He walked Tommy to his door. "I expect you here each day, except rest day, immediately after the midday meal."
On the way back from Forset's quarters, the fourth Forset had ignored Tommy's questions. At the entrance to the farmers' area, one of many passageways like hundreds of others on the ship, he turned back without a word, leaving Tommy, seething, to find his way alone.
From his barracks door, he saw one of the boys who had been tormenting him doing something with the sheets on his bunk.
A sudden rage drove Forset and his new tasks out of his mind. Not this time, he thought. Tommy walked as quietly as he could behind the boy, grabbed his shirt on either side of his neck, and tossed him toward the door with a loud "Aaahhhh." The boy slid into the hall on his back. Tommy followed, intent on doing more damage, as the boy stood up and bolted down the passageway.
By the time Tommy had disposed of the cup of horse manure he found on the floor beside his bunk, his hands had quit shaking. He collapsed on the mattress to think about what he had just done.
In the observation room mirror that day, he had seen a smaller version of his Dad, something he had been sure could never happen. He was taller, too, maybe as tall as the first Jack. His dad was five-ten. If he grew to that height, he would be taller than anyone here.
Some of Tommy's earliest memories were of his Dad lifting weights and using a weight machine in the basement before dinner, four nights a week. The machine was directly underneath his room, and, sometimes, his dad seemed to clank the machine in rhythm with the click of his computer keyboard.
His Dad had been concerned about his small size and had repeatedly encouraged him to exercise. Tommy never lasted more than a session or two on the weight machines before complaining so much about the pain that his Mom would make his Dad leave him alone--until the next time. Finally, his Dad had quit trying to get him to work with weights and had, last winter, enrolled him in a Korean martial arts school.
After the first couple of weeks, he had liked the class, and he only had to be there an hour and a half a week. The self-discipline and concentration required in martial arts reminded him of programming. He had improved--especially in Hapkido, the art of throwing an opponent--but he had one problem: he was much smaller than the other kids his age, and he stayed that way. At his skill level, size mattered. In the sixth month, the bruises the other boys gave him frightened his mom, and she made him quit.
Apparently, forced farm labor is as effective as lifting weights, he thought.
Potter came out of hiding and jumped onto Tommy's chest. "Well, Potter Cat, I see I can't count on you to protect things around here."
Tommy sat up, lifting the cat into his lap. "You know, Potter, I don't have a clue about this new person I saw in the mirror today, or who the person is who threw that asshole into the hall." Potter head-butted his hand, and Tommy began scratching Potter's back. "The person I used to see in the mirror is a geek and has always been a geek. And the one thing I know for sure about being a geek is they don't toss people across the room." Potter purred and kneaded through Tommy's pants legs. "Well, the person I tossed is small, but in Atlanta I wouldn't have confronted anyone of any size no matter how mad I was."
He scratched behind Potter's ears. "Did you know we were on a spaceship? If you did, you could've told me.” Potter blinked and head-butted his hand again. “Spaceship or not, there must be a way to get home." His fingernails continued down Potter's back. "Until we do, I've had enough of those boys."
His eyes closed, and he fell back on the bunk. "Potter, maybe we can sort this out tomorrow." Five minutes later he was asleep.
The next day, he did begin to sort things out. His tormenters shoved him in the manure pile again, but this time he fought back and took two of them in with him. When he charged from the pile, the remainder scattered to their jobs.
His walk had a definite swagger as he pushed his wheelbarrow into the stable. They called me feral, he thought. If so, being wild makes me stronger than the other boys my age. Mark compared this stable to a chicken yard. Maybe I've become a rooster.
He missed lunch to shower and change clothes for his first class, but that seemed unimportant.
# # #
That class and the others that followed for many weeks were rote and utterly boring. First, he studied the symbols of the lords’ alphabet and how to sound them out with all of their variations. Two of the vowel sounds were whistles, one made with the lips and the other by the tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth. Before he got that right, they moved on to short words he had to write in a notebook and repeat aloud, over and over again: words for counting, words for objects in Forset's cabin, words for parts of the body, words for movement. Memorization had never been one of Tommy's strong abilities, and Forset relentlessly pushed him until he felt his brain would burst. When Tommy asked for a break in the middle of their four-hour sessions, Forset would say, "We have been given this task by the lords," and the class would continue.
After several months, they progressed to short sentences, then longer ones. Some aspects of the language did make it easier to understand: the noun and verb combinations always followed a regular pattern, and the language lacked contractions of any kind. The words and syllables were always said distinctly.
In the seventh month of classes, Forset insisted they communicate during their four hours only in the language of the lords. At first, this was limited to simple questions and statements, but, as his vocabulary and confidence increased, Forset asked him questions about his work that morning or how he was getting along with the farmers. Forset always listened intently to his answers, correcting his pronunciation, his choice of words, and how he put his sentences together, and then Tommy tried his answers again, until Forset was satisfied. At the beginning of his second year on the ship, Tommy's written work progressed from copybook exercises to essays describing his previous life and the work he was doing now. Forset examined these closely
The day came when Tommy could carry on a conversation almost as easily in the lords' language as in English. He and Forset walked the passageways near Forset's cabin or along the Commons' trails during at least two of their four hours together, conversing about whatever came to mind for either of them. When they met another priest, Tommy and the priest exchanged greetings in the lords' language and stopped to talk for a while if the priest was willing.
