West of January

by Dave Duncan

  Yet Hrarrh himself was the second straw of hope that kept me afloat. “I won’t forget,” he had said. So if he had a chance, then I had one also, however slim.

  And Hrarrh’s reward arrived eventually, as I learned when I saw him striding across the compound in smart new leathers, leading a half-grown panther off to training. Soon afterward, I watched his wedding. Bald and bearded, he was indistinguishable from any other young male ant, but he owed me a favor. It might be long before he achieved enough seniority in the tribe to do anything about it, but from then on I could believe that I was a little less unfortunate than all my fellows. One ant was in my debt.

  There were bad times and worse times, and a very few not-quite-so-bad times. Rarely the ants held a wedding or some other feast that left nobody to supervise us. Then the slaves gained a holiday also, to sit idle in the scorching sun and watch the dancing by the cottages under the trees. At those times the ant women shimmered in gowns of iridescent gossamer, swirling clouds of color. The slaves laughed behind their hands at this futile attempt to beautify such ugliness, but the male ants seemed to like their women that shape.

  Half the races of Vernier were represented in the slave pen at one time or another. Herdmen were the most common, though, and the most prized. They were huge and they were docile. Trained in absolute obedience to their human fathers and then betrayed by them, betrayed also by their Heavenly Father, deprived of the unbounded sky of their youth, herdmen went mad very quickly, but they continued to obey. The great haul of seafolk boosted the workforce greatly, but thereafter the numbers dwindled as deaths outran recruitment. New slaves were brought in from time to time by the ants’ raiding parties, and many were brought by traders, although I never saw a trader in the compound.

  I learned much about Vernier from the scattered moments of conversation with men and women of other shades and shapes and sizes. But I told none of them about my plan. As an oyster locks tight about a pearl, so I closed my abused body around my tortured mind, and closed that in turn about the tiny fire of purpose that gave my existence meaning—my plan. I would go to the grasslands and there complain to the Almighty.

  Die or go mad—there was no other choice. I made friends and saw them die or go mad like me. I had sex with women who were forbidden to refuse, gaining small relief and no pleasure.

  My plan ran around and around in my head when I was awake. Asleep, I was consoled by a recurring dream, where ants became snarks. Every sleep I dreamed it at least once. Leading an army of seamen, riding on great ones, I ravaged the ants’ nest. How wonderful were those dreamed great ones! They bounded in and out of the hard clay of the dream compound as if it were water, while I skewered ants by the dozen on a weightless and untiring spear, and panthers by the score. All the ants in my dream, though, had Hrarrh’s face, which seemed curious even to me.

  Then I would awaken to perform the most arduous or disgusting tasks eagerly and without hesitation. Even small children could give orders to a slave, and throwing rocks at us while we slept was their favorite sport.

  I saw shuckings. Once the victim was a woman, and after that even Anubyl did not seem so bad to me.

  How long?

  I don’t know how long I was a slave for the ants, but in my memories it seems to me now that the center of my life is missing, that what should have been the peak of my manhood is marked by a gaping black wound.

  —5—

  I DO NOT REMEMBER LEAVING THE ANT’S NEST, but it was Hrarrh’s doing.

  Once we had been friends of a sort, two slaves muttering careful asides to each other and watching for watchers. Then we had been slave and ant, seeing each other at a distance, never speaking, living in separate worlds. Suddenly we were slave and master.

  The workers hated a change of supervisor. Even those with a reputation for decency were always hard on a new gang for the first few shifts. Even more we hated the beginners, for they had to prove to the other supervisors that they were tough also. Hrarrh was one of those, and it was my misfortune to be assigned to his first shift. Nor did I like the look of his panther. It was fully grown now, but it twitched restlessly, as if poorly trained or not completely under his control.

  Of course nobody spoke. We stood in a line while he looked us over—the usual six men and one woman, all standing like dead trees, eyes downcast. A woman or boy was always included to carry off the buckets and keep tally.

