“I can’t,” Zaja spoke softly, “It’s still too cold outside.”
“Too fuckin’ lazy is more like it,” Jean muttered. Though their materials had been limited and the night’s fire never swelled, the station’s insides were warm enough to ready them for the night’s fading chill.
“It’s fine,” Zaja replied. “You can all go. I’ll get myself to Kana.”
“We’re not gonna do that!” Mack responded cheerfully. Then, aside to the others, “We’re not gonna do that, right?”
Flynn looked down at Zaja. They were well rested—it was the right time to move. If she was still weary, he’d have offered to carry her, but for what she might say for the gesture. You really want to make things worse between us? He closed his eyes and meditated on what he’d observed—Zaja’s modest appetite, her hesitation to go out at night, her collapse in the pounding winds. Either she was deeply sick, or—
“You’re cold-blooded,” he concluded. Zaja didn’t respond, but she didn’t deny it either. “This ice age Oma is experiencing … it must be hell for your people.”
Zaja looked back at Flynn, as if he’d realized some sorry piece of common knowledge. “So you’re not?” she asked, returning to the fire. “That explains a lot.”
So far as Flynn was concerned, the matter was settled. The fire was dimming, and he headed for the door to scavenge more material for it, when Jean caught him by the shoulder, “So we ain’t shovin’ off yet?”
“We’ll wait for the sun,” was all Flynn said, before slipping outside.
“Ya know I can just carry ‘er, right?” Jean shouted at him.
“Don’t!” was all he called back before closing the door behind him.
The outer tunnels met Flynn with a cold that was much worse than what he and his friends had endured. They were closer to the surface and, knowing now what Zaja was, he understood what the cold would do to her. None among them would be at their best by the time the sun rose, but neither would Zaja be at her worst, leaving them to settle for someplace in the middle.
The whole group was subdued the rest of the way to Kana, Zaja most of all. She still made occasional small talk with the others, but generally avoided looking at Flynn, as though they’d experienced some regretted tryst that neither wished to speak of. Whatever sense of self-sufficiency Zaja had been nurturing, Flynn had stripped it away in saving her. It was not enough to make her quit her purpose—as before, she refused any help when she fell prey to a more bitter wind, insisting on carrying herself every step of the way. She had been helped and taken care of before, and had learned to loathe it.
In time the tunnels became more insular, paths delving back into deeper terrain. The way became slick with fresh ice as they happened across a vent in the ground that was releasing steam into the frigid air. The warmth stifled within feet of the billowing cloud, and Zaja hurried quickly to it, kneeling down almost right on top of the vent and pulling her scarf down to let out an ecstatic “Ahh…”
“You … okay there, Zaj?” Jean was visibly perturbed at the nigh sexual display.
“Yeah—I—just—warm.”
Still, Zaja managed the strength to inch over a little, letting the others close in and warm their faces, their hands. Relief flooded into Flynn’s fingers, through his hollowed bones and the claws concealed within.
“We’re getting close to Kana,” she told them. “These vents are connected to massive furnaces underneath the city. It helps keep the air outside … well, livable, at least.”
“Saw ‘em too in that Bolni-ville,” Jean mentioned. “Guess that wasn’t enough by itself to keep the place runnin’.”
Zaja said nothing of it. She only peered down the path, beyond what any of them could see. More than once she tried to move on, but like the others, there was a collective reluctance to leave this rare sphere of warmth. When at last they found it in them to continue, it was a short walk before they were met by a metal gate, sealed with a padlock. Jean flipped her mace cockily, moving to smash the thing off. “I got this.”
Twice, and the metal barely scratched. Jean sneered disdainfully, preparing a third strike. A tap on her shoulder was all it took to give her pause, but it wasn’t Flynn—who’d cautioned her so many times before—but Zaja, who was pulling a glove from her hand as she spoke.
“Before you go again, just let me do one thing first.”
