Midnight Hollow, Team Invarian Staging Tent

Krandermore, Survivor’s Refuge

4453.2.11 Interstellar

“Cousin,” Copecki said, standing up, his voice and expression formal. “River’s bounty to you.”

Koni looked at him suspiciously. “May the rain hide your footsteps,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Can’t I come and visit my esteemed relative?” Copecki said with a forced smile. “We’ve missed you in Veraz.”

“No, you haven’t,” Koni said. “Your mother least of all.” She turned to look at Janus and said, “Not him. Not Copecki.”

“You told her?” Lira said in surprise.

“I lost my temper,” Janus said, and Ryler gave him a flat look that Janus ignored. “He’s fit, he has ranger training, and he’s willing? Why not him?”

Koni looked like she’d eaten a rotten fish. “Because I won’t owe him any favors.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Copecki started to say.

“I decide that!” Koni snapped. “No one but me gets to tell me who I owe and in what measure!”

Janus stayed quiet. The information Copecki had shared with them about Koni’s past put the whole conversation in a very different light than it would have been only minutes before.

“You’re always like this!” Koni said, walking up to her cousin. “You’ve stuck your foot onto other people’s rafts since we were children!” Copecki’s entire posture changed as Koni got in his face. He rolled his shoulders forward and clenched his fists at his side. It was actually impressive. He seemed to double in size. He loomed, which was probably an indication he’d been making himself small for the Irkallans, but Koni still got right in there and poked him in the chest. “I don’t need you.”

“I’m just trying to do what’s fair.”

“Fair?” Koni exploded. “There is no ‘fair’ to it Copecki! Go home!”

“No,” Copecki said.

Janus cleared his throat. “I appreciate there’s a lot of context I’m missing here, but I also have a lot of say.”

“Stay out of this, coldsider,” Koni said without looking at him.

Copecki winced. “He’s not a coldsider, cousin.”

“What is he then?” Koni said, frowning.

“Does everybody know?” Janus asked Ryler.

The cultist shrugged. He looked at Koni. “Janus, Lira, and Mick aren’t from this region, Koni. Neither am I. We aren’t coldsiders the way you think of them.”

Koni wasn’t about to be taken off her set path. “All the more reason you all need me. I’ll lead your team during the Trials.”

Janus, Lira, Mick, and Ryler all looked at each other, stunned by the level of presumption the Verazlan woman had just shown, and then it happened. It started with Lira as a barely restrained snicker, then Mick laughed, and Janus’s shoulders quaked as he shook his head, and even Ryler covered his eyes with his hand.

Copecki’s eyes darkened with anger.

“What?” Koni said. “I know these jungles!”

“I’m sorry,” Janus said, recovering. “You couldn’t know, but Mick, Lira, and I are all past winners of the Trials.”

Even Copeck seemed surprised by that.

Ryler nodded. “To the Cult of the Survivor, Janus isn’t considered an aspirant anymore. He’s an emissary. It would be unthinkable that a first-time runner would lead his team.”

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“That, and we don’t trust you,” Lira said.

Mick gave Koni a sympathetic half-grimace. “Tough break, mate.”

Koni stared at all of them like they’d all started to speak something other than Standard. She looked at her cousin, then looked back at Janus and said, “You’re all idiots, and you’re welcome to each other.”

“You’re abandoning your claim?” Copecki said.

“I have no claim,” Koni said. “The coldsider will renounce the clan’s debt, and you are free to do what you want. Isn’t that so?”

“That’s what we agreed,” Janus said.

“Then it’s done,” Koni said, and she walked out of the tent without looking back.

“I feel kind of bad about that now,” Mick said.

“I don’t,” Lira said. “She ruined months of my work and Janus’s. She never apologized for that.”

“I wish things hadn’t happened this way,” Copecki said, “but I will honor my commitment, even if it would seem I no longer need to.”

Janus realized his mistake. He’d forgotten that Verazlan were used as wandering judges on Krandermore, and the presence of two of them was enough to form a contract, even if one of them was a party to that contract. He’d released Koni from her bond without getting anything from Copecki in writing. The Verazlan could have just walked out, and maybe Koni had done that on purpose, a final “screw yourselves” to the team or maybe punching back for making her feel small and ignorant. Janus knew what it felt like to get screwed by what he didn’t know, and yet he’d almost let it happen to him again, right now, because he’d felt like he was in a position of power.

