Dichronauts Read online

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  Raina hesitated. “Hot and wet.”

  He glanced at the rest of the group; they had the body language of people who’d been through an ordeal together, and were not prepared to suffer foolish questions on the subject.

  “Any news about the drought?” he asked, hoping that this was less inane than his last attempt.

  “The storms are as strong as ever,” Haidar said. “But they’re moving west.”

  Seth’s mind blanked for a moment, refusing to rise from its post-exam torpor and summon up an image of the catchment area that would allow him to interpret this reply. But when Theo declined to fill in the silence, he forced himself to concentrate.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” he decided.

  “If it keeps up, we’ll lose all our flow,” Haidar confirmed. “It will end up in the Orico.”

  While Seth was still pondering this, Theo said, “The Orico’s crowded—but if it takes the Zirona’s flow, why shouldn’t it take the Zirona’s population?”

  Haidar made a noncommittal sound, but his Sider, Osman, said, “Inter-city politics isn’t always so accommodating.”

  “And it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the Orico’s cities to object,” Raina’s Sider, Amina, argued. “Even if the flow rises, that’s no guarantee that it will remain high enough to support so many people. If they let us squeeze in now, and then they find themselves with a drought of their own, that will only make things harder for everyone.”

  “So where should Baharabad go?” Theo demanded. “Or should we just scatter across the plains and live on wild berries?”

  “It’s not up to us to decide,” Haidar replied. “That’s in the hands of the planners and the diplomats.”

  as seth stood waiting in the briefing room, along with all the other newly qualified surveyors, he found his gaze returning again and again to a beautifully rendered map that all but covered the eastern wall. It showed the portion of the habitable zone that lay within thirty degrees of the central meridian, and the cartographers had packed in everything from altitude to soil type. The longer he spent contemplating the full gamut of information it conveyed, the more absurd it seemed to hope that all five of the major habitations arrayed along the Zirona could simply move west and join the eleven that had followed the Orico for generations. The solution was as impractical on any geographical assessment as it was on political grounds. It wasn’t just a question of the volume of water moving down the river: finding enough suitable land that could be irrigated and farmed to feed all the new arrivals, even for a single crop, would be miraculous, let alone ensuring that this state of affairs persisted as the sixteen cities migrated south.

  Jonas, the Director of the Office of Surveyors, walked to the lectern and addressed the gathering. “Three days ago, I had the great pleasure of welcoming you into our profession. On this occasion, I have a less celebratory message to convey. Everything we’ve learned from our most recent investigation suggests that the drought is unlikely to break in the foreseeable future.”

  The rumors had already spread across the city, but Seth could see a change in the room as people absorbed this confirmation. And while some of his colleagues appeared despondent at the news, most seemed to grow more resolute.

  “In principle,” Jonas continued, “we could try to wait out the dry spell, following the riverbed south and making do with residual ground water, in the hope that the Zirona will eventually be restored to its former glory. But we’ve already received intimations that certain of our neighbors to the south are contemplating a different strategy: holding their ground for as long as they can.”

  Seth felt a surge of anger. Why couldn’t the other Zironans cooperate and make life easier for them all? But one glance at the map punctured his self-righteousness: even if the gamble paid off for Baharabad, it couldn’t work for everyone. Sedington’s usual latitude was so close to the southern summer that they’d kept the river dammed to stop the flow from going to waste. The only ground water the Zirona had deposited lay north of that dam. And if Sedington decided to stay put, dam and all, there would be no point in anyone bypassing it.

  “What we need now,” Jonas proclaimed, “is to identify the locations of potential new sites. We have reason to believe that there might be new, north-flowing rivers emerging from the southern steamlands. But the rivalries brought on by the drought limit the prospect of obtaining reliable second-hand reports. Our duty is to secure the best new path possible for Baharabad. To achieve that, we’ll need to survey the largest possible area to our south—and do so faster, and more thoroughly, than every other city that would benefit from the same intelligence.”

  Theo inspoke, «And who have the advantage of being closer.»

  The Director began detailing the expeditions that would set out in the coming days, most of them traveling as far as the border of the southern steamlands. Seth gazed at the annotations on the map, invigorated by the prospect of finally leaving the city for something more than a training exercise, and impatient to learn which group he’d be rostered with. But alongside this restlessness the gravity of the situation filled him with as much anxiety as pride. The idea that the city’s survival could be at stake, with the outcome lying in the hands of its surveyors, had always struck him as little more than the profession’s characteristic swagger. He had never imagined that he’d be carrying that kind of weight himself.

  «Did you hear that?» Theo demanded.

  «Yes.» Seth wasn’t lying, but it had taken some time for the details to register. He and Theo would be part of the westernmost expedition, along with Sarah and Judith, Aziz and Amir—and Raina and Amina, veterans of the steamlands. «You think someone knew the roster in advance?» It was no surprise that the six who’d worked together as students were being reunited, but it was hard to believe that meeting the expedition’s leaders had been down to chance.

  «Lucky we made such a good impression,» Theo observed dryly.

