Ardelle seemed so tired. Her shoulders, her hair, even her clothing seemed to drag down. “It’s possible. He left a few letters. I have them somewhere. Sweetheart, there’s something you need to know. This inn is part of a network. We give refuge to anyone who needs it.”
“Mama. How can that be? Mr. di Vaun stays here.”
“Only when we let him. As they say, pen the fox to save the chickens. Yes, he knows we shelter people. Ephraim suggested that we send you to Arbremais right now, since Melville is here, but it’s so far away, and you had no intention of leaving.”
“Mama.”
“I know it’s a lot.”
Myrta sighed. She looked around, as if something new would pop up in this little hole. For all the dirty socks on the floor, Odile’s bed was tidy. Her nightstand was stacked neatly with those books, and the dresser sat square against the wall.
Odile knew the family history and had for years. She’d had time to make peace with it.
I wish I’d known . . . But it didn’t matter. It was time to catch up. “How can a whole network exist for a few people?”
Ardelle fiddled with her fork again, pushing her last bite of food around. “It’s more than a few.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are other traits.3 Different combinations, like we’ve said all along. Different abilities. The marshals, they have altered myostatin. They’re very strong. That’s common, as these things go. We think they have a second mutation linked to myostatin to draw them to law.”
An odd thing happened at Ardelle’s confession. Between one moment and the next, the idea of being born wrong fell away. It just fell away. Myrta’s trait was a combination. Like height. Like hair texture, or skin tone during conjunction. Her trait was normal, a combination of genes, and everyone had their own combination. She was just like everybody else.
Ardelle said, “Some believe that aggression was removed from our genes after we landed on Turaset. Our ancestors may have been much more violent than we are. And of course, the colonists didn’t have secondary skin pigments.”
The words barely registered. Myrta was normal, just a different normal.
“There were so many challenges in the early years. The founders—according to the stories, the founders needed to make very difficult choices to survive.”
There was nothing wrong with her, and she wasn’t born wrong any more than anyone else. “Thank you, Mama.”
Outside, the light was almost gone and Ardelle picked up the dishes. “I’ll be in the kitchen.” On her way out, her eyes fell on the candle. “Please don’t burn down my inn.”
Different combinations. Different genes. Different traits.
Myrta lit the candle. Carbon plumed away from its flame in brilliant blue and she looked around for something to burn. There wasn’t much to choose from—dirty socks, tracked mud.
Books.
She idly ripped a corner off a page and put the snippet in the flame. Blue carbon flickered outward and yellow streaks of soot drifted down. She burned another corner. One by one she incinerated her way through the corners of the book.
Then, using the knife Ephraim had picked up, she carved splinters out of the windowsill and burned those. They didn’t catch as easily as the paper.
Minutes passed.
Someone tapped the window and a muffled voice said, “Myrta.”
“Jack!”
There he was, grinning, outside.
She ran to the back door to let him in. He looked the same, clean shaven, even his head bald like he did sometimes. She said, “You smell like horses. Come into the bedroom.”
She threw a pillow from the cot and sat, suddenly nervous in a way she hadn’t expected because this was Jack. She said, “I don’t know if you’re still my brother. I mean,” she swallowed, “you’re kind of not my brother anymore, and we didn’t really talk about it.”
He sat next to her. His lips thinned and his eyes were just a little moist, but he was smiling too. “I think I always knew something was off. Look at Odile. Look at Nathan, and how much the same those two are. But you—Myrta. You’ll always be my sister.”
Jack always made up his own mind. Maybe he’d be newly bald, like he was now, and she’d wonder if that really was about keeping the dirt down or if there was more to it because no one in the belt was ever bald except for Jack. And he’d say tradition was fine for what it was, but someday he’d be somewhere else.
She hugged him. “Well. Good. Yes, I always will be.”
“Listen, Myrta. I only have a second before Nate wants me back, but Odile said you’re dying in here. Come to the grounds. Come visit. The wagons go on forever. There’s food, entertainers—everything.”
“I can’t leave.”
“What, your legs don’t work? Just come. I’ll be there. It’ll be fine.”
She started to answer, but he stood and ducked back toward the door. “No. Come. Come visit. I’m not taking no for an answer. I will see you. Goodbye.”
* * *
By the end of the next day, ash covered everything in the bedroom. Odile walked in, stared at the coating, opened one of the books on the nightstand, and raised her eyebrows at the missing corners. “Learning much?”
“Socks don’t light.”
“Mm.” She pulled a sweater from her dresser and went back out.
Myrta fell asleep at odd hours and lay awake into the nights. Even cleaning would be better, and Ardelle brought her a pail and washcloth. Myrta lugged the dresser out, wiped the floor behind it, then worked her way under the cot and around to the next section of wall.
Cobwebs clung to the nightstand, she wiped them off. As she tipped the stand to get at the feet, something jostled.
It was another book, this one strapped to the underside of the nightstand. Myrta fell back against Odile’s bed and pulled it out. It was a journal. It smelled like old saddle. She stared at the spray of flowers carved into the leather.
She really oughtn’t read it.
On the other hand, she’d been cleaning for five minutes at least.
