Jin had almost bought his first souvenir by nearly dying for it.
Now the System wanted to eat it.
P1 REPAIR: SINGLE-OBJECT BINDING.
REQUIRED: RECORDED MATERIAL FAILURE; ONE RECLAIM-EXPOSED MATERIAL SAMPLE.
WARNING: SAMPLE CONSUMED DURING REPAIR.
He held the quill between two fingers.
Steel-hard. Beautiful. Probably worth a frankly offensive amount to somebody making arrows.
“Can you eat the cheap end?”
No helpful alternative appeared.
He accepted before he could change his mind.
The feather blackened from tip to base. Its outline held in the window while the actual quill crumbled between his fingers. A prickling line ran across his palm, up his arm and into his chest.
Then it stopped.
MATERIAL TRACE BOUND TO PAIRED ROUTE. REPAIR COMPLETE.
WORLD TRAVEL — P1
CARGO: ONE NONLIVING OBJECT, UP TO 5 KG, HELD IN DIRECT CONTACT AT DEPARTURE.
CONTAINERS DO NOT EXTEND CARGO TO THEIR CONTENTS.
FIXED ENDPOINTS AND TRAVEL RECOVERY UNCHANGED.
Jin stared at his empty hand.
One object.
A sword. A phone. A single, incredibly smug copper coin.
He went back to the watch building before deciding.
Bram sat on the step, unwinding pale fibers from the damaged reel. A strand stuck between his fingers. He pulled them apart and grimaced.
Garran burned the sticky scrap off with a taper and sent him to wash his hands. Kessa had already taken the loose quills inside.
Jin returned the borrowed spear and received his silver reward. The coin had a square hole through its center. He held it up to his eye.
Bram obligingly peered through from the other side.
“My first profitable injury,” Jin told him.
At a stall by the watch gate, eight of his ten coppers bought a plain knife and the seller's disappointment that he wouldn't buy the larger one.
The knife seller stopped him before he left. She lifted a sheath from the stall, pointed at its empty belt loop and mimed fastening it.
Jin pointed at himself, then at the knife, and held up one finger.
Her expression said this was the worst attempt to haggle she'd ever witnessed.
This version came from the page where the author publishes the story, without their approval; that page supports their work.
He bought no sheath. She wrapped the blade in a scrap of paper for him instead, refusing payment for that with a brisk wave.
At the cedar, he unwrapped the knife and wedged the paper beneath a stone. He kept the blade in his hand when he crossed.
The knife arrived in the kitchen with him.
For several seconds he did nothing except turn it over.
He had brought something back.
Not a crumb caught in a strange accident. Something he'd bought, chosen and carried through because he could.
The doorbell rang.
“If that's customs,” Jin said, “I'm eating it.”
It was Theo, carrying bread in his good hand.
He looked at the knife.
“You know the door opens normally?”
Jin grinned.
“Pick one.”
“A different host.”
“One thing. I can take one thing now.”
Theo's smile thinned. He reached past Jin and shut the door.
“Really?”
Jin put the knife on the counter.
Theo touched the dark handle, then ran his thumb along the uneven maker's mark near the guard.
“I want to say sword,” he said. “An enormous one. Completely impractical.”
“Good. You're paying.”
“But take your phone.”
Jin looked at him.
“Bring me a picture,” Theo said. “I keep trying to imagine the sky. I get ours with a bad filter.”
He leaned against the counter. His sling brushed the cabinet handle.
“And I would like to see where you keep disappearing.”
Jin picked up the phone.
“You want to leave a message?”
Theo straightened immediately.
“Absolutely.”
The recording began with a smile that would have sold expensive perfume. It continued with Theo leaning toward the lens.
“Whoever finds this man, please remember that he is somebody's problem. Mine, unfortunately. Feed him before negotiating.”
“They don't speak Korean.”
“Then they'll think I'm blessing you.”
He made an elaborate little flourish with his good hand.
“You look like you're proposing.”
“That's extra.”
They shared the bread while Jin explained the new cargo limit. Theo asked whether a person counted as the one thing.
The answer took the grin off both of them for a moment.
“Not yet,” Jin said.
Theo tapped the phone against Jin's chest.
“Then don't drop the substitute.”
Jin looked at the sling.
“How's the arm?”
“Annoying. I can walk. I can practice the footwork. Apparently I cannot demonstrate the entire routine to a nurse.”
“Did you try?”
Theo gave him a look.
Jin laughed.
“When I come,” Theo said, “you can show me where to stand. Don't learn how to dance from birds before then.”
“Too late.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Jin left his money, keys and new knife on Earth. The phone was his one carried object when he crossed back.
He photographed the violet strip of sky above the cedar. Then his own face beneath it, ear scratched, hair filthy, grin irredeemable.
Theo would complain about the composition. Good.
Jin headed for the watch building.
Halfway there, he heard the bell.
Three sharp blows. A pause. Three more.
He ran.
The wooden gate stood open. A guard backed through it, sawing at something wrapped around his sword arm.
White threads stretched from the lintel to the ground.
Above him, a pale shape moved across the wall.
Jin slowed just long enough to see six jointed legs unfold from what he'd taken for a sheet of canvas.
The guard's arm jerked upward.
Jin shoved the phone inside his shirt and grabbed the knife at the man's belt.
The bell rang again.
This time it stopped halfway through the third blow.