Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  Sadia glanced down at her and then away to the paths again. “The what?”

  Chena frowned and leaned back against the shed wall. “The relax patches. Or an aspirin. I’d settle for an aspirin.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “The pain.” Chena was about to ask if she was kidding, then she saw the complete lack of understanding on Sadia’s face. She was not kidding. She had never heard of these things.

  “But there’s got to be something. I’m not going to make it back to the dorm like this.”

  That got Sadia to look down and really see her. “Are you serious?” she asked. “How bad do you hurt?”

  “How bad do I have to hurt? Come on, Sadia. If there’s something, you’ve got to tell me. I’m dying!” She was too. Her legs were shaking, and the top of her head felt like it was going to come off. She could barely hear the rush of the wind or trees, her ears had been so deadened by the rumble of the compost drums.

  Sadia sucked on her cheek and looked around once more for Shond, who wasn’t anywhere in sight. There were just people everywhere coming and going with the change in shifts.

  “Come on,” said Sadia. She headed for the stairway up to one of the catwalks.

  The last thing Chena wanted to do was to climb, but if it was going to take her to a relax patch or an aspirin, she would do anything. Maybe it would only be one level. She couldn’t take that long anyway. She had to get back for Teal. Sadia knew that. Well, Teal would be okay waiting for a little bit.

  It wasn’t just one level. Sadia led her up three levels. The higher they went, the thinner the crowds got and the farther spread out the houses were. Eventually the noise of the village just fell away, replaced by the rattling of the leaves and the chatter of the birds.

  Sadia took her up one more short set of stairs, and Chena felt like her legs were going to scream out loud with pain. She was about to open her mouth to tell Sadia that even a whole-body anesthetic wasn’t worth another step when Sadia turned to her.

  “Get in line. I’ll see you.” With that, she turned and ran down the steps, heading full tilt to the main village.

  Chena’s jaw dropped. What was she supposed to do now?

  She saw the line that Sadia was talking about. Half a dozen men and women, a couple with babies in their arms, waited on the catwalk in front of a house that was almost lost in the shadows.

  Actually, it wasn’t just one house, it looked more like three different houses that had allowed their roofs to group together.

  One of the babies bawled, a high thin sound that grated against Chena’s aching eardrums. She didn’t want to stay, but she couldn’t face trying to climb a hundred feet down on her shaking legs. So Chena got in line like she’d been told. After all, Sadia was her friend. She wouldn’t have brought her here if there wasn’t some kind of help like Chena has asked for.

  But then, why did she leave? Chena collapsed into the line behind a woman with a long, red, puckered scar running up her forearm.

  Probably she saw Shond, Chena thought, answering her own question. Then she felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t even stopped to look for Teal. Who knew where she had gotten to? That was what she’d do first thing when she got her relax patch.

  Every now and again, someone, or a couple of someones, would come out of the grown-together houses, and someone else would go in. The sun filtered through the leaves overhead and warmed Chena’s skin. She fell into a doze, and only woke when someone poked her in the ribs and muttered, “Your turn.”

  Chena tried to stand up and promptly fell over. She bit her lip, partly to avoid screaming as she unfolded her legs, which seemed to have locked solid, and partly to avoid yelling at the people in the line behind her who were chuckling.

  She waved away a hand that reached to help her and grabbed the railing, pulling herself upright. She forced her rusty legs to carry her into the darkened doorway. Whatever they had in here, it had better be good.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they did, she found herself in the strangest room she had ever seen. It looked like a cross between an ancient library and a witch’s cottage out of a rig game. Where the walls were not lined with glass pipes full of green algae and silver fish, they were lined with shelves of books. Bags and bundles of things Chena could not begin to identify hung from dozens of hooks on the ceiling. There was a brick stove in the corner, and four or five tables placed around the room. Next to the biggest table stood the stooped old woman that Chena had last seen on the rooftop of the dormitory.

  Apparently the old woman recoginzed her too. Her sunken mouth gaped into a smile.