Forset no longer required Tommy to do most of the talking as long as he upheld his portion of the conversation. Tommy used this time to ask questions that had bothered him since he arrived on the ship. Some questions Forset answered. Other questions were answered with "That is not for me to tell you." When Tommy asked "Why do you all speak English?" Forset paused beside a small stream that ran under the trail. He had to sprinkle his response with words in English, like church, clergy, and squire, that didn't have equivalents in the lords’ language.
"All of the farmers, priests, and artisans on this ship are descendents of the population of a single village and its surrounding lands in England," Forset told him. "The shopkeepers, the farmers, the village squire, and the clergy in the church went to sleep one night and woke the next morning in this ship." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "They took our livestock. They took our tools. They took the books from the church. That was over four hundred years ago. Our English has changed little since, so you were able to understand us."
"I had a hard time, at first," Tommy said, "but your English is not so different from how some people speak in parts of America, in the mountains. I just had to listen carefully."
Forset squatted by the stream and let the water pour over his hands. "English has served the ship well, at least as far as Earth is concerned. The spread of the British Empire on Earth gave our people the ability to communicate and trade almost anywhere they landed. Other ships that go to Earth made poorer choices of crew."
Tommy looked around the Commons. "Other ships? Other ships like this one?"
"You thought this is the only
ship? The lords have many ships, and, of those, many stop to trade at Earth. Whether they are like this one, I couldn't say."
"Kidnapping the inhabitants of a town doesn't sound like trade to me. As for that, kidnapping me isn't trade either."
Forset splashed water on his face. "They take sometimes; they trade almost always. Your own ancestors were enslaving others at the time my ancestors were stolen. For manufactured or farm products, they almost always find trading easier than stealing, as long as the lords have something that is wanted in return."
"What do the lords offer on Earth?"
Forset laughed. "Earth's inhabitants are especially easy, I'm told. The lords have maintained relationships with families there for many generations, and all feral humans want is gold and, for the last few trips, boxes of strangely decorated pieces of paper with your symbol for one hundred printed on them. The lords took a sample, and the artisans produced them by the thousands. The gold is gotten with little effort from your own comet cloud when we first arrive in-system."
"What do the lords get in return?"
Forset stood and continued walking. "Organics. Art. Animals. This past landing, no doubt some things that require your services."
Tommy's next question got only a blank expression at first. "Why do women only work at cooking and serving in the meal room and hoeing weeds?"
Finally, Forset replied, "That is the way it has always been. How would you have it?"
"In my time, on my Earth, at least in the United States, women are allowed to do anything a man can do," Tommy said.
"That makes no sense," Forset replied. "Everyone knows women are inferior. Requiring more of them would be harmful."
"My mom would strongly disagree with you," Tommy said.
They had reached the end of their walk and were back at Forset's cabin. "Perhaps you could help me with a trade item I do know of. The artisans gave me a wonderfully tiny knife with many blades obtained from Earth."
Forset produced a small box containing a four-bladed safety razor. "I bloodied my finger on the blades, but I cannot imagine what is meant to be cut by them."
# # #
On one walk through the Commons, Tommy asked about the parts of the ship he hadn't seen.
"I am told the ship is a gigantic sphere, compressed slightly from top to bottom," Forset said. "I haven't seen the ship from the outside, but the artisans and warriors who ride in the landers give that description. My world inside the ship is not so much different from your world. The place I meet with the lords, you have not seen, and I have led the artisans' services in places you have not been, but our walks have taken you to most of the other places I know. I believe the engines that push this ship are below us, and the lords live in the space above the Commons, but I have seen neither."
"The warriors. Are they lords?"
"No, they are not lords. The lords seldom fight for themselves, I am told. The warriors are also from the Earth of our time, but from another part of England."
"Why do we never see them or the artisans on our walks?"
"The lords have made all of us different, too different to be comfortable together, perhaps. Sometimes, a farmer will talk with an artisan about a problem within the ship. The warriors keep to themselves. If you are ever close to one, you will understand why." He pointed at a dusty cloud clockwise around the central column. "You have seen something of the warriors almost every day in our walks. The dirt in their practice area has been ground to powder by their feet. When the dust is in the air, they are training."
"Could I watch?"
The horrified expression on Forset's face almost made Tommy laugh aloud.
"No, of course not!" Forset said.
# # #
For a while after his first meeting with Forset, Tommy's mornings at the stables became harder. The boys didn't appreciate his new confidence and tested him at every opportunity. Whenever the first Jack and the second Jack were out of sight, one of his tormentors picked a fight. Tommy held back in these scuffles, and they made noise without much injury, but the fights always drew one of the Jacks to see what was happening. Jack would threaten, and things quieted down for a day or so, until the next clash.
