Regeneration

by Stacey Berg

  Stigir’s smiled faded. “You do want to come home?”

  “Preservers, yes!” Khyn sobered. “But what about Birn?”

  “Birn’s anger was nothing,” Stigir said, a hint of reproach in his voice. “He’ll be first to welcome you.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re really here. I want to know everything that’s happened! Where you’ve been, how you found us, when we’re leaving . . . all of it!”

  Stigir looked at Echo. “Would it be possible for us to have some time alone?”

  “I am sorry.” Echo settled her back against the door.

  “She’s not,” Khyn said with a shaky laugh. “They’re all just like her. I still don’t know quite how they do that part, but it takes some getting used to, I can tell you. Everything here does.”

  “We’ve tasted the cheese,” Taavi said with a shudder. “No wonder you’re so thin.”

  “That’s the heat,” Khyn said. “You get accustomed to the cheese after a while.” Perhaps that reminded her of capri, for she asked, “How’s Netje?”

  Taavi lifted a shoulder, her expression clouding. “It’s been hard on her. I wish we had a way to get word back.” She pursed her lips. “Do you think we could—”

  “We have no way to communicate with the Preserve,” Echo said.

  “But I thought the beacon—” Taavi broke off in confusion. “Well, Netje can wait a little longer. We’ll be home soon enough.”

  They all fell silent then, the relief of finding Khyn alive and well fading as they considered the danger they were still in. “I ask you plainly,” Stigir said. “What will happen next?”

  Everything Echo had done from the instant she saw the aircar come over the horizon was aimed at this moment. No, earlier than that. From the time she saw Stigir remove his crown, and began to hope . . . And yet she hesitated. She was a hunter. The promises she had made to the Preservers were bad enough already. What she was about to do was a betrayal of every trust.

  But one.

  I serve the Saint.

  She took a deep breath. “The hunters will want to know more about the Preserve. Whether you are a threat to the city. They will question you until they are completely certain.”

  “But I’ve told them everything I know already,” Khyn objected.

  “Vektere are a different matter.”

  Stigir rose again, face hard. In the small room she could smell the Preserve on him, even after long days of hard travel, the resiny sweetness out of place amidst the hot stone and flint of the Church. “You promised us safe passage. We took you at your word.”

  “That was wise. It saved all your lives. You must listen to me again now. The hunters will not let you leave without the Patri’s permission, but they cannot hold you longer than he wishes. You must bargain with him for your release.”

  “And you think we have something that he wants.” Stigir’s voice held hope, more than at any time since she had entered the aircar, and a hint of the same disdain she had heard in the Patri’s office. Let him judge her; she answered elsewhere.

  “Tell them about the Saint,” she said to Khyn.

  Stigir listened intently. When Khyn was finished at last, he stroked his beard, silent for a time, lost in thought. “So this saint is a kind of steward, but there is only one, and these power surges could destroy her at any time.”

  The plain words burned through Echo’s nerves as if she felt the surges herself. For an instant, fear threatened to overwhelm her. Saints, Lia!

  Khyn nodded, unnoticing. “I did what I could to help stabilize the systems, but it wasn’t enough.”

  Taavi said, “Your whole city will die without her?”

  “If you can help,” Echo said, ignoring her pounding heart, “the Patri would be grateful.”

  Stigir crossed his arms. “I would ask more than gratitude in exchange.”

  His bravado was admirable. The Preservers’ position was still weak; they were reunited with Khyn, but separated from the others, and more importantly, from their only means of escape. Hunters, in the unlikely event that they wanted to rescue one of their own from an enemy, would never have taken such a foolish risk. Even in a desperate situation they would have scouted the area first, marking strengths and weaknesses, developing whatever plan had the best chance of success. If they judged the risk greater than the reward, they would not hesitate to abort the mission. Better to lose one than all.

  But the Preservers were not hunters, Echo told herself once again. She had persuaded Stigir he had something to bargain with. She must not let him get too greedy. If she maneuvered properly, the Patri would give Stigir something he intended to give him anyway, and the Church would get something of value.

