Kingdom of Cages (6 page)

“Good morning,” announced Madra, taking up a position in the doorway. Chena had to peer through a forest of shoulders to see
her. “Mornings are a little chaotic, so I thought I’d come by and give you the basic rundown on where you should be.”

“Thank you,” murmured Mom under her breath. A chorus of similar murmurs rippled around the room. Chena suppressed a smile.

“First I’m sure you’ll all want to get cleaned up. Then we’ll be having breakfast. After that, you can report to me for your
shift assignments. You’ll find towels and soap in your locker.” Madra gestured toward the wall of tiny wooden lockers. None
of them, Chena noticed, actually had locks. “If you get your things and come with me, I’ll show you the baths and facilities.”

“Bless you,” breathed the woman who had reassured Mom about Chena’s inevitable reappearance. “I’m coated, just coated.”

“Yes, indeed,” murmured Mom, a polite nothing. “Girls, let’s get our things.”

Mom opened the locker that had their names on it. The towels she found were thick but rough, and the soap was a yellow cake
with ragged edges, as if it had just been broken off from a big slab.

“What’s this?” said Teal, holding up the soap. “Where’s the shampoo?”

“This is what there is for now, Starlet,” said Mom, gathering clothes and towels. She pushed Teal gently into the mob that
was gradually forming itself into a line in front of Madra, who was fielding a dozen questions about sleeping arrangements,
job ops, and breakfast. “We’ll buy ourselves what we need later.”

Chena staked out a place next to Teal, eyeing the other kids in the crowd, trying to see if any of them looked friendly or
looked like trouble, but mostly they just looked sleepy and a little confused. Just like she felt.

Madra lifted her voice over the flutter of questions. “Everybody ready as you can get? Good. Follow me, please.” Madra smiled
reassuringly at the befuddled herd of people.

Bet her mouth gets tired, holding that look,
thought Chena grumpily.

But apparently it didn’t. Madra’s smile stayed fixed in place as she took the lead. The men and a few boys seemed to have
slept in the round room across the way, and they joined the procession through curving, branching halls that smelled strongly
of earth and too many people.

Madra seemed to know just about everybody who came and went, skirting their crowd, and she had a cheerful greeting for them
all. “Good morning, Yuri, how’s your hip? Hello, Dulce, Shukmi. Come see me later. I’ve got news for you. Gardens of God,
Buile, you’re huge! Have you felt it kick yet?”

Madra took them down a flight of stone steps. The air grew warm and damp and became filled with the echoing sounds of voices
and splashing water.

“Now, then,” said Madra. “There’s something I ought to warn you about. It comes as a shock to a lot of our new arrivals from
the stations where private living is the norm.…”

But Chena, ducking her head so she could peek between the screen of people in front of her, already saw. Past the squared-off
doorway was a room lined with flat gray stones. In the center was a shallow pool of steaming water. In and around that pool,
all the people were naked—men, women, girls, boys, and little babies. They soaped up and rinsed, walked back and forth, and
even chased each other, and not one of them had a thing on.

“No,” said Chena, swinging around to face her mother. “I’m not going in there.” She wasn’t the only one. A whole eruption
of exclamations and protests exploded around them.

Mom sighed, pressing a hand to her ear against the noise. “It’s just for now, Supernova. Soon we’ll—”

“I don’t care.” Chena slashed her hand through the air between them. “I’m not taking a bath in front of… everybody!” She
gestured behind her. There were men back there, and boys, and old women. Even aboard the station they’d had their own shower.
Okay, it was about the size of their locker down here, but it was
private.
“There’s got to be—”

“Believe me, I understand.” Madra’s voice lifted above the general din. “It was really bad the first few times I had to do
it too, but then I realized that nobody was paying any attention to me anyway. They just wanted to get cleaned up and get
into the breakfast line.”

As if to prove her point, a small string of people, dressed and smelling like soap and warmth, shouldered their way through
the crowd of newcomers and hurried down the hallway. Some of the others shrugged and took themselves through the doorway.

No one was leaving. Some were still grumbling, but if even one person left…

“Mom—” Chena started.

