Promised by Caragh M. O'Brien

Author:Caragh M. O'Brien [O'Brien, Caragh M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Published: 2012-10-02T05:00:44+00:00

CHAPTER 12

a mouse in the pipe

AT THE SOUTH GATE, she borrowed a pen and paper and sent a message up to the Protectorat.

Mabrother Protectorat,

We missed you at the registry this morning.

Where’s our water?

Gaia Stone

Matrarc of New Sylum

An hour later, she received a reply:

Masister Stone,

These things take time.

Yours,

Miles Quarry

Protectorat

“He’s toying with us,” Gaia said, and passed the note to Will.

Will, she noticed, did not seem to hold it against her that she’d acted like a high-handed diva. Peter accepted her apology with a brief nod. Neither made a joke about it, which would have been nice. Instead, she was left feeling secretly ashamed of her outburst, and more worried than ever about Leon.

She spent the afternoon forcing herself to work calmly with Wharfton leaders to arrange the stockpiling of water. Before the deception at the DNA registry could be discovered, she asked Myrna, quietly, to find a way to suspend operations for the rest of the day, and Myrna arranged a logistical mix-up with some swab supplies. Slightly more than half of Gaia’s people had been registered, and all of them felt cheated when they learned the Protectorat had reneged on the water.

By nightfall, Gaia was gathered around the campfire of clan nineteen with a dozen key people from Wharfton and New Sylum. There was no news about Leon, Angie, or Jack.

“As of now, we have enough water for everyone in Wharfton and New Sylum for two days if the Protectorat cuts us off,” Gaia reported. “That means limited baths and washing, but enough for drinking and cooking. We also have teams drawing it off at the wall spigots through the night to bolster our supply.”

“Two days is nothing,” Derek said, and Gaia agreed.

“We still need the Protectorat to honor his agreement, long-term,” she said.

“I don’t get where the water’s coming from,” the miner Bill said. “Do they have springs in there or something?”

“No, they convert steam from the geothermal energy plant,” Myrna said. “They also recycle the water from the sewer system and purify that to irrigate the fields out here. The water isn’t cheap, but there’s enough to share if they want to.”

“Just so you know,” Bill said, “me and my miners could get you a nice tunnel under that wall in two weeks’ time.”

Derek laughed.

“What? It’s true,” Bill said.

“Maybe if you have explosives,” Derek said.

“We’d go even faster, then,” Bill said. “My point is, we can get inside. We could even pop up inside one of the Enclave houses if we had an ally there. That would be best. Then the guards would never know and we could send in an attack force.”

“It won’t take care of the problem,” Gaia said. She felt like she’d said it a hundred times. “We need the Enclave cooperating with us. They have to trust us and provide us with the water, long-term. Undermining the wall is not the solution. It could even backfire.”

“I’m just saying. Don’t be so quick to throw out my idea,” Bill said. “If we need to move a number of people inside at the same time, we could do it.

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