Barsk (21 page)

Twice a day self-propelled troughs of bland and processed vegetable clusters appeared in the middle of the yard. Distinctions like
breakfast
and
lunch,
dinner
and
supper
failed in this place where the dim daylight endured far longer than a day should, and the span between dusk and dawn passed while one watched. It didn't matter that the provided food had little flavor, none of the Dying Fant possessed any appetite. Every other day most would make a pilgrimage down the length of a trough. Trunks would dip within, secure a portion of the tasteless clusters, transfer them to mouths that automatically chewed and swallowed. And again and again, until the Fant reached the far end of the trough, finished that last mouthful, and returned to sit or stand by the barracks' walls. Even after all the Fant wanting to eat had done so the troughs remained more than half full. Upon some unseen signal, they withdrew from the yard.

On the fourth morning since arriving, the routine changed. As the troughs departed, Jorl saw six short figures skitter past them and enter the yard. Unlike the Fant, their tiny feet left no imprint in the packed snow.

“Badgers,” said Jorl, following them with his eyes as they veered off toward a group of Fant congregating outside the far left barracks. “Taxi,” he said again, using the name they used among themselves. He'd only met one during his time in the Patrol, a woman who epitomized aggression, spoke in short sentences, and did everything with sharp, quick movements. His shipmates had assured him she was a fair representation of her people, and universally loathed her only slightly less than they disliked him.

Jorl had spent the first two days making an effort to meet all the other Fant. Only Phas and her friends had proved willing to talk to him. His status as a Bearer let him move among them, and grudgingly earned him their names, but nothing more. As they saw it, none of them had anything to say to someone who was obviously still living.

But though the Taxi also lived, they were neither Lox nor Eleph. The Dying Fant did not flinch away as the squad of Badgers chittered among them, separating one of their number by the simple expediency of surrounding her. As Jorl watched they escorted their chosen Fant back the way they'd come. The body language among the newcomers lurched toward defiance; ears flapped, trunks flailed, but others of the Dying who had been there longer shuffled over in ones and twos, murmuring explanations and smothering resistance. Over the course of the day, the Taxi returned twice to the yard and claimed additional Fant. The troughs arrived again, and after the Fant had eaten, they departed. The three Fant taken earlier returned later, pointedly denied the opportunity for a meal. All looked worse than before they'd left, shambling with less purpose, bruises just starting to flower here and there across their wrinkled gray legs, arms, and torsos. Circles of the Dying formed around each, offering what comfort they could and coaxing the tale of their experience from them.

The newer arrivals among the Fant listened to these accounts and steeled themselves for their own interrogations. They could endure. What was torture compared to the agony of having the closure of their deaths disrupted?

Jorl took no comfort in this. After another period of sleep and the arrival of the first of the day's food troughs, he wondered if the Taxi would pick him today. After those Fant who felt like eating had done so, the troughs began to withdraw again and Jorl's gaze followed them across the yard, searching for the squad of angry Badgers. Instead, he saw three very different figures coming across the packed snow: a slender Lutr, unequipped and underdressed for the cold in a floral sarong, shivering in-between an identical pair of Ailuros in the flat black uniforms of security.

From across the yard, the Otter appeared to be scanning each Fant from afar, searching for something in what surely were unfamiliar faces. Her eyes locked onto Jorl, and he would have sworn she smiled. He saw her lips move with a quick instruction to her guards, and the trio changed their trajectory to move further away from Jorl. They stopped at the first cluster of prisoners, lingered a while and then moved on to the next group. Again and again this continued until the Otter had gazed into the eyes and shared words with easily fifty of the Dying Fant. The Otter and her Panda escort had worked their way to the double handful of Fant closest to him and again paused to engage them.

Jorl watched the Lutr talk to the Fant, Four Eleph and two Lox. Something about her movements, her posture standing there, the way her head bobbed, felt familiar, almost comfortable. He'd never met any Lutr during his days in the Patrol, but he'd heard stories that ranged from hedonistic revels in everyday life to splurges of sybaritic sex that would make the rain blush. Looking at this one now, the way she interacted with the Dying Fant, he couldn't imagine any of those things. He saw her smile as she chatted individually with them and the Dying Fant responded with more enthusiasm than he'd yet witnessed from them. Through all of that, her accompanying guards glared at the Fant with a mix of disgust and warning. Neither the Lox nor the Eleph paid them any heed; all focused on the Otter.

