Forty Thousand in Gehenna (14 page)

When the ship comes, the azi used to say.

But they stopped saying that. And nothing was right since.

Military Personnel:

Col. James A. Conn, governor general, d. 3 CR

Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, It. governor, d. year of founding

Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel

M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers

Cpl. Antonia M. Cole

Spec. Martin H. Andresson

Spec. Emilie Kontrin

Spec. Danton X. Norris

M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op.

Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers

Spec. Hamil N. Masu

Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin

M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance

Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle

Spec. Egan I. Innis

Spec. Lucas M. White

Spec. Eron 678-4578 Miles

Spec. Upton R. Patrick

Spec. Gene T. Troyes

Spec. Tyler W. Hammett

Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo

Spec. Belle M. Rider

Spec. Vela K. James

Spec. Matthew R. Mayes

Spec. Adrian C. Potts

Spec. Vasily C. Orlov

Spec. Rinata W. Quarry

Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir

Spec. Sita Chandrus

M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications

Spec. Yung Kim

Spec. Lee P. de Witt

M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster

Cpl. Nina N. Ferry

Pfc. Hayes Brandon Lt. Romy T. Jones, special forces

Sgt. Jan Vandermeer

Spec. Kathryn S. Flanahan

Spec. Charles M. Ogden

M/Sgt. Zell T. Parham, security

Cpl. Quintan R. Witten

Capt. Jessica N. Sedgewick, confessor-advocate

Capt. Bethan M. Dean, surgeon

Capt. Robert T. Hamil, surgeon

Lt. Regan T. Chiles, computer services

Civilian Personnel:

Secretarial personnel: 12

Medical/surgical: 1

Medical/paramedic: 7

Mechanical maintenance: 20

Distribution and warehousing: 20

Robert H. Davies d. CR 3

Security: 12 Computer service: 4

Computer maintenance: 2

Librarian: 1

Agricultural specialists: 10

Harold B. Hill

Geologists: 5

Meteorologist: 1

Biologists: 6

Marco X. Gutierrez

Eva K. Jenks

Jane E. Flanahan-Gutierrez b. 2 CR

Education: 5

Cartographer: 1

Management supervisors: 4

Biocycle engineers: 4

Construction personnel: 50

Food preparation specialists: 6

Industrial specialists: 15

Mining engineers: 2

Energy systems supervisors: 8

ADDITIONAL NONCITIZEN PERSONNEL:

“A” class: 2890

  Jin 458-9998

  Pia 86-687

    Jin Younger b. year of founding

    Mark b. 3 CR

    Zed b. 4 CR

    Tam b. 5 CR

    Pia Younger b. 6 CR

    Green b. 9 CR

“B” class: 12389

“M” class: 4566

    Ben b. 2 CR

    Alf b. 3 CR

    Nine b. 4 CR

“P” class: 20788

“V” class: 1278

Year 22, day 192 CR

It was a long walk, a lonely walk, among the strange hills the calibans raised—but her brothers were there, and Pia Younger kept going, out of breath by now, her adolescent limbs aching with the running. She always ran on this stretch of the trail, where the mounds and ridges were oldest and overgrown with brush. She never admitted it to her brothers, but it disturbed her to cross this territory. Here. With
them
.

Ahead were the limestone heights where the old quarry was; the elders had built the town with limestone, but they took no more stone there nowadays except what they could bribe her brothers to bring down. Afraid, that was it; elders were afraid to cross the territory of the calibans. Youngers had this place, the deep pit where they had done blasting in the old days, and they owned the pile of loose stone that they loaded up and brought back when they wanted to trade. A lot of the youngers in the azi town came here, her brothers more than most, but the elders never would; and the main-Camp elders, they huddled in their domes and defended themselves with electric lights and electric wires.

She caught a stitch in her side and slowed to a limp when she reached the old trail, which had been a road once upon a time, a rain-washed road paved with limestone chips and overgrown with small brush and weeds and fallen away so that in some places it was wide enough for one walker only. She looked back when she made the turn—it was that kind of view that the eye had to go to, that sprawling perspective out over all the world, the lazy S of the Styx and the mounds of the calibans like wrinkled cloth strewn on both sides of it, some under the carpet of trees and some new and naked; and caliban domes that mimicked the domes of the main Camp.

Calibans had never made domes, her father said, until they saw the domes of main Camp; but they made them now, and larger and grander, raising great bald hills on this side and that of the Styx. Beyond them were the solid hills, the natural hills; and then the fields all checkered green and brown; and the rusting knot of giant machines—and the tower, the big shining tower that caught the sun and fed power to the little cluster of domes before the graveyard and the sea. All of that, in one blunt sweep of the eye, the whole world: and this height owned it all. That was why her brothers came here, to look down on all of it; but she was sixteen—not yet, her brothers said to her. Not yet for you.

What her parents said to her coming here—but they did everything the Council said; and saying no was part of it.

She began to run again, uphill, pushing past the brush, careless now because there was nothing but snakes to worry about up here in the day; and calibans ate snakes, and noise frightened both, so she made all the noise she could.

A whistle caught her ear, above her on the rim; she looked up, at a head that appeared over the rim of the cliffs, head and shoulders, black hair blowing on the wind. Her brother Zed. “I’ve got to come up,” she called.

