The Refuge Song

by Francesca Haig

  “The last I saw of him he was punching me in the face,” Piper said. “That was on the island, after I’d told the Assembly that I’d let you go.”

  “And you’re still happy he’s in charge?” I asked.

  Another grin. “There were others who would have done worse. Some were arguing that they should leave me on the island, at the mercy of the Council soldiers. Simon spoke up against that, at least. If nothing else, he knew we needed all the strong seamen and fighters we had to get those last few of us off the island. He spoke up for me when the others turned on me. But then there was the final scramble for the boats, and I didn’t see him after that. He wasn’t on my boat to the mainland. I wasn’t even sure he’d made it off the island.”

  “Where is he?” Zoe asked Sally.

  “He’s not stupid enough to stay in one spot for long,” Sally replied. “Not since the safe houses started to fall.”

  “But you know he’s alive? You know where he is?”

  “Elena came through here last week, headed further east. She’d seen him recently.”

  “Where?”

  Sally ignored his question. “Are you so sure Simon will want you to go to him? You’re not exactly popular, after what happened on the island.”

  “I don’t care whether I’m greeted with open arms. I can still help.”

  “And what if you’re greeted with blades?” Sally said. “I heard what happened out there. You made a choice, on the island, to break with the Assembly. You walk back into the resistance now, and they could turn on you.”

  “They might,” said Piper calmly. “But I won’t be walking in there alone. You’re coming with me.”

  Sally shook her head. “I’m not involved anymore. You know that. Taking Xander in and keeping him safe is the most that I can do.”

  “We’re all involved,” Piper said. “And you said it yourself: the network’s crumbling. The safe houses are falling, one by one. You think they won’t come for you, one day soon? This place, and your traps, won’t keep you safe forever. Come with us, and I can protect you. Xander too.”

  Sally looked at him appraisingly for several moments. Then she gave a slow laugh. “I taught you well,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You always have an agenda. You can say all you like about wanting to help me, to keep me and Xander safe. But really you need me, to guarantee that the resistance won’t turn you away.”

  Piper didn’t deny it. “You know how people view you. You’re the hero of the infiltrators. You can help to reunite the resistance.”

  “Whatever I was then, I’m an old woman now,” she said. “You’re asking me to leave my home. And we both know you’d be a fool to promise you could keep me safe. There isn’t any safe—not these days.”

  She looked past him to where I sat.

  “This stuff Piper and Zoe told me about,” she said to me. “The tanks, and the refuges. You saw it yourself?”

  I nodded.

  “In a vision? Like Xander has?”

  I was about to protest, to claim that my visions were different. But it would have been a lie. They were the same—the only difference was that I had somehow managed to keep my head above the water of my visions, while Xander had gone under.

  “Yes,” I said. “I saw the tanks in the flesh, too, under Wyndham. But it’s the visions that have showed me the rest of them. Hundreds of tanks. Thousands.”

  She nodded slowly. “When Lucia had visions, she always said they weren’t straightforward.”

  “She came here? Lucia?”

  “Piper and Zoe brought her here once, a few years back. But she was already losing it then.”

  “She served the resistance faithfully, for years,” said Piper, his hand striking the table. “You’ve taken care of Xander for long enough to see the toll that it takes.”

  “Just move on,” said Zoe quickly. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

  I turned back to Sally. “Lucia was right. It’s not straightforward. I see things, but I can’t always work out exactly what they are. Or when.”

  “But you’re sure about the tanks?” Sally said.

  “Yes. I’ve seen them.”

  Sally looked from me to Xander. He sat at the foot of the table, a piece of bread untouched on his plate. His hands were twisting in their secret choreography.

  “She seems sane enough,” said Sally to Piper and Zoe.

  “I’m right here,” I said. “Don’t talk about me like I’m a child.”

  “This is too important to worry about manners,” snapped Sally. “You’re asking people to risk everything, just because of some visions.”

  I kept my voice calm. “Do you realize what we could all be risking if you don’t believe me?”

  Sally spoke to Piper, but she was still staring at me.

  “I’ve been fighting this war for more than eighty years. Do you really think one girl can change anything?”

  “No,” said Piper bluntly.

  It was the same answer that I would have given, but hearing it from his lips, in his matter-of-fact tone of voice, still knocked the breath from my lungs.

  “Not by herself,” he went on. “She’s going to need our help. Mine, and Zoe’s. But that’s not enough. Yours, too, so we can bring the resistance back together, find the ships. Perhaps send out new ships. I don’t know if Cass can find Elsewhere, or bring down the Council. But I think she’s our best chance. And I sure as hell know she won’t be able to do it without us.”

  Sally was still staring at me. I should have been used to scrutiny. I was raised in a house crammed tight with suspicion. Zach watching me, our parents watching both of us. Even now, Piper monitored my every movement. But Sally’s stare went right through me. She looked at me, and I knew she saw Xander. His broken words, his restless hands.

