The Ask and the Answer (21 page)

210

Our new job is putting the Spackle to work in groups, digging up foundayshuns for new buildings in the monastery grounds, new buildings that'll house the Spackle for the coming winter.

My punishment is, I'm working right down there with 'em.

My punishment is, Davy's in complete charge. My punishment is, he's got a new whip. "C'mon," he says, slashing it against my shoulders. "Work!"

I spin round, every bit of me sore and aching. "You hit me with that again, I'll tear yer effing throat out."

He smiles, all teeth, his Noise a joyous shout of triumph. "Like to see you try,
Mr. Hewitt."

And he just
laughs.

I turn back to my shovel. The Spackle in my group are all staring at me. I ain't had no sleep and my fingers are cold in the sharp, morning sun and I can't help myself and I shout at 'em. "Get back to work!"

They make a few clicking sounds one to another and start digging at the ground again with their hands.

All except one, who looks at me a minute longer.

I stare at him, seething, my Noise riled and raging right at him. He just takes it silently, his breath steaming from his mouth, his eyes daring me to do something. He holds up his wrist, like he's identifying himself, as if I don't know which one he is, then he returns to working the cold earth as slowly as he can.

1017 is the only one who ain't afraid of us.

I take my shovel and stab it hard into the ground.

211

"Enjoying yerself?" Davy calls.

i put something in my Noise, rude as i can think of.

"Oh, my mother's long dead," he says. "Just like yers." Then he laughs. "I wonder if she talked as much in real life as she wrote in her little book."

I straighten up, my Noise rising red. "Davy-"

"Cuz boy, don't she go on for
pages."

"One of these days, Davy," i say, my Noise so fierce I can almost see it bending the air like a heat shimmer. "One of these days, I'm gonna-"

"You're going to what, dear boy?" the Mayor says, riding thru the entrance on Morpeth. "I can hear you two arguing from out on the road." He turns his gaze to Davy. "And arguing is not working."

"Oh, I got 'em working, Pa," Davy says, nodding out to the fields.

And it's true. Me and the Spackle are all separated into teams of ten or twenty, spread out among the whole enclosed bit of the monastery, removing stones from the low internal walls and pulling up the sod in the fields. Others are piling the dug-up dirt in other fields and my group here near the front have already dug parts of the trenches for the foundayshuns of the first building. I've got a shovel. The Spackle have to use their hands.

"Not bad," the Mayor says. "Not bad at all."

Davy's Noise is so pleased it's embarrassing. Nobody looks at him.

"And you, Todd?" The Mayor turns to me. "How is your morning progressing?"

"Please don't hurt her," i say.

212

"Please don't hurt her,"
Davy mocks.

"For the last time, Todd," the Mayor says, "I'm not going to hurt her. I'm just going to
talk
with her. In fact, I'm on my way to speak with her right now."

My heart jumps and my Noise raises.

"Oh, he don't like
that,
Pa," Davy says.

"Hush," the Mayor says. "Todd, is there anything you'd like to tell me that might make my visit with her go more quickly, more pleasantly for everyone?"

I swallow.

And the Mayor's just
staring
at me, staring into my Noise, and words form in my brain, PLEASE DON'T HURT HER said in my voice and his voice all twisted together, pressing down on the things I think, the things I know and it's different from the Noise slap, this voice pokes around where I don't want him, trying to open locked doors and turn over stones and shine lights where they shouldn't never be shone and all the while saying PLEASE DON'T HURT HER and I can feel myself starting to
want
to tell
(ocean),
starting to
want
to unlock those doors
(the ocean),
starting to
want
to do just exactly what he says, cuz he's right, he's right about everything and who am I to resist--

"She don't know nothing," I say, my voice wobbly, almost gasping.

He arches an eyebrow. "You seem distressed, Todd." He angles Morpeth to approach.
Submit
, Morpeth says. Davy watches the Mayor's attenshuns on me and even from here I can hear him getting jealous. "Whenever my passions need calming, Todd, there's something I like to do."

He looks into my eyes.

213

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Hatched right in the middle of my brain, like a worm in an apple.

"Reminds me who I am," the Mayor says. "Reminds me of how I can control myself."

"What does?" Davy says and I realize he's not hearing it.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Again, right on the inside of me.

"What does it mean?" I almost gasp cuz it's sitting so heavy in my brain I'm finding it hard to speak. And then we hear it.

A whining in the air, a buzzing that ain't Noise, a buzz more like a fat purple bee coming in to sting you. "What the-?" Davy says.

And then we're all turning, looking at the far end of the monastery, looking up over the heads of the soldiers along the top of the wall.

Buzzzz
--

It's in the sky, a shape making an arc, high and sharp, coming up thru some trees behind the monastery, trailing smoke behind it, but the buzzing is getting louder and the smoke is starting to thicken into black.

And then the Mayor pulls Viola's binocs out of his shirt pocket to get a closer look.

I stare at them, my Noise churning, slopping out with asking marks that he ignores.

Davy musta brought them back down the hill, too.

I clench my fists.

214

"Whatever it is," Davy says, "it's coming this way." I look back round. The thing has reached the high point of its arc and is heading back down to earth.

Down toward the monastery where we're all standing.

Buzzzz--

"I'd get out of the way if I were you," the Mayor says.

