“Is that where it is from?” Amy asked.
“Yes.”
“So it’s radioactive?”
“The bomb used in the Chicago attack was a neutron bomb. In the early days of our order they brought us a number of valuable artifacts removed from the inner part of the city. Even now, the incidental radiation coming off them would kill these men in a matter of days,” Joseph said, rubbing his head. “It is not just ourselves we are worried about. We are trying to protect them as well.”
“What do you intend to do?” Luke asked.
“They are still a few days away, at least,” he replied. “We hope to end this peacefully yet. We must at least warn them of their danger. Likely, they won’t listen or believe, but we must try.”
“That’s more than fair, considering they are trying to rob you,” Spider said.
“The council decided last night,” Joseph went on. “They will be given three warnings. The first will be in writing, placed on their route. The second will be audio, left on a continuous tape at the last fueling station before they arrive.
“The third was the hardest. We are peaceful people, devoted to serving the good of humanity. We
have
to be certain they hear and understand, even if it means sacrificing our own lives. One of us will try to talk to them in person.”
“And the rest of you?” Owl asked.
“Will go into hiding,” Joseph said. “And let them take what they will. We can fight if need be, but we are not warriors.”
“But you said the metal would kill them,” Lexa gasped.
“Yes, it will. What else can we do? Owl here can tell you what these people are like. They will hurt or kill us if we try to stop them. I will not let my people die over this.”
“I agree,” Owl said. “Serves them right. I wouldn’t even have warned them.”
“Do you really think it will come to that?” Luke asked.
“Count on it,” Owl growled.
“We have already begun to prepare for evacuation,” Joseph said. “We will get your trucks unloaded as fast as we can. We do not want to leave you stranded.”
“We thank you,” Lorn said. “But will that slow you down?”
“It shouldn’t,” he replied. “We are nearly ready. We will not be able to take much anyway.”
“We will help any way we can,” Luke said.
“That is a generous offer,” Joseph replied. “But today you must rest. We will prepare a bath and food for you. Tomorrow, if you’re still willing, I may take you up on the offer.”
“How are we going to get anywhere, if we keep stopping to help people?” Mark muttered.
An elderly lady named Jes took them to the bathing area. Lorn explained the ranch member’s customs and ideas about bathing. She waved him off. She was old enough to remember the old views on modesty.
The bathing facility here was quite different than at Tir-Na-Nog. The pool area was huge with water plants growing along three sides, tall reeds in front of the windows shielded the bathers from view. Lilly pads grew over almost half the surface.
The men were left to bathe by one pool, and the women were led to a second. The pool was cool. Large south-facing windows let the sun’s heat in, and the dark bottom helped to retain it, but it came nowhere close to a thermal well.
Amy found it refreshing. Lexa swam to the middle, splashing gracefully. Amy watched her go enviously, wishing she knew how to swim.
Jes joined them in the pool. She was a mass of wrinkles from head to toe, it seemed to Amy, who had never met anyone so old before.
The old woman swam after Lexa with a strength that belied her age. The two swam a lap and came back to Amy and Spider. They all sat soaking for a long while.
“I will miss this place,” Jes said.
“Surely, you will come back as soon as the scavengers are gone,” Lexa said.
“The others will come back, yes,” the old woman replied. “I fear that they will have much work to do. The scavengers will destroy as much as they can from sheer spite. Still, I guess it is better than fighting and dying.”
“What do you mean, the others?” Amy asked. “Aren’t you coming back?”
“I am not leaving, child,” Jes replied.
“What?” the three younger women said as one.
“Someone has to stay, to try to persuade the scavengers not to do what we know they will do anyway.”
“That’s crazy,” Amy said.
“No, we all agreed that they should be given one last chance,” Jes replied.
“I know but why you? Shouldn’t it be Joseph?” Amy asked.
“What, a man?” Jes said pointing her finger at Amy, “I’ll have you know that I was fighting for women’s rights before you were a twinkling in your daddy’s eye, child. Don’t be giving me that nonsense.”
