Chapter 172 Five More Names

We left after Sera's treatment, with the sun still low enough to put long shadows across the path.

She came to the landing place carrying the folded blanket I'd nearly forgotten.

“Is that for me?”

“For whoever needs it. You're allowed to count yourself if circumstances become desperate.”

I took it.

She adjusted the fold beneath the strap, then looked up at me.

“Ask what they want to bring.”

“It's on the list.”

“I know. I'm telling you anyway.”

I kissed her.

She put her arms around me and stayed there for a moment, her cheek against my chest.

Behind us, Risa and Luna checked the medical case. Corr was already aboard, studying the last part of Iona's route.

It was Day 484.

There were five people waiting beyond the ridge.

I held Sera a little longer before going to meet them.

Iona had marked the landing place with cloth.

Not the flat shaded patch Holt had warned us about. A higher strip beside the shelter, narrow but dry, with enough room to bring the hull down without passing over the roof.

She stood well clear until we settled.

Then came forward, looking past me at the case in Luna's hands.

“You came.”

“We said we would.”

“I know.”

She said it quietly enough that I didn't answer with the same thing again.

A man waited beside the door with one arm held close against his body. A sling had been repaired so often that the original cloth was difficult to find.

“Aven,” Iona said.

He nodded to us.

“Don't let her make you think I've been sitting here doing nothing.”

“I wasn't going to,” I said.

“Good.”

Then he moved aside and let us in.

Their shelter had been a place people expected to leave soon.

I could see it in the repairs.

A roof patched to last another storm. Bedding raised on boxes because the floor was damp. A cooking area that had been moved twice when the wind changed direction.

Someone had made a shelf from the side of a container and written the contents beneath each jar, so the person fetching things wouldn't need to keep asking.

Five people had made a life inside it anyway.

Neri Cole lay near the back wall with her leg supported on a folded jacket. She watched us without trying to sit up until Iona told her we hadn't come to inspect her manners.

Pella Orr sat beside the window.

She smiled when Luna introduced herself, then leaned back as though the effort had cost more than it should.

Bram Keel came in carrying water.

He put it down and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“That everyone?” he asked Iona.

“All four.”

“Right.”

He looked at us with the expression of a man trying to decide which of a hundred questions ought to be first.

We began with the people.

Toby's notes were in the case. Iona's records were beside them. Luna asked where they could be comfortable while I looked, and Risa took the answers down so nobody had to tell the same story four times.

Neri's leg had been broken.

It had begun healing in a position that made carrying weight painful and would keep making it painful if nothing changed. There were things I could help with, but not by pretending the months since the break could be erased in an afternoon.

I told her that.

“Will I walk?” she asked.

“I think we can make it much easier. I want Toby to see you too, and I want time to do it carefully.”

She looked toward Iona.

Then back at me.

“Time sounds good.”

It was such a different answer from the ones people gave when they thought being useful was the only way to stay.

I was glad she had room to say it.

Aven's shoulder needed support that didn't pull across the sore place every time he moved.

We changed the sling first.

It helped enough that he went quiet halfway through explaining why he'd been perfectly capable of carrying water yesterday.

He moved his good hand along the new support.

“Oh.”

Risa smiled at him.

“You can finish the argument later.”

“I might.”

“I believe you.”

Pella worried me more.

Not because I found a terrible thing I knew how to name.

Because I didn't.

She'd been growing weaker over time. Food and rest hadn't put right whatever was wrong. I could see places where her body was struggling, but seeing effort wasn't the same as understanding its cause.

We recorded what she told us.

I didn't call her tired and leave it there.

I didn't offer a cure because I wanted her to look less frightened.

“We'll get you somewhere we can keep looking,” I said.

She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment.

Moving all five in my hull would take several trips.

Moving Neri and Pella comfortably would make even the first load awkward. The route was longer than the one from the ledge where we'd found Ossa and Merrin, and the afternoon wind was already beginning to show in the trees.

We could do it over more than one day.

I began arranging the journeys in my head.

Then Bram said, “Dane's carrier could take them.”

The room went quiet.

He looked from Iona to Luna.

“He's lent it before. For supplies.”

“Has he offered it for this?” Luna asked.

“No.”

“Have you asked?”

Bram shook his head.

Iona looked down at her hands.

“I thought yesterday might have made that difficult.”

I thought about the carrier. The fitted straps. The enclosed compartment. The way I'd watched it as though wanting it gave Dane another hand around my throat.

