West of January (23 page)

“Maybe you do need this more than I do,” I said, feeling guilty. “Let me wet it for you.”

I clambered to my feet, limped across to the stream, and soaked the hide. Then I returned and spread it over him.

I flopped down at his side. “You won’t mind if I tuck my head under the corner? I’m Knobil.”

He scowled at me and said his name. It sounded like a cat snarl, and “Hrarrh” was the closest I could ever come to it. He had only a hint of mustache, but his shoulders were broad, and already his scalp was balding. Sunburn meant pale skin.

“You’re an ant!”

He opened his eyes again to glare. “A miner!”

“Beg your pardon! But it looks like you’re a slave now.” I had not seen him before. He was not of this tribe.

He nodded faintly and closed his eyes again. I put my head under the edge of the cover, for that made sleep a little easier. We spoke no more.

─♦─

When I awoke, he was sitting with the cover draped over him, trying to shade himself. His burns had bled a lot, and I decided that he was dying. A man can lose only so much skin. He was rigid with pain.

“Did they raid your nest?” I was recalling what Orange had said.

He nodded his head without bothering to look me. “Prospecting parties—but we killed three of theirs.” He bared his teeth in satisfaction.

“And they took away your clothes?”

“Of course.” He seemed to find that deliberate cruelty quite reasonable.

When the bosses came to round up their gangs, Hrarrh knew what was expected of him. He lined up with the rest of us, looking surly. He was obviously too badly injured to work, but newcomers were normally given time to heal.

Slaves never learned any of the ants’ names. We addressed every one as “master” or “mistress,” and referred to them among ourselves by the names of their cats. At that time the slave master was a fat, rather tall man with gray in his beard and a face even flatter than most. He walked with a limp and was shadowed always by one of the largest panthers in the settlement, Whisper. Now he curled his bushy mustache at the new boy. “You’re excused, cat food!”

Hrarrh fell on his raw knees, touched his face to the man’s boots, and said loudly, “Master, I humbly beg permission to work in the mine!”

Any backtalk was cause for immediate mutilation, but the leader was obviously nonplussed by this insane request.

“You’re dying, dross!”

Still speaking to the man’s feet, Hrarrh said, “Then let me die working at the face, master, I beg you! Please! Please!”

The leader glanced at the gang bosses. They shrugged and grinned.

“I’d have to let Whisper clean you up first,” he said. That brought wider grins from the ants and made me shiver. The pain of the rough tongue and corrosive saliva on so much raw flesh would be unendurable torment.

“Thank you, master!” Hrarrh at once sat up, leaned back on his heels, spread his arms, and lifted his chin. He waited with eyes closed and teeth clenched.

The big cat glided forward at its master’s signal. Hrarrh flinched when the tongue first touched him, then remained motionless while the washing continued. The whole paddock, slaves and masters alike, watched this incredible display of endurance with something like awe, waiting for the screams to start—but they did not. How the boy remained conscious and sane and even silent, I could not imagine. It must have felt like a swim in boiling water. Sweat streamed down his face. He shivered convulsively with the effort, but otherwise his only motion was a steady jerking of his juvenile adam’s apple.

“Now stand and let him do your legs!”

Hrarrh rose very shakily He kept his eyes closed. He swayed, but he suffered even that additional torture in silence, his features visibly ashen under the burns. When it was finished he sank down with his head on the ground once more and hoarsely said, “Thank you, master.”

Even the ants were impressed. Clearly the leader had not expected the victim to withstand the torture, for he chuckled admiringly. Then he assigned him to the same gang as me.

The site called the Canyon lay deep in the mine, where the ore vein was almost but not quite vertical. It had started, I suppose, as a tunnel and was by then a deep trench, just wide enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder. The slightly sloping walls towered over us, up into darkness. They had been cross-braced with props, but we all knew that sooner or later the overhang would collapse. Still, it was more pleasant to work standing up, more companionable to have the whole gang in the same dig, and much less stressful when the panthers could not sneak in behind us unseen. We had a double gang, eight with picks and four with shovels. We paused at intervals to pass the buckets back to a winch hoist, and thus we all had to work at about the same pace.

