RATS
If it’s been a while since you read The Sign of One (volume one in this trilogy), here’s a brief reminder of some of the main characters, terms and locations.
| Colm | Kyle’s twin brother. Was raised as a Slayer. |
| Dump world | A world where humans exile criminals, refugees, etc. |
| Gemini | The ident resistance. |
| Ident | Identical twin. Considered evil on Wrath, because only one is pureblood and the other is a ‘twist’. |
| Ident camp | Idents are held in secure camps until old enough to be tested. |
| Kyle | Teenage loner who grew up out in the Barrenlands. The narrator of this story. |
| Nublood | What ident ‘twists’ prefer to call themselves, as in nu-species. |
| Peace Fair | Annual ceremony, held near ident camps, where ‘idents’ are brutally tested and ‘twists’ winnowed from ‘scabs’. |
| Pureblood | Someone who’s 100 per cent human. |
| Reapers | Feral savages. Rumour has it they are cannibals. |
| Saviour | Despotic warlord who rules over Wrath. Father of Kyle and Colm. |
| Scab | Wrath slang for the pureblood twin, because after the Peace Fair they are branded to show they are no longer evil. |
| Sky | Gemini rebel, ident camp survivor and daring windjammer pilot. Kyle’s friend and ally – sometimes. |
| Slayers | The Saviour’s private army. |
| Twist | Wrath slang for a nublood twin, so-called because they are said to have ‘twisted blood’. Faster, stronger and much quicker to heal than pureblood humans. |
| Windjammers | Crudely built ridge-running flying machines. |
| Wrath | The dump world where this story is set. |
It’s her turn outside. After all the hours spent hiding in the dark and staying quiet, the cold drizzle that greets her is almost welcome. It’ll be her first time at the lambing. Well . . . sort of.
Old Hicks takes them up the hill to the pens, her and a lad called Marat. Marat’s sixteen, more than twice as old as she is, and won’t waste time talking to a little girl. Fine by her, because talking is dangerous.
Talking can get you found out.
Tucked away in the gloom under the camo-netting, sheltered from the ever-shrieking wind, the girl finally gets to see the woollies close up. She’s a bit disappointed. They’re manky-looking and skinny, scraps of filthy wool still hanging off where they’ve been rough-sheared. Hicks flicks the beam of his shiner about and the girl sees sheep nursing a single newborn lamb each. But one ewe lies apart from the others, and seems restless. It gets up, bleats, paws at the straw-covered earth, then lies down again.
‘That un’s ready,’ Hicks says, squinting at her.
The girl hesitates, unsure. ‘Ready?’
‘To drop. Don’t just stand there gawping. Go see to it.’
Ready to drop. Oh yeah. She swallows and nods. Her sister’s done the telling from her turn outside yesterday. Now it’s up to her to do the remembering and play it so Hicks never guesses that today’s little girl is not the same as yesterday’s little girl.
So she scuttles around to the business end of the beast. Even though she knows what to expect, she still makes a face.
‘You like that, huh?’ Marat jeers.
See, it’s messy back here. A little white head and two tiny black hooves poke out of an explosion of red skin. The girl doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or be sick. Marat sniggers at her.
She gives him the finger, while Hicks isn’t looking.
Fortunately, the old ewe knows what she’s about. The girl watches, bug-eyed, as the lamb slithers out and thumps wetly on to the straw. Only a little woolly thing, but the girl’s amazed. It all goes exactly like her sister said it would. A new life, in front of her eyes. It’s so beautiful.
Hicks is watching her. His slash of a mouth twists into a snarl.
‘What you waitin’ for?’
The girl takes a deep breath and swats the fussing ewe away. Gritting her teeth, she pulls at the stuff on the lamb’s face. It’s hot and slimy, but comes away easy enough. She makes sure the newborn’s nostrils are clear of mucus, grabs a handful of straw and gives its face a quick tickle. The tiny creature – even littler than she is – sneezes. Its warm breath tickles her cheek back. ‘It’s breathing,’ she calls out, excited.
Hicks grunts something at her, which she doesn’t catch.
The worst bit is still to come. But her sister managed it, so she’ll have to manage it too, so nobody suspects. That’s the story of their two-pretending-to-be-one life. She lets the mother ewe back in to lick its newborn clean, fishes out her laser-knife and fires up its glowing green blade. Then, not waiting to think, she slices the cord close to the lamb’s navel, dials up full heat and holds the fizzing green blade on to the bloody end until she smells flesh burning. The lamb kicks a bit, but it’s not so bad. The bleeding stops. A dab of orange iodine from the pot and she’s done. Her first lamb, and it looks fine, shaking less then she is. As she powers the blade down, the lamb lifts its head, wanting to suckle. She reckons it’s a girl.
Hicks stomps over and gobs into the straw. ‘Not