by C M Weller
Sahra had just found the motherlode.
She took three pairs of gloves that were a lot big for her, three pairs of sort of tough, flexible tubes that could go on her legs of she tied the tops up with rag, and a whole box of slave ration baggies. She hid the box under some junk so she could get it to her little escape hatch near her home. Every night, she was going to sneak one or two ration baggies into Mama's pantry.
There was more than one way to feed her family.
The further she went, the more she found to do. It wasn't just poking holes in filters or stealing. It was crosswiring things in the master's sections. She didn't always know what she was crosswiring, but it took hours of master time away from making sure the slaves did what they were supposed to.
Sahra was getting the feeling that the masters were using more stuff getting money out of the system than they were getting out of it. Now that she'd seen what the masters showed off, what they treasured, and the way they cut corners... she was able to tell that things were costing more than they got.
This whole station was one giant sparkly thing that cost a lot of money and didn't get a lot back. Like the slaves just for show, who only had one job or two, and didn't do them for very long.
Or like the strange, stinky stuff that the rebellion was selling for money.
Sahra spied, when she could. Watching through vents and grilles where the masters couldn't see her. Some of them were taking the stuff. It made them sleepy, or kept them calm.
They spent a lot more money on the tiny bags than Sir had spent on the big ones.
No wonder Sir was looking after C. No wonder he could afford so many pretty slaves. So many flappy, high-class clothes for his daughter... and her living doll. And possibly why he was a Barba, even though he didn't spend a lot of his time at work.
Lots of the high-up masters took the stinky brown stuff. Some took it to help them get rest in the night. Some took it just to get through their day.
Sahra wondered what would happen if one of those big bags was mixed with poison.
*
She stopped in at the node and was glad to see Smiley waiting for her with the big brown man who had sold the brown stuff. Like before, the big brown man carried himself like a higher-up. He looked down his wide nose at Sahra.
Sahra glared him right back.
"Sahra," said Smiley. "This is High-Admiral Django Ali. He's in charge of the rebellion."
"So," said High-Admiral Django Ali. "You were a blonde all this time."
"None of us can he'p what th' masters do to us." said Sahra. "Smiley, I'm'a need t' know if'n we can make little circuits to add into th' audio playback in master bedrooms. I wanna scare 'em up real good."
Ali continued as if she hadn't spoken to Smiley at all. "And now you're back in the yoke of true slavery; having glimpsed the relative paradise of the high life. Your work to free your people is the real work, the honourable work. The true work."
"Why'd you care 'bout gettin' pets on your side?" Sahra asked. "You was neffur a pet..."
He startled for a moment, and then muttered, "Of course. The skin." He smiled, talking down to her. "Very observant, Sahra. I need such skills as yours to further my cause."
"You was on the infostations. You said blowin' up slaves was furtherin' your cause."
He spotted the trap. "That... was a mistake. Now I see your sabotage efforts are causing a lot more havoc to the enemy."
"They don't wanna fix nuthint, but they don' wanna make no slaves do it either," said Sahra. "It's stoopid-easy t' mess ev'ryfink up."
The mans invisible eyebrows shot towards his hairline. "Sahra... do you have friends?"
"...some...?" A lot less, since she'd been a masters' doll. At least she knew who her real friends were.
"Do you think you can get some of your friends, even your family, to... enhance your work?"
Sahra thought about who she trusted and who she didn't. Duvi had no love of the rebellion since it had deafened him and scarred Kera Matherson. "Some'd prolly wanna bite ya for y'ur mistakes first."
He laughed, showing perfectly white teeth against his very dark skin. "I'd let them, within reason. You left a scar on our poor Eva."
"Good," said Sahra. "Might teach some o' yourn that some blows f'r freedom ain't worth swingin'."
"All right," Ali made a gesture, drawing a line in the air and a border for the conversation. "Tell me about this device you're planning. What does it blow up?"
Sahra thought about this. "Minds," she said. "Ya plug it inta th' bedrooms' audio playback an' life monitors. When they's fast asleep, it whispers at th' masters. Gets stuff into their heads when they sleepin'. Makes 'em scared of effryone an' ev'rythin'."
