The Dig (21 page)

Irin found Wil with Pret at the food flats. They were arguing with Trig and Gen, two oldest men. Many people were busy gathering crops from vine and stalk, and Irin immediately understood what the oldest must be worrying about.

“They must stop, Pret,” said Trig. “There is no way this much food will sustain the thousands remaining in the valley.”

Irin saw the genuine fear in Trig’s eyes. “Excuse me,” he interrupted, touching the heads of all present. The four men looked at him; Trig and Gen’s faces bore sour expressions. “Wil, how much food has been gathered so far?”

“Only enough for a week,” he replied. “And that’s not accounting for all of the people joining in this morning.

“You keep going, old ones,” Pret insisted. “You could take five times that and there will still be more than enough food for those remaining behind to sustain us until the rock arrives.”

Irin nodded and then realized that Pret had said, “sustain
us.
”

“Then you will not be coming, Pret?”

“Oh, no,” he responded with a toothless smile. “I don’t believe there are any oldest who will be leaving. We would simply slow you down, and to be sure, most of us wouldn’t even make it over the first two ridges.”

Understanding completely, Irin closed his eyes to him. It was true; they would slow the rest.

“Hold it,” Gen said. “Not everyone believes this thing is even coming. When it does not, the food will all be gone, and we will starve within a week when the seeds, roots, and mothers’ milk run out.”

“Is this true, Pret?” asked Irin.

“Yes, it would be true if the rock did not come to greet us. But it will, so, you see, there is nothing to worry about.”

Trig and Gen were about to take up the argument yet again when Irin raised his hand in respect.

“Do not fear, oldest men. Your concern is a true one, and I make this vow: we will leave two weeks of extra food for you all. From our distant encampment, our eyes will face the valley during the daylight of the rock’s arrival. If it doesn’t come by nightfall, we’ll immediately send a batch of the fastest old men to return to the valley with enough food to sustain all until the rest of us return days later. Pret, how long until next harvest?”

“None will be complete before the rock burns the flats, kills us all, burns the valley to ashes…”

Irin interrupted, “I understand. No, let us
pretend
the rock does not come—how long after that day before the next harvest?”

He thought for a moment. “The first will be the dylt in the far mountainside flats. They would be complete in the second week… after the sky stripe destroys the entire valley.” He looked at the other two oldest as he said this, smiling with wily stubbornness.

“And after that?” Wil persisted, nudging his father’s gaunt shoulder.

“After that?” Pret burst out in laughter, pulling at his long, white cords of hair.

Trig and Gen were growing more incensed than ever.

“Pret, please,” Irin prodded.

“Yes, yes… of course. So important, all of this…” He chuckled a little more and then wheezed. “After the dylt, there will be short k’yon stalks. They will not be complete, but certainly edible and more than enough for the city even if it were closer to full.”

Irin turned to the two oldest.

“Is this acceptable, wise oldest? You will have enough new harvests,
and
we will have food returning.”

They accepted grudgingly and shuffled away, grumbling.

Irin waited until they were out of earshot, then leaned to Wil’s ear. “Leave just enough food to sustain half the city until the rock arrives.”

“But you said…”

Irin cut him off with a gesture, and Wil shouted across the flats to one of the gatherers. He passed on Irin’s instructions, and she ran off to tell the others. He sighed and turned back to Irin with a concerned expression.

“Wil,” Irin said quietly after another glance over his shoulder, “I thought of something new that we may not have considered. What if the teepin and teegrin doesn’t grow in the rocks outside the valley? We will not have anything to mix into solid.”

“Yes, it is possible. If we could find just one or the other, we could still melt and pour it, but it would not be as strong as solid. They have found a new t-lit, a yellow-brown one—like sunset—in the mines near the Gathering Rocks. No one has tried to use it yet, because it is too soft, but it makes me wonder if there might be other types in the faraway rocks. We have only every known what we have in the valley.”

“We have to believe there is
nothing
outside the valley. If there is, it is a greatness, but we must plan as if there were nothing at all. The biggest unknown, of course, is water—beyond the Great River, we have no idea if there is more. We can only hope.”

“So what will we do if there is no t-lit?” Wil asked.

“And what if there are no trees?” Irin added.

“We will have to find caves or dig houses under the dirt.”

“Yes,” Irin agreed. “We will need dirtpulls. We’ll need them for other things as well, especially if there is no solid to make new ones. I’ll tell Pwig he has a new task.”

Irin left as Wil walked through the flats to speak to the food gatherers. Progressing through the city, Irin grew more confident that they could leave in two nights.

There was still much talk of Twill and of doubts about their safety outside the fence. Several times people stopped him to inquire about screamers. Did he think the killers would be satisfied if they took just a few people? Or were there countless screamers outside the valley—perhaps one for every fleeing person? Did the screamers
know
they would be leaving? Were they even now lying in wait beyond the second ridge, so that no one would be able to run back to the city? Irin tried to calm these worries, saying there were probably but a few screamers in the world and that if they attacked a group of such size, the men could defeat them by their sheer numbers.

He was unsure if they really believed his answers, but at least they returned to their preparations and allowed him to continue on his way. Indeed, he was unsure whether he believed his own answers. But the choice was simple: certain death in the city, or a fighting chance outside.

When he passed the trail of blood from Twill’s house, a strange feeling settled in his belly, and he wondered, for the briefest second, if what he had done was wrong. But no. They would have been dead in a couple of moon cycles anyway.
Rid your head of such thoughts.

