Bourbon Mountains, High North Country

The next day he was in the archives, working his way through an expense log kept by an in-system freighter that had hauled, among other things, contract miners among the asteroid mines, when he heard Fen at the gate.

Fen had no legitimate right to access. To enter the archives, you had to be trained in handling ancient documents. Fen had training in packing code and security protocols and ecological engineering, and, for all Martin knew, a dozen other exciting issues, but he had, Martin would have bet his back teeth, no training in handling archived documents, ancient or otherwise.

Nevertheless, here he came, busting through the gate, yanking off his big hairy coat as he entered the clean room, stomping straight for Martin’s table. Past him, Martin saw the curator scrambling through his own gate. Coming to his feet, Martin slipped on his static gloves and got the logbook shut and sealed in its case before Fen reached him.

Fen drew up by the worktable, his narrow lips crooked. “This is the important work that keeps Strauss from my sister’s children? What is this trash?” He reached for the logbook, in its clear static-free case.

Martin got there first, lifting it out of his reach. “A financial document from the first years of Julian’s founding,” he said, and, as the curator arrived, wide-eyed with dismay, handed it to him. “Lord Strauss,” Martin went on, to Fen, “has me looking at certain entries within it to determine the financial disadvantage, if any, to using contract labor over free labor during the opening years of the Settlement.”

Deja’s working thesis was that combines that had rebuilt Julian for human occupation had used contract labor out of philanthropic motives – that it had not been to their financial advantage to do so, since free labor had been cheaper, and more highly educated.

Fen had not been listening: too busy being outraged that Martin had dared to take something he had been reaching for. He watched the curator scurry away with the sealed document, and then transferred his hot glare to Martin. “Come with me.”

Martin considered refusing. It was still a good hour before lunch: he was meant to be working. Except, well, Fen was a holder – at least, he had married into the holder class – and that was a direct order.

The dusky corridors were darker than usual, because the snow which had started at dawn was still falling heavily. Beyond the windows, a gray sky lay low. “In here,” Fen said.

Martin balked: it was a Lord Holder facility. “Sir?”

Fen shoved him through the door.

Holder pissers were much nicer than those meant for cots: marble lobby, with a leather sofa and armchairs, mirrors, even a liquor kit in one corner. Fen ignored these, just propelled Martin into the wall, slamming him against it. “You think you got away with that, last night.”

“No,” Martin said. “No, sir.”

Fen drove a fist into him, aiming for his belly, but Martin dodged, taking the blow in his ribs. It hurt. He cried out, letting his knees go. Go down fast.

Fen dragged him up, jerked him around, twisted his arm between his shoulders. He hissed in his ear: “You ever speak like that to my wife again – ever—” He jerked Martin’s arm, sending a hot slash of pain through his shoulder; Martin yelped. “I don’t care what your ass-boy holder says, I’ll take a stick to you myself. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Fen twisted his arm up further, banged his face into the marble wall. “You’ll keep your place around my wife, around me, around our children, around Lord Sudi.”

“I will!”

Fen punched him hard in the kidney, then between his shoulders. Martin let himself fall, curled around his belly. Fen jeered, left. The marble floor was cold against his face. He rested, his bruises stinging, thinking whether it was safe to get up. When the door opened, he jumped; it was only Dallas.

“Shit,” Martin muttered. Dallas came to help him up. He limped to the sofa and collapsed on it, holding his injured shoulder. “In shit are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I saw him grab you up. You’re all right?”

His nose was bleeding. He mopped at it with his fingers – he had forgotten a handkerchief, as usual. Dallas vanished into the inner room of the facility, returning with a wet cloth. Martin held it against his face. The small kindness, to his mortification, shifted him close to tears. “We can’t stay here. This is for holders.”

“We’re all right for a bit. No one’s around during break.”

He used the cloth to scrub at his face, hiding the wet that escaped from his eyes.

“Who was that?” Dallas asked.

Martin shook his head. “Stupid shit.”

“Anything I can do?”

He shook his head again. “Holder crap.”

Dallas appraised him. “You don’t look good.”

“I’m fine.” He buried his face in the cloth again. He felt awful, shaky and sick, washed out from anger and fear. He was sick of Deja and the lot of them. “I’m really hungry, that’s all,” he said, when Dallas stood watching him, his dark eyes measuring. He was, in fact: no dinner, and little breakfast, combined with the rush of adrenaline, had left him so empty he was shivering.

Dallas smiled. “I’ve got you.” He pulled Martin to his feet.

Up on the third floor, down at the end of the long corridor, was a tall door with light shining through its transom, unlike the others along the corridor. Dallas banged confidently on this door. “Lord Oxford?” he called.

Nothing happened. Dallas banged again, and opened the door. “Lord Oxford?”

“I’m here, I’m here!”

Dallas entered, waving Martin to follow. A wide office, worktables, hardcopy, desks, a glass cage, a tall ceiling, a fireplace, a tea kit littered with cutlery and cups, boxes from the university kitchen; fixed lightboards; windows which likely showed the Bourbon Mountains on better, less snowy days. Right now, only whirling gusts of snow appeared.

“Dallas!” The Lord Holder entering a connecting door was lean as a stickback, with the same narrow articulation and long jaw: same inky eyes, too. Martin, who hated insects, felt instantly wary. “Come look at this for me. Who’s this? Good morning, Martin. Here, in here.”

He took them into the room he had just left, larger than his office, dusky on this dark day, with huge windows. This room was filled with lab space and habitats for tree rats: desks, wallboards, worktables full of gear. While Lord Oxford got Dallas to decide whether some plant that had begun growing in one of the habitats was likely to be harmful to the rats, Martin wandered the lab, looking at first at the ‘boards, and then at the habitats.

“You’ll stay for lunch?” Oxford was saying to Dallas. “I’ve just sent Salih.”

“A coincidence,” Dallas said, wickedly, “considering how hungry we are, Martin and I.”

Oxford laughed. “Let me sync over to the kitchen and have them double the order.”

“Or, you know, maybe triple it. You haven’t seen Martin eat.”

Martin shot them both a glance. He wandered further into the maze of habitats. The rats looked like regular tree rats to him – various shades of brown and black, some plain, some spotty, beady ugly eyes and nasty teeth. The habitats varied: a few plain, wood shavings and food dishes, and the rats isolated; others elaborate, with carved wooden tunnels, rocks, grass pits, free-growing areas of plants, decks and levels for the rats to scramble among, colonies of rats in these habitats; and variations between these sorts – five or six habitats, over by the windows, were dark and nearly empty, the rats huddled on bare flooring.

Lord Oxford came up beside him. “You have experience working with tree rats?”

Martin, trying not to startle, stepped out of range. “I ain’t go that far, no sir.”

Oxford lifted his brows, inviting an explanation. Something about his expression, the easy way he stood, made Martin want to trust him. He knew that was stupid. This was a holder.

He found himself answering anyway: “Tree rats, in the fields, mani fields and orchards and that, they eat up the crops, is it?”

“I’ve heard that,” Oxford said.

