Chapter 66:

“You have a library? How?”

“I’ll show you,” Lainla replied. “Unless you and Sukren have to go back to the Gather’s Children ditch?”

It was sunstir. Lainla and Rajani had returned from training, and dinner had been eaten, but Sukren and Mayah were still with the Jinkari. Sukren was playing some sort of game with Tanush, tossing pebbles, or maybe bits of mammole bones.

He used to play with me like that in the serf village, Mayah thought, but then she shook her head. “I don’t think Sukren wants to go back. The serfs in the ditch don’t like us.”

“Why not?”

“We eat better than they do, and they’re jealous,” Mayah responded honestly. Then, feeling guilty, although she wasn’t sure why, she added, “Also all they talk about is rioting and Sukren doesn’t like that kind of talk. They want him to promise to help because he’s a doctor-priest – a physician – but he won’t.”

“Are they serious about rioting?”

“I don’t know. They talk about it a lot, at least.”

Lainla was silent for a moment. She looked at Mayah, her lips pursed. Eventually she nodded in the direction of Sukren. “Why don’t you ask him if you can come to the library with me?”

It took a few minutes of cajoling, but Sukren gave his permission in the end. Looking forward to seeing the library, Mayah found herself almost skipping on their way there. But when Lainla stopped in front of the line of shelterbelt trees behind the rubber forge, Mayah was confused. “Where are all the books?”

“See those rubber sleeves?”

Mayah didn’t see anything, but she nodded.

“Each sleeve holds one book.”

Mayah peered forward. Then she saw them, and it clicked. Instead of shelves, long broad swathes of rubber hung from the shelterbelt’s branches. Each swathe of rubber had several pockets sewed onto both its front and back sides, and each pocket held one book.

“Can I look at one?” Mayah asked Lainla.

“Of course! That’s why I brought you here.”

Mayah was glad it was sunstir. Even though it was evening and getting on close to bedtime, it was still bright outside. The sun was shining through the clouds overhead, making it easy for Mayah to see as she unbuttoned the flap enclosing one of the pockets. She slid the book out of the pocket, then opened it.

Strange symbols filled the pages. Here and there Mayah thought she recognized a stroke, but the vast majority of the book was unreadable.

“Why does it look like that?” Mayah asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The letters…”

“You mean our alphabet?”

“Oh,” Mayah replied. “You have a different alphabet, of course.”

Then she frowned. Why would the Cursed have a different alphabet? Sure, Cursed wasn’t exactly the root language, but it sure sounded similar. Which made sense. The Cursed were the descendants of the mutineers who had crash landed the ancient starship onto the planet Chudami. They had kept true to the original speech of their ancestors, while the Saranai had branched out.

Perhaps the Cursed had kept the language but changed the script? Why would they do that though?

Mayah ran her hand over the page. The paper was vellum-like, but the symbols were clearly printed. No single hand could write so evenly or so consistently.

“Who makes these books?”

Lainla pointed to the rubber forge behind them. “There’s a printing press inside the forge. During dry seasons lexikosts use it to publish all their research.”

Mayah looked at the forge’s uneven stone walls. It was the only building of its kind in all the Cursed urb. Even after weeks of knowing about its existence, she still found it strange. The industry inside the forge didn’t sound complex, but that it existed in a society that didn’t even have electricity felt bizarre to Mayah.

She frowned, thinking. The Cursed really don’t live anything like us. In Lost Technology Castle, I remember, I got more electricity than Sukren, and he got more electricity than our whole village did. I don’t think there were even two capacitor lamps in the whole village! Out here, though, it’s like being primitive and knowing science go together. The Cursed might sleep in holes underground, but I bet even Soti could tell me the physics and chudalogy behind each hole. I’ve listened in on enough lexikost classes out on the atreola to be able to tell that, at least.

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“Here, try this. It’s a Xhom-Cursed trader’s dictionary.”

Lainla held another book out to Mayah. Elated, Mayah rifled through the pages. She stopped at the first entry on a page. Next to a short string of Cursed symbols were the Xhom words: can, a small, sealed bioplastic container. Below it, another short string of Cursed symbols was followed by the Xhom words: cart, a wheeled vehicle.

Mayah’s heart sank. This dictionary might teach her to pair certain meanings with specific visual strings of Cursed symbols, but it wouldn’t teach her how to read the Cursed alphabet. Internally she sighed. Maybe she should ask Lainla if there were any books that would teach her which sounds went with each symbol? Oh, but Lainla had done so much for Mayah already. How could Mayah be a greedy-goat and ask for more? Lainla might get mad at her!

“Thank you,” Mayah said. “Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lainla replied.

Oh, Mayah so badly wanted to ask Lainla for a Cursed alphabet primer! “Could I…” she paused. “Can I…”

“Yes?”

Ask for something smaller, Mayah instructed herself. Don’t be a burden to her, like you are to Sukren.

