Hevun's Rebel

by C M Weller

  All she had to remember was that the black ones were good and the red ones were bad. All other colours passed down the line to other sorters.

  Once she figured out a quick way of doing the job, she got quicker. It was almost kind of fun. Except for the really horrible smell from the red ones.

  Her stomach growled way before the lunch siren. Really loud.

  Water and breakfast had not been enough. Sahra ignored her noisy insides and kept sorting fruit. Her face heated up at the thought of it, all the same.

  Er, yuk. The red ones squished if she grabbed them too hard. And their juices smelled even worse. Ugh.

  Better not get it on both hands, then.

  Sahra focussed on only using her clumsy-hand, her stained-bandages hand, to find and move the squishy red ones. Her more able hand found and moved the black ones.

  The masters were laughing. Possibly at her. Sahra hated the hg'ssh, hg'ssh noise they made when they did it.

  "Hey, little white one." Called one of them. A younger female, from the sound of her voice. "Are you hungry, little white one?"

  And since she was the only really pale and really small one in the sorting line... "All'us hunger, me," Sahra managed.

  Now three of the masters were going hg'ssh, hg'ssh at her.

  "Want some of our lunch, little white one?"

  Hg'ssh, hg'sssh, hg'ssh, hg'ssh...

  Sahra had been taught the polite answer by rote, even then she tended to get the phrases jumbled up. "For slaves people, Master's food not good, all the time, slaves people food, good for masters not."

  Loud hg'ssh-ing, this time. And lots of it.

  Sahra knew she'd said it wrong. Her face got hotter and hotter and her eyes stung something criminal, but she never stopped working.

  "Look at the pretty color she turns."

  Male slaves had it worse, Sahra guessed. Until what Mama called 'secondary characteristics' made themselves public, all slaves were female until further notice. And no slave dared correct a master. Right now, nobody could tell her this, since her eyes stung worse and her face felt hotter and hotter. All she wanted to do was crawl into a small, dark place and hide until the feeling went away.

  But a good slave, a proper slave, did what they were told until there was no other option but 'stop'.

  "How the pale feathers show, now."

  "Pity they never figured out how to turn them red full time..."

  Sahra's stomach roared. It actually hurt. But not as much as the masters' hg'ssh-ing. Some of the others on the line were snorting into their chests as they sorted.

  A fat, heavy tear dropped from her face and splashed the moving belt.

  "Careful, little white one. You might get your salt on the fruit."

  "You'll spoil it."

  She felt like her whole self was turning red. And her stomach was eating her from the inside. She made her hands move faster. Attacking the black ones and rejecting the red ones like she secretly wished she could attack the hg'ssh-ing masters.

  "The more you red her up, the faster she goes!"

  "Insult her some more!"

  "How do you insult her more? That's a tunnel rat. They're already dirt."

  A fourth voice barked, "Just what do you lowers think you're doing!"

  "Sorry Matrach."

  "We made her work faster, look."

  "You are all stupid lowly males! Stupid." the Matrach snapped. "You have no idea how to train them properly! Idiot males!"

  Two more tears threatened. Sahra wiped them with her dirty-hand before they could fall, and batted away a red one before it got out of her reach.

  "If you'd kept that up, you'd've spoiled her trust. And then we'd have to end her. Waste!" The Matrach was almost screeching with rage. "You have to train the young ones like you'd train a dog. With treats and kind voice."

  "Yes, Matrach."

  "Sorry, Matrach."

  "Be silent!"

  Sahra noticed her hands were shaking. So much yelling. She never liked yelling. Everything was getting worse.

  "There, now, little one. Be still."

  The Matrach was right beside her!

  Sahra, terrified and starting to worry about wetting herself, froze in place. Only her eyes moved to watch black ones and red ones alike go slowly past her. Tears fell. Lots of them. Her breath got faster as she felt the Matrach's claws on her head.

  Wait.

  She was... patting Sahra.

  "There, now. Calm yourself," she soothed. "Take a step away. It's all right. Relax."

  Sahra could not make herself calm, but she could and did take a step back and relax her arms.

