The others were left to the fussy attention of a physician, who looked for all the world as if he had been dragged out of bed barely ten minutes before.
"Bloody burglaries and armed robberies. You wonder what the Tax is worth if this sort of thing still happens." He muttered, as he held Thema's arm and pulled on it slightly. After a moment, he seemed satisfied, and let her drop her arm down to her side.
"When was the last time you heard of one happening? A robbery like this?" Thug asked.
"Two years ago. Considering the size of this city, it's a bloody miracle. And I suppose there's nothing to say about the tax, since the crime rate is worse everywhere else in the galaxy. It's just that I was dragged out of bed to check out a bunch of orphans who couldn't afford a checkup if your lives depended on it." The physician muttered.
"Hey! We have jobs! We wear clean clothes and everything!" Bug exclaimed, looking quite ready to attack the doctor.
"You are quite a bit cleaner than I thought you'd be. Though your teeth don't look like they've been cleaned in years." The doctor noted.
"Cleaning teeth?" Anita asked, quietly.
The doctor paused, his eyes widening a little as he slowly nodded to himself. "You're serious." He muttered. "You're completely serious."
Loudly, as if to compensate for how quietly he was speaking before, he said "I want all of you to come by my office this week. I'll go over a few things you need to know, to take better care of yourselves."
He hurried away, not even finishing the checkup he was apparently supposed to do. The children looked at each other, confusion passing over their faces, before shrugging and putting the strange doctor out of their minds.
"Do we really have to sleep in there tonight?" Tha'varr asked.
Thug's breath hitched a little, and Anita visibly shuddered at the question. To all of them, the thought was almost inconceivable.
Bravely, Tha'varr said "the sleeping bags are probably soaked, and most of the food is going to be ruined. Everything except what we kept in the freezer."
"We can replace all of it. We'll be sleeping on the floor again, if the sleeping bags are ruined, but we can get new ones eventually. It's just stuff, we haven't lost anything we can't replace."
"Yeah!" Bug exclaimed. "We didn't loose anything we can't replace! We still have each other, right?" He asked, looking to his friends eagerly, his eyes pleading.
Thug and Thema softly shouted their support, and though Tha'varr stared at Bug sharply. Anita, a little ways away, sat with her legs tucked tightly against her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees.
She hadn't cried, but she still looked as pale, and despondent, as she had while their lives were in danger.
"What's wrong?" Bug asked, but Tha'varr grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him away, her strange eyes narrowed in anger.
"How could you?" She asked him, her voice a hoarse and steely rasp. Bug, despite himself, swallowed hard and took a step away from her, holding his hands up.
"I just want to know what's wrong!" Bug exclaimed. "She's a friend, one of us, and she looks like someone just died!"
"More than one person did, Bug. Every single one of those boys is probably dead right now." Tha'varr responded. The statement hung in the air, and Bug's shoulders slumped.
Bug mumbled incoherently, trying to find something to say. Tha'varr held up a hand, and said "Stop, Bug. It's just worse for her, because she killed one of them."
"Who, that Monkey guy? She just broke his eye, defending herself. Fighting for us! She shouldn't feel ashamed because of that!" Bug exclaimed. "I'm gonna tell her that!"
"Bug," Tha'varr said, shaking her head. "Like it or not, she just murdered someone. She didn't mean to, and she did it protecting us, but she still did it. I think of all of us, Merry included, she has the biggest heart. You remember how willing she was to make Berry part of us, when it was just us and Thug? The rest of us didn't trust him at all, and she defended him even when we threatened to leave her."
"Oh," was all Bug could think to say, and without trying to speak again, walked back to the group and sat down, burdened by his own understanding.
Tha'varr, joining them behind him, sat down beside Thug and asked "What do you think Mystery and them are talking about?"
Thug shrugged, and said "I don't like it."
"Why not?"
"Why aren't we a part of it? They're making decisions that are gonna change our lives, and we don't get a say in any of it." Thug said.
"That's cuz we can't know who the Boss is." Thema insisted.
"I know! But the thing is," here, Thug paused for a moment, deep in thought. "We know people who know the secret. It's almost as bad. If he's trusting us to keep that a secret, but isn't willing to treat us like the group we are, then I don't want to be burdened with this secret!"
"Whad'ya mean, Thug?" Bug asked.
"I mean, if word spread that we have a special relationship with the Boss, and a rumor goes around that we might know who he is, we'll have people hunting us. We've all heard stories of how people used to be searching for his identity. We won't last long, and it's just as bad if we can identify someone who knows who the Boss is." Thug said.
Tha'varr nodded. "You're right, Thug."
"But what are we gonna do about it?" Thema asked. "Cuz they'll just kill us now, if we start a problem."
