looked as though she had not slept at all the night before. We didn’t speak, but we nodded, like secret allies in enemy territory.
An hour later Hepple told us he was raising the water temperature several degrees. “I’m trying to speed up the through time. Faster throughput means greater daily volume, which will up our market share. This plant isn’t working anywhere near full efficiency.” I wanted to bang his head against the pipes. The only way to increase the throughput was to get a bigger work crew: keep the troughs clean and at peak efficiency. All the rise in ambient water temperature would achieve was a hotter work environment. Why was he doing this? I considered, briefly, the Health and Safety Council, but once they found a reason to be interested in an operation, they investigated everything and everyone connected to it. I could not afford that.
I sweated in my skinny. The thick, humid air got thicker, more difficult to breathe. I felt trapped. The ache in my stomach reminded me of days with Spanner, unable to leave, unable to stay.
Paolo wore his rage like a cloak. He stumbled often, and seemed to be moving more slowly. While I was taking yet another set of readings, Hepple came across him in the far trough, struggling to balance a floating tray of rushes that needed rooting.
“Not there. Put them farther out, where they’ll do most good.”
Farther out was where the rushes were already most dense. Paolo shoved the tray ahead of him, shouldering aside the rushes, getting scratched. He took one of the stems from the tray, bent, came up again with the root still in his hand. He pushed the tray back toward the edge of the trough.
“Are you deliberately disobeying me, boy? I told you to plant these farther out.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Couldn’t Hepple feel the rage and resentment burning behind Paolo’s blank expression?
“The water’s too deep. I can’t reach.”
“You mean, you’ll get your face wet if you try too hard.” Hepple smiled his soft-mouthed smile. “Get back out there and do it properly.”
The tendons along Paolo’s neck writhed like snakes.
“Well?” Hepple’s voice was dangerously pleasant.
Paolo turned the tray around, pushed it back out. Hepple watched. I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Sir!”
He turned. “Yes?”
“Sir, Health and Safety regulations state that at no time is an employee required to let contaminated water come into direct contact with his or her unprotected skin.”
“Is that so?”
I couldn’t afford to lose this job, but I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I stood by and let him do this to Paolo. “I just thought that for the good of the company you should be reminded, sir, in case something happened under your direct orders and Paolo decided to sue. Could be very damaging.”
“It could, it could.” He did not seem very perturbed. “Thank you for pointing that out.” He turned back to Paolo. “Mr. Cruz, all of a sudden I find that you are physically unsuited to your task. We should never have hired you in the first place. People like you always bring trouble. You’re fired. You can work the rest of the shift, then collect your pay at the office.” He nodded at him pleasantly, then at me. “Thank you once again, Bird.” Just like that, too fast for me to even think about it. He walked off, humming to himself.
Paolo’s face was the color of milky coffee gone cold in the cup. I didn’t know what to say. “Paolo, I’m sorry.”
But Paolo wasn’t listening. He was staring out at nothing in particular, and trembling all over. He walked toward the side of the trough. His mouth was moving. He climbed out, walked right past me, muttering through stiff lips. I had to lean in to hear him. He was repeating what Hepple had said: “People like you. People like you . . .”
“Paolo? Paolo, wait. Don’t leave. Just keep working here. I’ll get Magyar. We’ll sort it out. He can’t get away with this. He—”
Paolo turned; his eyes were completely black. “Yes, he can. People like that can get away with anything when it concerns people like me.” His voice shook, and now there was a twisty bitterness mixed in with the anger. It scared me.
“Just stay here. Don’t move.” I went straight to the monitoring station and called Magyar. “Hepple’s fired Paolo Cruz. No, nothing he’s done. You need to get here.” I was all ready to tell her I would talk