  The claws still soothed Sahra's hair. "Good. Good girl," the Matrach cooed. "Pretty girl. There... Want some food? I have good food for Yoomin. See?"

  The other claws held a cheap paper cup full of mealworms. A master treat.

  Sahra panicked. "For slaves people, good for masters not, all the time, Master's food not good, slaves people food!" She rattled it off in one breath

  Still the claw brushed through her hair. Still the other claw wiggled the cup in a tempting way in Sahra's tear-blurred vision.

  "You are a very good girl. Good Yoomin... I say 'okay'. I say, 'you eat'. It is an order."

  Sahra's clean hand, her able hand, was shaking like a newborn koni as she reached for the cup. She closed her eyes the instant she touched them, expecting the claws in her hair to tighten and hurt her or worse.

  The claws left her head and gently gripped her hand, making Sahra take a pinch of wriggling worms, and then bought them to her mouth.

  "Eat, good girl."

  Sahra chewed. They didn't taste poisonous. They tasted very good.

  "See? Good food for Yoomin. Good food for good girl. You eat."

  Sahra opened her eyes, taking them a pinch at a time with her clean, able hand.

  The Matrach kept the cup in one claw and moved Sahra's dirty hand with the other. "I see. You won't eat with dirty hands. I always said you were cleaner than anyone thought..." She made Sahra hold the cup with her dirty hand and dug in her belt-pouches. "Easy, now. I'm going to clean that hand. Good girl. You can eat more."

  The Matrach made her sit on the floor and helped her place the cup on the ground. Sahra was allowed to watch the Matrach's claws as the high-ranking master changed the bandages and washed Sahra's hand again.

  "All better. You feel better, good girl?"

  Sahra, mouth full of tasty worms, nodded while she swallowed and then said, "Yes, Matrach." At least she couldn't mangle that.

  "You do good work, Yoomin. No matter what those idiots had to say."

  Sahra kept munching worms. Then she made the big mistake of talking. "I does as I'm told, m'm."

  The Matrach startled while the others hg'ssh-ed as quietly as they could.

  "What's your name?"

  "Uh. Sahra. Sahra Johnston."

  "How many older sibs?"

  Sara gave up on eating so she could count on her fingers and toes. "There's Leyna an' Karl, an' Darvan, an' Kara an' Laura, an' Elle an' Fai, an' Judi, an' Paul, an' Mari an' Netta, so... 'leven?"

  "Nobody with the time to teach her to talk..." she muttered. "You may eat all you can hold. Good girl."

  Sahra snatched up the cup and got as many worms into her mouth as she could before anyone could change their minds.

  "Good girl," cooed the Matrach. "My superior wants to do some tests on you. Come with me. Keep the cup."

  Sahra kept her eyes on the Matrach's boots. On her way out, she heard one of the lesser masters mutter, "Those were my damn mealworms..." in a tetchy voice.

  "May I ask, master?" Sarha pleaded.

  "Ask."

  "'M I gon' catch trubbul f'r eatin' this?"

  "He was just a Kadyn. And a male. I take what I want from my lessers."

  Sahra suddenly felt very thankful that this Matrach had not decided to take anything from her. She ate the worms quicker, just in case, and when they were all gone, undid and ate the paper as wel
l. It wasn't as nice, but she was that hungry.

  "I got her, Barba," announced the Matrach.

  Sahra gawped. This place was so... white. And everything that wasn't white was shiny. And everything in-between had lights in them.

  "Sit it in the examination bed," said the Barba. It was a surprise to see a male's crest down their tail. Males didn't get to the higher ranks, most of the time.

  The Matrach patted something that looked like a bed. "Sahra," she cooed. "Hup!"

  Sahra scurried to obey, watching her feet the whole way and watching her hands when she was climbing up. No wonder the Matrach wanted her clean. This whole place would show up dirt like crazy.

  "Lie straight like a rod," instructed the Matrach. "Head there. Good girl. Stay still."

  Sahra froze again. She closed her eyes tight and listened to the machines making noise and the masters talking.

  "I was almost ready to believe the instruments used were defective..." said the Barba. "But this is the fifth, and it went the closest to the epicenter."

