Iteration
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Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Naruto/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
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119
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Category:
Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Naruto/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
119
Views:
2,721
Reviews:
1203
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This story has some of Masashi Kishimoto's characters from Naruto in a universe of my own devising. I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money from these writings.
Scavenger
‘Iteration’ is part of the space saga that began with ‘In the cold of space you find the heat of suns’ and continues in ‘Tales in Tarrasade’. There is also a one-shot ‘Silver Leaf Tales: Tying the knot’.
Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta. For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc.
Thank you to those readers who have written a review and particular thanks to v, richon, blugirlani21, lonelylulaby, unneeded, Prism0467, sadie237, YamanashiOchinashiIminashi and satterb who reviewed chapter 79.
Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.
This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga. However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes). Apologies to those hoping for Sasuke/Naruto or Naruto/Sasuke action in every chapter.
Chapter eighty: Scavenger
Warning: this chapter includes an attitude to death and dying that some readers may find disturbing
Udon was puzzled by the poster. No one posted posters in Sublevel C. Posters were all about making people buy things and no one living in Sublevel C had any credit. If they had credit, they lived somewhere else.
He went closer. The poster had words on it. The big letters at the top read:
ARE YOU A SCAVENGER SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE CAREER PATH?
He read it again because he was sure he must have read it wrong. There were no alternative career paths for Scavengers. If you were born a Scavenger you stayed a Scavenger. Most people looked through you because they would prefer to pretend you didn’t exist. Other than the dying, who were often babbling and who occasionally said thank you, Udon had never been spoken to by a Ressie.
A poster directed at Scavengers was pointless; none of them could read.
Except him; he decided to read the rest of it. He glanced about, checking for his uncle or another Scavenger, before moving closer. He wished he dared wear one of the pairs of eyeglasses he had hidden but being caught wearing those would be even worse than been seen looking at the poster.
Scavengers behaved like Scavengers; other Scavengers insisted on it. Aberrant behaviour was not tolerated; you conformed or you were shunned. Scavengers did not read. They did not even express a wish to read. Education ended with understanding the recycling codes and being able to add up so you knew the Recyclers were not cheating you.
Much of Udon’s behaviour was highly aberrant but he went to great lengths to keep that a secret. He sidled even closer to the poster.
ARE YOU A SCAVENGER SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE CAREER PATH?
Is your favourite part of being a Scavenger helping others?
Come to SLC-22-18 at station’s dawn on day 10 div 4
It was day 9.
“Is that recyclable?” his uncle called from the other end of the corridor.
It was, so Udon had to pull it down from the wall, fold it up and put it in the correct compartment of his uncle’s trolley. That was the ultimate possession of a Scavenger; a trolley.
To be granted a trolley you had to be male and you had to be worthy. He was male, he was eighteen standards in age, he had worked as a Scavenger since he was seven but he would never be worthy.
If your father hadn’t had a trolley, you were never worthy. No one even knew who Udon’s father was, never mind if he had pushed a trolley. His mother, his uncle’s sister, had taken that secret with her into the recycler.
He was lucky that his uncle and aunt had decided to raise him rather than leave him with his mother’s body. A day never went past without them reminding him of their generosity.
“Do you want me to check around the dump sites?” he asked.
His uncle thought that Udon’s speciality was finding people who crawled into a private corner to die. Udon did that. It was what he did with the people between finding them and delivering their bodies to his uncle that was secret.
“Might as well,” his uncle conceded. “You’re not much use to me doing anything else.”
His uncle much preferred checking the middens for other recyclables. Sometimes Udon thought it ridiculous that his uncle disliked death; he was a Scavenger. Other times he appreciated it. At least he wasn’t one of those who lurked at the dump sites with clubs to beat the last spark of life from the dying.
Permission granted, Udon was off.
He skirted around the occupied areas, avoiding Scavengers and Ressies alike. The further he went from the occupied areas the better Udon felt. This was the bearable part of his life; away from his family, other Scavengers and the Ressies who hated them.
