Slavemakers (20 page)

Finally, she had become part of the Next World. Finally, she understood.

*   *   *

A FEW MINUTES
later, though, her mood changed. “You realize that we're doomed if we stay out here,” she said. “You and me, and whoever else escaped.”

Mariama, bent over the food stores in the cache, didn't bother to reply.

Sheila said, “If we have no access to the vaccine, our immunity will last about a week. Ten days at the outside.”

Mariama was quiet. Yes, she knew this. All Fugians would.

“After that, we'll be completely vulnerable. They'll be able to kill us or—”

“Enslave us,” Mariama said.

“Enslave us. Just like that.”

“Yes.”

Sheila said, “So what are you—
we
—going to do next?”

Mariama knew the answer to that question, the only answer, and thought Sheila did, too. But she chose not to reply directly.

Instead, she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.

“I miss Malcolm,” she said.

*   *   *

MALCOLM SAT IN
the full darkness. He was alive. He knew he must be, because he could feel the rough coral wall against the back of his neck and head, hear the dripping of water from somewhere close by, and smell a mix of odors: wet limestone, his own sweat, animal smells.

He could sense against his skin an occasional waft of fresher air from the small square window high on the far wall. A beam of sunlight had been coming through it when he first awoke, but by now it had become part of the general pitch-darkness.

His head throbbed, and there was a crust of dried blood where he'd been struck.

But otherwise he seemed intact, and by now he was alert enough to guess where he was: the fort's slave quarters.

And he wasn't alone. He could smell animals and hear the rustlings and shufflings, the occasional squeak and yelp, that showed that other cells were occupied as well.

He wondered if any of the others had survived. Were some being kept in quarters like this one? Had they escaped? Or had they all died on the steps?

If not, if somehow they'd survived, would they come back for him?

If they didn't, how would he get out of here?

Fuck.

One thing was for sure. He wasn't going to just give up and start acting like a model prisoner, not for those bugs and their lackeys. He was going to get the hell out of this hole.

He'd start soon. As soon as his mind was a little clearer.

But for now . . .

He'd just rest a little first.

*   *   *

AS HE DRIFTED
into sleep, Malcolm realized that he was scratching his belly. But it didn't occur to him to wonder why it itched, and by the time he awoke he'd forgotten he was even doing it at all.

THE BROTHER HAD
rowed them back to the waiting ship. The short trip was carried out in silence, all of them lost in their own thoughts. Except, apparently, the strange, bright-eyed young woman sitting beside him on the boat, who seemed completely absorbed in staring into their faces, one after the other, when she wasn't watching the sky or the flying fish launching themselves into the air all around them.

And still singing her strange, wordless song. Singing almost the whole way back to the ship.

“Hey,” Jason said, one of the times when she was quiet.

Even that single word felt strange. Everything about being here felt strange.

He tried again. “My name is Jason—”

But before he could go on, the leader, Shapiro, gray-faced with exhaustion, snapped a glance at him. “We'll talk when we're on board,” she said.

And that was that.

*   *   *

IN THE LEE
of the ship, before climbing the ladder up to the deck, they washed themselves off in the channel. The crew members went first, in their clothes, the dried blood washing off them into the calm water, little fish rising to pick at the flakes of blood.

They went in one at a time, leaving the others to keep an eye on the two newcomers. Which meant mostly on Jason, as if he was likely to commandeer the rowboat and take it . . . where, exactly?

Then it was the girl's turn. She was already the cleanest among them, having mostly avoided the bloodshed. But she went in anyway, stripping off her shift without any hesitation, then diving and wriggling in the water like a seal before climbing back on board and getting dressed again.

The wrap on her hand was soaked through, and the closer look he got of the infection beneath made Jason hope the ship had some medical miracle worker on board.

Finally, they let him wash, watching him closely the whole time. They'd already checked to make sure he wasn't carrying a worm around with him, but they still looked like they thought he might transform into a last-stage host at any moment and try to tear them apart with his bare hands.

