“With enough people, it’s not hard to search,” you start to suggest, but she cuts you off.
“It is. We’ve been using this geode in one way or another for fifty years. We know the land—and it took us years to find those vents. One’s in a damned peat bog further along the river, which stinks to the heavens and occasionally catches fire.” She sits forward, propping her elbows on her knees and sighing. “How did they even know we were here? Even our trading partners have only ever seen Castrima-over.”
“Maybe they have orogenes working with them, too,” Lerna says. After so many weeks of hearing mostly rogga, his polite orogene sounds strained and artificial to your ears. “They could—”
“No,” says Ykka. She looks at you then. “Castrima’s huge. When you came into the area, did you notice a giant hole in the ground?” You blink in surprise. She nods before you can answer, since your face has said it all. “Yeah, you should have, but something about this place sort of… I don’t know. Shunts away orogeny. Once you’re in it, it’s the opposite, of course; the geode feeds on us to power itself. But next time you’re topside, and not being almost killed I mean, try sessing this place. You’ll see what I’m talking about.” She shakes her head. “Even if they’ve got pet roggas, they shouldn’t have known we were here.”
Hjarka sighs and rolls onto her back, muttering under her breath. Tonkee bares her teeth, probably a habit she’s picking up from Hjarka. “That’s not relevant,” Tonkee snaps.
“Because you don’t want to hear it, babe,” Hjarka says. “Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You like things neat. Life’s not neat.”
“You like things messy.”
“Ykka likes things explained,” Ykka says pointedly.
Tonkee hesitates, and Hjarka sighs and says, “It’s not the first time I’ve thought there might be a spy in the comm.”
Oh, rust. There’s an immediate murmur and shuffle among the people listening. Lerna stares at her. “That makes no sense,” he says. “None of us has any reason to betray Castrima. Anyone taken into this comm had nowhere else to go.”
“That isn’t true.” Hjarka rolls to sit upright, grinning and flashing her sharp teeth. “I could have gone to my mom’s birthcomm. She was Leadership there before she left to go to my birthcomm—too much competition, and she wanted to be a headwoman. I left my comm because I didn’t want to be headwoman after her. Comm full of assholes. But I definitely wasn’t planning to live out my useless years in a hole in the ground.” She looks at Ykka.
Ykka sighs in a long-suffering way. “I can’t believe you’re still mad I didn’t ash you. I told you, I needed the help.”
“Right. But just saying: I wouldn’t have stayed if you’d asked me at the time.”
“You’d rather have some overcrowded Equatorial comm with delusions of being Old Sanze reborn?” Lerna frowns.
“I wouldn’t.” Hjarka shrugs. “I like it here now. But I’m saying that somebody else might prefer Rennanis. Enough to sell us out for a place in it.”
“We need to find this spy!” shouts someone from over near the rope bridge.
“No,” you say then, sharply. It’s your teacher voice, and everyone jumps and looks at you. “Danel said she hoped to make Castrima tear itself apart. We’re not starting any rogga-hunts, here.” This has two meanings, but you’re not trying to be clever. You know full well that your teacher voice isn’t the only reason everyone’s staring at you in palpable unease. The spinel still floats behind you, having followed you down from the surface.
Ykka rubs her eyes. “You gotta stop threatening people, Essie. I mean, I know you grew up in the Fulcrum and don’t really know any better, but… it’s not good community behavior.”
You blink, a little thrown and a lot insulted. But… she’s right. Comms survive through a careful balance of trust and fear. Your impatience is tilting the balance too far out of true.
“Fine,” you say. Everyone relaxes a little, relieved that Ykka can talk you down, and there are even a few nervous chuckles. “But I still don’t think it’s relevant to discuss whether there’s a spy right now. If there is, Rennanis knows what they know. All we can do is try to come up with a plan they won’t anticipate.”
Tonkee points at you and glares at Hjarka with a wordless See?
Hjarka sits forward, planting a hand on one knee and glaring at all of you. She doesn’t usually argue much—that was Cutter’s role—but you see stubbornness in the set of her jaw now. “It rusting matters if the spy is still here, though. Good luck keeping them from anticipating if—”
The commotion begins at Scenic Overlook. It’s hard to see from Flat Top, but someone’s shouting for Ykka. She’s on her feet at once, heading in that direction, but a small figure—one of the comm’s children working as a runner—comes darting along the pathways to meet her before she’s even crossed the main bridge from Flat Top. “Message from the topside tunnels!” the boy calls even before he halts. “Says the Rennies are sledgehammering in!”
Ykka looks at Tonkee. Tonkee nods briskly. “Morat said the charges were set.”
“Wait, what?” you ask.
Ykka ignores you. To the child, she says, “Tell them to fall back and follow the plan. Go.” The boy turns and runs off, though only to a point where he’s got a clear sight line to Scenic; he holds up a hand, clenches a fist, and then releases it in a splay of fingers. There’s a series of whistles throughout the comm as this signal gets relayed, and a lot of bustling as clusters of people gather and head off into the tunnels. You recognize some of them: Strongbacks and Innovators. You have no idea what’s going on.
Ykka seems remarkably calm as she turns back to face you. “Going to need your help,” she says softly. “If they’re using sledgehammers, then that’s good; they don’t have any roggas. But collapsing the tunnels will only hold them for a short time, if they’re really determined to come down here. And I don’t much like the idea of being trapped. Will you help me build an escape tunnel?”
You draw back a little, stunned. Collapsing the tunnels? But of course it is the only strategy that makes sense. Castrima cannot fight off an army that outnumbers them, out-weapons them, and out-allies them in stone eaters and Guardians. “What are we supposed to do, flee?”
Ykka shrugs. You understand now why she looks so tired—not just dealing with the comm almost turning on its roggas, but fear for the future. “It’s a contingency. I’ve had people carrying critical stores into side caverns for days now. We can’t carry it all, of course, or even most of it. But if we leave and go hide somewhere—we’ve got a place, before you ask, storage cavern a few miles away—then even if the Rennies break in, they’ll find a comm that’s dark and worthless and that will suffocate them if they stay too long. They’ll take what they can and go, and maybe we can come back when they’re done.”
And this is why she’s the headwoman: While you’ve been caught up in your own dramas, Ykka’s been doing all this. Still… “If they have even one rogga with them, the geode will function. It’ll be theirs. We’ll be commless.”
“Yeah. As a contingency plan, it blows, you’re right.” Ykka sighs. “Which is why I want to try Tonkee’s plan.”
Hjarka looks furious. “I rusting told you I don’t want to be a headwoman, Yeek.”
Ykka rolls her eyes. “You’d rather be commless? Suck it up.”
You turn from her to Tonkee and back, feeling completely lost.