Nightmare (5 page)

  Another bit of red grabbed Lizard’s attention, and a moment later, another tomato frog joined its croaking brethren. Not long after he had turned fifteen, Lizard’s dreams had become steadily more vivid. In most of them, he was on walkabout in the Outback. It all felt so real—the bright, hot sun, the dry air, the rough rock and sandy earth beneath his feet. Usually it came as a surprise when he awoke to discover he was still on his pallet next to Pup’s. When he dreamed of the Outback, it was as if the last three years on the Blanc farm had been the dream, and he always woke up feeling restless and unhappy.

  "Hey, Lizard!"

  Lizard straightened to his full height. He had gained several centimeters since arriving at the farm, though his build was almost painfully thin. His skin was dark as oak bark from all the hours in the sun, and his hair, kept short, bleached from black to the same brown as his skin. He still wore the brown shirt and shorts of a mucker.

  Pup stood at the edge of the tomato pool. He had also grown considerably, though not as much as Lizard, and his build was stockier. His white-blond hair shone in the sunlight, and it contrasted sharply with his heavy tan. At the moment, his blue eyes were dancing with excitement.

  "Hey, Pup." Lizard turned his gaze back to the pool. "What’s going on?"

  "We’ve been summoned," Pup said eagerly. "Come on!"

  Lizard’s net flicked through the air and another frog went into the basket. "Summoned? Where? What are you talking about?"

  "To the house! Hurry up—we have to get ready. Forget the tomato order. Nater wants us!"

  That got Lizard’s full attention. He had seen the headservant maybe three times since he and Mistress Blanc had brought him to the farm, and then only from a distance. "He wants you and me up at the house?"

  Pup nodded. "I’ll explain on the way. Hurry up!"

  Lizard splashed to the edge of the pond with basket and net, sending a dozen bright red frogs leaping for the water. The two young men hurried toward the processing barn so Lizard could drop off his partially-filled basket.

  "So what’s going on?" Lizard demanded as they went.

  "Mistress Blanc’s giving a big party," Pup explained. "Huge! And a whole bunch of the staff is still down with yak-yak, right?"

  Lizard nodded. Yak-yak was the nickname of a flu strain that brought on severe vomiting. It resisted medication and kept its victims in bed plugged to an IV bag to prevent dehydration. Lizard had only come down with a mild three-day bout, and that had been enough for him. Pup had somehow escaped it entirely.

  "So Nater needs servers for evening. The mistress can’t cancel—it’s been on the calendar for months—and we’ve been called on."

  They reached the processing barn, another log-shaped building, and went inside. Cages, crates, baskets, and terrariums full of fearful, croaking frogs were everywhere. Lizard handed over his basket to the slave in charge and explained why he hadn’t finished. The slave, a brittle-looking older woman, pursed her lips but said nothing. Orders from the headservant could not be countermanded except by Mistress Blanc herself.

  "Why’d he choose us?" Lizard asked when they were outside again.

  "Dunno. Probably your ma had something to do with it. He wants us washed and ready right quick."

  They reached the slave barn and headed for the showers. It felt strange to strip off his clothes and wash in the middle of the day. Pup and Lizard donned fresh outfits from the shelves and trotted up the familiar path to the main house. Lizard knocked at the kitchen door, and a moment later, Lizard’s mother Bell motioned them inside. Her hands, face, and hair were streaked with flour. It seemed to Lizard that his mom was always dusted with the stuff. Her talent as a baker had moved her quickly up the ranks in the kitchen until only two years after she and Lizard had arrived, she was in charge of anything floury that went into an oven. Bell was quieter now than she had been in the days before the slavers, but she and Lizard stayed close, or as close as time allowed.

  The kitchen was enormous, with long worktables running the length of the room. A trio of enormous multi-ovened stoves loomed against one wall, and another was taken up by a belt that conveyed dishes through an industrial dishwasher. Metal doors to walk-in refrigerators and freezers gleamed, as did a stunning array of huge pots, pans, kettles, and utensils. The place was alive with noise and bustle. Men, women, and children dressed in white cut, chopped, stirred, rolled, and mixed. The air was redolent of spices, fresh-baked bread, hot oil, and meat. Lizard’s mouth watered.

  "Hurry," Bell said. "You have to change clothes and then Tira will show you what to do. She’s the housekeeper and works right under Nater, so you watch yourself."

