Seeklight

Pulling the cloth cap closer to his eyes, he rocked back on his heels and admired the effect. There was a small chit of paper in his pocket that told how much would be taken from his first month’s wages for the cap, the leather jacket slung over the end of the translator’s bed, and the miscellaneous clothing and items stowed in a heavy canvas bag. The supplies clerk, deep in one of the farthest recesses of the caravan, had shuffled from cabinet to cabinet amassing the stuff, then handed the pile over his counter to Daenek with a bored expression on his face.

Just give me a chance, he said to the image in the mirror.

The words formed in his head in the mertzer tongue. Daenek felt a little gravel-eyed from lack of sleep, but pleased and satisfied to have spent all night up with the old translator, roaming ceaselessly through the corridors and chambers of the caravan, greedily soaking up the names of things, and how these men spoke of them and each other. The members of the night crews were greeted at their stations, the men’s faces green-lit by the dials of engine and guidance controls. Through the walls of the sleeping quarters he had been able to hear the rasp and snort of the universal sleepers’ language.

The mertzer language was like English (or at least to Daenek it seemed similar) but with rhythms and cadences like that of the great engines pulsing in the caravan’s center. The whole language, complex but of one piece, lay in Daenek’s mind now.

The door opened behind him and the old translator stuck his head into the room. “The captain wants to see you on the bridge.

Right now.”

Daenek turned away from the mirror and grabbed the leather jacket from the bed. Great, he thought with satisfaction. He had somehow felt sure that there would be some kind of ritual, however slight, to mark this transition into a new life—a rebirth, actually. “I can find my way,” he told the old man. “You go ahead and get some sleep.”

As he emerged onto the caravan’s deck, the morning sun broke over a distant range of hills. The cranes and hoists, towering even when folded in upon themselves, were bathed in red light. Daenek savored the cold air as he headed along the walkway towards the control tower. His lungs tingled pleasantly as he entered the tower and mounted the stairs.

A surly “Come in” answered his knock upon the bridge’s door.

Daenek pushed it open before him. The glass-walled room was filled with the morning’s light, but here it seemed grey and numbing. He looked around and saw the captain and the head mechanic looking at him. Then his heart froze for a beat as he turned and saw to one side the militia captain and two of the subthane’s men.

“That’s him,” growled the trio’s leader, pointing to Daenek.

“He’s what we came for.” A swath of dirty bandages covered half of his skull. His face was rigid with anger. He stepped towards Daenek but the captain waved him back.

“Can you understand what this fellow’s saying?” The captain turned and spoke to Daenek.

“Yes.” Daenek’s heart raced with tension. “I—”

“Never mind.” The captain unfolded a square of paper, creased and smudged with dirt. “They probably don’t have anything more to say than what’s on this letter they gave us when we picked them up out of the middle of the road. The translator said its about you being wanted by the subthane over by the stone-cutters’ village. Doesn’t say what you did, though—I’d like to know what a young busker could do to make so much trouble, for his hide to be worth this much.”

Daenek’s fists clenched as his eyes travelled from the captain’s face to the leader of the subthane’s men and then back again.

“Give me five minutes head-start,” he said hoarsely. A sick hollowness had formed in his gut, the loss of his hopes. “Just that, and—”

“Headstart?” The captain scowled as if puzzled. “What for?”

“Aren’t you going to put me off? Hand me over?”

“What! To some puny little subthane’s grubby henchmen?”

“You’re a mertzer now,” spoke the head mechanic. It was the first time he had ever addressed Daenek directly. “Mertzers don’t hand each other over to such as these.” He jerked a contemptuous thumb, the nail rimmed with black grease, at the three.

The captain scribbled on the blank side of the letter with a pen he took from his coat. “Here,” he said, holding the paper out to the uncomprehending figure. “Have somebody read this for you when you get back home.”

Silent, the militia captain took the paper. His face darkened as he suddenly understood. He stepped back and drew a knife from his shirt. “Get him,” he said to his comrades, pointing to Daenek.

The two others rushed towards Daenek, but before they had crossed the room, the captain slapped the knife from their leader’s hand and slammed him against the control panel with an echoing crash. The chief mechanic caught one of the others on the point of his fist. Daenek scrambled out of the way as the mechanic collared the second man and dumped him into a heap with the first.