Kingdom of Cages(178)

“Are you sure there’s nothing else, Administrator?”

Helping my family. Helping her family. Tam straightened his back. “No, nothing else.” He met the superior’s eyes.

“Okay.” The superior shrugged. “We’re here for a couple of days to haul up some supplies, if you need anything else.”

Helping. Helping the family. This man is doing the right thing. I can answer him. “Thank you. I don’t think there’ll be any problems.”

Teal was still watching Tam with narrowed eyes. He wished she wouldn’t. It meant she didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t think about that. It summoned his Conscience. It threw his whole soul into confusion. He had to be sure. That was the only way to keep away the voices.

I’m here to help you, Tam. You know that.

Yes, yes, I know, I know. His hand shook as he tried to keep it down at his side.

“You should come with me now,” he said, not so much forcing the words out as holding the other words in.

“Okay, then,” said the male superior. “We’ll leave you to it.”

The superiors did not move. Tam knew he was supposed to do something. Take her home. No, not home. Not to Dionte. Blood. That brought back the smell of blood.

“So, is it this way?” asked Teal, gesturing toward the inner door.

“Yes.” This way. Tam found himself able to face the door and walk toward it. Teal walked beside him. He could just see her out of the corner of his eye. She was taller. Too tall. Yes, she’d gone to a tailor. He had heard that. That was wrong. He had to ask her who had done this to her, so he could tell the family.

But he had to take her away from the family.

The door opened in front of them onto a white room lined with workstations. Only a few interviewers and supervisors, all in white overalls, worked among the rows of monitors and chairs. The place was too bright and Tam winced, his hand straying back to his temple. They all looked up at him, questioning, measuring, looked at him like he was doing wrong. He was doing wrong. He…

“We don’t need to talk to anybody, do we?” asked Teal. “We can just go on through?”

Tam’s thoughts steadied. “Yes, you are with me, and we can just go on through.”

Tam matched Teal’s pace down the room’s center aisle. When he could focus on her, even just a little, he didn’t have to think about the other eyes watching him. The other eyes and the other voices all knew what he was doing.

With an effort, Tam broke off that thought.

There was another door to go through. It opened onto the outside this time, and a breath of fresh summer wind touched him. He inhaled deeply, vaguely hoping the clean air would clear his mind. Two dirigibles waited on the field under a sky white and gray with clouds.

Teal hesitated, looking around her at the broad, open field as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“Ours is the right-hand one?” she asked.

No. That was not right. “The left-hand one.”

“Okay.” Teal started across the short summer-green grass. Stumbling for a few steps on the uneven ground, Tam found a stride that allowed him to match her speed. He focused on the dirigible. That was where they had to go. That was right. That was right.

“They got you, didn’t they?” breathed Teal, keeping her own gaze straight ahead. “They did something to you.”

It was right; they did. Tam managed to hold those words in. “My family gave me a proper Conscience.”

A pained expression flickered across Teal’s face. Why pain? He had no Conscience before and did not know right from wrong. Now he knew. He knew.

“And you’re taking me to them?”

Tam’s tongue pressed against his teeth. He could not speak such wrong words, could not do such wrong things. “I’m taking you to your family,” he managed to say.

Two spots of color appeared on Teal’s cheeks. “In the hothouse?”

Yes. yes. That would be right. “No.” He whispered the word as if he thought he could hide it from his Conscience. “In the village.”

Teal’s breath hissed between her teeth and her jaw shifted. Her eyes looked left, then right. Her jaw shifted again. “Right.”

Tam heard her teeth grind together. Again her gaze shifted left and right, taking in the open field around the dirigibles.

“If you’ve lied to me, I’ll find a way to get you back; if it takes a million years, I’ll do it.”

Teal quickened her pace, leaving Tam to struggle to catch up as she marched through the dirigible’s hatch.

Lied to me. The words echoed through him. If you’ve lied to me…

She did not trust him. She had never trusted him. Why should she? He had let her family down. Let the family down, and that was wrong.