Long View - Zelde M'Tana Part 1

ZELDE M'TANA.

THE LONG VIEW.

F.M. BUSBY.

Wrists handcuffed behind her, she lay in the dusty van and felt it jounce along the rough street. This was bad. Oh, the Kids would manage-the others had got away, and Horky could take over for now. But . . . herself? They had her; that was all.

Fear wouldn't help; she knew that much. Gradually, breathing as little as she could because of the dust, she relaxed and let time pa.s.s.

It could have been worse-she'd expected worse. But except for the man she'd bitten-still trying to fight, she was, even with the cuffs on-no one had hit her.

Panting, one of them laughing but sounding scared, they'd boosted her into the van.

"Never mind the rest now-this one can tell us. Let's get out of here!"

The jouncing eased-must be in their territory, she guessed. She smelled fumes and heard other motors, and was sure. A time came and went; then the van stopped, and two of them took her out and walked her into a building. She knew the look of it- she'd seen plenty of them, at a distance. But never to go into one-that had been her hope.

Blue-gray halls and then a room-a desk, no one behind it. Three people, standing.

When two came to hold her, the men who had brought her turned away and left.

She heard and felt her fighting nails clipped; then the cuffs came off. She turned- the woman with the nailclippers looked, frowning, and shook her head. The two men watching-no choice. "All right. I'm not for fighting." She saw the woman relax.

So they stripped her and in the next room scrubbed her-and seemed surprised that except for what the scuffle had done, she wasn't really dirty. Then the woman gave 6.her a short robe to put on and motioned for her to sit down, and where.

The questions began. And because no one had hit her besides the man she bit, and because she had clothes on and was clean and n.o.body'd tried to rape her, she changed her whole way of thinking and decided to answer. She didn't decide that right away, but the woman was still sounding patient when the first answers came.

She couldn't give her age because she didn't know it. Maybe six or eight years ago, her first recalls began- before that, there was something she couldn't remember and mostly didn't want to. They looked at her a lot. She was taller than the woman and the short man-nearly head-level, both standing, with the taller one.

But she knew she was skinny, b.r.e.a.s.t.s newish and small yet, and the bleeding curse only three years with her.

The woman asked of that, and she told. The woman said, "About fifteen, I'd call it-and a bit of a late bloomer."

The short man chuckled. "Blacks don't usually bloom late." The woman frowned at him, and went on to other questions.

Her name? She wasn't superst.i.tious-or not very-so she gave it. "Zelde M'tana."

And she was close to sure it was her real name, though she couldn't remember for certain. But it didn't sound like the Kids'-given names- Horky and Squatcheye, all those. Horky had a Kid name and no other; Arlycharly was really Arlen Charles and everybody knew it; her name and Fred Schroeder's were real because they sounded real. All right?

She didn't worry about saying names because by now the Kids wouldn't be anyplace near where she'd been caught, anyway. And if ever she got her hands on Fred Schroeder, she wouldn't need her fighting nails. That copping son of a Utie . . .

Now the woman asked questions she couldn't answer, or wouldn't. About the Kids- "Wild Children," the woman called them-names were no snitch, but numbers and places and ways of doing things-those weren't for Uties to know. Even if they weren't beating or raping her, she was still in the hands of UET, with its Presiding Committee and its Total Welfare Centers. The Kids knew about that stuff.

7.They didn't know what all happened in there-but Zelde purely didn't want to find out, either.

Finally she shook her head. "No more. I tell about me, 'cause you got me anyway.

Help you get somebody else, I don't tell. That's how we are, the Kids." Didn't they even know thatmuch?

The tall man nodded. "You see? That's why they're dangerous. Autonomous groups-their own strange code of ethics, opposed to ours, left alone to grow . . ."

The woman frowned. "I know that, Gerich-that's why I'm here. What's your own suggestion?"

With a shrug, Gerich said, "Just what we're doing, I suppose-catch them and Welfare them, the best we can."

Total Welfare.Without thinking, Zelde said, "You mean . . . ?"

