by Jenny Moyer
“I know.”
I study his face, trying to interpret the odd tone to his voice.
“Four hundred two grams,” I murmur. “You’ve earned your freedom—you should be celebrating!”
“No one’s celebrating,” Dram says darkly. A guard throws us an uneasy glance.
“What’s going on? What happened to you while I was out?”
“Cranny’s placed me under probation.” His eyes meet mine. “These guards aren’t for you. They’re for me.”
ELEVEN
429.21 grams cirium
GUARDS LINE THE walls of the Rig. The hooks that hold our axes hang empty.
“What did you do?” I ask Dram as he helps me onto the bench beside him.
“He spent two nights down four,” Graham says behind me. His lips are pinched in a face that’s whiter than my bandages, and one hand’s clamped on his knee.
I lean in close. “Why didn’t they treat your leg?”
Graham grunts. “Cranny thinks I have something of his.”
“Do you?”
A smile cracks the lines on his weathered face. “I just might.”
“But your leg—”
“These old bones have been aching for years. I’m thinking it’s about time I quit the tunnels.” He knows as well as I do that there’s only one way to leave Outpost Five.
“What exactly did Dram do?”
“Set fire to the caving roster.” My eyes widen. While I lay unconscious in the infirmary, my tunnel partner went mad.
Dram stares hard at the front of the room. “I was outside the infirmary the first night—after they weighed the ore. They wouldn’t let me in to see you, but I overheard them talking about your Rays.” The expression in his eyes is bleaker than I can bear. “You were right, Orion. We’re prisoners here. They’re never going to let us go, whatever we do.”
The commissary steps to the front of the room, and tension descends. He holds a massive, aged book used since the first days of this outpost—the Cavers’ Log, the record of every gram of cirium Subpars have mined.
I shift closer to Dram. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The Congress has been debating whether or not to count the ore we brought up from nine.”
His words shatter something deep inside me, maybe the last bit of faith I held in our government.
“Subpars,” calls Jameson, “I’ve received a response from the city.” He slides his finger over a metal sphere, and an image flickers to life. The room falls silent as we take in this rare glimpse of Alara’s technology.
A woman—the Prime Commissary—sits beside three other commissaries, all dressed in formal robes, with the seal of Alara on woven chains around their necks.
“Subpartisans of Outpost Five,” she says, her voice deep, a match for the implacable look in her dark eyes. “The Congress of Natural Humanity thanks you for your service. Our city-state is indebted to you for the cirium you retrieved from tunnel nine…”
Dram stares at the image, jaw tight, anger burning in his eyes. “And your valiant efforts ensure the preservation of—” The image flickers, and for a moment it’s just us and Jameson again, the image of Alara lost somewhere between here and the flash curtain. “We have conferred with Commissary Jameson about recent events at your outpost. Some of you have earned the distinction Fourth Ray, having mined four hundred grams. However, those Subpars will not be granted passage to the protected city.”
In my mind I see that cavern wall beside the Sky, where Dram wrote our names. But now I know for sure—we’re never getting free of this place.
None of us are. It was all a lie.
“Your descent down nine was a disciplinary action,” she continues. “As such, any ore retrieved will not be counted.”
Protests ricochet around the room like stray bullets. From the tone of them, I think Cranny was wise to take away our axes.
“You can’t do this!” Lenore shoots to her feet. “Commissary, please.” She strides forward, heedless of the guards raising their weapons. “My brother earned passage to the protected city. He mined four hundred grams.”
Jameson opens the Log, revealing lines of crossed-out numbers. “Minus one hundred fourteen grams, Subpar.”
Lenore’s eyes fill with angry tears. “You set an impossible goal and call it opportunity.” She stabs her finger at the book. “You are liars.”
Cranny moves toward her, and Reeves stands, violence radiating from him. “Step back, little man,” he calls, his voice deadly calm. “I don’t need my axe to hurt you.”
At Cranny’s signal, four guards descend on Reeves and drag him toward the back of the room. Two more flank Lenore. I feel Dram tensing beside me like a coiled spring.
“I will have order,” Cranny says, his dark eyes panning the room. I think he’s hoping more of us will object. He wants an excuse to order bloodshed. My hands fist at my sides. Cranny finds me in the crowd and gives me a knowing grin.
Things can always get worse.
“What the hell is that about?” Dram mutters.
I won’t give Cranny the fight he’s itching for, so I lower my eyes like he’s beaten me, but I’m as angry as Reeves inside.
“I told you that the three cavers who mined the least would be sent to Cordon Four,” Cranny says. “Since you all mined exactly the same amount”—he shoots a dark look at my father, hunched over in the front row—“we’ve come up with an alternate disciplinary action.”
The commissary sets aside the Log. “One caver from each tunnel team will volunteer for service at Cordon Four. Tomorrow, a hover will come to collect that group of Subpars.”
A deadly hush settles over the room. I can’t form a clear thought—I’m simply numb.
Then my world implodes.
Nine tunnels. Seven teams. One from each active tunnel. Seven cavers are being sent to Cordon Four—to burn for something I did.
A woman’s crying. Another person shrieks, but I can’t make out her words. Graham and Dram sit, silent, staring at the place where Jameson announced the end of us.
