Volume 6: The Trip to Thurskein
Chapter 5
Second Night
Tilrey left the lift at a random floor and wandered the corridors, losing himself in their wendings. He passed lounges where workers were drinking hard after a long day on the factory floor. He passed knots of students and card players who stopped to stare at his R5 jerkin, and kids who barreled through the halls playing games he half-remembered.Had he just openly threatened the man who ruled over all this? The anger had swallowed everything for a bit, reason and control just gone, so it was hard to tell. Had he put Fernei on his guard, or simply amused the man by acting odd, erratic, downright crazy? Which, perhaps, he was. After all, he’d—Never mind, here was a pub. He ordered a bottle of something foul, took a swallow, and watched the ending of a stream pod on the cylinder. On the screen, a dewy-eyed young Skeinsha factory worker was being persecuted by her lecherous foreman, who promised her a desk job in return for sexually satisfying him and his friends. Just as she was about to throw herself out a window, an Upstart Admin appeared, wearing a blindingly white tunic, and announced that the corrupt foreman had been sent to detention. If you work hard and have integrity, you need never fear the wicked, he quoted Whyberg.A few drinkers slapped their palms on the bar, cheering on this denouement. Tilrey couldn’t tell if their smiles had a mocking edge or if he just wanted them to. He rose, his head spinning a little, and kept walking. He tried not to think.When the corridors finally returned him to his tiny room, it was nearly eleven, and somebody was lounging against the door.After a confused moment, Tilrey recognized the ash-blond server boy he’d met in Fernei’s apartment. Part of the Supervisor’s stable, no doubt.The boy’s gray-blue eyes met Tilrey’s in a way that was both suggestive and confrontational. “Supervisor sent me,” he said with his thick Skeinsha burr, moving aside to let Tilrey open up. “Said he wanted to help you feel at home here, Fir, with some, um, amenities. So here I am.”Tilrey stiffened. What had he said to Gersha on their first meeting? I’m your gift, Fir.Maybe Fernei had sent him a whore as mockery, or maybe it was a sincere gesture of apology. It didn’t matter. “No thanks,” he said, punching the code. “You can go back and tell him I’m not interested.”The boy blocked the door. “Look, I’m good.” He ran a finger down Tilrey’s arm, then dropped his eyes as if surprised by his own daring. “I’ll do anything you want, Fir.”Tilrey’s skin crawled. “I don’t want you. And don’t call me Fir.”“Learned how to suck cock on Upstarts. Don’t think you’ll be sorry.”Tilrey slid sideways through the door, brushing off the kid’s hands as gently as he could. “Look, I don’t know if he sent you as a joke or in good faith, but I know all your tricks, and I’m not interested in favors from him. Or in fucking minors.”The boy looked aggrieved, the violet shadows under his eyes enhancing the pallor of his skin. Visiting Upstarts probably paid well for him. “I’m not a joke, and I’ll be eighteen in five months. Fir Supervisor says I’m actually old for this. If you want somebody younger—”“I don’t.” Tilrey sat down hard on the bed, trying not to think about the underage occupants of Fernei’s stable. How did his mother bite her tongue and keep on doing her job, day after day?“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to get you in trouble. If you have to, you can go back and tell Fernei you gave me a good time. Tell him I moaned so loudly the whole corridor heard.”Emboldened, the boy slipped in and closed the door behind him. “Can I stay the night with you, at least? Don’t want the Supe to hear I was out roaming the halls.”Too late, Tilrey realized it had been a mistake to make any kind of concession. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”The boy sat on the bed and folded his gangly legs, but he kept his distance from Tilrey. “Nah. He keeps a close watch on us, makes sure we’re in the dorm or with him when we’re not out working.”So the boy was a virtual prisoner—unless he was Fernei’s spy, sent with a sob story to gather information. The mute resignation at the heart of the kid’s eyes, under the tough exterior, made Tilrey want to trust him. “Fine,” he said. “You can sleep here. But I’m not touching you, and I don’t want you trying anything while I’m asleep.”The boy grinned wide at that. “Sure thing, Fir. Not gonna molest you. And you won’t regret it—lookit what I brought.” He pulled out a sap vial. “He said I should share it with you.”