Kingdom of Cages (64 page)

Then it was over, and the woman pulled the patches off. “You’re in one piece,” she announced. “Avert your eyes, Willie. Dans,
roll her back over.”

Dans, a second woman, shorter and slighter than the tailor, rolled Chena onto her back and pulled a sheet up to her chin.
The man, Willie, had both hands thrust into his pockets and he rocked back and forth from toe to heel as he stared at the
glass-fronted cabinets against the far wall.

Regan wasn’t there. She couldn’t see any hothousers either.

Am I safe?

“Thank you,” she croaked.

“Thank Willie.” The tailor nodded toward the man. “Turn around and take your thanks, Willie.”

Willie obeyed, smiling as he did. “It’ll be worth it, Lopera. She’s the other Trust.”

“I can see that.”

Chena swallowed hard. Her body was beginning to tingle with pins and needles. She seemed to feel the connections between her
limbs and her mind coming back on-line. “What do you mean, the other Trust?”

Lopera didn’t answer. She just turned away and busied herself with something Chena couldn’t see. Then she leaned back over
and pushed a straw toward Chena’s mouth.

“Drink,” she ordered.

Chena didn’t even try to refuse. She just took the straw between her lips and sucked on it. The liquid that poured down her
throat was cool, sweet, and salty. She’d never tasted anything so good. She sucked it down as fast as she could swallow. When
there was no more, her head dropped back onto the pillow. The tingling increased, growing painful, but Chena didn’t care.
She felt strength ebbing back with the pain. She was becoming whole again, and if that hurt, she could take it.

“She’ll sleep now,” said Lopera over the top of her head. “Dans, first thing in the morning, you’ll get word to the hothouse
and tell them we’ve got information.”

What?

“Don’t tell them we’ve actually got her yet, just say we know where she is and she’s being watched. I’m going to see what
kind of terms they’ll give.”

“No!” shrieked Chena. “You can’t! Not…” But a wave of dizziness washed away her words.

Not after everything I’ve done. Not after I came so far. Not after I killed a man. Not now.
She felt herself falling backward and all she could see was Basante crumpled on the floor, twitching with pain while she
leaned over him and demanded that he tell her who murdered Mom. She saw Mom lying on her back, butchered and bloody. She saw
Teal on the bridge of a ship right beside Dad, sliced open just like Mom.

Then there was only more darkness.

F
rom his post in the back of Wilseck Valerlie’s shop, Farin heard the lock rattle. The front door opened just a crack. A squat
figure slipped in and closed the door behind itself.

“Hello, Willie.” Farin’s eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, so he got to watch Willie jump and spin around to face
him. “You’re out late.” Farin stepped into the thin sliver of moonlight that the shutters let through.

Now Willie identified his voice and shape. He relaxed instantly and Farin suppressed a smile. Willie knew he had nothing to
fear from such a puppy as Farin.

“Well, Farin Shas.” Willie felt his way along the wall to the closed window and turned the knob on the base of the small battery
lamp sitting on the sill. Dim gold light took the edge of darkness off the room, showing up its dirt floor and piles of crates
and baskets. “Who paid you to be here?”

“It couldn’t just be a social call?” Farin unhooked a flask from his belt and poured clear liquor into a pair of cups he had
found earlier. “Drink?” He shoved one of the cups across the makeshift counter of crates toward Willie. “It’s some of my boss’s
finest.”

Willie picked up the cup, inhaled the earthy scent, and drank it off smoothly. He smacked his lips and set the cup down. “Good
stuff,” he announced. “But not enough to make me like boys.”

“No.” Farin leaned his forearms against the counter and swirled the liquor around his cup a few times. “But you take an extraordinary
interest in young girls, don’t you?”

Willie put his back to Farin and turned up the lamp, throwing their shadows in stark relief on the dirt walls. “Don’t know
what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lucky the cops didn’t see you pitch Chena Trust over the railing yesterday.” Farin unfolded himself. He had a good
six inches of height and fifty pounds of muscle on Willie, and he wanted the other man to know it. “I did.”

