Page 3 of Skinwalker's Bane
Haydn nodded, then frowned and looked over Adam’s shoulder. “They’ve got balls, coming here.”
Adam turned to look. So did the others at the table who were sitting with their backs to the Garden.
At the now-empty entrance to the Garden stood seven men with clothes more ragged and dirty than Corin ever managed. They were skinny and pale, unshaved and wild-eyed, as they looked from one memorial gathering guest to the next.
Cavers. The last tatters of the revolutionary group that had tried to tear theEnduranceapart ten years ago. The group that Haydn had dealt with in the early days of the Institute. They didn’t look like much these days. Adam suspected their dirty and malnourished appearance was deceiving.
Noa got to her feet and moved to stand behind Haydn. She put her arms around his neck and he gripped her wrist with one hand as he watched the Cavers. “There are only seven of them,” he said, as if he was trying to reassure both himself and her that they were harmless.
“Is that Dhaval Bull?” Noa asked, peering at them, too.
“It is. He’s shaved his head,” Haydn murmured.
Adam looked at the one man among the Cavers with a clean-shaved head. The others had long, knotted locks that went along with their philosophy that everything on theEndurance, including toiletries, was an offense against man. It matched their belief that everyone was working to keep Cavers contained, as Cavers were the only people to properly understand the conspiracy designed to pen humans inside a tin can for purposes unknown.
It was more likely the belief was designed to cover their complete destitution, for they refused to work to support the corrupt system and bettering themselves would mean accepting the lies and becoming a conformist.
Dhaval Bull had been the leader of the Cavers since before Adam had become aware of them as a teenager. Any time Adam saw him, he looked angry. He was looking angry now, although without the thin head of hair he’d had before, he was nearly unrecognizable. The fire in his eyes had not changed and that helped Adam see it really was him.
Bull was staring at their table. He raised his hand to point at them. “Conformist! Killer!”
“Who is he talking to?” Ségolène asked, with a tone that said she didn’t care too much about the answer.
“I believe he’d referring to me,” Noa said softly. “As I am the head of the Institute that is building a better cage to keep them in.” She sighed. “And killing off skinwalkers while I’m at it,” she added.
Haydn rolled his head back to look up at her. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
She patted his chest. “Bernice will see them off. Look, she’s coming over now.”
Bernice Daly and three of her friends were heading for the Cavers, threading through the gathering, as everyone watched the group at the gate.
“She’s not in uniform,” Ségolène said. “They don’t have to obey when Guards aren’t in uniform.”
“It’s Bernice,” Lizette said. “You really think that will slow her down?”
As Bernice reached the rag-tag group, Bull lifted his hand to point at their table once more. “Skinwalkers! All of you!” he screamed, as Bernice shoved at his chest, making him stagger backward. The rest of Bull’s group shifted back in reaction. Bernice and her friends swept around them in a neat pincer movement, gathering them up and shepherding them away.
“Only Cavers can make ‘skinwalker’ sound like a curse,” Noa remarked.
“The way they mean it, it is,” Cai, the unofficial linguist, replied. “Historically, skinwalkers were to be feared and avoided at all costs.”
“The way the rest of the ship means it is the complete opposite,” Peter said. “Bet the Cavers regret ever calling you that.”
“You’re one, too,” Haydn pointed out.
“I’ve never gone outside,” Peter replied. “When most people say ‘skinwalker’, they’re thinking about you guys, out there stomping around on the skin of the ship, defying death and…” He stopped as everyone seemed to wince. “Damn, sorry,” he added. “My big mouth.”
Haydn stirred and turned his back on the entrance and the group that Bernice and her people were shuffling through the markets toward the rail line.
Adam knew Bernice would take the Cavers to the Bridge, process them and let them go again with a warning about disturbing the peace of theEndurance. He’d seen it happen too many times. “Something should be done about them,” he said, as Haydn pulled Noa around his chair and onto his lap. Her head still wasn’t above his, not even sitting on his legs.
“They’re stupid people,” Haydn said dismissively.
Stupid people, in Haydn’s judgement, were offensive and tiresome. As they tended to kill themselves off or take themselves out of Haydn’s life through mischance or misfortune brought about by their own stupidity, it confirmed his opinion of them. Calling someone stupid was, in Haydn’s eyes, the lowest of epithets he could give anyone. It had nothing to do with their intellectual capacities. “Even the slowest minds can work to better themselves and the ship if they really want to,” Haydn had once told Adam. “Stupids, though, can be the smartest people on the ship and still be stupid. My father was the supreme example.”
Adam couldn’t argue with Haydn on that. Stupid, out on the skin of the ship, became dangerous. No one in Adam’s crew had been qualified for anything but mechanical engineer, yet he trusted them all out there for they were smart about watching out for each other.
Haydn pushed his last, untouched mug toward Adam. “I’ve had enough,” he admitted. “I’m going to take Noa home and sober up.” He lifted her easily and put her on her feet.