“Well, pike-boys – you know what a pike is?”

“Nail on a stick, basically.”

“I did pike work a bit, when my fourth holder had me in the field. Clearing out tree rats. I ain’t turn out to be good at the work, though.”

“Bad reflexes or soft heart?”

Martin smiled. No one had ever asked that question. The field boss hadn’t cared why he brought in so few dead rats, just that he did. “Focus. Killing rats is dead boring.”

Oxford stepped up to one of the habitats and tapped its glass side. “So you don’t feel anything for my sweet balls of fluff?”

“For tree rats?” Martin asked cautiously. Oxford glanced at him. Martin shrugged, uneasy, not certain where this conversation was going.

“Some people find them cute.”

“Yes, sir.” Martin knew that holder children often kept rats as pets. Since Oxford seemed to be waiting for something more, he asked, “Why are the habitats different?”

This turned out to be the right question: Oxford, pleased, explained in more detail than Martin actually needed the current direction of his research, which was related to the effect stress had on the ability to perform, combined with the effect of enrichment and trauma on infant rats. Essentially, as far as Martin understood the argument, you raised up rats in rich, trauma-free environments, and then tested how the adult rats performed various tasks requiring innovation or learning when under stress; and then you raised up rats in barren, traumatic environments, and tested how these rats performed the same tasks under stress; and you raised up rats in environments along the spectrums between the two, and—

“And at the end you’ll know how to have enlightened rats,” Martin said.

Oxford smiled. “It’s data. It’s worth what it’s worth.” His dark eyes regarded Martin thoughtfully. Martin looked away.

“Salih’s back with the meal,” Dallas said from the doorway.

“Why don’t you show Martin where he can wash?” Oxford said. “Do something about that nosebleed?”

Martin bent his head, swiping at his nose. Oxford went into his outer office, and Martin followed Dallas to a scrub, where he pulled off his shirt and washed his face. “Who is this?” he demanded. “Why are we here?”

“A holder I know. I’m scoring us a meal.”

Martin studied Dallas’s innocent expression in the mirror, and growled.

“You’re all right?” Dallas asked. “I can get a patch out of Oxford. He’s easy.”

“I’m fine.” He yanked his shirt back on. “Show me this meal.”

The table by the fireplace was laid with clean dishes. Oxford was pouring tea into over-sized boneware mugs. A contract placing fresh wood on the fire smiled at Martin and Dallas’s approach: lean, light-skinned – not the clear-cream shade holders prized, but nowhere near as dark as Dallas or Martin. His hair was brown-blond, and cut short.

The meal was as fine as Dallas had promised, though it was holder food, very fancy, heavy on meats. Oxford, who ate with them, kept handing round the plates: meat dumplings in black sauce; mutton fritters; broiled spring vegetables rolled with laqui; fish wrapped with bitter lettuce; fruit slices on grilled lamb chops; wheat bread. For the pudding, dried fruit stewed with rum sauce, knotty-hard cherries, diced persimmons, and gritty blueberries. He noticed Oxford didn’t eat this dish. Maybe this was why holders didn’t like sweets: theirs were so awful.

While everyone ate, Dallas, Salih, and Lord Oxford discussed work, and traded university gossip – no real gossip, not with a holder about. Oxford asked Martin questions about the University in Durbin, and about the West Country in general.

“Martin’s been all over,” Dallas told him. “He’s served contracts in every country, is it, Martin?”

“As a secretary?” Oxford asked.

“No, sir. I was always a labor cot. Stone work mostly. This is my first contract at tech level.”

“How did you end up a secretary? Doing – what is this you’re doing? Historical research? That’s an odd jump.”

“I’m uphill,” Martin said, easily, stirring the stewed fruit, “or I was, as a kid. So I speak Pirian, among other languages. Lord Strauss rented me from my sixth holder, to translate some documents. They’d been translated, but he didn’t trust the work, which, he was right, it was a rat bad translation. Then he bought my contract, trained me as his secretary.” He shrugged, like that was all it was to the story.

The silence around the table stretched long. Martin pretended not to notice. He ate a flavorless dried cherry.

Oxford said, in very bad Pirian, “You speak language? I am glad be meet you.”

Martin, surprised into meeting his eyes, grinned. Speaking in Pirian himself, he said, “Now where did you acquire such an appalling accent, you slitting pirate?”

Oxford shook his head. “Too much for me,” he admitted, and said, “Except that last word, son. I do know what gadro means.”

Martin flinched. “Sorry,” he said, warily. Pirate, gadro, was almost the worst thing one Pirian could call another – he didn’t really expect a Julian to know how vile an insult it was, though, and in fact, Oxford didn’t seem nearly as upset as he ought to have been.

“You speak Pirian,” Oxford said, “and you’re educated. How did you end up on a labor contract? How old were you when you went into the system?”

“Fourteen.”

“Didn’t anyone test you? Why weren’t you given an educational contract?”

“It’s not like that,” Dallas said to Oxford patiently, as if this point had been made before.

“It’s supposed to be,” Oxford said, also without conviction.

“I don’t remember any testing,” Martin said. “But my first contract, to the stonecutter, that was E.L.C.”

“A labor contract, though?”

“He taught me the trade,” Martin said, not certain why he was defending the contract labor system. “I do know how to cut stone. And build with it. Lay stone. All that.”

“Why weren’t you on a technical track? That’s the issue. You should have been.”

Martin looked down at his dish, which, despite how nasty the dessert had been, was empty of all but creamy syrup now. He had been sold to the stonecutter because the stonecutter had wanted a boy in his bunk, and Martin had been the prettiest boy at the docks the day he came shopping. The stonecutter had not looked further than his pretty eyes or tawny skin, his tender boy’s mouth.

Oxford exhaled. “If you’ll clear up, I’ll see if I can find something better for our sweet.”

“Nothing’s likely to be open, not in this,” Salih warned.

“Leave that to me.” Oxford took his outer coat from the tree by the door and left.

Dallas and Salih washed and rinsed while Martin dried and stowed the dishes in the box to be hauled back to the kitchen. With three hands, it was speedy work. More gossip went on while they worked, and Martin probed delicately, trying to discover why Dallas and Salih were so friendly toward Oxford – who, all right, seemed kind enough, but still.

“You’ve served contracts everywhere,” Salih said to Martin. “In the South?”

“Not the South. Not yet.” Martin tapped the wooden trim of the tea kit for luck.

“I did a year in the Islands.”

Martin arrested, dumpling bowl in his hands. “Rice Islands?”

“Rice Islands. I was crew hook down there. It’s – Nothing you’ve heard is enough. It’s worse than anything anyone says. It’s mostly kids they ship down, from the orphanages, twelve, thirteen years old, already in bad shape, none of them ever been fed decent or had medical. The other sort we get are bad cots, sold to the Islands to get them off their estates.”

“Was that you?” Martin interrupted.

Salih gave him a half-surprised, half-thoughtful look.

“You’re not an orphanage brat. How’d you end up on the Islands?”

