Two hundred steps. Two hundred fifty.
For years there had been a dungeon under my feet. A dungeon.
Three hundred. Four hundred. And then—finally, finally—something brushed against me like the scent of night-blooming flowers.
Da-Xia’s voice, and, faint and stifled, Elián’s laughter.
If anyone could laugh in a dungeon, it would be Elián Palnik.
My heart and stomach seemed to switch places. I went staggering toward the voices, trying not to call out names. I could see starlight now—the stair at the tunnel opening. Who knew how close the patrols might be.
I could see them above me now, Elián and Da-Xia and a third behind them; I wasn’t sure who. Elián said something, and Xie twisted away with a soft laugh, her hand rising to cover her mouth.
For a moment I just stood as if someone had hit me. Struck, that was the word. I was struck. Struck by Elián’s drawling voice, the well-known tilt of Xie’s head, the just-so lift of her hand. Struck by my own loneliness. Why had I kept myself so apart from them, for so long? I only wanted to be with them. I only wanted someone to hold me.
I must have made some noise, because they turned. There was a flurry of movement, which was strangely blurred, and the three of them came running toward me. It was Elián, Grego, and Xie.
“Elián,” I said. “There’s a dungeon.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I noticed, actually.”
“You can’t do this,” I said.
Elián frowned and took my elbow. Pain flared up and down, into my shoulders and hand.
“Don’t touch her arms,” said Da-Xia softly. She pressed her fingertips against my cheekbone. “Greta.” Behind her stood Gregori, his eyes faintly luminous.
“You can’t do this,” I said to her. “Don’t do this.”
She dropped her fingertips. My face felt aglow with her touch, and suddenly I was terrified. “Don’t do this”? It meant, I’d rather be tortured.
My friends—
They were wearing military chameleon cloth. Black and grey and brown wrapped them and muddled their edges. “Where did you get chamo?” I said. “What are you doing?”
In my own voice I heard only flatness and fear, but Xie answered neatly, “Grego thinks the broadcast jammer is on the ship.”
The Abbot had thought that too, but . . . the image of Tolliver Burr at his camera flashed into me like a nerve firing. Burr at his camera, and Talis leaning in beside him, glasses sliding down his nose, peering into a— “Monitor,” I croaked. “I mean, they had a monitor. By the apple press.”
“A remote terminal, yes,” said Gregori. “But the actual jammer must broadcast with some strength, no? Perhaps a kilowatt, maybe more. For this it needs a power source. It must be the ship.”
“We thought about reprogramming it, but—” began Xie.
“This is too complicated,” said Gregori. “I thought, we’ll unplug it.”
“Behold our assembled genius,” said Elián, with a roll in his voice that was almost another laugh. “Our backup plan is to smash it with a rock.”
“You can’t,” I said. “The ship—there will be guards. It’s a military shock ship.”
They all looked at one another. Their chamo had adapted as we stood in the dungeons with only my little glowstick for light, and their bodies were almost invisible. They looked like hands and heads, like machines with no bodies.
“You’ll be killed,” I said.
Xie shook her head, but Elián answered: “We know.”
“There is a plan,” said Grego.
“There’s a plan, but it’s risky,” said Elián. “We know it’s dangerous, Greta. We’re doing it anyway.”
“I want—” I said. “I don’t—” I was aware that I wasn’t making much sense. I wanted contradictory things: I wanted to save my friends, and I wanted them to save me. I could not have both.
“Shhhh,” said Xie. “Come into the air.” She reached for my hand, but of course she couldn’t take it. She froze helplessly. It was Elián who put his hand between my shoulders and guided me up the staircase and into the starlit night.
Outside, the baked-bread smell of the prairie at night wrapped me. I took a breath and tried to orient myself. We were on top of the ridge, between Charlie’s pen and the induction spire, hidden in the shadow of the rock pile—all those stones that generations of hostages had cleared from the upper gardens. We crouched together, huddling in the prickling Saskatoon bushes.
Below us the Precepture hall sat, huge and dark and foursquare, like one of the facts of the world. On the lawn between the hall and the upper terraces, the Cumberlanders had set up white tents. Lit from within, they glowed softly. I could see figures there, walking, sitting.
Nearby, the small darkness of the toolshed.
And the apple press.
“If we disable the jammer,” I said, “Talis will— He will—”
He would destroy a city.