"Inciting paranoia?" said Ali.
"We can get recordings of some choice phrases, easy enough," said Smiley. "But the parts..."
"Jus' make one. I found some scrounge'd be good f'r makin' more."
"Found?"
"Yeh. Turns out when th' masters don't like a place, they build a new one onna outside o' th' station. They jus' seal off th' ole place 'sept f'r th' air an' all the 'lectrix. Know where t' look, there's tons o' scrounge."
Both Smiley and High Admiral Django Ali had really funny looks on their faces.
"Whut?" said Sahra.
"You got no idea," said Smiley. "The trouble we have to go through to get parts. And them bloody scaleys just leave it when they don't like a place?"
"Yeah. I been goin' through th' dark places since ya lef' yo' headlight b'hind. Thought I knew all over th' station, but I neffur knew there were this much of it."
"Just... how much?" said Smiley.
"You remembur m' little piles?"
"Yeah...?"
"They big piles now."
Smiley whistled backwards. Sahra was instantly jealous. She couldn't even whistle forwards. All she could manage was a weak, spitty hiss.
"An' you got enough to make copies of whatever I give you?"
"If I ain't, I can find it."
Smiley reached out to hold High-Admiral Ali's shoulder. "Sir... ya gotta go let me see. We could set up a base in the heart of their nest! No more smuggling. No more wheeling and dealing. No more selling Djaak..."
"Izzat th' brown stuff?" said Sahra.
"Yes," said High-Admiral Ali. "They call it Djaak. It's fermented coffee cut with ground, roasted cocoa beans. We grow them in the outer colonies. The cold worlds where the Tu'att don't go and we can live as free people. It might wake us up, but for them... it makes them... vague."
"Cut?" echoed Sahra.
"Mixed in," supplied Smiley.
"We need mo' of it," said Sahra. "Th' more masters gone loopy on that stuff th' better. Cut some of it wif stuff that makes 'em sick. Cut some of it wif stuff that kills 'em if'n they take too much. Cut some of it wif stuff they can't stay 'way frum. If'n we get 'em t' mess themselves up, we ahead."
Ali looked down on her. "Who are you to boss me around, little girl?"
Sahra looked him in the eye. "I'm the one who been doin' yo'r work for you, alla this time. I been showin' you th' best places to mess th' masters up an' I been messin' 'em up on my own wifout you. I been doin' eff'rythin' I can t' stop our folk gettin' kill't. And at the same time, I also been doin' alla th' work the masters 'spect o' me so me an mine don't get shot. Near as I can tell, you the man wif a fancy title who don' even get his hands dirty. Me? I'm jus' another rat. I'm invisible. But I know whut's whut."
The silence that came down could have filled the world. Sahra could only hear the whining buzz that was all that was left of the one note.
Smiley looked scared. High-Admiral Ali looked in a worse mood than Mama had when she found out one of the babies had pooped in their bed and painted their walls with it.
Sahra held him, glare for glare.
"'Fore I come into alla it, you was your own worst emeny," she added.
Another long, cold silence.
High-Admiral Django Ali blinked first. "I'll have to watch y
ou," he rumbled. So low Sahra could barely hear him. "You'll be after my job."
"I don't give a rat f'r anyfink I get called," said Sahra. "I jus' want th' job done."
That raised Ali's invisible eyebrows again. "And what is the job?"
"I hear th' masters don't b'long here. I hear they took us over in th' long-ago. I hear we had our own world called Hevun. Now we gotta fight to get it back. That's what your job is. My fambly ain't safe from you th' way you been goin'. Keepin' 'em safe's part o' my job. Way I see it, if'n I tell you where t' go an' what t' hit an' how... I get bo'f done at once."
"Then you're one of us," decided Ali. "Congratulations, Acting Sub-Lieutenant Sahra Johnston."
Sahra rolled her eyes. Whatever. "Fine. I suggest, sir, that y'all make more Djaak and make some of it outright vicious, even if we don' need it f'r finance. 'Cause it's another kind'a sabotage."