Salih, still thoughtful, glanced at Dallas, who tucked down the corner of his mouth. “Different sort of bad cot,” Salih said. “Couldn’t keep my teeth together. Like you, is it?”

Martin laughed.

“Anyway. The estate I ended up on, it wasn’t the worst. They’re all bad, but this one didn’t set out to work its cots to death. My crew was a dozen kids, only after I’d been running that crew a year, keeping them alive, mostly, we get a new cot, one of the bad ones, in our crew. He goes after Nora, our youngest. Greta and Joe stop him, kill him in the process. Well, that’s not all right. Rules on the Islands – boss’s rules – cots settle issues how they like, but no one gets damaged too badly too work. That happens, whoever did the damage pays the price.”

“Which means what?” Martin asked, when Salih didn’t go on. He knew what it would have meant in the fields and quarries and mines where he had worked – a bad whipping and a few weeks on half-meals, never mind what the other cots might do, if they thought you had killed someone who ought not be killed – but from Salih’s expression, he was thinking the Islands had a different outcome.

“Well, in this case,” Salih said, “it meant whoever had killed this cot was getting the bullet. Except Greta and Joe, they’re thirteen and fourteen, so shit if I’m giving them up. Whole barracks, they’re in a panic by now.

“So, few weeks before, the islands, you know, they’re narrow, swampy, it’s why they’re good for growing rice and sugar. And lousy for keeping cots alive. Anyway. Fine beaches and lakes, holders love them for holidays. And Lord Oxford had been parasailing out over the field we were harrowing, when his line broke. He crashes. Broke a bone in his arm, but worse, the lines – they’re wires, you know, not ropes – they wrapped around him, cut into an artery in his leg. My crew got to him, and I’d had some medical training before I went into the system, so I knew what to do. Kept him from bleeding out or going into shock until the helo arrived. He’d been down to the barracks to see us since then, once to say thanks and again to bring us a box of biscuits. Stayed to talk, like he might actually be grateful. So I thought maybe we could get his help.

“I got my crew to bundle up the body, we took it across island to the estate where Lord Oxford is staying. This is the pit of night. I wake that cook there, who I happen to know. She gets Oxford. I explain the situation.” Salih paused.

“And?” Martin asked.

“And it worked. Oxford talked to our holder. Holder wasn’t happy, wanted us on our knees for this game, but Oxford offered him full price for us all, and then full price plus ten percent when he balked. When he tried to hold out for more,” Salih added, “apparently Oxford said fine, shoot us, see what happened next: how would he like a riot? Which was not an unlikely event, mood in those barracks at that point. Anyway, holder sold us all, and Lord Oxford brought us North.”

“Lucky you.”

“I can’t argue that,” Salih agreed. “I’m not forgetting the ones left behind, either.”

Martin bent his head over his work, since that had, indeed, been the point of his snotty comment: as if he had spent half a minute himself thinking about the cots he had left behind, in the quarries, in the slate mines, in the mani and potato and hay fields of the high North Country. How many of them were still alive? Did it keep him awake one extra minute? Or was he too busy fretting about his own hard road?

“We do what we can do,” Dallas said.

Martin nodded, only what was he doing? Nothing. Oxford, a holder, he’d done more.

Oxford came back in just then, a white pasteboard box under his arm, snow thick on his furry hat. “Success!” he claimed. “Wait until you see these cakes!”

***

He was late, since, first, having stayed late at Oxford’s, talking over the teacakes, it took him far into evening to finish his work; and, second, the snow had not let up. He waded toward the middle of the street, and still in many places the drifts of snow reached his knees. More snow was falling; a hard wind drove it into his face. By the time he shut the scullery door behind him he was so cold he could hardly get his coat off. He stood over the heating vent, hugging his ribs, trying to get warm. Annie, cleaning up in the kitchen, kept sending him mean looks, in case he might forget how badly she hated him. “I ain’t suppose I could get a cup of tea?” he asked.

“I’m not your contract,” she snapped.

“Good shit,” he muttered, hunching his shoulders higher.

“Don’t curse at me!”

He managed not to roll his eyes.

Davis came in. “You’re back. Good. Lord Strauss has been asking for you.”

“It’s a meter of snow in those streets,” Martin said. His teeth rattled while he spoke.

“Street crews can’t keep up with the storm. Annie, do we have tea?”

Annie, glowering, poured a cup, and Davis brought it to Martin, who had trouble holding it, his hands were shaking so hard. Davis steadied it for him.

“You’re lucky you made it in,” Davis said, getting another swallow in him. “We find bodies frozen in drifts every winter. Finish up.”

Martin drank the last, and Davis went to pour him another cup, adding sugar this time.

“Go have a warm bath. I’ll tell Lord Strauss you’re in,” Davis said.

Martin was standing before the heating grid in the scrub when Deja called his name. “In here,” he called back.

Deja came in. “Where were you? I was about to sync Security.”

Martin gave him an appalled look; worse, apparently he meant it.

“You’re freezing.” Deja wrapped arms around him. “Why did you stay so late?”

“I got into the ecologist’s diary. It took longer than I expected.”

Deja pulled his hands up, warming them against his own face. “Well, you’re home safe. But next time, pay attention to the storm warnings.”

Martin hadn’t heard any storm warnings. “You ain’t really send the Redbacks after me?”

“If you were lost in a blizzard?”

“Deja. They wouldn’t rescue me, they’d kick the shit out of me.”

Deja’s expression went blank for a brief moment. Then he let Martin go and went over to the sinks. In the mirror, Martin could see his face: mild, idle, faintly bored. Deja at his most dangerous. “What else happened today,” Deja said, “besides you deciding to ignore common sense and the Emergency Weather System and risk your life?”

Martin tried to think what this was about. Had Deja somehow heard about the meal with Oxford and – what?

By the sinks, Deja pulled his shaver from its niche and shook it to life. His agate-cool eyes glinted. “Well?”

Martin shook his head. “I worked the archives. It was bad weather. I – what else?”

“You’re planning to pretend that black eye is from the smack Suley gave you?”

Without meaning to, he put his hand on his bruised eye. The flesh was hot against the cold of his fingers. Deja’s mouth curved in contempt. He smeared shaving oil on his face and, squeezing on the shaver, began grooming away his golden stubble.

“I wasn’t hiding it from you,” Martin said. “I just forgot.”

Deja’s eyebrows canted upwards.

“I did,” Martin insisted. “Fen – Lord Fen – I – he ain’t even hit me very…crap, if I got upset every time some holder—” He hesitated, watching Deja, trying to judge how this tactic was working. “I’d have told you if I’d known you thought it was important.”

Deja cleaned the shaver and snugged it back into place. “Did you hear me say that no one was to discipline you without clearing it through me?”

Martin bit his lip. “Yes, sir.”

“Is Fen someone?”

Martin bent his head. “Sir.”

“Get over here.”

Martin didn’t move. Just for a second. Then he made himself go stand by Deja. He was shivering, not from the cold now. He couldn’t make himself meet Deja’s eyes.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot,” Deja said.

“I’m sorry.” He clenched his hands behind his back, trying to hide the shaking.

