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Five didn't know at first why this world felt so familiar. It was possible, perhaps, that she'd been here before her memories were erased, but she didn't think she'd done much traveling around the galaxy before stowing away on the Raza. Interplanetary travel didn't really fit with a station urchin's lifestyle. Anyway, they were only here for a few hours, resupplying from this little farming settlement halfway around the planet from the bigger population centers -- not long enough to develop any sort of attachment to the place.
She wasn't sure what did finally knock the memories loose, whether it was a whiff of woodsmoke or the smell of autumn leaves or the sights and scents of the farms surrounding the settlement, but something tripped a switch in her brain and made her go, Oh.
This place reminded her of the planet where she'd spent a few months of subjective time (two hours of real time) living in Three's -- Titch's -- memories.
It might even be the same world, for all she knew. She'd never known the name of Titch's planet or even the settlement where he lived, any more than she'd known the names of his parents. As a child, he hadn't thought about that sort of thing. His entire life, and therefore hers too, had revolved around the farm.
But it was autumn here, just as she'd lived through an autumn on Titch's planet. What she'd experienced was probably only a shallow vestige of a real autumn on that planet (there must be a ton of information on the world that hadn't been buried in Three's mind) but there was enough of it to make her feel a familiar nostalgia for a place she'd never been, a nostalgia Three was no longer capable of feeling.
Or ... was he? She thought he'd seemed more relaxed, somehow, since they'd been on this world. He smiled more; it made her think of the way he'd been on old-timey Earth, or the way he got sometimes after he'd had a few drinks, a little less tightly wound than usual.
And maybe that was what made her ask Two, as they loaded crates of supplies into the Marauder's cargo bay, "Can we stay a little longer?"
"Any particular reason?"
"They're having some kind of harvest festival tonight," Five said, giving Two her best hopeful eyes. Not that any of them could have avoided noticing. The entire settlement was full of colorful paper lanterns and bright garlands of autumn leaves, and all the prices were probably double what they would've been had the Raza's crew not had the bad timing to arrive in the middle of a local holiday.
"Awww," Three said, coming in just then dragging a crate. He paused to scruff up her hair with a gloved hand. "Fiver wants to go to a party."
"There'll be bonfires," Five said, smoothing her hair down and scowling at him. "And booze, probably."
"Booze? Setting things on fire? I'm in. What d'you say, boss lady?"
Two heaved a sigh, and a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "All right. I suppose we've all earned a little R&R."
***
In a place this small, there was no reason to stay together, not really. Two hadn't even noticed that they'd all begun sticking close to each other on station leave ever since ... well, ever since Five and Three went missing and almost died, probably. They split up if they needed to, it wasn't that they were glued to each other's hip or anything, but --
It was just more comfortable knowing where everyone was.
She hadn't even noticed they usually did that until, as the evening wore on, she became conscious of her twitchiness at having the whole group running around the village, out of sight half the time. She had just glimpsed the Android on a hay ride, sitting perfectly erect on a pile of hay surrounded by laughing children, so at least that was one accounted for, and she trusted Six to stay out of trouble on his own (mostly), but she hadn't seen Five in a little while and it was even more worrisome that she didn't know where Three was.
And there was also her own sense of dislocation, as she wandered past the apple-bobbing and face-painting, past the little kids lining up for candy and the teens with cups of steaming hot drinks, all too aware of the weight of her gun on her hip and her smooth hunter's stride that set her apart from the people around her. They moved out of her way without even seeming to notice, like sheep moving away from the wolf in their midst -- as if they, too, could hear the little voice in the back of her head that said You don't belong here.
She glanced over at a contest of skill, where a group of teenagers and adults were trying to throw a knife into a bale of hay and get it to stick, with a lot of laughing since half of them were drunk. She could have done it behind her back and blindfolded, without even trying.
I'm not like them.
She didn't often notice it quite this much. At least in most of the places they went -- the cities and stations and colony-world back alleys -- there were people around who were, if not exactly like her, then at least in the same general category. Mercs and thieves and guns for hire.
These people weren't soft, exactly. They scraped out a difficult living on a mostly rural planet. But they didn't think like the people Two was used to being around. Which ought to be safer; this was one place where they probably didn't need to worry about being robbed, kidnapped, or roofied ...
Yeah, just turned in for the bounty if any of these people figure out who we really are.
This thought made her do another careful sweep of her surroundings. This time she spotted Six helping the Android down from the hay wagon, with hay in her hair and one of the little kids clinging to her leg. Two had seen him a little earlier with both Five and Three, cheerleading for Five as she fleeced the locals at some game of chance. Maybe that meant at least one of them was around here somewhere ...
And, aha, there was Three outside the drink tent, with a drink in one hand and some kind of stick-shaped pastry in the other, doing the sort of careful sweep of his surroundings that made her think she wasn't the only one who felt better if she knew where everyone was.
