Finder's Shore

by Mackenzie, Anna

  “We could do with a medic at Summertops.”

  “The population isn’t large enough for the governors to approve it — although with the scouts as well perhaps …” I toy with my knife, my thoughts sharp-edged. “Do you miss the sea?”

  Ronan’s fork stops in midair. “Why do you ask?”

  “I would, if I left Vidya.”

  Shrugging, Ronan shovels food into his mouth, barely chewing each bite before he follows it with the next. “Skipped lunch,” he mumbles, with a hint of apology. “We’ve been turning in a green-crop on the field behind the barn.”

  It’s months since I’ve done any real physical labour. “I’ll come out tomorrow and help.”

  Ronan shakes his head. “Tino doesn’t allow women in the field crews. His niece was among the girls living here when the Paras invaded. She took her own life last winter rather than live with the memory of what happened to her.”

  I stare at him, shocked. But still. “There are women in Scouts.”

  “Brenon’s problem.”

  As if he has an antenna for his own name, Brenon strides into the cramped room. I duck my head.

  “Was there enough food in Vidya last winter?” Ronan asks, mopping the remains from his plate with a hunk of bread. “Truso said we were down by more than half in what we were able to send through.”

  I think back over the past year. Soup had been the mainstay of our diet. “We coped,” I tell him. “The shortages worked in Lara’s favour. People were reluctant at first to eat the fish Explorer brought in, but as their hunger grew, their scruples shrank. Sea-sci has approval to commission another boat and put together a second crew.”

  “You’ll not get me eating any filthy fish,” says a voice on my left. “I’d rather starve.”

  I turn. The man who spoke glares belligerently, chewing open-mouthed. “They run rigorous tests, and harvest only where the contamination has dropped to a negligible level,” I tell him.

  “Killed my wife and son. Fish is poison.” His tone is accusing, as if he wishes to lay his old grief at my door. There’s a sourness in his face that’s only partly explained by loss.

  “My mother died too, years ago,” I say. “But I ate fish last winter.”

  “And you call yourself a medic.”

  I feel myself colour.

  “Leave it, Varn. The lass is all right.” The man who speaks in my defence is one of the scouts I saw in the clinic today.

  Beside me Ronan pushes back his chair. “Let’s get some air,” he says.

  “Do that. Stinks of fish in here,” Varn mutters.

  Brenon’s voice whips the length of the table, stilling every conversation. “Problem?”

  No one answers. Silence surrounds us as I follow Ronan out. “Don’t take it personally,” he says, as he closes the door. “Varn’s a fool, eaten up by his own bitterness.”

  “Is he with Scouts?”

  Ronan stops beneath the deep shadows of the eaves. “Resident — one of the new settlers. Vidya was probably glad to see the back of him. He’s a troublemaker.”

  “It’s not just him. The whole place feels … uneasy,” I say, hunting out the word.

  “How could it be otherwise?”

  The half-light that filters from a window is too dim to allow me to read Ronan’s expression. I match his question with one of my own. “Are you happy here, Ronan?”

  Before he can answer — if he intends to — the door of the grain store opens and Truso crosses the yard. For a moment I think he’ll pass us by, but he slows and peers into the shadows. “Ness. Ronan. Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Varn,” Ronan tells him.

  Truso grunts. “As if we haven’t enough to deal with. I’ve a mind to send him back to Vidya.”

  “He works well enough,” Ronan says.

  “Complaining all the while. The man’s a loud-mouthed fool. They trawled for dregs when they resettled this place.” He waves a hand in denial. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

  Beyond his shoulder, the yard falls in sharp relief, the outbuildings stark against their sensor lights, the gates manned by sentries. Truso lets out a gusty sigh. “Sometimes I wonder about the governors’ real intentions.”

  A voice snakes out of the shadows behind us. “The governors have no option but to hold the line.” Brenon steps into the light. “If we lose Summertops, we’ll have both renegades and Paras on our doorstep. Summertops is our buffer.”

  “We’re not here as a buffer, we’re here to farm,” Truso says tiredly. The conversation has the feel of a well-worn path. “If we can’t do that, then maybe we should walk away.”

