weaponry. How
to kill someone with sticks. How to kill someone with fists alone. These are
not military lessons, which we also provide, but lessons in survival.
Quurzid, for all its complexity,
does not seem to have a word for “murder.”
Lessons here are proprietary.
Outsiders cannot see them. I did not observe the violence pool during lessons,
although I heard about them. The worst, according to Klaaynch, were the
defensive lessons. Because if you failed, you would get injured. If you had
trouble learning why you failed, you would get injured in the same way
repeatedly. If you flinched as someone came at you after you had already been
injured once, you were taken off the roster until your psyche healed. If you
flinched again after your return, you were relegated to non-violent
work—talking, writing, science, mathematics—all of which were seen as inferior.
Klaaynch’s dream of being a
linguist was considered odd, and it was odd, for the Quurzod. The only
thing that saved her, the only thing that gave her any kind of power and
potential, was her ability to fight.
She was considered the best of
her generation.
And she proved it.
It took her four hours to die.
I know because I watched.
It was the only time I had been
allowed in an actual violence pool during fighting. I sat behind Klaaynch and
her team. We sat there, all except the two who escaped. Klaaynch and her
young team. Me and mine. Twenty-three lives from the ship, lives I wasted in my
attempt to learn the wrong form of Quurzid. Awnings attached to the small
buildings shaded us, but the air was hot—hotter than anything I had ever
experienced—and dry.
The Quurzod gave us water. They
gave us something to keep our fluids balanced. They wanted us to live—at least
until the fighting ended.
I was not allowed to speak, and I
did not.
Around me, Quurzod I had met—most
in their teens, some barely adult—fought for their very survival.
But the match that mattered was
Klaaynch’s.
It took four hours for their best
fighters to kill her. A dozen adults against one thin girl. Four hours.
If she had survived for six hours,
she would have lived and been granted favors. One of the favors she wanted was
to get permission for me to study street Quurzid.
Not the violence pools
themselves.
Just street Quurzid.
And while I did that, she wanted
me to teach her Standard. Standard, and all of the other languages I knew.
She was so marvelous. So strong.
So brave. So beautiful.
But three hours and forty-five
minutes in, someone snapped her right femur. She kept fighting, but she had no
base, no way to maintain her balance. At three hours and fifty-eight minutes,
she fell.
It took only two minutes to
finish her off. The others in her violence pool, those who had been
contaminated by me, died that afternoon as well.
The fighters dismantled the
buildings. Beneath the largest was the pool itself. A hollow, empty pit in the
ground, designed to hold the losers of any large fight.
Klaaynch had told me this as we
waited for the others to show up. She told me that the pools often were not
used, and when the time came to move the violence pool, the actual pool itself
got filled.
This one got filled too.
With us.
Most of my team fought back. When
it became clear that we would die, they fought. But they were no match for the
Quurzod.
They went into the pool. Then me,
then Klaaynch’s friends.
And finally, Klaaynch.
No one touched me, except to
knock me unconscious. It should have been enough to kill me. In the heat, among
the dead, in the dryness.
I should have died.
But I did not.
~ * ~
To
her credit, Leona does not speak as I tell my story. She tries to keep her face
expressionless, but she cannot control her eyes. They narrow, they widen.
Several times, she keeps them closed for a few extra seconds, as if she does
not want to look
to kill someone with sticks. How to kill someone with fists alone. These are
not military lessons, which we also provide, but lessons in survival.
Quurzid, for all its complexity,
does not seem to have a word for “murder.”
Lessons here are proprietary.
Outsiders cannot see them. I did not observe the violence pool during lessons,
although I heard about them. The worst, according to Klaaynch, were the
defensive lessons. Because if you failed, you would get injured. If you had
trouble learning why you failed, you would get injured in the same way
repeatedly. If you flinched as someone came at you after you had already been
injured once, you were taken off the roster until your psyche healed. If you
flinched again after your return, you were relegated to non-violent
work—talking, writing, science, mathematics—all of which were seen as inferior.
Klaaynch’s dream of being a
linguist was considered odd, and it was odd, for the Quurzod. The only
thing that saved her, the only thing that gave her any kind of power and
potential, was her ability to fight.
She was considered the best of
her generation.
And she proved it.
It took her four hours to die.
I know because I watched.
It was the only time I had been
allowed in an actual violence pool during fighting. I sat behind Klaaynch and
her team. We sat there, all except the two who escaped. Klaaynch and her
young team. Me and mine. Twenty-three lives from the ship, lives I wasted in my
attempt to learn the wrong form of Quurzid. Awnings attached to the small
buildings shaded us, but the air was hot—hotter than anything I had ever
experienced—and dry.
The Quurzod gave us water. They
gave us something to keep our fluids balanced. They wanted us to live—at least
until the fighting ended.
I was not allowed to speak, and I
did not.
Around me, Quurzod I had met—most
in their teens, some barely adult—fought for their very survival.
But the match that mattered was
Klaaynch’s.
It took four hours for their best
fighters to kill her. A dozen adults against one thin girl. Four hours.
If she had survived for six hours,
she would have lived and been granted favors. One of the favors she wanted was
to get permission for me to study street Quurzid.
Not the violence pools
themselves.
Just street Quurzid.
And while I did that, she wanted
me to teach her Standard. Standard, and all of the other languages I knew.
She was so marvelous. So strong.
So brave. So beautiful.
But three hours and forty-five
minutes in, someone snapped her right femur. She kept fighting, but she had no
base, no way to maintain her balance. At three hours and fifty-eight minutes,
she fell.
It took only two minutes to
finish her off. The others in her violence pool, those who had been
contaminated by me, died that afternoon as well.
The fighters dismantled the
buildings. Beneath the largest was the pool itself. A hollow, empty pit in the
ground, designed to hold the losers of any large fight.
Klaaynch had told me this as we
waited for the others to show up. She told me that the pools often were not
used, and when the time came to move the violence pool, the actual pool itself
got filled.
This one got filled too.
With us.
Most of my team fought back. When
it became clear that we would die, they fought. But they were no match for the
Quurzod.
They went into the pool. Then me,
then Klaaynch’s friends.
And finally, Klaaynch.
No one touched me, except to
knock me unconscious. It should have been enough to kill me. In the heat, among
the dead, in the dryness.
I should have died.
But I did not.
~ * ~
To
her credit, Leona does not speak as I tell my story. She tries to keep her face
expressionless, but she cannot control her eyes. They narrow, they widen.
Several times, she keeps them closed for a few extra seconds, as if she does
not want to look
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