Scarecrow

There were forty of us by the end of the second week.

Not forty-one. A boy named Pieter Vance, from one of the families on the far end of the Calders’ table, had gone home the morning after the steel. His parents had come for him before breakfast. Liam said his mother had walked straight past Okafor’s office without stopping, holding Pieter’s hand like he was six, and hadn’t looked at anyone. Least of all me.

Nobody said it was because of me. Nobody had to.

”His loss,” said Liam, at breakfast. ”He was terrible at ropes. Worse than you.”

”Nobody’s worse than me at ropes.”

”That’s the thing,” said Liam. ”He was. It was very impressive.” He ate half a piece of toast in one bite. ”And forty divides by five. Okafor likes things that divide.”

He was right. That was the morning they read out the squads.

Sergeant Okafor stood at the front of the mess hall with a slate in one hand and her other hand behind her back, and waited until the room was quiet. It didn’t take long. It never did, with her.

”Squads,” she said. ”Five to a squad. Eight squads. You train together, you eat together, you bunk together, and in a little under a year you’ll land together on a planet none of you have seen, and if you’re lucky, you’ll come back together.” She looked along the tables. ”You don’t get to pick. I picked. If you don’t like who you’re with, I’ll be very interested to hear it. Quietly. In my office. After you’ve run fifty laps.”

Nobody said anything.

She started reading.

Squad One was three of the earth-wave cousins and two girls I didn’t know. Squad Two was Sigmund Friese, Brock Haddon, Risa Friese, and two boys from the Frieses’ end of the hall. I saw Sigmund’s face when he heard his sister’s name next to his. It didn’t change at all. I saw Risa’s face. It changed less.

Squad Three. Squad Four. Bree and Roan in Five, with three others. Squad Six. Squad Seven.

I’d stopped listening by then. I was sitting at the end of the loud table with my tray in front of me, looking at nothing, with the leaf from the fern in my shirt pocket, wrapped in a bit of wet paper. I was thinking about walls that chose. I’d been thinking about them for three days.

”Squad Eight,” said Sergeant Okafor.

The room went a little quieter. Not much. There were five names left to read out, and everyone in the room had done the arithmetic, and everyone knew one of them was mine.

”Calder, Liam.”

Liam punched the air.

”Calder, Seraphina.”

Liam stopped punching the air. Down the table, Seraphina closed her eyes for a moment, very briefly, like somebody who’d been told it was going to rain on the one day she’d planned to go out.

”Dask, Lucas.”

Liam started punching the air again. Seraphina opened her eyes and looked at me. Not glaring. Just looking. As if she were measuring the distance between where she was sitting and the nearest exit.

”Marsh, Toby.”

At the far end of the Calders’ table, where he’d been sitting since the third day, a little way apart, with his armband slipping down his arm, Toby Marsh went bright red to the ears and dropped his spoon.

”And Windsor, Luna.”

The mess hall went completely silent.

I didn’t look round. I didn’t need to. I could feel it. The cold place in the room, at the long table where the General’s daughter sat with her back very straight and her silver hair cut straight at the jaw. It went colder. Not much. Just a little. Like somebody had opened a door.

”Squad Eight,” said Sergeant Okafor, in exactly the same voice she’d used for the other seven. ”Field four. Ten minutes. Bring water.”

She walked out.

The noise came back all at once, the way a wave comes back up a beach. Liam turned round on the bench and grabbed both my shoulders and shook me.

”We got Windsor,” he said. ”We got Windsor and you. And Toby, and me, and Sera, who’s better than all of us except you and Windsor and doesn’t know it. Lucas. Lucas, look at me. We’re going to win.”

”Win what?”

”Everything,” said Liam. ”Whatever it is. All of it.”

Down the table, Seraphina got up, picked up her tray, and walked away without a word. She had to pass Luna Windsor’s table on her way to the door. Luna was still sitting very straight. She didn’t look up as Seraphina went past. Seraphina didn’t look down.

The air between them, for one second, did something I’d never felt air do before. Hot on one side. Cold on the other. A little shimmer in the middle, like a road in summer.

