by Anthology
Shadow barked.
The drillers hit water quickly, and that night there was a feast in our honor. It was customary for the clan leader to offer the Finder a gift at the feast. The bigger the Find, the better the gift. Usually, it was women or gold or a house to stay in for a few months. Since this was my first solo Find, Ghadir arranged for the clan leader to offer the gift to me.
“Polluk,” he called after we’d eaten and drunk so much water that our bellies sloshed when we moved. “You have given much to my clan. Tell me what you desire and it’s yours.”
The girls crowded close to where we sat together. Becoming the consort of a Finder was one of the few ways to break from a clan, and I could sense their eagerness. But I had other plans. I scooped up Shadow.
“I want this dog,” I said.
The clan leader’s brow wrinkled. “But we just ate. Are you still hungry?”
“I don’t want to eat the dog, I want to keep it—as a friend.”
The scowl sank into his forehead. This was a man who would gladly let me sleep with his daughter, but balked at giving a water ration to a dog that he wouldn’t be able to eat later. I matched his frown.
“You said I could have anything I wanted.”
The clan leader shrugged and the tension was broken. “So I did. He’s yours, Finder.”
The girls fell back from the fire, but I hardly noticed. “Good,” I said. “Now, remove his collar.”
***
We stayed with Ghadir another five years. Or rather, Ghadir stayed with us for another five years. Until she was taken.
She gave Shadow and me a good life and a chance to perfect our act. She called Shadow my schtick, but there were days when I felt maybe we had the order of things wrong. Shadow was the one who knew how to work a crowd; I just acted as his straight man. As a pet instead of a food source, he was a new experience for the clan audiences. He’d work his magic on the children first, then wheedle his way into the hearts of single women, then mothers. The men came along for free after that.
Even better, we found water together. Every time.
Ghadir, on the other hand, began to struggle. We had a disastrous show in the southwest, where she led the customer clans to two empty Finds. Had Shadow and I not been there, she would’ve gone to the slavers that day.
We stepped in when she was floundering and located a small Find. Then we piled back into the wagon and headed out into the desert as fast as we could. We even skipped the feast, telling the clan leader that we had an urgent call three days’ travel to the east.
I drove with Shadow perched on the seat beside me. Ghadir stared out the window. The low hum of the wagon’s electric motor was the only sound for a long time. Then I heard a whimper from Ghadir. Her shoulders were shaking, and she pressed her forehead against the glass.
I let the wagon coast to a stop. “Ghadir? What’s the matter?” I caught my breath when she turned toward me. My mentor was crying. I reached out to touch her cheek. Giving up water like that was so rare, I’d only seen it twice before in my life. Both times were over the death of a child.
“You had a bad day, Ghadir. That’s all.”
She shook her head. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “My Gift.”
“No.”
“I’m scared, Polluk.” Shadow put his paws on her chest and licked the tears off her cheeks. She made no move to stop him.
“Well…you’ll just retire then, right?”
Ghadir looked at me. Then she laughed, a long, lusty cackle that grated on my ears. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Of course, I do.” I put the wagon in gear and concentrated on driving. Finders who retired were taken in by the clans as breeders, trying to pass on the Finder gene to the next generation. They lived out their final days happy. A chosen few went off to search for the Great Water Hold. They’d taught us that in training. But I’d visited dozens of clans in the last five years and had never seen a retired Finder. Ever.
“What happens?” I asked finally.
“If—when—a clan catches a Finder who’s lost her gift, they sell her to the nearest slaver. If you’ve got enough money and advance notice, you can try to bribe your way into a Hold.” A few of the great American cities had secure water supplies and, therefore, no need of Finders. We called them Water Holds, or just Holds for short. As Finders, we avoided the Holds at all costs. Our place was with the clans in the open desert, where we were needed—and could get paid.
“What about the Great Water Hold?”
