On Whetsday

by Mark Sumner

  “You have a...” Cousin Sirah glanced at Yulia. “What did you say it was?”

  “A maton,” said Yulia. “It’s a device for accessing... it can do lots of things.” She hurried up to Denny, looking him up and down. “Where is it?”

  Denny reached into his shirt and pulled out the wrapped ball. Even through the cloth, it felt sort of warm. Like a sleeping animal. “Here,” he said, his voice coming out in a croak.

  Yulia leaned over the ball, looking at it with her head tilted to the side. “It's smaller than I thought.” She looked up at Denny. “Are you sure it’s a maton? Does it work?”

  “Yeah.” Denny nodded. “Sure.”

  Cousin Sirah came closer. She glanced at the maton for a second, but quickly turned her attention to Denny. “Are you okay?” She pressed her hand against his forehead. “You don't look good.”

  Denny cleared his throat, trying to speak more clearly. “I'm fi... fine.” He swayed a little on his feet. “Just tired. And thirsty.”

  Yulia was still staring at the wrapped form of the silver ball. “How does this work?” she asked. “Did you put the memory inside? Does it talk?”

  It was Cousin Sirah who answered. “Why don't we let Denny go to his compartment, get some water, take a shower, and change clothes? Then we can all talk.”

  Yulia frowned, she raised one hand, as if she were going to reach for the maton, but her hand stopped short. “Well...”

  Denny nodded in relief. “Thanks,” he said, pulling back the maton.

  “You look like you need it,” said Sirah. She wrinkled her nose. “Besides, you stink.” She put her hands on Denny's shoulders and turned him toward his own door. “We'll see you when you're clean.”

  Denny was too tired to even laugh. He palmed open the door, stumbled into his compartment, and dropped the maton to the floor with a thud.

  Several times in the last year, water service to the human quarter had been interrupted. Thankfully, this wasn't one of those days. The water that flowed from the tap was warm, and it had an all too familiar rusty taste. It was absolutely delicious. Denny drank down two big glasses and started on a third before a grumble in his stomach warned him to slow down. Then he stripped the dirty remains of his clothing and literally fell into the douser. He lay there on the floor, letting the hot water pound him, until the ration allowance alarm sounded and the douser slowed to a trickle.

  Even then, he had trouble getting on his feet. His right hand, the one that had been holding the maton in the warehouse, ached as if it had been pounded by a hammer, his legs shook. He had clutched the maton several times getting home from the domed building, so he could ask Athena which way to go, or what to do, without drawing the attention of the cithians. Every time there had been that burst of pain, and every time he let go of the maton, he had felt more drained. Denny thought about what the green woman had said, about the possibility of long term damage. He thought maybe he had already touched the thing for too long.

  Still, by the time he had climbed out of the douser and gotten into some clothes that had only a few holes in them, Denny felt better. He fished around in the front storage bin, found a half block of chez, and carried it into the front room. He had not stood in the line for food that morning. Or the morning before. The old chez had turned a darker shade of orange, and was a little leathery, but it tasted more or less the same as always.

  In the old days, before so many people had been consigned, the cithians might have noticed when a human failed to show up for food two days in a row, they might have even sent someone around to check on him, but now they didn't really seem to care. Still, if the cithians found the discarded shell and the human clothing, wouldn't they come looking for the person who had been inside the shell? And if they did, might one of them remember that there was one human who had not turned up for his food on that day?

  Denny sat down on the floor next to the maton and leaned back against the wall. He touched the silver ball with the toe of his shoe, moving it slowly across the thin rug. When Loma had told him about the maton, it had seemed very important that he find one, but now that he had it, he wasn't sure what to do next. Loma had said there was a lot more in the memory than the pictures of the sick people. He supposed Athena was part of that “lot more.” Maybe she was all of it. To Denny, it seemed impossible that something like Athena could fit into the little cube of memory, much less leave room for other things.

  He gave the little ball another soft kick and watched it wobble over the floor. He could pick it up, and maybe ask Athena what else was in there with her, but it would hurt again. And he would be tired. And...and...and...

