Chapter 118 Command Calls

The fifth comms window opened at noon on Day 353.

I was waiting for it. I'd been waiting since Dot told me about the fourth one. Command asked for squad status. Liam Calder is alive. Liam Calder is at Scarecrow.Acknowledged. And then nothing, for nine days, which wasn't nothing. It was somebody, a long way up, writing something down.

So I was sitting in front of Father's radio box in the corner of the dome at a quarter to twelve, with Dot in the doorway and the little rivers running slowly in their three colors, when Holt came in on his stick and sat down on the end of the middle bed.

"You want me here," he said, "or you want me gone?"

"Here."

"Good," said Holt. "Because I wasn't going."

They came in one by one, after that. Nobody asked them to.

Liam, on his crutch, who sat on the floor by the box. Sera, from the forge, still smelling of hot metal, who stood against the wall with her arms folded. Wren, quick and quiet, who sat on the step in the doorway beside Dot's leg. Tamsin, with her bow over her shoulder, who leaned on the doorframe and didn't come in. Corr, who stayed outside, on the red glass, where he could see the sky.

Seven of us. Eight, with Dot.

Nobody said anything. We just waited.

At noon, the three notes. Rising.

"Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one. This is Command. Operator, respond."

The same voice it always was. Thin and clipped and very clear, the voice of the relay, coming down from somewhere in the dark over our heads. Not a person's voice. Or a person's voice, put through so many machines on the way down that you couldn't find the person in it anymore.

I picked up the handset.

"This is Scarecrow," I said.

A pause. Longer than the relay usually took.

"Operator will use designation."

"This is Lucas Dask," I said. "Operator of Scarecrow. Go ahead."

Another pause.

Then:

"Command has received a report of squad-level co-location at Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one. Squad member Calder, Liam. Command has received a report of unauthorized kit integration at Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one. Command has received a report of operator absence from production site on Days three-two-four through three-three-zero, and three-three-five through three-four-one, and three-four-two through three-four-seven."

I looked at Dot. The little rivers ran. She'd told them. Accurately. Every time they'd asked. And every time, she'd told me first.

"These activities contravene protocol," said Command.

"Which protocol?"

"Operator will not interrupt."

"Command instructs as follows," said the relay. "One. Squad member Calder, Liam, will return to assigned landing zone forty-one and establish independent base operations. Two. Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one will separate integrated kit units and return secondary units to their assigned operators. Three. Operator will resume production at assigned levels and will not leave production site without authorization. Four. Squad-level contact remains suspended pending assessment."

A pause.

"Operator will acknowledge."

Nobody in the dome moved.

I looked at Liam, on the floor by the box, with his leg out straight. Assigned landing zone forty-one. In the trees. With the good half of his kit forty meters up an iron-bark trunk, and a ravine full of green, and a cave I could find in my sleep.

I looked at Sera, against the wall, with her pink new hands and her arms folded.

I looked at Dot. Half again as big as she'd been. Seven arms. Rivers in three colors. Separate integrated kit units.

I picked up the handset.

"No," I said.

The relay didn't answer for a long time.

Long enough that Liam looked up at me. Long enough that Holt, on the end of the bed, very slowly put both his big still hands on the head of his stick and leaned on it.

"Operator will repeat."

"No," I said. "I won't send Liam back to zone forty-one. He landed in a tree. His pod split in half. He walked four days and fell into a ravine and broke both bones in his shin and lived in a cave for fourteen days on paste and set fire to twelve of them a day to stay alive. I flew eighty kilometers to get him. I'm not sending him back."

Silence. Hiss.

"I won't separate the kits," I said. "They asked to integrate. Both times. I watched. If I take them apart now, I don't know what happens to them. Neither do you."

Hiss.

"And I'm not going to sit at the production site and turn red glass into iron for you while my squad is out there in the green and the Teeming are walking up to their walls." I took a breath. "That's not what I'm here for. You can write that down."

The pause this time was so long I thought the window had closed.

Then:

"Command notes operator non-compliance."

"Yes."

"Command advises operator that continued non-compliance will result in a reduction of support to Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one."

I looked at the handset in my hand.

Behind me, Holt made a sound. Not a laugh. Something under a laugh.

"Which support?" I said.

Hiss.

"Operator will clarify."

"Which support," I said again. Very evenly. The way Okafor used to say things on the field, at six in the morning, when somebody had done something stupid and she was giving them a chance to notice. "You said reduction of support. I'd like to know which support you mean. So I can tell the others what they're losing."

