Safrah sat with her companions under a hole-pocked dome, next to a wide opening in the wall that faced south. Jina had found a pot and filled it with water from the dome’s cistern. As the water boiled on top of a small stove that still had a little fuel left, Safrah mixed flour and water in a smaller pot, flattened pieces of dough in her palms, set them on a flat rock, rolled bits of dried meat into each piece, twisted them into dumplings, and dropped them into the large pot. Moise had taught them how to make such food. She remembered sitting with him and Awan around another fire like this one, and felt pangs of longing and regret.
Jina fished boiled dumplings out of the pot with a ladle and set them on a plate she had found inside the dome. The light of the beacon was still visible in the darkness.
They ate without speaking. “One of us will have to go to the outpost,” Safrah said at last.
“When?” Jina asked, sounding apprehensive.
“As soon as possible,” Safrah replied. “By tomorrow morning at the latest. Everyone south of us has to be thinking that the new light in the sky might be Ship. At least a few of their older people must remember that we have a way of talking to Ship. They may be wondering if we’re already in contact.”
“But we don’t know any more than they do,” Jina said.
“We could tell the traders that,” Mikhail said, “but maybe they won’t believe us. We’d have to admit that our radio’s damaged, that we don’t have any way of communicating with Ship right now. Then they’d want to know how that happened, and then—”
Don’t let them know how weak we are. That had been Moise’s first command when he brought them to meet some traders for the first time. The outsiders had to believe that they were many and thriving, and that they still owned much that the river people lacked.
“We could tell them we’ve heard nothing from Ship,” Safrah said, “and that the light has to be something else. That’s all we’d have to say.”
“Do you think they’ll believe us?” Jina asked.
“All that matters is that they believe it until we can fix our radio,” Safrah said. “But one of us has to go meet them, or they’re going to wonder why nobody’s responded to the signal.” She reached for a dumpling. “I haven’t gone to do a trade for a while, so I’ll go. Just finish scavenging what you can and get back to Awan.”
Safrah slept for a while, then woke to the sound of a high-pitched cry. Something was moving near her. She heard another, lower cry, and knew then that a band of small wild cats had to be nearby. Their domesticated ancestors had once lived in these buildings. She did not have to fear those creatures, only the larger cats, which usually kept their distance from the settlement anyway.
Jina and Mikhail were still sleeping, wrapped in an old blanket. She got up without waking them and headed back to the greenhouse, looking up at the night sky only long enough to verify that the light that might be Ship was still orbiting Home. She did not expect to find any of the younger ones in the greenhouse, but remained alert anyway; she had not expected any of them to destroy the radio, either.
By dawn, she had collected everything she would need and was rolling south in a cart. The small, rectangular, roofless vehicle moved slowly enough that it would take her half a day to reach the lake, but she would get to the tower before nightfall. Any traders would be waiting farther south, at the outpost. There would be time to rest at the tower, to eat and sleep and prepare herself for any questions the traders might ask.
Even this early in the warming season, the green grass was already growing thick and high. She kept close to the flat, barren stretch that had once been a pathway, but, even there, patches of grass slowed her passage and made the cart rattle and bounce.
We’ve had no message from Ship. We don’t know what that light is. We don’t know if it means that Ship has come back or not, but since we haven’t received any message, there’s a chance that the light isn’t Ship.
She would say that much to the traders, and it would be the truth. Moise had always warned them to say as little to traders as possible, in order to avoid saying something that might entangle them in contradictions later on. The farther she rode from the settlement, the easier it was to hold the image of the imagined thriving community in her mind, decreasing the likelihood that she might betray the reality.
By midmorning, the green sky was nearly empty of clouds, except for a few feathery wisps. The closer Safrah came to the lake, the cleaner the air smelled. She thought of the times the older ones had brought them to the lake to gaze at the gray expanse and immerse themselves in the refreshing coolness of the water.
Once, their people had gone out on the lake in their own boats, but none of those watercraft remained. All that was left of the docks were a few poles that poked above the lake’s surface. Moise never told them what had happened to the boats, but it was easy enough to guess: They had been taken by the people who left the settlement to live along the banks of the great river.
The wind rose as she neared the lake, making her shiver in her threadbare tunic, even though the sun was overhead and promised a warm afternoon. There would be cleaner clothes inside the tower, hidden behind a panel, clothing that was worn only when they went to meet traders: shirts, pants, sturdy boots, even a few necklaces and bracelets, the kind of garments and adornments prosperous people might wear. She would rest and then climb the long, winding staircase to check on the beacon. When the tower had first been built, there was a lift to carry people to the top, but the pulleys had frayed and the lift had not been operational for decades.
Shards of sunlight danced on the water. Safrah turned southeast toward the tower that seemed to be no closer than it had been when she left the settlement.
A dark speck floated on the water near the tower.
Safrah caught her breath, squinted, then averted her gaze and continued toward the shore. As she neared the water, she pressed one of the panels in front of her, turning the cart to the east. She followed the old pathway along the shore, the cart moving at a crawl now, shaking only a little as its treads rolled over the rocky ground. Then she forced herself to look toward the tower again. She saw that the barely discernible speck was exactly what she had first suspected and feared.
There was an outsider waiting for her at the tower, someone who had come there in a boat.