“He’s the perfect host, that Fernei, isn’t he?” Tilrey took the vial, unplugged it, and poured two thirds into the kid’s palm and one third into his own. A semblance of a plan was forming in his head now. “Drink up.” If the boy wasn’t deep in addiction yet, the dose might loosen his tongue.They both licked the sweet, heady liquid from their palms. The boy cleaned his with great care, then propped himself against the wall and stretched. “Thanks. Damn, that feels good. Sure you don’t want me? Not your type, huh?”“It’s not that.” Tilrey leaned back, too, maintaining the distance. “What’s your name?”“Mal.”“For Malkien?” He smiled. “That was the name of my first—well, the first man who ever really owned me. Like your Supervisor owns you. He liked to be called Malsha.”The boy gazed at him, pupils already blown from the sap. “Is it true you’re a real kettle boy? Dressed up like an Upstart and everything? Like in the streams?”“I was.” What romantic nonsense were the streams feeding kids these days? Were the Upstarts all saviors in gleaming-white tunics, or were there evil ones, too? “Believe me, it’s not that different from what you do.”“I honestly wouldn’t mind sucking you off, Fir Bronn. You look tasty. That’s what the Supe told me: ‘He’s a tasty one, it’s your lucky night.’” Mal gave himself a little shake. “Sorry, sap does this to me sometimes. Gets rid of the brain-mouth filter.”“No worries.” Tilrey was starting to understand why Gersha had found it off-putting to be the object of his own professional attentions. Flattery and seduction could be positively creepy when they were someone’s job, even when that person claimed to be off the clock.“You seem like a smart kid,” he said, changing the subject. “How’d you get into this?”Mal coughed. “Are you gonna give me a lecture on ‘real’ work, like my mom and my uncle?”“No. They give you a hard time?”“They’re proud. You know how it is.”“Yeah.” If Mal’s family thought he was above selling himself, they weren’t the kind of people who lived on this windowless floor, and the boy probably hadn’t gotten into this line of work to better his lot. He didn’t seem like an addict, either. “I’m just curious,” Tilrey said. “Did you overhear my conversation with the Supervisor?”When the violet-blue eyes wheeled to him, he added, “I’m not angry. I’m just thinking, if you did hear, you know it wasn’t my choice to serve Upstarts that way. Was it yours?”Mal laughed nervously. “I’m not complaining.”“And I’m not going to report anything you say to Fernei. So tell me, how’d you get into this? A kid like you—probably doing well at school, looking forward to a desk posting.” Tilrey cleared his throat, proceeding carefully. “I’ve got a friend in Redda who could’ve been most anything, but he chose to be a kettle boy. He thinks it’s honorable work, providing a service people need.”Mal snorted. “Good for him.”“It is good for him. He chose it, and it works for him. But with me, well—with me it was different.”“You made a mistake, huh?”“A big one.” And if you were eavesdropping, you know what it was. Tilrey went on, keeping his tone as light as he could, “Did you make a mistake, too, Mal? Steal something? Cheat on a test? Get yourself sweet-drowned?”Mal shook his head, but his lips were curving in a grin or grimace. “Nah, you’re way off.”“Work the black market? Get in a fight? Rape someone?”“No way. I’m not an asshole.”Tilrey lowered his voice. “Then there’s one thing left. You’re a shirker.”The boy’s expression flattened itself into blankness. “Nah. Don’t have a death wish.”It was a fairly convincing denial, but not convincing enough to keep Tilrey from saying under his breath, “The true hearth never stops burning.”It was a shot in the dark. He had no way of knowing whether Skeinsha Dissidents—if the boy even was a Dissident—shared passwords with their Reddan counterparts.But Mal’s response left no room for interpretation. He edged away from Tilrey, the color draining from his face. “What the fuck? Did they send you?”Without waiting for an answer, he went on frantically: “I’m out of it, okay? I can’t help you. The Supe would kill me. It was only a little thing I did, carrying a few messages, and he said I’d be in detention for years. Can’t do that to my family. Please, please don’t—”Tilrey held up a hand. “I’m not here to make you do anything, Mal. I’m just wondering if you could tell me something.”He broke off, his gaze darting around the room; he should’ve checked the light fixture earlier. “Does Fernei tend to surveille his visitors?”