  It all seemed too easy.

  “You should be glad there is a prospect for your lives,” she told Stigir. “What more do you wish to obtain?”

  The answer came as no surprise.

  “Leave you alone?” The Patri laughed his humorless laugh. He had received the Preservers on a balcony above the yard. The choice seemed odd. The balustrade formed a series of pointed arches; peculiar creatures with wings and wide, fanged mouths projected from the wall. Perhaps they were modeled from predators that had existed before the Fall. Echo wondered irrelevantly if the Vault in the Preserve contained their seed. “That is hardly a grand reward for sharing with us your knowledge of the systems.”

  “We only want to live as we have been, undisturbed. It means little to you, perhaps, but a great deal to us.”

  The Patri looked down across the Churchyard. The compound bustled with morning activity, the 388s at play in the side yard as usual, nuns and priests walking, some arm in arm, in the shade of the wall. A group of 382s practiced unarmed combat off to one side, Nyree overseeing them. That was not usual, and Nyree would not have arranged it without reason. These are only our juveniles, the display told the Preservers, if they were able to notice. Imagine what the rest of us can do. The old Patri, Vanyi, would have understood in an instant, perhaps would have put Nyree up to it. He had read the Church and the city as the sanctuary priests read the boards. The Preservers would have been only another part of the pattern to him.

  Echo felt dizzy a moment, as if the height were greater than it was. She clutched the stone rail; it passed.

  “I envy you,” Jozef said, watching the yard. Something dark touched his eyes, the shadow of the burden he carried. For an instant he looked like the Patri Echo remembered. Then he straightened. “We have enough trouble; I am happy not to add to it. I will make you this bargain: assist us with the systems, to the best of your abilities, and we will let you go. I cannot speak for some next Patri any more than the last spoke for me, but this I will give you: as long as I am Patri we will leave you to your solitude.”

  Vanyi would have been lying.

  High-pitched laughter erupted below, the 388s squealing at each other in fierce delight. Stigir’s eyes widened at the sound, a yearning flickering through them. Then his gaze slid to the other girls, who practiced in silent concentration. He sighed, his face damp in the heat. “Let us see how we can help your Saint.”

  Chapter 21

  Nyree slammed Echo back against the wall. “What right do you have to strike bargains for the Patri?”

  Echo caught her own hand back before the retaliatory blow connected. The other hunters were out of sight, escorting Stigir and Khyn to the sanctuary. Around the corner, one of the 382s was counting out loud, marking time for the others as they stepped through their drill, and shoes scuffed as someone hurried by. “He accepted Stigir’s proposal. That is sufficient.”

  “You manipulated the situation so he had no choice! You are arrogant, Echo Hunter 367. You forget your place.”

  She must not let Nyree goad her into a fight. “What is your complaint? The threat is neutralized. With hunters guarding the landing site there is little opportunity for the Preservers to take aggressive action, even if that were their intent.”

  “What other intent would they h
ave?” Nyree asked. “They came armed to the city, demanding the return of their cityen. And you told us yourself they tried to keep you prisoner when you stumbled upon their city.”

  “They thought I was a threat.” And she had been. But she was a hunter, and they were not. “Think, Nyree. If they truly meant ill, would they come with so little force? They could not have expected to defeat us, or even to defend themselves if we meant to repel them.”

  “Then why would they come at all? It is only one cityen. They must have a better reason.”

  Nyree still gripped her shirt front. Their faces were very close. It wasn’t only anger in Nyree’s eyes. “They take care of each other,” Echo said. “Is it so difficult to understand?” But it was, for a hunter. Only from the cityens had Echo learned that lesson. From Lia.

  “It is you who are difficult to understand. You disobeyed my order at the aircar. You brought strangers into the Church—not one foolish woman, but armed fighters. It was an unconscionable risk.”