Grinning, the short man waved a hand. "What did you expect, Skinny? A goldplated appointment to the Presiding Committee?"

Before he finished, she was across the room and onto him-hitting, biting, one slash before she remembered her fighting nails were gone. But when Gerich and the woman dragged her off him, the short man still lived.

Gasping, he blinked blood away and squinted at his fingers, which stuck out at odd angles from the hand. He coughed blood; his voice barely husked through his bat- tered throat.

"Kill this one-or slice her brain, fry it with shock-I-" Coughing stopped him, and then something jabbed into Zelde's neck. She lost strength, first, and then all knowing.

The cell-eat, p.i.s.s, s.h.i.+t, sleep-lasted a long time. In between, sometimes she thought.

She had plenty of time for it, and it helped ease the panic of being cooped up so tight.

I wish we could of talked more. Before she'd yanched out-but Welfare!-any Kid would of; Welfare was being dead without lying down for it. But still, the woman was telling stuff and she could use it, to know.

Well, she didn't have it, was all, and now she wouldn't get it. There'd been something-thinking back, she rubbed palms over the new stubble growing on her scalp-pretty soon n.o.body'd know her for a fighter, would they? Something, though- she hadn't listened close, but the woman said like, "When the terrorists nuked the old U.N. build- 8.ing-remember? A festival upstate, for a lot of the Emba.s.sy children-with all the confusion, n.o.body ever found out what happened to them. She could be-" But the short man had snorted, interrupting, changing the subject and leaving Zelde hanging on questions with no answers.

Here, naked in the cell, fighting her fear of the d.a.m.ned box, it didn't matter.

Except that-who was she? What was it she could never quite remember? Well, what she didn't know, she couldn't tell. And what she did know-from now on, she wouldn't.

"Zelde." Warm voices had called her that. "Zelde M'tana," and hearing inside now, she felt less warmth but still some of it. The-no, n.o.body was really there. But the something-explosion sounded in her head and she flinched, cringed, curled up tight-no, she couldn't ever quite get that, so quit it.

Vaguely, the time with the first Kids-cold and wet and bad smelly, all of them.

Dragged staggering along with a dirty rope around her neck. Sleeping with the big ones each side of her, all warm stinking together.

Then into something, lying the same only it all swayed and rattled a long time. She was really sick. Getting off, she couldn't walk, and they kicked her until she got up.

After that she had the flat blanks until the fever left her, and there was somebody new taking care of her. Terelda, the name was, and the first Kids were gone and she was with- well, it was Stud's Cruds, then.

Stud was big Porlanter who never hit anyone who listened the first time. That was one nice thing; the next was that these Kids weren't dirty. Where her infested skin had been raw so long, Zelde healed up.

Stud-Porlanter-died of something that swole up inside him, for months, and wouldn't stop. Well, it looked silly for Terelda to call herself Stud, so she told lanky ol' Sentenerl he should do that stuff. But she still ran the Kids, because she knew how.

For Zelde, it went along not so bad, then. How many years? They'd asked her, those Welfare catchers, but she couldn't say for sure. Three-four years, there, she was little. 'Way too young for fighting or s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, either one- but she trained for the first and grew her nails for it, and 9.saw enough of the other to know what it was about. And when she got tall, it was all in one summer.

The Cruds lived, mostly, in the parts of towns where the Welfare roundups had cleaned everybody out. Well, not quite everybody-always, some way or other, a few hung on. Some of them liked the Kids, traded favors and stuff- and trading was one way the Kids stayed alive. Others acted scared, wouldn't talk, mostly stayed locked up inside. That's the kind to watch, Terelda said-the kind that's on the snitch for Utie.

True or not, sometimes the Uties did raid. Welfare roundups, usually-and for those, seeing strangers around and figuring them for advance spooks, the Kids just spread out of town and lay low 'til it was over. Some got caught- not many, though.

But twice it was the Committee Police their own d.a.m.ned selves. And those peacef.u.c.kers the Kids didn't mess with-it was pull stakes and go crosscountry the slow, hard way, out of sight where wheels wouldn't take anybody. Find a new town and start over.

