In the morning, Shiro ate his breakfast while strolling around the compound with the grandmotherly keeper of this particular arrival camp. He'd originally gone with Kimi to wake her sister, but when the child had reacted to his presence with apprehension, Shiro had decided to allow Kimi time with her as yet nameless sister.
Hilda showed him around the various indoor and outdoor settings, recreation activities and gardens. She deftly answered his questions about the entire operation with humor and rosy cheeked authority, and introduced him to some of her staff. The majority of the adults were primarily here for the children, and secondarily to maintain the buildings, grounds, and play and work equipment.
Kimi found him inspecting one of the vegetable patches as the sun was reaching its high point. Shiro glanced up just as she was coming through one of the small orchards. He smiled and waved to Kimi, and thanked his guide, leaving her with the gardeners and their weeding, and jogged to Kimi.
When he arrived at her side and they were walking toward the transport bays, she asked if he was up to encountering the Trading Post. They were only an hour away by shuttle, from here.
"Um. Is there any way to get in a shower?"
"Eh," Kimi waved her hand, "you don't want to be too clean at the Post. You could start a riot among the thieves, or a kitty among the cut-throats."
Shiro stared at her in disbelief at such a description. "Thieves? Cut-throats? What kind of place is this," he scoffed.
"There is no central authority, or law, established or enforced. You've faced the Empire and have given aid to some of the oppressed, most of whom are good people. The Post attracts another side of the oppressed among the honest merchants and trades people for whom the place was initially set up. Thieves, thugs, and pirates go there, too."
Kimi's unnerving calm told him she was serious. He straightened his own features and asked, "What else about it should I know?"
They climbed aboard a tram, choosing to stand for the short jaunt to the shuttles.
"What occurs in Haven, stays in Haven. We don't advertise it exists, and it is, therefore, relatively unknown beyond the border."
Shiro nodded comprehension, "Okay. Don't talk about Haven."
"There is much that occurs at the Post that has shocked many, and truly there is little I could say that would prepare you for all you will witness. When we touch down, try not to look around. Just follow me. I'll take you where you can watch activity and ask your questions without attracting too much attention."
He cocked his eyebrow, "You think I'll attract attention?"
"You do attract attention. You're pretty."
Shiro gave her a double take. She didn't twitch a muscle, though her eyes might have glinted.
He cocked his eyebrow, saying, "And you're -,"
"You're also a new species, and we're curious, too," she added.
"Will we go to the guild?"
"No, they'll try to recruit you and put me back to work."
Shiro grinned, "Can't have that."
Shiro's first view of the Trading Post was that of a massive bio-domed city, some hundred meters in diameter, affixed to the rough hewed surface of a free floating meteor. The underside of the massive space rock had been outfitted with a multitude of arms thrusting out, docking various spaceships. As one ship un-docked, the arm it had been attached to reeled back into the space rock. Kimi reminded him to stay close and keep moving.
When the shuttle landed in the bay and the doors opened, Shiro recoiled, coughing from the vile odors wafting in layers, assaulting his olfactory nerves on every level. Then he squared his shoulders and jogged into it to catch up with Kimi as she led him briskly through the grimy dank, bay and tunnels, echoing with indecipherable din, past dark lumps crouched and moaning; hunched trios or more haloed in noxious smoke; someone was really enjoying urinating in a lift, no, that was... something else; a busker beating time against a poet's rhymes at the stairwell.
Shiro could feel eyes following him, but wasn't about to look behind himsel to try to figure out who. He stayed on Kimi's heels up the flights of stairs, her thick, glossy braid his beacon past pamphlets handlers; someone screaming impending doom; someone's spittle flecking his face from the groaning escalator; another musician, another level; skeletal, sallow-skinned persons pawed at them, moaning for some word he couldn't make out; a guy having a shaking fit collapsed, letting go the bottle he'd been gripping, Shiro heard it clink down the stairs. Kimi continued trudging through the sticky grit, seemingly oblivious to the perverse revelry happening all around them.
As they stepped up to the surface level, the scene took on shouting, crowd ringed fighting activities; strange animals, caged, cowering or snarling; various shades of grime splattered with colorful scrawls; heavily armed brute types bearing, or guarding, curtained litters; empty window sockets; curbside bets; an amphibean male wearing red fringed shorts broke away from several similarly clad friends, to slinked toward Shiro, simpering suggestions he knew what Shiro wanted.
"Uh," Shiro grunted, backing up a few steps. He heard his name at his ear, felt a hand at the crook of his elbow and focused on Kimi at his left shoulder as he walked in step with her.
