Twenty-Nine Days

Before the night was out, somebody counted.

It was Roslyn who counted. She came out from under the desk and walked a full circle around the drill site, still holding her stack of paper.

“Nineteen miners, all alive. Four of them have broken bones from the wall coming down on them. Five Republic soldiers dead. One survivor, missing an arm.”

“One? That's the twins, isn't it.”

“Whether to count that as one or as two, I have not decided.”

Roslyn pushed her glasses up. The hand that pushed them was shaking.

“Since I have not decided, I have left it blank. I dislike blanks, but a blank is better than writing a lie.”

＊

The water had reached nine meters.

Roslyn had three numbers lined up on paper.

Three meters the first night. Seven by the second evening. Nine this morning.

“The rate of rise is not constant.”

“That's water for you,” Harlan said.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Since I do not know, I will simply write down the numbers.”

Harlan cranked the sounding weight up, read the markings, and said nothing for a while.

Then he set the weight down on the ground.

“I'm done measuring.”

“Why,” Marlow asked.

“Because measuring doesn't bring it down.”

Harlan looked up at the tower. Sixty meters of iron frame, red in the morning light.

“If you went down, would it come down?”

“…It would.”

“Have you any intention of going down?”

Marlow didn't answer.

By not answering, he gave Harlan his answer.

“I see. That's all right, then.”

“All right how.”

“What gets buried gets buried. Sixty years or nine years, makes no difference.”

With the unburned side of his face, Harlan smiled a little. It was the first time anyone had seen this man smile.

“Nine years I've stamped papers that said empty. Just once at the end, I'd like to stamp one with the truth on it. Shaft, flooded. That'll do.”

＊

The one-armed twins were tied up at the foot of the tower.

The miners had put the ropes on them. Four arms had become three, and the two bodies joined at the spine sat facing front and back.

Drag stood in front of them.

“Your name.”

“Jorun Beck.”

Two mouths said it at the same time. Then only the one facing backward said it over again.

“Yuran Beck. Jorun's the front one. I'm the back.”

“You have separate names.”

“We do. We had them before we went to the Republic. When we were born there were two of us.”

Jorun, facing front, closed his eyes.

“They joined us two years ago. With one to watch the front and one to watch the back, no blade can land. That was the calculation. It landed, though. Hers did.”

Drag said nothing for a while.

“What does my brother do in the Republic.”

“General Kale, you mean.”

“General.”

“He's the only one with wings. Lion's wings. Whoever can fly stands on top. That's the kind of country it is.”

Drag's face didn't change. It didn't change, but the knuckles of his closed fist had gone white.

＊

It was before noon when Willa tugged Marlow's sleeve.

She tugged, and pulled him around into the shadow of a shed. Somewhere with nobody in it.

“Hey.”

“What.”

“I still haven't heard it.”

“Heard what.”

“Don't play dumb. The answer. You promised before you got in the cage. You said you'd tell me when you came back up.”

It wasn't that Marlow had forgotten.

It was only that since coming up, there had been no time to say it. The no-time part was true. True, and also an excuse.

“…I'll tell you.”

“Okay.”

“I'm only saying it once.”

“Fine, just hurry up.”

Marlow leaned back against the shed wall.

“There's a ledger at Central. A hundred and six of them with my face, all written down. Number, date made, destination.”

“…Okay.”

“Far right, there was a column for names. All hundred and six of them, blank.”

Willa's face changed.

It was the face she had made when she talked about the cattle books.

“What I want to do is not leave that blank.”

“…”

“When something gets erased, make it so people can tell what was erased. Cattle, people, grain, doesn't matter. That's all. That's what I want to do.”

Willa said nothing for a while.

Then she looked down and said, in a small voice,

“…That's almost exactly what I carved on the stone, you know.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait, what did you just say.”

“I said it's nothing!”

Willa turned bright red and ran off.

Marlow watched her back go.

What that girl had carved into the stone slab at the old lighthouse.

Without knowing, he felt as if he knew.

＊

Mirabel was still sitting on a stone at the base of the tower.

