"He ain't kiddin'," said Dotti.
Sahra weighed things in the balance. She didn't trust Duvi, but Dotti was all the way honest. If Dotti could weigh him up and found him fair, then she could trust Dotti's word.
End of shift. I'll show you.
Darvan nodded. He could deal with that.
Dotti signed, What you up to?
Sahra thought about telling her, secret stuff, but decided on honesty. Or as honest as she could get. Just trying to keep my family safe. Any way I can.
Dotti raised her eyebrows. You're six. You should not worry.
Sahra could only give her a shrug. Should is not is.
*
He was waiting for her when she came out of the cattle wash. This time, Sahra did not feel bad about it. She leaped up into his arms and put her head up to his. "You gotta be quiet," she said. "You gotta be honest. And you gotta keep the secret."
"I already promised..."
"How bad d'you want th' masters to get gone?"
"I dunno. Pretty bad, I guess. Getting tired of waitin' for a deliverer."
"Wouldja kill 'em? If'n you could?"
"You know that's a short trip to heaven. Weren't you all about not makin' Mama cry?"
"What if you could get at 'em, wifout gettin' caught?"
Darvan twisted himself so he could look at her face. "What you been up to?" he mouthed.
Sahra just mouthed, "Follow," and wriggled down.
She chose the larger tunnels so Darvan would follow. She travelled slow, and only checked he was there once.
She ran the same questions past her other recruits. Two of her friends, so far. She got the littles listening in to gossip and playing tricks, and payed more attention to what her other sibs had to share with each other.
It was amazing what people would say around someone they thought was deaf.
Sahra knocked on the sloping tunnel. A code that meant, I'm coming with company. Simy and Smiley and whoever was in with him today would not take their weapons out and, in Simy's case, rush to meet her after a whole day of putting up with tetchy rebels and Sahra's grabby fellow rats.
The whole core space had changed since Smiley moved in. For a start, Smiley stole and moved in a lot of plants that also grew food for him and the rest of the rebels. He'd started using strawberries as currency for the rats. Smiley had also added lighting and changed up the controls.
Eva was there, but Sahra did not recognize the male with her.
"Who's yer friend?" she asked as she hopped down.
"Who's your friend?" challenged Smiley.
Sahra picked up Simy in an easy hug. "This m' brofar Darvan. He's changed his mind 'bout me since I saved him."
"This is Raven. He's with us."
Raven had dark hair that he kept long, almost to his shoulders. He had a pretty face and the sort of body the masters used for decoration. He also had pretty clothes that were also not flappy or lacy or anything else the masters used to doll her up. "Charmed, I'm certain," said Raven.
"You talk like a pet," said Sahra. "But you ain't done up like a pet..."
Raven smiled. "Quite right. And just the observational skills I'd expect from the famous Lieutenant-Commander Sahra the rat."
"Nobody tole me I was a lieutenant, let alone no lieutenant command'r..."
"You can hear all that?" said Darvan.
"Darvan's as deaf as I pr'tend to be, outside," Sahra explained.
"What?" said Darvan. "You lyin' to everyone?"
"I find out more listenin' than I do lookin'," Sahra signed as she spoke. "Makes sense for me to let people think I can't hear 'em none. Only pass on the good stuff to m' friends, here."
"Aaaaaannnnnnd... done. We should be in on the security feed," said Eva.
Smiley tapped some buttons. "Only got what security's lookin' at. Not the whole lot."
Eva swore and got back into the wiring.
Sahra let Simy ride on her back and got in to the same wiring by a different side. She looked at the coloured wires and the plugs and the sockets. "Ha! Crosswired." Sahra swapped them around and hollered, "Try it now!"
"Got it!" Smiley hollered back.
Eva mock-glared at her. "You have got to quit showing me up at this."
"Got me an unfair ad-van-tage," said Sahra. "I done run these wires."
Darvan was staring at her like she had turned green. "When the hell'd you get this smart?"
"All'us this smart," said Sahra, signing along. "Jus' didn't get no chance t' prove it 'fore now."
"...mother of God..." Darvan whispered.
