On Whetsday (12 page)

26

Passday

On Passday, Denny had a surprise, attended a funeral, and started a rebellion.

Hiser Grismalamacata Omicradiscrad, Overcontroller Human Assistance Authority, came into the gather room when Restaurant was almost over. There were four dasiks with him, and all of them had thick cylinders grasped in their long, clawed fingers. Denny had never seen anything like the cylinders before.

The big cithian pushed through the blue door without speaking. He crossed the room with his hard feet clacking on the floor, moving past the tables where Auntie Yue and Auntie Fro and Nonni Hacci watched him with barely concealed nervousness. Past Poppa Gow in his wheeled chair. Past the tall table where Cousin Haw sat scowling beside Poppa Jam. Past Denny and Kettle and Auntie Flash and Yulia. Past the stove where Auntie Talla and Sirah were working.

The humans had all decided to come to Restaurant. They did it partly because, after doing the same thing for so many weeks, the cithians would expect them to be in the gather room. If they were not there...well, none of them knew what would happen. They were also there because Restaurant was where they met, where they talked. Auntie Talla hosted Restaurant, and did the cooking, but really it was something that they did together. If they were going to make a decision, this seemed like the place it should be done. But they had not expected the cithians to move so quickly.

Overcontoller Hiser stood in the center of the room, his bulk resting on the dark jointed claws of his rear limbs, and slowly raised himself. The deep notches along the edges his shell, the mark of both his age and rank within the Plex, glowed red under the lights. The blunt knobs of his clangers thumped a loud call for attention. “Humans,” he said. “This is a special day.”

We've waited too late
, thought Denny.
We're all being consigned tonight. We're all being consigned right now.

Hiser lifted one hooked forelimb and signaled to the dasiks. Each of them advanced, holding the cylinders in front of their narrow chests. There was a faint mist coming from each of the cylinders, like steam, but this was a strange heavy kind of steam that didn't rise, but fell toward the floor. Maybe they were not going to even bother pretending to consign the humans. Maybe they were going to kill them right here, in the gather room. And why not? Who was there left to fool?

Denny's mouth was dry. There was a sharp, bitter taste and his blood pounded in his ears. His stomach knotted, though he was surprised to find that he was not really afraid. He was angry. He glanced over at Sirah. She was watching the dasiks approach. Everyone was watching the dasiks, even Overcontroller Hiser.

There was a knife on the table next to Denny. Not a little knife, but a big, ragged-edged blade that Auntie Talla used for cutting the meat before it went on her stove. Denny set his hand on the table next to the blade. Dasiks were much stronger than people, and their hides were supposed to be very tough–stronger than metal, some people said. He moved his finger closer to the blade. Probably if Denny tried to attack one of the dasiks, he wouldn't even hurt it. Probably he would just get killed. But maybe not. His fingers closed around the knife.

Besides, Denny wasn't angry at the dasiks. Dasiks only did what other people told them. It was the cithians. His grip on the blade tightened. The cithians who had pretended to be their friends. The cithians who kept them prisoner, generation after generation. The cithians who killed them one by one, year after year, decade after decade. The cithians who had killed his father.

He slid the knife from the table, testing its weight. The Overcontroller was maybe three steps away. No matter how fast the dasiks were, no matter what kind of weapons they were carrying, Denny could cross that space before they could stop him. Even cithians had soft places.

A new figure came through the blue door. Another cithian. It moved quickly into the room. This cithian was not as large as Hiser, but where the Overcontroller was old and bulky, this cithian was sleek and fast. Its reddish shell was barely wider than its body, the spikes and edges of its mid-limbs razor sharp. It advanced straight toward Denny.

Then the cithian's mouthparts rose in a kind of smile. “Denny!” he said. “Did you try the izycrem?”

Even then it took Denny a moment to recognize the newcomer. “Omi?”

The young cithian hurried up to Denny's table, hooked one forelimb over the back of a chair, and pulled it out. He settled his gleaming new shell onto the chair. The heavy cloth wrappings and the plastic cover of a moltling were gone. Omi was all gleaming dark red shell and hard new limbs. “Denny. Did you eat the izycrem?”

