Pandora's Genes (36 page)

Still making the sign of the spiral, the woman looked to the older men for guidance. The Principal turned to look too, wondering what to do, wondering if he should have these wretched immigrants arrested, and then he was startled by a sudden shriek as if truly the devil himself had suddenly appeared in the clearing. He whirled to see the youth brandishing a knife. But clinging to the young man’s arm was Napoleon, his sharp, tiny teeth locked on the boy’s wrist. At almost the same moment there was a crashing in the brush, and beside him suddenly stood the two guards who had accompanied him to the preserve.

One guard quickly subdued the young man, who had thrown the fox-cat to the ground, and was moaning and holding his wrist. The other had disarmed the older man, who now looked bewildered and frightened.

“Filthy Traders,” muttered Perry, the younger of the guards.

The Principal took a deep breath and let it out. “You were ordered to stand at the perimeter!” he shouted, aware that his anger was not really for the guards. “Why are you here?”

“Sorry, sir. Captain Robin ordered us to keep close behind you, sir, no matter what your orders.”

Again the Principal took a deep breath. Of course Robin had done the right thing; he had sensed the mood the Principal was in. Although he had never really been in danger from these Traders, he realized that in other circumstances he might well have acted too rashly for his own safety.

He suddenly remembered the little fox-cat and turned. Napoleon was sitting in the clearing, mewling softly, licking his left forepaw, which seemed bent at an unnatural angle. He knelt and stroked the small furry head, then picked the animal up, trying not to touch the injured limb.

“Arrest these Traders,” he said, fighting the incongruous feeling that he was giving the wrong order. “When we return to the Capital, see that they are questioned. Now it’s getting late. Let’s go.”

As soon as he returned to his House, the Principal had his personal physician tend to Napoleon, whose paw had been dislocated. Then he took food and drink and shut himself away in his office, the one place in the world where he felt most comfortable. He told himself that he had only to get through this one night; then Zach and Evvy would be gone and everything would be as it was before.

It was late and the Principal had been drinking since early evening. Tomorrow he would call a meeting of his generals to discuss the war with the Traders. Tomorrow he was to make an address, now twice put off, to a gathering of young boys just taken into his service. Tomorrow Zach would go into exile, probably with Evvy, and he would never see either of them again.

On his desk lay writing leaves, thickly scrawled over with his plans. His empire. The empire that was to save the world from certain destruction. In a room fifty feet down the hall, guarded by men that he knew were not needed, Zach slept, or lay awake, preparing for his journey. And in Evvy’s room . . . .

The matters that had preoccupied him his whole life were far more important than anything that had happened in this office, yet all he could think about was the events of the last days, and the look on Zach’s face, and on Evvy’s, as he had announced what must be.

Alexander, they said, had died from drink. It was the curse and the solace of a leader, of the man who took responsibility for others. He poured more brew but didn’t touch it. He should try to sleep but was reluctant to close his eyes on this, the last night that Zach and Evvy lay sleeping in rooms so near that he could call out their names and they would hear. In a round basket beside his desk the fox-cat mewled softly in its sleep, its bandaged leg resting on a cushion.

There was a sudden sound in the far corner of the room.

He started and his eyes traveled to his sword, lying sheathed beside the desk. “What is it?” he called, knowing the answer already: in that corner was the door which had not been used regularly in over five years, the door which led through a hidden corridor directly to Zach’s room and was used only by Zach when he wanted private access to the Principal.

His hands clenched into fists as he watched the narrow door creak open, then Zach stood before him. His throat constricted as it had three days ago when the couriers had brought their Trader prisoner to his office. There Zach stood now – as then – alive, his brother, the person the Principal had known the longest in his life and had loved the most, and who had betrayed him.

