The salarian desert game, p.12
The Salarian Desert Game, page 12
“There is that.”
I stop at the end of the path. “This is impossible!”
“The thing is, just don’t worry about it.” He steps off into the untreated sand. “I brought some serum for you.” He takes a little vial out of his pocket to show me. “After the third time you get stung — they’re basically the same, same venom in both of them — you’ll be immune.”
“That’s your solution? Go get stung a few times?”
“You’ve had needles, haven’t you? Inoculations? A serum containing a weakened version of a virus so your body can build antibodies to it? Basically it’s the same thing. A needle, a stinger…”
“It’s poisonous.” What about that doesn’t he get?
He shrugs. “I brought the serum.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“You coming or not?” He backs away from me into the white sand.
“You’re not even looking where you’re going!” I raise my voice as the distance between us lengthens. “Stop!” I take a tentative step into the sand. Nothing bad appears. I take another. “Come back for me!” He grins and comes to me.
“Why did you make such a big deal about the snake inside the compound if it’s nothing?”
“I didn’t want you to get stung before we got through the gate and out of sight.”
I turn around. “You want me to get stung? You brought me out here so I would?” I scramble back toward the path. Norio reaches for my arm, but I swat his hand away.
“The guard won’t let you in, Idaro. I told him to wait for me. You don’t want to go back and cry at the gate for no reason, do you?”
I hate this guy. I turn around and shove him, hard, into the sand. I hope he lands on a scorpion nest, on ten nests! He gets up quickly, but he’s laughing, brushing the sand off, moving a few steps away from me.
I run toward him and shove him again, and when he gets up and tries to back away from me, I shove him down again. This time he stays down. I stand over him. “What did you tell Kama about me?” I ask, because now I don’t trust him at all.
“Nothing.” He stands up. “What makes you think I’d tell her anything?”
“I heard you talking when I came back with my lenses in. I heard one of them say, We have to do something, and Kama said I didn’t have any rights because I left. So what did you tell them?” I glare at him. “I told you who I was in confidence. I didn’t expect you to blab it to everyone.”
“Wait a minute!” He frowns at me. “First, I didn’t say anything. Kama and the other girls were talking, and it wasn’t about you. They were talking about someone else, Nyah. All I said was that she had rights. That was the only comment I made, and it had nothing to do with you.”
“So why did everyone stop talking when I arrived?”
“It wasn’t… It’s because you’re not one of us. You’re not Salarian. We don’t talk about people like Nyah in front of foreigners.”
“People like… who is she? Nyah?”
“She’s a desert girl.”
“The desert girl!” I stare at him. “Does she have thin lips?”
“Thin lips?” He frowns. “No. You’re probably thinking of Malah. You’d remember Nyah if you saw her. She has green eyes.”
“Green eyes?” We sound like idiots, repeating each other’s words, but I’m remembering something… the Salarian Nightgames! Green-eyes and Thin-lips! “The desert girls!”
“You know about them?”
“Who are they?”
We both speak at the same time. He looks at me strangely. “They’re just two girls, desert people, that’s all. They did something… and won some money for doing it, and received Salarian citizenship.”
Nyah and Malah. “They did the water survival game.”
“You know?”
“I heard about it. Someone was talking about it in the spaceport. I overheard,” I lie quickly. Now I know their names. If they’re the same girls. Others might have taken the water challenge, or some other game, to get their citizenship, too. “They stayed in the water five hours? Together, and they both survived? The one with green eyes saved the other, holding her head up?”
He nods at each of my questions. “That was a pretty specific conversation you overheard.”
You know who I mean, Agatha said in the e-bud. But Agatha couldn’t have known I saw them at the Salarian Nightgames. What if she didn’t mean these desert girls? And I thought she said ‘the desert girl’. As in one, not two. Nyah or Malah? Or someone else entirely?
“What about Nyah?” I demand, hoping for some clue.
“What, ‘what about her’?”
“What did they say about her? Kama and the others?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because…” I think fast, “she’s a foreigner in your society, too. If they can take away her rights, they could take away mine. I want to know what she did.”