He’d have to remember that.

He was only saved by the fact that Copecki was a good guy, plain and simple. Janus liked him. The team seemed more at ease with him here and Koni gone, and that just confirmed the decision he’d made. Copecki might not be from the Atl-Verazlan main branch, but he was the right fit for the team, and Janus saw no sign that he wouldn’t be a formidable asset during the race. “We should go get registered.”

“Agreed,” Ryler said.

In all the upset, he completely forgot to tell the others about the compartmentalist team.

***

Back on Main Street, the party had gotten even livelier. There was more of everything—more people, more noise, more performances, and a lot more alcohol. Fireworks popped off in the sky, and Janus’s bones rattled from the frenetic beat of clan war drums. Janus put his helmet on and turned the sound gain down, muting the riot of sound somewhat, although the team still needed to push their way through the crowd. Having Copecki lead the way in Verazlan clan colors, shoulders swinging, helped, but they needed to keep moving.

There were only two hours left to register for the Trials.

“We need to talk about something,” Ryler said over the comm. Since wrist implants fed directly into the auditory cortex, the team could still hear him above the noise. “We got new intelligence on the compartmentalist team.”

“From Nikandros?” Lira asked.

“From the Motragi,” Janus said. “Mick, did you know the rangers have a comm network that spans the entire region?”

“How is that possible?” Mick asked.

“Ultra-low-frequency radios,” Janus said. “They use secret relay stations and bounce long-range signals off the atmosphere.”

The team had to go around a particularly popular troupe of street dancers who were roping in members of the audience, creating a swirling pattern of red, yellow, blue, white, brown, and green by weaving the different clans together.

“I hadn’t heard of it, but it explains some of the conversations I had,” Mick said after a moment.

“I wish I’d known,” Lira said. “We could have negotiated with the coldside colonies directly.”

“I get the impression they don’t want anyone to know,” Janus said. “Ryler’s agreed not to tell Nikandros.”

“I’m not happy about it,” Ryler said.

“Welcome to the team, mate,” Mick said. “You’ll get used to people making you do things that make you unhappy.”

Janus snorted.

“Is there a problem?” Copecki shouted over the crowd, seeing the rest of the team had slowed down.

“We’re fine!” Janus yelled back.

“Aren’t you going to tell him?” Mick asked, still over the comm.

“Can’t,” Janus messaged back. “The Motragi trusted us with this. The comm network isn’t the problem, anyway.”

The night lit up as a fire-breather blew a fireball the size of a buggy, leaving everyone around blinking away the afterimage.

“It’s this way!” Copecki said, pointing to the side street where registration was being held.

The team followed their new Verazlan sponsor out of the masses and toward their destination. “Let’s stop here!” Janus said, waving Copecki over.

Janus looped Copecki into their comm channel.

“Copecki, we’ve gotten some new information. I can’t tell you the source, but it’s about one of the Pugarian teams. They’re assassins. We think they’re here to kill us, not win the race. They might try to get us before we can register.”

Lira and Mick looked at each other.

Copecki laughed. “That was the big secret?”

Janus frowned. “Is that not enough?”

“I know you aren’t from around here, and maybe the Trials run differently where you’re from,” the big Verazlan said with a grin. “But the other teams? They’re all trying to kill you, Janus. The only thing stopping them is that they think all the teams are registered, and they’re afraid one of the other teams will kill them.”

Janus and the rest of the Irkallans all stared at him.

“It’s a wonder you haven’t all died by now,” Lira said.

There was a flash of something—Shame? Regret?—in Copecki’s eyes, but then it was smoothed over by Verazlan bravado. “A hard world makes hard people, Lira.”

“We come from a hard world,” Janus said. “This team I was talking about? They’ll know we haven’t registered. They might be waiting for us.”

“If they attack us, they’re fair game,” Copecki said, slapping Janus’s shoulder. “Now, come on, emissary. The priest said you won your Trials. Show me the courage of a champion.”

Janus looked at Ryler. The tech priest said, “It’s not like we have a choice.”

“We’ll be ready for them,” Mick added.

“All right,” Janus said. “If they come after us, no holding back. They only need to kill us. We still need to win the Trials after this.”

They headed toward the registration tents together, forewarned and ready.

It wasn’t enough.