17

 

Dark stone, cool shadow for several meters, then an intense milky green light that seemed to hang like a canopy of fog. The air smelled sweet and slightly bitter. 

“Don't be alarmed,” the stoop-shouldered senior officer called out as the lines marched into the greenness. “It's no worse than taking a shower. We've all done it. Your Able Lenk has done it and said it was a pleasure.” 

Small scions, no larger than midges, filled the air in a swirling mist and lighted on our skin and crawled beneath our clothes until we each wore a pale green coat. Shirla squirmed and tried to brush them off, but they clung tenaciously, like living green oil. 

“Do not be alarmed,” the guards repeated, and the thick-faced fellow reached a xyla stick past me and poked her in the back, bobbing his head at her. I restrained a strong urge to grab the stick and shove it back. “These are servants, not pests. They clean you up for your visit with Ser Brion.” 

After a few minutes of mild discomfort—more at the thought than the actual sensation—the tiny creatures rose into the air again and hovered above our heads, filling the upper reaches of a large, white-walled cell, open at the top to the sky. I turned to look at Randall and Salap. Salap lifted his arms, the last of the tiny scions rising from him like green steam. He seemed stunned, his face slack, more surprised than he had been upon seeing the humanoid skeletons. 

Never, in the history of the immigrants on Lamarckia, had scions ever served humans, or strongly interacted with them in any way. 

Randall stood stiff as a board, eyes half closed, and shook his shoulders to make sure he was free of the creatures. The guards moved us through the door at the opposite end of the white cubicle, and we came to a broad courtyard surrounded by densely packed, flat-fronted gray brick buildings. The courtyard, except for us, was empty, and it quickly became obvious that we were not in Naderville proper, but in some special compound—the most likely conclusion being that this was a kind of prison. Shirla took hold of my arm despite the poking stick of a guard. When the guard poked at her hard, making her flinch, I could not stand still any longer. I turned and grabbed the stick, wrenched it from his grip, and broke it in two. 

The thick-faced fellow stared at me in dumb surprise. Around us, the other guards began to break us into groups of four or five. Still, I met the thick-faced man's stare for several seconds, until he pointed to the broken stick on the ground and said, “Pick it up.” 

Shirla stooped to do so, but I brought her back to her feet with a not-very-gentle jerk. She looked between us with eyes squinted, but took hold of my arm again. 

“Pick it up,” the guard repeated, his face reddening. He advanced a half step. None of the guards had guns. All my senses sharpened and I examined the situation almost dispassionately, seeing how many guards were close, judging how my fellow captives would react to an incident. 

Randall intervened. “What in the name of the Good Man is this about?” he shouted, charging between us and standing stiff-legged, arms held up, fists clenched, as if he meant to fight the man himself. “What is this brutishness?” 

The tall, stoop-shouldered officer had also seen the brewing confrontation, and strode to Randall's side. “Pardon this, please,” he said, his voice soft. “No harm is meant. No harm is meant.” Thus soothing and separating us, the incident was brought to an end, and we were divided peacefully enough and led through different doors around the compound. Shirla and I were separated, but there was nothing we could practically do, other than provoke another incident, which I felt we would not be able to conclude in our favor. Shirla looked at me, eyes wide, then swung her head away abruptly and walked with her group of women through a narrow xyla door. I could not tell whether she felt betrayed or simply had resigned herself to whatever was going to happen. 

She hated confinement. I dreaded the prospect myself. 

The rooms within the gray brick buildings were uniform, four on the ground floor and I presumed four on the upper floor, accessible through a stairwell rising from the middle to the rear. Each room was equipped with a single small square window, two double bunks, a table, and chairs. They smelled clean enough, but the sanitary facilities were primitive: a hole in the floor in one corner, a single tap for water that also served to flush the hole. 

“You won't be here for more than a few hours,” the thick-faced guard said. He closed the door on Salap, a steward named Rissin, myself, and a young sailor named Cortland. 

We settled ourselves as best we could, introduced ourselves, tried to pass the time. Lying in my bunk to doze, I saw something scratched into the bricks of the wall: a crude drawing, a head with round eyes and a downturned mouth, arms and legs sticking out of it, hair in jags. Beside this figure, five crude letters: B-O-B-R-T. We looked for and found other drawings scattered around the room, on the floors or walls. 

“Children,” the young sailor, Cortland, said. 

Salap let his shoulders droop, and lay on his bunk with a sharp expulsion of breath. “Ser Olmy, I am ashamed,” he said. 

I shook my head, but could not think of anything to say. 

The hours passed, and it grew dark outside. No one came for us, and no one brought information. 

A single light bulb came on within the room, casting a dismal pale pink glow, a sick and depressing color under the circumstances. 

“Do you think they're going to kill us?” Rissin asked. 

“No,” Salap said. 

Rissin began to fidget on his bunk above mine. “This is not what I thought would happen,” he said. “Not as long as we were with Lenk.” 

I tried to puzzle the situation through. Either the Brionists were savages on the order of the worst human history had produced, or we were simply in crude detention, until Brion and Lenk had finished negotiations. I tried to imagine what strengths Lenk would negotiate from.