First stop was to retrieve his satchel. Next was harvesting one of his fungus farms and checking the plants he was growing using lights he had built from scavenged electrical components.
Udon had many secret places. Some were in service tunnels. Others were rooms that had been abandoned for decades. Provided there was an air supply, Udon could almost always get the electrics working. He was particularly good with locks. There were so many jammed doors in Sublevel C that no one ever noticed a few more.
Satchel filled, he started his rounds.
Over the standards he had developed a whole technology for caring for the dying: pallets with channels to carry away the waste; cultures that stopped the faces and urine stinking; a supply of drinking water that only required the person to be able to suck.
A soft pad that helped him suffocate them quickly when the time came.
The old man in 10 had died in the night. Udon rechecked for any sign of life and then went on his way; he would return for the body later.
His uncle would be pleased. The old man had been big once; even emaciated he would bring a goodly lump of credit from the Recyclers.
The others were still hanging on. Udon cleaned them, treated their bedsores, trickled water into their mouths and persuaded a few of them to eat a few spoonfuls of chopped berries or mushrooms. The ex-spacer in 5 and the hybrid in 7 were still capable of talking. The spacer was raving. The hybrid was in a lot of pain but he was still coherent. He asked Udon to read to him from the small book of poems that had been in his inside breast pocket when he had been thrown down the disposal chute by his attackers.
Udon had hoped the hybrid might make it. It had happened. Not this time; he could tell from the way the wounds were smelling.
He would keep the book. It would become part of his library.
“You got a knife I could borrow?” the hybrid croaked as Udon closed the book.
Udon nodded and brought his best one out of the satchel.
“It sharp?” the hybrid asked.
“Yes,” Udon replied. “I can do it for you,” he offered.
“Not yet. Maybe later, if...” he trailed off, racked by a wave of pain.
“I’ll leave it here,” Udon said. “Where you can reach it.”
“Thank you,” the hybrid mouthed. He moved and pressed something into Udon’s hand.
It was a two-headed medallion. Udon accepted it with a nod. He would put it with the other gifts.
At least his uncle did not complain about his long absence; that was the advantage of arriving with a body.
Evenings were worst. He had to stay in his place, pretend to be what he wasn’t and obey each of his aunt’s whims. Meanwhile his cousin, who did almost no work but would doubtless inherit his father’s trolley, made himself feel bigger by making Udon feel smaller.
He could not even have any of his things around him; it was too risky.
His cousin was talking about a girl. Udon hoped he was fucking her and would get her pregnant. Then their parents would enter a contract and she would come to live with them. Maybe then his cousin would be too busy to bother him. Maybe then his uncle would agree to Udon moving out.
Udon had stopped asking. Last time his aunt had snapped at him and threatened to have him shunned for his ingratitude.
If he was shunned he would no longer be a Scavenger and if he wasn’t a Scavenger he was nothing.
Which was why he didn’t go to intersection 22-18 at station’s dawn.
Tennyo Three had jumped at the opportunity to visit Tarrasade. The idea of being based at one space station for a protracted period of time, possibly standards, did not dissuade her. Even the idea of giving up the Marishiten did not put her off.
When she was honest with herself, Sakura admitted that she was a little tired of a life aboard ship, even a ship as wonderful as the Marishiten.
Being Chaaruzu-san’s agent in Tarrasade would be a new challenge.
She had a fascinating new home. It was, in fact, three interconnected apartments that opened onto levels 1, 4 and 5. She could go through the level 4 door as ‘Angela’ the ex-spacer and come out on level 1 as ‘Solange’, who was very like the Tennyo-san identity she had used in the Warren. The level 5 identity still required some work; she had only got as far as selecting a name, Arella, and an appearance, mousey.
If her first task was anything to go by, life in Tarrasade would be as challenging as being one of Chaaruzu-san’s mobile operatives. She was to recruit a Scavenger with a good heart and high potential to work with the new charity Chaaruzu-san was setting up.
