He checked both Peaks for a pulse. They were dead. He took a deep breath, sank to the ground to ease his racing heart, and looked at the woman. A Siwash. He had risked his life for a Siwash. She was watching him, making no attempt to cover herself as if she expected to be the trophy in some masculine ritual. She seemed to be about the same age he was. He stood up and pointed to her clothes. “Get dressed. We have to get rid of these bodies.”
He also had to get rid of the rover. To the side of the clearing, the ground dropped away in a steep slope. The rover would plunge far enough down to be obscured by the bushes. He picked up the shoulders of one of the Peaks and dragged him to the rover, levering him inside the front passenger seat. He went back for the second man when the woman came up beside him and picked up the man’s legs. They carried the Peak’s body to the rover and dumped it in the driver’s seat.
He considered keeping the immobilizers, but he had no idea how they worked or how to charge them. He tossed them into the back of the rover, got behind it, and pushed. It didn’t budge. He looked inside the cab. A lever beside the driver’s seat had positions marked with letters, one of them an N. He had a vague memory of his uncle talking about putting the truck in neutral. He moved the lever, went to the back of the rover, and pushed again. It moved. The rover was pointed toward the edge of the clearing. The woman was beside him, her shoulder heaving against the back of the rover. It rolled forward, picked up speed on a slight grade, and plunged over the embankment, crashing down the slope. From the rim of the embankment, part of the rover was still visible, but by spring, the dense brush would have concealed it. The woman was hurling blood-stained snow over the edge. She picked up a loose branch and swept the ground. The next snowfall and the spring runoff would cover up any evidence that remained.
Now what? He didn’t know where her village was or how she could get there. He couldn’t abandon her, but neither could he ignore his uncle’s admonishment. Be polite to the Siwashes, but never let one in your home. On the other hand, Darius could never figure out why. He had met a Siwash just once, and he owed the man his life. He had been running along a trail and slipped. He hit his head on a rock and knocked himself out just before he tumbled into the water. He awoke to see a young man, a Siwash about the same age he was, who had pulled him from the water, made sure he was conscious, and ran off. He never argued with his uncle about the Siwashes, but after that, he never came to hate them. Maybe she could stay in the outbuilding. There was no place in there to sleep or cook food, but he could worry about that later. “Okay,” he said. “Come with me.”
She followed him along the path to the house, her eyes widening as she took it in. His reaction had been the same. Before he could point to the outbuilding, she pushed through the door. She walked through the large downstairs room and up the steps to the main floor. She moved as if she were stalking, each step deliberate, her body balanced as if to respond to some threat, her eyes scanning each room. Watching her, Darius saw her strength, the strength that she had put into moving the rover, the strength that required two large men to overpower her. He had the curious impression she could be an ally.
When she turned to face him, the tension in her body had eased. She didn’t smile, but her eyes held no hostility. “I’m Darius,” he said. She didn’t reply. “I said my name is Darius. What’s yours?”
Her eyes were dark, her face impassive. She pointed to her ears and shook her head.
“You can’t hear me? Are you deaf?” As soon as he spoke, Darius recognized the futility of the question. He raised his hand to his mouth and flapped his thumb and fingers as if to ask if she could speak. Again, she shook her head.
Darius groaned. Not only was she a Siwash, she was one who couldn’t hear or talk. His mission was tough enough without having to take care of a cripple. That did it. For now, he’d feed her and let her stay in one of the other bedrooms, but tomorrow he’d figure out where she was from and send her on her way.
He beckoned for her to follow him into a bedroom, pointed to the bed, and mimicked sleeping. She looked around the room and pushed past him into the hallway, examining the other rooms that lined it. At the library, she crossed over to the desk, grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper, and wrote. “I am Ilona. Who are you?”
He wrote, “Darius.”
“Say it,” she wrote.
He spoke his name, “Darius,” conscious of her scrutiny of his mouth.
“Say my name.”
“Ilona.”
She wrote. “Thank you.”
He nodded, awkward at facing her. He had a compulsion to say or write something. The gaps had to be filled in. He wrote, “Is Ilona a Siwash name?”
Her face tightened. She glared at him with a rage that made him finger his knife. She threw the paper onto the desk and scratched through the word until the paper shredded. She took a fresh sheet and wrote, “NEVER use that word.”
He had no doubt that if she had had a weapon, he’d be at risk. He wrote, “I didn’t know. What should I call you?”
She pointed to her first sentence, “I am Ilona.” She drew a hard line under the words.
“Who are your people?” he wrote.
Her expression shifted. Her face still radiated anger, but it was mixed with despair. She wrote, “I am Ilona.”
He stood for a minute, not knowing what to say or write. He recalled his aunt Helena’s advice. When you’re embarrassed, change the subject. He wrote, “Are you hungry?”
She nodded. He led her into the living room, opened a can of beans, and put them into a pan on the fireplace along with a couple of deer steaks.
The next day when he awoke, he heard her moving around in the kitchen. He dressed—he had gotten into the habit of undressing for bed and sleeping between sheets, under blankets. She had examined the cupboards and was sifting through a canister of flour. She mixed it with water, formed the dough into flat circles, and fried them. Bread. It was heavy and thick, but it was a flavour he had forgotten. He remembered something else. He rummaged through a pantry and found an unopened jar. There was a slight pop as he twisted off the lid and sniffed at the contents. He spread the sweet thickness onto his bread and offered the jar to her. Bread and jam. This was as close to pure luxury as he could get. Almost enough to overcome his revived rage.
20
COUNTER-PROTESTS
Todd Baxter’s office had no windows because NPF offices were underground except for the entrance and the barracks that housed the defence guards. When Ivan Kryss first led him to the elevator and pressed ten, his reaction was anticipation at being on the top floor. But in this building, the numbers increased downward. The tenth floor was at the bottom. Back in the basement.
But this office was nothing like the cave he’d worked in under Bob Whatford. It had the odour of fresh paint, brightness from fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling. It boasted an ergonomic office chair, a pair of thirty-inch screens, and a curved desk surrounding the workspace. A thermostat and a set of switches allowed him to set the temperature and light level. The hiss of forced air provided white noise. A bathroom with a shower opened on one side of the room, a coat closet on the other.