Genetopia by Keith Brooke

on. Supplies for the visitors: the best fish for the masters’ guests, everything else ground up into the mutts’ swill.
    Nico nodded, absorbing the information. He reached across and touched Dinah’s brow. “What be hurt in here?” he asked.
    “Mas’ Torbern done come back,” she said, the words and distress scents enough for Nico. She knew he was jealous of her love for the master, but she was helpless to change anything. Her love for Nico was a head thing, not a gut thing. It was her own choice, but it could never be greater than her love for Mas’ Torbern.
    “Mas’ done bring some Lost,” she went on. “One pretty one. Me done call her Taneyes. Mas’ done teaching her to obey. Taneyes fight too much. Mas’ for give big teachings to break Taneyes.”
    Nico would know what big teachings meant: the changing vats. Those who wouldn’t be broken sometimes had to be wiped clean in the changing brew. Most years there were some like Taneyes.
    Nico leaned over her, dripping water onto her face. “Be want Taneyes on Highway?” he asked.
    She shook her head. Until now that had been exactly what she had wanted, but now she knew it was too risky. “No, Nico,” she said. “Taneyes done hurt Mas’ Torbern–Mas’ been want for teach her.” There was no way they could get Taneyes onto Harmony Highway when she was getting special attention from Mas’ Torbern.
    ~
    “You have friends,” pleaded Taneyes. “I need your help!”
    Dinah recoiled from the pretty one. She had marked this one down for trouble from the start and now she knew she had been right.
    She remembered the words of Old Ellis. Some mutts were naturally clever and some scraped together an education. Some had an advantage because they had good blood in them, as she was convinced Dinah had–by good blood, she meant blood of the True, she meant that Dinah was the product of one of her mother’s liaisons with human men at Lady Leder’s leisure house.
    But the cleverest mutts of all were those who concealed their intelligence, for humans never trusted a mutt who could think.
    “Please, mas’?” Dinah said now, doing her best to look confused by Taneyes’ words.
    “I don’t belong here. It’s all a mistake!”
    Today was the day of smoke and flight and of all days Dinah did not want the pretty one causing trouble today. She knew this when she had seen the wisps of smoke curling up from the northern end of the island shortly after the day’s first light.
    “We all looking for Harmony,” said Dinah, the sudden change in her tone silencing Taneyes. “Ain’t all of us able to find it, you hear me?”
    “What can I do?” Softer now.
    “You don’t cause trouble for the others, you hear?” Dinah was talking true talk now, breaking out of Mutter to get through to the pretty one. “You keep your thinking head together, you keep yourself ready for whatever happens, but you don’t ever do anything to cause trouble. You hear?”
    Taneyes nodded, and suddenly Dinah felt a great rush of fear that for the first time in her life she had committed too far, given her trust to someone who now held her life in her hands.
    ~
    The timing was all wrong.
    Dinah looked around and knew that there was no way she could get warning to anyone. She remembered her words for Taneyes: You keep your thinking head together, you keep yourself ready for whatever happens .
    That was all she could do.
    She ducked her head and followed the small group: masters Torbern, Enchebern, Caltreco, Bereshbern and Treebesh; the mutts, Maddy, Tender and Wake; and the Lost, Taneyes and the girl, Lariss.
    They followed the track at the foot of the stockade on the morning sun side of camp, Little Elver to their left, the causeway a short distance behind them. Here, the waters of the small river formed a wide swampy area between the island and the jungle. Great pools of sediment and slime were separated by ridges of wood and silt. Looking down from the stockade it was apparent that the