Fervor (32 page)

“
But the Bigs’ parents were dead. Where would they find the people with the right traits to produce that kind of telepathic strength in their children?” Sarah admonished. Her words triggered a response from Sam, who was suddenly starting to see where Elliot was possibly going with this.

“
The Bigs,” the Finder answered coolly. “It was the only stock that they had left to work with. But there are only fifty Littles, not a hundred. There were no children who left with the minders and the teachers. This has something to do with what Royce told us, doesn’t it?”

“
The Bigs can’t be our parents. They were only around five years old when we were born,” Sarah protested, unhappy with where this was going.

Elliot shook his head.

“
The scholars used genetic material from the Bigs and surrogates, Sarah, but they didn’t use a simple method of merely two donors. They wanted as much strength as possible, a predominance of ability with the connection. They wanted to cheat evolution, so they pulled genetic coding from multiple Bigs. You don’t have two parents, you have many, and they happened to be scattered around Fervor. You could have genes from any of them, even from Fiona, or Nathan, or Francis. Even from Royce. The Controls did carry some of the traits they were looking for, just in a less concentrated way. So you see, I can’t take you to your parents, because in a way, you are already with them.”

Sarah’s face grew ashen, and she looked like she was going to be ill. Sam, on the other hand, was not satisfied with this alone. He felt the need to dig deeper.

“
Why were there only fifty Littles, instead of a hundred, Elliot? What happened?” he demanded. “And why did Royce think that there was something wrong with us on the inside?”

“
The scholars had never tried to splice while manipulating genetics before. They used questionable methods, and this yielded inconsistent results. Half the children were viable, resembling the Bigs that they were built from. The other half...” Elliot grimaced, unwilling to meet their stares.

“
They died?” Sarah breathed, clutching at Sam’s hand.

“
Some of them didn’t survive birth,” the technician conceded.

“
But some did, didn’t they?” Sam pressed. “And some survived long enough that Royce got a look at one of them. They didn’t look human, that’s why he called them monsters. They must have had them hidden somewhere on Fervor, because none of the rest of us ever saw one. Royce did have those Finder instincts though. He probably saw something that stirred his curiosity, and followed those instincts until it led him there. What happened? Did they leave with the first exodus or the second? Or are they still hidden here somewhere? Would they have been able to be part of the connection like us, and that ability was magically suppressed in them too?”

“
I don’t know, Sam,” Elliot insisted. “They considered that part of their experiment a failure, and while I’m sure that they had the details recorded somewhere, it wasn’t with their active research notes. That was all that I could get my hands on, and only because I was actually working on the Languorite for them.”

“
So what you are saying,” Sarah summarized in a tremulous voice, “Is that our parents are not really our parents – that they are only five years older than we are, and that all of the Littles are siblings, in a way, only we aren’t? Royce was right. We are monsters.”

“
Sarah, no,” Sam said with a frown. “Elliot’s right. You can’t think like that. This doesn’t change anything. This just gives us more insight as to what exactly those scholars are willing to do, in the name of their research. It doesn’t have any bearing on us.”

But Sarah wasn’t that easily consoled. She lurched to her feet looking horribly distraught and ran off down the beach. Elliot watched her go, and then hung his head and sighed.

“
Not ready,” he mumbled with an edge of misery to his voice. “Should have gone with my first inclination, trusted my intuition.”

He threw the tool he held into the pile, with a ‘clank’.

“
I need her if you want me to finish this.”

“
I’ll fetch her back,” Sam offered, knowing he would have no problem finding her. “Do what you can without her for now. I won’t be long.”

He traced Sarah back to the house and found her sitting with Francis, clinging to him in her misery, and sniffling quietly. He was stroking her hair trying to soothe her, and eyed Sam with some distaste as the Finder entered.

“
I told you that this was a bad idea. There were some things that you didn’t need to know – things that would only be hurtful. Elliot doesn’t really understand what life has been like for us, or how we think. I do. Take advantage of him and his hover if that is what you want, but stop digging,” the Teller stated.

Sam gritted his teeth as the sudden wave of compulsion hit him with the command. It did not have to be permanent. Elliot could easily remove it with the Languorite. It was the principal of it. Francis threw it out as casually as regular speech. He had never done that to Sam before.

“
How about we discuss that later? We need to work on the hover while it is still light out. Elliot needs Sarah’s help.” Sam did not try to make excuses. There was no time for that.

Francis’s pale green eyes held the Finder for a few moments, a small crease in his brow. Then he took Sarah by the shoulders and forced her to sit up.

“
Fine. Sarah, go help Elliot with the hover. Forget about what he last told you for a little while, and focus on your fixing,” he murmured. She nodded, and got to her feet, making for the door.

That was two orders in the last few minutes, and Francis almost never told the Littles what to do.

A worried Sam returned to the beach, trailing after Sarah. She was right about Francis. Something, Sam feared, was wrong.

Abuse of Power

When they arrived back at the house that evening, Fiona had already prepared a meal and was sitting mutely across from Francis at the kitchen table. Sam could tell that she did not want to be there, and he suspected that Francis had not given her a choice. They were waiting there in silence for the others to return, with Fiona fidgeting and watching out the window trying to ignore the Teller. Francis, on the other hand, was just staring at her while wearing a contemplative expression.

That evening was even more tense than the one prior, but was thankfully much more short-lived. There was little conversation. Sarah, who had initiated talk on many of the occasions that the house-family had gathered in the past, was silent and moping. Francis seemed equally unyielding, his eyes glued to Fiona and rarely affording a glance for anyone else, clenching and unclenching his jaw from time to time. Elliot seemed to be imitating Nathan during most of the meal, averting his eyes and refraining from commenting on anything that had happened during the day. Fiona and Nathan basically kept to themselves, returning to the way things had been before Elliot’s arrival and shutting the others out in the process.

