Emerri
> “Vena is one of the most common street drugs within the Empire. Though the drug originated on Lekke, its use has spread through a massive smuggling operation that carries it to anywhere there are people with charges to spend. Now, you may ask, why would people risk breaking the law by smuggling (a crime that can be punished by up to three years in a mining colony)? The answer is that it’s a lucrative business. And why do people buy Vena, despite it being a dangerously addictive drug and illegal to possess (punishable by up to two years imprisonment on Emerri)? Because Vena takes a person out of their own mind, but only for a little while. It’s not worth the risk; drugs are only a temporary solution to any problem.”
>
> -from “Vena is an Agent of Evil”, propaganda pamphlet produced by F.I.D.R. (First Introduction to Drug Resistance) for use at the Academy
kino banner [https://66.media.tumblr.com/ad8b4f4708f616717aadf16aa9ad7d84/tumblr_pdxwrhUDP41xnm75po5_r1_1280.png]
Kino had been at the Academy for several years, and she had been a resounding failure at making friends. It could have been due to growing up in a place where it was only her family around, and it could have been due to her general attitudes towards life, and it could have been due to people just not liking her, but whatever it was, Kino found herself alone most of the time.
And being alone with her thoughts, especially when meditation encouraged such rumination, led to nothing but problems for Kino. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept through the night without a nightmare. It might have been before she even left Falmar, for all she knew. When she had been in the group home on Hanathue, she hadn't been able to wander, because she hadn't known the extent of her abilities, and she hadn't felt confident in her place in the world. And in her first years at the Academy, she had been in the group dorms that had been monitored and locked at night. Now all bets were off. She was fifteen, and and that meant she didn't have minders anymore. She could enter and leave her little dorm room as she pleased. And she did please.
Somehow, she had gotten a single room. Maybe the dorm authority had talked to her mentor and decided it would be better if she was alone. People weren't mean to her, precisely, but they didn't talk to her and she didn't talk to them. Some said she was creepy. Kino was grateful for her single room. It made leaving easier. She stripped off her uniform cassock and left it on the ground, shutting the door tightly behind her.
She crept out into the Academy grounds. There wasn't any need for her to sneak; it was perfectly allowable for her to leave, and no one could have stopped her even if it wasn't. Still, she walked quietly because that had become her nature. The late fall air was brisk and chilly, but Kino didn't regret leaving her heavy uniform behind. There were days when it felt so restricting that she couldn't bear it. She just wanted to tear her skin off.
Both moons were out, large and small, and the small one moved visibly across the sky as Kino stared up at it through the bare tree branches. She crossed campus, taking the paths and mouthing silently to herself. Prayers. That was what she was supposed to say. And if she was muttering prayers, she wasn't chewing her fingers up. That was what one of the minders had said to her, and Kino had taken the advice a little too much to heart. It was one thing to talk spontaneously. That was something that everyone who knew her said she had a problem with. But it was another thing entirely to pray without ceasing. Memorized words would come much more easily to her lips than anything else.
On the other side of campus from the dorms, the hill down into the city dropped off into a steep set of roads. Kino looked out over it for a minute, her breath freezing in the air and clouding her vision underneath the glowing lamps. Stars peeked out from behind clouds, and a heavy stillness hung in the air over the city. The lights were distant blurs, the ordered streets crossing around and around, with the vague menacing shadow of Stonecourt in the distance. After a moment of contemplation, looking out over the city, Kino started the long journey down the staircases away from the Academy.
She didn't mind that the walk was long and tedious. She could have caught a bus if she had an actual destination in mind. But she didn't. She just wanted to walk around, to clear her head from her nightmare, and to invigorate herself for the day to come. She would have to return to her dorm room and sleep eventually, but not now.
When she reached the bottom of the steps, she broke out into longer strides, half jogging, her heels never touching the ground. If she did it fast enough, the wind would catch underneath her fingers and she could almost feel like a little flying bird. The birds were all asleep now, of course, just like most people in the city should be.
She traveled a familiar circuit around the city. No one bothered her because no one was there. Even the clubs, where thrumming music could still be heard, were beginning to empty for the night. It was late.
"Hey," someone said.
Kino almost didn't stop. She was caught up in her mouthing a prayer, and puzzling out the intricacies of the bright streetlights. Then he said it again, louder.
