Of Dreams and Rust (3 page)

“Opium on the factory floor?” The doctor lets out a thick, rolling laugh. “You need your brain on the floor, not just your muscles. No. You go home, you get opium. You want to work, I'll have Miss Wen make you some willow bark tea.”

I grab a pot from the shelf and fill it with water, then start it heating on the stove. Dr. Yixa is fierce about his rules, and this one seems very smart. One moment of thoughtlessness can result in many deaths on the floor of Gochan Two, as I have seen repeatedly over the past year. Of course, a similar absence of thought could mean the difference between saving a man on the operating table and causing him to bleed to death, but Dr. Yixa seems to have no trouble guzzling sorghum liquor as if it were water.

By the time Dr. Yixa emerges with his patient—a stout man with huge arms, a deeply wrinkled brow, and a torso tightly wrapped with cotton bandages—I have the tea steeping. Dr. Yixa sniffs the air, his bulbous red nose twitching. When he exhales, the room fills with the scent of rice wine. He gives me a fatherly smile, revealing his cherry-red gums and missing front tooth. “Good morning, Miss Wen. Happy First Holiday Eve.”

My stomach drops. I didn't wish Bo a good holiday. I walked away and said I'd see him tomorrow and didn't think at all. “Happy First Holiday Eve, Doctor.”

He nods toward the steaming pot on the stove. “I see you've read my mind once again.”

I bow my head. “Willow bark tea is useful and easily made.”

“Pour this good man here a cup so he can go take up his place on the floor, will you?”

I pour a helping into a chipped cup, which I hand to the worker with a smile.

“Guiren's out tending to some cases of flu in the dorms,” says Yixa as soon as he sees me glance toward the door to the cramped two-room space my father and I call our home. “We're quarantining early this year. Being strict. Glad I have the extra staff to make sure of it.”

The factory worker slurps his tea and frowns. “Why? It'll only make it harder to complete our quota.”

Dr. Yixa scowls. “You know what would make it even harder? If the entire factory staff was sick at once. Not to mention the fact that we've got soldiers on their way from the east. They'll come through the Ring and need to quarter in the town before they head over the hills, and we don't want them exposed to sickness. We're going to do our part to avoid that.”

“Soldiers?” I say. “We've been hearing soldiers would come through for months, but they haven't.”

“Ah, I suppose you haven't yet seen the news.” He walks over to his cluttered wooden desk and scoops up a newspaper with his chapped hands. “Those Noor pigs have really done it this time.”

My heart stutters. “What's happened?”

“They stormed Kegu. Imprisoned Yilat's provincial governor and his council. Opened the food stores and gave the emergency rations to whoever held out a hand. And now they're demanding recognition.” He shakes his head, his overlarge ears growing pink with the affront.

“They want to rule themselves,” I murmur. Somewhere over the Western Hills the Noor are attempting what Melik's father and other elders tried to do—and died for—so long ago. “And you think our government should not consider it?”

The factory worker gulps the rest of his tea and sets the cup down heavily on the table in front of me. A few remaining drops splash out of the cup and dot the back of my hand.

“They'd better not,” he growls. “The rest of us would starve if the Noor got to decide who to sell the crops to. This drought has made some people forget that, but when the rains come, we'll all be sorry—and hungry—if we don't crush those Noor like the cockroaches they are.”

My cheeks grow warm with anger. “They only want to own the land they work. Why shouldn't they?”

Both men look at me as if I have lost my mind. They exchange a glance, probably wondering whether to chastise me or dismiss me as a silly, ignorant girl. “Miss Wen,” the doctor says kindly, speaking as if to a stubborn toddler, “everyone knows the Noor mind is closer to animal than human. They can be good workers if they're supervised properly, but left to their own devices, they're vengeful, petty, untrustworthy, and dumb. Would you want people like that in charge of half the good farmland in the country? No. You wouldn't. You'd want a savvy Itanyai.” He grins and taps his temple.

