by Megan Hart
“This way,” Luz said, pushing him.
They led him into another big building, pushing him through doors covered in a patchwork of glass and metal and wood. Once inside, Tobin could only gasp. It was easily as large as the warehouse store, but this was filled with people.
Everywhere he looked there were people. Men and women. Old and young. Laughing, frowning, talking, kissing, hugging, smiling and shouting. More people than he’
d ever imagined could exist.
−10-
“The gatherers!”
“They’re back!”
The cries sprang up all around the vast room, from one person to another. Luz pushed Tobin again, toward the back of the room and another set of doors. Tobin stumbled in that direction, too preoccupied to resist. He heard a buzz of excited mumbling spread out from all around him, and he realized that people were pointing at him. Talking about him.
“We’re taking you to the Beit Din,” Luz told him. “You can tell your story there.”
Tobin didn’t really care about the Beit Din, or telling a story, or anything else. He was too enthralled with the sights before him. He’d never imagined anything like this. He was overwhelmed.
Just outside the doors they passed a smaller area marked off by a serious of soft chairs and couches set up in small groups around a large fireplace. Lots of people sat on the chairs. Some played chess, a game he recognized. Others talked or worked on mending, something he was also greatly familiar with.
Luz pushed Tobin in front of one of the couches set up along the wall next to the door they were heading toward. A young woman sat on the couch, holding something wrapped in a blanket. She was talking to it, cooing and smiling, and as Tobin watched she bent to kiss it.
Just as Tobin passed her, he saw inside the blanket. A baby. Everything stopped for him in that moment. Luz’s insistent shoves did no more than shake him, for Tobin’s feet had become like stones attached to the floor. It was a baby.
The baby giggled and kicked its tiny feet in the blanket. The mother stared at Tobin curiously, watching him as he reached out to brush his finger along the baby’s impossibly tiny, downy head. It was soft.
“His name is Daniel,” the mother said.
Then they were dragging him away, but they couldn’t take the feeling of the baby’s head away from his hand. A baby. He’d never dreamed…
“Welcome back!” Spoke an older man with a long beard, dressed all in black. “Ari, tell me what you’ve gathered for us this time!”
Ari outlined Tobin’s story, leaving out the part where Tobin refused to go along to show them where to find the store. Tobin stayed quiet, still wrapped in the dream of the child. The Beit Din, two men and an enormous woman, all in black, listened carefully.
“This is cause for celebration! We’re honored to have you as our guest, Tobin Winter. You’ve brought us joyous news,” the man with the beard said. He clapped Tobin on the shoulder, making Tobin wince as pain flared from his many wounds. The man’s eyes met something in the crowd, and he smiled. “Adonai has surely listened to our pleas.”
An enormous woman standing next to the bearded man let out a low, scoffing laugh. “You were right, Ephraim.”
“Come,” said the man she’d called Reb, holding out his hand to Tobin, “let’s make sure you’re taken care of.”
-*-
Leah had started crying and been unable to stop; they’d taken her away “to rest.” Everyone knew what that meant. She wouldn’t be back for a long time, perhaps ever. Elanna knew she needed to put this away from her head and stop thinking about her own child, but she couldn’t.
What she hated was that nobody would talk about Leah’s child, nor Leah herself. There was plenty of talk, all right, but all of it centered around the man the gatherers had brought back with them. She couldn’t walk down the hall without hearing the whispering. Who was he? What was he like? And most of all, was what he said true? Was there a place filled with new clothes, food and batteries still in their packs?
“I don’t know,” Elanna snapped at last to the impatiently wriggling Chedva. “I haven’t talked to him. You know the Beit Din’s taken him away until they can make sure he’s all right. Not sick.”
“Tamar says he’s from uptown,” Chedva said conspiratorially, inching closer.
Elanna sighed, but she couldn’t escape. It was her shift to work in the kitchen, something even hopemothers couldn’t get out of. Two thousand people ate a lot of food and used a lot of dishes. She continued scraping plates and scrubbing platters. Maybe Chedva would be called away to do something else. Eventually.
No such luck. The kitchen bustled, as it always did, with several of the ovens always going and the stovetops covered with bubbling and steaming pots. Meals were served three times a day in the main dining hall, but not everyone could fit in there at once. Each meal period had three sittings, and everyone rotated their sitting time from week to week. It made seating easier, but meant the kitchen never closed.
Chedva had switched with another girl solely for the purpose of working with Elanna. She was a good partner, too, keeping up despite all her chatter. Dish duty was Elanna’s least favorite of all, except perhaps for privy duty. Having a swift moving partner was a blessing, and almost worth the chatter. Almost.
“Tamar says the gatherers found him there!”
“Don’t be silly, Chedva,” Elanna broke in, unable to stand any more. “He’s not from uptown.”