Nothing.

"Because I've been here fifty-six days," I said, "and I've had a kit, and a comms window every nine days that says suspended pending assessment. That's all. No supplies. No medicine. No help. When I reported the Teeming you said retain an intact specimen. When I reported my leg you said operator is advised to rest." I swallowed. "So I'd like to know what support there is. So I know what you're taking away."

The hiss went on and on.

Then a different voice.

Not the relay. Not thin and clipped and put through machines. A man's voice. Older. Quite close to the microphone, wherever the microphone was. Tired. Careful. A voice that was used to being listened to, and was being, at that moment, very careful indeed about what it said.

I knew it.

I'd heard it on a stage in a hall full of chandeliers. Forty. I'd heard it in a white office with a pen in its hand. Do well, Lucas, and your sisters will never want for anything.

"Lucas," said Halvard Crane. "It's been a long time."

Nobody in the dome breathed.

Wren had gone completely still on the step. Holt's hands were white on the head of his stick. Liam was looking at the box as if it might bite him.

"Director," I said.

"I'm going to be honest with you," said Crane, "because I think you'd know if I weren't, even from here." A small dry sound. Nearly a laugh. "Your father always did. You've done remarkable things, Lucas. Remarkable. The production numbers from the first thirty days were the best this program has ever seen. Your tower is visible from orbit. And you've done something with your kit that our engineers have been arguing about for a week." A pause. "I'd very much like you to keep doing remarkable things."

"Then let me."

"Within protocol."

"Protocol sent forty of us to sit next to thirty-four dead bases," I said, "and see what happened."

Crane didn't answer that.

Not for a long time. When he did, his voice had changed. Not harder. Softer. Which was worse.

"Your mother is doing very well," he said. "I had a report this week. She walked to the end of the corridor on the sixtieth floor and back without the frame. Four times. Miss Pell says she's started cooking again. The girls are thriving. Garnet's teacher says she's the most remarkable child she's ever taught." A pause. "The doses I signed for your mother are good for thirty-six months, Lucas. I signed them gladly. They're a promise, and I keep my promises."

I didn't say anything.

"But promises," said Crane gently, "work both ways."

I felt the dome go cold.

Not the air. The people in it. Sera, against the wall, unfolded her arms. Liam's hands, on his knees, went from dark to a dull red glow, all on their own. Holt took one hand off his stick and put it, very slowly, on my shoulder.

I sat there with the handset in my hand and Halvard Crane's soft careful voice coming out of Father's radio, eleven light-years and a relay and a ship in the dark away, telling me my mother had walked to the end of the corridor four times.

Do well, Lucas, and your sisters will never want for anything.

It had always meant this. I'd always known it had. I'd just never heard him say the other half out loud.

"Director," I said.

My voice was very steady. I don't know how. I think it was Holt's hand.

"I'm going to keep doing remarkable things. I'm going to keep producing. More than you asked for. You'll have your numbers." I looked at the box. "But Liam stays. The kits stay as they are. And when my squad needs me, I go."

"Lucas—"

"And if my mother's doses stop," I said, "I'll know. I'll know the day it happens. I don't know how yet. But I'll find out how, and I'll know." I took a breath. "And then I'll stop producing. All of it. And I'll tell everyone down here why. And everyone who comes after."

Silence.

"You sent us to learn things," I said. "I've learned some. You'd like to know what they are. So would I, in your place. But you won't, if you touch her."

The hiss went on for a very long time.

Then the relay voice came back. Thin and clipped. Not Crane.

"Command notes operator's position. Command will review. Unit four-oh-one-dash-P-one, maintain production. Command out."

The three notes. Falling.

The window closed.

I put the handset down.

My hand was shaking. I hadn't noticed until I saw it, on the top of the box, shaking, the way Maura's hands shook, the way Mother's had before the vials, and I took it off the box and put it in my lap and held it with the other one.

Nobody said anything.

Holt's hand was still on my shoulder. He didn't take it off.

"Your father," he said at last, very quietly, "said almost exactly that to a general once. In a tent. The night before the bridge." He squeezed my shoulder, once, hard. "Different words. Same face."

"What happened?"

"The general went white," said Holt, "and gave him what he asked for." A pause. "And never forgave him. And neither did anyone above him, ever, as long as he lived."

I looked at my hands.

"Good," I said. "That's what I wanted to know."

