Farseed, page 12
“They wouldn’t have had enough food with them to last that long,” Ali said. He averted his eyes quickly from Trevor. “But I could be wrong.”
“Maybe the reason we haven’t seen the outsiders for so long is that they haven’t needed to trade with us for anything,” Trevor said, “which means that they might have had enough food to share with Bonnie and the others.” Trevor was obviously trying to keep his hopes up, but Leila wanted to believe him.
Fourteen people moved on, leading the eight horses that remained with them. Leila’s aches seemed less bothersome now, while the pain in her hips and knees had eased that morning after she was awake and on her feet; maybe she was finally getting accustomed to the days of hiking. Now she noticed that the landscape was changing again: A few black and dark gray outcroppings of rock jutted out from the seemingly endless grasslands. The maps that she had studied had shown such features, but had not prepared her for how they would look from out here. Some seemed like rows of pointed sharp teeth; others were lone fingers of rock pointing toward the sky, and still others were irregular blocks or walls. The sky was changing, too, with dark blue clouds forming in the south.
By midday, the clouds in the south had become a billowing black mass slowly spreading north across the sky. There had been no wind, not even a breeze, throughout the morning, but now the wind was rising into a high-pitched wail. The voice of Home was crying out a warning.
A ridge of rock lay to the southeast. Zoheret led them away from the river and across the grassy expanse to the outcropping. They took shelter along the side of the ridge that faced north.
Haidar quickly roped the horses together, then waved an arm. “Keep near the horses, all of you,” he shouted above the howling wind. “Steady them if you can. And get the packs off them—if one of them bolts, we don’t want to lose anything.” Leila untied and removed two packs from one mare, threw them to the ground, and pressed against the animal, her arms around the horse’s neck as the storm broke over them.
The wind shrieked. She had never heard a wind this strong, had never experienced such loud thunder. A bright flash of light nearly blinded her. The horse trembled; she hung on as another clap of thunder tore through the wind and sheets of rain fell.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind died. Another burst of thunder rolled overhead as the rain slowed to a drizzle.
They waited until the rain had stopped before leaving the shelter of the ridge. The sky was still dark with clouds, the air thicker and more humid. Their wet tunics and pants clung to their bodies; everyone else looked as damp, bedraggled, tired, and uncomfortable as Leila now felt. They made their way back to the river under the dark sky and Leila found herself wondering how many more storms might come and whether they would be able to take shelter from them as quickly. As they moved south, rain began to fall again, sifting down from the sky, misting the expanse of yellow and green bands.
During the next two days, the sky remained overcast. Rain fell only intermittently, barely wetting the grass, and yet it seemed to Leila that the rain always started to fall just as her clothing was almost dry. Each of them had brought three changes of clothing, rinsing out one set of clothes in the river and drying them after putting on other garments, but now Leila felt as though she would never know what it was like to wear dry clothes again, or truly clean ones for that matter.
Three days after the storm, they woke to clearer air, a gentle breeze, and sunshine. They followed the river to a short wall of rock that stood only a few paces from the riverbank. The wall was not much taller than Gervais; even with its pitted and irregular surface, it resembled the wall of an abandoned shelter or dwelling. There was no intelligent life here, none except themselves; Ship would never have left them on Home otherwise, and there was no evidence that intelligence had ever existed here. So the adults had always insisted, but looking at the wall, Leila wondered if Ship might have been wrong about that; it would not have been Ship’s first mistake.
They would set up their fourth camp here, with Trang, Reuben, and Denis staying behind. The rest of them might have continued south until dusk, but Zoheret suggested that all of them could use a longer rest. Tents were raised, clothes were rinsed and draped over the wall of rock to dry, a fire was started, and flour was mixed with boiled water to make flatbread while a pot of beans simmered over the flames.
Leila was gathering brush and dry gourds for the fire when she noticed that Yukio was standing still, gazing east, a hand cupped over his eyes. Edan stood next to him, also looking out at the plain.
Leila went to them. “What is it?” she asked the two boys.
“See that ridge in the distance?” Yukio said.
She squinted, but could barely make out the tiny speck of rock on the horizon. “I see it.”
“I thought I saw something moving across it, along the top, but I can’t see it there now.”
“Animals?”
Yukio frowned. “I’m not sure. I almost thought it might be a person.”
“A person?” Leila shook her head. “But the others are near the sea. We’re still days away from them.”
“If that’s where they’re still living.” Yukio lowered his voice. “Trevor wants to think they’re doing all right, because that’s the only way he can believe his mother’s still alive. And maybe they are, but my mother was really wondering about them the last time they came to trade with us. She wanted to scan them, but they wouldn’t let her.”
“She mentioned that to me,” Leila said.
“Did she tell you that they were showing signs of malnutrition?”
“Just that they were too thin.”
“She told me they looked like they were starving, as if something inside them was burning them up. After they left, she went to everybody who’d had any contact with them and did a scan, because she was worried the outsiders might have been carrying some disease we didn’t know about, but she didn’t find anything unusual. Of course she didn’t tell people that was her reason, only that she needed to check up on one thing or another.”
