“Shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”
“Good.” Odin Thor stood. “Thank you both.”
Since we were clearly dismissed, we left.
Outside in the chill under the grey clouds that promised freezing rain or worse, I stopped and looked at Henriod.
“Does this make sense?”
“In a way,” answered the forcer. “We’d lose too many men if we had to put down wide-scale riots. If we didn’t stop them, we’d lose any credibility.”
“So you think Odin Thor is making a graceful withdrawal and using the free election bit to place the blame on the Llordians?”
Henriod shrugged. “That’s the way it looks.”
It did look that way, but I still kept remembering Odin Thor’s smile.
My next stop was Dr. Relorn’s office. She had some explaining to do, and she needed to know about Odin Thor’s plans. I just dropped undertime and slid into the laboratory she used as an office.
She was alone, twiddling with one of the consoles.
“Greetings, Sammis.” She turned in the swivel chair to face me. This time she had on a tan tunic and trousers. The cut was flattering, but not the colour, which left her washed-out looking.
“You were expecting me.”
“Who else would you tell about Odin Thor’s latest scheme?”
She sounded so matter-of-fact that I felt like leaving. But no one else seemed to understand anything. So instead of leaving, I said nothing.
Neither did she.
I kept my mouth shut.
“Sammis . . . you can either accept the truth and keep growing up. Or you can pout, in which case I won’t bother to spend time with you.”
“Both you and Odin Thor are playing some type of game I still don’t understand, and both of you are pushing me around.”
Wryan looked at me, almost from head to toe. “Odin Thor is playing a game.” She paused. “It could look like I am.”
“Are you?”
“No. I try to tell you, but you don’t want to hear it. And sometimes you don’t hear what I say the way I meant.”
If her words weren’t an evasion, I hadn’t ever heard one. “That’s an evasion.”
She grinned and looked like a youngster. “You’re right.”
I was getting tired of people deciding what was best for Sammis to know.
“I can only tell you that I have your best interests at heart.” She smiled softly. “Mine, too, I hope.”
Despite my anger, the softness and the near-wistful tone of her voice kept me from lashing out. Whatever she had in mind, it wasn’t deadly or malicious, and that would have to do for the present. I shrugged.
“How about my quarters?” she asked. “It is warmer than here.”
That was fine with me, and I followed her from the laboratory after she switched off the console and most of the lights. The laboratory seemed dark and ancient with the lights off, like a relic from the past.
Again, she flicked on the single lamp on the table, just like the first time I had visited her, and nodded toward a chair.
“Do you have anything . . . to eat?”
“You,” she said, “are always hungry.”
“Curse of the breed.”
Wryan put out a plate with a chyst, a chunk of old yellow cheese, and a row of hard crackers. Before sitting down, she sliced several smaller pieces of cheese, taking one of the crackers and a slice for herself.
“Look who else is hungry,” I had to mumble because my mouth was full.
She smiled, her mouth full as well.
“Odin Thor’s going to offer open elections to the Llordians. Let them vote on whether the ConFeds stay or go. He thinks they’ll vote us out. He wants me to play reporter and get the whole thing on viewtape.”
Frowning, Wryan took another cracker and cut some more cheese. “After they vote no on the ConFeds, what does he plan?”
“He told Henriod to arrange for pullout, one that would get us out before anything happened. He wants me to tape the pullout and the aftermath.”
Wryan finished chewing the cheese and hard cracker as she went for a pitcher of water and two tumblers—the heavy crystal ones that reminded me of my father’s Dyleraan. She poured me a glassful, then one for herself. “You think he’s telling the truth?”
“Yes. That’s what bothers me.”
“Did he say what he’ll do in the other towns?”
“He said they could have elections, too, but they’d have to be phased. Why go to all that trouble? He didn’t spend the last year building up all this power just to let it go.”
“You’re right. He didn’t.”
The chair was getting uncomfortable, and I shifted my weight. “So what is he doing? And what happened to his plan to attack the Frost Giants?”
“I don’t know . . . for certain. But you had better make sure you do a good job recording what happens at Llordian.”
Wryan had an idea of what the colonel-general was doing. She also wasn’t telling.
“Why aren’t you telling me?”
“I might be wrong. You need to figure out why people act the way they do without relying on me or on Odin Thor.”
I swallowed hard on her words. Relying on her? Especially on Odin Thor? She wouldn’t relent, and after I finished the cheese and the chyst, I left, diving back to my room before heading out to find Eltar.
XLI
CARRYING THE PORTABLE equipment that Eltar had put together wasn’t all that difficult, and that alone showed me how much stronger I was getting. The equipment was easily twice the weight of the nerve gas grenades, and I had no trouble with it—provided I didn’t try it when I was hungry.
“Sammis,” protested Eltar the first time I popped back into the small corner of maintenance that Odin Thor had set aside for him, “I’ll never get used to you appearing out of nowhere.”
He did, though.
