the height of their progression, and be no bigger than a thumbnail at the end of their decline.
On the night train ride across the desert, heading toward the front from Mushtallah, leaning out the window in the conductor’s car, Nyx wondered if life here was better than what it had been up there. There was nothing up there on those hulking disks anymore but abandoned ore mines and shattered spires marking the pressurized gateways of subsurface cities—just ground up bone and bug secretions. The Firsts had waited it out up there for a thousand years while magicians made the world half-habitable. Now the moons were just bloody dust. Some days Nyx wasn’t so sure the world down here was any better than what was up there.
The train conductor was an old acquaintance of Nyx’s from her days back in primary school. Nyx hadn’t gotten through school much past the threes on a schooling tier that went to five. By the time she was eleven she was already spending most of her time cleaning guns with her brothers and teaching her sister how to box.
The conductor slowed the train just before dawn so Nyx and Eshe could get off within view of the highway. From there, they followed the ribbon of shiny organic pavement and turned off onto the Majd exit where the dunes ate at the road. As the day got hot, they walked down into the flatland sprawl of the broken little city of Basra.
Basra wasn’t much of a city, more like a watering hole on the way to grander places like Mushtallah or more strategically important ones like Punjai. Most of the people living there worked at the textile and munitions plant on the southern side of the city, a government-subsidized operation that blew yellow smoke over the city all day and orange haze all night. There was a little cantina on the edge of town called the Boxing Matron. It was one of six cantinas on the main drag. Basra also had four brothels, two laundries, one grocery store, and no mosque. During most prayer times, the woman who owned the tallest building in the city—a fight club—sent a servant up to the roof to call out prayer.
Nyx pushed into the dusty interior of the Boxing Matron, and stumbled over the sandals left at the entrance by other women. She didn’t take off her own. She didn’t trust anybody in Basra with her sandals, not after what had happened to a pair of hers the last time she tried to act the part of a polite guest in a dried up mining town in the interior.
They were both thirsty. Eshe had the glazed look of a kid left too long in the sun. He stumbled in after her, oblivious to the shoes. Nyx went up to the sticky bar where a leathery, wind-bitten old bar matron with a right hand like a corpse tended the whiskey. She was missing her left arm. She wore a pistol on her skinny left hip.
Nyx asked the bar matron where she could find Suha, but got only a snide little leer in return. Half a buck got her to talk.
“Second floor. Third room on the left,” the bar matron said.
Nyx climbed the stairs and banged on Suha’s door. Suha met them with a pistol in her hand, and lowered it when she saw who they were.
“I need you to find me a secure line,” Nyx said, pushing past her into the grimy room.
Suha holstered her pistol “In Basra? You must be joking.”
“I need to make a secure call.”
“To who?” Eshe asked.
“Since when do you ask questions?”
He frowned.
“You forget I used to be a bel dame.”
He rolled his eyes. “Like you’d let anybody forget.”
“I can still pound little boys’ heads in,” Nyx said, and gave Eshe’s head a soft shove.
Eshe rolled his eyes.
They went out for a drink and some food, and Suha got her a mostly secure line at a laundry across the street from the Boxing Matron. Nyx punched in a call pattern she’d learned by rote nearly two decades before. She wasn’t totally sure it would work, but it was worth the gamble.
The line hissed and buzzed in her ear before
On the night train ride across the desert, heading toward the front from Mushtallah, leaning out the window in the conductor’s car, Nyx wondered if life here was better than what it had been up there. There was nothing up there on those hulking disks anymore but abandoned ore mines and shattered spires marking the pressurized gateways of subsurface cities—just ground up bone and bug secretions. The Firsts had waited it out up there for a thousand years while magicians made the world half-habitable. Now the moons were just bloody dust. Some days Nyx wasn’t so sure the world down here was any better than what was up there.
The train conductor was an old acquaintance of Nyx’s from her days back in primary school. Nyx hadn’t gotten through school much past the threes on a schooling tier that went to five. By the time she was eleven she was already spending most of her time cleaning guns with her brothers and teaching her sister how to box.
The conductor slowed the train just before dawn so Nyx and Eshe could get off within view of the highway. From there, they followed the ribbon of shiny organic pavement and turned off onto the Majd exit where the dunes ate at the road. As the day got hot, they walked down into the flatland sprawl of the broken little city of Basra.
Basra wasn’t much of a city, more like a watering hole on the way to grander places like Mushtallah or more strategically important ones like Punjai. Most of the people living there worked at the textile and munitions plant on the southern side of the city, a government-subsidized operation that blew yellow smoke over the city all day and orange haze all night. There was a little cantina on the edge of town called the Boxing Matron. It was one of six cantinas on the main drag. Basra also had four brothels, two laundries, one grocery store, and no mosque. During most prayer times, the woman who owned the tallest building in the city—a fight club—sent a servant up to the roof to call out prayer.
Nyx pushed into the dusty interior of the Boxing Matron, and stumbled over the sandals left at the entrance by other women. She didn’t take off her own. She didn’t trust anybody in Basra with her sandals, not after what had happened to a pair of hers the last time she tried to act the part of a polite guest in a dried up mining town in the interior.
They were both thirsty. Eshe had the glazed look of a kid left too long in the sun. He stumbled in after her, oblivious to the shoes. Nyx went up to the sticky bar where a leathery, wind-bitten old bar matron with a right hand like a corpse tended the whiskey. She was missing her left arm. She wore a pistol on her skinny left hip.
Nyx asked the bar matron where she could find Suha, but got only a snide little leer in return. Half a buck got her to talk.
“Second floor. Third room on the left,” the bar matron said.
Nyx climbed the stairs and banged on Suha’s door. Suha met them with a pistol in her hand, and lowered it when she saw who they were.
“I need you to find me a secure line,” Nyx said, pushing past her into the grimy room.
Suha holstered her pistol “In Basra? You must be joking.”
“I need to make a secure call.”
“To who?” Eshe asked.
“Since when do you ask questions?”
He frowned.
“You forget I used to be a bel dame.”
He rolled his eyes. “Like you’d let anybody forget.”
“I can still pound little boys’ heads in,” Nyx said, and gave Eshe’s head a soft shove.
Eshe rolled his eyes.
They went out for a drink and some food, and Suha got her a mostly secure line at a laundry across the street from the Boxing Matron. Nyx punched in a call pattern she’d learned by rote nearly two decades before. She wasn’t totally sure it would work, but it was worth the gamble.
The line hissed and buzzed in her ear before
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