Fall and Rising

by Sunny Moraine

  “The fence is electrified,” the woman said. “So it’s more dangerous out here. But the air is better. And the kids know not to go near it. I guess everything’s a trade.” She pulled the sheeting aside and nodded into the shack’s dim interior. Adam moved forward without hesitation, Lochlan following, and Aarons bringing up the silent rear.

  The ceiling was so low that Lochlan had to bend his head slightly. What light there was came from an ancient plasma lantern. Bowls were stacked in the corner, a few clearly in the process of being broken apart; the material might have some use, though what wasn’t clear. There was a low sleeping mat made of scrap cloth, and the boy and girl were seated on it, huddled together, watching them with those same huge eyes.

  “Hey,” Lochlan said, dropping into a crouch in front of them and putting on his friendliest smile. He liked children, had always done so, but these were nothing like the open, usually gregarious children of Ashwina. “Nice to see you again.”

  “They don’t like strangers.” Lochlan glanced back to see the woman lowering the sheeting across the door again and securing it in place with a metal hook set against one side of the doorframe. “They don’t like anyone, really. I’m not sure they even like me anymore.” She stared at Lochlan, hard and unflinching. “You’re Bideshi.”

  Lochlan straightened up. There was no point in denying it. Though her tone left him unsure as to whether this was an accusation or merely an observation. “I am.”

  “What the hell are you doing here, then?” She studied him. “You wouldn’t be sick, would you? Seems like this only hits Protectorate. Not that they tell us anything,” she added bitterly. “But we pool what we know.”

  Adam looked from Lochlan to Aarons, and after a fraction of a second, Lochlan knew what he was searching for. He nodded. Aarons said nothing; his eye narrowed. Adam turned back to the woman again.

  “We’re not from the camp. Our vessel crashed outside the fence. They found us and just assumed. Or they didn’t care.”

  “That sounds like them.” The woman crossed the room, pushing past Lochlan, and sank down next to her children, tugging the girl into her lap and beginning to comb her fingers through her hair, working out some of the worse tangles. “They don’t give a damn about any of us. Far as we can tell they’re here to pull their time and get off-world as soon as possible. You know why we’re here.” She didn’t look up, and as Lochlan studied her hands, he saw the same shaking that Adam had seen. It was faint, barely a tremble, but it was there and it was constant. And very familiar.

  “Yes.” Adam took a seat on the boards opposite her. After a second or two, Lochlan sat down beside him. Aarons remained standing against the wall, watching them all in silence. He seemed to have withdrawn into himself, and it was making Lochlan uneasy. More than he already was. “We’ve seen it before. But we didn’t— We didn’t know they were doing this.”

  In the woman’s lap, the girl’s eyelids were drooping. The boy was leaning into her side, his eyes already closed.

  “I know you don’t know much.” Lochlan glanced up and back at Aarons, startled. Aarons ignored him. “But it would be helpful if you could tell us everything you do know.”

  The woman appeared to consider, her hands continuing to move. Then she nodded, her mouth tightening. Outside, the wind let out a sudden howl, but she gave no indication that she had heard it at all.

  “I’m one of the better-off ones here,” she said. “It started showing in me a couple of weeks ago, and it’s progressing more slowly. I went to a doctor and he didn’t say much, just gave me a referral to a specialist. Who turned out to be a group of peacekeepers with guns. I should have known—a specialist? Come on. Those are never good news anyway. But I guess I was afraid.” She dipped her head, her hands going still—or mostly still but for their slight palsy. “They rounded up my kids. Seems like it’s what they do as a matter of course. There are a lot of kids here, and most of them are manifesting. Maybe it’s worse in the next generation.”

  “What about their father?” Adam asked.

  “We’re … estranged. I’m not sure he even knows we disappeared. Or cares. I don’t know how, but they’re good at keeping this quiet.”

  “They’re excellent at keeping things quiet.” Adam’s voice was low, but it was full of such bitterness that it burned in Lochlan’s ears. “You might even call them specialists in it.”

