Chapter 119 The Sisters' Call

Command called back on Day 356.

Not in a window. Not at noon. At four in the afternoon, three days early, with no warning, the three notes rising out of Father's radio box in the corner of the dome while I was sitting on the floor beside it with the optics book open on my knee, not reading.

I nearly dropped the book.

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

I picked up the handset.

"This is Lucas Dask."

"Command has reviewed operator's position." A pause. The usual relay pause. "Command notes operator's production commitment. In recognition, Command authorizes one family contact. Duration: four minutes. Contact will be monitored. Operator will not discuss operational matters. Operator will acknowledge."

I sat very still with the handset in my hand.

In recognition.

I knew what it was. I think everyone in the dome knew what it was. Holt, on the end of the middle bed, didn't say anything, but his big still hands went white on the head of his stick. Liam, on the floor by the door, looked at me and then looked away.

It wasn't a reward.

It was a reminder.

Your mother is doing very well. Here she is. Hear her. Hear how well. Remember who signs for it.

"Acknowledged," I said.

A hiss. A long one. The sound of a channel going eleven light-years and then down through a dome, and down through sixty floors, and into a room I could see with my eyes shut, every corner of it, the lemon tree in the bath and Mother's chair by the window and the long table where the twins did their lessons.

A click.

And then, very loud, very close, as if she had her whole face pressed against the speaker:

"Is it on? Is it on? Genny, is it—LUCAS?"

I didn't say anything for a second. I couldn't.

"Hello, Garnet," I said.

"It's him. It's him, it's him, Mother, it's—" A scuffle. A thump. Genny's voice, very sharp, somewhere behind: "Garnet, you're standing on the cord." Garnet: "I'm not." Genny: "You are." Garnet: "I'm standing NEAR the cord."

I put my free hand over my eyes.

On the floor by the door, Liam was laughing without making any sound at all. Holt had shut his eyes. Sera, in the doorway, had come in from the forge at the three notes and was standing very still with her new pink hands in her pockets.

"Lucas," said Garnet. "Lucas. We've only got four minutes. A man said. A man with a clipboard. He's standing in the corner. So I have to ask you the most important thing first."

"All right."

"Have you met any aliens?"

I thought about it.

I thought about the Teeming, fourteen-legged, three-hearted, sitting in a ring round a ridge of glass in their thousands, humming a single note. I thought about the green, turning toward me as I flew, saying hello. I thought about Dot, standing in the doorway behind Sera, half again as big as she'd been, with seven arms and rivers in three colors, who had asked me once if a kit could be hurt.

I thought about the man with the clipboard in the corner.

Operator will not discuss operational matters.

"Yes," I said.

A silence on the other end. A very big silence, from a very small girl.

"Really?" said Garnet. Very quietly. "Really really?"

"Really really."

"Are they nice?"

"Some of them," I said. "One of them makes very bad drinks and is very proud of them. She says please now."

"She?"

"She."

"What's her name?"

I looked at the doorway. At Dot.

"Dot," I said.

There was a sound on the other end. Not Garnet. Further back. A small sound, like someone putting a cup down on a saucer very suddenly.

"Like Mother?" said Garnet.

"Like Mother," I said.

"Mother," said Garnet, not into the speaker, turning away. "Mother, he named an alien after you."

And Mother's voice, from further back, very soft, not quite steady:

"I heard, darling."

Behind Sera, in the doorway, the little rivers behind Dot's grille had stopped. All three colors. Frozen.

Then they started again. Very fast.

I didn't look at her. I couldn't, and keep talking.

"My turn," said Genny. "Garnet, move. It's my turn. You had your question. Move."

A scuffle. Then Genny's voice, very close, very level, very nine years old and very much not.

"Hello, Lucas."

"Hello, Genny."

"I've got one question," said Genny. "I've been saving it. I wrote it down so I wouldn't change it." A pause. I heard paper. "Are you keeping your promise?"

I knew which promise. So did she. On the floor of the sixtieth floor, the day before I went into quarantine, with her small hard hand in mine and her pencil in her other hand, writing it in her notebook under the date. Lucas will never lie to Genny. Witnessed. G. Dask.

I'd kept it. Every call. Every letter. Even when I'd wanted to say everything's fine, and it wasn't, I'd found a way to say a true thing instead.

