ARCUS FAMILY MEETING

© Dana W. Paxson 2005

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ARCUS FAMILY MEETING

1560 4D

Derizan heard the shots from the guards, and peered into the wind. An angry voice stilled the guns. A guard stalked over to a woman and her child, grabbing the boy by the arm. Derizan said to his wife, “I’ll be right back,” and trudged up to the three.

“Easy, man, he’s just a little kid.” Derizan fished in his pocket for the last few energizers he carried. The guards loved these – the one in Derizan‘s hand vanished in a second. “I’ll keep an eye on them,” Derizan assured him.

The guard grumbled and headed off. A thin girl stumbled into the woman’s arms, muttering something that made her mother look up wildly, straining to see back down their trail.

As the troubled mother soothed the girl, Derizan approached them, unfastening his scarf.

“I’ve got something for her, Mother. She needs this a lot more than I do.” He handed her one of the energizer packets.

The woman’s eyes widened. She thanked him and they exchanged introductions in the Arcus way. He said to her, “I won’t let an Arcus child die of cold as long as I’m alive.”

She looked impossibly weak, her City clothes patched and wound together in a hopeless tangle, trying to fend off the wind.

“My wife and family are over there,” Derizan said. Where was this woman’s, Darvelia‘s, husband? The relocs rarely took parts of families. He took her arm, led her and her children to his family, and introduced them all as they slogged onward.

Darvelia followed him as they trudged onward and came side by side with a group of vague shapes. Derizan waved expansively, his coat flying open. “Here is my wife Astina Tee-Tee Harridium, and my extended family.” He introduced them all, and gave them Darvelia‘s name.

“Hana-jo,” she said, bowing her head in acknowledgement as they moved along. “Honor to you all. Here is Nassa, and here is Shellane.”

“We were supposed to go to the Marshes,” Derizan said, his anger coming up under his words.

The woman told him they were expecting to be in a forest town somewhere.

“No,” Derizan said. “It’s no forest.”

Darvelia told him her husband was Imzendium clan. That would get him killed quickly out here if the guards found out.

He interrupted her, lowering his voice. “I know them well. My cousins were Imzendium, and they got sent this way three months ago, from Gran Dar.”

“How are they doing?” She hadn’t understood his hand on her arm.

There was nothing he could say, not now, with the guards close by. The air went still, as if to pick up every word. This woman had no idea how close to death they all stood right now.

Suddenly she leaned up close to him as if to huddle from the biting air, but her whispered words corrected his misunderstanding of her. “Then it’s as bad as we’ve imagined, isn’t it? They’re sending us up here to die.”

At first, choked with rage, he couldn’t speak. “Yes,” he finally grated. “Welcome to the relocation.”

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