Firefly--Carnival Read online

  “Maybe when we’re done with the job, Kaylee—”

  Carnival, thought Simon. Was this something he needed to be worrying about? He sighed, and the Shepherd leaned in for a quiet word. “Shut your eyes again, son,” he murmured.. “We’ll call you when we need you.”

  The Shepherd, Simon thought, was a very wise man. Bethel, he thought, another dung heap. But one that Kaylee wanted to see. Simon couldn’t square this circle, not now. Instead, obeying his preacher, Simon closed his eyes again. His mind drifted back to Osiris, where the world had made perfect sense, before everything turned upside down and he found himself here, amongst strangers, trying to make a broken girl better. Gǒu shǐ, thought Simon, I really am very tired…

  * * *

  Before Ava Jones left her home up in Evansville to catch the big train down here to Neapolis, she’d been so excited, telling all her friends about the job at the hotel that Uncle Nate had fixed up for her, and how she was looking forward to seeing the city at last, and imagining the good times she’d have when she got there. The day before she left, a friend of her late aunt came up to her, and, quietly, pressed a card into her hand. “You find yourself in any trouble, honey,” she said, “take this to a vidphone and call the number there. They’ll help you out, best they can.”

  “Trouble?” said Ava. She wasn’t anticipating trouble. She was heading off to the big city, like she’d always wanted to since Momma and Poppa had died. Free at last! Money in her pocket and all the big wide ’verse to explore. “I’m a good girl! I ain’t plannin’ on gettin’ into trouble.”

  “Honey,” said Aunty Eve’s friend, “sometimes trouble comes lookin’ for us. Take the card and make the call—if you have to.”

  So Ava took the card, and, showing some of the very good sense that her Aunty Eve had tried hard to instill in her while Ava was in her care, she had kept the card with a handful of other small treasures wrapped on her person, rather than stored in her little case. She wondered where that little case was now. All her clothes (including her best dress and best hat) had been in that little blue plastic case. She figured she wasn’t seeing them ever again, and good hats and dresses don’t fall out of the sky. But the card was safe (along with Momma’s ring and the holo-images of Momma and Poppa’s wedding day and a little squishy toy bear called Patches), and it turned out she had cause to use this card after all.

  On a side street near the open market, Ava found a public vidphone and tried to work out what to do. Ava had never used anything like this in her life. She’d seen one, of course—she might be from the sticks, but she wasn’t stupid, which more people ought to remember, particularly those trying to stick needles into arms. There was an old vidphone in the bar where Uncle Nate and his pals went drinking after their shift, but Ava doubted Uncle Nate had ever had reason to use such a thing either. Who was there to call? Everyone they knew was right there in Evansville.

  The street was quiet. Ava took off the owl mask and stared at the smooth blank screen. Well, really, how hard could it be? She reached a finger out to tap the cool plastic, and the screen sprang into life, all bright colors and flashing lights. A little cartoon rabbit bounced past and made her laugh; first thing about this place to do so. The rabbit hopped down a hole and pulled a cover over its head, but before instructing Ava in no uncertain terms to eat Joozy Frooty Treets. Maybe she would. The screen flickered and a soft voice said: Insert card… Insert card… over and over, until Ava obeyed, jamming the card into the only slot she could see.

  The display on the screen changed again. Some numbers— that was her credit, she guessed—and a list named ‘CONTACTS’. There was only one name there: P.R. Quigley’s Cleaning Services, two Chinese characters, but nobody had ever bothered to teach Ava how to read them. Was this really somebody who could help? She hoped so. She touched the characters, and a green light flashed. Connecting… said the soft voice. Connecting…

  It said this over and over for a while, then said: Disconnecting… Disconnecting… Ava tried again, and a third time, with the same unhappy results. So much for help. She looked down the street. The afternoon was wearing on and a breeze picking up. Ava shivered. She was glad of the shawl, although she still felt bad about how she’d got it. “Thou shalt not steal,” said the preacher, every weekend, although he did say some dumb things. Desperate times, she thought, perhaps she’d be forgiven. She gave the number one last try.