"Yes," I said.

"Good," said Genny. "Then I'm going to ask you something else."

"Genny—"

"It's not operational," said Genny, very clearly, not to me, to the man in the corner. "It's personal." Then, to me: "Is it bad there?"

The dome was very quiet.

I looked at Holt, with his ruined knee mended and his hands still for the first time in twenty years. I looked at Liam, on the floor, who'd lived in a cave on paste for fourteen days. I looked at Sera, in the doorway, with her hands healing pink from her own fire. I looked at Dot, behind her, who'd been told a kit falls in a year.

I thought about Adaeze Okon, saying still here a hundred and nine times in a dead woman's voice.

Never lie to Genny.

"Yes," I said. "It's bad, Genny. It's very hard. And some of it is very bad."

Silence on the other end.

"And I've got friends," I said. "I've got Liam, and Sera, and Dot, and some new ones. And there's a town. I built it. It's got seventy-four rooms, and a tower, and a forge, and Sera runs the forge and growls at anyone who touches it. And tomorrow Luna's coming." I swallowed. "So it's bad. And it's also the best thing I've ever done. Both. At the same time."

Genny didn't say anything for a long time.

Then I heard the pencil. Scratching. Writing something down.

"Thank you," she said. "That's true. I can tell."

"How?"

"Because it's both," said Genny. "When people lie they only say one thing."

"Lucas," said Genny then, and her voice changed. Not much. Just a little brighter. A little more like a nine-year-old girl talking about something that didn't matter. "The lemon tree's doing very well. Did Mother tell you? It gets a new leaf every week. Every Monday. I count them. I've been counting since you left. It had a new leaf every Monday for thirteen Mondays in a row."

I went very still.

The lemon tree. In the bath on the sixtieth floor, where it got the light from the long window. Where Genny sat every Monday morning with her notebook, at the end of the hall, when the man from the Council works came up in the lift with the little case of glass vials for Mother.

Every Monday.

"Thirteen," I said carefully.

"Thirteen," said Genny. "I'm going to keep counting. Every Monday. And next time you call, I'll tell you how many. And if it ever doesn't get a new leaf, I'll tell you the lemon tree's dry." A pause. "So you'll know. In case you're worried about it."

I couldn't speak.

On the floor by the door, Liam had stopped laughing. He was staring at the radio box with his mouth slightly open. Holt, on the bed, had opened his eyes, and was looking at me with an expression I'd only ever seen on Okafor's face once, on the field, when somebody in Squad Eight had done something she hadn't taught them.

I'll know. I don't know how yet. But I'll find out how, and I'll know.

My sister had found out how.

On a monitored line. With a man with a clipboard standing in the corner. In four minutes. Talking about a lemon tree.

"Thank you, Genny," I said, when I could. "I'd like that. I worry about it a lot."

"I know," said Genny. "That's why."

"One minute," said a voice. A man's. Flat. The clipboard.

"Mother," said Genny at once. "Mother, quick."

A rustle. A chair. The sound of someone being handed something.

And then her voice.

"Lucas."

That was all, for a moment. Just my name. In the voice I'd heard every night of my life until I was fifteen, reading to the twins in the next room, singing the old song badly, saying goodnight, love from the door.

"Hello, Mother."

"I walked to the end of the corridor," she said. "Four times. Without the frame. They'll have told you."

"They told me."

"It's true," said Mother. "I want you to hear it from me, so you know it's true. I'm well, Lucas. Better than I've been in years. The girls are well. Harriet is well. The lemon tree has three lemons on it, and Garnet has named all of them."

"Garnet would."

"She would," said Mother, and I heard her smile, and then I heard it go. "Lucas. Listen to me. Whatever they've told you. Whatever they've asked."

I held the handset very tight.

"Do the right thing anyway," said my mother. "I married your father. I knew what that meant. I'd marry him again tomorrow."

"Time," said the flat voice.

"I love you," said Mother, very fast, and Garnet, louder, behind her, "I LOVE YOU, SAY HI TO DOT," and Genny, very quietly, right at the very end, "Thirteen. Remember."

And then the hiss.

And then the three notes, falling.

I didn't say anything for a long time after that.

Nobody did. Holt sat on the bed with his eyes shut. Liam sat on the floor by the door. Sera stood in the doorway.

