Neal Asher - The Line of Polity

Ulat pulled his mask down. "Yes, Proctor?"

"What do you think is a sufficient punishment for his infringement?" Volus asked.

Ulat took another deep breath from his mask before replying. "I think a few days in a cage should do the trick. We don't want to ruin him completely."

Eldene glanced aside nervously. It was coming now. Volus was bound to suggest a more vicious punishment. Quite likely Dent would soon be dead, and Eldene could see the man knew that: he looked terrified.

Volus nodded slowly. "I see… So, that being his punishment, what do you think yours should be, Ulat? Your own crime has been theft from the Church… hasn't it?"

Eldene could not help but feel a species of joy at the sudden panic in Ulat's expression.

"I have done nothing, Proctor, I assure you!"

"No, of course not," said Volus, but now his hand snapped out, and he struck Ulat across his legs with the stinger. Ulat shrieked and went down, and Volus immediately stooped over him. Eldene watched in amazement as the Proctor tore away the foreman's breather gear and stepped back.

"Now, brothers," continued Volus. "A new work party will be taking over here from tomorrow. So tomorrow morning you four must report to the ponds on South-side, to join the sprawn harvest. Return to your barracks when you have finished here."

As the Proctor returned to his aerofan, Ulat crawled after him, his breathing heavy at first, then gasping and choking as he tried to summon the breath to beg for the return of his mask. It was a horrible and rare justice, Eldene felt, watching Ulat die, while the Proctor took his aerofan into the air. They loaded Ulat into a basket along with the other deaders — asphyxiated blue under the lurid sky.

With the boy on her lap, leaning back against her breast, the woman continued, "And then there was the brother who built his house from grape sticks, and who sat safe while the heroyne ate his friend and clacked its beak in satisfaction. So proud he was of what he had built… and don't we know all about pride?"

In all seriousness the little boy said, "Big trouble."

The woman bit her lip trying to keep a straight face, then sat upright. "Yes, 'big trouble'," she concurred.

In the picture book propped on the console before her, the long-legged bird creature was frozen at the point where it pinched the previous brother's head in the end of its beak. As she clouted the book, the picture continued running through its animation. The creature tilted its head back and swallowed the man whole… then the picture clicked back to where it was gripping his head again, and had clearly gone into a loop.

"Bugger," the woman muttered, clouting the book a second time. Now the animation resumed as it should, and proceeded to the house of sticks.

The woman went on, "That very night the heroyne came to stand over his house of sticks. And what did it do?"

Together, woman and child said, "It huffed and it puffed, and it puffed and it huffed, and it blew his house down."

"And what did the brother say when his house was gone?" the woman asked, checking her watch.

"Don't eat me!" was the boy's immediate reply.

"And I'm sure you're eager to tell me what happened."

"It gobbled him all up!"

"You can't run, girl. None of us can run." Those had been Fethan's early words to her, shortly after she had crossed the short space from the hover bus that had transported her and five others from the city orphanage to this farming co-operative. Fethan had gone on to explain that euphemism to her: "You co-operate on the farm or they kill you."

It seemed Fethan was an old hand. Some time in his youth he had got on the wrong side of some member of the Theocracy, but not far enough on the wrong side to end up dead — only as a virtual slave.

"Why?" she had asked him. "Why all this?"

"Just the way it is, girl. The Theocracy have all the cream, and if we so much as think of licking it, we get trod on well and good."

"It's not fair," she had said. "My parents were executed, but I've done nothing wrong."

"Right and wrong don't come into it. It's a shit situation and y'gotta make the best of it." Later it would be platitudes like this one that would precede Fethan's oblique references to the Underground. "You gotta find an entrance in the mountains first, and no way we'll ever get there with these fellas hanging on us." Fethan slapped at the scole nestling on his chest. "You don't take your pills regular and your body'll reject the bugger. You don't get in the air at night to build up the surplus it feeds to you in the day, it'll die on you and you'll suffocate."

Remembering such past conversations, Eldene finished her meal of nut-potatoes and bread, then went into the chapel adjoining the canteen to say her evening prayers, under the gaze of the Theocracy cameras, before heading for the bunkhouse. Most of the other workers were already asleep, not having had the extra tasks allotted to herself and her three companions, but there were still one or two muted conversations in progress. Seated on her own bunk, as she tiredly removed her boots, Eldene considered her bleak future — if it could even be called a future. Most workers did not last as long as Fethan, since accident, exhaustion, or proctors killed them before they got to enjoy grey hair for long. Escape was not an option, as without their scoles they would suffocate outside in minutes, and the Theocracy rigidly controlled distribution of the anti-rejection pills. Only stowing away on a trader's ship, or rescue by the fabled Underground, offered any chance of getting away, and all that Eldene knew of the latter seemed rumour and myth. There was one other option for her — the same one many female workers chose upon entering puberty. Eldene hoped she would never be so desperate as to take that route, then wondered if she would be given a choice.

"You ever work the sprawn ponds?" Fethan asked her from the bunk above.

"You know I haven't," Eldene replied.

"Yeah… right, of course."

Eldene felt a sinking in her belly. Fethan was getting forgetful, slow, old. With horrible certainty she knew that sometime soon she would see the old man die, and would probably have to drag his corpse back for processing into fertilizer — which was the best in the way of a send-off any of them could expect.

"What's it like there?" she asked.

" 'Tain't as bad as the squerms. Hard work, but they ain't vicious." Fethan swung his spindly legs over the side of his bunk and dropped down to sit on Eldene's bunk, beside her. "Only trouble is that you gotta wonder why Volus had us moved."

Eldene stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Ulat was skimming, but you don't get to do that without some help from higher up. Reckon Ulat was paying off Volus, and Volus decided it was time for the arrangement to end once he received his Gift . We're trouble for him now 'cause we might have seen things we oughtn't."

"But he could have easily killed us out there… claimed we tried to escape," said Eldene.

"Nah, he's smarter than that. He can easily blame any shortfall on Ulat, but if us four got done as well, things might start to look a bit too suspicious to the Vicar."

"So he's just moving us conveniently out of the way."

"Yeah, let's hope so," muttered the old man.

The calloraptors had taken to feeding on their seared brethren, so did not get as far as the guard perimeter set up by the new autogun. Cormac observed the insectile machine as it patrolled its allotted area, swivelling its chromed barrels hopefully, and he swore yet again. He raised his gaze to the incandescent sky, where the iron wing of a heavy-lifter was silhouetted on its way down, and he wondered what the hell Tomalon was playing at. Then he marched over to the shuttle that was now powering up.