Smiley tapped her on the shoulder. Sahra turned to watch him murmur, "You sure he's going to be any good?"
"He wants to help," said Sahra. "An' he m' true brofar. There gotta be brains in there somewhere. An if'n there ain't... well, he's another pair o' hands."
"Thanks a lot," said Darvan. He was pretty upset. "I've bested you most times."
"So?" said Sahra. "Turn them dirty tricks 'gainst the masters. I know Mama'd be glad we stop fightin'."
"But I hardly know nuffin't 'bout master tricks..."
"So sit and listen," said Eva. "I'm a teacher when I'm not fighting. You have a lot of lessons to learn."
*
They were late to dinner. Darvan made up the excuse that he'd sprained an ankle and Sahra was the only one to stick around and help him. Mama gave them both broth and they acted at being ashamed. Darvan helped Sahra add the ration bag to Mama's stores and Sahra helped Darvan sneak away into the tunnels.
"How do you not get filthy in these tunnels?" he whispered.
Sahra had to stop and sign, Simy cleans me up. He can probably clean you up, too.
Sahra smiled at the little noise Darvan made at the thought of that. Years of him being mean counted against him and this was just one of many ways she was going to make sure their charts were balanced.
And as long as Duvi didn't know, he wasn't going to try evening things up on his side.
This was the night Sahra learned that there were free humans, care of Eva's lessons with Darvan.
By and large, most of the free human colonies were in the cold places where the masters did not like to go. Places with snow - powdered, frozen water that fell out of the atmosphere - that forced them to farm their food underground or indoors. And given that the Tu'atta liked to drop bombs on them, underground living was the way to go.
Some colonies were on moons that went around gas giants. All of them had people like the rebels, who wanted to see the masters gone.
And it was also the night Sahra learned about wormholes.
In the long-ago, when the humans wanted to make a mortal paradise, they took a special ship down a wormhole, a shortcut through time and space. They took everything they thought they would need, and the worship of God.
That wormhole was closed forever. Trying to take it on a trip back was a death sentence, because going back, even hundreds and thousands of years later, meant crashing into the firstcomer's ship and dying because of it.
Some still tried. Some went by accident. The wormhole back to Earth, death sentence though it was, was also on the one side of an asteroid belt. One that the masters mined, and one that rebel ships tried to hide in, now and again.
Some foolhardy pilots tried to lure Tu'atta ships into falling into the dangerous patch of space that took them far, far away and never to return. Sometimes, it actually worked.
And this was all supposed to be okay, because the firstcomer's ship was scratched up when it landed in their new home.
Something, or a lot of little somethings, had crashed into it on the way in. Which meant that a lot of little somethings had tried to get out.
All the stuff about it being time travel made Sahra's head hurt. Colony ships travelled faster than light through the wormholes, winding up so far back in time that radio transmissions reached Earth within three days of their departure.
The other wormhole, the one the masters came from, let them come and go as they liked.
Proof, some reasoned, that God was somehow on their side.
Sahra quickly put it out of her mind. She had better ideas from the other stuff.
Masters didn't like the cold.
"Smiley?"
"Yeah."
"Is there a way to mess wif th' station temperchur controls so the masters can't un-mess it?"
"They'd notice a sudden drop in the temperature."
"What if we did it real slow?"
Light dawned in Smiley's crowded face. "If we could find the central temperature controls..." he tapped at a bunch of buttons. Screens flashed and showed pictures of places. Everywhere they had a camera to record what the masters were up to.
Interesting that they only had cameras where the humans worked. Not where they changed or washed or lived. Something to think about, for later.
"There!" One screen showed what used to be a control room, but was now a repair node. Low-ranking masters were supposed to go in. It had to have air.
Anywhere the air went, Sahra could climb. "Show me where it at, I'm'a go fix it good."
"What are you gonna do?" Smiley sounded worried. But then, he sounded worried a lot of the time when Sahra was planning things.
"Jus' set it on a slow fall down an' reverse th' command responses."
He boggled at her. "How'd such a cute little kid get so downright evil?"
