Chains of local women were crawling along replanting the harvested mounds with eye segments of the seed reserve from the first dig, the bright orange chunks like dice in their busy hands. He smiled, pleased at what he saw. If there were any justice in the world, he’d get a commendation for his efforts.
Not chichin’ likely.
Girs used to needle him about it. Dirtman, he called him. There’s no honor in booting Drudges about and fooling with bugs and worms. And Girs didn’t like Ragnal reminding him that he owed his education and his success to his older brother’s job. They sneer at me, he said, call me grubsuck and webfoot. It’s holding me back. You’re holding me back. Same thing over and over-till Ragnal would lose his temper and pound him. Arrogant little slunk. Last fight they had, Ragnal broke one of Girs’ teeth and got his own neck twisted so bad he had to have heat packs on it.
No more fights. No enough left of Girs to be worth burying. Taner! How’m I going to tell Mar her baby’s dead?
He squeezed out the rest of the yang, lumbered to his feet, nearly falling on his bum as the chichin’ sad excuse for honest gravity tricked him again.
Grumbling under his breath he walked ti-tuppy along, heading for a refill in Farkli’s lubbot, hating the strain he put on his muscles to keep himself on his feet, hating the bone leaching he knew had to be happening. Wasn’t the first light-world he’d worked on. If he had a say, though, it’d be the last. Say? That’s a laugh.
The lubbot was in the largest house still standing in what had been a local village. Ragnal was using most of the place to store his planting and harvesting equipment, but by old custom, he rented the extra rooms to Farkli. He’d had most of the other houses dozed and burned, leaving one of them for the Drudges to sleep and live in, a second for a Drudge s’rag, and a third for a sogan storehouse. They offended his eyes, those structures. Garish colors. Flimsy. A hard wind would blow them to kindling. Though it didn’t seem like this taffy world ever got anything like a real wind. Those floating blobs would be smears spread half a mile across those trees in a Chandava wind.
He pushed through the swinging door that old Farkli always managed to contrive wherever he was set down and stood a moment letting his eyes adjust to the dim, smoky light. The stink in the air was the same, too, as if Farkli bottled it and brought it along, a mix of sweat, lantern smoke, and the pungent stink of the yang distilled from sogan and Taner only knew what else he threw in the pot. Ragnal didn’t ask. Old man might just tell him. Better his stomachs didn’t know what he was running through them.
Lanterns. Rest of the place was lit properly but not here. The techs like it that way, the old yisser said. What they call good ambience, whatever that means. Drink more, too. Use the women in backroom ‘cause they don’t like coming after some chicher Drudge.
About a dozen techs from the Kushayt were spending some of their off-hours sucking yang and maybe a few of them working up the nerve to waste some oaks on the backroom femmes. Always someone ready to do the two-backed beast even with local scum. Ragnal’s mouth tightened and his scowl grew darker. Scum. Each time he had Sifaed he got a queasy feeling soon as he rolled off her, took a hard shower to make him feel clean again.
The bar was three doors resting on piles of used brick, the tables furniture from the houses Ragnal had knocked down. He’d tipped Farkli a sign to get his scavenging done before the fire and took his fee in noggins of yang. Other Dirtmen he knew demanded and got a percentage of a lubbot’s take, but that was dangerous. A bad batch of yang or a new Ykkuval cleaning house of side money and they could get broke to Unskill, just a notch above Drudge. Besides, Farkli’s youngest girl had been Girs’ wet nurse which made him Family of a sort.
Girs, ah, brother… He blinked hard and fast, his eyes burning. “Don’t you ever trim your wicks, Fark?”
Drudge Farkli inspected him for a moment, then nodded and pushed a glass of yang across the bar, following it with a jug. “‘S a stinkin’ oil t’ yerets make. Don’t even burn right.”
Ragnal smiled. Yerets. Scum. Locals. He sometimes thought that was why Farkli kept signing on tour though he was old enough for a pension back home. Hitting places where there was something lower than a Drudge. He took a mouthful of the yang, raised his brows, and looked into the glass. “New batch?”
“Ayyunh. Ykk’s Pet, he brung a pile of fruit over. Fed some to the women and watched them a couple days ‘fore I shoved it in. And they’s some weirds live in the Fen out there, they bring stuff. Like it?”
“Not bad.”
“Pressin’s from it burn better’n that oil.” He hesitated, stared past Ragnal’s shoulder. “Thought maybe some for lamps in Sef Girs’ shrine?”
Eyes burning again, Ragnal squeezed hard on the glass and stared at the yang inside; agitated by the tremble in his hand, its broken surface was picking up yellow from the lanterns. He didn’t speak until he was sure of his voice. “I’ll tell the Birad to let you in.” He didn’t want to talk about it any more; he took the jug and his glass to a table in a back corner and sat sipping slowly at the yang, his head getting muzzier as the light that crept through the painted windows darkened.
For a long time he ignored the raised voices coming from a table on the other side of the room. He wasn’t in a mood for company and he didn’t care what techs got up to on their off-time. Only one tech he’d ever had time for, but Girs was cinders and they could all go to the Taner’s lowest hell.
“… curse him, that ni Jilet kreash, incompetent thief, Genree the chich-up Chob tol’ me… he tol’ me… my bra’ he tol’ me… Zanne had t’ do ‘s own parts… parts… t’ get flier in air. Zanne said… Zanne…” The tech’s voice lost coherence on the last words and died away. He sucked in a breath, shuddered, took a long pull at his glass, slammed it down, drew his hand across his mouth. “Cinsin’ echt-born don’ gi’ moosh a kirg ‘bout us. Genree… pinch-nose idiot…”
Swaying back and forth, inner lids at half-down, their translucent film gleaming in the lantern light, he muttered on and on, railing against Genree ni Jilet, saying it was him who killed Choban, pocketing the money for repairs and spare parts while the little he did buy was so worn and useless not even Zanne could get it to work right. “… and you know Zanne can fix anything with a chew of zam and a bit of wire and Hun the kreash lets that chich get away with it… or maybe he’s got his hand in, too… licking the sweet off the top… leave the dregs go through…”
The others at the table were nodding and muttering with him, the same glazed idiot look on their young faces.
There was a bowl on the table, white porcelain like a deathlight. Ragnal blinked to clear his bleary eyes. Probably was one, lifted from Stores. It wasn’t burning oil but something else, looked like chunks of hairy bark-putting out a thick weighty smoke that hovered near the top of the table. As he watched, first one, then another and another of the techs leaned forward and sucked smoke into mouth and nose.
As Ragnal listened to the babble and smelled the sweetish acrid odor of the smoke, the drink chilled in his stomachs and his grief turned cold. Tech Dihbat. Choban’s baby brother. Like Girs was mine. Keeps on like that he’s gonna get busted to Unskill. Maybe a spat on chain at the Workfarm. Even listening to this kirg is dangerous. He emptied his glass, set it down with the careful precision of the very drunk and groped his way out, exaggerating his state to look so far gone that he was seeing nothing, hearing nothing.