AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shut up, Castor,” Cassius mutters to me. “Take your gift and be silent.”
I don’t shut up. Whether Cassius wants to admit it or not, these people are our kin. And if I do not stir the pot, the only opportunities will be the ones they choose to give us. That is unacceptable.
“She was in the Gulf for a reason,” I say to Diomedes. “And without permission from your father, it would seem.” Diomedes turns back, measuring me with a blademaster’s gaze: eyes then hands then scars. “Do you even know why? Or is that Krypteia jurisdiction?” His silence speaks for him. There it is. A chink in the emotional stoicism of the man. I appeal to what seems his strongest sense, that of a soldier’s honor: “If you are truly thankful that we saved Seraphina, save us. Do not let us see Io. We’re traders, that is all. We thought we stumbled upon salvage. All we’ve seen is a hangar, cells, and this ship. If we see anything beyond this ship, we both know we will never leave. Let me and my brother and our pilot go back from where we came. Escort us to the edge of your space and send us on our way. That is what is honorable. Life for life.”
“My brother is a child,” Cassius grovels to the knight. “Forgive his mouth. It tends to run. He didn’t grow up amongst his own.”
Diomedes walks back to me and cocks his head as if I were the most curious of bugs. “There are no eyes like yours beyond the Belt. You are a pretty boy. Aren’t you?” I don’t reply. “How old are you, Martian?”
“Twenty.”
“Your brother is right. You speak like one of our children.” With an easy show of strength, he grabs the chain attached to the back of my muzzle and pulls it so hard I’m lifted off my feet. My neck bends painfully. “A lesson is needed. I will teach you.”
“Don’t…” Cassius says from behind his muzzle.
Diomedes presses something on his datapad and Cassius’s muzzle buzzes with electricity. Shaking violently, Cassius falls back into his seat and I’m dragged by my chain through the prison unit into the loading bay. Diomedes shoves me into the center of the floor doors and presses me to my knees into the worn intersection of a painted red X. He does something behind me I can’t see, though I hear the click of metal and feel the evil fingers of fear slithering through my stomach. It’s a test. Slow your breathing. Do not be afraid. Stand astride the torrent.
He talks as he works.
“When I was a boy, I remember the envoys the Core would send. Slippery Politicos in their slick suits, fingers laden with gaudy rings.” I glance back and see him unspooling a cable that’s now attached to the back of my harness. “All they wanted to see were the seas of Europa. The mountains and towers and dockyards of Ganymede. Always, though, they had to come see my grandfather. To pay homage to Revus au Raa, because power lies where honor reigns. But you could smell the derision when they came to my home. They called my family savages behind our backs, safe under our shields. Rustics. Dusteaters.” Trailing the cable behind him, he walks to a red button protected by a plastic case on the wall. It takes every ounce of courage I have to remain kneeling in the center of the door and not to scramble to safety. He smiles at my inability to tame my fear. My hands shake. “They were startled by my grandfather’s hospitality. The respect he showed them. The gentle way in which he spoke, even as the Codovan and Norvo gnashed their teeth over Rhea. They mistook grace for weakness. Abused his kindness. Then Fabii learned the lesson I am about to teach you.”
“I don’t have an oxygen mask,” I say.
“No. You do not.”
With that, he slams his hand against the red button and the steel doors beneath my knees retract, leaving me kneeling on open air. My stomach rises up into my throat as I plummet out the belly of the craft, legs thrashing, holding my breath against the poisonous air. Wind roars through my ears. Then a horrible pain erupts at my waist as the cable snaps taut and arrests my fall, digging into my skin and jerking me upward. My head snaps down into the restraining vest so hard I feel metal puncture my skin and nick the bone of my forehead, sending flashing lights scattering across my vision. Blood streams into my eyes and I swing up, pressed to the belly of the craft as it races across a sky stained with acid-yellow clouds.
My body lurches into shock from the temperature. I’ll die from the heat well before I gasp for oxygen. I close my eyes as needles of fire stab into my brain. Sound and fury swallow me, pain as my body slaps against the hull. And just as my lungs have depleted their oxygen, I’m dragged back into the hangar by the chain and tossed onto the floor. I gasp for air and it’s some time before I can open my eyes. My body aches and my skin feels alive with fire. Diomedes stands over me, his dark eyes still and quiet, no evil in them, no malice. “Have you learned the lesson, gahja?” he asks. It is a lesson in respect.
“Apologies,” I manage.
This is met with a satisfied look from the man. “Forgiven,” he says, hoisting me up by my bonds. “Welcome to Io.”
