Chapter Eighteen Sadie
Eighteen
Sadie
Nedd and I waited for the crowd around the gladiators to clear, but it didn’t. I was steeling myself to elbow my way in and ask a question or two, when the patrons on the terrace cheered again, and I turned to see Dayan Dayright making their way through the pub door.
Dayan’s demeanor was different than that of Kalia and Ephraim, who had encouraged the cheers and the shouts, interacting directly with the crowd.
Dayan waved politely and smiled affably, but avoided eye contact with anyone in particular.
Their short black hair was streaked with blue and purple.
The fact that they chose blue made me like them immediately.
I wondered if I could have gotten by without the headscarf after all—but even if others assumed it was dyed, blue hair would probably make me too memorable.
Dayan waved to Kalia and Ephraim, but then found a seat at the end of the bar opposite the other gladiators, where they could put their back to the wall.
A small crowd immediately gathered around them.
Someone offered them a drink, and they accepted.
The bartender poured it, calling Dayan by name.
Clearly they’d come here knowing they’d be surrounded by adoring fans, though they looked less comfortable with the attention.
The smaller crowd would be easier to elbow through, I supposed.
“I think we’ll have more luck with Dayan,” I whispered to Nedd.
He nodded. “Let’s give them a second to settle in.”
That made sense. It would be suspicious to pepper them with questions the moment they walked through the door.
Nedd ordered us a second round of coladas and we sipped them.
The crowd around Dayan never cleared exactly, but when they spent more time talking to each individual person, some wandered away.
Kalia and Ephraim seemed to be holding court with the entire crowd at once, which probably made it harder for any one person to steer the direction of the conversation.
Dayan was definitely the one to approach.
While we waited, I listened to the conversations around us to see what I could glean. The woman next to me finished her drink and left, and then two men sat down, already in the middle of an argument about copper. There had been an accident in a mine somewhere in the mountains above Epiphany.
“We shouldn’t have increased production,” one man said. “This happens every time we try. The mine’s cursed.”
“That’s just superstition,” the other said.
“Ain’t superstition if it happens every time.”
If that was true, he had a point. “Were people hurt?” I asked.
They both stared at me, and I wilted a little. People called me abrupt at home, which should have taught me how to interrupt people, but practice didn’t make me any less awkward at it.
“Not this time,” the first man said, and turned back to his friend. “We’ll get it up and running again, but Japen said we have to cap output at eighty-five percent of standard.”
“Just keeps dropping,” the other man said. “At this rate, we’ll never develop outside the city walls.”
“We ought to give it up. The only way we’ll ever live decently is to make our way to Elysium.”
I thought they only took gladiators. But if the soldiers won the war they were supposedly fighting, more of the population would want to move off planet.
“Check it out,” Nedd said, nodding at Dayan.
Their most recent conversation had just ended, and they were gulping down their drink while they could. Nedd nudged me, like he wanted me to go first, so I walked over. Nedd followed.
Dayan seemed even more wiry hunched up on a barstool. They were thin, but clearly all muscle. They smiled at us as we approached.
“Hey!” I said. “We don’t often come up to the city, but we saw you fight today. You were incredible.”
“Thanks,” Dayan said.
“Thank you!” I said. I probably sounded too enthusiastic. But we were supposed to be enthusiastic, right? We were fans. “How long have you been in the games?”
“About six months,” Dayan said.
Six months to get nearly enough points to go to Elysium. “Did you train for a long time before that, just to get in?”
Dayan sipped their drink and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been training since I was a kid.”
“So did you always want to be a gladiator, then?”
Nedd and I were still standing awkwardly around Dayan’s barstool, but the people on the next stools finally took pity on us and vacated, letting us sit. For the moment, we had Dayan to ourselves. I scooted my chair away from the bar to discourage anyone else from crowding around.
“Sure,” Dayan said, shrugging. “Wasn’t it everyone’s childhood dream to fight in the games?”
“Totally,” I said.
It probably was, like it was every Detritus kid’s dream to be a pilot. The DDF made sure we grew up idolizing pilots, so we’d work and work to pass the pilot’s test and earn the privilege to throw our lives away against the Krell.
“I don’t think I have what it takes, though,” I said.