Which was, she was beginning to think, impossible.
It was not a good start.
After a great deal of research, thought and running computer models, she had come up with the idea of a poster. It was simple and it was likely to attract a Scavenger who could read.
If such a person existed, which she doubted.
Today, day 10 of div 4, ‘Angela’ and the trio of bodyguards she had on retainer had waited forty minutes at intersection 22-18 on Sublevel C. This was their second attempt at a rendezvous.
The computer model suggested that each poster was likely to be up for an average of twenty-eight minutes before someone, most likely a Scavenger, took it down. The advantage of hiring this particular trio for bodyguarding duties was their flexibility; as well escorting her to the rendezvous, they had accepted the task of posting twenty posters each day at specified locations.
She knew they thought she was crazy but she paid well and promptly for easy work. In return, they were reliable and trustworthy. It was an excellent working relationship.
The fortieth minute expired. She handed Ishidate, the leader, another hundred posters. These ones specified the same time and location but were for day 15 of div 4.
She saw the looks the three of them exchanged. Ishidate shrugged and accepted the five rolls. He handed them to Kongo, who did most of the carrying. Karenbana took out her tablet and recorded that they had accepted the task.
“It’s your credit, Angela-san,” Ishidate acknowledged.
Which, of course, it wasn’t, but that was none of his business.
By next day the hybrid had slit his wrist and bled out. Udon retrieved his knife and stowed the book of poems in his satchel. As usual, he completed his rounds before dealing with the body. Only four of his twelve rooms contained people; crawlers had been few and far between lately. He saw to their needs and then went back to the dead hybrid. He battered the body a bit, so it looked like someone had thrown it down the disposal chute recently. Then turned his attention to sorting out the room.
His nose dripped as he cleaned; his allergies were acting up and the smell of blood always made them worse.
Job finished, he read one of the poems and looked at the medallion. On one side was a blond with startling blue eyes and whiskers; he was a hybrid. On the other was a handsome male with mysterious, dark eyes. Udon wondered who they were.
Break over, he lashed the body to a litter, locked the room and began dragging it to where his uncle would be at that time of day. He wished he could fit the litter with wheels but that would make it a trolley; Udon was not allowed a trolley.
On the way he saw another of the posters. There was no one about so he risked passing close by. The words were the same, as was the time and the location. The only difference was that it was day 15 rather than day 10.
Udon did not know if he was impressed or annoyed by their persistence.
His uncle was pleased enough mention the hybrid’s body to his aunt, which was a mistake. She never liked being reminded that Udon was actually useful and contributed a big chunk of the family income.
If looks were lasers, he would have been fried.
“Tanishi should spend time with you, Udon,” she suggested sweetly. “So that he could learn your little tricks.”
“Mother!” his cousin complained.
Udon knew better than to object. “It would be a pleasure, aunt. The best places are at the bottom of the disposal chutes from Sublevels B and A during the second half of ship’s night. You have to be quick on your feet to avoid the clubbers but Tanishi is young. He should be able to outrun them easily.”
His cousin looked alarmed and his aunt huffed. “Maybe he should wait until he is sixteen,” she suggested.
Udon thought he saw a trace of annoyance in his uncle’s eyes.
“May I go out tonight, uncle?” he asked.
“No,” his uncle replied. “It isn’t worth the risk. Stick to your usual daytime checks. You are finding enough bodies that way.”
Only he wasn’t; his meagre supply was almost gone.
Luckily his uncle did not suggest he showed his cousin his ‘usual checks’.
Two days later the old spacer in 5 stopped talking and died. He only had three left. Three people to care for. Three future bodies that would stop his uncle asking where he had been. Three reasons why his uncle would stand up to his aunt when she suggested that he was shunned.
He had to do something.
The evening of day 14 of each div was when the trolley pushers met so his uncle would be absent. Udon took advantage and asked his aunt whether he could visit the dump sites in the second half of station night.