Then Seraphina was through the door, and it was gone.

”Ah,” said Liam, watching her go. ”Well. Mostly win.”

Field four was the small one, at the far end of the cave, where the lamps were older and swung a little on their chains when the air moved. There was nothing on it. No ropes, no posts, no steel balls. Just packed earth, and white lines, and a long gray steel beam lying on the ground in the middle, about as long as two of me and as thick as my leg.

Sergeant Okafor was standing beside it, with her hands behind her back.

We got there in ones and twos. Liam first, of course, with me beside him. Toby a minute after, running, with his water bottle clutched to his chest and his face still red. Seraphina next, walking, with her arms crossed. She stopped at the edge of the field, a long way from me, and stood there.

Luna Windsor came last.

She didn’t hurry. She walked across the field at exactly the pace of somebody who had been told ten minutes and intended to arrive in ten minutes, not nine. She was taller close up than I’d thought. Nearly as tall as Liam. The air came with her. Cool, and very still. She stopped at the beam and stood at attention, looking at Okafor, and didn’t look at any of us.

”Squad Eight,” said Sergeant Okafor. ”Pick it up.”

We looked at the beam.

”No powers,” she said. ”Nobody lifts it with their head. Nobody turns it into anything. Nobody sets it on fire.” She looked at Liam. ”Nobody freezes it to the floor to prove a point.” She didn’t look at anyone when she said that. ”Five pairs of hands. Pick it up. Carry it to the end of the field and back. Then do it again.”

”How many times?” said Liam.

”I’ll tell you when to stop,” said Sergeant Okafor.

It was much heavier than it looked.

That was the first thing. The second thing was that nobody could agree on how to pick it up.

”Front,” said Seraphina, and went to the front.

”Front,” said Luna Windsor, at exactly the same moment, and went to the front.

They stopped, a foot apart, at the same end of the beam. Seraphina looked at Luna. Luna looked at the far end of the field.

”I said front,” said Seraphina.

”I heard you,” said Luna.

It was the first thing I’d ever heard her say. Her voice was low and very clear and didn’t go up or down at all. Like a general’s. Like the voice you’d use to say the bridge is out to a column of tanks.

”So move,” said Seraphina.

”The front sets the pace,” said Luna. ”The pace should be set by the person with the longest stride. That’s me.”

”The front sets the direction,” said Seraphina. ”Which should be set by the person who isn’t going to walk us into a wall because she won’t look where she’s going.”

”I can see perfectly well.”

”You haven’t looked at anyone since you got here.”

”I don’t need to look at you,” said Luna Windsor, ”to know where you are. You’re very warm.”

Liam made a small noise beside me, like a kettle that had decided not to boil after all.

Toby was standing at the middle of the beam with his hands hovering over it, looking from one girl to the other, white-faced. He looked like he wanted to sing a wall up between them and hide behind it.

Sergeant Okafor didn’t say anything. She stood at the side of the field with her hands behind her back, watching.

I went to the back of the beam and crouched and got my hands under it.

”I’ll take the back,” I said. ”I’m heaviest. Back carries most on a turn.” Father had taught me that, moving a fallen pylon off the north field when I was nine. I didn’t say so. ”Liam, middle-back. Toby, middle. You two can share the front. One each side.”

Seraphina turned round and looked at me as if I’d suggested she share a toothbrush.

Luna Windsor didn’t turn round. But I saw her shoulders go very still.

”Squad Eight,” said Sergeant Okafor mildly. ”My beam’s still on the ground.”

Seraphina went to the left of the front end. Luna went to the right. Neither of them looked at the other.

”On three,” I said.

”On two,” said Seraphina. ”Three’s slow.”

”On three,” said Luna, ”is standard.”

We lifted it on what was, as far as I could tell, two and a half.

We carried it fourteen times.

The first time, we nearly dropped it twice. Seraphina walked fast and Luna walked long, and the front of the beam went one way and then the other, like a dog that couldn’t decide which smell to follow. Toby, in the middle, kept getting pulled off his feet. Liam talked the whole way, about nothing, cheerfully, in a voice that got a little higher every time the beam swung.

