A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(38)

She put the piece of purple stuff into her satchel. It was a good time to go back, she thought. The sun was making the air real hot, and the skin on her arms kind of hurt. It was more red than usual.

Jane 64’s face had been red, too, red and puffy and wrong and scared and—

She heard a rattling sound. The knife in her hand was shaking. She was shaking. She wanted to go back to Owl. She wanted to go back right now. Owl had said she could come home if she felt bad, and she did feel bad, so she would.

The animals started making a lot of noise. Most of them were running or flying away. Jane turned around. Two dogs stood there, watching the one thing that hadn’t run away. Watching her.

Her stomach hurt and her eyes burned. She wanted to be back with Owl. She wanted to be back in her bed – her bed, with 64. She wanted a meal cup and a shower and not dogs. But there were dogs anyway, and they were making quiet angry sounds.

Her body wanted to run, like it had when the Mother stared at her through the wall, but there was no good place to go. The water hole had scrap all around it. The only way out was past the dogs. She didn’t think she could run by them without them being able to bite her.

‘Help,’ she said, real quiet. ‘Owl, help.’

But Owl was too far.

She switched the knife into her other hand and grabbed the weapon rod. She took a step back, shaking bad. ‘Stop,’ she said, trying not to cry. ‘Go away.’

One of the dogs came closer, getting loud, teeth all wet.

‘Go away!’ she yelled, kicking a piece of scrap toward it. ‘Go away!’

The dog made a louder sound. It ran at her.

She tripped backward, but she remembered to point the weapon at the dog, and pushed the button as it jumped and opened its mouth of teeth.

There were so many sounds. The generator hummed. The electricity cracked off the forks. The dog screamed, which was the most bad part of all. It fell down screaming, and shook and twitched. It was the scariest thing she’d ever seen, even worse than the Mothers. She held the button down anyway. There was a bad smell, a burning smell. The dog stopped twitching.

The other dog made an angry yell, and it jumped at her, too. She hit the button again. Hum. Crack. Scream.

Both dogs lay on the ground, fur smoking. Jane ran and ran and ran, satchel full of heavy canteens crashing into her leg. The dogs didn’t follow her.

It wasn’t until she stopped running that she understood they were dead.

She hadn’t meant to do that. She had made something to hurt dogs, but it worked too good, she guessed, because she had hurt them dead. That made her feel something in a very big way, something good and bad all at once.

She threw up. It was a bad thing to do, but she threw up until there was nothing left but gross sharp spit. She realised the front of her pants was wet, and her face burned as she understood why. She was ten.

Jane sat down in the dirt and drank a water pouch. She was still shaking. The good-bad feeling was still there, but the more she thought about things, the bigger the good part got. Things were okay. She had bad water that Owl would clean up, and she knew where to get more. She had something she could eat, maybe. She’d stopped the dogs. She’d stopped the dogs!

You look very brave, Owl had said. Jane thought of that and felt real good. She felt real good because Owl had been right.

‘I’m brave,’ Jane said, so she would remember. ‘I can stop dogs. I’m brave.’

On the way back, Jane reminded herself of the things she needed to ask Owl. She wanted to know words. Words for the flying animals, for the purple stuff that wasn’t an animal and also maybe food, and for the feeling you got when you felt bad for making a thing dead but also good because you were still alive.





SIDRA


The art district had every bit as much noise and detail as the others, but it was less crowded, at least. In the other districts, everything was always being pushed and sought in an important rush, as if your credits might not be good enough if you didn’t buy something now. But here, where the items for sale were anything but practical, both merchants and patrons seemed to have all the time in the world. Sidra could see little barrier between culture or medium. Everything was crammed in together – wooden Laru sculptures, Harmagian rock carvings, fusion artists mixing traditions with abandon, body artists offering to alter flesh and scale and shell. The shops reflected the same mix. On one end of the spectrum, there were pristine galleries with clean walls and echoing ceilings; on the other, you had people selling prints and figures from behind portable tables, or sometimes straight off the ground.

Blue’s shop fell somewhere between the two extremes, though nearer the more humble end. His stall – ‘Northwest Window’ – was in a larger communal building, one small cell in a busy hive. Sidra stood in the corridor for three minutes before walking through his door (painted, appropriately, in a thick coat of rich cyan). She’d behaved badly toward Pepper, she knew, and Blue was on Pepper’s side, first and foremost. Maybe he already knew about the fight. Maybe Pepper had sent him a message, telling him she was out of patience for Sidra’s nonsense. Maybe Blue felt the same way.

When Sidra walked in, her worries vanished. Blue looked up from his easel, and he smiled at her as warmly as he always did. ‘Sidra! What are, um, what are you doing up in the sun?’

‘I’m not at work today.’