"Hey."
Kino stopped, taking a few steps to come to a complete halt. She looked around. There was a man sitting on a stoop, smoking some sort of herbal cigarette. She could smell the cloves in it from here. He blew the smoke out in a long plume.
"Goin somewhere? I see you every night," he said.
Kino shook her head, braids flopping around on either side of her face.
"You aren't cold? Here, sit down." He scooted to the side of the stoop, leaving space for Kino to sit. She hesitated for a moment, but if he was going to try to do something to her, he already would have, and she felt confident in her ability to defend herself. People had said she was altogether too trusting, but that couldn't be helped, could it? If there was one thing that Kino had shown a repeated pattern of doing, it was putting all her trust in strange men who had walked into her life for no discernible reason. It hadn't yet worked out too badly for her.
She sat down.
He passed her the cigarette and she took a drag of it. It burned on the way down and she coughed, hard. He laughed at her and took it back.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She could answer that one easily enough. "Kino. Kino Mejia."
"Live around here, Kino?"
She pointed vaguely in the direction of the Academy.
"How old are you? You look pretty young to be wandering around at night." The man was probably in his mid twenties. He was wearing a ratty red sweatshirt and had curly brown hair that caught the light of the streetlights and danced in the wind. His nose was crooked and the top of his lip looked messed up. He had nice eyes, though.
"Fifteen," Kino said.
"Your parents know you're out here?"
Kino shrugged. There was a theological answer to that question and a practical answer to that question, and she didn't really feel like getting into it with this stranger. He laughed again and took another drag from his cigarette.
"Yeah, me too." She didn't know what he was agreeing with. They sat in silence for a while. "Why're you walking around every night? Seems crazy to me. Talkin to yourself and everything."
Kino didn't respond for a minute, and he waited in patient silence. It seemed as though he actually wanted an answer, so Kino strung one together. "I have bad dreams. I like to clear my head."
"You know, if you take the same path every night, someone's gonna getcha."
Kino shook her head.
"Heh. You're not afraid of people?"
Kino wouldn't say she was afraid of people or not. She didn't think that anything bad would happen from walking around, though. She tried to think of a way to express this to the stranger.
"Everything that's bad has already happened to me," she said.
"If I had a drink I'd drink to that," he said. He passed her the cigarette again. This time, Kino knew what to expect, and she managed to not cough quite so hard, even though it burned and tickled in her throat. "But you're still alive, so there has to be some worse thing you should be worrying about."
Kino shrugged.
"I'm Mahmoud, by the way," he said. Kino handed him back the cigarette. Something in it made her head buzz, not entirely unpleasantly. They sat in companionable silence for a while, passing the cigarette back and forth. Kino didn't know what to think of him, but he made no moves to hurt her. Eventually, though, Kino's legs got jittery, and the cigarette burned down to a nub. She was feeling a lot better, and she didn't know if she should attribute that to the blur of the cigarette, the crisp night air and her walk, or the companionship of this man who didn't seem to want to yell at her. Any one of those things could have done it.
She stood up, stretching, and Mahmoud looked up at her.
"Headed home?"
Kino shrugged. There was still a bit of time before she needed to be back at the Academy, so she could walk further, but also, the purpose of her walk had been to feel better and to distract her from her bad dream. That had been accomplished. So she probably should make the long, slow trek up to the Academy, and try to get some uninterrupted sleep for the few hours before she had to go to class.
"Will I see you tomorrow?"
Kino shrugged again, but they both knew that it was likely that he would see her again. After all, she walked the same circuit of the city basically every night. It was rare that she didn't sneak, just walk really, out of her dorm and down to the city.
"Well, goodnight, Kino."
"Goodnight," Kino forced out, then turned and headed back up the street. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mahmoud pull out another cigarette from inside his shirt pocket, and light it. The dim ember at its tip was a little star.
She came to see him basically every night thereafter. He was always sitting on the stoop and smoking. Why he was always up, she didn't know at first, but she came to appreciate his company. It had been a long time since she had had someone to just sit and be with. Not since her parents had died, or maybe even since Bina got adopted by someone else.