She barked a laugh. “It’s a myth, Polluk. Just like so much other nonsense they teach you in training.” The dirt in this part of the country was ruddy, and she watched the landscape glow in the afternoon sunlight. “Still, some Finders do go after it. No one’s ever returned though.”
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s go after the Great Hold—just the three of us.”
“You’re too young to die following a dream, kid. I’ll be fine.” The reddish light from outside touched her cheeks.
“We’ll protect you, right, Shadow? We’ll run the Finds and you can stay with us.”
Ghadir pulled Shadow onto her lap. He snuggled his head into her bosom and closed his eyes.
“Sure you will, kid.”
***
I helped Shadow navigate the steps into the hut I shared with Dimah. Tired from his morning constitutional, he collapsed on his pallet and was asleep in a few seconds. I watched until his paws began to twitch in the throes of a dream. His nose wrinkled at some imaginary scent.
I could see daily declines in his health now. My friend had days left in this world, maybe a fortnight at the outside. My self-preservation instinct said to leave, or if I couldn’t do that, ease his passing from this world—and then flee. Every day, every hour, I stayed here increased my chances of being found out for what I was: a Finder with no Gift.
I was playing with my freedom and I knew it. The last Find we’d done for this clan was over three months ago. It was a good water source, but my best Find ever had only lasted four months. Indeed, as Finders, we sought out smaller pockets of moisture to make sure the clans needed our services on a regular basis. I’d known this last Find needed to last as long as possible.
Over the last month, I’d quietly restocked my wagon with supplies and charged its batteries with the solar array. I smiled down at Shadow; I was ready to go as soon as my friend released me from this place.
“Polluk?” Dimah called to me from the bedroom. “Leave that stupid dog be and come back to bed.”
I stripped off my robe and slid between the sheets. Dimah pressed her water-fat flesh against me, still warm and funky with sleep. She crowded her dark curls into my cheek and kissed the hollow of my collarbone. I stroked the length of her back, resting my hand on the dimples at the base of her spine just above the swell of her buttocks.
I’d been with this clan for nearly two years—an eternity in the career of a Finder—and Dimah had been my woman since the first week of my tenure. We fit together. She was older; not as old as me, but well beyond the normal age that Finders sought in companions. Early in our relationship she’d let on that she was widowed, but turned stony when I tried to find out more details.
“Don’t ask me about my past, and I won’t ask about yours,” she’d told me. I dropped the topic.
As the weeks, then months passed, Dimah lost the gaunt look that came with scant clan water rations. Under my more-generous Finder rations, she grew more beautiful. Her features filled out, she grew softer and more curvaceous, and a sort of love developed between us. Is there such a thing as love without trust? Whatever we had, the relationship worked for us.
Dimah shifted her hips and slipped a soft thigh between my knees. I smiled at the ceiling. As an apprentice Finder, it was easy to get lost in the sheer volume of sexual opportunities, but Ghadir had trained me well. “They don’t want you, they don’t even want a Finder. They want their lives to change,” she’d said. “Never promise anything, and
never take one with you. Never.”
A small minority of companions wanted something else from their Finder: a baby. Although research had shown—back when there was enough infrastructure to have something like research—that the Gift was not a genetic trait, the hope remained. Bearing a child with the Gift was like winning the lottery for the parents. When they presented themselves at the Temple of the Water Finders, the child was taken and the parents were invited into a special Water Hold community to live out their days as servants in the temple. Life as a servant might not sound so good, but there’s no water rationing in the temple. Just the opposite, in fact: there’s all the water you could possibly want for the rest of your life.
Dimah lifted her head and rested the point of her chin on my chest. Her smoky eyes looked directly into mine. “Do you love me?” she asked, her breath warm on my cheek.
“Yes,” I answered automatically. Long practice had taught me the right answer to that question was yes—anything else was an argument waiting to happen.
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Really? You couldn’t even pretend to think about it?”