He looked ... happy, she thought, a little surprised. She wouldn't have expected this to be his kind of scene, but as he wove through the increasingly drunken and cheerful crowd, she could see that he was really enjoying himself.
It was always a little startling to be reminded that Three was something of a people person. She wondered briefly what he might have been like if he hadn't gone through everything Marcus had gone through, then pushed it away. It didn't matter. They were who they were.
"Hey, try these sugar-covered stick things," Three said when he was close enough. He didn't just have one; he had a whole handful, and shoved them at her so she was forced to pick one, drawing-a-straw style. "They're good."
It was good, hot and crispy and sweet. "Seen Five lately?" Two asked around a mouthful.
"She was watching the races with me just now." He pointed with his drink. "Over there by those sheds. Some sort of little burro things. Mean as hell, not very fast, but the locals bet on 'em. Five's good at picking the winners. Between that and all the gambling games, by the end of the evening she'll not only get back what these good people took us for with their jacked-up prices, we might even show a profit."
"I hope you told her --"
"-- Don't stop too long in one place, don't fleece the same person twice, etc." He munched on another sugar stick. "Any sign of Six?"
Yeah, she definitely wasn't the only one with a herd-dog mentality on-planet. "He's with the Android."
"I saw her on the hay ride earlier." Three shook his head. "That was something, all right."
"Have you tried it?"
"The hay rides? Me?" He laughed aloud. "Yeah, I need way more booze in me before that's going to happen."
Two looked around again at the crowd. Everyone in the entire town and surrounding area must be here, many of them sporting face paint or even costumes. In the village square, a band was playing some kind of fast, twangy music, and some sort of complicated dance was going on, with couples breaking and reforming. Two glimpsed the Android among the spectators.
"It's not our usual sort of scene, is it?" Three said quietly.
"No," she said, with a smile -- and then, almost reluctantly, "But it's ... kind of nice to do something like this sometimes."
"Like going undercover on old Earth?"
This made her laugh softly. "That was just strange. Though the hot chocolate was good."
"I saw a hot chocolate booth down by where they're setting up the bonfire."
"Oh, really? Maybe I'll check it out, after I go find Five and make sure she hasn't run the entire town into the poorhouse."
"I'll get her," Three said. "She's supposed to give me some of her winnings for keeping a lookout earlier."
"A lookout while she did what?" Two wanted to know. Three looked evasive. "You know, maybe I should keep you two separated so we don't get run off yet another planet."
"What's the matter, I don't look trustworthy?"
Two was still laughing as she went off to find the Android and see if a shared cup of hot chocolate might be just what both of them needed.
***
Three was whistling quietly as he maneuvered through the crowd back to where he'd last seen Five, along the way giving away most of his remaining churros to a couple of wistful-looking little kids who had perfected a set of matching big-eyed waiflike expressions. No sense letting all that acting talent go unappreciated. He saved one to see if Five wanted it.
Five wasn't where he'd left her, but he had a feeling she'd be either where the gambling was, or at the row of booths selling sweets. He took a guess, guessed right, and found her browsing a display of little tartlike pastries.
"Do you have any elderberry ones?" she was asking the vendor when Three jostled up at her shoulder. "Oh, hi! Look what they have."
"Look what I have," he said, offering her the last of the churros.
The vender handed over a paper-wrapped tart. Five broke it goopily in half and handed half to Three in exchange for the churro.
"And what's this exactly?" he wanted to know, trying not to dribble purple jam on his favorite leather jacket.
"It was your favorite." She didn't quite meet his eyes. "When you were Titch."
As gently as he could, he said, "I don't remember being that person, kid. Don't even know what it tastes like."
"I know." Five smiled a little. "So taste it now."
It was tart and sweet and almost too much, especially after the mild sugary sweetness of the churros. There was some part of him that thought it might trigger some kind of memory, and some part that hoped it wouldn't -- he did occasionally get slight flashes, not actual memories but more like the faintest recollection of an emotion, brought on by a sound or a scent. But this didn't do that. It was just jam in a flaky crust. He liked the churros better, but didn't have the heart to tell her.
"What's in here?" Five asked, reaching for his drink with jam-sticky fingers.
Hell, there was no Six in dad mode around to tell him not to give it to her, so he handed it over. She took a drink and choked. "I thought it was like hot chocolate or something," she sputtered, handing it back.
"Pure distilled grain alcohol, kid." He grimaced. "With spices in it for some reason." Which was why it was taking him this long to drink it. What kind of hayseed thought of adulterating perfectly good whiskey with cinnamon? "I'm going to find a beer."
"And I'm going to find something to get the taste out of my mouth. Blargh."
"Your tongue is purple," Three couldn't help pointing out.
"Yours too. Oh! Do you want to try the hay rides?"
"No," Three said, but somehow this didn't stop him from being dragged onto a hay wagon, gun holster and all. Goddammit.
(It was actually kind of fun, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. And he got to stuff a handful of hay down the back of her collar, so. Win.)