My father drops his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. I’ve only seen him cry once. The day Wes died.
Before I connect my thoughts to my actions, I’m halfway to Cranny, to the guards that bracket him and Jameson.
“It was me,” I announce. “I told Ennis to distribute the ore weights evenly.”
Cranny studies me with his predatory gaze. “You’re bargaining with the wrong person. These orders come down from the council.”
My gaze skitters to the commissary, who watches me with a look I can’t decipher. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’m afraid you set something in motion,” he says.
I realize dimly that Dram stands beside me, and the other cavers are on their feet, shouting, arguing. Everything is chaos. We’ve been taught to fear the burnt sands our entire lives. We thought we were mining cirium to protect people from the merciless radiation of the flash curtain. We thought we were the fortunate ones because we survive here, and no closer.
Cordon Four is so much nearer. It is death.
I can’t save them now. I can save only one.
“I will serve,” I say, my eyes riveted on Jameson. “For my team. Dram stays.”
He shakes his head, and there is a weariness about him I didn’t notice before, like the bands on his sleeves are exceedingly heavy. “Since you were the instigator, you are going regardless,” he says softly. “And because that leaves Dram as the only possible representative of nine, he will go too.”
“No.” I never realized screams could be quiet.
Dram touches my arm, protecting me from myself. But this time it’s too late. The damage is already done.
* * *
“Dram, Orion—in here,” Dad says. He crosses his arms and leans against the kitchen table. He wears his physic’s expression.
I prepare myself for a grim diagnosis.
“Much of this is speculation, but I’ll share what
little I know about the cordons. There are fences and rudimentary shelters. The boundary fences between them are electrified. But if you manage to escape, you can survive,” he says. “Long enough to make your way north, to where the curtain ends and its energy bands diminish enough that you could get to the shield.”
He doesn’t mention how we’d get past the shield. Or what would happen to two escaped Subpars if we did get inside Alara.
“Urine. Don’t drink it—the process your body uses to filter it will dehydrate you further. But it can be used as an antiseptic.”
He’s talking about pee in front of Dram. Us drinking pee. I should be mortified, but I feel only terror. The cold truth of what we’re about to endure settles over me.
“Blood is a food source,” Dad continues. “Whatever you kill in the cordons can be eaten. Few plants grow in the burnt sands, but there are cacti, and some of their fruits and pads are edible. They can be a water source, if you have something sharp enough to cut them open. Chew the pulp inside, drain the water from it—but don’t eat it. And—this is very important—you have to make sure it’s the right cactus, the one with yellow flowers—they’re called miner’s compass.” He smiles sadly. Miner’s compass. I can only wonder at the Subpars before us who gave it that name.
“Most lean toward the sun,” he says, “so they’ll also help guide you. Stay away from the ones with red fruit or gray, twisted spines—drinking from those leads to severe diarrhea and eventual paralysis.”
I meet Dram’s grim look. Red fruit bad.
“The flashfall may carry embers for fire…” Dad hands me a small magnifying glass. “When it doesn’t, you can use this lens to direct light onto dry brush.”
“How do you know all this?” I ask. “The miner’s compass and everything?”
His expression changes, and he’s no longer John Denman, physic, but Dad. “I spoke to someone once, who had seen things.”
Most Subpars were born here, their families having worked this outpost for generations. Very few transfer from other outposts.
“Who?” I ask.
Dad sighs, and it’s like the last breath holding closed a lock. “Your mother.”
* * *
Come and find me, Orion.
Mom used to play games with me. I don’t know how she managed the energy for it after a day spent mining, but I used to wait for her, watching through the window beside my loft bed.
There weren’t many places to hide in our house, but I never got tired of looking for her. We’d always end up under the bed—the wide wooden frame left us plenty of room to squeeze beneath—talking, dreaming together of places beyond the outpost. It was there she taught me about constellations, and my own ironic part in the universe.
I just never knew that she herself had come from someplace beyond the outpost. That’s the real irony. I feel betrayed. She told me made-up stories instead of sharing what was real. She should’ve told me herself about miner’s compass and desperate people in the cordons—maybe then I wouldn’t have leapt atop the Congress’s glenting sign with my axe.
“She transferred here from another outpost when she was eighteen,” Dad says. “She didn’t deceive you, Orion. She just didn’t like to talk about it.”
I make a face beneath his bed. It’s where I lie now, reaching up to trace the marks Mom drew across the underside of the wooden frame. This was the other game we played. She’d let me wear her headlamp, and together we’d spend hours drawing.
Draw what you see in your mind, Orion.
I used chalk, so each time I’d erase my pictures and make something new. She used a sort of dark greasepaint and only occasionally erased her markings. I stare up at the lines and marks, my mind whirring. I haven’t thought of this for years—not since Dad’s revelation. Mom kept secrets, apparently, and the ones she shared involved places none of us has ever seen.
I gasp suddenly. “Dram—come here!” I see his legs uncross from where he’s been waiting beside the bed.
“‘Come here,’ like under here?”
I snatch his arm and pull him down. He bends and slides his much longer frame in beside me.
