Promised (6 page)

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Who's that?” he asked, pointing, and passed her a pair of binoculars.

Small in the distance, rippling in the heat waves, a figure was walking toward them: a woman moving with a steady but unhurried gait.

Gaia zeroed in on the motion. There was no mistaking the woman's purposeful bearing, nor the black medical bag she clutched at her side. “It's Myrna Silk,” Gaia said. “One of the doctors from the Enclave. She was in Q cell with me. In prison.”

“Apparently she's out,” Will said.

Gaia scanned through the binoculars along the top of the wall, picking out the tiny figures of the guards, and her pulse kicked up a notch. Far in the distance, the Enclave was fully armed and waiting for them.

 

CHAPTER 5

the backward siege

“
A
T LEAST THEY AREN'T
sending out forces to attack. So far.” She handed back the binoculars.

“Keep them,” Will said. “What happened to yours?”

“One of my messengers has them,” she said. “Thanks.” She slung the strap around her neck and Maya began to inspect them. There was nothing to do but continue onward and keep an eye out for an aggressive move.

The caravan veered south, skirting wide of the Enclave and Wharfton to approach along the old shoreline of the unlake. If Gaia's judgment was correct, they were a couple of hours away from the wall when they met up with Myrna Silk. Her black eyebrows contrasted vividly with the white hair fringing out from the edges of her hat, and there was an acerbic, no-nonsense quality to her features even when she smiled.

“Exile agrees with you, I see,” Myrna said, clasping Gaia's hand warmly. “Who's this delightful creature?” she added, lifting the brim of Maya's hat.

“My sister, Maya.”

“Of course,” Myrna said. “Did Leon ever find you?”

“He's here,” Gaia said, gesturing behind her. She drew Myrna aside on a wide, sunny ledge of rock while the caravan continued, stretching out in a long line to their left as they faced the Enclave. She waved for the vanguard to progress along the shoreline without her, and they trudged onward. “I sent two scouts to Wharfton four days ago and they haven't returned. Do you know anything about them? Munsch and Bonner?”

“They were taken in for questioning. That's how I heard you were coming with an army.” Myrna glanced around and set down her bag. “Looks like that rumor was a bit off the mark. Unless those are attack chickens.”

Gaia laughed. “We're not an army. We're coming to relocate permanently. We're peaceful.”

Myrna looked amused as she shook her head. “Only you.”

“What?” Gaia said.

“Things have changed since you left,” Myrna said. “There's even more hostility across the wall now than there used to be. Listen, I came to talk to your leader to see if I can persuade you all to leave. What are the chances?”

Gaia shook her head. “We can't leave. We've come too far, and our old home is a death trap. We'll do whatever it takes to survive here.”

“Even so. Who's in charge?”

Gaia felt a certain ironic delight. “I'm our elected leader. You're looking at the Matrarc of New Sylum.”

Myrna's gaze went from Gaia to the caravan of walking people with their burdens and back to Gaia. “That figures.”

Gaia offered Myrna a canteen, but the doctor had brought a bottle of her own, and while the older woman drank, Gaia lifted Will's binoculars again. The wall, with its massive blocks of limestone, appeared taller than before, and now that she was nearer, she inspected a new wooden layer that had been built along the top. A parapet connected the towers so soldiers could walk along the continuous top length, at least along the legs of the wall that overlooked Wharfton.

She adjusted the focus on a soldier who had his own pair of binoculars aimed back toward the caravan.

Gaia lowered the binoculars and turned to the doctor. “Are you spying for the Protectorat?”

“Why? Do you have something to hide?”

She had a point. Gaia glanced over her shoulder to where her young messengers waited discreetly for orders. “Tell Leon Vlatir and Mx. Dinah to join me, please,” she said to one. “They're both behind me a ways.” She gestured to another. “Chardo Will went ahead. Find him and ask him to come back, too.”

The messengers sprang off.

“My scouts were supposed to ask a couple of my old friends in Wharfton to start stockpiling water for our arrival,” Gaia said. “Would you have any idea if that's happening?”

