A slighter, younger boy said, “We came in from the Hotelier grate.”
“Shut up, Yori!”
The cry was from the one who had called her a slave.
Yori said, “We don’t remember the way, Heren! She has to show us!”
Jessica did know where that was, and it was not far. The rats were climbing the piles now, frenzied by the scent of fresh blood and fear. She ran faster, herding them along ahead of her. Yori fell, and she gripped his arm and dragged him along until he gained his feet and ran beside her. They burst out of the Hotelier grate only a few steps ahead of the rats. Jessica slammed the grate back into place, and they stood there staring at the hissing rats for a moment.
“Yori! Heren!”
The shout made them all turn away from the grate, a low-lying thing in the ground. The rats were unused to light, and it could kill them, so they slunk backward, still hissing as a tall man rushed toward them, his Capo uniform perfectly pressed and his hair waving back from a high forehead.
He stopped short, looking from Jessica to the boys. His voice went flat. “What are you doing above?”
She swallowed hard and blinked as she looked around herself. She had never been above before, and the sunlight suddenly hit her face, warming her skin. Her eyes closed from the brightness and the smell of things she had never smelled before—grass, air that was clean and not constantly recycled—hit her nose.
“You!”
The word jerked her eyelids open. She said, “I got them out of the tunnels.”
The Capo recoiled. “What?”
“Heren told us to come along,” one of the other boys blubbered out. “These big rats tried to kill us. They do exist.”
Of course they existed. Jessica closed her mouth over those words. They are in the tunnels, but not there in that sunlight and clean air. Terra rats were often driven back from below by the use of smudge lights and poison, but in the tunnels, they roamed freely.
The Capo said, “Get back to your work, slave.”
Yori spoke in a firm voice. “She saved our lives. We owe her something.”
The Capo’s lips lifted off his white teeth. “Oh. Very well; here.” He flipped a single credit chip toward her feet. Jessica ignored it. She was too busy looking at the sky. The Capo said, “Girl…slave! Get back to your—”
“Do not raise your voice.” That was Yori again, and that caught Jessica’s attention. She looked over at Yori. He drew himself up. “My father will want to meet someone who can fight off those rats with just a homemade weapon.”
That was how she had ended up in the training program for the military. She had been so good that she had been promoted to Capo and she had lived above ever since that terrible day in the tunnels, but she had never forgotten what it was like to live below or to be sold off for nothing more than a debt that was not her own.
“A credit for your thoughts.”
Talon’s words snapped her out of her memories.
“I don’t know that they’re even worth the credit.” The memories of her time on Old Earth were not all bad, but they were bad enough that she didn’t want to relive them if she didn’t have to.
Talon pointed a finger toward the docking station. “I guess it is a good thing we removed your chip and got you a whole new identity.”
“I’d say so.” She wanted to say so much more, but she wasn’t sure what there was to say. She had not intended to have sex with him, and she damn sure had not meant to ambush him the way she had. Now that the sex was over, she was both confused and slightly embarrassed. Yes, his body had responded to hers and in a way that said he wanted it as much as she did, but he had not initiated it, and she had no idea of what to say or do next.
Talon wasn’t meeting her eyes. “I’m not really sure what sort of a plan we have here. I know the Gorlites will be coming, but we have no idea when. I don’t know how much good we can do on the ground either. I hope your contacts down here will be able to give us enough information for us to get a good handle on what we should do next. I also hope that you are right in saying that there would be many who would fight with us against them. I’m good, but I’m not that good. I’ve got one ship against what sounds like an entire fleet of those creatures, and there’s no way that we can win this if we don’t get some assistance.”
Jessica’s tongue wet her lips. “I know. I know exactly how high the stakes are. We have to get off the ship in order to raise more crewmembers, which we need desperately. And you’re right; we need information, and I only know one person who could give us that information.”
Talon said, “Are you sure about this person?”
Her smile was grim. “Not entirely. Nobody should trust anybody entirely. Not ever.”
She should know.
Talon said, “Tell me something, Jessica; do you trust me?”