Except for bruises, the fights mostly made Tommy hungry. He couldn't get enough to eat, and by the time he was talking with Forset about artisans and warriors in walks through the decks and the Commons, he had twice exchanged his shirts and pants for larger sizes.
One day, the first Jack told Mark to accompany the second Jack to pick up some equipment, and Tommy had to unload the feed wagon alone. When this had happened before, Tommy had jerked the bags off of the wagon, one at a time, into the wheelbarrow. This time, he was thinking over the previous day's lesson and the essay he would write that afternoon, and, without being aware of what he was doing, he brought a feed bag to his chest and threw it into the wheelbarrow. He stopped. That felt good, he thought. He picked up another bag and threw it after the first. That felt easy! The third bag he lifted over his head before sending it after the others, filling the wheelbarrow. That was unbelievable!
He climbed into the bed of the wagon and danced around, holding his arms in the air and congratulating himself. That was fun! On the second turn, he calmed down and glanced around guiltily. I mustn't be caught playing instead of working.
Movement at the far edge of the stable caught his attention. That's the first Jack talking to a group of boys, he thought. They looked like... Yes, they are the boys I've been fighting. What is that about?
The wheelbarrow rolling over loose straw muffled any sounds the boys might have made, and his eyes adjusting to the dim light inside the stable prevented him from seeing their ambush. A blow across his upper back sent him stumbling forward into the wheelbarrow. If the impact had been six inches higher, the attack might have ended then. Instead, it knocked his face into the stack of feed bags and gave him time to turn around. For months, the fights had been with bare hands. This time, each of the five boys stood in front of him with a weapon.
I might have a chance against the sticks, he thought, but I need more than my bare hands against the two with pitchforks. He looked around for a weapon of some kind. They had backed him inside the wheelbarrow handles against a stack of immovable feed bags. The handles confined him to a space two feet wide.
Maybe not so immovable, he thought. In one whirling turn, he picked up a fifty-pound sack of feed from the wagon and heaved it at the nearest boy with a pitchfork. The boy went down with a loud cry, his pitchfork flying into the darkness behind him. Another turn and heave knocked the second pitchfork wielder to the floor with the sack on his chest. Tommy kept the third sack in his hands and charged the remaining three, knocking two into the hay bales stacked by the entrance and chasing the third out the door.
Numbers three and four had disappeared when he returned, but the first two sat on the floor, moaning.
"You broke my ribs," one of them said.
"And what were you planning to do to me with that pitchfork?" Tommy said.
The other one rocked back and forth. "We was only supposed to hurt you a little bit, not break your ribs."
"Who told you to hurt me?"
"The first Jack," the first one said.
Tommy squatted on his heels in front of them. "Did he say why?"
"He says you don't belong here. He says it's not right you're here."
"And if you hurt me a little bit? What good would that do? Would that make me go away? To where? Are you sure you weren't supposed to hurt me a lot?" He grabbed the second boy's tunic and jerked him forward until their faces almost touched.
The boy pushed at Tommy's chest, but his face didn't move. "It wasn't our idea. We was just doing what we was told."
Seeing the other boy getting up, Tommy released one hand and grabbed, slamming the boy into the side of the one he already held. "I've got a new idea for you and your friends. The next time any of you pick a fight with me, someone will be seriously hurt, multiple broken bones hurt, and h
e won't be me." He shook them both. "Maybe I should do some of that hurting now."
Tommy stood up, effortlessly lifting the two boys to their feet. They were standing flat-footed, and he was looking over their heads. They are tiny, he thought. I could break their bones, but that would make me just like them.
"Whatever Jack tells you to do, you'd best not do it if it involves me. Do you understand?"
When both of them nodded, he shoved them back toward the door and went back to his wheelbarrow. He had work to do, even if it was for the first Jack.
# # #
The day after his fight with the boys, three farmers-- full-grown men--waited for Tommy at the barn.
The man in the center was a little taller than the others and not someone that Tommy knew. When the man opened his mouth, Tommy could see a wide gap in his front teeth. "Gotten too big for the boys to handle, have you?" the man said.
Tommy stopped well away from the barn door and put Potter down at his feet. "I suppose." This doesn't look good! He took a step back. "What can I do for you?"
The two men on the outside moved slowly to Tommy's left and right.
The gap-toothed man threw a futile kick at Potter as the cat darted past into the open door of the barn.
Tommy had seen the man on the left before in the meal room. He was scrawny, even for one of the farmers. "We're here to make you pay for beating up on our kids, feral," the man said.
Tommy also knew the man on the right. He was one of the animal handlers and was frequently called on to subdue angry livestock. "And the sight of your lumpy body makes us sick," that man said.
"After we make you pay, we want you out of here," said the gap-toothed man still in front of him.
Tommy looked carefully back and forth at the men closing in on him before answering. "Where do you expect me to go?" he said.
"We don't care," said the scrawny man on his left. Maybe your priest friend will let you move in with him."
A Larger Universe Page 5
