Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
I chose correctly when I stowed away. If I play this well, I could save my life.
“I am a human,” I repeat. Then everything starts to fade. Before I lose consciousness, I make sure to repeat the words Leylah taught me, when she made me rehearse every syllable in his language. “I request asylum. I will do whatever you want. Please help me.”
Chapter 2
One Planet Rotation Earlier
Taisha
“This is a good one.” Leylah’s voice is rich with pleasure. The old woman is like a grandmother to all the female slaves in my barracks. Keeper of oral history and human knowledge. The fire flickers on the hearth as her deft fingers use metal tweezers to prod and twist the skin of the serpent I beheaded this planet rotation. “Mature adult. I will get a good dose of venom.”
She gets up, makes an ooph sound, and shuffles to her cabinet. Her gait is heavy tonight. There’s something about her that seems off. Wrong.
“Are you feeling well?” I frown. She’s slowed down lately, having Keerah do most of her serpent work, but right now, she seems especially fragile.
“I am still kicking.” She smiles, her wrinkled face shining in the light. “Keerah, some help?”
Keerah ducks her head; she’s the shyest, quietest of all the humans here. Sometimes she gets pink even talking to those of us she regularly interacts with. But right now she’s confident. She shifts the cabinet, revealing just baked earth below. But in the wall, a secret compartment that matches the rough mud and wood conceals the secret stash.
Leylah opens it and comes back with goggles, proTek gloves, and a small glass bottle; things she traded for—precious things—at market. As our barracks’ mother she’s allowed a pass to go to the local town to trade for necessities for us, from time to time. When outlanders are on planet, she takes advantage to trade for things like this.
The Ocretion masters think she’s only getting sweets and clothing. They have no idea what we do when they are not watching. Of what we are capable, even in our servitude. These gaps in their ownership allow us to dream of the future.
Leylah pants a bit as she squeezes the head near the jaws. I watch, rapt, as the milky fluid trickles into the jar. When she’s done, she tosses the snake head into the fire, wincing as she draws her arm back. The delicate skull bones dissolve to powder in the furnace but the fangs remain, and those she will save.
“When it is mixed with the extract of the tellaflora plant, it creates the antivenom. So if you girls get bitten, we can save you. Keerah, do it yourself, now.”
Keerah puts on the second set of goggles, the ones that are hers, and repeats it with the other head, the one that Makina brought. She breathes audibly with concentration, her brow furrowed. Her fingers, younger and stronger than Leylah’s, are fast and sure in her pair of gloves. She mixes in the tellaflora and checks the color. Tests it using the litmus paper Leylah stole. “It’s good.”
“Store it. From now on, you own this supply. You are the master of the serpents here.”
Keerah’s eyebrows go up and she makes a little sound, but then she just nods.
Leylah looks around the room. “Is that clear? From now on, you listen to Keerah. You honor the secret with your lives, with all of our lives. We tell nobody about this work, or we’ll all suffer.”
We all nod. Love or hate each other, we are bound together in this. It is a secret that we will never give up. It would be like giving up air to breathe, this secret.
“You will respect Keerah with the serpent skills.”
Again, we bow our heads in agreement.
Leylah has taught us well. Each of us has learned something from her. Keerah, the potion to reverse snake bites. Me? I’ve learned all her tales, the ones that were passed on to her from other slaves, generation to generation.
“Good job.” Leylah’s voice is neutral, but I see the gnarls in her knuckles and shudder. She’s old, and I don’t like the way my bones feel right now—like something is wrong.
“You should be making a large batch of toxins so we can kill them all.” Rannah’s voice is dark, accusing.
She’s told the others what I did this planet rotation. How I saved an Ocretion young from drowning. She hasn’t spoken to me since.
Although we sit together, I feel remote. They’re judging me. Deciding what to think about me.
Leylah looks up. “We are not ready for a revolution. If we tried too soon, we’d all die. Right now, we stay alive and pass on our knowledge, human to human. We prepare for our one chance. If we take it too soon, we lose it forever.”
“But they deserve to suffer.” Rannah leans forward like she wants to fight.