Chapter 7

Santiago severed them from the fuss in the restaurant and guided her out onto the wide balcony that ran around the top of the dome with little effort. They were suddenly alone, with the ongoing hysteria a low murmur behind them.

Lucie took a deep breath, immensely grateful to be able to do that, and let it out.

"Where are you staying?" Santiago asked.

"Celestial. I'm renting a house…" She realized that the statement would sound much grander than it really was. "A little one," she added.

"Celestial. Here, let's use the elevator. I don't want to test your balance on the stairs right now."

Neither did Lucie, even though she usually ran up them and skipped down them.

The elevator was already waiting at the top, and the doors sprang open as soon as Santiago touched the pad.

They stepped inside.

"Mr. Santiago! Sir! Is Lucie alright?" Barney said, through the speaker.

"Excuse me, Barney?" Santiago said heavily.

"I'm sorry to barge in, sir," Barney said, in a tone Lucie had never heard him use before.

"I'm fine, Barney," Lucie said. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay. I'm going. I have a riot to control."

Santiago frowned at the speaker panel. "That's the second person to act oddly today."

"Barney? That seems just like him," Lucie said honestly. "Are you talking about me as the first?"

"The woman, of course," Santiago said. "I think her name is Shearer. Sarah…no, Sona. Sona Shearer. She's a tankball player. Perhaps Olivette was right, and she really was on something."

Lucie nodded. She had no basis upon which to make any sort of judgement like that.

"You're worried about your behavior?" Santiago asked, as the elevator doors slid open. They were on the main floor of the plaza. There was the long walk across the plaza and through the downtown buildings that made up Central City, then the road that led to all the original village domes; Beltane, Gantry, Jorunn and Celestial.

Lucie wondered if she should be frank, or not. The last time she'd spoken to Santiago, over a week ago, he'd snarled at her. And Edme and Olivette had said that was the man's usual nature.

This moment of solicitousness could be a temporary thing and he'd revert to his true nature in a while.

Unbidden, she recalled the video she had seen of him talking to Blake, before kissing her. The laughter that had lit his face and made his eyes dance. The smile he'd worn.

Was that the real Santiago? Was the bear everyone walked carefully around these days just a mask he'd donned? Something he'd become because of Blake's death? Was the happy man she'd seen still in there?

Lucie decided that for now, she would assume the real Santiago—Elijah—was still there. She spoke to that man. "I didn't like the way I…crumpled. I was useless. I couldn't have lifted a finger to stop the woman. Shearer."

"No one else did, either."

"You did."

Santiago glanced at her. She thought she saw a startled look in his eyes. Then he gave the tiniest of shrugs. "I've had some practice dealing with…things. You haven't. Every Varkan goes through what you just did. It's a rite of passage and they should warn you about it before they push you out of the nursery."

"I think they did," Lucie admitted, recalling lectures. "It just didn't register at the time. Everything else was new, too."

"I hadn't thought of it that way." He pointed. "This way. It's a shortcut."

They eased over to what looked like a narrow service corridor between multilevel office buildings. "We'll hit the dome wall at the other end," Lucie pointed out.

"No, we won't. Trust me." He strode down the narrow lane, forcing Lucie to follow him.

Immediately, the noise of many people walking and talking and doing business faded.

At the other end of the lane, the white, scratched and stained dome wall did face them, but the buildings were set back from it, so that they could rise higher. A three-meter-wide lane separated the building and wall. Lucie suddenly wished that this dome was transparent the way Celestial was, instead of just having the transparent top, where exclusive commercial outlets fought for retail space.

They moved along the back of the buildings, which were considerably less charming on this side. The lane emerged onto the wide road that led to the other inner domes.

It was a short cut.

"You've had a lot of practice dealing with the Varkan, then?" Lucie said, as they joined the outward flow of pedestrians heading for the other domes.

"One does, living on Charlton City," Santiago said, his tone dry.

"Would they?" Lucie asked. "It's almost impossible to figure out who is Varkan and who is human, here. Everyone just…blends in. Well, except for Varkans like me, who demonstrate just how young they are."

"That's what's bothering you, then," Santiago said, with a pleased note. "Everyone starts out young." He shrugged. "We all get older, too. Enjoy your youth while you have it. Everything is new and unique and a marvel for you."

"Which makes people like you cringe."

"No."

"Yes." Lucie looked up at him as they passed the wide entrance to Gantry. Gantry was the docklands village. People who lived there tended to work in the docking bays or on the ships that used the docking bays. It was a tightly packed village, with a workmanlike lack of decorative details. Every time she passed the entrance, Lucie could smell a metallic aroma that made her think of warmed grease.

She wrinkled her nose as the smell wafted around them, and said to Santiago, "You made fun of me the first time we met. In the docking bay. You called me new and guessed exactly what my itinerary was."

Santiago remained silent for a moment. Then, "That was…uncharitable of me. I apologize."