"We have to." Anita said, surprising everyone. "We have to go find Berry, Mystery, and Merry now, and make sure we're a part of what's about to happen. They're still alive because the Boss thinks they're useful. If they weren't, and they knew who the Boss was, they'd be dead already. But what about us?"
"The Boss wouldn't kill us. He needs us!" Thug exclaimed.
"He needs Berry and Merry. What are the rest of us to him?" Anita asked, coldly.
Bug shivered a little, Thug was taken aback, and even Tha'varr unconsciously tried to put some distance between the two of them. Her words were delivered calmly, as if she were discussing adding, and her eyes looked hollow and empty, as if the heart she used to express in them had drowned in the water back in their home.
"You're saying we're only useful to the Boss because we're attached to Berry and Merry?" Tha'varr asked.
"Yeah." Anita said. "That's exactly what I'm saying. And what happens if we're not as attached?"
"We die." Thug said.
"No." Thema said. "That can't happen. They'd never abandon us!"
"I'd like to think so. Berry has always worked so hard to keep us happy, and Merry is so kind. But any of us could have died last night. Any of us." Anita said.
"Anita, I'm sorry." Tha'varr said, softly, and Anita winced, turning her eyes away and wiping at her nose with her sleeve.
"But we need to be a part of this. We need to help decide what the Lucky Orphans are going to do with their future." Anita finished, firmly. The fire, if not the warmth, was beginning to return to her eyes. "We need to go and find the Boss."
The others nodded quickly, and all of them stared marching, as quickly as the could without running, in the direction the strange man had lead their friends.
They stormed to the end of the street, and looked around.
"There!" Bug said. "The lights are still on!" Bug's index finger was pointed towards a small shoppe halfway down the next street. The distance and the faint light made reading the sign impossible, but everyone was convinced this was the way to go.
Halfway to the light, the unfamiliar man who had lead their friends away appeared from the shadows, stepping behind them and coughing impatiently.
"We need to see them!" Thug said, stepping past his friends and crossing his arms barely a foot away from the man. Despite Thug's unusual size, the top of his head barely reached the unfamiliar man's chest.
"Do you?" The man asked, a hitch of amusement in his voice. Bug and Tha'varr deflated visibly, while Anita stepped forward to put herself beside Thug.
"We do." She said softly, and in a way, it seemed more intimidating than Thug's posturing.
"Then you're right on time." He said. "Your friends are inside, as is the Boss." He smiled, and gently turned the door aside for them. "Can I get you anything? Tea? Hot Morsan in steamed milk?" He watched, with a measure of amusement, as their eyes widened as he spoke, and didn't ask anything more as he ushered them inside.
As they entered, they looked around at what must normally be a small cafe. A stack of chairs were set against the window, and the tables were left bare. Only one, a large table in the far corner, had any occupants.
At the table, there were Beriven, Marius and Mystery, sitting with two other men. One, a tall man with badly tousled hair and a strangely colourful shirt, sat leaning far back into the chair, apparently enjoying the moment. To his left, a small man in a plain brown cloak sat quietly, nursing a cup that steamed readily into his nose.
"Guys! You came!" Beriven exclaimed, and waved at them.
"You're doing the next shipment pro-bono, Gothe." The small man said, a satisfied grin sneaking across his features.
"Gizka barf." Gothe cursed, shaking his head sadly. "Remind me why I make bets with you."
"Because it's the only way I can afford you." The Boss replied. "Correllia, with a hundred crates of Minorsans."
"At least you're not sending me somewhere dangerous. You know the place is having a civil war right now?"
"It's been quiet for the last three years. Their arms race is good for inflating the price of luxuries. If you're quick, I'll have enough to start building that new sewer system." The small man mused.
The others took seats, leaving the one on Gothe's right empty. As they sat, they cast questioning looks to Marius and Beriven, obviously missing something important.
"You're quite right, you know." The short man said to Bug, who was staring intently at him, his eyebrows scrunched towards his nose. "I am the Don of Vos Ma'ar, the invisible master of the city you reside in."
Bug shook his head as he sat down. "No, sorry. I was just hoping I would get taller than you, eventually."
The other orphans blanched, and Thema flinched as Bug spoke, horrified and frightened all the same time. Thug had enough presence of mind to backhand Bug across the back of the head before he sat down.
Gothe, however, started laughing. Hard and loud, with an infectious mirth that made the others smile a little, despite the circumstances.
The Boss shot Gothe a withering glare, but shook his head and shrugged. The other, unfamiliar man who had shown them inside had a grin on his face as he started dropping small glass cups from a tray in his hands.
"Hot Morsan for the lot of you. Drink it slowly, I don't want to get up for a little while." He said, and deposited one for each of them, even for the three that had arrived earlier. Once he finished, he took the empty seat to Gothe's right, and folding his leg, leaned back and sighed contentedly.
