Stormblood, стр. 151
‘Jae told me she’d kill you if I tried to leave,’ Artyom whispered.
‘She tried anyway.’
‘I always said you were too stubborn to die, Vak.’
I raised a thin smile to match his. A brief silence settled over us.
‘What happens next?’ Arytom asked.
‘What do you think?’
‘You’re staying with Harmony, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t much like them, either. But maybe working on the inside is the way to improve things.’ A dreamy instrumental soundtrack was playing from some office down the corridor. Might have been one of the many songs we’d listened to together. ‘My advice? Tell them everything. Don’t hold anything back.’
‘Vak—
‘Do it, Artyom. It might be the only way to save your life.’
Artyom’s hand brushed the cold metal wall. ‘Do you ever think we’ll see New Vladi again?’
‘One day,’ I said, and believed it. One day we’d return to the world of snow-peaked mountains and waterfalls and sweeping pine forests, full of animals and a wild, earthy smell.
I had so many more things to say, but they were lodged deep inside me, and I’d have to break whatever threadbare stitching was holding me together to say them. So I bowed my head in the New Vladi way and turned to leave. Artyom whispered, ‘Arigato, Vakov.’ It was the first word of Japanese I’d heard him say in years. ‘Domo arigato. For everything.’
I got halfway to the exit when Arytom called me back. ‘Vakov. Kasia would be proud of you.’
Katherine and Grim were waiting for me outside. He bumped my fist as Katherine kicked off the podium she’d been leaning against and slipped next to me. We strode together down the glowing stairs of Harmony Station. She kissed me on the cheek before we headed off. ‘How’d it go?’ she asked me finally, squeezing my hand.
‘He’ll live,’ I said. ‘If Harmony lets him.’
The Kaiji were picking their way up to the main building. The final negotiations of a peace treaty were beginning, as Juvens had promised. Their fleet was coming closer to the asteroid, handfuls of ships parking in dockyard berths designated for their species. The aliens would enter the Common as allies, along with their wartech, space fleets and armed forces for Harmony to call on. It’d take months, perhaps years, of interspecies diplomacy to fully determine the structure of it all, but that wasn’t my problem.
Grim was gaping at the big aliens in wide-eyed awe. Juvens noticed, tilting his jutting horns in Grim’s direction and baring his teeth. ‘I bite.’
Juvens ignored the Ambassadors narrowing their eyes in burning disapproval. The Space Marshall turned to me with a sly, devilish grin, pressing a fist of salute to his armoured chest as he passed. I offered one in return.
We descended to the heart of Starklands, heading for our restaurant. Harmony had set up some sort of major celebratory event, but I wasn’t feeling up to it. Never been comfortable in large gatherings, anyway. Hanging out here with my friends was enough for me. At my elbow, Katherine was twirling the vaper in her hand. ‘Not going for a puff?’ I asked.
‘Trying to quit,’ she said, finally sliding it into her breast pocket. A trio of heavyweight Shocktroopers in robust armour and carrying their helmets gave us a nod each as we sliced by. I noticed Grim ducking away as they did, as if not wanting to be seen.
‘You okay?’ I asked him.
Grim squirmed. ‘I guess.’
‘It’s because of Harmony, isn’t it?’ I asked. He nodded.
‘Grim, you saved hundreds of lives,’ Katherine said. ‘You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘It’s not about that,’ Grim whispered.
Katherine clicked, understanding. My friend doesn’t like public attention, and even less when it stems from Harmony. I knew he’d be coming to terms with his new relationship with Harmony. Would be for a while.
Even cleaned up, the streets were still a mess following the outbreak. Casualties were still streaming in. Chatterboards overflowed with calls for missing people. The chaos had touched every floor, every echelon of every sector and class. Nothing’s as indiscriminate as random tragedy. The formerly glimmering restaurants and bustling shop squares had been reduced to wrecks of smashed glass and blackened beams by a micronade. Ships had crashed into each other before faceplanting into the asteroid. The damage was steadily racking up in the billions. Spaceports had been shut down, all departures grounded. Communications and trading with offworlders and non-Common alien species were temporarily closed. Flexiscreens flickered with hotlinks and contact information for trauma counselling. Torn posters about uniting together under Harmony fluttered like lost ghosts in the simulated breeze. People still milled about, as if looking for a way to hold themselves together. The never-ending stream of aerial traffic above us had crawled to a standstill.
But that’s the thing about people. Knock them down, and they find a way to get back up. Teams of all species were hard at work repairing the damaged property, providing food and shelter and free services. Everyone was doing their best. Floors that had been quarantined yesterday were slowly reopening to the public, reuniting sobbing families under the swaying trees.
Further downtown, orange-domed medclinics had popped up like fungi overnight, dealing with the wave of injured and sick. Humans and aliens were queued around the medclinics in wide circles like an orbital trajectory. There was an entirely separate line for anyone with stormtech, a battered plastic barrier dividing the queues. I hadn’t wanted to believe the broadcast about escalating hate crimes towards skinnies, but now I was starting to see the truth of it.
Slow, fat raindrops drizzled down. The raised glass platforms above us ran with veils of rain and smeared the blinking highrises and aerial traffic into a waterlogged neon stain. In the distance, the once-proud Reaper statue had been desecrated. Sprayed with sinister glyphs, gaping chunks of its body hammered and torn off. My belly was a pit of snakes,