The Gardener of Nahi

Chapter 3

Cassidian

The morning light was weakened once on the other side of the curtain.  It wasn’t dark in the Still, but it certainly wasn’t bright either.  Shops on the main artery and in the veins had their lights on (they were always on down here), bright colors flashing in discordant beats each trying to outduel each other.  I had the sense that the people hovering around the curtain’s edge had been doing the same, fighting to get a glimpse of what was happening down below on the beach.  The moment I came through, they must have dispersed like seagulls since they were all at the moment acting as if they were busy.

These people weren’t fools - they knew I was Hunion.  Even though I wasn’t wearing my helmet, my entry suit gave me away.  It was dark grey, skin-tight, and the ring around my neck pulsed a faint red where the seal had been broken.

I was also carrying my serrater.

Looking back in the direction from which I came, I gauged how much time I had.  The sanitization team was already working on moving the large ship on the beach – dozens of pods hovered in the air amidst a sandstorm, metal cables dangling beneath them like jellyfish hoisting a smooth black rock.  There were some men standing on the beach there, shouting, directing the work.  But nobody was coming my way.  They weren’t there to follow me.  They were there to erase the past.

I had some time.

Looking downward I could see the blood clearly against the grey brick of the terraced walkway.  There were large drops every few feet, until it ended suddenly where the street began.

Exhaling in frustration, I glanced around, analyzing the throng of people in this area, knowing I would need to ask for help.  I logically grouped them, taking a big problem and conquering it by solving many smaller problems instead.

Most of the crowd was noise, filler.  No blacksuits were on patrol, which was surprising but also ideal in this situation.  The local Cassidian police forces seldom interfered with Hunion matters, but even a cursory explanation on my part would only slow me down.

Then again, I thought, perhaps I was now Hunion by sight and nothing more.  I silently wished I hadn’t thrown away my helmet in the ship – it was a foolish action on my part, my emotions taking over.  With my helmet on, I could have tapped into the local blacksuit network in this neighborhood and listened for pursuit activity.  Now I had no idea where the two sets of footprints led, nor did I know if the blacksuits were in fact looking for me now as well.

I pushed it to the back of my mind, focusing on a few pockets of individuals which stood out from the rest.  I needed information.

The teens near the burned out innership caught my attention first.  He was kissing a waiflike girl, then whispering to her, alternating back and forth.  She was pushed up against a blackened shop window with a half-torn UpMove poster on it.  In the claw-shaped rip, he was looking at me in the reflection while talking in her ear.  Almost too conveniently, I thought.

The pair of men was the closest to me, and probably the biggest threat due to their size, but they kept on playing their game of antitwin on a bench, hunched over the matte pavement while deep in thought into their checkered gameboard.  At first I believed them – that they could have been actually doing what they were pretending on doing – but then I caught the subtle ruse.

Not everyone knows the game of antitwin, so I will start with a simple explanation, for it is impossible to understand their mistake without understanding the basic rules of the game.

It is built around a very simple premise:  each player starts the game with twenty pieces (ten pairs of twins).  Each pair is unique in the sense that it has its own name, look, and special ability within the game.  But within each of these ten pairs the uniqueness ends.  In truth they are not twins at all, but opposites in almost all respects.