Tobias Buckell - Ragamuffin

Many high-ranking Ragamuffins had died, along with their ships. The remaining Ragamuffins that could fight clustered around the wormhole, checking traffic and stopping any but Ragamuffin ships from going to Nanagada. That irked the League.

But not enough for them to try to cross into Nanagada. Pepper had told Danielle in a brief meeting that New Anegada, or Nanagada, whichever one preferred, was Ragamuffin. It would not be joining the League of Human Affairs.

Though they would work with them. The League’s uprising had just begun, there was a long war for human independence in front of them.

Pepper took the medallion and pocketed it. “I need a ride to Nanagada.”

“There is a ship docked here for you, a Takara Bune .”

“Thank you.” Pepper grabbed the crate and moved.

“What’s in the crate?” the woman asked.

“None of your business.” Pepper floated out of the cavern with one last look around.

“Sir?”

Pepper wearily turned. The woman clenched her fist and held it up. “Humans first!”

Pepper licked his lips. Then held up a fist. “Sure.”

The human calculators had sat throughout the entire thing, staring at the abaci in front of them and waiting for their next instructions.

The Ragamuffins had won this battle, but somehow the League had come in and taken the clear victory away. It felt like a loss, Pepper felt, to hand this all over and walk down the corridor.

He didn’t like that at all.

Several League soldiers bundled him and the crate up in a vacuumproof baggie and tossed him out across a line to the Takara Bune .

Inside the lock, Pepper ripped his way out to find a small man waiting for him.

“I’m Etsudo.”

Pepper shook his hand. “Thank you for the ride.”

Etsudo cocked his head and looked at the strap of the medallion floating out of Pepper’s pocket. “You got a medal too?”

“Yes.” Pepper took it out. He clenched it in his fist and squeezed until it folded in half, then he tossed it into the grating. Let it blow out the next time the air lock opened to the vacuum.

“We’re tossing the line now and heading for New Anegada,” Etsudo said, and the ship rumbled as it accelerated.

Pepper touched down to the floor. Nashara appeared, projecting herself in front of them both. “Grandpa!”

“You seem to be everywhere these days.” Pepper walked up the ship’s center core.

He decided to skip going to the cockpit as he found the small galley. He rooted around the freezer locker and grabbed a dish. He pulled the top off and watched it heat as he squeezed into a seat.

Pepper wiggled his hands and pointed at the locked drawers. “Fork?”

“Yeah.” Etsudo fished one out.

“The League is asking everyone to rise against the Satrapy. With the Gulong they can close down wormholes to strong Satrapic areas. Already aliens are being deported from some heavily human habitats for those areas. They’re calling it ‘firewalling.’ They want to create a human government, and human worlds.” Pepper looked down at the potatoes and gravy and wrinkled his nose. “What do you think the problem with that is?”

Etsudo leaned forward. “We can shut these artificial borders, but even at sublight speeds, sooner or later, we will deal with other species, and creatures stronger and more powerful than ourselves. If we don’t have models for dealing with this that don’t involve all-or-nothing antagonism, we will, not now, but one day, become extinct as a species.”

“Exactly.” Pepper stabbed the air with his fork. “Exactly.”

He looked around the Takara Bune .

Nice ship.

Nine days had passed since Jerome’s death.

John stood in the garden, the Wicked High Mountains just peeking over the trees, the distant boom of seawater hitting the rocks by the road regular and almost reassuring.

He looked back at the sea of faces. Friends of Jerome’s, such as Daseki and Swagga, shook his hand and walked on. Friends of the family came from all over Brungstun, the small town, dressed in their best.

Nashara stood beside him, with the dinged-up mobile unit using wheels to follow her up to the graveyard.

The priestess, dressed in her robes and colorful earrings, handed John the jar that she had declared held Jerome’s spirit.

Everyone followed John down the road, to the point where it crossed with the path leading down to the beach, and John threw the jar in the crossroads where it broke.

The crowd sighed.

Kara stood there after the crowd dispersed, looking tired. The first day on the surface she’d stumbled around a lot, staring up at the sky, falling to the ground as she adjusted to the perspective of standing on the surface of an entire world. They’d given her drugs for mild bouts of agoraphobia that left her huddled inside rooms at times. “Why did you throw the jar?”

“Here they believe his soul was in it,” John said. “When we smashed it by the crossroads, we released his spirit to the land of the dead, where it belongs. It’s old Vodun, strong in these parts of Nanagada.”

“And you believe this?” Kara cocked her head.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe.” John smiled. “It’s a ritual. It’s… somewhat therapeutic. It’s important to many that came here today.”

“John?” Kara’s voice trembled. “Jared still isn’t here yet.”

John looked at her. “He’s on his way.”

“If he’s dead, I’d like for you to tell me. Don’t treat me like a child. I’m not a child.” She looked straight at him, like a small soldier.

Nashara walked over just as John reached out and put a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “I swear he’s alive, Kara. We’re going to go see him as soon as he arrives.” He looked up at the sky. “The League is doing a good job. They’ve stopped the fighting out here, and Jared will be able to come to you soon.”

She stepped back. “Okay.”

But she didn’t look convinced. She turned and walked back up the road toward John’s Brungstun house.

He hadn’t been there in years, but had cleaned it out and given Nashara and Kara rooms.

“She doesn’t believe you,” Nashara said. “She assumes the worst.”

“She’s seen the worst,” John said. “When are you going to be leaving?”

“I’m loving being here, for now. I’d like to stay a little while and relax, unpack everything, you know?”

“The room is there for you as long as you want it.”

This time Nashara grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, things are going to be okay.”

John smiled. “I keep telling myself that.”

And soon enough, he might even start believing it. He turned to go walk back up to his house, leaving Nashara near the shards of glass.

Planets were beautiful, Nashara decided. She spent every day of the next week luxuriating in just trundling around with the mobile unit: walking off into the bush, smelling the mango scent on the wind from John’s backyard trees, and even going down into town to the market despite the stares she got.

And after a week, John started coming out of his shell.

And several days after that, he found her on one of the piers watching the boats bob at anchor in the harbor.

“You ever been sailing?” he asked.

“No.”

So John helped her into small boat that shook alarmingly and creaked. Water sloshed around the bottom.

The wind was brisk, but it didn’t seem to bother John when the whole boat tilted over as they sailed out. Nashara swore and grabbed the mobile unit, in case they got dunked, but he laughed and let one of the ropes out, and the boat leaned back to normal.