“We can ask,” I said.

Risa looked at me.

I nodded.

“Asking isn't agreeing to his proposal.”

“No,” she said. “It isn't.”

Luna and I went to Dane's base.

Risa stayed with Iona's people. Corr stayed too, helping gather the things they wanted to bring and making a clear record of what would remain if we needed a second journey.

Before I left, Risa caught my sleeve.

“You don't owe him a yes because somebody needs a seat.”

“I know.”

“And you don't have to refuse a useful thing just because he offered a bad one yesterday.”

I looked at her.

She smiled a little.

“I'm trying to make this inconvenient in both directions.”

“You're succeeding.”

She kissed me quickly, then let go.

“Come back with an answer. Any honest answer.”

I promised that much.

Dane's landing area was marked before we reached it.

Properly marked. Bright corners, a wind strip, a cleared approach with the loose material pushed well back from the landing feet.

A person waved us toward the empty side.

There were two substantial buildings and a smaller covered work area. Water tanks stood on supports that hadn't been made from whatever happened to be lying nearby.

The carrier sat beneath a shade screen.

Beyond it, a kit worked beside the storage building, lifting sealed containers onto a low rack.

It stopped when we landed and turned toward us.

I raised a hand.

It watched, then returned to the container.

Luna stepped down beside me.

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

It wasn't wrong for people to have good things.

I had to remind myself of that before resentment began pretending to be evidence.

Dane came from the work area wiping his hands on a cloth.

He looked surprised.

Then pleased.

“Changed your mind?”

“About something else,” I said.

I told him about Neri, Aven, and Pella. The condition of the shelter. The limits of my hull.

I asked for the carrier and a pilot for one evacuation to Scarecrow.

He listened without interrupting.

When I finished, he looked at Luna.

“And afterward?”

“The pilot brings the carrier home,” she said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. This request doesn't accept the material agreement.”

He looked back at me.

For a few seconds, I thought he would refuse.

Then he turned toward the shade screen and called a name.

“Keir.”

A young man came out from behind the carrier with a tool in one hand.

Dane pointed toward the northern ridge.

“Iona's people. They're moving. Can you take two lying down and four seated, including you?”

Keir looked at the craft.

“If we remove the cargo rack.”

“Do it.”

I didn't know what to do with the relief quickly enough.

“Thank you,” I said.

Dane nodded.

“I don't need them dying over an argument about ingots.”

The words were blunt.

They were also something I was glad he'd said.

Luna asked whether Keir could have the flight plan directly from us.

Dane agreed.

No signature on the production schedule. No hidden page slid beneath the route.

We paid for the fuel used with an agreed amount from our ordinary stores, an amount Luna could name and the pilot could record.

Not future credit. Not a monthly promise.

A particular journey.

I could understand that arrangement.

While Keir removed the rack, Dane walked us to the water tanks.

“You look as though you expected me to chain you to the forge.”

“I expected you to ask for material,” I said.

“I did. Yesterday.”

He looked toward the carrier.

“This is today.”

He showed us part of the base while we waited.

I hadn't asked for a tour, but I didn't refuse the chance to see what yesterday's words looked like in ordinary life.

A clean repair bench. Spare seals in labeled drawers. Enough food stacked in one corner that nobody was pretending the next meal depended on an experiment.

People looked up when we passed.

Not frightened.

Not especially eager to speak in front of Dane either, though I couldn't tell how much of that was him and how much was two strangers arriving in a strange hull.

“How many did you begin with?” Luna asked.

“Twelve, once we'd gathered everyone in the local drop area.”

“And now?”

“Twelve.”

I looked at him.

He misunderstood the look, or chose to.

“We made good decisions.”

Luna stopped beside the repair bench.

“So did people who lost someone.”

The words were quiet.

Dane glanced at her.

After a moment, he said, “We had a working carrier by the time some of them needed retrieving. That helped.”

“Yes,” Luna said. “It would.”

I asked when the carrier had arrived.

“Early. After we established the collection site.”

“Who arranged that?”

“The same people I've offered to introduce your work to.”

“A name?”

He smiled without much warmth.

“You keep asking.”

“We keep not getting an answer.”

Dane looked toward the storage building.

One of the containers on the rack had a fresh station label over an older mark. I recognized the same receiving code again, printed beside a shipment reference.

Not proof of what was inside.

