Jack got a few hours of sleep in the bunk upstairs, while the rest of us monitored the situation through the night. I heard the plane take off just as it started to get light again: it sounded like an enormous bee buzzing around an equally huge hive. I couldn’t see much from inside the facility, but it sounded like the airplane circled the mesa a couple of times, and then returned to land on the roof. According to Sarah, it needed a long strip in order to slow down, unlike an actual bird.
It seemed that Sterling wasn’t going to attack right away. Perhaps he didn’t have enough troops here just yet, but by the time the sun started to rise, he approached the edge of the mesa. He was wearing a uniform much like the rest of his soldiers, but had strange black things over his eyes. Sarah squinted down at them too, and then nodded. “They’re called sunglasses. Ancestors used to wear them to shield from the sun.”
“I heard about that,” Rust said from my other side. “They’re kind of like an heirloom. Passed from governor to governor. The stories say the first governor, hundreds of years ago, inherited them from his father.”
I couldn’t see him very well in the pre-dawn light, but there wasn’t much else different about him. He probably used that horn to distinguish himself from the other soldiers. In fact, everyone in the Republic could probably recognize its sound.
Sterling pushed his way to the front of the army, and then spread out his arms to check to his sides. Apparently confident he was in the lead, he lifted the horn again, but this time called through it. “People within the Sanctuary! I am Governor Alexander Sterling, Head of the Torgan Senate, and Commander-in-Chief of the Torgan Army. We have you surrounded, but I do not consider you to be my enemies. Depart from the Sanctuary; all of you together, and your lives will be spared. You will be allowed to leave peacefully, provided you never take up arms against the Republic. All we want is the Sanctuary itself.”
“He’s lying,” Rust and Sarah said together, and she looked at him with surprise.
“I’ve heard of this before,” he went on. “He’s offered surrender terms to others in the past, and then killed them all once they’d left their defensive position. He’s probably gambling that you don’t know enough about Torgans to know that.”
Sarah shrugged. “I just didn’t like his tone of voice.”
I gave a grim smile. She wasn’t wrong.
“If you don’t respond,” Sterling went on, “I’ll have to assume that you’re hostile. Then we do this the hard way.” He paused, and I thought I could see the curl of a smile on his lips, but maybe I was just imagining it. “This is your last chance.”
I looked at Sarah, but she seemed unwilling to go out there. Not that I blamed her. Knowing Sterling, his men might just cut her down the moment she opened the door.
“So be it,” Sterling bit out, and then rapped on his armor twice with a metal glove. Immediately, a squad of Torgans split off from the main group, with a metal battering ram, and started climbing up the zig-zagging ramp. Before long, the sound of repeated bashing of metal on metal, rang out over both groups of people.
Rust growled. “You said you needed four hours, right? Sarah?”
She nodded, not that he could see. “It’s down to about one, now, I think. Our plan was to collapse the entrance to the tunnel, sealing ourselves in until it was over. We’d only have the plane to get in or out after that, but it would be better than the alternatives. We weren’t expecting the Governor to get here so soon!”
“Is there a back door to this place? Another entrance that they’re not currently trying to break down?”
“Sure. There’s a maintenance door to the north. But it’s almost certainly guarded. They’re Torgans, not morons.”
Rust gave a toothy smile. “It’ll do. I think I can buy you some time. If I go out there, I can force them to halt the attack, at least for a little while.”
“Are you nuts?” I protested. “They’ll kill you!”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
I let out a breath of aggravation. “Could I have a word alone with Rust, please?”
Sarah gave her agreement, and started back down the passageway, but I added, “you can stay, Jack. It’s not like I can stop you from listening in anyway, right?”
He’d recently woken up and joined us. In response to my statement, he gave a sheepish smile, but stuck around anyway. Rust reached out for him. “Are you sure you want to be here for this, kid? There’s some adult stuff gonna be said.”
“I’ll keep quiet,” he assured us.
Trying to give off an impression of authority and firmness, I took a breath. “You’re not going out there, Rust. Sarah and her people have a plan, and we have to trust it. I won’t let you. If necessary, I’ll shoot you in the leg or something. You won’t be going anywhere.”
He snorted. “You couldn’t shoot me before, and you won’t now. But you’re right- there’s more here that you need to know. Just… promise not to hate me too much when you hear it, all right?”
That was a little ominous. “Go on.”
“You know about my vengeance- about what Sterling and his people did to my parents. And it’s true that they did it because I was sighted. The Governor said that sighted people had caused the Great Fall, and that anyone born with the sight was an abomination to be cleansed immediately. The real reason he wanted me dead, was because he… is also sighted. I think he was born that way.”
I felt my jaw drop, and I was kind of getting used to that feeling by now. “What?? How could you know that?”
“Because I saw his eyes, as a child. It was across a room, sure, but I remember it clear as day. He can see, Esme. Probably just as well as you can. He didn’t see me at the time, but just the rumor that I was sighted was enough for him. That’s why he came after me and my parents- not to protect the Republic from another Fall, but to protect his own unique power!”