“Of course not,” Spider said firmly. “But shouldn’t it be someone younger? A warrior maybe, like me or Owl?”
“No, we will not allow anyone else to risk their lives on our behalf. It must be one of our order. And we can’t afford to lose Joseph, so don’t go putting ideas in his head,” she warned.
“From what we have heard, this could well be a suicide mission,” Lexa said.
Jes sighed. “Yes, I have thought of that. That’s why I volunteered.”
“You volunteered?”
“Joseph and several of the others wanted to stay. I forced them to accept me.”
“How?”
“Told them I would stay anyway. Besides, as much as they hated it, they saw my logic.”
“What logic is that?” Spider asked skeptically.
Jes turned partially away from them. With one hand, she stretched the skin on her shoulder. The shoulder was a mass of little white scars and more moles than Amy had ever seen.
“They choose you for your moles?” Lexa asked.
“That’s skin cancer,” Jes replied. Amy gasped. “It’s nothing, child,” Jes said. “I’ve been having pre-cancerous moles removed since before you were born. I am seventy-nine. That’s ten years older than anyone else here. The only thing I care about that hasn’t died on me is this place.”
Lexa’s eyes shown with tears. Jes faced her, fixing her with two calm, brown eyes. “The others have people to live for and the strength to rebuild. I have neither. It would be harder for me to live with this place destroyed than to die. I am staying.”
“That must have been a difficult decision,” Amy said.
“For me, no,” Jes answered. “For everyone else, yes. They agonized over it. I had to threaten to stay anyway before they would listen to me. They know how stubborn I am. I’d do it. So they finally gave in.”
After their baths, Jes showed them to the guest quarters. They shared one large common room. Luke and Kurt sat at a long table that was fairly laden with food for their consumption.
“Where is everyone else?” Amy asked.
Luke pointed to the other side of the room. The edge of room was lined in curtains. A few open curtains revealed low sleeping nooks.
“Women over there,” Luke said pointing at another wall.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Amy replied, making for the wall.
“Top bunk,” Lexa called, racing past.
There must be a dozen bunks
, Amy thought,
why is she calling it?
Light streamed through the thin curtain. Amy wondered wearily how long she had slept and what time it was. Her stomach growled threateningly, telling her she had slept enough.
All right, I’ll feed you,
she thought as she climbed up.
“Hello, sleepy head,” Lexa called. “Come get some breakfast before it gets cold.”
“Colder,” Luke corrected.
Almost everyone was around the table eating. Joseph was there and had brought pancakes. He seemed in good spirits.
“The unloading is going well,” he told them. “It should be done before nightfall. By this time tomorrow, you can be on your way and out of danger.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I think we’ll stay,” Luke said. The others looked at him.
“Why?” Joseph asked, his head cocked.
“I wouldn’t feel right leaving you in danger,” Luke replied. “We’ll stay and help like we offered, at least until you are evacuated. It’s the least we can do.”
Amy saw Lorn smile. Patrick, however, scowled. “Our mission?” he growled.
“Can wait another day or two,” Luke replied. “We will not leave innocent civilians in danger.”
“Your attitude is commendable,” Joseph replied. “But we really are capable. This does not concern you.”
“It has concerned us since we encountered the scavengers,” Lorn said. “I agree; we should stay.”
Joseph looked away, counting to himself. “I can’t say that ten more workers wouldn’t be welcomed, if that’s truly how you feel.”
“Ten? Don’t you mean eleven?” Amy asked. Then she looked around. “Where’s Owl?”
“He left this morning,” Lorn told her.
Amy scrunched up her brow. He’d just left? She thought he’d be eager to help. Seeing her expression, Joseph added, “He went to place the first sign. He signed on to help last night.” Amy breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t misjudged him.
After breakfast, Joseph showed them around.
“This place is amazing,” Amy told him as they wandered around a pool larger than the one they had bathed in. “Not at all what I expected.”
