chisel instead of a hammer to dig an alcove? And carrying lanterns in the tunnels instead of glow worms?”
Mardon pointed at her. “Exactly.”
“Yessir. A lot has changed just since I’ve been here.”
Mardon laughed. “As if you’ve ever been anywhere else.” He sighed and gazed at her, his eyes seeming to blur. “Do you know how long you’ve been here, Mara? Do you know how old you are?”
Mara shrugged her shoulders. “Naamah says I look about fourteen years old, but I never could figure out what the stories meant when they talked about years.”
“Naamah is right, and it’s no wonder you don’t understand time. A hundred years ago, Morgan planted you in an older-style growth chamber, much like I just did to your spawn, and I uprooted you in your current form almost twenty years ago. But since time passage is skewed here, and you don’t age as the overworlders do, it’s useless to teach you about time, that is, until you visit the land above.”
Mara shivered. Her throat squeezed so tight, she could barely speak. “May . . . may I?”
“If your training goes well, I should be able to arrange it.”
Mara straightened her shoulders. “I’ll train well. Don’t worry about that.”
Mardon stared at her again, this time with narrowed eyes, as if trying to penetrate her mind. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
Mara clutched the edge of her smock. Why was he looking at her with that strange expression? But she had enough to think about just concentrating on what she needed to learn. This was her one chance to see the upper world.
Mardon waved his arm over the worktable. “Here is where it all begins.”
A collection of small glass jars covered the wooden surface, each one filled with clear liquid. She leaned over and peered into one of the jars. Suspended in the midst of the liquid, an eyeball-sized egg stared back at her. The eggshell’s outer membrane was semitransparent, and a tiny creature floated at the center, acting like it was trying to swim. It looked sort of like her spawn, except much smaller and without eyelets or lips.
“This is where we plant the garden, Mara. I experiment with different combinations of eggs and seeds to find which ones make the strongest embryos. I sometimes even combine two seeds into one to make them stronger.”
Mara kept her gaze fixed on the embryo. “Where do you get the seeds and eggs?”
“That lesson can wait until later. For now, I want you to see the beginning and the end.”
She looked up at him. “The end?”
He picked up a jar near the middle of the table and held it close to her eyes. “Do you see anything unusual about this one?”
She squinted at the tiny spawn. “It’s smaller, and it’s not swimming as hard as the others.”
“Exactly.” Mardon walked the jar to a door on his right. When he opened it, flames shot up from within, and a hot blast of air swept into the room. He dumped the embryo into the fire and slammed the door shut.
Mara pressed her hand against her chest and stifled a gasp. Nausea boiled in her stomach again.
“No use wasting time and space with that one,” Mardon said. He pointed at the spawns in the growth chambers she had seen when she came in. “These aren’t thriving, so I transported them in here to extract some genetic material. Maybe I can learn what we did wrong.”
“Then you’ll . . .” She gulped, nodding toward the fiery room.
“Yes. They’ll go into the furnace.” He counted the jars on the table. “I’m not sure yet, but it looks like five out of the twenty are female. When their gender becomes clear, I’ll keep one as a laborer to replace you.”
“Replace me? But . . . but . . .” She couldn’t even breathe.
Mardon laughed. “I didn’t mean you’re going to be eliminated! You’ll become my assistant. Someone has to do your old job.”
Mara exhaled slowly, but her relief quickly vanished. She pinched herself on the arm. How dare she feel relieved? She wasn’t going into the furnace, but what about all these poor spawns? Her lips trembled, yet she managed to talk without squeaking. “Will I have to do both the beginning and the end?”
Mardon tapped one of the jars with his fingertip. “You’re really worried about these spawns, aren’t you?”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
“They’re just embryos, not living, breathing, hard workers like you and your friends. But don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to dispose of any.