Chapter 33:
“What’s this?”
“Take it.”
The cable car was about to land. Zed was thrusting a notebook, it seemed, into his hands. Sukren flipped through it. “It’s blank.”
“Here are your instructions.”
A note from Lady Nari was next. Sukren scanned it, not liking what it said. A journal for Mayah to find? To trick her into thinking he’d been writing it the entire time he’d been in Lost Technology Castle?
Before Sukren could say anything more, Zed was pulling open the cable car door. “We’ll be back in nine diurnals, at the end of first nightsleep, to pick the journal up,” he said. A moment later Sukren was out in the dark dry night, standing alone in the cable car terminal. He watched the cable car containing the soldiers circle around the terminal before heading back in the direction of Lost Technology Castle.
It was already deep into first nightsleep. Sukren sighed. He didn’t exactly want his first meeting with his new squad leader to be after Sukren had woken him up. Turning to find an elevator, Sukren tripped in the darkness on the trailing end of a torn piece of his robe. A stream of curses escaped his lips. Taking a moment to let the ache in his limbs subside, Sukren considered his options. He needed new clothes. He needed medical treatment. He needed to sleep. Well, he could probably get all three needs met at a clinic somewhere. Sukren could meet his squad leader tomorrow.
It wasn’t too hard to find an open clinic. He was ushered into the Zone 10 clinic without trouble; his papers were in perfect order. “What happened to you?” the doctor-priest apprentice tending him asked.
“I had a disagreement with some soldiers,” Sukren replied.
“Damn Eenta.”
Sukren raised his eyebrows. The doctor-priest apprentice was Chenta, yes, but soldiers mostly only harassed servies. Or at least that was the way it worked in Lost Technology Castle. Maybe things were different in LakeCentral. It was true that Lady Nari – whose influence was strongest in Lost Technology – was the one patron who pushed most for serf solidarity.
Hm. Perhaps Zed’s ethnic hostility had been a good forewarning after all.
“I can spend the night here, right?” Sukren asked.
Even as the words came out Sukren knew he shouldn’t have asked. A doctor-priest apprentice couldn’t give such permission, he’d have to ask someone higher-up, and a higher-up doctor-priest wouldn’t care about an injured servie not having a place to stay. It would be better for Sukren not to ask, and then to stay until he got kicked out. “Forget it,” Sukren said right away. “I’ll get out when I need to.”
The doctor-priest apprentice shrugged. “Okay.”
Sukren watched him go. As soon as he was gone, Sukren pulled out the blank journal. Zed had been thoughtful enough to supply him with a stylus too, how nice. All Sukren had to do was swallow the knot in his throat and start writing. Soon. Nine diurnals wasn’t a long time to write two years’ worth of entries. But Sukren was so tired. He could start the journal tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, he’d start it tomorrow. He tucked the instructions and the stylus inside the journal’s front cover, then slipped everything into the inner pocket of the servie jacket the doctor-priest apprentice had given him. Hoping nobody would need the clinic bed until the next morning, he closed his eyes. Don’t think about Mayah, he instructed himself, and for once, Sukren was tired enough to be able to go straight to sleep.
It was still dark when Sukren was jostled awake. Red lights, nightsleep lights, flickered on. “What are you doing here?” a voice asked.
Sukren was disoriented. He tried to sit up. His stiff limbs screamed in protest. Biting back a groan, he started to apologize. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be out of here.”
“No, I will not give you a minute. Get to your barracks!”
Right. Sukren had forgotten. No small courtesies were ever extended to servies. He managed to duck the backhanded slap aimed his way, although he wasn’t able to avoid the shove out the door. He almost turned to glare at the doctor-priest before thinking better of it. You’re a servie now, act like it, remember your place.
Sukren sighed softly. He hurt all over. He couldn’t even move without pain shooting through his limbs. Already he was regretting his lost status. He wondered briefly if Lady Nari was angry at him for refusing to wholeheartedly surrender to the Free Serfs. Was this assignment a deliberately unpleasant one because she’d been annoyed? No, that wasn’t like her. She didn’t take things personally.
Somehow Sukren made it down the lift to Zone 10’s servie barracks. He stood before the closed door, knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer. Like it or not, he had to go inside.
But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go inside. He didn’t want to meet his new squad leader. He didn’t want to become a servie.
