Chapter 3
Chun spent the day learning all of the words for things around him. Learning nouns was the easy part. Putting the words together to make sentences proved far more challenging. Anglish had more words than Hanish, and the structure was more malleable. It seemed like every rule had exceptions. Their alphabet was much smaller, but the letters stood for sounds instead of ideas. To make matters worse, the sound a letter made changed frequently based on the surrounding letters.
Fortunately, the researchers were patient, and despite their youth they seemed to have a great deal of knowledge about their own society. Learning to ask for food brought immediate rewards, as they went from bringing him pitiful snacks to full meals right away. With adequate calories, Chun started rehabilitating himself in earnest. The researchers seemed amazed that he could practice his forms, run in place, and do body-weight exercises while taking language lessons.
That afternoon they took him outside for the first time. They went through the vault, through the huge double doors at the back, and up a long ramp until they reached the surface.
The greenie guards tensed up when Chun went by, but Ronal waved at them with a downward motion, and they stayed at their posts.
They were surrounded by an expanse of close-cropped grass that staggered Chun’s imagination. It didn’t quite stretch to the horizon, but it was close. He bent and examined some of the blades and stalks--the grass was cut. They must have an army of groundskeepers somewhere to do this.
There were greenies everywhere. He turned in a slow circle, counting men. He could see over a thousand of them from here, and the massive buildings scattered around suggested there were more--perhaps many more.
It is a good thing I did not fight the greenies. They may be children, but there are still a great many of them.
A machine thundered on the other side of the largest buildings, then started to move. Chun tracked it by its sound and was surprised when it lofted into the air. It was bigger than any flying machine he had seen before, though cruder, and much louder.
They took him to a green machine with strange black wheels. It belched a cloud of poisonous smoke when Ronal turned it on, but Erin was unfazed, and motioned him to get in with them. Chun climbed in and perched behind their seats, and Ronal drove them a few minutes’ jog to a building that smelled like food.
The inside was painted white, and the floor was some kind of wood, probably oak. There were rows of tables, and Chun recognized a couple of white coats, but most of the people were greenies.
This was definitely not a school. It had some of the feel of an army camp, but everyone seemed calm, and the majority were unarmed. He searched his memory and realized that there was no wall around this place.
What kind of army has no weapons to speak of, and no walls?
There had to be another explanation. Not a school. Not the army. They had people working hard to catalog basic components, and that work was hidden underground, watched by guards. They had expanses of grass, but no signs of troops drilling. At least one flying machine, though its purpose was unclear.
Ronal handed him a tray. They took him along a long metal counter. The people working behind the counter wore green underneath but had white aprons over. It was the first time he’d seen a mix of white coats and greenies, though these were not coats. Perhaps you worked in menial positions until you picked white or green.
Chun went down the line, and each time a kitchen worker put something on his tray he asked Erin or Ronal what it was. Today they had fried chicken, chips, salad, soup, rolls, blood pudding, meat pies, apples, and grapes. Erin seemed thoroughly amused that he took one of everything.
They ran into the bully as they left the line. Chun didn’t follow very much of what was said, but Ronal and Erin both looked embarrassed, and he caught the words waste and fat.
“In my country, I would challenge you,” Chun said in eastern trade. “Then we would see how you bully people when you have no arms and no legs.” Then he picked a spot at one of the tables, sat down and started eating. The bully spoke angry words to his back for a few seconds, then argued with Ronal before storming away.
* * *
As Chun accumulated an Anglish vocabulary, he discovered that Anglish idioms were even less structured than the rest of the language. Naturally his introduction to the subject was from a particularly youthful greenie who walked in on Chun doing one-handed push-ups while Ronal showed him pictures of various things to quiz his vocabulary.
“Fuck me,” said the greenie.
“No,” said Chun.
Ronal spent far too long on the explanation, but Chun finally grasped that the greenie was expressing surprise, not requesting sex.
Despite the frustrations of learning Anglish, Chun found his lessons engaging. Ronal and Erin were patient, and kind. It made him sad that they had not been trained.
Such people should live for centuries, not a paltry few decades. Is this the condition of everyone in this era, or are these people cut off from knowledge?
The fun stopped with maps. They brought him a huge piece of paper with a map of Solond on it, and he used a pencil to outline the approximate borders of Fu Tan.
Erin shook her head. “That can’t be right.”
Chun cocked his head. He was pretty sure he understood the words, but why would she doubt him? He went over the lines again, darkening them.
Ronal left the room and returned a couple of minutes later with a book titled Expedition to the North. It had dense text, and many pictures. Ronal showed Chun how to read the caption under each picture, and then locate it on their map using the given coordinates.
Chun referenced the number beside the picture, wrote it on a scrap of paper, then attached the paper to the correct location on the map with a pin.
This can’t be right. This is nothing but ice.
He flipped to the next image and put a pin on the map. Slowly over the next few hours a trail of pins worked their way from the east coast of central Solond, up beyond the northern edge of the continent, then back down, ending on the west coast.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Chun looked up. Erin was gone. Ronal was asleep in his office chair. It didn’t matter--he did not know enough Anglish to describe his sorrow.
