Sand

by Hugh Howey

  “Rob,” Conner said, as if that would explain everything. He remembered yelling at his brother for fooling around with their dad’s boots. The shoes had been nothing more than a memento for years and years, just sitting in a corner or shoved under a bed. Now they had saved Conner’s life. Several times. Instead of yelling at his brother, he should’ve thanked him. He would thank him. And he would have his brother wire up the fucking power switch where it was easier to reach.

  Vic clasped her dreadlocked friend on the arm. The man used his teeth to tear more of a shirt into strips of cloth, then surveyed the market, looking for someone else who needed tending to.

  “Can you stand?” Vic asked.

  Conner nodded, but he wasn’t sure. He got his boots back on, and Vic helped him up. He swayed there. The sight of his blood on the sand made him feel sick. His mind went to Gloralai, the sudden panic of how close he’d come to never seeing her again. And then a flush of guilt that he’d think of a classmate before thinking of his mother and his family. “What now?” he asked. “None of these guys was the one we were looking for, was he?”

  “I’m guessing he’s long gone,” Vic said. “The guys who give the orders never get what’s coming to them. They’re the Lords in their towers, the brigands back in their tents while someone else blows themselves to pieces.”

  “And that was the bomb?” He nodded to the spot in the sand where she’d buried it. Vic guided him toward the spot, an arm around his waist, letting him lean on her.

  “How long before it goes off?”

  “I don’t think it will,” Vic said. “Damien said it has to be squeezed to go off. Like making marbles for a child.”

  Conner thought of how some divers could force sand together so fast that a tiny perfect sphere of glass would be formed. “Seems like a weird way to set off a bomb,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Vic agreed.

  “We can’t just leave it here.”

  “No,” she said. “We’ll have to take it with us.”

  “And bury it as deep as we possibly can,” Conner suggested.

  His sister shook her head. She looked at the people coming out from their stalls and homes to see what the commotion had been about. She turned and squinted into the wind, gazing out toward the east.

  “We’ve got to do something with it,” she said. “We’ve got to do something.”

  56 • A Place to Rest

  The heavy sphere sat in the depression it made up there in the sarfer’s trampoline. Vic had lashed it down with seizings of rope to that great net that spanned the sarfer’s twin bows. Conner lost himself in that bomb from his helm seat. He held his tender arm in his lap, his shoulder throbbing, feeling the gentle sway of his body side to side as gusts puffed variably between the dunes to the east.

  There were things that could not be contemplated, he realized. There were potential truths too costly to bear. It wasn’t until after the body was scarred by a brush with danger that it learned fear. Conner thought of all the untouched places on his soul yet to teach him something. All the unblemished parts of him waiting for that razor of truth.

  Sons of whores had existed before him. This was a fact, just not one he’d ever lived with. And so it wasn’t a pain he felt for others. Not until it was his mom coming home with bruises lurking beneath her makeup. Not until it was his mom that the fathers of friends boasted of. There had been others like him before. He’d just never thought of them.

  The same was true for the leveling of a town. Witnessing Springston in the aftermath of its destruction made the danger to Low-Pub real. Fear required precedents. The newborn reaches for the hot poker— look how red and bright!

  That silver sphere might’ve been a harmless thing in his mind, resting gently there in that trampoline, were it not for Springston. And the threat Vic had made after lashing the bomb down—this idea that she would deliver Brock’s gift to him—might be a joke to ignore, had Conner’s father not disappeared across the Bull’s gash all those years ago.

  “What about Mom?” Conner asked. He tore his eyes away from the bomb and gazed off to the west, toward the tall peaks and the setting sun.

  “What about her?” Vic asked. “You think she cares if I disappear? You know how many years we went without talking?”

  Conner thought he knew. But he also saw their mother differently now. Had seen her tend to Violet, had seen her save Rob’s life. She wasn’t defined by what she had to do in order to survive. None of them were.

