Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long Read Free Book Online

like Sai. They didn’t check me out. They just stared straight ahead, glassy-eyed.
    This time I was awake enough to case the camp, and came to the conclusion that Sai and me were gonna have our work cut out for us when it came time to escape. Almost every Aarurrh male I saw was a warrior. Even the kids were armed, and the population of the camp looked close to a thousand. It filled a wide section of the canyon all the way to both sheer walls. I liked those walls. I didn’t figure the Aarurrh for good climbers, even with all those arms. Their back ends were just too heavy. With my new leaping ability, I could probably scale those walls like they were so many ladders. But what about Sai? Maybe with a rope. Maybe not even then. Okay then, plan B, whatever that was.
    The little creek cut the camp in half. We walked beside it, heading upstream. There were a couple narrow bridges scattered along it, even though the creek was slow and shallow enough that a kid could have waded through it. Maybe the Aarurrh didn’t like getting their fur wet. Maybe that was another way out.
    The only easy way up to the prairie was the trail we’d come down when they brought us in. Beyond that the canyon walls narrowed down until they were no wider than the stream. They might have opened up further on, but the canyon took a left turn about a quarter mile up and I couldn’t see past it. I’d have to try to sneak out and go exploring later.
    As we slogged up the trail Queenie introduced herself and Kitten. “I Hranan of Hirrarah tribe. That my daughter, Murrah. You say Hur-Hranan and Hur-Murrah when speak, hin?”
    I nodded. “Hur-Hranan. Hur-Murrah. Got it. I’m Jane...”
    She stopped me with a laugh and a cuff on the shoulder that was like being hit with a sofa. “That not your name. You got only two name: ‘good girl’ and ‘bad girl,’ hin?”
    I ground my teeth. “Yeah, I hin alright.” I don’t deal with authority real well. If somebody tells me I gotta go one way, I want to go the other way, just on principle, but all my juvie time, prison time, and my stint in the rangers, and all the beatings, ass-kickings, and “disciplinary measures” that went along with ’em, have taught me that fighting back don’t get you nothing but more lumps and more supervision. If you keep your head down and your eyes open, sooner or later they’re going to forget about you and let down their guard. You just gotta be patient and not ruin everything by tearing some big bitch’s head off with your bare hands.
    I rubbed my shoulder and followed along with the other slaves like a “good girl.”
     
    ***
     
    The work was boring and backbreaking, but nothing I couldn’t handle. That first day we dug for tubers under the blue grass. They were fat black things, like a cross between a carrot and an eggplant, but they smelled like garlic and dirt. The Aarurrh chicks worked right along with us slaves, doing the same work, but not as much of it. We dug with sharp sticks—the Aarurrh chicks used their claws—wherever we found a little blue plant with circular leaves, prying the thing out of the ground, knocking the dirt off of it and tossing it in a sack. Thrilling.
    There were forty or so Aarurrh women, and only about fifteen slaves. I got the idea that slaves were quite the status symbol. Most women didn’t have them. Queenie had her nose in the air like a Beverly Hills mom with a new Mercedes SUV.
    As the day went on I tried to talk to my fellow slaves. They were all purple-skins, almost all male, all burned a leathery maroon, and as dull-eyed as cows, but more than half of them spoke languages my translator didn’t understand. I don’t know why I was surprised. Not everybody on Earth speaks English, do they?
    When I finally found a guy who spoke Sai’s language he shoved me away. “Quiet! Speak not!”
    “What? Why?”
    “Foolish woman, we are not allowed to speak.”
    “But you gotta help me. I gotta get out of here. Where are we?