  Bell took them through a door and bustled them up a staircase. Soft red carpeting hushed their steps and felt strange under Lizard’s bare, callused feet. The walls were a soft white, and the hall itself was deliciously cool. Lizard had all but forgotten what air conditioning was like. Pup looked equally impressed, and a little nervous.

  "You boys need to do well tonight," Bell instructed in her quiet, clear voice. "If you do, Nater or Tira might get you promoted from mucker to house. Understand?"

  Pup’s eyes lit up and Lizard’s heart beat faster. A chance to get out of the ponds? That meant no more hot sun, no more slave barn, no more mosquitoes. He exchanged a look with Pup and saw he was thinking the same thing.

  They reached the top of the stairs, where Bell called out to another woman who was standing in front of an open linen closet counting white tablecloths. "Tira, I’ve got the boys."

  Tira straightened. She was a white woman with iron-gray hair, a heavy, stolid body, and steely eyes. She looked Lizard and Pup up and down. Lizard tried to look capable and competent.

  "They’ll need to wash off the mucker stench," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Come with me."

  "But we already—" Pup began, then shut up as Lizard trod heavily on his foot.

  "Yes, ma’am," Lizard said, though inwardly he bristled.

  Shooting him an approving look, Bell went back downstairs. Tira, who wore silvery bands identical to Lizard and Pup’s, took them up another, narrower flight of stairs to a large bathroom that resembled the one in the slave barn, except the shower area was divided into stalls with privacy curtains.

  "Scrub yourselves good," she ordered. "I want no trace of mucker stink on your bodies, see you?"

  Lizard bristled again. Just because he worked among the mud and frogs all day didn’t mean he had to shower twice to get clean. But house slaves were the elite, and muckers were at the bottom of the ladder. Bell, Lizard knew, must have called in some serious favors to get them selected and he wasn’t going to let her down. If that meant being overly polite to a bitch, he would be overly polite to a bitch.

  "Yes, ma’am," he said, and Pup nodded. "We’ll scrub ourselves good."

  "I’ll put some clothes outside the door." Tira glanced down and made a sound of disgust. "You’ll need shoes, too. What size? Never mind—you wouldn’t know. Just go. Hurry!"

  If showering in the middle of the day felt strange, it felt even stranger to do it twice, and in privacy of a single stall. The soap carried a light perfume and there was a separate bottle of shampoo, a far cry from the harsh brown head-and-body stuff they had down in the slave barn. Even the water felt softer. And the towels were real cloth instead of something resembling bleached burlap. Lizard’s earlier fatigue disappeared in all the luxury and excitement.

  Pup and Evan finished with the showers and shook out the clothes they found folded on the floor just outside the door. They each had a pair of heavy linen trousers, a white collarless shirt that was almost knee length, white socks, white leather shoes, and a heavy length of gold rope, the purpose of which baffled both of them. Pup donned the trousers and tried to tuck the shirt in, but it was too long. Lizard discovered that his shoes were rather narrow and they pinched just a bit. The pants fit, but he hadn’t yet tried on the shirt.

  There was a sharp knock on the door, and Tira strode in without bothering to ask if they were dressed or not. She made another disgusted sound at their state of confusion.

  "The shirt stays untucked," she snapped. "The rope goes around it like a belt. Here—let me tie that. It isn’t a curtain cord, you idiot."

  In short order, she had them shod, shirted, and belted. The fabric was far heavier and richer than anything Lizard had worn in his life and he found he was carrying himself straighter and taller. He caught a glimpse of himself and Pup in the mirror and stared. They looked like completely different people. The heavy mucker tan made a pleasing contrast with the snow-white clothing, and Pup’s eyes shone like a clear sky beneath pale hair. Lizard stared at Pup’s reflection, mesmerized.

"What?" Pup said, noticing the stare.

  "Nothing." Lizard cleared his throat. "We’re looking good."

  "You look like dressed-up frogs," Tira growled. "But you’ll have to do. Come on. The guests will be arriving in less than an hour, and I still have to teach you how to serve."

