by Stacey Berg
“It’s hard to go wrong with food and sleep. Come on, Echo. Let’s get you settled in.” Khyn glanced up at the distant doors. “Seems like you’re going to be with us for a while.”
Chapter 3
A clattering noise woke her in a surge of panic before she remembered that she no longer lay dying in the wastes. The softness brushing against her face was a blanket, not an aerial predator’s feathers; and the eyes that stared intently at her from a few feet away belonged not to a drooling canid but to a human child.
A little girl, seven or eight annuals, squatting just outside the open door of the room Echo had been given. A bowl sat on the floor in front of her, and she was stirring whatever it contained with a vigorous clang of metal on metal. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry. Khyn told me to be quiet. I try to follow instructions, but it doesn’t always work. The fostri say I’m ob-sti-nate,” she added, sounding out the syllables with care. “But I remembered to bring you your breakfast, didn’t I? I hope you’ll tell them.”
Echo sat up slowly. Things still hurt, but not enough to matter. And these people let a child within reach. “I will make a full report. Is it more soup?”
“That would be a funny breakfast. Here, try it.”
The girl slid the bowl across the threshold. Its outline glowed blue in Echo’s peripheral vision for a fraction of a second. Ah. They might not realize she could see that part of the spectrum. The forceshield must be calibrated to let objects through but not the living. It probably wasn’t set to lethal, or they would have warned her; they were too eager to question her to lose her to an accident so soon. Unless they were just careless. Retrieving the bowl, she touched her tongue to the spoon. “It’s good,” she said, and it was, though she didn’t know what it was. Some kind of thickened milk or very thin cheese, only tangy, more sour than the bovine milk cityens consumed. “Did you make it?”
“Of course not! I’m too little. I heard them say you were strange.”
At this age juvenile hunters knew a great deal more than how to make their own breakfast. And cityen children—Echo had only known a few. But they too were utterly unlike this child, who studied her unabashedly with wide brown eyes while she twirled the end of a braid that looked very much like Khyn’s. She was dressed like Khyn too, in trousers and rolled-sleeved shirt, though the girl’s had acquired an impressive state of disarray. Nonetheless, she might be informative.
“What is strange about me?” Echo asked.
“Well, for one thing, you talk funny. Like the way you say soup. It comes all out of your back teeth. See, when I say it, my lips go all round, like this. Soup, soup, soup.” The girl bounced on her heels with every word, causing a substantial amount of hair, long since escaped from the braid, to flop across her face.
“I do see,” Echo said. “But you can’t.”
The girl brushed her eyes clear. “Now I can. That’s another thing. Your hair is all curled. Everyone else’s is flat. Why do you make yours like that?”
Echo touched hair grown much longer than hunter custom. This didn’t seem like the time to discuss denas and the selection of advantageous traits, so Echo said instead, “I am relatively certain that your—fostri, did you call them?—were not referring to my hair. What else did they say?”
“Well, they probably wouldn’t want me to tell. If they knew I was listening, that is. But they can’t not want me to tell if they didn’t know I heard, right?” It seemed improper to encourage such convoluted reasoning, so Echo remained silent while the girl persuaded herself. “I don’t see why it would be a secret anyway. They said where you come from there’s a whole herd of children, and their fostri keep making more and more, just like our capri do. But that can’t be true, can it? Because if we got too many capri they would eat all the grasses, then all the little trees, and then we wouldn’t have any grasses or trees, and then we’d have to start over again from the special seeds inside the mountain, only we’re not allowed to because we’re supposed to preserve them until something gets born. I forget what. So we keep the best capri to make more, and eat the extra ones. That’s what the fostri say. But I don’t like to.” The child’s eyes grew huge, and a hand flew to cover her mouth. “Do you eat the extra children?”
Memory flashed as vivid as the child in front of her now. A girl’s body falling at the feet of her batchmates in the dark Churchyard. Another, tumbling over a cliff. “No. We do not.” Echo forced her lips into a shape she hoped would reassure the girl before her. “Especially not the ones who bring us breakfast. What is your name?”