“Sometimes.” Mal was whispering. “But not you, I think. He’s terrified of your mom—that she’ll resign her posting again. She does all the boring shit he doesn’t like to do.”Tilrey wasn’t surprised. “I’ll keep this quick and vague,” he said, noting how the boy still shrank from him. Whatever Fernei had done or threatened Mal with when he caught him playing shirker message boy, it had worked.Tilrey’s resolution hardened with the realization that he hadn’t been the last kid Fernei forced into that life, or probably the first, either. Back in Redda, Gersha was on the case, but for now he had something else to worry about—or someone. Dal. “I was sent here to deliver a message,” he said, “but the recipient isn’t as easy to find as I hoped.”Mal’s eyes remained wide with terror. “I’ve been out of it a while. Did they send you here from the Sector to infiltrate the cell and bust it up? Because I won’t—I can’t—”Tilrey improvised an explanation that had a chance of setting the boy’s mind at rest. “I’m here on behalf of a well-placed Upstart who’s sympathetic to the cause of reform. Fact-finding mission only. Find my contact, deliver the message, receive a briefing. Now, do you have any ideas about where to find other people who might recognize those words that meant so much to you?”Mal’s pale lips opened, closed. “Aren’t you scared? I mean, you live in Redda. With Upstarts. Your Councillor . . .”“. . . knows nothing about this. But, Malsha, there are all kinds of Upstarts. Most of them are perfectly happy with the system. But some”— he lowered his voice to a whisper— “some have their doubts, just like us. Will you help me?”Mal pressed a hand to his forehead. “Fuck. Just be careful, okay? This could’ve changed, but some of them used to meet every eighth-night at eleven in Hangar Four, where the cargo planes load. They pretended they were a hobby circle, making model planes and stuff, but nobody got in without mentioning the True Hearth.”Tilrey’s head began to whirl as if he were having a belated reaction to the sap. “Eighth-day is tomorrow.”“Today now,” Mal said.
Tilrey left the lift at a random floor and wandered the corridors, losing himself in their wendings. He passed lounges where workers were drinking hard after a long day on the factory floor. He passed knots of students and card players who stopped to stare at his R5 jerkin, and kids who barreled through the halls playing games he half-remembered.
Had he just openly threatened the man who ruled over all this? The anger had swallowed everything for a bit, reason and control just gone, so it was hard to tell. Had he put Fernei on his guard, or simply amused the man by acting odd, erratic, downright crazy? Which, perhaps, he was. After all, he’d—
Never mind, here was a pub. He ordered a bottle of something foul, took a swallow, and watched the ending of a stream pod on the cylinder. On the screen, a dewy-eyed young Skeinsha factory worker was being persecuted by her lecherous foreman, who promised her a desk job in return for sexually satisfying him and his friends. Just as she was about to throw herself out a window, an Upstart Admin appeared, wearing a blindingly white tunic, and announced that the corrupt foreman had been sent to detention. If you work hard and have integrity, you need never fear the wicked, he quoted Whyberg.
A few drinkers slapped their palms on the bar, cheering on this denouement. Tilrey couldn’t tell if their smiles had a mocking edge or if he just wanted them to. He rose, his head spinning a little, and kept walking. He tried not to think.
When the corridors finally returned him to his tiny room, it was nearly eleven, and somebody was lounging against the door.
After a confused moment, Tilrey recognized the ash-blond server boy he’d met in Fernei’s apartment. Part of the Supervisor’s stable, no doubt.
The boy’s gray-blue eyes met Tilrey’s in a way that was both suggestive and confrontational. “Supervisor sent me,” he said with his thick Skeinsha burr, moving aside to let Tilrey open up. “Said he wanted to help you feel at home here, Fir, with some, um, amenities. So here I am.”
Tilrey stiffened. What had he said to Gersha on their first meeting? I’m your gift, Fir.
Maybe Fernei had sent him a whore as mockery, or maybe it was a sincere gesture of apology. It didn’t matter. “No thanks,” he said, punching the code. “You can go back and tell him I’m not interested.”
