Page 85 of Exiles on Earth
“Everything here serves a function,” I explain. “Clones are assigned quarters based on their role.”
“What about food or clothes?”
“We earn credits from our work, stored on our chip.” I tap my forearm. “But there’s only one real shop, and a few Magirustocks to buy different forms of milapaste from.”
“Do you earn enough to replace your clothes as often as you need to?”
I glance down at my hardy adventuring gear. “No, but it’s made well.”
“That’s something at least.” El-len’s gaze moves past the gray complexes. “In Wales, in the industrial revolution, Tommy shops developed. They were set up by the employers in mining towns—shops where workers could only spend the wages they earned, and only on approved goods. At first, it looked like freedom, a choice to spend as they liked, but it quickly went bad. The goods were overpriced and sometimes cut with other things, like flour bulked out with chalk so they had to buy more. Workers were forced into debt to make ends meet for their families. Meanwhile, pay could be docked for all kinds of things, such as filling up the mine cart too high. It was unfair, a system to benefit the people at the top at the expense of those below.”
I’ve never thought of it that way—not once.
She turns to me, gaze searing but voice quiet. “Is it like that here?”
“Of course,” I admit, because it’s clear. “But it’s the way it is. What can I do about it?”
Fire flares in El-len’s eyes. “Farming’s always getting a raw deal. The work can be hard and shitty, literally. You grapple with life and death all the time, and the reality of stock-keeping is you call them stock so you don’t think of them as lives. Prices are constantly rising, and I have to manage that whilst also trying to compete. That’s the environment I live in.
“My choices are… to give it up, admit defeat, to fold to someone like Terry. Or find another way, some kind of life. While I have the energy to keep fighting, I’m doing that.”
Her dreams become so much more than a fanciful want. El-len needs this to work, to continue her battle.
“You’re brave,” I tell her.
“So are you, for entering your Mating Games.”
Staring at the rows of gray buildings, I realise I already made my choice. I dared to dream, and I entered the Games.
El-len says, “It’s the start of something new for clones, I think. The All-Mother also seems to think so.”
I nod, trying not to feel the crushing pressure of being caught as a pawn between two factions: one who would see clones build a better future, and one who wants them to stay where they are. Stepping out nearly got me and my crew killed.
But if I could choose? I’d choose El-len, each and every time. I have to keep battling for her, the way El-len’s fighting for her dreams, whatever the cost.
“Let’s go in and find Floss,” Ellen reminds me.
I nod. My scales crawl at the idea of entering a facility without authorization, but not even a horde of Parthiastocks could drag me away if El-len asks to stay with me again.
El-len looks up at the ceiling. “Any of those scanners?”
“Fewer inside the building from this entrance.”
“Then let’s go.” She walks in as if along the trail on her land, arms swinging and steps purposeful. The Hortustocks don’t notice her and she steps right inside, me at her heels.
“Where’s the place the guy outside took us?” El-len whispers.
I guide her until we get to offworld vertebrates and specialist plants. As doors cascade apart and rearrange into an entrance, she takes it all in: rows of flora in trays rotated by a mechanical pulley system, bubbling tanks underneath hot bulbs, and True Borns tending to little shoots and pruning leaves. They glance up at us, first nodding to her and then fixing their eyes on me, as if I were a threat to her.
El-len pulls her translation headphones on as a female comes out from the office. “Ysura, please bring me the sickly sapling from row… Oh! Good morning.”
I bow my head and press my knuckle to my forehead in subservience, but one of the males still growls as he rounds the trays of plants and sets himself next to the female. His mate, given that his scales match the weave of her hair braid pattern. In fact, all the True Borns here have the same design along their arms and shoulders, and they all glare at me.
“Good morning. I’m El-len, the human.” El-len bends her knees a little. “I hope it’s okay that I’ve come here, I… oh. Hello, Imaya.”
“El-len! Good morning.” The female sweeps up to her, wrapping the small human briefly in her bare arms.
Now I look at her, I remember this female had sat next to El-len during the interviews. She’s the one who awarded me a score.