She gave him permission, as he had known she would. She smiled and he knew she was imagining him being clubbed to death.
Not that the clubbers would kill a fellow Scavenger; break his knees perhaps but not kill him.
In some ways Udon preferred scavenging at night. The Ressies were quiet so there was no shouted abuse and no missiles to dodge. You never saw a Scavenger woman during station night, so Udon did not suffer the humiliation of their comments or, worse, when they looked through him. For some reason he had never fully understood, Scavenger men were more civil to him at night than during the day.
Maybe they, like him, had no hope of inheriting a trolley; all the pushers and their heirs were safe in their beds. Maybe that was why they acknowledged his existence with a nod.
He had a route mapped out checking the smaller chutes and skirting the larger ones. As usual, the chutes from Sublevels B and A were staked out by clubbers, most of them drunk. Udon needed to keep an eye out for when they gave up and went home.
Usually the ones guarding the chute from Sublevel A drank more and gave up first. There was less chance of success and it was close enough to the chute from Sublevel B that they could hear the yells of triumph every time a body arrived.
Three bodies had come down the chute from Sublevel B but none from A; the clubbers at the Sublevel A chute would give up soon. Udon lurked.
A rumble; Udon saw the clubbers look up expectantly. They scrambled to make a circle around the midden. The noise got louder and they readied their clubs.
A pale body, naked and bloody, fell from the bottom of the chute. It landed at the top of the pile.
The clubbers were motionless. Udon was frozen. It was a young woman, not much more than a girl. She was in a bad way. The sound of her death rattle filled the air.
She had landed on her back. Jutting upwards was her huge, baby-stretched belly.
The clubbers did not know what to do; pregnant bodies were rare and, traditionally, they were checked by Scavenger women in case the baby was alive.
Udon knew that it would be too late by the time they fetched someone. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. He started towards the pile.
One of the clubbers growled and moved threateningly but another held him back. Udon climbed the pile, knelt beside the girl and brought out his knife.
He dispatched her first; he hoped it was kinder that way. Then he sliced open her belly, exposing the womb.
He cut carefully. There was a lot of blood, followed by a flood of watery fluids and he could see the baby. He pulled it out and, to his surprise, it breathed and started crying.
One of the clubbers was climbing up. Udon shielded the baby from him.
“You need to tie off the cord,” the clubber said. “About here and here,” he added, pointing. “Then you cut it between.”
Udon had string in his satchel. He lay the baby on his mother’s chest and did as instructed. It worked; the stump of the cord did not bleed.
“You going take it to your aunt?” the clubber asked.
Udon shook his head.
“Good,” the clubber agreed. “Give it to a Ressie. It might have a chance that way.”
Udon took off his outer shirt and wrapped it around the baby. He picked his way down the pile and walked away, leaving the girl’s body to the clubbers.
Once away he looked down at the baby’s face. The clubber was wrong; it did not have a chance. Its only hope would have been if a Scavenger woman who was making milk for her own baby had taken pity on it.
He could not think of one. Most Scavenger women were short on pity.
The baby was going to starve; Udon felt guilty for allowing it to live.
Then, weirdly, he thought of the poster. It was day 15. They wanted a Scavenger who helped others. He would show them what happened when Scavengers started caring. It was almost station dawn. He turned in the direction of 22-18.
‘Angela’ did not expect day 15 to go any better than day 10 or day 5. She would persist with this strategy until day 30 before switching to another. At the moment she had no idea what that other strategy would be.
Ishidate and Karenbana slid down the ladder before her and Kongo afterwards. They walked the short distance to intersection 22-18.
Shockingly, there was someone there waiting for them. He was young, adolescent, puny and he stank. He was holding something.
“Did you put up the posters?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she answered. She would have said more but he moved towards her. Her bodyguards stiffened, maybe because they thought he was a threat but probably because they, like her, had realised that he was holding a baby.
He thrust the baby at her.