And Dot, behind her, said, very quietly:

"Query."

I looked up.

"The operator's mother," said Dot. "Her name is Dot."

"Dorothy," I said. "Everyone calls her Dot."

The little rivers ran in their three colors. Very slowly.

"The operator named this unit after the operator's mother," said Dot.

"Yes."

"The operator did not tell this unit why."

"No," I said. "I didn't know how to. I didn't know if it would mean anything to you. I thought it might just be a designation." I looked at her. "I'm sorry."

The rivers ran.

"It is not a designation," said Dot. "This unit knows the difference now. A number is for counting. A designation is for calling." A long pause. "A name is for something else. This unit does not have the word for it yet."

"Neither do I," I said.

"Logged," said Dot. And then: "This unit will try to deserve it."

"Thirteen," said Liam, from the floor. Very quietly. "Genny. Your sister. On a monitored line."

"I know."

"She's nine."

"She's been nine for a while," I said. "It doesn't seem to slow her down."

Holt opened his eyes.

"Every Monday," he said slowly. "The vials come Mondays. And the tree gets a new leaf. And she counts it." He shook his head. "If the vials stop, the leaf stops. And she tells you the lemon tree's dry." He looked at me. "Who taught her that?"

"Nobody," I said. "She's a Dask."

Holt laughed. Not much. But he laughed.

"God help them," he said. "All of them. Every man with a clipboard on that whole poisoned planet. God help them, if there's two more of you."

I did what Luna told me.

I sat still.

All of Day 357. On the step of the dome, with my stick across my knees, facing north. I didn't go up the tower. I didn't take the spoon out. I didn't fly to meet them. Every part of me wanted to, every hour, and every hour I looked at the line she'd flashed, written in the notebook in my own hand.

LIGHTHOUSES DONT WALK. SIT STILL AND WAIT.

So I sat still. And waited.

Holt brought me water at noon. Wren sat beside me for an hour in the afternoon and didn't say anything and then went away. Liam came out on his crutch three times to ask if I could see them yet, and three times I shut my eyes and found the snowflake, coming down out of the north, ten miles, five, two, and said not yet, and he went back in.

Sera didn't come out of the forge at all.

But the roar from the forge went up and down all afternoon, high and thin and then low, the way it did when she wasn't really working, just holding the fire and thinking about something else.

They came over the north rim at dusk.

I saw them before anyone. I'd been watching the rim all day. Two small figures, against the green sky, at the top of the path where it came down off the red rock into the canyon.

One of them was walking very straight. Very fast. With her shoulders back and her chin up, the way she'd walked down the corridor to Okafor's office on the morning she'd been named squad leader. Her long pale hair was tied back. Her suit was white with frost from the knees down, even here, even in the warm canyon at dusk, because she'd been walking in the cold so long she couldn't stop making it.

The other was behind her. Slower. Smaller. With one hand flat against the rock wall of the path as she came down, the way she used to keep her hand flat against the wall of her white room, the wall of her pod. Listening.

I didn't get up.

I sat on the step with my stick across my knees, and watched them come down the path into the canyon, and through the gate, and across the red glass.

Toward me.

Luna stopped in front of the step.

She stood there. Looking down at me. She was thinner than I'd ever seen her. Her face had gone hard and sharp in places it had never been sharp before, and there was a scar on her chin, new, white, and her lips were cracked from the cold.

Her eyes were exactly the same.

"You walked," said Luna Windsor.

"I flew," I said.

"That's worse."

"I know."

"I told you. On the roof. I told you, don't. Lighthouses don't walk." Her voice was very flat. Very cold. "You went eighty kilometers north to Liam. On your own. With a hole in your leg. And then a hundred kilometers east to Sera. On your own. And forty-one kilometers west to a dead base. On your own."

"Yes."

"You broke my order three times."

"Four," I said. "I'm going north next. To F-five. And Toby."

Luna looked at me for a very long time.

Then she looked up. Past me. At the dome. At the terraces behind it, the seventy-four round windows, nine of them lit now. At the forge at the far end of the canyon, glowing white. At the tower, four hundred and eight meters of iron lattice going up into the green dusk, with the copper mast at the top catching the last of the light.

At Dot, standing beside the dome. Seven arms. Three colors.

At Liam, who had come out of the dome on his crutch and stopped dead in the doorway.

