The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (13 page)

A noise made me look up at the door of the flying saucer to
see that same short reporter with the spiky green hair, taking pictures or
video with his link. He saw me and ducked back inside, but not before Micha
spotted him.

The giant tiger leapt in one elegant bound up and through
the door. We heard a shriek and a commotion before she came back out, dragging
the weaselly man by his shirt to the door before dangling and dropping him off
the edge in a heap. Micha easily hopped down herself in a swirl of dust.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I won’t take anymore pictures. Now
get this abomination off me!” he yelled as Micha snatched his link with her
enormous jaws, barely missing his fingers. He scooted away from her,
whimpering, and jumped onto the hover pad to zip back onto the ship and close
the door. I almost felt sorry for the guy. Meanwhile, Micha snickered around
the device, tilted her head back, and swallowed it down in one gulp.

“Sorry about that,” Nereus apologized, still speaking
English and looking somewhat embarrassed. “I told him he couldn’t take any
pictures here, but you know reporters.” She shrugged. “He’s doing a story on me
and no doubt thought a picture with you both would be a good photo op. I’m Dr.
Nereus Souchie, dear,” she said around my mother. “I run The Macawan
Foundation.”

“Um, pleased to meet you,” I replied.

“We tend to think Ahatu are vicious and a waste of
resources, but don’t tell the animal I said that,” she said with a smile from
behind her hand.

My mother glared daggers at the woman, and Micha growled
again, stalking toward her, definitely not amused this time.

“Um, I think she understood you,” I said, backing away from
the woman who was about to get mushed.

“Yes, she did,” my mother said, laying a calming hand on
Micha’s head and continuing to glare at Nereus.

“Does she know English then?” Nereus asked with raised
eyebrows. She gave my mother a speculative look. “Interesting.”

“Let me save you the trouble of coming inside. The answer is
no,” my mother said.

Nereus looked taken aback. “But my offer is more than
generous. Free super seed for ten years and I’ll broker an end to this silly
water rights dispute you have with Glass City. And all I require in return are
a few Katje DNA samples for my research.”

“I’m afraid we can’t help you,” my mother replied. “We’ll
deal with our own water rights and buy our own seed.”

“But Vaeda! The value of what I’m offering you….”

“You’ll get Katje DNA samples over my cold, dead body,” my
mother said with hands on her hips.

Nereus squinted at her. The two women had a stare down for a
long moment, with Micha rumbling threateningly at my mother’s side, before
Nereus spun on her heel and marched back aboard her ship. It took off with a
cloud of dust and sped away, leaving everyone pulling their sweat-stained
bandanas over their faces to breathe. I pulled my shirt collar up over my nose.

“Alright, if any of you receive communications from Nereus
Souchie or The Foundation, I want you to erase them immediately. Understood?”
my mother asked the group while looking at me.

I nodded along with everyone else, wondering what that was
all about.

“That woman is not to be trusted,” she said. “Now we’ve all
got things to do, so let’s get back to it.”

She and Micha both turned and rushed off in a blur again,
leaving a trail of dust behind them leading to whatever was so important out
there.

“Well, that was weird,” Thal said beside me.

“Does that woman come here often?” I asked.

“No, first time I’ve ever seen her. But the General
obviously knew her.”

I nodded. Obviously.

Chapter 15: Patrolling for Haratchi

“Okay everyone, you heard the General! Let’s get going,”
Myrihn said.

Hoping to see what this patrolling business was all about
and see some of these haratchi birds, I followed along and drew my scy when I
saw everyone else had theirs at the ready. We formed a perimeter around the
compound and walked away from it, paying special attention to the bushes and
crops, any place a small pest could be hiding.

“So, what exactly am I looking for here, Thal?” I finally
asked.

