The Superiors

by Lena Hillbrand

  He looked at Byron, who sat still, his face smooth and blank. He would let Draven make his case or back himself into a corner, one of the two. Draven had never been a great orator, but he did his best not to worsen the situation.

  “The sapien I took from the place was the worst—almost dead, and two people on her at the same time even while she was unconscious. I just…pitied her. I am fond of animals, and although I find touching them unpleasant, as you do, I do not dislike them as you do. I took her to the Confinement and left her there.”

  “Two nights later.”

  “Yes. I was quite tired the morning I got her, and I let her sleep on my floor while I slept. I thought she might recover strength and I’d take her back that evening, but I overslept. I worked the next night and left her there.”

  “At your apartment, inside?”

  “Yes. I agree that they do have a strong odor. My place smelled quite strongly of her. I even used my own money to feed her the next night, and when she seemed better, I took her to the Confinement.”

  “Why didn’t you just report the place?”

  “When a place like that gets shut down, more spring up in its place. I’ve seen it many times as an inspector. I thought they might suspect me if I reported them. I…may have been angry when I took the sap from the restaurant.”

  “But you weren’t afraid to return her to the Confinement instead of the restaurant? Then they would have known for sure you had turned them in. The Confinement would have made the call themselves if you brought them a nearly-lifeless sapien from a restaurant.”

  “Indeed. I thought about this, and I thought I would bring her back to Sap Heaven and act quite grateful to them, pretend I had enjoyed her company more than I had, and then call the health department to go down and check out the place. Then they wouldn’t have cause to suspect I’d turned them in. But when I went to return her, the place was in a raid, so I took her to the Confinement.” He had no reason to lie about it. The truth proved less tangled, less messy. Draven would accept punishment for his actions, probably lose his meager savings paying the fine, and that would be the end of it. He only hated to lose a friend as well.

  “Did you have unlawful carnal knowledge of the sapien?”

  “No,” Draven said quickly, almost shuddering at the thought of all that warm flesh. “No, sir, I did not. I only took pity on the poor creature. She was suffering greatly when I brought her home. I only meant to give her a chance to recuperate.”

  “And did you draw from her?”

  “Yes, sir. Several times.”

  “I see.”

  “But she was much stronger when I brought her back than when I found her. I did not overdraw her. I know I should have returned her right away, sir.”

  “Did you lend out this homo-sapien to anyone else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well. I hope you’re not lying to me, and I don’t believe you are. I ordered her brought to a doctor like the others from the restaurant. But her examination will be of a different nature. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m glad I’ve made myself clear. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw your name on the register for renting out a prostituted sapien. I ordered her to be checked when she was admitted. If I find that you were consorting with a sapien in a sexual manner, I will make sure you are aptly punished.”

  “Yes, sir. If anything was done to her, it was before I removed her.”

  “The doctor will be able to tell us more. I hope for both our sakes that you’re telling the truth. I’ve never been so wrong about a friend, if you’re lying right now. But because you are a friend, I’m willing to overlook this matter entirely if the clinic confirms what you told me. I do believe you’re more soft-hearted than need be regarding sapiens, but I would let this one time go by unpunished. Lesson learned, right, inspector?”

  “Yes, Enforcer, sir. Thank you. It will not happen again.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Now, I would understand your actions as your friend, because I understand how your mind works, Draven, and I’ve looked at your record and know your feelings about sapiens. But if you are lying…if I find that you have been dishonest in your account, I will make sure you face the maximum penalty for all charges. Because you were my friend. Do we understand each other on this matter as well?”

  “Of course, sir.” Draven had befriended a member of the higher Order. That friend would feel betrayed if Draven had lied, and duped for believing those lies. Draven hoped desperately that the doctor who examined Cali proved as competent as the Enforcer thought, and that nothing untoward had happened to her before he’d taken her, nothing that could be blamed on him.

  What had he been thinking? Life had been moving along as it always had, calm and comfortable, and he had committed an act so colossally stupid—risking his own livelihood, fines, even jail time—so he could save a sap. It almost amused him when he thought about it. For so little, he had risked everything.

  For just a few sips of sap, he had risked his job, his friendship, and his reputation. Was he really that primitive, that he would risk everything to eat? But that wasn’t exactly it. He hadn’t taken risks to feed himself. He had taken risks to get exactly what he wanted, to eat the very best, something better than he’d had before. It seemed petty and superficial when he thought about it. But if he thought honestly about it, he hadn’t taken her just for the taste of her sap. It had been a bit about her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Draven went to see Cali again a few days later. He had met with Byron once, but the Enforcer maintained a reserved air. He hadn’t heard back from the sapien clinic about Cali, and Draven could only hope that once he had, things would go back to normal. Since his friend Anton had moved to Belarus, he hadn’t had much opportunity to enjoy the company of others. Too often he found himself preferring solitude to the strain of engaging in social affairs.