The first page had a beautiful inscription, written in cursive. “Dearest Odile, for your dreams. Love, Mama Ardelle.”
Blocky words filled the next page, misspelled with letters sloping down. It had been Odile’s sixth birthday and they’d had chocolate cake. She’d wanted a visit from the de Terrs.
The next pages described days at the inn, a visit from someone or other, going somewhere in the carriage.
Rapt, Myrta turned page after page. She came to a childish picture, eight stick people, the Vonards and de Terrs holding hands and standing in front of the inn. Faces looked out every second-story window and two suns shone in the top left. Myrta remembered that visit. The inn had been full.
She read more, and as she read, she recalled her own childhood in the belt, running in the fields, playing in the forests, being five, being six, being seven. She turned the pages, thinking about the girls they’d been.
On Odile’s eighth birthday Ardelle made carrot cake. Odile’s writing was better, with fewer errors and small, even lettering.
Then Myrta came to a section with no pages, just remnants of paper clinging to the spine, memories ripped away. Myrta looked under the nightstand, but there was nothing. The pages were gone.
Past the missing section, the handwriting was the slanted hand Myrta knew from some of the inn’s receipts. The diary ended with, “I don’t have a mama. I don’t have a papa. I’m a placeholder.”
Shaking, Myrta closed the book and tucked it away.
* * *
The next afternoon Myrta was working through the last chapters of a textbook, one even thicker than the beginning chemistry book, and the entire thing, from the first page to the last, described sulfur-containing gases. There were far, far too many.
Odile came into th
e room and Myrta rolled onto her back and groaned. She dropped the book to the floor where it hit squarely with a thump. The impact reverberated through the cot frame and into her. Even the floor didn’t like the thing. “You’ve been smiling all week. It’s driving me nuts. Stop being happy.”
“I’m not happy, I’m resolute.” Odile hummed as she rifled through her closet.
“Stop being resolute.”
Odile pulled a skirt out, folded it, and set it on her bed. She glanced around the tidy room. “Nothing else burns?”
Myrta didn’t answer, just waved a sheet of paper that had fallen out of the textbook. It was the sheet she’d seen weeks earlier, with “Missing” written across the top. Circumstances surrounding each disappearance and “di Vaun” scribbled along the margin.
Parts of it were in Ephraim’s handwriting and parts in Odile’s. One of those had a small heart inscribed.
“This makes everything so real. The danger.”
Odile took a pair of shoes from her closet and put them next to the skirt on her bed. “I asked Jack to come back.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t think he can. Nathan wants him talking with the other growers. Tonight’s your last chance. If you go, he’s in the closest row near the northern edge.” She piled toiletries with her other items. “Don’t wait up.” She left.
Myrta lay flat on the cot and pushed the bedsheets down with her feet.
She could do as Odile suggested. She could visit Jack and get her mind off that stupid list of names. She’d been in this stuffy little room all week. This room where no one else spent more than five minutes. For all she knew, Melville and that other man might be gone by now. No one would have bothered to tell her. She kicked at the sheets again, and the list of names fluttered off, out of sight, like a sign.
She stared at the rumpled bedsheets at her feet, a mass of peaks and valleys and ridgelines and canyons. She nudged at the edge of the bedsheets, traced up one of the creases with her toe. Before she could change her mind, she jumped off the cot and ran out the back of the inn, heading up to the overlook.
There were at least twice as many wagons as before. More than that. They spilled past the edges of the grounds and into the streets of Collimais itself. Animals, goods, people—in a heartbeat she knew. No one could find anyone in a crowd like that. And all of those people were steaders. Her people.
Myrta smiled, and a breeze blew straight through her. She breathed it in, beautiful air blowing the week away. She held her arms straight out sideways, closed her eyes, and laughed into the wind. She’d visit Jack, tonight. She’d see him, and the wagon grounds, and all of Caravan. Tonight.
* * *
3 A list of fictional genetic modifications is described in Appendix 3.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Herds covered the plains. Horses and bison, sloths and camels. Grazing. Migrating. The air smelled of tar.
“It’s cold,” Alphonse said.
“The glaciers advance.”
“Is it the blue-green bacteria?”
“No. This time it is the world’s tilt and orbit. The forces that allow life, Alphonse, extend past the planetary boundary. Solar activity, variations in the orbit and ecliptic. The physics are not hard to understand, but we’re not here for that. Live the age, Alphonse.”
Alphonse fell to all fours, he was a dire wolf bounding through the Pleistocene, with strong forelimbs and stronger hindlimbs. With his pack, he drove a group of pronghorns. He and his closest pack-mate separated a doe from the herd, and it dashed over logs and between shrubs, toward the acrid petroleum pits.
Running harder, faster, they closed on the prey, and leaping, Alphonse sank his jaws into the animal’s hip. Blood spurted into his mouth in salty, hot victory. The animal kicked him in the chest, then landed a blow between his eyes; it was dragging him. He wrenched it side to side, his pack-mate at its forequarters now, and together they overpowered the doe. He yanked the hip with a pop; his partner was at the animal’s throat.
