Diem didn't understand what the bomb was, but he watched Shown work the chair and relaxed in his own. In a moment or two, without his feet leaving the porch (he still didn't trust Shown knew 100% certain that he wouldn't land on his head) he was rocking. Diem found it mildly enjoyable, but rocking wasn't why he had come.
"I've come to discuss some business with you," Diem said. Shown interlocked his fingers over his belly with a sigh.
"I'm sorry, Rha Diem, but if you've come about the Hope Market, my position stands. Hold House wants no part."
"Although it's hard for me to understand why that is, that is not the business I refer to."
Shown lifted his eyebrows. "Alright then, what have you come to talk about?"
"Gra Breathe sent me."
Shown's eyes warmed pleasantly. "How is your grandmother?"
"She's well," Diem said, encouraged by the inquiry. Shown's friendship with Breathe might persuade the Rha to help. "Have you spoken to your overseer recently?"
"Recent enough," Shown laughed. "Last week...or, I should say, a quarter season ago. He is still on leave to Ice House. He had some business with Phart."
"It may be the same as what I've come to talk with you about," Diem said darkly.
"Oh?"
Diem stopped rocking. "The Plutians are increasing their quotas for us each season..."
"Ah. I thought they would at some point," Shown said. Diem expected the Rha to accuse Diem's Hope Marketing as the cause, but the man only said, "I'm surprised it hasn't come sooner."
"They want nine dragons a season."
"Nine? That's ridiculous. I can't imagine they thought that through."
"They're thinking of making up the shortages by harvesting humans," Diem said flatly. "They've decided to market humans to the planetary systems, as well as dragons."
Shown's rocker stopped dead. The frolicking cries of the children drifted over the porch, mixing with the sounds from the house, of women laughing and the low murmur of men.
"Hold House has no quotas," Shown said. His face was pale.
"Blessings," a man's voice rang out and Diem turned to see the couple, the same ones he'd watched only a bit ago. They walked hand-in-hand toward the porch steps. The man had the bag of ground gorne, the one that Diem had seen partially spilled, slung over his shoulder. The couple only seemed to be announcing their arrival as was respectful when there was a close conversation being had, but as they neared, the man, who was nearly identical in looks to Shown, peered closely at his Rha. "What's going on?"
"Rha Diem, I don't know if you've met my brother, Generation, and his Link, Nature." Shown's tone was distant. Diem recognized them now and felt the burn of his blush, but it went unnoticed. Generation ignored the introduction, focusing instead on his brother, as did the Link. Diem was relieved, since it was difficult to the look at the pair and not think of them as they were in the tree clearing.
"What's the matter, Sean?" Generation asked, setting down the bag of food on the porch. It was an odd pronunciation of Shown's name. Diem felt the conversation constrict to something more intimate. It was a discussion belonging to this family, a silent communication of eyes. Diem sat respectfully still, without making a sound.
"Rha Diem came to tell me about some new developments," Shown finally said. "The Plutians are planning to harvest humans. They are doing it by setting dragon quotas so high they cannot be achieved and then asking that the differences be made up with human beings."
Generation hissed a curse.
"What does it mean for us? We don't even have a quota. We only care for the overflow," Nature said. Then she bit down on her lip.
"That's what worries me too," Shown said.
"Where is Phart? What does he know about it?" Generation asked, but behind him, Nature snorted.
"Like he'd know anything about anything," she said.
Suddenly, the great, white Cirrus dragon flashed down from the clouds, into the House yard. Diem leapt from his chair as the dragon roared past the House, shaking the slats of the porch as it flew by. The tips of the dragon's wings nearly grazed the House. Its belly was so close, it sucked dust from the ground and the sound of the rider's joyful Wooohooo!!! trailed behind it as it zipped back into the sky.
The children squealed and shouted and a woman appeared from the House doorway, laughing, but Generation hollered after the dragon, as if his voice could be heard at a distance, "DANG IT, MARK! QUIT BUZZING THE DAMN HOUSE!!"