It was after the second move, they had the war. The town they went to, there was already a gang of Kids. Plenty of pickings, room for everybody, no problem- except that Red Ear's patrol, all with knives, met the Cruds and said to move on.

That wasn't how it worked. Remembering, Zelde chuckled. Oh, they pulled back, all right, past the ruins and slag' piles, clear into the woods. Except Zelde and Horky split off out of sight and-cut around to tail Red Ear's bunch back to their diggings- talked out a mind map and kept it straight between them while they got back to where the Cruds were camped. Then Terelda drew the map down, got it just right for all the Kids to study, while they waited.

Three days is when people's guard lets down, was Terel-da's idea-and she hadn't been wrong yet that Zelde knew of. Terelda-she'd been a fighter herself. On her forehead, below the hairline, part of the tattoo still showed. But these days, with two little Kids of her own to look after, she only fought when she had to-like now.

The afternoon before Move It Day, Zelde made up her mind. Still too skinny, maybe, but she was tall; she knew a lot and her nails were right. So without asking Terelda she borrowed the sharpest knife she could find, and lathered up her head and started sc.r.a.ping away. Part of it she couldn't 10.reach very well, and was cutting herself, so Horky helped her finish it. Then she went to Terelda.

The older girl looked up; her grin showed a broken tooth. "Who the h.e.l.l scalped you?" Then: "You think you're ready, Zelde?"

"I got to be. There's so many there in town." When Terelda didn't answer, Zelde said, "So, could you give me my tattoo?"

No grin now. Terelda said, "Not just like that, I can't." Zelde felt her face change, and the other said, "These things take thinking. What I give you, it's got to be right for you. But I tell you-sit down here. What we'll do--everybody gets the circle, and the dot in the middle, and the spokes of the wheel, to build the design on. So I give you that much now and the rest of it later, with time to think on it more. All rights?"

Zelde nodded.

"How many spokes? And pointed how?"

She thought. "Make it five. One pointed down front, the rest s.p.a.ced around even."

"Sure." Zelde sat, and soon the pigment burned and the needle stung the sc.r.a.ped skin up above her forehead and toward the top of her head. She felt blood ooze-but less, probably, than from her own slips, shaving. And when it was done, Terelda said, "Tomorrow, going in town with us, wear a cap."

"But why?"

"So they won't see you're new."

The war was bad. That first day the Cruds. .h.i.t fine, and had surprise-but Red Ear got his Kids together so they didn't give up or run off, and Terelda had to pull back finally. But this time, not out of town. Red Ear, for that day, couldn't make his bunch follow and fight any more.

They were ready, though, for Terelda's next try; it didn't work. So things settled down some, both gangs staying around, pulling raids on each other and deadly little fights when scouts or work parties met. It surprised Zelde how they all got used to it-even Kids getting killed sometimes. But it was no good way, really-fighting their own kind instead of both sides staying braced for Uties.

What broke it was when Red Ear's patrols tore up the Crud's plantings not long before time for first harvest from 11.the patch. Terelda got the maddest Zelde ever saw her. Before, she wanted "live and let live around here" with Red Ear. Now she said, "Any time you meet some of them, cut one out from the rest and kill it." And two days later, still boiling, she decided to stage an all-out raid.

Zelde hadn't ever killed anybody, and she didn't this time, either. Not for want of trying-she just didn't have the skill of it yet. Later, though, she never liked to think on that raid. It wasn't the blood so much-she'd seen plenty of that, and a lot of it her own. She lost some that time, too. She guessed it was the guts that bothered her most, sticking out of a Kid that hadn't died yet. And Terelda having to cut Sentenerl's throat when he asked her, because blind and one foot gone, he wouldn't be any good now. He made six for the Cruds, and nine of Red Ear's, all lying still now, for keeps.