This… was a nightmare! The head of the Torgan Republic, one of the most domineering and ruthless nations in the land, was sighted? “That must be why he’s here!” I realized aloud. “He wants to destroy this place, and all the medicine! That way he could stay the only sighted man in the nation, and probably use it to stay in charge!”
“I had the same thought,” Rust admitted. “I have a legal right to challenge him, though. I’m a Torgan citizen and he wronged me, personally, when he burned my mother alive. I can claim the Rite of Vindication, and even he can’t refuse it. His men wouldn’t allow it.”
“He can see, and you can’t! He’ll kill you! If you plan to buy time with this madness, you won’t last five minutes, much less a full hour.”
“I can drag it out,” he insisted. “There will be people who think I’m lying, but there will also be people in the crowd, like Marsden, who can confirm it’s me. There will be enough confusion for Sarah and her people to do whatever it is they’re after.”
“At what cost to you? Even if you get an injection right now, it won’t become effective in time. You’re throwing your life away, and for what; vengeance? A chance to get back at him for what he did to your parents? Why didn’t you tell me that Sterling could see, anyway?” It was a big change in topic, but it had been bugging me, a lot.
He winced at the tone in my voice, and even Jack seemed to shrink away. I must have been especially venomous right there. “I knew you’d want to seek him out. The only other sighted person in the world, as far as you knew? You’d be drawn to him, despite all the things he’s done. Or at least you’d be drawn to his children. He has two, and I think they’re like him. He keeps them away from public life, in a secret place. He wouldn’t do so if they were like other children.”
Grudgingly, almost painfully, I had to admit he had a point. I remembered feeling a great sense of kinship upon meeting Sarah, and her sight had only been given to her. I would have been curious about the Governor and his family as well, and maybe even put my own abilities at risk of discovery, trying to find out more about them!
“I’m in a unique position to help,” he went on stubbornly. “You were the one who helped me realize why I was doing this, remember? Not just vengeance, but for the good of as many people as possible. For the good of the Torgan people themselves, not just the memory of my parents! I have a responsibility to them.” He turned away, and started down the passageway.
“You have a responsibility to me!” I practically shouted, feeling as if my blood was boiling. It was unfair, because he didn’t know what I did, but I still felt the anger.
“This is who I’ve always been, my love,” he responded simply. “You’ve known that right from the start. Besides, there’s a chance I’ll win, and then we can go on to live peaceful, hopeful lives.” He paused. “I’ll need someone to stand at my side for the Rite, but I understand if you don’t want it to be you. I’ll ask Hugh, maybe.” A moment later, he was gone down the passage again.
I just stood there, trembling with rage and grief, before a hand gripped my shoulder. It was Jack- I’d completely forgotten about him. “You should have told him,” he said quietly.
Blinking back tears, I stared down at him. “What are you talking about?”
He scoffed. “Please. I was listening in yesterday morning, when Sarah told you. I heard how surprised you were- you didn’t have any idea, did you?”
I felt anger at Jack join in, to mix with my anger at Rust. “You know, there’s a difference between being sneaky and being inappropriate, Jack. You’ve crossed that line.”
He looked down, his cheeks getting darker. “Sorry.”
After a moment, I tousled his hair. Part of it was to stop him from going after Rust and telling him, but part of it was for me as well. In a way, it was a good thing someone else knew. It felt like a weight off my shoulders. “It’s all right. Just try not to hear things meant for other people, all right?”
“Why didn’t you tell him, though? He would have stayed,” he insisted, looking back up.
“Yes, he probably would,” I admitted. “He thinks of this mission of ours as his destiny. To finally get back at the people who killed his parents and stole his childhood. To slay the evil beast and free the slaves under its control. It’s more complicated than that, though. You can’t just take out the bad people in charge. You have to take out the system that put them in charge as well. Even if he can kill Sterling, the Torgans will just prop up another Governor: someone who might even be worse!” I shook my head. “No, even if Rust is misguided, I can’t take this destiny away from him. He’d hate me for it, and I can’t stand that.”
Jack gave an abbreviated laugh. “You’re a lot like mama, you know. Once you make up your mind, there’s no changing it.” He shrugged. “Well if you won’t tell him, then I’d better go with him, and try to help him live. Maybe then you can tell him later, after this is all over.”
I stared at him. “What can you do to help?”
“I don’t know,” he said over his shoulder, hurrying down the passage after Rust. “I’ll think of something!”
He was right. Doomed or not, I had to try to help. For Rust, for me, and for… well, we could talk about that later if we lived. I turned the other direction, looking for Sarah. When I found her and Aru, and explained the situation, she didn’t seem that surprised. “We’d heard that Sterling rose to power unusually quickly. That he can hear things others can’t. He can probably lipread. That’s something the ancestors taught themselves to do sometimes, to hear things at a distance.”
Fascinating, but not helpful at the moment. “Do you have anything that can help Rust? He’s just going to get himself killed out there, fighting your war!”
Sarah exchanged glances with Aru. “You think they still work?” She asked after a moment.
“They did as of six months ago,” he responded, and then beckoned to me. “Come on, I think I have something that could help, but we have to hurry.”
