Regeneration

by Stacey Berg

  Khyn leaned her elbows atop the fence. The pose was casual, but the muscles in her forearm worked as she picked at a splinter in the rail. Her fingers were long, well-formed. Echo watched them while Khyn debated her response. “I wouldn’t be the best judge of that,” she said at last. “Netje might have mentioned that there aren’t many other children.” Perhaps it was an attempt to gain Echo’s trust, confiding something that she might already know from the child, or would soon observe for herself.

  “Your population is small. If you do not need many replacements, a large number of children is not required.”

  The splinter broke off. “Is that the way your people think of children? Like some kind of replacement part?”

  I wanted you to see it, Lia had said, flush from the happiness of helping a cityen deliver her first child. It had been her way of showing Echo that there might be something different from the harsh upbringing she had known. And before that, when Echo herself had been no more than Netje’s age, her old teacher Tana had said, “Cityens love their children.” But even then Echo had known that not every child lived happily.

  “We don’t eat them,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Netje wondered what we did with the extras. She is familiar with the concept of limited resources.”

  Khyn snorted. “Not from any experience of her own. All that girl has to do is give that big smile and flip her hair around, and she gets whatever she wants. No one can resist. I bet she even tried it on you, didn’t she? You’re right, though; it wouldn’t make sense for us to have too many. I just wish . . .” Her fingers drummed on the rail. “I’m sorry, I’m going on like Netje myself. Have you had your fill of capri? Let’s walk up the hill a bit. Just let me know if you get too tired.”

  A wide path led from the enclosure up into the stand of trees. It was unpaved, but the dirt was packed down, firm enough to accommodate the carts whose narrow tracks had been captured in what was now dried mud. That must be how they hauled things up and down the mountain, since aircars could not be piloted among the trees. Echo wondered how many of the craft they had: she had not heard another since the day she had first awakened. Maybe they were no longer flying since they’d found Ully. In the city only a few aircars still functioned, though perhaps some had been restored since she’d left, as the new Saint gave the city the strength to rebuild after the rebellion. Lia, healing her people.

  The path passed through the center of the grove. The morning sun filtered through the leaves in a dappled pattern, creating shadows that swayed with the breeze. Echo’s senses came alert; any number of small predators could hide themselves here. Nonetheless, the grove was pleasant, the ground soft underfoot compared with the sandy rock of the desert, the shivering of the leaves a musical hiss. The trees bore fist-size fruits, smooth and red. Khyn reached up to pluck one, sniffing its stem end before offering it to Echo. “Pomme? It’s pretty close to ripe.”

  Echo’s fingers laced together behind her back. “No. Thank you.”

  “Your loss.” Khyn made short work of the fruit, crunching her way through it in a few bites. She shoved the core into a pocket. “The capri love them.” They walked on, and the trees changed, the fruits they bore more orange than red, and yielding to the touch. “Fersk,” Khyn said. “I like them even better, but they’re fussy; they don’t like the cold. I don’t think they grew naturally here, before. Go ahead, try one.”

  The fruit was warm from the sun. Its scent was sweet, and the taste was sweet too when Echo bit into the unexpectedly soft flesh. She leaned forward so the juice would drip to the ground instead of dribbling down her chin. Soon there was nothing left but the single hard, pocked seed. “Do you save them to make a new one?” Khyn shook her head, and Echo flicked the seed away, then wiped a prickly bit of fuzz from her lip.

  They walked on through the grove. All the trees bore fruits, the type changing at regular intervals. Not all the stands were equally successful; in some places, the branches thinned, in others, the fruit hung small and sparse. It was a test, Echo surmised, to see what kinds did best. But that seemed odd: if the whole grove were given over to pommes they’d be able to harvest more than she had ever seen at the city’s markets; and she knew they could be kept a long time, especially in the cooler part of the year. She chose not to ask: Khyn appeared distracted, her attention turned inward, as if she struggled with some decision. Better for Echo to stay silent; cityens in that mood sometimes offered important information unexpectedly.