My people are gone. All of them. Our land is covered in ice. I cannot even visit the old places. The pillar. The pillar is beneath the ice. The explorers have drilled four hundred yards deep, and they believe the ice is nearly four miles thick.
I am lost.
* * *
Chun tried to eat but threw it up. He lay on his bunk, staring at the bunk above him. His room was not a cradle, it was a prison.
Erin sat with him, reading. Every hour she offered him water and a snack. Every hour he turned his face to the wall until she gave up.
Ronal sat with him, going through notes. Like Erin he followed the annoying one-hour schedule.
Once in a while the bully stopped by to shout at them, and at Chun. At one point he grabbed Chun’s arm and tried to pull Chun out of bed. It was nice to have a purpose, no matter how fleeting, but once the bully’s arm was broken, he had nothing to do once again.
* * *
“He’s going to die,” Erin said.
Ronal wiped a tear away and nodded. Sitting with Chun was probably the hardest thing Ronal had ever done, but he refused to let her take extra shifts.
“He thinks he’s lost everything, but he still has his life. He’s thousands of years old. He has a perspective on history that no one else has. He knows things no one else knows. Loss can be managed, adapted to. He just needs something to care about again. How do we find that?”
Ronal glanced at Chun. The old man appeared to be sleeping. “He’s thousands of years old, but he looks forty to me.”
“Erin, I don’t know how I would go on if I lost you. He’s lost everything--his work, his family, his friends, everything. Everything.” Sorrow and empathy worked their way through Ronal’s face, almost as real as the tears on his cheeks.
“He has his health,” Erin said. If Chun couldn’t find the will to be stubborn, she would do it for him.
Chun let out a snore. Erin picked up the water pitcher, wet a cloth, and then carefully wrung the cloth into Chun’s mouth a drop or two at a time. Every few drops he swallowed reflexively.
It was tedious work, and by the time she’d given him what she thought was the equivalent of a glass, her hands, arms, and upper back were miserable with cramps. Ronal rubbed her back and neck.
“You’re the best woman on earth, Erin.”
“You’re pretty great yourself, Ronal. That feels fantastic.”
Archibald stopped by a couple of hours later. Erin sighed. “Great. You’re back.”
The general glared at her for a moment, then scratched at the top of his cast. “Can we drug him?”
Erin shook her head. “Obviously we could, but it would be a terrible idea. You know what amphetamines do to the troops. What do you think he’s going to be like when he’s coming down?”
“How about an IV, at least keep his fluids up?”
“That might be a good idea. The only reason I haven’t tried it is that he refuses water when he’s awake. I think he’d just rip the IV out, and then he’d still be dehydrated, and he’d have a hole in his arm that might get infected.”
“You people shoot down every idea. You’re full of can’t. Where’s the can?” Archibald snapped.
“I’m dripping water into his mouth while he’s asleep. He swallows it most of the time.”
He scratched his fingers around the bottom of the cast. “That’s something, I guess. If we can do that, we can do more. What is it?”
Erin met his eyes and nodded. “I’m thinking as fast as I can, but we need to find something he cares about. The language barrier is still pretty thick, but you’re right, there’s got to be something.”
Archibald walked away, and Erin stood and went to get Ronal. She needed a nap.
* * *
Water dripped on his head. He tried to ignore it, but it dripped again. Chun opened his eyes. A blurry shape was stooped over him. He wiped the crusties from his eyes and looked again. The irritant was a priest.
That’s new. I hadn’t thought about it, but this is the first sign of faith I’ve seen here.
Erin and Ronal leaned against the wall behind the priest, and the bully stood in the doorway. All of them looked exhausted.
The priest drew on Chun’s forehead with a fingertip, smearing the water. A triangle, then another triangle. A six-pointed star. Chun blinked and struggled to sit up. The priest helped him.
“Why are you here?” Chun asked.
He couldn’t follow the answer. The priest spoke for nearly a minute. Chun collected ‘You must not die.’
The phrase took him back in time, to himself hanging in a tiny, filthy cell. The rope he’d made by collecting a fiber here and feather there was looped around a bar in the window, and around his neck.
In a few minutes he would escape. No more interrogations. No more starvation. No burning, freezing, or cutting. No more gratitude when he found a cockroach to eat.
A hand gripped his shoulder, and he opened his eyes. The owner was dressed in a simple white robe. He had a neat beard and shoulder-length black hair. His face was unblemished, except for laugh lines around his mouth and eyes.
“You must not die.”
“No,” Chun said. “I cannot go on. Do not ask this of me.”
“You must not die.”
He turned and walked through the bars. Chun couldn’t see how he fit, but then he was gone.
Chun looked at the priest and said, “You must not die.”
“That’s right,” the priest said. He opened a leather-bound book and found a passage, then turned the book so Chun could see.
Most of the words were unfamiliar, but right in the middle it said, “You must not die.”
Chun hung his head. He had forgotten the greatest moment of his life. Few were blessed by a visit from a messenger, and the circumstances here were almost enough to count this as a second visit.
He stood, tottered, caught himself on the bed frame, then hugged the priest. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome, my child.”
Behind the priest Erin turned to the bully and spoke. Once again many of the words were too much for him, but he understood “thank you.”
The bully brought the priest? Perhaps there is some value in him after all.