“How do you know?” Chedva asked, scrubbing furiously until her plump cheeks turned pink.
“He was wearing clothes,” Elanna said.
“Oh. Yeah. Maybe he’s a Bridger.”
Elanna sighed, scrubbing. “I don’t think so. They hardly ever leave the bridge by themselves.”
“Well, wherever he’s from, I think he’s awfully cute,” Chedva said dreamily.
Elanna turned to look at her, amused. “Do you?”
“Oh, definitely,” Chedva said a trifle defensively. “He looks so…exotic.”
“Maybe you’d like him better if he were from uptown,” Elanna said and laughed. She blew a puff of suds at the other girl. “You know, that savage attraction.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” Chedva said earnestly, “if what they say is true?”
Elanna thought of a new coat and not having to worry about whether the gatherers would bring enough food to last another winter. Not worrying if they’d be able to get another season’s growth out of the roof top gardens. Having bright lights again, at least for awhile. Maybe even some pretty things, like scented soap and soft sponges.
“Yes,” Elanna said. “It would.”
-*-
“I told you Ha-Shem would send someone to help us.” Ephraim tried and failed to keep the smug tone from his voice. It was a failing, he knew it. Miriam had often told him so. But just now he had reason to be smug.
“So you said. But who’s to say this outsider is what he claims to be?” Solomon asked.
Livna raised both brows. “So far as I can see, he hasn’t claimed to be anything.”
Ephraim passed a hand over the items laid out on his desk, all of them taken from the man Tobin Winter’s backpack. Everything new, fresh, unused. Unlike anything they’d seen in years. “This doesn’t lie, does it? And he says there’s more. An entire building greater than the size of the Main Hall, stocked with everything we could need for years.”
“He also says he doesn’t want to stay here. That he wants to move on. To California.” Livna snorted laughter, shaking her head. “Of all the stories...”
“First, he needs to show us where to go to get to the supplies. That’s all. After that, he can go wherever he likes,” Ephraim said.
“He says he’ll draw us a map,” Livna said.
Ephraim shook his head. “Not good enough. I’d like to believe his good intentions in sending us toward the warehouse, but our gatherers haven’t been beyond the city limits since before my father’s time. Without the trucks, we�
��ll need as many of them to make the journey as possible. He can lead them there and back. Then he can move on to wherever he wants.”
“Without the trucks? You mean you’ll send them on their own?” Livna said.
Ephraim looked at the other two members of his council. “You know the bridge people would have issue with us crossing. That’s even if the bridge would hold the weight of the trucks. It’s too dangerous. Tobin made it here himself on a bike, with a backpack. Surely our gatherers can do the same. Probably more efficiently too.”
Solomon nodded. “See if he can’t contribute to a few of our hopemothers too, while he’s here. He looks strong. Healthy. We could use some diversity.”
All were silent, perhaps thinking, as Ephraim was, about the child born to the hopemother Leah. Fathered by Ari, one of their most honored Gatherers, and yet still not born healthy despite the careful testing that had gone on beforehand. It happened, sometimes.
Livna shifted in her seat. “And if he doesn’t want to lead them? What if he’s not interested in making babies for us, either? He’s not one of us, Ephraim, and you wanting him to be isn’t going to make it so.”
“We’ll have to convince him, that’s all,” Ephraim said.
“And if we can’t?” asked Solomon.
Ephraim looked at them all, grimly. “We’ll have to.
”
-11-
Tobin’s body still screamed in a hundred different places. His head throbbed like someone was banged on it with a stick. Which made sense, since that was pretty much what had happened.
The woman in front of him wore flowing rags of every vivid color he’d ever seen. Purple, orange, red, blue and colors he had never seen too, greens that shimmered in the lamplight like the sea on bright days and golds that gleamed like sunshine itself. Her face was wizened but kindly, and her iron gray hair piled on top of her head in a myriad of tiny braids. Her name was Frieda, and she’d told him she was a healer.
The old woman passed him a cup filled with clear, cold water. It tasted a little metallic but he drank it down anyway. The room they’d brought him to that first night was small and painted stark white, as were the furnishings within. He was in a narrow bed, propped on pillows that were comfortable but smelled slightly of mold and had a few lumps. The linens, white too, had been patched so many times it was impossible to tell which parts had belonged to the original sheets. The comforter was just as patched and faded, though it was nice and heavy. The only other items in the room were a small metal-backed chair and an equally small table. On the table were a basin and a pitcher draped with a rather threadbare towel. He set his glass on the table.
“How long are you going to keep me in here?”
“Logical question,” Frieda said. “You’re in one of the healing rooms. It’s where we bring people when they’re sick, or if they’ve had an accident. Like you.”