  Not much farther on, the path narrowed, the packed earth changing to softer ground, a blanket of decayed leaves broken by the occasional root or stone. It got markedly steeper, too. No wheel had left an imprint here, and the bootprints became sparse enough for Echo to distinguish one from another. She saw occasional animal tracks too, larger versions of the in-curved crescents the young capri made in their pen. She wondered if any of them belonged to the predators Taavi had mentioned, but that seemed unlikely; Khyn led her along with no apparent concern, and there was no sign that the vektere had followed.

  The trees changed here as well. Wide leaves gave way to thin, flattened spikes growing densely along branches that bore woody, wide-scaled fruits. Echo bit into one experimentally and spat out splinters, drawing a small laugh from Khyn. “You can eat the seeds,” she said, “but it’s not worth the trouble to pick them out.”

  Echo weighed the cone in her hand. The parts did not fit: plenty of water, and so much food that they could disregard an inconvenient source, and indulge in crops whose yield was doubtful; Netje had spoken of culling the capri to control their numbers. Yet despite all that, the human population was small. And there were not many children.

  Maybe it wasn’t only because they didn’t need replacements.

  Echo looked back the way they’d come. It was these needle-covered trees that gave off the scent she had picked up all the way down in the compound. The resiny bite was much stronger up close, especially now with the branches waving in the rising wind. The same branches blocked the buildings below from view, but the angle of the sun and a rough idea of the time they’d walked told her where she was with respect to the main compound. She started off through a space in the trees, the way a person might who didn’t realized she’d missed the trail. The outcropping—and the great door carved into it—should be there, across the bow of the hill.

  “Not that way,” Khyn said at once.

  “I am not too fatigued.”

  “Well, I am.” Khyn forced another laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing you all the way up here, especially in this wind. That storm must be coming after all. Let’s go back.”

  Echo returned to the path. Just on the edge she stumbled, grabbing at a branch for balance; it broke partway through with a sharp crack. Khyn reached for her; Echo left the branch hanging and let Khyn pull her up. Then, instead of letting go, Khyn linked an arm through Echo’s, offering support that was not unwelcome. The walk down was faster than up, but by the time they got to the grove Echo’s legs were aching, and she was glad to stop for a drink from the flask Khyn carried. Her body recovered quickly, but it had been pushed close to its limits in the desert. “Sure you don’t want to try a pomme?” Khyn asked, taking another herself. “No? Put a few in your pocket anyway; the capri will be thrilled.” Echo obeyed, aware again of the tension running beneath the light-hearted tone.

  “Hold out your hand like this,” Khyn said as they stood at the rail of the enclosure. The capri bounced over, butting each other with their stubby horns as they fought over the bits of pomme, even though the bale of grasses was barely half consumed. They were more skittish with Echo, no doubt confused by her unfamiliar smell. The tiny one, showing the fierceness small things often needed to survive, hopped stiff-legged near, then back a few times before it finally worked up its courage to lip the fruit from her outstretched palm. Its muzzle was soft and dry. “They like you,” Khyn said.

  “They like the pommes.”

  “That too.
You say you don’t have capri in your city?”

  Echo shook her head. “Bovines. They are somewhat similar, but much larger and less agile. Until recently they were raised primarily for milk, but now the cityens consume the meat as well. It is nutritious, but far less efficient a food source than grain.” She realized she had seen no fields. “Where do you produce the grasses for them?”

  “On the other side of the compound. The ground runs flat for a long way; it’s an easy place to grow the things that need sun.”

  They were nearly out of pomme. The little capri, emboldened by its previous success, butted Echo’s hip between the fence rails. It was strong for its size; if capri grew as big as bovines they would be dangerous. She pulled her pocket inside out, searching for a last bit of fruit to give it. The loose fabric flapped in the breeze, sending the capri straight up in the air. It landed splay-footed, eyeing her with disapproval. Khyn tossed a pomme core its way; the little capri caught it at the top of its arc and skittered away. “You spoil them,” Echo said.

