by Josi Russell
Aria noticed Polara peering up at the green dots on the cloth. “Are those yucky?” the four-year-old asked.
“Kind of,” Aria replied, “when they’re growing in our house.” She crouched down and slid an arm around her daughter. “But look closely, and you can see the little plant parts. See the tiny white roots?” Polara nodded. “And some of them have brand new baby leaves. See?” She pointed to the tiny wings of the bigger plants.
Polara brightened. “They’re baby plants? Like Rigel!”
“Yep,” Aria said, straightening, “babies like Rigel.” She glanced at the clock. “Okay, guys. We’ve got to get going or the store might not have what we need. Polara, can you get your shoes on?”
As the dark-haired little girl bounced off to find her shoes, Aria tossed the cloth in the sanitizer and gathered her shopping list and her bags. Though Ethan’s work in the Colony Offices assured that they had the scrip to get all the groceries they needed, the company store itself had been coming up short on supplies lately. She wanted to be there early today.
Ever since she’d gone two weeks ago and seen the shortage, she couldn’t stop thinking about those empty shelves. Where was the food? Saras had seedbanks and rootstock aplenty. They had tens of thousands of acres of terraformed farmland just northwest of the city, and they had all the fertilizer they needed. Where was the food?
Aria grabbed her scrip chain and wallet and the kids and headed to the Market District. The scrip chain was heavy and unwieldy, strung with triangular brass coins punched through the middle with a triangle hole for carrying on the chain. The coins were the only currency in Coriol. They were only good at Saras stores in the city. The stores took no other currency and the coins were useless in any other colony. Save enough of them and you could trade them in for UEG money, but the exchange rate was pretty dismal, and meanwhile, you had to eat.
Catching a hovercab, she settled Polara and Rigel on either side of her on the smooth, cool seat and made sure they could see out the windows. It would be cheaper to take the sol train, but crowding on with groceries and the two children was stressful for Aria. The press of people, the effort of trying to contain Polara’s boundless energy, the weight of Rigel in her backpack carrier, and the grocery bags in her arms always had her snappy and strained when she got home. A hovercab was quiet, private, and convenient, especially for grocery shopping. Anyway, they had the scrip and she might as well use it.
Because their ship had been the responsibility of the government instead of any particular corporation, they’d had no debt to work off when they arrived. Aria figured they’d paid for the journey by being sold to the Others, a cruel alien race on the planet Beta Alora, and she didn’t feel bad that they didn’t owe the Saras company when they got here.
Many of the passengers on their ship had left Coriol immediately to be nearer family or friends in other cities. All of the passengers of Ship 12-22 who had stayed were placed in the only empty neighborhood in Coriol, the newly finished Forest Heights. Forest Heights was on the edge of the city, inconveniently far from the Market District and the Colony Office, but wonderfully near the wooded hills and karst peaks that ringed the city.
They rode in the hovercab through neighborhoods, just like their own, with the little blue cottages Minea was famous for. After the Housing District they entered the Health and Human Services District, with its towering steel hospitals and research labs. As the hovercab pulled past the last of the health buildings, Aria caught a glimpse of the grimy cement tenements where many of the industrial workers lived. The blue-streaked gray buildings were closest to the factories, mills, and the Yynium refinery that crushed and purified Yynium twenty-seven hours a day, 420 days per year. It never closed. The tenements were tall enough to obscure the refinery itself, which Aria knew was there but had never seen.
At last the Market District came into view, with its cheery red and green storefronts. Aria unloaded the kids, shouldering into the backpack that she used to carry Rigel. She gave the cab driver twenty scrip, and headed into the produce store.
She could tell immediately that this was going to be a difficult day. The store was crowded with people, and the produce bins were low. “Hold Mommy’s hand,” she said sharply to Polara as a woman with Yynium dust on the shoulders of her black dress stormed angrily past them towards the door.
