Emergence (Eden's Root Trilogy) (8 page)

They clambered up a steep ridge, grunting and straining as their feet slipped on
icy leaves. Gasping, Sean crested the ridge with Sara just behind him and then he froze, throwing his arm out to bar her.

“Shit!”
he gasped, staring down in shock. They were inches from a cliff. Below them rushed a wide grey river, pounding with mid-winter melt.

“Holy cow!”
Sara panted.

Sean squinted, scanning
the opposite riverbank, but the trail didn’t appear to pick up across from them. His heart sank.

Sara threw up her hands
. “Great! Now what do we do?” She grabbed a rock and chucked it out over the water with a grunt.

It was the first sign he’d seen of her cracking under the pressure
, and he felt the echoing thump of frustration in his own chest. “We’ve got to see if we can find a good place to cross and search the opposite side. Even if they managed to somehow transport them by boats, they’d have to get out somewhere.”

He whipped out their binoculars, searching as far as he could in both directions, begging for another dangle of red or tuft of yellow waving from a branch, but there was nothing
. Nothing but naked, wet trees, all plastered on one side with the latest snowstorm, like spackle. He wanted to say something reassuring, but he was as worried as Sara. They didn’t know whether to follow the river east or west, and who knew how many miles they’d have to go to find a suitable crossing?

“Dammit!
We were so close!” Sara wasn’t ready to be reassured.

Sean gritted his teeth
. For the first time since they set out, he worried that they might not find their families. He swallowed, holding back his fear as literally as he could as it crept up his throat, and focused on the task.

Find a crossing…

------------ Fi
------------

Fi’s consciousness floated in a nether world between waking and sleep
. It had been four weeks since Luke’s birth and she’d barely slept for more than an hour at a time. At least, she thought that was the case, but she’d begun to lose track. She knew that Asher turned the lights off and on for her to try to give her a sense of time, but each new day without news was a bad one. She almost preferred the endless dark of night. At least then she could pretend that time wasn’t passing…or that she was already dead and her life was just a dream…just the memory of a soul long gone.

She k
new that Asher and Squeak were worried about her, but she didn’t think that they should be. She was fine. She would be fine.
As soon as she could get some sleep.
Of course, these days she fought sleep as hard as she could. She’d woken up screaming enough for one lifetime. Someday though, she thought. Someday she’d be so tired that the dream wouldn’t come…couldn’t come.

She rolled over and opened her eyes
. Asher was sitting in his chair with Luke asleep in his arms. He looked like he was trying to read something on his tablet, but she could see that his eyes did not look down as his finger flicked through the pages. She sighed. He’d been by her side in that chair all day long for weeks. Of course, he couldn’t spend the night with her as long as every night turned into screaming. Besides, she didn’t want him to touch her anyway. Whenever he comforted her it just intensified her fear.
It wasn’t going to be ok
, she thought angrily.
Nothing would be ok again.

“You awake, baby?”
Asher murmured, noticing her open eyes. “Can I get you something? Something to eat maybe?”

She could hear the pleading in his voice and if she’d still been able to
care, she would’ve felt guilty. But the “nothing” had control. She closed her eyes and shook her head. She heard him sigh and once again her ears began to prick up, acutely aware of small sounds. She’d spent so much time on alert in the past that it was a natural reaction to closing her eyes.

There was
the scratch of the door as Squeak slipped into the room. There was the creak of Asher’s chair as he shifted. She could even hear the whir of the air circulating. It sounded like a giant breathing, she thought, with a giggle. It was like they were in his chest as the air flowed in and out of his humongous lungs.

“What’s funny?” Asher asked
.

Her eyes flew open
. Was something funny? Now she couldn’t recall. She shook her head. It felt like a bowling ball.

“Why did you leave her
, Fi? You never should have left her!”

She sat straight up and whirled
, but her father wasn’t there.

-
---------------- Asher ----------------

“Did you hear that?”

Fi’s eyes were wide, the dark half-moons beneath like bruises against her chalky skin. They fluttered, darting and jerking. Asher shivered. “Hear what, baby?”

He kept his tone to a murmur, but it probably didn’t matter
. She rarely heard him when he spoke anymore, no matter the volume. Her head swung to him and her eyes narrowed.