  “Station girl!” she exclaimed, clicking her tongue against her few remaining teeth. “I didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

  Chena had to clear her throat before she could speak.

  “I was told I could get a relax patch here.”

  The old woman—what did she call herself? Nan Elle, that was it— frowned. “What would you want with such a thing?”

  Chena spread her hands to the ceiling. “What’s the matter with you people?” she exclaimed. “I hurt! What is the big deal about getting a muscle relaxer?” Then she remembered another important question. “And just what do you think you got anyway? What makes you the big woman?”

  The gaping smile returned and Chena wished she had the strength to get really angry.

  “I think I’ve got all you’re going to get, station girl.” She pointed one green-and-brown-stained finger at a wide wooden chair situated under three battery lamps. “You want help? Sit.”

  Chena hesitated. She really wanted to walk out of there, but she hurt so bad. If this old wreck really did have something …

  Chena hobbled over to the chair and sat.

  Nan Elle puttered around Chena. She snapped on one of the lights and peered into Chena’s eyes. She grabbed both of Chena’s shoulders with her gnarled hands and squeezed until Chena yelped.

  “Mmmm. What have you been doing today, station girl?”

  “My name is Chena!” Chena jerked her shoulders out of Nan Elle’s grip.

  “So I’ve been informed.” Nan Elle took one of Chena’s arms and flexed it. Her hands were a lot stronger than they looked, and Chena felt if she struggled she would end up with bruises in addition to all her other pains. “What have you been doing today, Chena?”

  “Shoveling, mostly. I was in the recycling shed.”

  “That’s not a place they put freshies.” Nan Elle flexed Chena’s other arm. She smelled like bad breath and peppermint.

  “They do if you ask for it.”

  Nan Elle circled around back of the chair. “Which just goes to show you should be careful what you ask them for.” She dug both thumbs into the muscle on Chena’s back, and Chena screamed.

  “Ow! Stop it! I thought you could help!”

  Nan Elle stepped back into her line of sight, and she was grinning again. “I can. But not if I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”

  Chena tried to twist around to face the old woman and immediately regretted the movement. Pain shot up and down her back. “What’s wrong with me is that I’ve been shoveling shit all day.”

  Nan Elle nodded. “I would agree with that diagnosis.” She stepped back to the edge of the lit circle Chena sat in, becoming a figure of shadow. “I can give you a drink for the pain and a salve that will help keep your muscles from stiffening up overnight. But we must talk price.”

  Chena had to work to keep her jaw from dropping. She hadn’t even considered that this would cost. But then, this was not Athena Station, where there were first-aid kits on every level that the directorate kept filled for you.

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Most of my people don’t. I will charge you four days’ use of that.” She pointed a bony finger at Chena’s comptroller.

  Chena automatically covered the comptroller’s screen with her hand. “No. That’s mine.”

  Nan Elle chuckled at her, and Che
na felt the familiar flare of real anger beginning. Who was this old woman, anyway? What did she think she had? Then a new cramp started in the back of her leg, sharp enough to keep her mouth closed against her thoughts. Nan Elle’s eyes flickered up and down Chena, and Chena knew Nan Elle had seen the way she twitched in answer to the new spasm.

  “You would trust me with your body, station girl, but not your machine?” Nan Elle shook her head.

  Chena bit her lip, and even that movement hurt. Reluctantly, she fumbled with the strap of her comptroller, pulled it off, and set it on the table among the bundles of plants and piles of clay pots.

  Nan Elle scooped it up and popped it into one of her apron pockets. “Very good. Now you wait.”

  For what? But Chena kept her mouth shut. Nan Elle receded farther into the shadows. Chena saw her pull something kidney-shaped down off one of the hooks and heard the slosh of liquid being poured. “What is the whole hassle with getting an aspirin around here?”

  “Ah,” said Nan Elle. “The hothousers, who dictate the conditions by which we live, say that by introducing artificial means to restrict or reroute the viral or bacterial populations, we risk damaging the balance of Pandora’s microsphere, which is the foundation of its total ecology.” Nan Elle shuffled back into the light.