  “There’s more fruit than we can use,” Khyn replied with a shrug.

  Echo decided it was time to push. “I do not understand. Your soil is rich; the trees are obviously cultivated, and the capri are well nourished. In the city these conditions would favor expansion of the population, yet there are relatively few of you. Do you not wish to grow?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Khyn muttered, which in Echo’s experience meant that she could not, or did not want to, explain. She stared at the fence rail, gaze unfocused. Echo waited. Then Khyn straightened. “All right. Maybe you can help somehow. Preservers know we need it.” She made a gesture that took in more than just the capri. “This place was already here before the catastrophic years—what you call the Fall. The stewards then did everything they could to save it, make sure it survived. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, seeing the whole world going to pieces around you, wondering if anything you did mattered at all . . . I don’t know how they kept enough hope to plan for any kind of future. What they did surely seemed the only way then; I can’t blame them. But things are changing. You’re here, aren’t you? Maybe we need to change too, if we want to keep going. Even Netje challenges what doesn’t make sense to her, and we’re not children anymore, to blindly follow the plan the first stewards left us. The team needs to realize— What’s wrong?”

  Echo forced her fists to unclench. She breathed through the pain, counting the passage of air through her nostrils, one, two, three, one, two, three, focusing on the simple drill until the buzzing in her ears cleared and it was Khyn’s voice she heard, not Lia’s, and she stood in front of a pen of frolicking capri, not in the burning sanctuary in the last moments of the rebellion. Of Lia’s life.

  Before she could speak, a squawking noise came from the red-handled box. Netje’s breathless shout blared through the wire mesh. “Khyn, Khyn, it’s Marget! The baby is coming!”

  “It can’t be! She isn’t due for—” Khyn broke off with an unfamiliar curse. “Come on,” she said, and started away at a run.

  A small group of people, all strangers, crammed into the dispensary, surrounding the woman who lay grimacing on the bed. Khyn elbowed her way through. “Someone find Stigir. The rest of you get out of my way. Out. You too, Echo. And take Netje away. She doesn’t need to see this. Or hear,” she added, as Marget groaned with the pain of another contraction.

  Echo maneuvered everyone else out the door and slammed it behind them. She knelt by the head of the bed while Khyn began her examination. “What happened?” Khyn asked. “When did the contractions start?”

  “I was in the Vault,” the woman said through clenched teeth. “Checking the cooling unit. I wasn’t doing anything, just looking, and all at once—” She broke off with another groan.

  “Breathe,” Echo commanded.

  “I told you to leave,” Khyn said.

  “I may be of use.” She caught the woman’s shoulders as her back arched against the cramping pain.

  Khyn’s lips thinned, but she didn’t argue. “Was there blood?” she asked Marget.

  “A little. Not too much. It’s too early, it can’t be coming yet. I did everything you said, I can’t—” Another spasm doubled her off the bed, and Echo strove to hold her without causing more damage. Khyn moved quickly, inserting a tube like the one she’d put in Echo’s arm, squeezing something through it from a small vial she grabbed from the cabinet. Marget’s voice trailed into an incoherent muttering and her struggles diminished, though the muscles still rippled and clenched across her abdomen. Khyn made another injection, then began her examination. Marget’s body jerked wildly. Khyn’s face went still, and then Echo saw the spreading stain.

  “Push,” Khyn said. “Marget, wake up and push.”

  “I can’t,” the woman moaned. “It’s too soon, please, Khyn, you have to stop it!”

  “It’s too late, it can’t be stopped. The baby’s not—I’m sorry, Marget, so sorry. You have to push. You have to get it out.”

  “I won’t lose this one, I can’t. It’s your fault! Get away from me! Get away!” A flailing leg struck Khyn, knocking her back. Echo switched her grip on the woman’s shoulders and swung across the bed, pinning the woman down.

  “Listen to me,” she ordered. Marget’s head swung wildly in negation, and Echo shook her shoulders hard. “Listen. If you do not push, you will die. I will count. One, two, three—now!”

