Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (17 page)

“But she’s safe from me?” I ask, making a point of not looking at “Vi”.

“Well, she’s definitely safe from catching yer Noise,” Hildy says, a smile breaking out. “What other safety she can get from ye is all down to a-knowing ye better.”

I want her to be right but I also want to say she’s wrong and so I don’t say nothing at all.

“C’mon,” Tam says, breaking the pause, “let’s get to some feasting.”

“No!” I say, remembering it all over again. “We ain’t got time for
feasting
.” I look at Viola. “There’s men after us, in case you forgot. Men who ain’t interested in our well-beings.” I look up at Hildy. “Now, I’m sure yer feastings would be fine and all–”

“Todd pup–” Hildy starts.

“I ain’t a pup!” I shout.

Hildy purses her lips and smiles with her eyebrows. “Todd pup,” she says again, a little lower this time. “No man from any point beyond that river would ever set foot across it, do ye understand?”

“Yep,” says Tam. “That’s right.”

I look from one to the other. “But–”

“I been guardian here of that bridge for ten plus years, pup,” Hildy says, “and keeper of it for years before that. It’s part of who I am to watch what comes.” She looks over to Viola. “No one’s coming. Ye all are safe.”

“Yep,” Tam says again, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“But–” I say again but Hildy don’t let me finish.

“Time for feasting.”

And that’s that, it seems. Viola still don’t look at me, still has her arms crossed and is now under the arm of Hildy as they walk on again. I’m stuck back with Tam who’s waiting for me to start. I can’t say as I feel much like walking any more but everyone else goes so I go, too. We carry on up Tam and Hildy’s private little path, Tam chattering away, making enough Noise for a whole town.

“Hildy says ye blew up our bridge,” he says.

“
My
bridge,” Hildy says from in front of us.

“She did build it,” Tam says to me. “Not that anyone’s used it in forever.”

“No one?” I say, thinking for a second of all those men who disappeared outta Prentisstown, all the ones who vanished while I was growing up. Not one of them got this far.

“Nice bit of engineering, that bridge was,” Tam’s going on, like he didn’t hear me and maybe he didn’t, what with how loud he’s talking. “Sad to hear it’s gone.”

“We had no choice,” I say.

“Oh, there’s always choices, pup, but from what I hear, ye made the right one.”

We walk on quietly for a bit. “Yer sure we’re safe?” I ask.

“Well, ye can’t never be sure,” he says. “But Hildy’s right.” He grins, a little sadly, I think. “There’s more than bridges being out that’ll keep men that side of the river.”

I try and read his Noise to see if he’s telling the truth but it’s almost all shiny and clean, a bright, warm place where anything you want could be true.

Nothing at all like a Prentisstown man.

“I don’t understand this,” I say, still gnawing on it. “It’s gotta be a different kinda Noise germ.”

“My Noise sound different from yers?” Tam asks, seeming genuinely curious.

I look at him and just listen for a second.
Hildy
and
Prentisstown
and
russets and sheep
and
settlers
and
leaky pipe
and
Hildy
.

“You sure think about yer wife a lot.”

“She’s my shining star, pup. Woulda lost myself in Noise if she hadn’t put a hand out to rescue me.”

“How so?” I ask, wondering what he’s talking about. “Did you fight in the war?”

This stops him. His Noise goes as grey and featureless as a cloudy day and I can’t read a thing off him.

“I fought, young pup,” he says. “But war’s not something ye talk about in the open air when the sun is shining.”

“Why not?”

“I pray to all my gods ye never find out.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. I don’t shake it off this time.

“How do you do that?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“Make yer Noise so flat I can’t read it.”

He smiles. “Years of practise a-hiding things from the old woman.”

“It’s why I can read so good,” Hildy calls back to us. “He gets better at hiding, I get better at
finding
.”

They laugh together yet again. I find myself trying to send an eyeroll Viola’s way about these two but Viola ain’t looking at me and I stop myself from trying again.