Placing her exposed blue hand on the padlock, Zaja took a deep breath of trepidation, then released. It was nearly invisible at first, but Flynn watched as a frost crept across the lock, permeating it entirely. As it iced over, Zaja became physically sickened, nearly staggering as she kept a gentle grip on the thing.
“Zaja!” Chari was the first to move to her aid, but Flynn stopped her, stunning her momentarily before she cried out in a scolding outburst, “She’s suffering!”
“I’m okay,” Zaja spoke. For someone who claimed to be okay, she sounded only barely. She pulled her hand from the lock, the frost and metal sticking to her skin, then turned and walked over to Mack, placing her palm against his forehead.
“Ah, warm.”
“Eep, cold!”
Jean’s disapproval went unspoken, and she turned back to the now-brittle lock. This time, it did not hold firm against the first bludgeoning. By the second strike, the gate opened completely.
“We’re here,” Flynn stated. “Let’s go inside and—”
“Wait, just a second,” Zaja was now frantically pulling her glove back over her hand. “Let me head in first, check things out. I don’t know how everyone’s going to react to seeing … people. Like you.”
She said ‘people’ with a tone usually reserved for ‘freaks.’ Mack scrunched his mouth as he rubbed the cold spot on his forehead.
“So what the hell are we supposed to do out here?” Jean demanded.
“Just wait, I guess,” Zaja said, as she slipped inside the gate and pulled it shut. “Look, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise! Just…” she paused, as though trying to find something meaningful to add, “…don’t talk to strangers, okay?”
“Don’t talk to strangers?” Chari asked. “But that used to be all I did.”
Zaja was already gone, hurrying off into Kana. Jean just shook her head in irritation before turning around. “I’m headin’ back to the fucking vent.”
Chari watched for a moment before a chill crept up her spine, and she followed Jean without a word. Only Mack and Flynn remained, watching and listening until Zaja’s footsteps faded up the metal stairway that led to the city above.
“Think she’ll be okay?” Mack asked.
“We’re in her hands, for now … and I think that’s how she prefers it.”
*
The locked passage was apparently a back door of sorts, largely overlooked and forgotten. This hardly surprised Zaja, knowing the only other town along the pathway where she’d left the others was Quema. And Quema’s borders were closed. They traded with no one.
A chain hung between two posts, the only bar between below and above. Various forms of litter—mostly wafting papers and sullied rags—were strewn across the neglected alcove. As she climbed over, Zaja watched each step carefully, lest she slip and hurt herself. When she stepped out from the alcove, she was met with the first rays of shielded light she’d seen in two days.
Kana began as a strip mine, and the town bored round and deep into the earth. Zaja had read about how the site was first abandoned when the world’s climate turned foul, only to be reclaimed by enterprising parties who’d realized that the place allowed for easy shielding. Each level of the pit that was Kana housed storied homes, and when each one reached its allotted height, another stood on the next plateau up, eclipsing it. Only near the top did this pattern diverge, replaced with squat offices and other facilities that had become dilapidated and stood now only as artifacts of a bygone era.
While there weren’t many people about, some walked the paths and ascended the steps climbing around this pit. It was still cold
, even with the furnaces below working around the clock, but a little better than the tunnels she had spent the last two days in. Zaja loosened her scarf, put her hat away. She was a bit chilly, but didn’t want to stand out for being overdressed. She’d come to find work, and couldn’t risk appearing infirm in any way.
The first hour was spent wandering aimlessly. She hadn’t forgotten her escorts, but she was in no hurry to get back to them either. It was not that she had contempt for them as a group, but it unsettled her how alike they were and how different simultaneously. A little time among her own people, and to get the lay of her new home, before tending to business and her self-imposed benefactors.
She glowered, remembering how Flynn had pulled her back to the checkpoint. Here she was now, in Kana a day later than she’d have liked. There was no appointment or obligation in particular that demanded specific urgency, but it was a day lost which she would never get back—a day that might have been saved if she could have dragged herself through that storm before Flynn had picked her up and taken that choice away.
