CHAPTER 23
HE’S ALIVE. SO we’ll have to go get him.” Malgam sounded resolute.
Rachel had seen his face when their party straggled into camp. She had watched him as he realized that Indigo was not among them. Seeing the last shred of his hope fade had been a terrible thing.
Daniel shook his head. “How would we Cross, Malgam? Besides, they’ve taken him to Ganivar by now. There’s no way to know where. But wherever he is, security will be beyond anything we could get through. All we would accomplish would be losing more people.”
Malgam bowed his head. Daniel was right.
Malgam knew his father was alive because he had looked, as soon as he saw them come into camp without Indigo. He didn’t see the emptiness that represented a person’s death; he saw darkness. He thought that Indigo must be drugged, and he felt almost worse about that than if he’d been dead.
AFTER HE SAW that Nandy was taking care of Pathik, and that everyone else seemed well enough, he walked back to the family hut. He wanted to be alone for a bit before the council meeting.
When he got there he looked again, he sought his father’s eyes and saw the same darkness as before. He stretched out on the bed he usually shared with Nandy. Lately, since Rachel had been staying in their hut, the boys had all been bunking together and letting the girls have a bedroom to themselves. He missed the smell of Nandy’s skin, next to him at night.
He drew the envelope out of his pocket; he’d carried it with him since Rachel gave it to him. Without looking at it he ripped it open. Inside was a single page. He lifted it up where he could see it.
Malgam,
Even the weak and the foolish feel love. They just don’t know how to make that matter to someone other than themselves.
I have always loved you. And I am learning to make that count. I hope you can forgive me.
Your mother,
Elizabeth
Malgam smiled, despite himself. He’d never let Indigo tell him much about his mother; he’d always been more interested in harboring his resentment. He wondered, now, if he would ever know anything about her.
INDIGO OPENED HIS eyes. He was awake again. The room was the same: a bleak, gray cell with a bench inside and a table where his captors talked to him. Or tortured him. They wanted to know what his people could do; they wanted to know where they were, exactly; they wanted to know why the twins had no gifts. Didn’t all the Others have powers? What was his power?
Indigo smiled. The twins; such a handful, those two boys. Such a wonderful celebration when they were born. The bounty of two healthy babies when even one was a rare miracle. And now they were dead. His captors hadn’t said as much, but when he asked to see the twins they refused. When he asked how they knew the twins had no gifts, they didn’t meet his eyes. They said they knew, and that was all.
They would break him, soon enough. He was an old man, and tired. He couldn’t take much more of their pain. He knew what he had to do, and he knew he had to do it soon; much longer and he would be too weak to stop himself from striking out at his torturers. He’d decided long ago that killing wasn’t something he would do, not if he had another choice. And it turned out there was always another choice. At least one.
He’d been waiting, hoping he could hold out long enough for Daniel and the rest to reach camp; long enough for his son to hear of his fate and seek his eyes. He wanted to tell him he loved him. One more time.
He took his trekker from his pocket. They hadn’t taken it from him; they couldn’t see the harm in a piece of string with some knots and beads on it. And there was no harm in it; it was just the way his people tracked the time when they were away from camp on a trek. One bead a day. Indigo remembered showing Pathik how to move a loose bead from one end of the string to the opposite end; how to tie it between two knots to signify the day had ended. He remembered telling him that as long as a bead was still free, anything could happen.
He put the string on the table in front of him. He shaped it, until it made the outline of a heart. Sentimental, but if Malgam was seeing, he would understand Indigo was saying he loved him. He looked at the heart for a long time. Then he picked up the trekker and gathered all the loose beads on it. He held them in his hand and looked at them for a moment. Then he slid them all to the other end of the string. He knotted them off, trapping them there. All the days, over. He stared at the vanquished beads, even though it was hard to look at them. He hoped Malgam was watching. He hoped he wouldn’t watch too long.
The door to his cell opened. One of the men came in, holding the black case he had had with him the day before. Indigo knew what was in it.
“So,” said the man, “I guess we’ll see how resistant you’re feeling today, shall we?”
Indigo ignored the man. He closed his eyes and began to try to picture a tube of liquid, just like the one he had seen when he was a young boy, on another terrible day. But this time, he tried to picture the tube inside his own head. When he saw it, he sighed, relieved. Then he began to scrape at the tube’s walls, making them thinner and thinner.
NANDY WAS TENDING to Pathik’s rib in the main room when Malgam screamed. She had asked him not to look anymore. She told him it would only bring him pain. But she knew he couldn’t stop.