“It looks”—I almost said “scudding scary,” but I hadn’t heard anyone use the word “scud” here; maybe they swore differently—“terrifying to ride on a thrashing tree with nothing but a light-whip to hold on to. You’d have to be brave to get up there and do it at all. ”
“Yeah, it’s frightening sometimes,” Dayan said, relaxing for the first time. “I know I’m not supposed to admit that.”
“Why not? I think you’d be crazy not to be scared. Those scions are enormous. What’s the hardest part about fighting them?”
“Landing,” Dayan said, without even thinking about it. “The branches will break your ribs, but it’s nothing compared to what you can do to yourself if you land wrong. The sand looks soft from the stands, but it still hurts like hell, even if you do it right.”
I looked to Nedd. He was technically in command with Arturo absent, but I was doing all the babbling. He smiled and nodded at me, so I kept going.
“Why do you do it then?” I asked.
Dayan shrugged. “It pays well. My parents used to work in the quarry. When they got too old for the labor, we moved to the city, but it’s hard to make rent.”
Oh stars. It made sense that being a gladiator wasn’t all about some fabled path to Elysium. It was also about survival. “Some people on the farms discouraged us from coming up here,” I said. “They said it was too expensive, too hard to find a job.”
“Easy to find a job,” Dayan said. “Hard to find a good one. My parents work long hours just to cover rent. If I make it to Elysium, my family will get a huge bonus. My younger siblings want to be gladiators too, but if I make it, they won’t have to take the risk.
My parents can find an apartment in a better neighborhood and not have to worry about money so much. ”
No one had to worry about rent on Detritus—the DDF provided every citizen with basic housing and credits.
Theoretically we were all equal, but some jobs paid more credits than others, so it was hard to believe that was really true.
Some neighborhoods were still more desirable than others, some caverns safer, some more prestigious.
“I hoped things would be different in the city,” I said. “But I guess it’s the same struggle everywhere.”
Dayan nodded. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to help my family, to fight in the games. It’s everyone’s dream and I’m living it, so that makes me pretty lucky.”
I wondered if they really felt that way, or simply knew what fans wanted to hear. I thought about how to angle my next question to get into the juicy stuff.
“Do you worry about what it’ll be like?” I asked. “Elysium?”
“Yeah, of course,” Dayan said. “Not so much the fighting. The games are meant to prepare us for that. But I worry about never seeing my family again. We’re all supposedly in it for the glory.
Even Timon, before he won today, talked a big game about how he would finally get to lay waste to the alien scum that threatens the galaxy, you know?
But I know he was worried about leaving his family. ”
“Some people on the farms say Elysium doesn’t exist,” Nedd said. “They don’t think there’s really a war going on.”
Dayan looked surprised. “Of course there’s a war. That’s how we ended up stuck on this planet.”
“Sure,” Nedd said. “But how do we know the war hasn’t ended out there, and we’re still fighting, preparing for a battle that’s already done?”
That was a risk, but it was a good one. We needed to get the people of this planet used to this idea if we wanted to convince them to be our allies in peace. It was good to test how they would react.
Dayan shook their head. “If that’s true, where do the gladiators go?”
“We don’t really know, do we?” I said. “They leave and never come back.”
Dayan focused on their drink, like they were no longer enjoying this conversation. Nedd and I exchanged a look. We’d done a good job getting Dayan talking, but now we’d put them on the defensive. Nedd inclined his head toward Kalia and Ephraim, as if to suggest we should try them instead.
But I liked Dayan, and I wasn’t ready to give up.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “You would know better than us.”
Dayan shrugged. “I’m just a gladiator. I don’t know any more about Elysium than you do. But I do believe in what we’re doing, fighting for humanity.” They looked up at me. “Don’t you?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I glanced at Nedd, but the traitor put his glass to his lips. “I hope we’re not at war,” I said finally. “Because it seems like such a waste, you know? Centuries of killing, when we could find a way to coexist, to have peace.”
“Seriously?” Dayan said. “You think the aliens would make peace with us?”
Our conversation had now captured the attention of several other patrons, who pressed closer around us. Had I said something so outrageous? Did no one on this planet entertain the possibility of peace?
“Is that too much to hope for?” I asked.
“It’ll never happen,” a man behind me said.
“The aliens are the ones who stranded us here,” Dayan said. “They’re the reason we’re on this planet instead of a better one. They’re the reason Old Earth disappeared.”