  “It’s a damn miracle,” Vic said, “that I didn’t leave years ago.”

  Conner turned toward his sister. Sand hissed against his goggles. He adjusted his ker to keep the sand out of his mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  His sister stared over the bow for a long while. When her ker flapped up, he could see that she was biting her lower lip.

  “You want to know why I don’t go camping with you boys?” she asked.

  Fuck yeah, he did. “Why?” Conner asked.

  “Because any step in that direction, and I’m not turning back.” She turned toward him, unreadable behind dark goggles and ker. “I feel what Dad must’ve felt. There’s something bigger than us out there, stomping around. It’s either better than this place or it’s an end to me. I contemplate both.”

  “If you go, I’m going with you.”

  Vic laughed. “No. You’re not.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Conner felt tears of anger well up in his eyes. “You can dive, but I can’t. You can move off to Low-Pub, but it’s too dangerous for me. You can date whoever you want, but Palmer is an idiot for hanging out with Hap.” Conner pointed up the mast with his good arm. “Flying over the dunes with red sails and a Legion ker and you’re gonna tell me what I can’t do because it’s too dangerous? But it’s okay for you? You’re a fucking hypocrite, Vic!”

  His sister raised a hand in defeat, and Conner calmed himself. Vic turned toward him and lowered her ker so she could be heard without shouting. “I’m not a hypocrite,” she said. “I’d be a hypocrite if I cared about myself as much as I care about you. But I don’t. I think parents know this. Older siblings know it as well.”

  Conner scratched where his bandage was itching his neck. He thought of things he’d said to Rob that he’d be angry to hear himself. “I just don’t want you to go,” he said. The sarfer went over a smooth rise and sank back down, making his queasy stomach feel worse. “You can say all you want that you’ll come back, but we both know you won’t. Nobody ever does.”

  “Nobody?” She pulled her ker back over the bridge of her nose. They sailed in silence for a dune, only the slithering taunt of vipers against those red sails.

  “I lied about the night she came into camp,” Conner said. “Violet didn’t make it to our tent. I was out there.”

  Vic was adjusting a line, but she stopped and stared at him. “Out where?” she asked.

  “Across the gash. With three canteens and a pack of supplies.”

  “Bullshit.”

  But he could tell she believed him. That she knew. Conner fixated again on that silver sphere.

  “Palmer didn’t show up, so I was going to leave Rob there by himself. I did leave Rob there. I snuck out in the middle of the night, was across the gash and a hundred paces on when I found her.” He turned and lowered his own ker, didn’t care about the grit getting into his mouth. “So when you tell me, or you tell Palmer, or you tell Rob that you’re gonna go out there and give ’em hell or get Dad back or that you’re gonna return with him, just know that I’ve been where you are, making that decision, and I know what it’s like to lie to myself and know that I’m never coming back.”

  Vic turned away from him and lifted her goggles. Wiped at her eyes.

  “I know you think you’ll try, but so did Dad. If you do this, you’re leaving us for good. And I’m gonna hate you for it.”

  Vic turned back to him. She was smiling and crying at the same time. “But you can leave Rob in that tent? Fucking hypo
crite,” she said.

  And in that way that often happens between siblings, cruel words were followed by laughter. Tears dripped into smiles. A flaming sun dipped behind cool mountains, and a harmless-looking silver sphere rode serenely at the bow.

  57 • Swinging the Gaze of God

  Vic

  They thought they were making it easy on her, that they were supporting her, but accompanying her to the gash just made it worse. As did the sight of her family erecting a tent together, just like olden times. All the water and food and supplies they’d hauled, every backbreaking ounce of their hope over her return, but Conner had been right. She could lie to each and every one of them and promise that she’d be back, but she knew. Her father had known. Everyone who crosses that gash knows.

