by C M Weller
"Surprise inspection, rat," said the Vasht. "Show me your hands, then empty your cart."
Sahra had been keeping track of her coins. Anything above a half-claw piece went into the vents as soon as she could get near one. Her cart was full of groat and half-groat coins. Her hand held a single talon coin.
The Vasht took it and put it in her pocket with a low growl.
Sahra emptied the cart on the floor with the rest of the trash. Some of the groats and half-groats got themselves lost in the fluff on the floor.
"There have been complaints about rats thieving tips."
"Tips?" echoed Sahra.
"The coins."
"Coins is good credit," said Sahra. "We find, we get food." It was the best kind of stupid to be. Completely unaware that she was doing any wrong because that's how they trained her. She'd been taught that finding coins was good.
"You leave coins on the tables," snarled the Vasht.
"They left b'hind. We pick up the left b'hind. Is good."
She could see some emotions playing across the Vasht's face. Disbelief. Anger. And the creeping realization that this rat, and possibly all the rest, did not know that taking coins from a table was any different from finding them in the tunnels.
"I find now?" asked Sahra. "I find good."
The Vasht rumbled a groan. "Go find."
Sahra crouched down and scooped her earlier finds back into her cart, with as many coins as she could grab back in there as well. Judging by the exasperated noise that came out of the Vasht, Sahra was doing a great job of driving the masters crazy.
This would probably be the only day they could freely steal anything. Tomorrow, the shop owners and the customers would be warned. They'd have measures in place to stop the rats from 'being good' in the wrong direction.
She filched a five-talon note off the next table and hid it in her less-able hand. Better make the most of it, then.
*
Another week. Another day of waiting for the weight to drop. Waiting for the inevitable. While there were still rats on the main concourse picking up trash from the last week.
All the rats stopped. Froze as still as statues. Stood on their toes and stretched their arms up.
"The sweat of the innocent will fall," they chanted in unison. "The sweat of the innocent will fall."
He picked the nearest one up and shook her. She remained stiff and chanting. She remained stiff to the point where she fell to the floor when he put her down. Still reciting the words.
Graak smelled it before it came. A rain of foul-smelling salt water, reeking like humans did at the end of the day. Soaking everyone on the concourse and making the rats snap out of their trance and run around shrieking. Their carts scattering the debris they'd gathered, wherever they went.
A set of curtains he'd hung to discourage 'angels' burned off its hangar and revealed the burning words.
You have been weighed and found wanting.
*
Sahra picked herself up quick from where she'd dropped, because the sweat-rain was turning all the fluff still on the floor into a really stinky goop. Even the masters hated the smell. They were doing what they could to plug their nose-holes just as fast as the humans were pinching their noses shut.
Eugh. They had not thought this would happen. It was the worst smell since the last time a master forgot what was in the taps. They were still trying to fix what the rebels had misrouted.
In the meantime, they were taking water by the bucket from the masters' water system, and using slaves they usually used for other business to do so.
Which meant that the regular work of the station was slowed to nothing because of a human curse.
Now with the sweat and the fluff making everything stink, living on the station would be very unpleasant. Maybe even horrible. Not nearly half as horrible as living as a slave. She'd seen the higher-ups places. Just one of their rooms could house two human families with plenty of room to spare. The space they called 'quarters' was maybe four or five of those put together, not counting the slave bunk-room.
Sahra, who regularly slept in a space she could barely fit into, had no sympathy for the masters who would be assaulted by smells in their beds. In their spacious bedrooms. Which were big enough for two human houses at least.
Slaves lived with smells every day. The rats more than most, because they picked up the things the masters took away. Then there were the sorters and the gardeners who turned poop and organics into mulch that grew the plants that gave them air and food.
And the people who sorted the food, throwing the already-rotted stuff back into the mulch. Master food, especially the fruits, smelled nasty to human noses.