  “Yeah, well.” The woman rolled a shoulder. “Like I said, I’m better off than most. I haven’t seen it yet in them,” she nodded at the children, “but I get the feeling it’s just a matter of time. And then … I have no idea. People here are dying. One or two a day. And they keep bringing more in.

  “We know that this isn’t the only quarantine. A few people are transfers from another one. What we also know is that they are trying to find some kind of cure, here. We think that’s one reason why they don’t kill us all outright. This isn’t only a place to dump inconvenient people until they have the courtesy to die.”

  Adam started. “What do you mean, a ‘cure’? How do you know?”

  “People disappear,” she said simply. “Some of them come back, much worse. They have scars, needle marks on their arms. Someone’s been performing medical procedures on them. None of them talk about what happened. Most can’t talk at all, and they die within a few days. Once or twice people have claimed to see where they go. There’s a building on the far end of the compound. Separate from the rest. No windows. We obviously don’t know for sure what’s going on, but … If they’re doing experiments on people, I can’t think of why else they would be.”

  “Khara,” Adam whispered, and Lochlan echoed the word in his mind. He had been ready to assume the worst of the Protectorate since long ago, but now “worst” was revising its meaning every few hours.

  They called themselves civilized. But he couldn’t imagine anything more barbaric than this. Even if he hadn’t seen the massacre on Caldor.

  “So we try to survive,” the woman went on, either ignoring the Bideshi obscenity or not understanding it. “Day by day. I’m not even sure why, a lot of the time. Either we die out there or we die in here. They give us enough food and water to make it slow, and sometimes that feels like torture. But the starving and the thirst are most of what we have to worry about, at least from them. We’re immune to everything else, of course, and something keeps us all going. Keeps me going.” She turned to the boy as he lay down on the rags, wordlessly tugging his sister with him. They curled close together, their eyes still shut tight. “I think maybe it’s them. That’s instinct, isn’t it? See the next generation through. It’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  “You love them,” Aarons said, as if commenting on the weather. “That’s enough.”

  “You think so? I wonder.” The woman swiped her hands over her face, her shoulders hunched. “Go to sleep. The nights here aren’t very long, and tomorrow I need you to move on. You can’t stay here again.” She nodded to the boards. “That’s all I have. But I guess it’s better than the mud.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Adam slid back, trying to arrange himself. “Thank you.”

  The woman shrugged and lay beside her children. “Shut off the lamp before you bed down.”

  The three of them settled in silence, Lochlan and Adam close together and Aarons a little way away. As Lochlan closed his eyes, the light on the other side of his lids dimmed and darkened. Then there was only the wind and breathing, and the soft creak of the fence as it flexed.

  Adam’s warm body was against Lochlan’s arm, close to his side. Half on instinct, he pressed closer to it, reaching for Adam’s hip, but Adam stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” he whispered.

  “Chusile.” A dry smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I’m not exactly going to fuck you in a single-room shack with children less than a foot away.”

  “No, I know that, I just …”

  Lochlan frowned. Adam actually sounded flustered, a tone h
e couldn’t recall hearing in weeks. “If she sees … I want to stay on her good side. Okay? She’s already noticed you’re Bideshi, she—”

  “I thought you were Bideshi now.” Something in Lochlan grew cold, and he withdrew his hand. This shit again. Except no, this was different shit. This was shit that he honestly hadn’t expected, and it stung. “Anyway, she didn’t seem like she cared. Not sure why touching would bother her.”

  “Lock … That’s not what I meant, I—” Adam’s whisper was pleading, but Lochlan shifted away. Maybe it was petty. But it still hurt.

  Don’t sulk, Kae’s distant voice came reproachfully. He’s still new to this. Don’t throw a tantrum.

  “It’s fine.” Lochlan turned onto his back, slinging one arm under his head. “You’re probably right. Whatever. Get some sleep.”