"Suggestion noted. Meanwhile, take Smiley into the 'dark zones' and see what you and your friends here can make out if it or them."
Sahra flipped her hand near her forehead. "Yes sir."
*
Smiley had a spare head-light. He made no claims to the one Sahra was also using. Sahra made no move to look at or even try to use the tablet Smiley busily made notes on. She used Simy's help to strip the panels off the cabinets and dislodging scrap for her cart.
The thing that stood out about the entire place was how neatly both she and Smiley fit. Places made for the masters fit the masters. This place... fit humans.
"This is the oldest place in the entire station," said Smiley. "And... the Tu'atta didn't make it."
Sahra's hair stood on end.
"This was ours, too," she said. Nothing written down here was written in the masters' writing. This was human alphabet.
Sahra wanted to know what they all said.
"How long 'zis all been here?"
"Too long," Smiley shook his head. "Vermin's got in and stripped the insulation. Have t' rewire it all. Build it up from scratch."
"Nearly scratch," said Sahra. "Y'got my piles."
"And the stuff we got t' spare." Smiley started ripping old tangles of wire out of the cabinets. "Could probably do something with this lot, eventually... Get some plants in, we could make this our new home."
"Simy'll clean things if'n you want..." Sahra offered.
"Naw. Just... let him be where he wants to be."
The end-shift klaxon sounded. Sahra dived for the nearest vent.
She could have sworn that she heard Smiley mutter, "and keep it far away from me..."
*
Sahra could go anywhere she liked in the tunnels and vents. She took four or five of her little whisper-circuits with her in her cart, loaded and hidden under a layer of useless scrap that no older rat would bother her for, and no younger rat would sneak away. She found master's bedrooms and their sound-playback circuits, put in her extra surprises when she felt like it, and when she ran out, she took the long way back to a check-in point and grabbed whatever she could get on the way.
It was amazing what the higher-ups would just toss into a chute.
She knew from listening in with her good ear that they believed there was a clever system that took their rejects and recycled it into something new.
If they knew tunnel-rats like her were involved, they would probably throw a fit.
Sahra also picked up a lot of master-gossip, which she passed on to Smiley in his new-old base after lights-out. What the rebels did with her news after that, Sahra didn't much care. She knew High-Admiral la-de-dah Ali had given her her rank and membership in the rebellion as some kind of joke to himself.
The idea of being someone else's laugh got her angered up even more than when she was a doll.
Which was why she had a sour face when she got home, that night.
"What bit you?" said Darvan. People in the next household could hear Darvan, so of course her whole family turned to look.
Sahra made up a story. "Heard sum Vashts talk--"
"Vashte," corrected Judi so the neigbours could hear. "One Vasht, many Vashte."
"'Nyway I heard 'em talkin' 'bout how they's thinkin'v uppin' quota."
"What?" said Karl.
"I know you ain't deaf," said Sahra.
"Respect your elders," said Mama.
Sahra took a breath and spoke slow, clear, and too stupid. "I over-heard some Vashte talking about mebbe uppin' quota again."
"I heard you, I just don't b'lieve it. They usually do that once a year. What bit them?"
"It's not our place to question the natural order," said Seventh-Papa. "The masters decide and we must obey. For the glory of God."
That was usually the end of it, but Sahra was picking up lots of new thinking from the Smiley. "Papa? If'n we's the only ones as worship God, howcome he puts us low an' makes the masters boss us 'bout?"
"God rewards us for our servitude by taking us to paradise in heaven."
"I heard that's a real place, too."
"In a sense," said Seventh-Papa. "Way back in the long-ago, we thought we could make a place a lot like heaven, and that's what we named the world we came to. And God punished us for being so proud about it."
"When's he goin' quit?"
And that's how she was sent to bed without even watery gravy to eat.
*
Darvan could not sleep. Sahra had just asked a perfectly sensible question. That was no reason to send her to bed without food when she only got a little to begin with. He wanted to know the answer as much as she did.
It had been hundreds of years. Maybe thousands. When was God going to quit punishing them?
Which was why Darvan was going for his secret stash.
