Chapter 81:
“Vek!” Anzana protested, laughing. “We’re on patrol duty!”
Vek grinned and held his knapsack up by its hook. “It’ll be a quick drink, I promise.” He thrust his hand into one of the knapsack’s side compartments and pulled out the jar of milk he’d sweet-talked a friendly kitchen servie into giving him. Phatia – the youngest servie in their squad – immediately bounced forward. A shy smile touched her lips as she stretched out her hands. Still grinning, Vek handed the jar to her with a flourish.
After Phatia drank, she passed the jar onto Hurez. He sourly thanked Vek. He took a single swallow, then gave it, now a quarter-emptied, to Anzana. Laughter still in her face, she gestured the jar back to Hurez. “Take it to the others. Phatia, you take the forward patrol. Vek, walk with me.”
Vek was glad to fall into line. He watched as Phatia held the jar of milk so Hurez could unlock and open the grate grafted into place over the barracks door. No doubt the Rajas inside would stare enviously at the milk being carried through to the hallway on the other side of the barracks. Vek felt relieved that it was Hurez then, who was doing it, and not Phatia.
“Sorry I’m late,” Vek said to Anzana as they began walking down the hallway. Like the hallways that surrounded most barracks, this one was a curving corridor, stretching from a lift on one end to a small high window on the other. The hallway on the other side of the barracks was the same, minus the lift. Iolo, in one of his rare moments of humor, had described the hallway-barracks-hallway design as a bowl on a ball’s head, and then another on its butt, too.
“You don’t have to explain,” Anzana replied.
Vek grinned. It was good to hear familiar words, good to be back in a familiar place. He’d been in the crypts for the past two diurnals, searching for the nine files he needed – and getting more training, in the meantime, from Op. The latter experience had motivated Vek to search quickly; he’d almost shouted for joy when he found the last file. Now he had all nine in the knapsack on his back. Vek had debated going straight to his dorm to read through them but had decided to instead join his squad on patrol duty. He did have to maintain his cover, after all.
Settling into an easy stride, Vek turned towards Anzana. “Is everyone else in the other hallway?”
“Three of them are. Two more are stationed outside the serf staircase doors, with Iolo walking on the steps back and forth to check on them.”
Vek gave a low whistle. “The Rajas are trying to escape through the serf staircase?”
“A few have tried.”
Now that was crazy. There were always two serf staircase doors out of the barracks, one on either end of it, and while they were popular enough among servies and soldiers, Vek couldn’t imagine a princess climbing up the railingless steps. Wouldn’t she be afraid of falling? Wouldn’t she get tired? Wouldn’t she think it was beneath her?
Phatia was at the small, high window now, while Vek and Anzana were still near the lift. Vek started to tell Anzana that he was surprised the Rajas even knew the serf staircase existed, when he felt her grip his arm, and heard her say, “Don’t do this again.”
He was startled. “Do what?”
“Steal from the kitchens.”
“I – I didn’t – I asked –”
“It doesn’t matter. More and more serfs know who you are now; you can’t be seen using your status to get extra for yourself or even for us. That won’t end well for you.”
Vek barely knew what to say. He glanced at Anzana then glanced away. Shame suddenly flooded through him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“No, it’s not like that.” Anzana stopped in her tracks and pulled Vek towards her, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I’m saying it for your sake. I don’t want to see you accused.”
Her voice was warm enough to ease away some of the shame. Anzana’s eyes, deep in her wrinkled face, were strong and firm. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t think… I guess I didn’t realize the kitchen servie recognized me. I thought she was just being friendly.”
“Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. But you have to be above reproach.”
Vek sighed. For most of his life he’d been virtually invisible, the last to be noticed. That had worked well for him. It had certainly allowed him to accomplish his missions more easily. Now people he didn’t know were starting to smile at him in the hallways, and when he’d gone back to the Zone 3 cafeteria, the serf in charge had come out of the kitchen to apologize to him for the previous time. Which Vek hadn’t minded, but still, it had been a little uncomfortable, especially given his new role. Because how was Vek supposed to interrogate people if they knew who he was? Maybe his newfound fame would make them follow him down to the crypts more easily, but then wouldn’t the actual interrogation part be kind of awkward and embarrassing? Maybe Vek would blindfold them or something after chaining them up, and then go away for a little and come back pretending to be someone else.
“Well, I’ll go return the jar when Hurez brings it back,” Vek said. “I’ll tell the kitchen servie I was wrong to ask for it. At least that, right?”
He was glad when Anzana replied playfully, by wagging a finger in his face. “And don’t do it again, you hear?”
Vek was about to bow and reply with a joke in Rajim when he stopped in his tracks. “Is that someone screaming?”
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In front of him, Anzana had gone still. Her eyes were tight and wary. When another scream sounded, then several others, she pulled out her serf prod from its sheath on her back. Without speaking a word, she raced for the grate over the barracks door.
Vek followed swiftly behind her but was slowed up by Anzana having trouble with the lock. “Here, let me help,” he said, but she shook her head. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” Finally, after several minutes, Anzana managed to unlock the grate. By then it seemed like all the Rajas were screaming. Rushing in, Vek narrowly avoided bowling over a princess standing right in front of the barracks door. “He killed her!” she howled in Vek’s face. “He killed her! He killed her!”