  But he could tell that Adam wasn’t sleeping. And he didn’t either, not for what seemed like a long time.

  Aarons, meanwhile, snored away on the other side of the room, and the last thing Lochlan remembered thinking that night was, Bastard.

  Morning started with a horn blast.

  Adam sat bolt upright, every muscle in his body tensed, pumping with adrenaline. For an awful moment he had no idea where he was—walls of scrap metal and canvas? Foul air. Then he remembered, and the core of him sank into a deep pit somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach.

  That didn’t explain the horn. But early morning light was coming in through gaps in the doorway, and the woman was already getting up from her mat, her children stirring and blinking. “Morning rations,” she said by way of explanation, and nudged Lochlan with her foot. “Get up. I’m not going to miss a meal on your account, and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t miss one either.”

  Getting up hurt. Whether it was the night on the board or the bruising from the crash or both, Adam wasn’t sure, but an ache had settled deep into every muscle, and it was obvious that Lochlan and Aarons were feeling the same. Lochlan sat up and shook his head, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes. The woman stepped past them, her children in tow, and stopped in the act of lifting aside the sheeting over the door, shooting them an unreadable glance.

  “You have about five minutes before there won’t be any point in getting in line at all. I’d hurry.”

  And then she was gone.

  “C’mon,” Lochlan muttered, getting to his feet and reaching down to give Adam a hand. “Lines, I reek.”

  “We all do.” Aarons stretched his limbs gingerly—wincing as he flexed his wounded shoulder—and heading for the door. “My guess is you get used to it. Nothing to do about it now, anyway. She’s right, we can’t afford to miss a meal, not with what they’re feeding us. Let’s go.”

  The entire camp was moving, a slow mass of people seething to where the food had been given out the night before—the same gate they’d been pushed through—vats on wheels and a stack of bowls, flanked by armored guards. Were they actually peacekeepers? Were they drawn from some other source? It was impossible to say for sure.

  The lines were already long by the time they reached them, and they slipped into what seemed like the shortest line, though it likely made no real difference. He searched the crowd for the woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  They had to find her again. This was an opening, a chance to connect. He couldn’t let it slip away.

  There was no conversation to speak of, though there were voices—grunts, groans of pain. The woman had been right about how many were seriously ill, and now in full daylight it was even easier to see: many of the gathered people appeared to be walking with difficulty, some leaning on others. The majority of them had shaking hands, some quite badly. The middle stages of the disease. Those in the later stages probably couldn’t stand or walk at all.

  So what happened to them? Were they fed? Or was each person in line only allowed their share and nothing else?

  He guessed the latter. He didn’t remember seeing anyone from the night before receiving more than their own helping.

  The line edged forward. Lochlan moved a little too quickly and bumped into Adam’s back, catching himself with a hand on Adam’s hip, lingering—and then flinching away. Adam was puzzled—Lochlan was always watching for excuses to touch him. This wasn’t like him.

  But then he remembered.

  Shit.

  He had royally fucked that up, hadn’t he? His simple precaution, drawn from a memory of what his people were like and what they expected to see and not to see. Aarons didn’t care, so far as he could tell, but Aarons was Aarons, and Adam recalled enough of his life before—all his anxieties and fears—to know that Sinder’s attitude was far more representative.

  He was with a man. He was with a Bideshi. So why shouldn’t he keep that particular piece of information under wraps until he had a better sense of where he stood?

  I thought you were Bideshi now.

  He knew why. He knew perfectly well.

  All through the line, Lochlan didn’t speak to him. Adam was handed his water and gruel and he lingered on the edges of the crowd, waiting for Lochlan and Aarons to catch up. People were dispersing. Latecomers were arriving and being turned away. A few of them raised their voices angrily and were shoved back with the butts of rifles, but most simply left with their heads down. What afflicted them was worse than merely sickness, Adam thought, watching them with his food going cold in his hands. There was no fight in most of these people. They had accepted their fate.

