But he just shook his head and sat straight. “Who’s picked for scouting and discerning?”
“Well, the scouts, the handlers, that’s a good promotion. You get off the line that way. Discerning . . .” He shook his head. “If a recruit’s strong enough, if he’s motivated, smart, he might be picked. There’s psychological conditioning. There aren’t many candidates.”
Too many questions wanted to spill out of Myrta. This man knew so much. “How many discerners are there? Altogether?”
Eduardo frowned. “I don’t really know. I’d guess, based on what I’ve heard, maybe five or six. People whisper. Most recruits don’t make it through the training. Some get out, leave, once they realize it’s their soul at stake.”
Alphonse seemed to have recovered some of his composure, and his voice was stronger. “Can you take us to the plant?”
“To Renico?” Eduardo’s gaze intensified.
Alphonse grinned, and he looked like a hound coordinating with a packmate. “Just Delsico. Close enough to see the layout.”
“Why?”
“We’re making plans.” Then, with a glint in his eyes, he added, “You should join us.”
* * *
Later that evening, the four stood on a rise outside the city, overlooking an enormous complex of buildings.
Eduardo glowered into the distance, and Myrta followed his gaze to the bruise pulsing from the ground. He said it was where the oil rig had failed.
A few feet away, Alphonse and Jack spoke softly to each other. Myrta joined them. A maroon haze of ozone enveloped the perimeter fencing like a slim vertical halo. Inside, squat gray structures crowded every bit of space.
Eduardo came over. “The central building—that’s manufacturing.”
Carbon was pluming out of its stacks, brilliant blue. She asked, “Which are the barracks?”
He pointed to a side cluster of buildings with narrow doors and high windows.
She studied them. Each building was large enough that probably dozens of people could stay in them. “They kind of look like everything else.”
“No reason to make them different.” His voice smoldered.
Alphonse wobbled next to her and she grabbed him. He leaned against her. “Where did the dinosaurs go?”
Myrta stared at him. His eyes were unfocused, and his hair coiled damply on his forehead. Something was very wrong with him. She took him by both arms. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Never mind.” He shook her off and stood straight. “Delsico’s bigger than I expected is all.”
Eduardo was tapping his foot now. “The electrified fence doesn’t help morale, that’s for sure. They say it keeps the property secure.”
Aha. Myrta’s thoughts fell back to the old chemistry book at the inn. Ozone—the maroon haze around the fencing—from the electrical current. “Could we get in if we needed to?”
“No. Guards round the clock.”
“Is Renico the same?”
“Everything’s bigger. The plant . . . the accidents.” There was unmistakable anger in his voice, and he planted his feet wide. “Most of my people were married, had kids. I’m glad you’re back, Alphonse.”
He grinned, focused and clear-eyed again. “We could use a ride to Narona.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The oil was burned, the planet grew warm, and systems fell like dominos. Seas rose. Wildfires raged. Animals migrated to new homes; others went extinct.
“I don’t understand.” Alphonse’s words came in agony. He couldn’t conceive of it all—the collapse of Earth—he could barely watch it, the death around him, the end of the most diverse and beautiful biosphere humanity had ever known.
“Try.”
Alphonse turned his thoughts to the people. The mothers, fathers, and children. And he saw they were like him—these ancient ancestors in Earth’s Anthropocene. Each wanted comfort, opportunity, freedom, and the possibility to have children of their own. And on the warming planet, Alphonse also found hope, like a flower, hiding. He found that among the people, many faced the threat with courage and tried to steer their world toward a solution, as generations before had understood their own threats in their own times and found their own ways forward.
He saw, in a moment of pure beauty and truth, that every person down to the last one cared. A pang of recognition filled him. “They are good people.”
“Yes.”
* * *
The next afternoon, Eduardo pulled his aut onto a quiet street on the northern side of Narona, the part of the city nearest Renico’s refinery and plant. Myrta had promised she could find them a safe place to stay, something about people in the same movement as Ephraim. At this point, the idea of an underground against the industry was no stranger than anything else Alphonse had seen. Myrta said a house of refuge would be marked with lavender.
“So I’m just dropping you off in the street.” Eduardo sounded irritated. He massaged his treated and freshly-bandaged arm.
Alphonse opened the aut door. “Look, you can’t risk your job over this.”
“It’s okay, Eduardo.” Myrta sounded eager. She opened her door and got out with Jack. “No one ever died from walking. It’s nice outside.”
She was right, the day was pleasant, and a breeze was coming off the ocean. But the petroleum fumes were harsher than anything in Sangal. Narona’s reputation held up.
“Look, we’ll be fine. What I need is for you to challenge di Gof for his seat.”
“I told you yes, Alphonse. I’m in.”
“Just wanted to hear it again.” Getting onto the Council would be a climb every bit as hard as Tura. He needed a partner, someone on the ropes with him.
They said their goodbyes, and Eduardo pulled away.
Houses lined the streets, set close with cramped yards. Jack wiped his hands on his trousers. “It reeks.”
