Bhotta's Tears: Book Two of the Black Bead Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

Alain howled with laughter, but Megan was not amused. Her fists were getting tighter. One of them was about to get socked.
    “No,” snapped Cheobawn. “I am not stupid. I have been in the breeding sheds.”
    “Well, people have to do the same thing,” Connor informed her.
    “No they don’t,” Cheobawn insisted. “Amabel makes the babies in her lab and puts them inside the natalmothers.”
    The boys stopped laughing, suddenly sober at the reminder that Amabel, as the current Maker of the Living Thread, had final say in the birth and death of everyone under the dome.
    Megan smiled frostily at the boys and then turned a gentler smile on her small friend.
    “Well, you have it exactly right,” she said solemnly, “Mostly.”
    “Are Lowlanders good story tellers, do you think?” Cheobawn ventured, returning to the subject that most interested her.
    “You are such a dope,” snorted Connor. “None of us know anything about Lowlanders. It will never come up in any of our lessons.”
    The Pack turned as one and looked at him expectantly. Connor flushed, uncomfortable under their collective gaze.
    “What do you know, little brother?” asked Tam, an odd look on his face. Perhaps he was surprised that Connor kept secrets from him. Cheobawn thought this only fair. Tam should know what it felt like to be on the receiving end of secrets. Perhaps he would be less inclined to keep secrets from her from now on.
    “I overheard Sigrid talking to his Second,” Connor said. “Sigrid’s Ramhorn Pack is going on the next Meetpoint run. They have to attend private briefings with the First Fathers before they go down the Escarpment to meet the Lowland traders and they are not allowed to discuss anything they learn outside of those meetings.”
    “And you were going to tell me this … when?” Tam asked. “Are you my intelligence officer or not?” Connor opened his mouth to defend his impugned honor, but Megan interrupted their quarrel.
    “We trade with Lowlanders?” asked Megan, surprised.
    “Well, sure,” said Alain mused. “That would explain how we get the diatomic sand and the rare salts, I guess.”
    Cheobawn made another mental note. She had not honestly thought about the source all the boxes, tins, and bins of stuff sitting on the shelves in the Communal Pantry but, in retrospect, the truth was that everything came from somewhere. She had assumed, as with everything else, that it had been gathered by the tribe or exchanged with other tribes at the Trade Fairs. Now she knew that the domes held a Trade Fair down below Meetpoint dome and only Lowlanders were invited.
    “Shut up, Alain,” hissed Tam, a deeply worried look on his face. “Don’t say another word, you two,” he said, glaring at the boys. Turning towards Megan, he held out his hands, trying to placate the older girl’s rising anger. “I don’t know if we are allowed to talk about this with girls. Some things need to be kept from …”
    Megan was getting ready to sock him, but flinched and looked down at Cheobawn. Cheobawn grimaced, trying desperately to control what was roaring through her mind and obviously failing to keep it out of the ambient, judging by Megan’s reaction. She went blind for a moment, trying to sort out the turmoil inside her heart.
    For some reason, it terrified her her Pack knew next to nothing about the Lowlands. What else did they not know? There were too many secrets. Secrets were almost lies and lies were deadly if you were an Ear trying to stay alive. Did the Mothers keep an entire planet shrouded in secrecy for some reason? The unsettling vertigo returned, sending her thoughts tumbling through her mind. Until this moment, the world had been small, certain, and manageable. Now, great vistas of unknowable possibilities tugged at the safe borders of her existence. In the center of this infinite horizon, her ignorance was a weight that threatened to drown them all. How could she keep them all alive when the Coven had her