The Lawgivers: Gabriel (33 page)

Raphael shrugged and turned to go.
“That was the only thing that convinced Claire.”

Gah-re-al watched his departure,
wondering how Raphael could be so damned cheerful about it when the
idea scared the hell out of him. He didn’t believe the Raphael he’d
once known almost as well as he knew himself would have been, but
then time changed people, he reminded himself.

And apparently some women could
completely change a man’s views on settling and having a
family.

He didn’t think his own views had
changed, but then again a lot of what Raphael had said on the
subject was true of him, he realized abruptly. He’d thought his
impatience and his weariness was just that, the certainty that he
was making no headway and no appreciable difference in his mission
to bring order. Maybe that was only part of it, though? Maybe not
even the biggest part of it? Maybe most of it was because he, too,
had reached a point in his life when wanderlust had ceased to have
the appeal it had once had and the constant battling had
none?

He didn’t have to examine those
thoughts hard to realize that the discovery that Raphael had built
a homestead appealed to him far more than the hazy future he’d been
looking at. He didn’t know why, now, that he hadn’t thought of it
himself. He didn’t consider that he was past his prime, but he
damned well wasn’t young anymore. If he was going to take another
path, now seemed a better time than later—particularly since he’d
become increasingly convinced that he was going to run out of luck
if he continued.

The skirmish in Maura’s village had
brought that home as nothing else had before.

Unfortunately, Gah-re-al didn’t know
whether Raphael’s suggestion would work for him or not. He didn’t
know whether or not Lexa was pregnant or if she even knew if she
was, and he was damned if he knew how to pry the information out of
her even if she was pregnant and knew it. Perhaps more to the
point, he didn’t know if he could accomplish it if she wasn’t or
even if he wanted to accomplish it if by some miracle he hadn’t
managed to impregnate her already.

And he thought it would be a miracle if
he hadn’t. It had been his experience in life that fate was
contrary like that. If one wanted something to happen, it didn’t.
If one didn’t want it to happen, it did.

That thought cheered him insensibly.
The goal at the time hadn’t been to get her pregnant, therefore it
must have happened!

He considered that for a few moments
and realized two things—he did want it to happen, which meant it
probably hadn’t, but it also meant that he’d already made his
decision even before he talked to Raphael.

He wasn’t completely easy in his mind
about it, but he became more firmly convinced as he turned once
more to study the encampment and his mind began worrying over some
of the other things Raphael had said. The encampment seemed
peaceful enough from his viewpoint, but for the first time he
really looked at the sheer mass they’d gathered together and began
trying to calculate just how many there were. He’d brought several
hundred himself. If he multiplied that by the number of lawgivers,
there were thousands of humans gathered below him.

And maybe fifty to a hundred guards and
a similar number of social workers—who were also armed.

Strategically speaking, it was a
disaster, he realized abruptly, just waiting to happen. It would
take no more than a spark to set off a bloody war if the tension
he’d already sensed wasn’t pure imagination, and he didn’t think it
was.

* * * *

Lexa’s parting with Kyle had soothed
her wounds and lessened the raging guilt she felt for having been
responsible, inadvertently or not, for Maura’s grief. It had also
helped to harden her resolve to at least attempt to interfere
despite the disastrous results of her prior interference in their
lives.

It still took a while for that resolve
to form. She was too distressed at first and too fearful of making
things worse, not better, to convince herself even to try, but she
realized that trying was all that she could do. She’d failed them
before—twice—when she’d been a child and too afraid to do anything
at all to try to protect them and when she’d asked Gabriel to help
her find them.

She’d told herself she wouldn’t allow
her fear ever to prevent her from trying again if she saw them in
danger. And they were in danger. She neither completely agreed or
disagreed with their view of the situation. She wasn’t blind or
stupid. She could see that the udai, even those who were there to
help, thought humans were beneath contempt. They didn’t like
humans, but they were still trying to do what they believed to be
the right thing.

She’d had her own doubts before and she
couldn’t say that the attitude of the social workers was something
to endear them. She didn’t even know if what the udai had
apparently set out to accomplish would work, but she was convinced
that they thought so, that this hadn’t been conceived as a way to
torture humans to death, even though it felt like it at
times.

Much against their will, they’d been
taught to make tools to work with to make more things. The tools
were crude, even more primitive than the things they’d managed to
make before using things they’d found in the rubble, but they
worked. The temporary shelters they’d built when they first arrived
hadn’t been much if any better than the shanties they’d put
together for shelter before, but the cabins they’d begun building
were certainly an improvement. They were tight and dry even when it
rained—unless it rained really hard—and cool when the sun was hot
and not freezing when the sun set—because they could build fires
inside to cook and to warm themselves and didn’t have to deal with
the choking smoke.

Lexa wasn’t any happier about having to
walk so far to get water or to relieve herself than anyone else but
there was no getting around the fact that it was nice not having to
watch your step and to smell dirt and growing things rather than
shit and the stink of unwashed bodies packed too tightly
together.

There was still plenty of that
particular stench, unfortunately. Everyone worked hard from the
crack of dawn until it was too dark to work anymore, and they
sweated profusely, but more and more people were getting used to
the idea of bathing.

She didn’t know why it was that
everyone was still so angry with the udai. They had to see that
they’d kept their word, that things were getting better—very
slowly, true, but noticeably. She was still hungry and thirsty most
of the time, but she knew where she could get a drink of good water
and she knew there was going to be something to eat at least once a
day, even if the udai had to bring something in—and they
did—begrudgingly—but they made sure there was enough food in the
cook pots to feed everyone when they came up short in hunting and
gathering. The food they were growing and the animals they were
being taught to tend, according to the udai, would eventually make
that unnecessary.