  “Make your preparations,” Jonas advised them. “Say your farewells. And if your families lament your departure, just remind them that this is the only way to keep Baharabad thriving.”

  seth watched patricia waddle excitedly across the floor toward him. She wasn’t yet steady on her feet, but he reached down and grabbed her before she lost her balance and fell.

  “Don’t coddle her!” Elena scolded him.

  Seth didn’t reply; it wasn’t his place to offer child-rearing advice. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. “My beautiful nieces.”

  Elena groaned with disapproval at his affectionately miscegenous plural, but Patricia smiled and Leanne babbled delightedly. She seemed to be fitting more tightly into Patricia’s skull lately, having put on weight now that she was feeding properly, but she did still sometimes wriggle and expose a disconcerting gap.

  «Did you understand that?» Seth asked Theo.

  «It’s baby talk, not some secret Sider language.»

  «I just thought you might be hearing her more clearly.» Seth knew full well that when they spoke their secret language, he wouldn’t hear it at all.

  Irina said, “And I’ll miss both my brothers.”

  Seth felt a pang of guilt—but Theo had expressed no desire to veto the trip and stay home to watch over her. Leanne’s parents and their bereaved Walkers hadn’t quite become part of the family, but their ongoing scrutiny of their daughter’s circumstances surely counted as some kind of moderating influence. Irina’s position was still impossible, but no one could change that, and Seth did not believe that she would come to further harm.

  He placed Patricia and Leanne gently on the floor and surveyed the room. Everyone had risen early to say goodbye, and if his parents and Theo’s were struggling to keep their anxieties about the long journey in check, there was something refreshing in Elena’s disdain and Daniel’s indifference. Sam had said so little that Seth had no real idea what he was feeling, but having been dragged into the family through no choice of his own, he
was probably just lamenting the loss of Theo as an ally.

  Seth’s pack was light, for now: most of his supplies were still waiting for him at the depot. As he hoisted it onto his back, his mother approached and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  Theo’s mother said, “Look out for each other.”

  “Always,” Theo replied.

  Seth’s mother added, “And don’t let him do anything crazy.”

  Theo inspoke, «You do realize she was talking to me?»

  Seth tipped his head and backed away. As he swung the door down and stepped off the porch, his sadness gave way to relief, and then elation.

  PART TWO

  7

  “We’ve missed it,” raina declared with grim finality.

  Amir bowed his head and gazed down at the shadow tracker. Aziz asked, “Are we too far north, or too far south?”

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Raina replied.

  “So we pick a direction . . .?” Aziz persisted.

  Amina said, “We can’t go chasing this forest. All we can do is move on.”

  Seth watched Amir sag even lower, and wondered if he should say something himself. They’d performed the measurements together, checking each other’s work; that Amir had carried out the last few sightings hardly made their situation his fault.

  “It’s not a navigation error,” he said tentatively. “We couldn’t be out by that much.”

  “No,” Raina confirmed. “The forest’s drifted—lagged or sped up, but there’s no point guessing which. We just need to be sure that we find the next one.”

  “All right,” Amir said quietly. He began packing up the shadow tracker.

  Raina headed back to the camp. Seth swept his gaze along the eastern horizon, then tipped his head and did the same to the west, but he couldn’t discern so much as a promising smudge rising up from the barren ground. On the midwinter plains there had always been a few berries they could gather along the way—food so sparse that no settled community would have bothered to collect it. But it had kept the expedition from starving without requiring any special effort at all, let alone the kind of hit-or-miss detours they were relying on now.

  “Why can’t Siders see farther?” he grumbled. The errant forest could be less than a day’s walk away to the north or south, but they’d never know it.

  Theo said, “You want to see farther along the axis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Raise yourself up to the height of a mountain—”

  Seth interrupted him. “From higher ground, I’ll see farther east and west. How does that help?”

  “Who said anything about higher ground?” Theo retorted. “Raise yourself up through the air to the height of a mountain. Then look straight down.”

  It took Seth a moment to picture this fanciful configuration. His dark cones would still stretch out to the north and south, but instead of reaching the ground a couple of paces away, they would remain above it for a distance equal to his elevation, and all the land they no longer enclosed would be dragged into the light. Of all Theo’s useless ideas, this had to be the most beautiful.

  Aziz said angrily, “While you idiots are joking, Sarah’s wasting away.”

  “I gave her half my rations!” Seth protested. Raina had had to force her to accept the extra food from her colleagues; she’d kept insisting that her sickness had nothing to do with their dwindling supplies. “She just needs another day’s rest, then she’ll be fine.”

  Amir had finished with the shadow tracker. He tipped his head back to face Seth. “We need fresh supplies, and we need them soon, or none of us will be fine.”

  seth was woken by the sound of movement in the tent, but he kept his eyes closed and tried to fall back to sleep. Amir rarely passed the night without needing to go out and empty his bladder, but Seth had learned that if he stayed deliberately inert he could usually drift away and avoid being roused again by the return.

  Then Theo woke and asked Amir, “Why are you taking your pack?”

