Sharon Shinn - Gateway

“Then anybody could come along and pull them just for a prank. You’d have people rushing out of the river when they had half a day of work left.”

“Well, they could do that now if they felt like climbing a hundred stories and maybe breaking their necks,” Daiyu said.

Gabe shook his head and grinned. “The gate at the bottom of the stairs is supposed to be locked. Everyone thinks it is, but I know the lock is broken.”

She didn’t answer. She was starting to get nauseated, and she really wished she was back on level ground.

“Are you feeling all right?” Kalen asked, and Daiyu shook her head.

“No. I think-This is kind of making me sick.”

Abruptly, she sat down on the top step, quickly transferring her hold to one of the metal posts that supported the railing. She heard Gabe exclaim, “What’s wrong with her?” but Kalen didn’t bother asking questions. He just crossed to where she was sitting and crouched beside her, putting a hand on her wrist.

Just as he had the night before. Taking hold of her so she wouldn’t be afraid.

“Maybe breakfast upset your stomach,” he said. “All that food you’re not used to.”

She tried to smile at him. “I think it was the climb. And maybe the travel yesterday.”

“Can you get back down?” Gabe wanted to know.

“Well, I hope so,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just go down on my butt, one step at a time.”

Still holding her hand, Kalen slipped past her and carefully stood up. “I’ll go down first,” he said. “You can hold on to me.”

A little uncertainly, she came to her feet, clutching the railing with one hand and resting her other on Kalen. His bony shoulder seemed so much more solid and reliable than the thin railing. She quickly figured out how to synchronize her steps to his, and they eased through the descent. Daiyu was shaky but grateful when she was finally back on solid ground.

Gabe bounded down the last three steps without touching his feet to one of them. Daiyu attempted to smile at him. “Thanks for showing me the bells, even though I got sick,” she said. “I hope I hear you ring them sometime.”

“You will, tonight or tomorrow,” Gabe said. He looked at Kalen. “Are you going to work the next time? Or will your friend still be here?”

Kalen gave a convincing shrug. “She’ll probably still be here, but she might be busy. If she’s got something else to do, I’ll come to the river.”

“Don’t miss work because of me,” Daiyu said.

He smiled. “It’s all right. I can work in the river any day, but you won’t be here very long.”

She laughed, but the sound was a little rueful. “Well, Idon’t think I will be,” she said. “I suppose you never know.”

ONCE THEY LEFT Gabe behind, Kalen showed Daiyu around the shops that clustered on the streets a little west of the river. She figured they were roughly in the area where Isabel’s office was located in St. Louis, but how different the cities!

Where downtown St. Louis had a diverse but orderly collection of office buildings lining the parallel streets, the central district of Shenglang was built around winding avenues that spilled into circular drives and meandering boulevards. The small building swere all crammed together like parade watchers determined to be at the very front. The streets were noisy and crowded, trolleys jostling for space with vehicles that looked like fancy Model T’s and those contraptions that seemed to combine bicycles and carts. The sidewalks were thronged with people, overwhelmingly Han with cangbai and heiren individuals mixed in. Almost everyone, male and female, wore outfits similar to Daiyu’s-wide-legged black trousers and brightly colored tops.

“I can’t believe that the clothes I picked out yesterday when I was still on Earth turned out to be perfect for wearing on Jia,” Daiyu said.

Kalen smiled. “Somehow you knew you were coming here.”

“Somehow I don’t think so,” she retorted.

When she was thirsty, Kalen bought her a bottle of some sweet-flavored juice that tasted like apples and cinnamon and ginger ale. “Ice costs more than the juice does,” he told her. “We’ll have to drink it warm.”

Shepracticallygulpedhersdownanyway.“Idon’tcare,”she said. “I love it.”

By this time they had wandered to a street that was wider and straighter than most of the rest, and both the foot traffic and vehicular traffic were heavier. Twice, Daiyu and Kalen got separated when careless pedestrians pushed between them, and the secondtime, Daiyu felt a surge of panic as strong as the one she’d felt when she first arrived. She looked around wildly for Kalen.

He was right behind her. “I’m here,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She reached up to take his hand in hers, and he moved around so they were side by side. “Stay close,” she said. “I don’t want to get lost.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not planning to lose you.”

He looked like he was going to add something else, but then a low murmur from down the street caught his attention. He shaded his eyes to look in the direction of the noise, which was building to a muffled roar.

“That’s Chenglei’s car,” Kalen said. “He’s going to pass right by us. You want to see him?”

“Chenglei?” Daiyu exclaimed. “Of course!”

Still holding hands, and trying to be courteous about it, they pushed through the pedestrians to the edge of the sidewalk so they could get a good look. Daiyu glanced at the people nearby, trying to gauge their mood. Most of them looked pretty excited at the thought of glimpsing the prime minister. As soon as the black car pulled into sight, people started murmuring and clapping their hands. A woman bent down to her little girl and pointed at Chenglei. The applause grew louder as the car drew closer.

And then Chenglei was passing in front of them, sitting on a high seat in the back of what looked like a cross between a convertible hearse and a horse carriage with no horses. Daiyu stared, absorbing as many details as she could. Yes, his features were definitely Chinese, but his pale skin betrayed his Caucasian heritage and, even sitting down, he appeared to be taller than most of the Asians she knew. He was a handsome man, with broad cheekbones and heavy eyebrows that drew attention to his dark eyes. His hair was a deep black except for a streak of gray that waved back from the middle of his forehead, giving him a look of distinction. He leaned forward as he sat on his bench, waving back at the crowd as if he was just as thrilled to see them as they were to see him.

Daiyu felt her mild sense of disquiet intensify, forming a coil of worry in her stomach. Chenglei didn’t look like a man so terrible that he had to be flung to a different dimension in order to keep a whole world safe.

As the car pulled out of view, Daiyu glanced around at the crowds just now dispersing. People were smiling or talking to friends with great animation, still impressed and a little awed. “Everybody seems to like Chenglei,” she observed.

“A lot of people do,” Kalen answered.

“What do you think about him?”

“I never thought about him much until Ombri and Aurora came,” he said. This didn’t surprise her. She figured Kalen had probably poured most of his energy into staying alive; he wouldn’t have had much time to think about high-level politics. Which was too bad-she would trust his assessment of Chenglei far more than she would trust Ombri’s.

Kalen went on, “I’ve been trying to learn more about him so Iunderstandwhythey’redeterminedtosend himaway.Sofar, the worst thing seems to be the way he’s handling the zaogao fever epidemic in the northwest territories. Some people say he’s not sending enough doctors and supplies to fight the fever. And other people say he’s doing everything he can to make sure it doesn’t spread. Feng says thousands of people are dying because of him-”