Rasht tried to say something. But Lenka, who had hobbled closer, placed a finger on his lips.
“Enough,” she whispered. “Save your breath.”
“Where is the monkey?” I asked.
“Tethered where we left it, over by the wreck. Shall we leave it here?”
“No. We’ll bring it with us, and we’ll take good care of it. I promised him that much. I try not to break my promises. Any of them.”
“Then we’re done here,” Lenka said.
“I think we are.”
We turned our backs on our former Captain and commenced the slow walk back to the lander. We would stop at the wreck on our way, collect the monkey, and what we could of Teterev’s belongings. Then we would be off Holda, out of this system, and that was a good thought.
Even if I knew I had to return.
“When we we get back to the ship, I want to give it a new name.”
I thought about that for a moment. “That’s a good idea. A clean break. I have some suggestions.”
“I’d be glad to hear them,” Lenka said.
THE WATER THIEF
THE BOY wants my eye again. He’s seen me using it, setting it down on the mattress where I squat. I am not sure why he covets it so badly.
“Sorry,” I say. “I need this. Without it I can’t work, and if I can’t work, my daughter and I go hungry.”
He is too small to understand my words, but the message gets through anyway. I smile as he sprints away, pausing only to glance over his shoulder. Nothing would prevent the boy creeping into the shipping container and taking the eye while I am working. But he has not done that yet. Something in his face makes me think he can be trusted.
You can’t understate the value of that, here in the refugee camp. Not that they call it that. This is a “Resource and Relocation Assistance Facility”. I have been here six years now. My daughter is twelve; she barely remembers the outside world. Eunice is a good and studious girl, but that will only get you so far. Both of us need something more. Prakash tells me that if I can accrue enough proficiency credits, we might be relocated.
I believe Prakash. Why wouldn’t I?
I SQUAT DOWN on my mattress. The shipping container has had its doors removed and holes cut in the sides. Windchimes hang from one corner of the roof, cut from buckled aluminium tent-poles. On this airless afternoon they are as silent as stalagtites.
My virching rig isn’t much. I have the eye, my lenses, my earphones and my t-shirt. All cheap, second-hand. I position the eye, balancing it on a shoebox until its purple pupil blinks readiness. I slip in the earphones. The t-shirt is ultramarine, with a Chinese slogan and some happy splashing dolphins. Too tight for a grown woman but the accelerometers and postural sensors still function.
I initiate the virching link. The lenses rinse me out of reality, into global workspace.
“Good afternoon, Prakash,” I say.
His voice is near and far at the same time. “You’re late, Soya. Had some nice jobs lined up for you.”
I bite back my excuse. I have no interest in justifying myself to this man. This morning I had to walk twice as far to get clean water, because someone from a neighboring compound broke into our area. They damaged our pump as they tried to steal from it.
“I’m sure you still have something in the queue,” I tell him.
“Yes…” Prakash says absently. “Let me see.”
If God was a fly, this would be the inside of his head. Wrapping around me are a thousand constantly changing facets. Each represents a possible task assignment. The facets swell and contract as Prakash offers me options. There’s a description of the job, the remuneration, the required skillset and earnable proficiency credits. The numbers swoop and tumble, like roosting birds.
“Road repair,” Prakash declares grandly, as if this is meant to stir the soul. “Central Lagos. You’ve done that kind of thing before.”
“No thanks. Pay is shit and a monkey could do it.”
“Window cleaning. Private art museum, Cairo. They have some gala opening coming up, but their usual ’bot has broken.”
“It’s years since I cleaned windows.”
“Always a tricky customer, Soya. People should be less choosy in life.” He emits a long nasal exhalation like the air being let out of a tyre. “Well, what else have we. Bioremediation, Black Sea. Maintenance of algae bloom control and containment systems.”
Cleaning slime from pumps, in other words. I scoff at the paltry remuneration. “Next.”
“Underwater inspection, Gibraltar bridge. Estimated duration eight hours, reasonable pay, at the upper end of your skills envelope.”
“And I must fetch my daughter from school in three hours. Find me something shorter.”
Prakash’s sigh is long suffering. “Seawall repair, Adriatic coastline. Overnight storm breach. Four hours, high remuneration. They need this done quickly.”
Typical of Prakash, always the job he knows I will not refuse until last.
“I’ll need to make a call,” I say, hoping that someone can collect Eunice from the school.
“Don’t dilly-dally.”
Prakash puts a hold on the assignment, and I get back to him just in time to claim it for myself. Not that I’m the only one on the task: the Adriatic breach is a local emergency. Hundreds of robots, civilian and military, are already working to rebuild shattered defenses. Mostly it is work a child could do, if a child had the strength of a hundred men—moving stone blocks, spraying rapid-setting concrete.
Later I learn that fifteen people drowned in that wall failure. Of course I am sad for these people—who wouldn’t be? But if they had not died, I would not have had the assignment.
IT IS LATE when I finish. A breeze has picked up, sufficient to stir the chimes. The air is still oven-warm. I am thirsty and my back aches from lugging water.
From across the compound, diesel generators commence their nightly drone. I listen to the chimes, snatching a moment to myself. Their random tinkling makes me think of neurones, firing in the brain. I was always fascinated by the mind, by neuroscience. Back in Dar es Salaam I had ambitions be a doctor.
I rise from the mattress and stretch away stiffness. I am on my way to collect Eunice when I hear a commotion, coming from somewhere near one of the big community tents. Trouble, of one kind or another. There is always something. Mostly it doesn’t concern me, but I like to keep informed.
“Soya,” a voice calls. It is Busuke, a friend of mine with two sons. “Eunice is fine,” she tells me. “Fanta had to go, but she passed her onto Ramatou. You look tired.”
Of course I look tired. What does she expect?
“Something going on?”
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Busuke lowers her voice conspiratorially. “They got that thief. She hadn’t got very far—been stung by the electrified fence, was hiding out nearby, waiting to make a dash for the gap at sundown, when they apprehended her.” Busuke says “apprehended” as if there were quote marks around the word.
I did not know whether this thief was a man or a woman, but at least now I can pin my hate onto something. “I would not want to be in her shoes.”
“They say she took a bit of a beating, before the peacekeepers came. Now there is a big argument about whether or not to keep giving her medicine.”
“One woman won’t make any difference.”
“It’s the principle,” Busuke tells me. “Why should we waste a drop of water or antibiotics on a thief?”