This is a new novella by J. Z. Colby, based on the situation on Sonmatia Two that was described in NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars.
NEBADOR Book Ten:Stories from Sonmatia 11
Chapter 1: Dem’s Dream
The boy thrashed in his sleeping niche, fighting with his blanket, then gained enough awareness to realizes he was just coming out of a dream. He sat up in the darkness and quickly felt re-connected with reality as the cool air chilled his slender, sweat-covered body, not quite fully-grown, but close.
A few feet away, on the other side of the small rocky cave, a hand removed the cover from a small glow-stone, revealing a concerned look on a girl’s slightly-younger face. “You okay, Dem? Was it that dream again?”
Dem squirmed for a moment. “Yeah. You, me . . . a bunch of other kids, about a dozen in all, but I can’t see exactly who . . . and miles and miles of tunnels and caves.”
A moment passed before she made a rude noise with her tongue. “I’m your sister, remember. I’ve been sharing a sleeping cave with you since I was born. We have the same heartbeat. So I know when you’re making stuff up.”
Dem sighed and looked at the rocky floor. “Tir, I just can’t tell you everything. You’re not old enough!”
She rolled her eyes, then took on a stern expression. “I’m nine! And with that new law the Tunnel Thugs just made . . .”
“I know, I know. It’s stupid, and it won’t work, and everyone with half a brain knows that, but none of the Thugs . . . I mean our Honorable Government Leaders . . .”
Tir made the rude noise again.
“. . . none of them have half a brain,” he finished.
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“You’re being generous,” she challenged. “I’d give them a quarter, max.”
Dem took a deep breath. “No argument. I want to make one more try at finding the Pictures. I have a hunch where they might be hidden. I’m gonna look during my work shift tomorrow.”
“If the quarter-brained Thugs didn’t tear them up and burn them!”
“Actually, I heard they tried. But the Pictures wouldn’t tear or burn!”
Tir laughed deeply.
Dem looked around warily. “Shhhh! If we’re ever gonna have a chance of seeing my dream come true, we have to be very careful about who hears us.”
She nodded, covered the glow-stone, and crawled back under her blanket.
After hearing her brother get settled in his sleeping niche, she let another moment pass before asking, “The real part of your dream, or the part you made up?”
NEBADOR Book Ten:Stories from Sonmatia 13
Chapter 2: Dem’s Work
Dem put the next phase of his plan into action the following day. He felt a sense of urgency prompted by the announcement that the population had fallen below three hundred. The new law the Tunnel Leaders had enacted, so everyone would think something was being done about the problem, only made the urgency feel greater.
He arrived at work early and signed up for all the worst cleaning jobs —
the ones that would allow him to look in the hiding places he had not yet checked.
Dem was not the only one who would like to see the Pictures again.
Everyone remembered them, at least everyone out of diapers four years before when the Angels projected them onto the Gathering Cavern wall. He had been only seven at the time, but clearly remembered the anger on the Tunnel Leaders’ faces. The Pictures themselves had quickly disappeared into the Government Tunnels where the leaders lived, made decisions, and kept all the best food for themselves.
Several of his friends had tried to find the Pictures, but had been caught and re-assigned to food-collecting teams. One was already dead from the toxic fumes outside, two more were sick and weren’t expected to live much longer, and the rest just dragged themselves through each day, no longer caring about anything.
Dem had vowed to be more careful. He didn’t really understand why the Tunnel Leaders were so against the offer the Angels made — a fresh, new
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planet where they could grow and hunt food, build houses in the open air, and live long enough to raise their children. But he was determined to not get assigned to food-collecting teams — at least until he turned twelve and had no choice.
So over the previous year, Dem had carefully worked his way onto the cleaning team — the handful of kids trusted to collect trash from all the Government Tunnels, sort it, and give paper, food scraps, and anything else organic to the girls in the Mushroom Tunnels.
“Hey!” barked the voice of one of the minor leaders, a boy about fourteen or fifteen years old. “What are you doing?”
“Sorting trash, like I do every day,” Dem replied, hoping the trembling he felt didn’t show.
“How come I’ve never seen you in here before?”
“I usually work in the Planning Tunnel, but Jot is sick today, and Planning is still clean from yesterday, so I got his shift.”
“Okay. I remember him coughing yesterday. We don’t like people spreading germs in here. How old are you?”
“Eleven,” Dem said, while continuing to sort the contents of a trash basket into the bins on his cart.
“As soon as the new law goes into effect next week, tens and elevens will start going outside for food collecting,” the older boy said with a grin.
So you won’t have to, Dem thought to himself. “I’m happy to do my part.”
“You’re the one with a sister, aren’t you?”
Dem swallowed. “Yeah.”
“She’s cute, near the top of my list for mating as soon as the new law starts.”
Dem remained silent and faced away from the other boy so the redness that covered his face couldn’t be seen.
“Don’t get any ideas about mating with her yourself before I get to her!”
“I’m not old enough for that.”
“Good. Keep sorting that crap. Maybe if you do a really good job, you won’t get put on a food-collecting team.”
