Outward Borne (18 page)

I looked at that simple white
tunic and could not help but think how much better it would look
with a sable collar.

“
This is a most equable place,”
Mildryth continued in the same high spirits, “we all have fine
white tunics that are too short and flimsy to be decent, soft white
blankets that are not warm, and bright blue mats to eat, sleep and
sit upon. Not much else, mind you, but we are all the same as one
another for now.”

I learned soon enough that it was
all done for my benefit. In spite of her cheerful chatter, Mildryth
was not as happy with this place as she acted, but she never failed
to behave as well as one should. There was nothing to do but
survive until we were returned home, she believed, and she was
happy to have me, her best friend with her. The next morning she
helped Mildryth take me to the great room. Like every place I had
seen so far, it was white throughout, not white like glistening
fresh snow but a dull flat white, and big. It was by far the
tallest, widest, longest space that I, or anyone, had ever seen.
There were dark corridors that connected the great room to many
smaller spaces, like the recovery rooms, and other long deep
passageways that had no clear purpose. No one was much inclined to
explore the place. We all stayed together in the open well-lit
area. I could see several people moving about, blue mats lined up
near the wall, some people were crying, but I saw little else and
concentrated on moving my near worthless legs.

Word spread throughout the room
that another survivor had been brought in. Slowly, the people who
could stand walked past my mat. Those I knew or who knew my parents
came near and nodded, few said any words, the others just moved
past and went back to their mats. They all had had their haircut
and appeared strange, partially as they were all so thin, their
faces sunken, eyes deeply shadowed, and all wore the same small,
short tunics. Thin, dressed alike, short hair, all looked similar
but altered. We were no longer ourselves in this place.

The red girls were striking. Both
Hilde and Gunhild were there. They were still robust, but the girls
looked positively transformed without the great cloud of unfettered
red hair that had blown around their heads. The red girls still had
only a few words, but were clearly delighted to see Alric’s almost
sister. Hilde left off her hug and ran to get Alric. He too had
been taken, but so far, no one had seen Bertram. None of Gwynyth’s
family was there, they said, no one from Cyphus.

I was heartened by meeting some
friends, but whatever pleasure this gave was lost among the
questions and confusion they all shared about our extraordinary
situation and how long it might last. Only the red girls seemed to
take pleasure in all the newness of our lives. There was a room
with basins of water. If you took any water from it, it refilled
itself. It never went empty and never overflowed. Food appeared in
another room. It came through little doors that slid open. Some
food had been cooked, other things you had to eat raw, and there
were holes in little stalls where you could relieve yourself and it
did not smell at all, in fact, nothing smelled. Mildryth’s biggest
complaint was the light, it was bright all of the time, you could
not tell day from night and she could not sleep. It was so
different from home, especially from winter, when the dark lasted
most of the day and you could do little but wrap yourselves in
blankets against the cold. Good warm wool blankets in our tribal
plaid.

“
I have news,” Mildryth whispered
when I awoke the next day. “During the night two people were moved
from the recovery rooms and set in the hall. Both of the corridors
into the recovery area are now blocked. We think they are the last
ones.”

She had been crying. The summer in
which I tended to my father, Mildryth had been sent to her Uncle’s
stables in Nehdun, where she was very quick to meet and marry
Heneric. He was young and handsome, according to Mildryth, and a
man of some means. His father had given him a small horse-breeding
farm in the forest. Heneric was not among the captives. Mildryth
knew this, for he was far from the village when the bots came, but
now it was final. Whatever she needed to do would need to be done
without him, at least he was not dead. Mildryth firmly believed
that. This ordeal will be over soon. She believed that
too.

“
Do we know either of them?” I
asked.

“
Only one, Cwen was a weaver in
Feldland, your mother’s friend, the other woman was from Nehdun,
but I do not know her, she is not well.”

“
Bring Alric over, perhaps he
knows how many of us have been captured.”

“
Gwynyth, it is good to see you
looking better.” Alric called as he leaned over and gave her a hug
and kiss.

“
Careful what you are doing,
Alric, Hilde might see you and I would hate to die over such a
trifle.”

“
A kiss from me gives you great
esteem, Gwynyth, you should be proud to trade your life for such
honor. Besides, Hilde is busy getting some food and drink, and
cannot see us. Good fortune for both of us, I venture.”

“
Alric, you heard about the two
new people? How many do we have?” Mildryth asked.

“
Not very many, I am afraid. There
are twelve men, two hardly more than boys, and twenty-one women
including six young girls.”

“
So few men, Alric, I hoped there
would be more. We are not so strong if it comes to fighting for our
freedom.” Mildryth sighed. “There are no chiefs, the men so young,
no weapons.”

Alric said that he was thinking of
calling everyone together to collect what people knew of our
abduction and to figure where we might be. Others besides me had
memories of the capture, he said. They also believed that we had
been brought into the lander and that it had taken us away. Some
feared that we were in its nest and would be fed to its chicks. All
agreed that we had been traveling for a very long time to be as
thin as we were and to have our hair start to grow back. Perhaps we
can figure out where we are and how long we might be
held.

Hilde and Gunhild came over with
arms filled with food. Alric jumped up to greet them. “Whatever is
keeping us captive is feeding us well enough. Today we have lamb,
onions and carrots.” Hilde offered.

I thought that the girls appeared
strangely clean, which was noticeable because they were not wearing
much clothing. It was as if they had emerged from a stream with a
little towel, but the girl’s energy and spirits overwhelmed all my
questions and they ate as much as they could.

