Oumings in the Dark by Jeffrey Miller
After some consideration I've decided you can take this job and... ___________________________________________________________
A sickly smell hovered around the barn door. Eira
pinched her nose shut and turned her head. She might have walked away but for a disapproving look from Mr. Von. She found the man intimidating, with his huge block of a head, his ruddy face and steely eyes. When his gaze fell upon her, she withered, let go of her nose, and bowed her head. “It’s gonna smell bad,” he said in a voice made coarse by drink. “You just gotta deal with it.” She nodded, and he reached for the padlock on the door handle. “How many are in there?” Eira asked. “This is where they send the old Oumings to die.” He pulled a small key out of his pocket and undid the padlock. “So there’s quite a few.” Eira grimaced. “Look, I’m not being callous about it,” Mr. Von said with a shrug. “It’s a fact. They send them here from the farms and estates when they get too old to work.” “I know,” Eira said. “I was just…” He waved her off and pulled open the barn door. A cloud of filth gushed out, and she clapped her hands over her mouth and nose. Sunlight flooded the dingy room, and she saw eyes, a sea of glistening eyes peering through mesh cages. The sight and smell of it was too much. Eira groaned and doubled over, fighting the urge to vomit. But Mr. Von, oblivious, kicked the door all the way open and strolled into the barn. “Be careful you stay in the center of the path here,” he said, then noticed that she wasn’t with him. He snapped his fingers and beckoned her. Eira rose, set her jaw, and followed him. The cages were set against each other in two rows on either side of a narrow concrete walkway. Waste from the Oumings ran out of the bottom of their cages down slopes which directed it all into gutters. “Like I said, stay in the center,” Mr. Von continued. “You step off into one of the gutters, it’s really gonna ruin your day.” He led her to the back of the barn. The Oumings were pressed up against the front of their cages, sticking their fingers through the openings. They were short and squat, covered in dusky green fur, with large eyes, blunt noses and broad mouths. Some had lost patches of fur, others had fur that looked matted and
grimy. A few were curled up on the floor of their cages, clutching their bellies or faces. Eira had not expected this. “A barn full of Oumings who need daily care,” that was the way the job had been described to her. She wasn’t naive. She had known there would be cleaning to do. She had expected to be a little overwhelmed on her first day. But she had not expected this level of squalor. “Hello,” she said softly to the many passing faces. Frowning mouths, anguished eyes, creased foreheads. Mr. Von was standing at the back of the barn. He turned to her and motioned for her to hurry. “Don’t talk to them,” he said. “Most of them don’t speak, but if you run across any that do, you mind your business.” “Why?” Eira asked. Mr. Von was mostly in shadow, but he took a step toward her and a bar of sunlight fell across his ruddy face. “Because of that,” he said, pointing past her shoulder. She knew what he meant but looked anyway. Outside, beyond the barn and the fields, on a hilltop overlooking the city, sat the Factory. It rose like a nest of spider legs above the bare rock. The Core Crystal sat on a vast pedestal of steel in the center of the nest, pulsing with a purplish light, and with each pulse, the lights of the Factory surged. She knew the story, of course. Every child learned it in grade school. Oumings were the first to attempt to draw power from the Core, but they were reckless and stubborn, refusing the advice of human scientists and engineers. In the process, they created a fracture in the Core which sent out a massive wave of energy that killed tens of thousands, laid waste to the landscape for miles around, and nearly ended the early human colony. “You don’t let them talk to you, because you can’t trust them,” Mr. Von said. “And surely I don’t have to tell you to never open the cages, right? One of them dies, you don’t deal with it. You come get me, and I’ll extract it.” “Yes, sir,” Eira said. “I understand.” He gave her an appraising look, then grunted and shook his head. “Well, alright then,” he said, gesturing toward a faucet sticking out of the wall near his foot. “Let me lay it out for you, nice and easy. Once a day, you’ve got to flush out the gutters with water. Just
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