Luckily for them, or not, depending on how much protection money they stand to lose, Valdosta’s Vipers are in camp. I pause in the shadows near the bar, curious despite myself. The sideshows are usually miserable things, cheap tricks or illusions, bits of tech from off-world – common on the home planets but still exciting out here – even re-enactments of famous battles glossed up with fine words that had never been said. There are beetle fights, bird fights, prize bouts between bruisers and strung-out veterans who want to taste blood on their teeth again.
Who knows what these Vipers are. Two performers emerge to set up the stage, wearing tight costumes of silver, their faces smeared with shining paint, like Valdosta’s. Catcalls and hollers follow their movements. Not fighters, then. If Valdosta tries to play the dice on a crowd like this, things might turn bad quickly.
I step away when a noise splits the air, high-pitched and wheeling, followed by thunder. Music. I turn back, stunned, as a figure walks out with a drum, and another with a pipe. It’s been so long since I’d heard real instruments. A memory returns of sitting in a concert hall on Prosper, surrounded by clean, wealthy people, all of us captivated by the symphony orchestra. I had never heard anything like it but even then, as the beauty of the music moved me to tears, I felt a stab of pain, knowing I was only there to experience it through a lie. I remember holding on to the plush seat, wondering if I could have had a life like that – for real – if I had made a different choice.
But I hadn’t. And now, here I am, transfixed by two pedlars with makeshift instruments. All around palms slap in time, voices fill the air, people jostle to see. And I crane alongside them, my eyes hungry, my brain ravenous for a new sight after months of the Barrens.
Valdosta steps out from behind a curtain and raises their arms, commanding quiet. They’ve shed the voluminous coat for a costume covered with long translucent ribbons that flutter from their elbows, wrists and hair.
‘Is this a place of clear thoughts and constant spirits?’ they cry.
‘Yes!’ someone hollers, and the crowd join in.
‘Is this a place of the steadfast? The staunch and the unswerving?’
The agreement grows louder. Part of me wants to raise my voice and slap my neighbour and grin. But I can’t. If they knew what I was they would cringe from me.
‘Then I ask,’ Valdosta calls, ‘for a volunteer! One brave person to prove that there is no doubt in any soul!’
They clap their hands, and immediately two assistants appear, each holding a battered cage containing a live snake. The noise of the crowd intensifies. They are happy, relieved now that they know what the show will be. An animal show, where someone faces down a dangerous beast to win a prize. It’s a favourite in the townships, because everyone knows that the beasts are tame and won’t attack; there can be no doubt in the outcome, no danger, though people like to pretend there is. Make something prohibited and it becomes what folk crave, even if that thing is doubt itself.
Shaking my head, I turn away. Valdosta is an ordinary charlatan and racketeer, then, if a glamorous one. I have almost reached the gates when a booming voice stops me in my tracks. The volunteer has been chosen, and it’s Loto.
She stands, her arms tucked like a wrestler, her tattooed face flushed with drink. She crouches and – to the approval of the crowd – spits in readiness to face her foes.
Valdosta signals the assistants to open the doors of the cages. I crane to see the snakes uncoil into the night, their tongues flickering. They look the part: pit vipers, heavily scarred and muscular, patterned white and grey like Valdosta’s coat. I watch as Loto feints towards them, staggering clumsily.
‘Carrion worms!’ she slurs. ‘Piece of shit Limiter traitors, think we’ll just forget?’ The crowd roars her on as the snakes jerk and raise their heads. ‘I’ll kill you both!’ Loto screams, her face contorted. ‘I’ll drink your blood!’
Valdosta’s arms shoot up, the snakes rear, and something crashes against my consciousness, too huge to fit inside my skull. They are here. They are here, and they are hungry. Reality stretches and squeezes as every possibility presents itself at once, tangled together. I see flames, I see blood flying, I see the crowd surging towards Valdosta, the decisions of two dozen people happening simultaneously.
Did they follow me here? Did I bring them down upon this place? For an instant something shines through the chaos: a snake’s fang, bared and ready to strike. Valdosta’s eyes meet mine.
A scream splits the air, and another. Loto staggers, one snake attached to her arm, the other to her ankle, their blunted fangs sunk deep into her flesh. Valdosta still stares at me even as one of the assistants pulls a knife from their belt. All around, people scream that it is them: the Ifs, the demons, come to feast.
I run for the gates with the rest of the crowd. The metal judders and shakes as people shove their way outside, stumbling for their vehicles, as if that will help, as if they aren’t everywhere. Outside the gate I turn, half-desperate to call back to Valdosta. Do you see what I see? Do they follow you too?
Nausea churning the mezcal in my stomach, I flee towards the mule, towards the child and the decision that waits there, knowing they are watching me go.
* * *
Across the fire, the girl’s face twitches. The fitful light makes her seem old one moment, young the next; now heavy with lines and woe, now untroubled, like any child at rest.
But she is not any child. A bit of scrub snaps and flares and the light catches on her tangled, curling black hair cut into the style favoured by the Accord: longer on