“I don't know. Derek Vlatir is the one who told me your scouts had been taken in. He always knows what's going on.”

“How do you know Derek?” Gaia asked, puzzled. “He still lives outside the wall, doesn't he?”

“So do I, now,” Myrna said, and jogged up her chin. “I told you things have changed. I took over your old house on Sally Row. I hope you don't mind, but it didn't look like you were coming back. I'm running a blood bank there.”

“But isn't that illegal? How did all this happen?” Gaia asked, amazed.

“Outside the wall the blood bank isn't illegal,” Myrna said. “You began it all by stealing the birth records. It took the Enclave a few days to realize you gave them to your red-headed friend, Emily.”

“Emily! How is she? Is she all right?”

“Didn't Leon tell you? The Protectorat took Emily's baby to persuade her to give the records back, which she did, of course. But then the Protectorat accused her of having copies made. When the Enclave still didn't give Emily's son back, she and her husband went berserk.”

“They
would
go berserk. Especially Kyle,” Gaia said. “Leon left around then, so I don't know what happened after that.”

People kept streaming past on Gaia's left, glancing over curiously. Her standard made a rippling noise in the wind, and its shadow flicked in the dust.

Myrna took another sloshing swig from her bottle. “Enclave parents were afraid that birth parents from outside the wall would track down their advanced children to steal them back,” she said. “There was a panic, so when Emily's husband was caught coming under the wall to try to get their son back, there wasn't much sympathy for him. I imagine you recall the punishment for breaching the wall.”

Gaia hugged her sister closer. “Execution.”

“Exactly,” Myrna said.

Gaia couldn't believe it. She touched a hand to her forehead, horrified.

Leon arrived then and slid a hand around her waist. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

“Emily's husband Kyle was executed,” Gaia said, her voice tightening. “Did you know that?”

“No,” he said. “Don't think it was your fault.”

But it was,
she thought. She was the one who had brought the ledgers to Emily's family and started the trouble in the first place. As Leon's arm tightened, Myrna tilted her face, regarding them frankly.

“How did your back heal?” Myrna said. “And your finger.”

“Well enough, thanks to you. I'm in your debt, Masister,” Leon said. He reached out a hand to shake with her. “What happened after Kyle's execution?”

Myrna dabbed at her neck with a handkerchief. “Apparently, Emily garnered a lot of sympathy from people outside the wall, and she built on that. She united all the pregnant women of Wharfton for the first baby strike. They refused to advance any more babies, and they sent a message to the Protectorat demanding that he return Emily's baby. They claimed it was the right of every mother to keep her own child.”

“A baby strike,” Gaia said, amazed. She'd never guessed that Emily would be the one to organize such a protest.

“I expect that didn't go over well,” Leon said.

Chardo Will and Dinah arrived then from different directions. They unobtrusively joined the circle on the rock ledge as Myrna continued.

“The Protectorat doesn't play games,” Myrna said. “He didn't reply to Emily's demands. He simply turned off the water to Wharfton.”

“Every spigot?” Gaia asked.

“Even the irrigation water for the fields,” said Myrna.

Gaia tried to imagine the panic that had hit Wharfton as people discovered they had no water. “It was like a backward siege, wasn't it? With the people inside the wall controlling the people outside by cutting off what they needed,” Gaia said. “Did the strikers give in?”

“Actually it got complicated,” Myrna said. “The people of Wharfton united behind the mothers, and inside the wall, the Protectorat's hard-line policy backfired.” She glanced briefly at Leon. “People in the Enclave are not all as cold as you might think, and some of the very wealthy, influential families formed a consortium and spoke up on behalf of the people outside the wall. It became a humanitarian issue.”

“I'll bet,” Leon said dryly. “Those same families are probably the ones who own the fields outside the wall. They didn't want to lose their investments.”

“Did the Protectorat's own people persuade him to turn on the water again?” Gaia asked.