"He's just showing the kids a good time," the woman in the doorway said. She resembled the two men strongly, but she had eyes that turned to crescent shapes when she laughed.
"It's not the time for it right now, Iris," Shown said. The woman glanced at Diem and her smile faded.
"I'll leave you to it then," she said. Then, to Shown, "Let me know what's going on later."
"Of course," Shown said.
"I'm coming in," Nature said, as the other woman stepped away from the door. "Are we getting ready to feed the kids?"
"Yup," Iris said, and Diem started at how much they sounded like Maeve when they spoke. Once the women were gone, Generation came up on the porch to lean on the rail. Shown began a rhythmic rocking again.
"I'm here for another reason, as well. A woman came to us and this is hard to explain, but Gra Breathe thought that since you knew the archaic Earth, you might understand the circumstances with which this woman arrived."
Diem was surprised that the Rha didn't immediately question how a woman could arrive. Diem assumed the other Rha was so distracted with all the awful possibilities that his own House might soon face, he might not even be listening. But Shown's eyes were on Diem, as if he had the Rha's full attention, so he continued.
"Gra Breathe said you might remember a place called the Archive?"
Shown thought for a long moment before shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I don't." He turned to Generation. "Do you, Gare?"
Another odd pronunciation. But Generation only shook his head.
"Breathe said it was a place where people were preserved, underground, before the Scorching. The woman who came to us," Diem said, slowing his words in hopes of gauging the other Rha's reaction, but Shown only maintained his quiet rocking.
A burst of children shot from the front entry. Their squeals and shrieks were particularly sharp, but Shown and Generation waved the children away with genuine smiles, directing them to play around the back of the House. They scurried down the steps and around the side of the House obediently. Their laughter muted, the only other sound, besides the steady rock of the Rha's chair, came from within the House. A whole group of women were talking of women things, amidst the clatter of banging of pots and pans. Diem took a breath and began again, in a hushed tone. "The woman who came to us is from that underground place."
Diem paused to let it sink in. He waited for the reactions he expected: suspicion, shock, fear, absolute disbelief. Something. But Rha Shown just rocked and Generation only rested his palms on the rail.
"What is your concern?" Shown finally asked.
"Concern?" Diem echoed. A woman had appeared, out of the dirt. He realized abruptly that this probably wasn't the moment to have mentioned Maeve, in the face of the news he'd just given the Rha about the human harvest.
"She didn't come from any of the Houses," Diem repeated, sure that the detail had been overlooked. Still, no reaction. "Since she's unaccounted for, we are concerned about her welfare in regard to the Plutians."
"Understandably," Shown said. "Especially under these new circumstances."
"Since your overseer is not particularly present, we were hoping that..."
"We might say she is one of our House," Shown finished for him without even a pause in the steady motion of his rocker.
"Well, yes," Diem said. "I understand that with this other news, it might create a hardship for Hold House. In return, I would be willing to offer your House a gift of any one thing it wishes so long as I can acquire it."
"Oh no," Shown said. "Thi
s woman is human, so she is one of us, even if she is no one we know. We will vouch for her, but we are not interested in payment."
Diem expected castigation from the other Rha, for Diem's involvement in the Market and for the Market's part in creating the deficit which led to the human harvest. Instead, Shown steepled his fingers and rested his lips on them.
"But," Generation spoke instead, "we are interested in protecting what is ours."
The two brothers exchanged glances and Shown nodded.
"I suppose we've gotten ourselves into another fight," he said, and the two brothers, in unison, turned their eyes to Diem. Shown said, "Maybe it is time that we discuss larger objectives. Maybe we need to consider plans for taking back our planet."
It was an enormous proposition and wholly unexpected. It was also unrealistic to Diem that Five Houses, who struggled to feed and clothe their own, would have any hope of overcoming their oppressors.
"We don't have the numbers they have," Diem said.
"How do we know?" Generation said. "We only see the overseers, the Plutians who handle the shipments, but what if their numbers aren't what we think they are?"
"They have Gall dragons," Diem said.