Ever since nobody wanted him for a pet, the masters had had him picking fruit and vegetables in the gardens. He sneaked a few away whenever he could. Most of them went down his throat when it was gristle night. He slipped the babies and the littles whatever they could handle when no-one was watching him.
But now... he owed Sahra.
She'd saved his life. And the lives of all the others who had been able to understand her gabble and ran on out of there. That was important.
So he got down one of his best apples and crept in the half-light through the maze of beds and sleeping bodies to the little hidden nook Sahra liked to sleep in.
Sahra was not there.
Her bed was neat. Everything in its place. Even her cloth-knot doll called, without much in the way of imagination, Dolli. Neat and bare and completely empty of Sahra.
He checked the little's nooks. No Sahra there.
No Sahra with any of her favourite sibs.
Not even in with Mama and Seventh-Papa.
He went back to check again and found her crawling in through a vent.
She had a ration pack in one hand.
He knew he was too loud when he talked. He did not want to wake up God and everyone about this. Not until he got his facts straight. So Darvan signed out, What the hell do you think you're doing?
Sahra startled so hard she hit her head on the top of her nook. I had some stuff to fix up, she signed. Ain't none of your business.
You're stealing food, he signed.
Sahra looked at the ration pack. She couldn't deny it. Ain't stealin' it for me, she signed. I stole it for Mama.
What? Darvan made a face.
Sahra wriggled past him and put the packet in with the others in Mama's pantry. I been doing this for weeks. Mama's always scared she never has enough for us. I don't want Mama scared.
Darvan glared at her. You're a strange kid, Sahra Johnston. He took a bite out of the apple to show it wasn't poison and gave her the rest. You think of all of us like this?
Pretty much, signed Sahra. I got lots of things running to help us.
What sort of stuff?
Secret stuff. She finished off the apple in record time and tucked herself in to sleep.
What in the name of heaven did she mean, 'secret stuff'?
*
/> Duvi was up to something. It wasn't his usual something, which meant getting Sahra into trouble. It was a different something. A frightening, unknown something. A new something that could mean anything.
He started picking her up from the check-in point at the end of the day. He came up to her in the lunch room.
He was using sign when he talked to just her. Because he knew not many slaves got better from being deaf and they were two of them. Anyone spying on them would have to do hard work to know what they were saying.
One lunch, Darvan sat down with Sahra and Dotti and two of her mountain-friends and watched her mash the green stuff and the orange stuff together. If she kept watching her food and not Duvi, she could avoid him. At least until the end of next shift.
Dotti tapped her hand. Sahra always felt slightly ashamed that she'd decided to pretend to be more deaf than she actually was with everyone except the rebels.
"Your brother wants to talk to you," Dotti gestured his way.
What is your malfunction? he was demanding in sign.
I don't know what you're up to. That's always a bad thing. Sahra signed back. With one hand, so she could still eat.
I just want to know what you're up to. That's it.
You just want me in more trouble. It's what you always want.
Duvi looked stunned. Okay. I used to. You saved my life. I owe you big time. Ain't no piece of fruit is gonna pay that off.
Sahra glared at him. So tell me what you got against me. Ya can't just hate me for breathing.
Darvan mixed the green stuff with the orange stuff and tried it. You're my true sister. I used to hate you for having all the attention when you were little. Took me a while to remember all the babies get attention. Some of our sibs? They have true-sibs. Some part of me expected it to be like twins. But it wasn't. I was stupid. I'm sorry and I want to make it up to you.
Sahra didn't trust him. He was good at pretending to be honest. She'd seen him do it. Swear on God and the Angels.
Dotti, who had either picked up sign or knew it from her pet past, gasped, "That's serious, little..."
Sahra cupped her hand around her bad ear. Another lie. It meant anyone could shout into it and not do much more damage. "How's that?"
"That's a serious swear," said Dotti.
"Yeah. Me 'n' m' brofar in serious bad news wif each ovver."
Duvi waved for her attention and put one hand over his heart. By the promise of the light in the afterlife. By the grace of God and the mercy of his angels, I so swear that I want to help you in your efforts.