The Ask and the Answer

  It's only then I realize I've got them both clenched hard around my rifle.

  I can't even remember taking it off my shoulder.

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  ***

  Even with all this Spackle labor, it's still gonna take a coupla months to even come close to finishing this building, whatever it is, and by that time it'll be midwinter and the Spackle won't have the shelter they were sposed to be building for themselves and I know they live outside more than men do but I don't think even they can live unsheltered in the winter frost and I ain't heard of nowhere else they're gonna be going yet.

  Still, we had all the internal walls torn down in seven days, two ahead of schedule, and no Spackle even died, tho we did have a few with broken arms. Those Spackle were taken away by soldiers.

  We ain't seen em since.

  By the end of the second week after the tower bomb, we've nearly dug all the trenches and blocks for the foundayshuns to be poured, something Davy and I are sposed to supervize even tho it's gonna be the Spackle who know how to do it.

  "Pa says they were the labor that rebuilt the city after the Spackle War," Davy says. "Tho you wouldn't know it from this bunch."

  He spits out a shell from the seeds he's eating. Food's getting a bit scarce what with the Answer adding supply raids to the ongoing bombs but Davy always manages to scrounge up something. We're sitting on a pile of rocks, looking out over the one big field, now dug up with square holes and ditches and so full of rock piles there's barely any room for the Spackle to crowd into.

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  But they do, cramming onto the edges and huddling together in the cold. And they don't say nothing about it.

  Davy spits out another shell. "You ever gonna talk again?"

  "I talk," I say.

  "No, you scream at yer workforce and you grunt at me. That ain't talking." He's spits out another shell, high and long, hitting the nearest Spackle in the head. It just brushes it away and keeps on digging out the last of a trench.

  "She left ya," Davy says. "Get over it."

  My Noise rises. "Shut up."

  "I don't mean it in a bad way"

  I turn to look at him, eyes wide.

  "What?" he says. "I'm just saying, you know? She left, don't mean she's dead or nothing." Spit. "From what I remember, that filly can take plenty care of herself."

  There's a memory in his Noise of being electrocuted on the river road. It should make me smile, but it don't, cuz she's standing right there in his Noise, standing right there and taking him down.

  Standing right there and not standing right here.

  (where'd she go?)

  (where'd she effing go?)

  Mayor Ledger told me just after the tower bombs that the army had gone straight for the ocean cuz they'd got a tip-off that that's where the Answer were hiding-

  (was it me? did he hear it in me? I burn at the thought--) But when Mr. Hammar and his men got there, they didn't find nothing but long-abandoned buildings and half-sunken boats.

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  Cuz the informayshun turned out to be false.

  And I burn at that, too.

  (did she lie to me?)

  (did she do it on purpose?)

  "Jesus, pigpiss." Davy spits again. "It's not like any of the rest of us got girlfriends. They're all in ruddy jail or setting off bombs every week or walking around in groups so big you can't even talk to 'em."

  "She ain't my girlfriend," I say.

  "Not the point," he says. "All it means is that yer just as alone as the rest of us, so get over it."

  There's a sudden, ugly strength of feeling in his Noise, which he wipes away in an instant when he sees me watching him. "What're you looking at?"

  "Nothing," I say.

  "Damn right." He stands, takes his rifle, and stomps back into the field.

  Somehow 1017 keeps ending up in my part of the work. I'm mainly in the back part of the fields, finishing up digging the trenches. Davy's near the front, getting Spackle to snap together the preformed guide walls we'll be using once the concrete gets poured. 1017's sposed to be doing that, but every time I look up, there he is, nearest me again no matter how many times I send him back.

  He's working, sure, digging up his handfuls of dirt or piling up the sod in even rows, but always looking for me, always trying to catch my eye.

  Clicking at me.

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  I walk toward him, my hand up on the stock of my rifle, gray clouds starting to move in overhead. "I sent you over to Davy," I bark. "What're you doing here?"

