‘Niema’s blood,’ she murmurs, as the display automatically matches the sample to its database. ‘No abnormalities. No poisons.’
Swiping aside the results, Clara puts the second soil sample under the scanner, confirming the results of the first, but it’s the third sample that steals the breath out of her.
‘Hui’s blood,’ she says weakly, reading the display. ‘Thea was right. Hui was attacked at the bird bath, as well.’
THIRTY-TWO
Thea ushers Emory into the cable car, then jams the lever forward, sending it shuddering into life. She hops aboard as it starts to move, then comes to stand at the window beside Emory.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Emory nervously.
Thea hasn’t spoken since they left the exercise yard, and Emory still has no idea whether she’s going to let her investigate the murder or not, or why she’s taking her up the volcano.
‘If you’re going to investigate Niema’s murder, you need to be furnished with all of the facts,’ she says crisply.
‘You’re letting me do it? Why?’
‘Because neither myself, Hephaestus or even Niema – if she was still alive – would have noticed that the bird bath was out of place by twelve feet,’ she says. ‘You’re right. You’re good at this.’
Emory turns her face to hide how pleased she is, gripping the empty window frame with both hands as they sail over the rear wall, climbing higher and higher. She can see all the way along the coast to the farms, where the villagers are working. They’re ants at this distance, indistinguishable from each other. The idea that all these people could be dead in less than two days feels like a hand closing around her heart.
‘When are you going to tell them about the fog?’ asks Emory.
‘I’ll hold off for as long as possible,’ says Thea. ‘I don’t want them distracted. There are crops that still need to be harvested, and tools that require repair. The more work we do now to prepare for the evacuation, the better our chances are later.’
The carriage is halfway up the volcano, the rich soil turning to black obsidian, its glassy surface reflecting the sunshine. The last time she was up here was shortly after she’d become an apprentice. After a couple of months in Thea’s officious company, Emory realised this life wasn’t for her.
The only reason she stayed that long was because of Jack and the others. She loved being part of that group. Every one of them was adventurous in a way that was uncommon in the village. They were clever and challenging, and they died far too young. Emory sometimes wonders what would have happened if she’d stayed. She knows for certain she wouldn’t have let the others sail into that storm, no matter what Thea’s orders were.
Maybe they would have gone anyway, but Jack wouldn’t. He would never have left Emory alone on some unknown beach, far from home. If she’d just stuck it out he’d be alive, and that guilt eats at her every day.
‘Did you have any reason to kill Niema?’ she asks Thea bluntly.
Thea’s face cycles through anger, fear, regret and pain before returning to neutral.
‘You really aren’t like the other villagers,’ she says grudgingly. ‘You’d have made a good Follower, back in the day.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Something long gone,’ she says wistfully. ‘Like everything else of worth.’
‘You didn’t answer the question,’ points out Emory.
‘We’ve been trapped on this island together for ninety years,’ she says, at last. ‘If I was going to murder her, I would have done it before now.’
‘Maybe something changed last night?’
‘It would have needed to be a big something,’ Thea says vaguely.
‘What about Hephaestus? How did he feel about his mother?’
‘I’ll not do your work for you, Emory. If you want those answers, you’ll have to ask him.’
The cable car arrives in the station with a soft thump, the wheels grinding to a halt. Thea strides out without a backwards glance, leading Emory through the automatic glass door into the cauldron garden, where they find a dozen sacks of grain, farming tools and four crates of vegetables piled up near a tree.
‘These are some of the missing stores,’ says Thea, picking up a mango. ‘They must have been brought up last night.’
‘There’s enough here to start a small farm,’ notes Emory, inspecting a hoe. ‘Maybe we started the evacuation immediately after Niema died?’
‘Maybe,’ says Thea, counting the boxes and sacks. ‘But where’s the rest of it? We had enough provisions to feed the entire village for six months. This would only be enough for a couple of days.’
Perplexed, she leads them through the garden, scattering hundreds of brightly coloured butterflies from their leaves. Humidity is raining down from the dome, the glass oddly dark considering the bright sunshine outside. Somewhere distant, they can hear trickling water and the faint hum of machinery.
They enter a golden glade where three huge dewdrops are dangling from a pulsing vine that’s thicker than Emory’s body.
Her eyes widen, her mouth falling open.
There’s a little girl floating in the dewdrop nearest to her, curled up in the foetal position. She’s much younger-looking than the eight-year-old children who arrive in the village.
‘This is where your people come from,’ says Thea, raising her hand to touch the drop, which ripples under her touch. ‘Every time somebody dies, we grow a child to replace them. This is the child who’ll replace Aurora next month.’
Emory gazes at the girl in wonder. Most of the villagers’ memories start in the cable car, and none of them ever remember anything before that.
Niema taught them that natural childbirth fell out of favour in the old world, as most mothers didn’t want to endure the discomfort. She never explained what replaced it.
‘Niema asked me to come to the village after curfew last night,’ says Thea, speaking in a reverential hush. ‘She told me she was going to wake everybody up and tell you the truth about where you come from, and what you’re for.’
Her tone has changed, becoming tentative. Emory circles the dewdrop to see her better, and is surprised to find Thea looking nervous.
‘What do you mean she was going to tell us “what we’re for”?’
‘You’re not human,’ replies Thea. ‘You’re a product, Emory. Something Blackheath made and sold, like dishwashers and phones. Underneath that decorative flesh, you have more in common with these plants than me or Hephaestus.’
Emory shakes her head, but the arguments won’t come. What Thea’s saying is too ridiculous. She was taught her history by Niema. They’re the descendants of the first refugees who came to the island. They’re the last of humanity. They’re going to rebuild the world.
‘Forty years before the fog, Niema grew the first generation of your people to fight wars so humans wouldn’t have to. She sold you to any government with a credit card, and bought this island with the profits.’
Emory can barely hear Thea over the roar of her thoughts. She just wants her to stop speaking, to give her a minute to make sense of everything. But the information keeps coming, like furniture being stuffed into an already full room.
‘She called you simulacrums and you were so successful that she eventually adapted you to the residential market,’ continues Thea, who’s staring at the little girl suspended in the dewdrop. ‘That’s when she put faces on you, and stuffed you full of halfway convincing emotions.’
Her tone suggests very clearly that she believes this was a bad idea.
‘Anybody with savings could have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a servant or a driver. That’s why you only live until you’re sixty. It’s built-in obsolescence, a way of ensuring Blackheath’s customers always bought the newest model.’