"Shiro... I'm right beside you. It would be a mistake to turn around, or erupt a fight, here... At the end of the block we'll take the left and cross the way... There's an alley we'll use as a short-cut to the next block over." She continued to talk him through their brisk, zig-zag route, as she led him through and out of the morass, to the upper levels, finally into one of many buildings with an abandoned upper story.
While Kimi fiddled with the door so it wouldn't lock on them, Shiro slowly looked around the wrecked space before edging toward a gaping wound that had once been a floor-to-ceiling glassed window, long since shattered to gritty dust under his boots. Across the way were apartments above a block of businesses. There was a restaurant, shops and pubs. He peered down onto the street several stories below. The view wasn't any prettier from up here, it was just broader. There was too much more of it. A brawl poured out onto the street to his left and quickly spread through the dense crowd. He backed away from the window.
Kimi picked her way past deteriorated furnishings that had once decorated a business. "You can see Guild headquarters from here," she said, stepping to the edge of the gaping hole Shiro had just turned from, and pointed out at an angular, slate gray building a block over to their right. The din caught her attention and she peered below. "Hm. Someone's angry." She clasped her hands behind her back and looked over her shoulder at him.
Shiro closed his eyes, as he breathed in deeply through his nose, let it out through his mouth, then opened his eyes to step back toward the window, not quite beside her. She pointed out a few other places of interest, while she had him there, keeping his gaze upward.
When she paused, he gestured at the scene below them, demanding, "What possible purpose does any of that serve!"
Startled, Kimi blinked at him. "Personally, I found out I have a sister... also, that my mother is possibly still alive," Kimi took a deep breath, "On a larger scale, the traders and pirates who frequent here bring all manner of empirical information with them, some of which ends up being useful to us."
He growled, "Is there anything like this in Haven?"
She tensed, her eyes flared into a hard glare. She answered with a slight shake of her head, "Not even remotely."
"How does none of that get back into Hav-"
"That border is not so easily breached," she snapped. "So long as someone from there is of full adult mental capacity, its easy to get here. Its not always so easy to return." She knit her brow, and sadness softened her features again, as his eyes widened. "Those of us who risk coming here either associate with the Guild, have legitimate business, or are seeking a kind of thrill beyond what is provided within the border. Some thrills are more black market than others and we lose people to the street."
"Can't you do anything about it? Heal those people?"
"We used to try. After awhile we realized we were seeing the same faces, repeatedly. We healers were exhausting ourselves bringing people back from the brinks they were toeing. They came straight back here, found more toxic substances, mixed up nastier concoctions. The more desperate we were to get them back, the harder they fought to lose themselves until they were literally frying their brains beyond our abilities in one go. Focusing on preventing such desire in the first place has given us the best results, but we can't save everybody."
He gestured toward the window again, "That's not just...your people, though." He was about to say 'Havenites', but caught himself this time.
"Oh, the Empire suffers losses of people to here, too, but because they can't find it, and don't lose anyone they deem important, they stopped paying attention to it a few centuries and some ago."
Shiro's eyes narrowed, "The Empire can't find it, but pirates and slave traders can?"
"They have their magic tricks, we have ours," Kimi shrugged. "If any in the high command ever took it into their heads to come here in a non-empire vessel, they could bypass the safeties easily enough."
"So, you screen for ships and only keep certain ones out," Shiro confirmed.
"Yes." Kimi gestured for him to follow. As they spoke, she led him back through the door, down the hall and up a flight of stairs, then across a rickety metal bridge spanning to the flat roof of the next building over.
"And the rest of ... your border, you only screen for the presence of an Ambassador, such as yourself."
"Correct."
"What happens to other ships at the border?"
"They get redirected and pushed back out into space as close to probable trajectory as we can make out."
"Do you ever get multiple attempts from any one spacecraft?"
"Yes, it happens fairly frequently. Anyone trying to cross space through that area encounters this huge, inexplicable mass that bounces them along to the other side. We hear stories of it in the pubs below, sometimes."
A meter from the edge of this roof was the gaping window of the next building over. Kimi leapt through first, pivoted and swept backwards a few steps to give him room, adding a little flourish with her hands. Shiro grinned and jumped into the room, squatting deep as he landed.
He straightened, asking, "Huh. Has anyone ever fired weapons in through the border?"
Kimi faltered, then said quietly, "Yes, and we sometimes lose people at the border that way, too." She turned, squared her shoulders and set off, leading him through the maze, again.
Shiro watched her for a moment, before striding to catch up to her, "You've lost a few people to this war with the Empire."
"We've all lost something, or are set to lose something. You've lost an arm. The Alteans, and countless others have lost their home worlds. It's war...dwindled to a resistance on our part. No one wins at war. There are only ever survivors left to eke what they can from the dust and ashes."