  He began with her. “Tell me how each of these cripples did on the last shift.” Then he walked along the line with his panther pacing at his heels, and she called out the number of buckets each man filled. I had done twelve, everyone else the usual ten. He paused for a while in front of me but did not speak. I watched the ground until he moved away.

  “For me,” he said, “each of you will do two more than last time. If not for me, then for Chuckles here. I should warn you, though—she’s inexperienced and she tends to cut deep. Last man at the face gets two strokes to start with, so run!”

  We ran.

  Very few men could achieve twelve, no matter what the threat. Fourteen was an impossibility. Fortunately our worksite was not far into the mine. Unfortunately it was a bad one. The vein was thin, the air bad, the roof almost too low for the buckets, and a man could barely raise his head at all. I usually worked there without my helmet. I banged my head often, but it eased the strain on my neck.

  Flat on my belly, I flailed my pick against the rock in panic. I scrabbled up the cuttings and crammed them into a bucket, in reckless disregard for the scrapings of my hands against the roof. Could Hrarrh have been serious? Perhaps it was only the others he had hoped to inspire. Surely he could not expect any man to produce fourteen full buckets? Surely my long-ago kindness would carry some weight? He would not be hard on me if I failed—would he?

  Fourteen?

  Between the clinkings of my own pick, the faint sounds from the other rooms were an almost continuous barrage, so the others must have believed he was serious. But fourteen? I heard a few yells as time wore on, as the men tired and Chuckles was sent in to inspire them.

  When I was topping off my thirteenth bucket, my candle died. That was the signal to stop. From the corridor outside drifted sounds of begging and screaming as Hrarrh carried out his threats against those who had not managed to fill twelve. I continued to work in the dark, waiting to be called out. Perhaps thirteen and a quarter would satisfy him.

  Thirteen and a half…

  Silence outside, and inside only the sound of my pick and strident breathing…

  Thirteen and three-quarters. Why did he not call? Had he forgotten me? But a faint flicker from his lantern showed that he was still out there.

  Fourteen!

  It was done. I wriggled wearily to turn around on the gritty rock, struggling with my pick and two buckets of ore. I crawled painfully forward, pushing them, and emerged into the corridor at Hrarrh’s feet. I rose to my knees, fighting back the dizziness that always came after lying so long on my belly. Then I just stared at his boots, feeling so exhausted that I did not think I would care very much if he sent me out to be shucked.

  For a while neither of us spoke. Instead of sitting or crouching beside him, the panther was pacing restlessly to and fro. Then the familiar voice said, “You are still a fool.”

  I did not look up. “Why, master?”

  “Have you ever heard of a man digging fourteen buckets in one shift?”

  “No, master.”

  “Why would I order you to do the impossible?”

  “I don’t know, master.”

  “Put it back.”

  In horror I tilted my head to look up at him, although that was forbidden. Put it back? After all that work and pain? My knees, my hands, my elbows were raw. In the flickering light there was nothing of his face visible between beard and helmet except a glitter from his eyes.

  He sighed. “No man can do fourteen! But you have—so now they’ll expect you to do it every time. For your own sake, slag, put the ore back where you got
it. Now!”

  I was so exhausted and so enraged that I did another impossible thing: I hesitated to obey an order.

  Then—at last—he started to laugh. “Knobil! I wanted to talk to you! Alone. How else could I do that? I never dreamed you’d actually manage to fill fourteen buckets, you dumb herdman! The next shift’ll be here soon—now move!”

  I gasped with relief. “Sorry, master…at once…” And so I pushed the two heavy buckets all the way back to the face and left them there. The next worker was going to have a pleasant surprise.

  I crawled back out to the corridor and knelt once again before him, expectant, stirred by a growing excitement. What vital news could he have that he needed to impact to me alone?

  “How many did you fill, then?” he asked.

  I grinned. “Twelve, master.”

  “But I told you to do fourteen.”