This was the problem with long-term relationships. After living with me, she knew me better than I knew myself. I frowned at her.
“It’s true.” Even as my lips moved, my brain kept working to head off the argument. It was true, sort of. I had no idea if I loved her—I had no idea what that word meant—but I knew I cared for her as much as I’d ever cared for another human being, and that should count for something.
“Is it? Do you really love me?”
This was the longest conversation we’d ever had on this topic. Something was up. I sat up in bed and slid my arm around her. “I really do love you. Now, what’s going on?”
She picked at the hair on my chest. Gray hairs outnumbered blond, I noted. Then she straddled me with one fluid motion, the weight of her body warm in all the right places. My breath hitched in my throat as she nuzzled my neck.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
I could almost hear my libido hitting the dirt. “You’re what?”
“You heard me.” She leaned back, studying my face. “I have a plan.”
“Dimah, the chances that it has the Gift—”
“He. And he has the Gift. I can feel it.”
I bucked her off me and sat cross-legged in the bed. She matched my posture, still studying me. I took her hands in mine. “Look, Dimah. Everything we know says the Gift is random—that’s why it’s called a gift.”
“Don’t you want to hear my plan?”
I blew out my breath. “Okay, tell me your plan.”
She shook off my hands and placed them on my knees. As she spoke, she slid her palms down my thighs. In a voice of hushed tension—sexual and the other kind—she spoke.
“We take over the clan—you and me and the child. Tarkon is weak. The only reason he’s not been challenged is because of you. You’ve kept the water flowing for him, so no one wants to mess with that.” Her fingertips reached my hips and she dug her fingernails into the flesh of my sides.
“You take over as clan leader, with me as your wife. The child trains under you. When your Gift fades, he takes over and you remain as clan leader. It’s perfect.” Dimah laughed as she came up to her hands and knees. She pushed me back down onto the bed.
In the other room, Shadow yelped in pain.
I pushed Dimah off me and ran to Shadow’s side.
***
The new Finder arrived in the settlement near sundown. He looked eighteen at most, pretty young to be on his own. I studied his rig through my spyglass. Top-of-the-line solar array—better than mine even—new sand tires, lots of tinted glass unscoured by sandstorms.
Young kid still dry behind the ears on his own with a new rig. This did not add up.
I dressed carefully that evening, putting on my best knee-length multi-colored jacket with gold trim and new sandals. I’ve always thought you could tell a lot about a man from the state of his footwear.
“I haven’t seen that robe in a while,” Dimah commented when I came into the sitting room. Shadow snoozed peacefully, but he’d been restless all afternoon.
“I’m headed to the saloon. I promised Tarkon I’d see him tonight.” That was a lie; I’d been avoiding Tarkon for the past two weeks. The water quality and quantity in our current well was dropping daily, and he was pressuring me to get him a new Find.
“You thought about what I said?” She caressed her belly. What a woman: pregnant and planning a coup all at the same time. Just since this morning, I could’ve sworn I’d seen her midsection swell a little right in front of me. I leaned over her chair and gave her a lingering kiss.
“I love you,” I said.
“Let’s keep it that way.”
“You’ll watch Shadow for me?” I thought I saw a cloud flicker across her features.
“Of course.”
I checked on my wagon en route to the saloon. That afternoon, I’d placed the last of the supplies inside and fully charged the batteries; it was ready to go now. I had water rations for two people for three months, and with some lucky Finds along the way, I could stretch it to four. Inside, I’d gathered every scrap of information and innuendo about the Great Water Hold that existed in the known world. The route was laid out, the vehicle was ready, there was just one piece of unfinished business before I made my run—our run—for it.
The saloon was noisy for a weeknight. I nodded to the regulars and nudged my way up to the bar. “Pure-clear,” I said to Roseth. She drew exactly four ounces of crystal clear water from the tap and set the glass in front of me. She was a pretty redhead whose beauty was marred by a dirty face, a scar across her right cheek, and a worn steel collar around her neck. Despite the fact that her owner ran a bar, she still retained the dried-out, gaunt look of a desert dweller.
