Jane pulled off the road onto a grassy verge next to a Faraday cage.
“It’s called spalling,” said Tommo, since we were all staring at the panicked manner in which the road had attempted to rejoin with its lost section. “When Perpetulite catches plastoid necrosis , the only way to protect the road system is to amputate and then spike. I don’t think it likes it very much.”
“Like I give a ratfink what the road thinks,” said Violet. “Let’s get on with it.”
“I leave an hour before nightfall,” announced Jane, breaking out the oilcan from the toolbox. “If you’re not here, I go home without you. Have fun now, children, and don’t squabble.”
“You better be here,” said Courtland.
“I’ll be here,” she said, giving him a smile, “but will you?”
She was trying to frighten him, but it didn’t seem to be working.
We gathered our knapsacks, and with little ceremony we walked past the spalled Perpetulite and onto the track of the vanished road, which, despite being fully reclaimed as grassy moorland, was still visible as a flatter section of ground. Almost immediately, I made some lame excuse and hurried back to the Ford, which was being assiduously oiled by Jane with the oversize oilcan.
“I thought you were here because you changed your mind.”
“I thought so, too,” she said without looking at me, “right up until you couldn’t resist giving darling Violet your very best. You had me fooled. For a moment there I thought you were actually quite pleasant.”
“It was an accident.”
“Where did you mean to put it? Her sock?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?” She took a deep breath. “Whatever it was, Eddie, it’s gone. I don’t care any longer. But since I owe you, here’s some advice: There’s a flak tower three foot-hours away. Don’t go beyond it.”
“I have to. That’s the point of the expedition.”
She shrugged, switched on the ignition, hand-cranked the engine, jumped into the driver’s seat, and without another look at me, moved off in a cloud of smoke.
I sighed, cursed my own weakness, then ran to catch up with the others.
We stuck to the easily recognized path of the gone-away road, and after a half mile of well-grazed moorland we descended a short hill and entered a forest of mature oak. A few trees had fallen across the road but nothing too dramatic.
“We’d get the Ford along here,” said Tommo, who had trotted forward to join me up front.
The road took us around a sweeping curve and then up a slight incline, where, standing forlornly in a sun-dappled glade, we came across a Farmall crawler such as might have been used to assist with logging. This was where the battle to reopen the road had ended thirty years ago, the Farmall abandoned when it was replaced by plow horses as motive power during one of the periodic small stepbacks.
Enthusiasm for keeping the road open had seemingly died with it. I made a note in my exercise book.
“So,” I said to Tommo as we walked past the crawler and around a bramble thicket to rejoin the track of the old road, “what’s going on?”
“Yes, I suppose I should explain.”
“Would you?” I asked. “I’d be really very grateful.”
“No need to be like that.”
“So what are you doing out here? I thought most Cinnabars were cowards.”
“Not most, all,” he replied with disarming honesty.
“I’m still listening.”
“Right. Well, we were talking about your insane mission, and blow me down if Lucy doesn’t go all gooey and say how brave and manly you are. And Courtland and I got to thinking that instead of making it a trip of almost certain death and unspeakable horrors, we could invest in a few safeguards to make the trip work to everyone’s advantage. We had a brief chat, and here we are: Courtland, Violet, me and yourself.”
“And where do the safeguards come into it?”
“You’ll see.”
We had arrived at a stone house by the side of the road. The interior was a sea of brambles, and there was a beech growing in the corner. Next to the building were the remnants of an outhouse that had collapsed long ago, and beneath the carpet of roof tiles, leaf litter and moss were the remnants of a vehicle. Although anything metallic had rusted or corroded away long ago, the plastic still remained, along with four perished rubber tires and a pair of glass headlights, which looked as though they might have been cast yesterday. A flash of white on the ground caught my eye, and I picked up a sun-bleached molar. It was definitely human, although it looked as though someone had stuck some metal neatly onto the worn surface. I tapped the tooth on my palm, and the metal section dropped out. It was heavy and shiny, so I put it in my pocket.
“Okay,” said Courtland, “here will do.”
The three of them dispensed with their knapsacks. Violet and Courtland sat down, while Tommo poked in a grassy mound with a stick. Scavenging for color was one of those pursuits that followed you into adulthood.
“We should give it another half hour before a break,” I said. “We don’t know how long it’s going to take to get there.”
“We’re not resting,” said Courtland with a sense of finality. “We’ve stopped.”
Tommo and Violet looked at me, then at Courtland. Tommo had outdone himself again.
“That’s the safeguard?” I asked. “Not going to High Saffron at all?”
“The best plans are always the simplest,” observed Tommo with a smile. “Let me explain. We’re going to rest up for the day, discard all our gear and a shoe or two, rip our clothes and then stagger back into town whimpering incoherently about swans and Riffraff. Everyone’s a hero, we get excused from Useful Work for a month, receive seven hundred merits each and clean up on the sweep I’ve got going back home. There’s no risk, we don’t have to do squiddly and no one has to walk their feet off—or come back dead.”
He found something in the mound of dirt he had been prodding, and held it up. “Guys?”
Courtland shook his head, but Violet nodded.
“Blue,” she said in a grumpy tone.
“And what about the report?” I asked. “We don’t get a bean unless we actually reach the town.”
He shrugged. “We’ll claim we reached the outskirts. You can make up something suitably vague:
‘pre-Epiphanic ruins, entwined with the roots of mature oaks,’ then add a bit about ‘vibrant color lying half buried in the leaf mold.’ That will do it.”
“We could do the same thing next month,” said Violet, “and the month after that.”
“And without prefects to check up on us,” added Courtland, “there’s no risk.”
“So you’re with us on this, right?” said Tommo. “No sense in risking certain death when you can make good money with a little harmless subterfuge.”
I stared at them all. Ordinarily I might have entertained such an action, especially with two prefects-in-waiting already signed up. With me onboard, there would be three-quarters of East Carmine’s future Council in agreement, which would be enough to keep it hidden forever. But it didn’t bode well. If this was the level of corruption before they were in power, I dreaded to think what it might be like when they took office. Besides, I didn’t like being pushed. Not one little bit.
“Why don’t you guys just stay here?” I suggested. “I’ll walk over there on—”
“We really have to be together on this,” said Violet. “We’ll be debriefed. They’ll see through it.”