Willie held up his hands and waggled his fingers at Farin. “Ooo, what’d I do, touch your little kitty? How much she pay you
to be her first?” He tried to sneer, but only managed to hiccup.

Farin ignored his remark. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. “She’s a friend of mine, Willie, and I want to know where
she is.” He stepped closer, getting between Willie and the light.

“So?” Willie backed up, and Farin saw his knees shake. “Doesn’t matter what you want. Who do you think you are? Your granny’s
tougher than… tougher than you.” Willie’s hip bumped against the counter and he staggered.

“Much tougher,” agreed Farin, gliding forward a few steps, forcing Willie to back up against his baskets. “Where’s Chena Trust,
Willie?”

Willie giggled, a high, ugly sound. “All wrapped up and ready to go. Keep giving us people, they do.”

“Who do?” Farin forced himself to be patient. He’d dealt with plenty of drunks. If you kept them talking, you’d get what you
wanted.

“Hothousers. Keep this kid, give us that kid. Make up your damn minds, I say.” Willie sat down abruptly on the floor.

Shouldn’t drink things you don’t recognize, Willie.
Farin crouched down next to him.
You should also remember what my grandmother does with her time.
“Which kid are you keeping for the hothousers, Willie?”

“Lopera’d kill me.”

Farin leaned in closer until his lips almost touched the other man’s ear. “I won’t tell. It’s just you and me here. Lopera’s
a damn fool anyway. She doesn’t appreciate you.”

Willie looked up at him blearily. “ ’S right, she doesn’t. Errand runner. That’s all I am. Brought her all the Trusts, didn’t
I?”

Farin pulled back and clamped his jaw shut until he was sure he could speak calmly. “All the Trusts? Is that who you’re keeping?”

“Nah, nah.” Willie waved the idea away. “That’s who we’re giving away. Had to let one go to the station. Got to give the other
back to the hothouse. Won’t even let us siphon off the eggs from this one.”

Farin shook his head. No point in trying to decipher all that. Just stick to the main point. “So, you gave Chena back to the
hothouse?”

“Not yet. Just boxed her up.” Willie burped. “Strong stuff.”

“Oh, yeah.” Farin bared his teeth. “Takes a man to handle this stuff.”

“ ’S right. So what’s she got this man doing?” He slapped his chest weakly. “Babysitting. Ain’t what I signed up for. I ain’t
no dorm daddy.”

“Who’re you babysitting, Willie?”

“Ha. Want some of it?” He pumped his fist weakly in the air. “Thought you liked little girls, Far’n, not little boys.” He
burped again and slumped farther down the wall.

“You’re babysitting a boy?”

“Boy. A cure. For the cris… div… Diversity Crisis. Built from scratch. Out of the Trusts. Stole him off and handed him to
us so the others couldn’t have him.” His head flopped toward Farin. “These hothousers don’t make piss-all for sense, you know?”

“No,” said Farin automatically. “They don’t.” His mind raced ahead.
The cure for the Diversity Crisis is a boy? From the Trusts? He must be talking about Helice Trust.

Farin leaned in close to Willie. “Where’s the boy, Willie? Where are you babysitting him? I’ll bring by one of the girls to
take him off your hands, and you won’t have to bother anymore, okay?”

“ ’Kay,” agreed Willie comfortably. “Got him in the caves. Cave number six.” He waved his hand vaguely westward. The effort
seemed to exhaust him, because his head sagged and his eyes drooped shut.

Not yet, damn you!
Farin shook Willie’s shoulder. “With Chena?” Willie peeled his eyes open and giggled. “Heeeere, kitty, kitty, kitty.” He
leered, and spittle dribbled out the corner of his mouth. “You got time. Lop’ra’s not letting her go until the hothousers
pay up. Could take weeks the way she haggles. Heeeere, kitty.” He snorted with laughter, and his head fell forward against
his chest.

“Willie?”

In answer, Willie snored.

