Rift (4 page)

Nerys slipped out of bed and padded to the doorway without looking back. Jory was asleep, had been for all the hours she’d lain beside him waiting for the moon to set. The only sound in the mud and wattle hogan was the growl of Nerys’ stomach. For supper they had sucked the marrow from rabbit bones, and Nerys had given her daughter most of her own portion. Anar must have strength to run tonight.

She crept to Anar’s cot behind the curtain and gently touched her shoulder. In the dark, she felt Anar’s hand squeeze her own. She was awake, fully dressed, even wearing her boots. Good girl. At twelve, she was old enough to understand what they risked. From her shirt Nerys pulled out the letter and laid it on Anar’s pillow.
Jory, I will not forget you. I took only what is mine. Remember that if you catch us.—Nerys
.

Outside, she grabbed the satchel she had hidden behind the hogan and laced on the boots she was carrying. She applied soot to her face and her daughter’s, then peered around the hogan for any glimpse of the night watch. Overhead, a rich crop of stars glittered against the black loam of the sky. For the hundredth time Nerys wondered why the sky remained black with so many lamps to brighten it. Such questions had answers, she knew, but they were not for clavers to know. As they watched and listened, Nerys’ stomach rumbled again, stiffening her courage for what they had to do. Then Nerys grasped Anar’s hand and together they darted across the lane and into the terra patch.

The last of the vines crunched under their feet, brittle stems, all but barren, even in the lush days of the summer. Somewhere nearby a dog barked. Nerys froze in place, sweating.

“It’s Pika’s mongrel,” Anar said.

“Shh.”

A chill breeze swept over her, advance guard of the winter. She buttoned her jacket higher and waited for the dog to settle. Even now, if caught, she could still claim they were within the stockade. She would never be trusted again, but they would keep their lives.

After a time they started forward again, running for the cover of successive hogans and finally to the stockade. Pulling back the loose timber she’d dislodged in the early evening, she urged Anar through and then followed.

Now they were renegades. Fair game. She grabbed Anar’s hand and sprinted for the woods.

Behind her she’d left the father of her child, three brothers, and her good friend Konsta. She’d left her woven blankets, the meager food of their larder, and all expectation of friendship and mercy from the clave, blood kin or no. Twenty-seven years of her life, now forfeit. She felt no remorse. She had hardened her heart for weeks, preparing for this moment. She had looked at her daughter’s wasting frame and determined that Anar would live. Konsta’s child had starved to death just before the spring thaw, lending more weight to the adage
Winter eats the children
.

Nerys and Anar picked their way through the twisted avenues between the trees to the meeting place.

A shadow stepped in front of them. Nerys’ knife came out of its sheath and she flung Anar behind her.

“Nerys,” the voice came.

It was Jory. “Not even a running start?” she snapped at him.

“Nerys.” He stood, hands at his sides, weaponless. Was he alone? “Stay,” he said.

“Stand back, Jory.” Fleetingly, she searched the shadows for any others.

“Leave Anar, at least. Please.”

He was alone. She could kill him, had to kill him; she couldn’t trust him to remain silent. Damn, that he couldn’t have let this
be
.

“Nerys,” he pleaded again. “She’s my daughter. They’ll kill her.”

Nerys wasn’t sure who he meant by
they
. Their own Whale Clave, foreign claves, or the orthong? Any might do. But she answered: “She’ll die if we don’t leave. The clave is starving. Or didn’t you notice?”

“We’ll fish tomorrow. There’ll be meat.” His voice was desperate. Even he didn’t believe it.

Nerys snorted. “We’re starving, Jory. And we’re leaving.”

“You’ll starve anyway. They’ll slaughter you,” he said. “That’s how they conquer us, don’t you see? By killing the women.” His voice broke. “Nerys, don’t give them Anar.”

He hadn’t come to say good-bye, he’d come to stop her. She lunged for him, taking him down and pinning his arms with her knees. Twisting under her, he threw her off, grabbing for her knife arm. They scuffled, but he remained silent, not calling out. For that, she would spare him. She groped for and found a fist-sized rock, swinging it around in an arc and dashing the side of his head. At the blow he fell quiet. She hefted the rock again and brought it down on his head another time, holding back her full strength, but doing the job well enough.

Anar was at her side. “Papa …,” she cried.

“Never mind him now!” Nerys found her knife on the ground and grabbed it, then circled her arm around her daughter and broke into a run.

“Is he dead?” Anar gasped as they ran.

“Yes. Dead to us.”

Anar began to sob.

Nerys stopped and hugged her daughter. She mustn’t cry. The others mustn’t see her cry. “Anar, Anar. You must be strong. Your father lives. But now
comes the hard part.
We
must live. Whatever else you do from now on, never cry. You understand?”

Anar sniffed and nodded her head. Nerys patted her. She hadn’t raised a weakling.

Under cover of the woods they hurried, taking care to step over the fallen trunks of alders and birches, which if they grew too high were prone to collapse. Thus it was said,
Beware of tall trees
, which was also a rebuke to the prideful. Jory was fond of the saying. Nerys was not.

When they found the others, they were all crouched around Hesta, who lay on the ground.

“What happened?” Nerys asked.

“Caught in a snare,” Thallia said, inspecting the wound as Hesta whimpered deep in her throat.

Eiko stood up. “Who’s this?” she said, knowing full well who stood beside Nerys.

“My daughter.”

“We said no children.”

“You have no children.”

Eiko spat. “No kids to slow us.”

“She can run faster than you, and she’s a better hunter.” Eiko looked to Thallia, but Thallia’s attention was on their fallen comrade, whose foot was shattered by a metal trap, the sort that could cripple an orthong or a caribou. Hesta was unlucky this night. Nerys crouched down to put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

“Kill me,” Hesta whispered.