Sahra grinned. "Get Duvi t' tell ya some o' the stuff he got up to. That'll clue ya in."
It took her two junctions to realize she was being followed. She scurried into a corner at the next junction and sort of landed on them as they came through.
Sleeves. Vest. Tool belt.
One of the rebels.
Dark hair, sort-of wavy and down to the shoulders.
"Raven?" she whispered.
"Yeah."
"Din't nobody tell ya I hate bein' follered?"
Raven oozed into the junction, rubbing his hurts. "Smiley was concerned that you neglected to bring anything with you. How do you do most of your work without tools?"
"Lower-ranks masters is real lazy. They druther do quick work'n good work." Sahra gestured for him to follow. "C'mon. I show ya."
*
It looked like ordinary circuitry. It looked complicated and tangled.
Sahra was able to pull it all apart in less then a minute.
"No solder, no screws, no joins at all. They all tired an' stuff. All m' othur tricks got 'em goin' slow. So they get sloppy wif their work. Dun hardly need nuffint t' crosswire it all."
"...my goodness," whispered Raven. "And you know they're all like this?"
"Pretty much most. All the older ones they forgot is still good f'r needin' tools. But this is one o' the ones I done busted earlier. They's all fixin in a hurry wif me an' m' friends around."
"Hey Sahra!"
Raven 'eep'ed and flinched.
"Hey Lee," Sahra waved. "You been doin' the whisperers?"
"I got me th' secoority chief an th' Majestrix herse'f."
"Long may she reign," they all drawled with oozing sarcasm. "'T'cha up to?"
"Messin' wif th' tempachur."
"Cool."
"It will be. This time nex' munf."
Both girls giggled, swapped hugs, and went back to business.
Raven shuddered. "If they knew," he murmured. "If they knew they were being bought down by a cadre of tunnel rats..."
Sahra shrugged. "They'd prolly feed us all poison. Rats is dis-poe-za-bull. I only jus' figgured out when they sent me up that tunnel near ore processing? They was sendin' me in ta measure the radiation levels."
"That's horrible."
"It's useful. If it weren't fo' Simy, y'all'd be blowin' us all up, still. An' you wouldn' have this neat base where they forgot it is at all."
"Simy?"
"You seen m' pet Moosh Puppy. He eats rads. An' anyfink elts."
"Does he," muttered Raven. "Interesting."
Sahra got on with cross-wiring the temperature controls. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Just a hiccough of doubt. I've never heard of a Moshikaan Slime Dog that would eat radiation. The Tu'atta were never hot on... practical uses for the things."
Sahra grunted anger. "You tryin'a tell me Simy's that nasty ole overseer as died? He ain't a Neon. He ain't neffur a Neon. If'n he was, he'd'a been mean t' alla us way b'fore now."
"Hm," Raven ran his fingers through his tiny little beard. "From what I heard of the old despot, he was never the type to plot. He was always very... straightforward. From what I hear."
"You's a free human, yeah?"
"Yes. For limited definitions of 'free'..."
"What's it like?"
"Well, a child like you would be learning to read. Protected. Kept safe. Your mother would be oath-bound to the husband she wants, and have the choice to have children when she wants. There's work. There's always work. But it's done because of a want to do it. Well. Except weeding. Nobody wants to weed."
"Weeding?"
"Keeping the yucky plants out of our food gardens, dear."
"That happens?"
"Seeds spread. Dormant pieces sprout. It's amazing how it happens."
Sahra rejiggered the wiring some more. "Huh." She spent more time on finishing the connections than the masters had. And making it all look like it was supposed to be that way. "Any plants that're poisonous to masters that look like th' good ones?"
"No, alas. Our best bet comes from poisoning the Djaak, as you suggested."
Sahra glared at him. "You talk funny."
"I have a love of words. Much as I have a love of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"Too many words fer things as need get done."
Raven smiled a lopsided smile. "Perhaps. But then, you strike me as someone in a perpetual hurry. There was once a time when the love of words was the only thing that prevented my taking my own life."
Sahra frowned at him. "Whad'joo wanna die fo'? You was free."