As far as Sahra was concerned, the masters were just getting a little feel of what it was like to be a slave under their own rule. She picked garbage out of the spreading, stinky slurry with her toes and the hand that wasn't holding her nose against the smell.
Masters were yelling at each other, sounding funny with their nose-holes plugged. Sahra, pretending to be deaf, had to keep her face straight while other rats with better hearing were struggling not to laugh for other reasons.
"You girl! Over here!"
Sahra heard, but since she was looking elsewhere, she acted like she hadn't.
"You! Hey! YOU!"
That was too loud for her to not hear. She jerked around like she'd just heard with a "Whuzzat?"
"You!" The shopkeep pointed straight at Sahra. "Over here."
Sahra dawdled her way over, picking her way through the muck.
"Give me all the coins you have in that filth! You owe me!"
"No coin, me has," Sahra tried. "No coin, me find. Days, days."
The shopkeep picked her up, spilling her cart out into the muck. No coins fell. No coins had been there to fall for the best part of a week.
"No coin, me! No coin, me!" Sahra shrieked as the man shook her.
A security guard turned up, almost as if by magic. Not any of the hundreds of young Taans tripping over their feet. Nor any of the young-for-their-rank-but-at-least-competent Vashts. It was none other than the chief of security, Om'r Jeshi'ig himself. Sahra sort of curled in on herself and hoped he hadn't been paying attention to all the other times she'd started something. Or stolen something. Or got involved in something rebel-related. Or actually was involved in something related. Or... Or...
"Is there a problem?" asked the Om'r.
Sahra started to cry her way around, "No coin me! No coin me!"
"This motherless rat won't return the money she stole from me!" The shopkeeper shook her for emphasis, making her cart rattle and spill some of the few things that were left.
"NO COIN ME!" Sahra bawled.
Om'r Jeshi'ig, whose family name translated out to something near 'motherless', glared at the two of them before consulting his info-reader. "I see there are numerous attempts on your part to reclaim coins from rats. Almost on the hour, it says here."
"No coin me! No coin me!"
The shopkeep put her down, but kept a grip on her neck. "So what? These thieving rats are ruining my business. I have a family to support."
"No coin me! No coin me!"
"There is a fine for nuisance reports, citizen K'zech..."
"No coin me! No coin me!"
"I can't afford to have rats in here stealing my merchandise and my money as well as fines for reporting them!"
"No coin me! No coin me!"
"You get a fine for reporting innocents, regardless of their species, and this one," he gestured to Sahra, still shrieking 'no coin me', "Clearly has none of your valuables on her."
"No coin me! No coin me!"
Citizen K'zech insisted on digging through Sahra's scrounge for anything remotely valuable.
And since most of it was food wrappers left behind by everyone until there was nothing left, there was nothing of value in her cart.
"Well, citizen K'zech?" prompted Om'r Jeshi'ig.
"I-apologize-to-the-station-for-the-was
te-of-their-time-and-resources," growled citizen K'zech, letting Sahra go.
Sahra retreated half a step and knelt in the stinky muck with her hands on her head, still wailing, "No coin me! No coin me!"
The Om'r growled. "I am going fine you for the hours I waste on fixing this one back to a working state. Understood?"
"Yes sir, Om'r motherless."
Sahra caught the Om'r snapping his head around and snarling soundlessly at the retreating shopkeep. He must have got that a lot, to not bother with it so much. Sahra didn't give him too much trouble on the way to cleaning up her legs and her bottom from the filth all over the floor.
She did ask, "What motherless?"
"I am one of the many abandoned males who struggle for survival," he said as if that was the end of it.
*
There had been a guard on all incubator creches since Graak realized that the final curse could be enacted at any time. Especially since they had been largely unguarded with all the other curses going on.
Now he watched over all of them. Forgoing sleep in the night so he could ensure that nothing happened. Their readouts all showed healthy bio-signs. Temperatures normal. Motion proper.
Today... most of them would hatch.
Today was also the seventh, seventh day.