"They had them...possibly...during the Scorching," Generation said. "I've never met a soul who actually saw one with their own eyes. The Plutians say they exist, but they could easily be urban myth."
"Urban myth?" Diem asked.
"A lie," Generation said.
"But we do have a distinct advantage. We are here and they are there," Shown said. "It may be as simple as closing the wormhole they use for the trans shipments at the west end of our lot. Without a wormhole, their journey here would take years at least."
Diem's mouth dropped open. He had never been given the actual location of the trans, none of the Rhas had. He hadn't even been told how the trans worked. The whole business of shipments and transportation between the planets had been shrouded in secrecy since the Scorching.
But it made the most sense that the overseers would load the shipment trans in a remote area of the Hold House lot. Hold House was the last stop on the dragon's journey through the harvesting chain and Pizant, the Hold House's overseer, was the only Plutian even remotely comfortable with handling the trained dragons.
"It is a wormhole?" Diem asked, slightly suspicious. "They told you this?"
"Not intentionally. Mark and Bra...Break, thought they located the wormhole." Generation's tone swelled with pride. "The Plutians drug us to sleep during the times of shipments, but we dug tunnels underground, to avoid the gases they put in our air. It's taken years, but we've finally succeeded in reaching the peninsula we suspected they were using."
"But you still don't know if it is the actual site?" Diem said, his excitement waning. Generation winked at him.
"We just retrieved the confirmation of it from Pizant," he said.
"Retrieved..."
"Pizant believed he was immune to the human body he dwells in, but he's not." Shown chuckled. "He's finally become so complacent that he was willing to drink with us. It's amazing what a few jugs of distilled gorne can do to a Plutian."
"He gave you the same exact location and confirmed it was a wormhole?" Diem asked. His mind was a blur of thoughts—wormholes and dragons, drunk Plutians, and the fantastic possibility of regaining the Earth. It overwhelmed him and sharpened him at the same time.
"Yes, but the location is the least of our worries," Generation said. "He said there are two wormholes. We have only located the one."
"One is a good start," Shown pointed out.
"Mark tracked the last five trans and has a general knowledge of how it works."
"Only general?" Diem said. "Even after seeing it?"
"That area is obscured with a permanent, low-lying fog," Generation explained. "Mark saw the trans sitting on the west peninsula. Pizant loads the dragons onto the trans, but then the overseer leaves. Pizant may not even know how the trans operates."
"How does the trans take the shipment into the wormhole?"
"Mark doesn't know that exactly. The sleeping gases overwhelmed him before he could find out."
"So, we know, but we don't know, its location," Diem said. The news was both dismal and hopeful, and it was hard to tell to which emotion he should commit himself. Knowing the general location of the wormhole was promising, but not knowing exactly where it was, or what was capable of coming through it, was chilling.
"But we don't know where the second hole is," Diem said.
"Or if there is one," Generation pointed out. "Pizant was drooling by the time he brought up the second one. He could've just been blabbering."
"We haven't ruled out the second; we just haven't been able to locate it," Shown said.
"Maybe it's not on your lot," Diem said. "Strategically speaking, it would be smarter to hide the other elsewhere."
"True. It could be anywhere," Generation said. The three men sat quietly, each raking over his own thoughts as the laughter of the children in the back yard drifted among them. Diem's mind spun. He could scour his own lot, but unless he was so lucky as to observe a Plutian actually traveling through the hole, there would be little chance of finding it. It would be carefully obscured and locating it would require the amazing feat of being at the exact right place at the exact right moment.
"If we do this, if we start a war," Diem said. "There are other possibilities we should consider. The Plutians could choose to destroy the Earth rather than fight for it."
"True," Generation said. "Another Scorching. Raze it all and begin again."
"They could," Shown added, "but that would mean putting a hold on their lucrative trade or finding another work force to run it. Pizant said there were no other options for labor, aside from humans. He made it sound like submissive life forms are hard to come by and would be next to impossible to transplant here. It would be a huge undertaking for the Plutians to start over, if they even could, and I can't imagine they'd want to do that."