  When Seth accepted Theo’s view he caught a blur of vanishing limbs as Amir contorted himself, trying to sway out of reach of Theo’s pings, but his pack was still clearly visible. And he wasn’t rummaging through it to look for something: he was wearing it, ready to travel.

  Seth opened his eyes, though in the darkness of the tent this revealed nothing new. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  “I’m not letting Sarah and Judith die,” Amir replied angrily.

  Seth said, “We have to trust Raina and Amina.”

  “Trust them to do what? They can’t promise that the next forest won’t have drifted just as far.”

  “So what’s your plan? The one we just missed could be in any direction. Do you think you’re going to find it in the middle of the night?”

  Aziz said, “Forget about the forest. We’re heading for the nearest town.”

  Seth rubbed his eyes, as if that could summon clarity out of the gloom. Their instructions had been unambiguous: they were not to enter any inhabited area, and if they saw other travelers, they were to keep their distance. It could hardly be a secret that Baharabad was searching for a new home, but the regions they were surveying could not yet be acknowledged, and the details of what they found could not yet be shared.

  “To do what, exactly?” he asked.

  “Steal some fruit from an orchard,” Amir replied. He was still squeezed against the wall near the exit. Seth sat up, bringing more of the tent into Theo’s view.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Theo conceded. “If we do it at night, we might get away with it.”

  «We?» Alarmed, Seth began rising to his feet, almost forgetting the point where he needed to stop to avoid driving his head into the fabric above.

  Theo didn’t answer him directly, but he made his reasons clear. “If you two go alone, Raina and Amina will insist that we continue without you. But if half the expedition’s gone, she’s not going to try to move Sarah and Judith on her own.”

  Seth moaned softly. “What’s the punishment for mutiny?”

  “If we’re questioned by the townspeople, the charge will probably be treason,” Theo replied helpfully. “Assuming we ever get back to Baharabad.”

  Amir said, “We won’t get caught. And if we return to camp with enough fruit to keep us going for ten more days, do you really think Raina’s going to drag us home in chains?”

  Seth did not believe that Sarah and Judith were on the verge of death—but if the next forest they were relying on to feed them had drifted out of sight, none of them would have the strength to go hunting for it.

  He said, “I’ll leave a note for Raina, begging her not to move on. But if we come back empty-handed, we’ll only have made things worse.”

  Amir said, “Ask her to give us two days. If we make it any less, we might not get back in time—but if we ask for more, she might decide that it’s not worth waiting for us at all.”

  the four mutineers left the camp, heading north. Theo and Aziz had shut off their southward pings to avoid any risk of waking Amina or Judith, plunging three quarters of the world into darkness.

  Amir set the pace, sidling briskly over the loose sand. Seth followed, close enough to see him clearly, far enough behind not to risk a collision. As a child, he’d once hit a patch of uneven ground on a playing field at the same time as a fellow team member, and despite the considerable separation of their feet, when Seth had swayed northward and the other player southward, their tilted bodies had extended so far that their skulls had met halfway.

  «Don’t let me stumble,» he pleaded to Theo.

  «What do you think I’m going to do? Fall asleep?»

  «I’m more worried about my own lapses of attention. Just warn me if you see anything dangerous—don’t assume I’ve noticed it myself.» The ground ahead appeared soft and almost level, with a pattern of ridges and valleys that were barely toe deep—but the route that had brought them to the campsite had been strewn with hidden stones, and there was no reason
to believe that this area would be any less treacherous.

  As the blackness in the east softened with the first hints of dawn, it began to rain. Seth tipped his head back and let the cold droplets fall straight into his open mouth, glad to be sidling so he didn’t need to stop to drink. Then the rain grew heavier and Amir yelled out that he was slowing his pace, because the downpour was starting to interfere with the Siders’ vision.

  The ground became muddy, and perilously slippery. They agreed to change formation and jog together, lined up east to west, with Seth’s arms outstretched and his hands on Amir’s shoulders.

  “Castling wasn’t a wasted skill, after all,” Amir shouted over the rain.

  “What’s castling?”

  “You didn’t play that game?”

  “No.” Seth had never heard of it.

  “Kids pair up like this, then crash into each other,” Amir explained. “Two Walkers together have extra stability.”

  “I could have done with the extra stability, never mind the crashing.”

  Aziz said, “Be careful what you wish for. Some temporary alliances have been known to become permanent arrangements.”

  By mid-morning the rain had eased to a light drizzle. They un-castled but kept their east-west alignment. Muddy rivulets swirled over their feet, always flowing more or less to the east, which Seth took as a good sign. Lida, the town they were aiming for, had no permanent water from the steamlands to supply it, but it migrated along a wide, shallow depression that funneled local rain onto its fields, as well as offering accumulated groundwater. If they oriented themselves by the movement of the runoff, they’d know in which direction to keep watch for the town.

  Theo said, “We should do a quick detour east, while we’ve got the sunshine.”

  “Why?” Seth couldn’t see what purpose that would serve.