Saturn's Children Read Free Page A

basics: power point, inflatable bed, printer, maintenance toolkit, wardrobe. It’s somewhere to sleep, and dream, even though I try not to do too much of the latter—I’m prone to recurrent nightmares. I rent it for a huge chunk of my wages, and keep it as unfurnished as possible—the mass tax is fierce, and I have found public amenities cheaper than private—but it’s still the nearest thing I have to a home. There isn’t much I want to take, but still, it’s where I keep my graveyard. And I’m not going anywhere without that .
    I thread my way back through swaying fabric tunnels slung across the windswept empty, up ladders and power rails and down tracks. It’s dirty and hot, the atmosphere poorly controlled compared to the grand ballrooms and gaming salons. This is the abode of the maintenance crews who keep this airborne pleasure palace pleasing to the aristos in their staterooms on the promenade decks. The small fry live here, one deck up from the barracks of the slave-chipped arbeiters.
    My room is one of a stack of former freight containers, welded together and carved into apartments by some long-forgotten construction mantis. Some of the apartments are the size of my two fists, while others occupy multiple containers. They sway slightly when the town activates its steering turbines to avoid turbulent cloud formations: the aristos of the Steering Committee call us “ballast” and joke crudely about casting us loose if the town runs into a storm.
    As I climb the ladder to my front door, I hear a faint scrabbling sound, the chitinous rasp of polymer feet on metal decking. I tense, instantly alert. It’s coming from my room! Has one of Stone’s sibs come after me already? I move my head, listening, trying to build up an acoustic picture. Something is moving around inside. Something small and scuttling, with too many legs. Not Stone, I realize. I resume my climb, quietly and fast, and ready myself on the narrow balcony beside the door. There’s a mechanical padlock—I sealed it myself—and sure enough, someone has etched through the shackle. Flakes of white powder coat the body of the lock where it dangles from the door latch. The intruder is still moving around inside my room, evidently not expecting to be disturbed. I listen briefly, and as my “visitor” rustles around near the printer, I yank the door open and jump inside.
    My room’s a mess: bedding ripped apart, printer overturned and leaking working fluid, cached clothing strewn everywhere. The culprit squats in the middle of the chaos. I haven’t seen its like before: six skinny arms, a knee-high body bristling with coarse fur, three big photoreceptors spaced around a complex mandible assembly. It’s clutching my graveyard, the lid open as it whiffles over the soul chips of my dead siblings. “Hey! You!” I yell.
    The intruder swings its head toward me and jumps to its feet, and all its fur stands on end as it electroshrieks a blast of random microwave noise at me. Clutching my graveyard, it darts between my legs. I sit down hastily and grab it, pinning it to the floor. It’s about the size of one of the medium-sized canines my True Love’s species used as companions, back before they made us, and it shrieks continuously, as if it’s afraid I’m going to kill it. Which I just might if it’s damaged the graveyard. “Drop it!” I tell the thing. “Drop it now!” My fingertips prickle where they touch its fur, and I realize they’re sparking. Maybe it doesn’t have ears? It looks weird enough to be a vacuum dweller, oh yes.
    The thing writhes briefly, then flops limply beneath my hand. I grab the graveyard and hurriedly put it behind me. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” I demand.
    It doesn’t reply. It doesn’t even move. A thin, acrid smoke rises between my fingertips. “Oops,” I mutter. Did I break it? I take my hand off its back and stare. The fur is coarse and feathery, and as I inspect it, I see dipolar