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Chapter 4 scene 4
After the newsies decided her catered meals in her glass suite were too much of a luxury, lawyers
and prosecuters, investigators and the guards had conducted some sort of negotiation, and it was decided that Qiri would be
taken to eat with other prisoners under close guard. Qiri had expected to be taken to something identifiably a prison. The
structure was instead very near the shuttle landing port and looked so much like a hangar that she expected to see shuttles
inside. The building had once been a hangar and had been divided into a series of rooms on either side of a very high, narrow
corridor. The cafeteria she was taken to had a service counter and a scattering of tables set with humanoid proportioned
chairs and nearly as much open space as her cell. Several women sat around a single table, with guards standing far enough
away to allow them to converse in a degree of privacy.
One of Qiri's guards went to fetch the food that had been
prepared for her--as uniquely as the catering in the crystal structures of her cell for her unique dietary requirements.
The rest of her escort joined the other guards, and she was directed to the table with a wave. She took a step closer but
didn't immediately go further, wondering if the women were indeed prisoners like herself. They wore street clothes, and chatted
in reasonably amiable companionship on the surface, with the wavering edge of uncertain strangers. The room, too, had the
look of conveviality, intended as relaxing, though imperfectly so. The walls had been painted in soft, neutral tones, a little
too blue when green--or better yet green plants--would have been better. The music was soft and too generic, when quality
music of almost any style would have been less likely to grate on the nerves.
Uncertain what to expect, Qiri approached
the more empty end of the table and considered whether to try to eat from a chair back or whether to just stand at the side.
As she hesitated, the women began to look up at her. A couple dropped their eyes immediately to aim their own eyes at her
face instead of her eyes. One big woman eyed her suspiciously, and a humanoid colonial with wide green eyes and chestnut
hair looked her up and down with an expression that suggested she was uncertain whether Qiri was an offering of bad food or
a rat in her soup. "They usually put children in a separate ward," that one said.
"They may,"
Qiri said, in her usual musical tones.
The woman seemed to choke and her breath caught at the sound of the simple
words as if she had swallowed a large cabachon. Her words, though, were as ascerbic as the first. "Then why are you
here, kid? You supposed to be somebody's fairy god child?"
Qiri's eye orbs came around to line up on the woman
and Qiri was reminded of her lawyer's words, describing her as a doll. If this one considered her a doll, it was a particularly
ugly one, to be stuck with pins and used for magic. "I'm an Eld of the three kinds, in my First Prime, and not a child.
You may call me Qiri or Canavu Shea'a."
"Dragon. You an albino?"
"In the First Prime."
"Nonsense,"
the biggest woman at the table said. "I’ve seen pictures. Eldrich are wild colored and winged, Eldrice are
yellow or pink and glow, and the other ones have antennae and blue blood."
Qiri studied that one closely.
The accent was KAteng, though she looked more like an overgown human-variant. Big-boned, muscular, she made the one who called
herself Dragon look small. Perhaps the woman was KAteng-raised but had a little Bugity in her blood lines, though she wasn't
large enough to be a pure blood. Small brown eyes, brown hair cropped short, and a smile that spoke of nothing friendly greeted
Qiri's gaze.
"Leave her be, HHarris," another piped up boldly. Qiri directed one eye orb to that end
of the table, wondering who her unexpected ally was. That one was on the smaller end of human-variant normal. Sharp, defiant
eyes suggested she had more reason to be bold than that she was the far end of the table from the larger woman.
"We
all have mixed colors and blue blood once we reach second prime." Qiri explained. "Eldrice only glow in the presence
of elcrticity, such as during an electric storm, and I'll have wings and antennae only after transition."
"You
mean, when they reach puberty?" HHarris offered another malicious grin.
"She is a kid then!" another
joined in the discussion.
"I am an adult of the First Prime. The fact that I cannot mate doesn't make me a
child any more than puberty in humans makes them adults. Few species have a one-to- one correlation between breeding and
adulthood."