She ran to the bedroom where he had gone to rest, Pathik right behind her. One look at Malgam’s face told her everything. She turned to Pathik; he had seen too, though Malgam turned to the wall immediately. She took his hand and led him toward his father. Then she retreated and pulled the cloth across the bedroom doorway.
THE COUNCIL ROOM was packed to capacity. People wanted to know what had happened to Indigo. Rachel sat in the back next to Vivian, listening to the murmur of the crowd. She noticed the Roberts girl, the one she had briefly shared quarters with, standing in the back of the room. She realized she’d never even learned the girl’s name. Fisher nodded to her from up front next to Michael. Malgam was nowhere to be seen, and she didn’t see Pathik either. Daniel stood at the front of the room.
“Please,” he said. The second time he said it the crowd began to quiet.
“I know you all want to hear about Indigo.” Daniel held his hand up at the swell of sound from the crowd. “I know. But all I can tell you is that he isn’t here. He was captured, and we believe he was taken to a city called Ganivar. We don’t know if he is alive or dead right now.”
“He’s dead.” The crowd’s gasps turned to whispers as Malgam walked up to the front of the room. His eyes were red, but he looked determined. Pathik came up the aisle behind his father, and stood with him. Daniel took Malgam’s hand and whispered something to him. Malgam nodded. Then Daniel stepped over to Pathik and hugged him.
“My father died to protect us.” Malgam looked at the people in the crowd. “He died because he was being tortured in order to force him to give information about where we are and what we can do. And he didn’t want to do that. So he used his own gift to end his life.”
The crowd buzzed louder; only a few knew Indigo had a gift. Even fewer knew what that gift had been. Malgam waited a moment to let the people expend some energy, but then he held up his hand.
“I know Indigo wanted us to seek a better place. And I am going. I invite you all to come. The place is called Salishan. Some of you have heard the stories about it. It’s an island, and we can go there, and we can live. Without the threat of the Roberts. Without the threat of the Regs. We can live a better life.”
“It’s a firetale, no more!” Michael thundered the words from the front row. He stood. “I’m sorry, Malgam, for the death of your father. But Indigo had many dreams that were not realistic.” There were some noises of assent from the crowd. “What we need to do is stop the threat of the Roberts. They are our real worry, not the Regs. And now that your father is gone, you need to step into his place and lead us. But lead where we can follow.”
Malgam glared. “I’ve told you many times, Michael, I don’t need to lead. Just as my father didn’t need to lead. People will do what they wish. And as my father did, I can only try to show our people what is right, and invite them to follow. Here, now, we hate the Regs. And we fear the Roberts. And I see no end to that. If you want to stay, then stay. But I am going to Salishan. I want something better, and I believe it’s there.”
“We can fight the Roberts!” Michael turned to face the assembly. “We can use our gifts to—”
“To what, Michael?” Malgam spoke quietly, but every person in the room attended his words. “To kill?”
“Sometimes you have to kill, Malgam. The Roberts don’t hesitate to kill us.” Michael held out his hands.
Malgam shook his head. “Perhaps sometimes,” he said, his voice weary, “you do have to kill. I don’t know. I do know that right now, it doesn’t feel like we have to make that choice. We have other choices.”
Jab stood. “Would we still have Usage, on the island?”
“Yes, Jab. We will always have Usage. Because we will always need to get better at our gifts.”
“Usage isn’t just about getting better, though.” Jab jutted his chin out.
“No, it’s not. It’s also about how to use our gifts for the good, Jab. You know that.”
Jab sat down. “Just a bunch of rules,” he muttered.
Malgam looked across the room, at all the faces he knew so well, at the people he had grown up with, and learned to love. And then he walked back down the aisle and out of the room.
THEY LEFT IN the morning. Nobody else from camp had decided to go. Fisher was there to wish them well. But the rest of the camp kept to their beds.
“You’re sure you’re not coming?” Rachel was the last to speak to Fisher. She had seen him say his good-byes to the rest of the group. He’d talked a long time with Pathik, and they’d parted with a hug. Rachel wondered what they had said.
He smiled at her. “Not this time. Are you sure you’re going?”
She nodded. “You know I am.”
“I’ll see what I can do here. I think maybe some of them just need time to think about going. Who knows, some of us may show up when you least expect us.”
Rachel didn’t think they would. She felt like she would never see anyone from the camp again. She thought of Bender, and smiled. She would miss some of the Others.
“Well,” she said. “Good-bye, Fisher.” And she turned away and began to walk.