  They had been told all their lives that sickness was a sign of unworthiness. Perhaps they believed it.

  Lochlan and Aarons joined him. Lochlan kept his distance, not meeting Adam’s gaze, but Aarons drew up alongside him as they walked farther from the gate, appearing not to notice the coolness between them.

  “Today we need to scout the fences, see if we can find any weak points, any blind spots.” His already twisted mouth twisted further. “I don’t expect to find any, of course, but we may as well know what we’re dealing with.”

  Adam glanced back at Lochlan. “So you’re thinking escape.”

  “I’m not thinking anything yet.” Aarons leaned closer, his voice dropping. “But we can’t stay here. We might actually be hidden pretty well in this place, maybe better than we would be anywhere else. Even so, it’s only a matter of time before Sinder and his people track us down. And then they’ll have us backed into a corner. Again.”

  “It’s not enough to merely get out,” Lochlan said quietly from behind them. “We’d need a ship. Some way of getting off-world.”

  “Yeah, that sort of occurred to me,” Aarons muttered. “I’m working on it. You work on it too.”

  They settled where they had the night before, and while people passed them, the three of them still only garnered looks and no words. They ate in silence. Adam barely tasted his food; not that there was much to taste. Unbidden, the memory of his first meal on Ashwina came to him: Kae leading him into the great central hall and to the stall in the market, getting him the savory meat and the cooked greens. How good they had been. How beautiful the place was, how it had caught his attention and didn’t let it go. How it had been so far beyond what he had ever imagined, in a lifetime of stories about savagery and darkness. How much would he give to be back there now?

  When they were done, Aarons stacked their bowls against one of the crates, since there was no refuse deposit point in evidence, and the children had seemed to have an interest in collecting them. Aarons got to his feet and Adam and Lochlan followed, Adam groaning as the pain rushed back into his muscles.

  “Not much point in waiting.” Aarons gestured to the fences. “Let’s split up, go in opposite directions and meet in the middle. I guess you two want to go together?”

  Lochlan glanced at Adam. Adam stared at Aarons, jaw working, and finally said, “Yeah. We do.”

  He didn’t catch Lochlan’s expression then. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  Aarons looked from one of them to the other, brow raised, and n
odded. “All right. You go left along the perimeter. Adam, a word?”

  Lochlan moved on ahead, down the row of shacks toward the fence. Adam watched him go, and then Aarons touched his arm. It was a surprisingly light touch from a man so rough around the edges. Adam turned to him with new unease in the pit of his stomach.

  “Is something going on between you two? Anything I should know? Or is this your average lover’s quarrel?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Yeah. Sure it is.” Aarons’s lips twitched in what might have been thin amusement. “Look, whatever. It’s none of my business, and I frankly don’t give a fuck. Just don’t let it get in the way of getting out of here. We need to go, and soon. If you think I won’t bury my foot up both your asses, think again. Now get.”

  Adam lingered for a few seconds, searching his face. Aarons’s scars made it difficult to read him, but he could detect no disgust on the man’s face, only impatience. He didn’t care. He really didn’t. At last Adam followed Lochlan’s receding back.

  The next half hour or so was spent in silence as they walked. Nearer the fence, the mud wasn’t quite so thick, and the air was, as the woman had said, a bit better. They walked slowly, casually, and if any guards saw them, they might well conclude that he and Lochlan were simply wandering with the same kind of aimlessness most of the prisoners seemed to feel, and leave them be. One thing that he gathered might work in their favor—whatever plan they came up with—was the general disinterest that the guards seemed to have in their prisoners. The three of them had undergone no processing on entering, though the woman who had brought them in had mentioned the possibility. He had seen no counting of people, no care taken to regulate what went on behind the inner fence. Provided people stayed within its bounds, they appeared to be left mostly to their own devices.

  But a healthy part of his focus was elsewhere. It was on Lochlan’s back, his profile, the tense line of his mouth. Searching for a way in.