Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  What’s happening? Chena turned her head every which way, trying to see what caused the panic. The sky was clear. The ground…

  The ground moved.

  Chena blinked and looked again. No, she was right, the ground was moving. A million individual threads snaked between the stalks, glittering in the sun as they reached the cleared lane around the rail. Ignoring the fence, the sparkling threads ran over the bike rails.

  They were ants.

  Chena choked and her free hand flew to her mouth. Billions of tiny red-brown ants swarmed over the rail, heading for the strangers—the strangers who screamed, and whose screams receded as fast as the bike could pull her forward. Chena twisted as far as she could, but she couldn’t see any people anymore. All she saw was the moving ground, the running antelope, and the waving grass.

  Then she felt a tickle under her trousers. She looked down immediately. A few red-brown specks crawled up the frame of the bicycle. Chena screamed and beat at her legs. Points of fire burned themselves into her skin. She shrieked louder and beat harder until she wobbled in the bicycle seat and she realized she might fall off onto the ground, into the path of those billions of ants. She grabbed both handlebars so tightly her knuckles hurt.

  She felt them. They crawled up her legs. She whimpered but didn’t dare let go, not even when the wind blew her hat off. She could feel them tasting her skin. She knew they crawled up her back and down her scalp and into places she couldn’t even stand to think about. They were all over her. She knew it. She could feel them. Even when the bike hurled her into the shadows of the forest and she couldn’t see the ground moving anymore, she knew they were still on her. Dozens of them, maybe a hundred, under her clothes, in her hair, maybe all over her face. They were going to bite her to death. They were going to make her crazy, like the animals, or make her scream herself to death, like the strangers.

  The bike pulled into the depot. Before it even stopped moving, Chena vaulted off it, forgetting her packages, forgetting everything. She barreled through the gate and up the stairs to the top catwalk, running as blindly as the antelope had.

  A wall slammed into her, sending her staggering backward, but she couldn’t fall. They’d get her if she fell. She swatted frantically all over her body and arms, clawing at her face and hair.

  Hands grabbed her wrists. “What happened?” demanded someone.

  “Ants,” she squealed. “Ants. They’re all over me. Get them off!”

  But the hands just held her tighter. “Red ants?”

  “Yes!” Chena shook her head frantically. Maybe she could shake them off. They were everywhere. She could feel them.

  “All right, all right.” The hands dragged her forward. Chena realized the voice came from Nan Elle. She had made it. But the ants were still there.

  The light dimmed as Nan Elle propelled her inside her house, through the front room, and into a small closet.

  “Strip!” ordered Nan Elle. “Get your clothes off, girl.”

  Chena tried to obey. Tears blurred her vision as she tore at her clothes and kicked her shoes off. She was vaguely aware that other hands helped her. She didn’t care. Her clothes were full of ants. She had to get them off.

  She was barely naked before Nan Elle gave her a push. She toppled sideways into a tub full of freezing cold water. She jerked her head up, taking a deep gasping breath, but hands pushed her under the water again. She struggled until she realized what was going on. Yes. Yes. Drown them. The water would drown them and get them off her.

  When her lungs felt like they were going to burst, the hands finally released her. Chena shot up out of the water and dragged in great whooping gasps of air.

  “Are they gone? Are they gone?” she cried, blinking water from her eyes and rubbing frantically at her shoulders, unable to tell whether the tickling was water running down her skin or the ants.

  “They’re gone,” said Nan Elle. “Now let me look at you.” Nan Elle pulled first one arm and then the other away from Chena’s body and turned them over, examining them. She took Chena’s chin between two fingers and pulled it left and right. Then she reached into the bath and pulled out Chena’s leg, running her wrinkled hand over Chena’s chilled skin.

  “Hush, now. You only got a few bites. They’re painful but…” She looked at Chena’s face and saw how wide her eyes were, and how she shivered from more than the cold water. “There were more than a few, weren’t there?”

  Chena nodded, hugging herself. She could still hear them; the strangers, the animals, the birds. She did not want to close her eyes because she knew she would see them and the ants.

  “All right,” said Nan Elle, speaking more softly than Chena had ever heard before. She held up a thick towel. “Get out of there and wrap yourself in this.” She laid the towel on the edge of the tub. “The ants are all gone. I promise you. When you’re ready, you come out.” She shuffled out of the room and closed the door, leaving Chena sitting in cold and darkness, relieved only by a single sunbeam from a long narrow slit up near the ceiling.

  Chena sat in the water and shivered a few minutes longer, until her breathing evened out and her throat loosened. Then, checking the floor first to make sure there was nothing crawling on it, she climbed out of the tub and folded the towel around her. It felt deliciously warm after the frigid water. She rubbed her skin and her hair as hard as she could. The cloth was harsh, but that was all. There was no more crawling. Her legs hurt in spots, but those spots didn’t move.

  Chena bit her lip and stuck one leg out in front so she could see. Three red welts the size of her thumb blazed on her shin. The welts hurt, but they didn’t seem to be actually doing anything.