She and Mahmoud developed a little routine. She would walk down the street, and he would call out to her. She would sit down, and they would share whatever he was smoking. It gave Kino enough of a pleasant buzz to be able to stomach the walk back up to the Academy. He would talk at her, just a little bit, but he learned quickly that she didn't have very much to say back. She was always listening, though, and she learned a lot about what he was like and what he did. Apparently, he was up so late all the time because he was getting ready to go to work. He worked early shift at a bakery, and he liked to get some quiet time with a smoke in before he went there. His house was crazy during the day because he lived with his sister and her husband, and there were three children who were loud and cute, but mostly loud. Apparently he appreciated Kino's silent companionship as much as she did his slightly more talkative one.
He had some sort of side job that brought him all over town, and he often complained to Kino about the annoyance of making deliveries and the foibles of some of his customers. One night, as he puffed a smoke ring into the air, he looked at her contemplatively.
"You want to do me a favor, Kino?"
She looked at him, waiting for him to explain. "I'm getting tired of doing deliveries all by myself. You want to carry packages? I'll pay you."
"Charges?"
"Yeah. Charges. I'll give you twenty for every delivery. Since you walk around every night anyway, that should just be a bit of extra in your pocket. Buy yourself something nice." That was a lot of charges, just for walking around. Considering that Kino had no money to her name, being technically a ward of the Academy, she could immediately think of what she wanted to spend that on. He must have seen the interest in her eyes and the consideration on her face. "So, what you say, you up to it?"
She nodded, and he grinned. "I think we know each other well enough. I don't think you'll be spilling my secrets, at least." He laughed at his own joke. Kino just stared at him impassively. It wasn't as though she had anything better to do with her time.
"Well, I'll start you off with something small. You stay right there, ok?" She held the smoldering cigarette as he stood up and went inside his house. She could hear the creaking of the floorboards for the first few steps, then he vanished from her hearing. She stared up at the large moon, the only thing visible in the sky above the buildings and through the bright haze of the streetlights. Mahmoud returned shortly, holding a white envelope.
He stayed standing, so Kino stood as well, scrambling to her feet clumsily. The cold or the cigarette was getting to her motions; she couldn't tell which was more responsible. It was the same every night, but if both the cold and whatever was in the smoke were helping to keep her head clear, then she wasn't going to complain that it made her a little clumsier. As long as she didn't fall on the tall staircases back up to the Academy, it didn't matter.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
"Alright, I need you to bring this package to my friend at 751 Easton Street. Do you know where that is?"
Kino shrugged. She could look it up and figure it out, even if she didn't precisely know.
"Okay. I'm going to trust you with this. Think of it as a trial run." He handed her a thick, yellow envelope. "Don't open it, obviously. He's already paid me for this, so you don't have to bring me the charge card. And I'll give you the charges when I see you tomorrow."
Kino nodded and flipped the envelope over and over in her hands, feeling its weight. She vaguely wondered what was in it, but she didn't care enough to break Mahmoud's trust and open it. She also just didn't care that much about it in general. She was more focused on the twenty charges she would earn. This would be the first money she had had to her name in, well, ever. She thought of suggesting that she could come back and get paid right away, but the words didn't come out.
"He'll let me know that everything is ok," Mahmoud said. "And he should just be waiting outside. His name is Ulo, so you know who to give it to. Understand?"
Kino nodded. She clutched the package in her right hand, fingers making little claws in the plastic-y material.
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow then, Kino."
"Goodnight," Kino said. She got that out easily enough, now that she knew him. He watched her as she traipsed off down the street. Once she was out of his sight, slightly embarrassed about not knowing her way around the city aside from her one well traveled path, Kino pulled out her phone to check directions. It was about a kilometer and a half away, but luckily it was in the direction of the Academy. Kino walked quickly this time, constantly checking her hand to make sure the package was still in place.
She didn't run, but she did walk fast enough to make her legs ache a little from the unusual speed. The address was a tall building, in a slightly nicer part of the city, with shops all along the bottom. Since Kino didn't know what the man she was supposed to be meeting looked like, she just loitered in front of the building. She should have asked Mahmoud for more information: who was the guy, which apartment did he live in, where would he be standing, how would he recognize her, et cetera.
But it didn't end up mattering that Kino didn't have any of that information, because a man turned the corner of the block and made a beeline toward her. She tensed up for a moment as he came closer, and mentally began sizing up if she could take him in a fight. He was scrawny and tall, but he carried himself with a swagger that Kino didn't trust at all. Maybe that was strange of her to think, since she trusted Mahmoud so easily, but he was different. She clutched the package.
