Elemfias whispered a single word, that might have been own’crap. Then she ‘raised the lumes’
and brightened the light inside as much as she could. “We’ll manage. We don’t know if the storm will last a dozen
days, or two, or three. We’ll cut back
as if it will last twelve days and won’t we be surprised when it stops after
five or so. Who knows?”
“So we need to start getting these birds into sleeping it
away if we can. Who has the programs for
that?” Ilax asked. As the adults
compared notes about who had what kind of program that might save their lives,
Werfas shrugged and fished Tizrav out of his collar and set her on the sand
where she immediately began sniffing around as if she’d just found a mouse
nest, off to one side.
“I can cline us a pit... for a latrine. We’ll need it.” He moved over to where Tizzy was snuffling
and digging.
Hara folded up her tattered veil and looked over at Ky. “My father knows what programs I have,
mostly. Not the little ones I’ve written
myself but the big ones. I don’t need to
go and shove my beak into that talk yet.”
“Hara... how can you be so... so... calm?” Ky was shaking with anger. “Your da has just gone trotting off into
Lainz without a back-up... on my father’s and the Rasheem’s word... it’s not
that smart! He’s supposed to be so good,
so smart! It’s just been one stupid decision
after another. I’m supposed to be like
him?” He flung a glare across the hide at his father’s back.
Hara put a finger across his lips. “Shh.
Now is not the time to go there.
Yell at him later, if you must.
Right now we need to know what programs you have absolute control of,
that might save us.”
“Zon Elemfias and my da know better. I grew up hating mandery or clinery. Some kids in the Basin got accused of them
and got beaten up. Beaten up and thrown
into the zardukar gates... or off the
edge if the sex school’s guards didn’t stop them – right off the edge before
they got to the bridge. It wasn’t safe.”
Her eyes were fixed on him.
“You never said it was that bad, before.”
“NO,” he coughed and managed to choke down his shout. This was no place to start ranting and
raving, and there was no room to pace or even wave his arms around, however
much he wanted to. “Why bother? Why tell
you how bad something used to be?”
“Because it would let me know what you grew up with?”
“Oh. That. As if that’s important.”
Werfas had a pit marked out, though he had to keep hauling
the ferret out of the area every few moments.
If it hadn’t been so serious it would have been funny. “Here, wing-brother, take this rat, will you?”
He thrust Tizrav over toward Kyrus.
He took her and then spent the next few minutes trying to
keep her. “This isn’t going to work,
Werfas. Even with Hara helping me, and
with a harness on her. She still wants
to help you, something awful.”
“Just a few more moments and I’ll have this clined out...Hara... could you take this sand and add it to the roof please? A little more out from under us and between
us and the razor sand?”
“Certainly.” She moved
over to the other side of the crouching bird and as Werfas clined down, she
took the spiralling dust and dirt and spread it evenly over her head, careful
not to interfere with the air-holes.
“Almost done here,” Werfas said with satisfaction. “If we don’t have birds crapping in here it
should be fine. When I’m deep enough I’ll
make it leach water so—“ he broke off as a grinding, scraping noise began,
added to the howl of the storm.
Everyone’s talk broke off and Ky grabbed at Tizzy’s harness,
even as she stopped trying to get away from him and burrowed into his shirt
instead. They all stared at Werfas, who sat with his neatly clined hole, at the
edge of the dome of sand that was keeping them all safe.
“I think... there’s a...” his whisper broke into a wild,
deafening yell, as the ground all around him crumbled and he vanished into a
hole that took up all of the space under him, as if something had reached up
and dragged him in.
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