Jo Clayton - Fire in the Sky

Sifaed turned to a clean page and drew a square. She frowned at it a moment, then started filling in the square with smaller squares and numbering these. When she finished, she wrote the numbers on the facing page with a note beside each number, then handed the pad back. “Far as I know, that’s how things are arranged. Those Chave go on and on like drunks on a talking jag when they’re with me. Cha oy, I admit I encourage them, you know why.” She looked at the pad in Deдnin’s hand. “I can’t see what use any of that is. You’re not going to get in there. Nobody gets in there except Chave.”

Deдnin slipped the pencil into its loop and tucked the pad away again. “We’ll let you know when we figure it out. Take care, Sifaed. And don’t push things, hm?”

Sifaed nodded. “I hear. Chel Dй grant the time be soon.”

Feoltir ran her fingers nervously through hair she’d bleached until it was white enough to pass for age. She glanced at the Guardian who’d volunteered to stay behind, wondering at the withered serenity in his face. He was wandering about, sliding his hand along the rough brown fibers of the Sleepers as if he were caressing cats. He was saying his farewells, that was clear. Farewells to things that looked like wooden eggs with the bark still on. She knew well enough that Eolt were developing inside, she’d been to a Hatching, she’d watched the embryonic Eolt emerge, small and slippery like egg yolks, watched them hunt blindly for the sky, pulling themselves up the posts of the pergolas and crawling shapeless and really rather revolting onto the lattice. She’d watched them suck blood from the Guardians and begin making the gas that would plump them out and carry them aloft. She watched them put on beauty and go floating upward, watched the making of the bonds.

That was why they were there. Her brother wanted the sioll bond. He sat with the other boys and in his turn played the song he’d made to call the new-hatched Eolt to him. He had the gift, an Eolt dropped the speaking tentacle, draped it lightly about his neck. She’d never forgotten the wonder and joy on his face, nor the pain in the faces of the two boys who weren’t chosen.

And I didn’t even have the chance to be rejected. She closed her eyes. I had as much music in me as he did, but no one listened.

A touch on her shoulder. She shivered, looked round.

“They’re coming.” Eagim pointed. “You’re ready?”

“I’m ready.”

The guard shoved her into the cell. He was rougher than he meant to be but not deliberately; he’d just forgotten his own strength. She caught her foot on the sill and fell heavily onto one hip, her right hand twisted under her.

By the time she got to her feet, the door had slid shut and she was alone. Fear churning in her, she moved to the sink in a corner of the cell and ran cold water over her wrist. It was already starting to swell. In a little while she wouldn’t be able to use it and she was ridiculously right-handed.

She moved to the cot, lay down on it, and pulled a blanket up over her. Ignoring the pain and the weakness in her fingers, she curled up and began removing the nutshells she’d inserted into herself. One. Two. A sharp pain in one finger. The third shell was broken. She lay still a moment, then worked her fingers deeper and brought out the fourth and last shell. When I hit the floor, she thought. That must have been when it happened.

She fetched out as much of the shell debris as she could locate, then uncurled and lay with her injured wrist across her eyes. The shells were filled with spores, borer worms and chigger nits. Making their way into her now. Into her flesh and blood and bones. No matter. There was time enough to break the other shells on the faces of the techs when they took her for their tests.

She slept a little, woke with her wrist throbbing. She wet a towel, wrapped it tightly about her arm and lay down again, dropping after a while into a restless sleep with dreams of worms eating into her, worms emerging from her skin, waving their slimy heads about.

A bong from the wall woke her from her nightmares. A monotonous chant told her to strip and follow the blinking red lights.

Her mind sodden with sleep and pain, she unwound the towel from her arm, pulled off the guardian robe and looked blearily around for the lights.

Red dots eye level on the wall blinked in swift series over and over as if the red light raced from the cot to a narrow door that stood open now, a door she hadn’t seen before. She stepped across the raised lip into a room like a closet with smooth white walls. The door slid shut and jets of hot water came at her from several directions, stinging at first then wonderful, washing away pain and fatigue.

The water stopped long before she wanted it to. “Put on the robe you’ll find in the meal slot,” the voice boomed at her. “Tie on the slippers.”

Her wrist was so swollen now she could barely use the hand. She managed to tie on the slippers, then leaned against the wall, her head roaring, her face and body slick with pain-sweat, nausea threatening to empty her stomach.

“Go to the door. Go to the door. Go to the door.” She ignored the voice. When she could move, she went to the bed, collected the three nutshells, took them to the sink and washed them off, then slipped them into her mouth.

“Go to the door. Go to the door. Put your hand on the yellow oval. Put your hand on the yellow oval.”

The guard was waiting outside. He was angry, she could tell because his inner eyelids had dropped and his eyes glistened. But he said nothing, nor did he touch her, just gestured with a long black stick, relaxing when she obeyed without fuss.

In the long examining room she saw the other woman she knew and a few male Guardians. Except for a few quick glances to map the place and set the script for what she planned, she kept her eyes down, shuffled docilely along until one of the techs noted her swollen wrist, swore with exasperation and pulled her away from the others. “Taner’s Claws, Guard Tibraz, I told you to watch your hands. This is the third one damaged.”

She kept her eyes on the floor, so he wouldn’t know she’d learned their ugly speech.

Hand on her shoulder, he took her to the workbench with its organized clutter of tools and instruments, placed her hand and wrist in a hollow much too big for it since it was shaped to Chav dimensions, dosed the top over it and started the scan working. “Hm.” He switched to Bйlucharis. “Two small bones cracked, woman. I’ll put you in a pressure bandage and give you some pills for the pain. Should be all right.”

He freed her wrist, turned away, reaching to a sensor on a cabinet door. She looked up. The other women were watching her. She nodded, spat a shell into the palm of her left hand.

The guard started toward her. Smiling fiercely, she spun away from his arm, slapped up and over it, smashing the shell against his face. Still spinning, she spat out the second shell, slapped it against the face of the tech, then threw the third shell onto the floor and grabbed a small smooth-handled blade from the clutter on the bench, set it against her throat, and cut deep.

MedTech First Muhaseb’s face bloomed on the screen. He showed worry in the Chav way, the inner eyelids dropping but not all the way down, a trickle of drool unnoticed at the corner of his mouth, his color faded to a pale gray green. Hunnar waved Ilaцrn to silence, scowled at the screen. “Well?”

“We’ve got a problem, O Ykkuval.”

“Explain.”

“The batch that the guards gathered from the Sleeping Grounds this time, most of them were women. They ah mmm used their mmm body cavity to bring in an extraordinary mix of spores and microscopic borer worms. Four techs and six guards got smeared with these and they’re close to panic now. They can feel themselves being eaten and rotted out. It’s mostly imagination, but, I’m afraid, not wholly. They’re demanding we drop them in stasis now and send them home with the next ship for more specialized treatment. They say it’s in the contract with their subclans and mmmm I’m afraid it is.”