  Shock ripples through me. I’ve never heard Truso talk of giving up, not even during the worst of the attack last summer.

  Truso takes a breath and lets it out noisily through his teeth. “Sometimes I think it’s time I stepped aside. Let someone else take over.”

  “No!” The word bursts from me. “No one could have pulled things together the way you have,” I tell him. “You’ve done wonders at Home Farm. It’s harder here, that’s all.”

  As my voice trails off, the door behind us opens. Tino nods a greeting. “I heard about the fracas over dinner. My apologies, Ness.”

  They’re all making too much of it. “It was nothing.”

  Tino shakes his head. “There’s no excuse for rudeness.”

  A burst of conversation from the hall saves anyone from answering. What could be said, except that it shows up the cracks in the community?

  Tino shifts awkwardly. “Truso, if you’ve a moment, I wanted to talk about that mob of ewes we’ve been running on kale.”

  I let my attention wander. There were sheep on Dunnett but not on my Uncle Marn’s farm, and Dunnett feels a long way away from Ebony Hill: farther than ever. A wave of homesickness curls through my chest, catching me by surprise, cresting and breaking on the rocks around my heart.

  “Is something wrong, Ness?” Ronan asks.

  I force a smile. “I was thinking about Dunnett, about how far away it feels.”

  Ronan’s expression for a moment echoes my emptiness. “Come on,” he says, turning abruptly. “You should try Tino’s fermented barley juice — everyone should taste it once.”

  In the kitchen a handful of scouts are on kitchen duty, and a line of plates stands drying along the bench. “Here.” I pick up a dishtowel and toss another to Ronan. As he glances past me, the smile drops from his face. I turn. Jofeia stands at the sink, her arms lathered in soap. As I watch she tilts her head, a sleepy smile on her face as the man at her side bends to murmur in her ear.

  When I turn to Ronan, he’s gone. A year ago, at Home Farm, it was Ronan who had captured Jofeia’s attention — or the other way round. I adjust the assumptions I’ve made and follow him back out into the night.

  He’s standing just beyond the pool of light that falls from the windows. “Ronan? Is everything all right?”

  He lifts a hand to quiet me. “I thought I heard something — a cry.”

  It wasn’t what I meant, but we stand together in the darkness, ears tuned beyond the tall fences and stout gates of the compound. Nothing sounds but the distant bleat of a goat, awake and lonely in the night. Ronan shrugs.

  “Does it ever feel as though you’re fenced in, rather than others fenced out?”

  For a moment I think he intends not to answer. “At night sometimes.”

  “I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to make peace with the Paras. Surely —”

  The shriek of a siren interrupts me. Bodies tumble from the buildings, feet pounding around us. Ronan’s face shines white as a searchlight picks us out.

  “What’s going on?” The siren’s shrill howl drowns out my voice.

  Ronan shakes his head. There’s a shout, then another, punctuated by the crack of a rifle. I recoil. Though I’ve not heard the sound in a year, all the fear and horror it carries is waiting. Ronan pulls me back against the wall as memories of the assault l
ast summer pour, smothering as quicksand, through my head.

  Silence, sudden and loud. My breath is coming hard.

  “It’s probably a false alarm. It happens sometimes.”

  My legs feel boneless beneath me.

  Brenon’s clipped tones snap the silence and a dozen scouts slip in single file through the gate. It’s barely closed behind them when Truso shouts, his voice an anchor I grasp onto. Bounding from one of the sentry platforms, he tugs at the gate latch. Brenon calls a warning but Truso ignores him. I snatch several breaths, willing my body calm.

  “Are you all right, Ness?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, though it doesn’t feel true. Ronan’s hand steadies me. I blink at the concern in his eyes.

  Truso bellows my name as he strides back into the enclosure. At his side, a woman sags limply. I start forward. Her feet weave a staggering path as they cross the compound, scouts milling around them.

  “Get her into the med room,” I say, my voice brittle in my ears, my mind already weighing explanations for the blood that soaks her clothes.

  CHAPTER 3

  Truso’s face is clamped and tight as he lifts the woman — girl — onto the high bed. “Flet,” she says. “Please, look after Flet. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t!” She gasps for breath, her eyes flaring like those of a wild creature caught in a snare.