Lucie managed to keep her jaws together, so her shock did not show on her face. An apology! Her pathetic performance in the restaurant had clearly triggered his pity. Why else would he be nice, right now? It was likely why she wasn't irritating him into anger, the way she usually did, just because of the way she looked.

They still had two hundred and three…a couple hundred meters to walk just to reach the entrance to Celestial. Lucie cleared her throat. Then she remembered something.

"The security officer. Roderick. When you told him Shearer was throwing things, he grew all still and cautious and asked you to confirm that she had been throwing things at people. And you said, very firmly, that she was not."

"Yes." Santiago kept his gaze ahead.

"I don't understand why the difference seems so significant."

"Then Barney isn't doing his job. As a new resident, even a temporary one, you should have been acquainted with the most common laws of the city."

"Throwing things is a law?" Then she added quickly, "Barney gave me a four-hundred-page manual. The laws are in there, I suspect. But I got this job so quickly, and I haven't read it yet."

"Not throwing things at people is a law," Santiago said. "Causing any bodily harm of anyone in the city will terminate your residency."

"Oh." Lucie thought about that.

"There isn't a similar law on your world?"

"There are a lot of laws," Lucie assured him. "Many of them dealing with causing harm to others. Some of them are conflicting. Darwin is a very old world."

"There is just the one law here. It makes it much easier to uphold it, and obey it."

"There are no exceptions made, ever?"

"Occasionally, yes. But they cannot be used to argue the merits of any future trial. Each exception is decided upon individually. The last exception was made at least a hundred years ago."

"How often is the law applied?"

"More than once a century, but not as often as you think. People like living on Charlton."

"Yes, I've gained that impression," Lucie admitted. "I thought everyone wanted to live on Charlton or visit Charlton because it is where Varkans first coalesced as a demographic, but it's really nothing to do with that. It's just…nice here."

"A law that kicks you off the city if you hurt someone else is part of that," Santiago pointed out.

"Yes. I can see that. I can see why Roderick wanted to make it clear if Shearer had deliberately harmed anyone."

And she had not. People might have earned nicks and scratches from flying debris, but the woman had not aimed at anyone. Not even Lucie, who had offended her enough to send her into a tantrum of gigantic proportions. But it had been such a minor offence….

"I don't think I caused the woman's tantrum," Lucie said.

Santiago glanced at her, surprise showing once more. "No?"

She shook her head. "She said I gave her the wrong coffee blend. But I didn't. I gave her the one she asked for. Then she just…exploded."

Santiago thought about that. "Edme was certain Shearer had taken something that caused the reaction."

Lucie thought back to the moment when Sona Shearer had held up the coffee carafe and pointed to it. Her gaze had been steady. So had her hand. Her voice had been firm and clear. "I don't think she was."

Santiago slowed his pace, his gaze down at his feet, frowning. "She deliberately caused the scene? Why?"

"You know her better than me. She's only been to the restaurant six times. You tell me."

Santiago looked startled again. Then he smiled. "Good point. But I don't know her well at all. She's a tankball player. I don't watch the games."

"Tankball can be…they fight, in the games."

"In zero gee, no one fights very well at all. It's all show, for the audience." Santiago dismissed the idea.

They walked in silence until they reached the entrance to Celestial and turned into the village. The city had rotated enough to bring twilight back to the village. The streetlights with their antique shapes and leaded glass domes, spread amber pools of light across the main road through the village.

Originally, the main road had ended in the center of the village, where the market square was located. But as the city grew, more domes were added to the edges of it, and to reach them, one had to go through the older villages. Celestial's main street had been extended to the other side of the dome, where it continued into Cerule, an angular, modern village, then on to the villages beyond Cerule.

So the main road was always busy with foot traffic, hand-pulled carts and anti-grav sleds hauling loads, and a few licensed and approved personal ground vehicles. It should have been noisy, but the twilight and the soft, warm amber glow of Celestial's streetlights seemed to encourage quietness. Traffic passed through the village with a mere susurration.

Lucie's little house with its tall walls was only a few dozen steps away from the main road, but the noise dropped to almost nothing and the house could have been kilometers from any traffic.

"You live here?" Santiago asked.

"It's a temporary rental. I paid for forty days. It was cheaper than the transient hostels." She put her hand on the lock pad and the gate unlocked with a soft click and wavered open a few centimeters. Beyond the gate, the house lights came on. "Is that a problem?" she asked curiously. Was he back to being a bear now?

He shook his head. "I know the history of this house."

"That Yennifer, the original city mind, lived here, once?"

"She did? I meant I knew the tenants from the last few years. People don't like the house. They say it's too open."

"I love it," Lucie admitted. "You can see the stars from bed, right through the dome." She indicated the open gate. "Do you want to come in?"

"I…" He frowned. "I will feel better if I watch you eat something, and go to bed."

"Barney can report to you on that."

Santiago rubbed the back of his neck. "Barney is the city mind. He shouldn't have to play nursemaid." He pushed open the gate. "We'll eat together," he said firmly. "My breakfast was interrupted."