The last curse. The worst curse. Was the seventh.
A curse against infants.
Station-dawn turned, and with it came the first batch of anxious mothers.
They would be better guard than any other.
Of course, he checked their identities against the long list of expectant parents before relaxing his guard. He didn't want to fail at the last barrier.
The wall across from the exit flared.
You have been weighed and found wanting.
How? He'd watched. Except for the week in which nobody could have reached the eggs, he'd had a guard posted at all hours.
Then the outraged screaming started.
"A male! A worthless male!"
The temperatures had been set to guarantee females. He knew. He was as familiar with the operating lights of an incubator as anyone who expected their young to hatch.
Every last expected female... hatched as a male.
He and this station were cursed, indeed.
*
Sahra was battling with the understanding barrier. She got it, but nobody else could figure out why it was important.
"They abandon their sons."
"So? Dead Tu'atta ain't our problem."
Sahra tried not to growl. "Y'don' get it. Dead Tu'atta don't do nothing. They don't eat nothing. They drink nothing, they don't wear nothing. Alive Tu'atta need stuff. They cost money. These babies is jus' goin' be mulch if'n we don't act."
"Why would we save a bunch of baby enemies?" grand poo-bah Ali made an unkind face. "They're the enemy."
"We's tryin' ta make it too much bovvur f'r them t' even be here, ain't we?"
"...ye-es...?"
"So raisin babies takes up lotsa re-sources, don' it?"
High-falutin' mucky-muck Ali shook his head. "I liked things so much better when we were just blowing them up."
"It's a workin' stradurgee. Ifn't it weren't workin', you wouldn'a made me a... what'm I now?"
"Rear Admiral."
"Yeah, that. I'm gettin' stuff done, ain't I? There's word that the whole station thing is a bad idea and spendin' too much money. I hear folks talkin' about leavin it t' rot."
"But our planet is still a holiday resort."
"Reckon we could take it back better wif alla the stuff the masters be bound t' leave behind." Sahra grinned as she petted Simy on her lap. "Sides, we can use them emeny babies."
"As...?"
"Dupple agents. Raise 'em Christian - on stuff we stoled - an' get 'em to go deep cov'r fer us and mess things up for the masters."
"That's a minimum of five years..."
"I were six when I found you."
"And now you're a seven-year-old Rear Admiral," said his high-and-mightiness Ali. "I admit, your strategies have merit, but spending five years on this?"
"Mebbe better. Make one or more of th' masters spend five years on it."
"What?"
"Masters spend the money fo' the upkeep, but they goin' hire slaves t' do the ack'shul keepin'. Tha's when you put yo'r people in t' raise 'em proper on the masters' Talons."
"And how do you plan on convincing the masters to do all this?"
"We just done scarin' 'em up real good. I reckon summon should go have a chat wif the Majestrix," and then she added sarcastically, "long may she reign."
*
The Majestrix Tarqa never slept alone. She also had yet to produce an heir, because selecting a proper sire was serious business and she would not allow herself to become gravid -or ruin her figure- unless the sire was one whom her beloved people agreed was a good sire. Which meant he had to hold some degree of public favour under her. Gods and Goddesses help anyone who sought to gain favour over her.
The secret that few knew was that when she didn't have a male in her bed, she shared it with a human. Her Nanny. She was old for a human, specially selected when the then-princess was a day past needing her mother. Whatever her original name was, it was now forgotten. She was Nani. Now and forever.
She was Tarqa's kindness and warmth in her youth. The source of her care when her allergies erupted and she could not be seen in public for fear of a reaction. Now, she was the Majestrix's secret indulgence. The instant Tarqa realized the human was approaching the age of infertility and therefore execution, she excluded Nani from the rules and devoted a hefty sum to the human's upkeep.
Nani was now the oldest human anywhere. Her hair had turned whiter than her skin and she needed soft, warm spaces to be comfortable.