“This,” he declared. “This is what happens when Scavengers care. A baby who should have died quickly dies slow.”
He was pushing the wrapped baby against her and her arms went around it without thought. As soon as she had hold of it he let go, turned and left.
She looked down at the baby. She didn’t which would be worse, if it was living or if it was dead.
It was alive.
This was not part of the plan.
Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta. For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc.
Thank you to those readers who have written a review and particular thanks to v, richon, blugirlani21, lonelylulaby, unneeded, Prism0467, sadie237, YamanashiOchinashiIminashi and satterb who reviewed chapter 79.
Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.
This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga. However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes). Apologies to those hoping for Sasuke/Naruto or Naruto/Sasuke action in every chapter.
Chapter eighty: Scavenger
Warning: this chapter includes an attitude to death and dying that some readers may find disturbing
Udon was puzzled by the poster. No one posted posters in Sublevel C. Posters were all about making people buy things and no one living in Sublevel C had any credit. If they had credit, they lived somewhere else.
He went closer. The poster had words on it. The big letters at the top read:
He read it again because he was sure he must have read it wrong. There were no alternative career paths for Scavengers. If you were born a Scavenger you stayed a Scavenger. Most people looked through you because they would prefer to pretend you didn’t exist. Other than the dying, who were often babbling and who occasionally said thank you, Udon had never been spoken to by a Ressie.
A poster directed at Scavengers was pointless; none of them could read.
Except him; he decided to read the rest of it. He glanced about, checking for his uncle or another Scavenger, before moving closer. He wished he dared wear one of the pairs of eyeglasses he had hidden but being caught wearing those would be even worse than been seen looking at the poster.
Scavengers behaved like Scavengers; other Scavengers insisted on it. Aberrant behaviour was not tolerated; you conformed or you were shunned. Scavengers did not read. They did not even express a wish to read. Education ended with understanding the recycling codes and being able to add up so you knew the Recyclers were not cheating you.
Much of Udon’s behaviour was highly aberrant but he went to great lengths to keep that a secret. He sidled even closer to the poster.
Is your favourite part of being a Scavenger helping others?
Come to SLC-22-18 at station’s dawn on day 10 div 4
It was day 9.
“Is that recyclable?” his uncle called from the other end of the corridor.
It was, so Udon had to pull it down from the wall, fold it up and put it in the correct compartment of his uncle’s trolley. That was the ultimate possession of a Scavenger; a trolley.
To be granted a trolley you had to be male and you had to be worthy. He was male, he was eighteen standards in age, he had worked as a Scavenger since he was seven but he would never be worthy.
If your father hadn’t had a trolley, you were never worthy. No one even knew who Udon’s father was, never mind if he had pushed a trolley. His mother, his uncle’s sister, had taken that secret with her into the recycler.
He was lucky that his uncle and aunt had decided to raise him rather than leave him with his mother’s body. A day never went past without them reminding him of their generosity.
“Do you want me to check around the dump sites?” he asked.
His uncle thought that Udon’s speciality was finding people who crawled into a private corner to die. Udon did that. It was what he did with the people between finding them and delivering their bodies to his uncle that was secret.
“Might as well,” his uncle conceded. “You’re not much use to me doing anything else.”
His uncle much preferred checking the middens for other recyclables. Sometimes Udon thought it ridiculous that his uncle disliked death; he was a Scavenger. Other times he appreciated it. At least he wasn’t one of those who lurked at the dump sites with clubs to beat the last spark of life from the dying.
Permission granted, Udon was off.
He skirted around the occupied areas, avoiding Scavengers and Ressies alike. The further he went from the occupied areas the better Udon felt. This was the bearable part of his life; away from his family, other Scavengers and the Ressies who hated them.
First stop was to retrieve his satchel. Next was harvesting one of his fungus farms and checking the plants he was growing using lights he had built from scavenged electrical components.