“They won’t take away yours. She’s a desert girl. That’s enough.” His face goes still and cold. I feel my own face stiffening, too, until he adds, “for them.”
“But not for you?”
“I’m male. It doesn’t matter what I think.” His face does that momentary coldness thing again. “But it’s Malah that’s the problem, for them. Malah goes around talking about all the desert people getting citizenship. How it’s their planet, too. She’s the one whose citizenship they want to revoke.”
“And Nyah’s, too, because they were granted citizenship together?”
“Everyone’s. All the desert people who’ve done something to earn their citizenship. It’s a mess.”
“It’s a mess because people are listening to her? Agreeing with her?” It’s our planet, too, Agatha said. I thought she meant the O.U.B.
“Forget about her. Look around, Idaro. Where are you?”
He looks uncomfortable. Why would talking about the desert people make him nervous? But I do as he says, and look around. I’m standing in the dessert, at least fifty yards away from the treated path. I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. He kept backing up, and I kept following, caught up in our argument. I look down at my feet, searching for holes in the sand. I don’t think there are any.
“The snakes hear vibrations,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” Norio agrees.
“So if I don’t move, they won’t know I’m here?”
“Right again. But you know, it’ll get dark in about ten more hours. And the scorpions come out to feed on the night flyers.”
“I hate you.”
He laughs. “Honestly, Idaro, I’m not trying to get you hurt. I wouldn’t. This is the best way for you to acclimatize to the desert. You told me you wanted to join the desert game. I’m helping you. I promise it’ll be okay. Unless you’re allergic, that is. Only one way to find out.”
“I do hate you.” I grit my teeth and start walking carefully back toward the path. Halfway there, a Salarian snake pops out of the sand, I see it just as it reaches my foot, and feel its teeth sink into my heel. I scream and kick it off me, falling backward — oh no, is it underneath me? I leap up still screaming.
Norio grabs me, holds the serum to my mouth and orders me to drink. I stop screaming long enough to gulp it down. He picks me up and carries me to the path, murmuring, “You’re okay, it’s over, you’re fine,” and when that doesn’t work, “Stop whimpering, you’ll be fine!”
He lowers me onto the path and kneels beside me, fumbling in the pack at his side. My foot is burning. I look down. The poison is spreading, my whole foot is red and swelling. “It’s not working,” I cry. “The serum—”
“Quiet!” he hisses, pulling a roll of bandage from his pack and wrapping it around my foot. “The serum will work.” His face looks tense.
“I’m allergic! What if I’m allergic?”
“Then you’ll die. And I’ll be charged with reckless behavior endangering a female.” He ties the ends of the bandage around my ankle. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t ever mention the serum. You fell and twisted your ankle, and I bound it for you. The guard saw you fall. That’s all he needs to know. Or anyone needs to know.”
Something in his expression makes me pause. But my foot is in agony, I’ve never felt such pain. I’m going to pass out.
“Trust me!”
Trust your instincts, Agatha said. I don’t trust Norio. But I trust everyone else here even less. “I won’t tell,” I whisper. Leaning forward, I throw up into the sand beside the path.
“That’s okay. That’s normal,” he says, his voice an octave higher, like he’s trying to convince us both. He helps me to my feet and half-carries me as I hobble toward the gate which is magically opening.
“Sprained her ankle. I’ll help her to her room,” he calls to the guard, steering me toward my dorm. I should see a medic, but I’m too dizzy to insist. I let him half-carry, half-drag me to the girls dorm. My left foot is on fire. What is it with this planet, even pain is hot here.
“Don’t tell anyone about the snake bite, or the serum,” he warns me again, as he lowers me onto my bed.
Chapter Ten
I wake up alive: that’s my first thought. I’m so relieved I want to laugh. Then I feel my foot, hot and throbbing. It wasn’t a dream.
PING. I realize I’ve been hearing that sound for a while. It takes a moment to identify it as my door. “Enter,” I croak. The room is shadowed in the dusk of early evening. I must have slept all day.