  “What?”

  “Antivirals and antibiotics can force microorganisms to evolve in ways that are not strictly natural. Change the microsphere, and you might just introduce adverse changes all the way up the life chain. So, no medicines except under strict quarantine and supervision.”

  “That is completely cross-threaded,” announced Chena.

  “Perhaps.” Nan Elle sounded much more serious than Chena would have expected. “But there are those who say that it contributed to the destruction of the biosphere back on Old Earth.” Nan Elle planted a wooden cup full of something ruby-red on the table in front of Chena. “Now you drink that.”

  Chena picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled vaguely of cherries. It seemed okay.

  A shaft of light cut through the room. “Don’t.”

  Chena froze, the cup halfway to her mouth. A man stepped out of the light, removed the cup from her fingers, and sniffed at it, as she had. “What’s this, Elle?” he inquired.

  “It’s registered,” replied Nan Elle stiffly. “I can show you the permit.”

  “I’m sure,” the man drawled. He set the cup down, out of Chena’s reach.

  Now that Chena’s eyes had readjusted to the flood of daylight, she could get a look at the man. He looked about as old as Dad had when he left. His deep brown skin darkened almost to black around his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. His wiry, wavy black hair had been pulled into a roll. A wooden plug was shoved through one earlobe. His mended brown and burgundy clothes were the same tunic and trousers everybody else seemed to wear, but he had a wide blue band around one sleeve.

  It was his belt, though, that told Chena that this was the cop that Sadia had warned Shond about. He had a chip scanner clipped to the leather beside a taser, and a holster that held something gun-shaped. Chena wondered what it fired.

  She glanced toward the door. Human shadows moved near the threshold, and all thoughts of running went out the hatch. The cop had backup. Better to just wait this out. With any luck, the cop would forget about her, or just tell her to go home.

  “Elle, I’m going to search your house and your garden.” He sounded matter-of-fact and tired. “And I’m going to take your client.”

  Oh, piss. Fear ran through Chena. What if Mom found out? Mom was going to find out. Chena was probably fatally late already. Again. Oh, no. Oh, piss.

  Nan Elle just cocked her head up at the cop. “And you’re going to question me, of course.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’ll bother just yet.”

  Chena looked from one of them to the other. This was a complete wonk-up. It somehow seemed as if they must have had this conversation a million times, kind of like Mom and Dad and the endless late-night talks about money. But how could they have? Once the cameras caught her…

  Of course. Here they didn’t have cameras.

  “Then why are you bothering with the search?” Nan Elle asked.

  “Because I want to make sure you’re not hiding anything in plain sight,” he answered blandly. “It would be like you.”

  “That it would.” She inclined her head. “I don’t suppose you’ll let the girl take her medicine?”

  The cop looked down his long, broad nose at Chena. “No, I don’t think I will.”

  “I’m sorry, Chena,” said Nan Elle. “But that is the way it is.”

  “ ’S not your fault,” murmured Chena to her hands.

  “Actually, it is.” The cop gestured at Chena to stand up. Chena obeyed. “There are lines I can’t let you cross, Elle.”

  Nan Elle’s mouth seemed to sink a little deeper. “So you keep informing me.”

  Chena didn’t dare look back as the cop herded her out the door. Her legs and back felt creaky and reluctant, and her dry throat itched for whatever had been in that cup, but she swallowed against the feeling. She had bigger problems right now.

  No new patients waited outside Nan Elle’s door, just a pale man and a dark woman, both with blue bands tied to their brown sleeves.

  “Be thorough,” said the cop to them. “Get under and into everything, and I want a record of what’s growing on the roof, and don’t forget to check the aquarium pipes.”

  “If you need to take care of this,” Chena tried, “I could just—”

  The cop laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. Chena shut her mouth.

