And the truck had plenty of memory. It could, and had, recorded all that it could of each of us—our voices, hand and foot prints, retinal prints, body sounds, and our general shapes in several positions to help it recognize us and not shoot us.
When the truck began shooting, I left the forward monitors to Harry. I didn't need to see anything that might make me useless, and the truck didn't need any more help from me. Once we were between Zahra and the attackers, I checked Zahra on an aft screen. She was alive and still at her station. Most of her body was concealed within the depression and behind the stone shelter that was intended to shield her. Some distance away, Gray Mora was still at his station and still alive. He wasn't involved in this, and his duty was to hold his position and guard the other most likely approach to Acorn. It had taken a while for us to learn not to be distracted by people who might rattle the front door while their friends slipped in through the back.
The intruder nearest to Zahra was dead. According to the truck, he was no longer changing the chemistry of the air in his immediate vicinity in a way that indicated breathing, and he wasn't moving. Once the truck was stopped, its ability to detect motion was as good as its hearing. Put the two together and we could detect breathing and heartbeat—or their absence. We've tried to trick it—fool it into mistaking one of us playing dead for an actual corpse—and we've never been able to. That's comforting.
"All right," Harry said, looking up from his screen. "How's Zee?"
"Alive," I told him. "Are all the shooters down?"
"Down and dead, all five of them." He drew a deep breath. "Bankole. le's go pick up Zahra."
"Has anyone given Gray an all-clear?" I asked.
"I have," Bankole answered. "You know, I've got the next watch. In another hour, I would have relieved Zahra."
"For the rest of the night," I said, "whoever's on duty should watch from the truck. Whoever these guys are, they might have friends."
Bankole nodded.
He stopped us as close to Zahra's watch station as the truck could get. We all took one more look around, then Harry opened the door. Before we could call her, Zahra darted from cover and jumped into the truck. She was bleeding from the left side of her face and neck, and that took me by surprise. At once, I felt pain in my own face and neck, but managed not to react. Habit. Harry grabbed Zahra and yelled for Bankole.
"I'm okay," Zahra said. "I just got hit by broken rock when those guys were shooting. There was rock flying everywhere."
I went up to take Bankole's place, and he went back to check on her. I'm a pretty decent driver now, so I got us back to the houses. "I'll take what's left of Zahra's watch," I said. "Your watch, too, Bankole. I think you're going to be busy."
"Watch from the truck!" Bankole ordered as though I hadn't just made the same suggestion myself.
"Of course."
"Whatever happened to the two people those gunmen were chasing?" Zahra asked.
We all looked at her.
"They were staggering toward Acorn," she said. "They couldn't have gotten far. I didn't shoot them. They were already hurt."
This was the first we knew of the running pair. Zahra thought they were both wounded, and both men. Yet we hadn't spotted them. Of course, we hadn't looked back toward Acorn for more intruders. I hadn't even used the aft screens to do that. Stupid of me.
We looked around Acorn now, and found the usual signs of life—plenty of heat and some sound from the houses. The people were no doubt watching, but in the middle of the night, they wouldn't come rushing out until they got an all-clear from us. The older kids would be keeping an eye on the younger ones, and the adults would be watching us. No one was showing a light or moving around where they could be seen. The only loud sound was that of a baby crying from the Douglas house. Even that came to an abrupt stop.
If this had been a drill, it would have been a good drill.
But where were the two runners? Were they hiding? Had they found their way into the school or into one of the houses? Were they crouching behind one of the trees?
Were they armed?
“1 don't think they had guns," Zahra said when I asked her.
Then I spotted them—or spotted something. I drove toward it, toward our own cabin, in fact—Bankole's and mine.
"The truck says they're still alive," I said. "They're not moving much, and Zee's right. They're not armed. But they're alive."
************************************
The runners were Dan Noyer and a young girl. The moment I saw her—tall like Dan, but slender, pretty, dark-haired with a sharp little chin like Mercy's—I knew she must be one of Dan's sisters. As it turned out, she was Nina Noyer.
Both brother and sister had been beaten bloody with both fists, and with something else. Bankole says they look as though they've been lashed with whips.
"I suppose," he said with great bitterness, "that people who don't have access to convict collars might have to exert themselves—resort to older methods of torture."
Brother and sister have rope burns at their wrists, ankles, and necks. Also, Bankole says, they've suffered a great deal of sexual abuse. The girl told him they were forced "to do it with strangers for money." Dan has endured even more beating than Nina has, and both have what Bankole calls, "the usual infections and tissue damage." Nina says she got pregnant, but one night during her captivity, she had a miscarriage. She hadn't known what was happening, but one of the other slaves told her. Well, I suppose it would be surprising if she hadn't gotten pregnant. For her sake, I'm glad she miscarried.
And Dan had somehow found her, rescued her, and brought her home in spite of pursuers chasing him right down into our valley. How had one 15-year-old done so very much?
And in the end, what would it cost him? In the end, did that matter?
friday, march 18, 2033
"This is no way to live," Bankole said to me when he came in from tending Dan and Nina this morning. He sat at the table and put his head down on his arms.
I had taken his watch, as I promised, to free him to do what he could for Dan and Nina. Allie and May were helping him, since they have all but joined the Noyer family by taking care of Kassia and Mercy for so long.
Bankole had spent most of his time with his two patients, and had once again found himself fighting for Dan's life. The boy stopped breathing twice, and Bankole revived him. But at last, the young body, once strong and healthy, just gave up. It had taken an incredible amount of abuse over the past few months.
"His heart just quit," Bankole said. "If I had more modern equipment, maybe Goddamnit, Olamina, can you see now why I need to get out of here and get you out of here?"
"He's really dead?" I whispered, not believing it—not wanting to believe it.
"He's dead. It's obscene! A young boy like that"
"What about his sister?"
"She wasn't as badly beaten as he was. I believe she'll be all right"
Would she, after all that had happened? I doubted it Bankole and I sat silent for a while, each of us thinking our own thoughts. What would it have meant to Dan that he had saved his sister, even though he had not been able to save himself? Did he ever imagine such a thing? Would it somehow have been all right? Enough?
"Where's the other sister—Paula?" I asked. "What happened to her?"