“I tried the radio phone again earlier,” Girard told her. “Still no signal. Not hugely surprising. We’re on low ground here, and that storm front is between us and Daydawn. If we haven’t checked in by nightfall, the director will start to worry. But it’s going to depend on the storm as to how soon he can get more people here.”
“So we’re on our own for a while,” Hallie said.
“Problem?” Girard asked.
Hallie gave a half-laugh. “Bit late to complain now, isn’t it? No, it’s fine. I just wondered. We could have used Frollo and some of his friends last night.”
“That’s true. If Peredur had thought we’d be up against a swarm of warrimel, or find a dead body, he’d have sent the tactical unit with us for sure. Sit for a minute while I get you that soup,” Girard said.
“Sounds great,” Hallie said, pulling the nearest pile of papers towards her.
As the morning wore on, Girard fed Hallie not one but two more bowls of soup. She chose not to feel self-conscious or guilty about the resources she was taking up as she saw him take a second bowl, too. It had been a hard fight the night before. Her body was slowly recovering, and she was aware of thezaubersnoozing in her pocket. Its energy was drained, but it was still there, and she let it rest.
The papers and books were an odd mix. She’d been right about the schooling. There were several pages covered in badly formed letters, clearly a child’s effort to learn to write, as well as more vivid drawings. Hallie couldn’t help but feel shocked at the waste of resources. Paper and handwriting materials were scarce in low city, since the commercial port had been moved, taking almost all of low city’s industry with it. She and her class mates had learned to read and write with erasable slates, only graduating to paper and pens when they had some basic competence. And now the children growing up in low city didn’t have any paper or printed text books, only the slates to practice writing. But here, in this almost primitive settlement, the residents had been happy to give sheets and sheets of paper to children to play and practice with.
As well as the evidence of school work, there were ledgers which seemed to be cataloguing the inventory of goods ranging from the bags of flour and woodworking tools she’d seen to blankets and towels and numerous other goods that were all ordinary and domestic. There were a few paper books, the covers and pages creased and worn from repeated reading, that turned out to be manuals or instructions covering skills from carpentry to growing crops. The contents made her brows lift. It seemed that at least some of the people who had been living here had not brought the skills with them, but had needed to learn on site.Which might explain why the open area where she and Girard had arrived had looked so rough. If the settlers here didn’t have farming skills, they were learning as they went, and probably finding it a lot harder than they had anticipated. It was Hallie’s experience that everything was harder in practice, at least to start with, whether that was tracking down a skip in low city or changing the tyre on one of her aunt’s vans.
She kept searching through the papers and books and eventually uncovered something that looked like a ledger at first glance, but on a closer look the entries were more like a journal. The writing was in a neat, meticulous hand, as easy to read as printed text. It recorded the date, the time of entry, and made commentary on the weather and progress of building with various comments about people who Hallie assumed were the residents.
“I think this may be useful,” Hallie said, the journal in her hands. She turned to the last page. The date and time were carefully printed, and the start of the entry was in the same clear handwriting, but then it deteriorated rapidly. She frowned, trying to puzzle her way through it. The first few sentences were very clear.
The radio is still not working and Waller is still missing. Rhodda looked at it and said it’s been tampered with. Donall told her not to be so stupid. But Rhodda is not stupid and I could tell from her face that she was worried. There’s someone at the gate.
The wordgatewas almost unreadable, and after that Hallie frowned at the page. The rapid, scrawled writing seemed to be conveying something important and urgent, but she couldn’t make sense of it until a few lines later.
They’re here. We have to go.
Hallie went back to the beginning of the text and read through more slowly, trying to pull out all the meaning. She didn’trecognise the names Rhodda or Donall, but she assumed that Waller was Waller Howther, the liaison to the Conclave. And possibly the corpse she and Girard had found the day before.
“What is it?” Girard asked.
Hallie looked up with a start. She’d been so absorbed in trying to work out the words she’d almost forgotten he was there. “Everything in here is beautifully written until this last entry. Begins normal. Well, almost normal. It says that Waller is still missing, which suggests he’d been gone for a few days. But then it deteriorates and I can’t read it until the last line.They’re here. We have to go.” Saying the words sent a chill across her skin. “It says the radio is broken, though.”
“That’s true,” Girard confirmed, glancing back to the machine. Hallie saw that he’d managed to get the housing off, exposing the inner workings. The mechanics of it made no sense to her eyes, but there was a length of metal sticking up in the middle of it, which she didn’t think was supposed to be there.
“Someone sabotaged the radio?” Her brows shot up.
“That’s what it looks like,” Girard confirmed. “Can I take a look? Apparently I have terrible handwriting, so I have some experience of trying to put together words.”
“Of course,” Hallie said, handing the journal over and moving across the room to take a closer look at the radio. She tucked her hands behind her back to resist the temptation to poke or prod inside the machine, worried that she might do even more damage. Then she realised she probably couldn’t have made it worse. Not only was there a length of metal stuck in the works, there was a gap in the mechanics which she didn’t think should be there.
“This was four days ago,” Girard commented from behind her.
“The day after the last contact?” Hallie turned back to him. He didn’t look up from the page, expression focused as he tried to work through the scrawled writing.
“Yes. I think it’s saying something about gunners at the gate. But that’s about all I can make out, and I can’t even be sure of that.” Girard flipped back through previous pages, frowning down at the past few entries, crease between his brows deepening. “No mention of gunners or anything that looks like that word. I’d like to read this through more carefully, though.”
“Gunners,” Hallie repeated, another chill crossing her skin. “And then, what, everyone just up and left? I mean, it would explain the mouldy food and why there’s no one here.”
“And from the way it’s written, it’s clear that the person doing the writing knew who the gunners were,” Girard added.
“Can we fix the radio?” Hallie asked. She’d caught a glimpse through the doors to the dining area and had seen the bodies of several creatures. Combined with the words in the journal, she had a growing sense of unease at their isolation and just how vulnerable they were. Just the two of them, a pair of handguns, and some hastily gathered makeshift weapons, which had helped against the warrimel, but the journal had mentionedgunners. She and Girard weren’t equipped to deal with some unknown but potentially hostile group on the island, possibly holding the people who had lived in this settlement. Her mind spun, trying to make sense of all the pieces she had available, but nothing was fitting together. She needed more information.
“No, I don’t think so,” Girard said. He closed the journal and tucked it into a jacket pocket, zipping it closed. He came to stand next to Hallie. “We could take the bit of pipe out, of course, but then there’s that gap. I think it’s where the amplifier should go.” He shook his head with a rueful smile at her look of surprise. “No, I don’t know much about how the thing works, but I do know there’s an amplifier involved somewhere and that looks to be about the right size and shape for it. For a radio like this, it’s a complicated component.”
“Would they have a spare?” Hallie wondered, looking at the overflowing shelves.
“They might. It would be sensible to have some back-up components just in case,” Girard agreed. He put his hand on the pocket where he’d stored the journal. “It doesn’t seem like they had any time to make a repair, so if there was a spare, it should still be here.”