  “They’re bringing him in now,” Truso says.

  “Please.” The girl clutches my arm. “Flet.”

  “Hush now. It’s all right. He’ll be here soon.” She slumps back against the pillows. “What’s your name?” I ask as I check her pulse.

  “Her name is Hetti,” Truso says. “She’s been missing for a year.”

  Our eyes lock and hold while I let his words expand till I have their full meaning. When I turn back to face her, my chest is tight with grief.

  “Hetti, my name is Ness. I’m going to check your injuries. Is there anything you can tell me? Anywhere you hurt?”

  Slow tears slide down Hetti’s cheeks, cutting a path through the grime. She smells of sweat and fear and blood. The last, at least, proves largely not her own, though there are bruises and cuts on her arms and face. Worse is the scarring I find. As I study the reddened line that circles her neck — from a rope, most likely — she reaches a clawed hand to my wrist. “They punished him for helping me. Please, you have to save him!”

  I unlock her fingers and lay her hand on the bed. “I will. Just rest now.” I turn to Truso. “Can you find out where he is?”

  He’s not long gone when the door opens, the intrusion causing Hetti to curl into a defensive ball. Jofeia looks first at the girl on the bed then at me. “Truso asked me to bring you these,” she says, setting a steaming kettle and a bundle of clothes on the desk.

  I fill a basin and begin to wash away the blood and dirt that cakes Hetti’s skin. When I’m done she looks younger, which tallies if I understood Truso right, and Hetti was one of the girls living at Summertops when the Paras attacked last summer.

  When Truso puts his head through the door, I glance at Jofeia. “Stay with her a moment.”

  I join him outside the room. “How is she?” he asks.

  “Exhausted and malnourished. There are some surface wounds, as well as older scars. Have you found the man she’s asking about?”

  He gives a curt nod. “He has a gunshot wound. It looks bad.”

  “Why didn’t they bring him in?”

  Tino comes barging towards us, his face a tight knot as he pushes past and into the med room. “Hetti?” He grasps the young woman’s hand. “Het?”

  Her eyes flicker. “Is Mam here?” With the word, her voice twists into a sob. I don’t think I fully believed it till then.

  “Your mam is fine, Hetti. She’s in Vidya.” Tino drags a hand through his hair. “She didn’t want to leave, not without knowing where you were, but she couldn’t stay here. She’s safe.”

  Hetti closes her eyes, tears spilling from beneath her lids.

  “Are there any women she knows who could sit with her?” I ask.

  “I’ll stay.” Tino’s voice is crisp.

  I pick up my med kit. “See if you can get her to eat a little soup before she sleeps.”

  Tino’s eyes never leave Hetti’s face. I lean close. “Hetti, I’m going to see about Flet. Tino and Jofeia will stay with you. I’ll be back soon.”

  I have to jog to match Truso’s stride as he leads me across the yard. He stops in front of a squat shed. “He’s in here.”

  “Why?” I ask, and there’s everything wrapped up in that single small word.

  “He’s a para.”

  Drawing a breath, I set my hand on the door. Flet lies in a crumpled heap on the floor of the shed. Ignoring the scouts who stand around him, I drop to my knees. “Flet?” His pulse is weak and fast. “Do we have to keep him here?” I demand.

  “We do.” The guard’s voice is expressionless.

  “For now,” Truso adds. A muscle jumps in his jaw.

  I compress my lips and lift the man’s ragged shirt. The bandage beneath is dark with dirt, dried blood caking it to his skin. As I begin to pry it free, a fresh runnel of blood seeps sluggishly down his side. “I need hot water, sterile swabs, bandages. And light. Can we at least open the door?”

  I look up in time to see one of the scouts shake his head. Truso speaks up. “We can run a line from the barn. I’ll see to it, and the rest.”

  I turn back to my patient. “Flet? Can you hear me? I’m going to look at your wound.”

  There’s no reply. Unfolding the knife I carry on my belt, I slit the fabric and peel the encrusted bandage away from his torso. “Hetti says that he helped her escape,” I say, to no one in particular.

