Stone Seeds (5 page)

THE GENERAL'S FEAST

ONE OF THE EGG Men by the window looks young. His skull is regular sized.

“Batch 47,” Mamma Zeina whispers to Zorry. “Human.” Eyes Zorry. “Mostly human. But …” She turns. “They're putting the latest batch of Egg Boys in the general's house now?” She scratches a small insect bite on her curved chin. “Well. That's new. Guess they must'a passed the last round of tests.” She looks thoughtful. Turning toward Zorry, “Him, there. That's Antek,” she says. She squints, looks away. Picks up a piece of food debris by Zorry's left foot.

“He's looking at you.” Zorry mouthes.

Antek watches Zeina walking heavily towards the serving table. When she reaches it she leans down hard, looks up. Holds the boy in a warm, shrewd gaze. He looks away quickly, confused.

Mamma Zeina returns to Zorry slowly with a covered plate. Slow, pained movements, edges in beside Zorry. Blocks the window with her bulk.

“Move Sinta, that's where the guards stand.” An Egg Man moves to stand with his back to the window. Zorry steps aside quickly. Backs behind a curtain to one side. But Mamma Zeina pulls Zorry into the listening dead zone, between the bathrooms and the hall chandelier. Casts an expert eye around her for any new bugs or listening devices. She begins her
tutelage. Quietly.

Today is Zorry's first day serving the feast at the general's great house. There's a lot to learn today and no room for mistakes. The guests are scowling at name cards, taking their places.

“The general's wife is s'posed to run the flowers fund of Bavarnica, and this is its biannual meeting, fundraiser, shindig, whatever you want to call it.” Mamma Zeina rubs her head slow, absent-mindedly. “Feast.” Then seems to remember herself. Readjusts her scarf. “The flowers fund used to deliver food to the edge farms but the general's wife, she's … “opens her eyes wide, “Over pollinated now.”

They both eye the general's wife from behind.

Rib bones of her spine fanning out like the long teeth of a comb.

“Gaddys the village shopkeeper has taken over.” Mamma Zeina scratches her chin, then her small round nose. “Now it's just flowers they deliver.”

“Flowers? To starving childur? What's the point Mamma Zeina?”

Mamma Zeina and Zorry turn as one to look at the flowers on the table. They are huge and grotesque, red petals seeping down toward the table, huge insect-like proboscis pointing skyward. Rows of black beady eyes.

“Why?”

Mamma Zeina rolls her eyes. “Who knows?”

Zorry notes the tables groan with produce. Something has escaped from the food table. Several things on the food table are, on closer examination, still alive. One clawed pink creature crawls down from the top of a stack. A small mammal with
oversized lower body, tiny ears, is hopping distractedly from plate to plate.

Since disease hit the food chain, the fashion amongst the OneFolk tribe has been to select the critter they're planning on eating by its movements, its overall colour and appearance, other signs of health, and then gesture with one finger toward the apparently speechless and heartbroken Sinta butcher who stands behind the feasting table. Have him kill the food in front of the guests.

Occasionally the butcher breaks down in tears and has to be replaced by an underling, causing some tittering and rolling eyes at the feast table. The Sinta butcher used to be an animal conservationist before the failed revolution. A vegetarian. The general has been creative with his punishments.

Mamma Zeina nudges Zorry. It's hard to stay awake on the job after a night hiding out in the copse behind Mamma Zeina's house. Zorry feels tense, wired, and the back of her neck and limbs are aching. In the air conditioned general's house Zorry feels cold to the marrow. Jumps when Mamma Zeina jogs her.

“In practice, Gaddys the village shopkeeper has been in charge for the last seven years.” Mamma Zeina says. “That's her over there.” Zorry follows Mamma Zeina's eye. She recognises the village shopkeeper at once. “Yep, I know her.”

Zorry eyes the window. From here she can see the border of the killing forest beyond the first fence. She can't see past the trees but she knows that the killing forest is also fenced off by high electrified fences on the edge farm side. Mamma Zeina seems to read Zorry's thought. “No Zorry,” she says. “There's no chance for them.”

“What?” Zorry blinks.

“No escapees from the edge farms have ever made it over here, Zorry. Not past the last fence. The fence on our side. Leastways not so far as I know.”

“Can't we … help them to get in the same way we got out?”

Mamma Zeina twists towards Zorry sharply. Hands her a fork. “Careful Child. Them is revolutionary words.” There is a long pause whilst Mamma Zeina gathers herself.

