Zenn Scarlett (8 page)

“Your wielding of the tranquilizing bow was admirable. This must give you some pleasure.”

“Well… actually,” she said. “It might have been my fault he got out in the first place.”

“Your fault?” He tilted his antennae toward her. “How is this so?”

Good question
, Zenn thought.

“I don’t really know,” she said. “It’s possible I… forgot to reactivate the energy fence.” The admission irked her, intensely. It was bad enough having Otha reprimand her about the fence. And she couldn’t defend herself from his accusation. In the aftermath of the weird feeling she’d had while treating the hound, she’d been disoriented, her mind fogged. The truth was, she couldn’t say positively whether she’d reactivated the fence or not.

“You left the fence inactivated?” Hamish said. “Have you done such a thing before?”

“No. That’s just it. I always turn fences back on. Close the gates. Make sure everything’s secure. But this time… Well, I’ve been a little off, lately.”

“Off… off of what?”

“It means: not my usual self.”

“This sounds as if it makes you regretful.”

“Well, let’s just say I sunk my chances of getting a perfect score on my end of terms.”

“Ah, your testing scores. Can this damage not be remedied?”

“Sure. If I score high enough on the next two rounds.”

“And what is the next round?”

“In-soma insertion. In a swamp sloo.”

“Yes. The in-soma pod device. I must say that this seems hazardous. Is it? A hazardous device?”

“Not really. Not if you know the procedures.”

“But you enter this device, and then it is taken into the body of an organism many times your size. This is not a thing I would do voluntarily. Are you forced to do this?”

“No,” Zenn laughed. “I can’t wait, actually.”

“And what happens, when you are in some vast and monumental animal’s body?”

“Well, you navigate your way through the digestive system.”

“This has the sound of being highly unpleasant.”

“No. It’s fascinating. Really. And you’re doing it to help the animal. To diagnose and treat things that are wrong. Let’s say your swamp sloo has a duodenal ulcer. You navigate through the stomach and into the intestinal tract. Then, you stop the pod and activate the manipulator arms to extend. If the ulcer is small, you could apply some medicine and close it up with protein stitching. If it’s big, you lay on a derma-plast patch.”

“And then how does one… exit?”

“You’ve got two options. You could lightly irritate the stomach lining and have the animal regurgitate you.”

“You are vomited out?”

“Right. Or, you keep going forward through the small and large intestines and into the sloo’s cloaca.”

“What then?”

“You just let nature take its course and… plop!”

“So, the animal…”

“Yeah, you get pooped out.”

“I repeat. I would not volunteer for such a journey. I will acknowledge your enthusiasm, although I fail to understand your eagerness.”

“I’m eager because I’ve been looking forward to it forever. Plus, I know I can do it. I’ve screened every v-film on in-soma insertions that we have in the scriptorium library. And I’ve re-run them till I see the control panel in my sleep. A high score will help make up for the whalehound.”

Hamish was quiet for a few seconds.

“Novice Zenn, I haven’t been in-cloister long, but to forget a fence-switch, to allow an animal to escape. That doesn’t seem like your usual standard of behavior, if I may say so.”

Until the last few weeks, Zenn would have agreed.

“Thanks,” she said. “But I guess we all make mistakes.” Whatever happened, she wasn’t eager to dwell on it. “So, how are you settling in so far?”

“Oh, settling well. Although there is much to do. I’m learning that a cloister sexton has a multitude of demanding chores and tasks. Cleaning of pen and corral spaces, repairing items, feeding of the animals, more cleaning, running here and there.”

“It’s not what you expected?”

“Not entirely. Especially the chanting.”

“Chanting?”
“There is no chanting. Or wearing of brown cloth robes with hoods. I was under the impression there was considerable group vocal chanting at a cloister such as this. And robes. But there is not. This was disappointing.”

“Hamish,” Zenn said. “Did you look at the message shard we sent you, before you came to Mars? The information packet about the cloister?”

“I did not.” He admitted this with no apparent embarrassment.

“Well, the shard would have told you all about life here, the responsibilities of a sexton, the lack of chanting, things like that.”

“I understand. You are saying my knowledge of the cloister was deficient and if I had viewed the shard I might have decided cloister living was not to my liking.”