“Oh, right! You’re such a newbie.” He shot an upbeat grin at
me. “We’re looking for haratchi eggs. They’re iridescent blue, and kind of
lumpy looking. They’re usually deposited in nests of twenty or more, but
sometimes there’ll be one all by itself for no reason. The adults can drop up
to fifty eggs in a day and eat through a whole field in an hour, so our job is
eradication. Just slice each egg in half, but call for backup first if you find
a whole nest. That might be best until you get the hang of it.”

The fields took the rest of the morning to search. I
wondered why they hadn’t taken the empty corn stalks down yet - it would make
this way easier. I later realized they left every plant growing until they
needed the space for something else, right down to the weeds in the walkways.
Oxygen production, I mused.

They gently tapped or rustled the bushier crops with their
scythions as they passed, careful not to damage the plants. I tried to copy
their movements, but caught my forward blade on a cabbage stalk and sliced it
clean off.

“Oops.” I said to no one in particular. “Where do we put the
casualties?” I joked awkwardly.

Myrihn sighed and rolled her eyes. “Let me see that,” she
said, pointing to my scy. I reluctantly handed it over and she held the center
grips a few moments with a look of concentration on her face.

“There.” She handed it back to me. “Now you can’t hurt
anything but haratchi. Bring the cabbage and we’ll put it in with the Anatolia
delivery.” I could tell she didn’t like being out on patrol with a novice like
me. Oh well, I didn’t want to be here either, I thought, wishing for the
fiftieth time that I could go home.

“Don’t worry,” Thal said. “She does that to all the kids on
their first day.”

After searching all the fields, we’d still found nothing, no
trace of blue. What a letdown. I wanted to see these things.

The walk to town was short, only about a mile, but I was
breathing like it was ten. The air here was thinner than at the top of Mount
Evans. Arroyos crisscrossed the cracked, baked earth here and there, showing
where rain runoff had cut into the sandy soil, and heat mirages shimmered in
the distance.

The team had taken a large square cart full of produce from
a shed painted with huge cats on each side, lions and tigers and one enormous
black panther with glowing eyes. They pulled the cart along with us, not
seeming to mind being human oxen.

Walking through Anatolia was like walking through a ghost
town. I didn’t even know we had entered the edge of town until I noticed old,
rusty pipes sticking up at random out of the desert. Looking closer, I could
see the remnants of foundations near the pipes. These must have been buildings
at one time, but the desert had swallowed them up whole and nothing else
remained.

A tempestuous wind kicked up a cloud of dust that swirled
through the center of town in a lazy dust devil. Thal and the other women
pulled their bandanas up again until they looked like desperados.

“Thal, what… what happened here?” I asked aghast through my
shirt.

“The haratchi,” he said simply with a shrug of his thin
shoulders.

“They eat houses? I thought they ate plants!”

“They eat anything organic except dirt and stone. A swarm
came through here about fifteen years ago.” In other words, most of the houses
couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. Even so, many were sad,
dilapidated structures, windows covered in heavy plastic or corrugated metal,
untended yards full of random crap.

The nicer houses were adobe with clear roofs like
greenhouses, with scrub brush and cacti landscaping. I wasn’t sure whether this
was to limit the dust bowl effect or to help with oxygen production. Maybe
both.

I remembered the propaganda posters in the train station and
could now see the temptation to do anything, including burning forests, to get
rid of the haratchi before they reached a town and devoured it to the ground.
But the lack of trees was what made the air so thin that everyone needed chlorophyll
hair.

The patrol fanned out to inspect the town. I stuck with
Thal, checking every nook, cranny and bush. The wind died down and kids ran out
to greet us as we passed. They were skinny, dirty, and grinning from ear to ear
in anticipation of a treat of sweet pears and figs, giving hugs and showing off
finger paint art.

Adults followed more slowly, worn threadbare by sun, sand
and life here. Most came out to the cart to get a ration of fresh fruit and
vegetables per household, and another of dry staples: rice, beans, and gritty,
stone-ground flour.