  Connecting… Connecting…

  The green light stopped flashing and held still. A voice came through—no face—and sounding a little distorted.

  “Who’s this?”

  “M’name’s Ava, ma’am.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Missus Freeman, back in Evansville, where I’m from, she gave me it, ma’am. Said to call, if I needed help.”

  There was a pause. “You need help?”

  Ava couldn’t reply at first. Couldn’t put into words all that had happened…

  “Are you still there, honey?”

  Missus Freeman had called her that. So had Aunty Eve. Maybe Momma had too. Anyway, it helped. “Two men…” Ava whispered. “Came at me… One of ’em had a needle… “Please,” she said. “Help me.” She began to cry.

  “Okay. It’s okay, honey. Listen. Wait where you are. I’ll you call back in twenty minutes. You hear? Don’t move, and don’t miss the call. I’ll call you back. I promise.”

  The line went dead. Ava felt a cautious hope rise up. She stood by the vidphone, shawl covering her face, hoping that nobody else would come past wanting to use it and take up the line. She watched the time tick past slowly on the screen. Fifteen minutes, sixteen, seventeen. Twenty-one, twenty-two… Twenty-five… She was starting to think she’d been taken for a ride, when the light on the screen started flashing green.

  Incoming… Incoming…

  Ava touched the screen and the voice came through again: “Is your card in the slot?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “There’s another number on there now. You need to call that number tomorrow morning. You need to call at the right time. Not before ten, and not after ten thirty. Got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Tomorrow morning. Not before ten, not after ten thirty.”

  “They’ll give you an address to go to. Tomorrow morning—not before ten, not after ten thirty.”

  The call ended, before Ava could say: But what should I do for the rest of today, ma’am? What should I do for tonight?

  Ava looked round. All she could see was those big stone tenement buildings, turned inwards. No help there. She wandered down the street, away from the market, and found herself walking through a little park. She sat down on a bench and watched group of children flying their kites: dragons and hawks and spaceships. Ava had never flown a kite; there hadn’t been much time for that kind of thing back home, but something about the children’s laughter made her think of Momma and Poppa, long gone, and Aunty Eve, who had always been kind, and she felt tears welling up. She shook herself. She was fourteen, grown-up, she wasn’t a kid any more.

  The kites caught in the breeze. The kids laughed when they lifted higher, shrieked when they swooped, groaned when they took a tumble down to the ground. After a while, they stopped, and opened up a picnic. Ava watched, trying to ignore her own hunger. She hadn’t eaten since early this morning, just before the train arrived in Neapolis, and she didn’t have any money. When the kids finished eating, they played a running game for a while, but the day was growing colder, the sun was getting cooler, and at last their grown-ups rounded them up to head home. The park was emptying. Ada got up and found a huge tree, its branches coming down to the ground, like a tent, and snuck underneath.

  After about twenty minutes, one of the security staff lifted the branches. “Bad luck, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re wise to this spot.”

  “I just need a place to sleep for the night,” Ava said. “Just one night.”

  “You ain’t got a home?”

  “I’m her
e for Carnival. Workin’.”

  “You ain’t found a bed?”

  “The boarding house got mixed up.” Funny how quick the lies came, once you started. Stealin’, lyin’… Preacher Wiley, if ever he found out, would tell Uncle Nate to use his strap on her. “Someone else has the bed tonight—”

  “Well, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but if I let you stay here, I’ll be the one lookin’ for work in the morning.”

  “But where should I—?”

  He shrugged. She could see he wasn’t going to let her make herself his problem, so she gave up, and let him lead her to the gate. She watched him set the security codes, and the force barriers went up. She wouldn’t get back in there so she turned and walked away.

  Cities have a twilight time between the late afternoon and the evening, when the daytime businesses have wound down, but the nighttime pleasures have barely begun. Those who have finished for the day have gone home and are settling down comfortably to supper and bed; those who are going back out again are not yet ready to hit the town. There’s an hour or two when a city is neither one thing nor the other, where a girl wandering stands out. Someone without a destination. Someone without a place. As Ava walked, she felt more and more conspicuous, easier and easier to find. She needed somewhere to hide for the night…

  Be strong, she thought. Be brave.