  “Your plan would have deprived the Church of resources. I was correct.” But Echo remembered what she had said to Deann. Even if you decide correctly, you must still accept the consequences of your disobedience. She remembered too the old Patri’s words, spoken as she had stood near this exact spot, long ago. Before she had challenged him and earned exile. Obedience is the foundation of service, Echo. If she were wrong about the Preservers . . . but no. She served the Saint.

  Nyree’s grip tightened. “You—you are a worse danger to the Church than the Preservers. And I am not the only hunter who thinks so.”

  Echo struck Nyree’s hand away. “Let them say so to my face then. I have no interest in the games of juveniles who send one to do the others’ bidding.”

  Nyree stepped back, face tight with anger, but her voice was hunter cold. “You presume too much, Echo Hunter 367.”

  “I live to serve.” With that she shouldered past the other hunter into the yard. The wind was gusting again, stronger than before; dust swirled along the ground, blurring the spire’s shadow. She had to focus. She looked up at the spire. The bargain she had made with the Preservers—the Patri’s bargain, she told herself fiercely—balanced on the thinnest edge.

  She would not let anything tip it over.

  Stigir ran a reverent palm over the Saint’s body, then the wire crown. Echo clasped her wrists behind her back, restraining the brute desire to strike his hand away. Dalto and Khyn looked on, while Gem stood silent guard in the shadows. Even the Patri had come to watch. “I did not imagine what you said was really possible,” Stigir said, his voice touched with something approaching wonder. “Our procedures say this was tried many times, but I never truly believed it. How desperate they must have been . . .”

  “Many?” Dalto’s face reflected the same shock Echo had felt when she saw the six stewards connected to the Preserve’s systems. “There is only one Church. One Saint.”

  “This must be the only one that ever worked. There is no record of it in our procedures. None of those who tried succeeded before the world forgot about us.” Stigir stepped back from the altar, looking about the sanctuary in a kind of troubled amazement. “It has preserved your city all these centuries.”

  “It’s horrible,” Khyn muttered. “Alone like that, forever . . .”

  Stigir pulled his gaze down from the rose window to fix on Echo. “There was much you chose not to reveal to us. But I am beginning to understand.”

  “Can you help her?” Echo asked. “That is all that matters now.”

  Stigir scrubbed his beard. The small rasping sound was loud in the vaulted space. “I do not know for certain.”

  A knot of fear coiled in Echo’s gut. If he could not—if the surges continued—she heard Dalto’s words again. Reduced to basic systems . . . She did not need to understand the details of panels and links to know what that meant. What would happen to the Saint. And as for that other dream . . . Echo’s belly turned hollow, dropping, as if she fell from a great height. “You have the stewards,” she insisted. “They control your systems. They wear a crown and . . .” Take it off. “Is it not the same thing?”

  “Oh, no. Our interface is like your priests’ panels—a way of guiding inputs, translating output. The rest is machinery. But this—this is something else entirely. She is the machinery. A mind, controlling the entire city, the same as yours controls your body . . .” Stigir traced the crown again with a finger, brushing a limp lock of Lia’s hair from her forehead, then turned to Dalto. “You say your prints contain procedures that describe the wiring?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Dalto shuddered. “It is certain death for anyone but the Saint to don the crown. Her mind, to be able to accept the load—that is where the complexity lies, not the crown itself.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Stigir said, shaking his head. “But if the interface connected to the panels, and then from the panels to the Saint, rather than directly to the city systems . . . That would be like what the stewards do.”

  Khyn’s head swung in an arc of negation. “You can’t be talking about trying to join their link yourself! An untested interface . . . And there’s no way I could monitor you. It’s not like home, Stigir. Nothing here is.”

  “It may not even be possible,” Stigir said. “Let’s see if we can make an interface first. I make no promises.”

  “You must try,” Echo said. It came out harsh; she controlled her voice with an effort. “That was the Patri’s bargain.”

