by Martin Kee
Mundane. The planet is mundane, according to the LPR, according to the sensors. But he thinks now that Mundane just means the execs at the top don’t care if there’s life or not. These guys couldn’t defend themselves against nineteenth-century weapons. Maybe mundane simply means exploitable.
Insects, no bigger than gnats, hop from the hay and onto his skin. He swats one away, but more emerge, leaping onto his legs and scurrying along the plating there. One lands on his hand and Kendal holds it up to his face. It reminds him of a housefly with long, green, crablike pincers, which it uses to delicately remove the fine hairs on the back of his hand. It then touches each one to its mouth, and places it onto its back. It moves over to the smashed fly and begins to harvest that as well, sticking legs and wings onto its body.
After a few hairs, it hops off and lands on the miniature ox, who brushes it away with a flick of its flat tail.
The barn is just big enough for him to lie in the middle of the stables that line each side, but it is by no means comfortable. This isn’t helped by the bits of shell and husk that are now permanently sewn onto his jumpsuit. It feels stuffy, and hard to breathe. The walls are shrinking.
He scoots towards the barn doors only to have them open from the outside. Bright light blinds him for a moment, and when Kendal is able to see again, he finds a group of five waiting for him. Beyond the group, past the farm, the landscape could be from any New Mexico postcard.
Their outlines are asymmetrical, all but for the youngest of the group, the one he recognizes. The largest of the beings stands on long muscular legs, the right half of its body a series of centipede arms, each armed with some kind of needle or spear. Armadillo plates cover the chest, back and thighs. Kendal remembers this one from the walk into town. And he recognizes the cane, crusty joints, and scar lines of the elder companion that walked him back to the town. He raises an arm crusted with sewn plates and husks.
“Hi,” he says to her, and to the group.
Outlying the group is the youngest, standing aside and watching him, and he would say she seems almost concerned.
“Is this the welcoming committee?” he asks. In response, the group confers amongst themselves in that clicking, chirping birdsong, before a pair breaks off from the group, approaching him.
Kendal doesn’t recognize the other two, both equal parts salamander encased in nightmare, with mismatched arms and legs. A multi-lens apparatus covers the face of one, set with numerous eyes that blink independently of each other. As they get closer, he sees that the eyes remind him of the way a chameleon will look in different directions all at the same time. In this case, all the eyes are on him, studying different body parts.
It is accompanied by a smaller companion with muscular arms, each ending in clusters of tiny pincers. It carries a long pole resembling a cattle prod—
“Jesus!”
The shock is more startling than painful, and Kendal wants to kick them away.
But the largest of the group is soaring through the air, landing on his crotch and thrusting the spear at his nose. He freezes, feeling the weight and feet digging into his stomach and groin. There’s no room to maneuver in this tiny barn, and all he can do is stare down past the spear, meeting those dark little eyes. At this close a distance, the newt-like features are still barely visible beneath the armor, legs, extra teeth, and horns. Small fingers prod and poke him from the ground.
He feels another shock and grits his teeth, but the sight of that spear—and whatever it is dripping from the end—makes him do nothing more. They proceed to examine him as his eyes find the youngest, still standing at the door. She carries a gun this time, the strange handle sticking out from her holster.
“Come on, Youngest. You aren’t going to let them do this are you?” he says to her.
She flutes something in return, and another shock stiffens his back making it arch. Even though he tries to hold it back, he cries out anyway. After what seems like forever, the heavily armed soldier jumps off him, landing on the barn floor, then uses the spear to tap at one of his plates. He flutes something, in what sounds almost like a parody of human speech smacking Kendal in the back with the flat of the spear.
“Oh, you want me to leave…” He scoots out of the barn on his ass as the group watches him move, the mini-ox staring with those placid eyes.
Outside the barn a cage has been constructed with large, mismatched beams. Some appear to be wood from the nearby forest, while others are made of rusted metals and maybe even bone. It’s only slightly larger than the barn, and when he stands, he is only able to crouch before his head hits the ceiling bars.
“What is this?” he asks, pointing at the cage as a gate slams behind him. He spins around, trapped as the cattle prod hovers near his thigh from a distance. He finds the youngest again and asks her, “What are they doing?”
“Dooooooo-ing-g-g-g-g-g,” she flutes back.
The eldest, the one who initially sewed these plates and husks to his skin flutes something in return and a heated debate erupts between the two of them. While the duet plays on, the spider-faced salamander approaches, rolling a covered cart. A small door opens along the side and they slide the cart into the cage. The leader flutes his own tune at Kendal, then points at it.
With a flourish, the tarp comes away, revealing a pile of limbs, bones, meat, and skin. It doesn’t smell particularly bad, but at the same time, he isn’t sure if it is edible or not. Hard white crust forms around the severed edges, and when he touches it, Kendal finds it as hard as stone.
“I don’t think I can eat this,” he says. But when the cattle prod comes threateningly close to his thigh again, he changes his mind. Moving a hand to his pocket, Kendal feels the small death tab resting there under a patched plate. Good. “Okay, fine.”