The boy blocked the door. “Look, I’m good.” He ran a finger down Tilrey’s arm, then dropped his eyes as if surprised by his own daring. “I’ll do anything you want, Fir.”
Tilrey’s skin crawled. “I don’t want you. And don’t call me Fir.”
“Learned how to suck cock on Upstarts. Don’t think you’ll be sorry.”
Tilrey slid sideways through the door, brushing off the kid’s hands as gently as he could. “Look, I don’t know if he sent you as a joke or in good faith, but I know all your tricks, and I’m not interested in favors from him. Or in fucking minors.”
The boy looked aggrieved, the violet shadows under his eyes enhancing the pallor of his skin. Visiting Upstarts probably paid well for him. “I’m not a joke, and I’ll be eighteen in five months. Fir Supervisor says I’m actually old for this. If you want somebody younger—”
“I don’t.” Tilrey sat down hard on the bed, trying not to think about the underage occupants of Fernei’s stable. How did his mother bite her tongue and keep on doing her job, day after day?
“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to get you in trouble. If you have to, you can go back and tell Fernei you gave me a good time. Tell him I moaned so loudly the whole corridor heard.”
Emboldened, the boy slipped in and closed the door behind him. “Can I stay the night with you, at least? Don’t want the Supe to hear I was out roaming the halls.”
Too late, Tilrey realized it had been a mistake to make any kind of concession. “Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”
The boy sat on the bed and folded his gangly legs, but he kept his distance from Tilrey. “Nah. He keeps a close watch on us, makes sure we’re in the dorm or with him when we’re not out working.”
So the boy was a virtual prisoner—unless he was Fernei’s spy, sent with a sob story to gather information. The mute resignation at the heart of the kid’s eyes, under the tough exterior, made Tilrey want to trust him. “Fine,” he said. “You can sleep here. But I’m not touching you, and I don’t want you trying anything while I’m asleep.”
The boy grinned wide at that. “Sure thing, Fir. Not gonna molest you. And you won’t regret it—lookit what I brought.” He pulled out a sap vial. “He said I should share it with you.”
“He’s the perfect host, that Fernei, isn’t he?” Tilrey took the vial, unplugged it, and poured two thirds into the kid’s palm and one third into his own. A semblance of a plan was forming in his head now. “Drink up.” If the boy wasn’t deep in addiction yet, the dose might loosen his tongue.
They both licked the sweet, heady liquid from their palms. The boy cleaned his with great care, then propped himself against the wall and stretched. “Thanks. Damn, that feels good. Sure you don’t want me? Not your type, huh?”
“It’s not that.” Tilrey leaned back, too, maintaining the distance. “What’s your name?”
“Mal.”
“For Malkien?” He smiled. “That was the name of my first—well, the first man who ever really owned me. Like your Supervisor owns you. He liked to be called Malsha.”
The boy gazed at him, pupils already blown from the sap. “Is it true you’re a real kettle boy? Dressed up like an Upstart and everything? Like in the streams?”
“I was.” What romantic nonsense were the streams feeding kids these days? Were the Upstarts all saviors in gleaming-white tunics, or were there evil ones, too? “Believe me, it’s not that different from what you do.”
“I honestly wouldn’t mind sucking you off, Fir Bronn. You look tasty. That’s what the Supe told me: ‘He’s a tasty one, it’s your lucky night.’” Mal gave himself a little shake. “Sorry, sap does this to me sometimes. Gets rid of the brain-mouth filter.”
“No worries.” Tilrey was starting to understand why Gersha had found it off-putting to be the object of his own professional attentions. Flattery and seduction could be positively creepy when they were someone’s job, even when that person claimed to be off the clock.
“You seem like a smart kid,” he said, changing the subject. “How’d you get into this?”
Mal coughed. “Are you gonna give me a lecture on ‘real’ work, like my mom and my uncle?”
“No. They give you a hard time?”
“They’re proud. You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” If Mal’s family thought he was above selling himself, they weren’t the kind of people who lived on this windowless floor, and the boy probably hadn’t gotten into this line of work to better his lot. He didn’t seem like an addict, either. “I’m just curious,” Tilrey said. “Did you overhear my conversation with the Supervisor?”