  Word of the Preservers’ arrival spread through the city like wind-blown sand. Half of North had seen them on the road, and the whole Church had watched them arrive in the compound; there was no point, the Patri said wryly, in trying to hide them away now. Nor, under the terms of the bargain, were they precisely prisoners, to Nyree’s chagrin. They took the evening meal in the refectory, at a table separate from the rest; but Taavi, eyes alight with curiosity, went under a hunter’s guard to speak with Luida and a few nuns and priests, and lingered until Stigir, noticing the priests’ eager questioning, called her back. Taavi returned still grinning, but Stigir’s expression was set.

  The next morning cityens gathered outside the Church compound, and by noon there was a crowd as big as in the square on a market day. It was impossible to tell from here which clave the individuals were from; for the moment, they were united in their intent, which appeared mainly to be to try to catch a glimpse of the strangers. The babble of voices floated up the wall; so did the smell of excitement and sweaty bodies as more and more cityens arrived. The hunters chose not to interfere, instead only monitoring from the platforms along the Church side of the wall, and keeping carefully out of sight. Cityens got bored as quickly as they became aroused; if nothing further excited them, they should disperse on their own. The weather should help too; between the heat and the rising wind, there was little comfort for them as they milled about the road.

  So far they offered no threat, but Echo remembered all too well a day when an angry crowd, armed with crop-powder explosives and projectile weapons, had rushed this very wall. The day of the Saint’s ascension.

  So did the other hunters. They gave no outward sign of concern, but their faces were intent, their sharp eyes constantly roving over the crowd.

  “What do they think they’re going to see?” Brit wondered. “A Preserver could walk right past them and they wouldn’t be able to tell, except by the clothes.”

  “They are curious nonetheless,” Marin said. “We would be too. It is a chance to observe something that has not been seen in many lifetimes.”

  “Look how many there are!” Excitement tinged Taavi’s voice, though she made an effort to comport herself calmly. Marin had escorted her here, while Khyn and Stigir worked in the sanctuary. Echo hoped they did not know about the cityens clamoring outside; she wanted nothing to distract them from creating the interface. Her chest constricted with fear of what might happen if the cityens lost control before the Saint was safe from the surges.

  Indine turned t
o the 382s, whom she had brought to observe the extraordinary event. “What is your estimate of the crowd’s size?”

  Deann arrived at an answer first. “Approximately two thousand, based on the number in the section immediately below the steps.”

  “Two thousand!” Taavi surveyed the crowd again. “That’s almost as many as the whole Preserve.”

  “I could be more accurate if they did not move around so much,” Deann said, squinting over the wall.

  “Conditions are seldom optimal,” Indine said. “You must be able to adapt. Nonetheless, your number is adequate for tactical purposes. Develop a plan to disperse them, with options for various proportions who are uncooperative. We will meet at the training ground in one hour. Set up a section of wall, and tell Flo to gather the 384s to act as cityens.” The juveniles scrambled down from their posts. Echo wondered what they would come up with. The full force of the Church might not have stopped the rebellion, if the Saint had not ascended.

  Taavi said, “Echo told us there were a lot of you, but I didn’t really believe it until now.”

  “What else did Echo Hunter 367 reveal?” Indine asked, in the same dry tone she had used with Deann, but Echo went still inside. You are the danger, Nyree had said. I am not the only hunter who thinks so.

  “What do you mean?”

  Now Brit looked at the young vektere. “Surely you perform your own tactical exercises. Opportunities to practice with completely unfamiliar scenarios are rare. Any information Echo disclosed to you would have been valuable.”

  Taavi worked to meet Brit’s gaze. She edged back a little, perhaps unconsciously. She kept her face admirably blank, but all the hunters would see the tightening of her jaw, note the fresh sweat beading along her hairline. “Echo was our guest,” she said. “At least until the end.” Then she managed a tight laugh. “The vektere are still talking about how you managed to overcome three armed men. But other than that . . .” She squared her shoulders, facing the hunters. “She told us enough that I wanted to see for myself.”