It did. The scent tugged at him, took him to a long-ago plain and herds of pronghorn. Asphalt oozed into him, into every cell. He blinked, but it was hopeless. He was buried, dead; he was darkness and time and he stretched into infinity. He came back to find Jack holding him up.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” These distortions had to stop. They were killing him. For three days he’d gone in and out of time, his mind trying to span all of it. Somewhere in the mess lay a memory from Stavo, saying he’d hold all of history in a thought. But whatever this was, it wasn’t that.
“There’s lots of benzene here,” Myrta was saying, squinting at the air. “It’s a ring compound. They jiggle.”
They started walking, and auts passed from time to time. Myrta sighed. “Nobody grows anything.”
It felt that way; the trees were spindly. Some grass, a few potted plants, not much else.
On the next street opposite them, a pale blue aut with rusted wheel wells slowed and stopped. The driver was grizzled. He stared straight at them. A dog in a studded collar jumped in the back seat, thrust its snout out of the cracked-open window, and snarled.
It wants to hunt pronghorn. Alphonse shook his head. That was twenty thousand years ago.
Myrta was yanking him to herself and pulling him along. The aut turned in the street and followed at a crawl, then it was ahead of them and stopped again. Myrta whimpered.
“They’re staying in the aut, Myrta. They’re both mammals.”
Jack came around and held his other arm.
Myrta made another sound and pointed, past the aut to a house. A straw wreath hung on the door and tucked into the wreath were faded flowers. “I think that’s it.”
But the smell of tar.
They passed the aut with the dog; his hackles were up. Alphonse did not growl back. Instead, he fell to the ground in front of the house and sat there, his mind running backward to the Pleistocene and forward again. He grabbed up a hand
ful of soil and looked at it. Myrta and Jack were at the door.
The barking grew louder, and he turned to the animal. “Settle down. We tamed you. Remember?”
The dog snarled and wrangled its head, trying to force the window glass downward. Myrta was knocking on the door. A pale woman opened it. Pale, like the people on the eastern continent.
Frothing at the mouth, still snarling, the dog worked its front foot out of the window. Its body contorted, hips swinging. The woman exchanged a long look with the driver.
Myrta made a scared and panicked sound, her eyes glued to the aut. “We . . .”
The dog had forced its shoulder out and now clawed at the air. There was a lot of wolf in the animal, even after all that selective breeding. Alphonse wondered how things would have gone if they’d tamed foxes instead. “Now, now. Is that how a best friend behaves?”
“We like your wreath,” Myrta cried out.
The woman fingered the petals, tucked one in more firmly. “I should make one fresh. These flowers are old.”
Strange thing to say. Flowers were recent.
Across the street two doors had opened, and the mammals in the doorways stared.
The white-haired woman looked Myrta up and down, then glanced at Jack. Then she studied Alphonse for a long moment. Too long, but he didn’t care. The past tossed him around, played with him. He was a plant. He was a dire wolf, and he stood, turned to the dog, and growled.
Jack was at his side again. “Come on, buddy.”
He shrugged Jack away. The barking from the aut grew more raucous. The dog had forced its second shoulder out of the window. Now it hung halfway out, frenzied lust on its face.
The woman said, “Is it for the wreath that you stop?”
“Yes,” Myrta said quickly. “Yes. Yes.”
The dog had pushed the window down. It fell out, scrabbled in the dirt, and bounded straight toward them, barking madly.
Alphonse lunged, he was bigger, his bite more powerful, and he pulled his lips back. He leapt—but the two apes had him again, were dragging him across the yard, away from his prey, into the house. The woman slammed the door, and the dog landed with a thud against the outside, its claws rasping.
The woman said calmly, “I grow the plants in back. Come, see.”
Jack muttered to Myrta, “Is any of this safe?”
Alphonse was still snarling. There was a fight outside, but the apes were pulling him past a narrow staircase into a living area. A purifier whirred in the room, fresh air from its top, and with that, time wound forward to the groggy present.
The woman was studying him with interest. “Sit. I am Ralen.” She continued to a separate room.
He did, and the fog in his mind cleared. They were surrounded by furnishings and decorations from the eastern continent. And this woman’s features were Deasoirian. In disbelief, he muttered, “We’re staying with a Deasoirian? Was that really the best you could do?”
“It’s a house of refuge,” Myrta whispered.
She seemed to think that was good enough. She and Jack were on a long white sofa. Lamps with colored shades on either side, and a green and yellow carpet on the floor. Some of the décor—all of it really—reminded him of that awful childhood trip with Ivette.
Ralen returned with a platter. She placed it on a low table in front of the sofa, and with formal and ritualistic movements poured each of them a glass of water.
Myrta took a glass. “Why do you grow lavender?”
Ralen paused, appraising each of them once more. When she turned to Alphonse, she tipped her head down and drew her eyebrows together. “To honor the memory of my father.”
Myrta looked puzzled, but after a moment her face eased and she said softly, “If I understand, then I’m sorry to hear about your papa. We need a place to stay—”
Ralen interrupted. Coming from a Deasoirian that wasn’t too surprising.
“What do you think of Narona?” Ralen’s face was still, and the whirring from the air purifier stopped as well.