When the violet-blue eyes wheeled to him, he added, “I’m not angry. I’m just thinking, if you did hear, you know it wasn’t my choice to serve Upstarts that way. Was it yours?”
Mal laughed nervously. “I’m not complaining.”
“And I’m not going to report anything you say to Fernei. So tell me, how’d you get into this? A kid like you—probably doing well at school, looking forward to a desk posting.” Tilrey cleared his throat, proceeding carefully. “I’ve got a friend in Redda who could’ve been most anything, but he chose to be a kettle boy. He thinks it’s honorable work, providing a service people need.”
Mal snorted. “Good for him.”
“It is good for him. He chose it, and it works for him. But with me, well—with me it was different.”
“You made a mistake, huh?”
“A big one.” And if you were eavesdropping, you know what it was. Tilrey went on, keeping his tone as light as he could, “Did you make a mistake, too, Mal? Steal something? Cheat on a test? Get yourself sweet-drowned?”
Mal shook his head, but his lips were curving in a grin or grimace. “Nah, you’re way off.”
“Work the black market? Get in a fight? Rape someone?”
“No way. I’m not an asshole.”
Tilrey lowered his voice. “Then there’s one thing left. You’re a shirker.”
The boy’s expression flattened itself into blankness. “Nah. Don’t have a death wish.”
It was a fairly convincing denial, but not convincing enough to keep Tilrey from saying under his breath, “The true hearth never stops burning.”
It was a shot in the dark. He had no way of knowing whether Skeinsha Dissidents—if the boy even was a Dissident—shared passwords with their Reddan counterparts.
But Mal’s response left no room for interpretation. He edged away from Tilrey, the color draining from his face. “What the fuck? Did they send you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he went on frantically: “I’m out of it, okay? I can’t help you. The Supe would kill me. It was only a little thing I did, carrying a few messages, and he said I’d be in detention for years. Can’t do that to my family. Please, please don’t—”
Tilrey held up a hand. “I’m not here to make you do anything, Mal. I’m just wondering if you could tell me something.”
He broke off, his gaze darting around the room; he should’ve checked the light fixture earlier. “Does Fernei tend to surveille his visitors?”
“Sometimes.” Mal was whispering. “But not you, I think. He’s terrified of your mom—that she’ll resign her posting again. She does all the boring shit he doesn’t like to do.”
Tilrey wasn’t surprised. “I’ll keep this quick and vague,” he said, noting how the boy still shrank from him. Whatever Fernei had done or threatened Mal with when he caught him playing shirker message boy, it had worked.
Tilrey’s resolution hardened with the realization that he hadn’t been the last kid Fernei forced into that life, or probably the first, either. Back in Redda, Gersha was on the case, but for now he had something else to worry about—or someone. Dal. “I was sent here to deliver a message,” he said, “but the recipient isn’t as easy to find as I hoped.”
Mal’s eyes remained wide with terror. “I’ve been out of it a while. Did they send you here from the Sector to infiltrate the cell and bust it up? Because I won’t—I can’t—”
Tilrey improvised an explanation that had a chance of setting the boy’s mind at rest. “I’m here on behalf of a well-placed Upstart who’s sympathetic to the cause of reform. Fact-finding mission only. Find my contact, deliver the message, receive a briefing. Now, do you have any ideas about where to find other people who might recognize those words that meant so much to you?”
Mal’s pale lips opened, closed. “Aren’t you scared? I mean, you live in Redda. With Upstarts. Your Councillor . . .”
“. . . knows nothing about this. But, Malsha, there are all kinds of Upstarts. Most of them are perfectly happy with the system. But some”— he lowered his voice to a whisper— “some have their doubts, just like us. Will you help me?”
Mal pressed a hand to his forehead. “Fuck. Just be careful, okay? This could’ve changed, but some of them used to meet every eighth-night at eleven in Hangar Four, where the cargo planes load. They pretended they were a hobby circle, making model planes and stuff, but nobody got in without mentioning the True Hearth.”
Tilrey’s head began to whirl as if he were having a belated reaction to the sap. “Eighth-day is tomorrow.”
“Today now,” Mal said.