Awakening (23 page)

Satisfied with that realization, she started along the footpath toward the lowborn village. As she crossed the ditch via a narrow plasscine bridge, the second sun rose and the blue-green sky grew brighter. The added light lifted her spirits and she headed toward the village filled with an unexpected joy.

D
evak piloted his AirCloud along the Northeast Skyway, the roadway descending as he approaching the exit for Esa sector. The adhikar below the skyway was a blur of green and brown and drom-colored gray in the early-morning light. Ahead of them, the neighborhoods of Esa sector sprawled in an eclectic assortment of brawny minor-status mansions alongside tall lowborn multi-residences. The row of factories and warehouses where GENs worked marked the sector border.

Mishalla sat beside him, the red-headed, pale-skinned girl as much a mix as Esa sector. Like Kayla, she’d been born a trueborn, but with a crooked right leg. When the gene-splicers couldn’t correct the defect, Mishalla’s parents let her be converted into a GEN.

But Mishalla was now a lowborn girl, thanks to Kayla giving her friend the restoration treatment that she herself had been meant to use. He ought to resent Mishalla for that, but she was the sweetest girl he’d ever met, trueborn, lowborn, or GEN, and it was impossible to harden his heart against
her. And he was in awe that Kayla could have made such a tremendous sacrifice for her friend.

Mishalla stared avidly out the AirCloud’s passenger window, looking back over her shoulder to get a last glimpse of the adhikar as they took the Esa exit and crossed into the mixed sector. She turned to him, her smile brilliant. “Thanks for bringing me. I wasn’t looking forward to using pub-trans for the trip from Plator.”

“You’re welcome.”

Devak felt a twinge of guilt at her gratitude. He hadn’t planned to transport Mishalla today. He’d been given the duty to drive to Daki sector’s safe house to collect DNA packets and pass on new datapod uploads. But then he saw the schedule that Pitamah kept of Risa’s and Kayla’s route. They stopped in Daki yesterday to spend the night before continuing on to Skyloft sector. It worried Devak that he might cross paths with Kayla in the Daki safe house.

Then Eoghan contacted him about Mishalla needing transportation to Esa for her first Kinship mission—seeking out information on a GEN girl who had been traveling with the allabain lowborns. Devak figured he would spend the morning with Mishalla in Esa, help her as he could, then she would come along with him to Daki. Kayla and Risa would likely already be on their way to Skyloft by the time he got to Daki sector.

He docked the AirCloud in the factory district, not far from the first of the shacks in the lowborn shantytown that was their destination. Devak was supposedly here to do a census of allabain lowborns, with Mishalla along as an intermediary. Lowborns who lived on the fringes, and particularly the
allabain, barely trusted the minor-status trueborns they shared the sector with, let alone a high-status like him.

He’d worn his best—a deep purple uttama-silk korta, heavily embroidered with gold thread, and matching chera pants. The lowborns wouldn’t notice that the pattern of the embroidery was out of fashion or that the cuffs of the chera pants were slightly frayed. Still, his finery would likely put the lowborns off, which was his intent. That way they would focus on Mishalla and tell her what she wanted to know.

Devak cut through the alley between two warehouses, Mishalla following a respectful two paces behind him. She’d dressed in a traditional Plator sector gown, light green and nearly ankle length, a plaited belt cinched around her waist. It was nice enough to show that she was prosperous, so they would respect her, but not so rich to cause resentment the way Devak’s peacock clothes would.

Devak reached the muddy ditch and waited by the plasscine boards that formed a rickety bridge across it. Mishalla lifted her skirt as they reached the slippery borders of the ditch, taking slow careful steps, dismay clear in her face. Sewer toads crawled through the thick, filthy water that oozed along the bottom of the ditch.

Kayla wouldn’t have hesitated across the bridge. He doubted she’d be wearing a skirt, no matter what role the Kinship had chosen for her to play. In fact, the only time he’d seen Kayla wear a dress was at Mishalla’s and Eoghan’s wedding and that had been at a distance because he hadn’t wanted any of the guests to see him. But even from the far periphery of Plator sector’s central green, he’d known it was Kayla in that billowing gown, beautiful and fierce.