“Nothing,” s
he mumbled, turning away.

Asher’s stomach clenched
. She’d been unwilling or unable to eat much for weeks and she’d lost her milk. He and Squeak had been taking shifts feeding Luke the formula they’d found in the dried food storage.
Thank God
didn’t really cover how he’d felt the moment that they did. Since then he’d sometimes lain awake at night, shaking, his mind playing a reel of them
not
finding the formula over and over again.

He knew that Fi was completely exhausted
. She hadn’t slept longer than an hour without awakening to her own screams, and she hadn’t gotten out of bed for longer than it took to visit the bathroom since Luke was born. The one time he’d tried to get her to leave her pod she’d caught sight of Eve and started whimpering, “Take me back!” over and over until he’d had no other choice.

All she wanted to do all day was
curl into a ball. He and Squeak were taking shifts sleeping next door with Luke so that her screams wouldn’t disturb him. At least, he did that when he slept. Some nights he just walked the colony with Luke, letting the crunch of glass beneath his feet and stench of rot in his nose be his meditation, his focus.

He’d walk the labs to close his eyes and envision her there, goggles around her neck, flushed and jabbering a mile a minute about some chemical assay something-or-other
. Then he’d open his eyes and take it like a punch in his gut all over again. The labs looked like a bomb had gone off in them. In fact, some may have been bombed, given the scorch marks and shrapnel buried in the cabinets.

When he was feeling especially dark he’d go sit with Eve, kneeling beside her bones in the center of Eden
. He’d lean against her trunk and close his eyes and remember: Fi, tugging an apple from a branch and tossing it to him…Fi, giggling wickedly before she launched her leftover core into the fields like she’d learned from the colony’s leader, Larry.

He couldn’t forget it, the way she’d stood beside the tree and stroked it like a favorite pet, her hair loose to her waist, her eyes shining
. It was the first moment that he’d seen her look…innocent. Like she could’ve been an undamaged girl: the kind who grew up safe and happy, dreaming of movie-perfect futures…the kind who still believed that the world was a wonderful place. It had been a relief to see something besides anger and burden burning in her eyes. But now he would take anger and burden again. Now, her eyes didn’t burn at all.

She wouldn’t allow
him to sleep with her, or to offer comfort. Not anymore, anyway. The first two weeks she had really tried to fight through the exhaustion. But it was a battle of attrition. Every day she grew more fatigued, thinner, and sicker.

And
now this new development: the strange murmurs and giggles…the way she seemed to hear things he didn’t, or fix her gaze on nothing. She’d mumble stuff to her father...
Don’t people who get too little sleep start to lose their minds?
His throat closed. He grabbed the radio, handing Luke to Squeak before he ran from the room.

He slipped into the next pod and began to tune to Sean’s freq
uency and then stopped.
This is stupid
, he thought. The likelihood that Sean and Sara were within range of a station was extremely low. But if he did get them, the sound of the radio could put them in danger. What if they were close to the Truthers? What if they were hiding and his emotional decision put them at risk? Could he live with it?

He closed his eyes and swallowed
. The image of Fi’s wasting body and staring eyes filled his mind and he sucked in. There was no decision. He flicked on the radio. “Sean?” he whispered. “Sara? Are you there?”

For a moment there
was silence and Asher prayed. In fact, he prayed more fervently than he could ever remember having prayed. The end of his rope had already passed through his hands and now he was in free-fall.

“Asher?”
Sean’s voice came through.
“What are you doing? Is everything ok?”

He heard
the frustration in Sean’s voice. This wasn’t the plan. Sean and Sara were supposed to contact him, not the other way around. He fought the knot in his throat. “No, Sean. It’s not. I think…I think that Fi’s dying.”

“
What? What the hell are you talking about, Asher?”

“
She’s not getting any sleep at all.” His voice wobbled. “She won’t eat, she won’t even feed Luke, and she doesn’t respond when he cries. She’s wasting away, Sean, and now…” He swallowed a sob. How could he actually say it?
But that’s why I did this, wasn’t it?
he thought. He took a breath. “I think she’s actually starting to lose her mind.”

