The head went up and out of view as the figure straightened. Now all he could see was a huge, thick-fingered hand, reaching for the window fastenings. Suddenly he realized what danger he was in.
"Mom! Don’t—!"
He sidestepped quickly, dropping the spear and bending to grab at the branch below him. But he couldn’t move fast enough. The window swept open, catching the top of his head and knocking him off his feet. And the great fingers flapped toward him, nails outward, flicking him away. As they crashed into him, he heard a deep rumble, sharp with disgust.
Such a kind woman. That was what people said about his mother. But she flicked him away with a single sharp movement of her hand, and he fell down and down, with his body curling automatically, his face tucked in under his raised arms.
Down and down, with the branches of the tree catching at him so that he snagged and fell, snagged and fell, all the way into the darkness.
26
LORN WOKE TO FIND BANDO KNEELING BESIDE HER, GAZING into her eyes as they opened. His face was so close that she screamed before she could stop herself.
Instantly Bando’s face crumpled. He patted desperately at her arm. "Don’t cry, Lorn. Don’t cry. I was only checking . . . I was only wondering—"
"Checking what?" She sat up, shaking. "Couldn’t you even wait till I was awake?"
"But I thought you might not . . . I mean . . . I didn’t know—"
He was babbling now, shuffling away backward on his knees with his hands held up in front of his face, as though to ward something off. His whole body was shaking in a way that Lorn had never seen before.
"Don’t be silly," she said. More gently this time. "You know I’m not going to hurt you. What’s the matter?"
"Nothing. It’s nothing. I just—"
He was like a picture of someone being pulled apart. Lorn could feel how much he wanted to speak to her. But there was something holding him back. Something very powerful. Her instincts whispered, danger, danger, and for a second she was overwhelmed by a vast feeling of helplessness.
I can’t cope with all this stuff. I can’t keep coping . . . .
And then the power kicked in and she was calm. She crossed her legs and sat up straight, beckoning Bando toward her.
He came, as she had known he would. That was part of the power. On his hands and knees, he shuffled back to her place by the tunnel. She stared at him until he looked up and met her eyes.
Then she said, "Why can’t you tell me, Bando? What’s stopping you?"
His eyes wavered, but she held them, willing him to speak. The word came very slowly, as though she had dragged it out of him.
"Zak—"
Before, that name would have been enough to warn her off. But now, with the power so strong, it gave her the password that she needed.
"Why were you staring at me, Bando?" she said. "You can tell me. I sleep in Zak’s place now."
Bando’s eyes slid away sideways and his voice came reluctantly. But he answered.
"I wanted to see if you were alive," he said. "You have to stay alive, because I can’t remember what to do. Not without Cam and Zak."
Something dark stirred at the bottom of Lorn’s mind, and only the power kept her steady.
"What’s in your head?" she said. "What are you remembering?" We don’t speak about the past. Time goes forward, but never back. She broke the taboo as easily as a paper chain. "Tell me, Bando."
His mouth began to tremble. "Winter," he said. "Winter. It’s very cold, Lorn. It’s so cold—and there’s death. And things I have to do. But I don’t know how without Cam and Zak. Will you tell me, Lorn?"
Winter.
The dark fear swelled in the bottom of Lorn’s mind, and she knew that winter was at the core of it. But the rest was lost in Bando’s scrambled brain, and she knew better than to try to bully him. Already there were tears glinting in his eyes. If she pressured him any harder, he would withdraw into silence, huddling into a corner and blocking out everything.
She had no right to do that. She slept in Zak’s place now, and it was her job to help the others get by.
She stood up and held out her hand, beckoning to Bando to stand up. Leading him to the side of the cavern, she stopped halfway along the journey line and crouched down to draw in the dust with her finger. Right over the line, at the midpoint, she made the shape of a small house with a door and a pitched roof.
The colored stones—only three now—were a little way short of it. She nodded toward them.
"Move them on, Bando," she said. "They’ve reached Robert’s house."
Bando knelt down, breathing hard with concentration. His fingers closed around the red pebble. Cam’s stone. Carefully he slid it along the line until it was beside the house. He went back for the gray one and picked it up to brush away some crumbs of earth.
"Zak," he said. He laid it carefully on the other side of the house.
"Now Robert," said Lorn.
She was expecting Bando to move the yellow stone, too, but he didn’t. He picked it up and held it out to her.
"You can do him," he said. "You like him, don’t you?"
Lorn held out her hand, and he dropped the stone into it, so that it lay heavy and cool in the cupped palm. Yes, she thought. Yes, I like him. Better than anything in the world. She wanted, foolishly, to slip the yellow stone down inside the bloused top of her tunic, so that it lay against her skin. She wanted to keep it there, safe in the heat of her body, until the thornbushes were pushed out of the tunnel mouth and Robert himself—the real Robert—came crawling back into the cavern.
The longing was so powerful that her fingers were already closing around the stone, and she was looking left and right for something else to use on the journey line. There must be another small object that would do. The stones were only counters. It wouldn’t matter if she changed one.
"Lorn?" Bando said. "What are you doing? Is something wrong with Robert?"
