“Your position is not in jeopardy,” I say.
He shudders with relief. Suddenly his head snaps back. “You wouldn’t …” He leans forward. “You’re considering Quarantine! Aren’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I quarantine this mine?” I continue on down the corridor till we reach the landing pad where my ship waits. There, I stop. “As you said, its populace has failed to respond favorably to strategies endorsed by the Department of Energy and the Board of Quality Control. Why not pump the air full of achlys-9 gas and replace the unruly Reds with clans from compliant mines nearer the equator?”
“No!” He actually grabs me. Ragnar doesn’t even bother threatening the fat man.
“Choose your words carefully,” I say.
“My liege, don’t do it.” Tears sparkle in his greedy, panicked eyes. “My mine’s profits may have decreased, but it is still viable, still functional. A model of how to weather a storm.”
“You are its savior,” I say, mocking him.
“The Reds there are good miners. The best in all the world. That is why they’re wild. But they’ve calmed now. I’ve increased their rations of alcohol and increased pheromone circulation in the air units. They’re breeding like rabbits. I’ve also had my Gamma plants tamper with their machinery and maps. They think the mines are drying up. They’ll walk on pins and needles, fearing they won’t make quota. Then we’ll fix the machines, and they’ll be filled with fresh purpose. I can even tell them the terraforming is complete and migration will begin in ten years, and that Earth has begun sending immigrants. There are still so many options before we must accede to Quarantine.”
I watch the man as he sputters to an end, slumping down, lifeless as a wet shirt on a hanger. Is this all for his own vanity or does he really care for Reds? This was a test to see. Now I can’t tell. He might actually care in some strange way. Another monster from my past made human by Society’s lash.
“Your mine is safe, for now. Maintain your workforce. Increase rations, beginning tonight. I want happy workers and flush coffers. In my ship you will find provisions. Food and libations. Throw the Reds a feast.”
“My liege … a feast? Why?”
“Because I said so.”
I sit alone in the viewing room, watching the celebration unfold through the glass beneath my feet. Thousands of Reds drink and eat as the young dance around the gallows to “The Ballad of Old Man Hickory.” The tables are filled with foods these Reds have never tasted, drinks they’ve never downed. And though they laugh, though they dance, I cannot find any joy myself. They live in horror, but it’s one they know. It’s one they can find refuge from. Will there be any refuge left when the Sons of Ares reveal the great lie? It will shatter their way of life. They will be lost in the greatness of the worlds. And they’ll be polluted by them. Like I am.
I recognize nearly all of them. Boys I played with, now grown. Girls I once kissed, now with children. Nieces. Nephews. Even my brother, Kieran. I wipe the tears from my eyes, lest someone see.
A boy sweeps a girl into a dance after kissing her cheek. I’ll never be like that boy again. My innocence is lost. And Reds will never accept me as one of their own, no matter what future I bring them. I’m not a conquering hero. I’m a necessary evil. I have no place here, but I cannot leave. There are things that must be said. Secrets that must be revealed.
“Still trying to create a cult?” she asks from the door. I turn to see Mustang leaning against the metal frame, hair in a ponytail, high-collared Politico uniform open informally at the neck.
“I suppose I should commission statues next, yes?” I ask.
“Ragnar is scaring the backcountry Grays.”
“Good.”
“You’re so mean to Grays,” she laughs. “Something you don’t like about them?” She runs a hand through my hair as she comes to sit on the arm of my chair.
“They’re too obedient.”
“Ah, so that’s why you like me.” She digs her fingernails lightly into my scalp, teasing. “Statues are a bad idea. Too easy to deface. Vandals could give you a mustache or breasts at their leisure. Risky proposition, breasts.”
“Could be worse.”
“Well, there nothing worse than a mustache. Daxo is trying to grow one. I think it’s meant to be ironic? I’m not sure.” Mustang laughs lightly as she settles in on the metal chair next to me. “His sisters will sort that out.”
She looks around at the mine and the Can. “Place is disgusting. I wrote a piece of legislation that the Reformers plan to put through after all this. It’ll gut the Department of Energy, restructure the Board of Quality Control”—she looks around the Pot—“change the way this meat shop is run. You see the supply stores in this place? Food enough for seven years, yet they keep maxing out their acquisition orders. I took a look at their files. The MineMagistrate’s skimming off the top. Likely reselling the supplies on the black market. Lying Copper thought we wouldn’t notice. Probably because some Gold or Silver told him they’d grease the right palms to make sure no one ever noticed. All while he has a malnourished population. Corruption everywhere.”
She wrinkles her nose and flicks a piece of flaking paint from her chair.
“Why are we here?” she asks. “Did something happen with my brother?”
“This is the mine where the girl sang the Forbidden Song,” I say after a moment. Her eyes open wider as she scans the crowd beneath.
“These poor people.”
She watches me, waiting expectantly for what I have to say. But there are no words left. Only something to show. I take her hand and stand. “Come with me.”
49
Why We Sing
I’ve never felt fear like this.