I started out by taking shots of Llordian proper—breaking out on the tops of buildings, odd corners, anywhere to provide an accurate picture. Getting the people was harder, and I finally ended up dressed like a ragged peddler. The pack contained all the gear except the hand-held recorder. Even that was difficult, since several times I had to sit for hours in dusty corners just to get a few minutes of tape when no one was looking. I tried to record from the undertime, but the equipment just didn’t work there.
Getting shots of the posters announcing the referendum was easier. Since everyone crowded around each one posted, no one was watching a ragged peddler. Later, I went out at dawn and took some clear shots of the posters.
“You expect me to mix and splice and put together something that looks professional?” Eltar protested.
“No. Just something that looks honest and real.”
“Honest and real—from you?” interrupted another voice—Rarden.
When I’d faced him down at the divers’ mess, I thought I’d seen the last of the troublesome ConFed. “Yes, honest and real.” I kept my voice cheerful.
Wearing a grease suit, he was carrying a toolbox for heavy maintenance work on the steamers. “This is honest work.”
“Very honest work. Without the steamers, we’d be in big trouble.”
“Not like your sneak thieving.”
I shrugged.
“Not like sneak thieves,” Rarden repeated.
“Rarden . . .” I answered slowly. “You don’t like me, and I don’t like you. If I wanted you dead, you would be, and no one could save your ass. So . . . why don’t you think instead of opening your mouth without thinking?”
Both Rarden and Eltar turned pale.
When Rarden had carted his toolbox to the steamer at the far end of the bay, Eltar glanced at me, then at the floor. “Did you mean what you said?”
“What?” I replied absently, wondering why Rarden had hated me so much even before he had discovered I was a diver.
“That nothing could save him if you wanted him dead?”
At that point, I wished I hadn’t sa
id it. “Yes and no,” I hedged. “Do you really want an answer?”
“I think I deserve one, Sammis.” Eltar was still pale.
“You do.” I sighed. “It’s like this. What would happen if I appeared right behind Rarden with a projectile gun? Could he stop me?”
“Of course not.”
“And who else could do that?”
“The other divers.”
“But whom among them would want to?”
“Oh . . .”
“So . . . I could dispose of Rarden any time. But everyone would know it was me, and what would keep Carlis from keeping his own projectile rifle handy to pot me at a distance when I wasn’t even aware of him?”
Eltar nodded slowly. “You need to eat and sleep just like everyone else. But . . .”
I knew where he was headed. “If . . . if l wanted to live like a total sneak thief and recluse the rest of my life, never trusting anyone, with every person’s hand against me, like they were against the witches of Eastron, then I might be able to run around killing people. Except then, all the other divers would eliminate me as a danger. And they could.”
The ConFed who might be my friend looked only slightly relieved.
I tried one more time. “Look, Eltar. I got caught by Odin Thor’s men because there was no place else to go. Now it’s going to get worse.”
“What?”
“The farmers—those that are left—aren’t farming enough to feed everyone. The townies are close to starvation, and everyone hates the ConFeds. There’s enough food to go around now. What about next year?”
“Can’t you, and the other divers . . .”
I sighed, loudly. “Eltar, this is about as much weight as I can carry, and I’m one of the stronger divers. Second, I’d have to find spare food to carry, and the situation here is the same all over Query.”
“Oh . . .” Eltar looked pale again. I was doing great violence to his mental well-being.
I shrugged. “That’s why I’m still supporting Odin Thor. He seems to be the only chance. Verlyt knows it’s a slim one. And who knows if we’ll ever get around to the Frost Giant problem?”
Nodding, Eltar turned to the workbench. “Let’s see that last tape pack. Are you going out again soon?”
“Not until after noon meal.” I handed over the tape pack I had extracted from the recorder.
“When are the elections?”
“Two days.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Then we’ll see.”
I nodded. We would indeed, but what we might see was another question.
XLII
ON THE DAY of the referendum in Llordian, the ragged and dirty peddler was back in harness, recording the happy Llordian townies as they cast their ballots.
My site was in the market, behind a pottery stand run by an old woman who never seemed to sell anything. I had set out various small carvings and trinkets in front of me, on the stone ledge next to the empty fountain—it had been empty the first time I saw Llordian and still was.
While I waited, I carved—mostly things like napkin rings and awkward grossjays. Terrible carvings, but sometimes people actually offered me something for them, usually a piece of fruit, a roll, or cast-off clothing. I took the food, but not the clothing.
I never spoke, just shook my head and pointed to my throat. By election day, the pottery woman just told people not to bother the mute peddler.
The townies all crowed as they stuffed paper ballot after paper ballot into the big boxes. A pair of armed ConFeds watched each box, but only to make sure no one walked off with it. They ignored the people stuffing in two or three ballots, all marked with big black crosses in the space indicating the ConFeds should leave.
“That one . . .” grunted a bearded man.
He pointed at a carved wooden ring, a crude copy of a silver napkin ring I had remembered from childhood.
I nodded as he held up a small copper—one of the few coins I had been offered. Then again, the napkin ring was one of my better efforts.
As he took the ring, the sound of a steamer hissing whispered into the square. Two large farmers, flanked with guards of their own, scanned the ballot box, but did not leave the steamer.