“Would it be ok if I came back here? To look at some other books?”

“Of course!”

Mayah immediately regretted not asking for a primer. But it was too late now. Lainla was turning away, replacing the first book Mayah had pulled out. “After you’re done with the dictionary, put it back in its spot, here,” she said.

Mayah nodded. “Do I have to check it out, let anyone know I have it?”

“The lexikosts manage the library together. I’ll tell Yathi and she’ll tell the others.”

“Thank you. Thank you for being nice to me.”

Lainla looked uncomfortable. After a moment she said, “I’m not being nice. I’m being obedient. Embrace the Gather’s Child, the Chronicles say, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Mayah had no idea how to reply. She settled for nodding. The Cursed did this, she had noticed. It wasn’t just Lainla who talked as if Hunt and Gather were the only gods, as if even overbelters believed in them. But who cared? If whatever Lainla believed was why she was nice to Mayah, Mayah wanted her to keep on believing it. If that meant she had to nod every time the Cursed mentioned their religion, so be it. The Cursed holy place didn’t have a Temple, didn’t have sacrifices, and in Mayah’s book, that was more than enough to make it superior to the holy lake of the Saranai.

***

“Mayah, get up. Get up, now!”

Sukren was shaking her awake. Blinking, Mayah got to her feet, trying to make sense of what was happening. Why was Sukren hauling her out of the ditch? Why was he hurrying her through the urb? Were they even allowed to leave the ditch at night?

By the time Mayah was awake enough to gather her thoughts, she and Sukren were standing outside the Jinkari earth lodge, and Sukren was shouting Rajani’s name. A moment later, Rajani emerged.

“They’re rioting.”

“What?”

“The Saranai, I mean, the overbelters, they started shouting –”

Rajani cocked her head as if focusing on something. Then her eyes widened, and she began shouting in Cursed. Listening to Rajani rattle off instructions to her Table members, Mayah wondered what the queer taste in her mouth was. Was she sick? Was she bleary from being dragged awake?

It wasn’t until Mayah was inside the lodge with Tanush, Soti and Kishi that she recognized the taste for what it was: shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said in Cursed. “I’m sorry we… I’m sorry they’re doing this.”

She avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Without Lainla around, Mayah found herself afraid of both Soti’s self-confidence and Kishi’s strange looks and disordered speech. Soti was basically Mayah’s age, but she behaved with a fearlessness that was more foreign to Mayah than her Cursedness. As for Kishi, Mayah knew that the Cursed called her sun-blessed, and that she was honored among them as a sun-blessed child, but on the other side of the shelterbelt, such children were called misborn, and killed.

Only Tanush was fine to be with, but even he was glaring at her now. “Why are you overbelters doing this?” he asked. “Don’t we give you food?”

“I’m not like them,” Mayah responded quickly, desperate to deflect blame. “I’m… I’m a Rajas, and they’re serfs.”

“What are you talking about?” Soti snapped.

“A Rajas is higher, serfs are…” Mayah stopped. What was she saying? Wasn’t it bad to be a Rajas? Wasn’t she supposed to be on the side of the serfs? A true serf is one who hates Rajas rule, and wants to see it ended, Vek had said. Mayah was supposed to denounce her princess self. She’d spent the whole past season trying to prove to Sukren that she’d done exactly that. So why was she putting distance between herself and the serfs now?

The queer taste in her mouth was back. Maybe Vek was wrong. Maybe Mayah couldn’t escape being a princess no matter how hard she tried. Here she was, denying that she was like the serfs rioting outside, when she should be cheering them on. After all, weren’t they serfs? And weren’t serfs always right? Was it the Cursed who were the Rajas, on this side of the shelterbelt?

Mayah spent the rest of the night huddled in a corner of the lodge by herself. When Lainla returned, Mayah wanted to go to her. She didn’t want to be a cowardly little princess though, so she made herself instead ask Rajani where Sukren was.

“He’s in the ditch,” Rajani replied. “The hunters drove him back.”

“Oh.” Mayah blinked. How odd. Was that relief she was feeling? She glanced at Lainla. “Should I go to him?”

“It’s not safe now,” Lainla replied. Then she hesitated. “I don’t want to force you. If she likes, can she stay with us?”

Her question was directed at Rajani. Mayah watched carefully as Rajani nodded. She looked tired; the light and excitement ever present on her face was gone. Still, when she spoke, she spoke with authority. “The Jinkari Table to attendance.”

Mayah watched Tanush run to Rajani. Silently, she stood there as Tanush began reciting a poem, no, it was a story, but a story that sounded like a poem, with rhythm and cadence and beat. Earth was falling, it began, and a new people, it ended, but the entire time Mayah could only think, this story is not for me, my story is on the inside of the shelterbelt, what am I doing here, why, oh why did Sukren take me away from the Free Serfs?