Radix

Sumner Kagan appeared on line, trudging toward the rubber trees. Broux watched him with satisfaction. The boy was expanding and hardening, growing stronger each week. A full year had passed since he had arrived, bloated with fat and pain, and no orders had come from the White Pillar to reclaim him. Months ago Broux had contacted an officer high in the Conclave to collect on a longstanding debt. Years before, Broux had helped a distorted relative of this savant get forged papers; in return, Broux had requested that Sum-ner Kagan's records with the White Pillar be permanently misplaced. Apparently this had been done, and now the boy was all his.
Sumner hulked against a wall of hanging vines, his longcurved back writhing with the powerful strokes of his machete arm as he cut his way into the green mass. Broux watched him approvingly. Like an anatomist, Broux knew the body's inner dynamics—what routines shaped what muscles; what muscles aligned the bone-structure; what alignments gave the most strength. He had been using that knowledge to select Sumner's work projects. And he followed him care-fully, observing how his form was changing, studying how best to mold his body. The rewards for Broux were going to be great. A protomale on the military market would earn him enough zords to get away from Meat City and retire to a homestead colony near Xhule or Onn. Those were forest cities, too small for dorga pits. They were as far away from the brutality of his profession as he could hope to get.
That joyful thought poised between his eyes like a point of pain, and he had to pick up a rock and clench it between his fingers to steady himself.
Sumner kept to himself. Some of the men worked in groups, laughing and cursing themselves through the monot-ony of their labors and sharing silence when Broux and the guards were near. But Sumner lived too close to his pain, and the others thought he was animal-dull. Only one midgeyed young man was drawn to him—a boy called Dice. The men loathed Dice: He was talkative and orgulous, and he wasn't big enough to do an equal share of work. He was harried constantly, except when Sumner was around. Everyone feared Sumner, not only because he had become one of the largest men in camp but because he was Broux's animal.
"I'm an opportunist," Dice introduced himself to Sum-ner among the emerald shadows of the jungle. Kagan was stump-digging, stooped and hacking at the wire-taut treeroots, sweat sparking off him with each blow. "I've been called a deserter because I left my squad and went to Vortex. That's why I'm here. But I wasn't running away. If I was deserting, I'd have gone north to Carnou. There are voors in Carnou, and they're always looking for blue cards. That's what I've got—a blue card. It means I've got just one gene defect and it's a sleeper; it'll never touch me. Only a white card's better, but there aren't any of them around. The government takes them away early and studs them. My blue card's the best you'll see. If I was deserting, I'd just go to Carnou and let the voors have me. But what kind of life is that, whoring for voors? Mutra, that's rucksouled. No, I wasn't deserting. I went to Vortex to play kili. That's why I'm called Dice. I'm the best. And I was going to come out strong in the kilithon at Vortex. It's only held every third year. Last time, I was weighted. That means I made it to the top fifth. Do you know how many zords I could have made in the top fifth if I'd played? Foc, I could have bought myself out of the army and still had zords to rent a suite in a Prophecy bordello. I'm that good, you know. I've been playing kili since I could draw the triangle. Do you ever play?"
Sumner was up to his waist in root-tangle and jungle mulch, his whole body fighting with the earth.
"You work hard, soldier." Dice tugged away one of the thick rootlimbs Sumner had dislodged. "You're not like the other goofers here. They do what they have to do, those tuds, and that's all. They're buckers—like me. But you're different. You're crazy different to work so hard."
Sumner seemed lost in his labor, his face knotted around his breath—but he was listening. After months
of solitude with only the rawk of parrots and the gibbering of monkeys, the boy's babbling pleased him. Soon they fell into a work rhythm, with Dice all the while filling the air with his talk, picking up the work-leavings, sharpening the machetes, and clearing away the light brush. Even Broux approved, for Sumner was working harder.
"He watches you closely," Dice said one golden after-noon in a forest clearing, seeing Broux standing squat and solid in the treeshadows. Sumner was splitting logs, his back clenching and heaving, and he didn't look up. "He always has an eye out for you," Dice went on. "I think he's working you up to something, you know? I think he's an opportunist, too."
Dice casually continued snipping the twigs off the logs that Sumner was going to split, but his gaze had turned inward. "You've heard of protomales, Kagan? You look like one. I mean, you're big. And there are units in the army that pay a lot for big men. You think that's why Broux is working you up? I notice you get more food than anyone here. The other buckers see it, too, but they don't talk. You're Broux's. He's working you up for something. What's your card color?"
"White," Sumner grunted in midstroke.
The crack of the cleaving log jarred through Dice. "Are you jooching me?" He scurried to Sumner's side and knelt in the grass, staring up at his grimacing body as the axhead flashed in the sun. "You have a white card? Mister—what are you doing here? Men with white cards don't suffer in Meat City."
Dice spotted Broux strolling along the treeline, and he hurried over to the fallen logs and began stripping them busily. "Broux's working you up, Kagan. Can you see it? A protomale with a white card will earn him more zords than he can count. But why are you here? A white card doesn't belong in this hole."
That evening Sumner relented to Dice's dogging questions and told him about the Sugarat and his beating in the police barracks.
"The White Pillar pulled you out. They won't leave you here," Dice said when Sumner was done. "Unless Broux found some way to dupe them." Dice's eyes brightened shrewdly. "Broux is using you, Kagan. He's jooched the White Pillar, and he's working you up for his own profit. It's obvious."
Sumner hefted his machete and stood up. The evening wind slipping off the pampas was flowery and moist and empty of human scents. "Come on—we'll miss chow."
Dice leaped to his feet and stood in front of Sumner. "Kagan, Broux is using you. He's going to sell you to some clodbusting unit, and you'll spend your life in fly-piss out-posts gutting distorts. You don't have to do that. You're a white card. The Pillars will hold you up. You'll have women, real food, and you'll never see a distort as long as you live. All you have to do is get past Broux. That might be difficult, but if you stay alert, you'll find the way. I'll help you."
Sumner shook his head. "No."
"Kagan, you need plans. Otherwise when the chance is there, you won't even know it."
"No plans. No help."
"You're zaned. Or else you're jooching me. No man with a white card would live like a jungle rat. Life can be every-thing good."
Sumner's face looked hollow. "What makes you think life can be good?" He pushed Dice out of his way and walked into the jungle toward camp.
Dice watched after him with a slack face. Then he shouted: "It's all there is!" Then, softer: "Ratfoc—" and sprinted through the rising darkness to catch up with him.
The western horizon was nicked with dawn but the skull of the sky was still dark when the corsairs raided Meat City. They dropped onto the parade ground between the barracks in three rackety, patchwork strohlkraft, a carnival of fire-bombs and flares blazing overhead.
Sumner was at the latrine ditch cupping a handful of water to clean himself when the darkness erupted into squint-ing radiance. He dropped to his belly, his sarong tangled at his ankles, and watched as the three battered strohlkraft settled in a haze of rainbowing smokefire. Bright flashes from the turret guns rattled the guards' barracks, flipping the tin eaves into the air.