The woman called back over her shoulder. “Don’t bother, lady, they’re not selling anything. And when they do, nobody will be able to afford it.”
Aria looked at the row of barred registers. It was true. The cashiers were standing still as the people waited in line with their groceries.
Stock boys were scurrying around in front of the bins, swapping out the prices on every item. Their red vests bore the Saras triangle across the back. Aria heard a deep, firm voice and turned to see the store manager, Cyril Gaynes, speaking to a man from the refinery.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Gaynes said, although Aria could tell he wasn’t, “but our costs have gone up today and we must recalculate the prices before we can sell anything else.”
“We have to be back to work in fifteen minutes,” the man said, a note of pleading in his voice. “There won’t be anything left by the time we get off. Can’t you just open the registers and calculate the costs there?”
“I’m sorry, every item has to be marked with the correct label before we scan it through the register. That’s the only way the system works.”
“The system doesn’t work,” the man said. Aria heard the despair in his voice and looked away so he wouldn’t see her watching the exchange as he turned and left the store. People began filing out after him as they realized they wouldn’t make it to work on time if they didn’t leave now. Aria pulled Polara to the back of the store as they left.
Soon, only a few people remained. Aria watched as the stock boys marked up item after item. Beans that were one scrip per measure were now two, and apples had doubled as well. The little packets of meat she and Ethan used to add flavor to their stews had gone from four scrip to seven. Now a new worry pricked her mind. She hoped she’d brought enough scrip. The coins were unwieldy, and she tried to only carry as much as she needed for each trip. If prices continued like this, people would be carrying scrip chains so long that they dragged the ground behind them.
She glanced at the other shoppers. There was a man in a Colony Office uniform and a teen who should probably still be in school but whose dusty red coveralls revealed his work in the Yynium mines. Aria knew he’d probably get docked the full day’s pay for being late back from his morning break, but he stood stubbornly in front of the registers with a meager armload of rangkor tubers, Minea’s native purple potatoes. They were the cheapest food you could buy here, and not terrible as far as nutrition, but Aria longed for her lab back on Earth and the chance to tinker with rangkors, to increase the protein and breed for a thinner, edible skin. So much of the meat was lost peeling them. She gathered a few of them from the bin herself and shifted Rigel in her backpack as she continued around the store.
When she stepped into line behind the young miner and an old woman in a faded green jacket, Aria’s basket was a rainbow. It was filled with bananas, berries, dragonfruit, and sahm, the bright green leafy vegetable that would be just like Earth’s kale if it didn’t taste like carrots. She glanced down to see Polara taking scraping bites out of an apple, so she mentally calculated that into the bill as well.
The registers had opened and she waited, glad that Polara had something to occupy her attention. Waiting in lines could be hard with an active four-year-old, and she wasn’t as good as Ethan at coming up with distracting games to play while waiting.
An interruption in the usual flow of the checkout line caught Aria’s attention. She glanced up to see the boy with the rangkors arguing with the cashier.
“I DO have enough to buy them,” the boy said angrily. “I only picked out what I could afford.”
“The prices changed, kid. You can see that.”
The cashier, another red-vested Saras worker, gestured at the bins.
“When I picked them up they were two scrip each, and that’s what I’m paying.” The boy slammed a ten scrip piece down on the counter with a clatter. That’s why he’d stayed then, because he’d hoped they would honor their first prices.
Gaynes, a big, broad man, stepped quickly down the aisle behind the bars of the register. “The price is fifteen scrip and that’s what you’ll pay, unless you want to go to jail for shoplifting.” His voice reminded Aria of a chained dog.
The boy’s shoulders slumped. He looked carefully at the tubers, weighing and evaluating them in his hands before dejectedly sliding two of them to the side of the counter. The cashier took the ten scrip piece off the counter where it lay and Gaynes reached into the register drawer, pulled out the boy’s one scrip change, and flipped it through the air between the bars, where it sailed out and landed on the floor. The boy chased it desperately, and Gaynes laughed as he watched the kid walk out the door clutching the coin and the rangkors.