Udon had many secret places. Some were in service tunnels. Others were rooms that had been abandoned for decades. Provided there was an air supply, Udon could almost always get the electrics working. He was particularly good with locks. There were so many jammed doors in Sublevel C that no one ever noticed a few more.
Satchel filled, he started his rounds.
Over the standards he had developed a whole technology for caring for the dying: pallets with channels to carry away the waste; cultures that stopped the faces and urine stinking; a supply of drinking water that only required the person to be able to suck.
A soft pad that helped him suffocate them quickly when the time came.
The old man in 10 had died in the night. Udon rechecked for any sign of life and then went on his way; he would return for the body later.
His uncle would be pleased. The old man had been big once; even emaciated he would bring a goodly lump of credit from the Recyclers.
The others were still hanging on. Udon cleaned them, treated their bedsores, trickled water into their mouths and persuaded a few of them to eat a few spoonfuls of chopped berries or mushrooms. The ex-spacer in 5 and the hybrid in 7 were still capable of talking. The spacer was raving. The hybrid was in a lot of pain but he was still coherent. He asked Udon to read to him from the small book of poems that had been in his inside breast pocket when he had been thrown down the disposal chute by his attackers.
Udon had hoped the hybrid might make it. It had happened. Not this time; he could tell from the way the wounds were smelling.
He would keep the book. It would become part of his library.
“You got a knife I could borrow?” the hybrid croaked as Udon closed the book.
Udon nodded and brought his best one out of the satchel.
“It sharp?” the hybrid asked.
“Yes,” Udon replied. “I can do it for you,” he offered.
“Not yet. Maybe later, if...” he trailed off, racked by a wave of pain.
“I’ll leave it here,” Udon said. “Where you can reach it.”
“Thank you,” the hybrid mouthed. He moved and pressed something into Udon’s hand.
It was a two-headed medallion. Udon accepted it with a nod. He would put it with the other gifts.
At least his uncle did not complain about his long absence; that was the advantage of arriving with a body.
Evenings were worst. He had to stay in his place, pretend to be what he wasn’t and obey each of his aunt’s whims. Meanwhile his cousin, who did almost no work but would doubtless inherit his father’s trolley, made himself feel bigger by making Udon feel smaller.
He could not even have any of his things around him; it was too risky.
His cousin was talking about a girl. Udon hoped he was fucking her and would get her pregnant. Then their parents would enter a contract and she would come to live with them. Maybe then his cousin would be too busy to bother him. Maybe then his uncle would agree to Udon moving out.
Udon had stopped asking. Last time his aunt had snapped at him and threatened to have him shunned for his ingratitude.
If he was shunned he would no longer be a Scavenger and if he wasn’t a Scavenger he was nothing.
Which was why he didn’t go to intersection 22-18 at station’s dawn.
Tennyo Three had jumped at the opportunity to visit Tarrasade. The idea of being based at one space station for a protracted period of time, possibly standards, did not dissuade her. Even the idea of giving up the Marishiten did not put her off.
When she was honest with herself, Sakura admitted that she was a little tired of a life aboard ship, even a ship as wonderful as the Marishiten.
Being Chaaruzu-san’s agent in Tarrasade would be a new challenge.
She had a fascinating new home. It was, in fact, three interconnected apartments that opened onto levels 1, 4 and 5. She could go through the level 4 door as ‘Angela’ the ex-spacer and come out on level 1 as ‘Solange’, who was very like the Tennyo-san identity she had used in the Warren. The level 5 identity still required some work; she had only got as far as selecting a name, Arella, and an appearance, mousey.
If her first task was anything to go by, life in Tarrasade would be as challenging as being one of Chaaruzu-san’s mobile operatives. She was to recruit a Scavenger with a good heart and high potential to work with the new charity Chaaruzu-san was setting up.
Which was, she was beginning to think, impossible.
It was not a good start.
After a great deal of research, thought and running computer models, she had come up with the idea of a poster. It was simple and it was likely to attract a Scavenger who could read.
If such a person existed, which she doubted.