Still … maybe it’s better a day late than not at all, she conceded. What Zaja wanted most was to stand on her own two feet, but she would never know now if she could have made the trip alone. If she could make it within Kana, though, it might outweigh what dignity she’d lost during her journey. If things worked out, she would find it in her heart to forgive him before they went their separate ways.
“Excuse me?” Zaja found an off-duty miner, still layered in safety gear and soot and asked, “Who do I see to find work here?”
“New in town?” The miner looked Zaja over, as though sizing her up. He didn’t sound convinced when he said, “Ya need to see Governess Raous to take any jobs in Kana.”
Zaja had barely begun to ask “Where can I—?” when the miner interrupted, indicating one of the tall buildings in the mid-level. “Administrative building. Ya end up landing work here, don’t forget who did favors for ya, girlie.”
Quema hadn’t had so many stairs. It was a more verdant city, to be certain, and if she had seen a craggy place such as this outside her window at home, she wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to step out and want to better know the world she lived in. As she was here now, her legs would have to adapt to the slopes and steps, for however long she remained.
It would likely be a few hours more before she could retrieve Flynn and the others, to guide them safely through the city so they could get wherever they needed to go. Zaja mused only briefly on what other worlds might contain beyond her own, but she hadn’t enough time to seriously entertain such thoughts.
What she needed most, and hoped to find in Kana, was a sense of self-worth and value. More than simply lacking it back home in Quema, she had been denied every opportunity to even try. She had left home and was her own woman at last.
It was time to find her place in the world.
*
The waiting room was at least warm.
Zaja’s dismay at finding so many other immigrant workers was almost palpable. All she could do was take a number and wait. She studied her map for a while, looking at the adjacent towns. Tavau was easily the closest—a farming town and Kana’s most essential trading partner, as far as she understood—but maybe too close. She didn’t want to be easy to turn away. Stoten looked attractive. Nearly as far as Quema, a maker of tools and machinery, reliant on the raw materials Kana’s workers excavated on a daily basis.
“I’m from Stoten,” she practiced quietly. “I’m from Stoten. Me? I came from Stoten. I didn’t come too far … just from Stoten. Stoten? Yes, that’s where I was born.”
The room had nearly emptied and the outside shadows were growing long by the time it was her turn. She had dared not leave the room, lest she miss her spot in line. By the time her number came up, it hardly seemed to matter that she’d taken it. Only a few others remained, and there was enough time for the Governess to see them all.
A placard bearing the name “Governess Kitsen Raous” rested on the woman’s desk, along with a stack of work papers awaiting approval. Kitsen herself was middle-aged (around seven or eight, Zaja guessed), and carried herself with the sort of posture that suggested desk work had proved more laborious than whatever mine she had no doubt crawled out of. Years of hard work were worn into her face, and her best days had long since gone by.
Nonetheless, in greeting Zaja, she smiled. It was a professional smile, and she rubbed Zaja’s arm for warmth. Zaja returned the greeting in kind. Putting on her best and brightest grin, Zaja DeSarah introduced herself before taking a seat.
With a blank permit in hand, Kitsen began to scribble in the more cursory details, before pausing to ask, “Where did you say you came from?”
“Qu—Stoten,” Zaja replied, catching herself before the Governess took notice. Kitsen looked up from her desk, scrutinizing Zaja. The subject fidgeted, feeling small in a chair that gave her so much room on both sides.
“Stoten,” the Governess replied, writing the answer in. “Then why aren’t you taking work in Stoten?”
“It’s more of a craftsman’s sort of town, and I’m not very … crafty,” Zaja replied, wishing she had picked a better word. Perking up, she went on, “And I want to get away from things, see a little of the world and make my place somewhere in it, you know? I mean, it’s not like I have to be an engineer just because my mom was an engineer and just because her mom was an engineer.”
“My mother was an engineer,” Kitsen replied, stone-faced.
“N–not that there’s anything wrong with that!” Zaja scrambled, before the Governess’s composure broke.
