worlders,” said Phoenix bleakly.
“I’m afraid that’s true,” I said.
Hannah broke her silence to join in the conversation. “You don’t need to worry about general justice, Phoenix,” she said, in a resentful voice. “You’ll be perfectly safe as long as you keep Donnell interested in you. It’s Braden and Tad who are really in danger. People will only allow them a few days to start contributing before …”
She was interrupted by a voice speaking next to us. “Have you finished instructing the off-worlders, Blaze?”
I hastily turned to face the figure swamped in a thick coat. “Yes, Natsumi.”
“I hope they haven’t been causing you any trouble.” Natsumi’s hood and scarf covered almost all of her face, so I could only see her alert, dark eyes, but her voice sounded surprisingly friendly.
“No, everything is fine.”
“If you have any difficulties with the boy during the day, then use your signal whistle and I’ll come at once.”
“Thank you,” I said, confused by her sudden concern for me.
“Braden, you should join Donnell now,” Natsumi added, in glacial tones. “Phoenix, come with me.”
Braden hurried to where a group of men were gathering round Donnell, and Natsumi and Phoenix walked away. I saw all the men and women were outside now, and the children were spilling out of the doorway to join them, running to start playing their game with the portals.
“Dial it! Dial it! Portal, dial it!” their ritual chant began. “We’re ordering you by Newton. We’re commanding you by Einstein. We’re conjuring you by Thaddeus Wallam-Crane!”
I headed towards the crowd, with Tad walking on one side of me and Hannah on the other. I could see Hannah glaring across me at Tad, but he was watching the children playing with the portals. Hannah gave up on him, and turned her attention to where Phoenix was standing next to Natsumi.