"You're six. Regardless of your accomplishments, there are certain things that you would not understand."
"I ain't stoopid." Sahra lead the way back to the core, her task finished.
"Well... humans have a certain... knack... for finding anyone with a weak spot and exploiting that to make them feel weak all over. Even in the free human territories. I was a weedy child, and other... vulnerabilities... made themselves clear early in my life."
"What? Like you sounded dumb?"
"More my choice of sweethearts, but that's far more than enough. It's still a painful subject."
Sahra's face screwed itself up on its own. How could anyone make fun of anyone because of who they fell in love with?
Grownups. They had to be crazy.
*
Simy helped when Sahra slept. The rest of the rebels didn't much care where he was or what he was doing while he was there. All he had to do was avoid the other rats and duplicate some acts of Sahra's sabotage.
It gave him a chance to practice a human shape, because messing with the things Sahra usually messed with was not beneficial in his liquid state. And, sooner or later, he may just need to communicate. And it would answer a lot more questions, should anyone trip over him as he did this.
He still had to keep things simple. Fingers were about his limit. He put his 'feet' into rag moccasins, since copying cloth was easier than unique details in flesh. As for his face... well... he'd done his best, but no-one who saw him would think he had not suffered some kind of injury to the face.
Fortunately, since he worked during human curfew, nobody was in the tunnels to see him.
He took secret time to map the station, in between sabotage efforts; to find what, he did not know. Treasure? Secrets? Some hidden key that would turn the fate of the humans and the Tu'atta upside-down?
A secret weapon would have been nice.
But all he found was the tiny ships.
*
All the rebels were clustered around a hole. This was almost nothing new, what with Smile
y's twiddling, but the weird part was how long the rebels were staring.
Sahra wriggled between them so she could get a view.
It was a baby ship. Just big enough for one person to squeeze into and fly - if they had controls.
"Whut is it?"
"An old escape pod. Prob'ly find it's programmed to head towards the planet and do a soft landing somewhere near help," said Smiley. The way he was swaying around meant he was sizing up ways of getting it out of there.
"These are real small," said Sahra. "Reckon they be small 'nuff t' skip away frum master sensors?"
"Yeah, but... a one-way trip to Hevun -the planet, mind- ain't exactly a tactical advantage."
"Naw, they need controls. Li'l engines. Just 'nuff to get about an' get fuel at th' same time."
Smiley glared at her. "Even if we could do all that, we can't get it out..."
"I'll have t' have a look," said Sahra. "Any ways you can tell if'n there's space on t'other side of a wall?"
"What? Why?"
"'Cuz I reckon I seen tunnels wif them marks on in othur places." Sara pointed out the small space between the baby ship and the wall that blocked it in. "Might maybe be a whole track. Or most of it. That's half the job done right there."
"How do you manage to think this stuff out?" boggled Eva.
"Mama said the masters use the stuff we rats find inna tunnels. I spent years thinkin' how things'd be useful. Guess it stuck." Sahra shrugged. "Might gotta stay that small, I reckon. Them tunnels was made fo' ships this size."
"Gonna be a can of arseholes," said Smiley, which was rebel-shorthand for, "That is going to be a very difficult job and lots of twiddly hard work."
"How bad'd it be if'n some master tech went missin' on our d'rekshun?"
"If you could get away with it... might could work."
*
Sahra had three friends and Duvi working on the rebellion. Duvi worked only in the night, and then only for a few hours, but those few hours were spent in intense concentration and dedication to his work. It was mostly putting bits together for Sahra's team of rats, but he did it quickly, efficiently, and without complaint. The rats had Smiley's list and Sahra's instructions to go to different storage bays every time. The also had socks and gloves that stopped Security from dragging herself or her friends in for questioning.
The baby ship had come out of its ancient launch bay and had been stripped down to the frame. Smiley or Raven were roped in to sit in the chair and pretend to be flying it while others tried to fit engineering into spaces it wasn't meant to go.
The chair was slimmed down. The leg room reduced. Elbow-space limited. The frame shaved precious millimeters. By the end, they were raising and lowering the baby ship to see if it would still fit in its bay.