“I tease,” Kitsen smiled at her. Affairs fell back to business quickly as the Governess began reviewing Zaja’s skills, her work history—things she might be able to lie about today, but couldn’t back up tomorrow.
“Listen, I—I don’t have much experience or skill,” Zaja pleaded. “But I want the work. And I’m willing to learn.”
Kitsen chewed on this for a moment, before looking Zaja in the eyes and telling her, “Let me see your hands.”
“My … hands?” Zaja asked. It seemed a strangely personal a thing to ask about, and she felt she was walking right into a trap as she began to pull her gloves off, digit by digit. But what other choice did she have? The Governess held Zaja’s future in her hands and could easily reject her petition on the spot if she refused. After setting both gloves aside, she laid her hands on the table, palms up. She considered keeping them down, for a moment, but saw no point in delaying the inevitable. Kitsen had already removed her own gloves, and now glided coarse fingers gently across Zaja’s skin. Her toes curled; it tickled, a little.
“They’re soft,” Kitsen observed. “You have some calluses, but they’re young and raw.” Sitting down, she looked Zaja right in the eyes. “You’re from Quema.”
Zaja turned pale. “I’m … I’m not—”
“You are,” Kitsen said. Not in judgment, but merely a statement of fact. “And I understand why you would lie about this, but with the matter exposed, you and I both know there’s no work for you here.”
“I need this,” Zaja pressed. “I just can’t go back there—”
“I suggest you find a way to try,” Kitsen told her. “Food rations are difficult enough to manage in Kana without taking on extra mouths that can feed themselves. We don’t have the means to accommodate rich princesses who’ve had a spat with daddy.”
“I’m not—!” Zaja sputtered. Anxiety mounted and her body began venting heat. She took a moment to calm herself, grinding her palm against her forehead, using frustration to conceal sickness. “I don’t have any ‘spats’ and I’m not ‘rich’ or a ‘princess.’ I’m from Quema, yes. That’s it.”
“And that’s part of the problem,” Kitsen replied. “I won’t be the first one to figure out you’re from Quema, and others won’t be so forgiving just because someone from the last haven on Oma deigned to live among us.”
“I’ll … convince people to accep
t me.” Zaja fidgeted again, driving her fingernails into her leg, hoping the pain would help her keep still.
“So what will you do when your people send someone to find you, to take you home?” Kitsen asked. “What will you do then? I’ll have to turn you over. We can’t chance losing what pittance Quema occasionally sees fit to send our way.”
Pittance? Zaja could guess—surplus food, too close to expiring to keep around. And medical breakthroughs were surely a weighty bargaining chip when Quema needed some raw material that they lacked in abundance.
“I’ll provide lodging tonight, as a token of courtesy to our neighbors,” Kitsen said with a reluctant sigh. “You leave Kana tomorrow. There’s no place for you here, Ms. DeSarah.”
“I can’t go back,” Zaja said quietly, trying her best not to feel pathetic. The return trip could well kill her. The drive to make it to Kana had carried her there, and was all that forgave the shame of being helped along the way.
“Then go farther, far as you can,” Kitsen replied. “Maybe Stoten will take you, or Zapham past that. If you can find someplace that has no cares for Quema and a penchant for soft-handed migrants …” She didn’t bother finishing the thought.
The Governess had spoken of pittance. That was all Zaja got for her troubles—a room for the night. Pittance. She had done so much in the last hundred days, just to ready herself to make it this far. She didn’t want to give up now, but she was no longer certain how much farther she could go.
*
Dusk loomed by the time Zaja’s feet sounded on the stairs.
“About damn time!”
“Sorry, it was … it’s been kind of a long day,” she apologized.
“Tell that to the folks who’ve spent half of it waitin’ for you by a steam vent,” Jean snapped. She rubbed her hands and gave an audible shiver, “Still, first time in a week my bones weren’t colder than my skin, so guess it could be worse.”
“On a good note,” Zaja’s cheer came off like a shoddy attempt to make Jean forget the last several hours. “I have a place in Kana we can all stay the night. If you’re real quiet—”
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 26