Tarqa dreaded the day when Nani would eventually die. She could not go to sleep without someone keeping her warm and safe for the night.
Which was why it was such a shock to hear the old woman saying, "My daughter! My daughter!"
Tarqa opened her eyes to an unfamiliar light. Which turned out to be a small child, glowing in the darkness. She, too, was all white like Nani.
"Our God speaks to you, and you do not listen," said the child. Her voice sounded... strange. Like it was everywhere all at once. "He has blessed you with sons in a gesture of mercy, but you leave them to die in the cold."
"Sons aren't a blessing," she tried to explain.
"You refuse a gift. Our God will be angry. He will punish you further."
"No! No more plagues! No more curses! What must I do to gain his favour?"
"Save the children. Save all the children."
Then a dark fog descended on her until the morning.
There was no trace than anyone had been there. No hint that anything had happened, beyond a mild headache. And then one of her walls gently ignited in human writing.
Writing she knew too well.
You have been weighed and found wanting.
Naturally, she ran to Nani. "Did you see the little human girl, last night?"
"Last night, I slept. You murmured in your sleep and I soothed your brow. I saw no little human girl. You must have dreamed, my darling."
Only Nani could get away with correcting the Majestrix like that, because Tarqa recognized that the old woman did it out of love. Everyone else, human or Tu'atta, had motives and agendas.
"I saw a little girl, around six years old. Maybe as old as seven. Her hair and skin were white. Her sheath shone... it barely covered her body. Almost shameful... She was so thin. So frail..."
Nani gasped. Tears were in her eyes. "My daughter... You just described my daughter..."
"I didn't know you had family..."
"I had four sons. They went to other families to raise. And one daughter. Nobody wanted her... and she starved to death. Of all my true-children, her fate hurts me most. I didn't tell you, my darling, for fear of bringing darkness into your world."
Tarqa rubbed her muzzle against the hum
an's cheek, gently licking up the tears of her caregiver as if doing so would stop her sadness. "I will not let any more children die. I promise."
And, in a rare display of urgency, she ran naked to her work desk to compose an edict to protect all the innocents. No matter the cost.
She had Nani's sadness and an angry god to worry about. Neither of those things should stay.
*
It was the first station-wide public address in two languages since the way-long-ago. Sahra listened to both parts, making sure the translation was accurate. It wouldn't be the first time someone chose to alter the message for the less-bright amongst the audience.
For once, it matched.
"It has been a horrifying seven days for all of my people, and my heart goes out to each and every one of you. We appear to be under siege by an angry god, and thus must stand together until such time as this god can be... reasoned with. As part of our reparations to the divine, we are guaranteeing the safety and security of all abandoned children in all the Empire's established realms. We henceforth decree that any child without a family shall be guaranteed food, shelter, and safety. It is a crime to attack or harm an orphan. It is all of our sacred duties to feed, clothe and shelter any orphan. To that end, I am establishing the Holy Grace Charitable Orphanage, where all abandoned children are welcome, and all caregivers who donate their time will be... specially reimbursed from my own purse."
The masters around her gasped, they knew that the Majestrix's purse was big enough to fit whole planets in.
Her fellow slaves didn't react. Slaves didn't earn anything.
"And, to make things fair, and show the angry god that we are willing to listen, slaves will be chosen at random to also care for the abandoned children. They, and their children, will be freed. They will be given holdings appropriate to becoming self-sustaining. They will be given means to travel. Their children will be given an education equal to the highest born amongst my people. At the very instant that their charges are capable of looking after themselves."
The excitement in the air dropped. It would be five to ten years before that particular ticket paid off. And Sahra could guess that children weren't allowed to take care of abandoned Tu'atta babies, despite the fact that they helped with their own baby siblings since they were old enough to carry them reliably.
She would encourage Mama to put her name in. And any of her Papas that she happened by. And any Gempas or Gemmas. Not that many were around. The masters like to kill their slaves off by the time they were sixty, and deemed no longer fertile.
