Tay hid the broadsheets beneath his jacket, and only set them down when no one was looking. That was the deal. He paused beside a tent circle and glanced around, saw students and other red-arms and a family gathered by a gas stove, no one he knew. He knelt fast, tugged broadsheets out of his jacket, and left them on the stone, headline facing up. “Committee Meets with Despot.”
He straightened faster than he’d knelt. Five hundred sheets they gave him, and five hundred sheets were hard to hide. He looked like he’d gained twenty pounds, and the paper padding made the jacket even hotter than usual.
Two hundred sheets out so far. Another half and he’d be done. Late to dinner, but he’d eat fast and make his shift no problem.
He turned the corner and almost ran into Chel.
She did not look happy.
“Hey,” he said, too quickly. “Thought you’d be at dinner.”
“I was, but you weren’t. What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Banjo music twanged a few tents over. Always music in this camp at night, and most of it he didn’t know. He sweated, though not from nerves. This heat, that’s all, the heat and the jacket. “Went for a walk.”
“You know people around here?”
“Yeah.” He hunched over to hide the bulge in his jacket. If he took his hands out of his pockets the papers would slip, so he pointed with his chin instead. “You know Old Cipher? His kids got a tent over that way. Mending clothes and stuff. I dropped in, said hello.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart.” She drew close to him, beautiful as always and her eyes clever. One hand circled around his back, another touched his chest—and the papers, under the jacket. “What’s this?”
“Nothing.” He tried to back up but there wasn’t any way to go without taking her with him. She yanked the jacket open. Snaps popped like knuckles, and the sweat-sogged broadsheets fanned out from within. She pulled one free—ripped the sheet in half, but enough remained for her to read. “Meets with Despot.”
“Tay,” she said. “Qet’s cock. The hells are you doing?”
“I can explain.”
“You see what’s written here? Did you read this thing?” She snapped the flimsy gray paper in his face like a whip: accusations of treachery. Movement in danger.
“I don’t like it, just pass it out.”
“Which makes it so much better.” The air above her rippled like the air above pavement on a hot day. Or else there was something in his eyes.
“We read the sheets before we came here.”
“We read the sheets before they turned mean. They don’t like Temoc, or the Committee, or you, or me, or the red-arms. They want people riled up. They want fights. Do you?”
“Course not,” he said. “But people have a right to know what’s going on.”
“They do. We tell them.”
“You’re sounding like a bonehead, Chel. Or a witch.”
“Don’t.” She went tight like an anchor chain in a storm. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“You want to stop people talking, you come after me just for handing out some papers. What’s the difference between His Redness trying to scare us today and what you’re doing now?”
“You think I’m a skeleton? You think I’m on their side?”
His mouth was dry. He swallowed. “No.”
“We need to stand together, Tay. These sheets aren’t printed here. The folks writing them won’t get hurt if things go bad. They’ll watch us burn.”
“You’re the one who almost jumped the King in Red this morning.” That stopped her. He withdrew a step, two, still hunched around his papers. “You were angry then, and you’re angry now, and you’re angry at the sheets for making other people angry. Maybe we should be angry. Maybe it’s wrong to meet with the King in Red.”
“You really think that?”
“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “But I wonder if you’re so mad at me for handing out these papers because you care about what they’re doing in that tent, or because you care about the ones who’re doing it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“I don’t.” But she was lying. She crossed her arms and stared at him. “He has a family.”
“You saved his life. He saved yours. I know how that story goes.”
“Only it doesn’t. I tried to help him because I thought he was in danger. I’d do the same for you or anyone.”
“And I’m just anyone, now.”
“You’re a bit past anyone,” she said, “and awfully close to ‘asshole.’”
He opened his mouth, not sure what he would say beyond that it would hurt her. But she was not afraid, and in that she was still the woman he’d fallen for the second time they met. Papers jutted from his jacket like a rooster’s ruff. He closed his mouth and his eyes and let his thoughts run on while the banjo played. She was still there when he opened them again. “I’m sorry, Chel.” She didn’t melt, not yet. “Look, they offered me soul, weeks back, before we came here, to hand the sheets around. We sure as hells aren’t getting paid while we’re here. I give what comes in to the Kemals at Food Com, and they cut us a break with rations. That’s why we get the extra meat.”
“Just you, or others?”
“A few guys in our crew do the work. I don’t know more than that.”
“Stop.”
“We’ll miss the soulstuff.”
“We just need a few days of peace. Maybe less.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry for the other stuff I said. I was angry.”
“Me, too.”
“Yeah. But you had reason.”
She smiled, at least.
“Come on,” Chel said. “Let’s find a place to dump that trash.”