“Not a word, Chena,” said her mother. “I don’t like it either, but we are here and we have to make the best of it.” More of
the others were starting to file in. Chena felt her chances to get out of this slipping away.

“Couldn’t we just go dirty until we get our own place?” suggested Teal plaintively. “I mean, you said it’d be soon.”

Mom’s sigh was short this time, frustrated at being caught by her own words. “Soon could be a month, Teal. Do you want to
go dirty for a month?”

Teal’s sideways glance at the bathroom said she did, and Chena was ready to agree with her, even though she knew it would
never happen.

Mom just looked at them both. “I know this isn’t comfortable. I know it isn’t any fun. But if things are going to get better,
we are going to have to get through this, and if we’re lucky, this is as bad as it’s going to get.” She gave one more brief,
sharp sigh. “Now let’s get over it. Chena, bring your sister.” She fixed her eyes straight ahead and marched through the doorway.

At that moment, standing there felt worse than imagining getting into the water did, and, of course, Mom had just made her
responsible for bringing Teal.

“Come on.” Chena knotted her fingers around the towel she carried and stepped forward.

Chena steeled herself not to see and not to think. She stripped off her clothes as fast she could, hiding under one of the
rough towels that she draped over her shoulders. She got in and out of the noisy shifting bathwater as quickly as Mom would
let her. The yellow soap was harsh against her skin and smelled pungent and strange. The smell surrounded her like a cloud
as she put on her clean clothes and they accompanied the other bathers back to the sleeping room to return their stuff to
their lockers. By the time they closed the locker door, Chena felt like she would have rather stayed aboard Athena and begged
for air money.

Mom said nothing. She was probably still mad. She looked mad, with her face all hardened and closed up. She wouldn’t look
down at Chena or Teal at all.

The way to the dining room was not hard to find. A steady stream of people headed out one of the double doors into the morning.
Outside was brighter and warmer now, and full of people. Gaggles of people strode or slouched along the gravel paths. Villagers
filled the lowest catwalk, heading away into the trees toward the river docks. They wore thick dark clothing, and they all
seemed to have long hair, either pulled back in ponytails or braids, or rolled up tightly against the backs of their heads.
The newcomers were mostly on the ground paths, a strange patchwork bunch in their station blues, reds, and oranges. It didn’t
take much looking to see that the tree people were staring down at them.

Back at you,
thought Chena toward whatever snide thoughts were being rained down at her and her family.
Right back at you.
She didn’t dare make the piss-off sign. Mom would see. But she knew those looks. She’d seen looks like them on the station.
Up there were the ones who had something you didn’t and thought it was your fault that you weren’t as good.

“Ow!” Teal’s yelp jerked Chena’s thoughts and her gaze out of the trees. Teal stood in the middle of the path, with her right
hand jammed under her left armpit and staring with bewildered accusation at the air at the edge of the path.

Around them there were a few small laughs, and Chena heard the word “fence” ripple up and down the river of people.

Chena wrapped one arm around her sister. “Don’t worry about it, Teal,” she said, glaring at the amused bystanders. “I didn’t
see them either.”

Mom also gave the bystanders a hard look, which actually got them to stop chuckling and move on. While she checked Teal’s
hand to make sure that there were no actual burns or anything, the closed-in feeling returned to cover Chena completely. Even
so, she did not miss the frown on her mother’s face as Mom looked at the fence posts. She would have given anything to know
what Mom was thinking, but Mom said nothing. She just started walking toward the dining hall again.

The dining hall was a long low building with a thicket for a roof and tangled vines falling down its walls. The inside was
dim, and the air smelled of the yellow soap and strange spices. But as Chena got into the food line with Mom and Teal, her
stomach grumbled.

Can’t smell all that strange,
she thought as she picked up a bowl and shuffled forward. A man who looked so bored he was almost dead slopped a dollop of
something beige, steaming, and dotted with bits of black and red into her bowl. Chena sniffed the steam. It smelled bland,
but her stomach growled again.

At the end of the line, people were ladling something white into their bowls and drizzling something else brown and goopy
on top, so Chena did too. Then she grabbed a big ceramic mug of what smelled like apple juice.

