Fire in the Sky

2

Brion blinked at the ceiling, wondering what it was that woke him so early.

A moment later Temuen came in with a tray, two mugs of timel tea steaming on it, sticks of husk burning in a holder, a bright bunch of silny flowers in the little vase he’d carved for her. “Greet the Summer,” she sang. Her voice quavered, but it was still as true and sweet as it had been the first time he heard her sing.

He pushed up, made room for her beside him on the bed. “Summer Day already?”

She patted his hand. “You lose count, you know.”

When they woke from the smoke trance, they left the shelter and stood at the edge of the Sleeping Ground watching the smoke from the fires coiling above the peaks. Brion caught hold of a vine twisting about the pergola, weak tears filled his eyes “Why?”

“Because they look at us like we’re bugs. Been stinging them, I ‘spect. Smoking us out, burning us down like we would a nest of chups.” There was a scratchy irritation in her voice as if she’d said the same thing too many times before. After a moment he felt the echoes in his mind and knew he’d stood here, said this, she’d said that, all of it before.

“Sorry. I forget.”

“I know. Takes some like that.”

There was an odd burring in the air. Not loud. Like a cloud of kekads swarming above a lake. The image pleased him, brought up a memory of a time when he was just a boy and dreaming of being an Ard and bonding with an Eolt. He felt again the jolt when he realized it wasn’t going to happen. Fifty years ago, yet the hurt was still fresh. He leaned against the pergola and wept for that and all the things he’d forgotten in the years since.

A hand tugged at him. Temuen’s voice was shrill in his ear. “Come on, old fool. The mesuchs, they coming here. We gotta get away.”

“Wha… where?” He brushed at his eyes, saw the dark blot of the airwagon dropping down beside the Sleeping Ground. He started to move then, but it was already too late. A force of mesuchs came bounding out of the wagon and moved in an arc toward the ground. He turned only to see another airwagon and another arc closing in from the other side.

A grating sound from the first airwagon, then words. “Stop where you are. If you try to run, we’ll take your legs off. Come to the Bonding Court…”

Agitation made Brion’s limbs twitch. The words… they shouldn’t know the words… they stole the words… Muttering his distress, he let Temuen tug him along to the court.

All the other Guardians were there, the young ones and the old failing ones like him. The mesuchs had trapped them all.

The airwagon was still talking at them. He’d missed part of it, so it was a while before he took in what was being said and then only because the wagon repeated it twice. “… will choose four from among the oldest of you, the rest won’t be harmed. You can go on about your business as soon as we leave. Any disturbance or disobedience will be punished immediately.”

A mesuch walked past them, staring at them. Brion shivered as the hard metallic gaze seemed to peel his skin back.

A moment later the mesuch was back. He had a short brass wind in his hand. He moved his claw, a ray of light went out, touched Camach. “You.”

The light touched Sulantha, the oldest of the women here. “You.”

The light touched Brion. It was cold light, but it burned him. He shuddered when the mesuch said, “You.”

The light touched Temuen. “You.”

The mesuch stepped back. “The ones I marked, step forward. You’ll be coming with us.”

At least I’ll have Temuen. Brion took a step toward the airwagon. At least I won’t be alone. He reached to take her hand, but she wasn’t beside him. He turned.

Her face had gone red, her eyes were little and squinty. She got like that when she was angry. And she was stubborn when she was angry. “No!” she shouted at the mesuch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Brion rushed to her, took her arm and tried to pull her along. “Temmy, don’t, I need you. Don’t. Don’t. Temmy…”

The mesuch didn’t bother trying to persuade her. The light that touched Temuen this time burned a hole clear through her and she crumpled at Brion’s feet.

The marker light flashed out, touched Teдrall. “You. Now. All of you. Move. I will not accept hesitation.”

Teдrall took Brion’s arm. “Cha oy, Brio, what’s done is done. Come along.”

At times during the flight to the mesuch’s place, Brion would forget about Temuen and stare out at the clouds or at the ground moving with such stately deceptive speed below them. Then he’d look around to find her and show her the wonders and she wasn’t there and he’d remember and the pain was new again, new each time as if the horror happened over and over. He’d gotten used to Guardians dying, they did it all the time. Old men died. Old women died. They went into the ground and their souls came back, as Keteng and flowered into golden. Eolt. But those dyings were shared things, with songs and stories and the Passage Feast to celebrate the freeing from the body. Even when young Rudiam had a heart attack when he was only fifty-seven and dropped dead in the middle of a Song Smoke, it wasn’t like… Brion looked out and saw a herd of blackface caцrags spooked by the shadow of the airwagons rippling across the grass, smiled at how silly they looked from up here, turned to nudge Temuen… and screamed, remembering…

The mesuchs drove the four Guardians ahead of them into a small gate in the backside of their fort-place. After passing through a maze of corridors, all rigidly square with glow bands that produced a glaring white light that seared Brion’s eyes, kept him blinking and rubbing at them, a hand in the middle of his back shoved him into a small square room, with walls and ceiling a smooth white ceramic.

The others came stumbling in after him, dazed and eyes streaming from the glare.

The mesuch’s voice came blaring into the room, as hard on the ears as their lights were on the eyes. “Strip off your clothing and drop it in the opening provided.”

Brion blinked, stood staring at the wall, not sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. Teдrall patted his arm. “Brio, take off your clothes. We all have to do that.” She turned, began helping Sulantha with the ties on her robe.

