I MAKE IT TO MY FAMILY’S hut using the sheeting and wood planks that serve as roads through the mud. I slip under the mosquito netting just as thunder cracks open the sky overhead. Rain pours down, hammering the thin plastic roofs all down the narrow lane. Inside the dry hut, I’m greeted with the thick smell of stew. I set the basket down inside the door. Our home is five meters by seven, made of neoPlast stamped with the star of the Republic and a tiny little winged heel where the plastic meets the ground. It’s separated into two small rooms by opaque plastic dividers that fall from the ceiling. The kitchen and living room in the front. The bunks in the back. My sister Ava is hunched over a little solar stove stirring a pot. She glances back at me as I stand panting.
“Either you’re getting faster or the clouds are getting slower.”
“Bit of both, I’d say.” I rub the stitch in my side and sit down at the little plastic dinner table. “Tiran still burnin’?”
“That he is.”
“Poor lad’s gonna get drenched. Bloodydamn, it smells kind in here.” I inhale the scent of stew.
Ava glows. “A bit of garlic found its way into the pot.”
“Garlic? How’d that sneak through Lambda? They stop hoarding the new freight?”
“No.” She goes back to stirring the pot. “One of the soldiers gave it to me.”
“Gave? Out of the goodness of his high heart?”
“And that’s not all.” She hikes up her skirt to show off two brilliant blue shoes. Not government-issue clogs. Real shoes of leather and quality rubber.
“Bloodydamn. What you give him in return?” I ask in shock.
“Nothing!” Ava scrunches her nose at the accusation.
“Men don’t give gifts for nothing.”
“I’m married.” She crosses her arms.
“Sorry. Forgot,” I say with bite. Her husband, Varon, is as good a man as I’ve ever met, and as absent a one. He, along with our two eldest brothers, Aengus and Dagan, volunteered for the Free Legions right after we entered the camp. Last we heard from them was from a Legion com bank on Phobos. Three of them crowded together to fit into the frame. Said they were sailing with the White Fleet toward Mercury. Seems just yesterday I was following Aengus through the vents of Lagalos to look for fungus to fill his still.
“Where’re the boys?” I ask.
“Liam’s at the infirmary.”
“Again?” A pang of pity goes through me.
“Another ear infection,” she says. “Could you go visit him in the morning? You know how much—”
“Course,” I interrupt. Liam, her second youngest, is just past six and has been blind from birth. He’s always been my favorite. Sweet little thing. “I’ll bring him some leftover candy if the other rats don’t gobble it up.”
“You spoil him.”
“Some lads oughta be spoiled.”
I find my niece, Ella, bundled up in her carriage by the table. She’s playing with a little mobile of one of her brother’s broken toys suspended above her. “How’s my little haemanthus blossom on this dreadful stormy eve?” I say, poking her nose. She giggles and grabs my finger, then tries to eat it. “She got a mouth on her.”
“I’ll feed her after dinner. You mind checkin’ Da’s diaper?”
My father sits in his chair watching the HC box I stole from a Lambda too drunk to mind his tent. His eyes are pearly and distant, reflecting the static of the dead channel that writhes on the screen.
“Lemme help you with that, Da,” I say. I change the channel till an image of a gravBike shooting over a Mercurian desert appears. Bad men pursue the roguish Blue hero, who looks not just a bit like Colloway xe Char.
“Is this all right?” I ask. Thunder rolls outside.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look at me, so I bite back the resentment and try to remember him as the man who used to take us to the deep mines. His rough hands would light the gas fire, and he’d whisper ghost stories of Golback the Dark Creeper or Old Shufflefoot in his hoarse voice. The flames from the fire would saw the air and he would boom out a hilarious laugh at our terrified faces.
I don’t recognize this man…this creature wearing my father’s skin. It just eats and shits and sits there watching the HC. Still, I shove the anger away, feeling guilty for it, and kiss him on the forehead. I tuck his blanket a little bit under his bearded chin and thank the Vale there’s no soil in his diaper.
There’s a clatter from the door as my sister’s young sons bowl into the house, drenched in mud and rain. Next comes our remaining brother, Tiran, smelling of smoke from the burning stacks. He’s the tallest in the family, but frighteningly thin. Most nights, he looks like a curled weed, hunched over the little books he writes for the children. Fills them with stories of castles and vales and flying knights. He whips his wet hair at us and tries to give Ava a hug. My sister shows off her shoes to her jealous boys with false modesty. They debate what one of the brighter blue colors on the tongues ought to be called while I set the dishes.
“Cerulean!” they decide. “Like Colloway xe Char’s tattoos.”
“Colloway xe Char. Colloway xe Char,” Tiran mocks.
“Warlock’s the best pilot in the worlds,” Conn says in indignation.
Tiran scoffs. “I’d take the Reaper in a starShell against Char in a ripWing any day.”
Conn puts his arms on his hips. “You’re stupid. Warlock would blast him to bloody bits.”
“Well, they’re friends, so they won’t be blasting each other to anything,” my sister says. “They’re too busy protecting your father and uncles, aren’t they?”
“Do you think Da has met them?” Conn asks. “Char and the Reaper?”
“And Ares?” Barlow adds. “Or Wulfgar the Whitetooth?” He slams his hands like he’s a menacing Obsidian. “Or Dancer of Faran! Or Thraxa au—”
“Aye, they’re probably the best of friends. Now eat.”
We eat dinner huddled around the plastic table as the rain drums the roof. There’s barely enough room for bowls and elbows, but we layer around the thin soup and chatter on about the merits of ripWings against starShells in atmosphere. My sister smiles when the boys say the soup tastes better today.
After dinner, we gather around with Da to watch one of his programs. I break half of a Cosmos chocolate bar into seven pieces to share. I pocket my piece for Liam and smile when I see Tiran give his piece to Ava. No wonder he’s so skinny. The program is a news show. The host a Violet who reminds me a bit of the helions—a tropical bird that lives off our trash. He has an incredible shock of white hair and a jaw you could carve granite with, but pathetically delicate hands for a man.