The second time, Seraphina said left and Luna went right, and we walked into the white line at the edge of the field and Okafor made us go back to the start.

The third time, nobody said anything at all, and that was worse.

By the fifth time, my arms were shaking. Not from the weight. I’d been carrying rock and steel since I was nine. From holding it level. From feeling the front of the beam go one way and the middle go another and pulling the back just enough, every step, to keep the whole thing from twisting out of our hands. It was like carrying something alive.

I watched the two girls at the front. I couldn’t help it. It was the only thing to look at.

They were very good. That was the strange part. Both of them. Seraphina had a way of moving her whole body before she moved her feet, so you knew where she was going a moment before she went, if you were watching. Luna moved like water going downhill. No wasted step. No wasted anything. If they’d been walking in the same direction, the beam would have floated.

They weren’t walking in the same direction. They were walking in exactly the same direction, very carefully, an inch apart, each of them trying to make it look like the other one was following.

On the ninth trip, halfway back, Toby’s foot went out from under him.

He didn’t say anything. He just went down, all at once, the way a puppet goes when somebody lets go of the strings. His end of the middle dropped. The beam lurched. Seraphina swore. Luna’s hands slid on the steel. For one second, I felt the whole weight of the thing tip toward Toby, lying in the dirt underneath it.

I didn’t think. I took it.

Not with my head. Okafor had said. With my arms and my back and my legs, the way I’d taken the pylon off the north field when I was nine. I lifted the back end of the beam up to my chest, and the whole thing came level again, and stayed there, with my arms around it and my teeth shut.

”Up,” I said. ”Toby. Up.”

He scrambled up. He got his hands back under it. His face was gray.

”Sorry,” he whispered. ”Sorry. Sorry.”

”Don’t be,” said Liam, beside him. For once, he didn’t say anything else.

We carried it to the end of the line. At the front, neither girl said anything. But on the tenth trip, Seraphina slowed down. Not much. Just a little. Just enough for Toby. And Luna, on the other side of the beam, shortened her stride to match, without being asked, without looking.

They were walking at the same pace.

They didn’t look at each other. They’d have died first. But for the last five trips, the beam floated.

”Down,” said Sergeant Okafor.

We put it down. Carefully. All five of us at once. Nobody dropped their end.

Then we stood there, in a line beside it, breathing hard, sweat running into our eyes. Toby was shaking. Liam had his hands on his knees. Seraphina had her chin up, breathing through her nose. Luna Windsor stood at attention, perfectly straight, as if she’d been for a short walk, except that her silver hair was stuck to her forehead.

Sergeant Okafor walked along the line slowly, looking at each of us.

”The beam,” she said, ”doesn’t care who’s in charge of it.”

Nobody said anything.

”The beam doesn’t care whose father is a general. Or whose family has the loudest table in the mess. Or who can turn it into a puddle.” She didn’t look at me when she said that. She didn’t look at anyone. ”The beam’s just heavy. It’s heavy for everyone. It’s heaviest for whoever’s weakest, and if they go down, it goes down on them.” She stopped in front of Toby. ”You all right, Marsh?”

”Yes, Sergeant,” whispered Toby.

”Drink your water.” She walked on. ”Tomorrow, powers. And by Friday, Squad Eight picks a leader. I don’t pick. You do. I’ll want a name.”

She walked off the field.

We stood there in a line for a moment longer, the five of us, beside a steel beam on the ground.

”Well,” said Liam, straightening up, still breathing hard. ”I nominate Lucas.”

”No,” said Seraphina.

”No,” said Luna Windsor.

They’d said it at exactly the same moment. In exactly the same voice. Flat. Certain. Like a door closing.

They both stopped. They both, very slowly, turned their heads, and looked at each other, for the first time all morning.

It lasted about a second. Then they both looked away again, fast, at opposite ends of the field, as if they’d caught each other doing something unforgivable.

”No,” I said, to make it unanimous.

”Oh, good,” said Liam. He beamed at all of us. ”That’s three noes and one me and one Toby. Toby, what do you think?”