“Come on up, then,” he called back. One had to be Permitted to come up to the heights; and she dusted her hands on her coveralls and came up the last few turns…stopped on that bald crest of stone slabs and scant brush and sat down panting for breath on the lefthand slab of the two that served them for a gate, there by a bitterberry. All her elder brothers were up here. And Jane Flanahan-Gutierrez. Her eyes caught that with shock and jealousy. Jane Flanahan-Gutierrez, from the main Camp, of the dark skin and the curling black hair…there with all the boys; and she knew at once what they had been doing up here—it was in her brothers’ eyes, like summer evening heat. They looked older, suddenly, like strangers. Jane looked that way too, disheveled clothes, her coveralls unzipped to here, staring at her as if she had been dirt. Her four older brothers, Jin and Mark and Zed and Tam; and the boys from down the row in town, Ben and Alf and Nine. They fronted her like a wall, her brothers the dark part of it and the Ben/Alf/Nine set all red and blond. And Jane Flanahan-Gutierrez.

“You let her up here,” Ben said to Zed. “Why let
her
up here?”

“I know what you’re doing,” Pia said. Her face felt red. She was still gasping for breath after the climb; she caught a mouthful of air. Jane Flanahan-Gutierrez sat down on another rock, her hands on either side of her, flaunting sex and satiation. “You think,” Pia gasped, “you think it’s anything? Jin, our father sent me. To find you all. Green’s run off again. They want you back to help.”

Her brothers settled, one by one, all but her brother Jin, who was eldest; who stood there with his face clouded and his hands caught in his belt. Green: that was the sixth of them. Youngest brother.

“That boy’s
gone”
Ben said, with that disgust everyone used about Green; but: “Quiet,” Jin Younger said, in that tone that meant business, that could frighten elders into listening to whatever Jin wanted to say. “How long?”

“Maybe since morning,” Pia said hoarsely. “They thought he was off with some boys. He ran off from them. They didn’t send anyone back to tell. Pia’s looking in the Camp; but Jin’s out in the hills. Hunting this way. He asked us, Jin; our father
asked
us. He’s really scared.”

“It’s going to get dark.”

“Our father’s out there, all the same. And he doesn’t know anything. He could fall in a burrow, he could. But I don’t think he’ll quit.”

“For Green.”

“Jin—” She talked only to Jin, because he made up the minds of the rest. “He asked.”

“We’d better go,” Jin said then; so that was it: the others ducked their heads and nodded.

“What do we do with that brother of yours,” Ben asked, assuming they were going too, “if we find him?”

“Hey,” Jane said, “hey, I have to get back to the Camp. You said you’d walk me back to the Camp.”

“
I’ll
walk you back,” Pia said with a narrow look. “That trail down’s really bad. A careless body might slip.”

“You’d better watch who you talk to,” Jane said.

“
Azi
. That what you reckon, maincamper? Think I’m scared? You watch yourself.”

“Shut up,” Jin said.

“One of you,” said Jane, “has to get me back. I can’t wait around while you track that brother of yours down—I know; I know all about him.”

“We’ll be back. Just wait.”

“He’s gone, don’t you think that? When they go, they go.”

Pia gathered herself up again without a word, started off down the road without a backward look, hot inside; and before she had gotten to the first downslope there was a skittering of pebbles and a following in her wake: the whole troop of her brothers was gathered about her, and the down-the-row boys too.

“Wait!” Jane shouted after the lot of them. “Don’t you go off and leave me up here.” And that was satisfaction. They would get her down—later. When they had seen to Green again. A stream of words followed them, words they swore by in the main Camp in the longest string Pia had ever heard. Pia marched down the winding track without looking back, hands in her pockets.

“That Green,” Ben muttered. “Going to do what he likes, that’s what. Going to get to what he wants sooner or later.”

“Quiet,” Jin Younger said, and Ben kept it to himself after that, all the long way down.

It was better going back. In company. Pia began to pant with exhaustion—her tall brothers had long legs and they were fresh on the track, but she kept going, with the stitch back in her side, not wanting to admit her tiredness. Green—as for Green, Ben might be right. She had five brothers and the last was wild; was thirteen, and wandered in the hills.

And those who did that—they went on wandering; or whatever they did, who gave up humankind.

It was the third time…that Green had gone.

“This time,” Pia said out of her thoughts, between gasps for air, “this time I think we have to get him, us. Because I don’t think our father can find him fast enough.”

“This time—” Jin Younger said, walking beside her, themselves out of hearing of the others if he kept his voice low, “this time I think it’s like Ben said.”

He admitted that to her. Not to the others. And it was probably true.

But they kept going all the same, down into the woods the Calibans had grown, among the mounds and the brush in the late afternoon. “Where’s Jin hunting?” Jin Younger asked.

Pia pointed, the direction of the Camp. “From Camp looking toward the river. That’s what he thought—the river.”

“Probably right,” Jin Younger said. “Probably right for sure.” He squatted down, cleared ground with the edge of his hand, took a stick and scratched signs as the others gathered. “I think Mark and I had better find our father: that’s furthest. And Zed and Tam, you go the middle way; Ben, you and Alf go with them and split off where you have to go up to cover the ground; and Nine, you and Pia go direct by the river way. Pia’s got most chance of talking to Green: I want her there where he’s most likely to go. We draw a circle around him and sweep up our father too, before some caliban gets him.”