Kingdom of Cages(169)

Stem. Safety among people who knew her.

Farin.

Fresh strength welled into Chena. She picked her way down the hill. The sandy soil shifted sharply under her boots, so she had to keep her eyes on the way in front of her. But she didn’t mind. The ants were gone. They were grassland creatures, not sand dune creatures, and the purists of the hothouse would never move even a modified creature outside its natural environment. She was free of them.

I might drop dead any second now, she thought as she slogged forward. But at least it won’t be from bug bites.

Now that the true dunes rose around her, Chena stuck to the low places between them, angling her path toward the river. If she could hide in the brush and scrub by the river until a boat came by, she stood a good chance to be able to mix with the passengers as they disembarked and slip back into the village confines.

The dunes spilled away to the level riverbank and sprouted shaggy ferns, tufted sawgrass, bayberry, and the occasional white pine. On the far side of the river, the pine trees thickened into a real forest and the ground rose toward the cliffs. Chena considered wading across the river to get to the thicker cover, but discarded the idea. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to fight the current. Just the sight and sound of the water made Chena’s head buzz. She wanted to throw herself into it and suck it up until she drained the river dry, even though she knew she’d be sick for three days afterward from the bacteria this particular watercourse carried. There were clean streams around, if she wanted to take the time to search one out, but somehow Chena couldn’t stand the idea of staying out in the wild one minute longer. She needed people, friends, Farin, near her. She was tired to death of being alone.

Chena plodded along the bank, keeping to the thickest undergrowth until she came just inside of Stem’s river dock. Her luck was still with her, because before long, one of the riverboats glided out from between the hills. Chena mustered the last of her strength and ran for the dock, crouched low. The boat slowed and steered itself alongside the dock, allowing Chena to get a good look at the slanting pattern of red and green stripes that covered its side. Luck! She smiled to herself. This was Jonan’s boat. She had helped Nan Elle dose his entire crew against the annual diarrhea outbreak known as the “winter runs.” He knew her and would never turn her in, if only because he would not want to get Nan Elle angry at him.

Two of the crew jumped down to catch the mooring ropes as they were thrown. They secured the boat with practiced motions, and passengers and crew poured out of the cabin.

Chena stripped off the camouflage jacket. It marked her now and prevented friends from recognizing her. She also stripped off the filthy white shirt that had helped disguise her as a hothouser. The thick, shirt-like brassiere underneath looked close enough to what Stem’s women dockworkers wore to pass a casual inspection.

Chena crept up to the side of the boat and waited, hunkered down in the sunburned reeds at the water’s edge. After a moment, Kadan, Jonan’s chief rower, came out onto the tiny stern deck. Chena pitched a pebble against the side of the boat and he looked down. Kadan’s eyes widened as he recognized her and Chena beamed up at him. Kadan knew her. In fact, he kept trying to chat her up when he came to Off-shoot, even though he had a daughter older than she was.

Kadan looked away quickly, studying something Chena could not see. Then he leaned over the railing and extended his hand. Chena grasped it and let him haul her up onto the deck.

“Thanks,” she murmured as she skirted past him toward the cabin.

“I’ll be reminding you of this,” he said behind her.

Chena gave him a quick smile over her shoulder. “I’m sure you will.” With that, she made her way out of the cabin and onto the dock.

Chena walked casually up the pier. Then she was on the sun-soaked boardwalk and among people. Heads turned, eyes inspected. They either recognized her and gave a quiet nod or greeting wave, or their gazes slid past her, turning back to their own business. If they bothered to think that something was wrong, they didn’t want anything to do with it. Chena smiled tiredly. The hothousers were so good at fostering that attitude and it could be so useful.

She turned toward the lake and market tents. There’d be water at the market. Water to drink and to wash with. She still had some positive chits in her pockets under the withering garlic. Better yet, Ada should have her baskets out. Ada had called Nan Elle to every one of her five births and had five living children because of it. She’d be more than willing to hand over water, and food, and maybe even send her oldest running to fetch Farin.

Feeling almost jaunty, Chena made her way toward the market. Shoulders jostled her as she made her way across the market walks. She savored it. People. Her people. People she knew and had helped, and if they were raising their eyebrows and coughing at the smell of muck, sweat, and spoiled onions, she couldn’t blame them. It would startle her.