  "May I humbly submit, Barba, that this might be an unsafe mystery. Something that can wait for better instruments?" The Matrach sounded a lot different, now. Scared.

  "The Majestrix herself, long may she reign, asked us to gather as much data as we could without loss of life."

  "All our previous data from ore processing mishaps include dangerous radiation levels," said the Matrach. "To exercise all caution, we must wait for better ways to gather data."

  "These children should be suffering radiation sickness. This one should be dying. Yet she had the appetite for a cup of mealworms, and ate the cup."

  "Ate... the cup?"

  "It was paper."

  "...Gods of Wonder... Yoomins will eat anything."

  That's 'cause we're hungry, thought Sahra.

  The Barba sighed, a rattling hiss. "Send it to the feeding chambers, then. I'll humbly submit that we need better quality data."

  "You can move, Sahra. Go eat. Good girl."

  Sahra ran out of there like it was on fire, heading straight for the inside pathways that humans like her had to use when the masters didn't want to see them. It was early for lunch, but maybe if she was early, then there'd be more for her. She'd heard the early ones in got a bigger lot of stuff on their trays.

  Having seen the bright clean of the masters, it surprised her how the human paths were dirty in ways she couldn't describe. They were swept, she knew. Wall, floor and roof, they were swept. But some dirt just stayed there that no broom would shift. Places where hands and feet somehow marked it forever, because the walls and floor were not the gleaming blue of everywhere the masters went, but a sort of yucky grey.

  And it smelled sorta like sweat.

  There were others waiting for the feeding room doors to open when she got there. Large others. Brown-skinned ex-pets from maybe four years ago, when the masters liked the brown-skinned ones to make their places prettier. Sahra slowed. Sometimes thrown-away pets could get mean. Mama said that every skin kind got their turn, sooner or later; and nobody liked going back to the grind when the masters were done. Because being pets was the good life.

  One of them noticed her. "Aaaw. Look. A baby rat."

  "Ain't you off early, little rat?"

  Sahra shrugged.

  "Why you off early, rat?"

  Sahra lifted her bandaged hands to show them. One of the others winced.

  "Oooh, that had to hurt..." said one of the men. He still had stripes from when someone had bleached him.

  Sahra nodded.

  "Don'cha talk, honey?"

  That was always a danger sign. When they called you sweet names, they were just about to get sour. Sahra thought, bit her lip, and -God forgive her- shook her head.

  "Poor thing," said one.

  "You move on up in fronta me," said another, gently shoving her forward.

  Six more times, that happened. Then she wound up under the gentle hand of a hugely muscular woman with a dizzying pattern of polka-dots. "Stick with me, little. I'll keep you safe."

  The Matrach master who'd calmed her before had done so like Sahra was a pet. These people calmed her down as if she was theirs. They were human mountains. They were changed to fit someone's decorations. Or to be someone's decorations. And they could still see a skinny, scared little kid and protect them from any kind of danger.

  Sahra was barely six, but she already knew that when she stayed quiet, she could become invisible. So she stayed quiet and listened. She wanted to know what ex-pets talked about.

  And what they talked about was just as boring as the things regular grownups talked about. Their work, fashion, rumors about some of the higher-up masters, rumors about some of their fellow humans, children, relatives, rationing and bedmates.

  Not that Sahra could do any better. She had no chance. Half of anything she said, no-one listened to or nobody understood.

  Sometimes, it was easier to just not bother.

  Others gathered behind the big, brown ones. Some were mean, Sahra could tell by the complaining. And the way the woman-mountain gripped her just a little tighter.

  There was a long line of people by the time the doors opened. The woman-mountain picked Sahra up and walked in wide steps to the ration counter at the other side of the room. She snatched two trays before she put Sahra down.

  Sahra didn't need coaching to hold the tray with both hands.

  The servers, all almond-eyed and shaved bald, glared down their noses at Sahra. She was the only one there that they could glare down at.

  "Little's with me," said the woman-mountain. "Pile it on. Weren't you little, once?"

  "I used to be a pet. Then I grew up," said the nearest one.

  "Then look at her. She's starving. Feeding her is your job. Do your goddamn job."

  Sahra gasped. She'd said the G-word!

  The servers scowled, and were very exact about measuring the food with their ration cups.

