Caledonia

By G. Bone

Capo Henril sighed. It was going to be a long day. Even though the Provisional Government did have the decency to look the other way on supplies, their insistence on "social donation" really made it worse. According to the audit – he had to donate some credits to an orphanage.

But – since he had nothing else better to do, Henril decided to go visit where his credits were going.

"Excuse me" he said of a man dressed in one of those funky brown uniforms with an earring in his ear, "Do you know where the Han Orphanage is?"

The man –Militia if he got it right – nodded. He simply pointed to a nearby building. Henril said his thanks and the two went on their way.

The building itself was large. It could pass off as a Merchant Hall, not that it had been one. There were even pock marks in the walls, some graffiti that cursed the inhabitants, and various other marks that seemed to designate the Hall as something else.

But there was a wooden door. Thank God for small things – Henril thought to himself. He knocked on it. There was a brief moment of silence until it was answered by an old woman with her assistant, who let him in with squinted glance.

The interior of the orphanage wasn’t anything that he wasn’t surprised at – the yard where the children would play – the garden – and the series of Doric flanked hallways stretching beyond Henril's vision.

"I suppose you’re here to pick the triplets" the old woman said, after Henril looked about.

"Excuse me?" he said.

The old woman turned to her assistant. She was attractive, had she not worked in the orphanage. She had these tired eyes.

But then the two started to talk amongst each other. It was one of those tongues that the Fleet Folk would probably never know about. The assistant then bowed to Henril and left.

There were some sounds –

All of a sudden, a child burst out of a room to get away from one of her teachers. She had grey skin - lithe for such a young age - and seemed to soak in the sunlight for a brief moment of freedom. Perhaps it was her grey skin that justified the curses on the wall...

Then the teacher came in. The teacher – almost Fleet with the exception of the strange eyes within her skull - dragged the child off to what room she had escaped from. The young child was protesting until the teacher silenced her with the back of her hand.

There was an awkward silence between him and the old woman.

"So – are you going to keep them here …" said the old woman, resembling a matron of the highest order, not a word of what had happened ever showing upon her face.

"I’m probably going to take them away…" replied Henril, spotting the backroom with fragile windows, grey skinned children mingled in a prison of stone and barred glass windows.

"That’ll be good – at least they will have a better life -" answered the old woman.

There was a brief silence - again- with another set of cries, but this time coming towards Henril instead of away. There were three children flanking the assistant, sullen, sombre, and grave. They all seemed of the age when they could have been ship runners or possibly engine boys.

"Good sir – this is Len, Mar, and Jan –" said the assistant to Henril. It was then that Henril remembered where the general shape of the Hall resembled - a prison. All that was missing was the guards, the barbed wire, and the watchtowers.

"Can I take the girl that just ran out in the yard?" interrupted Henril.

All of them gave him a look.

"Why do want her? She’s scum" said the eldest one.

Henril, not remembering the names, looked towards the assistant who mouthed the name 'Len'.

Len looked about thirteen years old, not quite legal in some ports, the opposite in others.

Henril squatted to meet her pale green eyes.

"What’s your name?" he asked the girl.

"Len" she replied, quietly.

"Well – Len – sometimes if you open your heart out to others– Fortune will bless you a thousand times over – and then some" Henril responded, looking up to the old matron, "I’ll take them and the girl that just ran out."

There was that pause, again.

"You weren’t here for the children" the matron stated.

"Now I am" spoke Henril, letting his Caledonian accent show