  She turned a corner and found herself back in the market square. The place was very different now; empty and disheveled. All the buyers long gone; whoever remained of the vendors packing up their wares ready to be on their way. Ava wandered past the grubby stalls, the canopies flapping in the breeze. This wasn’t what the city was supposed to be like. The city was supposed to be her big chance, her way out of the grind of poverty that was life out in Evansville. Ava wasn’t afraid of work; she’d worked most of her life and she’d come here ready and willing to do what was needed. But she wasn’t willing to be hurt, and Aunty Eve had always said to her, “You don’t let anyone take advantage, honey…”

  All I have to do, thought Ava, is get through tonight. Tomorrow— someone’ll come. Someone’ll help me, surely…

  Across the square, lights were twinkling. Ava followed their lead back to the shrine, where her candle was still burning, the small flame dancing in the breeze. It turned out that the shrine stood a little in front of the wall, and there was a small space there, sheltered by the trees that stood on either side. Ava slipped into the gap. Hardly comfortable, but maybe she could spend the night here unnoticed. That was all she wanted: to lie low, be quiet, make it through the next day without being found. She curled up, resting her head upon her hands. She listened to the wind and stared up through the leaves. The lights on the boughs of the trees were twinkling, like stars, like hope or freedom.

  * * *

  Elsewhere, the party was about to start, and the staff at St. Freda’s Hospital, Neapolis, were preparing for another grueling few days. They approached the whole period with the kind of grim fatalism more commonly found during lengthy sieges. Carnival was exhausting: a non-stop parade of injuries arising from too much drink, too few inhibitions, and the unfortunate combination of both. Their own small sweepstake included categories such as: Most embarrassing injury. Most preventable emergency. Most ludicrous chain of events.

  This was one way to pass the weekend. Dr. Katarina Neilsen, who was responsible for emergency care at the hospital, had plenty of other things to keep her busy. Yesterday, for example, one of her best people, deciding he was unable to face another excessively stressful few days, had quit. Now she was short-staffed. She sat in her office staring at the staff roster, trying to stretch not enough people across too many hours in need of cover. There were limits to what she could expect: at some point, people got too tired and started to make mistakes. And each year, her people told her, Carnival seemed to get a little wilder, a little more violent, a little more out-of-hand. She had come to Bethel a few months ago from the Core worlds, hoping for something less tedious and predictable. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she had made the right decision.

  There was a knock at her office door. Katarina put aside her notes and called out, “Enter…” A sweet odor of perfume made her look up; the sight of her visitor made her rise from her chair. “Ms. Becker,” she said, “I wasn’t expecting you…”

  Hilde Becker, richly dressed and ornamented, poised and utterly beautiful, moved smoothly into the room and gestured to Katarina to sit down. Permission to sit, in her own office. Only Hilde Becker could pull rank like this. She was head of the local Guild House, and one of the most influential people on Bethel. She also happened to be Katarina’s employer. The Guild owned St. Freda’s, as they owned large chunks of Neapolis. Only Jacob Roberts was more powerful, and Jacob Roberts and Hilde Becker were known to be good friends.

  “Forgive me the interruption,” said Hilde. “I know this is a very busy time. I wanted to check that you had everything you needed.”

  Katarina fell back in her chair. “Well, I’m critically short of staff.”

  “Short of staff?”

  “One of my best people quit yesterday. Couldn’t face another weekend of Carnival—”

  “If you need extra funds, you can have them.”

  “It’s not so much funds as the quality of the people available. I need specialists—”

  “You’ve advertised on the Cortex?”