Even so, as he scrubbed at himself, staining the calm water around him, he couldn't entirely blame them for their caution. Their fear. It would be hard to trust a grim-faced, filthy, half-naked man they'd just seen wielding a machete.

But then they brought him on board and—surrounded by wide-eyed crew members, many of them crying at the news they were hearing—immediately bound his hands in front of him. And though he still understood their reasoning, he felt a spark of anger flare inside him.

Then he quelled it. If his plan was going to succeed, if he was going to have a chance of seeing Chloe again, he was going to have to play the good soldier.

In contrast, his self-respect—and what these strange explorers thought of him—didn't matter at all.

*   *   *

A MAN JASON
assumed was the ship doctor took the girl off somewhere. Then Shapiro led Jason into a large room set near the stern belowdecks, clearly the ship's mess. There she sat him behind a large rectangular wooden table and, without a word, left. The brother and sister—the man having acquired a handgun someplace—stood against the wall, watching him.

They didn't seem disposed to talk, so Jason just looked down at his scraped, scarred hands, slave blood still lodged under his fingernails, resting on the table in front of him. The rope they'd used to tie him was biting into his wrists.

When Shapiro returned, pale and grim, she was carrying a glass half-full of water. “I've set a watch,” she said to his guards.

“Let us—” the brother said.

Shapiro shook her head. “It's taken care of.”

You won't need a watch,
Jason thought.
You've got
your force field against the thieves, and the slaves aren't going to swim out here and attack you.

But he kept his mouth shut. He would have set a watch as well.

No. That wasn't true. If he'd been in charge, he would have given the order to sail away at once, putting a hundred miles between himself and the slave camp by morning.

And never looking back.

*   *   *

SITTING ACROSS THE
table, Shapiro put the glass down near him.

Jason looked at it. It was a drinking glass. For some reason, this fact hit him harder than any of the surreal events of the past few hours.

These explorers had drinking glasses made of glass.

Made of glass . . .
after the overthrow
. Jason could tell this by its uneven surface, the bubbles trapped beneath its surface like bugs in ancient amber. There was no way this was a product from before—it would never have made it off the factory floor.

Here, though, on this world, it looked like a miracle to Jason. It meant that wherever the explorers came from, they had glassblowers.

He felt suddenly, unexpectedly dizzy, overwhelmed. Yes, this was the most surreal thing about this day: the bumpy, rippled glass, filled with drinking water, that sat at Jason's right elbow.

That there were still glassblowers on this earth.

*   *   *

SHAPIRO SAID, “ARE
you protected in some way from the thieves?”

Jason shook his head.

“Then why didn't they sting you?”

He coughed, and said, “At first—at first I think they weren't expecting it. What I did.”

His throat hurt. Reaching down, he picked up the glass between his hands and awkwardly drank some water. It was so clean that it tasted strange.

He put the glass back down. “And after that,” he went on, “I think
you
protected me with your force field.”

He grimaced. “I mean your vaccine.”

In midnod, Shapiro froze. Her mouth opened, then closed again, and whatever color was left in her face drained away. Behind her, Jason's guards looked stunned as well.

“You know about our vaccine,” Shapiro said finally.

He nodded.

“How?”

But he didn't answer her question. Instead, he said, “The man who was knocked down—not the one who died—was his name Granger?”

Shapiro didn't seem to be breathing. Her pupils were pinpoints in her gray eyes. When she spoke, it was with another question of her own. “Was Chloe there?” she said, her voice sounding a little breathless. “Oh God, did we—”

Jason was shaking his head. “No. Chloe wasn't in the battle,” he said. “They locked her in the cells yesterday.”

He drew in a breath. “I don't know if she's still alive, but I know you didn't kill her.”

For a moment, the woman across from him seemed to waver in her chair. She raised her hands to her face and pressed her palms into her eyes. Then she dropped them back to the table. “What happened to her vines? To her vaccine?”

“She was imprisoned before she could reach them.” He looked into Shapiro's eyes.
“Enslaved.”

“Do you know if they still exist?”

For a moment, Jason was going to tell Shapiro about their plans. His and Chloe's last-ditch race to see if the vines still existed, if the vaccine might work for them.