Aria felt her nails digging into her palms. She tried to breathe calmly. The old woman in front of Aria stepped up to the register and set her basket on the scanner.
“Forty-eight scrip,” the cashier said.
It appeared that the woman had underestimated her purchases, too. She was flustered as she counted several times. “What should I put back?” she asked. “I’ve only got forty-two.”
“Oh, no,” Gaynes’s voice was almost kind this time. “You don’t need to put anything back,” he crooned.
Aria felt immediately on guard. Gaynes wasn’t a kind man. He wanted something.
“But I don’t have enough,” the woman said, confused. “Do I?”
“Well, I think we can probably work something out,” Gaynes said. Aria followed his gaze to the woman’s frail hand, where she saw an Earthgold ring. So that was it. “We don’t usually do trades, you know.” Everybody knew. Trades were against the law in any company colony. Only Saras scrip was accepted in Coriol. “You can make up the difference with that.” He pointed to her ring.
She looked puzzled, then Aria saw the woman’s mouth open slightly in surprise, “Why, why, I don’t know . . . My husband gave it to me back on Earth.” She spun the ring nervously on her finger.
Aria couldn’t stand it. She unclipped her scrip chain and pulled off six scrip. Stepping up to the counter, she laid them beside the woman’s hand.
The woman turned her eyes to Aria in gratitude. Aria smiled, then met Gaynes’s narrowed eyes. The woman left the store and the cashier scanned Aria’s items. Still, Gaynes glared at her through the bars.
The two rangkors still lay on the counter. Without taking her eyes off him, Aria scooped them up and dropped them in her basket.
“Fifty-four scrip,” the cashier said. Aria slid three coins to him and narrowed her eyes to match Gaynes’s glare. Then she looked away and reached down for her basket.
“This is my store, young lady,” Gaynes said as she loaded the produce into her shopping bags.
Aria’s eyes flashed as she met his again. “Oh is it, Mr. Gaynes? My husband and I will be having dinner with Mr. Saras the day after tomorrow, and I’ll be sure to let him know you said so.” The subtle backwards jerk of Gaynes’s head showed her she’d landed her blow. She took Polara’s hand and walked out of the store. Just at the door, she turned and called, “And thank you so much for the complementary apple.”
Aria’s heart was thundering as she stepped out into the cool spring morning. She had forgotten all about Polara’s apple until she was at the door, and she wouldn’t go crawling back to the register to give that krech another scrip.
Polara chattered about the new blossoms on the trees as Aria pulled her quickly down the sidewalk toward the industrial district. Two blocks away from the store she realized the unlikelihood of finding who she was looking for. She turned to walk back to the cab platform when a flash of dusty red caught her eye. She almost ran across the street, pulling Polara with her into a little alleyway between the shoe store and the clothing store.
The young miner looked up in surprise as she approached, then looked away to hide his tear-stained face. Polara pulled away from her mother and ran to him. Aria watched as the little girl gently took his hand and gazed up at him. He didn’t pull away, just looked down at her with incredibly sad eyes. Polara, ever empathetic, put his hand to her cheek.
Aria pulled out the two rangkors and held them out to the young man. Briefly, his eyebrows drew together in suspicion, then he broke into a smile.
“Dama,” he said quietly, freeing his hand from Polara to take the tubers. “Dama engala.”
Aria smiled wonderingly. “You speak a different language?” she asked.
The boy blushed. “Usually only at home.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. Ethan would be excited to know another old Earth language had survived.
“It means ‘thank you,’” he said.
“You’re welcome.” Ever since Polara and Rigel had come into the world, Aria saw them in everyone’s children. She imagined this boy’s mother for a moment. She was probably at work in the mines as well, wondering what was keeping him from his shift and worrying what might have happened. “Will you go to work now?”