Sukren took a deep breath. His left eye was still swollen shut; his limbs still ached. Everything and anything for the serfs. Or more accurately, what Lady Nari wanted, Lady Nari got. Taking hold of the handle, Sukren twisted the door open. The living-wood hinges were silent. He was able to creep through the doorway into the barracks without making a sound. In front of him was a central aisle, wide enough for even Sukren’s heavy frame to pass through comfortably. On either side of the aisle grew bunk beds, carved out of the castle’s wood. Each bunk was marked with an insignia. Sukren fumbled open his papers. A vine curling around a leaf, okay, all he had to do was find an empty bunk with that insignia, and yes, here it was, and it was even a bottom bunk!
Thank Sarana. As Sukren collapsed, fully-clothed, onto the sheetless mattress, he couldn’t help but feel like getting a bottom bunk was a reward from Lady Nari for choosing to go ahead into the barracks even though he hadn’t wanted to. He knew it was a stupid thought. Lady Nari wasn’t a god, or she wasn’t like one of the greenhouse gods, anyway, who supposedly always remembered and paid you back for whatever you did. Not that Sukren believed in the greenhouse gods. He was a doctor-priest, for crying out loud!
It took Sukren a little longer this time to fall asleep. Too soon, he was woken for the second time that half-diurnal, this time by the glare and hum of darkwake’s lightstrips. Still half-asleep, he forced himself up and out of the bunk.
“Who are you?” someone asked.
Sukren blinked. Did he give his birthsite name? No, that was how villagers introduced themselves. Right? In castles, all that mattered was your patron. Or maybe servies did care about village origins? Holy Sarana, he was tired.
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“I’m Sukren Kanari,” he replied.
“No, not you,” the servie scoffed. “You, girl, who are you?”
Sukren finally figured out who the servie was talking to. A girl, younger than Sukren, but older than Mayah, was standing by the bunk post directly to the right of Sukren’s bunk. Sukren supposed she could be considered beautiful although her face was not clean, and her eyes were not happy. “I am Aan Kanari,” she said softly.
“From where?”
“Bioplastic Post #2.”
“And after that?”
Aan didn’t seem to want to say. She jumped a little when the servie pinched her arm. “Come on, finish your history!”
“Leave her alone,” Sukren said.
The servie whipped around to face Sukren. “You think you’re still in your village or something? She can take care of herself.” He didn’t wait for Sukren to reply but returned to the girl. “Well?” he snapped.
“I became a servie when I was ten, like everybody else,” she whispered. “Got sent here. Applied for Lady Nari’s patronage. She accepted me. I was in Squad #431.”
“But now you’re in my squad,” the servie replied. He examined the girl, looking her up and down. And Sukren, with a sinking feeling in his heart, began to realize that he’d just met his new squad leader. Wonderful. Sukren was so looking forward to submitting to such an excellent example of authority.
“You can call me Helt,” the squad leader was saying. Only then did he look at Sukren. “Where are you from?”
“Cotton Post #4,” Sukren replied. He opened his booklet and held it out so that he could scan it quickly. “I served in Squad #901 in Lost Technology Castle.”
“So you’re not straight from a village after all,” Helt sneered.
Sukren shook his head. Then he winced, just a little, when Helt seized his arm and jerked him forward. When Helt reached up with his other hand and grabbed Sukren by the chin, however, Sukren froze. Helt was turning his face to the left and then to the right, inspecting him as if he had every right to, touching him as if he didn’t even need to think of asking for permission.
This isn’t going to work, Sukren thought at once. I’ve worked too hard for too many years to earn the right to myself. Lady Nari promised me that was what came with full initiation into the doctor-priesthood. I’m not losing that. Not for anything.
But he didn’t move. Helt pulled away first, then made some gesture above his head with one hand. Several other servies hovering around the other bunk posts came closer. Sukren’s heart was pounding. Helt wasn’t the only squad leader calling his squad to order, he noticed dimly. Other servies were clustering into groups of ten or so all along the barracks.
“Most of you already know me,” Helt said. “I was in Squad #29, and then I took and scored a squad leadership position through Lady Nari’s exams. Last diurnal, I was granted a squad of my own. This one, #232. Our last members have joined us now. Aan, Sukren. Sukren’s the one who thinks he’s still in a village.”
Sukren tried to smile, as if it were a joke. He managed to twitch his lips. A new squad leader, a squad leader who had no experience, well, sometimes they worked out, that was the point of Lady Nari’s exams, wasn’t it? To weed out those who were committed to the Free Serf cause and those who weren’t? But when Helt continued, Sukren felt his heart sinking even further down, sliding past his too-tight black uniform all the way to his black rubber-soled and canvas-topped shoes. “I’ve already written up Squad #232’s tract. You can come to me if you want to know what it says.”