"First," The Boss said, and every eye in the room turned to him. "I wanted to make sure that the rest of you," and he looked to the latecomers, each in turn. "were willing of your own accord to take the initiative, to be willing to do things when the situation required it. I'm investing a lot by you, and I felt I deserved the chance to see that all of you were bringing something to the table."
"Now, last night, Marius and I met. In fact, he bashed on the door to the stump and demanded to see me right away. He did it because he suspected I had sent Damos to you, to test you for something. He was right."
The other's eyes widened, and they looked from the Boss to Marius, their mouths moving without uttering a whisper.
"I sent Damos to you, to test how useful you could be to me. You see, I have a bit of a problem with the orphans in the city. An unintended consequence of outlawing slavery in the territory in and around Vos Ma'ar. You lot are becoming bolder, and substantially more dangerous, as you call can attest to."
They all nodded, somberly.
"To cure myself of the potential headache, I have a few options. The easy choices disgust me, and the ethical choices disgust my wallet. I can either house you all and see to your needs, working you all towards becoming productive, protection tax paying residents. I can drive you all out of the city, and establish a policy of driving vagrants out of the city on sight. Or I can round you all up and sell you in the next city." The Boss explained, slowly.
"A few years ago, I tried to extend a measure of help to you all, but found that my efforts yielded almost nothing for my trouble. You were all still poor, homeless and desperate, if a little better nourished. So I was forced to begin considering the other options, and didn't like any of it. But then you lot, the lucky orphans, found a bonanza of free food from a defaulting grocer, and manage to swindle my cook out of ten ducats in the process." The Boss continued, with a small grin.
Their eyes widened, and Beriven shook his head sadly. "We were hoping you wouldn't find out about that."
"We weren't counting on it, though." Marius added. "We were covering up our tracks from earlier."
The Boss smiled outright. "It was a good plan, to make a lie true. But if you hadn't done what you did next, I wouldn't be so lenient on you right now. It was when you started finding yourselves work, and lifted yourselves out of poverty, to a degree of dignity, that I took real interest in you."
"You became a potential solution to my troubles. Orphans who could find work, could look out for each other, could solve their own problems and make something of themselves. I understand, Thursten, that you've caught the interest of the materials engineer at the spaceport." Thug looked startled by the Boss's revelation, but didn't contradict him.
"So, I have you all here now, because I've demonstrated that you now qualify for the protection tax. Now, until you're nineteen, you don't have to pay, but considering that you don't have people to pay for you, our relationship needs to be renegotiated. What I'm proposing, is a degree of subsidization in exchange for your assistance. Is this, in principle, agreeable to you and yours?" The boss finished, with a small flair in his speech. The dramatic aspect of it was lost on the children, who apart from Beriven, now looked at him with the slightly confused disdain that only children can deliver.
"What?" Thug asked, and the others burst into laughter.
"Language, Boss!" Gothe sputtered, in between giggles.
"What? There was nothing rude in that!" The Boss exclaimed, indignantly.
"It was gibberish to anyone who doesn't read archaic plays for fun." Gothe laughed, and held out his hands. "Please, please. What the Boss is saying is that if you help him with his orphan problem, he'll give you more than just protection."
The others looked to each other quickly, casting their glances from one to another in rapid succession. In just moments, Bug held up his hand with the thumb pointed straight in the air and nodded to Anita, who did the same. The others did the same in short order.
"We like it." Mystery said, with an air of finality. "But we gotta agree on the details first."
"Of course." The Boss said.
"So there's no way we can teach a classroom! Only Berry and Merry really know how to read!" Bug exclaimed. It was their third time trying to negotiate on the classes that the orphans were supposed to set up. The Boss, repeatedly, had insisted that the orphans must become literate to be useful at a job.
"We're agree with you, that literacy is the biggest thing. I just don't think we should neglect math." Thug insisted. "My job at the docks makes me add things up in my head all the time. I'm barely keeping ahead."
"The dock-master seems to think differently. He speaks highly of you." The Boss responded, at which Thug looked a little bashful. "But how many jobs require that? Most of my enforcers don't need to know more than the digits on their hands and feet."
"Even when they're missing a few?" Gothe asked, with a grin. The Boss, despite the sudden scowl that crossed his features, let the comment pass without note.
"Maybe not for a job itself, but handling money." Marius said. "Money needs math."
"So a passing ability to read, and some skills with math." The Boss nodded to himself. You all possess those skills already. What's the problem?"
"But you want us to set up a school!" Bug said. "We've gotta know a whole lot more than just that. Also, orphans aint gonna listen to other orphans. You need a authority, a guy with a big loud voice that people obey."
Marius, softly, asked "What about a bit of each? What if we just teach the basic math and letters, and you set up some more advanced classes, bring in a few teachers? That way, we can make sure we're teachin right."
