He used to play to me, teaching me to move to the dances my father never had the chance to teach me. He even taught me the forbidden dance, the one they'll kill you for. We'd do it in the old mines. He would hit my ankles with a switch till I pirouetted seamlessly through the swooping movements, a length of metal in my hand, like a sword. And when I got it right, he would kiss my brow and tell me I was my father's son. It was his lessons that taught me to move, that let me best the other kids as we played games of tag and ghosts in the old tunnels. "The Golds dance in pairs, Obsidians in threes, Grays in dozens," he told me. "We dance alone, because only alone do Helldivers drill. Only alone can a boy become a man." I miss those days, days when I was young enough that I didn't judge him for the stink of swill on his breath. I was eleven then. Only five years ago. Yet it feels a lifetime. I get pats on the back from those of Lambda and even Varlo the baker tilts me his brow and tosses Eo a fist of bread. They've heard about the Laurel, no doubt. Eo tucks the bread into her skirts for later and gives me a curious look. "You're grinning like a fool," she says to me, pinching my side. "What did you do?" I shrug and try to wipe the grin from my face. It is impossible. "Well, you're very proud of something," she says suspiciously. Kieran's son and daughter, my niece and nephew, patter by. Three and three, the twins are just fast enough to outrace both Kieran's wife and my mother. My mother's smile is one of a woman who has seen what life has to offer and is, at best, bemused. "It seems you've burned yourself, my heart," she says when she sees my gloved hands. Her voice is slow, ironic. "A blister," Eo says for me. "Nasty one." Mother shrugs. "His father came home with worse." I put my arm around her shoulders. They are thinner than they used to be when she taught me, as all women teach their sons, the songs of our people. "Was that a hint of worry I heard, Mother?" I ask. "Worry? Me? Silly child." Mother sighs with a slow smile. I kiss her on the cheek.
cheek. Half the clans are already drunk when we arrive in the Common. In addition to a dancing people, we're a drunken people. The Tinpots let us alone in that. Hang a man for no real reason and you might get some grumblings from the townships. But force sobriety upon us, and you'll be picking up the pieces for a bloodydamn month. Eo is of the mind that the fungus, grendel, which we distill, isn't native to Mars and was instead planted here to enslave us to the swill. She brings this up whenever my mother makes a new batch, and my mother usually replies by taking a swig and saying, "Rather a drink be my master than a man. These chains taste sweet." They'll taste even sweeter with the syrups we'll get from the Laurel boxes. They have flavors for alcohol, like berry and something called cinnamon. Perhaps I'll even get a new zither made of wood instead of metal. Sometimes they give those out. Mine is an old, frayed thing. I've played it too long. But it was my father's. The music swells ahead of us in the Common—bawdy tunes of improvised percussion and wailing zithers. We're joined by Omegas and Upsilons, jostling about merrily toward the taverns. All the tavern doors have been thrown open so their smoke and sound billow into the Common's plaza. Tables ring the plaza and a space is left clear surrounding the central gallows so that there is room to dance. Gamma homes fill the next several levels, followed by supply depots, a sheer wall, and then, high above in the ceiling, a sunken metal dome with nanoGlass viewports. We call that place the Pot. It is the fortress where our keepers live and sleep. Beyond that is the uninhabitable surface of our planet—a barren wasteland that I've only seen on the HC. The helium-3 we mine is supposed to change that. The dancers and jugglers and singers of the Laureltide have already begun. Eo catches sight of Loran and Kieran and gives them a holler. They're at a long, packed table near the Soggy Drop, a tavern where the oldest of our clan, Ol' Ripper, holds court and tells tales to drunken folks. He's passed out on the table tonight. It's a shame. I would have liked for him to see me finally get us the Laurel.