Kingdom of Cages(68)

Sadia rose slowly. “You think I don’t?” For a minute she sounded a lot like her brother. “You think you know the way, don’t you? You don’t know how to find your way to your own asshole.” She sat down abruptly, wrapping her arms around herself and looking away from Chena.

Chena swallowed her immediate anger. Sadia just didn’t like changes. She didn’t like risking her neck, and Chena couldn’t blame her. Shond risked his enough for both of them. After a moment’s thought, Chena reached under her belt and opened the sealed pocket. She pulled out a small handful of positive chits and dropped them into Sadia’s lap. “What don’t I know?”

Sadia’s eyes widened slowly. She struggled to hold the mask of skepticism back over her expression. “This is all you’ve made since you started?”

“This is all I’ve made this week.” Chena savored the stunned expression on Sadia’s face.

Sadia picked up a chit and rubbed it between her fingers, almost as if she were expecting something to come off. Maybe good luck, maybe hope.

She dropped the chit with the others and scooped them up. “I have to convince Shond to go with it. It won’t be easy.” She held the chits out to Chena.

“It will when you tell him how much your take is going to be.” Chena grinned and saw an answering smile spread on her friend’s face. “Welcome aboard, Sadia.”

Sadia pestered her brother for a week, but it was no good. Shond had too many of his own schemes going. Sadia only knew some of them. Cutting shifts with his friends was his favorite. But he also snuck out food to the roof-runners who hid in the gardens and stole whatever they could get their hands on, in return for blackmail gossip. On top of that, he had something going with them growing illegal weeds in the gardens. Chena wondered if Nan Elle knew about that, then decided she really did not want to know.

In the end, Chena had to give Sadia an advance for her to give to Shond so she could prove this was serious. Chits in his hand made the difference. Shond agreed to the plan, and so did Sadia, and Chena sighed in relief. It was getting easier to go past the spot where the people had landed, but it was still bad. She’d help Sadia out, and Sadia would help her. It would all be a go.


Sadia’s first run was a light one. It happened on one of the days when the cargo boats came down the river to drop off stores and pick up passengers, so a lot of people were running into Stem on their own. But that was all right. They could use the extra time to get Sadia used to the town, and Chena could introduce her to some of the regular customers.

Stem was crowded. The market had twice as many tents set up as on a regular day. Everybody trying to lay in their stocks before the weather turned really bad, Chena guessed.

Sadia looked at the lake with a mixture of wonder and fear. “I’d forgotten how big…” she waved a hand to take in the whole world.

“You’ll get used to it,” Chena told her breezily. For a change, she felt older than Sadia, and it felt good. She checked her comptroller for the client list. “Okay. First we have a message and a pickup at the library.”

She led Sadia down the sunny boardwalks. Sadia, who had lived in the dim forest all her life, blinked in the strong autumn sunlight. That sun did nothing to warm the frigid wind blowing off the water, and Chena could not miss the way Sadia shivered.

Right after lunch, we buy her a coat and gloves, and a hat, and a water bottle, resolved Chena.

The noise of voices rose from around the nearest sand dune. Chena frowned. It was coming from the wrong direction to be noise from the market. The crowds on the boardwalks around them had cleared out too. That was really strange.

What’s going on?

“Is something happening?” Sadia glanced around them nervously.

“Don’t know,” Chena admitted, lengthening her stride.

They rounded the dune and the noise of voices broke over them like a wave. Chena could barely see the library’s windows because of the crowd swarming onto the porch. Everybody shifted and pushed against each other, craning their necks and shouting about whatever they saw. Some people took notes on scraps of paper or screen sheets and passed them to others standing behind them.

“What’s going on?” asked Sadia, hitching up the straps of her backpack nervously.

“I don’t know,” said Chena again, shrugging. “Probably nothing to do with us.” She spoke with more conviction than she felt. Sadia wasn’t the only one who didn’t like change or strange things happening. Change meant new ways to get into trouble. “Let’s just get through, okay?” They had three letters for the librarian. She was one of Chena’s best customers and Chena was not going to let her down.