recovering my physical functions. Even without the node, my augmented body systems were busy splicing damaged nerves and repairing bone. Which meant I would eventually be able to sit up, stand up, even walk. So I began to take a greater interest in my surroundings.
I was in the back of a cart, lying on a sort of bed of dried vegetable matter. The cart was moving along at a brisk pace. The walls of the cart were too high to see over, but it was open to daylight. I could see the cloud-flecked sky and the occasional treetop swaying past. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed since I was captured, and that was the question that preyed on my mind above all others. How close were we to Vox Core, and how close was Vox to the Arch of the Hypotheticals?
My mouth was dry but my voice worked well enough. “Hey!” I called out a couple of times before I realized I was speaking English. So I switched to Voxish: “Vech-e! Vech-e mi!”
All that yelling was painful, and I shut up when I realized nobody was paying attention.
* * *
It was dusk when the cart finally jostled to a stop. The first stars were coming out. The sky was a shade of blue that reminded me of the stained glass in the church back in Champlain. I’m not a big fan of churches but I always liked stained glass, the way it looked when the Sunday morning sun lit it up. I could hear the sound of Farmer voices. Farmers speak Voxish with an accent, as if they all went around carrying stones in their mouths. I could smell their cooking, which was torture because I hadn’t been given anything to eat.
Eventually a face appeared above the side of the cart. It was a man’s face. His skin was dark and wrinkly, but that was true of all the Farmers. He was bald except for his bushy eyebrows. His eyes were yellow around the iris and he looked at me with undisguised distaste.
“You,” he said. “Can you sit up?”
“I need to eat.”
“If you can sit up you can eat.”
I spent the next few minutes forcing my still-unwieldy body into a sitting position. The Farmer didn’t offer to help. He watched me with a kind of clinical disinterest. When I finally had my back braced against the wall of the cart, I said, “I did what you wanted. Please feed me.”
He glowered and went away. I didn’t really expect to see him again. But he came back with a bowl of something green and glutinous, which he put down next to me. “If you can use your hands,” he said, “it’s yours.”
He turned away.
“Wait!”
He sighed and looked back. “Well?”
“Tell me your name.”
“Why, what does it matter?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just want to know.”
He said his name was Choi. He said his family was Digger, Level Three, Harvest Quarter. In my head I translated it into English as Digger Choi.
“And you’re Treya, Worker, Outrider Therapeutics.” Sneering at the Core honorifics.
I heard myself say, “My name is Allison Pearl.”
“We read your internal tags. You can’t lie.”
“Allison,” I insisted. “Pearl.”
“Call yourself whatever you want.”
I put my disobedient hand into the bowl of food and cupped it to my mouth. It was a globby green muck that tasted like mown grass, and I lost about half of every handful, but my body accepted it hungrily. Digger Choi stuck around until I was finished, then took the bowl. I was still hungry. Digger Choi refused my request for seconds.
“Is this how you treat your prisoners?”
“We don’t take prisoners.”
“What am I, then?”
“A hostage.”
“You think I’m that valuable?”
“You might be. If not, it will be simple enough to kill you.”
* * *
Because I could move my body again, the Farmers took the precaution of tying my arms behind me. They left me like that all night—in some ways it was worse that being paralyzed. And in the morning they pulled me out of the cart and frog-marched me to another one, identical in all ways except that it contained Turk
I was in the back of a cart, lying on a sort of bed of dried vegetable matter. The cart was moving along at a brisk pace. The walls of the cart were too high to see over, but it was open to daylight. I could see the cloud-flecked sky and the occasional treetop swaying past. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed since I was captured, and that was the question that preyed on my mind above all others. How close were we to Vox Core, and how close was Vox to the Arch of the Hypotheticals?
My mouth was dry but my voice worked well enough. “Hey!” I called out a couple of times before I realized I was speaking English. So I switched to Voxish: “Vech-e! Vech-e mi!”
All that yelling was painful, and I shut up when I realized nobody was paying attention.
* * *
It was dusk when the cart finally jostled to a stop. The first stars were coming out. The sky was a shade of blue that reminded me of the stained glass in the church back in Champlain. I’m not a big fan of churches but I always liked stained glass, the way it looked when the Sunday morning sun lit it up. I could hear the sound of Farmer voices. Farmers speak Voxish with an accent, as if they all went around carrying stones in their mouths. I could smell their cooking, which was torture because I hadn’t been given anything to eat.
Eventually a face appeared above the side of the cart. It was a man’s face. His skin was dark and wrinkly, but that was true of all the Farmers. He was bald except for his bushy eyebrows. His eyes were yellow around the iris and he looked at me with undisguised distaste.
“You,” he said. “Can you sit up?”
“I need to eat.”
“If you can sit up you can eat.”
I spent the next few minutes forcing my still-unwieldy body into a sitting position. The Farmer didn’t offer to help. He watched me with a kind of clinical disinterest. When I finally had my back braced against the wall of the cart, I said, “I did what you wanted. Please feed me.”
He glowered and went away. I didn’t really expect to see him again. But he came back with a bowl of something green and glutinous, which he put down next to me. “If you can use your hands,” he said, “it’s yours.”
He turned away.
“Wait!”
He sighed and looked back. “Well?”
“Tell me your name.”
“Why, what does it matter?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just want to know.”
He said his name was Choi. He said his family was Digger, Level Three, Harvest Quarter. In my head I translated it into English as Digger Choi.
“And you’re Treya, Worker, Outrider Therapeutics.” Sneering at the Core honorifics.
I heard myself say, “My name is Allison Pearl.”
“We read your internal tags. You can’t lie.”
“Allison,” I insisted. “Pearl.”
“Call yourself whatever you want.”
I put my disobedient hand into the bowl of food and cupped it to my mouth. It was a globby green muck that tasted like mown grass, and I lost about half of every handful, but my body accepted it hungrily. Digger Choi stuck around until I was finished, then took the bowl. I was still hungry. Digger Choi refused my request for seconds.
“Is this how you treat your prisoners?”
“We don’t take prisoners.”
“What am I, then?”
“A hostage.”
“You think I’m that valuable?”
“You might be. If not, it will be simple enough to kill you.”
* * *
Because I could move my body again, the Farmers took the precaution of tying my arms behind me. They left me like that all night—in some ways it was worse that being paralyzed. And in the morning they pulled me out of the cart and frog-marched me to another one, identical in all ways except that it contained Turk
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