The girl stared, then broke out in a peal of laughter. “Netje. You really are strange. Echo, that’s what I heard them call you.”
“You may as well. Now then, Netje, tell me more about these capri.”
The girl prattled happily about herd creatures that sounded more or less like bovines, but with horns, and rather more animated, if the girl’s description was accurate and Echo’s limited prior experience was representative. Echo provided an encouraging sound from time to time, asking after the capri’s food supply and avoiding darker questions about how the herd was managed, and all the while pondering a population that limited its own growth, and special seeds preserved within a mountain.
“Netje!” Khyn’s call interrupted both the child’s streaming words and Echo’s line of thought. The physic came around the corner and stopped, hands on her hips. “I told you not to wake Echo! You were just supposed to bring her meal for later. Have you been here chattering this whole time?”
The girl jumped to her feet in fair imitation of Khyn’s posture, only with her little fists balled up. “I did bring her meal. And she talked to me. I wasn’t bothering her at all. Was I, Echo?”
“No, you were not. Neither were you obstinate.”
“See, I told you, Khyn. And I’ll take the bowl back and wash it, you don’t even have to remind me.” Echo ran the spoon around the inside of the rim, licking off the last drops before sliding the bowl towards Netje. “Thank you,” the girl said, but Echo noted how careful she was to keep her hands on her side of the invisible barrier as Echo passed it back. However she’d learned that lesson, it had made a lasting impression. Then she pranced off, braid bouncing from shoulder to shoulder.
Khyn shook her head. “That girl is a trial. She has more energy than I know what to do with.”
“She is yours?” The Church bred hunters in batches, of course, but cityens raised the children they bore, most of the time. And Netje resembled Khyn, more than just the mimicry of the braid and clothes.
“This turn. Her birth mother’s a steward. Normally she would have waited until Netje was older, but we were short-handed. You were kind to indulge her. Sometimes I pretend I’m still asleep.”
Echo suppressed a small stab of guilt. “She seems very knowledgeable about the capri.”
Khyn grinned. “She spends enough time with them. They’re better listeners than most of us.”
“May I see them? If Netje’s description is accurate, we do not have anything exactly like them in the city.”
She took a step forward, purposely sudden, and Khyn raised a hand hastily to a spot on the door jamb at shoulder level, where the switch for the forceshield must be concealed. Echo heard a tiny click. “Sorry,” Khyn said, reddening. “I thought it would disturb you less than a guard. You still need to rest.”
“I feel well enough.” In truth, her head was beginning to ache again, and her ankle throbbed where the old injury had never had time to fully heal. But those were minor annoyances.
Khyn rolled the end of her braid in her fingers. “You recover quickly. Two days ago you were more than half dead.”
“Your care was expert.”
“I didn’t do that much. And this wasn’t the first time you’ve run into trouble, is it? You have a lot of scars.”
Echo decided the capri could wait. If these people learned too soon that she was a hunter—what that meant—it would only make them suspect her motives. “Perhaps you are
right. I would welcome more rest.” That was not entirely untruthful; she lay back on the comfortable bed with a sigh.
Khyn grinned wryly. “If only Netje listened as well as you.” But before she left, she clicked the forceshield on again.
Lia’s face shaped itself in the darkness behind Echo’s eyes. It was like remembering the dead, only worse, for back in the city Lia’s body lived—the Saint’s body, now. Lia was gone, lost the moment the crown had gone on, binding her to the city forever . . . Sleep was a long while in coming, and this time it brought the dream: the cliff, the crumbling edge. Echo’s hands losing their grip. As always she jerked herself awake just before the falling body hit bottom. By now she could do it without flailing beneath the covers, with hardly any sound other than a quick-drawn breath.
Khyn stood in the doorway, watching. It was impossible to know what she had seen; her expression seemed faintly troubled, but then she smiled and said, “Do you feel up to some real food? We’re having a celebration. They found Ully this morning!”