The bandaged worker looks skeptical. “Good workers? Ha! Look what happened when they were brought to the slaughterhouse to work last year. They weren't here for more than a few weeks before they brought production to a halt. My brother worked the floor there.” He mumbles a chant meant to appease dead ancestors, and I realize his brother was probably one of those killed when Gochan One came down. “The so-called official cause of the building collapse was structural instability, but I don't buy it for a second. You know they had something to do with it.”

I don't know whether this is better than the rumors that the disaster was caused by the Ghost—or worse. I force a smile of submission onto my face. “Thank you both for explaining it to me,” I say quietly.

Dr. Yixa puts his hand on the worker's shoulder. “Be careful today, and be glad tomorrow is a holiday. No celebrating tonight—go home and lie on a hot-water bottle if you want to keep your place on the floor.”

The worker bows his thanks and leaves. When he's gone, Dr. Yixa turns to me, his nose even redder than before. “Don't let me hear you asking questions like that again,” he says, low and rough. “Noor sympathizers are not welcome in this factory or in my clinic.” He holds up his finger, his nail grimy. “Don't think I haven't heard about what went on at the meat factory. Whispers of scandal are louder than you think. I've overlooked it because Guiren is skilled and knows how to be discreet. I hoped you were made of the same stuff, but now I wonder.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, lowering my gaze so he knows I'm not being defiant. “I just don't understand why everyone hates them so much.” A hatred that has intensified tenfold over the past year.

He snorts. “I like them just fine when they do as they're told and don't cause trouble. I thought they'd learned a lesson after the last time we had to put them down. They'd been quiet for a while.” With a stifled belch he edges closer to his desk, where I know he keeps his liquor. He gives his bottom drawer a look of yearning before turning back to me. The understanding that he can't drink in front of me seems to fire his anger once more. His ears go scarlet.

“You realize how much we've done for the Noor over the years, Miss Wen? If it weren't for us, settling in the west and creating order, they'd still be ranging around like barbarians on horseback, half starved and all stupid.” He's pacing now, a bit unsteadily. “But we gave them roads. We put government into place and police, too. We planted crops. We stored up for hard times instead of letting them squander the surpluses. We gave them the opportunity to do meaningful work instead of scavenging and fighting and overbreeding and killing each other. And once again they're repaying us with violence.” He throws up his hands. “I suppose that's just their nature, though. They live in the moment and never think of the future. Sad, really.”

“They are human beings, just like us,” I say very softly.

Dr. Yixa lets out a laugh that drips with bitterness. “Just like us? Did you not hear what I've told you?” He grabs the paper from his desk and stomps over to me, then slaps it onto the table. The headline reads
NOOR REBELS OVERRUN YILAT CAPITAL.

Below it there is another, smaller headline.
WANTED: KNOWN REBELS
is all it says. Beneath that are rows and rows of pictures, mostly artist's sketches, some photos. A few of them are Itanyai, but most of them are Noor. “Do they look human to you, Miss Wen?” asks Dr. Yixa. “Look at those faces. Look into their eyes. They are animals.”

I stare at the pictures. Some of the men are listed by name, some by crime, some by description. These are the most dangerous, apparently, and they certainly look the part. Wild hair, dirty faces. The sketch artist has drawn them with their teeth bared.

At first I am almost frantic, scanning the page for any hint of a familiar face. I see none and slowly relax. Until I read the words beneath a face in the middle of the last row.

THE RED ONE
.

Like the others, the man in that picture wears a grimace that makes him look more beast than man. His thick hair is pulled away from his face. He looks foreign and strange. But there is something about the way the artist has drawn his eyes with only the lightest shading that fills me with deadly certainty. My fingers drift along the line of his jaw.

I remember what it felt like beneath my fingertips, rough and warm.

“Ugly sons of goats, aren't they? They'll get what's coming to them, Miss Wen, make no mistake.”

“And what's coming to them?”

Dr. Yixa chuckles. “When our men march into Yilat, they'll hunt down and execute those troublemakers. Shoot on sight, if they get a chance.”