Today, day 10 of div 4, ‘Angela’ and the trio of bodyguards she had on retainer had waited forty minutes at intersection 22-18 on Sublevel C. This was their second attempt at a rendezvous.
The computer model suggested that each poster was likely to be up for an average of twenty-eight minutes before someone, most likely a Scavenger, took it down. The advantage of hiring this particular trio for bodyguarding duties was their flexibility; as well escorting her to the rendezvous, they had accepted the task of posting twenty posters each day at specified locations.
She knew they thought she was crazy but she paid well and promptly for easy work. In return, they were reliable and trustworthy. It was an excellent working relationship.
The fortieth minute expired. She handed Ishidate, the leader, another hundred posters. These ones specified the same time and location but were for day 15 of div 4.
She saw the looks the three of them exchanged. Ishidate shrugged and accepted the five rolls. He handed them to Kongo, who did most of the carrying. Karenbana took out her tablet and recorded that they had accepted the task.
“It’s your credit, Angela-san,” Ishidate acknowledged.
Which, of course, it wasn’t, but that was none of his business.
By next day the hybrid had slit his wrist and bled out. Udon retrieved his knife and stowed the book of poems in his satchel. As usual, he completed his rounds before dealing with the body. Only four of his twelve rooms contained people; crawlers had been few and far between lately. He saw to their needs and then went back to the dead hybrid. He battered the body a bit, so it looked like someone had thrown it down the disposal chute recently. Then turned his attention to sorting out the room.
His nose dripped as he cleaned; his allergies were acting up and the smell of blood always made them worse.
Job finished, he read one of the poems and looked at the medallion. On one side was a blond with startling blue eyes and whiskers; he was a hybrid. On the other was a handsome male with mysterious, dark eyes. Udon wondered who they were.
Break over, he lashed the body to a litter, locked the room and began dragging it to where his uncle would be at that time of day. He wished he could fit the litter with wheels but that would make it a trolley; Udon was not allowed a trolley.
On the way he saw another of the posters. There was no one about so he risked passing close by. The words were the same, as was the time and the location. The only difference was that it was day 15 rather than day 10.
Udon did not know if he was impressed or annoyed by their persistence.
His uncle was pleased enough mention the hybrid’s body to his aunt, which was a mistake. She never liked being reminded that Udon was actually useful and contributed a big chunk of the family income.
If looks were lasers, he would have been fried.
“Tanishi should spend time with you, Udon,” she suggested sweetly. “So that he could learn your little tricks.”
“Mother!” his cousin complained.
Udon knew better than to object. “It would be a pleasure, aunt. The best places are at the bottom of the disposal chutes from Sublevels B and A during the second half of ship’s night. You have to be quick on your feet to avoid the clubbers but Tanishi is young. He should be able to outrun them easily.”
His cousin looked alarmed and his aunt huffed. “Maybe he should wait until he is sixteen,” she suggested.
Udon thought he saw a trace of annoyance in his uncle’s eyes.
“May I go out tonight, uncle?” he asked.
“No,” his uncle replied. “It isn’t worth the risk. Stick to your usual daytime checks. You are finding enough bodies that way.”
Only he wasn’t; his meagre supply was almost gone.
Luckily his uncle did not suggest he showed his cousin his ‘usual checks’.
Two days later the old spacer in 5 stopped talking and died. He only had three left. Three people to care for. Three future bodies that would stop his uncle asking where he had been. Three reasons why his uncle would stand up to his aunt when she suggested that he was shunned.
He had to do something.
The evening of day 14 of each div was when the trolley pushers met so his uncle would be absent. Udon took advantage and asked his aunt whether he could visit the dump sites in the second half of station night.
She gave him permission, as he had known she would. She smiled and he knew she was imagining him being clubbed to death.
Not that the clubbers would kill a fellow Scavenger; break his knees perhaps but not kill him.