The Boss nodded, and Beriven whooped in agreement. The others paused, and all eyes eventually fell on the unfamiliar man, who was busy handing out another round of hot Morsan.
"That might be for the best. Boss, I don't think that basic letters and math is enough, but it's worlds better than nothing. If we get most orphans through this setup that the orphans run, it would get some of them used to learning. Enough that some would be more willing to attend schools." The unfamiliar man said, handing out the last glass to Tha'varr and sitting down, where he sat before, on the Boss' right.
"That has potential." The Boss mused. "Bug, were you worried about what you could teach, or wether they would want to learn."
"If we attach the idea of money and jobs to the basic program, they'll learn enough to pass it." Beriven said. "From there, we can't guarantee how many would want to go on."
"How large a percentage would go through this?" Gothe asked.
"Don't ask that." The Boss stated quickly. "As competent as they are, they're still kids. Don't give them the impression this deal hinges on their success."
"But they've gotta know that. It's not for them, but what you might have to do to the orphans if this doesn't work." Gothe insisted. "I hate to paint a bleak picture, but he's pretty serious about this orphan problem."
"We know." Mystery said. "Believe me, we go the hint with Damos."
"I'm hoping for about three quarters of them." The Boss admitted. "We won't get everyone, but if the movement is large enough, the rest won't be nearly as big a problem. I'm willing to put up a protection tax incentive to hire orphans, if they go through this program of yours. But I still want you to match up orphans and jobs. Does that leave enough you to support your group?"
"I think so." Marius said. "Anita and I can look for work, Beriven and I can teach letters, Thug can teach Math part time, and I'm sure Bug and Thema can help us a little with it. And Tha'varr cooks, so we're okay with food and whatnot."
"Excellent. Now, Beriven, your warehouse idea is a good place to set up a housing unit. Any child who enters your program will be housed there, and get three meals a day. I'll set up a few people to cook and manage the place, so there won't be any trouble. You can use it as your teaching ground, as well."
"When did this start sounding so doable?" Bug asked.
"Right when you said it wouldn't work." Thema replied. "It's always how it happens."
"There's something I need to tell you all." The unfamiliar man said. "You weren't told before now, so that if you forget everything else, you won't forget this. I am Sark Vilth, the proprietor of the Stump. If you're ever in dire straits, and someone is threatening you or your friends to give up the identity of the Boss, you can tell them it's me."
The orphans stared, numb, not sure what to make of this information.
"He's okay with the danger this puts him in. It's also a safety mechanism, since he's always fairly well guarded. Everyone who knows who I really am is told this. It works as bait, since he has a platoon of former soldiers shadowing him regularly, and a decoy, to warn us that someone I trusted with my identity is in danger."
The others nodded, saying "We'll remember."
"Good." The Boss said. He stretched, and yawned a little. "I suppose an insensitive question is in order." He turned to Anita, and softly, asked "Are you okay sleeping in your home still? I can find you all other accommodations, if you feel you need it."
Anita swallowed hard, and said "No. We'll be okay."
"Then, goodnight." The Boss said, and stood up. The others did the same, and thanked him with enthusiastic handshakes, and toasting him with their hot Morsan. Eventually, they made their way out the door, while Gothe stopped Marius and took him aside.
"Marius, I..." Gothe began, and took a deep breath.
"Marius, I want to offer you a home, if you're willing." Gothe said.
"What?" Marius asked. "But why?"
"Your parents were friends of mine. The best of friends. I miss them, and couldn't have imagined that their son managed to survive. If I had known, I would have looked for you. I would have found you, Marius." Gothe insisted, and he struggled to keep the emotion from his voice.
"I-" Marius started, struggling for words.
"I know you don't know me at all, but I can show you pictures, of your parents, of you as a baby. The Boss can vouch for it."
"I can't." He eventually managed to blurt out. "I trust you, but I can't. I can't leave my friends. We just started to do well."
"Your parents wouldn't like it if I didn't make the offer, but really," Gothe said. "I don't know if you need it. You and this group of yours look like you're doing just fine, and truth be told, I don't really have a home to offer you." Gothe admitted, ruefully. "Now don't look at me like that, I have enough saved to buy a place and live a nice, quiet life it you had said yes, but my heart's still set on my own ship."
"It's okay. And thanks. but if you have a picture or two of my parents..." Marius began, and Gothe agreed before he could finish.
"I'll get them for you after I do that run to Correllia. But Merry, be careful, okay?"
"Why?" Marius asked. "After tonight, what else can happen?"
"I hate to borrow a line from a movie I saw, but I have a bad feeling about this." Gothe admitted to him, his gaze fixed outside.
"What, this deal with the Boss?" Marius asked.
"No, not that. Definitely not that. Just recent news from off-world. It's unsettling."
Marius nodded, not understanding the significance of news that would worry a spacer willing to fly to a world in a civil war to make a delivery.