Grease formed a skin on his half-eaten bowl of soup. His stomach tightened and his gut clenched. The fare did not sit well with him. He hoped the ladies cleared out of the facilities before the food washed out what little remained of his insides.In the center of the cave, an old man tossed rounds of bread dough onto a hot skillet. Children crowded around him, oohed and ahhed when each piece was added. He bent low and whispered to Ruth. Her pigtails slapped her back when she nodded. A jerk of his hand flipped the rounds through the air and he expertly caught them in the pan.The kids clapped.A young, bare-chested man picked up a stack of cooked bread and passed it around to the freshly cleaned miners. The few people who hadn’t worked a shift hauling ore scrubbed dirty clothes in the tub behind the half wall and strung them on the lines lacing the stone and mud houses together.Men and women smiled and laughed.Bei didn’t think their good mood was solely attributed to the bread. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told Job about the Syn-En, Earth, and Humanity’s registration.But then he’d be sleeping without a clan tonight and would have to devise a new plan to visit the pleasure quarters, to reactivate his communications officer.