They tore into the stomach, to the sweet entrails. Glorious rich fat covered his face, intestines dangled from his mouth. Alphonse lapped it up, mouthful after mouthful. He attacked the rear haunch again as the other wolf ripped fur and flesh from the shoulder.
As his hunger eased, Alphonse pushed to stand, but his hind foot mired into the sticky, black ground. He pulled harder. Yipping, struggling, he found himself trapped. Before an hour had passed he was too weak to move.
“When we lose foresight, we risk our very lives. Keep reason close, always. It tempers our instincts as we fight to survive.”
* * *
Half of Reuben’s wood was sold in Collimais. The remainder included a load of burled black sweetnut, a rare tree unique to the belt. Alphonse and Manny unloaded planks of it for a woodworker from Terremais.
Reuben chortled, “None o’ the other loggers had sweetnut. She’s been lookin’ all week.”
“It’s beautiful, sir.” Alphonse lugged more of the boards off the back. The wood, with swirls of black checker marks against a white grain, was like an intricate piece of art. It reminded him of the table in his mother’s study.
“Beautiful nothin’. Fetches twice when no one has it.”
Manny and Alphonse loaded the woman’s vehicle as she settled with Reuben. Then he released them for their final evening in Collimais, and they walked to the thoroughfare. Another impromptu party was forming in the Grand Square.
“You want to check that out?” Manny was eyeing one of the food carts. From the smells, the vendor was roasting raptorfowl.
“No, I’m beat.” He hadn’t slept. Couldn’t sleep. He yawned, the strain pulling against his mouth.
But despite his exhaustion, the evening was fine. Friendship with Manny had no taint of politics; they simply got on well, and Manny suggested one of the pubs. They took a table in front, one that looked out to the thoroughfare. This particular pub, in fact, faced the very hardware store Odile had shown him so many months earlier.
Manny went for drinks and returned a few minutes later, humming happily. The yeasty smell of her ale infused the air, blending with ciguerro smoke from a nearby table. Handing a mug over, Manny said, “Civilization, yeah? Love it.”
Maybe. He needed to get home. Provincial governance of the belt would destroy it.
“Yeah, I need to get home. You’re coming back with Reuben, right?”
“Right, yeah. There and back, whatever he needs.” Froth hung on Manny’s lip and she licked it off, sighing and grinning.
Alphonse rubbed his forehead, worked his fingers to the top of his head, scratching his hair, oily and rough. With his arms up, he realized more than his hair was dirty. “Regular bathing’ll be nice.”
Manuela laughed.
“So what’ll you do after? You know, back in Narona.”
She’d finished half her pint already and settled back in her chair and propped the mug on her stomach. “Carry packages. See the coast. Find places to build.”
She had a clear shot to her future. Alphonse nodded. He couldn’t see his own. Townsfolk, steaders, by and large they didn’t seem to want a province. Prime Chancellor Nabahri hadn’t ever named it, no doubt there’d be a revolt if he tried. He yawned again and grabbed a handful of nuts from a passing waitress. “Look. If you make it up to Sangal, let me know. We’ll grab a bite.”
Manny shifted. “Uh, well. I do sometimes, and don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice city.”
“You don’t like Sangal?”
Manny stared out to the street; she raised her eyebrows and tilted her head sideways and back. There was an awkward, long silence. “Oh, you know. I mean, it doesn’t smell like Narona, so that’s a plus.”
No way was Sangal sub-par to Narona, of all places. “But?”
“I avoid Sangal. Unless there’re packages going north, be
cause then it’s on the way. Hard to say no if you’ve got a job up the coast, but I ask for the southern route, down to Granvil.”
Granvil was an arts community, a bunch of painters with canvases and brushes. Drugs, bad music, and the highest poverty rate on the continent. Manny preferred that to Sangal? “What’s wrong with Sangal?”
She’d had most of her ale and was loosening up, but still she grinned and shook her head no. Alphonse waved the server over, ordered two more pints and waited while Manny wandered around in conversation through her next drink. Family, school, old girlfriends, the works. Another round of drinks, more conversation, and Alphonse asked again.
Manny leaned over, her eyes flashing around the room. She murmured, “Look, Narona’s a dive. For sure. But the government isn’t killing people, you know?”
Is this about Grandfather? “What do you mean?”
“Come on. You have to know about this.”
“I’m not sure.” Alphonse kept his voice low.
The neighboring tables were celebrating a week of hard selling, so this conversation needn’t attract any attention at all. As busy as the pub was, no one was likely to notice their conversation. His mother used to say anywhere could be private.
“All right. I used to deliver there. Anything that needed to go. Books, papers . . . whatever. Sometimes things went back to Narona. And those packages? The ones sent back? They’d start to smell, and I know all the normal smells, if you know what I mean. Sometimes the packages leaked.”
Alphonse stared at her, his fatigue now gone. “Manny—”
“It gets worse. The packages would come from some little nondescript place in the middle of Sangal. Like, you wouldn’t know who it came from, but there were rumors.”
She had to be pulling his leg. Alphonse had never heard anything remotely like this. “Who sent them?”
Manny looked around the pub again and began to chuckle. “They didn’t label it, Alphonse. Some of the couriers say it’s the government. Someone with the government.”
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