The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Author:Sofia Samatar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

3: The Chain

DR. MARJORIE WALKED WITH THEM down to the dock. She chatted with the pilot and handed him the letter she had written. She gave the professor a copy of the letter, said, “Don’t lose it,” and stood gruff and glowering under the bland dock lights. People were handing off their luggage, tugging at children, and entering the disinfection chambers in small groups. The pilot nodded toward a door. “Downstairs,” he told the professor. “Enter through E Gate.” And he turned to talk to another passenger.

“Okay,” said Dr. Marjorie. “That’s it. You’re on your own.”

“Wait,” the professor said. She wanted to know, before Dr. Marjorie went—was it Dr. Marjorie who had called her “hard to work with and occasionally overbearing” in her last review? And Dr. Marjorie said yes, she had definitely written that, because the professor was overbearing and also a pain in the ass. And with that, Dr. Marjorie turned and left. And the boy and the professor entered the door of the lift and rode down to the Hold.

The Hold had its own dock. The boy had seen it only in the visions that drew him toward the child, never in waking life. A place of noise and terror. The guards shouted. The people cowered. The boy saw them peel off their singlets and stumble in their chains to a single disinfection chamber. There they were engulfed in a thick white fog. The boy was sent to a different chamber, the one for male guards. He had to strip and put all his clothes in a special box. Steam burst around him during the disinfection, and the ferry guards joked with him and made bets on whether he would throw up during the trip. And he could feel the distance like a chain. It was almost palpable, like a series of links he could trace with his outstretched hand. He felt the prophet in one direction and the child in the other, as if some part of him swung between them, suspended in midair.

On the far side of the chamber, he put on a suit and a helmet and heavy boots. The boots were too big for him, and the ferry guards laughed, the sound of it splintering through his helmet. Outside in the hall, the professor stood hesitant in her suit. Her eyes big behind the glass, her anklet tense inside her boot. The boy felt her reach for him and he met her gesture, establishing their connection. He told her, not knowing how much she understood, but knowing she felt his impulse, his will, that she should not be afraid, because he knew where he was, he knew where he was going, he stood between the prophet and his child, a conduit for the breath between them, and so he could not be lost. He kept on telling her this while they were strapped into their seats on the ferry, while a guard showed him the button on his suit that would suck vomit out of his helmet.

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