“BLOODYDAMN.” I CURSE AND draw my hand back from the rosebushes. A small drop of blood beads where the thorn pricked me. I suck the blood away and stretch myself deeper into the bushes, feet spread wide so I don’t lose my balance in the low gravity as I scoop up the fox shit with my trowel. Body still hasn’t wised up to its own weight here. I reach the scat this time, taking a clump of dirt with it, and finally dump the waste into the blue plastic container Dr. Liago gave me for sample collection. Sophocles has been mad as a box of snakes since we arrived on Luna last week, trying his best to kill the lovely pachelbel birds that fill the trees of the Citadel’s gardens.
He was well mannered on the return trip from Mars when I was introduced to him by Kavax and told my duties by Bethalia, the terrifying old general of the army of Telemanus servants. Sophocles spent most of his days trotting around the ship with Liam and me, following along dutifully behind Kavax, or curled up in his master’s chambers, but now he catches one whiff of the pink birds and he’s nearly pulling my arm out of its socket to claw furrows in the trunks of trees.
Dr. Liago, the Telemanuses’ personal physician for fox and human alike, can’t figure out what’s wrong with the beast. Which leaves me picking up fox shit samples three times a day. Tedious, but compared with the muggy hell of Camp 121, it’s not a shabby life. I’m paid a good wage, fed three square, given four spare uniforms, and sleep in a climate-controlled bunk room. There’s no mosquitoes, and no fear when I walk the grounds late at night in the dark cycle. I go out most nights to look at the stars and watch ships come and go on the Citadel of Light’s landing pads atop the Palatine Hill to the northwest. The last time I can remember feeling this safe was nestled between my da and mum watching my brother Aengus dance with the lasses at Laureltide as Dagan glowered to himself.
Kavax has been just as kind to Liam as to me. He put Liam in the Citadel school with the children of the other employees who live on the grounds. They board near the north wall in dormitories set in a small forest of cypress. Even though the school is within the Citadel walls, it’s still twenty klicks north of the Telemanus estate, so I only manage to catch the tram to see him three times a week. I stop in at nighttime before they put the children to bed. Each time I have to leave, he clings to me, not wanting me to go. Breaks my heart every time. He says the other kids are kind. But he’s one of the only Reds there.
“Righto, you little beast, time’s up. Back inside,” I say, turning back from the bush. “Sophocles?” He’s gone. I search the sycamores and the elder shrubs. He slipped his leash again and ran off somewhere toward Lake Augustine. There’s no sign of him. “Dammit.” If he kills more pachelbel, I’ll be in for it with Bethalia.
I walk the gravel path that winds through the Esqualine Gardens in search of him. The gardens sprawl around the base of the Esqualine Hills, where the manicured stone estates of old Gold families sit inside the Citadel walls. They are now filled with the Sovereign’s most powerful supporters—chiefly Houses Arcos and Telemanus.
Little ponds and streams are nestled at the bases of the hills, amongst tranquil copses of rosebushes. It looks like a storybook painting of the Vale. But this garden has some deep shadows and the men and women who walk here are empire breakers.
It is early autumn now in Hyperion, a season far kinder than the grueling summers of Boetian Plains. Something of it reminds me of the tunnels of Lagalos, how dew would bead on the outside of the metal doors all throughout our township in the early mornings. You’d love it, Tiran. The way the fog catches on the walls and cloaks the Palatine spires. Just like one of your storybooks.
No. Don’t go there. Don’t think of them. I bite the inside of my cheek till I taste blood to draw me out of the quicksand of memory.
It’s morning. The small datapad on the underside of my wrist reads 7:32 A.M. Earth Standard on the sixteenth day of the bright month of October. Sixty degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy with afternoon showers. The datapad is unlike anything I had in the mines, let alone the camp. Sometimes I lay in bed staring at the slowly turning hologram of Mars before drifting off to sleep, guiltily wondering if I should miss it. I don’t. If anything, I miss Lagalos.
&n
bsp; My body still has not welcomed the low gravity here; I feel more trapped on this moon than I did on the three-week journey from Mars. I felt it the moment I stepped off the shuttle that took us down from orbit and missed that first step down from the ramp. The lethargic gravity is at odds with the manic pace of the ships in the blue sky overhead, the constant flow of important people on important tasks. But the worst is the protocol and judgment from the other valets.
I thought Kavax would forget about me as soon as I boarded his ship; instead, he took a liking to me, hell knows why. He had me sup with him every breakfast, first teaching me the intricacies of Sophocles’s dietary and care requirements. But those lessons were forgotten when he gave me a book of lullabies that Sophocles requires sung to him before bedtime. I had to confess that I could not read more than half the words. He stared at me as if I had thirteen heads.