Alphonse set his glass down. “Narona? It stinks. Myrta says there’s benzene in the air.”
Panic shot from Myrta’s eyes.
“What? You did. You called it a ring compound.”
Ralen’s eyes widened. “That is most interesting. What else, Myrta, is in our air? What is there, that would not be somewhere else?”
Myrta shot another look at Alphonse, but he shrugged. This house was her idea after all. She looked out the window. “Carbon disulfide. Methylene chloride. A few polycyclic—”
“That is enough.” A smile spread on Ralen’s face. She inclined her head to Myrta. “You bring honor. I have not hosted an aerovoyant in quite some time. My guest room has two beds, one sofa, and a washroom. The windows face Renico, but you may close the drapes if you like.”
* * *
The next morning, Alphonse went to use the washroom. His head was still clear. The others woke, began talking.
“Odile’s here, in Narona.” That was Myrta. Jack had asked how she was feeling. “It helps to think about her being, you know, here. I’m okay, Jack. You didn’t have to come along, you know.”
“Course I did. I did. This city industry wants to lay line past the ranges, drill the farmlands. Deadly hells—they want to take you. Where would they stop? If I was inconvenient to them, don’t you think they’d want me gone too? How far would they go? How many people would they kill?”
Alphonse dried his face and went back out. “We just need to see Odile, whether she’s working with the records or not, and go from there.”
They found Ralen setting a tray of biscuits out downstairs. “Good morning. Eat.”
The biscuits were flaky, with butter melting into each. Food. It hadn’t really been on Alphonse’s mind since the fire. He devoured one and grabbed two more.
Ralen laughed. “I will make more.”
Shaking his head, Alphonse said around a mouthful, “We need to talk with a recruit.”
The woman’s face grew serious. “A bad idea. Training is to instill loyalty.”
“Loyalty to what?” Myrta said.
Alphonse replied, “To their idea of how the world works, most likely. Look, Ralen, she just joined. We think they put her on the line, but she wants to get at records.”
“I sympathize with your friend. I do not think a new recruit would gain access. The vault is locked and also guarded—”
“He’s right. We need to get a message to her.”
Alphonse stared at Myrta, at the strength in her voice.
Ralen said firmly, “It is not safe, not for your friend, nor for—”
“But there are people,” Myrta insisted. “Right? In the network. You know people inside, and you’re in the network. All we need is to see her. We need to make sure she’s all right and give her a message. That’s all.”
Ralen held Myrta’s eyes with her own until at last, she softened. “If you must see her, yes. Yes, we can deliver a message.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
That night, Ralen drove them to a service road that ran near the recruit barracks, where she said Odile would talk directly with them.
Myrta was sweaty-damp from a case of nerves and the warm sea air. She flapped the edge of her blouse. Her breath was like a winged thing trying to escape.
Ralen pulled to a stop. “The barracks. Do not touch the fence. I shall wait.”
They got out and walked over. The extractors thumped in the distance. Myrta could almost feel them thumping through her feet.
People in this enormous place were tracking her, a farm girl. It wasn’t just wrong, it was abhorrent. She was no one. And if they hadn’t targeted her, she’d have done nothing with her eyesight, ever, that mattered to these people at all.
They waited near the fence, outside the yellow glow that more or less de
fined the property’s boundary. They sat. Rocks pushed through her trousers, little pricks of hardness, and she shifted her weight and leaned onto Jack. He and Alphonse were speaking in low tones about the industry, details, work shifts, things Alphonse had gotten from Eduardo during the ride down.
Jack woke her with a nudge. “She’s coming.”
Odile was on the other side of the fence. “Al?” She sounded surprised.
Jack murmured, “She calls you Al?” They stood and walked to her.
She wore miserable gray coveralls and she twitched, like she hadn’t slept. “Myrta? Holy heavens. You need to leave.”
“I’m taking a stand.”
“A stand?”
“Yes. I don’t want you on the line—”
“I’m not on the line.”
Myrta’s heart skipped in hopeful dread. “You’re in records?”
“No. But I will be.”
Hope faded, leaving a sinking feeling as Eduardo’s words came back. Strong . . . drive and intelligence . . . “Odile. What did they recruit you into?”
At the same time Alphonse said, “What do you mean, you ‘will be’?”
A small moth blundered into the fence and crackled, falling downward in a cloud of brown dust.
“Odile,” Alphonse said more insistently. “Are you in records?”
The dread in Myrta’s chest turned to a lead weight and her knees buckled. Jack caught her. Everything distorted, and Odile’s face looked nightmarish. Alphonse seemed to be running through the same logic that she was. His face flicked from anxiety to disbelief to something closer to horror.
He lashed out, “Really? Discerning? What about records?”
Odile blinked angrily. “Stop it. I know what I’m doing.”
“How could you possibly?”
“Ephraim told me—”
“How would he know?”
“Ephraim and Melville were partners.”
Myrta collapsed into Jack. “Partners? And you didn’t tell me? Bel above, you’re worse than they are.”
Odile said to Alphonse, “I’m making the difference you refuse to make. I’m going to get access to the records vault, even at my ‘ripe old age.’”
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