I wish the floor were water so I could sink down into it.
He turns to my data pad. “At least you took some orders while you were up there.” He squints at the pad, and then holds it out for me. “What does that say? M-A-G-O-L-A-S-I. Magolasi?”
“Mango lassi?”
“Not exactly the top of your class, were you?”
I stalk away. My eyes blur as I burst through the kitchen doors, into the hallway where I’ve stowed my things among the other chai wallahs’ crows and lunch bins. I sit down on the narrow metal bench bolted to the wall and drop my face into my hands.
A few moments pass, and then the door squeaks. Someone crosses the floor and sits next to me. “You okay, love?”
I look up. Doya smiles back at me.
“I mucked it all up,” I say.
“Don’t worry.” Doya pats my back. “It’s only your first day. No one’s first day is perfect.”
“I served everything all out of order, and one of the upstairs women yelled at me, and I used the cart wrong, and Ajit couldn’t even read my writing.” My voice breaks. For some reason that hurts worst, that my hard-won writing isn’t good enough.
“I’ll tell you something.” Doya leans back against the wall. “You know why they have us?”
“No,” I say into my hands.
“All those people upstairs, the ones you fetch things for, they aren’t allowed to leave their desks for more than a few minutes. They’ve got efficiency ratings to keep up with, too. Their bosses have us around so they can’t leave off working and run down the street for a nice beer or some tea. You understand?”
I nod.
“So every time one of them screams at me, I think, You’re stuck here with yourself all day, but in a minute or so, I can walk on.”
I nod again. “Right so.”
We sit in silence for a moment.
“Where are you from?” Doya asks.
I hesitate. “Come how?”
“That funny way of talking you have,” Doya says. “I know I’ve heard it someplace before, but I can’t place it.”
“I was born on a crewe ship.” The words are out before I can think on them too much.
“Ah.” Doya’s eyes light up. “The ones that run supplies out to the colonies and outposts?”
“So,” I agree.
“I knew it.” She frowns. “But you don’t look like most of the crewe folk I’ve seen. And I’ve only ever seen the boys.”
“The boys?” I repeat.
She nods. “My daughter, she’s an instructor at a state boarding school. They’ve got a whole wing of boys from crewe ships who’ve been dumped off on Bhutto station or left behind down here. Strange things. Pale.” She looks me over. “You sure you’re one of them?”
“Right so,” I say. “But . . . they got left behind?”
“Mmm hmm. My daughter says their old men marry up all the girls, and there isn’t anyone left for the boys, especially the ones from less powerful families. So they dump them off here. Awful.” She looks at me. “No offense.”
I shake my head. Some boys I knew died on their first journeys groundways, but Earth and its outposts could be dangerous places, like Modrie Reller and my father always said. And once Soli told me about a boy who had been banished from the Æther after some bad matter came over him and made him stab his friend. But nothing like that ever happened on the Parastrata. Surely that was never something we did. Was it?
A sick feeling creeps over me. “Do any of them . . .” I swallow. “None of them have red hair, do they?”
“Oh, sure.” Doya shrugs. “All colors. Red, brown, white, yellow, black.”
My head reels. I lean back against the wall. For a heartbeat, I’m back aboard the Parastrata, ten turns old and watching Llell’s mother sink to her knees before Modrie Reller. My Niecein. Couldn’t they bring back his body? That night I had laid awake, thinking of Niecein’s soul gone to dust and thanking the Mercies the men were the ones to brave the Earth instead of me. But now . . . Have all those dead boys been here the whole time?
And there was something else Doya said, something prickling at the back of my mind. Red, brown, white, yellow, black.
Black. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I sit up straight. “Are any of them my age?”
She frowns and leans back as if she can see me better from farther away. “Maybe,” she says uncertainly. “They’re mostly younger. Twelve to fifteen, maybe?”
“But mostly, right so? You said mostly.”
Doya tilts her head. “I guess. I mean, I only visit once a year for Holi.”
“So there could be some older?” My skin is electric.
Doya frowns. “I’ve never seen any, but—”
“But maybe since you visited last, they found more boys.”
Doya purses her lips, and then nods. “My daughter says they’re always finding new boys, so I guess it’s possible. Maybe.”
“Where is this place?” I lean forward. “The one where your daughter works.”
“It’s up in Khajjiar, in Himachal Pradesh.”
Khajjiar, Himachal Pradesh. Khajjiar, Himachal Pradesh. I try to write it in my memory. “Is that far?”
“Why?” Doya raises an eyebrow. “You’re not thinking of going there, are you?”
“No,” I say quickly. As kind as Doya is, I’m not spilling all my sadness and shame for her. “I mean . . . I don’t . . . I was just wondering. I thought maybe one day I might. To see if I knew any of them.”
“Ah.” Doya shrugs. “It takes most of a day on the bullet train. Not too bad if you’re going to stay awhile, I guess.”
“Thank you, Doya.” I squeeze her hand and stand.
“You ready to go back to work?” she asks.
I’m not. I want to run out of here right now and climb aboard the bullet train, but I can’t. I have to stay here, be faster, do better. Ajit and the upstairs folk can shout at me all they want, because as soon as I’m paid up with Rushil and see that Miyole has what she needs, I’m taking that train to Khajjiar to see if Luck is one of the boys who was left behind.
CHAPTER
.25
Rushil crouches at my side below the sloop’s underbelly, box of fixers at the ready. “Is it that one?” He points to one of the blackened shield tiles and pushes his glasses up his nose.
“I think so.” I slide past him and run my fingers over the tile’s rivets. My attempts to keep him away while I fix the ship have completely failed. “Do you have something that will get these off?”