Devak held out his hand to Mishalla. “I’ll help you across.”

She shook her head. “Someone might see us.”

“You’re not a GEN anymore,” Devak said.

She looked up at him, her eyes flashing. “There’s no shame in being a GEN.”

“I never meant there was,” Devak said, although he could never seem to erase that last grain of instinct that GENs were somehow inferior. Which was why severing ties with Kayla had been right. “I meant no one will give a rat-snake’s tail if I hold your hand.”

“It still won’t look right, a high-status like you and a lowborn like me,” Mishalla said. “Go on across. I’ll be fine.”

He tested one skinny plasscine board with his foot, not sure if it was sturdy enough to carry his weight. Because of their nomadic lifestyle, foraging for their food, allabain lowborns tended to be shorter and slighter than other lowborns, let alone trueborns. The flimsy bridge might be a way to keep outsiders from their village.

But it held him, which meant it was safe enough for Mishalla. If not for her bad leg, that is. As she put one cautious foot in front of another on the wobbly boards, he saw her intense focus to keep her balance. He reached out for her when she was halfway across, and despite her independent streak, she took his hand when it was within reach.

They resumed their proper ranks as they started toward the shantytown, Mishalla a few paces behind him. They followed a dirt path that ran between two long rows of shacks. The shacks had been put up parallel to the ditch, and they followed its bends and curves.

The allabain lowborns were truly nomadic, their homes
constructed of the coarsest, cheapest plasscine cloth, an ingenious arrangement of rods giving each shack its shape. From the irregular shapes of the rods, he guessed they were harvested from the sticker bushes, the evil thorns carefully clipped to leave the flexible, nearly indestructible branches.

Easy to take down, easy to carry. Just like the sticker bushes, the allabain connection to where they were rooted was fragile, despite their inner strength. Sticker bushes let go when Loka’s powerful winds strafed them, scattering their seeds as far as they were blown. The allabain lowborns gave way to the enforcers the same way.

The cloth doorways to each shack had been tied open. Devak checked inside each one as they passed. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

It was late enough in the morning that the lowborns ought to be abroad, cooking for the mid-day meal, carrying clean water from the GEN wells to do washing. Yet every shack was empty.

They followed the curve of the ditch that ran parallel to the line of shacks. “There they are,” Mishalla said.

It seemed every resident was crowded in a cleared space, their backs to the ditch, their faces tipped up to the warm suns, arms stretched up to the sky. The women’s brilliantly-colored dresses made Mishalla’s look plain. The men’s black leggings and white shirts were brightened by sashes as gaudy as the women’s clothing.

A frame had been constructed in front of the crowd and a sheet of plasscine cloth hung from the frame. The twice-life-sized image of a girl had been painted on the cloth, her skin near black, her arms reaching skyward just as the
lowborns’ were. Her hair lay in myriad beaded braids around her shoulders.

“The girl in the painting,” Mishalla said, “she’s a GEN.”

Now Devak saw the DNA mark on the dark girl’s left cheek. The lowborns, as one unit, bowed low in the dirt toward the mural.

“They look like they’re worshipping her,” Devak said. “Who is she?”

“The one who’s been traveling with them?” Mishalla guessed. “The one I’m supposed to find. But he never said—” Her words cut off with a gasp. “She’s here!” She took off toward the crowd at a limping run, skirt hiked up, red hair streaming behind her.

Devak thought maybe Mishalla meant the black-skinned girl in the painting, although he couldn’t understand why that made her so happy. He squinted against Kas’s growing brilliance to see who Mishalla had spotted.

In an instant, his heart both rose to the heavens and squeezed into a painful knot. The person Mishalla threw her arms around wasn’t the girl from the mural.

It was Kayla.

Devak’s first impulse was to turn and run the other way, to return to the lev-car and wait there for Mishalla to return. Kayla hadn’t seen him yet. She would never have to know he was here.