“The one you were searching for when you found me?”
Khyn’s smile broadened. “Stigir never gives up. He kept the vektere out looking, even though no one else had any hope. Turns out Ully was just the other side of the mountain, but he’d twisted his knee and couldn’t get back. Come on, this will be a special meal.”
Khyn took her to a long, narrow building at the far end of the compound. Unlike the sturdy, squat construction of the rest, this one was a fragile jewel, made all of clear glass panels set into metal frames. As soon as she entered, Echo understood the place’s purpose: the late sunlight rebounded off the panels, trapping the heat inside; the central aisle of paving stones led through rows and rows of plants and trees, all growing in containers, the different types clustered together in patchwork shades of green. She recognized pomme, and one type of eating greens; the rest were unfamiliar. The heavy air smelled rich and wet; droplets condensed on the panels and tracked down into the dirt. Echo loosened her collar.
A long table had been set up down the aisle; the hint of smoke and roasting meat wafted in from the far door. A dozen or more Preservers sat at the table already, some wearing the V and others, like Khyn, in clothing bare of insignia. At the other end people gathered in a happy crowd around a man who sat with a bandaged leg up on a chair; he was telling a story, gesturing broadly with the cup he held while they laughed and clapped his shoulders.
“Still at it, I see,” Khyn said.
The Preservers nearby shifted on the benches to make space for Khyn and Echo. “Ully was always good with a story,” one said, grinning. “Now he’s got one worth telling.” He turned to Echo. “You must, too. We were hoping Khyn would bring you. We want to hear everything.”
“I brought her to enjoy herself,” Khyn said a bit sharply. Echo wondered if that were really the only reason. Some interrogations could be more subtle than others. Relenting, Khyn grinned at the man. “I couldn’t let her miss a glasshouse meal. Winter’s close; who knows how many more chances we’ll get. Echo, this is Dorin.” One by one, she introduced the others around the table; they nodded and smiled, studying Echo with frank curiosity. Again she noted the resemblance among them, like cityens all of one family.
Someone passed a heaping platter. “You’re timing’s perfect. Capri’s just off the spit.” Khyn, apparently not sharing Netje’s aversion, took a generous portion; Echo shook her head and accepted a bowl of greens, steaming and slightly sulfurous, instead. She took a small helping of what appeared to be cheese, soft and far milder-smelling than the musky kind she was used to. There was bread too, still warm from wherever they baked it, with a chewy crust and fine insides; she fingered a crumb, wondering where they milled the flour. All at once she found herself thinking of a different table, another woman sitting next to her. She swallowed a bite with difficulty and set her utensil down, letting the meaningless talk wash over her.
“Here.” One of the Preservers slid a cup along the table. If she were a cityen, she would be young to wear the V on her shirt. Hunters were a different matter. The girl’s eyes were wide, her expression eager, though she kept her voice low as she said, “Fermentate, but I’ll get you water if you’d rather.”
“Fermentate is fine.” Echo normally disliked the sense-dulling properties of ferm, but the sour effervescence eased her throat.
“I’m Taavi.” It seemed unlikely, given the small population, that there were twenty in this young woman’s annual. Perhaps the vektere were borne randomly, rather than in batches as hunters were. “Did you really walk across the desert? I didn’t think anyone could survive there.”
It was always useful to know what limitations potential adversaries set for themselves. “Your people must have some experience with it; they recovered me successfully.” A pleasant sound wafted in with the smoke, someone outside playing a stringbox, or something like it.
Taavi shrugged. “The vektere patrol all the periphery, but we don’t go very far into the desert. It’s too big a strain on the aircars, all that dust in the engines. Mostly we just keep an eye to be sure no one’s wandered too far from the Preserve. Or gets stranded somewhere, like Ully. The real work is west: the forest turns wild, and sometimes the big predators get too close. Crister got killed this spring, defending a forester from one.” She swirled her ferm, looking away. “I’ll have a turn out there soon. I hope I do okay.”
