tried to figure out the mechanism that opened
the back door; Solander saw that he was having trouble and, still gasping, opened it for him. Wraith climbed in, and Solander
flopped onto the seat behind him, clutching his left side and groaning, “I’m dying. I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying,” Velyn snapped. “You’re just lazy.”
Solander managed to sit up straight. “I may be lazy, but you’re simply mad. Do you realize that this is my father’s carriage-of-state?
If we take this and he finds out, he’ll kill us. All of us.”
“Shut up. This cost me more than you can imagine. And this is the
only
one that we can count on to make it into the Warrens no matter what, without us getting stopped or searched or shot down
when we come back out.” She glared at Solander with murderous eyes, and Wraith watched Solander shrink in on himself. The
doors shut, and the windows instantly darkened. Wraith suspected that outside, no one would be able to see anything of the
people inside.
All to the good. He held no illusions about how well two boys and a girl, none of them old enough to be people in positions
of authority, would fare taking a car designed to draw attention to itself into the Warrens, and then back out. Best that
no one could tell who hid inside the vehicle.
Wraith gave Velyn instructions on which roads she should take to get to the Vincalis Gate of the Warrens. He noticed, too,
how tightly her hands gripped the steering posts, how tense she sat, with her back rigid and her jaw clenched, how she would
not speak a word to either of them, except when she needed to know where next she had to turn. Wraith sensed both anger and
fear in her, and he ached that it was for his cause that she should feel either of those things.
The great black aircar cruised up to Vincalis Gate, and the gate peeled back as if afraid. They slipped behind the walls,
and Wraith noticed that now both Velyn and Solander stared around them as if unable to believe their eyes. They had wanted
screaming mobs, painted women, fighting and madness and violence to fulfill their lifetime expectations of the place, and
instead they got empty streets and silence. He was shocked, too, but for a different reason. On every corner two guards stood,
and at every fourth corner a huge windowless ground vehicle sat, back doors flung open so that he could see people—Warreners—already
sitting passively in the back. Accepting their fate, unquestioning because they were unable to question, or to fight.
As he pointed Velyn down a street toward his hideout, two guards came out of a building with an entire family of Warreners
between them— mother, father, and a dozen children from near-adult to passive, blank-eyed infant. Velyn stopped and watched
and waited as the whole troop crossed the street in front of her, and Wraith saw her face lose its color.
“They’re … so fat. So pale. And why are they just … going with those men? They aren’t fighting. They aren’t even arguing….”
Wraith, who had never seen adults from the Warrens outside of their tiny homes, had to agree. The adults and older children,
all dressed in simple, sleeveless white shifts that fell about to their knees, all shoeless and hatless, carried so much fat
on their frames that their feet disappeared beneath rolls of it, so that they looked like they walked on huge, quivering pillars.
Their arms stuck out at near-right angles from their sides, their eyes nearly disappeared in rolls of fat, their heads sat
on massive rounded shoulders, necks reduced to nothing but rolled tubes of fat stacked one on top of another. Outside of the
Warrens, he had never seen anyone who looked even remotely like them.
“Those are the Sleepers. They can’t argue,” Wraith said. “They can’t fight. They don’t really know where they are or what
is happening to them. They spend their lives in a walking Sleep—the food they eat makes them fat,
the back door; Solander saw that he was having trouble and, still gasping, opened it for him. Wraith climbed in, and Solander
flopped onto the seat behind him, clutching his left side and groaning, “I’m dying. I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying,” Velyn snapped. “You’re just lazy.”
Solander managed to sit up straight. “I may be lazy, but you’re simply mad. Do you realize that this is my father’s carriage-of-state?
If we take this and he finds out, he’ll kill us. All of us.”
“Shut up. This cost me more than you can imagine. And this is the
only
one that we can count on to make it into the Warrens no matter what, without us getting stopped or searched or shot down
when we come back out.” She glared at Solander with murderous eyes, and Wraith watched Solander shrink in on himself. The
doors shut, and the windows instantly darkened. Wraith suspected that outside, no one would be able to see anything of the
people inside.
All to the good. He held no illusions about how well two boys and a girl, none of them old enough to be people in positions
of authority, would fare taking a car designed to draw attention to itself into the Warrens, and then back out. Best that
no one could tell who hid inside the vehicle.
Wraith gave Velyn instructions on which roads she should take to get to the Vincalis Gate of the Warrens. He noticed, too,
how tightly her hands gripped the steering posts, how tense she sat, with her back rigid and her jaw clenched, how she would
not speak a word to either of them, except when she needed to know where next she had to turn. Wraith sensed both anger and
fear in her, and he ached that it was for his cause that she should feel either of those things.
The great black aircar cruised up to Vincalis Gate, and the gate peeled back as if afraid. They slipped behind the walls,
and Wraith noticed that now both Velyn and Solander stared around them as if unable to believe their eyes. They had wanted
screaming mobs, painted women, fighting and madness and violence to fulfill their lifetime expectations of the place, and
instead they got empty streets and silence. He was shocked, too, but for a different reason. On every corner two guards stood,
and at every fourth corner a huge windowless ground vehicle sat, back doors flung open so that he could see people—Warreners—already
sitting passively in the back. Accepting their fate, unquestioning because they were unable to question, or to fight.
As he pointed Velyn down a street toward his hideout, two guards came out of a building with an entire family of Warreners
between them— mother, father, and a dozen children from near-adult to passive, blank-eyed infant. Velyn stopped and watched
and waited as the whole troop crossed the street in front of her, and Wraith saw her face lose its color.
“They’re … so fat. So pale. And why are they just … going with those men? They aren’t fighting. They aren’t even arguing….”
Wraith, who had never seen adults from the Warrens outside of their tiny homes, had to agree. The adults and older children,
all dressed in simple, sleeveless white shifts that fell about to their knees, all shoeless and hatless, carried so much fat
on their frames that their feet disappeared beneath rolls of it, so that they looked like they walked on huge, quivering pillars.
Their arms stuck out at near-right angles from their sides, their eyes nearly disappeared in rolls of fat, their heads sat
on massive rounded shoulders, necks reduced to nothing but rolled tubes of fat stacked one on top of another. Outside of the
Warrens, he had never seen anyone who looked even remotely like them.
“Those are the Sleepers. They can’t argue,” Wraith said. “They can’t fight. They don’t really know where they are or what
is happening to them. They spend their lives in a walking Sleep—the food they eat makes them fat,
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