“I need a full debrief from you and Investigator Abbott before we do anything else,” the director said, turning away from the cages and looking between Hallie and Girard. “But for now, do you think there will be any more surprises or armed attacks?”
“I don’t think so,” Hallie said slowly. “The only armed groups we’ve come across were Jonah’s and Nicholas’ men. Everyoneelse seems to live in fear of them.” She looked at Rhodda and raised an eyebrow in silent question.
“That’s right,” Rhodda said, wrapping her arms around her middle and wincing. She was still carrying an injury. It had been easy to forget when the older woman had been full of determination. But now that energy was fading and Rhodda was beginning to look almost as old as her father had been.
“Sir, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to take Rhodda back up to the house and give Captain Gould a hand with the papers?” Hallie made the request mostly for Rhodda but also partly for herself. She was beginning to feel truly cold, and exhausted.
“I’d like Rhodda to take a quick look around and let us know if anything else is out of place before then,” the director said, “and then I think a meal and some rest is in order before anything else.”
Hallie felt tears sting her eyes at the idea of food and a rest, letting her know just how tired she was. She nodded, and watched as the director led Rhodda away from the hut, asking her to point out any changes or anything that seemed unusual in the cave.
“I’m not going to ask if you’re alright,” Girard said, startling her, “because you look worn out. But is there anything I can do right now?” Hallie wanted to wrap her arms around him just for asking that question, but stayed where she was, conscious of the others not far away.
“Not right now,” Hallie said, shoving her hair back behind her ear, “unless you can conjure up my clothes and boots that Jonah’s people took off me, and a hot shower.” She smiled as she said it, letting him know she was teasing. He smiled back, his eyes warm.
“Actually, we’re in the one place on the island where you might be able to get a hot shower,” Girard said thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine Jonah liked living rough.”
“Don’t tell anyone else or there will be a queue lined up all the way to the shoreline,” Hallie said, managing another smile, even as she wanted to race back up to the house to see if there was indeed the possibility of a hot shower.
Hallie should have known better than to discount Girard’s words as idle speculation. He travelled back up to the house in the lift with her and Rhodda - a far more comfortable trip than all of Hallie’s previous journeys - and within a few minutes of talking with the tac team who were stationed around the house, was showing Hallie to a bathroom that was tucked between what seemed to be Jonah’s bedroom and the kitchen. There was, to Hallie’s astonishment, an honest-to-goodness shower set up there, with a water tank suspended from the ceiling and a battery powered heater that sputtered a little but then worked. There was even soap and some extraordinarily fancy shampoo that seemed completely out of place in the run-down house. Which just proved that Girard had been right in his speculation about Jonah’s tastes.
Refreshed more than she would have believed possible by hot water and soap, Hallie really didn’t want to put her dirty clothes back on, but had no choice. There was another lovely surprise, though, when she left the bathroom to find that Girard had performed another miracle and located her belongings, including her boots.
Fully dressed, she settled at the kitchen table with the director, Rhodda, Girard, Elyan Gould, Commander Rojas and Frollo. Someone had prepared a meal of more of the nutritious soup that Girard had carried in his pack, as well as what seemed to bealmost fresh bread. It was as close to luxury as Hallie would have dared hope, and was then followed by mugs of real coffee.
Only when the meal had been eaten and they were all drinking coffee, Rhodda even happier than Hallie to see it, did the director turn to Girard and Hallie and ask for their report.
He was a good listener, Hallie knew, and let her and Girard tell their version of events once through before he went back and started asking questions. Hiding a smile in her coffee, Hallie wondered if that was where Girard had learned that particular technique. It was effective.
To Hallie’s surprise, the director’s first question wasn’t about the radio or the body they’d found, but about the warrimel.
“Didn’t you find patches of farrowort when you got here?” the director asked, looking at Rhodda.
“I don’t know that name,” she answered, frowning.
“It’s a ground-covering plant with wide yellow-green leaves. Grows like grass in many places,” the director said.
“Oh, we saw patches of that when we were flying across the island,” Hallie said.
“We came across almost a whole field of it near the settlement,” Rhodda said, grimacing. “We pulled it up to start making our fields as it was the easiest land to work.”
“It’s a natural control for the warrimel,” Peredur told her. “For some reason, they can’t resist it. They will gorge on it. And it affects their fertility, keeps the population down.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Hallie said, interested.
“We had some warrimel around my family’s farm. All of our fields had a boundary of farrowort. The warrimel never bothered the crops or our buildings as long as there was farrowort available.”
Rhodda’s expression went through a few emotions from astonishment to anger to grief and then to a tiny spark of whatmight be hope. “So, you mean, if we plant some of this stuff, or even just let it keep growing, we won’t have swarms anymore?”
“That’s been my experience,” the director said.
Rhodda shook her head. “So simple. And we’d never have thought of it.”
“It’s only simple when you know the answer,” Peredur told her.
Rhodda gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “It means we can stay in Reunion. We can build a home there. Oh.” She covered her face in her hands for a moment, took a long, deep breath. When she lifted her face she managed a smile. “Thank you.”
Hallie thought of the settlement as she’d last seen it, ravaged by the swarm, with great swathes of burned warrimel and almost all the houses destroyed by the storm. It had seemed a lost cause. But she could hear the hope and determination in Rhodda’s voice, see it in her face. The possibility of actually building a life here, of having that dream of independence, away fromhochlenrule. And it had been one of thehochlenwho had given her the key to it. Freely, without asking anything in return. Hallie felt a little bit of hope blooming in her own chest. If there were more interactions like that one, the world would be a far better, far more peaceful place.