Mildryth waved to a young girl who
passed nearby. Kunigunde was the cousin of Mildryth’s husband
Heneric. She had met her before and admired her good and kind
nature. “I think this is just wonderful,” Kunigunde was saying, “I
always hated squatting out in the woods in the cold air. Now we can
just sit in comfort and when we are done, water comes and washes
everything away, even the stink.”

“
That is indeed a wonder, but so
are the basins in the eating area. The water is as clean as melted
snow.”

Alric said that Hilde had found a
room with little stalls in which you can stand and have warm water
fall on you as if it were a spring rain. She went twice yesterday.
She found some wonderful soap there that made her smell like
flowers.

Mildryth buried her face in her hands, her
shoulders shaking. She and did not look up until Alric and the red
girls had left. “Why do you keep laughing?” I asked, “You must tell
me, you know.”

“
It is not right to say, but I
hear that since Bertram is not here, Alric has taken up with both
girls. They are quite vigorous at night. Merwyn said that she was
embarrassed and moved her mat to the other side of the room. More
envious than annoyed is my guess, unless the commotion was causing
her to miss too much sleep.”

At that time, we had not explored
much of the habitat. All of the spaces that we could see were made
with white panels about the height of two men. The walls were as
smooth as pond water on a clear day and almost as white as snow on
an open field, but they were empty and completely clean, no mud, no
bugs, not even dust. I sat looking at the row of straight lines and
smooth walls thinking of my slanting room in Lindisport and the row
of boxes along the wall with their rough split slat sides, dark
stains and irregular shapes. This whole place had been kept
brightly lit all the time, but happily that changed last night, at
least we thought it must have been night. The lights suddenly all
dimmed. It was not completely dark, like a moonless night in the
forest, but a dull glow, just enough to find your way around. Then
hours later, they all came back on again. Several times a day food
appeared out of the wall from behind a sliding door. The food was
strangely fresh after so long a time. We ate what was there with
our hands. There were no tables or stools, most people took their
food to their mats and ate there.

We came to know that our habitat
occupied the whole of the third level of the Filim module. It was
built from standard nearly identical bio-constructed modular
panels; temperature controlled, artificially lighted, and with
processed circulated air, water, and waste. It was sealed in all
respects from the remainder of the ship and it was the only place
we were ever allowed to be for all the years that I have
lived.

About those tunics, everyone, man,
woman and child, were given identical tunics and blankets made from
the same fine, soft material. They looked as smooth and neat as you
could ever hope to see, unfortunately, the fabric was very thin and
the tunics did not cover you up the way they ought. They were
simple things, one strip of filmy cloth with a hole for your head
that hung down from your shoulders front and back. For me, they
came to my knees, but for anyone taller they were quite short. We
had always used tunics as something worn over our clothes for
protection, or for extra warmth, but never as a sole piece of
clothing. Unless you tied them well around your waste, they did not
hide what should remain hidden. Being thin and small, I was content
with mine, except for the sheerness of the fabric and the sense
that you could see through it, but for Hilde and Gunhild, it was
not so.

The red girls were as robust as
ever they were and their tunics seemed to be hardly there. The
girls had pulled and stretched trying to keep things in, they even
laced up the sides rather than use a belt, but this just stretched
the fabric tight causing a whole other set of curves, while still
leaving large amounts of flesh exposed. I remembered that Gunhild
once aided me with my sable collar and decided to help them. I had
an extra blanket from the recovery room and thought to use it as a
wrap around their middle; the tunic would hold it in place. So, we
sent Alric away and set to work. It took a long time without our
sewing tools, but in the end, we had made up two functional
skirts.

“
We can give them to the girls in
the morning,” Mildryth said, “if they are not too
tired.”

I was tired, still not with my
normal strength, but it felt good to do something useful. I was
about to lie down and rest when I heard it, that familiar bark. I
would know it anywhere. Loboc and two other dogs came skidding
around a corner into the great room. He had heard my voice and
jumped on me, knocking me over as usual. He was wiggling like a
puppy. I was laughing and crying. He was so skinny and awkward
looking without his thick shaggy coat. Loboc was a piece of my life
returned after having been stripped of everything, without even a
hair on my head as my own. Now I had my lifelong friend in my arms.
I held him until we both fell asleep.

The next day there was a great
deal of talk about the dogs. It was the first time many of the
captives had taken an interest in their surroundings and it took
concern about the dogs to do it. My great strong Loboc, who could
carry an elk carcass half a day, was so weak that he would tire
walking across the room and back. The journey to this place must
have been very hard on them. They seemed to have weakened
considerably and were slow to recover. The two dogs that arrived
with Loboc were well known in our community. Broga was a greatly
admired hunting dog and Ovimar was a small but fearless farm dog
that once killed two foxes that were raiding the duck pond. Neither
of the owners was among captives, but the dogs sought out people
with whom they were familiar. They too were very weak and spent
much time lying together in a corner.

Freibald, a tall
young man from near Nehdun, was convinced that more dogs had been
taken. He was determined to go look for them. Some of the corridors
were now lighted for most of our day. It would be possible to go
into them and explore. Freibald already knew that there were other
levels, but he did not know how extensive the maze of corridors
was.
Six young people were gathered to
search the complex. They were sent off in two groups with a flurry
of warnings and advice about taking chances and getting lost. They
were gone for hours, long enough to get us all worried, only to
return shortly before the lights dimmed. No dogs had been found,
but they had stories of long empty hallways, strings of plain
rooms, others that were larger and must have been built with some
purpose in mind. There were two other levels, and some spaces had
been sealed off. There was a large area, they said, that appeared
to be unfinished. There were no white walls there, but it was a
large high space with cables strung from the top and piles of pipes
and posts. They never saw the sky or any living thing. They did not
think that they reached the edge of the complex, but they had. The
end looked like just another wall, but one without
doors.