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She gives me that half smile, as if she knows something I do not.
At twelve, a coterie of Tinpots descend in gravBoots from the Pot. Their armor is shoddy and stained. Most are boys or old men retired from Earth’s wars. But that’s not what matters. They carry their thumpers and scorchers in buckled holsters. I’ve never seen either weapon used. There’s no need. They’ve got the air, the food, the port. We haven’t a scorcher to shoot. Not that Eo wouldn’t like to steal one.
The muscle in her jaw flexes as she watches the Tinpots float in their gravBoots, now joined by MineMagistrate, Timony cu Podginus, a minute copper-haired man of the Pennies (Copper to be technic).
“Notice, notice. Grubby Rusters!” Ugly Dan calls. Silence falls over the festivities as they float above us. Magistrate Podginus’s gravBoots are substandard things, so he wobbles in the air like a geriatric. More Tinpots descend on a gravLift as Podginus splays open his small, manicured hands.
“Fellow pioneers, how wonderful it is to see your celebrations. I must confess,” he titters, “I have a fondness for the rustic nature of your happiness. Simple drink. Simple fare. Simple dance. Oh, what fine souls you have to be so entertained. Why, I wish I were so entertained. I cannot even find pleasure off-planet in a Pink brothel after a meal of fine ham and pineapple tart these days! How sad for me! How your souls are spoiled. If only I could be like you. But my Color is my Color, and I am cursed as a Copper to live a tedious life of data, bureaucracy, and management.” He clucks his tongue and his copper curls bounce as his gravBoots shift.
“But to the matter: All Quotas have been met, save by Mu and Chi. As such, they will receive no beefs, milks, spices, hygienics, comforts, or dental aid this month. Oats and substantials only. You understand that the ships from Earth orbit can only bring so many supplies to the colonies. Valuable resources! And we must give them to those who perform. Perhaps next quarter, Mu and Chi, you will dally less!”
Mu and Chi lost a dozen men in a gas explosion like the one Uncle Narol feared. They did not dally. They died.
He prattles on awhile before coming to the real matter. He produces the Laurel and holds it in the air, pinched between his fingers. It’s painted in fake gold, but the small branch sparkles nonetheless. Loran nudges me. Uncle Narol scowls. I lean back, conscious of the eyes. The young take their cues from me. The children adore all Helldivers. But the older eyes watch me too, just as Eo always says. I’m their pride, their golden son. Now I’ll show them how a real man acts. I won’t jump up and down in victory. I’ll just smile and nod.
“And it becomes my distinct honor to, on behalf of the ArchGovernor of Mars, Nero au Augustus, to award the Laurel of productivity and monthly excellence and triumphant fortitude and obedience, sacrifice, and …”
Gamma gets the Laurel.
And we don’t.
4
THE GIFT
As the Laurel-wreathed boxes come down to Gamma, I think about how clever it really is. They won’t let us win the Laurel. They don’t care that the math doesn’t work. They don’t care that the young scream in protest and the old moan their same tired wisdoms. This is just a demonstration of their power. It is their power. They decide the winner. A game of merit won by birth. It keeps the hierarchy in place. It keeps us striving, but never conspiring.
Yet despite the disappointment, some part of us doesn’t blame the Society. We blame Gamma, who receives the gifts. A man’s only got so much hate, I suppose. And when he sees his children’s ribs through their shirts while his neighbors line their bellies with meat stews and sugared tarts, it’s hard for him to hate anyone but them. You think they’d share. They don’t.
My uncle shrugs at me and others are red and mad. Loran looks like he might attack the Tinpots or the Gammas. But Eo doesn’t let me boil in it. She doesn’t let my knuckles turn white as I clench my fists in fury. She knows the temper I have inside me better even than my own mother, and she knows how to drain the rage before it rises. My mother smiles softly as she watches Eo take me by the arm. How she loves my wife.
“Dance with me,” Eo whispers. She shouts for the zithers to get going and the drums to get rolling. No doubt she’s pissin’ fire. She hates the Society more than I do. But this is why I love my wife.
Soon the fast zither music swells and the old men slap their hands on tables. The layered skirts fly. Feet tap and shuffle. And I grasp my wife as the clans flow in dance throughout the square to join us. We sweat and we laugh and try to forget the anger. We grew together, and now are grown. In her eyes, I see my heart. In her breath, I hear my soul. She is my land. She is my kin. My love.
She pulls me away with laughter. We wend our way through the crowd to be alone. Yet she does not stop when we are free. She guides me along metal walkways and low, dark ceilings to the old tunnels, to the Webbery, where the women toil. It is between shifts.
“Where are we going exactly?” I ask.
“If you remember, I have gifts for you. And if you apologize for your own gift going flat, I’ll smack you in the gob.”
Seeing a bloody-red haemanthus bulb peeking out from the wall, I snatch it up and hand it to her. “My gift,” I said. “I did intend to surprise you.”
She giggles. “Well then. This inner half is mine. This outer half is yours. No! Don’t pull at it. I’m keeping your half.” I smell the haemanthus in her hand. It stinks like rust and Mother’s meager stews.
Inside the Webbery, thigh-thick spiderworms of brown and black fur, with long skeletal legs, knit silk around us. They crawl along the girders, thin legs disproportionate to their corpulent abdomens. Eo leads me into the Webbery’s highest level. The old metal girders are laced with silk. I shiver in looking at the creatures above and below; pitvipers I understand, spiderworms I do not. The Society’s Carvers made the creatures. Laughing, Eo guides me to a wall and pulls back a thick curtain of webbing, revealing a rusted metal duct.
“Ventilation,” she says. “Mortar on the walls gave way to reveal it about a week ago. An old tube too.”
“Eo, they’ll lash us if they find us. We’re not allowed …”
“I’m not going to let them ruin this gift too.” She kisses me on the nose. “Come on, Helldiver. There’s not even a molten drill in this tunnel.?
?
I follow her through a long series of turns in the small shaft till we exit out a grate into a world of inhuman sounds. A buzz murmurs in the darkness. She takes my hand. It’s the only familiar thing.
“What is that?” I ask of the sound.
