But despite their moment of weakness with the akliat’s name, they clearly adored him. They gave her his favorite towel, hoping it would ease his stress, and they often called during the day to check on him. The other owners were much the same—loving their pets, checking on them, offering advice and expending worry.
As well they might. Of all the things that weren’t permanent, pets topped the list. Shadia had known that even before she turned duster. But she didn’t say anything, not to perms who would never understand anyway, people she would leave behind as soon as possible. She made the pets comfortable, read up on their various habits and habitats, and smiled at the owners who dropped them off each day. It brought her business; in some strange way the perms began to think of her as their duster.
Ugh.
Some of the animals gloried in their visits, with supervised playtime and more interaction than they’d get at home. Some were sullen and spent their time in hiding. They all had challenging habits that served them well enough in their own environments. Feef’s odors were part of his communication system, although in the pet care facility they earned him a quiet and solitary room with high perches. The Jarlsens’ skitzcat shed luxurious hair with mildly barbed tips intended to line its nest—Shadia made sure it had a private bedding area and invested in high-grade cleaning equipment. The roly-poly hamsterlike rrhy dripped scent-mucus wherever it went as a warning of its poisonous nature. And Gite the tasglana, who looked like nothing more than a flop-eared goat in extreme miniature, liked to sharpen its claws on everything and anything—or anyone—it could find. Shadia wore leather work chaps when Gite came to stay.
The work chaps belonged to the station-run business. But the plumy, feather-fronded houseplant in the entryway was hers. And along with her battered collapsible cup-bowl and pronged spoon, she also had a new plate and matte-finish steel mug.
As if I need those things. As if I need anything. How can I fit a plant into my duffel? Why did I even get it?
She’d liked it, that’s why. She’d seen its pale soft fronds and she’d felt a tingle of pleasure and she’d smiled. She’d had the funds, and she’d seen it and liked it and bought it.
They can’t make a perm of me. One set of coveralls on my back, one in the duffel, a toothcleaner and soap-pack and monthly supps. Whatever I can carry in the vest. That’s all I’ll ever need.
She wouldn’t stay a single pay period longer than it took to pay off the med-debt. She’d take her experience—one more thing for her listings—and she’d take her inexpressible relief and she’d move on.
Too damn bad that zipscoot was going so fast when it hit me.
“Until they’re clean,” Shadia told the youthful first-jobber who had deluded himself into believing the pet room maintenance was completed. With a glare at the cleaner machine, he gave the handle a jerk and sullenly dragged it back into Feef’s unoccupied area. He’d been on the job a week and she was about to give him notice.
Toklaat’s workers took so much for granted: that they could keep a job once they took it, no matter their performance; that they could find another. No matter their performance. Dusters knew to keep their records spotless for ease of transition from one situation to another. No one vouched for a careless worker, or digi-stamped their jobchips with the top rating that would draw that next good gig. Ever-imminent transitions kept them sharp.
Maybe she’d just start hiring dusters. If she could get the assistant’s job listed as temp…
And why not, when she wasn’t keeping most of the assistants beyond the time a duster would stay? Just one, a young woman named Amandajoy who loved the animals and applied herself to learning their routines with nearly Shadia’s vigor. A more honest vigor, since Shadia used the work as a means to an end and Amandajoy did it for the work itself, although she was often too timid to act when she knew she should. Shadia could have loved the work, but didn’t dare. She could have loved the memories it invoked, but didn’t dare that either.
Those memories couldn’t coexist with a duster’s life, not and be cherished.
I don’t have to think about that. Another few pay periods and I can turn this place over to Amandajoy, even if she doesn’t know it yet. By then she’ll have the confidence. She’ll have to, even if she doesn’t. That’ll be a duster lesson for her. Never let the doubt show.
More airfreshener ’zymes in the rrhy-tub, that would probably help. Amandajoy must have had the same thought, for she emerged from the storage pantry with ’zyme packets in hand—
Shadia’s world shifted. It looped in a strange manner her senses couldn’t seem to perceive. She would have thought it was some unfathomable result of the zipscoot if her first jobber hadn’t made a loud gurgle and dropped his cleaning equipment. As they all looked to one another for explanation, a series of hollow booming noises made the ground shake; the air fluttered in response. Shadia and Amandajoy clutched each other for the stability and ended up on the thickly carpeted floor anyway, gathering skitzcat hair.
For a moment there was silence. Then Gite bleated, leaping from the wire enclosure as the door slowly swung open on its own. He bounded out to land on them both, searching for a lap. Shadia winced as his claws dug in, automatically scooping his legs out from beneath him to place him on his back in his favored comfort position. Amandajoy looked like she wanted to climb right into Shadia’s lap with him. “What was that?” she said, her eyes wide.
Shadia searched her duster experiences, years of different stations and different failures and accidents and emergencies, and then she searched her ten whole years on Belvia, all the time she’d had before she’d been snatched away.
I don’t know. All those years, all those places… never anything like this. That’s a duster’s life, not knowing what’s next, ready for anything. But I knew I wasn’t ready for this.
Shadia shifted Gite from her arms to Amandajoy’s. “Wait here,” she said as the dwelling erupted into noisome protest—howls and chirps and screams and a few entirely new scents—though none as bad as the akliat’s would have been. “Try to calm them.” To the first jobber, she said, “Whatever Amandajoy says, you do.”
“You’re leaving?” Amandajoy’s fear-widened eyes opened even further with surprise.
“You want an answer? Someone’s got to go find it.” Shadia climbed to her feet, not bothering to remove the Gite-defense chaps as she headed for the clearsteel door, her matter-of-fact brusqueness hiding her breathless fears.
She half expected to find the entrance lockdown engaged. Like all structures, this one had its own emergency air cleaner, its own independent—if finite—power supply. But the door slid smoothly aside for her, ejecting her out on the inner-ring walkway. Clearsteel lined that, too, separating her from the open station core.
But not blocking her view.
At first, all she saw was the movement. Down a few levels, center west; she had to push against the clearsteel, craning her neck against the arc of the inner ring and leaving smudges the autos would clean as soon as she moved away. Center west, location of the finest residences and normally the quietest slice of the station. Too far away to make out anything but the activity, and a wrongness so unexpected that she literally couldn’t resolve what she was seeing into an image that made sense.