Lykos is dark at night. Lights all turned down so the Reds don’t go mad from eternal day. Somewhere, the nightshifts weave silks, mine soil. But here in this wide tunnel, there is no motion, no sound except the murmur of HCs showing old terraforming holos and the hum of distant machines. It is cool here, yet I sweat.
Mustang is silent beside me. She has not spoken since we descended in our gravBoots to the Common’s floor, ghostCloaks making us nearly invisible to the lingering drunks slumped over tables and sleeping soundly on the gallows steps. I hear the tension in her silence and wonder what she thinks.
My heart runs wild in my chest, so loud Mustang has to hear it as we enter Lambda Township, where I grew from boy to man. The place is smaller. The ceiling lower. Rope bridges and pulley systems like children’s toys. The HC that once glowed with Octavia au Lune’s face is an ancient relic, pixels missing. Mustang peers around, cloak deactivated. Her eyes dance from bridge to bridge to home like she’s seeing something wonderful. It didn’t occur to me a Gold would ever find interest in a simple place like this.
I climb the stone steps to the bridge that leads to my old home just like I did as a boy. Only, my limbs are too large now. I forgot I had gravBoots. Mustang doesn’t use hers either. She follows behind and dusts off her hands as she makes the landing where the thin metal door to my old family home has been cut into the wall.
“Darrow,” she says so quietly, “how do you know where you’re going?”
My hands tremble.
“You told me to let you in.” I look down at her.
“I did, but …”
“How far do you want to go?”
I know she feels what’s coming. I wonder how long she’s felt it. The strangeness of me. The odd mannerisms. The distant soul.
She looks at her hands, stained red from the dust of the stone stairs. “All the way.”
I hand her a holoCube. “If you mean that, press play, and come in when you’ve finished watching. If you leave, I understand.”
“Darrow …”
I kiss her one last time, hard. She clutches at my hair, sensing that when we part, something will be different. I find myself pulling back. My hand cups her jaw. Her eyes, closed, begin to flutter open as I step away and turn to the door.
I p
ush it open.
I have to duck to enter. The home is cramped. Quiet. The first floor is the same as I remember. The small metal table has not changed. Nor have the plastic chairs, the small sink, the drying clay dishes, or Mother’s prized teakettle that heats on the stove. A new rug covers the floor. It’s the work of a novice. Different boots sit where Father used to place his at the base of the stairs, where I used to set mine. Wait. Those are mine. But tattered and worn more than they’d been in my day. Were my feet really so small?
Silence guards the house. All sleep except her.
The teakettle hisses as the water reaches a boil. Soon it begins its breathy murmur. Feet scrape over the stone stairs. I almost run out of the room. But terror roots me to the spot as she comes closer. Closer till she’s in the room with me, pausing at that last stair, foot suspended, forgotten. Her eyes find mine. They never leave. Never look at the rest of my Golden form. I panic as she says nothing. A breath. Three. Ten. She doesn’t know me. I’m a killer in her house. I shouldn’t have come here. She doesn’t recognize me. I’m a lost Gold poking his head in out of curiosity. I can leave. Run away now. My mother never has to know what her son has become.
Then she finishes her step and comes toward me. Gliding. It’s been four years. She looks twenty older. Lips thin, skin loose and webbed with lines, hair worked through with sooty gray, hands tough as oak and gnarled as ginger roots. When her right hand reaches for my face, I have to kneel. Her eyes still have not left mine. Now they let out tears. The teakettle screams on the stove. She brings her other hand to my face, but it is unable to open and touch like the other. It remains twisted and clenched, like my heart.
“It’s you,” she says softly, as though I will disappear like a night vision if she says the word too loudly. “It’s you.” Her voice is different, slurred.
“You know me?” I manage desperately.
“How could I not?” Her smile is twisted, left eyelid sluggish. Life has been less kind to her than to me. She’s had a stroke. It breaks me to see her body fail her. To know I wasn’t here for her. To know her heart was broken. “I would know you … anywhere.” She kisses my forehead. “My boy. You’re my Darrow.”
The tears leave warm paths down my cheeks. I wipe them away.
“Mother.”
Still on my knees, I throw my arms around her and let the silent tears come. We say nothing for the longest time. Her scent is of grease, rust, and the musty tang of haemanthus. Her lips kiss my hair as they used to. Her hands scratch my back as though she remembers it just as broad as it is now, just as strong.
“I have to take the kettle off,” she says. “Before someone wakes and see you like …”
“Of course.”
“You have to let go of me.”
“Sorry.” I do, laughing at myself.
“How …?” she asks me, standing there looking at the Sigils on my hands, shaking her head. “How could this be? You … your accent. Everything.”
“I was carved. Uncle Narol saved me. I can explain.”
She shakes her head, trembling so slightly she must think I can’t see it. The kettle shrieks louder. “Take a seat.” She turns her back to me and takes the kettle off the stove. She sets out another mug. One from the high shelf. I remember it was my father’s. Dust covers the molded clay. She pauses, saying nothing as she cradles it close, slipping into a moment not meant for me, where she remembers those morning when they would ready for the day together. With a long breath, she drops the loose-leaf tea into the mug and pours hot water after. “Would you like anything else? We have those biscuits you liked.”
“No, thank you.”