In some ways Udon preferred scavenging at night. The Ressies were quiet so there was no shouted abuse and no missiles to dodge. You never saw a Scavenger woman during station night, so Udon did not suffer the humiliation of their comments or, worse, when they looked through him. For some reason he had never fully understood, Scavenger men were more civil to him at night than during the day.
Maybe they, like him, had no hope of inheriting a trolley; all the pushers and their heirs were safe in their beds. Maybe that was why they acknowledged his existence with a nod.
He had a route mapped out checking the smaller chutes and skirting the larger ones. As usual, the chutes from Sublevels B and A were staked out by clubbers, most of them drunk. Udon needed to keep an eye out for when they gave up and went home.
Usually the ones guarding the chute from Sublevel A drank more and gave up first. There was less chance of success and it was close enough to the chute from Sublevel B that they could hear the yells of triumph every time a body arrived.
Three bodies had come down the chute from Sublevel B but none from A; the clubbers at the Sublevel A chute would give up soon. Udon lurked.
A rumble; Udon saw the clubbers look up expectantly. They scrambled to make a circle around the midden. The noise got louder and they readied their clubs.
A pale body, naked and bloody, fell from the bottom of the chute. It landed at the top of the pile.
The clubbers were motionless. Udon was frozen. It was a young woman, not much more than a girl. She was in a bad way. The sound of her death rattle filled the air.
She had landed on her back. Jutting upwards was her huge, baby-stretched belly.
The clubbers did not know what to do; pregnant bodies were rare and, traditionally, they were checked by Scavenger women in case the baby was alive.
Udon knew that it would be too late by the time they fetched someone. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. He started towards the pile.
One of the clubbers growled and moved threateningly but another held him back. Udon climbed the pile, knelt beside the girl and brought out his knife.
He dispatched her first; he hoped it was kinder that way. Then he sliced open her belly, exposing the womb.
He cut carefully. There was a lot of blood, followed by a flood of watery fluids and he could see the baby. He pulled it out and, to his surprise, it breathed and started crying.
One of the clubbers was climbing up. Udon shielded the baby from him.
“You need to tie off the cord,” the clubber said. “About here and here,” he added, pointing. “Then you cut it between.”
Udon had string in his satchel. He lay the baby on his mother’s chest and did as instructed. It worked; the stump of the cord did not bleed.
“You going take it to your aunt?” the clubber asked.
Udon shook his head.
“Good,” the clubber agreed. “Give it to a Ressie. It might have a chance that way.”
Udon took off his outer shirt and wrapped it around the baby. He picked his way down the pile and walked away, leaving the girl’s body to the clubbers.
Once away he looked down at the baby’s face. The clubber was wrong; it did not have a chance. Its only hope would have been if a Scavenger woman who was making milk for her own baby had taken pity on it.
He could not think of one. Most Scavenger women were short on pity.
The baby was going to starve; Udon felt guilty for allowing it to live.
Then, weirdly, he thought of the poster. It was day 15. They wanted a Scavenger who helped others. He would show them what happened when Scavengers started caring. It was almost station dawn. He turned in the direction of 22-18.
‘Angela’ did not expect day 15 to go any better than day 10 or day 5. She would persist with this strategy until day 30 before switching to another. At the moment she had no idea what that other strategy would be.
Ishidate and Karenbana slid down the ladder before her and Kongo afterwards. They walked the short distance to intersection 22-18.
Shockingly, there was someone there waiting for them. He was young, adolescent, puny and he stank. He was holding something.
“Did you put up the posters?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she answered. She would have said more but he moved towards her. Her bodyguards stiffened, maybe because they thought he was a threat but probably because they, like her, had realised that he was holding a baby.
He thrust the baby at her.
“This,” he declared. “This is what happens when Scavengers care. A baby who should have died quickly dies slow.”
He was pushing the wrapped baby against her and her arms went around it without thought. As soon as she had hold of it he let go, turned and left.
She looked down at the baby. She didn’t which would be worse, if it was living or if it was dead.
It was alive.
This was not part of the plan.