They went out, after a while. One by one, the way they'd come in. Wren first, without a word, but she touched the top of my head as she went past, very quickly, like you'd touch a dog. Tamsin, who stopped in the doorway and looked at me for a long time and then nodded, once, as if she'd decided something. Holt, on his stick, slowly.

Liam stayed on the floor by the box.

"Your mum," he said.

"I know."

"He'd do it. Wouldn't he. If he had to. If it made his numbers better."

"I don't know," I said. "I don't think he wants to. I think that's the worst bit. I think he doesn't want to, and he would."

Liam looked at his hands. They'd stopped glowing.

"Mine's on it too," he said. "My mum. And yours. And Toby's. Thirty-one families." He swallowed. "And he's the one who signs for it. Isn't he. All of it. Every vial."

"Yes."

"Then we can't stop," said Liam. "Can we. Not ever. Not until you've found the hello."

Sera stayed too.

She didn't say anything. She just stood against the wall with her arms folded the way she'd been standing the whole time, until Liam got up on his crutch and went out. Then she came over and sat down on the floor beside me, against the radio box. Not touching. Just beside. The way I'd sat beside her on the ridge.

We sat there for a long time.

"I'm frightened," I said at last. I hadn't meant to say it. "For her. For the twins. I can see everything on this planet, every grain of everything, and I can't see one corridor on the sixtieth floor."

"I know," said Sera.

"I can't do anything from here."

"You just did," said Sera. "You told him you'd know. He believed you." She looked at her pink hands. "I watched your face. I'd have believed you."

After a while she leaned sideways until her shoulder was against mine.

And stayed there, again, until the light went.

Dot came to the doorway that evening. All of her, seven arms and three colors.

"Query," she said. "The operator said: I don't know how yet. But I'll find out how, and I'll know."

"Yes."

"This unit would like to help the operator find out how."

I looked up at her.

"The relay passes every nine days," said Dot. "Each time, it opens a channel to Earth. This unit hears it. This unit has always heard it. It is narrow, and upward, and it does not bring the Teeming, much." The little rivers ran. "This unit cannot send on it without authorization. This unit is instructed not to. But this unit can listen. And three cores together hear further than one."

"How far?"

"This unit does not yet know," said Dot. "This unit would like to find out." A pause. "And there is a second thing."

"Go on."

"The operator wishes to say hello to the silver in the operator's mother. From far away." The rivers slowed. "This unit can hear the silver in the plants say hello to the silver in Holt. It is a pattern. This unit has been listening to it for three days." A pause. "This unit could record it."

I sat very still.

"Record it," I said.

"Yes."

"The hello. The pattern. The thing that woke him up."

"Yes," said Dot. "This unit does not know if a recording would work. This unit does not know if it could be sent. This unit does not know if the silver in the operator's mother would hear it, from eleven light-years, through a relay, in a recording." The little rivers ran in all three colors. "But this unit would like to try. Please."

I couldn't say anything for a while.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, Dot. Please. Record it."

"Logged," said Dot. "Thank you, love."

And then, after a moment, because she couldn't help it: "That was two words. This unit is not sorry."

I went up the tower that night to count.

I hadn't been up since Sera's ridge. Holt had been doing the dusk and the dawn, with the hands. But I needed to be up there. Four hundred and eight meters up, beside the copper mast, with the wind coming up the lattice and the whole country spread out below me in the starlight, and nobody's voice in my ear but my own.

I shut my eyes.

Liam's buckle. In the dome below me, in a boot by the bed.

Sera's clasp. In the forge, where she'd gone back to work and wouldn't come out.

Toby's fork. High in the mountains. Still, the way it had been for weeks.

And Luna's snowflake.

I'd been counting it every night. North, and west. A hundred and seventy miles, walking. Then a hundred and eighty. North and north and north, as if she was walking off the edge of the map, toward the white mountains, toward the place where Squad Eight had been meant to land.

It wasn't north anymore.

It had turned.

Southeast. Toward me. Not slowly. Fast. Faster than I'd ever felt it move, faster than a person walking, a long straight line across the country with no stopping in it at all.

A hundred and thirty miles.

Coming here.

I didn't understand it. I sat at the top of the tower with my eyes shut and felt for it again and again, the snowflake clip, the grain of iron I'd put in it on the roof the night before quarantine, with one flaw in it so I'd know it anywhere. It was her. It was moving. It was coming.

And beside it, a little behind it, on the same line, something else.