He reaches down and picks up the most appetizing section of meat, inspecting it up close. The limb seems to be some sort of thigh or leg, with tendon and pinkish meat exposed inside a film of that white crust. He brushes away the flaky coating and hears birdsongs of approval.
Then he bites it.
The reaction from his audience can only be described as horror. Whistles and clicks erupt as the Youngest puts her hands in the air. The rest begin to shout at each other as the cattle prod makes contact with his thigh.
Shock is almost immediate and he cries out, “Oh come on! What do you want?”
The youngest—
*
Steps forward. Bex stands at the cage, placing herself between Den’k and his assistant, Trith’en. “It doesn’t understand what you want!’
“And how do you know?” says Den’k. He pulls one of the lenses on his head to face her. “That is no language at all. It’s just grunts and snorts. It doesn’t even have the intelligence to patch itself. Even mudflies can harvest and graft.”
As if to prove a point, Trith’en prods the animal again with the eel gland. There a crackle and a loud, low groan.
“Stop it! Listen…” she says, standing over by the cage, placing herself in front of the eel gland on a stick. Trith’en backs away a step. There is enough charge left in the prod to knock her unconscious, and she can feel the electricity in the air between her and it. “We found it hatched, okay? It was just emerging from its egg. For all we know, it might adapt differently.”
“You found it in the desert?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Then it falls under the Ameer’s jurisdiction.”
“The Ameer can go eat a steer bladder,” she snaps. “Where was the Ameer when poachers raided my village? Where was he when I watched the Tenders’ Guild collapse into flames? You think he’s going to step in and preserve this… this hatchling?” She feels Vin’s hand on her shoulder and shrugs it off. “He’d probably salvage it with his own hands.”
“That’s enough,” Vin says from behind her, and for a moment she’s forgotten where she is. She’s not standing in front of her peers. She’s not in the Guild Hall anymore. She’s a stranger, preaching to a m
ob.
“We don’t know enough about it, how it emerged… we haven’t even given it time to reach maturity.”
“Maturity?” Den’k utters a squeal of a laugh and the giant recoils away from him in its cage. “Are you blind to its size? Just look at it. It belongs in a museum.”
“I think you both know that a museum is the last place it will end up if the Ameer get’s ahold of it,” Vin is talking now, and Bex turns to him in surprise. “That thing will be butchered like every other animal that crosses our plains if the Ameer has his way. There are organ barons who would pay a small mansion just to have a piece of it.”
“And,” Bex adds, “I think it can be trained to do labor jobs. It has hands and a brain…”
“It can’t even patch itself.” Den’k cuts her off, pointing to the giant—it still holds the limb, looking at it, and poking it with a finger.
“You’ve confused it is all,” Bex says. “You’re prodding it and poking it. It doesn’t know what you want and you’ve given it no reason to even patch itself…”
Her voice trails off as she realizes what she’s said.
“Fine,” Den’k says. “Let’s remove one of its digits and see if it patches itself then.”
“No wait,” Bex says. “Just let me work with it, for a couple days. If I can’t find a use for it… well then, I lose.”
Din’k continues to watch her, even as silence falls on the group. When he speaks, his voice is even and calm, addressing her in the formal language, and Bex knows she has already lost.
“We here have nothing but respect for the Tenders, Tr-Bex. Without the service your people have performed so unwaveringly, most cities would have collapsed under their own casualties by now. The Tenders have long provided a vital function, bringing to harvest a vast bounty of salvage for the rest of us.” With the last word, his voice hardens, going cold and toneless. “But I think you forget now that your guild is no more, not in these territories anyway. You live with the grafters and patchers now, and our ways are the only law. You stand there with your guild badge like it’s some sort of shield, and tell us what we must do with a resource this town so badly needs? Why, just the meat alone from this… this hatchling, as you call it, would feed the town for months. We have people starving in the slums, Tr-Bex. We have people in need of new skin, new limbs, new organs.”
“New organs?” She can hardly believe what she is hearing, but Den’k continues unabated.
“There is a crisis our land has never seen. We do not have time anymore to simply study these new Donors when our people lay dying. We do not have time for tending when our walls crumble. These are scarce times Tr-Bex, and your sentimentality has no place here.”
As if to punctuate the statement, his assistant jabs the beast with the prod again. There’s a crackle and a roar as the hatchling clutches the bars and begins to pull at them.
“You see?” Den’k says. “It should be displaying a clear predilection to scavenge those, adding them to its own body construct. However, it seems to not understand even the slightest concept of such. Even the shoddy grafting job Vin has done doesn’t seem to be taking hold.” He points to a patch of skin that has begun to ooze blood and pus.
“So what are you saying?” Bex asks, looking up at the giant.
“I’m suggesting that either its brain is not fully formed, or it is simply defective in some way. I suggest we send a courier to the city and request a scavenging caravan.”
Chapter 14
BEX TOSSES her backpack onto the floor, and slumps into her chair in disgust as the low sun reddens the inside of the house. A few moments later Vin enters, but he just stands there.
“You tried your best, kid,” he says.