They continued in silence as he followed her through the dusty, dilapidated spaces in a general downward direction. At ground level, they stepped down into a private alley walled at one end, servicing two separate structures. Kimi crossed the alley, trotted up a shorter stair to the left, and pressed the panel for the door to open.
Shiro followed her through a sparsely occupied pub. Kimi nodded at the bar-keep on their way to the door. At the door, she studied Shiro's face. He gave a curt nod and followed close after her as led him into the crowds, back to the shuttle bay. He was definitely ready for a shower, now.
During respites, Keith had his fellow paladins in the gym as often as possible, working on team building exercises. He wanted Shiro back as their team leader, as much as anyone else in the team did, but they had to find him, first. In the meantime, Voltron was still getting called into action, and the lions seemed content with who was available to them. That meant it was up to the humans and alteans to overcome their own discomfort of the situation.
"Okay team," Keith said, "Concentrate on what's in front of you, be aware of what's around you!"
"Aww...I like this one! It's just like dodgeball," Ryo said, getting into the rhythm of the exercise.
"What," Lance brought his shield up, holding his ground against the assault, "This. Is. Nothing. Like. Dodgeball."
"You've.. never.. played.. dodgeball ..with Ryo," Keith said.
"When do we get to throw something back?"
Coran's voice boomed over the intercom, "Alright, I'm intensifying the speed," Coran upped the speed a second time. After a few ticks watching them intently, he said over the intercom, "That's it! You've got it!"
The door panel of the observation deck slid open. "What level are they at, Coran," Allura asked, stepping into the small room.
Coran pivoted to face her, and smiled broadly, "Oh, Princess, you appear well rested," he glanced over his shoulder at the controls and the paladins below, "They're uh, they're holding steady at high intermediate with this exercise, at least."
Allura shifted her gaze toward the five earthlings on the court below, and asked, "What else have you had them work on today?"
Coran and the paladins had been up long enough to warm up with the headbands, and work with their weapons. Individually, and then as a team against the gladiator, and now this.
"I was going to let them break, soon, for a meal," he continued.
"Have you figured out our time table?"
Coran stroked his mustache,"With no interruptions, we should be at Blade headquarters in about thirty-seven hours."
Allura nodded, "Very well. After the meal, we'll begin our next set of jumps." She turned to leave the room.
"Very good, princess." Coran watched as the door slid closed behind her, then sighed and turned his attention back around to watch the paladins.
Shiro and Kimi were silent for the first part of the three hour trip back, he in quiet contemplation, she in telepathic communication on her waver. As they were passing the general vicinity of Q, Shiro noticed her attention was fixated on the view beyond the window, and the concern in her expression.
He asked, "Did you ever learn her name?"
"She hadn't been given a name," Kimi said quietly. "Coming up with her own name frightened her."
"Did you suggest any to her?"
If Shiro had blinked, he'd have missed the flash of a smile that crossed Kimi's face.
"A few. She likes Chepi."
He asked, "Are you going to adopt her?"
"I am no kind of home." Kimi stashed her waver in a pocket.
Shiro studied her for a moment, "You're going to leave your sister -"
"With people who can consistently provide for her what I, at this time, cannot."
Shiro was stunned, "What can't you provide for her?"
"Oh, where to start, stability," Kimi held up a finger, "I don't have a home of my own, I have friends and family who allow me space in their homes, or I pitch a tent when I'm Haven-side." Another finger joined the first, "Predictability, I'm not often Haven-side, and when I am, I have a few different duties I attend to, and I can get called away to any of them at any time. That's just the first few atop a rather long list of good reasons for me to not take her in."
"Could you scale back -"
Kimi squared her gaze with his, saying, "I swore an oath. To my twin. I gave my word I'd bring our mother back, preferably alive. I now have confirmation my mother likely is alive, proof I have been searching the wrong areas this entire time," Kimi shook her head, "I don't know what giving your word means to your people, but among mine, it means I have a job to do."
After a few moments Shiro asked, "Do you really think she, your sister... Do you think she'll be adopted?"
"I know she'll be adopted. My brothers Bastion and Glen both pushed in, as did aunt Gail."
"Not Tog?"
"Tog doesn't have permanent dwelling, either. It makes more sense for auntie, Bas or Glen to take her in. They've homes, mates, children," she let her voice trail off, and turned her attention to the window.
After a moment Shiro said, "I think it's really great that your family has stepped up to take her in."
Kimi slowly faced him, blinked, and said, "That's kind of you to say." She turned her attention to the descent, and took her wave device back out. It was blinking, again.
They rode the rest of the way with silence looming between them, until they were descending to New Altea.
"We are arriving after tea. I'm arranging to dine in my room. Would you like a similar arrangement of dinner sent to your room?"
Shiro answered he'd appreciate that. "Thanks."
She nodded distractedly, "You're welcome."