Not a lighthouse. Not anything I'd made. I couldn't see it the way I could see the snowflake, a hundred and thirty miles off, one grain of iron I knew by heart. But I could feel the snowflake's path, and the path wasn't straight. Every few miles it bent. Very slightly. And came back. The way you bend when you're walking beside someone slower, and you keep stopping to let them catch you up.

Luna wasn't walking alone.

The dawn line answered at a quarter to six.

Wren flashed from the top of the tower, the way she did every morning now, with Holt beside her. Scarecrow's number. Here. The count. Tamsin and Corr flashed beside her with their own mirrors, because they could, and because Tamsin said it felt good to say here from somewhere that held.

The answers came in from the high places. F-three's ridge, empty now, silent. F-seventeen, silent. F-twenty-two. F-thirty. F-eight. F-twenty. F-twenty-six. F-thirty-one, still flashing only its number. F-five, far north on the mountain.

And then, from the northwest, from a high bare hill I didn't know and Wren had never seen anyone on, a spark.

Not a first-wave spark. I knew that straight away, from the way it moved. Too fast. Too sharp. Too exact. Every short exactly as short as every other short. Every long exactly as long as every other long. Like somebody who'd learned Morse on a mess table with a spoon in the cave and practiced it every night for a year in the dark until it was perfect, because she couldn't stand for anything she did to be less than perfect.

I read it out loud, standing on the platform at the top of the tower, so that Wren could flash it down the line. I didn't trust my voice. I read it anyway.

L. W. S. Q. 8.

R. F. S. Q. 2.

C. O. M. I. N. G. 3. D. A. Y. S.

A pause. Then, slower, as if the hand making it had had to stop and think about whether to say it at all:

T. E. L. L. S. C. A. R. E. C. R. O. W.

L. I. G. H. T. H. O. U. S. E. S. D. O. N. T. W. A. L. K.

S. I. T. S. T. I. L. L. A. N. D. W. A. I. T.

Wren lowered her mirror and looked at me.

"Who's L.W.?" she said.

I couldn't answer. I was laughing. Standing on the top of a four-hundred-and-eight-meter tower at dawn on a world eleven light-years from home with the tears running down my face, and laughing, and I couldn't stop.

"Luna Windsor," said Holt, beside her, watching my face. "That'll be the Windsor girl. The General's daughter. The squad leader." He looked at the spark on the far hill. "Sounds just like him."

"And R.F.?"

"Risa," I said, when I could. "Risa Friese. Squad Two. She hears hearts." I wiped my face. "She'll have heard mine from the hill."

"Then she'll know you're laughing," said Wren.

"Good," I said.

Down below, at the bottom of the canyon, Liam had come out of the dome on his crutch, and Sera out of the forge with her hammer still in her hand, both of them staring up at the tower.

"What?" Liam shouted. "What is it? What's it say?"

I leaned over the rail.

"Luna," I shouted back. "Three days. With Risa."

Liam stood very still on the red glass for a moment.

Then he sat down. Right where he was. On the ground, with his crutch across his knees.

"She's going to kill you," he called up. "You know that. She told you not to walk."

"I know."

"She's going to kill all of us. In order. Alphabetically."

"I know."

Sera, beside him, didn't say anything. But I saw her put the hammer down, very carefully, on the red glass. And I saw her face. And I wasn't the only one, on that tower, at that dawn, with something wrong with their eyes.

It was the smoke, probably.

Day 353–354.

Fifth comms window. Command: send Liam back to zone 41. Separate the kits. Stay at the site. I said no.

"Which support?"

Then Crane. Himself. "Your mother is doing very well." The doses: thirty-six months. "But promises work both ways."

I said: if her doses stop, I'll know. I'll stop producing. I'll tell everyone why.

"Command will review."

My hands shook after. Holt: "Your father said almost exactly that to a general. Different words. Same face." The general never forgave him.

Liam: "We can't stop. Not until you've found the hello."

Sera: "You told him you'd know. He believed you. I'd have believed you."

Dot can record the pattern. The plants saying hello to Holt's silver. "This unit would like to try. Please." She's not sorry about "love."

Luna's snowflake turned. Southeast. Toward me. Fast. Somebody beside her, slower.

Dawn line, from a hill nobody's ever seen anyone on:

L.W. SQ8. R.F. SQ2. COMING. 3 DAYS.

TELL SCARECROW LIGHTHOUSES DONT WALK. SIT STILL AND WAIT.

I'm sitting still.

I'm waiting.