Gabrel snorted. “Yes, we heard about that fad and did some name changing of our own. There’s an indigenous weed that everybody on this continent hates; grows everywhere, can’t kill it with a stick, and if you cut or bruise it there’s a smell like a long-dead mountain doat. We used to just call it stinkweed; now it’s Stinking Billy.” He sobered. “Mind you, that’s not nearly bad enough for Serman. You must have heard about the Dry Creek Massacre?”
Isovel frowned. “The newsers talked about a Dry Creek rebellion. Some of your people tried to throw out a tax collector. Naturally that had to be stopped.”
“Oh, it was stopped,” Gabrel agreed. “And most efficiently. Dry Creek will never try to withhold taxes again… because there is no Dry Creek. What actually happened, they threw a tax collector in the irrigation ditch.”
“Why?”
“Because there wasn’t any water in the creek. See, they didn’t really want to hurt him, just… encourage him to rethink the situation.”
Isovel wanted to laugh at that, but something in Gabrel’s tone stopped her. “The man didn’t drown; he merely got covered in mud, lost his temper, and stomped off vowing revenge. Some of the Dry Creekers thought they might ought to send their women and children to the mountains for a few weeks, until things cooled down. But they didn’t get around to it in time. They didn’t realize that Governor Serman had just been waiting for the chance to make an example of someone.”
“Did he arrest Jesse?”
“Not exactly.” Gabrel’s words slowed down. He’s going to tell me something he doesn’t want to say. “They were still debating when Serman descended on them with his entire body of goons.” Something I don’t want to hear. But he went on, pitiless. “They rounded up the men, raised flogging posts then and there, and flogged the skin off their backs while the women and children were made to watch. Then they let them go, told them to run and hide, and… hunted them down. Made a game of it. You understand, some of the men were not quite dead yet.”
Isovel found that her hands were clenched, nails digging into her palms. The slight pain counteracted her desire to vomit. This cannot be true. “I don’t believe you. We – we aren’t savages. No one who did something like that could keep power in Harmony. It’s against everything we stand for.”
“Ah, but he wasn’t in Harmony, was he? He was in Esilia, and he was only doing it to deportees and the descendants of deportees – scarcely human beings in Harmony’s eyes.”
“People exaggerate,” Isovel said in a thin voice she scarcely recognized as her own. “They tell atrocity stories to whip up war sentiment. It’s happened all through history. I’m sure whatever actually happened at Dry Creek was terrible, but I don’t believe in this massacre story. There was never a hint of it on the newscasts.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?” Gabrel’s own voice sounded strained. “Perhaps you’d be more inclined to believe an eyewitness account from the man who gives you the creeps?”
“Jesse?”
“Three men were still alive the next day, when Serman’s bullies left and told people from the next village to bury the bodies. Jesse was one of them.
It’s true, it’s all true. My own people. Worse than murderers.
“Here, what are you doing?”
“I’m not crying,” Isovel said between the hands that covered her face.
“Of course you aren’t. You’re just… leaking salt water. Look, I didn’t mean to upset you –”
“You haven’t upset me,” Isovel said with a last sniff. “My own people have. How could they do such things? Why didn’t I know about it?”
“Don’t see how you could have,” Gabrel said gently. “Not if your news is so tightly censored.”
“I should have known, I should have done something.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. It wouldn’t make me any happier if you’d been disappeared like Governor Aberforss.”
“You’re not being logical. If I had been, we’d never have met.”
Gabrel cursed under his breath. “Nothing about this entire situation is logical. I’d love logic, I can do logic. I can’t…”
“What?”
“I just – can’t.” His hand brushed hers and a shock ran through her; not pain, more like… recognition? She wrapped her fingers around his and Gabrel drew in his breath sharply, as though he was feeling the same shock. Then he was holding her, and she’d thrown her arms around his neck, and his lips were warm against her throat and she was dizzy with longing for him. I wanted this from the first day.
His hands were spread out across her back, holding her against his chest, and his kisses trailed upward towards her mouth and she wanted more, to be even closer…
I cannot do this. This man is an enemy.
They broke apart and stared at each other; then they looked back at the camp. Amari and Ravi were working the printer. Nikos was lying back in the grass, face turned away from them. No one else was in sight.
Gabrel’s breathing was ragged. “My… apologies,” he managed. “It won’t happen again.”
“No,” Isovel agreed. “It won’t.” It must not.
I have to get out of here.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The moon would be nearly full that night, and there were no clouds in the sky. Shortly after she and Gabrel parted, Isovel mentioned to Ravi that she had a headache and would be retiring early. Ravi accepted this statement perfectly politely, but his eyes slid from her to Gabrel, on the far side of the clearing. “He can be a headache,” he murmured, so low that Isovel could pretend not to have heard him.
Nikos was a bit more difficult to ignore. He brought her a flask of cool spring water to bathe her eyes, a torn strip of coarse woven stuff to dampen and lay across her forehead, an extra pillow – that, at least, would be useful when she had a chance to build her dummy figure. The fourth time he came to her niche, with the offer to brew a healing tisane out of some leaves his sister thought highly of, Gabrel intercepted him at the mouth of the cave.
