Robert Charrette - Never trust an elf

Harry gave him a hard look, then drained his cup. "I may not go topside," he said, balancing the empty vessel on the arm of his chair, "but I've got ears up there. It was your hall that burned. The 'bodies' of you and your crew that were found. I don't have to work hard to guess that this breeder is the 'young norm' whose body was found in your hall."

"If ya know every ting, ya don't need me ta tell ya about it."

"You're wrong, Kham." Harry leaned forward. "I do need you to talk to me. If you're bringing trouble down here, I need to know everything you know about it."

"The fix is in. Ain't gonna be no heat."

"You're sure?"

Kham shrugged an answer.

Harry frowned for a moment then turned to Neko. "Say, kid…"

"Neko," the catboy impudently prompted.

Harry frowned, caught off-guard.

"Call me Neko."

"Awright, kid, have it your way. Down here I can afford to be polite. This is my place, you know, and here the orks are in charge. Your kind doesn't belong here."

"I believe that I have been so informed," Neko said, pointedly rubbing at a developing bruise on his face. ' 'I have been introduced to your hospitality.''

"Oh, don't we sound annoyed." Harry chuckled, then called for more drink. The old woman brought him a refill and took a place on the side away from Scatter, settling down by Harry's chair and resting her head against the arm. Harry took a draught and said, "Well, I've had experience with your kind's hospitality, too."

Neko placidly stared at the darkness behind Harry. Scatter spoke up. "He thinks of himself as different from other norms."

Harry squinted at the rat shaman. "Does he now? Maybe he thinks he's not only different, but better." "They usually do," Scatter said bitterly. Harry harrumphed and redirected his gaze to Neko. "How old am I, kid Neko?"

Neko looked at him and shook his head slightly. "I do not know that much about orks." "Guess."

Neko glanced to Kham in a silent appeal for help. Kham looked away, unwilling to get involved. If Neko thought Kham was abandoning him, tough. The cat-boy would get over it. The lack of support obviously didn't faze Neko, for the catboy spoke to Harry at once.

"You look younger than some of the orks I have seen here. That woman, for example," Neko said, nodding at the one who had served them. "You do not look that much older than Kham, but I know you are, therefore I am confused. Your familiarity with Scatter suggests that you might be of an age with her. Forty years perhaps?"

"Ain't surprised you can't tell." Harry reached a hand down to stroke the gray hair of the woman at his side. "This woman is Sarah, my daughter and Kham's mother. Hard to believe, ain't it? Gray hair, bent back, palsy-used up by the world and bent by the weight of time. Like most orks her age, she's burnt out, a cinder." Harry paused. "She's not even thirty-five years old."

Neko stared at Sarah. The old woman looked back with rheumy eyes and smiled, showing the gaps in her yellowed teeth. Kham had to turn away from his mother. He wanted to remember her the way she had been. Looking at her now made that too hard; she was just too old.

"Appalling, isn't it?" Harry asked Neko. "Age comes to everyone," Neko said quietly. "But if you are her father, why are you not more aged than she?"

Harry laughed. "Me? Me, I'm special. I wasn't always an ork; but then I guess I always was, or I wouldn't be now. That didn't make much sense, did it? I may not be burned out, but I ain't young either, and sometimes I get a bit confused. I'm not immortal, after all. And, like you said, sooner or later we all do have to pay the piper. Let me try again.

"I started my life as a norm like you, back before the turn of the century. I was down in Rainier when Saint Helens and Mount Rainier blew. The skies were gray with smoke for weeks. That was the first I heard of the magic that was coming into the world. Didn't much like it. Liked it even less when the Injuns used their magic to steal the land back from honest folk that had lived on it for generations. I remember the shan-tytowns around Seattle, saw them fill up with every bit of human refuse that could be crammed in, and watched the wall go up around the plex. I don't know who was worse then, the tribal guards with their holier-than-thou attitude, or the UCAS troops, enforcing the repatriation laws, always looking over their shoulders at the Injuns and playing yesmassa. They all treated us like cattle. I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to a person. "I was wrong.

"If you think that living through the hell of those shantytowns will change a person, you're right. But let me tell you, it ain't nothing like what people'11 do to you if you don't look like them anymore. If they can point at you and say, 'Look, that's not human.' You see, come '21 and the goblinization, I went ork. It wasn't a lot of fun. Pain, pain like you can't imagine, and you locked up inside while your body changes. Ever feel your muscles crawl or your bones squirm?"

Harry paused, as if waiting for Neko to answer. Kham knew better. No one ever answered Harry when he told the story. Somehow you just knew he wasn't expecting you to answer, he just wanted you to think about what he was saying. Neko stayed quiet, so Harry went on.

"I learned what hate really was back then. Hate changes people, kid, changes them a lot. People I thought I knew, people I thought were good people, did some pretty awful things. There was nothing to do but hit back. At least that's what I thought then. So I hit back, and went on hitting back for a long time. Sure, I did some things I ain't proud of, but I survived. Just like I've survived everything since then. And I got stronger. It was like some guy once said, if it don't kill you, it'll make you stronger. About eight months after I went ork, Sarah was born. She didn't have her fine tusks then, but you could still see what she was. Her mother wouldn't have anything to do with her, so I took her and left. I think Sarah's mother got one of those special divorces. I don't really know, and I don't care. Why should I? She didn't.

"Sarah and I went through some hard times, but we survived." He looked down and smiled at her, and she beamed back at him. Kham was sickened. The intelligent, vibrant woman who had raised him wasn't there anymore. Her expression was what one might

imagine from' a faithful mutt. Harry didn't seem to notice.

"The Underground didn't always belong to us," Harry said. "But it's ours now. We turned our backs on a world that didn't want us, and we made our own community down here. It was hard at first. Real hard, but we made it work. Most of the halfers that came down here with us couldn't take it, and they eventually left the tunnels all to us. World got easier for them topside once the strangeness eased off a bit; they still look almost human, if you didn't mind looking down at them. And I know a lot of norms who don't mind looking down on folks.

"We- started a new life down here. I found a place and folks who appreciated what I could do. Made a name for myself. And all the time, Sarah was growing up. I was proud when she married and had kids. I thought she was a little young for it, but that was Fifth World thinking. We were in the Sixth World, now, and early on it was plain that orks come into their maturity much sooner than other people. Physically, anyway." He glanced at Kham and winked. Kham glared back. "Then I started to see that Sarah was getting older. Her hair was gray before mine. At first I thought she might be a freak, being the daughter of one, but she wasn't. She was just an ork. The others of her generation were just like her, old before their time. It wasn't fair. Orks were shunned and pushed into the bad places, and we were dying sooner. Just not fair.

"When you're ork, you find out that life ain't fair. You learn that there are some things you just can't fight, like people's hate. You just have to find another way. But age, and time? How do you fight them? Strength can't do it, because age knows how to steal that away when you're not looking. Brains? No luck there either. Orks may not be as dumb as most breeders think, but our best and brightest ain't got an answer to growing old. The breeder labboys haven't done any better. The reaper still waits for us all; he just has an express lane for orks. So orks get old fast, and then they die. Is that fair?"