Kingdom of Cages(48)
“Amerand Dho, the mother of one of Teal’s friends, told me there was a rag room in the recycler complex. Free for the taking. Same place we got your hat.” Mom pulled the object in question off and hung it on a wooden hook on the back of the door that also had not been there when Chena left. “I borrowed the sewing machine from her as well.”
“I helped,” announced Teal. “I cut stuff out and held it together so Mom could pin it all up. I screwed the table back together—”
“Nailed,” corrected Mom.
So that’s why its crooked, thought Chena, but she didn’t say anything.
Mom walked over to the stove, where something smelled really great. “Are you hungry?”
Chena’s mouth was watering worse than it had when she met Farin. She didn’t even need to answer. Mom just started scooping soup into a bowl.
They gathered around the new table, eating and talking. The soup wasn’t as good as the stuff in the dorm, but it felt great inside her. Mom and Teal told her about the scavenger hunt through the recycling complex, looking for stuff that wasn’t too old or worn out or dirty. They had pallets in the bedroom now. Apparently Teal had spent the better part of the afternoon up on the roof whacking the dust out of them. This was not, according to her report, anywhere near as stellar as getting to build a table.
Chena told them about the grasslands with the birds, and about the lake that sparkled and filled the horizon, and the cave-riddled cliffs. She described the market, and the jetties with the people coming and going. She left out breaking the bowls, and replaced the story of how she finally got lunch with a few vague remarks about a tent and sandwiches. She also left out her money idea. She needed to convince Teal to go along with the scheme first. If she was going to make this work, Teal would have to take her shifts.
The night thickened, the room dimmed, and Chena found herself yawning until she thought her face would split wide open. Mom lit an extra lamp, but the brightness didn’t wake Chena up any. Her head started to droop toward her empty bowl. Mom laughed.
“Okay, big day’s over and work starts again tomorrow. Help me wash up, and you two are going to bed.”
Chena brought in buckets of water from the cistern and Mom added hot water from the kettle on the stove. The kettle was new too. They washed the red-brown bowls and tarnished spoons and put them on the new shelf to dry. Mom had obviously put that one together. It didn’t tilt at all.
Another bucket of water was hauled in and faces were washed and teeth were brushed and Chena was finally able to collapse onto her new pallet. It was thin and lumpy and smelled earthy, but, like the soup, it felt great. She placed the note and the chit underneath the pillow for safekeeping and snuggled down under the woolen blankets.
I’ll talk to Teal in the morning, she thought, pulling the blanket up to her ears. Sleep now.
“Chena,” whispered Teal excitedly. A hand shook her by the shoulder. “Chena!”
“Get off.” Chena shoved her hand away. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“But I caught a spy.”
Chena pulled the blanket the rest of the way over her head. “Tell me tomorrow.”
“No.” Teal yanked the blanket down. “Now. He was talking to Mom.”
“Huh?” Chena opened both eyes and looked at her sister. Teal was just a blur in the darkness, but her whisper was urgent.
And I’m definitely not getting any sleep till I hear this.
“What’d he want?”
“Shh,” breathed Teal. Chena just rolled her eyes.
Teal shoved the sleeve of her nightshirt up, exposing her comptroller. “I got him coded in,” she whispered proudly. She touched the display stud and a soft silver glow lit up her face, turning it into a mass of blobs and shadows. “ ‘Spy showed up at twelve-thirty hours—’ ”
“Showed up?” The words trickled into Chena’s mind. “He came here?”
Teal nodded rapidly, making wisps of hair flutter around her face. “We were just carrying the table parts up from the recycler.”
“Keep going.” Exhaustion pulled back from Chena, leaving room for wariness.
“ ‘Spy was a man,’ ” Teal read. “ ‘Taller than Mom, with short black hair and skin about my color and gray eyes, wearing a black shirt and white canvas pants and boots.’ ”
“What did he…” Chena stopped and rephrased it, to keep within the feel of the game. “What did he say he wanted?”
Teal checked her notes. “ ‘Spy gave his name as Experimenter Basante from the Alpha Complex.’ ”
Alpha Complex. The hothouse. Chena bit back her questions.