CHAPTER EIGHT
JAI
It was the morning of the third day since we’d arrived on this new planet, the second morning of waking in this bland room.
The lady with the black and yellow stripes came back again, telling us to shower and to eat breakfast, and we obeyed, because that’s what we’d been trained to do.
Obedience was fundamental to a dimari’s life.
Once we were all dressed and the breakfast trays had been taken away, my companions once more lined themselves up neatly at the end of their beds, waiting for their masters to arrive.
Four had been taken away yesterday, and in all likelihood, I would never see them again.
None of us knew where we would end up, once our training was complete, but we were all taught to avoid forming close friendships with our fellow trainees.
There was no point pining for a childhood friend if we were destined to end up on opposite sides of the galaxy.
I contemplated standing at the end of my bed, like the others were doing.
The posture and the presentation were designed to make as good a first impression on our masters as possible.
And most dimari wanted to impress their new masters.
Ignoring the insistent tug of obedience, I took a slow look around the room.
Where could I go, and what could I do, that would be less, somehow?
Something that my master would very slightly disapprove of?
I could sit down on the bed. I’d done that several times yesterday, instead of standing.
It wasn’t laziness. My body was conditioned to be able to stand for hours at a time, for days on end.
But I’d already performed that minor act of defiance against my hypothetical master.
Today, I wanted to do something different.
But what? My brain was in a fog, thanks to the Eumadians’ neuro-engineering machine. Thinking was difficult. Putting plans together was impossible. I could come up with no other alternatives that made any sense; stand, as I was meant to, or sit on the nearest thing I could see.
Perhaps if I moved to a different part of the room, I might be able to see something else, something that had so far escaped my notice.
I turned around and took three steps, in no particular direction except that it was away from the bed.
I looked at the far wall. It was white. I looked at the door.
It was closed. I took another two steps and an object appeared in my view.
It was a table. Was there anything interesting I could do with a table? No, I didn’t think so.
But next to the table was a chair. Several chairs, in fact. These were the chairs we’d sat on during breakfast. Sitting at a table to eat breakfast was a perfectly normal activity, and I’d complied because the black and yellow lady had told us all to sit down and eat breakfast.
But no one was telling me what to do now.
I could sit on one of the chairs.
I felt a cold thrill of fear run through me, and I almost obeyed my impulse to retreat to my bed and stand at the end of it, like a good, obedient dimari.
But I did not want to be good. I did not want to be obedient. I did not want my new master to be pleased with me.
Moving stiffly, my heart pounding the whole way, I moved over to the closest chair and turned it, so that it was facing the door, and not the table. And then I sat down on the chair.
I felt a wave of satisfaction at having found a new way to defy my eventual master.
And while I sat there and waited, I tried to think of other things I could do aside from stand at the end of the bed.
But there wasn’t much in this room to work with.
There were the beds, and the table, and the wall.
Perhaps, later in the day, I could stand facing the wall, instead of facing the door. My new master, whoever they were, certainly wouldn’t like that. Yes, that was a good idea. I looked forward to the afternoon, when it would be time to try out my new plan for upsetting my master.