Why was she so nervous? Her heart was beating so much. It wasn't just that she had been walking quickly. She hoped she was fully inside the protective cone of the streetlight, as thought that would protect her. It was still a little while before dawn.
As he came closer, Kino began mouthing a prayer, falling back on her learned habit to stop herself from sticking her fingers in her mouth and chomping down. She stood as still as she dared.
"You the one 'Moud sent?" the man called down the street, coming closer. Kino nodded; this must be Ulo. He looked her over. "'Moud's a scumbag for sending a kid here when he knows I'd've punched him if I'd seen him."
Kino stood still and didn't respond.
"I already paid. Let me have it." Ulo came right up to her, and Kino foisted out the package, trying to keep him at a literal arm's length. No wonder Mahmoud didn't like making deliveries.
Once it was in his hands, he ripped it open to check the contents, rifling through it in the dim glow of the street light. Kino didn't know if she should stay. Her job was technically done as soon as he had the package, but she also didn't want to let Mahmoud down by leaving too early. He had been so nice to her, for so many days, it didn't seem fair to her to just want to do the bare minimum and run, even if this man gave her a seriously bad feeling.
"It's all there," Ulo said. "Tell 'Moud that I'm expecting all of it on time next time."
Kino nodded. She didn't know if she would actually follow through on that instruction, but she wasn't going to say that to this man.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Go," he said roughly. Kino took the hint, turned, and ran off down the street back to the Academy.
For all that her first delivery had scared her, Kino grew more confident the more deliveries she made. It wasn't exactly fun, but it added an interesting element to her nighttime journeys. Now, she had some sort of purpose. If that was a good purpose or a bad one, she didn't know. But it was just like being in class– if she had something else to think about, then she would do so much better. She knew, logically, that the packages she was ferrying all around the city were not precisely legal. She had her suspicions about what exactly Mahmoud was selling, but Kino found herself not really caring about breaking the Empire's laws. There was some built up resentment there, after that long, hard, awful time trapped on Falmar, where no one came to help them. That was how she justified things to herself, anyway.
Things only went badly a few times, and Kino tried not to think of those. If nothing else, she was good at knowing when a situation was about to take a turn for the worse, and getting out. As it turns out, the people that Mahmoud sold to had a tendency to want to shoot the messenger when Mahmoud's deliveries didn't arrive as expected. That, and they fought with each other a lot. Kino always hated to deliver to people who were standing around in groups. Arguments always broke out. But if Kino kept her head down, she usually stayed out of trouble.
And she was very, very good at avoiding the suspicions of the Emerri Force who watched the streets. Kino was an expert at disappearing and keeping a low profile. Not even all of that was due to the power. She just made herself small and unobtrusive as she walked around. She had never once been stopped and searched, though she supposed most of her classmates going about legitimate business hadn't either. It just seemed more likely that someone would stop a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old wandering around the city in the middle of the night, smelling vaguely of herbal cigarettes and carrying a backpack laden with packages.
Kino was making good money, ferrying things around. And with money came the desire to spend it. There was the normal hoarding of foods and clothes and trinkets that she squirreled away in her dorm room, then there was the finding a dealer of cigarettes like Mahmoud's so that she could calm herself down without going out every night. It was a comfortable existence that Kino was eking out, even if she only slept for about four hours a night, between going to class and doing her nighttime errands. She didn't mind at all. If the other people living in her dorm thought it was odd that she left in the night, Kino couldn't tell. Maybe they just assumed that she was going to midnight worship. No one ever bothered her about it.
Then, after a while, everything changed. One her normal nightly excursion to go find Mahmoud and pick up packages, he wasn't in his usual spot on the stoop. She hadn't heard anything from him saying he would be working a different shift at his bakery, or that he would be leaving town for some reason, so she was fairly concerned. After all, he had been the most consistent thing in her life for a long time now.
Kino made the bold decision, after standing chilled on the stoop for a good few minutes, to go up and investigate. She had never been inside Mahmoud's house, but she owed him an investigation, at least. Kino deftly used the power to break the lock on the front door, and went inside the apartment. There were stairs leading up and doors to either side. Luckily, the doors had names on them. Kino searched each floor methodically, looking for where her friend's family lived. It wasn't that hard to find.