But surely it would come out that he had brought Mishalla here. And if the allabain saw him racing away, it could impact Mishalla’s first Kinship mission. All because he was too much a coward to face Kayla.

He started around the back of the crowd of worshippers,
keeping his gaze fixed on Kayla. So he knew the moment she spotted him, just as she drew back from her friend’s embrace. Her joyous smile faded, then vanished as he closed the distance between them.

Her gray eyes narrowed on his face. “Why are you here?”

She’d pitched her voice low, but her tone was barely civil. He’d seen GENs reset for less. Yet his judgment of her shocked him. She had every right to be angry with him, GEN or no.

“I brought Mishalla,” he told her.

“Then you can go,” Kayla said. “Risa and I can take Mishalla back to Plator when she’s ready.”

“I thought Risa’s lorry was packed to the rafters with kel-grain,” Devak said. “Not to mention that GEN boy with you. Would Risa really want to take a side trip to drop off Mishalla?”

He could see Kayla working herself up to another argument. But the lowborn worshippers had lost their patience with the interruption of their service. A few had broken off their prayers to glare, and one shushed them.

Kayla tugged Mishalla away from the crowd, moving down the rows of lowborn shacks. Devak hesitated, then he followed, unable in spite of himself to let Kayla out of his sight. When she pulled Mishalla between two of the plasscine tents, he stepped into the sheltered area with them.

Mishalla pressed her nurturer-enhanced ears against the side of first one tent, then the other. “No one inside. We can talk here.”

Kayla ignored Devak, keeping her gaze on Mishalla. “You look so good. And so happy. Is Eoghan treating you well?”

“More than well,” Mishalla said. “He tells me he loves me a hundred times a day.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Kayla said, “but it’s such a surprise.”

“I’m on Kinship duty. I’m looking for her.” Mishalla hitched a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the mural. “Devak’s my cover, pretending to take a census of the village.”

At the mention of his name, Kayla tossed an unfriendly glance in Devak’s direction, then said to Mishalla, “Why does the Kinship care who the allabain worship? Why does the Kinship need you at all? It isn’t safe, Mishalla.”

“You think she can’t do the Kinship’s work?” Devak asked. “Don’t you think she’s already proved myself?”

“That’s just it, she has. Mishalla’s done more for the Kinship than anyone.” She took her friend’s hands. “But I wanted you to stay in Plator with Eoghan, live a good life with him and the children.”

Mishalla shook her head. “All those babies we restored to lowborns are gone.”

“How?” Kayla asked.

“The Kinship used DNA matches to return them to their parents,” she said.

“That’s good, then,” Kayla said. “But what about the others? The ones who weren’t at the crèche?”

They’d found twenty children at the hidden crèche, lowborn babies and toddlers who had been converted into GENs by Devak’s own father, much to his shame. But many more transformed lowborns had already been sent out to Assignments.

“The Kinship has found most of them,” Devak said.

Kayla speared Devak with a glance. “And restored them?” At his nod, Kayla asked, “But they weren’t sent on to Mishalla to foster?”

“They were at first, but I’d get so attached.” Mishalla sighed. “Every time they would take one away, it would be harder. So Zul thought—”

“Zul thought it would be easier for you not to care for the children.” Outrage bubbled up inside Kayla. “Because Zul and the other trueborns, they always know what’s right for the lower classes.”

“It was a kindness,” Devak said in defense of his great-grandfather. “So it wouldn’t be so painful for her.”

“But did he ask Mishalla what she wanted? Or was it just another case of Zul making decisions for other people?” Kayla turned to Mishalla. “Is that why you’ve joined the Kinship? Because you haven’t any children to nurture?”

Now Mishalla looked away. “Not exactly.”

“Then why, when it would be better to stay safe in Plator?” Kayla asked.

“Because I wanted to be a part of the Kinship,” Mishalla said. “I wanted to go to meetings, do what I could. I didn’t plan to leave Plator, but then I got a mission I couldn’t turn down.”