  “Then we should leave at dawn,” Sally said. “Simon’s near the coast, in the collapsed quarry inland from Hawthornden, where half the fleet’s at deep anchor. We’ll go by boat, at least at first. And I suppose I’d better show her the Ark paper.”

  chapter 11

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  Sally stood. “It’s something I found, more than forty years ago, when I was undercover in Wyndham.”

  She walked to the fireplace and knelt down. I moved to help her, but Piper stilled me with a touch of my shoulder. He let her do it herself: carefully lifting up the corner slate to remove a large envelope, browned and spotted with age. She stood, just as slowly, and returned to the table. It took her a few minutes to rifle through the various papers there, before selecting one and placing it on the table between me and Zoe.

  “I found it in the Commander’s inner office, when I was able to get an hour alone in there,” she said.

  I’d heard Piper mention the Commander only a few days earlier, when we’d been talking about the General. The Commander had been the General’s mentor, and it was he whom she was rumored to have killed.

  “I’d managed to steal the key to his document chest.” She smoothed the paper down. It crackled, stiff, beneath her hands. “This is a copy,” she went on. “The original was ancient—I’d never seen anything so old. It was on strange paper, too: thinner than I’d ever seen, and so perished that bits were crumbling away with mold. There were whole sections missing, or impossible to read. Even the writing was different—tiny and precise, not like any other printing I’ve seen. I couldn’t risk stealing the page itself—not just because the Commander might have missed it, but also because I was afraid it would just fall apart if I smuggled it out in my pocket. So I copied all the writing that I could make out, before the Commander’s chambermaid was due to come back.”

  I bent over the paper. The handwriting was messy, flecks of ink freckling the paper where Sally’s hasty nib had snagged. But it wasn’t the rushed writing
that made the document hard to read, so much as the unfamiliar words.

  Yr. 6, June 5. MEMORANDUM (14c) FOR THE INTERIM ARK GOVERNMENT: STRATEGIES FOR SPECIES VIABILITY.

  As noted in Appendix 2 (REPORT ON SURFACE CONDITIONS OUTSIDE THE ARK, from Expedition 3a), the detonations’ impact on climate exceeds even the most pessimistic prewar models, in terms of both the scale and duration of the nuclear winter. Diffuse light penetrates the ash clouds for 2–4 hours per day, but visibility levels remain extremely poor, and agriculture largely untenable. Surface temperature shows a drop of . . .

  I looked up. “They’re talking about the blast. The Long Winter.” I disbelieved my own words, even as I heard them echo in the kitchen. “This is from back then?”

  Nothing remained from the Long Winter but the stories and songs passed down by bards. Each version was slightly different, but the essence was the same: the sky so thick with ash that darkness sat over the world for years. Neither crops nor babies would grow, and the survivors had barely clung on. It seemed impossible that the paper Sally had found could come from that time.

  “What is it, this Ark?” I said. “Where are they writing from?”

  “Keep reading,” Piper said.

  I traced the paper with my finger as I read.

  . . . earlier expeditions reported principally on the acute effects of the radiation (ARS). Among the few survivors located by Expedition 3, secondary effects of radiation are now in evidence. At the most minor, these include continued ulceration and sloughing of skin,

  more significantly, proliferation of cancers (some tumors already manifesting . . .

  Given the adverse conditions on the surface, and the ongoing effects of radiation on surface survivors, the effectiveness of the Ark, and its importance in preserving hope of species viability, is clearer than ever . . .

  . . . and the severity and scope of the radiation confirms the Interim Government’s decision to keep the Ark sealed, and to minimise expeditions and all other ascents to the surface until significant improvements are made against the key environmental indicators already laid out in Appendix F . . .

  “All this talk of the surface,” I said. “They’re not out there, are they? They’re watching it from somewhere else.” I looked up at Piper, and he nodded.

  “They saw it coming,” he said. “They knew the blast was coming, and they built the Ark to lock themselves away and be shielded from it.”

  That single piece of paper changed everything. All my life, I’d thought the Before was a time. Now I knew that it was also a place.

  Ω

  “Where could they possibly have hidden?” I said. “The whole world burned.”

  I knew better than anyone how absolute the destruction of the blast had been. I’d seen it myself, time and time again. The world turned to flame.

  “Underground,” Piper said. “They mention ascents to the surface.” His finger hovered over the words. “Think about it. They had technology that we can’t even imagine, and time to prepare.”

  Sally nodded. “Best as we can figure, it was a kind of haven for them—for some of them, anyway. Probably those in charge.”

  “But that’s not the most important bit,” Piper said. “He reached out to turn the page over. “Look at this.”

  Efforts continue to establish contact with allied nations. Both radio and satellite receivers sustained significant damage in the detonations. Reconstructing the radio transmitters and receivers may be feasible, but is not currently a priority, given the extent of the damage, and the challenges presented by surface conditions. Any communications would also depend on allied nations themselves having functioning equipment. Additionally, the high levels of atmospheric ash are likely to disrupt satellite and radio communications for the foreseeable future (see Appendix F).

  A task force has therefore been convened to explore the feasibility of a naval or air expedition. The destruction of the Ark’s aircraft hangar and the fires still burning at the fuel storage reservoirs make

  another obstacle to air reconnaissance is the thick ash currently limiting visibility.