“Look at me.”

He did.

Deja put his hand on Martin’s face. “I love you. Do you think I want to hurt you?”

“I’m sorry. Please, Deja. I am.”

Deja slapped him, hard. Martin staggered but stayed on his feet. He kept his hands behind his back, did not make a sound. “I don’t want to hear,” Deja said, “that you’re sorry. You’re sorry you got caught.”

Martin said nothing. Deja hit him again. He still didn’t speak. He couldn’t think what answer Deja wanted, for one thing. For another, he was too frightened by now.

“Look at me.”

He tried, but he couldn’t. He was too afraid.

Deja jerked his chin up. “Stop lying to me. I don’t care why you’re lying. Don’t do it.”

“Sir,” he whispered. Tears and terror blurred his eyes.

“Not telling me what you know I should be told: that’s a lie too.” Deja’s yellow-brown eyes fixed on his. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand that.”

“Sir.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation again.” Deja turned away. “Go have your bath.”

***

At dawn snow still fell heavily; the street outside, for as far as Martin could see, scraping the ice from the window in the front corridor, lay banked with heavy snow. He brewed tea to have waiting when Deja woke; also because he was starving, and tea was better than nothing. It was an hour at least before Annie would send up breakfast. He built up the fire, too, drinking his tea in its warmth. His bruises ached. Brooding at the flames, he thought what Salih had said, the day before, how his crew had been stronger than most of the crews in the rice fields, because they stood together. “It was down in the Islands that I saw it clearly,” Salih had explained, “why the holders work so hard to set us at each other’s necks: they know if we ever stand together, they won’t have a chance.”

“Only we never do,” Dallas had pointed out, with the wry humor Martin was beginning to recognize as his common tone. “Why is that? Why do we treat each other like enemies, when holders are the problem?”

“Well,” Salih said, “it’s like that joke. JFS catch the street rat what’s breaking into houses in the rich quarter, ‘What’s up,’ they ask him, ‘why you thieving from these fine Lord Holders?’”

Everyone knew that joke; and the street rat’s reply: ‘I’m thieving from the holders because the holders got all the loot.’

“Same for us,” Salih had said, shrugging. “We think we’ll get power from the holders because holders have all the power. How can we get it from each other? What strength does Martin have?” he had asked, whacking at Martin’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “What use will he ever be to me?”

Dallas, frowning, had made no answer. No more had Martin. He had understood clearly enough from Salih’s tone that this was supposed to be irony – that Salih was saying Martin had plenty of power – but Martin, no matter how he turned the question, couldn’t see why Salih thought so. He drank his tea, huddled before the fire, trying to understand it now, and still could not. Why would Salih think he had any strength? He couldn’t even stand up to Deja.

Behind him in the high bed, behind the half-drawn curtains, Deja rustled under the heavy bedding. “Are you awake already?”

“Sir.”

More rustling, and the noise of Deja shoving bedding around. “Why is it so dark?”

“Still snowing.”

Deja climbed from the bed, yawning. “Get me tea.”

Martin went to pour a cup. Deja returned from the facility and synced down to the kitchen to have breakfast sent up early. He took the cup absently, peering through the window, out at the storm. “How do the streets look?”

“Not good.”

Deja sent him a brief look. “Are you still sulking?”

He managed not to back away. “I didn’t sleep well.”

Deja pulled him into an embrace. “Bad dreams. You woke me with one of them.” Martin leaned into him. “I tried to wake you. Do you remember?

He shook his head. He never remembered these dreams. He knew they were about his third holder. Sometimes, when he woke, he could still smell that holder, or feel him out in the darkness. He wasn’t going to say this to Deja, though.

Deja kissed him, caressing him under his shirt. Martin wanted breakfast a deal more than he wanted sex. Lifting his face, he kissed back. Deja made an appreciative sound, pushing against him, his half-erection hardening. He tugged Martin toward the bed.

“Breakfast,” Martin reminded, meaning the kitchen girl was on her way.

“Better hurry, then.”

***

Snow kept falling, heavy in the dusky pre-dawn, lighter as true morning came on, never quite stopping. Deja ruled they would work from home that day, hardly a surprise, since the streets were deep in snow, and the street crews hadn’t come through since noon the day before. Only Martin and he had barely started work, linking up the bibliography, since that could be done from here, when Davis tapped at the door and wondered, politely, if he could have Martin for the morning. Martin, who had served contracts on small estates, had been expecting this; he saw Deja had not. Strauss Estate held nearly a thousand contracts; this didn’t even count contracts held out, those held by households attached to the estate, such as Pia and Lila. The notion of contract laborers having to be borrowed into work other than that they were assigned to was foreign to a holder of Deja’s level.

On the other hand, Davis’s crew was two bootboys, two kitchen girls, and a cook. Nearly a meter of snow had fallen over the past thirty hours. If he was getting it cleared he needed more crew, especially since, which Martin knew as well as Davis, the city bosses would also be short, and would soon come hunting.

Deja put up a brief protest, as management of the house was meant to be handled by the university crew; but Davis had an unshiftable argument, since unless the snow got shoveled they would all be trapped in the house indefinitely. In the end, Deja sent Martin along.

“I assume you’ve done actual work,” Davis asked, as they went down the service stairs together. “Not just read files all your life?”

Martin made a rude sound before he could stop himself.

“Just asking,” Davis said. “Some of you kept boys can be near useless.”

Outside, cold bit his lungs and face. He pulled up his hood and dug his gloves from his pockets. Davis was in the shed by the scullery door, hunting out gear: a snow shovel, snow boots. Martin pulled on the boots while Davis pointed out the areas to clear. The bootboys were already at work in the alley. Martin was supposed to clear a path to the alley, and another to the compost heap.

“Have you worked outside in winter?” Davis asked. “You get cold, go inside and warm up. Annie will give you tea. I don’t want slacking, I want this done, but I don’t want cold injuries, either.”

“Sir.”

“Button that collar,” Davis ordered, looking him over for any other errors of dress. He made him tuck his gloves inside his sleeves, and then nodded and climbed through the snow to the bootboys. Martin set to work. He liked digging snow, actually, in much the same way he had always liked cutting stone. Quarry work and mining had been bad, but that had been for other reasons: the filth, the danger, the boss always on your neck. Even as a kid, on the days the stonecutter left him in the hills with a cutter and bar to follow a slope or a run of sandstone, the cold air and the work under his hands, the sun and the high burr trees, that had been the closest to happiness he had known.

This was like that. Cold silence, clean snow, peace around him, work he could do and no way he could get it wrong. His muscles moved warm under his skin, his balance eased and shifted. It didn’t take much skill, moving snow, but what it did take he had: he cut the snow with the shovel, lifted, tossed, the yard grew clear and clearer. Even his bruises felt better.

He was surprised when Davis showed up – he didn’t think he had been working long. But the track up to the compost heap was finished, and scullery walk nearly done.

“Good,” Davis said, surveying his work. “What did I say about cold, though?”

“I’m fine.”

