Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,20

the phone. “Which reporter?” I ask.

“Vanderhaven. She was on the boat…”

It's almost a question from him, but not quite, and I hesitate on the cusp of replying.

Callis and I have known each other for a long time. We've schemed our way into and out of a number of tight situations over the centuries. Typically, he plays the scoundrel role—the charming and devious one—while I play the silent and invisible heavy, and I've seen him extract information with an insouciant ease simply by leaving a sentence hanging, neglecting a final piece of punctuation that his listeners instinctively leap to supply. In doing so, they also tumble along a path he has arranged for them to take.

“Vanderhaven,” I reply. “The one who did the Beering story?”

“That was your job.”

“It was.”

“The Grove has been expressing some concern.”

“Now? That was two years ago. I've been in Mother's care since then. Up until about a month before we went to Adelaide and got on the boat.”

“Why was she on the boat, Silas?”

I glance around. The phone is on the wall outside the kitchen, and I'm standing at the mouth of a narrow hall that runs from the living room of the small cabin to the other rooms. There's a single entrance to this cabin, and I can see it from where I'm standing, but there are also windows in the rooms. The doors to the rooms are shut. If there's a good place to be standing in this cabin, I'm in it.

I am in an isolated location, and I am the only one in the house, but his questions have set off a survival check in my brain. I'm doing a tactical assessment of my location. Figuring out my exit strategy. Wondering about my security.

“I didn't say she was,” I reply carefully.

“There's a poison at work here,” he says. “I fear it may touch members of the Grove. I don't know who you can trust.”

“Suggestions?”

“Stay away from Arcadia. Be rootless.”

Rootless. My breath catches in my throat. It's a hard word to hear. On my own, unable to return to Arcadia and to Mother's embrace. I have only the foul soil of the world to sustain me.

“Why?” I croak.

“The Grove is protecting its interests,” he says. “They started as soon as the story broke. It's been three weeks, Silas. We haven't heard from any of the team. We had to assume you were all lost, or compromised. The Grove doesn't want to lose the mission data, but they have to protect Arcadia.”

“Of course,” I say. I know the drill. We all do—the priority is always family. Arcadia must be protected. Nothing else matters. That is the price we pay. Rooted, we live forever. The rootless—those who can't return to Arcadia and Mother's embrace—they simply… die.

“Your assets have been reclaimed,” he says, a touch embarrassed, and I suspect the task of seizing my assets fell to him. Arcadia has managed to survive as long as it has by maintaining deep relationships with long-standing banking houses. It makes it easier for us to survive the ebb and flow of global finance, but it also means we are centrally managed. That much easier to excise the rootless from their allowances.

“Spend it on some tree farms, would you?” I ask.

“Gladly,” he laughs. “Silas,” he says, his voice becoming serious. “I'm not telling you to give up. Don't crawl off into the woods and let the humus have you. Stay hidden. Do you understand? It'll be the only way you can find out what is going on.”

“What is going on?” I ask.

He ignores my question. “Do you remember Victoria's Diamond Jubilee?” he asks.

“Vaguely,” I reply. We had been in London for the celebration, and he had dragged me into some scam involving gold from Witwatersrand. He had claimed it was an opportunity investment for Arcadia, but I hadn't entirely bought that line of bullshit. I had been right too; the other party had tried to cheat us, and a rather straight-forward enterprise had become complicated. And bloody.

“There was a party we attended. A masked ball.”

“There was?” I have the same memory problems as Callis—all Arcadians did—and the older memories suffered the most. But Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee had only been a little over a hundred years ago.

“I met a woman there, a banker's daughter. She introduced me to her father. I made a small investment with him before we left London.”

“Ah,” I say, suddenly understanding why he was telling me this. “And this investment has been quietly maturing ever since, hasn't