  Denny struggled up out of darkness and confusion. It took him a moment to realize that he had fallen asleep and the lights had turned themselves off. He raised up on one elbow and waved his other arm to make the light wake up. The yellowish glow sputtered into life. For a moment, he couldn't think what had pulled him out of sleep, then there was a rap at the door.

  “Denny?” said a muffled voice. “Are you all right?”

  He struggled to his feet, still feeling a deep ache in both his hands and his legs. He meant to open the door and step out, but he'd barely palmed the lock before the door swung open and Sirah stepped inside. Her lips were pressed together firmly, and she had an expression on her face that reminded Denny of Auntie Talla. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “Nothing happened.” Denny rubbed at his eyes. “I just fell asleep.”

  Cousin Yulia appeared at the door and looked past Sirah's shoulder. “Is he all right?” she asked, as if Denny had never spoken at all.

  Sirah still had her eyes fixed on Denny's face. “He says he's fine,” she said, “but he doesn't look fine.” She stepped aside to let Yulia in. Now they were both standing in Denny's front room, staring at Denny.

  Denny suddenly felt both a little angry and a lot embarrassed. Angry, because neither of the two girls seemed to be listening to him. Embarrassed, because no one had been in his compartment in a long time, not since all the way back to when his father had been consigned. It wasn't that Denny was embarrassed because the room was so messy. Really it wasn't. He was embarrassed because the room, the whole compartment, was so empty. Everything Denny owned, everything but the rest of his father's statues, were gone.

  Still, neither Yulia nor Sirah said a thing about the compartment as they came inside. Yulia spotted the maton on the floor and immediately walked over to look down at it. Sirah only kept looking at Denny so hard that it made Denny feel uncomfortable.

  “What's wrong?” he said.

  Sirah tilted her head to the side and continued to study him. “That's what I want to know. You look sick.”

  “Well, I'm not sick. I'm okay. Really.”

  Yulia reached down to pick up the maton. “How does this...”

  Denny jumped quickly to get between her and the silver ball. “You have to be careful,” he said.

  “I'm not going to break it,” Yulia said.

  “It's not that. It's...” Denny shrugged. “When you touch it, it kind of hurts.”

  “Hurts?” She looked past Denny at the small device. “Like tingles?”

  “Like hurts,” said Denny. “Really hurts.” He leaned over and picked up the maton, being careful to keep the scrap of cloth wrapped around it. He tried to remember what the voice had said the first time he touched the maton. “It's a...noodle interest?” He shrugged again. “Something like that.”

  Yulia's forehead creased in puzzlement. “Noodle?” She shook her head. “I don't know what that means.”

  Sirah finally stopped looking at Denny long enough to look at the little ball in his hand. The look she gave the silver thing was no nicer than the one she had been giving Denny. “If it hurts, are you sure you're using it right?”

  “Yes,” said Denny. “I mean...I think so.”

  Yulia bit her lip. “Maybe I should try it.”

  Denny nodded slowly. There was no reason he could think of to keep Yulia
from using the maton, but something made him feel like he shouldn't. “Maybe I should ask,” he said.

  “Ask who?”

  “Athena.”

  Both Yulia and Sirah looked at him with puzzled expressions. “Who?”

  “Athena. She's...” Denny searched for the right words, and realized he didn't know or couldn't remember the right words to tell them what Athena was. He took a deep breath. “Wait a minute.”

  Slowly, he started to retell the events of the previous day, starting with putting on the disguise and walking through the city to the domed building. Sirah seemed to be shocked at what he had done, and even Yulia's eyes were wide as Denny talked about going into the building and talking to the unseen voice. As he talked Denny first leaned against the wall, then slowly lowered himself to the floor. By the time he finished telling them about using Athena's directions to escape the building, all three of them were sitting on the thin rug.

  Sirah had her hands locked tightly together and a horrified expression on her face. “Denny! I can't...I mean, you... What if you'd been caught?”