I look into the eyes, pale gray in the artist's rendering. In real life they are jade green and full of keen intelligence . . . and sometimes fiery defiance. This paper does not say what he has done, and I'm not sure it matters. Somewhere, somehow, he has been noticed. Giddy happiness and utter dread twine tightly in my chest.

Melik, the boy who rules my dreams, is alive. He is also a rebel, marked for death.

*  *  *

I am thankful when my shift is over, because my concentration is fleeting at best today. Whenever I have a break, I find myself standing over the front page, staring down at the Red One's unfamiliar-yet-familiar face. And the longer I look, the more I wonder if it's actually Melik. Surely he and his brother are not the only Noor with rust-colored hair. I search my memories of Melik for something to confirm or dispute the accuracy of the drawing, but it is like trying to close my hands around a puff of smoke. Was his nose that long? Was his brow that wide? When I peer at it closely, I notice that the man in the drawing has a badly chipped tooth—is it a recent injury, or is this a different man?

Isn't that something I should know for sure?

Realizing that I have forgotten the details of Melik's face is like losing him all over again. The one thing I remember very well is the sight of him walking away from me after promising we would see each other again. Now that I have a window into what his life might have become, though, I have to wonder—does he bother to remember me at all?

I was only a few weeks in his life, with many days soaked in sorrow and grief and blood, both his and that of people he loved. We shared a few kisses, a handful of embraces, a fragile understanding floating in an ocean of want. For all I know, that ocean has dried up, leaving cracked earth and a broken promise. On the other hand, perhaps he is like me. Perhaps he can't forget. Is it possible that he carries those memories tucked inside his heart, beneath the long scar on his chest? Does he run his fingers along its length and remember the night I stitched him up? Is it possible that he dreams of me? Would it hurt him to think I'd forgotten him?

How on earth could he afford to spare me a thought, when his life, his people, and his freedom are at stake?

He will not leave my thoughts, though. Most days I can ask him to take a seat in the back, to stay quiet. Today he refuses.
I'm alive,
Melik whispers to me.
Just over the hills.

It is almost as if someone has erased the hundred-mile stretch between here and there. Like I could walk my fingers over a map, striding over mountains to find him. But really it's a long day's train ride or a week of hiking, through dangerous passes known for rockslides and ambushes by bandits, to a lawless province that has fallen into chaos. People do not make the trip unless they must.

It is ridiculous even to contemplate.

What we lack in injuries and illness this afternoon, we make up for in gossip. At lunch the office girls whisper of war while the workers wipe the sweat from their brows and argue over whether the war machines they are building will be deployed. The thought steals my appetite, and I return to the clinic to find my father drinking willow bark tea and reading the paper. He looks up when I come in. “We have flu in some of the dorms.”

“Dr. Yixa told me.”

He nods. “You were with Bo this morning?”

“As always.”

“I've just seen him. He's testing those metal frames again.”

“Are you sure they'll weaken him?”

“Parts of him.” Father sighs. “They make him feel safer, Wen. More powerful and in control. It is hard to blame him for wanting to feel that way.”

“I don't blame him,” I say. “I simply don't want him to become a machine.”

Father chuckles and sips his tea. “He always thought like one.”

“But he feels—”

My father stands up. “Yixa said he showed this to you this morning.” He waves the paper.

From the exam room I can hear Yixa's muffled snores. “He seems certain the army will be sent to suppress the rebellion.”

I hope my father will argue, but he nods instead. “When things go this far, the government cannot ignore the threat.”

I bite my lip. “I heard something this morning. I was near Boss Inyie's office when he came in.”

Father raises his eyebrows, and I continue. “He got an urgent call that he had been waiting for. And he canceled his morning appointments.” I fold my arms over my stomach. “And I heard him mention the Noor.”

My father, who is slight of build to begin with, suddenly looks even smaller. “That does not bode well for the Noor in the Yilat Province, then.”

His words sharpen the teeth of the unspoken fear that has gnawed at me all day. I touch the paper. “Is that him, Father?”

My father folds the paper. “Whether it is or not, it tells you nothing.”