“Yes, Hamish, that’s what I’m saying.”

“But the Queen Spawn-Mother selected me from among all my sibling hatch-mates to come to Mars as sexton. I would therefore be sent despite any prior knowledge I might or might not have, if you see my situation.”

“Oh. I knew things on your world were… highly structured. But I didn’t know that’s how things worked.”

“That is its working. But still, I cannot help but feel it’s unfortunate there are not more students in attendance here. To help with the many tasks.”

“I’ve noticed Liam helping you out,” Zenn said.

“Yes, the person Liam Tucker. He is quite willing to assist me. He is very friendly, and curious, for a local human. Very curious, to know about the animals.”

“That’s great, though, isn’t it? A towner taking an interest. Maybe there’s hope for those people after all.”

“Hope? Are they otherwise hopeless?”

“Well, like those two boys and the whalehound. People can be afraid of things they don’t know anything about. Maybe Liam will tell others what it’s like here. That the animals aren’t just huge, dangerous alien things. He might tell them how… interesting they are. And that we’re just trying to help them.”

“He might well do this. And that might have instructive value,” Hamish said, then he looked down at the line of closed doors. “Novice Zenn, do you recall the time when there were more students at the cloister school? Helping with tasks?”

“Not really,” Zenn said. “The Rift with Earth had already started when I was born. So, it’s basically been this way for my whole life.”

His question prompted her to imagine, not for the first time, what it was like when the entire dorm had been buzzing with activity. Did students talk and joke with each other as they hustled out of their rooms every morning? Were they all good friends with each other, sharing their excitement about the animals they would work on or learn about that day? And did her mother join in the banter, when she was Zenn’s age and going through her novice year?

“Were you not lonely,” Hamish asked, “growing up in the absence of others in your hatchling group?”

“No, actually, I’m used to being the only… hatchling around here,” she told him.

“And what of your friends in the surrounding environment? With the townfolk in Arsia indisposed toward alien animals and those of us who deal with them, do you in fact have friendships or associations with others?”

“Um, no,” Zenn said. “I don’t… associate all that much.” The truth was, even if she was inclined to ignore the Rule about making friends, kids in Arsia City and the valley didn’t stay around. They grew older and left. They moved to Zubrin, or went to find work in one of the other larger settlements.

Friends leave. Everyone… leaves
.

Talking about it, thinking about it was making her feel testy.

“Besides, it would be weird to have lots of others here,” she said. “All those bodies and voices, all those faces, swarming around all the time. I’m not really sure I’d like it.” But even as she said it aloud, she could feel the tug of curiosity. What would it be like? Other bodies, other faces, other personalities all around, every day, day in and day out? The strange mix of emotions this train of thought provoked made the whole idea almost overwhelming. No, she decided. It was better as it was. Less confusing. Safer.

“Zenn?” It was Sister Hild, calling up from downstairs. Zenn walked to the banister and looked down. The Sister was in the entryway of the calefactory hall. Next to her, Otha was pulling on his heavy work chaps.

“So, the princess awakens,” her uncle said, glancing up. “Good. You can assist. Get dressed and meet me in the courtyard. Did I hear our new sexton up there?” Zenn turned to see the big coleopt attempting to move quietly back to his room.

“He’s here,” Zenn said, then immediately felt guilty. “Sorry,” she whispered as he came to join her on the landing.

“Yes, director-abbot,” Hamish said, only half-concealing his disappointment at being discovered. “I am here.”

“Did you give Griselda that dose of mineral supplement with this morning’s feeding?” Griselda was a crypto-plasmodial seepdemon being treated for membrane parasites at the clinic.

“I haven’t fed her yet, director-abbot. I was about to attend to it. Right after breakfast.” His mouthparts quivered at the mention of food, the crescent-shaped mandibles rubbing together with a sound like sharpening knives. “Do I have your approval for…?”

“You haven’t had your breakfast yet?” Otha cut him off. “Early to wake, sooner to work, sexton Hamish.” It was a saying Zenn had heard many times. She got an uncharitable amount of pleasure hearing it quoted to someone else. Hamish’s antennae drooped, and he gave her what she imagined was a coleopt’s version of a long-suffering look as he went by, descended the stairs, and started off for the kitchen.