  He enjoyed socializing when he went out, but he found the getting out part too tiresome. Sometimes it just took more energy than it was worth. Going to the Confinement, that was easy. He didn’t have to get dressed up, to impress anyone, to make an effort to come across in a certain way. And of course he always knew what to expect and that he’d get what he wanted at the Confinement. He could just throw on a pair of linen pants and a t-shirt and go over there. So that’s what he did.

  He didn’t know Cali’s bunk number, or even her barracks number. He could have asked, but it might look bad if he inquired after the sap he’d brought in. So he took a tour through the Confinement. He had finished his shift at Estrella’s, and he had a few hours before he’d need sleep. He welcomed the cool breeze, enjoyed his first visit to the outskirts of the city since he’d brought Cali in.

  He spotted an attendant and asked where he might find the newer arrivals. He walked through the last three buildings, barracks with bunks stacked five high. So many scents, so many flavors to choose from. The hallway between the bunks allowed just enough space for two people to walk side by side with shoulder’s touching. A few Superiors drew from sapiens along the hallway. Here, saps had much less frequent use than at the restaurants. He liked that he’d played a role in Cali’s arrival at the Confinement, although he knew she would have ended up here anyway—if she hadn’t died before the raid on Sap Heaven.

  He made his way along the hallway, passing another Superior or two on his way. He didn’t smell Cali in the first set of barracks so he entered the next building after scanning his papers at the door. Each long building had only two attendants, one at each end. So although a sap would be used less often than in a restaurant, their visits wouldn’t receive the close monitoring of bouncers. No two tables per bouncer rule here—the Confinement operated on more of an honor system.

  Draven found Cali in the last building, about halfway down. She had rolled herself into a ball in her bunk and pressed against the cinderblock wall with her back to the aisle. She lay as far from the hands and eyes of browsing Superiors as
she could get. He smiled a bit, wondering if she used the technique to avoid being chosen. If he hadn’t known her scent so well, he would have ignored her and taken an arm or leg that spilled over the side of a bunk or lay near the edge. When he’d eaten there before, he’d let the saps sleep if they could while he ate.

  He had to bend down and stretch his arm half the length of the bunk to reach Cali. Her feet were drawn up, and he caught them both in one hand and pulled them to him. Cali pushed her foot at him and stretched her leg out so he could draw from it. He saw the scattered pebbles under the skin behind her knee and shook his head.

  “Cali. It is I.”

  She didn’t speak, just pointed her toes and pushed them into his palm. He looked at her small foot in his hands and then at her shoulders, still hunched and hiding her face. He watched her for a moment and then grasped both feet and pulled. She slid down the bed, her shift riding up all the way until it caught under her arms. Her eyes flew open.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, his nostrils flaring at the unexpected flood of smell coming from her.

  She struggled to free her legs from him and sit up. She tugged her shift down, and when she’d righted her clothing, she closed her knees and tucked her hands under her legs. She had to bend to sit up on the bed, and her feet splayed out to the sides at an odd angle. “I’m not bleeding,” she said.

  “You’re having your cycle, then. You’re ready for mating.”

  Blood had risen in her cheeks and the heat coming off her increased. “Have I embarrassed you?” he asked, just to make sure.

  “No,” she said, lifting her eyes to look straight into his. “Why should I be embarrassed? Everyone has a cycle.”

  “Indeed. I’m glad I have not made you uncomfortable then.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “Very well. I thought it was odd of a human to have that look about her. Do you know what embarrassment is?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Just quite bold tonight. Which amounted to the same thing, really, when talking to a Superior.

  “Of course you’re not,” he said. “I would like to draw from your arm.”

  “Are you asking my permission?”

  “No. Did you expect me to?” he asked with a little smirk.

  “No,” Cali said. “But I want you to.”

  “You want me to ask your permission to draw from you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He balked at the strange thought, but something about it pleased him. “Alright. May I draw from your arm?”

  “Yes.” She thrust her arm at him, and when he looked at her she smiled. He wanted to be angry at her impudence, but he found himself smiling back instead. She was hardly more than a child. It didn’t hurt him to indulge her, and if it made it more tolerable for her, he didn’t mind. And for reasons he couldn’t understand, it excited him a bit.

  He began rubbing her upper arm and kept his eyes on hers. When he could feel the sap pressing hard against his thumb, he bent over her arm and took what he needed. He finished, closed her neatly and stood up. Then, just to emphasize the absurdity of their exchange, he smiled again and said, “Merci. Thank you.”