  She unpacked and checked her pack, made sure she had everything. Water and jerky. Two loaves of bread. Spare ker. Her band and visor. A portable shade for sleeping during the day. The large knife Graham had given her when she’d broken the news to him. Bandages and salve. The three notes the boys had written. The five pairs of underwear that made her think of Marco and had her suppressing the urge to laugh or cry. She would wear her dive suit under the patchwork tunic cinched around her waist. The heavy sphere she left in the bottom of the pack. It seemed to let off heat, even though she’d kept it out of the sun. She felt ready. Far to the east, the grumbles and roars called to her.

  “You know I’m the one who should be going,” Palmer said, as he watched her repack her bag.

  “Why?” she asked. “Because you’re the oldest son?” It was a jab meant in jest, but none of her brothers seemed interested in sparring with her.

  “No,” he said. “Because I owe this asshole. Because of Hap. Because I started all of this.”

  “More reason then for you to be here and see it through.” Vic pulled two folded pieces of paper from her belly pouch and handed them to her brother.

  “Fuck you,” Palmer said. He held up his hands and showed her his palms. “I’m not taking your rites. You’re coming back alive, damn you.”

  Vic grabbed his wrist and jammed the papers into his hand. “These aren’t my last rites, asshole. It’s your map.”

  Palmer looked at the papers in his hand. He inspected the map he had pulled out of Danvar, then shook the other piece of paper. “What’s this note, then?”

  “That’s everything I know about diving deep. How to dive down to a thousand meters.”

  “Bullshit,” Palmer said.

  Vic grabbed him by the shoulders and waited for him to look up at her. “Even with the right suit and visors, those depths will kill you without batting an eye. There’s no breathing down there. And your suit will feel like it’s gonna rip you apart until you get below three hundred. But it can be done. I’ve marked some of my favorite sites on your map there. Also some others that I think look promising. I made a key on the back so you can understand my notes. My advice to you right now is to send divers dumb as me down there. Don’t take that chance yourself. You’ve got nothing to prove.” She tapped him on the shoulder. “You stay alive,” she said. “You were the one.”

  Palmer lifted his goggles and wiped tears away from his eyes. He lowered them back down and studied the map and the notes. “How’re these not your last rites?” he asked. He looked up at her. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

  Vic hugged her brother, and Palmer returned the embrace. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  “I will.” His voice was a whisper.

  “And Rob and Conner.”

  “I will,” he said.

  She let him go and turned away before lifting her own goggles and wiping her own eyes. Rob ran toward her from the tent and crashed into her legs, throwing his arms around her. “Not yet,” he told Vic. “Don’t go yet.”

  Vic knelt down and hugged her little brother. “I’ll be back soon,” she told him. Rob frowned. There was sand on his lips. Vic lifted his ker from around his neck and adjusted it snug across his nose. He was the hardest one to lie to because he was the smartest. “Take care of your new sister,” she said.

  Rob nodded. Conner came to her side with her canteens. He lifted her heavy pack and held it for her the way a diver held another’s tank. She stood and slipped her arms through the backpack straps, cinched the belt down snug over her hips, then took the canteens one at a time.

  “Damn thing’s heavy,” Conner said, referring to the pack but probably more directly referring to the bomb. He stood and rubbed his shoulder. Something unspoken passed between the two of them, the sort of communication that happens beneath the sand when throat whispers become another’s thoughts. The two of them had dived together, had salvaged lives together, and they had salvaged something between them by doing so.

  Vic gave her brother a hug. He slapped her pack and whispered something lost to the wind. And then Vic turned toward the gash and saw her mother waiting out there, just like she’d found her mom the night their dad had disappeared. Vic left her siblings behind, waved one more time toward the tent where Violet was standing alone, then strode out to meet her mom, dreading this goodbye the most.

  “I can’t talk you out of this,” her mother said.

  Vic laughed, thinking on how hard so many people had tried. “When’s the last time you talked me out of anything?” she asked. She meant it to be fun, to keep that goodbye from being so serious that she couldn’t leave, but most of all to lift her mother’s hopes that she might return.

