“You know about electricity?”
I touch one of my kam, with my other hand I let a spark arc between my thumb and finger. “Yes.”
Her eyes widen. “They didn’t tell us that in the briefing.”
“Maybe they do not want people to find out, and I should not have shown you.”
She lifts her eyebrows and grins. “You probably shouldn’t be offering to share your jerky either.”
I’m not sure if she is referring to my jerky or my meq.
7
HARPER
While Yva made it clear that he’d rather be hunting—and I can think of plenty of people who want all the aliens hunting and supplying us with fresh food—he learns what needs to be done fast and works without complaint. Some people grizzle about handling the dirty clothes and then again when they need to fold them and put them in the bags to be returned—the same people are always the first to complain if they don’t like the repair, or a stain couldn’t be removed.
In the afternoon, some people stop by to collect their bag, the rest we load into a cart and deliver. I explain how I group by number, which means I give him an impromptu lesson on numbers. He seems to get it, but I’m not ready to let him deliver on his own. We leave the other two staff to put in the next round of laundry. They started after lunch and will work until lights out.
Neither of them greeted Yva warmly.
I don’t know what I expected, from them or him, but it wasn’t what I got.
“So, how have you found it?”
He pulls the cart along the corridor, and I hang the bags on the door handle. It is quick with both of us doing it. An extra person in the laundry will mean we can spend more time mending and reworking some of the worn clothes into something wearable. How long until we can’t make what we have stretch?
“It is a necessary job,” Yva says.
“That isn’t an answer. It’s not exciting, and it is repetitive.”
“Then why not make everyone do their own laundry? A small amount of time from them then allows you to do something else.”
“It was decided this way is more efficient. It’s been this way on large military ships for a very long time.”
“But we are not on a ship, and it is not as though you must scrub your clothes and lay them out to dry. The machine does that.”
“True.” But plenty of people would be upset about doing their own laundry or their own cooking. We have all accepted this is the way it is, because it was how it was done on Earth.
“I understand why I was assigned this job. Why were you sent there?” Yva asks after a couple more deliveries.
I debate how much to tell him, but I can’t be bothered coming up with an excuse. “Those of us with low grades are sent to the laundry, the kitchen or cleaning.”
“Grades?”
“At school—a place where children are taught—if we did badly, then it reduced which jobs we were eligible to do.”
He stops. “They did not spend more time teaching you or ask what you were interested in?”
“No. There were set classes that we needed to do well in, like math and science.” And they were not things I excelled at. The practical classes I did much better in, but instead of being taught to repair things, I was put in the laundry. “Did you have classes?”
He smiles and there’s a glint in his red eyes. “I had many classes. I learned to fight with a wooden sword before I learned with metal. I learned how to track and hunt animals, which plants were safe to eat, and how to prepare the food I’d found. How to wash and mend clothes. All skills needed once banished.”
“But your friends…they must have other skills?”
He is silent for several seconds. “Different tribes raise their banished differently. While my older brothers, brothers by blood, were raised to be good mates and make good alliances for the tribe, I was given practical lessons. Aldit learned his father’s craft, while Hrad was raised away from the tribe in a place dedicated to fourth sons.”
“Why fourth? Why not third?”