At Sera, who had come out of the forge, finally, and was standing very still at the far end of the canyon with her hands at her sides.

Luna looked at all of it.

Then she looked back down at me.

"Liam," she said. Counting. "Seraphina." Her eyes went to me. "You."

She stopped.

"Lucas," she said.

And sat down on the step beside me, very suddenly, as if her legs had been cut.

She didn't say anything else. She just sat there, beside me, with her frost-white knees drawn up and her arms round them and her face turned away from me, toward the tower.

After a while, without looking, she put her hand out. On my wrist. Her fingers were so cold they burned.

She was taking my pulse.

I didn't say anything. I let her.

Risa had stopped a few meters back, on the red glass, with her hand flat against the wall of the dome. She was very thin too. Her hair had grown out and was tied back with a strip of something gray. Her eyes were closed. She was listening.

"Lucas," said Risa, without opening her eyes. "Your heart went to a hundred and forty when you saw her come over the rim."

Luna's fingers, on my wrist, went very still.

"It's still at a hundred and twenty," said Risa.

"Risa," said Luna.

"I'm just saying."

"Don't."

"I'm only telling him what I can hear," said Risa, very reasonably, with her eyes still shut. "You told me I was allowed to tell people what I can hear. You said, on the hill, if you hear something, Friese, you say it, I don't care how embarrassing it is." She tilted her head. "Yours went to a hundred and sixty, Luna. When you saw him on the step. And it hasn't come down yet."

Nobody said anything.

Liam, in the doorway of the dome, made a sound like a kettle and turned round and went back inside very quickly. I heard him fall over something.

Luna's face, turned away from me toward the tower, had gone pink from the jaw up. Her fingers stayed on my wrist. She didn't take them away.

And at the far end of the canyon, in the door of the forge, Sera stood very still in the dusk with her hands at her sides. And then turned round, without a word, and went back in.

The roar went up. High and thin. And stayed there.

"Four," said Luna at last. Very quietly. Still not looking at me. "Four of us. Liam, Seraphina, you, me." A pause. "Where's Toby?"

I shut my eyes. Found the fork. High in the white mountains, far to the north. Still. The way it had been for weeks.

"In the mountains," I said. "Still. I don't know why. Nothing's come from there but the dawn line, and the dawn line says F-five, where is he."

"F-five."

"First wave. One of the thirteen."

"Thirteen," said Luna. She turned round, finally, and looked at me. "Okafor said nine."

"Okafor didn't know. Nobody knew. They only listen upward."

Luna looked at me for a long time. At my face, and my stick, and my leg, and my black eyes.

"You're going to tell me everything," she said. "In order. Tonight. From the drop."

"I wrote it all down."

"Then you're going to read it to me," said Luna Windsor. "All of it. Out loud." She took her fingers off my wrist, finally, and stood up. "And then tomorrow we're going to sit down, all of us, and plan how we go north and get Toby. Properly. With a squad." She looked down at me. "Because lighthouses don't walk. But a squad does."

Day 356–357.

Command, three days early: "In recognition, Command authorizes one family contact. Four minutes. Monitored." Not a reward. A reminder.

Garnet: "Have you met any aliens?" Yes. "Are they nice?" Some. One makes very bad drinks and says please. Her name is Dot.

Mother, from further back: "I heard, darling."

Genny: "Are you keeping your promise?" Yes. "Is it bad there?" Yes. And I've got friends. And it's the best thing I've ever done. Both. "When people lie they only say one thing."

The lemon tree gets a new leaf every Monday. The vials come Mondays. Genny counts. Thirteen in a row. If it ever doesn't: "The lemon tree's dry."

On a monitored line. In four minutes. She's nine.

Mother: "Do the right thing anyway. I married your father. I'd marry him again tomorrow."

Dot: "A name is for something else. This unit does not have the word for it yet." "This unit will try to deserve it."

Day 357. Sat still. All day. Like she told me.

Dusk. Luna and Risa over the north rim.

"You walked." "I flew." "That's worse."

"Liam. Seraphina. You. Lucas." She sat down. Took my pulse.

Risa: 140 when I saw her. 160 for Luna. Liam fell over something. Sera went back into the forge.

Four of us. Where's Toby?

"Lighthouses don't walk. But a squad does."