"You say so," HHarris said. But the gray eld wasn't the only one to say so, and Dragon
seemed to give some thought to the words or other things she had heard about Qiri during her incarceration on Conclave.
"Everyone
knows that. What'chya buggin the kid for, HHarris? Thinking of eating her for dinner?" the red suit put in without
laughing. Qiri climbed up to perch on a chair back, took a tentative taste of the steamed snails.
"What else
is a traiter good for?" HHarris asked.
"Sit down, HHarris," Dragon said, though the big woman wasn't
standing. "So you’re the cause." The chestnut noted with a more genuine smile for Qiri, though it was
barely more than a lift of the corners of her mouth. Rema V or one of its sub-colonies seemed a likely origin, Qiri decided.
An olive complexion and thick hair curling against her shoulders suggested she was from the Remali colony on Sagitta, where
human influences still permeated both the culture and the bloodlines. Neither the sharp green eyes nor the set of her jaw
showed welcome, but neither did they hold the more active dislike of HHarris. The words were neither an invitation to the
table conversation nor a good lead in for a conversation on other matters, however. Qiri had no idea what the woman was refering
to.
Qiri wondered if the statement had been purposely vague to set her up for some joke, but opted to oblige the
unspoken invitation. "The cause?"
"Of us lingering here. Most of us were supposed to transport
out of here to Penetentiary already, but they aren't allowing ships in or out of the sector."
"Why not?"
"Because
of you. Don't want the Gamenth staging a rescue, do they? Lot of fuss over such a small thing. You're what, all of 40 pounds?"
"The
Gamenth won't stage a rescue. The precautions are unnecessary."
"Keep your voice down. Don't want the
guards to start thinking you're right, do we? I'm Beneva, Qiri Canavu Shea'a," the red suit said, standing to reach
a hand toward Qiri.
Qiri returned the jesture, touching the profered hand lightly. "What?"
"This
place is a hell of a lot better than Penetentiary. None of us in a hurry to be there."
"Ah. I see."
"You
were so eager to go?"
Qiri puffed, the equivelent of a shrug. "I'm eager to be done. Where I am when
the time comes matters little. The guards thought I might be in danger from you and the other prisoners, if there are others."
"Danger
from me, if I get you alone, Qiri-na, tear your little limbs from your traiterous head and body.--Oomph," HHarris's
harrangue stopped abruptly. "Think she'll get better if she gets off here, Dragon?" HHarris glared across the table.
"You'll
be in danger at Penetentiary, that's for sure," Beneva added. "They'll put you in solitary confinement for your
own safety. This group's mostly traders. We all know that war's already coming, and there's nothing one little Eldoid could
do to make matters worse than they already are. Besides, no Diplo's gonna have access to information that would cause us
to lose the war. Newsies are stupid."
Qiri heard very little past the mention of solitary confinement and
shuddered, wondering if she shouldn't arrange to be alone with HHarris before she reached Penetentiary. "Solitairy confinement?"
she asked with death row curiosity.
"She's enthusiastically telling you that the prisoners at Penetentiary
are going to tear you limb from limb slowly, and the guards will likely let them, including eventually your head from your
body, and you're curious about solitaire?"
"It's the part I didn't understand."
Beneva started
to respond, jerked as Dragon kicked her under the table, but continued to answer the question and Qiri wondered briefly what
Dragon wanted her to hide. Beneva's words took all of her attention. "Those considered especially dangerous or in danger
themselves from other prisoners are put in a cell with solid walls and a solid door. No exercise with the other prisoners,
no open air with the other prisoners, no talking with them at meals, just the room and maybe a small exercise yard alone with
a guard."
Qiri shuddered as the woman spoke. She had barely more than tasted the food that had been served
but she pushed it away. "I had rather they tore me limb from limb. If they, or HHarris, end my captivity more quickly
than the little while I expect to survive, I'll offer them my thanks. Perhaps you could suggest to them that they break my
spine."
