Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) by Anna Silver Read Free Book Online

care enough to do more than a half-ass job in some places, or they were overwhelmed and under-resourced for the task. With all their vehicles running on tanks of water, it couldn’t be a fuel shortage.
    The Houselands that surrounded the walled cities were usually the worst. London’s theory was that they wanted to keep the Wallers and Scrappers under the illusion that escape wasn’t worth it because everything outside the cities was in decay. Between cities though, there were often long stretches of paved and at least semi-cleared road. Some were even quite fresh, like the road to New Eden. Some, of course, were totally abandoned and grown over. And then there were the districts—whole sectors operating outside city walls to service the Wallers inside, like the Ag districts, where the farmlands were maintained, or the Plant districts where reprocessing took place, or the Pit districts, where her father had been shipped off to mine the trash of lost generations. Those were always well-paved, but they were also risky. Only city-issue trucks traversed those roads, and their Tigerian hybrid was pretty obvious and easily spotted there.
    “Why not?” Zen asked.
    “Because, why would they haul them away? You think they care about upsetting the Outroaders by killing them in front of their faces? They had no trouble hanging criminals and escapees out on the Old Green in Capital City as an example to the rest of us,” London pointed out.
    “I guess you’re right,” Zen agreed.
    “Then why?” Kim asked. “I just don’t get it.”
    London rolled her eyes. “You said that already.”
    “Like a hundred times,” Zen added.
    Tora stirred in the back where she’d been napping. After Geode vanished, Si’dah left the Astral and London slept the next few hours in peace, but Tora apparently had quite a lot to go over with Hantu and she didn’t return until near dawn. Kim never did get his lazy butt to the Astral.
    “What’s a matter? What are you guys talking about?” she asked with a yawn.
    “Your lesser half is puzzling over why the Tycoons would take Eric and the other dreamers instead of killing them,” London informed her.
    Tora stretched and blinked, scooting closer behind the bench seat where they all sat waiting for her answer. “Slaves,” she said simply.
    “What?” Kim asked. “What do you mean,
slaves
?”
    London punched the break and brought the truck to a purring stop, shifting into
P
so she could turn and face Tora. “Tora, what the hell are you talking about?”
    “I discussed it with Hantu last night. They’re taking the dreamers as slaves.”
    London stiffened. “Don’t you think that’s something you should have discussed with all of us?” She resented any independent action after being burned by Avery. Avery had let on that she was doing research into dreaming by herself before she betrayed them and disappeared. London didn’t need a repeat of that experience.
    “I’m sorry,” Tora told her. “You and Geode—‘scuse me, Zen—vanished off on your own. I guess you guys were having some kind of personal discussion. And Kim never showed. We needed to understand what was going on, so I talked to Hantu about it myself.”
    London and Zen both looked away as though they’d been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
    “Personal discussion? In the Astral?” Kim asked. “What’s going on with you two?”
    “Nothing,” London said a little too quickly.
    “Okay, sure. I’ll buy that…when Keziah’s gators learn to fly,” Kim replied.
    “It’s nothing,” Zen said this time. He seemed to grow broader between them, if that were possible.
    “There you go again, running to her defense. I am getting so tired of you two and your little broken-hearts club.” Kim began fidgeting with the window handle on his door, useless since he’d knocked the window out with his head outside New Eden.
    “You know what I’m tired of?” Tora bellowed from behind them. “I’m tired of all