Davis grunted. “Help those two with the alley when you finish. Clear a path in front when the alley’s done. City’ll do the street, if they ever reach us.” Davis scanned the featureless white sky. “Link says no more snow, not to after the End. That sky sure says snow to me.”

“Hope not,” Martin said, though he couldn’t sound as gloomy as he ought to have: he was enjoying this a deal more than a day in the archives.

Davis sent him a suspicious look, and went to check the bootboys, who, last Martin had caught sight of them, had not been shoveling. Rather, they had been knocking icicles off the eaves of the house and flinging them like spears at each other, giggling madly as they did so. One of the bootboys was maybe twelve; the other looked ten. Sure enough, he soon heard Davis’s voice raised in castigation. He listened, warily, for sounds of blows or cries of pain, though he hadn’t seen Davis hit anyone yet. And, except for some scolding, nothing seemed to happen up in the alley. When Davis came by again, Martin kept his attention on his shoveling, letting the boss pass him.

When he broke through up into the alley maybe half an hour later, the bootboys were shoveling industriously. They’d done very little through the morning, having cleared less than a third of the alley’s distance. True, they were small; this was still an amazing feat of ditching work. He started shoveling his way toward them.

“What, you Davy’s bit?” the older boy said as he grew nearer. “You think you get this done speedy quick, he give you cakes and honey?”

Martin straightened, resting the shovel. “You gone whine about Davis? Really? What orphanage shit out you fuckwits?”

They exchanged sullen glances.

“Count yourself lucky. Most boss have the stick out by now.”

“In shit you know about it?” the older one said, still sullen. “Bed boy.”

Martin kept smiling. Shifting the shovel to the other hand, he pulled up his jacket and thermal shirt to reveal the slashed webbing of scars across his belly and ribs, the extremely impressive one that ran up his side to end in a fat hook under his arm. Their eyes widened. The cold bit his skin; he let go. “Plenty worse than Davis about.”

Though, in fact, hardly any of those particular scars had been left by bosses.

They gazed at him, their dark eyes wide in their cold-reddened faces. “What did you do?” the younger one said, barely aloud.

“You ain’t want to push the boss,” Martin said solemnly. “Finish up with me, I’ll tell you some tales.”

He told them about things he had seen done by bosses to field cots – about a contract who the boss thought was stopping for water too often, who was made to drink liter after liter of water, until the cot vomited it all up. Then the boss tied her to the bally tree by the pump and whipped her bloody, left her tied there all day. He told about a cot who talked back, and the boss filled his mouth with stones heated hot, burning his tongue and throat raw. He told about the cot who kept oversleeping, who the boss whipped every morning for a week, whether he woke on time or not. “We ever saw a boss like Davis,” Martin said, as they reached the mouth of the alley, “shit if we’d whine over it. Getting read out? Called names? Please.”

They had listened in near silence, except to ask about this detail or that. Now the younger boy said, “In the orphanage, you know, we got hit a lot.”

Martin glanced at him.

“Because we did bad shit, spilled tea, or, like, if we pissed the beds, or,” he cut at the snow with his shovel blade, “talked at table, or ain’t finish our work. Like that. Mr. Quincy or Miss Regina…they had to teach us.” He looked up at Martin under the rim of his bally hat, his eyes big in the narrow bones of his face, that classic orphanage face, small jaw, huge eyes, pale cracked lips. If he smiled, Martin knew, the teeth would be chalky, tiny, probably already two or three missing. “If they ain’t teach us to obey, once we got sold, they said, we’d be in bad trouble. This is what they meant. Is it? These bosses?”

Looking at the skinny kids he had been so blithely instructing, in their patched work gear, fairly good gear, too, lined canvas trousers, woolen ballies, not the cheap grey Nartec he had worn in the field, useless for keeping out cold or letting out sweat; but nowhere near the fancy gear Deja dressed him in, Martin felt the words clot in his throat. Yes was the obvious answer. Yes, learn that lesson. Yes, do what you’re told. Memories of all the lessons he had been taught, every time he had been driven to his knees, all the bosses and holders who had made him beg, crowded like shadows of evil dreams inside him. Don’t learn it the hard way. Don’t.

He knew it was the right answer. Why did he find it so hard to say?

They had reached the mouth of the alley; cries of children reached them. The orphanage boys turned. Out before the house, Fen and Deja played in the snow with their children. They had built two forts of hefty rolled balls of snow, and from behind each were pelting one another with snow missiles, shouting challenges. From the second-story window, Sudi, Suley and Tsilla were cheering. As Martin watched, Deja flung Akin, like a giant ball, across the space between the forts. He landed inside Fen’s fort, grabbed up handfuls of their snowballs, and began pelting the enemy from within. Much hilarity.

Martin and the orphanage cots stood in the alley, their breath puffing in the frigid air. Then Martin tugged his hood further over his cold ears. “Let’s go in and get warm, is it? Maybe that Annie will give us tea and biscuits. Give you biscuits,” he corrected.

The older boy slipped him a sly grin. “I’ll give you one of my biscuits, she ain’t notice.”

Martin grinned back, and bashed him gently with an elbow.

***

As Martin had half-expected, the city crew came through an hour later and conscripted him and both bootboys. Deja protested; but City Council had passed an Emergency Directive, allowing the city bosses to impound labor as necessary. “Have’m back by dusk,” the boss promised. “Tomorrow latest.”

Deja did not like that. Martin did, though he kept it from his face as he and the bootboys joined the work-crew down on the main thoroughfare. Only four other cots from this lane had been conscripted: this was the university district, and many houses were empty, with instructors and lecturers gone off for Winter Holiday.

These bosses were not Davis. It was five of them for the thirty cots in this crew, all carrying sticks very like those Labor Security carried: a meter long, heavy wood with a thick handle at one end and an oblong knob at the other. Redbacks painted their sticks dull red, to hide the blood, or so the joke went. These sticks were black, but hurt just as much. The first time one of the bootboys got whacked he skidded on the icy ground and fell. That got him another clout, along with a curse. He scrambled back, and Martin contrived to get in the way. The boss swung the stick at him. He dodged, so that though it hit, it didn’t hit hard.

“Idiot,” the boss snapped. “This isn’t a picnic. Let’s see some elbows flying!”

“Sir,” Martin agreed, pulling the kid out of range. The other one stood gaping. Martin jerked his chin; his eyes widened, and he started shoveling, comically fast. Martin picked up the younger boy’s shovel and moved him up in the line, watching the bosses from the side of his eye.

Tears were wet on the boy’s face. He scrubbed at them. “I ain’t do anything!”

“Keep out of their way,” he said in the contract undertone. He made the kid take the shovel. “Keep other cots between you and them.”

“But…” The kid bit his lip.

The older bootboy finished for him. “What if we’re the other cots?”

“Try not to be,” Martin said. “Keep your head down. Watch where they are.” They traded looks. “No,” Martin told them. “It ain’t always work. It ain’t even work very well. Ain’t I wish I had something what did?”

Up the line, a boss had knocked another contract down and was shouting, kicking him. The younger bootboy whimpered. Martin moved between him and the sight. “Shovel.”