The boy looked at his watch and his eyes welled up with tears again. He shook his head. “I’ll never make it. It’s a ten minute walk.” He made a disgusted grunt in his throat. “It’s my third time being late. They’ll dock me a week’s pay this time.”
Aria called to Polara. “Can you run, little one?” Polara nodded and Aria called to both her and the young miner. “Come on, then!”
She must have earned his trust, because he followed her without question. Aria looked down the street as they emerged from the alley and ran for a cab platform. She pulled the door open and Polara, sensing her mother’s urgency, threw herself in the circular back seat and scooted around to the far side. Aria slung the groceries in on the floor and pulled Rigel’s backpack off, clutching him on her lap as she slid in, too.
She barked, “Take us to the mine!”
The boy slipped in and pulled the door closed just as the cab sped off toward the Industrial District.
Aria watched the buildings speed by and glanced at the boy. A hopeful light had crept into his eyes and he was obviously thrilled by the cab ride. He caught her eye.
“Why are you helping me?”
Aria hugged Rigel a little. “Because I hope somebody will help my boy someday, when he needs it,” she said. “And because I think you were trying to do some good yourself by standing in that line. Nobody likes rangkor enough to eat that many by himself.” She gestured at his armload of tubers.
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “They’re for my family. We won’t get any more scrip for three days, and there won’t be anything left we can buy after work.” He shook his head quickly, agitated. “I can’t hear my little sisters cry for food one more night.”
His words hit Aria in the stomach. A long-ago feeling twisted her memory. She wished Ethan was here. The mine came into sight through the window of the hovercab.
“Can I ask your name?” the boy said. “Maybe I can pay you back for these someday.” He looked hesitantly at her. “And the cab ride,” he added hastily as the cab stopped.
“It’s Aria Bryant. How about yours?”
The boy spoke quickly. “I’m Daniel Rigo.” He jumped out of the cab, running with the last of the stragglers to the gates of the mine.
“Where to now?” the hovercab driver asked.
“Just wait here a second,” Aria replied.
She watched as Daniel checked in seconds before the whistle blew, ending the break. He turned and tossed her a wave, smiling broadly. She saw his mouth make the words dama engala: thank you.
***
Daniel threw a wave at the kind woman, Aria, in the hovercab, and walked past the foreman into the mine just as the whistle blew. He stopped to stash the rang
kors in his mother’s lunchbox in her cubby at the mine’s mouth, then pulled up his mask as he walked to the check boards. They were wide pieces of smooth green Minean wood, with rows of small nails covering them. On each nail hung a small metal triangle stamped with the words “Saras Co. Mining” and each miner’s identification number. The miners called them pit checks because the underground parts of the mine were called the pit and the little tags gave an easy way to see who was underground. He’d reached for his so many times that it was no chore finding it among all the others. He slid it on the clip on his chest and headed to the tram line.
He hated Gaynes. Hated the way he made people grovel. Hated the way he needled people. Hated the way he made everyone feel small.
Daniel’s father had been the opposite. Thorian Rigo had been big and made others feel big, too. He had joked with everyone, and when you were talking to him, you were the most important person in the world.
Daniel felt tears slipping out of his stinging eyes and ducked, blaming it on the wind from the tram ride.
Marise was peering at the tram as it hissed to a stop. She put her arms around him for a long moment. He knew how worried she must have been, but she didn’t say anything, simply laid a hand on his cheek and turned back to her work.
“I got some rangkors,” he said. “Plenty.”
Marise hugged him again, spontaneously. “I don’t know how. I heard what happened at the market. But you’re like your father, Daniel. You always find a way to take care of us.” She kissed him quickly and the two found their way to the section of open vein they’d been working on before the break.
Daniel swung the pick and popped out a chunk of Yynium. He’d gotten pretty good at dislodging chunks that weren’t too big, because the next step was for his mother to load the chunk into the tram. He hated to see her strain to lift them, and she was furious if he stopped to help her carry one.