Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Elder Jusalon didn’t seem ready to go on. Elder Harta supplied the rest, in a firm tone that seemed to tell of having had to deliver the instruction several times before, but never without regret.
“If you go into the cage without a fuss, we’ll leave you here and you can… you know, follow the agent’s instruction… without us here. I’m sure that will make it easier for you.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I shook my head hard, angry with myself. Without the horrible agent present, and the two kindly elders my only company, I had recovered some of my logical thinking on the matter of my fate. What else could I do? The shred of comfort Elder Harta had just offered struck me as something to cling to.
I walked forward, past the chair and the table, which faced the cage at a distance of about a meter. It didn’t take a great deal of my intelligence to grasp the intent: the agent would descend the stairs himself. He would sit at the table, and he would…
That was where my brain’s great potential, remarked upon by practically all my teachers, deserted me. I felt my breath speed up, little pants coming through my nose and making me feel lightheaded as I chewed my lower lip.
The cage door stood open. I saw, without much surprise, that it had a metal block that matched another on the corresponding upright bar, where the door would rest when closed. A lock, surely employing some of the Vionian starfaring technology my teachers—with the exception of Mrs. Grelinqua, the Galactic Ethics teacher—had treated with the awe and reverence usually reserved for our religious rituals.
The wild idea that the gods would deliver me floated into my mind, and actually made me snort with derisive laughter despite the terrible room and the terrifying cage. Mrs. Grelinqua hadn’t gone so far as to tell us that our Vionian gods represented nothing more than a useful fiction foisted on Kamnos by the company, but the few of us whom school actually interested had easily figured that out. It had come as a relief to me, because from an early age I had wondered if I were going crazy when the various festival times rolled around. I couldn’t ever figure out why my family and our neighbors would say things like, “Great Vion be with you,” as if that meant anything at all.
Still, though I knew for certain no gods would come to my aid—least of all the Vionian gods to whom the village offered the first fruits of each harvest.
And, I suppose, my mind added of its own accord, the second fruits of their families, when requisition season arrives.
My heart had started to pound so hard in my chest that I thought the elders might hear it, even from across the room where they had remained. My feet stopped at the doorway of the cage. I looked down at them, willing them to move just so that I could spare the helpless elders any further embarrassment, and I noticed for the first time that the cage had a metal floor that rose a centimeter or two from the dirt.
It shouldn’t have made any difference, but the realization of what that probably meant—that this cage would be used to transport me to the Vionian requisition ship, that this metal framework would serve as my cage—made me stop in my tracks for a moment. Then I noticed something else that the room’s shadows had obscured, something that made me turn back towards the elders with pleading in my eyes despite all my resolution to approach the awful situation rationally.
A bucket. In the corner.
Better than no bucket, my mind observed, but that didn’t stop me from looking at Elder Harta and then Elder Jusalon, wordlessly begging them to do something.
I watched Elder Jusalon breathe a sigh and look at Elder Harta. Elder Harta looked back at him steadily. If I had to guess, I would have said that Elder Harta wanted Elder Jusalon to deliver at least some of the awful instructions it had fallen to them to give me.
Elder Jusalon turned his attention back to me.
“Go on in, Chalondra,” he said, trying to make his voice firm. “The agent… you don’t want to disobey him. They’re very… harsh with girls who disobey.”
My tummy flipped and I felt my face pucker into an expression of dismay. I gave Elder Harta one more anguished look, and then I turned and stepped inside the horrible cage.
I thought the elders would instruct me to close the door, so I supposed I had a chance at one more moment’s hesitation, a few more seconds before it all became much too real. Vionian technology took care of that, however. As soon as both of my feet stood on the cage’s metal floor, the door swung rapidly closed, with a surprising lack of clang. Instead of a clashing metallic noise, I heard only a soft beep from the lock.