  Davy, hearing his name, calls from far across the field. "What?"

  I call back, "Why do you keep letting this one back over here?"

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Davy yells. "They all look the same!"

  "It's 1017!"

  Davy gives an exaggerated shrug. "So?" I hear a click, a rude and sarcastic one, from behind me. I turn and I swear 1017 is smiling at me. "You little piece of-" I start to say, reaching my rifle round my front.

  Which is when I see a flash of Noise. Coming from 1017.

  Quick as anything but clear, too, me standing in front of him, reaching for my rifle, nothing more than what he's seeing with his eyes-Except a flash as he grabs the rifle from me-- And then it's gone.

  I've still got the rifle in my hands, 1017 still knee-deep in the ditch.

  No Noise at all.

  I look him up and down. He's skinnier than he used to be, but they all are, they never get quite enough fodder for a day, and I'm wondering if 1017's been skipping meals altogether.

  So he don't take no cure.

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  "What're you playing at?" I ask him. But he's back at work, arms and hands digging for more dirt, ribs showing thru the side of his white, white skin. And he don't say nothing.

  "Why do we keep giving 'em the cure if yer pa's taking it away from everyone else?"

  Me and Davy are lunching the next day. The clouds are heavy in the sky and it'll probably start raining soon, the first rain in a good long while, and it'll be cold rain, too, but we've got orders to keep working no matter what so we're spending the day watching the Spackle pour out the first concrete from the mixer.

  Ivan brought it in this morning, healed but limping, his Noise raging. I wonder where he thinks the power is now.

  "Well, it keeps 'em from plotting, don't it?" Davy says. "Keeps 'em from passing along ideas to each other."

  "But they can do that with the clicking." I think for a second. "Can't they?"

  Davy just gives a who cares, pigpiss shrug. "Got any of that sandwich left?"

  I hand him my sandwich, keeping an eye out over the Spackle. "Shouldn't we know what they're thinking?" I say. "Wouldn't that be a good thing to know?"

  I look out over the field for 1017 who, sure enough, is looking back at me.

  Plick. The first drop of rain hits me on the eyelash.

  "Aw, crap," Davy says, looking up.

  ***

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  It don't let up for three days. The site gets muckier and muckier but the Mayor still wants us to keep on somehow so those three days are spent slipping and sliding thru mud and putting up huge tarpaulins on frames to cover big parts of the field.

  Davy's got the inside work, bossing Spackle around to keep the tarpaulin frames in place. I spend most of my time out in the rain, trying to keep the edges of the tarpaulin pinned to the ground with heavy stones.

  It's ruddy stupid work.

  "Hurry up!" I shout to the Spackle helping me get one of the last edges pinned to the ground. My fingers are freezing cuz no one's given us gloves and there ain't been no Mayor round to ask. "Ow!" I put a bloodied knuckle up to my lips, having scraped my hand for the millionth time.

  The Spackle keep at it with the rocks, seeming oblivious to the rain, which is good cuz there ain't room under the tarpaulins for all of 'em to shelter.

  "Hey," I say, raising my voice. "Watch the edge! Watch that-"

  A gust of wind rips away the whole
sheet of tarpaulin we just pinned down. One of the Spackle keeps hold of it as it flies up, taking him with it and tumbling him hard down to the ground. I leap over him as I chase after the tarpaulin, twisting and rolling away across the muddy field and up a little slope, and I've just about got a hand on it-

  And I slip badly, skidding right down the other side of the slope on my rump--

  And I realize where I've run, where I've slipped--

  I'm heading right down into the bog.

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  I grab at the mud to stop myself but there's nothing to hold on to and I drop right in with a splat.

  "Gah!" I shout and try to stand. I'm up to my thighs in lime-covered Spackle shit, splattered all up my front and back, the stink of it making me retch-

  And I see another flash of Noise.

  Of me standing in the bog.

  Of a Spackle standing right over me.