PING. Either the door isn’t voice activated or it hasn’t been set to my voice. I sit up. And gasp as the pain in my foot escalates to unbearable! I can’t move. I can’t get out of bed. I don’t care who’s at the door. I can’t even lie down again without moving my foot, and every movement sends searing stabs of pain all the way up my leg.
PING.
“Go Away!” My voice is weak with the effort of bearing the searing pain, but the door doesn’t chime again. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, gasping with every movement, I lie down again.
***
It’s still dusk when I wake up. My eyes feel dry and I have a splitting headache, but my foot feels better. I wriggle it very carefully. It throbs, but I can bear it. The headache is worse. I rub my forehead, squinting. Even my eyes hurt. I can’t have slept long the second time, it’s still early evening.
Then I remember the sunlenses. I slept in them. Didn’t someone warn me not to? One of the girls — they all competed to give me advice this morning. I crawl out of bed, careful with my foot, no pressure on it, and get the lens container. I pop out the lenses. It isn’t evening, the sun’s bright outside the window. Did I sleep all night?
My head still aches brutally, and my foot is worse for moving. I hop back to bed and sit, with my eyes shut and my foot still, enduring the pain at either end of my body. My stomach rumbles. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Maybe since yesterday. I’m starving. I think of the caf, the noise, the blinding sunlight I’ll have to walk through to get there… My eyes hurt. My foot throbs. Forget it.
PING. The door again. I hobble over and pass my palm in front of the pad.
It’s the chubby girl. She told me her name… Kayo. It means beautiful, poor kid. “Hi Kayo.”
She holds up the tray she’s carrying. A wonderful smell makes my mouth water. “I heard you fell and twisted your ankle. You missed lunch, so I thought you wouldn’t want to go without dinner, too…” her tentative voice trails off. She looks embarrassed.
“Kayo, that’s great.” I wince. Even looking at her hurts my sore eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“I fell asleep with my lenses in.” Now I remember, she’s the one who warned me. I raise my hand to rub my forehead, waiting to hear her told-you-so.
“Oh, I can help with that. I do it myself all the time,” she gives a small, embarrassed laugh. “I’ve got some drops in my room.” She looks down at the tray. “You probably don’t—”
“Yes I do, I’m starving. Thanks.” I hobble back a step, minimal pressure on the left foot, and look around the room. No table. But Kayo’s already stepping around me to put the tray on top of the low dresser beside the bed, like she’s done this before. “I’ll get the drops.” She hurries back out.
I check out the tray while I’m waiting: chicken, some kind of grain and some fried white veg stalks. One thing I like about this planet: no fish. They take too much water.
I hear a cough behind me at the door, which I left open. “Enter,” I mumble around a mouthful of the grain, before I remember that’s a door command, not how you talk to people. Kayo bounces in happily, holding up a small bottle.
“You want me to put them in for you?”
The relief is almost instantaneous. “Ohhh,” I sigh.
She giggles. “Yeah, I know, right?”
“Oh look, the two losers together.” Kama stands at my door, surrounded by the other girls.
“Hello, Kama,” Kayo says in a small voice.
Oh look, it’s the silly sheep and the mangy dog that herds them. I almost say it. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Kama deserves it, but I’m not sure yet about the others. This morning I would have included Kayo in with them.
“One can’t stop eating; the other can’t even stand up on a sand path. You two are a real asset to this year’s desert game. Why don’t you go to the city, and join a little girl’s club? Find yourself a safe little teen triad there.”
“Go back to your nest, scorpion. There’s nothing but poison in you.”
A couple of the girls crowded around Kama gasp or look shocked. Kama’s face goes red. All I’d have to do is stand up, for her to leap at me. I would if I could. I started taking self-defense as soon as I got back from Malem, and I’m pretty good by now. I’d like to flip her on her head, knock some respect into her…
The thought shocks me. I’ll have enough trouble finding Oghogho and getting her home, without starting a stupid fight with the granddaughter of a wealthy triad. My anger disappears as quickly as it came up. I turn my back on Kama and continue eating my meal. The room is dead silent for two… three… five minutes. Then with a huff! I hear Kama stomp away, the others following after her in a muted chorus of “she doesn’t matter,” “she won’t make it anyway,” “who cares about her?” that sounds more like relief than scorn. I wink at Kayo.