As the older boy wandered away, Dem continued to silently work. He had already decided that he was never going to help collect old canned food on the
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surface so the Tunnel Leaders could take the best of it and live easy lives until they died of old age at sixteen or seventeen. He would rather go live in the wild caverns and survive on slime mold and cave spiders.
But he still had a few places he wanted to look for the Pictures the Angels had left. And, of course, the Map.
NEBADOR Book Ten:Stories from Sonmatia 16
Chapter 3: Tir’s Work
When Tir arrived at the Mushroom Tunnels that afternoon, she sighed.
The morning shift had been very busy, and nearly fifty trays of soil awaited planting. Tir was a planter, receiving small spoons of spores from the sorters, older girls who worked with the microscopes to separate good mushroom spores from deadly ones.
Even though she wasn’t old enough to be a sorter, Tir’s job was highly-respected. An exhaled breath at the wrong moment could send a spoonful of spores onto the floor, hours of sorter time wasted, and the careless planter sent back to morning shift where the young and clumsy girls worked with anything organic — including things they didn’t name but made jokes about — to prepare the mushroom soil.
Tir had become a planter as soon as she turned nine because she didn’t talk much. The girls who couldn’t keep their mouths shut also couldn’t keep the spores on a spoon.
One of those mouthy girls worked on the same shift. Ril wasn’t allowed anywhere near the spores, but was big and strong, so she hauled mushroom trays from the planting cave into the growing tunnels. She was there, already talking about everything and nothing, when Tir arrived.
“I
am
so excited about the new law! Our Leaders finally realized that eight and nine-year-olds are people, too, with needs and desires. I hope Dil will mate with me, like, anytime he wants! If I can’t get him, Jak is my next choice, and I’m sure he’ll want me after I wiggle my hips for him . . .”
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Tir, getting her planting tools ready at her table, closed her eyes tightly for a moment and shuddered slightly. All of her tools were old kitchen utensils —
spoons, forks, spatulas, and sifters. A spoonful of spores could easily plant five trays. Tir usually got six, sometimes seven. When she felt ready, she looked up and made eye contact with the planting supervisor at her desk.
Sim was twelve and very pregnant. Like Tir, she was quiet and careful, so had been a planter for years before becoming supervisor. She nodded respectfully when Tir looked at her. “Ril, Tir’s ready for a tray.”
Each tray, three feet long and two wide, weighed close to forty pounds.
Without ceasing her chatter, Ril hoisted the first tray of the day, placed it on Tir’s table, then went back for another as other planters signaled they were ready.
While waiting for spores, Tir looked at Sim. The supervisor’s attention was elsewhere, so Tir could take a good, long look. Something was wrong with Sim’s color. The faint light of the glow-stones didn’t allow many skin tones to be seen, but even so, Tir frowned and her stomach tightened. She suddenly felt sure that neither mother, nor baby, would survive the upcoming birth.
Tir wanted to cry, but the arrival of her spores, on a spoon in a covered container, made her resist the temptation. She nodded thanks to the sorter, a serious girl of about thirteen, then glanced at the next planting table. Bel, the youngest planter at eight, was silently crying, but being very careful to not let it be seen.
Tir made a friendly hand motion in Bel’s direction, than smiled slightly when she caught the younger girl’s attention. She did her best to communicate with her eyes that they could talk at lunch, and Bel seemed comforted.
Tir turned her attention to the precious spoonful of mushroom spores and the tray of soil in front of her.
After Tir received a bowl of rejected mushrooms for lunch — edible but twisted and mixed up with bits of soil — she picked a quiet old tunnel, where she knew they wouldn’t be overheard, and crawled into it slowly. Bel soon crawled in after, her own bowl in hand.
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They picked the soil out of their lunch mushrooms in silence for a minute.
Eventually, Tir broke the ice. “What do you think of the new law?”
“Hate it!” Bel spat out, as if she had just accidentally eaten a big mouthful of mushroom soil.
Tir let the silence linger.
Eventually Bel found her voice again. “I like someone, but Fen’s only nine
. . . and now I’m going to have . . . all kinds of boys I don’t like . . . trying to mate with me before . . . he even gets old enough . . .” Her voice trailed off into sobs.
Tir scooted close and put an arm around the eight-year-old.
Bel continued softly, her voice still mixed with deep sobs. “And I hate that someday . . . I’ll probably have a baby from who-knows-which boy . . . and I probably won’t live long enough to see it grow up . . .”
Eventually Bel’s sobbing relaxed into silent tears, so Tir looked around, then spoke in a whisper. “Want to . . . get out of here before the new law takes effect?”
Bel’s eyes snapped open wide and she looked at Tir while wiping her cheeks on a sleeve. “Really? Can I bring Fen?”
“Are you brave, and can you keep it secret for a few more days? Can he keep it secret, too?”
Bel nodded excitedly. “But . . . how?”
“Dem’s pretty sure he can find the Angel Pictures . . . and the Map . . .
today or tomorrow. We’re leaving anyway. We’ll find somewhere to live and be free . . . or we’ll die . . . but we won’t stay here where thugs force us to mate, and then keep all the good food for themselves, and . . . you know the rest . . .”
Bel
nodded.
“I know three other girls who want to go, and Dem knows a couple of boys.
Interested?”
Bel
grinned.