He doesn't know. The knife in Denny's hand felt suddenly hot. He can't know.

Denny was so focused on Omi, that he jumped when one if the dasiks dropped a cylinder on the table with a thump. Close up, the cylinder seemed to be spotted with frost, like the frost that spotted the ground sometimes on Dimsday.

“My second has given away the surprise,” said the Overcontroller. “We found this special human food in our supplies. This seemed a good time to distribute this special food.”

Denny had never heard of izycrem, but he could see that some of the older humans were familiar with it. Auntie Yue was already tugging at the top of the cylinder the dasiks had placed on her table.

“Why?” said Denny.

The Overcontroller tilted its eyepads toward him. “Why?”

“Why was this a good time?”

The question seemed to take the cithian by surprise. He raised a mid-limb and scratched at the circle of heavy plate beneath his head. “There is...some chance that the human population of Jukal Plex will be relocated in the next few cycles.”

Omi turned his head in a way that Denny recognized as an expression of surprise. “I thought it was this cycle. I thought–”

The Overcontroller raised both forelimbs. “Let us leave the humans to their treat. We have other things to do,”

Omi got out of his chair. “But I didn't have any izycrem.” The Overcontroller kept walking. Omi turned his eyepads back toward the cylinder on the table, gave his clangers a little riff of irritation, and followed the Overcontroller back through the blue door. The dasiks followed behind them. Soon enough, there were only humans in the room.

With a pop, Auntie Yue succeeded in wrestling the top from one of the cylinders. She reached inside with a froon, and dug out something that was a kind of yellowish-white paste. Auntie Fro eagerly took a slab of the stuff on her plate. Others were raising their plates and coming to her.

Sirah grabbed the top of the cylinder in front of Denny and gave it a tug. The material inside was a different color than in the one Auntie Yue had opened. A kind of pale reddish tan color. Waves of deep cold seemed to come from the cylinder as Sirah dragged a froon across the surface, sliced off a curling mass of the material, and transferred it to a plate.

Denny slowly removed the knife from below the table, raised it up, turned it over in his hand, and placed it down on the table in front of him. He could see Sirah looking at him. He felt like he had done something wrong, but he didn't know if it was picking up the knife, or not using the knife, that was bothering him.

A plate slid in front of him, weighted with a fist-sized chunk of the izycrem. “Try it,” said Sirah.

Denny looked at the lump of unfamiliar food. It was starting to melt around the sides, tan drops streaming into a puddle on the plate. “I don't think I want it,” he said.

Sirah plunged her froon into the melting mass, scooped a bit, and pushed it toward Denny. “Try it,” she said again, more insistently.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Because, no matter what happens next, you'll probably never get another chance. Because tomorrow, we could both be dead.”

Denny thought about that a moment. He opened his mouth. Sirah pushed the froonful of tan stuff in. It was shockingly cold against his teeth. Denny was sure he'd never eaten anything nearly so cold before. But as the stuff melted against his tongue, it changed, unfolding into new textures and a great wash of flavor. It filled his mouth with a taste that was so different from anything he’d had before that it made him actually sway in his seat.

“It's really good,” he said, around his slightly numbed tongue.

Sirah smiled at him. She put the froon into her own mouth and licked off the remainder. “Some things still are.”

27

After the izycrem had been reduced to a few gooey puddles in the bottoms of the cylinders, all the humans in the human quarter of Jukal Plex–which, if Athena were right, was every human everywhere–settled down to talk. Auntie Talla had heated her big domed stove, and was cooking circles of flat bread to hand out, just to give people something to chew on. Kettle had positioned himself near the big blue door that the cithians used, just in case Overcontroller Hiser or Omi decided to come back unexpectedly.

By now, everyone knew what Denny and Yulia had learned. Most of them had heard it more than once. But still Denny found himself standing near the center of the room, repeating the story of the chug, and the storehouse, and Athena over and over. Sirah stood with him, joining in now and then as people around the room asked questions. Yulia added her comments occasionally, but now that everyone was together, she seemed uncomfortable about being at the focus of attention. Denny didn't blame her.