“I didn’t,” she says. “I should have been able to stop them… but I’m just alone here. I couldn’t even get a word in to declare him a Ward.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now.” Vin leans the cane against the wall and steps over to his own seat, pulling it aside and sitting slowly. She can almost hear the joints creaking. “Even if you had made a perfect argument to maintain ownership it might not have made a difference. This is a community of farmers and grafters, Bex. There’s little love for outsiders who try to throw their weight around to get attention, even if you have the best of intentions.”
Outside they hear the poor animal shifting in its cage. She left it with water and some grain and flatbread it seemed to find palatable, but that is a small comfort and it isn’t helping.
“I should free it,” she says.
“You can’t do that,” he says, his voice sympathetic but firm. “If they see it roaming around outside there will be a panic. The townsfolk here are already nervous enough as it is.”
“I have to do something.”
Vin starts to open his mouth to say something but then stops and sighs. He turns his attention to the window, opaque with dust, where the giant can be seen rooting around and trying to get comfortable in its cage. When he turns back to Bex, he has a thoughtful twinkle in his eye.
“Look kid, I have no idea what happened that drove you here, nor do I even pretend I understand the sort of bond a Tender makes with her Ward. But you’ve got a good thing here. You’ve got experience, you’ve got talent, and you’ve got me.” He takes a breath and coughs a bit. “But more importantly, you’ve got passion for your work. You care about these things more than most people, and that says a lot.”
He stops talking again and she waits for another cough, but instead he just sits there, mulling over his words. “I take it you’ve been trained in Patching?”
She makes a face. “I hated it.”
“Live or dead?”
“Both,” she shudders. “It’s part of the training all Tenders go through, a way to learn about the Donors, how different limbs respond to different constructs. But live grafting almost made me give it up, chop off my hands in favor of planting spades.”
Vin smiles and shifts in his seat.
“Well, grafting and patching, not too different. One is dead the other is live. Either way you’re doing the job, fixing what needs to be fixed.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key ring. “I’m going to be heading into my cellar soon. Things are starting to work less and less, and pretty soon I’m just not going to be walking anymore at all.”
“Are you going to donate?”
He laughs. “Nobody wants these old limbs,” Vin says. “All the important stuff goes with me anyway.” He taps his knee with a large iron key. The sound is like someone knocking on an old tree, hollow and dry. Then he slides the key ring across the table. “I’ll need someone to take over the clinic, someone who has experience and drive… passion.”
He holds her in his gaze, but it takes her a full minute to realize what me means. He can’t mean me. I’m too young, too new, too squeamish. I can’t run a clinic! “Vin…” she starts to push the key back towards him, but his fingers are strong in spite of his age. The key slides back towards her and she catches a hint of a smile on his face.
“My arm is as old as your whole body, kid. Don’t try and beat an old codger in a battle of wills; we’re more stubborn than you will ever be.” After successfully pushing the key ring to her end of the table he leans back, satisfied in his victory. “I have no offspring, Bex. I never joined. I never mated. I’ve lived in this little hutch for almost a hundred and fifty years. I’ve seen kids like you come and go, bring in their cuts and wounds, bringing in their sick pets and sick livestock. They grow up, move on.
“I don’t have a lot of time left, kid. That key is yours. You can either lock up when I’m gone, or you can stay.” He winces a little, just a twitch from some unknown pain. “I am beyond the point of having options now. The world turns to stone and we must abide by its silence…”
She stares at the black iron key on the table as he hefts himself up and grabs a blanket from the back of a chair, throwing it over his shoulders. As he walks past her, he slips a piece of paper into her hand.
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“That’s the note there,” he says. “And I’ve sent off the proper documents a few days ago. No turning back now.”
He then simply hobbles out of the room. Somewhere in the recesses of his crooked, crumbling house, a door opens and closes, latching from the inside. Silence settles over her as the walls go red as rust from the setting sun. By tomorrow the salvage crew will be here for the big dumb thing she’s staked her life on. She can still hear it even now, moaning a long slow… tune.
Ears perk as she sits up straight in her chair. Music, slow, ponderous, and painfully boring, but music just the same. The wooden chair screeches from the table as Bex grabs the key and rushes through the house. She passes the cellar where the sounds of Vin’s snoring have commenced. Out the back door and into the yard, Bex halts at the edge of the grass. This is hers now. All of it—assuming she wants it. She stares at the pens, the barn, the silos, all of it hers.
There in the cage, the giant rocks back and forth. Even sitting on its haunches, holding its knees, it sings. Tears stream from strange eyes beneath the grafted helmet of chitin and plate. She listens, afraid that if it sees her the song will stop and she might just begin to think she imagined it all. It holds in its hand a piece of paper, lifting it up to stare at it a moment before rocking and singing again. The song carries far and a voice in the back of her head warns her that if it gets too annoying she will have to contend with irritated neighbors. Her neighbors.
But the hatchling doesn’t notice her, or if it does, it no longer cares. It sings its sad song, peering at the slip of paper on occasion. The front of the paper bears an image of another hatchling, only this one is showing its teeth. Long strands of fur run from its head, falling around its shoulders as it stares back at the giant. Bex has seen photographs in the past, the sort of thing only barons and scholars possess, the sort of thing requiring a fair knowledge of printing and resources… It’s the sort of thing no animal could create.