The Rift - Howard Chris. Страница 49

“Because of some vision?” This was Alpha. “That’s what you’re telling us? That’s all you got?”

“What did you dream?” I stared right into those brown eyes of hers.

“It’s not important,” she said, looking away.

“Then why can’t you say it?”

“Because it’s crazy.”

“And you’re afraid it’s the truth.”

I needed her to believe me. To trust me. And I stared at the pack with a hole in my chest, knowing what it would come down to now. Knowing what I would have to do. Because they’d all need a sapling. Every last tribe. So I’d have to rip each tree from the others, breaking up the last of my father’s remains.

It was Crow who finally said something. He stared at the pack, and he glared at me. And then he rocked himself closer to the map.

“We’ll need the bootleggers,” he said, drawing a squiggle to show the southern stretch of the Steel Cities. “If we all be going up against GenTech together.”

“Bootleggers?” Kade frowned. “They’ve no weapons. No troops.”

“True that,” said Crow. “But they could feed our armies.”

“The poachers could do that.”

“Poachers?” Crow made a snort, and Namo got spooked behind me. “They can barely feed themselves.”

“One for the Salvage Guild. One for the pirate armies. One for the Soljahs, and one for the bootleggers.” Alpha still wouldn’t look at me as she spoke. “That’s two left. Two saplings.”

“One left,” I said. “I ain’t letting the last one out of my sight.”

“But what makes you so special?” Kade’s green eyes flickered in the white light. “I thought it can’t be anyone more than the next.”

“I keep the last tree. The sixth tree. And if I die, you can pry it loose from my fingers.” I didn’t dare look at Alpha as I said it. I just thought of that patch of bark on her belly. Because I’d pinned my last hope of a remedy to that sapling. It was the last trick I had up my sleeve.

“So what about the fifth tree?” Crow stared at Alpha and Kade as he spoke, but he was talking to me. “You got that figured out, too, man?”

“Yeah,” I said. Because I did have it figured. Crow was right—we’d need corn for our armies, at least until our apples could grow. But of course, GenTech had plenty of corn of their own. Plenty of food for their troops.

“GenTech needs crystal,” I said. “The field hands and agents are all hooked on the stuff. So I say we take their supplier. The fifth tree we give to the Samurai Five.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Alpha shot me a stare, confusion on her face. But Crow had anger in his eyes.

“The Five?” he said. “The Samurai Five?”

“Tell them.” I nodded at Kade. “Tell them what you told me.”

Kade had hunched inward, as if bracing himself against a cold wind that no one else could feel.

“They make the crystal,” he said, and he started scratching the back of his arm. Guess he weren’t keen to talk about the poison he’d been hooked on. “Samurai Five make all of it.”

“I know what they do,” yelled Crow. “I want to know why the scum deserve one of our trees.”

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “Just listen.”

“I was a field hand,” Kade whispered, rubbing his fingers over his stump. “GenTech used the crystal to make slaves of us. All of us. They use it to make slaves of the agents, too.”

“You think I don’t know this, little man?” Crow turned to me, his eyeballs bulging out of his head. “I worked for GenTech, remember? I know more about them than any of you.”

“Corn and crystal,” I said. “That’s how they keep their armies in line. And we can’t control the cornfields, but we could cut off their drugs.”

“Weaken ’em,” said Alpha, nodding. “It’s the first smart thing you’ve said.”

“No.” Crow sat back against the wall. Leaned his head on the dirt. “The Five are crooks.”

“I heard they got honor.” Alpha looked at Kade. “That they live by a code.”

“They don’t touch the crystal,” Kade said. “I know that much.”

“And that’s it?” Crow ignored the others. Just kept staring at me. “Soljahs and salvage and the Samurai Five?”

“And bootleggers,” I said. “And pirates.”

“Not pirates.” Alpha scratched a big X on the map, marking the plains, west of the Steel Cities but east of GenTech’s fields. “The Army of the Fallen Sun, they called it. And we’ll ride as that again.”

“The Soljahs fought, too.” Crow pointed at where he’d marked Waterfall City. “We made our stand against GenTech.”

“Drop it,” I told them. “The past don’t matter. All that matters is what we do next.”

I reached down and scratched out the map we’d drawn in the dirt.

“A blank slate,” I said, glancing at Kade. “Remember?”

“All right, bud,” said Alpha. “We’ll do it your way. For now.”

Crow might have gotten fired up about my plan for the fifth sapling, but he didn’t look too tough when I was helping him climb back up onto Namo.

“Better hope these walls don’t get any tighter,” I said to him as he gripped the mammoth’s fur.

“Keep hoping, Banyan. Seems like that’s what you’re best at.”

Couldn’t blame him for doubting me. Crow probably reckoned the trees would be safe in the hands of the Soljahs, and maybe he thought all the power would be safe with them, too.

Heading up those tunnels, Namo had to squeeze himself along where the walls got narrow, and Crow kept a tight grip as the mammoth wriggled and pushed, pressing down tight in its fur. Got so that big, shaggy beast was plugging up the passage behind us. But I strode out in front, the pack full of trees strapped to my back.

“Zee’d have been proud,” Kade said, coming to walk beside me.

I pictured her bony shoulders, her long hair and pretty face. But then I remembered her being riddled with bullets. I remembered her shriveled and lifeless in my arms.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She wanted all the fighting to stop.”

“Only one way to stop it. We rise up together against GenTech.” Kade lifted his stump between us. “All hands on deck, right? I told her you could be a leader. I told Alpha, too. In the mountains, after you’d fallen off that ridge. I said people would follow you to the ends of the earth.”

“Ah, you’re feeding me a line.”

“It’s true.”

“And what did Zee say?”

“This is the nicest thing I’ll ever do for you, bro. She said you were the only one of us who was more important than the trees. You know, your sister was even more beautiful than she looked.” Kade’s voice had started falling apart a little. “She was strong inside, even if her lungs were broken. She was strong where it counted.”

“I didn’t know her, though. Not enough. Not like I should.”

I turned to Kade, and the plastic lanterns strobed up and down the tunnel, painting him white and then black. And I wanted him to give me something more about my sister. Another missing piece.

“But why would she say that?” I asked. “About me being important?”

“Because she thought you could bring people together, if you ever got your shit together first.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him. After all, Kade was the one who was so good at talking to folk. Not me.

But then Crow started hollering, and we peered back at him. Not much room to move in there, but he had his hands up, brushing the ceiling, showing us he could steer Namo just by moving his legs.

He veered left a little. Swung to the right.

“Look at you,” Alpha said, and she gave him a whoop.

Crow tapped his chest, then he scratched Namo behind his big ears. “You know, this mammoth reminds me of I and I. Two big freaks, no?” He kicked his legs, and Namo sped up to a trot.