Dave Duncan - West of January

“Now stand and let him do your legs!”

Hrarrh rose very shakily He kept his eyes closed. He swayed, but he suffered even that additional torture in silence, his features visibly ashen under the burns. When it was finished he sank down with his head on the ground once more and hoarsely said, “Thank you, master.”

Even the ants were impressed. Clearly the leader had not expected the victim to withstand the torture, for he chuckled admiringly. Then he assigned him to the same gang as me.

The site called the Canyon lay deep in the mine, where the ore vein was almost but not quite vertical. It had started, I suppose, as a tunnel and was by then a deep trench, just wide enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder. The slightly sloping walls towered over us, up into darkness. They had been cross-braced with props, but we all knew that sooner or later the overhang would collapse. Still, it was more pleasant to work standing up, more companionable to have the whole gang in the same dig, and much less stressful when the panthers could not sneak in behind us unseen. We had a double gang, eight with picks and four with shovels. We paused at intervals to pass the buckets back to a winch hoist, and thus we all had to work at about the same pace.

Hrarrh was last to arrive, and of course the bitch boss put him in the pair closest to her, at my side. I had expected that. In the gloom his legs were already streaked with black lines of blood, so the coarse smock was abrading his tattered shoulders, but he at once began swinging his pick like a maniac. I wondered whether he was trying to kill himself. Probably the only uninjured places on his body were his palms, but soon the handle of the pick glistened wetly as he wore the skin from those also. He was only a youth, he was grievously ill, and yet I could barely keep up with his stroke.

In the Canyons teamwork, the slowest pair governed the times for bucket passing. With any reasonable partner, a stronger worker like me need not force himself very hard. We did need good judgment, for if one pair got too far ahead of the others, then the others would be disciplined. So would any man who slacked too obviously. I was sure that this addle-brained kid would soon flag, but he held the pace, our shovel boy was soon shoveling as he never had before, and we filled our first bucket long before the other teams. The sadist boss woman screamed at them for being outworked by a cripple. She confiscated all water canteens except ours.

The same thing happened with the next bucket. This time every man in the team got clawed, except Hrarrh and me.

About halfway through the shift, Hrarrh began to have fainting spells. When he came to, he would stagger to his feet and go at it again, but by then the other men had caught the smell of revenge, and the pace quickened. Try as I might, I could not do the work of two. Ours was now the late bucket. Hrarrh was unconscious so I was the one punished, but even the boss had been impressed. Instead of her cat, she used her iron-toed boots, giving me a few mild kicks on the shins. From her, that was almost praise.

By the end of the shift, Hrarrh had apparently collapsed for good. Candles were flickering out. The boss had a couple of the weaker workers scratched, as always, and then dismissed us, leading the way up the ladder. The others followed, stepping over Hrarrh’s motionless form.

We two remained, in the dark. I checked his pulse: he was alive. I carried our picks and canteens up the ladder, and at the end of a shift, even that was an ordeal. Then I came back down again. He was still unconscious, still alive. If this kid could work miracles, I decided, then I could, too. Somehow I got him over my shoulder; somehow I climbed the ladder, all the way wondering if any of the shoddy rungs would collapse under our combined weight. I laid him down rather clumsily when we reached the top, thinking my heart was about to explode.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Knobil.”

“Leave me.”

“No.”

“They’ll skin you.”

For a while there was no sound except my gasping. Then I said, “Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Then hold my coat. I know the way.”

It was not the first time I had left the mine in the dark. Once in a while we could steer by the candles of the incoming gangs, but most we just walked slowly through the blackness, fumbling at walls to locate branchings. I carried the equipment and Hrarrh kept a hand on me.

We reached daylight and waited for the dazzle to leave our eyes. Then I pulled his smock off for him, feeling it tearing loose from his sores. He was completely coated in blood, both wet and dry, his face haggard as death. The next shift was still milling around, dressing, but sneaking interested glances. Hrarrh straightened his shoulders, reeled over to one of the bosses, and crouched at his feet to beg for another licking. I decided he was mad.

The ant regarded him angrily, probably wondering how to punish a man who was being insubordinate by demanding punishment. If it was mockery, it was unanswerable. “Why?”

“So that I may heal faster and be able to do more work.”

“And why would you want to do that?”

“I was born a miner, master. I must be able to outwork the dross.”

The ant shrugged. “Then lie down.”

That was a wise precaution, for if Hrarrh fainted during the licking, the cat would slash him as he fell. He did not faint—his eyes opened afterward—but another slave had to roll him over so that the panther could clean his back. I carried him to the paddock.

I scrounged a few scraps of food that had not yet been consumed. I managed to rouse him enough to force it into him. No one else came near us. No slave ever wanted to attract attention, and the ants were openly watching from their side of the compound.

Hrarrh chewed with determination, forcing lumps down his throat and repeatedly gagging. His eyes were unfocused and he shivered uncontrollably. He was in deep shock, probably very close to death.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked faintly.

I shrugged. “Just eat.”

“You think I can help you escape?”

Certainly I would not mention my plan to an ant, even a captive ant. “If I did, I wouldn’t dare be seen with you.”

He nodded. “Then why?”

I was not sure of that myself. Probably, as a coward, I admired courage. “Someone helped me once, when I was hurt and alone.”

He worked that out while he chewed some more. Then he said: “You’re a fool. And so was he.”

I was surprised to find him still alive when I awoke. He lined up for the bosses and went through the whole incredible process all over again, from licking to final collapse.

But he did not faint quite so often during the shift, and he was conscious afterward as I carried him up the ladder. That was a bad journey, for I was weakened by overwork and lack of food, and we almost ran out of luck before the top. The other slaves again ignored us when we reached the compound, but they had left enough refuse in the trough for two good meals, and a pair of the dirty leather covers lay nearby, apparently over looked. Such consideration was unusual and might be lethal if the ants chose to interpret it as a sign of admiration or approval.

Three…four… By his fifth shift Hrarrh had stopped fainting and was producing almost as much as the slowest of the healthy men, yet he still needed my help on the ladder, and so it was that the two of us again returned to the paddock together. The other slaves were continuing their pretense that we did not exist. The two pariahs sat alone in a sunbaked emptiness, chewing their roots and gristle.

Hrarrh had pulled a hide around himself to protect his new skin from the sun, but that skin was in itself vindication of his faith in the healing powers of the panthers’ saliva. His puppy fat had already gone, which was an improvement, but the scars on his face did nothing for his looks. His nose seemed to have been applied too hot, so that it had melted and spread, and brow ridges like tree branches made him seem permanently surly. Tufts of wiry hair protruded through the scabs around his big mouth. He was an ugly kid. He was going to be a very typical ant.