Stoneskin Page 23

  Tembi didn’t know how to reply to something that earnest and heartfelt, so she hugged Bayle back and thanked her. And then, without any difficulty whatsoever, Bayle wrapped them in the Deep and jumped them home to Lancaster.

  _________________________________

  painted woman

  knows

  painted woman

  cares

  NO

  Excerpt from “Notes from the Deep,” 16 July 3616 CE

  _________________________________

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was maddening how quickly life got back to normal. It reminded her of that first jump with Matindi, but instead of nobody noticing she had been gone for the afternoon, nobody seemed to care that she and Bayle had been gone for months. Well, no. Not exactly. They cared, but after a few days of “Welcome back!,” life resumed its usual patterns. This was utterly infuriating—surely, something had changed!

  But no. Every single little thing rolled on as it had before.

  “Why,” Tembi grumbled to Bayle and Steven over their first tumbarranchos since their return, “would someone kidnap us if nothing happened?”

  Steven sighed theatrically. “Maybe they wanted nothing to happen,” he said. “Maybe by getting you out of the way, they made sure nothing would happen.”

  “Some people love the status quo,” Bayle added, nodding.

  “Well, who did it, then?” Tembi glared at her meal as if it contained answers; when it refused to give them up, she set upon it with a knife and fork in revenge.

  “Domino, obviously,” Bayle replied.

  “What? Domino?” Tembi shook her head. “She’s the only poisoning victim still in the hospital. Matthew said she almost died! Why her?”

  “I don’t like her,” Bayle said simply.

  “That’s fair,” Steven said.

  “You’re not taking this seriously!” Tembi said, jabbing at Steven with her fork.

  He parried it easily with a hand, the tines sliding harmlessly off of his scaly skin. “Tembi?” he said, his usual layers of humor stripped away. “I’m really glad you’re both back home safely, but this is a job for the law. You ever think that sticking you in stasis for two months was a warning?”

  Bayle was nodding. “Seriously, Tembi, think about it: they didn’t kill us, but they could have. We were at their mercy for two months—it would’ve been easy! This was definitely a warning.”

  Tembi had to admit that they made a good point.

  Her lessons were quieter. Their jump across the galaxy meant that Bayle could no longer pretend she was a poor student, and both she and Steven had been moved up to the next class. Two other students had come in to replace them. Tembi was still the youngest, but she was no longer the newest, and that made her unreasonably happy.

  Her nights were spent studying, or talking to Matindi and Matthew at the kitchen table, or dancing. Her friends were right, she told herself. It had been a warning…

  …and the poisonings were definitely a matter for the law…

  …and she was only sixteen—no, wait. She was seventeen now. There had been a missed birthday while she was in stasis. She still needed to wrap her head around that. But seventeen was still young enough that age was a good excuse to keep from hunting down the person who had tried to murder Matindi…

  …she didn’t get much studying done.

  And then, one night, it rained.

  It poured! With thunder and lightning!

  Severe weather was almost unheard-of on Found, so these rare and seldom storms became reasons for small celebrations. Matindi set up a fire cage in the common room and lit a small fire. Matthew jumped to Earth and returned with marshmallows, sweet crackers, and chocolate, and they showed Tembi how to blend these together in age-old alchemy. They played card games on the floor (Matthew was trying to teach the Deep how to play poker, which wasn’t going well as the Deep didn’t seem to understand why it couldn’t just snatch the cards it needed out of the deck), and laughed about nothing, and went to bed early to snuggle under an extra layer of blankets.

  Where Tembi stared at the ceiling and listened to the rain.

  After two hours of wondering if she would ever sleep again, she threw back the covers, got dressed, and slipped out the window.

  She expected to get drenched to the bone within seconds, but as she padded through the puddles, she realized the rain wasn’t touching her. She looked up; the rain came within a few centimeters of her body and then vanished.

  “Thanks, Deep,” she said.

  The smell of tumbarranchos, thick and hot, brushed against the edges of her mind.