She was not surprised to see that everybody had to sit at long tables and that no one seemed to have their own spot. Fortunately,
three men in thick trousers and long-sleeved shirts were just getting up from the end of one of the tables. Chena slid into
the place where they’d been sitting and waved for Teal and Mom to come join her.

No one around them seemed interested in talking. They just dug their spoons into their bowls and ate. But they were watching.
Chena saw the sidelong glances, as if every stranger in the room were sizing her and her family up. She wanted to yell at
them, give them all the piss-off sign. What was the matter? They didn’t think the Trusts were good enough to eat here? These
people weren’t so great either. Their clothes were dirty or sewn back together. She could see elbows poking through thin shirts
and knees through thin trousers. Everyone’s skin seemed to be wrinkled and callused, even the kids’.

And they have the nerve to stare at us. I’ll show them nerve.

But Mom would have gone nuclear, so Chena kept her mouth shut and tried a spoonful of the… whatever it was. It probably stank.
That was probably why everyone looked so pissed. The food was probably as bad as the bathrooms.

The stuff touched her tongue and Chena froze. It was delicious. It was warm and creamy and sweet and strong. She had to stop
herself from shoveling a huge helping into her mouth.

“Nothing new wrong, Chena?” asked Mom.

“No,” said Chena, swallowing hastily and digging her spoon into the food. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be any good.”

Mom nodded. “Station food is processed till it screams. There’s almost nothing left inside. That’s why I used to feed you
all those vitamin supplements. This is your first taste of the real thing, my dear.” Her eyes sparkled for the first time
that day. “Does it make up for the bathroom?”

Chena made a show of considering. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.…”

Mom laughed, and even Teal smiled. They all tucked into their breakfasts like they meant it.

“Off the station?” asked a big, coarse man at Teal’s elbow.

“Yes.” Mom gave him her polite, distant smile. “We just arrived last night.”

“Well, good luck, then,” he said, getting up. “Watch your step and steer clear of anybody with an armband and you’ll be okay.”
He picked up his bowl and left, dumping the dish in a big bin on the way out.

“Well,” said Mom, looking after him, “I suppose that will pass for a kind word.”

“Don’t worry about it, love.” This came from a squat, wrinkled woman with skin as brown as tree bark. “There’s a court tomorrow,
and everybody’s on edge. I’m Lela.” She extended her hand and Mom shook it. “You know your shift yet?”

“I’m not on shift. I’ve got a job lined up.”

The woman nodded approvingly, but Chena thought she saw something strange in her eyes. “You’re a lucky one, then. And these
are your girls?”

The exchange that followed was predictable. Mom gave Lela their names and Chena and Teal responded with reflexive politeness
and immediately dropped out of the conversation, eating their breakfasts and letting Mom and the new woman talk over their
heads about the dormitory, where Madra’s office was, where they could get some newer blankets, and when were mealtimes and
how long had Lela been there and did she have any family?

Then Chena caught the words, “… found the body hanging off the dock. The hothousers about had a fit.”

Her attention leapt back to the conversation.

“That’s hideous,” said Mom, genuinely shocked. “But they’ve caught who did it?”

“We think so. That’s what the court’s about tomorrow.” Lela rolled the words around her mouth. “The cop’s got his own ideas,
of course, but it’s the village decides how to take care of its own.” She looked Mom over thoughtfully. “You get your place
sorted out, you’ll probably have to be there. All adult citizens have to vote on the verdict.”

“Well, that will be interesting,” said Mom coolly.

“Ha!” Lela barked. “Just shows you haven’t ever been to one. Everybody up and down and arguing, and witnesses that won’t talk
and what-all…” She shook her head. “Thank the gods below this one had no blood family or there’d be vengeance cries until
the roof shook apart.”

Chena felt cold inside. A court? On the station, the security systems decided who had done what based on the camera recordings,
and then it was just a matter of looking up the punishment. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of people deciding what would
happen. When people got mad, they said things like, “I’m going to break your head!” What if they actually got to do it?