A hand on her side. Something black dripped between her fingers. A whole night, and it hadn't stopped. What dripped hardened before it hit the ground and rolled away as a small grain.

Marlow looked at the grain.

Half the size of a rice kernel, not clear and not black. While you looked at it, it had the color of something that hadn't made up its mind what color to be.

“…Is that what's running you?”

“Oh, you caught that?”

Mirabel laughed. Her voice was a little thinner than yesterday.

“Half of what's inside me is this. Grain. While it burns, I move. When it leaks, I slow down by that much.”

“How much leaked.”

“Mmm, thirty percent? Forty, maybe. Those twins did good work. Tell them I said so.”

“Can you top it up if you get back to Central.”

“If I get back. Six days. Whether I last six days is a near thing.”

Marlow reached into the left side of his belt.

He took out the little leather pouch.

He untied the cord, shook one grain into his palm, and held it out in front of Mirabel.

Mirabel's laughter stopped.

With the brown eye and the metal one both, she looked at that single grain.

“…Where did you pick that up.”

“Bottom of the shaft. One made them, over nine years. There's a hundred.”

“A hundred.”

“Want to trade?”

＊

Mirabel didn't put out her hand.

She left it where it was and looked at Marlow's face.

“Terms.”

“Two. One, stop taking these people east.”

“Can't do that, kiddo. It's the job.”

“Hear me out. Two, go south and get One back.”

Mirabel blinked. With the brown eye only.

“…I told you south was outside the job.”

“You did. So I'm checking.”

Marlow was remembering noon, the day before yesterday.

This woman had pointed at the ones she was taking and counted them. With a metal finger. Nineteen, and the foreman, and the captain, and the scribe, and the girl.

“You said the old fellow who came up from the bottom of the shaft. You did. In with the ones you're taking.”

“…I did say that.”

“Then One is your load. And that load is in the south right now.”

“…”

“Your job is taking the people here east. Neither you nor Central ever struck One off the list of people here.”

Mirabel was quiet for a long time.

Then she suddenly started laughing.

Still holding her side, she bent double and laughed out loud. Black grain came dribbling down onto the ground.

“Ahaha! Ahahahaha! That's dirty! That's dirty, kiddo! Two hundred and ten years and nobody's ever thrown a quibble like that at me!”

“It's not a quibble. It's a question of how you count.”

“That's exactly what a quibble is.”

Mirabel wiped the corner of her eye. Nothing had come out of the metal one.

“So what about this lot? If I don't take them east, Central scolds me.”

“Fetching one load back first doesn't make you late. Fetching comes first. It's a question of order.”

“A question of order, he says.”

Mirabel held out her right hand. The one that wasn't metal.

Marlow set the grain in her palm.

Mirabel tossed it into her mouth and bit down.

There was a crunch.

The black flow at her side stopped.

“…Tasty.”

＊

Roslyn heard the deal being struck from her desk.

When it was done, she pulled a sheet of paper over. She was calculating something.

“Ms. Grimm. May I ask you one thing.”

“What is it, scribe.”

“How many days is it from here to the Republic.”

“The southern one? Twenty-nine days walking. Ten if I run, but you kiddos can't run.”

“Round trip.”

“Fifty-eight days.”

Roslyn's pen stopped.

Marlow saw her face and had a bad feeling.

“What.”

“The cylinders of seawater on the wagon. There were a hundred and twenty, were there not,” Roslyn said.

“That's right.”

“The round trip to the town is sixty-two days. That has been snagging at me the whole time. Too many, I thought. Fifty-eight days' worth left over.”

Roslyn turned the paper toward Marlow.

Two numbers stood side by side.

The fifty-eight days left over.

The fifty-eight days of the round trip south.

“From the day that load was packed, Central knew you were going south. Before the Republic ever came here.”

The wind at the drill site dropped, once.

There was the sound of Mirabel swallowing the grain in her mouth.

“…Ah. He's got a habit of that, that one.”

She was laughing.

The brown eye wasn't laughing.

End of Chapter 28