  Denny shrugged. “They would probably have just consigned me. And we're all about to be consigned anyway.”

  “You don't know that,” said Sirah. She scooted toward him, her knees wrinkling the surface of the rug. “They could have done anything.”

  “Well, I didn't get caught.”

  The answer didn't seem to make Sirah any happier. “Yet,” was all she said.

  Cousin Yulia had moved to lean against the opposite wall, but her eyes were still fixed on the little sphere in Denny's hand. “Every time you use the maton, it hurts,” she said.

  Denny looked away from Sirah and nodded. “A lot.”

  “And if you keep using it?”

  “The big pain stops, but after a while you start getting tired. Athena says that it can cause...” Denny stopped, both because he couldn't remember the green woman's exact words, and because using the maton to get home didn't really seem to have made him sick. Not so sick that a little rest couldn’t handle it. “Well, it makes you really tired. You're not supposed to use it too much.”

  Yulia nodded. “That sounds like a really good reason that more than one person should use it.”

  “I don't...”

  She held out her hand. “You need to share the burden. Take turns. Let me try it.”

  Denny frowned, but after a moment he handed over the maton, still being careful to keep it wrapped in the bit of old shirt. “It really hurts. You might want to--”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Yulia flipped back the cloth, reached down, and grabbed the silver ball firmly in her left hand. At once, her eyes flew open wide and her back arched. Her lips peeled back from her teeth. Her nostrils flared. Then it was over, and she relaxed, breathing hard.

  Cousin Sirah slid around on the rug until she was sitting beside Denny, both of them facing toward Yulia. “Are you all right?”

  Yulia took a moment to respond, but eventually she nodded. “I don't... No, wait.” Her mouth turned up in a sudden smile. “Hello, Athena!”

  Denny looked around the room for the green woman, but without the maton in hand, there was nothing to see. “Is she talking to you?”

  Yulia nodded. Her eyes were fixed on a point in the center of the room. “Yes, hold on... She's telling me...” Yulia's head slowly turned from left to right, as if she was watching someone walk across the room. “Yes,” she said. Then after a pause, “yes,” again.

  “What’s she doing?” asked Sirah.

  “She can see Athena. We can’t.” Denny leaned forward. It was strange to watch Yulia talk to someone that was invisible to the rest of them. He found himself wishing he was the one talking to Athena. “Can you ask her if the cithians found the things I left by the dome?”

  Yulia nodded without looking his way. “Athena, did the cithians... Wait.” Her eyes flicked down toward Denny. “She can hear you, you just can't hear her. She says yes, the cithians found the stuff.”

  Now Denny really did feel sick. He hadn’t expected the remains of his disguise to be found so quickly. “Do they know a human left them?”

  There was a short delay before Yulia answered. “She's not sure.” Another pause. “Athena only knows the things that the cithians have put into their central, um, central store. Somebody may know it was a human, but they haven't recorded it.”

  Sirah rocked forward, sitting on her knees. “You can really see someone?”

  Yulia nodded. “A woman, just like Denny said, only she's not made of stone.”

  “She's not?”

  “It's more like, like skin. Like she's real.”

  Denny wondered if Yulia was seeing the same thing he had. Maybe Athena had changed her appearance. Maybe she was different for everybody.

  Yulia suddenly broke into a wide smile. “She knows my name.”

  Denny remembered when Athena had first spoken to him. “She knew mine too.”

  Sirah scooted forward again. “What about me? Does she know my name?”

  Yulia looked at the center of the room, frowned, then turned to Sirah. “She says she does, but she has it wrong. She says your name is Ani... Anisyretta.”

  Cousin Sirah's mouth flew open. “It is!” she said. “That's the name my mother gave me. The name I used before—” She swallowed hard, then turned to look at Denny. “Sirah is just a nickname.”

  Denny was amazed to hear it. Sirah had always just been Sirah. Athena didn't just know how to find her way out of cithian buildings, she knew other things. Secret things. He grinned. “Athena,” he said. “Do you know where to find some powdermilk?” he asked.