Despite the bosses and the cold, it wasn’t bad work: the city sent a rat truck around every few hours with tea and cakes; dinner brought a full meal, wedges of fried bread, steaming in the frigid air; fat sausages; fried apples; hot sweet tea in battered tin mugs that burned the lips. This food was what Martin had been hoping for. It was worth the stick, to have his belly full for once.

He had been hoping the work would stretch to the next day; no such luck. Bourbon wasn’t a large town. By dusk they had cleared the streets enough that folk could get about. The bosses sent them home, with a warning that everyone’s holder would be posted about when they had been released. No one took this threat seriously: they wandered off with provocative idleness, in clumps of seven or ten, talking in undertones, shooting the bosses backwards glances. When no boss challenged this, probably more interested in getting back to their own hearths, the talk, and the lack of dispatch, grew bolder.

Martin and the bootboys headed along the boulevard toward the university. A few streets on, he heard himself hailed, and saw Dallas and Salih in a pack coming from a side street. He joined up with them, introducing the kids. “Jed and Plymouth. But you probably know them?” he asked Salih. “They’re leased to the University, is it?”

“I know Pim,” Salih said, of the older boy. “You’re new?” he asked Jed.

“You get anything for the End?” Dallas asked, falling in with Martin.

Martin shrugged, enjoying the loose weariness of his muscles. The End started tomorrow. Deja had mentioned going off with Sudi and his children. It was barely possible that, if he was distracted by that, Martin might thieve some time. “You have something brewing?”

“Party, like. Second, at dinner. You have your own box?”

“I do, but.” Martin shrugged again. Contract labor, since they didn’t have legal status, couldn’t own a drop box. So Martin’s account was legally Deja’s. If Deja wanted to monitor Martin’s posts, he could. Martin didn’t think Deja would. Martin reckoned this would be one of those fine points of holder ethics. Torturing the impudent, thieving the labor of the poor, shooting fifteen-year-olds in the head – fine. Read someone else’s posts? Oh, never.

“We’ll hunt you up,” Dallas was saying. “How’d you like this snow, Westie?” he added, changing the subject.

Martin laughed at him. “I did three contracts in these mountains before I was twenty-two, you kwai. I know all about snow.”

“Shit. You can’t be much past twenty-two now. How old are you?”

Martin didn’t actually know that, having lost track of his age long since. “Older than you. Meaner, too, I bet.” He ran his shoulder into Dallas’s, not hard enough to shift him.

Dallas shoved back, not hard either. “Where at? These mountains where?”

“Over to the Braggs and Irons. Not exactly here. My first holder, the stonecutter, he traveled around. It was mostly these mountains, Braggs and Iron Mountains and the Zhayrs. My second holder, Lord Tabari, his estate’s up there in the Irons. We got plenty of snow on Tabari Estate. But I tell you what, my first holder, that’s when I learned about snow. I ain’t ever even set foot on dirt before. I thought crossing docks to a new station was some risky living. Here I am in this pit of mud, you people and your filthy air – putting smoke and chemicals in the air you plan to breathe? What sort of behavior is that? And it’s sleeting. Ice falling out of the sky?” He shook his head, amazed in memory. Dallas was laughing.

“Oh, it was very funny,” Martin said, though it had not been funny at all. The stonecutter beating the piss out of him, raping him nightly, feeding him nasty food, and, added to it all, filthy freezing air? Huddled in the dank stench of the stonecutter’s ATT, grief for his parents and his lost ship hurting worse than the physical injuries that stung and throbbed in his body, his hands raw from the cold and the work he was doing, his back raw from the stonecutter’s belt— “You from here?” he asked Dallas, to distract himself. “North Country?” Dallas didn’t sound North Country. Martin would have guessed East Country if he’d had to guess.

“East Country,” Dallas said. “Down there by Vermont City, little town in the flatlands there, Pemba. Got sold up here out of the orphanage, though, been here since.”

“Ah. No wonder you’re on about the shitting snow then.” East Country never got snow, not to speak of. They came to the lane to the guesthouses. Martin collected the bootboys.

“Your holder does give you the day,” Salih said, “bring these two along.”

Martin waved, taking the boys off through the deepening dusk.

“What party?” Jed, the younger, asked. “Like with whiskey and that? Smoke?”

Plymouth shoved him. “Fuck up about the party. That’s secret.”

“Also it ain’t likely we’ll get there,” Martin added. “But keep it in your teeth. Davis gets an itch of it, or Strauss, we’re all on our knees.”

Plymouth snorted. “Like Strauss would ever whip you.”

Martin shot him a look.

He reddened but hardened his mouth stubbornly. “Everyone knows it,” he argued. “You’re his suckboy. He won’t put the stick to you.”

Temper flashed under Martin’s skin. He pushed his fists further into his jacket pockets. They walked on, most of the houses dark around them. Ahead, the guesthouse was lit against the evening; light snow fell across their line of sight. The air had grown colder as darkness deepened; under their feet, the thin crust of snow left on the pavement, frozen hard, crunched brittle as toffee. Taking the alley to the scullery yard, they climbed through the dusk to the door. Behind Martin, Plymouth said, sullenly, “I’m sorry I said it.”

Martin, at the door, stopped. They were children, younger than he had been when he had been taken off the ship. What did it matter what they thought? He was tired. He was sick of all of this. “You talk like a shitting holder,” he said. “Which, if you were some Service class brat, if you’d been sold out of some pretty life, maybe I could see why. You know better, though.” He looked at Plymouth, and at Jed. “You have to know better. You came up in the orphanage. You’ve been in the dorms now, what, a year?”

They stared at him, their eyes round in the dim light.

“Do any of us have it soft?” he demanded. They stared at him. “None of us. Anyone tells you different, they’re a fucking liar. What you want to do then, you lackwit, it’s not believe them. It’s wonder why they’re feeding you lies.”

Neither spoke. He turned away, reaching for the door. “Don’t be such a tool next time.”

***

Deja was angry he was coming in late. Martin soothed and petted and sweet-talked him, all the while worn to the bone from the long day’s work. By the time he was undressed, Deja’s mood was greatly improved. He followed Martin into the scrub to pin him against the wall and kiss his neck. Breaking away, he demanded, “Did you eat dinner out there?”

“Me?” Martin ran his hand up the inside of Deja’s thigh. “Never.” He sent Deja a flirty look through his lashes. “Well, maybe a bit of dinner.”

Deja caught a fistful of his hair. “You know I said no dinner through the End.”

“Yes, except I was working really hard.” He cupped Deja’s balls, tugged. “And it was a bad dinner. So greasy.”

“One day,” Deja promised, “you’ll learn to do what you’re told.”

“Maybe after my shower?”

Deja yanked him around and unbuckled his belt.

“Uh-oh,” Martin said. “Rough?”