“Come to check out the competition, Polluk?” she asked, eyeing my robes. “Be warned, he’s a pretty boy. I might have a go at him myself.”
“Zed wouldn’t like to hear that, Roseth.” I winked at her. She lived with Zed, the bar owner, who was old enough to be her father and rarely sober enough to care if she slept around or not. I set my hip against the bar and made a nonchalant show of surveying the room.
Roseth was right; he was a pretty boy. His curly locks were the color of morning sand and his eyes a beautiful hazel flecked with gold. He wore a sleeveless vest open to the waist, exposing a hairless, but well-muscled and water-fat chest. When he spoke, a faint smile twitched the corners of his generous mouth.
“See what I mean, Polluk?” Roseth said. “He’s like a picture.”
“Send him a drink.”
“He’s drinking aragh. Quite a bit, too.”
A Finder drinking liquor? I almost smiled.
“Send him a Pure-clear. A double.”
I let the drink get to the table before I made my way across the room. He was in my clan, on my turf, but he met my eyes without fear. Cheeky.
“Blessings of the Mother upon you,” I said.
“And also on you.” He stood and extended his hand. “Basr.”
His grip was cool and strong. “Polluk.”
“I know who you are. You’re the Finder with the dog. Everywhere I’ve been, that’s all they talk about—the freaking dog.” He grinned at me. “You make it tough for the rest of us to make a living.”
The other visitors at his table had melted away and I took a seat without asking. “You’re a little young to be on your own, aren’t you?”
Basr shrugged. “I get that a lot. My master lost his Gift shortly after I apprenticed with him. Slavers got him.”
“Just like that?” I let the unasked question hang in the air: did you give him a push out the door?
“Just like that.” He had the conviction of youth in his voice. “He’d lost his Gift.”
I sipped my water and stayed silent.
“I won’t be staying long,” he said.
“Oh?” I’d alread
y contracted with this clan, so by rights he should have checked with me when he’d first arrived.
“I’m off as soon as I can resupply.”
I nodded and rolled the last of my water around my mouth. His gaze faltered, then he leaned across the table. “I’m searching for the Great Water Hold,” he said in a low voice. “I have a map—I have the map.”
I resisted the urge to spit out my water.
“The map? What does that mean?”
Basr smiled. “You’re not that old, Polluk. You remember your training. The Map of the Ancients.”
Everyone knew of the Map of the Ancients, but no one had ever actually seen it—at least no one that I’d ever talked to. And this kid claimed to have it?
“You must think I’ve been in the desert a very long time, my young friend. It’s a myth, like the rest of the bullshit they fed us in training.”
He tossed off the last of his aragh, ignoring the glass of Pure-clear I’d sent him. He was drunk.
I reached across the table, picked up his glass of water, and drank it off. Then I stood. “Show me.”
His gait was steady but sloppy as we walked to his vehicle. He deactivated the alarm and opened the door. I wrinkled my nose when I saw the interior. A messy cabin is a cluttered mind, Ghadir always said. Organization is the key to survival in the desert.
“Well?” I folded my arms.
Basr propped his elbows on the table that folded down from the wall. “I bet you’ll never guess where it is.”
“I don’t have time for this, Basr. I’ll—”
He flipped the tabletop over and there it was. In hindsight, the key to the Map of the Ancients answer was so simple that I wondered why no one had used this technique before. We navigated by the Finding of water or we followed the direction of the sun, that was it. As long as the clan had water, we didn’t care much where we were. If we saw birds in the sky, we knew we were near a Hold City and we moved on.
But I knew of old-timers that claimed the Ancients used the stars to guide their travels. Of course, these same tale-spinners also said that men floated their way across the Salt Ocean and flew through the air like birds, so their stories were just a wee bit suspect.