Chapter 9: The Price of a Seat

Nobody in the chamber moved. Even the generator seemed to hold its breath.

Mara counted eleven rifles. Six on her, five on Tobias, and one old shotgun held by a woman with a gray braid who looked more nervous than anyone. Tobias had straightened up very slowly, wrench still in his hand, and he didn't look afraid. He looked tired, mostly, like a man who'd seen this particular movie before and knew it didn't end well.

"Put the wrench down, Mr. Engineer," Bram said.

Tobias set it on the generator. Gently, like it might go off.

"I just fixed your lights," he said.

"And I thank you for it. Truly." Bram tipped his head toward the map on the wall. "But I've got forty mouths and a hole in the ground. You're worth more to me than a debt."

"He's not going anywhere without me," Mara said.

"That's up to him."

"No, it's up to the door." She took one slow step forward, hands open, away from the knife on her belt. "You think you can just walk him up there and he'll open it for you? The lock's got a code, sure. It's also got a kid on the other side. Eleven years old. She's been alone in that mountain for three years, and she's been told by every adult she ever trusted that the door only opens for one voice. Her father's. Maybe her mother's. You think she's opening up for a man with a rifle?"

Bram didn't answer. But the woman with the shotgun shifted her feet.

"Wren," Mara said, "is my daughter. Tobias's daughter. She's the whole reason we're here. So here's what you get with me. You get the way, the only safe way, because I've walked it. You get a face the girl will trust. And you get something else."

"What's that?"

"Her."

She pointed, and every head turned.

The little girl with the missing tooth stood at the edge of the firelight, half behind a mattress, hugging a stuffed rabbit with one ear chewed off. She'd been coughing for the last five minutes. Mara had noticed the first time, back when she was walking past with a rifle at her spine. It wasn't the dry kind. It was the wet kind, with a rattle at the bottom, and every few breaths the girl pressed her fist to her ribs like it hurt.

Bram's face changed. It was fast, barely a flicker, but she saw it. Something under the hard shell.

"Pip's fine," he said.

"How long has she had it?"

"A few days. It's just a cold."

"Is it?" Mara didn't look at him. She looked at the child. "Pip, honey, can I listen to your chest? I won't hurt you. I'm a nurse."

The girl looked at her father. He didn't say anything. After a moment she shuffled forward, rabbit under her arm, and let Mara kneel down in front of her.

Mara didn't have a stethoscope. She pressed her ear flat to the girl's back instead, through the thin sweater, and said, "Big breath. Hold it. Now let it go." Pip breathed. Mara closed her eyes and listened. There it was, down low on the right side. A crackle, soft and wet, like someone crumpling cellophane.

Pneumonia. Early. Not too far gone.

She sat back on her heels. Her heart was beating hard, and for a strange second she wasn't in a tunnel at all. She was on the ward at two in the morning, holding some stranger's kid, and nothing else in the world mattered.

"It's in her right lung," she said quietly. "It's bacterial. If I'd had my kit, I'd have caught it three days ago. But I've got one thing left." She reached into her cloak and pulled out the little bandage with the cartoon rockets. It was ridiculous, she knew. A bandage wouldn't do anything. But beneath it, wrapped in the same square of cloth, were two white tablets she'd been hoarding for a year. "Amoxicillin. It's old. It might still work. Two a day for three days, with water, and she'll need to sleep upright. If you want it, it's yours."

"Why," Bram said slowly, "would you give me that?"

"Because last time I took your medicine and I never paid it back." She held out her hand. "And because she's six."

He stared at the tablets for a long time.

Then he crossed the chamber in four strides, took them from her palm like they might burn him, and crouched in front of his daughter. His big scarred hands shook. He didn't say anything. He just held the pills in his fist and pressed his forehead to hers, and Pip patted his cheek and said, "Daddy, you smell funny."

Someone in the crowd laughed, a short, wet, startled sound. And then more people did.

When Bram stood up, his eyes were red.

"You'll ride with us," he said. His voice was rough. "Both of you. In the lead truck, my truck. You'll sit where I can see you. You keep your hands where I can see those too. No tricks."

"No tricks," Mara agreed.

"And when we get to that mountain, the girl opens the door for her parents. Not for me. But my people go in second. Every one. We split what's inside, fair, like a deal." He leveled a finger at Tobias. "You say it. I want to hear you say it."

Tobias took a breath. She could see him thinking about the seeds, about the whole fragile promise of them. A mountain of them. Enough, if it came to it, for a hundred Bram Kesslers and a thousand Pips.

"The seeds aren't mine to split," he said. "They never were. They were built for everyone. If you want to come in, you come in, and you carry out what you can carry, and you plant it. And you don't kill anyone for it. That's the deal."

Bram studied him. "That's an odd sort of deal."

"It's the only one I've got."

A long beat. Then Bram laughed, a surprised rumble. "Fine. Done." He turned to the chamber and raised his voice. "Pack up! Water, ammo, and the kids' blankets, nothing else! We roll at four, and we roll fast!"

The place erupted. People ran everywhere. Mattresses were rolled, packs were shouldered, pots clanged into crates. Mara stood in the middle of it, light-headed, and felt Tobias come up beside her.

"That was something," he said quietly.

"Don't."

"I'm just saying. You still do that thing."

"What thing?"

"Where you walk into a room full of guns and make everyone feel like they're the ones who got caught." He was almost smiling. "I missed it."

Her chest hurt. She turned away to hide it.

"Get your pack," she said.

They were crossing the chamber toward the trucks, a long line of battered vehicles parked in a side tunnel, when the lights flickered.

Just once. A stutter, a hiccup. The generator coughed, and the bulbs dimmed, and a faint sound drifted down from the far end of the tunnel. A deep, hollow boom, like a door slamming a mile away. Dust sifted from the ceiling and settled on Mara's hair.

"What was that?" someone called.

"Probably settling," said Bram, but he'd stopped walking.

Mara had stopped, too. She was staring up the tunnel toward the stockyard, toward the only way out, where the dark had gone strangely, faintly white.

Then came a second sound. Small, metallic, rolling. Something bouncing across concrete.

A round black canister skittered out of the dark and came to rest, spinning slowly, against the toe of a small boot. Pip looked down at it. She tilted her head, curious, and bent to pick it up.