“Stop bothering her,” he commanded bluntly.
“Me? Bother? I didn’t make her cry.” I knew Nikos was being too self-consciously oblivious.
“Well, she’ll likely burst into tears again if you force her to drink that foul folk-remedy brew. Just leave her alone for a while.”
Nikos ambled off, protesting mildly, and Isovel lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes. Her head did ache, that part had been no lie. She heard booted feet coming close to where she lay, the slightly irregular step that was the last sign of Gabrel’s injury. Go away. I’m sleeping. I can’t deal with a tête-à-tête. Like you, I just – can’t. She concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly. He might not believe she’d fallen asleep as soon as Nikos quit trying to help her, but surely he had the tact to pretend belief?
“You’ve nothing to fear,” his quiet voice said. “I’ve… taken steps to ensure it won’t happen again, and to regularize your position.”
Isovel’s eyes flew open and she sat up, nearly banging her head against the top of the niche. “What in Discord does that mean, regularizing my position?”
“The day after tomorrow you will be escorted to our main base. I would do it tomorrow, but I have to arrange for a donkey from the village.”
Isovel felt her throat closing up. “Ah – just where is this base?”
“You don’t need to know.” Gabrel sounded amused. “And even if I told you, would it make any sense to you?”
“In the foothills?”
“No. Deeper in the mountains. We prefer to minimize the chances of an unplanned encounter with your people.”
Was that sarcasm, meant to remind her that he was really minimizing the chance of another encounter with her? If so, she was quite capable of ignoring it. “How wise. Thank you for the information.” She lay back down and resumed her practice in regular, deep breathing. After a few breaths, she heard him retreating.
Even if she hadn’t had personal reasons for wanting to get a
way, her time had nearly run out now. She knew how to get home from here – sort of, anyway. Escaping from a camp even deeper in the mountains would be harder in every way, not least in that she would no longer know which way to go. Stuff the blanket with her pillows, slip out when it was still dark but no one was sleeping yet…
She fell asleep going over her plans and was wakened by someone patting her hand. “Headache better? That’s good. We’ve got some delicious roast doat stuffed with water potatoes and wild greens. A nice change from sludge – you don’t want to miss it.”
Ravi kept up a cheerful, superficial patter while Isovel twisted her hair up, wiped her face with the damp rag Nikos had left, and followed him to join the others around the fire outside.
Everybody in the band seemed to have something friendly and noncommittal to say to her, even if it was only, “Have some more water potatoes?” or “Hot enough for you today? Enjoy it while you can, we should be getting some serious rain any day now.”
Everybody except Gabrel.
And they kept on being friendly and chatty and she couldn’t get away and the evening wore on and on until the men were ready to sleep and she hadn’t even made the pillow decoy and it was too late to slip out now. There was a fine drizzle encouraging half of them to move into the cave and she’d be bound to step on at least three people. Isovel went back to sleep thinking bitter self-recriminations about feather-headed women who couldn’t even stay awake long enough to carry out the simplest and most urgent of plans.
In the morning she woke to a renewed sense of urgency. And she wasn’t the only one; the whole camp felt tense in a way she hadn’t experienced before. The lookouts sounded an alert for every rustle in the woods, the men working the printer kept glancing over their shoulders, and Gabrel was counting blasters while those not on lookout or printer detail ate a breakfast of sludge with roast doat scraps.
“Eleven, twelve, and if you can make three more this morning that’ll make fifteen. Mavros can have those. Use the uncharged solar cells for them. Take these other ten and put them in the place you know of. I’d rather send them out right now, but we can’t risk the delivery detail running afoul of Mavros. The best we can do is make sure he doesn’t see any blasters but the ones he’s supposed to get.”
“What about our personal sidearms?” Since the advent of the printer, despite Gabrel’s insistence on counting and delivering the right number of blasters to every independent guerrilla group, somehow all his men had managed to acquire the shiny new weapons. Patrik, Isovel suspected, had two.
Gabrel sighed. “Temptation… but I don’t want anybody going unarmed while Mavros’ bunch is visiting, and even he isn’t crazy enough to think he can requisition personal weapons from my group. I think.”
During this speech Patrik had been quietly drifting away from Gabrel, to the outside of the circle where Isovel stood. Now the men dispersed, changing shifts and giving the ones who had been on duty a chance to eat, and Gabrel was… right in front of them.
“Patrik. Your spare blaster, please. And don’t waste my time pretending you don’t have one; I’d love to knock someone down. As a purely disciplinary measure, of course.”
Patrik sighed and reached back to draw the concealed blaster out of the waistband of his pants. “I won’t even waste your time asking how you know.”
“Good decision.” Then, as he made to hand over the blaster, “No. Give it to Citizen Dayvson.”
Patrik boggled. “Say what? I can’t do that. She’s – well, look, Isovel, it’s nothing personal – but she’s a prisoner. An enemy alien,” he added, as if Gabrel needed clarification.
“I said I don’t want anybody unarmed while Mavros and his gang are here. Especially a woman.” Gabrel held out the blaster, hilt first. “Citizen. Will you give your parole not to use this against me or any of my men, and to surrender it when I request you to do so?”
