Almost all of the refuge’s sprawling complex was entombed within the walls. But at the eastern edge was a section of farmed land, surrounded by a wooden fence. It was too high to climb easily, and the posts were too closely spaced for a person to slip through, but there was room enough to show the crops in their orderly lines, and the workers there, busy with hoes among the beets and marrows. Perhaps twenty of them, all Omegas, bent over their work. The marrows had grown fat—each one larger than the last few meals that Piper, Zoe, and I had eaten.
“They’re not all tanked, at least,” Zoe said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“That’s what, six acres of crops?” Piper said. “Look at the size of the place—especially with that new building. Our records on the island showed that thousands of people have turned themselves in at the refuges each year. More than ever, lately, since the bad harvest and the tithe increases. This refuge alone would have upward of five thousand people. No way they’re being fed from those fields—it’d barely be enough to feed the guards.”
“It’s a display,” I said. “Like a minstrel show, a pretty picture of what people think a refuge is. But it’s all for show, to keep people coming.”
There was something else about the refuge that unsettled me. I searched and searched for it, until I realized that it was an absence, not a presence. It was the almost total lack of sound. Piper had said that there were thousands of people within those walls. I thought of the sound of the New Hobart market, or of the island’s streets. The constant noise of the children at Elsa’s holding house. But the only sounds reaching us from the refuge were the strikes of the workers’ hoes on the frost-hardened earth. There was no background hum of voices, and I could sense no movement within the buildings. I recalled the tank chamber I’d seen at Wyndham, where the only sound had been the buzz of the Electric. All those throats stoppered with tubes like corks in bottles.
There was movement on the road that led east past the refuge. It wasn’t mounted soldiers—just three walkers, moving slowly, and laden with packs.
As they drew closer, we could see they were Omegas. The shorter of the men had an arm that ended at the elbow; the other man limped heavily, one twisted leg gnarled like driftwood. Between them walked a child. I’d have guessed he was no older than seven or eight, although he was so thin that his age was hard to tell. He looked down as he walked, guided only by his hand held tightly by the tall man.
Their heads looked too large on their thin bodies. But it was their packs that pained me most. Those bundles, tightly wrapped, would have been carefully chosen. A few treasured possessions, and all the things they thought they’d need, in the new life they’d embarked upon. The taller of the men had a shovel across his shoulders. From the other man’s pack hung two cooking pans, clattering with each step.
“We need to stop them,” I said. “Tell them what’s waiting for them in there.”
“It’s too late,” Piper said. “The guards would see us. It would all be over.”
“And even if we could get to them without being seen, what could we say?” Zoe said. “They’d think we’re mad. Look at us.” I looked from Zoe to Piper, and down at myself. We were dirty and half-starved. Our clothes were ragged and had never shed the gray stain of the deadlands.
“Why would they trust us?” Piper said. “And what can we offer them? Once, we could have offered them safety on the island, or at least the resistance network. Now, the island’s gone, and the network’s collapsing by the day.”
“It’s still better than the tanks,” I said.
“I know that,” Piper said. “But they won’t. How could we even begin to explain the tanks to them?”
A gate in the stone wall opened. Three Council soldiers in red tunics stepped forward, to await the new arrivals. They stood casually, arms crossed, waiting for the walkers to reach them. And I was struck once again by the ruthless efficiency of Zach’s plan. The tithes did the work for him, driving the desperate Omegas to the very refuges that their tithes had helped to build. Inside, the tanks would swallow them, and they would never emerge.