Leila had a vague memory of Kagami scanning her not long after the two visitors had left, when Leila had been recovering from a fever. “Don’t say anything about that to Trevor,” she said.
“We haven’t,” Edan said.
“There’s no harm in hoping.”
Edan narrowed his eyes. “He’s hoping too hard. He thinks the rest of our trip will be about as uneventful as it’s been so far, that the worst that’ll happen is we’ll have to take shelter from another storm, and then we’ll get to the end of our journey and find out that Bonnie and Chiang and Tonio are all alive and doing just fine.”
“Maybe they are,” Leila said, suppressing her doubts.
“Maybe and maybe not, but Trevor’s getting careless. The last time I kept watch with him, all he did was talk about how much he was looking forward to finding his mother and getting back to our homes and how foolish Yusef was going to look for being so worried about sending people out. He was so busy talking that he didn’t even see Yukio come out of our tent to take a piss.”
Leila snorted. “Does that matter?”
“Yes, it matters,” Yukio said, “because I was able to sneak up on him afterwards. I was practically on top of him before he even saw me.”
“That was stupid,” Leila said. “He could have shot you, and it would have taken you a while to recover.”
“Unless I’d gotten the weapon away from him first. He’s getting careless, Leila, and he’s not the only one.” Yukio waved an arm in the direction of Tala, who was roaming along the riverbank with Sofia and Shannon collecting brush. “Look at those three, they’re not paying any attention to what’s around them, they’re just jabbering away. Tala still thinks she’s going to find her father alive, too.”
“Even your mother’s getting more careless,” Edan said, “having us stop here for the afternoon when we could be moving on.”
“We can use some rest,” Leila objected.
“Sure we can, but that means just a little less food for the next stage of our journey, and that can add up. It’s like assuming that everything’s going to go along as smoothly as it has and that everybody in the other base camps will be able to get anything to us that we might need later on.” Edan brushed back a lock of his thick brown hair. “We’d better not assume that.”
She could not argue with him. She had been growing more careless herself, dwelling on her aches and pains or the miseries of damp and dirty clothing while not paying as much attention to her surroundings.
“You should keep an eye on Zoheret,” Edan continued. “You know her better than anyone. She was the one who didn’t think we could handle this by ourselves, who pushed for having older people in charge, and maybe she was right about that. But if it looks as though she’s not up to the job, we’ll have to do something about that.”
Was that what this was all about, she thought angrily, more of Edan’s overly complicated musings about leaders and who should be in charge? But the unhappy look in his hazel eyes told her that he was worrying about much more than that.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” she said softly.
His worried expression did not change. “Good.”
Four days after leaving the fourth camp, they set up their fifth, with Shannon, Tala, and Hannah staying behind with Haidar and two of the horses. Trevor could easily handle their four other horses, given his skill with the animals, and Haidar would be of more use making sure that all of the bases remained in communication. That had been the plan all along, but Leila was sure Zoheret had also noticed how oddly cheerful Tala had grown in her conviction that her father Chiang would be found alive and safe, and how often she distracted others with her hopeful chatter and musings. Tala’s absentminded cheerfulness had led to the temporary escape of one of the horses, still laden with a pack, after she had failed to tie up the horse properly, and half a day lost while Haidar and Trevor rode out to recapture the mare.
The fifth base camp overlooked a slight bend in the river, which had narrowed again; the western bank was now close enough that they could swim to it easily. A ridge lay to the east, close enough for Haidar and the three young women to take shelter behind it if they saw another storm coming. In the distance, a high hill unlike any Leila had seen so far during their journey was a dark mound against the eastern horizon.
They left the fifth base camp in the morning, waiting until a few dark clouds that had formed at dawn had dispersed and a clear sky promised calm weather. They had lost sight of the camp by the time they stopped to rest and let the horses drink. It came to Leila that they were more vulnerable now, with only eight people and four horses left. How had Bonnie, Tonio, and Chiang come so far without wanting to turn back? The dizziness that she had felt days ago was rising in her once more.
No, she told herself; she would not give in to weakness.
Zoheret looked east and then south, pacing over the rock-strewn ground near the river as if keeping watch. Leila had been observing her mother, as she had promised Edan she would, but for the past couple of days, Zoheret had seemed unusually vigilant. After they moved on, Leila noticed that Gervais, after dropping behind the rest of them, was also scanning the plain with more intensity than usual.
When sunset came, they stopped for the night near a grove of the gourd-bearing trees. Sofia and Trevor had picked up a couple of the fallen gourds when Zoheret said, “No fire tonight.”
“No fire?” Sofia asked. “Why not?”