Deja kicked his legs apart. Folding his arms against the wall, Martin leaned his head into them and shut his eyes, tried to breathe evenly. He didn’t like sex this way, which Deja knew. He felt himself going empty inside. Deja’s hands were hard, his breath harsh in his ear. His mind kept sliding away. Deja bit him, jerked at him, hit him when he didn’t react quickly enough. He tried to pay attention. It was too hard, though. He kept his face against the sandstone wall, tried to remember to breathe. It hurt, burning, rough pain. He was somewhere else. Deja kept snapping at him, because he couldn’t act right.

When it was done, Deja turned him around to pet him. “I love you,” he said. Martin smiled. “You love me,” Deja ordered.

Martin nodded.

“Say it.”

“I love you,” Martin said obediently. He was still somewhere else inside.

Deja kissed his face. “I love you so much,” he murmured, pulling Martin close.

Martin shut his eyes and his throat, and made himself hug back.

***

Deja and Sudi took their younger children up into the mountains for the End, for skiing and skating. Suley and Fen went with them, as did their children. Tsilla stayed behind, in order, as she told Martin, to achieve a break from Sudi and Suley.

“Enough to make me envy orphans,” she commented.

Martin didn’t look at her. They were walking toward the university through the streets he had spent the previous day clearing. It was a hard cold day, the air sharp in his lungs. All about them, the high narrow streets of Bourbon glittered with ice: ice coated the dark buildings; ice ran up the trees planted in the public gardens, shining on their bare branches; ice hung in long fingers from the slate eaves. Thin glittering crusts of ice covered the snow banks.

“I didn’t—” Tsilla said. “Are you an orphan?”

“Most cots are, miss.” Martin didn’t know if this was technically true; but it was functionally true, in that those who still had parents didn’t know where those parents were.

She watched her feet crunch the icy snow. “Papa says contract labor don’t think about family the way we do. He says that’s one of the reasons you end up in the system, because you don’t form family bonds, and lack the ability to parent properly.”

She was going to go on, but Martin cut her off. “He’s said all this to me, too.”

She hunched her shoulders, pulling her fur-lined hood deeper around her face. “Well?”

“Well, what, miss?”

“Is that true, about contract labor?” she asked, exasperated.

Martin gave her a sidelong look. They were drawing near to the University – up on its hill, it rose before them, its buildings all of the same dark blue granite, and all built in the same style, rounded, with high arched windows, and medium peaked roofs.

“Well?” she demanded.

“If your da says it,” Martin said sweetly, “it must be so.”

She scowled, opening her mouth to argue. He went ahead of her, up the path toward the archives.

That morning he worked right up to the dinner hour without a break, since he was planning to ditch most of the next day. When he went to the mess, he was surprised to find not only Dallas waiting, but Tsilla with him. Martin approached them warily.

Dallas smiled. “Your miss wants to see how cots eat.”

Martin shook his head and pushed open the door into the mess.

Because it was the first day of the End, which most contracts got off, the food was worse than usual: leftover rice, flat bread, and yellow tick, a kind of thick stew of rice, mani and bits of vegetables the cooks had left over. As a practice Martin stayed away from yellow tick, since cooks could hide anything in it. He’d seen too many cots vomit their guts up after meals of yellow tick. He had rice, along with a deal of tea. He noticed Dallas avoided the tick, too. Tsilla took a bowl – as she came along the line, cots fell silent – but when she settled at the table and sniffed a spoonful of it, her nose wrinkled, and she didn’t actually eat any.

“That’s what you eat?” she asked, after, as they climbed up toward Oxford’s office.

Dallas and Martin exchanged glances past her. “It’s a reason you ain’t see many fat cots, miss,” Martin said, sententiously.

“That wasn’t bad,” Dallas added. “I’d have loved that meal, in the orphanage.”

Tsilla, who apparently had not heard any of the stories, asked about orphanage food. Dallas said well, it wasn’t so much the sort of food, as that was mostly rice, as it was quantity. “I was ten when I went into the system. I got sent to the Tovi Mountains, orphanage up there, so I was hungry and cold. Not a good mix. Bigger kids stole food from the younger ones.” He hesitated, and admitted, “I did that, too, sometimes.”

Martin glanced at him. Tsilla was frowning. Dallas looked distant, unhappy. “But that can’t be true,” Tsilla insisted.

Dallas went expressionless. They were on the main landing of Lord Oxford’s floor. Afternoon light came pure through the tall window of the landing, clear on Dallas’s dark hair, on his brown skin and square bones, the solid line of his mouth; clear, too, on Tsilla Lord Strauss’s rich clothing, its deep colors, the tiny glittering jewels that decorated its lapels, the thick fringe of her eyelashes.

“It can’t be true,” she insisted. “Every orphanage has a farm, and a garden, so the children have fresh vegetables. And the girls are taught to preserve the vegetables, and to cook them, and the boys are taught to farm. That’s the educational system, that’s how they work. Also, where it’s feasible, the farms have chickens, and goats, so that there will be fresh meat and eggs and milk. Orphans have plenty to eat.”

Dallas regarded her gravely. “Of course we do, miss.”

She flushed, color coming up bright on her cheekbones. “Did your orphanage not have a farm?”

“It did. I worked it. We had goats. And we grew potatoes and turnips, which was about all that would grow in those mountains.”

Tsilla was scowling.

“And we grew orphans,” Dallas went on. “All that got sold, and I reckon the money went somewhere.” He slid his hands into his jacket pockets, hiding the white scars across the backs of his fists. The sticks used in the orphanages were made of twisted wire, with a loop at the end. You got made to hold onto a railing, Martin had been told, while the boss whipped the backs of your hands and your wrists. If you let go, you got it worse. This was for small offenses, like breaking a dish, or oversleeping. For worse crimes, boss made you take off your shirt.

Tsilla’s mouth grew tighter, the flush on her cheeks darker. Then she spun and bolted down the corridor. Martin and Dallas exchanged a short look before they followed. “In shit did she find you?” Martin said, in the undertone.

“Heard me with some cots in the greenhouse. Asked did I know you.”

Tsilla had stopped by Oxford’s door. She stood stiffly, refusing to look back at them.

“She’s the kid you were talking about, is it?” Dallas asked. “Your holder’s heir?”

Martin moved his shoulders, not easy about any of this.

Salih, in Oxford’s office, invited them to share the remains of Oxford’s dinner. Lord Oxford was working over the End, Salih said, but he was in a meeting with Lord Corfu just now. After they ate, Salih walked Tsilla through the lab, explaining Oxford’s research. Martin stood as close to the fire as he could get. The heat felt good on his face.

“She says your holder’s gone for the End?” Dallas asked, standing next to him.

“Mmm. Which means I can make that party.”

Dallas grinned a small tucked grin. “Outstanding. I’ll come by the archives, is it?”

Martin glanced toward the doorway, through which Tsilla and Salih’s voices drifted. “Ain’t say anything around the miss.”

“Because I look like an idiot?”

Martin shook his head. “Sorry. She’s…she gets people to tell her things.”

Dallas grinned again. “I’ve noticed,” he agreed. He used the toe of his boot to nudge a stray bit of wood further into the fire. “Could be handy, that,” he said, cryptically.