Her eyes go wide. She claps her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
I’m not sure it’ll work at this distance, but I wave my palm toward the door pad. The door slides shut. I wish I’d known that earlier, I’d have closed the door in their faces. But I didn’t want to look like an idiot if it failed with them all watching.
“These are delicious.” I point to the fried white stalks on my plate.
“Salarian cactus.” She looks at them wistfully.
“Help yourself.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You can tell me about the desert game while we eat.”
Her hand freezes above my plate. I look up. Her face has drained of color. “I’m going to die out there,” she whispers. Her eyes fill up.
“Hey, sit down, Kayo. Have a veg stick.” I wait till she calms down a little. “So, why are you going if you don’t want to?”
“I do want to,” she says quickly. “Everyone here does the desert game. Grandmothers Ryo, Kicho, and Tomiko insist.”
“I thought it was a choice?”
“Well, some girls, maybe, in other families…” She looks wistful, then rallies, “But we’re mine-owners. In our family we all have to join the game. Better to die with honor than live with shame.”
“Really? Is that what you’d rather?”
She looks aside. Her lower lip trembles. I’m afraid she’s going to cry, so I say the first thing I think of. The thing I’ve been thinking about since I got here, actually. “Have you ever been to a mine?”
“A mine?”
“A crystal mine, like the ones your family owns.”
“I know what we mine. I don’t know why you think I’d go there?”
“Well, your family owns some of them. It’s, like, your family business.”
“But why would I need to see one?”
“I’d think they’d be at least as interested in teaching the heirs to run the family business as in teaching them to eat cacti in the desert.”
“Heirs? I’m never going to inherit the mines. Maybe Kama’s and Norio’s older sisters, someday. They’re studying mining and business in university.”
“What if you wanted to see one? Would you be able to?”
“The boys have gone there. Those who are training to be guards, anyway. And I’ll have to see one. At least, if I survive the desert game I will. That’s when we decide what we want to study for.” She frowns. “Probably I won’t get to the mines.”
“What if I wanted to see one?”
She looks at me. “Why? They’re dark and dirty, and the people who work in them…” she shudders.
I shrug. “Just curious. It’s not important. Tell me what you learn in training.
“Well, we learn how to catch the scorpions and snakes—”
“How to catch them?”
“Yeah. If you cut off the scorpions’ tails and the snakes’ throat pouches, you can eat them.”
I make a face and push my plate away. She giggles. “They’re awful. They made us eat some and I threw it all up. Master was furious. But the cactus is good. If you can avoid the thorns. If they prick you, they can get under your skin and cause an infection…”
I’m getting ready with a pep talk in case she goes teary again, but she jumps up, blinking hard, and grabs the empty tray: “I’ll take this back now.” Before I can answer she’s gone.
My foot is better the next morning. I get out of bed gingerly, but I can walk on it, limping a little. At breakfast I pass Norio when I line up for food. He smiles at me. I look right through him.
The other fifteens don’t talk to me in the caf. Kayo sits beside me but she’s too cowed to speak. I’m fine with that. I’m thinking how I’ll get to see the mines. It’s a long shot, but what if my sister’s in one of them? And even if she isn’t, knowing what they look like, where the workers go, how they’re assigned jobs, it all might help. There wasn’t much info, even in the Traders’ library, about what happens to those who come here as debt-workers. First I’ll visit a mine, and if that doesn’t give me anything to go on, I’ll say I’m interested in the gambling trade, I’d like to check that out. Someone there will know what happens to off-worlders who gamble away their freedom. If that doesn’t work I’ll make up an excuse to go to Prophet’s Avenue and ask about Lady Celeste and the report.
