Chapter 2

Then, unlike now, Selati didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to sleep upright. Even after the humans had programmed him, it took him collapsing into an exhausted heap to figure out a prone position was better for rest. Yet another piece of negligence or cruelty at the hands of the makers. Why were they treated with so much indifference? Selati and his crew were more than machines for mining. Definitely more than the vats constructs were grown in.

Selati blinked, the burn in his eyes an irritant. His eyes burned all the time, whether they were working on extraction or sleeping or eating. Something made his eyes burn a lot in the dark. His chest didn’t always hurt when it happened. Maybe two different irritants. Selati wished he knew

Pings and clanks filtered from the far end of the shaft while Bunici helped him lie down in the cold sleep space. His friend kept his torso off the floor with his big hands as Bunici slid into place, back propped against the wall and truly massive lower half coiled in a loose curve, to keep Selati from wandering off later. He knew this tactic. Selati had done this same thing for others when they were injured.

The scales under his cheek were cool to the touch, but flexible. Blunt fingers carded through his short, rough cut hair. Touch was something precious among them, given freely for the simple joy of it. Bunici’s easy caress made the pain in his hip fade some, and Selati whispered his thanks.

Bunici didn’t answer back. His friend wasn’t big on chatter at all. Selati was used to it by now. The dark beckoned instead, whether Selati shut his eyes or not. Deep in the blacker shadows was where he lost his thoughts.

Time didn’t move right down in the mine. In the Facility, clocks were one of many constants, like the steel and plastic fakery of the place. The too-bright lights overhead. The slight red tinge to every surface, thanks to the red giant Caniea. At least the Facility, cold and empty, had a set day cycle and night cycle, with the lights controlled on a timer. None of Selati’s crew had seen the sun in months. Years?

Mind wobbled around for a long period, with Selati focused for some of the time, and hazy for others. The gash throbbed with his fast heartbeat, fast like the wind through trees on a gusty day. That was the last time he had been outside the mine. Humans had marched them from the Facility to a strange box and he woke in the dark tunnel, closer to the top. But a storm hovered over them on the whole march, the air charged and heavy, wind roaring past his ears.

Bunici moved, but another took his place. Selati’s mind spun down into the dark.

The other, Racani if the red-green-black scales were to be believed, moved, and another took his place. The dark kept his attention, both inside and out.

Cold was constant in his life. Red heat from Caniea at his back was the one good memory he had, found between the merciless metal building where he began and the choking darkness below. Selati wanted to see the sun again. The need beat in time with his damaged body.

Tahahi came after, scales pale pink and gray, and it was somewhere in the midst of his watch of Selati that Selati came to one inescapable conclusion.

He refused to die down here.

More, he refused to allow the others to die in some filthy hole in the ground, where their existence meant ending by inches and infection and sorrow. Breath scraped his lungs, pressed them hard into his sides, a gasp of pain and anger. Those were easy to recognize, they were with him so long.

The slim hand in his hair stopped. Selati didn’t look up at him, because he was pretty sure Tahahi was blind, and growled with all the rage buried in his heart. “We won’t die down here.”

“No,” Tahahi murmured, a voice with very little strength. “I’m certain we will leave before that.”

Selati didn’t question him. Tahahi had a way of knowing things would happen before they actually did. It was uncanny. No one asked Tahahi how he knew the things he did, though Selati thought it must be compensation for his eyesight. On more than one occasion, his foresight had saved someone from gross injury, if not death, from tunnel collapse or the human overseers.

Hip throbbing still, dull but a deep cacophony from the inside, Selati managed to get his tail under him. He swooned for a few seconds and scraped his hand on the jagged rock wall when he caught himself. A battered hand was far better than landing on his face.