Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

Kest ignored us. “I checked the new arrivals’ profiles to make sure you weren’t giving us a fake name, but your picture isn’t on the rankings.” She let her watch-arm drop and looked up at me. “You really aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Rankings?” I frowned. “What rankings?”

“The Spirit rankings. Every planet keeps a public record of its citizens’ Spirit that shows in real time how you stack up against any other citizen. If you’re not on it, then you’ve never been given a Universal implant, which means you were never born.”

“Or you removed your implant to protest being a part of a system designed to conflate meaningless numbers with achievement,” Rali said.

Kest rolled her eyes. “You’re the only one who did that, and you just did it to seem like some cool nonconformist.”

“I did it because I like my privacy.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not the only one. The Beggar Clan—”

“Is just a story,” his sister said. “The only real universal gangs are the Big Five.”

Behind her back, Rali shook his head at me.

“Some aliens—” I cut off, because I didn’t want to be a jerk, and who even knew if they were aliens on this planet. Maybe I was the alien. “Some people were talking about the Big Five when we got off the shuttle. What are they?”

“They’re gangs,” Kest said. “And if you want to stay off the record, then they’re the ones you want to avoid.”

“Easier said than done,” Rali said. “Considering they run this planet and a good number of the others.”

Stealing from the Dead

WE WALKED DOWN THE shut-in toward the part where its sides came together and the crystalline blue-green water disappeared under a flat rock wall. The stones under our feet ran out, replaced by soft reddish sand, and we came to a stand of willow-like trees. None of them was taller than chest-high, but they’d grown in tight. I stretched up on my toes. Looked like the trees went on for a dozen yards at least. If the twins were determined to get to the end of the shut-in, then this last little bit was going to be a slog.

Kest definitely looked interested in getting through, but Rali had other matters on his mind.

“Would’ve been great if you killed that carp,” he said, looking at the deep pool in front of the wall. “Nothing tastes better after a long day scavenging than creek carp with wild herbs roasted over a wood fire. Smoky, tangy, and with just a pinch of salt.”

I’d never been big on fish that wasn’t deep-fried, but the last thing I’d eaten had been hours ago. My mouth watered at the thought of hot food, and my stomach grumbled.

“You never scavenge anything, Rali,” Kest said, shoving some of the willow-like branches out of the way. The little trees weren’t bendy like willows on Earth. The branches snapped back, cracking like whips. One snapped her on the arm, and she hissed.

“That’s because I don’t need anything,” Rali said. “I’ve got the clothes on my back, a new friend from another world, and fond memories of a really nice walking stick. What more does a man need?”

“Money.” Kest glanced at where the water bubbled up at the edge of the rock wall before disappearing underneath. Judging by how dark blue it was, that pool was deep enough to hold plenty more of the fish monster that had tried to eat me.

“So, that’s what you guys were doing down here?” I asked. “Scavenging?”

“I like to think of it as stealing from the dead,” Rali said, grinning.

The lace in Kest’s eyes got darker, and her lips smashed into a thin line.

“It’s not like they need it anymore.” She set her bag down and dug inside. Metal shifted and clanked as she groped around. “Besides, all the best components get washed down here.”

Rali looked at me. “Because nobody else is crazy enough to come down in the shut-ins looking for them.”

“Why?”

“Chaos creatures hunt the Shut-Ins.”

“They won’t come out while the day suns’re still up.” Kest pulled out a long flat piece of rusty metal that looked like one side of a blade from a brush hog and tossed that down on the sand.

I glanced up at the sky, noticing the black sun and its dark orange-magenta halo creeping over the far edge of the gorge wall.

“The shuttle driver said they come out when the night sun rises,” I said.

“Folks from other planets are always getting that wrong,” Rali said. “Chaos creatures only come out after dark thirty, when the day suns are down. Rays from the day suns kill them.”

“We think,” Kest said, pulling a metal hatchet handle out of her bag. “It’s not like anyone is studying chaos creatures. As far as we know, the ones down here are the only ones in the universe. Further study is needed.”

Rali smirked. “But no one wants to die, so no one does it.”

“Are they vampires or something?” I asked.

“Vampires?” he asked, forehead wrinkling with confusion.

“Undead corpses that suck your blood and explode into dust if sunlight touches them.”

He thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. These eat life force, not blood.”

“Oh.”

On the ground, Kest was patting her pockets and muttering, “Rods, rods...”

She lit up when she found a handful of thin metal sticks in her back pocket. She spent a few seconds aligning the mower blade a few inches down the metal handle, then she pulled her goggles on and touched the rod to the metal.

It sizzled and strobed just like a real welder, so bright I couldn’t look directly at it. Sparks flew, throwing melted bits of red-hot slag into the sand.

I wrinkled my nose as the hot metal smell of welding hit me.

“Holy cow.” I raised my voice to be heard over the sound of Kest’s improv metal shop project. “Does she have a welder cybernetically implanted in her hand or something?”

Rali stared at me like he had when I asked about vampires.

I pointed. “How is she doing that?”

“Oh! Her Spirit