"Which means they will fight," Diem said.
"Or decide it is too much hassle and kill us all." Generation rubbed a knuckle over his lip. A child squealed with delight from the other side of the house.
"The real question we need to answer is this," Shown said, "are we all ready to commit to doing whatever it takes to gain control of our planet again?"
"Bring it," Nature said from the door.
***
Phuck smelled oddly, but he was elated as he made his way back to his cabin once again. He felt certain that he was on the verge of obtaining several delightful successes: pleasing his superior, maintaining his flourishing side trade, and acquiring a mating with Karma. Things couldn't be going better.
Until he saw the woman parked in front of his cabin door.
At first, he only identified the form as woman and mistook her for Wind. He considered diving into the nearestshorbbrush before he was spotted, but he realized too late that it wasn't Wind at all. It was worse, and he had completely missed his chance to dive.
Tiddy lounged on his doorframe, arms crossed, mouth tight. Her countenance was a bad sign. Her pink, seeing-spheres glinted at him.
"Blessings, 21141231185," Phuck grumbled as he came to his own door. He was still annoyed with her for reporting the shortages to 38596. His thoughts lingered upon sinking a shot of venom in a place that wouldn't kill her, but would make her think twice. A small spray, perhaps, fired into one of her hearing holes, or a droplet to lop off the tip of her scent indicator...
"Ughm," Tiddy grumbled, as if she were the one wronged. "Where have you been? I have been waiting to share mating with you for some time."
"I was with my Rha," Phuck answered sharply, "informing him of the new human trade and the impossible quotas that came about because you reported shortages."
"As I must."
"Oh? Why must you? What you must want is to bring my existence to an end."
Tiddy stepped closer to him, the jagged fringe of her eyelashes blocki
ng half her sight holes. "You misinterpret me. Think again. I must want to share joys with you."
Share? She meant his independence. And what could she possibly contribute that would make him want to share any of his enterprise with her?
She answered his thoughts by dropping her pants. There in his doorway, Tiddy stepped out of the fibers that had fallen to her ankles, kicking them aside. Phuck's eyes sunk down to the fuzzy mating spot at her base. Furry as a hampig, she lifted one leg to openly entice him.
But the sight of it instantly reminded his urine straw of the marathon mating he'd had with Wind. His straw seemed to crack as it hoisted and then, in pain, shriveled. It drooped, a vertical blindfold that could not hide his pain berries from the cavernous, gaping maw hailing from behind Tiddy's scraggly thatch.
Phuck gulped as Tiddy began to stroke herself. Her pink eyes flashed and Phuck could feel the static shift in the air as she pulled in her wild excitement, gathering it into a ball of energy somewhere in her core.
He knew from the sound, chuffing from her throat like smoke rings, that if she hit him with the kind of energy he believed she was accumulating, it would likely rip him in half. And if it didn't, all the worse it would be for him, since she would expect the same vivacious energy returned.
"21141231..." Phuck began, his tone already pleading. He did not get to finish her name. Her breathing accelerated like a freight trans gaining speed in order to break through the atmospheric ring. Phuck threw up his hands. "No, no...listen, 211...extinguish it! Extinguish! EXTINGUISH!"
It was too late. Tiddy's eyes closed, her head dropped back, and the glistening, pulsing ball of her sexual frustration blasted from her chest, aimed straight at Phuck. He had a split second to decide. He could either submit, and risk the inordinate pain of shaving off whatever was left of the raw outer skin of his urine straw inside of her, or he could inflict upon her the ultimate insult of his rejection.
The steaming ball of her need crawled through the space between them as Phuck dropped to his knees. He tucked his jaw knob to his upper torso in the hope that, after the energy sailed over the top of his cranial helmet, Tiddy would open her sight holes and see him kneeling submissively at the tips of her walking extensions. He hoped his position of absolute surrender might sway her. The only chance he had of not becoming her consummate enemy was to show her that he meant no insult in his rejection of her mating energy.
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 26