Mercedes Lackey: Foundation

Mags felt his heart do a double-beat and bent over the pan to hide his expression. No one had ever made such an offer to him before.

He was tempted—oh, yes—he was tempted. Seriously tempted. This could mean the difference between being stuck here his whole life and getting out, like Davey. If the offer was real. The knowledge might be good for more than just getting out; it might be good for more food, a better blanket, an easier time of it from Jarrik. He, too, might get some of those advantages from the cook, and maybe other things, too.

But it might not be a real offer, and it might be a trap. Maybe Davey never meant to tell him anything once he had the sparklies, or maybe he’d make stuff up to tell, stuff that wasn’t true, that would only get Mags in trouble if he tried to use it. And then there was the danger of doing the theft in the first place, Mags had never seen what happened to kiddies who snitched sparklies, because in his time no kiddie had had a reason to try, but it had to be a lot worse than ones caught snitching food or blankets. And Master Cole was just mean enough to have said to Davey, “I’ll let you leave here with money in yer pocket and a good suit’o clothes if you find out who’d snitch sparklies, given a chance.” Mags was convinced that there was nothing Master Cole wouldn’t try just for the meanness of it.

“That don’t sound safe,” he muttered, fishing a bright flash of red out of the pan. “I take all the risk, an’ fer what? If I git caught, yer off free, an’ if you git caught, ye kin say I give it ye and niver say ye ast for it.” Davey had never done anyone a kindness so far as Mags knew. He had never been cruel, but he had never done anyone a kindness either. That didn’t make him exceptional; just about everybody was that way. But it also didn’t make him trustworthy.

And hadn’t he just said he’d been getting favors from the cook that he hadn’t been sharing with the rest, like he was supposed to. That made him even less trustworthy. Like Demmon, he’d been greedy. But unlike Demmon, he’d been sly and had never told anybody.

For that matter, now that Mags came to think about it, no one here was really trustworthy on that scale. Even the littlest of the kiddies would give you up for more food. That was why everything good got shared and split, so everyone was equally guilty if there was guilt to go around.

But Davey hadn’t shared. Which meant—what? Probably nothing good. That he was sneaky, for sure. And greedy, for sure. And that anything he did would always be all about what he got out of it.

Mags was good at watching things out of the corner of his eye, and for a moment, Davey’s expression turned savage, and more than angry enough to make the hair on Mags’ neck stand up. Then he laughed. “Suit yerself. You ain’t the only one diggin’ out sparklies. If you won’t, summun else will.” And then the older boy turned away, fixing his attention on his own pan.

Which was the truth; what was also the truth was that Davey himself was deep into a good vein of greens. So Davey could snitch his own sparklies, if he chose. It just might have been a trap.

Well, if Davey thought that turning away would make Mags beg for the chance to get what he was offering, he could think again. He’d played that game years ago, to get the donkeys into harness, showing a wisp of grass and then turning away with it. The donkeys would go for it, every time, and Mags was pretty sure he was smarter than a donkey.

He thought about turning the tables on Davey, going to one of Cole’s boys and saying “That there Davey offered stuff if I’d snitch him a sparkly an’ give it him afore he flits.”

But Davey had never harmed him before this. There were a lot of unspoken rules among the kiddies, and one of them was, you didn’t be the one to do the bad first.

If the offer was genuine, and not a trap, then Davey wasn’t being the one doing the bad first. And maybe because he was about to flit, the Pieters boys were watching Davey too closely for him to snitch any of his greenies, so he was coming to Mags, who wasn’t being watched so closely.

And anyway, that was tellin’, and the one thing a kiddie didn’t do was tellin’ on another. Davey’d have to do him a mort of bad before he’d go so low as tellin’. Tellin’ something like this could lead to terrible things, things there were only rumors of in the dark before sleep took them all. Things like tales of kiddies getting’”caught” in the hammer-mill and crushed to death, or knocked down the well by the bucket-chain and drownded, or goin’ to take a pee and the shaft roof come down so hard there was no getting ’em out, ’cause there weren’t nothing to get out. Things that was supposed to be accidents, but everyone knew they weren’t.

So he kept his nose on his business, sending the gravel down the sluice when it was panned out, concentrating on the weak warmth on his back as a counter to the cold numbing of his hands and arms, and watching in that peculiarly unfocused state that let him spot the tiny sparks of color and light that others missed. The little wooden dish at his side filled steadily—though he was careful, all things considered, to keep it on the side away from Davey. Just in case. ’Cause if Davey was angry he hadn’t agreed to the snitch, then Davey could be malicious and knock his dish into the water, and he’d have little to show for his shift at the sluice.

But it did occur to him, that Davey’s tale just might have a grain of use in it, that it might be worth his while to listen under windows now and again. It just might be he could learn something useful there, useful enough to lose some sleep to get it.

The air began to take on a chill as the light from the sun got more gold and less white, and then more amber and less gold, and then went to red as the sun touched the horizon. And because at that point any further panning was pretty much useless, since there would be no way to spot the tiny bits of sparklies in the dark sluice water, Jarrik turned up and ordered them to put pans down and turn over their findings. As usual, Mags turned over a bowl nearly half full with tiny bits. As usual, all he got for his efforts was a grunt.

Then it was off to supper, more cabbage soup and bread with extra bread for Mags, while another of the dough-faced Pieters girls read falteringly out of some holy book or other. Mags had no idea what the book was, or the god. The girl read so badly it was hard to make sense of what she was saying, for most of the words were too big for her, and she sounded them out badly.

This was the priest’s idea, and Cole obviously wanted to be on the good side of the priest. They got read at by the girls at night-meal, preached at by one of the boys that was supposed to go for a priest at morning. Neither the girl nor the boy put any feeling into it. They both made it look and sound as if they were only doing it ’cause they’d get a beating if they didn’t.

Mags ignored it. It was all the same rubbish anyway. Suffer on earth and be rewarded in a heaven he didn’t believe in, by gods who didn’t see fit to do something about misery right now.

Sometimes, when he had a moment to think, and something turned his mind toward these gods the priests were so big about, he wanted to hit the priests, hit the gods if they existed. But that took energy, and mostly he didn’t have the energy to waste. He’d rather have had silence over his meal, or someone to read a book that told you something useful, like how to stay warmer in the winter, or what plants were good to eat. It would have made him mad tonight, to have this girl prattling on about nonsense, except that for a change there was enough food in his belly that he was immediately getting sleepy once he’d stuffed the last of his extra bread in his mouth. He looked up, to see that the three cripples on night shift were just now tottering in. And if he beat the others to the sleep-hole, the straw would still be warm from the cripples’ bodies, he’d get the choice of blankets, and he’d be in the middle of the pile of bodies tonight, which was always the warmest place.