"Most would prefer something less final, at first, like your knee caps. If you have knee caps,"
Dragon said, scanning the short form dubiously.
"Technically, I don't have knees, or quite bones in the human-variant
sense, although I can be broken with some effort."
"Be glad ro oblige, traitor," HHarris said, standing
as if to do so, but two of Qiri's guards took a step forward, reminding the little group that they weren't alone. Qiri let
one eye orb focus on the big woman, wondering if she was really of a sufficiently violent disposition to kill Qiri, or anyone
else , or whether she just had nothing better to complain about. In any case, HHarris was clearly rational enough at the
moment not to do it in front of the guards.
"Back off HHarris, if you want any more massages from Ploppy that
is. -- Ploppy can't slide through an energy field if the guards deny access."
"They wouldn't," HHarris
said dismissively. "Ploppy's a volunteer."
"Wanta take odds on that?" Dragon gave a challenging
wink, then turned her attention back to Qiri. "Eat your meal. They let you wander around without cuffs, they'll fix
you up something tolerable as well as safe." Her eyes shot daggers at Beneva and Qiri wondered again at the Remali's
interest in protecting her from the woman's dark predictions of the future.
"It doesn't matter." Qiri
tried to stretch, but the effort only shifted the ache to another position, and she desisted with a sigh of resignation.
"What'd
those Gamenth offer you, Qiri-na?" HHarris asked, taunting her, this time without threatening. "Promise to get
you out if you got caught? Betrayed you like you betrayed us, traitor?"
"No one has been betrayed."
"They're
talking about it being a short trial. Set up good are you?" Dragon asked.
"I don't understand why there's
a trial at all. The punishment phaze may take awhile. It apparently involves treaties and other issues, not that it matters.
If I'm lucky, I won't survive the trip to Penetentiary."
"Just so we don't go down with you! Someone going
to attack the ship?" the petite Beneva asked, apparently alarmed.
"Dying of some fatal disease you haven't
told them about?" Dragon guessed
Qiri poofed and let the air escape in a weak chuckle, not wanting to try to
explain claustrophobia or transition to these women who seemed to take their imprisonment so carelessly. "They know,
but they don't understand. It isn't a threat to you."
"Did you really commit treason?"
"I
did all the acts and failures-to-act that I was accused of."
"That's not what I asked."
Qiri
ducked her head nervously, surprised by Dragon's insight and suddenly suspicious of the whole meal. Her eye stalks twisting
to look at the green eyes upright. "Only my Defender noticed the distinction," she noted, still declining to answer
the question.
She had told the U.P. Fed officer that she hadn't committed treason, her lawyer that she hadn't admitted
to it, but as all the legal matters had been considered and settled, she had begun to wonder about the definition, and what,
if anything, the Gamenth would do. As doubts crept in, she wondered whether her minor acts could yet be used against the
U.P in some way she couldn't forsee. She had considered the opportunities for success, even the likelihood of failure, but
had, in the beginning, seen no consequences in the latter except to herself. Failure, though, could have its own impact on
U.P.-Gamenth relations, especially as everyone assumed that, because she had given the crystal to a Gamenth, that that one
must represent Gamenth government and policy.
The possibility remained that her very public, if illusionary, betrayal
and known Gamenth involvement could aggravate the already tense relations betweeen the two interplanetary groups. She thought
she had understood the importance of perception, but had always dealt with person-to-person relations. Yet she saw now that
it applied on the grand scale as well. The perception of treachery might be enough to provoke distrust and violence, no matter
that the whole affair had been intended, ultimately, to build trust.
Weary of the word games, she stepped back from
the table. "I have betrayed no one, and no one has yet betrayed me. -- Guards, I'm finished."
"Soulless
litte bastard, isn't she?" HHarris said as she walked away between her guards. "Stick a fork in her and call her
done. I don't expect she'd even notice."
No one had responded before the door closed behind the last of the
guards.
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