  It was over soon. Marget lay sleeping, face pale but breathing steady as Khyn’s medicines took effect; but the small form bundled in the blanket had never breathed at all, not even to cry one futile protest. Echo had glimpsed the malformed head, the gray misshapen mass leaking out the back, before Khyn hid the remains from sight, fussing over Marget’s bandages, which didn’t need it, rearranging the tools Echo had cleaned, checking Marget again, and finally collapsing back in her chair, face in her hands. She made no sound, but Echo saw her shoulders shake. Lia had felt this same helpless anger, faced with the suffering of the cityens she cared for. Perhaps all meds did.

  But Lia had been more than a med.

  “You bear no responsibility,” Echo said. “The baby must have been malformed from the beginning. You could not have changed the outcome.”

  “They have to listen to me now,” Khyn said in a trembling voice. “They don’t have any choice.”

  Echo pulled a chair next to her. “What do you wish them to do?”

  “I don’t know why they’re so stubborn. None of this has to happen. None of it.”

  “The woman will live,” Echo said. “She may still be able to bear.”

  “And risk another one of those? I wouldn’t let her, even if she wanted to. She might not make it next time.”

  “You are a capable med.”

  Khyn opened red-rimmed eyes. “You were a big help. Have you had training, or are babies so common in your city that everybody can deliver them?”

  “More common than here, it appears. It was not always so; I knew a man, born many annuals before me, who remembered when few children survived. To him each one was precious. But now so many cityens bear successfully that they sometimes need help to provide for them.”

  Khyn gave a short laugh. “More babies than you know what to do with. I envy you.”

  Echo thought of the abandoned children she had found in the desert. “It can cause its own difficulties.”

  “I’d like to have them.” Khyn leaned back in the chair, covering her eyes with a forearm.

  The door opened a crack, and Netje slipped through, alone. “Is Marget all right?” Somehow she managed to keep her voice to a whisper.

  “She will take time to recover,” Echo said equally softly. Khyn did not look up.

  “What about the baby?”

  “It is dead.”

  Netje’s huge eyes flooded. “Was it a boy or girl?”

  “I did not look.” She had been busy with Marget at the time, but it seemed a paltry excuse now.

  “I want to see
.”

  Echo unwrapped the tiny body wordlessly. Netje reached out with a trembling hand to stroke the down-covered arm. The tears ran down her face, but she ignored them, only petting the boy over and over, as if she could comfort both of them that way.

  There was a disturbance in the hall. Echo reached for the weapon she wasn’t carrying, grasped instead, with a shiver of memory, the sharpest instrument from Khyn’s tray. Khyn’s head jerked up. “What—” But it was only Yilva and Birn.

  “Netje, child, what are you doing here? Go outside, right now.” Glaring at Echo, Yilva guided the girl through the door with a firm hand. She took the baby from Echo. Peering over her shoulder, Birn shuddered, but Yilva gave the body a long unflinching look. Then she smoothed the cover back, caressing it lightly, her old face lined with sorrow. “Marget’s all right?”

  “I told them to get Stigir. Where is he?”

  Birn said, “With the stewards. Preservers, when he finds out . . .” He glanced at the small bundle, wiping his mouth. Then he focused on Echo. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Be glad she was. Otherwise Marget might not have . . .” Khyn stared down at the sleeping woman. “She said it was my fault, and she was right. I’m not going to let happen one more time. We have to refresh the line.”

  “Don’t start all that again,” Birn said. “You know it’s not your fault, and so will Marget, when she wakes up. There are others still carrying; we’ll know more when the season is over. There’s nothing to change the team’s decision.”

  “The team isn’t the one delivering dead monsters.” Khyn’s voice climbed in frustration. “What else is there to know? This is the third child that died this year. And two last year. And what’s wrong with them—” Khyn took the blanket-wrapped body in her arms. “It isn’t fair. We wouldn’t let it happen to the capri. I’m not going to let it keep happening to these poor children.”

  “The stock is limited,” Birn said. “You know that as well as I do. We’d use it up if we took some every time we have a hard year.”