“This can't be right,” said Nonni Hacci. Her voice was thin, and the look on her face confused. “Consigning doesn't mean killing.”

“Of course not,” said Auntie Yue. “We've all been consigned.” Auntie Fro nodded in agreement.

“This is different,” said Denny. “This is...” He paused to think of the words that Athena had used. “This is the terminal...the last place. When people are moved here, they don't get consigned somewhere else.”

For a long, uncomfortable moment, everyone was quiet. They had been to this point before. They kept coming back to this point. No one seemed to know how to move to the next thing, how to keep the discussion from circling round, and round, and round. They'd never had to face anything like this. For as long as Denny knew, and probably as long as anyone else in the room knew, human beings had never had to make any decision as a group. If you wanted to make Restaurant, you did that. If you wanted a store, then you did that. If you wanted to dance, you danced. But the things that affected them all–food, water, the compartment buildings where they lived–all those things came from someone else, from the cithians.

It was Poppa Gow who broke the silence. “Let us say you are right,” he said. His voice was soft as dry leaves. Despite spending years and years at Jukal Plex, he still had a strange way of talking. Something left over from the place he had lived long ago, as a child. He raised a hand with fingers small as twigs. “I am not saying you are correct,” he added, “but let us...pretend? Yes, let us pretend that you are. What would you have us do then?”

Kettle answered from his place near the door. “We take a shuttle.”

“Take a shuttle,” said Poppa Jam. Just the way the man said those three words, made them seem like the most ridiculous thing ever said in all the worlds. At Jam's elbow, Cousin Haw gave a nasal snort of laughter. “Take a shuttle and go where?”

“I don't know,” admitted Kettle.

Jam looked at Kettle for a few seconds longer, then turned his face toward Denny. “And how about you?” he asked. “Do you know where we're going?”

Denny looked at Poppa Gow hopefully, but the old man seemed lost in thought, as if the single question had exhausted him. “Away,” he said. “That’s all that matters. We have to go away. And quickly.”

“I don't see why,” said Nonni Hacci. “This is our home.”

“We've all been consigned before,” said Auntie Yue.  Auntie Fro nodded.

And here we are again, thought Denny. Back where we started. He closed his eyes, and tried to say it as simply as he knew how. “The Overcontroller says we're all going to be consigned. Probably in just a few days. Athena says that when you are consigned from Jukal, it just means that you die. There are no more humans anywhere else. When we die, there will be no more humans.”

It was the same thing that they had already been told, and again the whole room fell into an awkward silence. Poppa Gow's dry voice broke the logjam for a second time. “I think you are right,” he said. “We must leave right away.” The words brought a gasp from Auntie Yue and another confused expression from Nonni Hacci.

Auntie Flash, her voice reduced to a reedy quaver by her affliction, spoke up for the first time. “I agree,” she said.

Poppa Jam made a backhanded wave. “Of course you do. It's your boy who came up with this spaceship nonsense.”

“That's not–” Auntie Flash began, but Jam cut her off before she could get out any more.

“I can tell you this,” the man said. “I'm not going anywhere that I don't want to go.” Beside him, Cousin Haw folded his arms, giving the room the glare usually reserved for people suspected of taking something from Poppa Jam’s store.

From across the room, a circle of browned flatbread arced down to strike Poppa Jam in the face with an audible slap. The big man's mouth opened in shock.

“Idiot,” Auntie Talla shouted from her place by the stove. “If they come for you, how are you going to stop them?”

“Well...” said Poppa Jam. “Well...I'll pay them.”

“Credits don't matter.”

Jam drew himself up and faced her with a confident look. “Credits always matter.”

It was Auntie Talla's turn to roll her eyes. “The cithians will just kill you and take all your credits. All your other things, too. They don't need to deal with you. They
own
you.”

The idea seemed to offend Poppa Jam. He ground his teeth together hard enough that his lips puffed out. “You actually believe this? These...” he gestured toward Denny and Sirah. “Children.”

For the first time, Denny felt a new kind of worry. “We're telling the truth.”

“They are,” Yulia added, speaking up from her seat next to Auntie Flash. “We are. I heard it from Athena myself.”

