House of Midas

by Chloe Garner

  “Identify yourself,” the rocky foreign terrestrial said. Troy wondered if gender came into play when you were sentient mineral.

  “I’m Troy,” he said simply, waiting.

  “Where did they come from?” the rock asked. His mouth was simply a gap. Troy wanted an X-ray to see whether he had organs, or if he was just pushing air around the same way his body was morphing into a taller, narrower shape, however that was. Was he standing?

  “I don’t know,” the orange man said.

  “Where did you come from?” the rock asked. Troy presumed he was supposed to answer, now, but there was no face and almost no focal direction for the eyes to give him a solid clue.

  “The city,” he said. “Someone brought us here and told us to play nice.”

  He wondered if the idiom was too much, but it seemed to work. His implant was supposed to manage that.

  There was an exchange of glances.

  “Who?” the red one asked. A purple foreign terrestrial at the table without any neck or shoulders blinked at him. The green one to his right, a creature whose core structure Troy couldn’t decipher for all of the flaps of tissue pulsating around him, was arranging small tiles on the table and after his first look at Troy and Olivia, he hadn’t acknowledged them again.

  “I don’t know,” Troy said.

  There was another exchange of glances.

  “Your pigment isn’t very impressive,” the rock said. “Gana prefer strong pigment.”

  “From what I’ve seen, they prefer all pigment,” Troy answered. There was a huffing noise from the purple one, but no other reply.

  “What do you do?” the rock asked, stretching out a promontory to tap the green foreign terrestrial, who gathered the tiles and stood.

  “We’ll do this another time,” he said, casting one more glance at Troy before leaving. The orange foreign terrestrial followed.

  “I do lots of things,” Troy said. “What do you do?”

  “I kill things,” the rock answered. It wasn’t emotional. Troy was actually impressed at how flat the foreign terrestrial’s tone was for as powerful as it was. He had subtle variation that emphasized that he was aware and in control, but it wasn’t in his intonation.

  “What does he do?” Troy asked of the purple foreign terrestrial.

  “Cleans,” the rock said, forming a pillar. “What do you do?”

  “We’re versatile,” Troy said, taking a stab. “And clever.”

  There was the huffing noise again. It might have been a laugh.

  “Your friend stares. Stare at a Gana, and you’ll find yourself here without a job.”

  “So she just goes back down to the city,” Troy said. “We can find our way. It’s just downhill.”

  “I should kill you myself,” the rock said, returning to the sling it had been sitting in and forming a rounder shape.

  “We’re here,” Troy said. “You may as well tell us what’s going on.”

  “I owe you nothing,” the rock said. “Survive as you will.”

  Troy waited, but he had the sense that they had been dismissed.

  After a few seconds, he turned and pushed the cloth out of the way again, wandering through the camp slowly, looking to see if one of the structures might be unoccupied. More of the colorfully-clad foreign terrestrials were out now, as word had spread that Troy and Olivia were there, and some of them stared openly. Others were less direct but it was still clear that having new people show up was a huge event.

  Troy flexed his jaw and singled out a slight, pinkish foreign terrestrial in deep blue clothes and approached.

  “We are going to need a place to stay,” he said.

  “Not my problem,” the foreign terrestrial answered, a mix between shifty and annoyed.

  “Which of them are taken?” Troy asked, indicating the structures.

  “All of them,” the answer came. A long, narrow face led to lips that didn’t seem to ever stop moving. Troy wondered if it was nervousness or some other function. Gills?

  “How long have you been here?” he asked. The pink man shifted away from him, looking sideways at nothing. Troy waited.

  “Not my problem,” the pink man finally said. “Not my problem.”

  Troy sighed.

  “Which one is yours?”

  The lips froze. Troy smiled. The rock was in charge because clearly there was no way to kill him. The pecking order was likely quite obvious, and Troy was pretty sure he had the slip of a man beat. His limbs were too many and too thin, his eyes too quick to look for escape.

  “When you die, I’ll just take it back,” the pink man said.

  “People around here die often?” Troy asked. Someone grabbed his arm.

  “Just upstarts who can’t figure out how to keep themselves and everyone else alive,” a gravelly voice answered. The pink man fled, and Troy spun on his toes to find himself face to face with an ogre.

  His skin was a light gray, but patterns the iridescent, varying color of oil slicks covered his face and the rest of his exposed skin. The face, bulbous and covered in growths as it was, was calm and intelligent eyes looked deep into Troy’s.

  “Glenni may not care what happens to you, but you’re going to get more than just yourself killed, and the people around here deserve better than that.”

  Troy glanced at Olivia. She looked like she was ready to get out of the spotlight. He turned his attention back to the ogre and dropped his head slightly.

  “What would you suggest?” he asked.

  “Come,” the man said, turning and shuffling away. His clothing was kelly green and made him look like some kind of old forest god. Troy followed, checking once to be sure Olivia was behind him.

  “Who put you here?” the ogre asked halfway across the clearing. The rest of the servants were straggling back to whatever lives they lived when they weren’t being disrupted, and Troy didn’t think anyone was going to overhear him. Still.

