Roofrats 25

She took that as a cue, and started off with, "So, food comes from the colonies. There are some, and all people move from one to the next, following the grow-season, is that right?"

Yavu swallowed. "Yeah, we grew grain food and meat, some picking fruits. Most people move, some don't. You know there are five, yes?" He dipped his finger in the gravy on his curly fries and dotted a circle of six marks on the table.

One was bigger than the rest. "The city," Yavu explained, indicating that one. Then he licked his finger.

"I know now," she answered, staring at the sauce dots. The layout surprised her. Somehow she had expected something more like having Offwhite in the middle.

"So, if now it's fullest time for Colony five, do people move here next?"

Yavu sniggered. "Let them in the city? Don't say that or somewhere a politician's heart will stop. They'll work Five until the sunshine reaches One."

"Why do they not want people from the colonies here?"

"After they shipped us out there? Don't you know why... oh. Waru." Yavu decided he needed more brainfood for this and took a few more mouthfuls in silence.

Nico gave him a half-smile and a shrug. Since he seemed to have figured out the main problem, she asked, "Waru?"

"God," Yavu said succinctly. "Or supposedly. I never saw much evidence of him out there. I'm not a criminal--" Not apart from working here without papers, and a few petty thefts he saw no need to mention.

"My grandmother is. Bad enough to get transported on a one-way ticket. Most people back home are criminals, slaves or their children."

Nico sighed. Well, it wasn't surprising, sadly. She didn't like this whole "inherited sins" business, but what could you do. Remembering what Yavu had said earlier, and his tone, she asked, "So, the Sheriff and keeping order - does she fail, or do to much, or...?"

"That depends if you're friends with her." Yavu scraped out a paper pot of mayo with his eating-utensil.

"You're not thinking of going there to live, right? You don't need to worry about this stuff if you trade with them. All of the commerce works; that's all anyone cares about here."

"No, maybe visit. I'm curious," she answered matter-of-factly, and shrugged.

"We... they..." Yavu thought about that one. "We aren't museum exhibits."

Or zoo animals, right.

"No." The next question took a bit to put together. "You think people in Offwhite are? Or that I should have kept away?" She wasn't offended.

"It... it's just strange having people want to come and look at us. W-- them back home, anyway, are just trying to live."

It was just as well that the "zoo animals" thought went unsaid, or she would have had to waste time explaining to Yavu what a zoo was.

"Meet people. Talk to them. Or see what the world looks like where no people live."

Yavu wasn't sure how to take that statement (imperative? An instruction? Nah, couldn't be), so he tipped his croutons into his dish to soak up the gravy and began spearing them one by one with his eating utensil, and said "Grasslands, flowers, forests, mountains, wild animals, butterflies."

Nico chuckled. "Sounds good. Better than what someone else told me."

"Yeah, not many people think much of the colonies. We're not fashionable."

"'Fashionable' is not that important," slipped her with a very short-lived sneer.

Yavu choked on his water. "Fashion is very important! When I got here I had no friends, no work, no clue how to survive. If big-eyed fawns hadn't been fashionable then, I would have starved."