Chapter 4

The jerky was dry and tough, but it didn’t matter. I felt a warm glow inside. I closed my eyes, chewing, running my tongue over each bite of meat to bring out its flavor.

I opened my eyes again. The man was watching me closely. He seemed as curious about me as I was mystified by him.

I revised my age estimate upward: the coppery skin and lack of beard must be because of the boy’s native heritage. Aside from the face, he looked physically mature—but only just. I guessed that he was about eighteen, maybe nineteen at the most.

My adrenaline began draining away and I felt tired. I sat on the ground and took another bite of meat. The ivy under me was wet, and I suddenly realized it was raining again, light but steady. I wasn’t sure when it had started. Rain hardly registered on me anymore unless it was especially hard or inconvenient.

The boy sat down companionably beside me, still watching closely. He took off the floppy settlers’ hat and I gasped. This was my first chance to look closely at his face, without the shade of the hat brim, and I was stunned by how beautiful he was. The eyes, the high cheekbones, the full lips, the coppery-bronze face had already suggested “native” to me, but if all of the native sublings on the island had looked the way this man did, there surely would be a lot more of them around today. His jet-black hair was rough-cut and unkempt, but still flowed without obvious tangles. It reminded me of a black satin waterfall. His eyebrows ... if asked to describe them, I would have said that many Noosemeisters adjusted their eyebrow line, just to make them look exactly the way this man’s did naturally.

There must still be native families living here, that somehow didn’t get absorbed into the settlers’ culture. I frowned. That doesn’t explain why he speaks our language. How did he learn it, if his people have stayed so well-hidden that the settlers haven’t found them?

On the other hand, the conversation so far had not exactly been wide-ranging.

Swallowing the meat, I finally made a choice among the thousand questions springing through my mind like heated popcorn. “How ... How did you make the dogs go away?” Surely they couldn’t have taken the boy to be one of their masters.

He frowned, looking confused. “The what?”

I blinked, thrown by the possibility that he knew even less about the island than I did. I pointed back in the way we had come. “Them. You know, ‘rff rff.’” I imitated a dog’s bark.

He grinned in sudden comprehension. “Oh!! Is that what they’re called? Say it again.”

I said, enunciating clearly, “Doggirls.”

He repeated the word. “So ... they’re like girls?”

I struggled to get a feeling for the man’s accent. Every vowel he used was shaded just a little away from the “ee” end and more toward the “oo” end, the last sentence coming out something like “Thay’re loike goorls”. “They are girls,” I told him, “Farmers did that to their arms and legs, but they’re really young sublings just like me.” I paused as he worked to process that, and came back to his question. “So why did they do what you said?”

“Oh.” He smiled. “They like you if you have the leaves.”

I was completely lost until he made a gesture to indicate the leather outfit he was wearing, while I was backtracking through my guess about his accent to determine that “leaves” was the word he’d used. It came to me suddenly—that was the word this man used for clothes! I nearly laughed. It did seem to make sense, somehow. Covering the body in that way might well seem like trees covering their branches with leaves. And another part of what the boy had said clicked into place—he was telling me that the doggirls discriminated based on clothing. They would give priority to their own Master, but aside from that would treat anyone dressed in leather as a friend. And anybody naked and walking upright would be a slave, to be watched closely. Doggirls, like the farmers, had no expectation that a slave might cloud the issue by wearing clothes.

I recalled how delighted the boy had seemed to learn a new word, moments ago. I touched his leather outfit. “These are called ‘clothes.’ You’re wearing clothes.” Again, he repeated the word, flashing another happy smile. I noticed that he hadn’t flinched away from my touch, which seemed a good thing overall.

Another thought struck me. I had no idea what the natives might wear these days, but this boy was wearing settlers’ clothes, and I was positive no slaveowner would have given them to him. “Where did you get the clothes?”

“Oh.” He nodded, looking pleased with himself as he explained, “I found them in a boss place. I watch the bosses to see when they leave their place empty, the place where they sleep...”

I didn’t like interrupting, but he seemed so eager to learn. “Cabin. They sleep in their cabins.”

“Cabins.” Another grin. “I go in their cabins when they aren’t there, and I take things I need. Like the clothes, food. I was going to do that again, now. And then I saw you and the doggirls.”

I was getting better at translating his words, each time he spoke. And I noticed that each time he used a word I had taught him, he pronounced it just the way I did, without an accent. Or, well, in my accent.

The explanation of how he had come by the clothes and meat seemed straightforward enough, but it occurred to me that if that was how all of the natives got by, the settlers would have put a stop to the marauding long ago. Something still didn’t seem right. “Where do you live? Where are your parents?”

He looked blank. “Parents?”

“Your father? Older people you live with?”

His frown turned to seeming comprehension at the last sentence. He shook his head. “The bigs went to serve bosses a long time ago.”

I was puzzled for a moment, then my theory of his personal history took off in a completely new direction. Come on, that is really impossible. “You grew up with ... the bigs?”

He nodded. “They took care of us for a long time, when we were littles. Then the bosses with ... clothes took them away, and we were the bigs then, and we got our own littles to take care of.”

He had grown up in a pen at a breeding farm! It still was obvious he carried native genes in him—perhaps his mother, a breeder, had been a full-blooded native girl—but he was fully a member of the settlers’ culture.

I squeezed my eyes shut. How in the hell ... Okay, I thought, ask him that. “When the settlers came, later, when you were a big, and took the other bigs away ... Why didn’t they take you? How did you get away?”

“I ran.” He laughed. “They always called me Runner. I guess I was always running around when I was a little. So when the bosses came—the settlers?—I did that.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “They just let you run away?”