“I will,” she said quickly. He didn’t say anything about promising not to escape. Let’s keep him not thinking about that possibility. “But – I’ve never fired one.”
“Another example of Harmony’s inadequate education system,” Gabrel said, and for a moment Isovel felt achingly nostalgic for… oh, the day before yesterday, when they’d been able to trade barbs and argue about anything and everything. Sex spoils everything. Even when you’re not actually having it.
“Patrik will give you a quick basic course on the weapon.” Gabrel’s too-rare grin flashed for one moment. “Being practically a trained tech, I expect you’ll be a quick study.” And he was off to another task, calling over his shoulder, “Use the ledge over the cave for a practice range. I don’t want her burning down the forest.”
Hmm, could I melt the printer with one of these? Too late; I should have done that the first day. Isovel had always been proud of her homeland’s high standards – government by consensus, non-violence, harmony among all – but growing up there did mean that stealing a weapon was not even on her mental list of things to do about a problem. And evidently those ideals of consensus and non-violence don’t extend to non-citizens. She shrank from the memory of Gabrel quietly but firmly describing the Dry Creek Massacre.
Patrik gave her the promised instructions, while she quizzed him about the situation. It made for an interesting, if somewhat disjointed, conversation.
“Just hold and aim it like whatever weapon you’re used to – that’s fine.” Okay. I hold it like a hair dryer. Got it. “You can adjust the settings with this dial. There’s only one for both effect and range because the tightest effect has the longest range, and so on, they’re inde – no, not independent, that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to say, starts with an ‘I’,”
“Inversely proportional,” Isovel suggested. “Who’s Mavros?”
“Mavros Karamanlis. An ally. Sort of. He’s built up his own guerrilla band, doesn’t recognize Colonel Travis’ authority. Now, to avoid accidentally frying your own feet, you’ve got this safety button here. As long as it’s pushed all the way back, the blaster won’t fire.”
The safety was positioned so that she could slide it on and off with her thumb. Good design – although a little woman with tiny hands might have a problem. For Isovel it was easy enough.
“This Mavros – why are you arming somebody who operates outside of your own command structure?”
“Because we’re going to need everybody who can hold a weapon when we go up against your army. You’ve got, what, two million people? We’ve got more like two hundred thousand, and most of us can’t maneuver in the mountains any better than you Harmonicas. Why don’t you try flicking the safety on and off so you know how it feels and – don’t point it at me.” Patrik’s hand closed over hers and he collected the blaster with a practiced twist. “Didn’t you ever learn basic firearms safety?”
“I never used one of these things before! How am I supposed to know what the rules are!”
“I assumed you’d have learned the same rules with whatever you use at home.”
“Harmony is a civilized place.” I used to think we were civilized… Isovel shut down her thoughts about the massacre. “The peace officers carry weapons so that the rest of us don’t have to.”
Patrik looked genuinely confused. “What do you do about greatcats then? Got them trained to wait for a peaceman before they pounce?”
“Greatcats don’t come into the city.”
“Huh. They’re not so polite here. OK, the first rule is never, ever point your blaster at something you’re not prepared to burn. The second rule is never slide the safety off unless you’re ready to burn your target.”
“Harmony City has one million inhabitants. I guess greatcats don’t like being around so many people, so close together.”
“One. Milllion.” Patrik shook his head. “I’m with the greatcats; I wouldn’t like that either. He had her practice again and again, drawing and holding the blaster, until he was finally satisfied. “Now, show me again how you draw your weapon, and if you get that
right we’ll go on.”
Isovel slid the blaster out of the deep pocket she’d made in her smartcloth pants, correctly holding it pointed at the ground, and tapped the safety slide so that Patrik could see it was closed.
“Are greatcats a big problem here? I haven’t heard anybody talking about them.”
“In the mountains? No… the villagers occasionally lose a doat or two out of their herds, and if they can’t find the body they blame greatcats. But I don’t know anybody who’s actually seen one. I guess they evolved on the plains and don’t like climbing any more than I do. Though if they evolved here, how did they get to Harmony?”
“And if they evolved on Harmony, how did they get to Esilia?”
Anyway, Patrik’s take on the greatcats was reassuring for someone who absolutely had to be out alone in the mountains within the next twenty-four hours. Isovel hadn’t even thought about predators before; they weren’t a problem in the city. Well, not the four-legged kind, anyway.
“Mavros and his men are likely a bigger threat than greatcats.” Evidently Patrik had been thinking along the same lines. “They’re not particular about where they get their supplies – or how they treat locals who resist their looting. Now, if you’re actually using the blaster you won’t have time to fool with the dial. After you slide the safety button off, you can tap it with your thumb to change the setting.” Isovel tried that a few times and verified that the settings dial did actually change in response to her thumb-taps. “Good. Let’s use that rock for target practice. Start with a narrow beam for range.”
Isovel pointed the blaster – it was a lot heavier than a hair dryer, she had to fight a tendency to let it sag in her hand – and tapped the firing button. Patrik sighed and shook his head. “What did I say about narrow beam?”
Insurgents (Harmony Book 1) Page 9