Red Ear and ten more were taken live; the rest got away. The war was over, all right. Terelda, dark blood running down from the bandage on her side, walked to where Red Ear was staked out. Naked and spreadeagle, he blinked up at her as she said, "You give yourselves all up to me?"

He shook his head. "Not to no gunch, I don't."

Terelda's laugh turned to coughing. "The h.e.l.l you don't."

"You heard me."

Saying nothing, Terelda nodded. Wearing only the bandage, she squatted astraddle of Red Ear, facing his feet. She made a slipknot in a piece of cord and drew it tight to tie off his b.a.l.l.s. Then she pulled.

"What you doing"!"

"Gonna rape you-then I own you."

"Can't-aah!-can't be done."

"Learn different." She pulled harder; Red Ear shrieked, but his harden came up.

Terelda settled down onto it, moving only a little but jerking on the cord in time to her moves. Red Ear sobbed and moaned; then of a sudden he screamed again.

Terelda stood slowly; she reached to touch herself, and showed what her finger collected. "He came- see? I own him now."

But she staggered, and shook her head. "Gotta go lie down." She told who was to watch for the night, and what 12 F, M. Busby order, and went into the nearest hut. Whoever had it before, it was hers now.

Zelde and Horky had third watch. After a while they heard Red Ear groaning. He was unstaked now, just tied up, with a cover over him. Zelde drew back the cloth and looked. His ball sack was blood-swollen bigger than his head-maybe twice as big. He made one more noise and then she saw him die.

In the morning they found Terelda dead, too. So she never gave Zelde the rest of the fighter's tattoo.

The Cruds couldn't decide who should run it now. Red Ear's Kids walked away together; n.o.body tried to stop them. Zelde saw Horky looking to her, and nodded.

They collected their own stuff, and some things lying around loose, and left.

n.o.body said good-bye.

It was a long move, Zelde remembered, but finally they came to this town-the first real big city she ever saw. Scouting, they saw that several gangs shared the whole place, with hardly any real fighting between them. Spying to see which group looked like a good bet to join, one day they got caught and taken underground to face "Honcho." Zelde didn't feel as scared as she figured she probably ought to.

Stripped and guarded, they stood while Honcho sat. He was short and wide, solid without fat; white teeth grinned in his dark brown face. "What we got here? You two chickies from anybody special? Anyplace I know?"

Zelde shook her head. "Never been here 'til just a couple days ago. Been walking a month, maybe-in from the coast. And then, just looking around-you know? Trying to pick a good bunch to tie in with." It wasn't easy to do, but she grinned back at him. "You think we found one?"

Honcho's brows came down together, but he didn't look mad. "The coast, huh?

That's a ways from here, all right. Maybe I believe it-'cause n.o.body trying to raunch me much, around here, 'cepting Rover Boy and the Duke. And neither of they's smart enough to set you up for ringers. So maybe-" He looked from Zelde to Horky and back again.

13."How come, tall chickie, you got your hair sliced off and she-don't?"

Zelde touched the week's stubble. "This-it's for, I'm a fighter, just got to be one a while back."

He pointed to Horky. "What's you, then?"

Horky blinked. "Nothing special, I guess-just work, and some scouting. And s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, sure, when I grow to it."

Honcho beckoned; both girls stepped forward, and he looked. Then he shook his head and grinned. "You neither of you ready for that. So n.o.body bother you here."

He looked around, and his voice rang deep. "/ 'said that. See the word's spread."

Honcho didn't run just a gang; he had it split up in sections and divisions-people in charge of doing different things and they better get done or Honcho he'd want to know why. The other gangs-he didn't take them serious but he had patrols keeping track, just in case. And for Utie raids, he had plans, too-"all you troops break up in itty ol' gangs and play like that's all you ever was-then you do your hideout stuff on you very own. See?"

Zelde saw. Welfare roundups caught hardly any of Hon-cho's people-lots less than out of the other groups-and even the Committee Police their own d.a.m.ned selves didn't do much better. Honcho had a rule about Police: "Nothing in this world I rather see killed-but don't you ever do it in our piece of town."

And n.o.body did, either.