“I wasn’t sick,” Tobin said gruffly. He touched his face, wincing. “And what happened to me was no accident.”
Frieda bent to pick up the damp cloth from the floor where it had fallen when he sat up. She wrung it out into the basin and used the pitcher to freshen it. She handed it to Tobin.
“Put that back on your head. It will help.”
“I need to get out of here,” Tobin said, but he did as she asked. He knew better than to disobey an old lady bent on fixing him.
“You need to sit and rest so I can look at you. You’ve had some nasty bumps on that keppy of yours.”
“Do your people treat all travelers with such hospitality?”
Frieda ignored the acid in his tone. “No, of course not. But I understand that you’re not just a normal passer-through, Tobin.”
He sighed heavily. “I guess not.”
“You bring wonderful news,” Frieda continued, taking down the covers and exposing his legs. They’d insisted on taking his clothes the night before, giving him instead a long gown of thin material that left him feeling worse than naked. She lifted the hem and pressed nimble fingers to several of the sore spots. “If it’s true, that is.”
“It’s true.”
“Ha-Shem must truly have been watching over you, to send you here to us.” She pressed some lengths of cloth onto the worst wounds and tied them with strips of clean towel. “To have found what you did…”
The door opened and a bearded man came in. Tobin recognized him as the man who’d welcomed him in the great big meeting hall. He was still smiling, but the grin didn’t make Tobin feel any more comfortable. There was steel behind that man’s grin, and possibly razor blades, too.
“And how are you feeling, Tobin?”
“Reb Ephraim,” Frieda greeted, giving a sort of little head bob that made Tobin think the man was even more important than she was. “He’s feeling much better, I think. Aren’t you?”
Tobin nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak. Reb Ephraim didn’t seem to mind. He sat on the edge of Tobin’s bed, folding his hands across his middle and still grinning.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Reb Ephraim said.
There was an interminably long silence in which Tobin felt he was being expected to speak. He didn’t. The silence stretched on with Tobin stone-faced and the bearded man grinning and waiting. Frieda looked from Tobin to Reb Ephraim, holding her tongue, but at last it seemed she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“His injuries are rather minor,” she said briskly. “He should recover in a few days. He won’t be left with any permanent damage. I can give him some aspirin for the pain if you allow it, Reb Ephraim.”
“I suppose that depends on what Tobin has to tell us,” the Reb said, and though he was grinning his eyes were hard.
Tobin shrugged. He knew what aspirin was. He also thought that if he had the choice between living with the various pains in his body or agreeing to do anything this man said, he’d clamp his mouth shut and refuse to take anything.
“He says it’s true,” Frieda whispered. She cast one incredulous look at Tobin, and he saw tears in the old woman’s eyes. “He says it’s true!”
“I don’t doubt him,” Reb Ephraim said.
Ah, Tobin thought. Now it comes. The interrogation.
“It is true. I told Ari and the others what I found and where to go. It’s pretty far from here, but I have maps. You can have them. Then you can let me go.”
At first he thought the Reb was going to turn mean on him, but instead the old man grinned again. The smile still didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was close enough for government work as Old Pa would have said. Someone less wary might have been fooled, but not someone whose head still ached like a son of a bitch.
“Tobin, Tobin!” Reb Ephraim said. “I’m so sorry you feel you’ve been treated without the appropriate hospitality. That’s not our way, I promise you. I know that Luz can be a little…overenthusiastic. I’ve spoken to him about it.”
“Huh.”
The one syllable expression didn’t do much to make Reb Ephraim happy, Tobin was pleased to note. It didn’t stop him grinning, but the smile did falter. Just a little bit, and just for a moment, but enough to show it wasn’t real.
The Reb apparently decided to change tactics. Leaning forward he met Tobin’s eyes directly. His smile softened, became more serious and less jovial.
“Frieda, would you leave us alone for a few minutes?”
“Of course.” Frieda bustled out of the room in a blur of color.
Reb Ephraim scrubbed his face with his palms, looking weary. When he looked at Tobin again, the hard bright grin was gone and so was the glint. Instead of looking like a man who always got his way, he just looked tired. Tobin didn’t trust the change. It might be a trick.
When, he thought with some sad surprise, did he get so suspicious of people?
“The Tribe is the strongest community anywhere, and our territory is the largest and the richest. The most well-organized. Such a community does not grow without a price, Tobin. Without costs. We have mouths to feed and backs to clo
the. We have people who need shelter, and health care, and education if we want to stay a civilization and not revert to a dark age. We’ve done all this for over a hundred years now, but our resources are becoming depleted. Rapidly and thoroughly.”
The old man turned to look at Tobin, and his eyes were naked helplessness. “If we can’t provide for our people, they will leave. And if they leave…” his voice rasped. “We can not survive.”