The stone was heavy in Lorn’s hand. Special. Different from all other stones.
"Nothing’s wrong," she said gently. And she leaned forward and placed the yellow stone carefully in the very middle of the house.
She saw that she had drawn the house to fit it. The square space under the pointed roof was exactly the right size. As she placed the stone in position, the power took over, and she pressed down, pushing the stone right into the ground and smoothing the loose soil over the top. When there was nothing to be seen except the neat lines of the house, she sat back, brushing the earth off her fingers.
"Robert’s home," she said.
27
HE WAS CURLED UP IN FUR, LYING ON SOFT, DRY LEAVES. THE air around him was warm and damp with his breath, and there was no pain.
"Open your eyes," Zak said.
He didn’t want to.
"Open your eyes."
It was easier to go on lying there, closed around by his own stillness, feeling the silky strands of fur against his skin. Zak’s words pushed at the walls of his little, safe cocoon, and he resisted them, closing his mind to their meaning.
Zak began to hum. It was a quiet, deep sound without words, rising and falling like a slow pulse. There was nothing threatening in it. Nothing to fight. It was simply a movement of the air that drifted gently over the ground, rising and falling, rising and falling, on and on and on . . . .
After a long time, Zak said, "Robert."
It was the first time he had ever spoken the word. His voice was as soft as thistledown, but it carried authority. It had to be answered.
"I’m not Robert. You were right and I was wrong. Give me another name."
Speech was an effort that hurt his face and his neck and his ribs. And once he was aware of the hurt, his whole body began to clamor for attention, every inch of it sore and aching.
But the physical ache was trivial, was nothing, compared to the pain in his mind. It swelled up like a vast, black wave, too big to comprehend. It swept toward him out of some deep place, ready to overwhelm him.
&nbs
p; "You have a name," Zak said. "Open your eyes, Robert."
"No. I can’t be Robert."
"There’s no alternative now. If you aren’t Robert, you’re nothing. No one."
"I—"
The black wave was high in the air now, about to swamp him. He had come to the place where he should have been at home. He had stepped out of hiding, just as he was. And he had been swept aside, like a piece of rubbish. He wanted to lose that knowledge, to be a new person.
"There is no new person," Zak said relentlessly. "You have made your choice already. Tell me your name."
My name is Robert Doherty. He formed the words in his mind and knew that they were true. Turning to face the great dark wall of water, he looked straight into it and let it flow over him and around and through him, until it was as present and invisible as the air he breathed.
Then he opened his eyes.
"I am Robert," he said.
He reached out with both hands, through the fur, not knowing what he was reaching for, but knowing beyond question that it was the right movement.
Beyond the fur, his hands were cold for a second and then other hands closed around them, holding them hard. Zak gripped his right hand and Cam held his left, and the two of them said his name together—"Robert."
And he threw his head back and shouted, like a wild creature, like a child without language, letting out the noise that was inside him, making a sound that was without meaning because it meant everything, all that he knew and felt, all that he was.
His own, real sound.
AFTERWARD THEY SAT CROSS-LEGGED UNDER THE ZIGZAG TREE, looking out into the twilight.
"Big people don’t see us," Cam said. "When they look straight at us, something goes wrong. What they see is—" She shrugged and spread her hands, letting the sentence die.
Robert considered his answer, choosing the fewest words, because every one was painful to speak. "But you let me come here. You came with me."
"Yes," Zak said.
Cam nodded, agreeing. Letting him know that it was no mistake.
Robert chose more words. "You knew it would end like this?"
He heard the answer in their stillness. Of course they’d known. All the time, all through the journey, they had known what was waiting for him. They had brought him here deliberately.
"Why me?" he said.
"You have the strength," Cam said. "You’re clever and determined. And you’re . . . big enough."
He didn’t understand. He thought she meant something abstract, to do with his mind or his character. While he was still trying to make sense of it, Zak spoke, without looking at him.
"There is a critical size. Most of the others are too small to make it through the winter. Their body mass isn’t big enough to retain the heat."
Robert stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
Cam took a long breath. "Perdew will die when it freezes. So will Annet and Dess and Tina. Bando will probably make it through. He’s the biggest of us all and he’s lasted three years now."
"And . . . Lorn?"
"Lorn will die first," Zak said. "She’s very small."
Robert closed his eyes, remembering the feel of her body under his hands when he’d grabbed her in his burrow. The narrow, fragile wrist. The little bones. The delicate, busy hands. No. Not Lorn . . .
But his denial couldn’t stop it being true. They were real people in a real world. And death was real, too.
"Do they . . . know?" he said. It was hard to speak the words.
Cam avoided his eyes. "They all know that some people die every winter." She turned her head away.
"They don’t know that it’s predictable," Zak said. "That it’s as simple as adding up numbers. If you’re too small, you die when the temperature goes below freezing for more than a couple of hours."
"Why can’t they stay by the brazier?" Robert said quickly. "If they stay in and keep warm—"
"Then they starve." Zak’s voice was gentle. Full of pity.
Robert had a blurred sense that he hadn’t understood properly, that the pain was slowing his mind. "But we’ve been collecting food for the winter. Working hard."