“Sexton,” Otha said, stopping him. “Patients eat first. Remember?”

“Yes, director-abbot,” Hamish said, turning reluctantly toward the door leading to the cloister yard.

“Did we get a shard?” Zenn called to her uncle. It was the same question she asked almost every morning.

“No, Zenn,” Otha said, kneeling to check the contents of his veterinary field kit. “Still no message from Warra. You’ll be the first to know, I promise. Hamish?”

Hamish paused, one claw on the door latch.

“Director-abbot?”

“We’ll be at the south gate in a few minutes.”

“Oh…?” Hamish dipped his antennae at Otha, waiting.

Otha sighed. “Be there to let us out and close the gate behind us. Alright?”

“I see. Of course, director-abbot.” He placed his hat on his head and adjusted it so his antenna could protrude, then he ducked out the door.

Sister Hild came up the stairs and shooed Zenn back into her room. Startled at the Sister’s approach, Katie blended and was gone.

SIX

“It’s the Bodine place. Again,” Hild said, taking a pair of coveralls out of the closet and handing them to Zenn. Beneath wind-burnished skin, the old woman’s cheeks blushed red from the chill morning air outside, her long, gray hair gathered in a tidy bun on top of her head. No doubt she’d already been up doing chores for hours. She wasn’t a strong-looking woman. Quite the opposite; slightly-built and smaller than Zenn with a delicate, bird-like manner about her. But she had more energy than Zenn and Otha put together, and she was the cloister’s resident tech expert, repairing balky computers and aging medical equipment with apparently effortless speed and efficiency.

“Gil’s new sandhog is in a bad way,” the Sister said, “And he can't afford to lose this one.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Zenn said, pulling on the coveralls. She knew Gil Bodine had bartered away a full first cutting of high quality gensoy for the new sandhog boar. He’d already lost two sows, and he’d be more than a little upset if this hog expired on him.

“Something gastro-intestinal, from the sound of it.”

“A sandhog with indigestion? There’s a shock,” Zenn said. Burrowing into the ground, devouring soil by the gaping mouthful and excreting it back out again, a big, grub-like sandhog could convert an acre of sterile Martian sand and rock to fertile, crop-growing humus in a matter of weeks. At least it could back on Sigmund’s Parch, its home world. “Otha says Parcher hogs need to get used to Martian soil gradually before you turn them out full time. You think Gil put this one to work too soon?”

“Could well be. Patience isn’t Gil’s strong suit,” Hild said. “If he’d taken more care with penning in those first two sows, maybe they wouldn’t have disappeared on him.”

“At least they were spayed females,” Zenn said, contemplating the unpleasant prospect of a sandhog population boom. Hogs were useful animals, but they were also large and belligerent when riled up. “You’d think he’d be a little more careful.”

“Gil just has a lot on his plate,” the Sister said. “A farm that size? It’s too much for one man to handle.”

“I think he’s had some help lately. Liam said he’d been out there a few times.”

“Liam…” Hild said. She gave Zenn a look. “Ah yes, Liam Tucker.”

“And Hamish has him helping out with chores around here, too,” Zenn said. The old woman continued to give Zenn a look she couldn’t decipher. “What?”

“Oh, well,” Hild said. “Just that Liam seems to be in evidence at the cloister more than usual lately. He seems to be acting more… friendly.”

Zenn had no idea what Hild was saying. Then it dawned on her.

“With me?” She had to smile at this. Yes, Liam was interacting more with her. But not in the way the Sister was implying. “I don’t think so, Sister. Liam’s a towner. There are plenty of towner girls for him to be friendly with.” Alright, she conceded to herself, maybe not plenty of girls, but at least three or four who came immediately to mind. The Sister’s cryptic expression stayed put.

“Zenn,” Hild sat on the bed. Zenn could feel one of the Sister’s “little talks” coming on. “Liam Tucker has a bit of a reputation. I don’t know if you’re aware of it.”

“A reputation?” Zenn said. “For what? For joyriding in Benji Kao’s flatbed truck? It was a stupid stunt, I’ll grant you. But Benji got his truck back, didn’t he?”

“I’m referring more to Liam’s general attitude. Toward responsibility. Toward others. It’s not just that he gets into trouble. Lots of boys his age do.”

“Then what is it?”