  “Or crackers!” added Sirah. “Or...”

  Yulia held up a finger to signal silence. “She says that human food...stuff? Foodstuff. Anyway, human food is kept in a building called maxillary two-fourteen.”

  “Where is—”

  “She says it's just outside the gate.”

  Denny clapped his hands together. “Tomorrow we feast!”

  Yulia's usual nervous look returned. “Do you think we should?”

  “Why not?” Denny said with a shrug. “Athena got me through the big storage building without getting caught. I'll bet she can tell us how to get away with some stupid crackers.”

  “Maybe,” said Sirah. “But if there's human food missing from storage, won't the cithians know it was taken by humans?”

  Denny had to admit that they would. “But what about something else? Athena knows about everything. What would you want if you could have anything?”

  Sirah was slow to answer, but Yulia's face suddenly lit up. “I know what we should ask.” She pulled in a deep breath and turned to the open space at the center of the room where the woman only she could see was standing. “Athena, do you know where we are going to be consigned? Will it be the same place as my parents?”

  Denny found himself looking at the empty air, as if expecting an answer. It was only when he heard a strange sound, a sound not too far from a moan, that he looked back at Yulia. Her mouth was open. Her lip trembling.

  “But...” she said. “No, but...”

  Then she started to scream.

  21

  Yulia hurled the maton across the room with enough force to leave a dent in the thin wall of Denny's compartment. The silver ball fell to the floor, bounced, and rolled in a lopsided path to clink loudly into the side of one of his father's metal sculptures.

  “No!” Yulia shouted, her voice coming out with a raw force that sounded as if it would tear her throat. “She's lying!”

  Sirah scrambled to her feet and rushed toward Yulia, but the other girl turned away from her, facing into the wall and throwing her arms over her head. “No,” she said. “No.” Her voice was muffled behind her hair and her arms, but it was still painfully ragged. After a moment, her back heaved up and down, and Denny heard her words turn into sobs.

  “Did it hurt you?” asked Sirah. She pulled one of Yulia's hands away from her face and tu
gged open her fingers to look at her palm, as if expecting to see painful burns. Yulia only continued to sob.

  Denny looked down at the maton. The silver surface still had prints showing on the surface from where Yulia's hand had been wrapped around it. He reached down and picked it up.

  At once the pain ripped through him head to toe. If anything, it seemed worse than before. He had just enough time to think that if it went on any longer, it would kill him. Then the pain was gone and Athena was standing beside Yulia.

  As Yulia had said, Athena no longer looked like she was made of stone. Or at least, not completely. The woman's robe now looked as if it was made from a pale cloth that bunched and hung against her legs. Her hair, pulled tightly behind her head, was a glossy black. Her skin was, kind of like skin, only she seemed milky pale. A color that Denny had never seen on a real human.

  “Athena?”

  The woman turned toward him. Despite how real the rest of her looked, her eyes were still as featureless and smooth as stone. Across the room, Yulia was still crying, but Athena's face was touched by the same slight smile that had been there since Denny first saw her. “Hello again, Denning.”

  “What did you tell Yulia?”

  Athena tipped her head to one side. “She was asking about other humans.”

  Denny looked across the room toward Yulia. Touching the maton hurt, but Yulia had felt that pain like he had, and she hadn't screamed, or cried. Something that Athena had said had hurt her more than the agony that came from the machine. There was something here, a danger that Denny didn't fully understand, but one that he also couldn't avoid. “Yes,” he said.

  Athena looked at him with her stony eyes and her slight smiled. “I told her there were twelve.”

  “Twelve?”

  “Twelve humans.”

  Denny took a moment to think, then nodded slowly. “In Jukal.”

  “Yes,” said Athena. “Twelve humans in the Human Containment Facility, Jukal Plex, Rask.”

  There was nothing wrong with what she said, but Denny still found that there was a tightness squeezing at his stomach, and a cold feeling in his arms and legs. “But that's just in Jukal. There are other towns.”