  My relief froze before a cold breath of terror. He was only teasing, of course. Wasn’t he?

  “Master, I am sorry.”

  “You’re going to be sorrier.”

  “But—” I stopped. My tongue was too dry to move.

  He tilted my head back so I could see the sadness in his face. “The others are waiting to see, Knobil. They remember how you befriended me, so they are waiting to see what I do. I have to damage you. Surely you can see that? I have to show them. You’re two buckets short, slag!”

  Two buckets short—a terrible failure.

  Never had I suffered a major clawing. I had been scratched often enough, of course—my calves were a network of scars. A moment’s rest that slipped into an exhausted sleep…a pace that flagged near the end of a shift…even the unearned spite of a sadistic boss…any of those could bring a black terror creeping in unnoticed behind a worker, the sudden flash of pain. But never more than that. I had seen, and heard, other men’s backs or legs being shredded like lace, but always I had worked as hard as I was able and been a good slave…

  Hrarrh was waiting—for what? What was I supposed to say?

  “Yes, master.”

  “Well, lie down! My wife’s a very good cook. My dinner’s getting cold.”

  Trembling with both terror and deathly exhaustion, I turned around and stretched out, nose against the floor. The mine was silent except for distant dripping noises. There was another pause. I wished he would get on with it. I ached everywhere, and only fear was keeping me from falling asleep.

  “Those are remarkable calves, Knobil! After so long in the mine! You must have been a very good dross!”

  “Yes, master.”

  Then two rock-crusher hands grabbed my ankles and jerked me backward, dragging me half out of my smock. He dropped my feet.

  “And there isn’t a single mark on your thighs yet! Amazing!”

  I shuddered and was silent. The panther had taken up position beside me, but I just stared at the floor, smelling damp rock and my own terror.

  Suddenly Hrarrh began to laugh again. “Oh, Knobil! You believed me, didn’t you? You think I’d worry about the others? You think I’d claw a man who saved my life—just to please them?”

  “You won’t, master?”

  “Certainly not!”

  I relaxed with a gasp of relief and was taken unaware by the searing rip of talons raking my right thigh from knee to buttocks.

  “I’m going to,” Hrarrh explained, “but not because of them. I’ll do it just to please myself. You’re two buckets short, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, master.”

  I could not see the signals, of course, but the cat could, and each movement of his hand brought another fiery slash. Then I would spasm and scrabble my fingers on the rock, and wait for the next one—but I did not cry out.

  Hrarrh kept making tsk! noises. “She’s still cutting too deep,” he said. Somehow I stayed silent, and no panther ever made a sound. There was only pain and more pain and greater pain, and Hrarrh’s voice, soft and patient and almost bored. “Do try not to jerk like that, Knobil. It makes it very hard for her to judge.”

  And finally…“There, that ought to do it. Well…you might as well be symmetrical.” Two more…“Yes, that looks better. Now we have to clean you up, and I can go home to momma.”

  Very bad. Now I knew what a major clawing felt like. But now came the licking, and that was always far worse that the scratching itself. I had not known a man could have so much sweat left in him after a full shift in the mine.

  “They don’t enjoy this, either, you know, Knobil. They dislike the taste of human blood—that’s how they learn not to cut so deep. She’s really having trouble stopping the bleeding. But she’s only a beginner, so we’ll just have to be patient with her.”

  I never was lucky enough to faint. I bit my tongue, and I bruised my face and hands by beating them against the rocky floor, but I did not disgrace myself by losing control of my sphincter, and I did not cry out. Hrarrh had endured such pain himself without a sound. He would despise me if I screamed.

  And nothing can last forever. Eventually he was satisfied. Drained, finished, I lay like a rag on the rock at his feet. He had proved to his buddies that he would savage his former friend. I wondered if I would have the strength even to stand up. I waited for the order, and braced myself to make the effort…

  “Turn over.”

  “What?”

  “Roll over!”