***

The next day was even colder. At least more snow was unlikely, Martin reckoned, hurrying toward the University through the frigid morning. The evening before, after Martin linked through the files of work he had done (or most of it), Deja had synced him, to give him instructions for today’s work, along with complaints about how little he had done so far. Martin had been abject, promising to work harder. “Tsilla came along, though. I spent part of the day showing her the University.”

This had mollified Deja, as Martin had known it would. Any indulgence of his oldest daughter came well before any other duty on any list of Deja’s. Tsilla was spending this day, second day of the End, at what shops Bourbon afforded. This evening, she would be attending a concert. So he was free of her for the day, at least.

He climbed the archive steps, scraped clear of ice, and went inside. It was only one curator on duty today; he worked the entire time Martin did, from morning until early afternoon, when Dallas appeared to take him to the secret party, held in the contract dorm in the basement of Kelvin Hall. Where they had gotten the food, it was an interesting question, not to mention the smoke and liquor. Finishing his second wedge of raisin cake, Martin considered the issue: even if the cooks among them had thieved from their kitchens all month long, this was a better spread that he’d ever seen at a contract party. No one seemed worried about getting caught, either. Smoke haze lay thick in the air, and sint music racketed loud. Yes, it was second End, when most holders were out, as Tsilla was, attending some event or fancy-party; but all the same.

Like many basement dorms, this was long, low-roofed, with rows of double bunks. These had been shoved to the far end for the party, one thing that made Martin think no one was fretting getting caught. The worktables, pushed up against the wall, were arrayed with the food and drink. This basement didn’t have a fireplace, but it did have grids, set into the walls at intervals. Cranked high, these glowing bright. The brick floor had been scoured clean.

Salih came up beside him, holding out a stob, the second most popular way to ingest smoke – pipe was the first. Get caught with a pipe, though, your holder knew why you had it. Martin took the stob well behind the live coal at its tip, and drew the fumes deep into his lungs. It was good smoke: the world instantly grew brighter, calmer. He felt his muscles ease. The racket of the music grew less obnoxious.

Salih nudged him, offering the stob again. He took it. “Your holder,” Salih said, loud, over the music. “She’s clever.”

Martin grunted, keeping the smoke in his lungs. Letting it out, he said, “Too clever. Watch your neck. She sees more than she says.”

Salih smiled. “I did see that. Oi!” He pulled a contract from the scrum. “Here’s that son I was telling you,” he said, to this new contract. “You remember this one?” he asked Martin.

Martin sipped his rum, looking at the cot: dark hair clipped close, bony face, slanted narrow eyes, blunt mouth that bent sharply at the corners – memory rushed back. “Good shit,” he said mildly. “Dunbar. How’d you end up here?”

Dunbar took the stob. “How did you?” he said, and drew on it, looking Martin up and down. He shook his head. “Ain’t you pretty?” he said, having exhaled. “That’s some icy togs.”

Martin grinned. “You should see my fancy-dress. Crap,” he said, to Salih. “We were in the quarry, over there in the Irons. We ain’t even have clothes, not to speak of, in that fucking pit. This was – how long ago was that?” he asked Dunbar.

Dunbar shrugged. “Eight years? Maybe nine. You a bitty punk kid, I remember that.”

“Tabari’s pit,” Martin told Salih. Dunbar had been his crew hook. Martin had been held by Lord Tabari, the old one, though it had been Tabari’s son who bought him from the stonecutter. Every few months, the young Lord Tabari would pull him from the quarry, take him off to some party, or to spend a week in some city or at some beach. Dunbar had not liked this, since it had left his crew short; but he had never taken it out on Martin, either.

They traded stories awhile, bad bosses, tricks played on those bosses; Dunbar told how he had been sold, first to a holder outside Bourbon, and then here to the University, where they’d needed a stoneworker. “You ain’t look like you’re doing stonework,” he said to Martin.

“I’m up the queue,” Martin said. “Tech labor now. Secretary.”

“Huh.” Dunbar packed a deal into that syllable.

“Historical and legal research. Indoor work and look at these soft clothes, son.”

Dunbar quirked the edge of his mouth.

Martin finished off his rum and shrugged. “Ain’t like that wasn’t happening anyway,” he said. It also wasn’t like he had a shitting choice. He looked across the basement, off toward the dancing, suddenly tired. He couldn’t remember why he had come to this party. He hated music. He didn’t like dancing. Smoke was nice, and rum, but he could get all the fucking rum he wanted in Deja’s room.

“Hey,” Dunbar said. “You remember Trevor?”

Martin glanced back at him. “Why?”

“He’s here too.”

Martin looked swiftly around. “Here?”

“I don’t mean here at the party. At the University.”

Martin turned to pour more rum into his cup. “Is it?”

“Works over in grounds,” Dunbar said. Martin glanced sidelong at him. “Did you know him, back in the quarry?”

Martin shrugged.

Salih said, “We were wondering what you thought of him.”

Martin looked at him and at Dunbar, wondering what this was about. He did remember Trevor, who had been a suck for the bosses. Surely Dunbar knew that? He gave him a longer glance, trying to decide. Dunbar had been a crew hook. He had to know that. Martin finished his rum in one swallow. “I didn’t know him very well. Gotta piss,” he added, and wandered off toward the facility.

The pisser was shiny clean. Martin washed, studying himself in the tin mirrors – he looked too bright and too worn at the same time, likely a combination of the smoke and the rum.

He didn’t stay much longer: it was always the possibility that Deja would sync him tonight, even if it was Second End. He talked to a few people, including Dallas, ate more raisin cake, collared Plymouth and warned him not to stay too late, and then ducked out.

Outside, full night had fallen. The stars and the little moons were bright. Brittle snow crushed under his boots. He hurried, keeping his head down, thinking and not thinking about that quarry. Summer was bad – vicious heat and endless days – but winter had been worse. Tabari hadn’t given them proper clothing. He remembered fights erupting over scraps of old blankets, because those could be cut into strips and wrapped around your hands; also under your shirt, not exactly a jacket, but better than nothing. He remembered how hungry they got, winters. He remembered the leap of relief he always felt when the young Lord Tabari came for him. Yes, he had to do sex with Tabari; or his friends; but he would be sleeping in a real bed. He would get meals. All he would have to do in exchange was act like he wanted sex with guys who were, after all, nice enough guys.

He slowed as he neared the guesthouse, the hard cold around him, looking up at the vast dark, the silence of space. He knew everyone from his ship was dead. Long ago he had stopped dreaming that someone – some Pirian his ship had known, or he had – that anyone would come for him. No one was coming to save him. He knew this was true. All he had was what scraps of safety he could find for himself, what comfort and peace he could glean: a warm bed tonight, a full belly. He tried to think what could Salih mean, claiming anything else. Nothing else was possible. Everyone knew that. If they hadn’t known it already, someone like Fen was there to teach them; someone like Lord Ixton, or Sudi. Martin brooded at the chips of the stars and planets, his breath frosting bright on the sharp air, remembering, far in the far past, days when he had believed otherwise.

He shook his head, and went down the alley toward the kitchen entrance.

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