  “I think the store’s closed,” she told it.

  The smell grew stronger. Slabs of fresh tomato and avocado, buried beneath layers of carved pork…

  Her stomach roared in response. “All right,” she said. “Won’t hurt to check.”

  The hopper was running. Fifteen minutes later, she was walking through the streets of Hub. The city was hers—no one else was braving the rain, not even other Witches.

  “Thanks for bringing me here,” Tembi told the Deep, as the two of them leapt across a flooded street. She hadn’t remembered to wear shoes, and she splashed through puddles and kicked up huge waves of water like a child. “This is fun!”

  The smell of tumbarranchos roared back at her, too strong to ignore.

  “I know, I know!”

  Four more turns and a quick run up the street, and she was standing in front of the tumbarrancho shop. It was quite firmly closed, with the lights off and the chairs stacked on top of the tables. She wondered if the Deep understood, ‘I told you so.’

  A scraping, shuffling noise came from a sheltered alcove tucked behind a large potted plant.

  Tembi turned to find a human shape in a Spacers’ kit crawling out from behind the plant.

  Her heart leapt in her throat. The kidnapper? No, probably not. Any Witch who was skilled enough to drop two people into a ship moving at FLT speeds wouldn’t be skulking in the bushes in the rain.

  Maybe a homeless person? But outside? In this weather?

  Maybe they were hurt.

  “Hey,” she called, and moved outside of easy grabbing range, just in case an old Marumaru trick for rolling sympathetic marks had finally made its way to Found. “Are you okay?”

  “Tembi—”

  Kalais’s voice.

  Kalais!

  “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said, and turned to leave. She found herself floating, the soles of her feet unable to make contact with the pavement. “Deep, no! I don’t want to see him!”

  “Tembi, it’s not what you think.” Her ex-boyfriend stood. “I need help.”

  “And lots of it, too!” she snapped at him.

  “I deserve that,” he said. “I deserve everything you can throw at me, but please, hear me out.

  “The Deep wants you to listen,” he added, playing his trump card.

  She glared at him, then at her feet hovering just above a puddle. “Fine,” she said. “But not here. Somewhere with other people around us.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I want witnesses, or I’m going back to Lancaster right now.”

  Kalais closed his eyes, and then pushed back the hood of his jacket. He ran his thumb along his jawline, where the band of silver-blue paint in whirling wind patterns began. These ran up his right cheek, stopping just below his eyebrow.

  “Gods!” Tembi burst out laughing. “You must think I’m the biggest idiot!”

  He dipped the sleeve of his jacket into the nearest puddle, then scrubbed at his cheek. The curls of silver-blue paint disappeared. As soon as he was done, these reappeared.

  “What are you using?” she asked. “Cosmetic ’bots?”

  He threw up his hands in frustration, and stepped from the shelter of the alcove into the downpour.

  The rain stopped just above his clothing; too late, Tembi realized he was dry.

  “I need help,” he said again, his
tone close to begging. “Please. Just hear me out.”

  “Oh, scheisse!” Tembi swore. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “I need to get back to the Moonstone,” he said. “I woke up in Hub a few hours ago—I have to get back!”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Sorry. If the Deep’s tagged you for a Witch, you’ve got to go to Lancaster.

  “You’ll be in my class,” she realized, her heart cratering through the pavement. “Oh, Deep, what were you thinking?!”

  “That it’s tired of waiting on Lancaster to help the Sabenta!” he said, too loud. His voice dropped. “Listen, Tembi, please. This solves everything. If I’m a Witch, the Sabenta won’t have to go through Lancaster. They can just use me instead.”

  Tembi buried her head in her hands. “That’s not how it works,” she said. “That’s… That’s how you get yourself and a ship full of people lost forever on the Rails. Trust me on this, okay?”

  “I do trust you,” he said. “You and the Deep. That’s why I knew the Deep would bring you here if I waited. But this is too important. I’ve got to risk it—I’ve got to get back to the Moonstone. If you can’t jump me, can you get Bayle?”