  I look up.

  There's a wall of Spackle staring.

  And right in front of 'em all. 1017.

  Above me.

  With a huge stone in his hands.

  He don't say nothing, just stands there with the stone, more'n big enough to do a lot of harm if thrown right.

  "Yeah?" I say up to him.

  "That's what you want, ain't it?"

  He just stares back.

  I don't see the Noise again.

  I reach up for my rifle, slowly.

  "What's it gonna be?" I ask and he can see in my Noise just how ready I am, how ready I am to fight him. How ready I am to-- I've got the rifle stock in my hand now. But he's just staring at me.

  And then he tosses the rock down on the ground and turns back toward the tarpaulin. I watch him go, five steps, then ten, and my body relaxes a bit.

  It's when I'm pulling myself outta the bog that I hear it.

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  The click. His rude click.

  And I lose it.

  I'm running toward him and I'm yelling but I don't know what I'm saying and Davy's turning round in shock as I reach the shelter of the tarpaulin just after 1017 and I'm running in with the rifle up above my head like I'm some stupid madman and 1017's turning to me but I don't give him a chance to do nothing and I knock him hard in the face with the butt of the rifle and he falls back on the ground and I lift the rifle again and bring it down and he raises his hands to protect himself and I hit him again and again and again--

  In the hands-

  And the face--

  And in those skinny ribs--

  And my Noise is raging-

  And I hit--

  And I'm screaming-

  I'm screaming out--

  "WHY DID YOU LEAVE?"

  "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?"

  And I hear the cold, crisp snick of his arm breaking.

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  ***

  It fills the air, louder than the rain or the wind, turning my stomach upside down, making a thick lump in my throat. I stop, midswing.

  Davy's staring at me, his mouth open.

  All the Spackle are edging back, terrified.

  And from the ground, 1017 is looking back up at me, red blood pouring from his weird nose and the corner of his too-high eyes but there's no sound coming from him, no Noise, no thoughts, no clicks, no nothing-

  (and we're in the campsite and there's a dead Spackle on the ground and Viola's looking so scared and she's backing away from me and there's blood everywhere and I've done it again I've done it again and why did you go oh jesus dammit Viola why did you leave--)

  And 1017 just looks at me.

  And I swear to God, it's a look of triumph.

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  23 SOMETHING'S COMING

  ***

  (V iola)

  "WATER PUMP'S workin agin, Hildy."

  "Thank you, Wilf." I hand him a tray of bread, the heat still coming off it. "Could you take these to Jane, please? She's setting the tables for breakfast."

  He takes the tray, a flat little tune coming from his Noise. As he leaves the kitchen shack, I hear him call out, "Wife!"

  "Why does he call you Hildy?" Lee says, appearing at the back door with a basket of flour he just pounded. He's wearing a sleeveless shirt and the skin up to his elbows is dusty white.

  I look at his bare arms for a second and look away quickly.

  Mistress Coyle put us to work together since he can't go back to New Prentisstown anymore either. No, I will certainly not forgive her.

  "Hildy was the name of someone who helped us," i say. "Someone worth being called after."

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  "And by us, you mean-"

  "Me and Todd, yes." I take the basket of flour from him and thump it down heavily on the table.

  There's a silence, as there always seems to be when Todd's name comes up.

  "No one's seen him, Viola," Lee says gently. "But they mostly go in at night so that doesn't-"

  "She wouldn't tell me even if she did." I start separating the flour into bowls. "She thinks he's dead."

  Lee shifts from foot to foot. "But you say different."

  I look at him. He smiles and I can't help but smile back. "And you believe me, do you?"

  He shrugs. "Wilf believes you. And you'd be surprised how far the word of Wilf goes around here."

  "No." I look out the window to where Wilf disappeared. "No, actually I wouldn't."