  Re. naval reconnaissance: Surface Expedition 3 confirmed the total destruction of the harbor at but

  reported that one of the ships stored in Hangar 1 may be salvageable.

  To provide the greatest chance of reaching survivors (let alone survivors in a state to provide us with aid), we will be prioritizing those nations not thought to have suffered direct strikes. It has been judged futile to reach out to

  Nonetheless, we remain optimistic that, if there are survivors in allied nations, we will be able to resume contact . . .

  Half of the words were incomprehensible to me. But nestled among the unfamiliar language was a single idea that I grasped at like a rope thrown to a drowning man.

  “Elsewhere,” I said.

  Sally nodded. “They knew it existed. And they knew where it was. More than one place, by the sound of it—those ‘allied nations.’ The people in the Ark were trying to reach out, trying to make contact after the blast.”

  And they’d had means of reaching out that we could only imagine. Things like satellites and aircraft. Could they really have had vehicles that had flown through the sky? It seemed fantastical. But I remembered what the Ringmaster had said: these machines are powerful in ways we can’t even understand. And if the people of the Before could produce the blast, then I couldn’t conceive of any limits to their powers.

  “Just because there was once an Elsewhere in the Before, that doesn’t mean it’s survived,” Zoe said. “They say that right there.” She jabbed at the paper. “If there are survivors. They had no idea how badly Elsewhere was damaged.”

  She was right. The words direct strike were loaded with death, even four hundred years after they were written. And we had no way of knowing whether the Ark dwellers had succeeded in making contact with Elsewhere, or what they might have found there. If our own ships could ever find another land, would it be any different to the charred landscape of our own deadlands?

  “It’s still the only confirmation we’ve ever had that Elsewhere exists at all,” said Piper. “Maybe you understand, now, why I always argued so hard for the ships to be sent.”

  When I thought of The Rosalind and The Evelyn, I felt the sails of my heart filling. The ships had not been sent out to wander blindly beyond the edges of our maps and into the formless sea. They had something to seek.

  Ω

  “There was only this single piece of paper?” I asked, turning to Sally. “Nothing else?”

  “I barely finished copying it in time, before I had to get out of the Commander’s chambers,” she replied. “But that was the entire thing—at least all of it that was legible. I went through all the other papers locked in the chest, and there was nothing that looked similar, or that mentioned any Ark. And I never heard the Commander talk about it—but I didn’t have access to his most private meetings. Eloise and Lachy were supposed to go back there the next afternoon, to search the papers in his desk, while I was taking notes for the Commander in a Council session. But I never had a chance to meet with them and hear whether they found anything—they were denounced the day after.”

  “Do you think they were seen trying to search his rooms?” I said.

  She looked down, and then back at me. “Not a week goes by that I don’t think about it, even now. But we were in danger every day—I’ll never know for sure what it was that gave them away.”

  “And you told the resistance about this paper?” I said.

  “I’m not stupid,” she said. “I sent an urgent report, the same day I found it. A woman called Rebecca was leading the Assembly then. After everything had died down, once I’d escaped, she came back from the island specially, to meet with me about it. We both knew, even then, how important it was.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes from the paper. The single sh
eet, unfolded on Sally’s table, contained different worlds and different times. The Ark, a haven for the Before, hidden somewhere in the After. And new lands, beyond the deadlands to the east, and the unforgiving sea to the west. But we still didn’t know whether Elsewhere had survived the blast at all, or if it was just a land of bones and dust.

  “What did Rebecca do?” I said.

  “What could she do?” Sally shrugged. “Like you said: it was just one piece of paper. We had nothing else to go on. I’d been run out of Wynd­ham, and Lachy and Eloise were dead. It’s one thing to hear that this Ark existed—it’s another to find it. Every Assembly leader since then has known about the Ark; some of them even sent out boats, like Piper, to search for Elsewhere. But none of them have been able to find anything.”

  “We had a lead a few years back, from one of our sources in New Hobart,” Zoe said. “An urgent report that some papers had come to light that might be linked to the Ark. But the Council got wind of the rumor at the same time—swooped in and crushed the whole cell. Since then, nothing.”

  I thought of Elsa, who had taken in me and Kip at her holding house during our time in New Hobart. She’d never talked about her dead husband, except once when I’d asked her about the island: My husband used to ask questions, she’d said. I remembered how the air in the holding house kitchen had thickened with fear when I’d raised the topic of the resistance. The panic of Elsa’s assistant, Nina, as she’d rushed from the room, and Elsa’s refusal to discuss it.

  I would probably never have the chance to ask her directly whether he’d been involved in the resistance. The Council had seized New Hobart. Kip and I had escaped, but it was a prison now, not a town.

  “Make no mistake,” Piper said. “The Council will have been searching for the Ark, and Elsewhere, if they haven’t found them already. And they have far more resources than we have—and probably more information, too.”

  I looked back at the paper. “You don’t think they could still be alive, the people in the Ark?”