As Irin arrived at the Hot Place, he saw Pwig speaking to Orin. Men and women sat on the floor, guiding solid through the thin channels and raising the frames of screening at the last moment before they hardened. In the next section, the lengths were scraped clean of burrs and then spun around sticks.

Pwig touched his brother’s head when he arrived beside him.

“I think we must stop, Irin,” he said through the side of his mouth, the way he always spoke.

“Why is that? We need hundreds more k’yot of all fittings.”

“I have everyone who knows how, and they work at full speed. They say they will have only three k’yots completed in that time.”

“
Three!
” Irin exclaimed. “Where is Opwot? Mine was ready in one day from the time it was requested.”

“Yes, Irin,” Opwot said from behind him. He turned and saw her sitting at his feet, placing a stick roll of solid on the ground beside her. Her clouded eyes stared sightlessly at his legs. “Yours was done in a single day. The rest of the old who were with you already had theirs, so we had to hurry to complete yours. Your middle took us the entire night, while Onorrit and Nitt cut and adjusted your top and bottom—they were Inni’s.”

Irin looked down at his k’yot bottom, only now realizing that he wore pieces of his dead friend’s k’yot.

“So the middle alone took a whole night? Why can’t we get everyone threading them right now and see how many can be made?”

“It normally takes three nights for an entire k’yot to be made,” Opwot said as she resumed stitching from the new stick jutting from the ground. He watched her wrinkled hands work nimbly as she spoke. “We are all working as quickly as we can while teaching others how to stitch. It is not an easy task, but you are welcome to join us if you wish to add to our numbers.”

“That’s all right,” Irin said disappointedly. “It’s a greatness that you all work this hard.”

He raised his chin to Pwig and ran his hand over his forehead to keep the sweat from his eyes. Orin took his arm and pulled him out of the area.

“It is halfnight,” she said. “You should take this off.”

Irin thought about it and realized what a relief it would be. He wanted to get used to wearing it always, but he knew that after another night, he would have no choice. Better to take the last opportunity to be free of it, as Orin suggested.

He disconnected the holdstrip from the bottom and slid them off, exposing his thickly muscled legs. Irin saw that women in the Hot Place watched with interest, smiling at each other. He pulled the top and middle off over his head and handed them to Orin.

Orin tried to hold the k’yot with one hand while helping Irin slide the shoulder straps of his clothes back on. The women were looking at him like never before. Orin was surprised to find that she liked their looks. Her man was known to be the strongest in Pwin-T. Though he was not the tallest, his arms, chest, and legs were thicker and harder than any other man’s. He had grown this way when he had begun pouring. She walked away with the k’yot to return it to their house.

On the way, she decided to stop at Owil’s house and check on her. All the women were most worried that with her belly so large and her pains growing more frequent, she would not be able to travel.

Orin stopped on the path and swayed, pressing her hand against the side of a house to stay upright. This was the third time. She felt the foodrise feeling in her stomach, but somehow she held it down. She swallowed and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm her insides.

No time to be on the mat, she thought. She wouldn’t tell Irin, not now—he had too much to do and too many worries. She would wait until the day her belly began to grow enough for him to notice, and it would be a surprise for both of them. But where would that be? Somewhere far away. Somewhere colder? Hotter? Somewhere that screamers lived, or perhaps, as Irin was fond of saying, somewhere screamers would
never
go.

She continued walking until she reached Owil’s doorway. Her friend was lying on her side, munching dylt seeds without a hint of enjoyment.

“Are you well?” Orin asked her.

Owil moved only her eyes to look up at her and smiled. “I am fine, Orin, but I cannot seem to stop eating.”

Orin knelt down on the mat, moved Owil’s hair out of her face, and tied it behind her head. “When do you think the newest will crawl out?”

“Thank you. I don’t know. If you had asked eight nights ago, I would have said next night. You ask me now? I say next night.” They smiled, and Orin considered telling her that she had been feeling foodrise and that her belly, too, would soon grow. Probably best not to tell her as she might tell Wil, and he would certainly tell Irin.

“Do you need anything more that I can get you?” Orin asked, looking at the waterbowl. It was still full.

“I am fine, Orin, thank you… but how are
you
? Your skin looks tired.”

“I’m fine as well.” She stood up, hurriedly rebundling the k’yot under her arm. “I’ll see you later.”

As she walked the last path to her house, the foodrise feeling overtook her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth and fell to her knees. Her belly seized a few times, and she lost control of her throat movements. She forced a deep inhalation and held it.
Do not come, do not come, stay inside, stay inside,
she chanted to herself.

After a moment, Orin won the battle, and her food settled without coming out her mouth. Continuing her deep, slow breaths, she stood up, walking past the last few houses before entering her own. She dropped Irin’s k’yot on the floor, lay down on the mat, and curled into a ball.

M
ATT RAISED HIS HANDS FROM THE
k’yot piece and opened his eyes. He looked around the RV and realized he was alone. His stomach churned, and he felt the same violent nausea Orin had suffered. He swallowed, and his eyes began to well up as he realized he did not have her same ability to fight it. He slid from the seat and rushed to the toilet, his hand over his mouth. He made it just in time and spewed into the stainless steel bowl. His eyes teared and his nose ran until, several heaves later, he was done.

Sitting there on the floor, he breathed through his mouth and cleaned his face with toilet paper. He stood and looked at his hands to see if they were clean, and realized he was gloveless. He flashed back to everything he had touched. The table? The counter as he passed, the door latch, the rim of the toilet, the floor. Fortunately, they had all been “clean.” He yanked a paper towel from the roll and turned on the faucet to wash his hands and face. After carefully using the paper towel to flush the toilet, he left the bathroom and returned to the table to fetch his gloves.