Ar'Tok - Alana Khan Page 0,28

a hard shiny coating on their backs. They disgusted me.

“The male looked at me like that. Like I wasn’t just a bug, but I was the most disgusting bug he’d ever seen. His nose scrunched up and his lip curled.”

I want to smooth Ar’Tok’s cirr, or skim my palm down his cheek—to soothe him. But I know he’s too deep in his memory to tolerate it.

“He ordered the guard to open my cell door even though it was forbidden. He was an imposing male who allowed no argument. When the door creaked open, he pulled out his cane and beat me. Everywhere. Everywhere he could reach. Almost every mark I bear came from that day. He didn’t stop when I begged. Or cried. Or even when I was lying on the cold floor in a puddle of blood and piss.

“‘You’re no son of mine,’ he said, his voice dripping with revulsion. ‘Too bad they’d arrest me if I killed you or I’d put you out of both our misery. But I’ll give you this to remind you that you’re worthless and filthy and broken until your end of days.’

“He bent, careful not to kneel his fine clothes in the smelly liquids on the floor, pulled a dagger out of the end of his cane, and cut my throat. I don’t know how he knew how to do it so it wouldn’t kill me, but it didn’t. It left this mark.” He reaches to his throat, as if I needed instruction to know which mark on his roadmap of pain he referred to.

I don’t ask if he got medical treatment; I know the answer.

My mind feels echoey, as if I’m hiding far inside myself. It’s a good place to be right now, so I don’t show him how upset I am. I don’t think he’s capable of understanding that my distress is caused by what was done to him, and not his ‘shame’ as he calls it.

He’s acting as if his story is over, which is good, I don’t think I can bear much more. But I have more questions, and then we can close the book on this forever.

“Can I ask two questions?” my voice is calm and quiet, I give him the courtesy of no eye contact so he can hide.

“Yes.” When I sneak a peek at him, his eyes are drifting back and forth across my face. He’s scanning me, trying to detect my feelings. I try to project nothing but compassion, although I’m probably failing.

“Why aren’t you the same color as other Simkins?”

“I looked it up shortly after I came aboard the Fool’s Errand. We’re born white. My race needs to absorb enough vitamins from the sun prior to age three. If that doesn’t happen, we can’t transition from white to brown like we’re supposed to. Because mother and I were in an inside cell in the depths of the prison until I was five, I never turned. I think they kept her in an inside cell so I’d be deformed as another punishment for her.”

Punish her? Didn’t they realize what they were doing to an innocent boy? To heighten the suffering, his differences made his father want to kill him.

“You had no schooling?”

“No.”

“How’d you learn to read?”

Something softens in his demeanor. Although his body’s still stiff, his cirr reach out to me, more tentatively than in the past, just two thin tendrils. I snuggle against them, silently giving them permission. As soon as I do, they all migrate toward me—seeking and providing comfort in equal measure.

“Shortly after my fath—that male came to see me, a female began to visit. I never knew who she was, although I assumed it was his sister. She came once a lunar until shortly before my release.

She was a frightened, birdlike female. She didn’t talk much and kept our visits short. Over the years, though, from the little facts she accidentally dropped, I imagined she was afraid of her brother. And after what he did to me, I assume her fear was for good reason.

I doubt he knew about her visits. From things she said, I think he came to get a look at me, to see if I was worth his time and effort to free me. He certainly looked like he had the money to pay off people to release me. Perhaps he considered putting me to work in one of his factories. Obviously, my appearance would have shamed him. Now that I’m free on the Fool, I’m convinced