  Sahra's tray was full of cylinders by the time she got her spoon. They wobbled as she walked. Sahra couldn't help grinning. Her guard couldn't help a few giggles, either.

  There was the green stuff, the orange stuff, the brown stuff, the yellow stuff, the red stuff, and a standard cup of water. Sahra started with the green stuff, just to get rid of it. Mama had said it was supposed to be good for a body, but Sahra's tongue kept arguing.

  "Yeah, I don't like the green stuff either," said her guard. "Try it with a bit of the orange stuff. Makes it taste a bit better."

  Sahra tried a bit of green stuff with the orange stuff. Wow. That made it okay. Her whole family ate this stuff in order, green first, and then after that anything they liked better. Sahra brought the green stuff and the orange stuff together and mooshed them into one big ugly lump.

  It was so much better than making herself eat the green stuff on its own for her own good.

  She tried samples with her resulting goo. The brown stuff went sort-of okay. The yellow stuff didn't go at all. The red stuff made it taste interesting, but she didn't want that kind of interesting all the time. She wound up swapping between the brown stuff with her mix and the red stuff.

  She finished those four colours and gobbled up the yellow stuff for after, then gulped down her drink.

  "Easy, there, little. It's not a contest. You don't get more for eating it all before anyone else."

  She scraped up the little bits left on her tray, first with her spoon, and then with her fingers. Her prize for all this fast eating was a huge burp, which made half the table's worth of people stop eating so they could stare.

  "Pard'n."

  "So you do talk."

  Sahra looked down at her tray. "...don'wanna..." she mumbled.

  "Doesn't always come out right, does it?"

  Sahra shook her head.

  "My brother used to garble-talk. We worked out it was 'cause he didn't get much in the way of practice. See, the only way to get better at talkin' is by talking. You know what sounds right and what doesn't, don
't you?"

  Grudging nod.

  "So practice sounding right."

  "Mama 'n' m' sibs 'n' m' Papa all tell me t' shut it," Sahra muttered.

  "It doesn't have to be at home. Or at work. Little thing like you, you can find somewhere nobody goes during time off. Practice there."

  Sahra thought about the tunnels, and the sharp place and the slope. It was full of strange noises there. No rats would come near, and the masters didn't want to come near because of the thing they called radiation. Even though they couldn't find any, from what she could tell from their words.

  "Any lunch time, you can come and talk to me. I understand garble-talk. I can help."

  "M'name's Sahra. 'Syours?"

  "Dotti."

  "Can't be 'cause of... th' marks?"

  "No, Sahra. I was Dotti before they turned me dotty. My last owner thought it was hilarious."

  "Whassa hill-are-ee-us?"

  "It's fancy for 'funny'. But before we go teaching you fancy-talk, let me tell you a li'l secret."

  Dotti leaned in, bending herself all uncomfortable to whisper in Sahra's ear. "Keep sounding stupid when you talk to your uppers. They'll never guess you're smart."

  Out in the halls, where anyone could hear them, Dotti had spoken in easy words. Here, in the rising babble of people talking and eating, Dotti said more fancy words than plain.

  "You do it, too."

  "Yup. The best slave is just the right kind of stupid. Smart enough to follow orders, but too dumb to figure out we outnumber them."

  "Out numb'r," Sahra whispered.

  There were always too many people to count. Anywhere she worked. But no more than three Masters anywhere at any time. Sure, Masters had guns and claws and sharp teeth that could crack bones... but if everyone stood up at once...

  "I see you get it," said Dotti.

  "Th' problum, but..."

  "Yes?"

  "Th' problum is... gettin' ef'ryone t' stand up all th' same time."

  "Damn straight."

  Sahra couldn't wring any more bits of goo off her tray, and no more drops of water out of her cup. And the cup had some kinda yucky wax on it. She couldn't eat it, it'd make her sick.

  "I need t' go lookin' fer sumpin. Zat okay?"

  "Yeah. You go."

  Sahra picked up her tray, spoon and cup and dumped them in the right places before scurrying for the tunnels as fast as she could go. She ignored all the people laughing at her run. She didn't care. She had a safe place to hide.