The Summer Queen

BIG BLUE: Syllagong, Men’s Camp #7

“That’s it?” Piracy said, as Gundhalinu and Bluekiller dropped their day’s take into the cache-pit.

Bluekiller shrugged, his brows furrowing. “Treason twisted his ankle. Slowed us down.”

Gundhalinu reached into his coverall pocket and pulled out a small wad of janka wrapped in a rag. He held it up. “Here,” he said. “Somebody from Gang Four paid me for a question with this.” He took barter now for any equipment he fixed and any questions he answered. He had not wanted to put a price on answers he gave as a sibyl, but Piracy had insisted.

He heard grunts of interest from some of the men around him; aware of no warmth, but at least of acceptance, as he tossed the wad of janka to Piracy. Janka was a mild narcotic some of the men chewed, when they could get it.

“You take a cut?” Piracy asked.

He shook his head. “No, I … Yes.” He sat down cross-legged on the ground, suddenly too weary to go on standing. “Yes, I’ll take a cut.” Maybe it would help him sleep. The longer he was here, the worse he slept.

Piracy glanced up at him in brief curiosity, looked down again. “Okay—” he said. “You heard Treason. Anybody else wants a chew, ante up.”

Half a dozen scabbed, filthy hands tossed offerings from their scant rations onto the ground in front of Piracy. He split up the wad of janka scrupulously with his knife, passing it around. Solemnly he pushed the final piece, and the small pile of rations, toward Gundhalinu.

Gundhalinu gathered them in, his battered hands indistinguishable from anyone else’s. He began to eat without ceremony, not caring what it was that filled his stomach, barely even tasting it. The sun’s burning face pushed up over the horizon, making him squint. The other men who weren’t already sitting sat down now, taking out their own food, as Piracy resealed the lock box, kicking ash and cinders over it.

They ate in near silence, as they did at the end of every workshift; having little left to say, and no energy to say it. But they ate together, still hungry for human contact, although none of them would admit it. This had come to be the most important moment of his own day, the one thing that he looked forward to: sitting on the ground in the cold wind among these men who made his barely tolerated existence possible.

Sometimes Piracy even held up the other end of a conversation with him. Piracy’s mind possessed an odd, eclectic accumulation of knowledge, most of it self-taught. They had talked for hours while Gundhalinu recovered from his beating, sharing the other man’s hut. But even Piracy did not risk talking to him often now, and sent him out with Bluekiller, not as his own partner; afraid that getting too friendly with an ex-Blue would undermine his position with the others.

The ground trembled; Gundhalinu swallowed convulsively, and coughed.

“We got almost a full cache, Piracy,” someone said, after a time. “We could make a trek to the post soon.”

Piracy glanced up over the mouth of his canteen. He grinned, setting it down. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess that’s true. Maybe it’s time we choose who gets to go.” A charged field seemed to build around him as he groped in a pocket, drew out the cracked, ancient gaming piece he guarded as if it were a jewel. “Three closest guesses take it, as usual. Whoever went last two times is out of the game.”

Gundhalinu had been told the rules of this choosing, but he had never actually witnessed it. He watched as the exhausted, dull-eyed men around him suddenly came alive, leaning forward, calling out numbers with an eagerness he had never seen them show about anything before. The three who won got a break from the grueling drudgery of their work routine, and the chance to spend a night in a place that actually resembled civilization, with beds, showers, and real food, while they traded in the harvest they had brought for the small rewards that made their lives bearable until the time when they were set free from this living death.

“Treason?” Piracy said. “You got a number?”

Gundhalinu looked up, startled; realizing that he had not said anything, as usual. He had not even been sure they would let him play. Sudden excitement and hope filled him until he shone like the rest. He licked his cracked lips, and said, “Twenty-three.”

Piracy nodded, and pushed up onto his knees. He held the game piece cupped between his hands, shaking it, prolonging the ecstatic moment when anything was possible for the men around him. And in that moment Gundhalinu understood what had made him their leader. When the game piece fell, three men would not only have the journey itself as a reward—they would have the days in between of looking forward to it. Even the losers would win those days of pleasant anticipation, of deciding what small, precious item not tied to their own survival that they would put in a request for… .

Piracy held his hands out, bathed in golden light, and let the game piece drop.

Whoops of triumph and curses of frustration made a deafening cacophony in Gundhalinu’s ears, which had grown too used to silence. He pushed forward, seeing the number face up in the sand, seeing that it made him a loser. The loss caught in his chest like a barb; he swore. The others shrugged and shook their heads, accepting defeat like they accepted everything else. But he felt stunned as he realized how much the sudden, real hope of winning had meant to him, now that it had suddenly been taken away.

He tried to focus on an adhani; unable even to remember one, as Piracy announced the winners. They were congratulated by the losers, more roughly than was necessary, but taking it with smug good humor. He felt bodies begin to move, jarring him as they rose and went their separate ways back to their huts to sleep. There was more conversation than usual, more animation, even laughter. He forced his own unwilling body to get up, suddenly aware of every ache and strained muscle; not understanding why only he felt worse, not better. Maybe because the rest of them knew this would all end for them someday; only he had no other hope that he still dared to believe in.

“Hey,” somebody said. “Look at Treason.”

Gundhalinu stiffened, and turned toward Accessory, who was pointing at him.

“He’s got the green light,” Accessory said. “Look!”

The others began to turn back, staring in curiosity, as Gundhalinu suddenly lunged at him, knocking him to the ground.

Gundhalinu sat on Accessory’s chest with his hands around the other man’s neck. “Joke about that again, you bastard, and I’ll stuff your lying tongue down your throat—”

“I’m not lying!” Accessory squealed, prying at his hands. More hands were on him, dragging him off of Accessory, holding him back.

“He’s not lying, Treason,” Piracy said. He stepped in front of Gundhalinu, meeting his furious stare. He held up a fragment of polished metal, let Gundhalinu see his reflection in a sudden blaze of sunlight, and the green light on his collar shining like a star.

Gundhalinu stopped struggling, seeing his own mouth fall open. His hands rose to the collar around his throat, as the men holding him let him go; as the rest clustered behind Piracy, staring at him.

“You said he was a term,” Accessory muttered, getting to his feet. “I thought he only got the green light the hard way.”

“I was … lam,” Gundhalinu whispered, still gazing at his reflection, seeing a man he barely recognized press grimy fingers to his throat; detecting the faint warmth given off by the light on his collar.

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” someone said. Gundhalinu spun around, glaring at him.

Piracy put a hand on Gundhalinu’s shoulder. “They don’t make mistakes like that around here, Treason,” he said quietly. “I’ll radio the post. Guess you’re going along this trip after all. One way.” His mouth quirked slightly. “Congratulations. We might even miss you, a little. …”

Gundhalinu nodded, barely, meeting his eyes. “I won’t forget you, either. I won’t forget any of this.”

Piracy gave him a long stare, and shrugged. “Better if you do, Treason,” he said. “It’s better if you do.”

Gundhalinu shook his head, looking down. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he whispered.

“Guess your dream was true, Treason,” Bluekiller said.

Gundhalinu glanced up. “I guess it was,” he murmured, with a strained laugh.

He took a step, suddenly afraid that he was still moving through a dream. They parted ranks for him, the way the convicts had parted ranks for a man with a green light on the day he had arrived. He passed through them, his shadow walking a golden road through the dawn. He reached his hut and crawled inside, still followed by the benediction of their stares, as if he had become a peculiar sort of hero. He lay down on his pallet of rags with a sigh. And then, against all odds, he went’to sleep.