  After a moment’s looking around, Chena realized that Nan Elle had taken her clothes. She cracked open the door and peered out into the main room. Nan Elle stood by the stove stirring something. Chena’s clothes were draped over the end of the table. She could just see that the front door was closed. There didn’t seem to be anybody else in the room.

  She straightened up, opened the door, and took two tentative steps into the main room.

  Nan Elle lifted her head and sized Chena up.

  “Your clothes are clean,” she said, nodding toward Chena’s things.

  “Thank you.” Chena snatched her stuff off the table and retreated to the bathroom to change.

  When she came out again, Nan Elle put a bowl and a cup in her hands and sat her at the cleanest end of the table. Suddenly hungry, Chena ate. It was nothing but dorm cereal and mint tea, but it tasted great. She even managed to forget that Nan Elle, sitting in the high-backed chair, watched her every move.

  Finally Chena drained the cup and remembered her manners.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

  Again Nan Elle nodded. “You’re welcome.” She leaned forward, both hands folded on a crooked walking stick. “Now tell me what happened.”

  Just thinking about it started Chena shaking again, but with Nan Elle’s eyes boring into her, she didn’t dare keep quiet. Chena told her about the people parachuting down from the sky, about the animals beginning to panic, and about the billions of ants and how the bike had almost rolled away and left her there in the middle of the chaos, and the screaming, and the hungry ants. She clamped her hands between her knees to keep them from shaking, but by the time she was done with the story, they stopped on their own and she was able to breathe easily again.

  She glanced up at Nan Elle. The old woman’s eyes were closed, her head bowed over her hands. For a moment, Chena thought she was asleep. But then she saw that Nan Elle’s head was shaking and her mouth was muttering.

  “The fools, the fools.” Nan Elle lifted her head and shifted her grip on her walking stick. “When you go back out, I’m going to ask you to look around for me.”

  Chena shot to her feet. “Not on your mother’s life.”

  Nan Elle smiled, just a little. “My mother has been dead for some years.”

  Chena shook her head, hard
, like she was still trying to shake ants out of her hair. “No. I’m not going back there.”

  “Ever?” asked Nan Elle softly. “How are you going to run your business?”

  Chena looked away and shrugged. “I will go back, just not right away.”

  Nan Elle stood and walked forward until she was close enough to look up Chena’s nose. “Listen to me, Chena Trust. If you do not go back there tomorrow, you will never go back. They will have you so scared that you will never be able to make another move without their approval again.”

  Involuntarily, Chena took a step back. “Who’s ‘they’?” she said, trying to sound like she thought the old woman was crazy.

  Nan Elle’s whole face puckered. “The hothousers.”

  Chena felt the shakes starting up again. “No. They couldn’t do something like this. Not even them.”

  Nan Elle sighed. “I would like to believe that, Chena. You have to remember, though, the planet they have jealously guarded for so long has been threatened with the invasion for the past ten years. They have had plenty of time to get ready for this. I’m not surprised to find out they co-opted the biosphere itself for the job. It is what they know best.” She smiled, just a little, and very grimly. “If it makes you feel any better, I believe that they put the automatic recall onto the rail-bikes so that no innocent bystander, like you, would get hurt.”

  But Chena barely heard her. All the strength evaporated from her knees. She had to grab the table edge to keep from falling over. She managed, just barely, to collapse onto the stool. Somebody had done that to the people. Somebody, somehow, ordered them to be bit to death like that?

  “How?” whispered Chena. “How?”

  Nan Elle shrugged. “I wish I knew. Mote tech, possibly. They’ve been using that to monitor the world for years. Perhaps they have exploited the chemistry of the ant hive, or—”

  “No.” Chena slashed her hand through the air between them. “I mean, how could they do that to people?”

  Nan Elle shook her head. “There, I have no answer for you.”

  “Who do you think they were?”

  “There have been rumors that Athena Station has become drastically overcrowded.” Nan Elle sucked thoughtfully on her cheeks. “Some of them might have thought to try—”

  “You mean they could have been Athenians?” cried Chena. Her stomach knotted up. “I might have known them!”

  Nan Elle shook her head. “Nah, nah, your friends would all be too bright to try such a fool stunt. Still…” Her gaze grew distant. “It might be worth it to make inquiries. There may be more trouble coming from that direction.” Her attention came instantly back to Chena. “Will you take a letter to Farin for me? Tomorrow?”

  Chena swallowed, everything she had seen crowding back into her mind. “I… um… don’t think…”

  Nan Elle laid a skinny finger on Chena’s collarbone. “Now, you listen carefully,” she said, softly but forcefully. Chena could smell everything about her: mint, yellow soap, rotting breath, and old sweat. “You want to get out from under them, don’t you? Oh, they can be defied, but not if you’re afraid, and not if you’re ignorant. I can teach, if you want to learn. But only if you are ready to do what is necessary.” She took one step backward and Chena could breathe again. “If you are not, there’s the door.” She gestured toward it with her stick.

  What was going on here? Was she calling Chena a coward?

  What if she is? You’re not going to do anything stupid just because she calls you names, are you? Chena bit her lip. But what if she does know something? What if that something can help us get out of here?

