Free Poor World by Sherwood Smith

worst is ol’ Rel.”
    â€œEven pain?” Kessler said, looking interested.
    Alarm zapped through me. Was this crazy guy about to stalk over to the jail to test out my theories? “Oh, well, no,” I said hastily. “I don’t know anyone who stonefaces through that . And it seems kind of weird to crunch someone to see if his face changes,” I added, not very subtly — as if my opinion could possibly have dissuaded him from trying.
    But Kessler had already lost the interested look.
    â€œWell,” I said, deciding I’d gotten myself into enough trouble for one day. I got up — resisting the temptation to rub my aching neck. “Maybe I better get a start on the work. Um, when — or where — is dinner, so I don’t miss it, or cause any extra fuss?”
    â€œRight here. Whenever you want.”
    So much for my subtle hint about not having to eat with him.
    Groaning inwardly, I decided I’d better act on my expressed eagerness to get started on training right away.

Five
    Dhana glanced up at the window: almost sunset.
    She sidled quick looks at the others in the room: five kids, from her age up to Rel’s, and maybe ten adults. She ignored the latter.
    The kids were still studying. Dhana fought a yawn and turned her attention back to the map on the wall. She already had it by memory, although when her turn came she would not reproduce the entire thing. Her instinct with any adults she did not trust — which was most of them — was to hide what she was capable of, unless she saw a clear advantage. To her, not to them. In this place, so far the only advantages to standing out seemed to be promotion — which meant the prospect of being sent to bump off rulers like Clair.
    The door opened from behind, and the tutor said, “Time.”
    Instantly everyone got up and filed in a neat line to their workroom. That was one of the lesser annoyances, so far, these orderly lines. Dhana loathed them on principle, and as she walked she had to resist the temptation to break the rhythmic stride that now seemed habit to the others, and dance in counterpoint.
    Luckily she was enjoying the game she was playing with the adults in charge, so it was easy to smother the urge to dance out her resistance, and walk along obediently.
    In the workroom, she sat down, and this time instead of calling each person up to repeat what he or she had seen, the tutor passed out paper and pencils and had them draw and label the map. Dhana worked carefully, gauging her pace according to the other kids. At all times she aimed for the average, neither slowest nor fastest, or the one with the least or most recall.
    She paid more attention to the physical detail of the map and less to the lines and markers that had indicated some kind of military plan. She could actually remember all those, though she had no idea what they meant — and didn’t want to know.
    She’d been picked to train as a spy, and so far most of the stuff they did was mildly interesting and once in a while even fun. Like walking through a room and then reporting on who stood where, what they wore, and what they said, and what objects lay where. But when it came to anything that smacked of war junk, she did a little worse than average.
    Irene had also been picked to train for spying, but Dhana only found out when Gwen whispered it to her at dinner. That was another thing that annoyed Dhana: the way all the Mearsiean girls had been separated. Not honestly, overtly. But effectively.
    She fumed as she looked down at her map. That first night somebody had come for them, an older lady who’d said she’d find bunk space for them. They’d been divided into two twos and one threesome then distributed to different barracks. The next day at breakfast, the girls had discovered you could only sit at table with your barracks — even if you hadn’t been officially assigned yet. Dhana had seen the other