Not proof of who had paid for it.

Enough that I knew yesterday hadn't been an isolated piece of paper.

Dane saw where I was looking and stepped back toward the carrier.

“Keir should be ready.”

He was.

We went with him.

The carrier changed the whole morning for Iona's camp.

Keir set it down where Bram showed him, then got out and asked who needed the flat positions.

No speech.

No demand to know what work they'd do when they reached Scarecrow.

He checked the straps, looked at Toby's notes, and listened while Risa explained how Neri needed the leg supported.

Pella watched from the doorway.

“Do I have to climb?”

“No,” Keir said.

He lowered the side platform until it was close enough to the ground for us to help her across without making her stand for longer than she could.

I wanted that mechanism with a force that embarrassed me.

Then I remembered that, today, it was here.

I helped her sit.

We asked what they wanted to bring.

Neri had a little tin with a broken clasp. It contained letters and something she didn't show us.

Aven wanted the tool he'd used to repair the roof, although its handle had been wrapped until it was mostly wrapping.

Pella asked for a strip of cloth tied beside the window.

Bram took it down carefully.

It had marks along one edge. Days, I thought, until she told me they were songs she'd remembered and written as little beginnings so she wouldn't lose the rest.

I didn't ask whether we could copy them yet.

Iona packed the records.

Bram packed a cooking vessel, a small box of seeds, and the game pieces somebody had carved while waiting out bad weather.

Nothing was too small to be noticed once we'd asked.

Corr checked the shelter a last time with them.

Then we left a dated message saying all five had gone to Scarecrow alive.

Risa traveled with the carrier.

Neri and Pella lay supported. Aven sat where his shoulder wouldn't be knocked. Iona took the place beside him. Keir flew.

Bram came with Luna, Corr, and me in the open hull.

There wasn't room to pretend everyone was equally comfortable, but there was enough room to get everyone home without making an injured person endure a clever solution.

Before boarding, Risa came to me.

“How was Dane?”

“Helpful. Guarded. I don't think those cancel each other.”

She nodded.

Then touched the side of the carrier.

“Today, this helps.”

“Yes.”

She kissed me.

“See you at home.”

I watched her climb in, then went to our hull and made certain Bram knew where to hold before we lifted.

Scarecrow saw the carrier first.

Wren signaled acknowledgment from the mirror, and Dot relayed the landing instructions through the local receiver we'd brought for the journey.

Toby was waiting with beds prepared.

Holt had cleared the path again and looked ready to have a long argument with anyone who thought standing in it would help.

Liam took the bags.

Anja went with Iona, asking what needed to stay within reach instead of taking everything away because she knew where the shelves were.

Sera stood near the medical shelter.

She waited until I'd set the hull down and Bram had climbed out.

Then she came to me.

“All five?”

“All five.”

Her face changed.

She put her arms around me, and I bent my head to hers.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then someone needed a hand with the carrier, and we went to help.

Keir stayed until the patients were settled.

He didn't hurry us because the aircraft was waiting. When Neri needed another moment before we moved her, he stood with his hands clear and gave her the moment.

I thanked him.

He looked surprised.

“For flying?”

“For waiting.”

He glanced toward the bed.

“My sister used to hate being moved when she was hurt.”

He didn't say anything else about her.

I didn't ask in front of everyone.

Luna settled the fuel record with him. Dot kept the copy. The carrier lifted again before the afternoon wind strengthened.

I watched it go without having signed away the next month of my life.

I still wanted one.

That hadn't changed.

The board changed after the first meal.

Iona Rell.

Neri Cole.

Aven Moss.

Pella Orr.

Bram Keel.

Wren asked each of them to confirm the spelling. Neri made her change the shape of one letter, then apologized.

Wren handed her the chalk.

“It's your name.”

Luna counted at dusk.

Forty-three humans.

Dot and Old Son.

Forty-five people.

Pella listened from her bed with her eyes closed. When her name came, she lifted one hand.

Toby was beside her, the new medical page open on his knee.

We still didn't know why she was getting weaker.

We had somewhere to begin looking now.

I found Liam outside the supply shelter before supper.

Anja was beside him, checking the last of the bags against Iona's list. He held the page where she could see it and waited while she counted.

When she finished, she took the pencil from behind his ear.

“You put it there,” he said.

“I know. That's why I could find it.”

She marked the last bag, then looked at me.

“He's been helpful.”