“We won’t need one to cook what we’re eating tonight,” Zoheret replied, “and we haven’t seen any wild animals for days. And we’re getting closer to the people we hope to find. We might be safer if they don’t know we’re coming, and these trees should help to hide us from view.” She paused, apparently to let that sink in. “All of you know that we had our differences with the others in the past. I don’t expect any trouble now, but we shouldn’t take anything for granted. When you’re on watch, be alert, and if you notice anything strange, even if you think it might just be a harmless animal, you are to wake Gervais and me immediately. Understood?”
“Yes,” Sofia said, sounding apprehensive. The others nodded. Leila would not have to be on watch that night, but wondered if she would be able to sleep.
The next night, they camped near a small outcropping; again they did not build a fire. The day after that, Yukio spotted what looked like a herd of animals in the distance, but even his sharp eyes could not make out if they were deer or horses. On the next day, under a precipice of rock that was the tallest they had come upon so far, they found the traces of another campfire.
Rocks had been laid out in a circle, surrounding the small pit that had contained the fire. Bonnie and her companions might have made this fireplace, which was what Trevor wanted to believe. But it was possible that the outsiders had come here instead, that this was a place they had made. They were now, Leila knew, only about two days away from the sea.
They did not make a fire of their own. After a meal of dried fruit, they went through all of the usual routines that had by now become a habit: securing the horses, pitching the tents, digging a ditch, checking their bodies and feet to make certain that no blisters or wounds that might get infected had developed. No one spoke. Perhaps they were all sharing the same thought, namely that their journey would soon be at an end, and they would finally find out what had happened to the three missing people.
Kagami woke Leila to keep watch with Trevor during the last part of the night. The silence of the night was oppressive, but neither of them broke the silence with talk. Toward morning, Trevor went to the tent he was sharing with Yukio, Edan, and Gervais to wake them. Zoheret was already leaving the tent she had shared with Sofia and Kagami.
They had eaten a morning meal of more dried fruit and were standing with the horses on the riverbank when the silence was finally broken by Trevor. “Zoheret,” he said, “I have to ask you something.”
“Go ahead,” Leila’s mother replied.
“I know we agreed that the rest of us would wait here while you and Gervais went on, but I want to go with you.”
“No.”
“Bonnie’s my mother,” Trevor said. “I don’t want to wait here for who knows how long before I find out what happened to her.”
Zoheret went to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “I understand, but I told you before, we don’t know what lies ahead. It’s better if we—”
Trevor shook her off. “You’re trying to protect us. You think it’ll be easier for me if you come back and tell me Bonnie’s dead than if I have to see that for myself.”
“As soon as we find anything out, we’ll come back here,” Zoheret said. “I promise you that.”
Trevor turned away from her. “Listen to me,” Zoheret went on. “I’m counting on you. You’ll have to maintain this base and send somebody back to Haidar’s.”
“I know.” Trevor shook his head. “It’s the waiting. I’d rather come with you than have to wait here, hoping she’s still alive and then feeling just as sure that she probably isn’t.”
“Trevor.” Leila went to him. “It won’t be much longer.” She put a hand on his arm and he did not shake it off.
Zoheret and Gervais were to take two of the horses and ride the rest of the way. Gervais helped Zoheret onto her horse, then stood on top of a large stone to mount his own, swinging one leg over the mare’s side.
“You’re good enough riders,” Trevor said then, “but I’m a better one.”
“You’re right about that,” Gervais replied.
“Then you should let me go in your place,” Trevor said.
Gervais shook his head. “Nice try.”
“Kagami, you’re in charge here now,” Zoheret said. “Just remember that one of you should be on the way to Haidar’s camp no more than four days from now, whether we’re back or not. And if we’re not back here five or six days after that, you know what to do.”
Leila knew how hard it might become. They were to break camp and return along the route they had followed to this place. They would have to assume that Zoheret and Gervais would find their way back to the settlements by themselves later, and if they did not, the two leaders and the board would have to decide if they should risk losing more lives in a third expedition.
But they would come back. Whether or not the three missing people were found, they would come back. Leila stood with the others and watched her mother and Gervais ride south slowly along the riverbank, gazing after them until they were only small dark forms moving amid the yellow and green grass.
Part Three
9
Nuy listened to the sound of the sea. Here in this cave, north of the beach, she could hear the rhythmic roll of the waves, as she had during her childhood while trying to fall asleep. Sometimes it had seemed that the ocean was calling to her. Even after all that had happened, she could sit there and allow the muted and distant sound of the unseen waves to soothe her, until she remembered the great storm that had driven her people away from the sea and the father who had cast her out.
Her loneliness nearly overwhelmed her. She thought of all the times she and Carin had danced in the waves as they swept over the sand, of how she and Belen had floated in the warm water when the sea was calm. She longed for Carin and Sarojin again, even for Belen, and her longing was so fierce that she could almost believe the three of them could feel her need for them, even from a distance. She felt most alone when she thought of them.
She glanced around the cave, making sure that she had hidden any traces of her presence. There had been no need for a fire; she had buried her wastes and thrown the bones of the fish that she had scavenged, dried, and then eaten into the sea. If her people came searching for her, they would find no signs that she had been here.