  Surprise crossed her face, and then she looked down at her bare legs. “Thank you for asking me.”

  “I will let you sleep again now, my jaani.” He smiled and patted her knee.

  “No, it’s okay. It’s morning now and I won’t be able to fall asleep again.”

  “I see.”

  She pulled at the hem of her shift and glanced up at him, a darting, shy kind of look. “Do you want to see something?”

  “I don’t know. What is it?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” Cali slipped from the bed, her bare feet hitting the floor almost silently. Draven followed, not sure if he should. He felt quite strange. Things didn’t feel right but he couldn’t say exactly how.

  Cali stopped at the end of the hallway and ducked into the human facilities, emerging a few minutes later in the daytime attire provided by the Confinement. It was much the same as the shift she wore at night, only a bit whiter and not as tattered.

  “I will walk outside with this homo-sapien?” Draven asked the attendant.

  The attendant shrugged. “I won’t be here much longer. Got to get home to bed. Have you eaten already?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sign?”

  “Yes. How do you know when I bring her back?”

  “I don’t. Cameras are on. Nobody’s leaving here with a sap. What you want to do outside anyway?”

  “Look at the grounds.”

  The attendant shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you say, man. You go on, now. She’ll be accounted for.”

  Draven nodded and the attendant opened the heavy doors to the outside and stood aside as they passed.

  “What is this, Cali? What have you to show me?” Draven asked when they’d gone out into the blue morning.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Where are you from? You don’t talk like anyone here.”

  “I am from…a place on the border between Belarus and Orient. I have lived several places since.”

  “Is it really true that you’re all hundreds of years old? That you guys never die? I mean, that you can’t die?”

  “Ah…Indeed, that is true.”

  “So you’ll live forever.”

  Draven paused. He knew there were cameras, and he knew he shouldn’t answer her question truthfully even if she couldn’t understand. And he was beginning to doubt her stupidity.

  “Yes. We are immortal. Only humankind dies.”

  “And animals.”

  “Yes, they die as well.”

  “Plants die, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “So…you’re more like a rock than a human?”

  He laughed at her unexpected connection. “No, and yes. It is true that I will never die of old age, or perish from some small infection as your kind will. But do I not look more like a living being than a stone? Do stones walk about and draw life and energy from their food, and hold conversations?”

  “I guess not.” Cali opened a wire gate. They entered a garden that stretched out far in front of them.

  “So I look and feel as a human, but I am forever, like a stone.”

  “And you’re cold, like a stone. Most things are warm.”

  “Snakes are cold.”

  “I hate snakes.”

  “I do as well. Have you seen one?” he asked, glancing around.

  “Yeah, in the garden when I was a kid. It bit someone, and he died,” she said.

  “Yes. Humans die from all manner of things.”

  They stood looking over the rows of plants in the cerulean light that rose from the east. Cali’s white shift almost glowed against the shadowy backdrop. Draven could see the lights atop the perimeter fences in the distance, but here in the faintly lit garden, Cali stood out as if she emitted her own luminosity.

  “This is our garden.”

  “I see that.”

  “I can help in the garden now. I get to be outside all day. There’s so much work to do, but I’d take it in a second over going back to the restaurant.” Cali shuddered and looked at Draven. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “For taking me away from there before I died. For…not killing me when you could have. And for bringing me here instead of keeping me.”

  “Then you’re happy here?”

  “Yeah.” She looked down and bent to pick at a weed, and then found more while she squatted in the dry dirt.

  “There is a man, an Enforcer, who helped close down your restaurant,” Draven said. “You should thank him. If he hadn’t done that, I would have had to take you back.”

  “Well, maybe you can thank him for me.”

  “I will tell him your gratitude.” He squatted on the other side of the garden bed and watched her weeding. “Do you know which plant
s to leave?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Why should you?” Cali asked, pushing a plant back and forth to check the base. She picked a bug off and stepped on it with her bare heel. “You can’t eat this stuff, right?”

  “That’s correct.” He had once, but thinking about it now only made him think about that time, the time when he had been one of them. A sap.

  “What would happen if you did? Would you get sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you could get sick.”

  “Our bodies don’t absorb enough energy from anything except human sap. If I ate your food, or animal sap, I could live for a while, but I’d get weak and it would taste awful. Like if you ate only grass.”

  “I don’t eat grass. I’m not a cow.”

  “And I don’t eat vegetables. I’m not a sap. But I could, just as you could eat grass. But you’d need other nutrients to survive, and so do we.”

  “Oh. I guess it makes sense. Anyway, I just wanted to let you see the garden. This is where I spend my time now. I’m helping everyone eat. It’s…I love it.”

  “You were helping people eat before.”