  “I don’t know why we’re here,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  The ogre didn’t look at him, but something in his tone suggested to Troy that he was much better at guessing than Troy might hope.

  “My name is Grand,” the ogre said. “I am a tutor for the children of the Gana.”

  “They don’t teach them, themselves?” Olivia asked.

  “My people have long been among the leading teachers and tutors of the universe, highly sought after as private instructors among the elite of many species and races,” he said.

  “Still,” Olivia said. “You’d think the Gana would have their own teachers.”

  Grand looked back at her with a patience like stone.

  “We are all here because we serve a purpose,” he said. “Some are less savory than others, but we all must learn our place and do our best to meet the demands placed on us.”

  “Why?” Olivia asked. Troy was almost shocked at her bluntness.

  “The Gana are a great race, spanning back almost beyond the counting of time. But like any species anywhere, there are those who have noble intents and those who have selfish intents, and often those who are noble allow those who are selfish to do the things that make the common existence of the species more comfortable.”

  “So you’re slaves,” Olivia said. Grand laughed.

  “Nothing so simple nor so stark, child,” he said. “How old are you?”

  “We don’t know how you measure time,” Troy said.

  Grand looked up at the sky.

  “Marking time by the celestial bodies is common, but it has its limitations, doesn’t it?”

  Troy waited.

  “No matter,” Grand finally continued. “You are here for a purpose. If you do not meet that purpose, you may find your lives forfeit, depending on what it is. If you destabilize the society here, frail as it is, many more will die.”

  “Why?” Troy asked.

  “Civil war is constant,” Grand said. “There is no species in existence who is immune.”

  Troy got i
t, but he wished the answer were more direct.

  “Maybe we could just stay here,” Olivia said.

  “No one should be a burden to those around them without reason,” Grand said.

  “What about the king and his family?” Olivia asked. Again, Troy was surprised. Grand laughed.

  “The types of words that cause death,” he said. “I see no specialization in you at all, other than the desire to cause conflict. You will stay with me until we find who you are. There are only so many specialist roles the Gana traditionally fill with outsiders, but they are always on the search for new ones.”

  Blend in, Troy thought. How do you blend in, in a community this small, where everyone looked completely unique?

  Grand pushed aside a curtain and entered a smaller hut that was not unlike the one they’d seen first. The walls were more sparse and what was there seemed more intricate and more technical, but it was the same glass roof and the same generous natural light.

  “Why don’t you just leave?” Olivia asked as Grand indicated a chair and left for a moment. He came back carrying a large stone container. He took a drink out of it and handed it to Troy.

  “What is it?” Troy asked.

  “You had a long hike,” Grand said. “I thought you might like a drink.”

  Troy looked at him for a long time, then took a swig of the sweet, brothy drink and handed it off to Olivia. She set it on the table without trying it.

  “Your friend,” Grand said. “Who is she?”

  “This is Olivia,” Troy said. Grand shook his head.

  “The other one.”

  Troy waited.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Grand scratched his chin with thick, stubby fingers.

  “We’ll come back to that,” he said slowly. “What interest do you have in the Gana?”

  Troy considered for a moment, then reached over to take another drink. Show of faith.

  “Curiosity,” he said. Grand gave him a slow nod.

  “Truth,” he said. “It’s about time. There’s nothing wrong with curiosity, but the Gana are not a species who appreciate scrutiny.”

  “Doesn’t that make them the most interesting?” Troy asked. Grand laughed.

  “You do not fear the repercussions of your actions. You are still very young.”

  “There’s too much to see,” Troy said with a small smile.

  Grand sat back in his seat, considering Troy.

  “You will come with me,” he said.

  “Where?” Olivia asked. Grand’s head turned to look at her for a long time.

  “You don’t belong here,” he said.

  “What?” she asked. “Why?”

  Grand nodded again.

  “You will come with me,” he said. “You will meet my students. Perhaps you will learn.”

  “We should stay here,” Troy said. Grand’s steady attention returned from Olivia.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

  “If we’re in danger here, wouldn’t we be even worse in the palace?” Troy asked. Grand’s eyes bespoke deep wisdom, growing ever more intimidating as Troy learned to recognize it.

  “I’ve spent lifetimes with schoolchildren,” he said finally. “You are no better.”

  “Why would we go with you rather than stay?” Troy asked, trying a different direction. Grand smiled. It was strange to see it, the way his face spread and contorted without changing its fundamental shape or nature, like watching boulders resettle.

  “What place better to satiate a curiosity than in a classroom?”

  Troy waited, letting the logic of that roll over him.

  Cassie said to blend in.

  And clearly they weren’t wanted here. He didn’t see them blending in.

  “All right,” he said.

  “What?” Olivia hissed. He didn’t let his eyes leave Grand.

  “Let’s meet your students.”

  *********

  They sat through sessions.

  That was what Grand called them.