Juvenile hunters knew their capabilities long before their first independent assignment. Those who were not ready did not survive their teaching exercises.
Sometimes they didn’t survive their teachers.
“Are you adequately prepared?”
“My training’s gone all right, I guess.” Taavi tapped the letter embroidered on her shirt. “Birn gave me the V. But so far I’ve only worked close in. The periphery—that’s different.”
Echo’s fingers tightened around the cup. It seemed inappropriate to send the girl out with such a lack of confidence; fear as much as rashness could lead to deadly error. She said, “If you are uncertain, you must seek additional instruction.”
Taavi’s eyes shone. “Are you a vektere?”
“We do not have vektere in the city.” Echo hesitated, then decided the opportunity was worth the risk. “I have gained some experience in my explorations, however. Perhaps we could share what we have learned.”
“That would be—” Taavi broke off as Birn approached, frowning.
“Aren’t you due on patrol, Taavi?”
“In a few minutes.” Taavi rose reluctantly. “Another time, Echo, I hope.”
“I look forward to it.”
“I don’t know what you really want,” Birn said after the young vektere was out of hearing, “but you’re not going to get it from us, no matter who you try your story on. We’re not fools.”
Echo sipped her ferm. “I will keep that in mind.”
“You do that.” Birn took a seat elsewhere at the table, but his gaze never strayed far. She felt the weight of it on her even when the stringbox player moved inside and the Preservers moved tables aside to clear a space at the end of the glasshouse. Khyn rose, extending a hand to Echo.
“Do your people dance?”
The harvest fest, the musicians there. Lia, laughing as they took their places. Echo’s hands sliding to rest on Lia’s waist, feeling the flesh and bone beneath the soft-spun cloth. Then the two of them skipping sideways down the line, under the raised arms of the other couples, until they got to the start, where they broke apart to clap the beat for the next pair coming. And later, another kind of dance, and music of their own making.
It took Echo a moment to catch her breath. When she did, Khyn was still standing there, hand out, smiling. “No,” Echo said.
The next morning Khyn took her to see the capri. Fortunately she had taken Echo’s abrupt response as a sign of fatigue. Echo still chastised herself for the loss of control; she must not squander Khyn’s goodwill.
A vektere approached as they left th
e dispensary, but Khyn said, “It’s all right. She’s my responsibility,” and the man let them go. A hunter might do the same, and follow unsuspected behind. Or the interaction might have been planned, to see what Echo would do if she thought she was free. If so, they would be disappointed; she intended only to gather information. At least for now.
The capri enclosure sat on the far side of the compound, in an unpaved area with no buildings other than the simple shelter built for the animals. The surrounding fence was made of rough poles split from the trunks of moderate-size trees. On one post was mounted a small box, with a red pull handle and metal mesh over a round opening, and wires running down until they disappeared into the ground. An alarm of some kind, perhaps. A pile of extra fence posts lay neatly stacked behind the shelter, where the flat area of the compound began a gentle slope uphill. Trees marched upward in orderly rows, obviously planted and maintained for a purpose, like the priests’ orchard in the Church compound. Higher up, the trees looked older, wilder. The thick growth hid the cavern doors from view.
The young capri were wild as well. Netje’s description had been surprisingly accurate. The creatures were much smaller than the juvenile bovines Echo had seen in the city, and they bounced across their pen on stiff legs that propelled them over or on top of every obstacle they encountered, including each other, which then precipitated another round of energetic hopping about. The smallest one, startled by some invisible force, leapt straight in the air, came down on a bale of dried grasses. It discovered that it now occupied the highest ground, which it proceeded to defend with stubby horns from all the other capri, until all at once it realized that it was tired, and curled atop its perch in a fuzzy bundle and went to sleep. “That one’s Netje’s pet.” Khyn laughed. “Sometimes she leads it around on a string. Reminds you of her, doesn’t it?”
“All young animals have certain characteristics in common,” Echo agreed.