Hrarrh was last to arrive, and of course the bitch boss put him in the pair closest to her, at my side. I had expected that. In the gloom his legs were already streaked with black lines of blood, so the coarse smock was abrading his tattered shoulders, but he at once began swinging his pick like a maniac. I wondered whether he was trying to kill himself. Probably the only uninjured places on his body were his palms, but soon the handle of the pick glistened wetly as he wore the skin from those also. He was only a youth, he was grievously ill, and yet I could barely keep up with his stroke.

In the Canyons teamwork, the slowest pair governed the times for bucket passing. With any reasonable partner, a stronger worker like me need not force himself very hard. We did need good judgment, for if one pair got too far ahead of the others, then the others would be disciplined. So would any man who slacked too obviously. I was sure that this addle-brained kid would soon flag, but he held the pace, our shovel boy was soon shoveling as he never had before, and we filled our first bucket long before the other teams. The sadist boss woman screamed at them for being outworked by a cripple. She confiscated all water canteens except ours.

The same thing happened with the next bucket. This time every man in the team got clawed, except Hrarrh and me.

About halfway through the shift, Hrarrh began to have fainting spells. When he came to, he would stagger to his feet and go at it again, but by then the other men had caught the smell of revenge, and the pace quickened. Try as I might, I could not do the work of two. Ours was now the late bucket. Hrarrh was unconscious so I was the one punished, but even the boss had been impressed. Instead of her cat, she used her iron-toed boots, giving me a few mild kicks on the shins. From her, that was almost praise.

By the end of the shift, Hrarrh had apparently collapsed for good. Candles were flickering out. The boss had a couple of the weaker workers scratched, as always, and then dismissed us, leading the way up the ladder. The others followed, stepping over Hrarrh’s motionless form.

We two remained, in the dark. I checked his pulse: he was alive. I carried our picks and canteens up the ladder, and at the end of a shift, even that was an ordeal. Then I came back down again. He was still unconscious, still alive. If this kid could work miracles, I decided, then I could, too. Somehow I got him over my shoulder; somehow I climbed the ladder, all the way wondering if any of the shoddy rungs would collapse under our combined weight. I laid him down rather clumsily when we reached the top, thinking my heart was about to explode.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Knobil.”

“Leave me.”

“No.”

“They’ll skin you.”

For a while there was no sound except my gasping. Then I said, “Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Then hold my coat. I know the way.”

It was not the first time I had left the mine in the dark. Once in a while we could steer by the candles of the incoming gangs, but most we just walked slowly through the blackness, fumbling at walls to locate branchings. I carried the equipment and Hrarrh kept a hand on me.

We reached daylight and waited for the dazzle to leave our eyes. Then I pulled his smock off for him, feeling it tearing loose from his sores. He was completely coated in blood, both wet and dry, his face haggard as death. The next shift was still milling around, dressing, but sneaking interested glances. Hrarrh straightened his shoulders, reeled over to one of the bosses, and crouched at his feet to beg for another licking. I decided he was mad.

The ant regarded him angrily, probably wondering how to punish a man who was being insubordinate by demanding punishment. If it was mockery, it was unanswerable. “Why?”

“So that I may heal faster and be able to do more work.”

“And why would you want to do that?”

“I was born a miner, master. I must be able to outwork the dross.”

The ant shrugged. “Then lie down.”

That was a wise precaution, for if Hrarrh fainted during the licking, the cat would slash him as he fell. He did not faint—his eyes opened afterward—but another slave had to roll him over so that the panther could clean his back. I carried him to the paddock.

I scrounged a few scraps of food that had not yet been consumed. I managed to rouse him enough to force it into him. No one else came near us. No slave ever wanted to attract attention, and the ants were openly watching from their side of the compound.

Hrarrh chewed with determination, forcing lumps down his throat and repeatedly gagging. His eyes were unfocused and he shivered uncontrollably. He was in deep shock, probably very close to death.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked faintly.