I risked getting caught and trained the recorder hidden in my pack at the disgusted look on the white-haired man’s face. The younger farmer, as big as Odin Thor, but with skin like cream toffee, shook his head.
The steamer hissed again and picked up speed.
The bearded man, now walking from the dry fountain toward the steamer, spat on the stones in the direction of the farmers. An urchin—one who had tried to steal one of my wooden grossjays— made an obscene gesture. Two women hurried from the steamer’s path, covering their faces with scarves. Another boy picked up a stone, only to have it knocked from his hand by his mother.
Not a single other farmer did I see, and, after I crept away in the late afternoon, I back-checked all of the other polling locations. No farmers to speak of.
Under the cover of darkness, Henriod implemented his pullout, and when the townies arrived the next morning brandishing the polling results, the old postal station that had been the ConFed fort was empty, the gate wide open.
I was hidden behind the low parapet on the roof, recording the faces, the dust, and the townies’ indignation.
“Swine . . .”
“. . . knew before we finished . . .”
“. . . last of them . . .”
Crack . . . One desultory stone clacked against the open gate.
“. . . anything left?”
A handful of older men, including the ubiquitous one-armed man, entered the main building, rummaged through every room. I could hear crashes and slams and other sounds.
In time, they left, empty-handed, grumbling, swearing, with the old postal station a shambles. So did I, bringing the footage back to Eltar.
Then I had noon meal, by myself, and took a nap.
Something was going to happen at Llordian later. When or what, I didn’t know, but I could feel it. Because I couldn’t explain it, I didn’t even try and talk about it. Besides, Wryan seemed to be avoiding me, and no one else would understand.
So I slept, not well. First, my room was too cold. Then the sun came out and heated everything up, and I woke up sweating.
I wanted to dive out to Llordian and see what was happening, but figured that was unwise, at least on an empty stomach. That reasoning got me down to the snack table in the divers’ mess, where I polished off two chysts, a large chunk of cheese and a handful of very hard crackers, all washed down with warm and almost sour citril.
Gerloc wandered in when I was finishing, nodded, picked up a chyst, and wandered out.
Was everybody avoiding me? Or was I giving off some sort of signal?
At the front door I looked south, up toward Mount Persnol, where the clouds were turning cherry pink in the late winter twilight, wondering what, if anything, might be happening in Llordian.
With a sigh, I walked back to my room and pulled on a black foul-weather sweater and the darkest trousers I owned, making a note that we really ought to develop a set of dark uniforms for time-diving. Then I added a dark jacket and gloves. If I were going to skulk around in the shadows, I might as well look like the shadows.
Recorder in hand, pack on back, I dropped under the now and slipped out to Llordian, breaking out on a little ledge on the top of the meeting house overlooking the square.
A heavy door shut somewhere.
“. . . if you think . . .
“. . . too young . . . at that price . . .”
Two figures whispered in the shadows nearly directly underneath my perch.
A bell rang softly in the distance.
Nothing was happening, and I was frowning. Then it struck me. Of course nothing was happening in Llordian.
My first breakout was on the roof of a long wooden porch on the front of a timber and stone farmhouse.
Scruff. I winced at the sound. The roof sloped, and I had s
kidded on the heavy tiles, trying to keep my balance.
“What’s that? Scurrit? Scurrit!”
“There’s nothing out there. Ferly would have hissed, or something.”
“Keep your voices down,” added another voice, hard and female.
I eased myself flat on the tiles, grateful their finish was rough enough to keep me place in spite of the gentle slope.
For a time, everything was silent, except for the whisper of the wind, which, light as it was, wasted no time in chilling me.
“Stop it,” whispered the female voice.
“Annya, none of those townies will be around tonight. It’ll take a couple of nights before they’re convinced the ConFeds are gone.”
“Maybe . . . but what did we hear? Ghosts?” The woman’s voice was low.
“Could have been a branch scraping on the barn wall.”
“Maybe. We’ll wait a while. Then you watch until midnight . . .”
I didn’t stay any longer.
After checking several other farms I had visited “officially” as a ConFed, I was convinced the farm woman was right. If the townies were going to attack any farms, it wouldn’t be that night.
Which night? How long? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to tell Odin Thor. And Wryan wasn’t about to do my thinking for me.
So, day by day, I kept checking and recording, watching as the townies whispered and the farmers worked towards spring, weapons always nearby.
XLIII
FIVE RAGGED FIGURES—three older men and two women—trudged up the hard dirt road, their feet barely raising the heavy dust under the bright late winter sun. The men wore blanket jackets with patches, the women old shawls, folded and refolded around them. All five had tattered trousers and shapeless shoes.
Two farmers armed with antique projectile rifles stood behind the wooden gate, their shoulders and heads outlined against the green-blue sky. Both wore heavy leather jackets—the kind that were quilted on the inside.
The five stopped a good rod from the gate. From the underbrush uphill, I caught both the townies and the farmers in the recorder.
“Peace,” croaked the lead ancient.
“What do you want?” asked the heavier farmer, his brown hair shot with grey, as he levelled the weapon at the townspeople.
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