  What followed was a whirlwind lesson in service and servant manners. Fortunately, Tira decided to put them in charge of one of the
hors d’oeuvre
tables in the main ballroom for the drinks and dancing portions of the party, and that meant mostly replacing empty trays with full ones from the kitchen and giving guests directions to the bar and bathrooms. Later, during the dinner portion of the evening, their sole duty would be making sure the guests’ water glasses remained full. Tira made both of them pour glass after glass from a crystal pitcher until she was satisfied with their performance.

  "It’s worth your hide if you spill one drop on guest or tablecloth," she warned, and bustled away. Lizard and Pup gave identical sighs of relief, then laughed. Lizard remembered his first night at the farm when he had heard Pup’s laugh. He still liked the sound, though he had never said so.

  A while later, the first guests began to arrive. Lizard stood behind the
hors d’oeuvre
table, exchanging nervous glances with Pup and trying not to fidget in his tight shoes on the hard marble floor. The unfamiliar clothes began to feel heavy and confining, and he had to force himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

Please please please,
he pleaded silently,
don’t let me screw this up.

  The ballroom was two stories tall and had a pale green marble floor shot with black. A balcony ringed the upper wall with two grand staircases at either end granting access to it. The guests were all human—Lizard hadn’t seen a single alien since the space station—and they wore a dazzling array of glittering jewels, bright colors, and rustling fabric. Several of the women were accompanied by an entourage of gems that orbited head and hair like tiny solar systems. Lizard managed not to stare and instead put what he hoped was a friendly, obsequious smile on his face. A tastefully small orchestra provided light music from the balcony, though no one danced—that would come after dinner. Lizard guessed there were well over a hundred people present.

  A steady stream of guests began to visit the
hors d’oeuvre
table, and Lizard found himself very busy. He and Pup alternated bringing in food trays from the kitchen, combining half-empty serving dishes, and whisking the dirty dishes away. There was, Lizard found, a certain rhythm to it, and once he got it down, it wasn’t that difficult. Once, Tira came by to inspect their work and grudgingly admitted they were doing "an adequate job." Lizard’s nervousness eased and he began to wish there were something he could do about his sore, pinched feet. He had hoisted yet another tray of empty serving dishes onto his shoulder and was heading for the kitchen when an old woman dressed all in black stopped him.

  "Where’s the restroom, please?" she asked with more politeness than most of the guests.

  Lizard nodded toward one of the staircases. "Directly through the doors under either staircase, Mistress."

"Thank you, dear." Before Lizard realized what was happening, she reached up to pat his cheek like a friendly aunt. Her bare hand touched his face, and a jolt slammed through Lizard’s body. Lizard gasped, and the room twisted around him. The tray fell from his shoulder with a ear-shattering crash of breaking crystal and ringing silver. After a moment the vertigo faded and he became aware he was on hands and knees amid shards of glass and scattered serving spoons. A ring of people had surrounded him. The orchestra had fallen silent. Tira’s angry face appeared among the crowd, and a part of Lizard knew that his chances of promotion to house slave had vanished like water on a hot stove.

  "Lizard?" Pup said beside him. "Are you hurt? What’s wrong?"

  "I don’t know." He let Pup help him to his feet. "She touched me, and—"

  "What’s going on here?" demanded a new voice. Giselle Blanc, dressed in a pale green gown, pushed her way to the front of the crowd. She took in the scene at a glance and turned to face the crowd. "A small accident. Thank you for your concern, my friends. Please return to your conversations. Everything is under control. Orchestra?"

  This last was clearly an order, and the music immediately resumed. The crowd drifted away, leaving Mistress Blanc, Pup, Lizard, and the old woman in black.

  "Get this mess cleaned up," Blanc snapped. "How could you be so clumsy?"

  "It wasn’t his fault, Giselle," said the old woman. "The boy is Silent. Didn’t you know?"

  Blanc blinked. "Silent? What do you mean? How do you know he’s Silent?"

  "I touched him," the woman said simply. "You should have him tested, of course, but the touch is never wrong."

  Blanc stood motionless for a moment. Conversation and music mingled on the ballroom floor behind her. Then she pointed at Pup. "You. Clean up this mess. You—" she pointed at Lizard "—come with me. Clara, would you mind?"

  "Not at all, dear."

  The two women turned and walked toward one of the exits without looking back. Bewildered, Lizard shot Pup a glance. Pup, who had knelt to gather up the debris, gestured at him to follow and gave him a thumbs-up sign.