Liquid came at him from everywhere, hard lines that hurt where they hit. Not water. It stung his eyes and had the greasily sour taste of soap when it got into his mouth. Then the water was gone and something like fog gushed into the room. It caught him in the throat and started him coughing. He could hear the others hacking and wheezing.

Then the fog was sucked away and they stood shivering on the smooth cold floor. A part of a wall slid back. A door. Not the one they’d come through.

“Leave the room.” The mesuch’s voice had a weary impatience as if he spoke to really stupid animals. “Leave the room. Leave the room now. Walk down the corridor till you reach the first open door, go through it. Leave the room. Leave the room now.”

Wet and shivering, they turned into the new room to find towels there, gray soft rags with an acrid herbal odor and voluminous white garments hanging from hooks shoulder high on the wall. Brion rubbed his hair dry enough so it stopped dripping into his eyes and sending driblets of water down his neck. He dropped the towel on the table where he’d found it, took down one of the garments. It was a loose sleeveless smock that reached his knees and left his legs and feet bare.

He’d barely gotten it on, was still tying on the cloth belt when the mesuch’s voice sounded, startling him as it seemed to come from the air. After a minute he remembered that was the way it was before.

Sorry. I forget. He said that to Temuen a while ago. When was that? A while ago.

I know. Takes some like that. Temuen said that to him a while ago. Temuen…

“Leave the room. Now. Leave the room. Turn to your left. Do not go back the way you came. Turn to your left. Keep walking until you are told to stop.”

Obediently, Brion shuffled down the corridor until the voice stopped him beside a door.

“Put your hand on the yellow oval.”

It was a pale spot, seemed more brown than yellow to Brion, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. When he set his hand on the spot, the door slid open.

“Step inside.”

He shied as the door slid shut behind him, cutting him off from the others.

“What is your name?”

“Brion.” His mouth quivered. He wanted to ask what was going to happen, but he couldn’t get his tongue around the words. His body was beginning to lose the smoke; his fingers twitched, and a tic pulsed beside one eye.

“Brion. This is your room. Do what I tell you and you will know how to use its functions.”

There were more yellow ovals scattered about. One brought a bunk bed sliding from the wall. One a toilet. One opened a hole in the wall he was told would have food for him at the proper time. The one that pleased him most opened a narrow door that led into a small square patio. There were four concrete benches set against the windowless walls that enclosed the place, a tree and a fountain in the middle, a hideous squat thing, but at least there was moving water in it. As if the builder that made this ugly heap had designed the bare minimum for folk who need green and sky to stay alive.

He shuffled to one of the benches and sat down. A moment later more doors opened and the others came out to join him, sitting silent, staring at the fountain and the single finger of water rising to dance with a grace that damned its surroundings.

Teдrall was the youngest of them, the most impatient. She pushed gray-streaked brown hair back from her square bony face. “Why? I thought we were dead. This is almost as bad as dead, but not quite. Why are we alive?”

Brion stared at her a moment, then his face crumpled and he started crying. She was there instead of Temuen. Temuen was dead.

Though there was no answer that first day to Teдrall’s question, the following days gave them ample reason. They were questioned, poked, prodded. Samples were taken of all their body fluids. They were laid out on tables, lights shone at them, they were drawn through long machines. Do this, do that, they were told. And they did whatever they were told, moving like cabhisha before the nipping and barking of a herd dog.

For the first tenday they were given no smoke to drink.

Sulantha died on the third day, falling against Brion as they walked about the bleak garden.

He wept for a moment, then forgot why as soon as her body was removed. He was flashing in and out of awareness. His body ate and slept and moved about, but most of the time he only knew that when one of the mesuch guards slapped his face to wake him from his trance of nonthinking. By the end of the tenday, even this barely reached him. He spent most of the time sleeping in the sun in the patio, curled up knees to chest, Camach and Teдrall nestled beside him.

On the eleventh day he woke in his cell and found a bowl with fragments of husk on the floor beside the cot, smoke rising in blue white twists. He dropped off the edge of the cot, sprawled on the floor, his face close to the bowl as he sucked in the smoke.

When he woke from the trance, he went outside and sat on his bench, watching the water dance. There were drawbacks to awareness. Grief and pain and anger churned in him. He thought about opening a vein. He also knew the mesuch would not permit him to die on his own time. He thought about Sulantha. Thought she was luckier than she knew. Her soul was free and would be rebodied in a quieter time. He didn’t think about Temuen, turned his mind away whenever the image of her flickered behind his eyes.

Teдrall came out. Her eyes were red and wild, her plain face made plainer by a scowl. “Do you know what they’re doing?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We’re test animals. They’re using us to figure what the husk does. They’re using us to find a way of growing husk. Like Keteng breed cabhisha for their hair and their meat. Do you hear me, Brion? Do understand what they’re doing?”

Brion blinked at her, then he nodded. “Yes.”

“We’ve got to do something.” She waved away his warning. “Cha oy, I know they’re listening. What does that matter?” She turned as Camach came slouching out, his eyes seeing things in the otherwhere. “Cama, do you know what they’re doing? Listen to me, do you know?”

His body shuddered and his gaze shortened till he was looking at her. He said, “They told me to tell you, they’ll be coming for the three of us this afternoon. More tests.”

“Oh.”