The Sign of One. Eugene Lambert

to be kicked out from under me.

      The ground leaps up and smashes into my back. For several seconds all I can do is lie there groaning, struggling to catch my breath. Too late I remember the pole I’m holding is a weapon, before a booted foot grinds that hand into the soil. I look up to see my attacker standing over me – a little guy with white dreads, shabby leather overalls, eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses. In each lens, I see my shocked face, gob open, gasping for air. Two me’s, like I’m an ident too.

      He pushes the shades up into his dreads and he . . . is a girl.

      A girl with death in her dark green eyes.

      ‘So you like torturing twists, do you?’ she hisses.

      ‘Drop dead,’ I say, wheezing.

      Big mistake. I see now what she’s pointing at me – a snub-nosed flamer, a weapon so lethal it’s banned even on dump worlds.

      She leans down and presses the flamer’s barrel into my forehead.

      ‘Wrong answer.’

      The gun’s a blur, so I focus on the girl’s face. Pale, tough-looking, about my age. Black thumb-thick bars painted across her cheekbones. Teardrop tattoo dripping from her left eye. Those long, greasy dreads, bleached white.

      And she looks mad as hell.

      ‘No, wait!’ I say. ‘I –’

      A bald guy in matching leathers and face paint hauls the girl off me. He’s massive, double ugly and looks even meaner than she is. I like him already.

      ‘What the hell are you doing, Sky?’

      He wrenches the flamer from the girl’s hand and shoves her away. She glares at him like she’ll argue, but settles for making a gun shape with her hand and pretend-shooting me.

      She stalks off then, limping badly.

      Baldy waves her flamer at us. ‘Anybody see what happened?’

      Nobody wants to die so nobody answers.

      The man grunts with obvious satisfaction. ‘Good. You keep it that way.’

      He pockets the gun and follows the girl towards the exit. Our stunned silence is broken by a slow, leathery slapping sound. The twist is sitting up at the back of its cage now and it’s clapping.

      Slowly, miserably, I pick myself up.

      ‘Wow, Kyle,’ says Nash, poking me with his finger. ‘You just got your head kicked in by some gimp windjammer girl.’

      ‘That right?’ I say.

      He opens his mouth to make another smart-arse comment.

      I don’t give him the chance.

      All my life I’ve been scared of thugs like Nash, but it’s like I’m suddenly possessed by rage. Or maybe it’s shame. I snap his head back with a punch. He staggers and goes down. When he gets back up, he’s clutching his mouth and cursing me, blood dribbling thick and red between his fingers.

      ‘You so had that coming, Nash,’ I say.

2

       HIGH SLAYER

      It’s not like I want to go, after everything that happened. I volunteer to look after our campsite. But Clayton, who’s as close to a leader as we’ve got, and no fool, says I go to the Unwrapping and Nash stays as punishment for fighting. So here I am the next day, wedged inside the arena again, ten rows or so back from the stage. We’ve been here for hours already. Today’s another hot one, and I see storm clouds gathering out west on the horizon. The mood is serious now. Apart from a few stalls selling spiced meat snacks, the merchants are gone. The bars are all closed too.

      Clayton says we’re here to witness, not be entertained. He’s warned us to be on our best behaviour.

      I’m standing with the Reeve family, including a squirming Cassie. Since I took the girl’s hand yesterday, she’s attached herself to me like one of those nasty little suckerfish you get in our lakes. On the stage, men are covering an altar with crimson cloth. Suspended over the cages at the back, a massive vid-screen made from loads of little screens shows our glorious leader, the Saviour himself.

      He stares down at us, magnified a thousand times.

      Me, I’ve only seen him on faded posters before, where he looks old and severe. Here on the screen though I see he’s still barrel-chested, strong and vigorous for a man his age. A mane of thick grey hair falls over his broad shoulders and he’s got a mouthful of the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. We get to see a lot of them too, with him smiling as he does his famous ‘reaching out to the people’ pose that Rona hates so much. Like he’s a father figure, not the dictator she’s always saying he is.

      It’d be confusing if I could be bothered thinking about it.

      I stop watching him and look out instead for that scowling girl with the white dreads and the flamer. In this crowd it’d be easy for her to sneak up behind me and slide a knife between my ribs without anyone seeing.

      Turns out Nash was right. The leathers and those marks on the girl’s face means she’s windjammer crew. Me, I’ve never seen a windjammer, but like all kids, I know about these ridge-running glider transports. Cobbled together from the scrapped orbit-to-surface dropships that dumped us here back in the day, they’re crude enough flying machines, but as hi-tech as it gets here. Worlds like Wrath are where whoever runs the galaxy disposes of criminals, and that’s a locked-down, marooned and forgotten kind of deal. We’re left to fend for ourselves.

      So folk say anyway, but what do I know?

      I’ve wanted to be a windjammer pilot since forever.

      Down on sleep after a bad night, I yawn. Whenever I closed my eyes, I kept seeing that flamer. But that wasn’t the worst thing – I wish I’d had the guts to tell Nash and that old man to drop dead. I should never have picked up that pole thing. Okay, so the twist looked nasty, but – and I know this is heresy – wouldn’t being tortured and tormented, day in, day out, turn anyone into a monster?

      A trumpet sounds. At least, I think it’s a trumpet. We don’t go in much for music in the Barrenlands – it’s nice, but you can’t eat it.

      ‘What’s happenin’?’ squeals Cassie.

      People file on to the stage. I can tell straight off they’re important because they’re sleek and fat and wear rich-looking clothes. You have to be a big deal on Wrath to be fat. One by one they waddle along and crush their seats.

      ‘They look down, we look up,’ somebody hisses.

      The crowd starts muttering now.

      I’m twisted round, trying to hear what’s being said, when I hear gasps. I look back and have a gasp sucked out of me too. A raven-haired young woman stalks across the stage, swaying her hips, a long brown cloak draped over her shoulders. Under this she wears a fancy black-leather uniform, trimmed with shimmering nightrunner fur, cut tight and clinging to show off her figure. She stops at the altar, turns and faces us. Even from here I see her fingers clenching and unclenching. She reminds me of a spider – all long, spindly arms and legs, waiting to pounce. Trumpets blast, then fade away. Cassie kicks me in the shin.

      ‘All right!’ I hoist her on to my shoulders.

      The people behind us moan, but I ignore them. Cassie’s thrilled. I’m not – she stinks. She also thinks it’s okay to hold on to my ears.

      ‘Who’s the tall skinny woman?’

      ‘A High Slayer.’

      I’m pretty sure, seeing how much gilt she’s got on her uniform.

      The only Slayers