The Stars Are Legion(48)

There’s a murmur in the crowd behind me.

A skinny woman, closer to my age, points a bony finger at me and snorts. “This is clearly a case of delusion,” she says.

“There are other levels,” Casamir says. “We have seen many of them and met many different kinds of people. It may not be . . . so incredible. Perhaps this is just how her broken mind put together what happened to her.”

“None like she states,” the older woman says.

I finger the garrote and consider taking Casamir hostage and fighting my way out. It will get messy. I try a different tack. “You’re traders,” I say. “If you help me get back to my own level, I can open up a new trade route for you. We have all sorts of wonders,” I say. “Clothing that you can spray on, durable, like mine.” I smooth a hand over my sleeve. “We have sentient vehicles”—well, they won’t be going out into the vacuum, will they—“that can help you haul things. We have different kinds of foods and materials.” From the looks on their faces, they still aren’t convinced. I reach. “We have many different kinds of metals,” I lie, because the most metal I’ve ever seen on the first level was on Anat’s arm. “In browns and golds and grays. You can build a great many things with what we have to offer.”

That rouses the crowd. The women at the table confer with one another in their own language. The plump older woman leans forward. “And if you are mad?”

“If I’m just some mad person, then what have you lost in helping me?” I say. “Casamir is precocious. She is a thrill-seeker, trouble. What do you lose by letting her guide us if that is what you want? You’ll keep her busy and out of your hair. You lose nothing.”

Casamir raises her brows at me, but says nothing.

“How will we bind her to her word?” the skinny woman says. “If you are telling the truth, and you arrive back to this . . . level of yours, then what’s to keep you bound to your word?”

I shrug. “You’ll have to trust me.”

She snorts. “Trust? No. I say we bind her blood.”

More murmurs from the crowd. I look at Casamir.

“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Casamir says.

“What is that?” I say.

“They cut out a piece of your flesh,” Casamir says, “and . . . make stuff out of it.”

“Like what?” I ask.

Casamir shakes her head. “You don’t want to know.”

“Well, I won’t have to,” I say. “I’ll keep my promise. If you can get me to the surface, I’m happy to trade with your people. But we need to get there.” I pause and meet the gaze of every woman on the stage. “Safely.”

They confer again. The crowd, too, shifts to low conversation, and I try to gauge the mood. Casamir doesn’t look at me. I tighten my grip on the garrote.

Das Muni takes my arm. “Not yet,” she says. “Not yet.”

We wait. I take a long look at the ceiling and glance back at our escape route up the amphitheater. Casamir may not be the best hostage to take. I’ll need one of the elders, the council. The skinny one, preferably. That will feel most satisfying. I play it out. Six steps to the table. The garrote, the threat, the hustling up the stairs . . . The metal door will be a problem, but if they care enough about this little council . . .

“We agree to your terms,” the skinny woman says.

I startle out of my plan, a little shocked.

Casamir grins. Raises a fist. “Oh, you will not regret this,” she says. “My first mission!”

“Let’s hope it’s not your last,” says the plump woman. “Take her to the butchers to harvest her flesh. You are permitted the standard supplies. Go.”

Leaving the amphitheater is a bit of a haze. I’m still half-stuck in the other reality, the one where I have to fight my way out. Casamir takes me to an efficient, clinical little room with a woman and a large bone scalpel.

“Where do you want me to take it from?” she asks, and I honestly have no idea. I stare at the heft of my body and wonder just how much flesh I have to spare. Who wants to sacrifice the bulk that gives them strength and presence?

“My thigh?” I say, and before I have time to reconsider, she’s sliced fast and deep, two cuts.

I yell, and two more women come in and restrain me while she carves out a fist-sized lump of flesh from my thigh and plops it into a clear container.

She stuffs the wound full of a sweet-smelling compress that’s clearly crawling with worms or parasites, and tells me to hold still as she wraps my wounded thigh. I curse because she’s cut my good leg. Why didn’t she go for the other one?

The compress stifles the pain, though, enough for me to stand and yell at Casamir, “What is that for? What’s the point of that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Casamir says. “You’re keeping your promise, right? So, it’s not important.”

I want to get out of here as quickly as possible now, fearful that the council will change their mind. Casamir wants to linger and chatter with friends about the trial, because really, that’s what it is, but I hound her onward. We collect supplies from a woman in the engineering room. I’m starving, weak with hunger, but I don’t even want to stop to eat.

I limp beside Casamir as we push back out across the big traders’ hall, heading back for the main entrance while people glide above us in their balloon baskets.