There was a long pause and Asher debated whether he was losing his own mind
. If he were Sean, that’s probably what he’d think. But after all he’d been through, after all of the bloodshed and fighting, there was nothing he could do to beat back the darkness claiming his wife. His helplessness was an anchor, linking him to her as she slid farther over the edge.

“Just t
ell me what to do.”

Sean’s
voice was flat and Asher cursed, his hands shaking. There was nowhere for this energy to go. Nothing for him to do. He just wanted to kill something, to take a clean slice with his blade and watch something disintegrate, just like him. “I don’t know,” he said. “You just have to find them. I don’t know how much longer she can hang on, Sean. I’m losing her. She’s slipping away.”

His breath caught as the words left his mouth
. His worst fears were no longer just maddening loops in his mind. They were whole. Concrete.
I’m losing her. She’s slipping away.

The speaker crackled and Sara’s voice came through, firm and strong
.
“Asher! We just met a traveler who said he saw them. He didn’t want to get involved, but he said none of them seemed to be harmed. We thought it would be two weeks to catch up to them, but we’ll redouble our efforts.”

A wave of relief buckled him
, and he sank against the wall and to the floor.
They were alive!
He blinked back the tears that seemed to be ignoring his efforts to corral them. He clicked the button on the radio, almost surprised to find it still clutched in his hand. “I’m sorry, guys. I know I put you in danger. And I know you’re already trying your hardest…”

Sara’s voice was firm
. “
We promise you, Ash. We’re going to find them.”

He
dropped the radio, put his head in his hands, and sobbed.

--------
----- Carter ---------------

“Welcome, Initiates!”

Carter’s voice rang out through the l
oudspeakers over the settlement. Though he would have loved to give this speech to them in person, Silas had agreed that it might be too risky. For now, the colonists were too angry and likely to be riled up. Since Silas was never afraid of anything, Carter had acquiesced. Besides, he thought, swaying in his chair in the tiny radio room, it was freezing out there. A smile curled his lips, tugging at his thick, white beard.

He leaned forward over the microphone
.
“Today is your first official day on the path of Truth!”

His heart leapt as he finally began the address that he’d been delivering in his imagination for every minute since Silas had informed him that Eden had been found
. Now that the day had arrived, he really did wish he could be in front of his audience so he could watch them squirm. Surely he would be safe, seeing as the “initiates” were not only guarded, but also secured behind barbed wire. Oh well, he thought, he’d have to take it up with Silas again. He took a deep breath and forged ahead, warmed by the satisfaction of a dream made real.

“From this day forward you will be sustained on a life of fa
ith, nourished by the Word. You will not be harmed or mistreated while you are here with us at Camp Truth.”

Too bad, he thought
. If he’d had his way he’d just have let Silas have his. For a split second he paused, enjoying the image of Silas unleashing his creativity on these sanctimonious liars.

“
You will be given adequate food and shelter, but you will not be permitted to leave. This is your initiation period with us. For those of you who wish to leave your secure encampment and join the settlement, you have only to convert. For those of you who continue to reject the Truth, you will have only sixty days with us, after which time, you will be taken south and dispersed into the Wasteland.”

Carter let that sink in
. Dammit, he wished he could see their faces! This was just like with Diaspora I: all that sneaking and hiding. He never got to step up and announce his presence, to say, “Hey, assholes, who’s selected for death now?” A giggle rose in his throat and he coughed. That was how he’d always imagined it, “Who’s selected for death now?”

But he hadn’t been able to do that
. Instead it had been two minutes of getting past security with his ID badge and winning smile and weeks of hiding in the support tunnels, alone, scrabbling like a rat, until the time came. When they were settled in, going to school, watching movies, spinning up trouble in their labs…when they were sure the world above had devolved into flame and agony. THEN he would strike. He’d lulled them to sleep and then the day came. That day they were the rats, abandoning their foundering ship.

He’d tiptoed out of the tunnels to the seals, begging the codes to be the same that he’d learned for the unsealing sequence originally
. They were taught this in case of emergency. If the colony needed to be abandoned, they couldn’t very well be trapped inside. When the code worked he felt his confidence returning. These people were morons. They didn’t deserve to live. That’s what he told himself as he blew all the seals, swinging the doors wide with a burning in his veins so strong that he was sure he would combust.