  “Deep?” Tembi called. “Could you please bring Matindi here?”

  “Tembi!”

  “Shut up,” she said. “I’m helping you because the Deep wants me to, and, yes, because maybe we’ll be able to use you to help the Sabenta. But if you go back to your ship without any training, you’re going to accidentally murder a whole lot of people.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she said, poking him in the center of his chest. “That’ll be on my conscience forever.”

  “But the Deep chose me! It wants me to help—this isn’t fair!”

  “Well, what’s fair isn’t always what’s ethical!” she snapped back, then shook her head. “Gods, now I’m turning into Matindi!”

  Matindi. Tembi looked around. The green-skinned Witch should have been here by now. Even if she were sleeping, the Deep could wake her and have her by Tembi’s side within moments.

  The seconds stretched out into minutes. Tembi ignored Kalais as best she could, even when he tried to leave and found that his feet no longer touched the pavement.

  Finally, Tembi gave in to the obvious. “Matindi’s not coming,” she told Kalais. “We’ll have to go to Lancaster.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “If you won’t help me get back to my ship, just let me go. I’ll buy a ticket and get there myself.”

  “Nope,” Tembi said, and started walking. She was able to hide her satisfaction at Kalais floating along behind her, as immobile as if his arms had been chained to his sides. He argued and swore, and pleaded, and asked as politely as he could. She kept walking, not bothering to look behind her.

  Then, his voice fell to a low whisper. “Tembi—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Tembi—”

  “I said, shut—”

  “Tembi, there’s someone following us.”

  “Good one,” she said.

  “No!” he said. “Look!”

  She gave an exaggerated sigh and turned.

  There, standing halfway down the block, its features lost beneath the rain and the shadows, was a figure in black.

  Tembi shook her head at Kalais. “How dumb do you think I am?” she asked, then started waving. “Hi, Rabbit! Glad you’re not dead, too!”

  A red light began to glow in the center of the dark figure’s chest.

  “Down!” shouted Kalais, as the Deep let him drop. He crashed into Tembi and brought her to the ground behind a large stone planter. The planter ate the bolt of red light, then boiled away into a pile of steaming molten lava on the sidewalk, each drop of rain sizzling as it landed.

  “What—” Tembi began.

  “Heat gun!” Kalais grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet, and started running. “It’s got a long recharge time, but if the beam hits you, you’re dead!”

  “Is this a joke?!”

  “Do you want to risk it?”

  She didn’t; she stopped fighting him and began to run. “Deep!” she shouted, and turned them both towards the nearest building. She leapt and kept running, moving straight up the side of the building and hauling Kalais behind her.

  Another splash of hot red light hit the sidewalk directly beneath them. The ground melted and puddled into a small crater.

  “Gods!” Kalais said with a gasp, as the heat from the sidewalk reached them.

  “Keep running!” Tembi shouted. “We’re clear once we get to the roof!”

  It was an office building, almost a skyscraper. The lights were off, the building empty; that was good. But the building was a flat, featureless slab of plass, with nowhere to take shelter.

  They were completely exposed. That was bad. Very, very bad.

  The heat gun fired again, then once again, crashing against the building in giant waves of heat. Huge round chunks appeared in the building’s face, as if a giant had taken a hot spoon and carved rounded scoops out of a sheet of frozen cream. Both times the heat gun fired, a massive burst of heat roared up the building after them: the second time it happened, Kalais cried out in pain.

  “C’mon!” Tembi shouted as he faltered. When he didn’t move, she grabbed his arms with both of hers and pulled as hard as she could. The momentum propelled him up the side of the building: he moved—he soared!—with Tembi close on his heels.

  When they reached the roof, she seized him by the cuffs of his pants and threw him forward. He flew across the rooftop garden, stopping only when he crashed into the top of a carambola tree.