We all come outta the rocky bit of the path and round a low rise and suddenly there’s a farm ahead of us, rolling up and down little hills but you can see fields of wheat, fields of cabbage, a field of grass with a few sheep on it.

“Hello, sheep!” Tam shouts.

“Sheep!” say the sheep.

First on the path is a big wooden barn, built as watertight and solid as the bridge, like it could last there forever if anyone asked it.

“Unless ye go a-blowing it up,” Hildy says, laughing still.

“Like to see ye try,” Tam laughs back.

I’m getting a little tired of them laughing about every damn thing.

Then we come round to the farmhouse, which is a totally different thing altogether. Metal, by the looks of it, like the petrol stayshun and the church back home but not nearly so banged up. Half of it shines and rolls on up to the sky like a sail and there’s a chimney that curves up and out, folding down to a point, smoke coughing from its end. The other half of the house is wood built onto the metal, solid as the barn but cut and folded like–

“Wings,” I say.

“Wings is right,” Tam says. “And what kinda wings are they?”

I look again. The whole farmhouse looks like some kinda bird with the chimney as its head and neck and a shiny front and wooden wings stretching out behind, like a bird resting on the water or something.

“It’s a swan, Todd pup,” Tam says.

“A what?”

“A swan.”

“What’s a swan?” I say, still looking at the house.

His Noise is puzzled for a second, then I get a little pulse of sadness so I look at him. “What?”

“Nothing, pup,” he says. “Memories of long ago.”

Viola and Hildy are up ahead still, Viola’s eyes wide and her mouth gulping like a fish.

“What did I tell ye?” Hildy asks.

Viola rushes up to the fence in front of it. She stares at the house, looking all over the metal bit, up and down, side to side. I come up by her and look, too. It’s hard for a minute to think of anything to say (shut up).

“Sposed to be a swan,” I finally say. “Whatever that is.”

She ignores me and turns to Hildy. “Is it an Expansion Three 500?”

“What?”

“Older than that, Vi pup,” Hildy says. “X Three 200.”

“We got up to X Sevens,” Viola says.

“Not surprised,” says Hildy.

“What the ruddy hell are you talking about?” I say. “Expanshun
whatsits
?”

“Sheep!” we hear Manchee bark in the distance.

“Our settler ship,” Hildy says, sounding surprised that I don’t know. “An Expanshun Class Three, Series 200.”

I look from face to face. Tam’s Noise has a spaceship flying in it, one with a front hull that matches the upturned farmhouse.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, remembering, trying to say it like I knew all along. “You build yer houses with the first tools at hand.”

“Quite so, pup,” Tam says. “Or ye make them works of art if yer so inclined.”

“If yer wife is an engineer who can get yer damn fool sculptures to stay standing up,” Hildy says.

“How do you know about all this?” I say to Viola.

She looks at the ground, away from my eyes.

“You don’t mean–” I start to say but I stop.

I’m getting it.

Of
course
I’m getting it.

Way too late, like everything else, but I’m getting it.

“Yer a settler,” I say. “Yer a new settler.”

She looks away from me but shrugs her shoulders.

“But that ship you crashed in,” I say, “that’s way too tiny to be a settler ship.”

“That was only a scout. My home ship is an Expansion Class Seven.”

She looks at Hildy and Tam, who ain’t saying nothing. Tam’s Noise is bright and curious. I can’t read nothing from Hildy. I get the feeling somehow, tho, that she knew and I didn’t, that Viola told her and not me, and even if it’s cuz I never asked, it’s still as sour a feeling as it sounds.

I look up at the sky.

“It’s up there, ain’t it?” I say. “Yer Expanshun Class Seven.”

Viola nods.

“Yer bringing more settlers in. More settlers are coming to New World.”

“Everything was broken when we crashed,” Viola says. “I don’t have any way to contact them. Any way to warn them not to come.” She looks up with a little gasp.
“You must warn them.”

“That can’t be what he meant,” I say, fast. “No way.”

Viola scrunches her face and eyebrows. “Why not?”

“What who meant?” Tam asks.