“Every month or so, one or two of the edge farms' strongest and most resourceful men and women do make it over the first fence. The one on the edge farm side.”

“Eh?”

“Yes, Zorry. The fence on the edge farm side of the killing forest has roots six foot into the earth and is topped with knives, electrified, and still …” She chuckles. “Jengi gets in and out through that fence like it were full of holes.”

Zorry's eyes widen.

“Yes, Child. Jengi showed folks the routes, the best hiding places in the killing forest.” Mamma Zeina shudders. Now her voice hardens. “I have argued with him. I doesn't even want to contemplate a repeat of the last revolution. What it cost. I keep telling him that we are not … Ready. It's too soon and he is losing his best people at the fence.”

She looks at Zorry softly. “But he's young and vengeful.” Pauses. “Impatient. Wakes up every morning counting his dead.” Mamma Zeina raises her eyebrows gently. “Never was a faster way to get folks killed than Jengi, Zorry. But he's … Jengi is … We need Jengi.”

Mamma Zeina hears the sound of shrill mocking laughter from the feast table. Winces. “The killing forest is the biggest
hurdle after the edge farm fences of course, she says. Most will never get even that far. Leastways not without training.” She pulls open her apron pocket, peers inside. Looks up. “Yes.” She says. “But the fence on this side … ah that one's really the trick.” She turns back toward the dining room.

“No.” She concludes. “You might survive the killing forest iffens you's lucky or skilful, trained, but …” Sighs. Looks back at Zorry. “It will always be the last fence which kills the bravest and the best of the edge farmers. That fence is alive, as you've seen. Although, of course, every living thing can be … turned, but that fence is mostly beyond my understanding.” She screws up her face, pulls her ear. “We mostly don't get there in time, when the rebels are caught in it, but even when we do them runaways is picked up quickly by the Egg Men. It's hard for the Sinta to hide a thing as big as a living body in the OneFolks' village, Zorry.” Mamma Zeina looks grave. “We ain't saved even one of them edge farm rebels so far. Not one Zorry. And we've lost twice their number in trying. Only think about that.”

Zorry is still looking down at the fence. “Not one saved so far,” Zorry says, almost to herself. The fence seems to her so thin, even flimsy, from all the way up here in the general's house.

She sees something moving just inside it.

“What's that?”

“What is what? Oh, what in the name of unholy weeping … Damn it, Jengi.” Mamma Zeina curses quietly, and then, “Some days it's like the boy is doing the general's work for him.” Mamma Zeina stares. Sighs. Then, turning, looking up at Zorry. “The general likes to leave the edge farm rebels'
bodies stuck to the inside of the fence, to be slowly absorbed by it. They will be left there until their corpses dissolve, a warning to any more potential rebels amongst the Sinta slaves inside the fence.”

Zorry looks baffled.

“Look close, Zorry, that is Jengi's damned revolution. Right there. Death itself, that boy. Some days.” She curses him again.

Zorry sees what look like cocoons along the inside of the fence. “Aye.” Mamma Zeina tilts her head left. “Edge farmers, stuck and drowning in the fence. Turned slowly to bones.” She turns away from the window. Locks her jaw. “Damn that boy Jengi to Hell.” She looks at Zorry. “Oh, Child, I don't mean that.” She is quiet for a while, thinking.

“Hope,” she says. Catching Zorry's eye and then holding her gaze. “Hope is the mother cupboards' resistance. And our creed is
gather
.” Soft hissing sound on the last word. Zorry freezes. Feels the word running down her spine. “Like a sigh, like a song, ain't it?” Mamma Zeina turns away and stumps heavily toward the kitchen to fetch more platters.

Zorry watches her go.

Zorry notices the Egg Boy Antek eyeing her, he looks away quick, and then looks back. On an instinct she can't quite explain, Zorry nods. Antek returns the nod stiffly. Looks away. Now they carefully ignore each other.

Zorry can hear the moving plants in the killing forest groaning and heaving against the thin fence beneath the window, by her right elbow. She turns a little toward it. Catches a glimpse. The fence seems to bend and strain. Moves like water. Just a cobweb-thin white mesh and rippling with plant-
blows, twisting as though it's alive. Zorry's had nightmares about those cocoons along the fence. Now that she knows what they are, it's worse.

Antek looks down. Notes the Sinta girl's right hand curling and uncurling. Sees her eyes glitter. He turns his head a little. Tries to see what the Sinta girl saw down there, at the fence.

