Roofrats 26

"That is sad." After a moment's break, she clarified. "In general. Lucky for your case."

"Well, it's my own fault for sneaking in. If you're not supposed to be here in the first place, you can't go to someone's desk and say, hey you, I don't like the view and the accommodation isn't what I paid for, give me a refund..."

Yavu jumped when someone came too close and recommenced eating determinedly. As long as he didn't throw it all up, this would keep him going for a week.

Nico nibbled at another pastry. Towards the end, Yavu's statement got too confusing to decipher.

Eventually she asked, "Can you say why you did not know about not getting a job here?"

"I was stupid enough to think it'd be easier once I got here. They're strict and -- everything's more expensive than I thought. Including documents."

"Money buys you being a citizen?"

Yavu looked over his shoulder for a different reason this time, and lowered his voice.

"Money buys you being able to prove you're a citizen. It's not the same. We can't talk about -- not here. And I don't know anyone who would do such illegal and wicked things," he added at normal volume.

In this context, the funny little pantomime would have been quite sufficient to understand the main point. She could have pointed out that even if she had wanted to pretend she was a citizen, she doubted for her that would work for any significant length of time. Instead, after another short break, in which she finished the pastry, she asked, "Can you tell me what was before the city?"

Yavu surreptitiously licked a splash of sauce off the back of his hand.

"Oh, yes. Everyone knows that. Once people moved around like the colonists do now, then the gods ordained that they should stay and build the most beautiful city of all time, so they did." This was all told in a sing-song cradle voice, or Instar's equivalent thereof, with its emphasised Rs and smoothly rising and falling pitch.

"Did they say what for, too?"

"Because you do what a god tells you, I expect."

"I wondered if the gods hand mentioned any plan, a..." purpose for the city. How to rephrase that? "If the city is to be a tool to something."

He thought. "Well, legends... it will last until the end of the world and control everything in the world. And the spring will never dry up, or not until the end of the world. I don't know. Nobody worries about that. The end of the world is -" he waved a hand "- years away. Majority opinion, anyway."

The "years" comment startled her into a grin; it still took her a moment to remember the considerably different calendars.

"'Spring'? What's that?"

"Like, water from the ground." Yavu concentrated on his own water and tried not to look too hard at the remainder of Nico's food.

Nico considered for a moment. She thought she had seen aquaeducts.

"Is it important? I thought you got water from outside." Indicating her bowl, she added, "Oh, and do you want the rest? I'm full."

"Thank you," said a surprised Yavu, shuttling the bowl across the wooden tabletop. The poultry-cheese pastries, flavoured with a selection of spices for which he'd never yet managed to steal the recipe, were a rare treat.

"The spring isn't water - well, it is water, but... not for drinking. For power. You've seen the waterwheels, right? All turned by the spring. It's from a god, see?"

Nico shook her head. "Have not seen them." What she oculd see was the draw of a reliable source of energy, though.

"Are you really going to the colonies?" asked Yavu, who had something on his mind.

After a deep breath that didn't quite qualify as a sigh, she answered, "Not sure." She gave Yavu a curious look with tilted head.

"Oh. When will you be sure?" he asked. He had begun to spin his fork about its long axis, dropping it and catching it each time just before it hit the table.