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"I'm Bingwen. Mama Goshi sent me here to find a place to sleep."
"There's no room," said the girl. "Not even for a stick like you. Beat it."
"Is there an adult I can talk to?" asked Bingwen, looking around.
The girl narrowed her eyes.
"This here is orphan alley, Stick. Kids without guardians. We're the table scraps. You want to go cry to an adult, you'll have to go somewhere else."
The young boy on the cot clutched his stomach an
d moaned.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Bingwen.
"What do you care?" said the girl.
"Has he seen one of the nurses?" Bingwen asked. He gestured toward the nurses' station he had seen near the entrance.
"Oh I get it," said the girl. "You want us to cart him off to the nurses so you can get his cot. Well forget it. He and I share. This cot is ours."
"I don't want your cot. I'm happy to sleep on the floor. I just meant he looks like he needs help. Are there any doctors down here?"
The girl relaxed somewhat. "There are two, for all four thousand of us. We're on the list to see one in two days. Maybe." She looked back at the boy, concerned. "He's getting worse. I tried to take him to Mama Goshi, but he can't even walk anymore."
Bingwen could see the resemblance now. They were siblings. A younger brother. "I have a device that's like a doctor," said Bingwen. "It's called a Med-Assist. It can tell people what's wrong with them and explain how to fix it." He put down his suit and pulled the Med-Assist from the knapsack draped across his back. The boys playing dice were suddenly curious. The holopad had belonged to Mazer Rackham and was designed for military field use. Before it had lost its charge on the mountain, Bingwen had used it to save Mazer's life.
"We can help each other," said Bingwen. "You let me sleep here, and I'll help you with your brother."
The girl looked skeptical. "A magical device, huh?"
"Show me where I can charge it," said Bingwen, "and I'll show you how it works."
Several of the younger boys jumped up, volunteering, but the girl pushed one to the ground and threatened to do the same to the others. "I'm taking him. You dirt clods stay with Niro." She turned to Bingwen. "If you're lying about this device, Stick, I'll put a boot up your crack."
"You don't wear boots, Pipo," teased one of the boys.
"Shut up," said Pipo, "or you'll need a doctor."
"Ooh," said the boys. "The tigress is loose. The tigress is loose."
Pipo ignored them. She motioned Bingwen to follow her, and she led him to a charging station out in the main tunnel. A line of people were waiting with various items: lanterns, wrist pads, space heaters. Bingwen and Pipo got in behind them.
"If you are lying about this device," she said. "I mean it. I'll cut you in your sleep."
She was all bluster and no bite, Bingwen saw. He wondered if she had always been that way or if the Formics had done this to her. Probably the latter, just as the Formics had changed him, bringing his survival instinct front and center and burying the person he used to be under a mountain of grief.
What had she endured? he wondered. Had she seen her parents die? Had she found their corpses as Bingwen had? Or had she been spared that? Maybe she and her brother Niro were merely separated from their parents. Maybe they clung to the hope of reuniting somehow.
"So where are you from?" asked Bingwen.
"What do you care?"
"I'm from Dawanzhen. Or a village near there anyway. My family farmed rice."
"Yeah, you and everyone else. So what."
"How long have you been here?"