Myrihn assigned Thal and me to bring sacks of food over to
those people so beaten down that they didn’t bother getting up from their seats
in the dust or coming out of their shadows.

One grizzled old woman didn’t even look up when I put two
bags down beside her. Thal had returned to the cart for more ration sacks, and
I was turning away when she caught my arm in a leathery grip. I turned back to
see her staring at me with milky-green eyes.

“Ah, so this is the Brown-Haired who walks outside. The
General’s Earthling daughter,” she wheezed with a sneer that showed a glimpse
of rotting brown teeth.

“Yes?” I replied, trying to pull my arm away, but she
tightened her grip like a claw.

“Good thing for you there are no Anakharu around these parts
today. Your mother doesn’t allow their kind to settle here, but they come
through often enough. Some people say she was thinking of you and that Earthan
father of yours when she enclosed her compound with those glass domes. Sure,
you can grow more fancy crops inside now, but it also keeps all that nice
oxygen inside for the General’s pet Brown-Hairs.” Her gap-toothed smile was
more of a cruel grimace as she stared at my wind-tangled hair.

Penthe had said it wouldn’t do any good to strip the color,
I’d have to wait for it to grow out. In the meantime, she’d given me vitamins
to increase hair growth - which smelled like fish.

I yanked my arm out of her grasp and turned away. “It’s
black dye,” I threw back at her over my shoulder. Was this what people thought
of me? My mother’s pet Brown-Haired daughter?

The old woman cackled as I walked away. “Yes, you watch out
for them Anakharu, girl. You won’t want any piece of them, but they’ll sure
want a piece of you,” she called after me.

I made a beeline for Thal back at the cart. “Thal, what’s an
Anakharu?” I asked.

“Where’d you hear that?” he asked, handing me more of the
cloth ration sacks and reaching back in.

I gestured at the old crone who still sat cackling madly to
herself on her dusty steps.

He grunted. “Yeah, well that’s an old word for the
Afflicted, and mean. It’s basically calling them demons.”

“Are they?” I asked.

“No.” He frowned and shook his head. “They just have a
disease. Most people feel sorry for them now.”

“So they’re not dangerous? She made it sound like they would
attack me, or something.”

“Nah, they’re harmless to us. A rogue, an Afflicted person
off their medication,” he clarified, “might attack a Brown-Hair in Glass City,
but they’re not allowed to go there. You, you’re walking around outside. It’s
obvious you
have
chlorophyll, no matter what crazy color you chose to
dye it on Earth.”

“Come on.” He jerked his head toward the next
abandoned-looking house. “We’ve gotta get this done so we can patrol the valley
and be back by dinner.”

The rations ran out and several people went home
empty-handed. I wondered why we hadn’t brought more food. I thought about the
gaunt faces who looked like they were about to give up, and vowed that no
matter how horrible the mush was in the morning, I would eat every bite and be
thankful.

“Thal, what are they doing?” I motioned to Myrihn and the
others at front doors up and down the street.

“Oh, they’re surveying,” he replied. “You know, to see if
there are any new people, where they came from, who they’re living with, that
sort of thing. Hard to bring enough rations when the number of people keeps
growing.”

“So, where are they coming from?”

“Lots of places, I guess. Some people say they’re just
passing through. Some come to stay with family. I think they’re all hoping to
get a job at the Kindred, but we can’t hire everyone.”

A scraggly, pony-tailed girl of about seven came running up
from behind us and went directly to Thal, obviously a fan. She waved a drawing
on funky plasticized paper, many times reused from the looks of it.

“For Telal-ursu,” she said shyly. I’d never heard that name
before. It sounded something like “the woman who fights like a demon.” I shook
my head in confusion and looked at the picture. A fierce, orange-eyed woman was
pictured flying through the air, her teeth bared and her scy slicing gorily
through no less than four blue stick figures with black wings and red blood dripping
from their mouths.