“They didn’t mean to. But there was ... kind of a thing happened. They opened up the big gate, like they did a long time before when they took the older bigs, and they had all of us start getting together. They were saying it was time to start serving them, and they started putting the shiny on us.” He patted my ankle cuffs. My slave hardware was “the shiny” to him. He went on, “They were putting the shiny on Laugher, and then Leaf Eater, the little who always followed Laugher around, came running up crying and tried to stop them from taking Laugher. He didn’t want Laugher to go. Laugher was telling Leaf Eater it was okay, we needed to serve the settlers for awhile and then they’d convert us. But Treefaller, one of the bigs, started crying too. He was like me, he didn’t like that we had to serve toppers before we could be converted. He slapped one of the settlers when they reached for him to put the shiny on him. The other settlers and some of the other boys tried to hold him and get him to quiet down. There were two ... doggirls by the big gate, and they came up making that ‘grrrrr’ sound, like they were going to bite. And then nobody was watching the gate. So I just stepped back to it, real quiet, and when I got close enough I ran. Settlers were shouting, but I don’t know if it was about me. I guess nobody saw me. Nobody chased me, anyway.”

I was concentrating on following the boy’s speech. Anyone from my own world would have been completely at sea, and not just because of the accent. You needed some pre-existing knowledge of how things worked on the island. Lucky I wrote that paper, I thought to myself—then remembered bitterly that the paper was what had got me trapped here on the island to begin with.

“How long ago was that?” I needed assurance that long term survival outside the system was possible here.

He shook his head, looking irritated. “It wasn’t long ago. I did it.”

I didn’t think we’d be able to connect on the time issue. He might have no way of measuring lengths of time. I decided to move on. One thing he had said seemed to hint at his motivation. I said, “So you didn’t think you should have to serve toppers?”

“No!” He was suddenly vehement. “That never seemed right. When we were littles, the bigs told us all about how we are here to be that ... something ... and we always liked that. We’d listen to their stories about the long-ago, when sublings got converted and helped toppers by providing ... something, and that really made us feel important.” It seemed to me that those stories had been stretching the truth a little, but I was relieved that the sublings on the island all learned what their ultimate purpose was. The boy went on, “Settlers need us to be healthy! But...” He frowned darkly. “The bigs would tell us how we needed to serve settlers first, before they’d let us be ... whatever. And when I got bigger, I started thinking, that’s just not right. If settlers need us for ... whatever, they should treat us nicer! If they take us and make us start serving them, they’re making us do things they could do themselves! That’s not something we should have to do. We’re here to be something they can’t be!”

I sucked in my breath. Even with his limited vocabulary and experience with life, I didn’t think any of history’s classic speeches on subling rights had put the case as eloquently as this boy just had.

I realized I’d been so fascinated in learning his story I had overlooked the normal protocol of introductions. “So ... you’re called Runner?” When he smiled and nodded, I asked, “Do you have another name?”

He frowned. “Why would I need another name?”

I shook my head quickly. “You don’t, I was just wondering. I’m Amy.”

Runner looked puzzled, and said slowly, “Amy.” After a long pause, he asked, “What does that mean?”

I started to say that names didn’t mean anything where I came from, but a memory came back that I had forgotten. “Where I come from, it means ‘friend.’”

Runner was still puzzled. “Then why don’t they call you that?”

“There are a lot of things ... different, where I come from. And I need to get back there. My...” It occurred to me that the word “brother” would be meaningless to Runner. “I was brought here and left here, and I didn’t want to be here. I need to get back.”

“Can’t you go back the same way you came?”

I shook my head. “I came on...” I hesitated. “Have you seen the ... big water? The water that goes on to the end?” I swept my hand forward to indicated the expanse of the ocean.

Runner nodded eagerly, and said proudly, “I’ve seen the whole world! One end of it is at the water, and the other is the high ground.” He made an upsweeping gesture with his hand, indicating the mountains.

I shook my head. “Those aren’t really the ends. I live on the other side of the water. I came here on a boat—that’s like a lot of trees all tied together, and it rides on the water.” I rushed past Runner’s disbelieving look. “I can’t make a boat myself. I have to go the other way, and find the people on the other side of the ... high ground.”

Despite the explanations, Runner’s forehead was growing more wrinkled with skepticism by the second. Finally Runner shook his head. “There isn’t anything past the end of the world.”

I saw the trouble I might be running into. For as long as Runner could remember, he’d been confined to a small enclosure that served as his world. He had known there was an outside to the enclosure—food, and occasionally people, came in from outside. But, now on the loose in the larger world, there was a limit to how much larger a world Runner’s mind could encompass. I knew how strongly people cling to beliefs that are important to them, and I knew I was going to encounter some resistance here. I already was.

Cautiously, I said, “Runner, you can see I know some things you didn’t know, right?”

Equally cautiously, Runner nodded.

I went on, “That’s because I’ve been in some places you haven’t been. And I need you to help me get back.” My crucial need for Runner was becoming clear in my mind as we talked. There was just no way I could cross the mountains by myself. Alone, I was an escaped slave. But accompanied by what appeared to be a topper, seeming to belong to him, to be his slave... “I need you to take me to the other side of the high ground...”

Runner shook his head quickly. “No! You’re making a story! The high ground is the end! I don’t want to go there and fall off!”

Exasperated, I said, “Runner, it’s not like that! The other side looks just like this side, except there are more people there. And there are ... places where the boats come. They don’t come to this side, but they come there.”

Runner gave me a caught-you look. “If the boats don’t come here, how come you’re here?”

I shook my head, foreseeing an explanation that stretched ocean-like to the horizon. “Runner, I have to go there.” I decided I shouldn’t show Runner how desperate my need for help was. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to try to go by myself.”