He lived on the third floor, apparently. There were crayon scrawls on the walls outside the door, presumably from his sister's kids. Kino broke the lock on this door as well. She felt a little bad about it, but was more curious about where Mahmoud had gone. If he was sleeping, she would need to wake him up, right?
She needn't have worried about breaking the lock, however. The whole apartment was empty, stripped of both people and meaningful possessions. A few pieces of garbage lay scattered across the floor, but all the furniture was taken, the refrigerator was empty, and the whole place had a terrible air of loneliness. Mahmoud was gone, without a trace.
Kino stood there, in the middle of the empty living room, overwhelmed for a moment. She thought first of how this small space must have looked before everyone abandoned it, then she thought back to her own house, abandoned on Falmar. She wondered what it looked like now, so many years later, the whole planet empty of life, just like this place. Then at last she wondered where Mahmoud had gone, and why he hadn't told her he was leaving.
Her fingers crept into her mouth. That old, bad habit that resurfaced whenever she was really nervous. She didn't know what to do. She wasn't going to cry, but she was going to chew her fingers raw. Another person, the first person she had considered a friend in a long, long time, was gone. He had abandoned her.
It would have been one thing if she had come here and found a body. That would have been something at least. But just like everyone else, he had vanished. She didn't have any reason to think that something bad had happened to him. By all accounts, his apartment was cleaned out just as though he was planning on moving somewhere else. Kino couldn't stop herself from imagining all the worst case scenarios: a deal gone wrong, getting caught by the Emerri Force, messing up something in dosage and getting sick– anything that could go wrong flashed through her head in a roaring gust. Her finger started to bleed; she had bit right through the skin.
She eventually left the silent apartment and made the long trudge back up to the Academy. She felt lost, confused, and totally empty of purpose. What was there for her now? A whole lot of classmates who didn't care about her? An empty dorm room? Classes that mostly bored her? There was no reason for her to ever leave the Academy now. Except, when she got back to her room, she couldn't sleep. Not even one of her calming cigarettes helped, and the Vena she had tucked in a drawer for emergencies was too much for now. She tossed and turned all night, desperately trying to sleep and to get Mahmoud out of her head. Wasn't he her friend?
Kino spent the whole next day distracted in class. More distracted than usual, anyway. Even some of her peers commented on it, though Kino wished they wouldn't. She even deigned herself to spitting out some sort of retort at them when they noticed her putting on her gym uniform backwards. Everyone was shocked whenever she spoke. Kino could talk. She just didn't like to.
That night, she laid in bed, fretting again. Her legs twisted together restlessly under the blankets, and she felt the cold night air calling to her. She resisted the temptation, though, because there were no more packages to deliver. No more places to go, no more people to see. She squinted her eyes tight shut.
But that was no use. Kino got out of bed and headed down into the city. She wandered aimlessly, just like she had before she met Mahmoud, but she found herself returning to spots where she often met up with his customers. The regulars. If she saw one, she would ask if they knew where he was. They probably wouldn't, but it was worth a try. The first night of this, she didn't see anyone she knew. The second night was the same, and she considered giving up again. But every time she laid in bed in her dorm, the anxious feeling overtook her and she knew she had to do something.
On the third day, she braved a certain place that she hated. Mahmoud had introduced her to one of his friends, a dealer. He had told her it wouldn't be ethical for him to sell her anything, so she would have to buy from someone else, and he knew just the guy. Ralah was a drug dealer, and a DJ on the side. He could reliably be found in a club fairly far away from the Academy, and Kino could hear the throbbing music outside as she approached. While Ralah was a nice enough guy, she didn't like going to his club; it was just too loud for her to bear.
But he was the only person who knew Mahmoud that she knew how to find reliably. So she told the bouncer who she was there to see, and the man waved her in. She was underage, of course, but the people there knew her as a friend of Ralah's. Or, if not a friend, a customer, and that was maybe more valuable.
The inside of the club was dark and pulsating with flashes of light and heavy sounds. People undulated on the dance floor, wearing as little as they could get away with. Kino edged around the side of the room, her shoulders hunched up to her ears to try to block the sound. It was impossible, though, because the deepest notes rattled her bones. Nobody bothered her. She could thank her usual social invisibility for that.