"Come on," Cam said harshly. "You’ve seen the supplies. Did you ever think there was going to be enough for everyone? For the whole winter?"
"I thought—"
He was going to protest that he had. That he’d assumed—
But it wasn’t true. As soon as she said it, he knew that it had always been there, deep in his mind. It won’t work. They’ll never get enough. His mind had shied away from doing the calculations but, now he thought about it, the shortfall was obvious. They ate well over three-quarters of the food they collected. Had to eat it, to keep going.
"So Lorn and Dess and the others . . ." Robert was working it out as he said it. "They’re collecting supplies they’ll never eat? Because the cold’s going to kill them off first?"
Zak nodded calmly. "But if they didn’t collect, no one would make it through the winter. Even those who are big enough can’t afford to go outside too often. And they can’t collect a whole winter’s food supply. Not on their own."
"So the small ones help the big ones to survive?" Robert looked down at his own thick, strong wrists and flexed his big, square hands. "That’s horrible. That’s exploitation."
"The alternative is—everyone dies," Zak said. "Is that better?"
"But they ought to know! They ought to have a choice!"
"They do know," Cam said dully. "In a way. They’re not stupid. But they think that if they’re careful, if there’s enough to eat, if they keep up the fire—They think that something will happen to help them cheat death."
Only you can’t cheat death. Not when you are nothing and no one. When you are too small to be seen. Too small to count.
Robert’s mind ran in circles, like a hamster in a wheel. "Why can’t we move into a house? It would be warm enough there."
"And what would we eat?" Zak said sarcastically. "Or do you know a house where they store the food at floor level? Have you ever tried climbing plastic or polished wood? What about cats and traps and feet?"
"There’s no way out," Cam said. "No magic bullet. I’ve been trying to find one for three years now, and there isn’t an answer. We just do the best we can."
There was a sick, sour taste in Robert’s mouth. "I was better off not knowing. Why did you have to tell me?"
"Because there has to be a leader," Zak said. "Someone who knows how things really are."
"You’ve got Cam for that," Robert said bitterly.
Cam looked at him hard for a moment and then turned her head away. Zak put an arm around her shoulders.
"Over time, everyone gets smaller," he said softly. "Even those who start out big enough. Cam’s had a good run, but she’s not going to make it this winter."
Robert was too stunned to answer.
"There has to be a leader," Cam said, in her familiar, practical voice. With her head still turned away. "People need someone to keep them going. And it works. It’s good in the cavern, isn’t it? Even for people who are going to die. But I can’t do it anymore. We need another leader. Someone who knows the truth. Who understands that no one’s going to come swooping out of the houses to rescue us—that they don’t even see us."
It was like being offered a monstrous weight to carry. Robert saw what it would mean—the work and the responsibility and the loneliness—and his whole mind recoiled.
"Isn’t there someone else? Can’t Zak—?"
"No," Zak said. "It has to be you."
Everything they’d said was ringing in Robert’s brain. If you’re too small, you die . . . . There has to be a leader . . . . No one’s going to come swooping out of the houses to rescue us . . . .
"It’s too hard," he said.
"It’s how things are," said Zak. "This isn’t a game, Robert. It’s real."
Real . . .
The word dropped into the center of Robert’s brain. He sat and thought about
Lorn and Bando and the others in the cavern. About food and fire and the winter on its way. About Nate.
It was all solid and real in his mind. As solid as his own body sitting cross-legged on the ground. He felt the weight of the job he was being given, but he felt his own strength, too—and he knew he could do it.
It was all real . . . .
He made himself remember his own reflection in the rest-room mirror, high above the clouds. That was the image he had been clinging to all this while. I’m still the same person . . . . I’m still me . . . . I’m going to find a way of getting back to what I was.
But what was a reflection? Just light bouncing off a glass surface. Something as thin and insubstantial as a photograph. Deliberately he opened his mind and let it float away.
I am here now, he thought. This is the only place where I can change things.
Cam and Zak had both turned toward him, and he caught their familiar scents, carried on the night air. He was acutely aware of the roaring noises and the lights and the dappled shadows of the round, shiny leaves over his head.
"All right," he said. "I’ll do it."
Zak gave him a strange look. "What will you do?"
"Whatever it takes," Robert said. "Anything."
Zak raised his eyebrows and Robert said it again, carefully this time. Knowing that he was committing himself to more than he could see in advance.
"I’ll do whatever it takes."
Cam stood up briskly. "OK, then. We’d better get going. It’s a long way back to the cavern. Are you ready?"
An hour ago Robert would have obeyed without thinking, because he was used to Cam being in charge. But things were different now. He looked across the dark concrete and then backward, up at the house.
"Let’s think a bit," he said. "It took us a long time to get here. Before we go back, we ought to make sure there really isn’t anything we can do."
"To make them see us?" Cam looked scornful. "I thought you’d gotten it into your head. They’re not going to see us. We’re too small."
"There must be something." Robert frowned.
"Oh sure," Cam said sarcastically. "Maybe we could build a microscope and stand underneath it. How about that?"
The Dark Ground Page 17