I expected Thal to grimace and recoil from the bloodthirsty
image, but instead he grinned and motioned for her to hold it up as he stepped
back and took a picture.

“That’s great! I’ll send it to her right now,” he promised.

“Hey Ky, guess who this is,” he said, pointing at me. The
girl looked me up and down and shook her head, staring questioningly at my
hair. “This is Sunny, the General’s daughter,” Thal introduced me with a grin.
The girl’s eyes got round as saucers. “Sunny, this is Kysa.” He ruffled her
hair affectionately. “She’s our…”

“Telal-ursu has a daughter?” she interrupted in awe.

“Yeah, she’s been on Earth all this time.”

Her mouth formed a silent O and without warning, she
launched herself at me for a huge hug. I patted her back awkwardly and looked
at a grinning Thal for some explanation.

“Tell you later,” he mouthed at me, laughing. “Make sure you
keep a copy of that for your mom to see, right?” Thal said to her. The girl let
me go, grinning and nodding.

A barefoot housewife I had to assume was the girl’s mom came
up from behind us with a baby girl about toddler age who grasped pudgy hands
toward us, too little to run out on her own.

There was something strange about the mother I couldn’t
quite place and I tried to study her profile unobtrusively. She was young, in
her twenties I thought, her hair clipped up in a casual twist and wearing an
oversized cotton shirt that stopped short at her waist. Her cutoff pants showed
off slender calves covered in green hairs. Maybe that was it. Everybody had leg
beard here.

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Thal asked
Kysa as if this was a game they usually played, and put the little girl up on
his shoulders. I was only half paying attention as I tried not to stare in open
curiosity while I tried to figure out what was up with the mother.

“A farmer! Raaar!” the girl yelled fiercely, pumping her
fist into the air. The combination of farmer and fierce warrior cry caught me
off guard.

I thought of everything I’d seen so far of the people who
worked for my mother. Warrior farmers. When I was being taught to fight, I’d
never thought it was so that I could be a farmer.

Thal grinned at her in approval and the toddler grabbed
Thal’s hair as if it were a mane and pulled.

“Kitty!” she squealed. “Go kitty go!” Thal didn’t seem to
mind that his hair was being pulled out by the roots and galloped around in a
circle.

I couldn’t help sneaking another glance at the mother out of
the corner of my eye as I laughed at Thal’s antics. Maybe it was the shiny
pants she wore, so tight and low at the waist as to be indecent.

Yeah, that could be it. I could see her hipbones above the
waistline, and… Whoa! TMI people, TMI! I blushed suddenly and looked away. Holy
cow, this was
not
the kids’ mother.

I tried to refocus my attention on the kids, on the other
people down the street, on the lack of ants on the ground… on anything but the
effeminate
father
who was now looking at me as if offended that he’d
caught me staring at his well displayed… endowments.

If I’d seen him from the front walking towards us, I’d have
known right away. A codpiece was unmistakable, on any planet. I also would have
seen the intricate and flamboyant facial tattoos on the other side of his face.

I refocused on Thal, galloping around the street with the
little girl laughing and screeching on his shoulders. As soon as they were
through, the kids’ father muttered some excuse and pulled the kids back inside
without looking at us, his skinny posture stiff. The girl, Kysa, turned and
grinned at us, waving when he wasn’t looking.

“Hey Earth Princess!” Lyta said coming up to us as we
started walking again. “Way to make people uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, what were you thinking checking out Teague’s husband
like that?” Otrere walked over too and punched me in the arm. Hard.

Ugh, Teague’s husband? “I wasn’t checking him out,” I
protested, glaring at her and refraining from rubbing my arm. “I was trying to
figure out why he was dressed like that. Is that how he normally looks?” I
gestured to my face to imitate the tattoos; most of the other men in town wore
dark, tribal markings, but none were like his. His markings were like – dressy,
showy. And most men here wore loose clothing. I hadn’t noticed any other
codpieces; not that I was going to bring that up.