  “Yes, but people come here to enjoy Carnival,” Katarina said, “not to find themselves up to their elbows in blood, bone, gore—”

  A wave of the hand made it quite clear that Hilde did not want to hear more details, gory or otherwise. “Spend whatever you need. Pay whatever it costs. The hospital plays an important part in maintaining the Guild’s reputation on Bethel. I want the weekend to go smoothly.” She looked impassively at her employee. “I’m sure you’ll do everything to make sure that happens.”

  Katarina herself was less convinced about her ability to work that kind of miracle but she knew that Hilde wasn’t interested in those kinds of detail either. When she started at St. Freda’s, she’d quickly worked out what the working relationship would be. Katarina would present Hilde with problems; Hilde gave her the money to make them go away. In many ways, it was a satisfactory arrangement: St. Freda’s had some state-of-the-art equipment these days. In other ways, it was not a good arrangement. Katarina hadn’t yet had to present Hilde with a failure, but she wasn’t looking forward to doing this when one inevitably arose.

  “You should keep a little time free over the weekend,” said Hilde. “To enjoy some of what’s on offer.”

  Rich people, Katarina had noticed, had an amazing ability not to hear what being was said to them. She was not unused to wealthy people—she had grown up and done her medical training on Osiris, after all, and while her family had comparatively modest means, she had studied alongside some scions of the fabulously rich. She was not unused to companions either—had even engaged one herself on one sweetly memorable occasion—but the combination of wealth, power, poise, and beauty that came together in Hilde was particularly intimidating. Also, Hilde could fire her on the spot. Hilde scared the life out of Katarina, and she didn’t know how to tell her ‘no’.

  “I’ll try to catch a concert or two,” Katarina said. “It would definitely be a shame to miss the whole party.”

  Hilde smiled. “You’re not one for gambling?”

  “Not really,” said Katarina, whose day-to-day life already carried with it enough risk and stress.

  “What a pity. Myself, I enjoy taking risks.”

  The console on Katarina’s desk gently chimed. Incoming… Incoming…

  “I’m so sorry,” Katarina said, reaching to cut it off. “They can call back later—”

  “Please,” said Hilde, “feel free to take it.”

  That carried the weight of an order rather than a suggestion, so Katarina let the call come through. Her heart sank when she saw a familiar face appear on screen. Anna Liu—twenty years younger than Hilde, but with that
same deadly combination of wealth, power, poise, and beauty. One of those scions of the fabulously rich that Katarina had met back on Osiris. Her friend, Katarina supposed she should call her, if the very rich do in fact have friends. Katarina lifted her hand, hoping to signal to Anna that someone else was present, and that she should rein herself in.

  “Anna,” she said, with a note of warning. “I’m pretty busy right now—”

  Her friend’s eyes sharpened. But her voice stayed light. “Kay, you’re looking so solemn!” Anna raised a cocktail glass (How late was it, exactly? Katarina checked the time. Mid-afternoon. Not late enough.). “Smile!” she said. “It’s Carnival!”

  “Not until tomorrow evening, Anna.”

  “Anyone who’s anyone started drinking yesterday—”

  “I’ll have to resign myself to being no one.”

  “Kay, you’re my favorite someone. Can you talk? I have a favor to ask—”

  “Can it wait? I have Hilde Becker here…” She left the implications of that hanging meaningfully and heavily in the air between them.

  “Really?” Anna craned her neck forward, as if to try to catch a glimpse. “You do have such grand friends—”

  “Ms. Becker is my employer, Anna, as you know.”

  Anna looked back mischievously. “I didn’t mean to interrupt an important meeting.”

  “You’re not interrupting. Yet.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you.”

  “You said a favor?”

  “Mm. I wanted to know what your plans were for the weekend.”

  “I’ll be working, I imagine,” said Katarina, allowing a little irritation to creep into her voice. “It’s not a great time for the hospital—”

  “Oh, but they have to let you out to play at some point?”

  “Well, I’ll see how I feel at the end of the weekend.”

  “All right, Kay. Enjoy your tête-à-tête with Mzzz Becker. I’ll speak to you later.”

  The call ended. Hilde, rather coolly, said, “I didn’t know that you knew Anna Liu.”