“Don't sound so surprised,” Liam said.

“I wasn't. You were.”

He smiled at her, and she smiled back without either of them remembering I was still standing there.

I began to move away.

Liam stopped me.

“Actually, before somebody else decides to tell you.”

Anja looked at him.

He took her hand.

“We're together.”

She squeezed his fingers.

“Yes,” she said.

He looked at me with a mixture of pride and the expectation that I would immediately ruin it.

“I'm glad,” I said.

He waited.

“That was the whole sentence.”

“Good.”

Anja laughed.

Then she went to return the list to Iona, leaving Liam beside me with the expression of someone who had discovered the day contained a thing he'd like to repeat.

“Have you told Sera?” I asked.

“Yes. She said she'd been waiting for us to catch up.”

“That sounds like her.”

“She also said if I upset Anja, she wouldn't need fire to make her opinion clear.”

“That sounds like her too.”

He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck.

“I want to do this properly.”

“Then keep talking to her.”

He looked toward the medical shelter, where Anja was showing Iona which bag held the records.

“I like talking to her.”

I remembered him at the forge, afraid for his sister, trying to make jokes around a fear too large for them.

He looked lighter now.

“That's a good place to start.”

He nodded and went to join her.

I told the others about Dane after supper.

All of it.

The help. The carrier. The twelve people still alive. The supplies. The answer he hadn't given. The receiving code on another crate.

Risa sat beside me, one hand resting on my leg. Luna had the records open. Sera listened from the window seat.

“He helped them,” Sera said when I finished.

“Yes.”

“And he still wants an arrangement we don't understand.”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

“Then both go in the account.”

Luna wrote them down that way.

I had wanted the day to give me a simple answer about him.

Instead, it had given us five people safely home and a man who remained a person rather than becoming the shape I'd prepared to dislike.

That was more difficult.

It was also more honest.

Later, Luna found me looking at the carrier's landing marks.

She came to stand beside me.

“You're designing one.”

“Trying.”

“Can you?”

“Parts of it. The frame. The supports. Things I can see and understand.”

“The parts that make it fly?”

“Not yet.”

She took my hand.

“Then not yet.”

I looked at her.

She smiled faintly.

“It isn't a verdict on you.”

“I know.”

“Practice knowing.”

I laughed, then drew her close and kissed her.

She stayed against me afterward, her forehead beneath my chin.

When we walked back, she didn't ask how long the engineering would take.

I loved her for leaving the question alone.

Sera had put Pella's story about the songs in her drawing book.

Not the songs themselves.

A little sketch of the cloth tied beside a window, with Pella's permission to draw it.

She showed me while I sat beside her on the bed.

“I nearly forgot to ask about the things,” I admitted.

“I know.”

“You weren't there.”

“I know you.”

She touched my cheek, then kissed me before I could decide whether that should embarrass me.

Risa came in carrying four cups.

Luna took two before she could attempt the door and all of them at once.

“Successful evacuation,” Risa announced.

“Of the cups?” I asked.

“Of everybody. I'm allowing us to be pleased.”

So we were.

We drank with the window open and the new voices of the camp reaching us through the evening.

When we lay down, Risa drew me close for a moment before settling her head against the pillow.

“I liked coming home today.”

“So did I.”

“No. I mean saying it to you before we left. See you at home.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

“It used to mean a place where other people decided what I was supposed to be.”

I brushed her hair away from her face.

“What does it mean now?”

She kissed me.

Then reached for Sera's hand across the blanket and looked toward Luna, who was putting the lamp within reach.

“This.”

Luna's expression softened.

Sera moved closer.

I lay between the people I loved, listening to the unfamiliar footsteps outside become part of the familiar evening.

Five more names.

The same place beside me.

Day 484. Five more names.

Visited Iona's camp. Neri's leg. Aven's shoulder. Pella's unexplained weakness. Records brought home. No quick promises.

Asked Dane for one evacuation flight. He agreed without the production contract. Fuel settled separately. Keir piloted and waited when people needed time.

Dane's base well supplied. Twelve gathered, twelve still alive, by his account. Early carrier access helped. Receiving code seen on a station container. Contact still unnamed.

All five brought to Scarecrow. Letters, tools, songs, records, seeds, game pieces. Asked what mattered before packing.

Forty-three humans. Dot and Old Son. Forty-five people.

Help received and questions unanswered. Record both.

Risa said see you at home.

I did.