Francesca Haig - The Forever Ship

Zoe and Paloma were awake too, talking by the dormitory window. Paloma was nodding at something Zoe was saying. She was wearing Zoe’s shirt, too large for her, the sleeves rolled and bunched over her pale arms. I left the two of them alone.

I found Elsa in the kitchen. While she busied herself with sifting weevils from the flour, I stirred the porridge. The pot held only a dusty handful of oats, thickened with water until it was more like paste than porridge.

‘Been like this ever since the last weeks of winter,’ Elsa said, seeing me grimace at the grey mixture. ‘The grain stores are nearly empty. Half the farms around here weren’t even planted last season. The Council only maintained a handful of the fields – enough for the troops stationed here.’

The Council hadn’t planted the farms, because they’d thought that by the time the wheat was shoulder-high and ready for harvest, the thousands of Omegas who lived in New Hobart would be tanked, just as the children had been.

‘Even now,’ she went on, ‘some of the farmers are reluctant to work their smallholdings outside the wall. A lot of them have packed up and left.’

I couldn’t blame them. The area surrounding New Hobart clung to a semblance of normality, but it was hard not to feel as though the town occupied a pause between battles.

I was still hungry after I finished my porridge, every last scrap of it; I scraped my spoon against the inside of the bowl until the clay squealed.

Walking up through the town to the Tithe Collector’s office, the four of us passed a patrol of The Ringmaster’s soldiers on their way down to the wall. A year before, if I’d passed them in the street and glanced at their faces, I’d have assumed they were Omegas. Each face had been forced to remember its skull, the bone outlines hard against the flesh. Not since the drought years, when I was a child, had I seen Alphas looking so gaunt.

When we reached the Tithe Collector’s office I looked closely at The Ringmaster. Even he had lost weight about the face, though his mass of curly hair disguised the worst of it.

I asked him about the rations.

‘I’ve secured the grain silos at Deadmeadow and Landfall. Most of the western plains are still held by garrisons loyal to me. The tithe takings, too.’

Piper’s lips tightened – that money had all been taken from Omegas, often at the lash of a whip.

But if The Ringmaster noticed, he paid no heed. ‘The problem is getting it here,’ he continued. ‘The Council’s holding Wreckers’ Pass – the convoys from my garrisons can’t get through any other way without getting dangerously close to Wyndham. The General’s soldiers have picked off two convoys of grain in the last month, and one of weapons. As long as The Council holds the pass, and the plains around Wyndham, we’re going to struggle to feed all the troops, let alone the townsfolk.’ He added, with a glance at the guards by the door, ‘My soldiers aren’t used to such short rations.’

‘Our troops have worked on less than this for years,’ sniped Zoe.

‘That doesn’t make any difference,’ said Piper. ‘We need to do better, for all of them. We’re asking them to take on the Council, in open battle, when The General attacks – and she will, eventually. We can’t defend New Hobart with disgruntled troops. Forget about principles or loyalty – nothing breeds mutiny like a hungry army.’

‘And what about new recruits?’ I said. ‘Have there been more, as the news of the refuges spreads?’

For generations the refuges had been the last resort of the Omegas: places where they would be fed and housed by the Council in exchange for their labour. Though they’d always been little more than prison camps, they were supposed to be the last safety net of a Council that could never endanger Alphas by allowing Omegas to starve. In recent years, under Zach and The General’s rule, they had become something more sinister: places where desperate Omegas in their thousands turned themselves in, only to be tanked, permanently preserved to protect their Alpha counterparts.

‘You can’t be the only one who’s decided not to stand for the Council breaking the taboo,’ I added.

The Ringmaster shrugged. ‘The news of the refuges is spreading – that song you started did its job, I’ll give you that, and Omegas have been trickling in, though many are reluctant to come into a town that I’m holding. As for the Alphas – most of them don’t believe the rumours about the tanks. And even for those who do, it’s a question of what they fear most: the machines, or the Omegas and the fatal bond. Of how far they’d be willing to go to be free of their twins.’

This was the same question I asked myself about him, every day. Every time he spoke of twins, I couldn’t help thinking of his own twin, locked away somewhere.

‘They fear The General, too,’ he went on. ‘And rightly. It’s one thing for them to want the taboo upheld. Another for them to be willing to oppose her.’

‘It would be different if they actually saw the tanks,’ I said. I could never forget what I’d seen in there. The melding of tubes and flesh; the heavy silence of the floating bodies. ‘Hearing the rumours is different from having to see the reality. Except for the soldiers actually working in the refuges, the Alphas never have to see the tanks. They never have to confront what’s actually being done in their name.’

‘Your brother and The General know that well enough – their plans depend on it,’ The Ringmaster said, a little impatiently. ‘Anyway, while they hold Wreckers’ Pass, we couldn’t feed more recruits, even if they were pouring in the gates.’

Piper must have seen how my shoulders slumped.

‘It’s not all bad news,’ he said. I raised an eyebrow. ‘If The General’s concentrating on starving us out, then they might not be planning a major counterattack. Not yet, anyway.’

How long did we have, I wondered, before the Council found out about Paloma, and about Zach? If The General knew that we were sheltering both of them here, would she crush New Hobart? And would The Ringmaster and his troops be enough to defend us, if the Council turned its whole force against us? Would he even try?

*

The Ringmaster was the first person to comment aloud on Paloma and Zoe, the day after Zach’s arrival. It was late afternoon; Paloma and Zoe were on the far side of the main hall in the Tithe Collector’s office, talking with Simon and Piper. As Paloma walked behind Zoe, she let her hand trail briefly across the back of Zoe’s neck.

The Ringmaster spoke so that only I could hear. ‘Of all the people she could have chosen,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Because Zoe’s a woman?’ I shot back.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘Because Zoe’s as spiky as a blackthorn shrub.’ He gave me a conspiratorial look.

I didn’t return it. I didn’t want to discuss Paloma and Zoe – least of all with him. So much of our lives was already under his control; I didn’t want to have him sullying this as well.

‘Paloma’s our only emissary from Elsewhere,’ The Ringmaster went on. ‘I might not be as keen as the rest of you to join ourselves to them, but I’m not fool enough to think we should risk alienating them. Paloma’s goodwill is no small thing. The last thing we need is to have a lovers’ quarrel jeopardise our only contact with them.’

‘There haven’t been any quarrels,’ I said. Zoe was as prickly as ever with the rest of us, but around Paloma she had a new calmness. Across the room, Paloma was standing in front of Zoe, and Zoe had tucked her chin to cup the top of Paloma’s head.

The Ringmaster was staring too.

‘The soldiers are already asking about Paloma,’ he said. ‘They’re not blind, or stupid. They know she’s not from here – they’re asking where she’s from and why she’s here. What it means for the future.’