Toby looked at him in horror.

”Right,” said Liam. ”Toby abstains. We’ll keep working on it.” He picked up his water bottle and drank half of it in one go. ”This is going to be wonderful.”

That night, in the reading room past the armory, I didn’t read about leaves.

I’d finished with walls, for now. I’d watched the cells in the fern leaf for three nights, one at a time, until I could see the gates opening and closing without trying. I’d watched water come in. I’d watched things get turned away. And every time, at the door, there’d been a question I couldn’t answer.

How did it know?

How did the wall know what to let in? How did it know what belonged?

So that night I took down the book I’d been afraid of. The thick one with the long word on the spine I’d had to sound out. Immunology. And I opened it to the first page, and started.

It took me the whole hour to read twelve pages. I read most of them twice. Some of them three times.

But by the end of it, I understood one thing.

Every cell in a body carried a mark. On the outside of its wall. A little shape, the book said, like a key, or a flag, or a name tag. Every cell in the same body had the same mark. It said: I belong here. I’m one of you. And all through the body, all the time, there were other cells, hunters, whose only job was to go round and check. Every wall. Every cell. Every minute of every day, for a whole life. Checking the marks.

If the mark was right, they left it alone.

If the mark was wrong, they killed it.

I sat back in my chair, under the lamp, and thought about Liam’s neck. The little scar under his ear, where the Retention tag went in. The scar under Okafor’s ear, in the same place. A mark that said I belong here. A mark that said this one gets the medicine.

And I thought about Mother. About what they’d put in her when she was fifteen. Something from the wreck of a ship, with no mark on it at all. Or with the wrong one. Something that every hunter in her body had been finding, every minute of every day, for twenty-four years, and trying to kill.

Her body wasn’t broken.

It was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. It was doing it perfectly. It was fighting something that didn’t belong, the way every body in the world was built to.

It was just never going to win, and it was never going to stop.

I opened notebook fifteen, and under 2. How a body knows what’s itself, I wrote:

Marks. Every cell carries one. Hunters check them. Hers are fighting something with no mark, and they will never stop.

And under it, smaller:

What if it had the right one?

I looked at that for a long time. I didn’t know what it meant yet. I didn’t know if it meant anything at all.

But it was the first question I’d written that wasn’t how.

When I got back to the barracks, the beds had moved.

Somebody had come through while we were at dinner and changed everything. There were new name cards on the end of every bed, in Okafor’s square printing, grouped by squad. Squad One at the door. Squad Two beside them. On down the long row.

Squad Eight was the far corner.

My bed. The same one. With Mother’s photograph on the shelf over it, and the yellow socks, and Father’s anatomy book.

And on either side of it, where there had been three empty beds on each side since the first night, there were sheets, and blankets, and name cards.

CALDER, L., on the right. Liam was already on it, flat on his back with his arms spread out, still in his boots, groaning that he was never going to be able to lift anything again in his whole life.

MARSH, T., on the left.

Toby was sitting on the end of it, very upright, with his few things in a pile beside him, and his armband in his lap. He looked at me as I came in. Then at the floor. Then at me again.

”Okafor said squads bunk together,” he said, very fast. ”I didn’t ask. She just did it.”

”I know.”

”I can ask to move. If you want. I can—”

”Toby,” I said.

He stopped.

”It’s fine,” I said. ”It’s good.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded, once, and turned round, and started unpacking his things onto the shelf over his bed. A comb. A tin cup. A small, very worn photograph of a woman with his ears, standing in front of a door on some lower floor of the city, smiling.

I lay down on my bed in the dark, between the two of them, and looked at the ceiling.

The girls’ barracks were across the cave. I wondered, briefly, whether Okafor had put Seraphina Calder and Luna Windsor in beds next to each other. Then I decided I didn’t want to know, and that, if she had, I hoped the barracks had a sprinkler system.

Liam was asleep in four minutes. He talked in his sleep, the way he’d said he did. About beams. About winning.

At the end of the row, nobody hummed.

Then, very softly, beside me, so close I could have reached out and touched his bed, Toby did.

He got the second part right.