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CHAPTER 11

"Ram it up your ass, granny," a man said, smiling.

"--and I was trying to get in one last fling before I went back to the island and croaked. I was a production leader over there in the Vars' Arrow factory." She laughed drily. "And to think they shipped them all to the big E--after the bird knows how many gens on this berg--four months after we left. Shut the factory down and everything."

"I was a bagger," said a woman with hair so thin that Paula could see red sores on her scalp.

"Mechanic," said the last and quietest woman.

"Leiger, the obnoxious fart you did us the favor of sending to hell, he's done this before. He was the crew captain."

"Our hallowed leader," the youngest man put in. One beside him, who had big ears and pale narrow eyes, snorted.

"It was bioble in the beginning," the quieter woman said, brushing her hair back. They talk like deep-space colonists with all these old expressions, Paula thought. Like little old ladies just out of the vac.

"Yeah, we had fun. We'd come into a place and Leiger would spiel off a bunch of scutrubble and we'd haul in the provender. We had a quota, but anything over that we could keep. I got some nice jewelry and this leather vest," the balding woman said.

"I kept about a day behind them, and I got something really nice," the youngest man leered.

"The farmboys were bio, too," said the woman.

"You were tax collectors," Tiyar interjected.

"Right. Only then we got a new little assignment," said the jug-eared man.

The oldest resumed her tale. "They didn't tell us anything. They sent us there and we didn't know what was going on. They just kept saying go east, go north, you know, don't ask questions. People were supposed to put us up. We were priests, right? We treated the water for them. Except that there wasn't any water to treat. They sent us into the middle of a drought."

"That was bad," the balding woman said.

"Nobody would give us anything. They wouldn't even give us a drink."

The youngest man leaned forward, so close that Paula saw spit land on Tiyar's neck. "Mister, we were crawling along on the ground, trying to get to the river. Crawling on the ground!"

"Then there were floods," the woman continued. "Those whoresons kept telling us, collect! collect! People wouldn't give us a rat-kissing thing. They were hiding it. Even Leiger said those sons of whores back home could piss on the bird."

The slit-eyed man interrupted her. "Leiger was all right, then. He was square with them, the farmers. He told them, if you haven't got it, all right. But he said, if we catch you holding out on us, we'll beat the crap out of you. He warned them."

"They were holding out," the youngest man affirmed. "I mean, all right, some of them didn't have it. But most of them were lying. They'd show you their skinny kids with sores all over--dogpiss. Those people just don't feed their kids right. I saw their back rooms and most of them were doing pretty good. Meantime, we were dying."

The woman continued, "We gave up the quota. Piss on that, we just wanted to keep alive. We waved up those boarpricks a hundred times, telling them, we quit, take us home. Know what they said? They said, you signed, you stay. They left us there. And we were dying! You see how her head's balder than her ass? Anyhow, we stole what we could get. We only took from people who had enough, though, almost up until the end."

"Right," someone put in.

"We didn't hurt anybody, really, until one fatass priest--"

"That son of a whore," the young man said.

"That pissball," the jug-eared man breathed.

"He didn't come out himself. He sent his brat out, a little girl," the woman continued.

"That pissball. We were so hungry--I couldn't even see. I swear I was crawling around, feeling things with my hands. I couldn't see," the youngest man said.

The other young man leaned forward. "She was standing there, and all this food was behind her. There was a basket of grain, as big as you are, and strings of apples drying--I swear. Malt brewing. You could smell it."

"He wouldn't come out himself. He sent that girl," the older woman said.

"That son of a whore."

"That pissball."

Tiyar didn't look to see who spoke. "Yes?" he prompted.

The older woman drew her fingers along the ground. "Leiger picked her up and threw her out the door. She died. I think he started going crazy after that."

"No, he was a major malfo then," said the quiet woman. "I know, because I came back after that and I saw him with the kid. She was dead as dust and he was combing her hair."

"You couldn't have. We took off as soon as she hit the ground," the youngest man said.

"No, we didn't! It took us an hour to pack up the provender," she answered.

Clark walked away to the cookfire where Fuego sat between two granite stones, his form leaden and earthbound against a glowing horizon. Clark set the ration pots on trays.

The Outlanders bolted their share as fast as possible, scooping up vegetables by the handfuls and downing them while they steamed. When Clark offered them some reconstituted milk, they dumped the vegetables in to cool them and drank the mass. In a few moments they were full. They sat back and smiled at their captors. Clark realized suddenly that their wrists were still tied together in front of them.

"Leiger went malfunctional," the jug-eared man asserted. "He went over and poked her with his foot and he said: 'You can eat if you want. Now are you happy?' Stuffed himself and damn near died."

"We got out of there fast. I figured there'd be trouble when we reported him, but I wasn't going to let Leiger get away with it. We waved HQ. I said nobody's been feeding us. They said, it's in the treaty that they have to. Make them," the balding woman went on.

"That's a laugh," the young man put in.

"The treaty--that treaty was a thousand years ago and most of the people around here can't even read. Then I said, there was some trouble back north and a kid got killed. You know what they said? They said, so what? File a report. When you get back." She shrugged. "So what. So what to them and so what to us."

"They sent us west," the quiet woman said.

The older woman roused herself. "Yeah. They're supposed to pick us up on the other side of the ridge. I guess that's off now. If I never see those lying toads again, I'll shit for joy. Let them keep my pay. I'll raise sheep."

"You're Fuego Ariela, aren't you?" the balding woman asked him.

"How do you know?"

"Armies of Daybreak. Detonate Eyimalia, right? I like that stuff." She smiled.

"We're not trying to detonate the planet--" Fuego began.

She was still smiling. "Sure, I get it. You have to keep it under your hat."

"What did you treat the water with?" Clark asked. She looked at him. "You said you treated the water while you were traveling. What did you treat it with?"

She shrugged. "How should I know?"

"Show me what you put in the water."

The woman pointed at Paula. "She's got everything."

Fuego asked, "Where do your people come from?"

She looked down. "Dead Mama, just like you."

He switched to the Outlander dialect. Tiyar translated, "He tells her the IL she speaks is antiquated." The woman flushed. "She attributes it to long isolation. I see," he went on in IL. "Your people have never been to Eyimalia. You came here directly--from the same dead world as the Outlanders."

She tossed her head.

"Then how did you know our names?" Fuego asked.

"From newswaves."

"How did you know our names?" Fuego repeated, the way he had used to ask kids' ages at the Words of Love.

"From the bonus list," the older woman said. "They give us a list--if we find them we get a bonus. It's about two hundred long and practically none of them are even on the berg, but these brats have it by heart. A list of people the law's after."

"Know how much the bonus is?" the jug-eared man put in.

"Tell me who else is on this list," Tiyar directed.

"Castillo, Manuel. DaPonta, Mara. Gato, Clara. Gracuzio, Diego. Madierona, Arnand. Majiori, Roja. Nekko, Antonio," the balding woman began.

Tiyar walked away.

"Uchide, Sevit," the older woman said.

Tiyar stopped.

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CONTINUE.....................

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