“We hear that a lot,” Joseph replied with obvious pride. “When you build a place on the edge of desolation, people expect it to be, well, desolate. In fact, we work hard to make it exactly the opposite. The whole place is a vast biological filter. These trailing plants along this wall convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, but also filter a lot of airborne pollutants out.”
They crossed into a vast hall with many large water tanks. “For water, this is the first step in purification,” Joseph explained. “The algae and plants in these tanks are fast growing and use a lot of nitrites. But the real secret is here.” He reached his arm into one tank and came up holding a tiny snail. “As these snails grow, they use minerals to build their shells. The quality of the minerals matter little to them. A lot of heavy metals can be removed from the water in this way.”
Amy got lost as Joseph talked about various pollutants and various levels of purification. But one thing was clear. Once again, a seemingly primitive place was, in fact, complex. By the time the contaminated water left the graywater system, it was pure enough to drink.
Joseph left them in the garden. The Stewards were frantically harvesting as much as was edible. They did not know how long they would be gone or if any of would be left when they got back. A young woman showed them where to start, and they spent most of the day gathering small carrots and radishes.
Outside on the desolate side of the fence, life abounded as well. The Stewards had a larger version of their graywater system in the form of several ponds. Water moved slowly from pond to pond. Unlike the one inside, this one would continue to function without any interference.
In the lower end of the system, where the water was pure, they raised fish. Several people were wading through, netting as many as they could.
By evening, word had returned from the advance party. The first message had been placed by Owl. He estimated the scavengers were less than two days away.
“Your offer to help will not slow you down much,” Joseph told Luke. “We will be leaving before noon tomorrow.”
The monastery had twenty-five members. They quickly loaded what few personal possessions they had into twelve electric vehicles along with all the food they had harvested. That night they celebrated a somber farewell feast.
As they prepared to depart the next day, they went down a long, slow line, each hugging Jes in farewell. She tried to wave them off, but they would not budge. Amy, Spider, and Lexa went down the line as well. They barely knew the woman but felt drawn to her courage. Luke, Kurt, and Daniel came after them, shaking her hand. Joseph was last of all. He hugged her tightly for a long time. Tears ran down his face as he gave the order to roll out.
They traveled for two days alongside the tall fence. Rolling plains passed by. The mood was bleak and somber.
After traveling for two days, they reached the small hostel that would serve as their hideout. It wasn’t much as hiding places go, but then again, they weren’t the targets: the gold was. The hostel was too small for even the Stewards and many had to camp out. The expedition members were used to that anyway.
They remained with the Stewards. No one even talked about abandoning them now. After two days, Amy heard a shout from the lookout station. She ran immediately to the base of the tower where Patrick and Luke sat with their binoculars.
“It’s Owl and the advance party,” Luke told her. Moments later, she could see them for herself as they raced toward the hostel in an electric buggy.
The entire group quickly gathered around and listened as Owl described the events of the last four days. It was nothing unexpected.
The scavengers had ignored the first two warnings. Owl had hidden himself near the monastery to witness the final confrontation. Faces fell when Owl told them how Jes had been struck by the lead scavenger. They rose slightly when he told them how she had produced a battered revolver and shot him in the foot. They fell again as he described how the last defense of their home had ended on the end of a crossbow quarrel.
The only good news seemed bleak after hearing about Jes. The scavengers wasted little time on the monastery itself. They apparently knew what they sought was deep in the desolate region in a storage bunker. They had crossed the monastery and disappeared.
“We wait here until they have returned,” Joseph said. “We will send the advance party back to watch. It could take them weeks to find the right storage area, but I doubt it. They seem to have some knowledge, though how, I don’t know.”
“I will go with the advance party,” Owl said. “And I will track them when they leave. I would see this to its end.”
“Thank you, Owl,” Joseph replied. “I had hoped as much.” He turned to Lorn and Luke. “You guys have really done as much as you can. We do not anticipate any confrontation now. We have truly appreciated the help. We really can’t keep you from your mission any longer.”
“We will only use up what little food they have,” Lorn said to Luke.
“And we have a mission to complete,” Luke added.