“No,” Myrna said. “But he was forced to negotiate. On the third day of the siege, the Protectorat named two conditions to turn the water back on. He wanted all of the people of Wharfton to register their DNA into one database.”

Gaia was confused, trying to remember. Hadn't she and Mabrother Iris once discussed such a possibility? She thought he'd said it wouldn't be practical.

“But that must be fifteen thousand people or more,” Gaia said.

“Sixteen thousand, four hundred, and twelve, to be exact,” Myrna said. “The Protectorat wanted cheek swabs collected from everybody, in family groups. That way he would have a record of everyone's DNA, once and for all.”

Gaia looked at Leon. “What good could that possibly do him?”

Leon was watching Myrna. “It's an overabundance of information, certainly, but he likes to plan ahead. It fits.”

Gaia shifted her weight, repositioning Maya on her hip. “What was the second condition?”

“He wanted Emily to come live inside the Bastion, as his permanent guest,” Myrna said. “She could have her son back, but inside the wall, in the Protectorat's own home.”

“To control her,” Gaia said, with instinctive understanding. It was practically the same thing that had happened to her in Sylum when the Matrarc had confined her for a period of reflection in the lodge, only Emily's status as a guest would never end. “Did she go?”

“By day six, Wharfton was completely out of water,” Myrna said. “They'd drunk every last drop of cider and distilled wine just for the liquid. Pets were dying, and people were pressuring Emily. She said she'd never signed on for a rebellion. She just wanted to see her son again, so she went.”

“But is she all right?” Gaia asked.

Myrna frowned thoughtfully. “She appears to be. She's risen to a position of some importance. She's been there over a year now, and her second child, a boy—that's the only home he's ever known.”

Gaia turned to Leon, whose gaze was directed toward the Enclave, as if he could penetrate the mind of his father just by observing the city where he dwelled.

“So there's a full DNA registry,” Leon said.

Myrna nodded. “It took us a month, but we swabbed every single person. That's when I moved outside the wall, and I found, to my great surprise, that despite the rampant ignorance of your old neighbors, life in Wharfton suits me just fine.”

“He'll want us to register our DNA, too,” Chardo Will guessed.

“Yes,” Myrna said, turning to him. “That's a given. And you are?”

Gaia made quick introductions.

Unexpectedly, Dinah laughed. “I wonder what the Protectorat will think of our expools.”

Myrna glanced at Gaia.

“Many of our men are sterile,” Gaia explained. “We suspect they're XX-males. I suppose now we'll find out for certain from their DNA.”

Myrna looked surprised. She took another look at the line of people in the caravan. “How about the women? Are they fertile?”

Dinah nodded, still smiling. “I'd say. Our mothers have, on average, eight children each. Many have over ten, and the children are almost all boys. We hope that will change now that we're here, away from the water that poisoned us in Sylum.”

“There does seem to be quite a preponderance of men,” Myrna said.

“We have nine men for every one woman,” Gaia said. “And there were no girls born in the past year.”

Myrna was clearly interested. “Very odd. Is there any hemophilia in your population?” Myrna asked.

“None,” Leon said.

Myrna crossed her arms, plainly considering. “Interesting,” she said finally, and turned to look speculatively at Leon. “Your father will be very interested.”

“We're counting on that,” he said.

Gaia was still worried about her old friend. “Does Emily ever come outside the wall? What happened to advancing the babies? I can hardly believe there are no more quotas.”

Myrna's gaze narrowed slightly, and she adjusted her hat brim over her eyes. “Emily came out briefly for a recruitment. She works for Leon's father now. For the Vessel Institute.”

“What's that?” Gaia asked.

“It's in its pilot phase,” Myrna said. “Essentially, the Vessel Institute is a baby factory.”

 

CHAPTER 6

homecoming

“
T
HE
P
ROTECTORAT WOULD NEVER
describe it so crudely,” Myrna added. “But that's what it is.”

“You can't mean what I'm thinking,” Will said. “Women would never allow themselves to be used that way.”

“Maybe not where you come from,” Myrna said.

“How does your baby factory actually work?” Dinah asked.