“Look.” I point to the marks above us.
“Are you wearing your headlamp?”
“Dram. Look at the marks. What do you see?”
He stares hard, a line creasing between his brows. “Give me a hint?”
“Tunnel seven.”
He looks at me then, concern in his eyes. That’s where our mothers died. It’s been a closed tunnel since.
“They brought up the least cirium of any team,” I muse aloud. Even if we haven’t seen the ore weights in the Cavers’ Log, we’ve heard the stories.
“That’s because seven was tapped out.”
“No.” I shake my head and the light from my headlamp flashes over the markings. “It’s because they weren’t even looking for it.” I trace my finger over a line of Xs. Danger. Beside them, a row of hashmarks. Impassable.
“What is this, Rye?”
“It’s a map. Our mothers weren’t mining seven. They were searching for a way out.”
* * *
The flash storm sweeps in the next day, giving us a stay of execution. At least, that’s how Cranny puts it. Apparently, the Congress won’t send a hover through radiation winds—not even to discipline a rebellious teenage caver.
Clearly, Cranny feels more threatened by me than by an imminent storm with winds that will bring the radiation of the flash curtain to our doors. I vent my anger tearing rags to bandages in the infirmary.
“You’re muttering under your breath, Orion,” Dad calls. He looks up from a mixture bubbling over a burner.
“Some of the words I’m saying aren’t appropriate for impressionable young ears,” I murmur, nodding toward Winn.
“Ah.” Dad looks out the door. Despite the weather, he’s propped it open.
“Looking for something?”
“A shift in the wind,” he says, going back to his notes. “There’s an experiment I mean to do.”
A chill runs down my spine. “Must be important.”
“Life and death,” he replies softly, tapping a vial of fluid. Glowing blue particles swirl inside it.
“Not your death, right?” I ask, and Winn glances at me sharply.
Dad gives her a reassuring smile. “Of course not. I’m sixty percent certain it won’t kill me.”
Winn’s face pales. She doesn’t know about our morbid humor. But my smile freezes on my face as I lift the vial. “Is this the orbie cirium?”
“The altered cirium, yes. I distilled it into a compound.”
“The poison theory again.”
“Congress is sending my daughter to a cordon—I’m willing to try anything to save her.”
My heart trips. “So it’s like…” I study the radioactive particles. “A sort of vaccine?”
“More like an extra layer of protection. It should strengthen your natural resistance. It won’t prevent radiation sickness entirely.”
Every night he’s stayed up long after I’ve gone to sleep, working by the light of a candle so guards won’t see a light on. His voice is tired, strained, a match for the shadows under his eyes. But past the exhaustion—and worry for me—is a spark of something powerful. Hope.
“How long will this last?” I ask, holding up the vial.
“It’s only temporary.”
“But if it works…”
“Then it might be the foundation for a cure. Combined with other elements, it could be used to create permanent immunity to the effects of the flashfall.”
I glance outside. The wind has shifted. My scout’s senses are telling me to get deep underground. Fast.
“I’ll test it.”
Dad shakes his head. “It could kill you. I haven’t tried it yet.”
“You are the only physic at Outpost Five. Let me do this. If something goes wrong, you can help me.”
“I’m testing a theory, Orion—that’s all.”
“You’re never wrong.” I set my lips to the vial. Dad grasps my arm, but I pour the liquid down my throat.
“Glenting hell! It’s radioactive!”
I can’t speak. My throat aches like I’ve swallowed a rock.
Dad watches me as if he’s waiting for me to explode. I force a smile. It feels more like a grimace. “What now?”
“Now?” He spits the word. I’ve rarely seen him this upset. “You get belowground like everyone else.”
“Dad—”
“It wasn’t your risk to take.” He’s not angry, but terrified. “You’re too impulsive, Orion! You need to learn to think before you—” He breaks off and shakes his head. Wind spits flaming dust beyond the doorway. “The storm’s picking up. You have to get down nine with Winn.”
“What about you?”
“Cranny’s convinced people that the lodge is safe. I’m going over to talk sense into them. Then I’m going to find you so I can monitor you.” He folds me into his arms. I know he’s thinking of Wes, probably wishing he’d held him tighter before the last flash storm. “You don’t have to convince me you’re brave. You are the bravest person I know. Sometimes foolishly so.”
“You’re the one going to the lodge.”
I feel his smile. “True enough.”
“How do you know that word?” I ask. “Glenting.”
I feel his soft laugh, a puff of breath against my ear. “Your mom,” he says. “She used to say that sometimes.” And it’s as if he’s given me another page to add to the Book of Mom, another side to her that I never had the chance to know. Somehow knowing that she occasionally cursed with the Really Bad Conjie Word makes her seem closer. More real. My throat tightens again, and I’m not sure if it’s from the cirium compound or my mother the caver, who was maybe more like me than I realized.
He grasps my arm as I pull away. “If … if anything should happen to me—I need you to destroy my research. I’m afraid to think what Cranny would do if he discovered it.”
Fear slips along my spine. I glance at his assortment of beakers and burners.
“Not here,” he says. “Main room of the house—you’ll find a loose floorboard. Beneath it there is a hidden space.”