Drake turned to the waiting boys.
"That charmer was Tom Cox. I'd rather have the company of the Styx any time than that twisted abomination of a man. He's as sick on the inside as he looks on the outside." Drake drew breath tremulously. "You could've so easily ended up in his clutches, If Elliott and I hadn't reached you first." His eyes fell to the stove gun in his hand, and, as if he was surprised to find it still poised for use, he lowered it. "Cox and his kind are the reason we don’t spend much time on the plain. And you can see what the radiation will do to you, eventually."
He slotted the stove gun back into the pad on his thigh. "We should be on our way." He swung his head to where Tom Cox had been, his gaze lingering on the spot, seeing shadows that the three boys couldn't begin to imagine. Then he led them away, all the time checking to make sure the old man wasn't following behind.
On another occasion, Will had spent a night of unbroken sleep, punctuated by a series of the deepest dreams. He was just drifting off again when he was roused by Elliott's voice from the corridor. It was so faint and unreal, he wasn't sure if he'd really heard it or had been dreaming again. As he sat up, Chester trudged into the room. He was sopping wet, suggesting he had just swum through the sump.
"All right, Will?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so," Will replied groggily. "Been on patrol?"
"Yeah… just doing the rounds. All quiet out there. Nothing happening," Chester said cheerfully as he took off his boots. He spoke with a casual, soldierly acquiescence, as if he was doing only what he was duty-bound to do, and doing it with a forced heartiness.
It suddenly struck Will how much their friendship had changed over the past two months, as if Cal's brush with death in the sugar trap and the introduction of Drake and Elliott, especially Elliott, had somehow redrawn the geometry of their relationships. As he lay back in his narrow bed with his arms crossed behind his head, the recollection of how his and Chester's friendship once had been flashed through his mind. In his sleep-numbed state, Will was able to take up its warmth gratefully and pretend that nothing had changed. He listened as Chester took off his wet clothes, and felt like he could say whatever he wanted to him.
"It's funny," Will spoke softly, so as not to wake his brother.
"What is?" Chester asked, folding his pants as if he were getting his school uniform ready for the next day.
"I had a dream."
"Right," Chester said distractedly, hooking his drenched socks over a couple of nails in the wall so they would dry.
"It was really weird. I was somewhere warm and sunny," Will spoke slowly, trying hard to remember, since the dream was already growing distant. "Nothing mattered, nothing was important. There was a girl there, too. I don't know who she was, but it felt like she was a friend." Will felt silent for a while. "She was really nice… and even when I closed my eyes, her face was still there, smiling and relaxed and sort of… sort of perfect."
"We lay on the grass — like we'd just had a picnic in this meadow, or whatever the place was. I think maybe we were both a bit sleepy. But I knew we were in a place where we were meant to be, where we both belonged. Although we weren't moving, it was like we were floating on a bed of soft grass, a sort of peaceful greenness around us, under the clearest blue sky you can imagine. We were happy, very happy." He sighed. "It was so different from the damp and the heat and always being surrounded by rock like we are now. In the dream, everything was gentle… and the meadow was just so very real… I could even smell the grass. It was…"
He trailed off, basking in what remained of the receding images and sensations. Realizing he had been talking for quite some time and hadn't heard any activity from Chester's corner of the room, he swung his head around to check.
"Chester?" he called quietly.
His friend was already tucked up in his bed, facing the wall. He gave a heavy snort and rolled onto his back. He was fast asleep.
Will blew out a long, resigned breath and closed his eyes, longing to return to his dream but knowing how very unlikely that was.
27
There was the most incredible bang as the Miners' Train lurched and skewed from side to side, so dramatically that Sarah was convinced it was going to leave the tracks altogether. Gripping the bench tightly, she shot an anxious glance across at Rebecca, who seemed completely unperturbed. Indeed, the young girl appeared to be in an almost trancelike state, her face perfectly tranquil and her eyes fully open, but not looking at anything in particular.
The train settle back into its previous hypnotic rhythm. Sarah breathed more easily as she peered around the interior of the guard's car. Once again she allowed her eyes to drift over to the Limiters, but quickly looked away, not wanting them to notice her interest.
She had to keep pinching herself to make sure all this was reaclass="underline" Not only was she practically shoulder to shoulder with a four-man Styx patrol, but these were actual Limiters, members of the "Hobb's Squad," as they were referred to in some circles.
When she'd been little, her father had told her terrifying tales about these soldiers: how they liked to eat Colonists alive; how, if she didn't do as he said and go straight to sleep, these cannibals would come calling in the dead of night. According to her father, they lurked under naughty childrens' beds and if any were to put a foot outside, the Limiters would bite a chunk out of their ankles. He said they were particularly fond of tender young flesh. All that had been quite enough to stop her from falling asleep.
It wasn't until she was several years older that she learned from Tam that these mysterious men really did exist. Of course everyone in the Colony knew about the Division — the teams that patrolled the borders of the Quarter and the Eternal City, the regions closer to the surface — any place, truth be told, that Colonists might use as an escape route Topsoil.
But Limiters were a different kettle of fish, and rarely, if ever, glimpsed in the streets. As a result, the Colony was steeped in myth about them and their prowess. Some of the more far-fetched folklore, Tam had told her, was actually true: He had it on very good authority that they'd actually devoured a Banished Colonist down in the extremes of the Northern Deeps when their food supplies had run out. Tam had also told her "Hobb" was an Old English name for the devil, and a very apt one for these demonic soldiers.
Despite these and many other blatantly outrageous anecdotes that were swapped in whispers behind closed doors, very little was actually known about the Limiters, except for speculation that they were involved in covert Topsoil operations. As for the Deeps, it was said they were trained to survive there for extended periods without support. And now, as she dared to study the Limiters again, she had to agree that they were a most fearsome-looking bunch, with the coldest eyes she'd ever seen, the gray, clouded eyes of dead fish.
There was ample room in the large but rather basic carriage, built on the same chassis as the freight cars, a long line of which preceded it in the train. Its sides and roof were fabricated from timber planking, which had been exposed to intense heat and downpours of water along the route with such regularity that it had become badly warped. Wide cracks had opened up between the planks, letting in the smoke and rushing wind as the train rocketed along, and making Sarah's journey not much more tolerable than the one Will and the boys had experienced in their open car.