Zach was holding a sheaf of papers, and once again the Principal noticed how pale and gaunt he was, how sickly-looking, and wanted to go to him, to embrace him, but Zach had made that impossible. At the same time the Principal wanted to have Zach thrown into prison, to watch him suffer on the machines. “I said that I would not see you again,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not here to ask pardon,” Zach said. “I know there can be none. But I must talk to you. I’ve been drawing up notes and making a map. Only listen to me, as if I were one of your generals, and let me tell you what I know of the Traders. If I can’t do that, all of this has been for nothing.”

The Principal took one deep breath and let it out. “Sit, then,” he said. “And report.”

When Zach had finished, it was very late. The Principal’s head ached from the details. The biggest difficulty in trying to fight the Traders had been their apparent lack of formal structure, and now he had the key to their organization. The town where Zach had been held seemed to be the center of the empire, and with the aid of the map, it should be possible to find it and destroy it. Overcoming the enemy would not be easy, but with this new information he would able, at least, to start.

“This is everything I know,” said Zach. “If I find out anything else that may be of help, I will try to send word to you.”

“You’re not returning to the Trader empire?”

Zach shook his head. “I don’t know. I will go where I must and do what I can to help you fight them. It’s our shared purpose, and it’s what’s left.” He sighed, then rose. He seemed about to turn away, but still stood there. “Will,” he said finally, “I want you to know I am sorry. When it happened, I felt I had no more choice than you have now. I would not change what I did, but I . . . might have done it differently. When I was making my way back here, I was not thinking of the Traders, I was not thinking of Evvy, I was thinking of you. It may be hard for you to hear this, and impossible to understand it, but it is the truth. I know it doesn’t change anything.”

The Principal looked up at Zach, meeting his eyes for the first time since this discussion had begun. He wanted to offer him something to eat, something to drink, but knew that he did not dare. “Get some sleep, brother,” he said. “You’ll need your strength tomorrow.” He rose then and grasped Zach’s hand as he would any of the general’s. “Good night.”

Z
ACH LOOKED AT THE BUNDLES
he had packed. On the Principal’s orders Robin had given him a leather vest and breeches, piles of soft cotton tunics and trousers, and a thick cloak made of new-wool. There were blankets and drinking skins, enough metal for a family to live a year in the Capital, a bow and arrows, a short sword from the museum collections, and a sharp, well-balanced knife. He glanced about the room, not wanting to leave it, aware that he would never see it again, and his eyes came to rest on the feathered lyre, still hanging on the wall. He was hesitant to take it; he felt that it now belonged to the Principal, given to him forever on the day Zach had left it by the ruined campsite.

Of course, Will couldn’t play, and probably wouldn’t even want it, as a painful reminder of what had happened. He slipped it off its peg, then sat in the chair by the bed and began awkwardly to attach and tune a set of strings. His hands were no longer as flexible as they had once been; in spite of Jonna’s arts, the broken fingers had not set quite properly, and he had been out of practice for many years. He began to pluck the strings, playing a song that had been a favorite of his and Will’s. He had first learned it in the days just before the final assault on the Capital when Will, Zach, and a handful of the Principal’s men had been hiding out in the long underground tunnels that radiated from the Capital like the anchoring strands on a spider’s web. At first he could not make the strings respond the way he wanted them to, but his fingers soon remembered what to do. The melancholy tone filled the room and seemed to fill Zach’s body too, with an aching sadness and regret for all that had been and all that would never be.

In a very few hours it would be dawn, and time to go. After leaving the Principal he had bathed and dressed for the journey, knowing that sleep would be impossible for what remained of the night. The flickering shadows cast by a single fish-oil lamp seemed to move in rhythm to the music.

He was startled by a sound and looked up, his hands still on the strings. His guard put his head just inside the door, blinking sleepily. “You have a visitor,” he said.

Zach straightened in the chair. No doubt Will had last-minute questions about the Traders. The door swung open, and Evvy entered.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “And then I heard you playing. Please don’t stop.”

Zach stared at her. His fingers still moved over the strings, but his hands were suddenly shaking so violently that he produced a jumbled discord.

“You mustn’t come in here,” he said.