  With great difficulty I obeyed, and the cold sandy floor gritted on my cuts. Lying on my back with my smock up around my belly, I felt even more vulnerable than I had before. The lantern flickered gently from a high ledge, making shadows writhe on the rough walls of the little crypt. The panther was pacing again. Seeming very tall, Hrarrh was staring down at me, rubbing his whiskers.

  “Two buckets short? Is that enough punishment, do you think?” he asked.

  I just grunted, tasting the blood from my bitten tongue, feeling the cold air on my sweat-soaked skin.

  “I think that ought to satisfy them—don’t you?”

  I managed to mumble, “Yes, master.”

  “But it doesn’t satisfy me, Knobil.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re going to do more. Yes, it’s too bad, but we will have to do more.”

  “What! Why?”

  He sighed. “Once a herdman, always a herdman! They make good slaves, but they’re not very smart.”

  I had no strength to take any more, and I began to weep silently.

  “You don’t understand pride, do you? I told you that before.”

  I sobbed and choked and finally found my voice. “Please, master! No more clawing! I’ll work a double shift… I’ll lick your boots… I’ll do anything, anything at all—but, please! No more clawing…”

  He shook his head in disgust. “That’s not good enough! You’d do any of those things anyway, if I told you to.”

  He gestured. The panther slunk over rather sulkily and sat opposite him, on my other side. It looked down at me with eyes that momentarily glowed red.

  Faint voices and clumping of ants’ boots echoed eerily through the mine.

  “The next shift is coming!” Hrarrh said. “We must get a move on—my wife will be furious. The right shin to start with, then. And do keep still this time or you’ll lose a kneecap.”

  He gestured. I felt the talons scrape along the bone. It was the worst yet.

  I screamed.

  It burst out before I knew it was coming—a howl of terror and torment beyond endurance.

  “Ah!” Hrarrh said approvingly. “You did it!”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I wanted! Ever since you helped me, dross, I’ve wanted to hear you scream. Pride, remember? That was a very good scream—but I think you can do better. So now Chuckles is going to practice clawing, and you’re going to practice screaming. You’re going to weep and you’re going to beg, but mostly you’re going to scream. You’re going to scream your lungs out for me, Knobil, my friend.”

  —6—

  WHEN IT WAS OVER, two slaves carrie
d me back to the paddock.

  I did not sleep, and the clay where I lay became soaked with blood. As the bosses arrived for the next shift, I did manage to stand up, but I knew that he had ruined me. Nevermore would I be a top worker. No food, no sleep, loss of blood, too much pain—work was out of the question. The only remaining secret was how I would be put to death—quickly or slowly? Certainly he would begin the shift by ordering another licking for me. I wondered if it would be possible to blacken his eye before the panther felled me, and I knew that my quaking limbs were not even capable of throwing a punch.

  What I had not expected was the amusement on the faces of the other bosses, the smiles of tolerant reproof directed at Hrarrh. They thought he had gone a little too far, but he would know better next time.

  He looked over the gang and tapped me on the chest in passing. “You stay. The rest of you—the target is the same as last time, twelve buckets apiece. Penalties are doubled. Run!” They ran, and most of them were limping.

  He was fooling himself. Any sadist could jack up output for one shift. We had delivered sixty-nine buckets for him, but now the output would drop because of injuries and exhaustion—and one death to come. Apparently that was something that every new boss had to learn for himself. Unfortunately the slaves paid for the lesson.

  Gradually the paddock was clearing. Hrarrh had gone after his workers, leaving me standing alone. He had not said I was excused nor that I could sit down. Bending my legs only increased the agony, so I just stayed where I was and sweated in the glare. The off-duty shift came trailing back, heading for the food trough. With luck I would faint soon.

  Eventually he came strolling out of the mine, blinking at the light. He was wearing work clothes and the helmet concealed his bald pate. At the gate he paused to lay down a small bundle he had been carrying under his arm, then he headed for me with Chuckles gliding at his heel, a black threat half the size of a pony.