  “I lost you once. I don’t want to lose my daughter again.”

  Vic glanced back at the tent. “You’ve got a new daughter to watch over,” she said. “Think of it as an even trade—”

  “Don’t you give me that bulls—” her mother started.

  “I’m not giving shit,” Vic said. She felt the blood in her veins grow cold, the chance at humor lost. “I’m not giving, Mom. I’m taking. That’s what I’m doing. I’m taking my father back from them. I’m going to take their city and make them pay for the one we lost. Tit for tat, Mother. They owe us, and I’m gonna make them pay.”

  “No. You’ll cross that gash and you’ll die for nothing.” Her mother was crying. It was the hardest thing Vic ever bore seeing, her mother vulnerable and weak and… human. Her mom didn’t even wipe away the tears, just let them gather sand from the wind.

  “You did your best by us, Mom. You weren’t given packed sand to walk across. I know that. I wouldn’t have done half as good as you did.”

  With that, Vic hitched up the heavy pack and turned away from the campsite. It was the highest compliment she could’ve paid. She could’ve told her mom that she loved her, but neither of them would’ve believed that. Love was earned and hard-fought and cherished. It was Marco’s face and his rough palm on her cheek. It wasn’t something a family got just for being a family. But her mom had done more with a shitty hand and honest play than a bluffer with an ace up his sleeve. Vic knew this was true as she crossed that hard break in the desert sand, that jagged divide between the then and the now—like a row between lovers or between family members, a wound that permanently mars a relationship, that moves it from courtship and passion to resigned cohabitation, that turns a daughter into an enemy, so that the best one can hope for is that she becomes a friend.

  Vic wiped the mud off her cheek, hating herself as she left the gash behind. And then she stopped and lowered her heavy pack there in No Man’s Land. She turned, pulled her ker down around her neck, and ran back, felt near to her youth again, was crying like the little girl she never wanted to be, never wanted to be. And her mom’s arms were wide. No questions. Just tears streaking down her face. A line in the sand that was nothing, not even there, taken in stride.

  “Thank you,” Vic muttered into her mother’s neck. “Thank you, Mom. Thank you.”

  Which was more than love. And it sustained her as she went back to her burden—that crack in the sand a thing that could be crossed and re-crossed—and she headed dead into the wind and toward the horizon, h
er mother’s reply echoing in her ear, accompanying her on that long march, whispered there at the edge of No Man’s Land and over the insolent flap of that untamable tent:

  “My sweet girl. My sweetest Victoria.”

  58 • A Rap Upon Heaven’s Gate

  Conner was the one who spotted it. On the seventh night, stoking the fire with a metal rod left over from incorrectly assembling the tent, he lifted his eyes to a sudden white glow on the horizon. It was a burst of daylight like the sun had forgotten the time and had leapt out of bed, rushing, late to work.

  Conner shouted for the others, and his mother and Rob and Violet poured from the tent. Palmer rushed over from the other side of the campsite, buttoning his trousers, having gone downwind for a piss. Together, they watched the glow. It bloomed like a radiant flower. It was so bright it required turning away, required looking at it askance, required giving it the same quarter as the noonday sun.

  “Jesus,” Palmer whispered.

  There was no doubting that a city had just vanished. Conner had seen bombs go off before. Spotting the blast of a normal bomb was a chore from two dunes away. This came to life from over the horizon.

  “Vic,” Rob said, sniffing.

  Their mother put a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” she said, but Conner didn’t think she sounded sure. She couldn’t know. None of them could know.

  And then the noise hit after some long consideration. A rumble in their chests and bones. A deep growl of the earth and a howl in the heavens. The wind seemed to shift a moment later, and the sand startled into chaos and turbulence. They held on to one another. Violet took Conner’s hand and squeezed it, and he realized that their little sister was the only one who had ever been there, that she was the only one who had any sense of what had just been harmed. Conner could practically feel her longing to rush that way and see for herself.