She didn’t answer. He saw that she too was trembling. She remained just inside the doorway. The guard shrugged and left, closing the door.

He set the lyre on the bed. For what seemed many minutes, but was probably only a moment or two, they continued to look at each other. She was wearing the same light blue tunic and trousers she had worn that morning, and her hair was pulled into a knot on the back of her head, making her appear very much a grown woman; yet somehow this new maturity made Zach realize how very young she was still. Her face was as pale as he remembered it that first day at her parents’ house all these years ago, and he felt as if her eyes were piercing his heart. At last he looked away. “Ah, Evvy,” he said. He heard her soft footsteps approaching.

“Zach, we must talk,” she said.

He couldn’t think what to say. He looked up to see her standing before him, looking as frightened as he felt. “You’re making a terrible mistake,” she said. “Both of you.”

“There is no choice for either of us.”

Evvy sat at the end of the bed and looked down at her feet. Her right hand was turning a dilapidated bracelet on her left wrist, and he realized with a jolt that it was the feather bracelet he had once made for her. At last she spoke. “I know him, Zach. He doesn’t really want to send you away. You mustn’t let him do it.”

“It is his decision,” Zach said. “He is the Principal.” He sat a moment more in silence, then stood and walked to the window. It had begun to rain, and he could see nothing beyond the glass but blurred points of light.

“During all these years I’ve thought of you,” she said then. “I’ve remembered everything that happened when we were together, and wondered what caused you to do what you did.”

“You know the Principal’s reputation,” said Zach.

“He told me himself,” she said. “But you knew it too, before you took me from my family. Zach . . . when we were together you used to protect me, by keeping the truth to yourself. There’s no need to do that now.”

Zach sighed. “Ah, Evvy. When Will sent me to fetch you, I had never done such a thing for him before. I had always hated his dealings with young girls. It was the only important thing we ever disagreed on. He asked me to do it, just that once, because I was the only person he could trust. I refused for several weeks. Finally he promised that if I agreed, it would be the last time. The last time he would ask me such a thing, the last time he would buy a girl. I shouldn’t have, but I finally agreed. Then, when I came to know you, it seemed that all that mattered was to see you safe. I couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen if I took you to him.”

She was silent for several seconds. When she spoke again her voice shook. “This has always been between you.”

“Since we were boys.” said Zach.

“And it was the cause of the trouble between him and the Mistress, wasn’t it? I’ve wondered about that so often. I always assumed it was because of something he did in the Garden before he went away, that he must have taken one of the women or girls, without obeying the laws for mate selection. Was that it?”

“That’s what he thinks,” said Zach. “That’s what she let him think.”

“Then what was it?” Evvy rose from the bed and came over to the window. She put her hand on Zach’s arm. He started and drew back, wondering how much more to tell her.

“He was – was and is – the most brilliant child the Garden had ever produced,” Zach finally said. “He was able to read almost before he could walk. He was the ultimate product of what our mother had tried to do. His father was selected very carefully, much more so than mine. She loved my father, but he died soon after they coupled.” He paused, aware that his words were wandering. He thought a moment before continuing, wanting to be certain that Evvy understood. “He was raised as carefully as he was bred, to maximize his gifts. His lessons were different from the rest of us, broader, more intensive. It was my mother’s plan that he would be the greatest scientist the Garden had ever produced. It was her plan that he would do in one lifetime what it might take the Garden generations to achieve.”

“But he didn’t want to follow someone else’s plan,” said Evvy.

Zach began to pace about the room. “He was always more interested in the forces of history than in the work going on in the Garden. He saw what we did there as a tool, as something that could help to build a new world. But he wanted to be the one to build that world.” He shrugged. “I always understood that. Our mother never did. And she never forgave him.”

“I think she came to,” said Evvy thoughtfully.

“Perhaps,” said Zach. “In any case, what happened when Will left was just the excuse for a final break. It had been coming a long time. He knew it and she knew it.”