  Tembi reached him in a single giant leap across the rooftop. “Get up,” she said. “We need to put some distance between us and that gun.”

  “My legs…” Kalais pulled up one of the legs on his Spacers’ uniform. His boots were charred; the skin poking out above their tops was badly burnt. “It hurts to move.”

  “Scraping wonderful,” Tembi said. She noticed the hem of her own robes was shorter by a good ten centimeters, and the soles of her feet were tender. If it wasn’t for her skin, she’d be worse off than Kalais. “Deep? I need help.”

  Kalais began to levitate in the air again. “Oh no,” he groaned.

  “Oh yes,” Tembi replied. She grabbed him by the hood of his jacket and began to run, bounding from rooftop to rooftop, flying across streets, feeling the rain sheet away from her body as she landed—

  —she wasn’t enjoying it, not exactly, but it was intensely therapeutic to haul a lying manipulative ex-boyfriend across a city. She might have accidentally banged him against a cornice or two—

  —to finally touch down and skid to a stop on a flat roof, nearly a kilometer away from where they had first seen the figure with the heat gun. Tembi dropped to the plass roof, gasping for breath. Running with the Deep was exhilarating but not easy; her legs felt as if she had been sprinting across soft sand for hours.

  “Are we safe?” she asked, panting. “What’s the range on that gun?”

  “Poor.” Kalais was examining his legs. The unprotected skin on his shins had been crisped black and was beginning to blister. He pulled off his boots, took out a sonic knife, and began to cut the tops off of each boot. “It’s not the range that we need to worry about—it’s the tracking feature. Heat guns can lock on a target.”

  He gingerly slipped his feet back inside the boots. Now several centimeters shorter, they no longer touched the burned skin on his legs. “There. Now I can at least walk.”

  “Flip back and explain the tracking feature.”

  “Heat guns are stupid weapons.” Kalais stood and began to move around the rooftop, slowly, as if expecting sudden pain. “Used only when you want to intimidate the survivors. Small radius but massive damage, long recharge time between bursts.

  “They had to add a tracking feature to make them useful,” he added. “Otherwise, an opponent would just have to wait for the first burst t
o discharge, then run and hide.”

  “You mean…like we just did?” A slow gnawing terror was starting to eat away at Tembi’s stomach.

  Kalais laughed. “Yeah, but the way we escaped? If they wanted to catch us, they’d have to be—“

  “—a Witch,” Tembi finished for him. “Get up.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We need to get somewhere public.” She moved to the side of the building and peered over the edge, cautiously. Was that a dark figure in the shadows across the street? The rain made it hard to see. “A hopper station? Where is that?”

  He consulted the data device on the sleeve of his Spacers’ uniform. “Three blocks south, one block west,” he said. “But I don’t want to go to Lancast—”

  A noise, small but sudden.

  Tembi hissed silence at Kalais, and turned towards the familiar *whump* sound of displaced air rushing away from a human body. The dark figure was there, a few meters away.

  “Move!” Tembi grabbed Kalais and threw him towards the edge of the building. The Deep caught him, and they ran.

  “It’s a Witch?” Kalais peered over his shoulder.

  Tembi nodded, unable to spare the energy for talking. They leapt to another rooftop, and then Tembi grabbed Kalais around the waist and jumped over the side of the building.

  It was a ten-story drop, and every centimeter of the fall, she wondered if this would be the time when the Deep decided to abandon her again, to leave her alone to squish open on the sidewalk below—

  —her mind lit up with a feeling of laughter, a taste of sweet cream and mangos—

  “This isn’t a game!” she shouted aloud, but in this moment…

  …this one long moment…

  …she could hear the Deep more clearly than ever before, more clearly than those snippets of humor or sadness that sometimes cut through the noise in her brain to reach her, more clearly than she could hear herself…

  …and she knew the Deep was having fun!

  She grabbed a window ledge and stopped her fall, then sent a command to the Deep to loop around Kalais and send him spinning back up into the air.