But he didn't. It was all too much.

Watching him with that inexorable gaze, Shapiro again opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head. “Shit,” she said. “I have so many things to ask you.”

“Most of the answers you can probably guess at,” he said.

She nodded.

“And the rest don't matter. Not yet.”

Not if we don't figure out a way to get Chloe and Malcolm back.

Another nod. She understood. Then she reached into the pocket of her shirt, pulled out something small, and put it on the table beside the glass. A rough-hewn grayish pill.

“Before we go any further,” she said, “take this.”

Looking away from her, he put the pill on his tongue. It had a bitter taste, almost like quinine, that remained in his mouth after he took a gulp of the pure water.

The vaccine. The protection, the weapon, that until that day Jason hadn't truly believed existed.

*   *   *

“WHAT DID YOU
do with the girl?”

Shapiro grimaced. “The doctor is looking her over.”

Then she turned and glanced back at the twins. “Darby, ask Fatou to bring her here as soon as he's done.” She paused. “And then go and get some rest.”

The woman nodded and went through the door, leaving her brother, with his pistol, still on guard.

Shapiro faced Jason again. They were both quiet for a few moments, perhaps with the same thoughts. The infection in the girl's hand was very serious. In the slave camp, at least, it would soon have killed her.

“We do still have antibiotics,” Shapiro said, “along with a range of native medicines. But . . .”

Yes,
but
 . . .

“Do you have the facilities onboard to amputate?” Jason asked.

And then almost laughed out loud. Laughed at the sounds he was making through a hole in his face. Words.
Facilities. Amputate.

For a moment, he'd sounded like . . . the old Jason. The scientist. The free human.

Shapiro, not reading his mind now, merely nodded. “Fatou can do it, and I can, too, if I have to. Still . . .” She frowned.

Yes,
still
. They both knew that in this world, free or enslaved, you did what you could to keep people alive. You used whatever facilities—and skills—you had, and
you poured all your knowledge and intelligence and effort into saving their lives.

And then, more often than not, they died anyway.

“At the very least, I'm sure she'll be able to tell us about herself, and what she did during the battle.” Shapiro's eyes widened at the memory, and again Jason could see the glint of scientific curiosity in her expression.

She focused on him again. “But while we're waiting, why don't you start off.”

Jason's mind had been wandering. Now he looked at her. “Start off with what?” he asked.

“Telling us about the girl.”

He still didn't understand. “But how would
I
know?”

Now she just stared at him, bereft of speech. And then he understood at last, and laughed. Actually laughed.

“Shapiro,” he said, “I don't know a thing about her. Not a single thing. The first time I ever saw her was today, when she showed up and saved our lives.”

Shapiro said, “Then who the hell is she? And . . .
what
the hell is she?”

Not even noticing at once that, as she spoke, the door behind her was swinging open. The object of her astonishment walked in, eyes alive with interest and curiosity in that oddly still face, the doctor behind her.

It seemed the girl had heard Shapiro's question, and understood that it pertained to her. Standing before them, she seemed to quail for an instant. But then her chin lifted, and she faced them with the same calm fortitude she'd shown in battle.

“My name—” she began, speaking so loudly that her eyes widened.

She took a breath and tried again. “My name is Aisha Rose Atkinson,” she said a little more quietly. But her voice was still strange, flat, with unexpected beats and emphases, as if months or years had passed since she'd last talked to anyone. As if she'd never done much talking.

She sounded, Jason thought, much as he might have if he hadn't had Chloe close by.

But she didn't hesitate. “I was born nineteen years, four months, and twenty-eight days ago, six months and four days after the end of the dreamed earth,” she went on. “Today's date is September—”

For the first time she seemed to falter in her recitation. “September—”

Then her face crumpled. She closed her eyes and, just for an instant, swayed on her feet. The doctor, standing beside her, put a gentle hand on her right arm, and she steadied.

Still with her eyes closed, she spoke, only this time her tone was quieter still, more intimate, and filled with despair.

“I'm so sorry, Mama,” she said. “But I simply don't remember.”