“How many?” I ask, still looking at Viola, feeling the world changing still and ever. “How many settlers are coming?”

Viola takes a deep breath before she answers and I’ll bet you she’s not even told Hildy this part.

“Thousands,” she says. “There’s thousands.”

“They won’t be a-getting here for months,” Hildy says, passing me another serving of mashed russets. Viola and I are stuffing our faces so much it’s been Hildy and Tam doing all the talking.

All the
a
-talking.

“Space travel ain’t like ye see it in vids,” Tam says, a stream of mutton gravy tracking down his beard. “Takes years and years and years to get anywhere at all. Sixty-four to get from Old World to New World alone.”

“Sixty-four years?”
I say, spraying a few mashed blobs off my lips.

Tam nods. “Yer frozen for most of it, time passing you right on by, tho that’s only if ye don’t die on the way.”

I turn to Viola. “Yer sixty-four years old?”

“Sixty-four Old World years,” Tam says, tapping his fingers like he’s adding something up. “Which’d be . . . what? Bout fifty-eight, fifty-nine New World–”

But Viola’s shaking her head. “I was born on board. Never was asleep.”

“So either yer ma or yer pa musta been a caretaker,” Hildy says, snapping off a bite of a turnipy thing then giving me an explanashun. “One of the ones who stays awake and keeps track of the ship.”

“Both of them were,” Viola says. “And my dad’s mother before him and granddad before that.”

“Wait a minute,” I say to her, two steps behind as ever. “So if we’ve been on New World twenty-odd years–”

“Twenty-three,” says Tam. “Feels like longer.”

“Then you left before we even
got
here,” I say. “Or your pa or grandpa or whatever.”

I look around to see if anyone’s wondering what I’m wondering. “Why?” I say. “Why would you come without even knowing what’s out here?”

“Why did the
first
settlers come?” Hildy asks me. “Why does anyone look for a new place to live?”

“Cuz the place yer a-leaving ain’t worth staying for,” Tam says. “Cuz the place yer a-leaving is so bad ye gotta leave.”

“Old World’s mucky, violent and crowded,” Hildy says, wiping her face with a napkin, “a-splitting right into bits with people a-hating each other and a-killing each other, no one happy till everyone’s miserable. Least it was all those years ago.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Viola says, “I’ve never seen it. My mother and father . . .” She drifts off.

But I’m still thinking about being born on a spaceship, an honest to badness
spaceship
. Growing up while flying along the stars, able to go wherever you wanted, not stuck on some hateful planet which clearly don’t want you. You could go anywhere. If one place didn’t suit, you’d find another. Full freedom in all directions. Could there possibly be anything cooler in the whole world than that?

I don’t notice there’s a silence fallen at the table. Hildy’s rubbing Viola’s back again and I see that Viola’s eyes are wet and leaking and she’s started to rock a little back and forth.

“What?” I say. “What’s wrong now?”

Viola’s forehead just creases at me.

“What?”
I say.

“I think maybe we talked enough about Vi’s ma and pa for now,” Hildy says softly. “I think maybe it’s time for boy and girl pups to get some shut-eye.”

“But it’s hardly late at all.” I look out a window. The sun ain’t even hardly set. “We need to be getting to the settlement–”

“The settlement is called Farbranch,” Hildy says, “and we’ll get ye there first thing in the morning.”

“But those men–”

“I been a-keeping the peace here since before you were born, pup,” Hildy says, kindly but firmly. “I can handle whatever is or ain’t a-coming.”

I don’t say nothing to this and Hildy ignores my Noise on the subject.

“Can I ask what yer business in Farbranch might be?” Tam says, picking at his corncob, making his asking sound less curious than his Noise says it is.

“We just need to get there,” I say.

“Both of ye?”

I look at Viola. She’s stopped crying but her face is still puffy. I don’t answer Tam’s asking.

“Well there’s plenty of work going,” Hildy says, standing and taking up her plate. “If that’s what yer after. They can always use more hands in the orchards.”