Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Once in the Tower, she had not seen Prender or Musley or Papa or Grandma again. Someday she would see her half sisters and Papa, perhaps. After she was senior, not before. And not Grandma Don, of course. Grandma would have been taken to the Holy Sorters long ago, though Pamra doubted she had been Sorted Out.

Disgusted at the memory, she pushed herself away from the window. Nothing was real this morning. Propelling her weakness through the day would be like swimming through mirage. Stripping off her gown, she began the morning ritual which got her dressed, her hair braided in the distinctive Awakeners pattern. Robed and sandaled at last, she left the cubicle to pause at the top of the women’s stairs for the Utterance.

“Rejoice! I go to Awaken those whose labors sustain us. Thanks be to the Tears of Viranel, to the Servants ofAbricor, to the Promise of Potipur, and amen.” Though her shaking hand upon the banister belied her voice, the statement was made firmly aloud, requiring response.

“Rejoice and amen!” chanted a voice from down the corridor, echoing and anonymous.

So released, she stumbled down to the women’s refectory and a deserted table. The smell of the morning grain ration sickened her, but she held her breath and forced the porridge down. Her body would not make new blood if she didn’t eat, and no amount of religious posturing would get her through the day unless she felt stronger.

Ilze’s voice came from behind her, formally cool, yet with a slight tone of anger. “Pamra, you’re white as pamet. Have you just been bled? Who did it?”

Pamra kept her face forward. While talking at morning meal was not forbidden, it was considered indicative of a lack of seriousness. Still, he was a senior and her mentor. He had a perfect right to come into women’s quarters, a perfect right to question her. She whispered, “It was Betchery.”

“Betchery indeed. I should have known without asking.” He was lean and brown with a bony, handsome face and hungry eyes. Despite his evident concern, Pamra felt a sense of danger whenever he was near, as though she might burn if he focused on her more closely. She shifted uncomfortably beneath his unsmiling regard, keeping her eyes down where they belonged, uneasy under his stare.

“You’re in no condition to be on labor roster. Take it easy today, and I’ll see what I can do.” He touched her, almost a caress, lingering longer than necessary. Beneath his hand, her skin quivered, not welcoming the touch, not daring to reject it. He turned, saying, “Well, enough of this rejoicing. I have yesterday’s plowed fields to inspect.”

“Rejoice!” Pamra responded formally. “The Awakening is at hand.”

He left her with an amused smile, shaking his head very slightly. Ilze frequently seemed to find her amusing, and this slight, half-concealed mockery often puzzled her. This mom-ing, however, she was too weary to be puzzled by anything.

In the open corridor between men’s and women’s quarters, she waited at the bleeders’ hatch for someone to bring whatever supplements the Superior had ordered. Betchery brought them out, fat Betchery, sneering and popping candies into her mouth as Pamra tried to choke the pills down dry. It was Betchery’s habit of gluttony that Pamra had commented on to Jelane. Unfortunately, Betchery had overheard the conversation.

“Rejoice, Awakener,” said Betchery, handing over the two daily flasks of blood and Tears. “Lookin’ a trifle pale, there.”

“Rejoice and amen.” Pamra would not give her the satisfaction of anything but ritual. Rejoice and amen, and amen to. You, Betchery, bitch. If you come dead under my hands, you’ll not be Sorted. She went out into the morning, no longer trembling, merely angry-sad as bleeding usually made her. It brought a brooding melancholy that made the world seem colorless-a painting done in shades of brown and tan with none of the usual life and vitality.

The water in the trough on the high steps riffled in the light wind of the year’s second summer, warmer and less rainy than the autumn that had just passed. Thin, early-morning clouds streamed north in the onshore winds; later they would puff like pamet pods to hang their heavy veils over the fields. A flight of young flame-birds fled across the sky, their orangey feathers spark bright in the sun. Down in the Baristown plaza, a line of swaying Melancholies moved across the pave, chanting to awaken the people. Only they or the Awakeners would be up this early. The parkland that separated the Tower from Outskirt Road at the edge of Baristown lay green in this early light, quiet, silvered with dew.