Midway Relics and Dying Breeds: A Tor.Com Original Read Online Free

used our words up long ago.
    “You can go now,” he said, jerking his chin toward the door. “I have no more need of you.”
    “Thank you, cousin,” I said, and turned, walking briskly away before he could change his mind. Once the airlock-like tent flap was sealed again behind me, I allowed myself to breathe out and unclasp my hands.
    My palms were bleeding from the tiny half-moon wounds my fingernails had made. I keep my nails cropped short, to make it easier to handle the reins. It’s amazing what stress will do.
    That cheap side-market rope wasn’t the only thing approaching its bearing strain.
    *   *   *
    Maybe I should have gone back to the animals and relieved Bay of her duty, but I was feeling petty and small, and so I left her there. Let Davo relieve her, if he didn’t want her stuck shoveling horseshit all night long. Freedom was rare for me while we were traveling, and so I took advantage of the chance to wander through the camp as it was being established around the roots of the surrounding trees. Little neighborhoods were springing up around the larger tents of the Big Men, most of which were as big as Davo’s but twice as welcoming. Seresa’s tent had walls of gauze and mosquito netting, and at least two of the cousins who worked midway entertainment were inside, the mournful cries of their fiddles sounding sweetly through the wood. Marcus’s tent had thick cloth walls and the doors were often closed, but only to keep the smoke inside: he was a firm believer in the restorative powers of marijuana, and his boys had probably been lighting up the second that the stop was called. Anyone who cared to join them would be welcome.
    For a moment, I hesitated, considering the virtues of going to Marcus’s tent, slipping inside, and letting a haze of sweet smoke carry the day’s bruises away, taking all my troubles with them. I pushed the idea reluctantly aside. Forgetfulness was dangerous, even when it was the safe, sweet kind that Marcus and his carefully hydro-tended pot plants had to offer me. I still needed to pitch my tent, check on Billie, and call the Bone Yard.
    Calling the Bone Yard may have been the most important part.
    There was a time when a show like ours would have traveled by road, burning fossil fuels and leaving a carbon footprint the size of the sky behind us. That gave way to hybrids and biodiesel long before my time, but there are pictures hanging on the walls back in the Bone Yard, and some of the oldest costumes still smell of gas fumes and speed, like they caught the wind in their fibers and just refused to let it go. The highways were all torn out years ago, replaced by railroad tracks and narrow bike trails. There’s a sailboat “road” along the coast, artificial tide baffles designed to keep the little boats out of the undertow without interfering with the local ecosystem. Anything to reduce the damage that we humans can do to these places just by moving through them. Some travelers learned to have smaller feet, to leave narrower tracks behind them. Others learned to fly in private craft and self-powered machines, sparing the earth entirely.
    And then there are those, like the carnival, who took to the air without letting go of the ground. It’s a neat trick, one that requires a constantly shifting balance of teamwork and technology, but it’s worthwhile, because as long as we can walk that razor’s edge, we’re free. We’re barely outside the reach of a hundred laws, and as long as we’re one of very few dandelions operating like this, we’re unlikely to ever have one of those laws really clamp down on us. We move like dandelions have always moved: roots on the ground, and seeds in the sky.
    Cousins waved and called my name as I made my way through the camp, but none of them asked me to stop; they could see that I was distracted, and they were respectful enough to let me hold my peace. Most of the people who flew or rode with us were there for reasons of their own,