Outcasts Read Free

the
quiet sort of wonder she felt every time she realized that she did care enough
to miss someone. Loneliness was more painful now, but she was not lonely all
the time. She did not know how to feel about her newly discovered pleasure in
the company of Gryf and Jason. Sometimes it frightened her. They had broached
her defenses of solitude and suspicion, and at times she felt exposed and
vulnerable. She trusted them, but there were even more betrayers at Screwtop
than there were outside.
    “I didn’t give you those extra rations so you
could save them all,” she said. “I gave them to you so you’d
stop starving yourself for one day at least.”
    “We could all get out of here,” he said, “if
we saved just a little more food.” Even at midmorning, beneath the ferns,
it was almost too dark to make out his features, but Kylis knew he was not
joking. She said nothing. Jason thought the prisoners who fled into the marsh
were still alive there; he thought he could join them and be helped. Kylis
thought they were all dead. Jason believed escape on foot possible, and Kylis
believed it death. Jason was an optimist, and Kylis was experienced.
    “All right,” Jason said. “I’ll eat
one more. In a while.” He lay down flat and put his hands behind his
head.
    “How was your shift?” Kylis asked.
    “Too much fresh meat.”
    Kylis grinned. Jason was talking like a veteran, hardened
and disdainful of new prisoners, the fresh meat, who had not yet learned the
ways of Screwtop.
    “We only got a couple new people,” she said. “You
must have had almost the whole bunch.”
    “It would have been tolerable if three of them hadn’t
been assigned to the drilling rig.”
    “Did you lose any?”
    “No. By some miracle.”
    “We were fresh once too. Gryf’s the only one I
ever saw who didn’t start out doing really stupid things.”
    “Was I really that fresh?”
    She did not want to hurt his feelings or even tease him.
    “I was, wasn’t I?”
    “Jason... I’m sorry, but you were the freshest I
ever saw. I didn’t think you had any chance at all. Only Gryf did.”
    “I hardly remember anything about the first set,
except how much time he spent helping me.”
    “I know,” Kylis said. Jason had needed a great
deal of help. Kylis had forgiven him for being the cause of her first real
taste of loneliness, but she could not quite forget it.
    “Gods — this last set,” Jason said. “I
didn’t know how bad it was alone.” Then he smiled. “I used to
think I was a solitary person.” Where Kylis was contemptuous of her
discovered weaknesses, Jason was amused at and interested in his. “What
did you do before Gryf came?”
    “Before Gryf came, I didn’t know how bad it was
alone, either,” she said rather roughly. “You’d better get
some sleep.”
    He smiled. “You’re right. Good morning.”
He fell asleep instantly.
    Relaxed, he looked tireder. His hair had grown long enough
to tie back, but it had escaped from its knot and curled in tangled, dirty
tendrils around his face. Jason hated being dirty, but working with the drill
left little energy for extras, like bathing. He would never really adjust to
Screwtop as Gryf and Kylis had. His first day here, Gryf had kept him from
being killed or crippled at least twice. Kylis had been working on the same shift
but a different crew, driving one of the bulldozers and clearing another
section of forest. The drill could not be set up among the giant ferns, because
the ground itself would not stand much stress. Beneath a layer of humus was
clay, so wet that in response to pressure it turned semi-liquid, almost like
quicksand. The crews had to strip off the vegetation and the layers of clay and
volcanic ash until bedrock lay exposed. Kylis drove the ’dozer back and
forth, cutting through ferns in a much wider path than the power plants
themselves would have required. She had to make room for the excavated earth,
which was piled well back from the Pit’s edges. Even