Braedon was standing near the window, talking on his comm to Rehan. He spoke a rendition of Trader Coldi so full of jargon that he might as well have spoken another language.
Some of the residents already lined up, one of them the pregnant woman, who was also the mother of a young child. Izramith noticed the groove in the woman’s nose: she was keihu. But she couldn’t have looked less like keihu had she tried. Too gaunt, her hair too dull and too straight, her skin too pale. What happened to the chubby, cheerful, round-faced appearance that was normal for the keihu people?
Damn, how long had she lived, and been mistreated, here?
The older residents were slowest to get ready, and not just because of their age.
“We tried to get out so many times,” a man told her. “We always failed. It’s t