In time, she glanced toward Jorl again. He quickly averted his eyes, but too late. In his peripheral vision he saw her disengage from the others and make her way toward him, the two Pandas stalking alongside, matching her step for step. She stopped twice a trunk's length from him, the appropriate distance for a female Lox or Eleph when encountering a single male for the first time. The realization of it jarred him enough that he turned to face her, earning him a nod of acknowledgment.

“What is your name?”

He frowned, and felt a pang of solidarity with the Dying. It simply wasn't done, at least not to a Fant. A young woman, regardless of her race, did not walk up to a man and demand his name. He started to turn away.

“Your pardon, that was poorly done. May I start again? I am called Lirlowil. My mother's name was … Thithlowil.”

Again he stopped. “I'm Jorl ben Tral.” He paused, and then lamely completed the rest of the greeting ritual. “Perhaps our mothers know one another.”

Lirlowil laughed, a sound like wind chimes set against a husky rasp. “It's a pretty thought but unlikely. But now that we're off to a better beginning, tell me something. Why are you not like these others?”

“The intent behind my destination differed from theirs, though we share similar tales of abduction.”

“Oh. No, I know about that. Horrible, but long foretold. But I meant the mark upon your brow.”

Jorl's hand reached up of its own accord, but stopped before his fingers actually touched the aleph tattoo. “A mark given me by my people. What did you mean, when you said the abductions were foretold?”

“I must have read it somewhere. But about that mark, have you had it long? Have your people marked anyone else that way since?”

“Not long, and no, I'm the most recent. Why do you ask?”

The Otter shrugged, the movement not as fluid as Jorl expected it to be.

“It's what I'm here for. To ask questions. You've met the Bear major?” She glanced at the Pandas who still flanked her but studiously pretended not to hear a word. “He wants information that only an Eleph and Lox might know, but he has no ready access to the actual people who must surely have it. So he's been trying several different methods and hoping to get lucky. Based on what I've seen so far, he's wasting his time. None of them know anything about koph. Do you?”

He should have expected it, but the question caught Jorl off guard and he stammered, saying nothing.

“You do, don't you. But probably not for the reason I'm seeking. You know about koph because you use it, am I right? You have the look of a Speaker about you.”

He found his voice, “I didn't know there was a look.”

“Certainly. Look closely at me, and you should see it, there in my eyes. We have much in common, Jorl ben Tral. More than you realize.”

“You're a Speaker?”

She gave a stiff bow. “I am, have been, for a very, very long time.”

“I mean no disrespect, but you look like you're barely out of adolescence.”

“A keen eye you have. Let's just say I have an
old soul
and leave it at that.”

“But you—”

“As I was saying, the Bear major doesn't care about Speakers. They just use koph. He wants Fant who know how to make it from scratch. All he's ever seen is the finished, refined product that gets shipped to the rest of the Alliance.”

“You'd need to talk to a pharmer about that,” said Jorl.

“Exactly. Do you know any?”

“I … did. He's passed.”

The Otter nodded, more impatiently than empathically, or so it seemed to Jorl.

“Sailed off?”

“No, an … accident.”

“Ah. Well then, thank you, Jorl ben Tral. I've waited a very long time to meet you and have this conversation. Please, excuse me now.”

She smiled, the expression never quite reaching her eyes, and turned away. The Ailuros turned with her. They had already moved to the next cluster of Dying Fant when Jorl trotted after, trunk waiving.

“Wait! What did you mean about having waited a long time?”

A Panda's fist caught him full in the face, and its twin slammed into his stomach. He doubled over, unable to breathe and trying not to retch. He dropped to one knee on the packed snow, wishing he could move away before the next blow fell. But it didn't come.