  That day passes like the others and still we cook. That's our new employment, Lee and me, cooking. All of it, for the entire camp. We've learned how to make bread from a starting point of wheat, not even flour. We've learned how to skin squirrels, de-shell turtles, and gut fish. We've learned how much base you need for soup to feed a hundred. We've learned how to peel potatoes and pears faster than possibly anyone on this whole stupid planet.

  Mistress Coyle swears this is how wars are won.

  "This isn't really why I signed up," Lee says, pulling another handful of feathers off the sixteenth forest fowl of the afternoon.

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  "At least signing up was your idea," I say, fingers cramping on my own fowl. The feathers hover in the air like a swarm of sticky flies, catching everywhere they touch. I've got little green puffs under my fingernails, in the crooks of my elbows, glopped in the corner of my eyes.

  I know this because Lee's got them all over his face, too, all through his long golden hair and in the matching golden hair on his forearms.

  I feel my face flush again and pull out a furious rip of feathers.

  A day turned into two, turned into three, turned into a week, turned into the week after and the week after that, cooking with Lee, washing up with Lee, sitting out three days of solid rain stuck in this shack with Lee.

  And still. And still.

  Something's coming, something's being prepared for, no one's telling me anything. And I'm still stuck here.

  Lee tosses a plucked fowl onto the table and picks up another one. "We're going to make this species extinct if we're not careful."

  "It's the only thing Magnus can shoot," I say. "Everything else is too fast."

  "A whole animal lost," Lee says, "because the Answer lacked an optician."

  I laugh, too loud. I roll my eyes at myself.

  I finish my own fowl and pick up a new one. "I'm doing three of these for every two of yours," I say. "And I did more loaves this morning and-"

  "You burned half of them."

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  "Because you stoked the oven too hot!"

  "I'm not made for cooking," he says, smiling. "I'm made for soldiering."

  I gasp. "And you think I'm made for cooking-"

  But he's laughing and keeps laughing even when I throw a handful of wet feathers at him, smacking him straight on the eye. "Ow," he says, wiping it away. "You got some aim, Viola. We really need to get a gun in your hands."

  I turn my face quickly back down to the millionth fowl in my lap.

  "Or maybe not," he says, more quietly. "Have you-?" I stop. "Have I what?"

  I lick my lips, which is a mistake bec
ause then I have to spit out a mouthful of feathery puffs, so when I do finally say it, it comes out more exasperated than I meant. "Have you ever shot someone?"

  "No." He sits up straighter. "Have you?"

  I shake my head and see him relax, which makes me immediately say, "But I've been shot."

  He sits back up. "No way!"

  I say it before I mean to, before I even know it's coming, and then I'm saying it and I realize I've never said it, not out loud, not to myself, not ever, not since it happened, and yet here it is, tumbling out in a room full of floating feathers.

  "And I've stabbed someone." I stop plucking. "To death."

  My body feels suddenly twice as heavy in the silence that follows.

  When I start to cry, Lee just hands me a kitchen towel and lets me, not crowding me or saying anything stupid or even

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  asking about it, though he must be dying of curiosity. He just lets me cry.

  Which is exactly right.

  "Yes, but we're gaining sympathy," Lee says near the end of dinner with Wilf and Jane. I'm putting off finishing because as soon as I do, we have go back to the kitchens to start preparing the yeasts to cook tomorrow's bread. You wouldn't believe how much bloody bread a hundred people can eat.

  I take half of my last bite. "I'm just saying there aren't very many of you."

  "Of us," Lee says, looking at me seriously. "And we've got spies working throughout the city and people join us when they can. Things are only getting worse there. They're rationing food now and no one's getting the cure anymore. They're going to have to start turning against him."

  "And so many in prisons," Jane adds. "Hundreds of women, all locked up, all chained together underground, starving and dying by the dozen."

  "Wife!" Wilf snaps.

  "Ah'm only sayin what Ah heard!"

  "Yoo din't hear nothin of the sort."

  Jane looks sullen. "Don't mean it's not true."