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“Not but twenty,” I say.
He snorts. “More like twenty-four.” He tosses the dregs of his coffee on the floor and takes one step toward Torrow, flicks his robot fingers, and the arm around my shoulders disappears. Torrow gives me a good push. “Take the slut,” he mutters. “Prolly got a dead cave anyhow.”
Duncan politely tells me he’s gonna frisk me. He ain’t nearly thorough enough. When he’s done he wipes the snow off my face like he’s bringing me to shelter. He leads me on into a bigger room that’s got live computers and a few boys hunched over them. The Picker’s having breakfast of eggs and fish and pudding. “What’s what?” he asks when Duncan brings me in. Picker is lean and fox-like. Clever behind the eyes, and sinister as all hell.
“Fresh catch,” Duncan says.
“Fresh? She’s a relic.”
“Might be, but seedless, so seems. And it’s better than babies.”
“Already got the tax. Toss her back.”
“Them’s kids,” Duncan says. “You know it ain’t right.”
Picker eats his eggs and stares at him. “You said you didn’t need a wife.”
“She ain’t for me. Some them girls ain’t even bled yet.”
“So?”
“So it ain’t right,” Duncan says, setting his hands on his belt. Whoever he is, he’s got some pull. Picker doesn’t take it as a challenge, but the other boys are watching.
Picker pushes his eggs away and lights a burner. Through the smoke, he appraises me. “Spin her.” I get spun. Do my best to show as much ankle as my sister did when she danced. I laugh lightly, as if I’m dizzy from it.
“You wanna husband?” Picker asks me. He’s got the bad eyes of a cave fish. He has to squint to see me right. I look down, all shy.
“Long as he’s a good one,” I say. “I get to pick?”
The men laugh.
“No, lass,” Picker says. “You don’t get to bloody pick. HeadTalk does that. Best blood gets top mare. And you ain’t top mare. So you get what you get. Still want a husband?”
I nod. “Better than smellin’ like fish day in day out.”
* * *
—
A great show is made of giving me a little plate of dry eggs as they discuss what to do with me. The eggs are tasteless like everything else I’ve eaten since my spit boiled off my tongue. When I’ve scraped the last bit from my plate, Duncan leads me away to a room guarded by a couple lads. The smell of clustered bodies washes out as the door swings open. Near on twenty girls are nestled on old mattresses with dirty sheets, huddled together for fear.
“Which of you’s the youngest?” Duncan asks.
A girl who couldn’t be more than eleven points to a girl even smaller than her. “Lea is.”
A look of pain goes across Duncan’s face as he kneels and motions her over. “You want to go home to your family, little one?” She nods, terrified. He extends a hand. She doesn’t take it until the other girls prod her forward. Duncan guides me into the room and takes Lea out.
The door slams shut behind me.
* * *
—
Half the girls dead silent, staring at the stained sheets like they’re reading palms. Others huddle together. With the boys gone, I look around in case there are plants, but if there are, they’re good enough actors to be in the Hyperion Opera. The room stinks of fear. Not one of them older than me, and to scared girls that means something.
I cross my arms and say in a low whisper: “They’re going to rape all of us until we have brood.” They stare at me. “Then they’ll do it again, and again and again till your belly’s like an empty waterskin. Some o’ you will quit and take it. Rest of you they’ll hook on grayline and you’ll beg for prick just to get a high. They’ll prolly share those ones.” I look around at the wide eyes. Some of the girls have started to bawl. “How many of you have husbands?” I ask. A freckle-faced girl in her early twenties raises her hand. She nudges another girl, a little younger with long pigtails, until the girl raises her hand too. “How many of you are aged north of sixteen?” About half raise their hands. “How many of you had brothers or pas killed?” They all raise their hands. “How many had brothers or pas cry like babies as you were dragged away, but didn’t lift a bloodydamn finger?” They stare at me, all too ashamed to raise their hands. The dead are honored. The cowards are hidden. It’s all the answer I needed. This is right. “Any of you rats?” I glare around at them. “Good. ’Cause where I’m from, rats get their eyes stabbed out.”
Some of the girls flinch. Freckles crosses her arms as if she’d like to see me try. The smallest of the girls, one with skin almost as dark as mine and a shaggy mane of hair, glares around at the other girls, daring them to be rats. Tails, the one with a husband, looks down.