  And if Mom found out, that would be the end of it, the whole errand business, and probably even going outdoors until she was nineteen.

  But if she didn’t take the risk, who would? And what if Mom couldn’t earn money fast enough on her own to get them out of here before the hothouse really started cracking down?

  “Okay.”

  Nan Elle nodded once. “Very good. Here’s another thing you might want to consider. Taking on a partner. Two of you are stronger than one alone. Besides, that way, no matter what you see, there’s a second witness.”

  What’s that all about? But Chena kept the question to herself. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Hmph,” Nan Elle snorted, moving to get out her pen and paper. “You do that, station girl.”

  It took Nan Elle about fifteen minutes to finish the letter. With the message tucked into her sealed pocket, Chena walked outside again. It was almost dark. Since it was fall—it had taken Chena a while to understand the business of changing seasons, but she had it now—there were no more flowers to bloom, but bats still skittered through brown-gold leaves that came loose and drifted down onto the catwalk.

  Below her, people walked between the dining hall and dorm. A couple headed for the faint lights of the library. A greeting drifted up through the twilight. A door creaked open and thumped shut.

  Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. Nobody knew what had happened to all those people, and they never would. Chena’s hands knotted into fists. She wanted to tell them. She wanted to scream it out to all of them. Hey! This is what the hothousers are doing! How can you just stand there?

  And if she did, then what? Chena’s shoulders hunched up as she walked. She’d scare Mom and Teal to death. Mom would keep her home. There wouldn’t be any more money, and the hothousers would still do whatever they wanted.

  Better to just keep on going and keep your mouth shut. Much better.

  Chena headed down the stairs to reclaim her packages.

  “With respect, Father Mihran,” said Shontio through gritted teeth. “Your… invaders did not even dock at Athena Station. I would be happy to show you all our computer logs and the camera records.”

  Father Mihran, a blurry image on the conference room’s wall screen, waved his hand. “That is not the issue. You saw them coming and you did not warn us.”

  From her place at the end of the conference table, Beleraja watched the Athena Station management committee. She wondered if they knew how shabby the four of them looked in their old coats with the missing braid and the crumpled collars. Shabby people in charge of a shabby station, she thought, ashamed, depressed, and tired all at once. Athena had gained its independence once upon a time, but it had lost everything else. Now it might even lose that independence. And she had helped bring that about, because she did not have enough ships, or enough people, to do the job she had been sent to do.

  “How could I warn you when I didn’t know what was happening?” demanded Shontio.

  “When did the Authority start paying you to help threaten us?” snapped Father Mihran.

  “What?” Shontio’s shout pulled him to his feet.

  Father Mihran remained seated and enunciated each word clearly. “How much did the Authority offer you in order to let this little demonstration of their displeasure happen?”

  “Father Mihran”—Shontio dragged out the title as if it were the last thing in the world he wanted to say—“you have no right to insult me.”

  “I’m afraid I have no choice. According to the treaty between Athena Station and Pandora, you are responsible for—”

  “And you do not get to tell me my responsibilities!” Shontio slammed his palm against the table, making everyone in the room wince. “I am responsible for a bursting, starving station because you will not open—”

  Father Mihran slashed his hand through the air, cutting Shontio off.

  “And if you wish to continue to have your responsibilities, you will make sure that nothing like this happens again.”

  “You’re not threatening me, are you?” said Shontio, his voice as low and dangerous as Beleraja had ever heard it. “You’re not threatening the station?”

  Father Mihran bowed his head. “We are beyond threats, you and I. There are only promises left. And I promise you, I will not permit another landing on Pandora. If the Athena management board cannot keep order, then orde
r will be kept for them.”

  Shontio reached out and swatted a command key on the table’s edge, cutting the connection to Pandora and blanking out the wall.

  “They mean it,” said Ordaz, the water and waste director, shaking his head until his jowls and chin quivered.

  Ajitha, air director, waved her long hand dismissively so that her single diamond ring glittered in the light. “They are just outgassing, as always.” She twisted her ring. “Pandora has only one threat to use against us, so they have to use it often.”

  “No,” said Shontio quietly, lowering himself back into his seat. “I don’t think so. The sacred ground of Pandora has been breached. This time, I think they’re serious.”

  Beleraja watched fear settle over each one of the four directors.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “What is the threat?”

  Shontio’s smile was without humor. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard this one yet, Beleraja. Athena gained what independence it has during the Conscience Rebellion—you know that, right?” He watched her nod. “Did anyone ever tell you what the Conscience part of the rebellion’s name stands for?”

  “I always thought that referred to the conscience of your ancestors.”

  “Oh, no.” Shontio shook his head. “It was when the hothousers had all decided that in order to maintain family unity, they were each of them going to get a little artificial intelligence chip planted in their heads to help remind them what was right and what was wrong. They wanted to do the same to Athena Station, or at least the directorate. We refused and went on strike. Shut down the space cable completely, shut down the manufacturing facilities, and threatened to start destroying the satellite network.” Shontio shook his head again and stared at the wall, saying nothing more, as if he had forgotten he was in the middle of the meeting.