  “Make sure she shows you all the registrations for whatever she’s growing,” he went on to his people. “I’ll be at my place when you’re done.” He looked down at Chena again, measuring, judging, trying to see what she had and what she thought she had. Chena shriveled.

  He waved her to come on, and Chena forced her legs to move. He walked with a long, loose stride. She sort of waddled trying to keep up. If he noticed she was having trouble, she couldn’t tell. He sure as piss didn’t slow down any.

  He took her down one level and right to the edge of the village, so that they were practically hanging out over the river. He pushed open the door to a small house with a roof that was more moss than anything else, and stood aside.

  Chena hesitated. Okay, he was a cop, but it was dark in there.

  The cop snorted. “It’s my office when I’m here. Nobody’s going to jump you.”

  Try it. Just try. Chena’s hands bunched into fists, but she walked inside.

  The place was dim and cluttered, a sort of cross between Nan Elle’s and Madra’s, with record sheets and books on the desk, bundles of plants hanging from the ceiling, and yet more record sheets, which seemed to have leaves and flowers embedded in them. There was only the one door.

  The cop waved her to a chair, and Chena sat. The light slanted steeply through the windows and glowed dark gold. She glanced automatically at her wrist before she remembered her comptroller was in Nan Elle’s pocket.

  Gone. She rubbed her wrist. That was completely gone and she’d never see it again. The one thing she had from the station, and one thing that it turned out would be useful down here, and she had given it away to a crazy old lady who hadn’t even given her any medicine.

  The cop circled the desk and pulled the scanner off his belt. He gestured for her to come on, and Chena gave him her chip hand to scan. He looked down at the reader and grunted.

  “Chena Trust. Here two days and already in the soup.” He touched a key on the scanner and its screen blanked.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Chena spread her hands. “I just wanted an aspirin.”

  The cop folded his hands together and rested them on his knee. “Who told you Nan Elle would have an aspirin?”

  Chena shut her mouth so fast that her teeth clicked together. “I just heard,” she breathed.

  “Right.” The cop sighed and sm
oothed his hand back over the top of his head. “Okay, Chena, I want you to tell me who you saw coming and going out of Nan Elle’s while you were there.”

  “I didn’t know any of them,” she protested.

  “You have a good set of eyes and a quick brain,” replied the cop flatly. “You saw.”

  Anger flashed through Chena and she struggled to suppress it. “There were a lot of people there. Why aren’t you picking on them?”

  “Because all of them have been around long enough to not tell me piss-all.” For the first time he sounded upset. “Did you hear around what Nan Elle is?”

  Chena shook her head.

  “She’s a Pharmakeus.” The cop leaned forward, pinning her down with his gaze. Chena squirmed, but there was nowhere she could actually go. “It’s an old word. It means poisoner. You will have heard that there’s a dead man in the village. He was poisoned to death, so well we almost didn’t catch it.” He paused to let that sink in. “And you were about to drink what she gave you.”

  Chena’s heart thumped so hard, she felt the vibration down in the soles of her feet. No. It couldn’t be true. Sadia would never hand her over to a murderer. The cop was just spinning one out for her so she’d tell him what he wanted to hear. That was all.

  The cop kept staring at her. She tightened herself up inside and met his gaze. Just another superior, like on the station, without even alarms and cameras to back him up. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t know. Just wanted to scare her. Let him try.

  The door swung open and Chena just about jumped out of her skin. The cop leaned back with a satisfied smile on his face.

  “Hello, Madra,” he said over Chena’s shoulder. “And I imagine this is Mother Trust and Daughter Teal.” He gave the full salute, head, heart, and mouth.

  Chena wished the floor would open up so she could drop straight through into the river and drown.

  “There,” came Madra’s voice. Chena didn’t want to turn and look. She hunched down in the chair as if she could vanish inside it. “Didn’t that turn out easy?”

  “Thank you for finding my daughter, Constable Regan.” Mom stepped forward. Chena’s breath clogged her throat. Mom sounded as if she were wound completely tight. She’d explode all over the place as soon as the witnesses were gone.