"That's a bomb."

Davy runs so fast back to the gate he drops the whip. The soldiers on the wall start jumping off to the outside. The Mayor readies his horse but he don't move yet, waiting to see where the bomb's gonna land.

"Tracer," he's saying, his voice full of interest. "Antiquated, practically useless. We used them in the Spackle War."

The
buzzzzzz
is getting louder. The bomb's still falling, but picking up speed. "Mayor Prentiss?"

"President," he corrects but he's still looking thru the binocs almost like he's hypnotized. "The sound and the smoke," he says. "Far too obvious for covert use."

"Mayor Prentiss!" My Noise is getting higher with nerves.

"The city's all been bush bombs, so why-"

"RUN!" I yell.

Morpeth starts and the Mayor looks at me. But I ain't talking to him.

"RUN!" I'm yelling and waving my hands and the shovel at the Spackle nearest me, the Spackle in my field. The field the bomb is heading right for.

215

Buzzzzz--

They don't understand. Most of 'em are just watching the bomb coming right for them. "RUN!" I keep shouting and I'm sending explozhuns out in my Noise, showing 'em what'll happen when that bomb lands, imagining blood and guts and the
BOOM
that's on its way.
"RUN,
GODDAMMIT!"

It finally gets thru and some start to scatter, maybe just to get away from me screaming and waving my shovel, but they run and I chase them farther up the field. I look back. The Mayor's moved to the entrance of the monastery, ready to ride farther if necessary.

But he's watching me.

"RUN!" I keep yelling, getting the Spackle to move up and away, fleeing from the center of this field. The last few hop over the nearest internal wall and I hop over with 'em, gasping for breath and turning round again to watch it land--

And I see 1017, still there in the middle of the field, just staring up at the sky.

At the bomb that's gonna kill him where he stands.

I'm jumping back over the internal wall before I even

know it-

My feet pounding over the grass-Leaping over the trenches we've dug-Running so hard there ain't nothing in my Noise-Just the BUZZ of the bomb-Getting louder and lower-

And 1017 raising up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun-

216

Why ain't he running?

And
-pound pound
go my feet--

And I'm chanting
"Damn you, damn you" --

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-

And 1017 don't see me coming-

I slam into him hard enough to lift him off his feet, feeling the air punched from his lungs as we fly across the grass, as we hit the ground rolling, as we go end over end across the dirt and into a shallow trench, as one titanic--

BOOM

eats the entire planet in a single bite of sound

blasting away every thought and bit of Noise

picking up yer brain and shattering it into pieces and every bit of air is sucked up and blown past us and dirt and grass hits us in hard, heavy clods and smoke fills our lungs

And then there's silence.

Loud
silence.

217

***

"Are you hurt?" I hear the Mayor shout, as if he's miles and miles away and deep underwater.

I sit back up in the trench, see the huge smoking crater in the middle of the field, smoke already thinning cuz there's nothing to burn, row upon row of Spackle watching huddled from the far fields.

I'm breathing but I can't hear it.

I turn back to 1017, still mostly under me in the trench, scrabbling to get up, and I'm opening my mouth to ask him if he's all right even tho there's no way for him to answer--

And he hits me in a hard slap that leaves a rake of scratches across my face.

"Hey!" I shout, tho I can barely hear myself--

He's twisting out from under me and I reach out a hand to hold him there-

And he bites it hard with his rows of little sharp teeth-

And I pull it back, already bleeding--

And I'm ready to punch him, ready to
-pound
him--

And he's out from under me, running away across the crater, back toward the other Spackle-

"Hey!" I shout again, my Noise rising into red.

He's just running and staring back and the rows of Spackle are all looking back at me, too, their stupid silent faces with less expresshun than the dumbest sheep I ever had back on the farm and my hand is bleeding and my ears are ringing and my face is stinging from the scratches and I saved his stupid life and this is the thanks I get?

Animals,
I think.
Stupid, worthless, effing animals.

218

***

"Todd?" says the Mayor again, riding over to me. "Are you hurt?"

I turn my face up toward him, not even sure if I'm calm enough to answer, but when I open my mouth-- The ground heaves.

My hearing's still gone so I feel it more than hear it, feel the rumble thru the dirt, feel the air pulse with three hard vibrayshuns, one right after the other, and I see the Mayor turn his head suddenly back toward town, see Davy and all the Spackle do the same.

More bombs.

In the distance, toward the city, the biggest bombs that've ever exploded in the history of this world.

219

18 TO LIVE IS TO FIGHT

***

(Viola)

I 'M SO STUPIDLY UNDONE after the Mayor and his soldiers take Todd away that Corinne finally has to give me something for it, though I feel the prick of the needle in my arm as little as I feel her hand on my back, not moving, not caressing, not doing anything to make it feel better, Just holding me there, keeping me to earth. I'm sorry to say, I'm not grateful.

When I wake in my bed, it's only just dawn, the sun so low it's not quite over the horizon yet, everything else in morning shadow.

Corinne is in the chair next to me.

"As much as it would do you good to sleep longer," she says, "I'm afraid you can't."

I lean forward in the bed until I'm almost bent in half. There's a weight in my chest so heavy, it's like I'm being pulled into the ground. "I know," I whisper. "I know."

I don't even know why he collapsed. He was dazed,