north—could be that Larson and his crew are still on the move. The rest still unaccounted for.”
“That’s good news about the eight, at least. But that wasn’t what I meant. What about the ships out west?”
“Nothing.” Simon shook his head. “It was always a waste of time. I said so back then, too.”
“You’ve seen Sally’s Ark paper yourself,” Piper said. “You know Elsewhere exists. You were outvoted.”
“We know it existed in the Before—that doesn’t mean anything now,” Simon said. “And I was outvoted because you had the Assembly eating out of your hand.”
“They made a decision.”
“The Assembly’s decision didn’t seem to matter so much to you in the end, though, did it?”
Piper ignored the jibe. “The Rosalind and The Evelyn are still out there,” he said.
“We don’t even know that—all we know is that they haven’t come back. They could’ve sunk months ago, for all we know—or been picked up by the Council fleet.” Simon paused, and lowered his voice. “I did send scouts. Not that I held out any hope for Elsewhere—but I could use every ship we’ve got, not to mention the troops who were manning them. So I sent Hannah, and two scouts. They waited at Cape Bleak for three weeks. No signal fires, and nothing to see but Council ships patrolling. The winter storms were closing in. If the ships were still out there by then, there was no hope for them. I need my troops here, not waiting for ghost ships.”
His voice was grave. I was glad, at least, that he took no pleasure in telling us this.
Piper had closed his eyes against the news, but only for a few seconds. Now he was pursing his lips, eyes on the table in front of him. He was already recalculating, figuring out where to go from here.
“Elsewhere’s still the one thing that can offer real change,” I said. I remembered how I’d felt, when I read the mention of allied nations in the Ark paper: a sense that the world had stretched, widened. That the blank spaces where our maps had always ended might hold something after all, and that there could be something beyond the Council. Beyond the cycle of violence that pitted us against our twins, and killed both of us.
“I’m telling you now,” said Simon. “There’ll be no more boats sent out while I’m in charge. That’s the kind of gamble that you might be able to justify in decent times, but not now, when everything’s gone to hell.”
“Isn’t that the time that we need it most, though?” I said.
“While you’ve been preoccupied with your pie-in-the-sky ideas, I’ve been busy doing the real work of keeping the resistance going. We’ve been working day and night: organizing shelter and rations for all the evacuees. Reestablishing the communications network, and finding new safe houses, now that so many have been raided. Getting warnings to all the people who are at risk, given who’s been taken. Monitoring Council troop movements, and keeping track of their fleet, too. We’ve identified a site in the southeast that might be able to accommodate some of the refugees, and we’ve got a team out there setting up shelters, to see the most vulnerable through the winter, at least.”
“It’s not enough,” I said.
Simon turned to me. His voice was a low roar. “You have no idea what it takes to keep the resistance together.”
“It has to be done,” I said. “And I don’t doubt that you’re doing it well. But it’s never going to be enough. It’s just rebuilding what we had before. It’s more running and hiding. You want to build another hiding spot, only this time near the deadlands? What happens next? Another Council raid, another attack. How can things ever change if running and hiding is all that we do? What about striking back?”
“How?” Simon threw out his hands. “We lost half our troops on the island. There might come a time when we can strike back against the Council. But it’s not now. Not with our troop numbers slashed, and half our civilians going hungry and on the run.”
“It’ll be too late,” I said. “That’s what the Council’s counting on: keeping us downtrodden enough that we can’t conceive of fighting back.”
“What would you do, to strike back?” Simon said.
“I’d send more troops north, to seek the ships again. I’d outfit new boats, ready to send out as soon as spring comes. But that’s not all. I’d free New Hobart.”
chapter 13
Simon slammed his hands onto the table, knocking