Sam found the quiet stifling, but it was decidedly better than yesterday’s heated debate. There would be no winners in the dispute between Francis and Elliot, and Sam was sure that if the technician pushed the Teller too much, the losers would include him, Sarah, Nathan, and Fiona. After he finished eating, Sam concluded that he had nothing to contribute to the situation that would help improve dampened spirits or mend broken fences, so he excused himself and went to his bedroom.

For the second night in a row, finding sleep proved to be a challenge to Sam as he fretted over all of the trouble surrounding his house-family. If they could only hold out until the hover was ready before someone collided with their breaking point, they could make it off of Fervor and leave all of their cares behind them. He worried what would become of Francis once they were gone, but he also realized that taking him along would cause any existing problems to persist. They could bring him along if he would willingly submit to having his gift removed by the Languorite and pass over any authority that he possessed to Elliot, something that the Teller would surely refuse to do. Francis had not wanted to go with them in the first place. He certainly would not agree to it if it involved such stipulations. As Elliot had mentioned, Francis needed to feel like he was in control, and as things were getting more stressful, that need seemed to be intensifying.

There were also no guarantees that leaving Fervor would help Sarah cope with what they had just learned. Sam admitted that it was unusual, and a little shocking, but he was quite certain that he could live with the fact that where they had come from was not quite normal. He was more curious about what had become of the odd ones that had managed to survive – the ones that Royce had discussed discovering. He had planned on hunting the Control out the next day and trying to drill him for information, but in addition to overcoming enduring fears of the black-haired boy, Sam now found himself plagued by the restrictions placed upon him by Francis. He could go to the school the next morning on the basis of doing more finding, but he would not be able to prompt Royce with questions. If Royce were going to provide him with anymore answers, it would have to be at the Control’s choosing and not Sam’s request.

When Sam arose sleepily the next morning, a disgruntled-looking Elliot and a chagrined Sarah were preparing to set out for the beach. Nathan had left, and Francis and Fiona were up. The Keeper was milling about, having already started on her household chores for the day, and she was trying to give Francis as much of a cold shoulder as she could muster. This did not seem to put the Teller off. He was watching her as much as he had been since she had emerged from her room, but Sam thought there was something off in Francis’s mannerisms that day, something different. There was heightened interest and intensity to his pale green eyes that had not been there before, as well as a nervousness to his movements that seemed out of place for Francis. Sam did not like it, and he was tempted to stay behind to reassure himself that there was nothing unusual in the works, especially since his Teller had been acting somewhat out of the ordinary in general lately.

Unfortunately, his finding urges eventually overcame any reluctance he had to leave, and when he saw that Sarah and Elliot were finally ready to go, he beat them to the exit.

When Sam opened the door, he found the morning to be less than pleasant. The air was damp and cold and the sky was gray, but there was no sign of actual rain. The weather cast an additional air of gloom over the house, but it did not deter any of them from attempting to achieve their objectives for the day. As the three reached the bottom of the front steps, Sam started out on a separate pathway while Sarah and Elliot headed towards the shore. When Sarah noticed that the Finder was not joining them, she stopped abruptly.

“
Where are you going?” she called out to him.

“
To do some finding,” he called back. “I’ve helped you as much as I can. You don’t need me anymore for anything associated with the hover. Right now I’ll only get in the way, and you know that I still have to find. I’ll come to check back on you later, when I’m done.”

Elliot was visibly relieved, pleased that he would be able to work in peace and not be assuaged with questions, but Sarah drooped in response to Sam’s words, her eyes sad. She understood, nevertheless, and did not suggest that Sam shouldn’t go.

Rushing through the trees without worries reminded Sam of the days before Royce had left the house, earlier on when the Control’s hostility still remained fairly minimal. That was when Sam had enjoyed finding the most. Dashing across the other house-families’ spaces was so much easier without Sarah and Elliot, and he liked being alone. He had not had much opportunity to do things this way lately and had almost completely put the thought out of his head that he was about to confront the Control on his own terrain. There would be no Nathan to rush to his rescue if things went wrong. Then again, Sam and Royce were now on much more even ground. It was possible that Sam could even hold his own against him.

As he approached the school, a shudder went up his spine, still haunted by the vision of bleakness that did not correspond with his memories. He wanted to see the school as it had once been, and not the way that he was seeing it now. He paused before entering, reconsidering the choice that he had made to come in the first place. It was an all out battle between fear and curiosity, and in the end, curiosity won.

Sam crept up towards the door. Elliot had not extinguished the lights when they had departed, but his magic had expired once he had left the general area, so there was only darkness in the corridor past the entrance. Sam had been expecting that, and reached into the bag that he had brought with him, pulling out the glow torch within. It had been some time since he had last used it, but the method of activation still remained fresh in his mind, probably because it was some of the very limited magic that he could actually use. The Finder cautiously reached for the door and swung it open rapidly with an exaggerated jerk. He illuminated the device clutched fervently in his fist and stepped forward.

He followed his finding instincts that led him to what once was the school cafeteria. There were things in the kitchen that were prime scavenging items, but which had been left untouched by Royce. Sam noted the likely reason why. They were all items that required the use of a cooking implement, and while Royce had unlimited access to one, he no doubt had no idea how to make it work. There was always the option of cooking over an open fire, but that required knowing how to work one of the fire-making devices, and Sam doubted that the Control could do that either. That made those particular food items useless to Royce, but a perfect find for Sam. He started dropping some of the packages into his bag.