Holy Sarana, Sukren thought. Why did Lady Nari put me here? Is this another test? Because I don’t think Helt or even anyone was told that I’m the guardian. Certainly, nobody’s acting like it. Maybe Zed really was doing me a favor in the cable car.
Next to him, Aan sighed, softly, subtly. Sukren glanced at her, and she met his eyes. He waited until Helt had finished giving them their assignments for the diurnal – working in one of LakeCentral’s kitchens – before he made his way towards her. Her hands were down by her waist; she held up a single finger, warning him. Warning him of what? Just to be on the safe side, Sukren kept his mouth shut until they were out of the barracks and in the hallway. As the other servies fell into line, Sukren allowed himself to be pushed to the back until the only person in front of him was Aan.
“My previous squad leader was like this,” she murmured. “Didn’t let any of us read her tract, always had to ask her what it said. That’s why I applied for a transfer.”
Sukren nodded. He knew what she was referring to. Each squad was ruled by a squad leader, who wrote her own tract, or rulebook, that the servies or soldiers or doctor-priests or regents in her squad were expected to follow. If you went against the squad leader, she could punish you however she saw fit. There was no way to appeal a squad leader’s decision. The only way you could escape an unjust squad leader was by applying for a transfer, asking to be put in another squad, any other squad. Usually such requests were granted without much fuss. As a result, squad leaders were for the most part kept honest because they knew they could lose their followers.
Occasionally, though, you would run into a squad leader – usually a new one – who hadn’t yet internalized the logic that undue harshness led to a whole lot of transfer applications. They would snap. They would bully. They would keep their tracts to themselves so you couldn’t hold them accountable to their own rules.
Maybe Lady Nari’s exams weren’t a very good measure of leadership quality after all.
Oh, but that’s not fair. Sure, not everyone who does well on Lady Nari’s tests are wonderful leaders. The tests are supposed to, and do, weed out those uncommitted to the Free Serf cause. Their point is to indoctrinate anyone with any ambition. We want to rise, we want to advance, so we take these tests, we prepare for them, teaching ourselves Free Serf doctrine. That way, even those who fail the tests, their minds are still trained. That’s what matters. Having a squad leader that you can stand, that’s secondary.
“Why does he keep asking if I’m from a village?” Sukren asked abruptly.
Aan gave him a side-long glance. “Because you kind of act like it.”
“What does that mean?”
They were nearing the end of the hallway. Sukren felt cramped, like he was being pressed down into the floor. He hadn’t noticed it last night in the dark, but the ceiling was quite low. It looked like he could reach up and tear the lightstrip off the wall next to him without even standing on his toes.
Servie quarters were like that. A Rajas cafeteria would soar up into the sky; a dozen servie barracks would be layered over on top of each other to fit the same space. At least the bare living-wood was beautiful, in its own way. There were no endless mosaics of the Eternal Queen Sarana lining the walls, no shaggy golden carpet covering the hollow-tree floor, no series of badly painted Rajas canvases cluttering the lift. The lift did look like it was going to be more crowded, based on how Squad #232 had to halt several lengths away from its entrance, waiting for servies from other squads further ahead to go in first, but that at least gave Sukren a chance to hear Aan’s answer.
“You know.” She seemed almost bashful. “You’re treating me like I’m different from you, from Helt, from the other men.”
Sukren still didn’t understand. Weren’t women different? Wasn’t that just true?
“Come on,” he heard Aan say. “The line’s moving. We have to get onto the lift.”
Lost in thought, Sukren followed her without looking to see where he was going. He wound up next to another servie from his squad, who glanced up at him. “How’d you get so big?”
Sukren didn’t know what to say. A doctor-priest’s diet was better than a servie’s diet, and Sukren ate whatever was put in front of him, all of it, always, because when he was an apprentice he’d never known if he’d be allowed to eat his next meal.
“I’ve always been this way,” he settled on finally.
The servie shrugged. From across the lift Helt seemed annoyed, but to Sukren’s relief he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the kind of place where you felt like you could have a real conversation, anyway. Stuffed into the lift car, everyone’s elbows in each other’s ribs, everyone’s breath stinking up the stale air, all Sukren could do was wonder how anybody could stand being a servie for even a second, let alone a lifetime.