When he lifted his head he saw his assailant crouching on all fours, trickles of blood streaming down his face from his ears and the inner corners of his eyes. He had vomited as well, and the contents of his stomach steamed in the frigid air. The other Panda still stood alongside the Otter, but clearly wished he could help his comrade.

“I held back,” said Lirlowil. “As a kindness. Next time, I won't. I don't share the Bear major's contempt for these people, and I won't permit you to demonstrate yours. Do you understand me?”

The Ailuros on the ground managed a faint confirmation, and the one still standing also said “Yes.”

“Jorl, are you all right?”

He rubbed at the spot on his face that had taken the punch, imagining the bruise that would spring up soon enough. Resolving to scrape up some snow and create a compress, Jorl hauled himself to his feet and nodded.

“Good. Now, you have to excuse me. Time is racing away from me. But I promise, we'll speak again soon.” She winked at him, as if they shared some secret, then turned again and moved on to engage that next group of the Dying. The uninjured Panda stayed at her side. The other collapsed there on the ground, clearly breathing but otherwise unmoving.

What had she done to him?

 

TWENTY

VIOLATIONS

MARGDA
continued her circuit through the yard until she'd chatted, however briefly, with every one of the Dying Fant. The wrongness of it grated, but the yearning to gaze once more upon her people pulled her through it. She'd died long ago. The nefshons that had been pulled together by Lirlowil included some of her last. She had reached the final island that all of these tragic souls had been denied. When this was all done, she would never see their like again. She hid behind the façade of the Lutr's body, ignoring custom to be with other Fant one last time.

And through it all, she practiced her control over Lirlowil's telepathy.

Her attack on the Ailuros who had struck Jorl had been both reflexive and yet restrained. She'd reached out, wrenching at the guard's mind much as she had to that other Panda on the station, but with greater focus and a lighter touch. Nor had she let the flood of memories pour into her borrowed brain, as they had the last time. Instead she'd deftly turned them aside, incapacitating the Ailuros and not herself. And in doing so, she'd begun to see how to use this ability.

She reached out to the next Eleph she met, clamping down on the power like she had squeezed off Lirlowil's access to it. The technique was remarkably similar, and the analogy of limiting the flux created the means to practice control. Her new telepathy grazed the Fant, as delicate as the nubs of her trunk might caress a loved one's cheek. A general sense of numbness echoed back, accompanied by the barest spark of interest that lived far below the Eleph's conscious awareness.

She closed off that contact and extended a touch to a second Fant, pushing deeper, envisioning that one's mind like a mighty tree and her probe as no more than a wayward leaf carried to it on the wind. She pulled back surface thoughts, curiosity at the Lutr and her Ailuros companion, surprise that one of the guards had collapsed, distaste that the young Lox continued to bear witness to the shame of the Dying, resolve at the recent brutality by some Taxi. Margda ended that contact as well, completed a few audible pleasantries. She moved on.

A light rain, really little more than a mist, had begun to fall. Almost beneath the level of her own awareness she sensed a slight sigh that emanated from the Fant. Something familiar and welcome in the midst of so much strangeness. Surely also a sign that she had achieved some tipping point with the borrowed telepathy. Margda traveled through the entire yard and visited with all of the Fant. She touched and skimmed and read enough minds and memories to feel comfortable with the ability, and powerful enough to reach into any mind and pursue what she needed. Unlike with the Pandas, she could not easily search through deeper memories. The Dying Fant had already let most of them go. It seemed as if large portions of their minds had already shut, sectioning off more and more of the past. That life was over for them and at some unconscious level they'd made peace with it and allowed their pasts to fade.

She'd also exhausted the Otter's body beyond sensibility, which in this instance had the surprising benefit of keeping Lirlowil's waking consciousness from regaining control while Margda practiced her telepathic ability. One final test remained. She had just turned away from the last cluster of Fant and caught sight of the second of the day's food deliveries. Riding on the lip of the automated trough was an Urs, and though Lirlowil had only met him once, that single encounter had burned his image into her so deeply that Margda had no difficulty recognizing the Bear major, Krasnoi.