He did not notice that the others were staring until he turned. Jaya looked amused, Chandi as if she was ready to berate him, and the Yumi indifferent, except for Daz. The general smiled, though it was cold and devoid of kindness.
“How brave of the two of you,” he said.
The door slid open, and their Yumi escort stepped through.
“The ships are ready,” she said.
Two black Ayoni ships floated at the end of the dock. Their hulls curved elegantly, each plank perfectly melded into the other so that there seemed to be no seams but a collective whole. Even the guns outfitted along the sides had an organic quality, as if they were living, breathing beasts. Samson had not heard the ships approach. They made no sounds as they floated, a marvel in itself. Elena drew up beside him, eyes wide.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” she asked, her voice soft with awe.
He shook his head mutely.
“They’ll do,” Jaya said.
Rhumia started. “They’ll do?The bounders aren’t styluses you swap in and out like in one of your games.”
“Everything is a game, dear Rhumia,” Jaya said as she walked the length of the boat. “Everything.”
“Let’s load in now,” Daz said.
Samson nodded, unable to tear his eyes away. “Yes. Chandi, bring in the men from the tankers. It’s time we set sail.”
As his soldiers filed onto the docks, Samson watched them take in this strange, silent port. Like him, they observed the workers in the distance and the glass city they could not touch. They watched the lone Ayoni, who stood in his rigid black coat and counted off on his holopod, his eyes sweeping over them.
“There’s something odd about that man,” he whispered to Elena.
“The quicker we get everyone in, the faster we can get out of here,” she said.
Suddenly, a whirring started beneath their feet. Samson startled as the dockshifted. Elena cried out in alarm, and he grabbed her hand, pulling her to him, as the dock where she had stood turned inward, blocking off the first boat. His men shouted, pinned against the trapped ship. On the other side, the adjacent dock blocked the second bounder, and the workers in their helmets marched onto the platform.
Armed with guns.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Sam.” Her hand was warm against his chest, her voice urgent. “Sam,look.”
Behind them, Daz shouted in Ayini. The Yumi were cornered on one end, and then Samson noticed the dockmaster standing on the only stable part of the dock, a stylus glinting in his hand.
“I knew it! You fucking chicken-livered sandbag!” Jaya screamed. She was balanced on two planks that precariously floated before the ship engines. “You took my design!”
And then Samson saw that she was right, that the docks hedging in the two boats was like the gameplan Jaya had made earlier of the bounders trapping in the killdoms.
“What’s happening?” Chandi called. She stood on the other end of the plank with Jaya. “Daz, tell us!”
“I’ll tell you,” the Ayoni said in perfect Hind. “We have been awaiting payment for three days now, and here you are speaking of setting sail. That will not do, friends. General Daz must pay.”
“Then make him pay up and stop fooling with us,” Jaya shot back.
“I’m afraid you are a part of the payment,” he said.
Elena whipped to Daz. “What kind of payment?”
“This was not a part of our agreement,” Daz snapped. “Bresingi, wealready paid our fare with contracts pledged to your empress. You are breaking the good faith between our—”
“You came with Sesharians,” Bresingi said coldly, and the look he gave to Samson then made his skin curdle. “Our empress asks for fifty hail Sesharian sailors to work and sail the ships you’ve contracted to us. I believe there are over fifty who came with your guests.”
“No,” Samson spat.