Although the music was much louder there, Kino came directly up to the foot of the stage, trying to not get jostled by all the dancers thrusting their elbows around. She didn't understand the appeal at all of the club. It took several long minutes for her to get noticed by Ralah, who was blasting away at his music. Ralah finally did notice her, standing in the spot where his customers usually hovered, and he made a signal to her to wait a moment. He passed his DJing off to a friend of his, and hopped off the stage, smiling broadly at Kino. His teeth were painted with something that made them glow in the dark lighting of the club. It was the fashion, apparently.
He threw his arm around Kino's hunched shoulder and she winced just a little. They walked together into a room behind the stage which, while not completely isolated from the booming club sounds, was quiet enough that they could talk without yelling.
"What's up, sis?" Ralah asked. "All out already?"
Kino shook her head. Though the words felt like slime sticking in her mouth, she spoke. "Did Mahmoud leave?" She asked. "Is he alright?"
"He owe you money?" Ralah scratched the top of his head, making his shockingly blond hair stand off at strange angles.
Kino shook her head again.
"Then whatcha lookin' for him for?"
"He's my friend," Kino said.
Ralah laughed, long and loud. If it had been attached to speakers, it would have shaken Kino more than the bass of the club did. "Sure he is."
"He is," Kino reiterated flatly. She didn't know what was so funny about this. What was someone she shared a cigarette with every night if not a friend? What was someone who sat with her if not a friend?
"If you still want to be a runner, I'm sure I could set you up with somebody else."
Kino shook her head, more adamantly this time, and her braids flopped around her neck. Ralah grabbed one of them and tugged a little. Kino slapped at his hand and he laughed again. "I want to know where Mahmoud is."
Ralah sighed. "He's ditched. Skipped. Flown." Kino stared at him in silence as Ralah continued his litany. "Jacked. Took the kit. Headed out."
"Where?"
"Off planet, I think."
That didn't seem possible. It took a lot of paperwork to travel off planet, Kino would know. And she found it hard to believe that a bakery worker who sold black market goods on the side would be able to just get the permits to relocate for that.
Kino had a lot of questions, but she didn't want to say them all individually. "Tell me more?"
"He owed a lot of people a lot of money. So he got in contact with some people who would discreetly get him off planet."
"Why didn't he tell me?"
Ralah shrugged. "I have my guesses."
"Tell me."
"He might have been trying not to hurt your feelings, or whatever. Or maybe he didn't want you to sell him out."
"I wouldn't do that," Kino protested.
"Yeah, well, you'd better be on guard in case some of the people he owed come to think that you know where to find him. You were his runner, after all."
"Can I talk to him?"
Ralah scratched his head again, and flaky dandruff or hair gel fell down onto the carpet. "I dunno."
"Please."
"I can see if I can get you in contact with people. No promises."
Kino nodded. That would be acceptable, at least. "Will he ever come back?"
"Oh, definitely not. I bet if he sets foot on Emerri–" Ralah did an impression of someone holding a gun to Kino's head. "You might want to start packing, sis. Just in case."
Kino shrugged. She could protect herself, and she doubted that a gun would be an acceptable thing for people to find in her Academy dorm room. She was only able to keep her stash there because it was so small and easy to hide. Or maybe he meant packing to leave the planet. Well, she wasn't going to do that either. She couldn't leave, being a ward of the Academy.
"Well, that's on your head, I guess." Ralah looked around the tiny office, as though the peeling posters on the walls would have an easy answer for him to give to Kino. "Look, I'll ask around and see if he can get in touch with you. It'll be slow, though. No ansibles. So don't come buggin me every day about it."
Kino nodded.
"And I don't even know if he wants to talk to you. Hope you didn't do something to piss him off."
"I didn't," Kino said. She didn't know why she had to justify herself to Ralah so much, but she did.
"Yeah, sure. I gotta get back out there. You buyin anything or did you just come to ask about that?"
"I'm good," Kino said. She wasn't good, but she didn't need to buy anything at the moment. Ralah escorted her back out of the back room and set her loose in the club, climbing back up to his DJ station. He gave her a cheeky little wave as she turned and left.
It was a long time before Kino heard anything from Mahmoud. But she did eventually hear from him. Getting his letter, that had been passed from hand to hand in illicit shipments, smuggled along with everything else down onto the surface of Emerri, it opened her eyes to the wider world. She couldn't believe it all.