Farin got to his feet, running both hands through his hair. Willie snored again, and Nan Elle emerged from the darkness behind
the pile of baskets. Leaning heavily against her cane, she shuffled past Farin without a word to bend over Willie and peel
back one eye.

“Hmph.” She pressed two fingers against Willie’s throat and held still for a moment. “Strong batch, but he’ll be all right,”
she said, straightening up slowly.

As soon as Farin saw Chena on the boardwalk the previous afternoon, he’d sent word to Nan via a rower they both knew. He’d
expected a letter back, but instead she’d shown up at his door with a set to her jaw that he hadn’t seen since the last time
someone in the village died from her attentions.

“Did you understand all that?” he asked. A boyhood habit. He’d never quite shaken his belief that Nan knew everything.

“Yes, I did.” Nan looked down at Willie, slumped and snoring. “It means we have a chance to save ourselves, as well as Chena.”

“I’d be grateful if you’d tell me how,” he said blandly.

“If we have the cure to the Diversity Crisis in our hands, we may just have a chip for which the hothouse must bargain.”

Of course. Everyone knew that the only reason Pandora, a clean world in the middle of the Diversity Crisis, was being left
alone was that the hothousers had promised the Authority that they would come up with a cure for the Diversity Crisis. If
the Authority found out the hothousers did not have any such cure, Pandora’s isolation was over.

Farin sucked thoughtfully on his cheek. “No matter what Willie says, we can’t have much time.”

“No.” Nan paused, considering. “Stem’s librarian, I think, is a friend of yours?” Farin nodded. “Wake her. See if she’s got
a map of the caves. You may have to risk going overland. Your kitchen’s good enough for me to boil up some of Chena’s concoction.
If she made it all the way back to Stem, she must have gotten past the cameras.” Nan paused, and the smile on her face was
proud. Farin knew what she was thinking. Only Chena Trust, her apprentice, had ever beaten the mote cameras. “I’ll need to
wake up Ada for some more mint.”

“I’ll walk you,” said Farin reflexively.

“Didn’t I just tell you what you were to do?” snapped Nan, also reflexively, Farin knew. She was frightened, he could see
it in her eyes, but she was determined to see this through.

Farin straightened his shoulders. “Then I’d better get going.” If Willie was right, they probably had until morning to narrow
down Chena’s possible locations.

But if Willie wasn’t right? Farin’s jaw tightened and he glanced toward the shuttered window. There was no way out of the
village tonight. Not for them anyway. They’d have to trust the unconscious man at his feet.

Shivering at that unwelcome necessity, Farin slipped out the door.

When the door shut behind her grandson, Elle turned back to the unconscious man. There was good reason to kill him where he
lay. He abetted the tailors in kidnapping Chena. He could wake too soon and alert his masters about what had passed here.
His account would be fuzzy, to be sure, but he would know he’d been questioned, and by whom.

But she did not move her hands. She just stood there and watched him sleep. She wished she lay beside him. She felt old, as
if every one of her sixty-eight years had settled on her back.

How did the world turn over so fast?
She shook her head.
How can you stand here asking such questions when there’s work to do?

Elle turned down the lamp until the light sputtered out. Then she eased the shutters open a trifle and peered outside.

Clouds obscured the moon, but after a long moment she could distinguish the slopes of the dunes and the slightly paler boardwalk.
Nothing stirred that she could see. Perhaps whatever watcher the constables had set had gone off after Farin.

It would not be good to count on that.

Willie stirred in his sleep. Elle decided to let him live. He might alert the tailors, but that would take time, even if he
woke before morning. She and Farin would already have their head start, and a death at this stage might make the constables
sharper than necessary.

Elle opened the door and set the lock’s latch so that it would fall back into place when she closed it. It was that pathetic
lock that had allowed she and Farin easy access to the shop. She supposed Willie used it to convince anyone keeping an eye
on him that he had nothing worth protecting here.

She closed the door and heard the lock snap into place. Resting her stick on her shoulder, she hobbled down the boardwalk.
She’d already made enough noise tonight. She did not need the tapping of her cane to alert anyone to her passage.