“Go on,” I say.
“I don’t know if he knows what comes next. That’s why I’m glad you’re back, little brother. I know you’ve got a plan. I know you can save us.”
He says it with so much faith, so much trust.
“Of course I’ve a plan,” I say, because I know it’s what he needs to hear. But as my brother contentedly refills his mug, my uncle catches my eye and I know he sees through the lie and we both feel the darkness pressing in.
It’s early morning as I sip coffee and eat a bowl of grain cereal my mother fetched me from the commissary. I’m not yet ready for crowds. Kieran and Leanna have already gone to work, so I sit with Dio and Mother as the children dress for school. It’s a good sign. You know a people have given up when they stop teaching their children. I finish my coffee. Mother pours me more.
“You took an entire pot?” I ask.
“The chef insisted. Tried to give me two.”
I sip from the cup. “It’s almost like the real thing.”
“It is the real thing,” Dio says. “There’s this pirate who sends us hijacked goods. Coffee’s from Earth, I think. Jamaca, they said.”
I don’t correct her.
“Oy!” a voice screams in the hallways. My mother jumps at the sound. “Reaper! Reaper! Come out and play-e-ay!” There’s a crash in the hall and the sound of stomping boots.
“Remember, Deanna told us to knock,” says a thunderous voice.
“You are so annoying. Fine.” A polite knock comes at the door. “Tidings! It’s Uncle Sevro and the Moderately Friendly Giant.”
My mother motions to one of my excited nieces. “Ella, do us kind.” Ella darts forward to open the door for Sevro. He bursts through, scooping her up. She shrieks with joy. He’s in his undersuit, a black sweat-wicking fabric that soldiers wear under pulse armor. Sweat rings stain the armpits. His eyes dance as he sees me, and he tosses Ella roughly onto a bed and charges toward me, arms outstretched. A weird laugh escapes his chest, hatchet face split with a jagged grin. His hair a dirty, sweat-soaked Mohawk.
“Sevro, careful!” my mother says.
“Reap!” He slams into me, spinning my chair sideways, clacking my teeth together, as he half lifts me out of the chair, stronger than he was, smelling of tobacco and engine fuel and sweat. He half laughs, half cries like an excited dog into my chest. “I knew you were alive. I bloodydamn knew it. Pixie bitches can’t fool me.” Pulling back, he looks down at me with a rickshaw grin. “You bloodydamn bastard.”
“Language!” my mother snaps.
I wince. “My ribs.”
“Oh, shit, sorry brotherman.” He lets me sink back into the chair, and kneels so we’re eye to eye. “I said it once. Now I’ll say it twice. If there’s two things in this world that can’t be killed, it’s the fungus under my sack and the Reaper of bloodydamn Mars. Haha!”
“Sevro!”
“Sorry, Deanna. Sorry.”
I pull back from him. “Sevro. You smell…terrible.”
“I haven’t showered in five days,” he brags, grabbing his groin. “It’s a Sevro soup in here, boyo.” He puts his hands on his hips. “You know, you look…erm…” He glances at my mother and tames his tongue. “Bloody terrible.”
A shadow falls over the room as a man enters and blocks the overhead light near the door. The children cluster joyously around Ragnar so he can barely walk.
“Hello, Reaper,” he says over their shouts.
I greet Ragnar with a smile. His face is as impassive as ever. Tattooed and pale, callused from the wind of his arctic home, like the hide of a rhinoceros. His white beard is braided into four strands, and the hair on his head shaved except for a tail of white that is braided with red ribbons. The children are asking him if he’s brought them presents.
“Sevro.” I lean forward. “Your eyes…”
He leans in close. “Do you like ’em?” Buried in that squinting, sharp-angled face, his eyes are no longer that dirty shade of Gold, but are now as red as Martian soil. He pulls back his lids so I can better see. They’re not contacts. And the right is no longer bionic.
“Bloodydamn. Did you get Carved?”
“By the best in the business. Do you like ’em?”
“They’re bloodydamn marvelous. Fit you like a glove.”
He punches his hands together. “Glad you said that. Cuz they’re yours.”
I blanch. “What?”
“They’re yours.”
“My what?”
“Your eyes!”
“My eyes…”
“Did yon Friendly Giant drop you on your head in the rescue? Mickey had your eyes in a cryobox at his joint in Yorkton—creepy place, by the by—when we raided it for supplies to bring back to Tinos to help the Rising. I figured you weren’t usin’ ’em, so…” He shrugs awkwardly. “So I asked if he’d put ’em in. You know. Bring us closer together. Something to remember you by. That’s not so weird, right?”
“I told him it was odd,” Ragnar says. One of the girls is climbing his leg.
“Do you want the eyes back?” Sevro asks, suddenly worried. “I can give them back.”
“No!” I say. “It’s just I forgot how crazy you are.”
“Oh.” He laughs and slaps my shoulder. “Good. I thought it was something serious. So I’m prime keeping them?”
“Finders keepers,” I say with a shrug.
“Deanna of Lykos, may we borrow your son for martial matters?” Ragnar asks my mother. “He has much to do. Many things to know.”
“Only if you return him in one piece. And you take some coffee with you. And bring these socks to the laundry.” My mother pushes a bag of freshly patched socks into Ragnar’s arms.
“As you wish.”
“What about the presents?” one of my nephews asks. “Didn’t you bring any?”
“I’ve got a present for you…” Sevro says.
“Sevro, no!” Dio and my mother shout.
“What?” He pulls out a bag. “It’s just candy this time.”
—
“…and that’s when Ragnar tripped over Pebble and fell out the back of the transport,” Sevro cackles. “Like a dumbass.” He’s eating a candy bar over my head as he pushes my wheelchair recklessly through the stone corridor. He sprints fast again and hops on the back to coast till we swerve into the wall. I wince in pain. “So Ragnar falls straight into the sea. Thing was at full chop, man. Waves the size of torchships. So I dive in too, thinking he needs my help, just in time for this huge…I dunno what the hell you’d call it. Some Carved beasty…”
“Demon,” Ragnar says from behind. I hadn’t noticed him following. “It was a sea demon from the third level of Hel.”
“Sure.” Sevro guides me around a corner, clipping the wall hard enough to make me bite my tongue, and sending a cluster of Sons pilots scattering. They stare after me as we trundle on. “This sea”—he looks back at Ragnar—“demon apparently thinks Ragnar is a tasty-looking morsel, so he gobbles him up almost as soon as he hits the water. So I see this, and I’m laughing my ass off with Screwface, as one would because it’s bloodydamn hilarious, and you know how Screwface loves a good joke. But then the beasty dives. So I follow. And I’m chasing it, shooting my pulseFist at a bloodydamn sea”—he looks at Ragnar again—“demon as it swims to the bottom of the damn Thermic Sea. Pressure’s building. My suit’s wheezing. And I think I’m about to die, when suddenly Ragnar cuts his way out of the scaly bitch.” He leans close. “But guess where he came out? Come on. Guess. Guess!”
“Sevro, did he come out the sea demon’s rectum?” I ask.
Sevro squeals with laughter. “He did! Right out the ass. Shot like a turd—” My chair rolls to a stop. His voice cut short, followed by a thump and sliding sound. My wheelchair rolls forward again. I look back and see Ragnar pushing it innocently along. Sevro isn’t in the hallway behind us. I frown, wondering where he went, till he bursts out of a side passage.