For an instant Vek didn’t know what to do. A Rajas was yelling at him. All the muscles in his body were urging him to obey. But she wasn’t ordering him to do anything. So should he flee? No, no, the Uprising had happened, he should take charge, that was what he had to do!
Anzana beat him to it. “Calm down,” she told the screaming Rajas. When the princess didn’t listen, Anzana grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to the side, clearing a path to the central aisle between the bunks. Of course the princess screamed even louder but by then Anzana was already walking to the aisle towards a group of Rajas clustered around a lower bunk bed. After blinking once or twice, Vek followed her. By the time he got there, Anzana was talking to another princess, who was tearfully but more clearly explaining what had happened.
“A serf came in here and cut her, then ran out,” the princess was saying to Anzana. “It happened so fast. I just don’t understand. What did we ever do to you? We took care of you. We kept the bio-dome alive for you. Why are you doing this to us? Just look at her!”
At the sight of the blue-faced and bloodied body in the bunk, Vek started a little. Behind him he heard Anzana ask where the serf had cut her. “He slashed her across the shoulder and then she froze up and started frothing. Oh why, why? She was fertile, she’d just started having girl children, why would anyone kill her?”
Vek stared at the body of the dead princess. Poison, it sounded like, if the princess was to be believed. “Which way did the serf come from?” Anzana asked. Vek glanced up in time to see the princess point down the aisle at the serf staircase door along the southern end of the barracks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anzana’s brow furrow. He knew what she had to be thinking. Iolo, Qara and Venit were on patrol duty on the serf staircase. Had it been one of them? Had it been someone they’d let in?
“And which way did the serf run out?”
“The same way.”
Vek closed his eyes. Killing a Rajas, well, who hadn’t thought about it? But actually going for it, actually taking the knife or dart or prod and profaning a holy life…
He couldn’t help but shudder.
“Vek. Vek!”
“Yes, sorry.” He turned to Anzana.
She was pointing him out the barracks door. “You need to go and get this information to Lady Nari, right away. Tell her I’m figuring out who it was, or narrowing it down, anyway. But she needs to know, and now.”
“Okay,” Vek said. Rock-god, it was strange to see the Rajas all stuffed into the barracks, sitting up on the top bunks, stretching out on the bottom ones, half-hanging off the posts, all of them peering out into the aisle the way he used to whenever some punishment or fight occurred. Only one of them was dead now, she was lying dead in her bunk and she’d been reproductively-able and although Vek couldn’t care less for her he found himself wondering – did it have to happen? Oh, but he couldn’t think that he shouldn’t think that, it was a Rajas, who cared if she died? It wasn’t as if this particular princess had been destined to become a queen’s mother or something. So it probably really didn’t matter as long as only she was killed and –
“Vek! Go!”
“Sorry, sorry.” He nodded to Anzana then raced down the cross aisle that led back to the hallway he’d just been in. Phatia was there waiting. “What happened?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
“A Rajas was killed,” Vek told her.
Her silence seemed more confused than stunned. “A Rajas… is dead?” she repeated.
“I have to go,” Vek replied. “Ask Anzana.”
“Does she need me in there?” she asked.
Vek was already down the hall and pushing the button for the lift. “She didn’t say.”
He felt bad to abandon Phatia there, but once he arrived at the telegraph room, he was glad he’d made that choice. The telegraph room was buzzing with activity; Vek was clearly not the only serf trying to get an urgent message out. He stood at the edges of the round room, wondering what to do when one of the servies sitting beside her teleprinter called out to him. “Are you Vek? Lady Nari’s agent?”
Hm. Anzana had told him not to use his status to get extra for himself, but she’d also told him to send a message to Lady Nari right away, and a message to Lady Nari wasn’t extra for himself. Vek waved at the servie. “Yes!”
“Here, come here, I’ll help you!”
Vek shimmied his way around the serfs hovering over the seated typists and their teleprinters. He had to pick up his feet to avoid tripping over the wires that ran this way and that all around the round room. He managed to eventually get over to the servie who’d called out to him, and after an instinctive smile and bow, Vek accepted her communication pad. With only four fingers it was tough, but he pushed himself nonetheless to write the message as quickly as possible. As soon as he was done, she typed it up, and then it was off, off to Lady Nari, and Vek’s job was done.
The servie was a pretty girl, though, so Vek didn’t mind lingering. “Is it usually this busy?” he asked, looking around. “I guess we keep you typists working hard.”
“Oh no, it’s really not so bad,” she responded, smiling shyly. “A whole bunch of serfs came in just now, all at once, actually. Something must have happened.”
That caught Vek’s attention. A trickle of unease worked its way into his stomach. “Could you find out for me what it was?”
“Oh, sure, yes, I can.”
Vek waited by the teleprinter while the servie got up and spoke to a few of the other typists sitting at their desks. More than once she pointed back at Vek, who saluted, making sure to keep the anxiety off his face. When she came back, however, her face reflected Vek’s hidden worry. “All of them are the same as yours.”
The same as Vek’s… he leaned over her desk and lowered his voice. “They’re all about someone killing a Rajas?”
Eyes wide, she nodded.
“I should go,” Vek said. He tried to smile. “Thanks for your help.”
She nodded again, quietly. Vek turned to leave, and once again had to work his way through the round room. It was now even more crowded than before – and more tense. Nobody was saying anything out loud, but it was obvious to everyone that something had gone very, very wrong.