  The skin surrounding the wound is inflamed. As I depress it gently, Flet mumbles and jerks. “It’s infected. He needs a bed — this floor’s filthy. And clean sheets and blankets.”

  The door opens as I speak, spilling light across Flet’s torso. “Planking on trestles might be the best we can do,” a voice says. Startled, I look up. “Sort it, would you, Sorley? And fetch a squab and bedding from the bunk room.” Brenon acknowledges me briskly as one of the guards disappears to do his bidding. “Anything else you need, Ness?”

  Holding myself tight, I raise my chin. In the past, Brenon and I have fallen out over his treatment of prisoners. At Home Farm, the paras taken prisoner were interrogated then shot — but it’s not only the way they were treated that I remember. I’m still haunted, some nights, by their brutality towards the people living at Summertops. “He has an infected gunshot wound. He won’t be answering questions for a while.”

  “I didn’t suppose he would.”

  “He should be in the med room. Hetti says he was wounded helping her escape, which I’d say puts him on our side.” If there’s anything as simple as sides.

  Flet groans and mutters something under his breath.

  “Until everyone understands that, he’s better off here,” Brenon says. I frown, uncomprehending. “You met Varn earlier. Not everyone sees the world as you or I might.”

  I’d not have put Brenon’s view and mine together in the same breath. “But you’re in charge.”

  “We’re not under martial law. I’m in charge of what happens to him only if he’s my prisoner.”

  For a moment I wonder whether I’ve remembered Brenon wrong, then Sorley and Truso return and there’s no time for contemplation. As I begin a careful exploration of the wound in Flet’s side, I tell myself it’s no different to the injuries I’ve dealt with over the past year of clinics in Vidya, though it is. None of those was caused by a rifle.

  Flet is lucky the bullet missed his arteries and organs but he’ll need more luck yet. I remove the fragments of cloth that were carried into his flesh and do my best to piece him back together. Given that infection is already established, I wonder whether he’ll have the resources to fight it.

  As I tighten my last stitch, I meet Truso’s gaze. “He�
�s lost a lot of blood.” He lost more while I worked on him, but that couldn’t be helped. “If we can beat the infection, he has a chance.”

  “What will you tell Hetti?” Truso asks.

  “Just that.”

  Leaving Sorley in charge of Brenon’s prisoner, Truso leads me outside. “You did well in there,” he says. A sentry peers at us as we cross the compound. Truso sighs. “I’m sorry, Ness. This was the last thing I thought you’d have to deal with when you came back to us.”

  “It’s all right.” I wipe a stray hair from my cheek with the bloodied side of my wrist. “He was injured, that’s all. And I’m a medic.” The sky is beginning to lighten. “I need to change. You too.”

  Truso glances at the blood on his shirt then towards the bank of solar panels above the shower block. “The water will be hot,” he says.

  Hetti is sleeping when I slip back into the med room. I place two fingers on her brow, relieved to find it damp but cool.

  Tino stirs and straightens in his chair. “How is he?”

  “Flet? I’ve done what I can, but he has a hard road ahead of him.”

  He scrubs a hand across his face. “How long ago was he shot?”

  “Several days — three at least, possibly more.” I try to recall Amar’s charts on the progression of infections in untreated wounds. “Not more than five.”

  Tino scowls. “Whoever shot him might not be far away.”

  It’s a possibility I’ve had no time to consider, but it makes sense. “Neither of them was in a state to travel fast.”

  He stands abruptly. “I need to talk to Brenon.” His eyes stray to Hetti.

  “I’ll stay till you get back.”

  He hesitates. “I promised I’d be here when she wakes. She doesn’t know anyone else. They’re all new settlers.”

  It’s not disparagement, exactly, that I hear in his voice, but there’s judgement in it. The community at Home Farm had to me felt chastened by its experiences of last summer. Summertops feels close to being destroyed.

  Stifling a yawn, I resign myself to discomfort and sink into the chair that Tino vacated, shrugging a blanket around my shoulders. I don’t know how long I doze. When I wake, Hetti is stirring, surfacing from a nightmare.