Nerys looked up into Thallia’s grim face. The wind rustled the overhead branches. Nerys tuned it out and listened for sounds of pursuit.

“Let’s go!” Eiko urged.

“
You
want to carry Hesta?” Thallia asked, mocking and deep.

Eiko turned and stalked off, taking up a position at the head of the path.

When the men found Hesta, they would take out
their anger on her. They were deserters, traitors to their human kin. They had gone over to the enemy, the despoilers of Lithia, the orthong predators. It was said human women lusted after the monsters and bore their unspeakable young. Scab-lovers, they were. In the folded ridges of the orthong faces, one could find only eyes. Some said a nose. But no mouths. Tales of the orthong invaders were told around campfires to frighten children. And tales of the fates of collaborators were also told—to frighten the women.

Hesta was frightened now. “Please,” she whispered. “Make it fast. Don’t ask me again!” She began a soft sobbing.

Thallia looked to Nerys and Nerys nodded briefly. Then Thallia bent down, kissed Hesta on the forehead, and rose. It was clear. Nerys must earn a place for Anar.

“Take Anar up the path,” Nerys said.

“Take her yourself,” Thallia said, and strode off.

“Follow her,” Nerys told her daughter, who obeyed, disappearing into the shadows.

Turning back to Hesta, Nerys said, “We will all join you, Hesta, in the days and years to come. Until then.”

“Do it!” Hesta cried. She closed her eyes.

Nerys used her knife, one deep swipe across the throat. A gush of blood warmed her knife hand. With her clean hand, she held Hesta’s, waiting with her as she bled into the grass, thinking how badly their journey had begun. Finally she rose to her feet and ran up the path after the others. They needed to put many miles between themselves and their pursuers now, or they would come to envy Hesta’s fate.

3

Mitya huddled next to the soaring, translucent wall of the dome, trying to look inconspicuous. Beside him, one of the segmented, carbon-matrix poles soared
aloft, forming the skeleton of their refuge. Outside the dome, a toxic white fog pressed in, as it had since their arrival. So far, besides this whiteout, his main impression of Lithia was its smell: the rotten-egg stench of sulfur.

Now that the dome was erected, crew were hauling supply cartons, setting up data stations and air and water filtration systems. They’d partitioned off a clean room, a smaller section of the dome where the quantum processors were housed and where crew assembled the geo cannon for launching the nanotech probe.

Gudrun and Theo passed by carrying a pallet loaded with supplies. In a clatter, a pouch of tools fell onto the hardened resin floor. Mitya jumped up to retrieve it as Gudrun and Theo stood holding the pallet. Stuffing the tools back in the pouch, he carefully returned it to its place.

Gudrun sniffed. “Don’t work up a sweat,” she said as they trudged on with their burden. Gudrun didn’t like him. She’d been among the most vocal in claiming that Mitya snuck onboard the shuttle, stealing Karl Hoeg’s place. So that instead of a man who rightfully belonged on the expedition, they’d got a skinny thirteen-year-old boy, more trouble than he was worth. He hadn’t meant to force anyone out. He just happened to be near Bay Three when the explosion hit, and his uncle Stepan had marshaled him aboard, though people snarled that there was only room for thirty and they’d best be able-bodied crew. But in the confusion Karl never showed, and Mitya, not even belted in, crouched amid the equipment cartons, holding on to a lithium hydroxide canister bolted to the bulkhead. After the landing, he could barely stretch out his arms again.

At the time of the disaster, the terraforming expedition had already been planned and the shuttles loaded with gear. That was lucky, or they’d have arrived on
the surface empty-handed. Of course, it wasn’t luck they’d gotten, but disaster. His family was dead: mother and father, his sister, his uncles and aunts and cousins—except for his aunt Lea’s first husband, Stepan. The thought of his parents sat in his chest like cold water, numbing him. But it was the same with all the grim-faced crew. Everyone had lost family. Many had lost their own children, and when they looked at him Mitya knew they were thinking:
Why him and not my son
? His only solace came at night when he lay in the dark, and his mind went back home.

Captain Bonhert was Mitya’s uncle twice removed, due to his marriage to the sister of Mitya’s father’s brother’s wife. Mitya had been proud of that fact on Station, but it was also true that by now most of Station folks could find a relative by tossing a spitball and seeing who it hit. Besides, the Captain was too busy to notice a twice-removed nephew, and his father had always cautioned him never to presume on the Captain, even if sometimes the Captain smiled and nodded at him in the corridor when they happened to pass.

So there was no consolation from that quarter. During the day he would watch the construction of the dome and the feverish work inside it, staying well at the edge and bristling with energy to
do something
. He’d offered to do hauling or cleanup work, but crew said no, just stay out of the way. Oran was just three years older and did matrix-welding, but Oran was strong as a turbine. Mitya’s real yearning was to help with the computer-modeling, even if it was only to sling numbers, but he knew they’d no more let him onto the quantum computer than punch a hole in the dome.

His gaze went again to the whiteout just beyond the dome wall. A small movement caught his attention next to the outside wall. It was a blur, but by scrunching down and lying on his side he saw what looked like
an insect, about the size of a baby’s fist. It was walking up the slick wall, its ten legs protruding from what looked to be an armored, oblong body. A light bobbed in front of its face. It seemed to take note of Mitya, stopping at eye level with him. Stretching from just in back of its head was a narrow appendage that arced over its face, suspending a point of light right in front of its mouth. Mitya put his palm against the inside wall. The light bug wiggled into a matching position, opposite his hand.