  Each was perhaps forty-five minutes with an individual student. Grand held an intense conversation with each of them, all male Gana, asking questions, demanding explanations, drilling and stretching. The more precocious students asked questions back, but many didn’t.

  As the evening drew on, another student left and Olivia stood to watch down the hallway after him.

  “Are they all boys?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Grand said. “The women teach their own.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Don’t they justify a tutor as well?”

  “Gana women have a special role,” Grand said. “They learn the arts and culture, politics and history. The boys learn economics and mathematics and sciences along with philosophy and a broader set of politics and history. Learning for Gana women is largely self-directed. They have access to one of the most stunning libraries of privately-held information in the universe, as well as everything else that the universe makes public.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Olivia said.

  “I did,” Grand answered.

  “The second student, Eli,” Troy said. “What was different about him?”

  With glacial precision, Grand turned to face him.

  “A good eye,” he said. “Eli is not a royal son.”

  “The rest of them were Kron’s grandchildren?” Troy asked.

  “Yes,” Grand said.

  “Why is Eli different?” Troy asked, persisting.

  Grand paused.

  “Knowledge must be earned,” he said slowly. “Eli has a mother.”

  “The others don’t?” Olivia asked.

  “No,” Grand said.

  “How do they reproduce?” Troy asked. “They have daughters.”

  “No king of the Gana has a wife or a mother,” Grand said. “It’s part of their long mystery.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Troy said.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  There was a gap, and then Grand indicated the door.

  “Your companion will be waiting,” he said. “You needed to get into the residence unnoticed, and you have, but you have a considerable task ahead of you.”

  “What does that mean?” Olivia asked.

  “It means that your new friend knows more than he’s saying,” Cassie said from the doorway. She and Grand exchanged a long look.

  “Palta,” he said. She dipped her head.

  “You always know more than you say, don’t you?” she asked. He shifted sideways.

  “As do you,” he said. She laughed, an open, trickling noise that Troy hadn’t heard in a long time.

  “Always,” she said. “Will you still be here when we’re done?”

  “I have many students,” Grand said.

  “Thank you,” she answered, then waved on Troy and Olivia.

  “We need to go. This is our window.”

  Troy looked from Grand to Cassie.

  “You two know each other?” he asked.

  “Palta have been here before,” Grand said.

  “Teachers know many things,” Cassie replied. “Including the answer.”

  “Yes,” Grand said. Troy shivered.

  “I wish I had more time,” Cassie said.

  “There are those who are in a season to learn and those who are in a season to act,” Grand said. “It is my experience with Palta that they cannot tell the difference.”

  She laughed again, then waved more impatiently.

  “Tick tock, guys.”

  Troy found the same bewildered expression on Olivia’s face that he felt on his own, but he stepped forward.

  “Are you going to get in trouble, Grand?” he asked as he made his way to the door.

  “Eli is Asp’s son,” Grand answered. Troy shook his head, but Cassie grabbed his elbow, pulling him through the door.

  “I’ll explain on the way,” she said.

  “Where are we going?” Troy asked.

  “Lo
wer levels,” she said, moving quickly. “The top level is all just for show. It’s where the family lives and where anyone who isn’t Gana spends all of their time.”

  “How does that make it just for show?” Olivia asked.

  “I think to be dramatic,” Cassie said.

  “What’s downstairs?” Troy asked.

  “If I knew,” Cassie said, pushing him around a corner and pulling Olivia along behind her, “we wouldn’t have to go.”

  They waited for a few seconds, then they were moving again, down one hallway and then another, the sounds of footsteps and voices never too far away, but no one ever in sight. It was haunting and exciting and a part of Troy that had spent too much time watching movies as a small child knew that at any second they were going to be caught.

  “What about Grand?” Olivia asked quietly as they dodged into another doorway.

  “He singled out one of the students,” Cassie said. “What was special about him?”

  Troy repeated what Grand had told them about the royal line and Eli having a mother, and she nodded quickly.

  “Sure,” she said. “Eli has a family, but that family involves Asp, the one who told the story about Ka.”

  He was pretty sure she didn’t think that fully explained it, so Troy didn’t push her for a moment. And then he got impatient.

  “And?”

  “Asp is not going to be upset that you were with Grand today, rather than where you were supposed to be. She doesn’t appreciate the establishment enough to enforce their rules the way the boys do.”

  “Every other kid today has parents,” Olivia said. “Why wouldn’t one of them tell and get Grand and us in trouble?”

  “None of them have relationships with their fathers,” Cassie said.

  “They don’t have mothers,” Troy corrected and she shook her head, darting out into the hallway and dragging Troy after her.

  “Fast through here,” she whispered, running the length of the hallway. They took a moment to listen and to breathe when they finally got to the next stopping point, and then she shook her head.

  “They are raised by outsiders,” Cassie said. “You’ve noticed that none of them have been marked as heir yet. Right?”

  He hadn’t, but Troy nodded to keep her going.

  “The sons probably don’t even know who their fathers are. Whatever it is they’re waiting on to pick the next king, it hasn’t happened yet, and the next generation is being kept away from the previous one.”