Zorry hears thumps and bumps underfoot. She has already been warned that the general's labs are built underneath his feast room. There's a small crash like something or someone falling and then, in the periphery of her vision, three white-coated Egg Men make a rush for the inner door, just beside the kitchens. Antek, pulling on his helmet, joins them. The light above the inner door's blinking on and off red.

The Sinta kitchen staff go on waiting tables around Zorry, seemingly impassive. Someone hands her another plate.

“Someone made a hole in the fence last night,” Zorry hears one of the OneFolk girls at the far end of the table whispering to the girl beside her. The whispering OneFolk girls are around Zorry's age and the second girl eyes Zorry sideways. And then both girls do. Zorry suspects they intend her to overhear them.

“A Sinta, no doubt.”

“Yes. No doubt.”

“Things came into the village.”

“Things? What things?”

“The general had the Egg Boys rounding up … strange creatures in the village since dawn.” The second girl shudders prettily.

“Oh, relax,” the first girl says to her friend now. “The Sinta in the general's house are all certified tame.” Eyes Zorry.

“Are you sure? Even that one?” And now the girls turn as one to look at Zorry. Giggle softly.

Zorry winces. Looks away. Notices for the first time a claw mark down the side of the face of the Egg Man by the front door. He seems to notice her watching, grunts and shifts from foot to foot. Zorry looks away quickly. Tries to press further back into the space beside the window. She feels the cold window ledge agains her arm. Hot air drifting in through the grille set into the glass.

The killing forest, just beyond the fence, seems to draw Zorry's eye toward it. She glimpses things moving, down there, just at the periphery of her vision. Zorry daren't turn. She daren't turn to look again for a long time.

From her position backed against the window, Zorry can, with a discreet and well timed eye swivel, see the green tips seeping out over the fence below. There's just a glimmer of movement in the treetops. She has to train her eye to focus, catch it. Stare hard and the dark green life seems to pulse and swell and move against the boundary fence. Zorry twitches and shifts. Looks away. Doesn't do for the kitchen staff to seem too curious about the killing forest or the fence just now. Especially not on her first day. There have been several Sinta slaves vanished already by the general's troops, just this morning. Zorry doesn't want to join them.

She can't see it from here but she knows it's there.

The gaol. Like a cold shadow under Bavarnica's mountain range. The mountain's shadow and the gaol spans out for miles and it's growing, filling up with Sinta slaves no longer certified tame by the general. There's the constant sound in the OneFolks' village of prisoners building new walls to their
gaols. Hammering out their new tin roofs. Forced to build with their own hands the cells which will contain them and knowing all the while that one day they'll be made to dig their own graves too, all watched over by the Egg Men.

Zorry looks back at the feast table. The food is groaning. Just a low hum, you don't hear it until you tune in, she thinks, and the tinkle and clatter of the feast table barely conceals the low continuous thrum of the creatures' fear. Zorry notices that the Sinta butcher has his eyes closed. His left eyelid twitches and his mouth trembles, just a little. He is pale, blue lipped with tension. The Egg Man to the right of the butcher eyes him carefully, keeps a hand on his electric prod (the butchers have been known to break out in strange ways, one year at the feast a table was turned over, windows broken. The Egg Men won't let that happen again).

The sound of the feasting OneFolks' chatter rises. Zorry clutches her serving plate until her knuckles ache, and she's pressed small dents into her palms.

She thinks, “Why would Mamma Zeina call that Egg Boy by name? Antek.” She hardens her thoughts against Antek. “A human name when the guards aren't human. How can they be? The Egg Men don't deserve names.”

Zorry lets go of the serving plate with her right hand, it curls into a fist of its own accord.

Zorry has not by any means perfected her impassive Sinta expression. The thing takes practice and years to accomplish, if you can live long enough to complete your training that is. But Zorry is in theory learning from the best, Mamma Zeina, head of the general's kitchens, and so her own mother has high hopes. At least that's what she told Zorry last night, high
pitched brittle voice. But then this morning, and with deep circles from unsleep under her eyes, her mother had seemed more resigned, “No one can ever truly say what Mamma Zeina feels or doesn't,” and then lifting up her voice, making the effort of hope for Zorry's sake. “But a thing like that is a gift, Child. A face that holds no expression. Times like these. You need to practice that, Zorry. Right now every single thing that passes through your heart shows up here.”