The boy clung to Caelan's neck as Caelan carried him on his back, climbing upward.
The road was steep and long.
Neither of them knew how long they had been climbing. In the darkness there was no way to measure time, no light, no point of reference.
"So stinky." The boy wrinkled his face.
"That means we're almost at the Underhive. Come on."
Caelan set the boy down. The final stretch was a bit gentler, something they could crawl up slowly.
A wave of stench hit them. Caelan covered his mouth and nose, it was hard even to describe.
The higher they went, the stronger the reek.
It was like kitchen slop fermenting for three years, rancid grease wrapped around the rot of corpses exploding in their nostrils. Just smelling it felt as if some nauseating yellow-green film was crawling down their throats.
Caelan vomited as expected. The boy vomited too.
But whether they puked or not, the road still had to be walked. To reach the surface, they had to pass through the Underhive, there was no skipping this.
Finally, they climbed up.
A pitch-black street lay before them. The ground was uneven, heaps of garbage piled in corners, leaking thick green fluids, releasing gases that burned Caelan's eyes.
The smell went beyond human tolerance. Caelan didn't even have the strength to vomit anymore. For the first time, he thought being a useless bum on Terra didn't sound so bad.
The boy adapted better than he did, he was already standing up straight, scanning his surroundings.
"Where do we go?" the boy asked.
"I don't know. Let's find someone and ask."
Beside a heap of garbage lay a few scavengers curled against the wall, motionless.
Caelan: "They only died recently."
"Why?"
"Because their clothes haven't been stripped yet. Because their bodies haven't been eaten. I've never been to the Underhive, but that's usually how it goes. Go strip their clothes, you won't have to walk around naked anymore."
The boy asked: "Is that right to do?"
"There's no right or wrong here. First, survive, then talk about morality."
The boy went over to the corpses, pulled off a breathing mask and tossed it to Caelan, then stripped off an overcoat and wrapped himself in it.
That was enough. He was so small that one coat covered his whole body.
He then yanked a mask from the face of another child scavenger and put it on himself.
"Did you say thank you?" Caelan asked.
"Thank you."
The boy bowed to the corpses.
"Shouldn't we do something for them?" the boy asked.
Caelan was surprised, surprised that such words could come from Curze's mouth. He thought for a moment.
"Where I come from, the dead are buried. But we don't have that option here. Toss them back into the pit. At least their bodies won't be eaten, that's the greatest comfort we can give them."
The boy nodded, dragging the two corpses to the pit they had climbed out of. Straining, he pushed them in.
Caelan extended his right hand. Blue light gathered in his palm.
When his fingers clenched, the rock groaned in a low rumble.
Broken rubble reversed course, pulled upward by the light, filling the pit until the surface was sealed. It was still uneven, but no different from the rest of the cracked street, nothing anyone would notice in the dark.
"What power is that?" the boy asked.
"Psychic power," Caelan said. "Your father gave it to me. Don't be surprised, you'll have it too."
Caelan looked at the mask in his hand. It stank of sweat, worse than clothes and boots left unwashed for centuries.
But compared to the world around them, the mask's stink was practically a "fine vintage."
He decided not to wear it. Instead, he used psychic energy to block his sense of smell.
As long as he didn't breathe, there was no stink. But not breathing meant death, so he tried purifying the air with his psychic power. It worked.
"Much better." Caelan inhaled deeply, feeling refreshed.
The boy watched but said nothing. Caelan could tell what he wanted.
"You have to get used to this stench. People here breathe this every day. As one destined to be above others, you should understand the suffering of mankind!" Caelan lectured earnestly.
The boy wasn't convinced. "Then why don't you?"
"I crawled up from the bottom already. I've suffered enough. I don't need more."
The boy fell silent.
They explored the streets. This part of the Underhive was probably the worst; otherwise, there wouldn't be so few people. Only the most desperate scavengers came here.
Gradually, the number of people increased.
Bodies lay along the roadsides. Many never moved. Some were busy cutting meat from the corpses.
The boy didn't understand why Caelan didn't stop them.
"They didn't want to be eaten," the boy said.
"Nobody wants to be eaten," Caelan replied. "But this is a world where man eats man. If you don't eat, you'll be eaten."
"And you?" the boy asked.
"I'm not of this world. I'm just passing through. On Terra, we don't need to eat each other, at least not literally. The question is, what about you?"
The boy shook his head blankly. "I don't know."
"You have two paths: be changed by society, or change society."
"Which should I choose?"
"I can't choose for you. Even if I did, you wouldn't listen. You'll still walk the path you want."
The boy was silent again, digesting this.
They walked on until a scream rang out in the dark.
A woman, frail, pitiful, desperate, was running, three men chasing her.
She fled into the scavenger den, maybe hoping for help, maybe just trying to lose them.
But she found neither.
The scavengers ignored her, heads down, busy cutting flesh.
"What are they doing?" the boy asked.
"Rape, probably," Caelan said. "Maybe just beatings. For the poor, that's the cheapest way to find 'pleasure.'"
They simply watched. Neither had any intention of interfering.
The woman was losing hope. But she kept running.
Caelan asked: "Aren't you going to help her?"
The boy nodded, then shook his head. "She's not in danger yet."
Caelan looked down. The boy looked up.
"This is what you taught me."
Caelan was annoyed. 'You dare throw my own words back at me?'
He shoved a shard of metal into the boy's hand, pointed at the three men.
"Go. Deal with them."
The boy didn't ask why. He just gripped the shard and walked toward the three.