I shrugged. “Just eat.”

“You think I can help you escape?”

Certainly I would not mention my plan to an ant, even a captive ant. “If I did, I wouldn’t dare be seen with you.”

He nodded. “Then why?”

I was not sure of that myself. Probably, as a coward, I admired courage. “Someone helped me once, when I was hurt and alone.”

He worked that out while he chewed some more. Then he said: “You’re a fool. And so was he.”

─♦─

I was surprised to find him still alive when I awoke. He lined up for the bosses and went through the whole incredible process all over again, from licking to final collapse.

But he did not faint quite so often during the shift, and he was conscious afterward as I carried him up the ladder. That was a bad journey, for I was weakened by overwork and lack of food, and we almost ran out of luck before the top. The other slaves again ignored us when we reached the compound, but they had left enough refuse in the trough for two good meals, and a pair of the dirty leather covers lay nearby, apparently over looked. Such consideration was unusual and might be lethal if the ants chose to interpret it as a sign of admiration or approval.

Three…four… By his fifth shift Hrarrh had stopped fainting and was producing almost as much as the slowest of the healthy men, yet he still needed my help on the ladder, and so it was that the two of us again returned to the paddock together. The other slaves were continuing their pretense that we did not exist. The two pariahs sat alone in a sunbaked emptiness, chewing their roots and gristle.

Hrarrh had pulled a hide around himself to protect his new skin from the sun, but that skin was in itself vindication of his faith in the healing powers of the panthers’ saliva. His puppy fat had already gone, which was an improvement, but the scars on his face did nothing for his looks. His nose seemed to have been applied too hot, so that it had melted and spread, and brow ridges like tree branches made him seem permanently surly. Tufts of wiry hair protruded through the scabs around his big mouth. He was an ugly kid. He was going to be a very typical ant.

I knew I had taken a risk by befriending him. Every moment we remained together increased that risk, so I had to satisfy my curiosity before retribution separated us.

“Now,” I said, “tell me why.”

He scowled. “Why what?”

“Why did you volunteer to be licked?”

“So I could work.”

“But why do you want to work?”

“Isn’t it obvious?! They have three dead men to avenge.”

I was baffled. “So?”

“So they wanted to give me time to heal. Then the bosses would have taken turns with me.”

“You hoped to die?”

He looked offended. “No!”

“They can do nothing to you that would hurt worse than that.”

“It would go on longer. And be more permanent.”

“But they still can!”

He shrugged and obviously regretted doing so. “You’re only a herdman. You don’t understand pride.”

“Pride? You endured those lickings for
pride?”

“Partly. But I’ve shown that I’ve got balls, so maybe now they’ll let me keep them.” His gaze flickered across the compound toward the cottages. “Most tribes need new blood. Who knows? I’m a miner. Maybe one of the girls’ll take a fancy to me when I get some hair on my chest.”

I wondered if even a female ant could ever think of Hrarrh as good-looking, but perhaps he was a better judge of that than I was. While I was pondering this, I saw that he was looking hard at me.

“So I’ve got a chance,” he said. “You don’t. Why do you stay?”

“What do you suggest I do? Walk out?”

“Step off the top of the ladder.”

“I’m a coward.”

He scowled. “No slave ever escapes! Never!”

“What about angels, though? Don’t they sometimes raid a mine?”

“Angels? You’re crazy! Angels don’t mess with miners!”

“Are you sure?” I was remembering what Orange had told me.

He spat out something unchewable and stuffed a lump of unidentifiable meat in his mouth. “Certain! Heaven needs what we produce—lead, iron, copper… The angels leave the mines alone. If that’s what you’re waiting for, then you’ll wait till the sun sets.”

“But…” Was this what Orange had called nonsense?

“But nothing! Even if Heaven sent an army of angels, it couldn’t approach a mine like this without us—them, I mean—without them knowing. So all the slaves go down the mine, the ponies come into the paddock, and where s your evidence? What angel is going to venture into the mine to look? What happens to him if he does?”

I did not reply. He was very convincing.