“And I took my portion from the feast tonight. It’s delicate Gold food. Did you do that?”
“I’m not a Gold.”
“There are beans too. Fresh from Leora’s garden. You remember her?”
I spare a look at my datapad. Mustang is gone, heading back to the ship after she watched the holoCube. I feared this. I read a message from Sevro. “Stop her?” he asks. Two choices. Let Sevro and Ragnar catch her, and contain her till I can speak with her. Or trust her to make her own decisions. But if I trust her, she could leave, tell her father what I am, and it could all end. Yet she may just need time. I’ve given her so much to digest. If Ragnar and Sevro capture her prematurely, it may set her against me. Or they may act on their own and kill her.
Cursing silently, I type a quick reply.
“I remember everyone,” I say to my mother, looking back up. “I’m still me.”
She pauses at that, still facing the stove. When she turns, a lopsided smile crosses her stroke-ravaged face. Her hand fumbles one of the mugs, but swiftly she recovers.
“Got something against the chairs?” she asks sharply, noticing I saw the clumsiness of her hand.
“Other way around, I’m afraid …” I hold up the chair. It’s better suited for a Gold child than a Peerless Scarred who stands just over seven feet and weighs as much as any three Reds put together. She chuckles that dark chuckle of hers, the one that, as a child, always made me think she’d done something particularly sinister. Gracefully, she folds her legs and sits on the ground. I follow, feeling gangly and clumsy here. She sets the steaming cups between us.
“You don’t seem terribly surprised to see me,” I say.
“You talk funny now.” She pauses so long I wonder if she’ll continue. “Narol told me you were alive. Failed to say you’d gone and dipped yourself Gold, though.” She sips her tea. “I bet you’ve got questions.”
I laugh. “I thought you’d have more.”
“I would. But I know my son.” She eyes my Sigils. “I’m more patient. Go on now.”
“Narol … is he …?”
“Dead? Aye. He’s dead.”
The breath goes out of me.
“How long?”
“Two years ago,” she chuckles. “Fell down a mineshaft with Loran. Never found the bodies.”
“Why the hell are you laughing?”
“Your father’s brother was always the black sheep of the bunch.” She sips her tea. It’s still too hot for me. “Suppose it makes sense he’d be as hard to kill as a cockroach. So I’ll believe he’s dead when I see him in the Vale. Shifty bugger.” She speaks slowly, like most Reds. The lisp from the stroke is faint, but always there. “I think he left this place and took Loran with him.” The way she says it makes me know she understands there’s more beyond the mines. Perhaps she doesn’t know the whole truth, but she knows a part. Maybe my uncle and cousin aren’t dead. Maybe they left to be with the Sons.
“What of Kieran? Leanna? Dio?”
“Your sister is remarried. Lives with her husband in Gamma Township in the house of his family.”
“Gamma?” I sneer. “You let her—” I stop as soon as I see the fresh twist in my mother’s mouth. I might wear the trappings of a Gold, but I better shut the hell up about her daughter.
“She’s got two girls that look more like you than her or any Gamma I’ve ever seen. And Kieran’s well.” She smiles to herself. “You’d be right proud of him. Not the sniveling child you might remember squabbing up his chores and talking in his sleep. Man of the house. HeadTalk for the crew after Narol slipped down. Kora, his wife, died in childbirth, though. He took another a few months back.”
My poor brother.
“And what of Dio? Eo’s parents?”
“Her father is dead. Killed himself not long after you tried the same.”
My head sags. “So many deaths.”
She touches my knee. “It’s the way of it.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“It was a hard time after you and Eo left us. But Dio’s well. Fact, she’s upstairs.”
“Upstairs? What do you … Did she marry Kieran?”
“Aye. And she’s pregnant. I’m hoping for a girl, but with my luck it’ll be a boy who wants to dodge pitvipers and steam burns his whole life. If he’s got the choice, that is.”
“W
hat do you mean?”
“Things are tough. Changed. Mine isn’t giving the way it ought. Some of the men are whispering this corner of the world is all used up. And it makes them start fearing—what happens to the miners when there’s nothing left to mine? They’re hoping the terraforming will catch on before we run through our helium deposits.”
“Nothing will happen to you. I promise I will protect this mine. No matter what.”
“How?”
“I just will.”
“My turn.” She eyes me over her tea. “Where you been, child?”
“I … I don’t even know where to start.”
“With Eo’s death, I think.”
I flinch. My mother was always blunt. Made Kieran cry his way through his childhood. But that bluntness makes calluses out of blisters. So I owe her a reply in kind. I tell her everything, starting with the moments after Eo’s death and ending with the promise I made to the ArchGovernor.
Our tea is long gone when I finish.
“That’s quite a tale,” she says.
“Tale? It’s the truth.”
“They won’t believe you, the rest of them.”
“You do, though?”
“I’m your mother.” She takes my hand and runs her crooked fingers over the Sigils that run from the back of my hands up my forearms, smirking when she reaches the metal wings embedded on the outside of my forearms. “I never liked Eo,” she says quietly.
I twist my head up to look at her.
“Not for you. She could be manipulative. She kept some things from you.…”