They said that in a tone of voice that
made it clear that it damned well better come to that because they
had no intention of continuing to feed them, but even the attitude
didn’t change the facts.

She thought people just didn’t want to
credit the udai with helping. They didn’t want to see any good in
them at all because even though the udai were helping, it made them
feel inferior to need help and they weren’t about to admit
that.

Most of them didn’t, anyway. She
thought there were some, like her, that thought not all of the udai
were bad or to be hated, but they were afraid to speak up because
they were outnumbered by the ones who despised them.

It still took a great deal of courage
for Lexa to seek her brothers and sister out once she’d made up her
mind to try to reason with them. Even Kyle had seemed to say that
he still loved her in spite of everything—that he disapproved of
her, but he loved her enough to ignore it. He wasn’t going to be
any easier to convince than Maura or Will.

She still had to try. Fortunately,
since Maura and Will seemed determined to remain elusive and aloof,
Kyle came to her.

She’d just dropped into the coma she
usually fell into at the end of a very long, very exhausting day
when a light touch brought her awake. Sheer terror threatened to
overcome her when a hand was clamped over her mouth.

“It’s me, Kyle,” the figure holding her
down said on a breath of sound. “I didn’t want you to wake the
others.”

It seemed reasonable given the fact
that she slept in a shelter with a half a dozen other women, but it
took a few moments for the panic to subside even so. “What are you
doing here?” she demanded when he finally released her. “You scared
the shit out of me!”

“Sorry. I wanted to talk … to give you
something.”

Lexa hesitated, but she’d trusted Kyle
before and although he’d scared the hell out of her when he’d led
her to Will, she didn’t believe he meant her any harm. Nodding, she
got up as quietly as she could and followed him out of the
shelter.

When she was outside, she looked around
for him and saw that he was heading toward the path to the stream.
The guards rarely interfered with trips to get water, but she
looked around to make sure none were watching her before she headed
in the same direction. Kyle was waiting for her in the shadows as
she stepped onto the path. “What is it?” she asked, somewhat uneasy
in spite of her certainty that Kyle wouldn’t hurt her. She wasn’t
convinced that Will wouldn’t, not after the way he’d threatened
her.

“It’s a book.”

Lexa’s heart leapt. “A real book? I
haven’t seen one in years.”

“Me neither,” Kyle said cheerfully. “Ma
… Will’s friend gave it to him and he gave it to me after he’d read
it.”

Surprise flickered through Lexa. “He
read a whole book? I didn’t think I’d managed to teach him to read.
He hated it when he was little.”

Kyle chuckled. “I didn’t say it was
easy, but then I never learned much neither.”

“You were really little when
….”

Kyle ignored the reference to the raid.
“You said I was old enough.”

“To start learning,” Lexa reminded him,
relieved that he’d dismissed that horrible experience so readily,
but then he had been really little. Maybe he didn’t remember it as
well as she did? “What kind of book is it?” she asked curiously as
she followed him along the path. “Like the one mama
had?”

“Sort of, I guess. It’s not supposed to
be a storybook, though. Will’s friend said it was a history.
Neither one of us knew what that was, but she said it was about
things that happened before the day, about us—our people, I
mean.”

Lexa searched her memories, but she
couldn’t recall anything either Sir or their mother had said about
it. Not that Sir had seemed interested in teaching them anything
but how to do the chores he wanted done. He’d told stories about
when he was a child, before. “’U’ ‘S’?” Lexa asked when she
abruptly recalled something Sir had said.

Kyle glanced at her and frowned. “Don’t
that spell us?”

“Yes, but … never mind,” she ended when
she saw he was holding a very large, thick book. She settled on the
bank with the heavy volume when Kyle gave it to her, trying to
angle it so that the moonlight illuminated the pages. As bright as
the moon was, though, it was a struggle to try to make out any of
the words.

“Can you read it to me like you used
to?”

Lexa’s throat closed as those memories
of holding the baby he’d been instantly rose in her mind, but she
forced a teasing smile. “You’re too big to get in my lap like you
used to.”

He looked a little offended and
embarrassed, but the comment surprised a chuckle out of him. “I
just meant read. I tried, but I don’t know the words.”

Lexa hugged him impulsively. “I know.
I’m sorry. I was just teasing.”

He settled beside her, took the book
and opened it, as if searching for something in particular.
Finally, he pointed. “Read this. I didn’t understand it when Will
read it.”

Lexa angled the book until enough light
fell on the page he’d indicated to allow her to discern the words,
frowning in concentration. “’In Congress, July 4th, 1776, a
declar—declara—Declaration by the repre-re-pre-sentatives of the
United States of America.” Her heart began to thud hard with
excitement. “I was right! I think. U.S. Sir said it was for United
States!”

Kyle shrugged. “What does it mean,
though?”

Lexa thought about it. “Well we both
know what declare means—so they were saying that they declared
something. I don’t know what the rest of it means, but they wrote
it down so it must have been really important.”

Kyle looked disappointed. After a
moment, Lexa continued. “’When, in the course of human events
….”

“The part about truth,” Kyle
prompted.

“We hold these truths to be
self-evident …?”

“Yes. That part.”

Irritation flickered through Lexa since
she was still trying to understand the section she’d started. It
also occurred to her that Kyle was leading her—not that he had had
trouble understanding but that he wanted her to ‘see’ something he
had.