“Athena.” This time, Poppa Jam didn't just lace his voice with scorn, he smacked both hands against the table, making a slap so loud that Nonni Hacci jumped in her seat. “The ghost woman from a magic ball.”

“It's not magic,” Yulia said loudly. She rose halfway to her feet, then dropped back into her chair as faces turned her way. She glanced around and looked down, the floating weight of her curls half hiding her face. “It's a maton,” she finished more softly.

“A maton,” said Jam. “Which you know you’re not supposed to have.” He looked toward Denny. “Whatever it is, this thing is just showing you a story. Like a picture book.”

“It's not like that.” Denny searched for the words. “The cube, the one the chug gave me, it does have moving pictures—”

“See!” Jam looked at them all again. “See? This boy always has his face buried in some picture book. This story with us all being killed is like that. It's not real.”

Across the room, Auntie Yue spoke up. “That must be it.” Auntie Fro nodded.

All at once, it was if the whole room took a breath. Denny could see tightly clenched hands relax. Slumped shoulders rise. The sense of relief was so strong it was if someone had turned on a new set of lights.

“Just a story,” said Nonni Hacci.

Denny looked at Sirah. She stared back. “Could it be?” She asked softly. “Could it not be true?”

“No. I wish it was only a story, but no.”

Chairs scraped the floor. Poppa Jam was already on his feet. Cousin Haw right behind. “No, wait,” said Denny, but everyone was talking now. Yue and Fro were moving to push Poppa Gow's chair. Yulia was shaking her head, but stayed slumped in her seat. “Wait,” Denny tried again,

“Children can be so silly,” said Nonni Hacci. Auntie Fro nodded.

A loud metallic clanging froze everyone in place. Auntie Talla stood behind her stove, her long curved stick in one hand. “All of you hush,” she said firmly. Poppa Jam started to speak, but Talla cut him off with another sharp bang against the stove. “I've listened to Denny, and I've listened to Yulia, and I've listened to my own Sirah. I don't want to believe them any more than the rest of you do, but I didn't feed you people and take care of you all this time to watch you throw what's left of your lives away.” She waved the curved stick toward the tables. “Sit down and listen.”

Everyone but Poppa Jam obeyed quickly. Auntie Talla scowled at him. “So help me Jamison Leonard, you get in your chair, or you'll not get a bite of my food again, whether your life's short or long.”

Poppa Jam sat, but the angry expression didn't leave his face. “You believe them? Have you even seen this maton they keep talking about?”

“No, but...”

“Where is it?” Jam spun toward Denny. “Show me this Athena.”

Denny fished in his pocket and carefully drew out the little orb. He held it up, still wrapped in a bit of cloth torn from his shirt.

“Where's the magic woman?”

“You have to be touching it to see Athena,” said Denny.

Jam wiggled his fingers. “Then bring it to me.”

“It hurts when you touch it.”

“You think I'm scared? Bring it here.”

Denny took a reluctant step toward Jam's table. “Are you sure?”

Poppa Jam reached out and took the maton from Denny's hand. “How much does it hurt?”

“A lot. And you have to be careful not to hold it too long.”

The store keeper folded back the cloth, looked at the silver curve of the maton for one long, silent second. Finally, he blew his breath out in a loud, “Hmmph.” Then he picked it up with his right hand. Immediately, Poppa Jam's face went rigid and his eyes bulged. Beads of sweat spread across his forehead. “I see her,” he said. “I see...”

He rose up on his feet and slowly turned. Denny could see his eyes swiveling to follow an invisible form around the room. “You're wrong,” he said. “You have to be wrong.” The expression of anger slowly faded from Poppa Jam's face. His cheeks seemed to hollow out in an instant, his eyes looked sunken. His skin turned a weird shade of gray.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, Jessyn.” Then Poppa Jam fell face down across the table and the silver ball fell from his hand.

Cousin Haw shot to his feet and backed away. Sirah rushed forward, putting her hand against Poppa Jam's throat. But Denny didn't have to wait for Sirah to say anything. He knew already.

Poppa Jam was dead.