even need to clean up the mess. I could see it unfolding. But it was less vivid than the other images that had stalked my vision for the last few days: the tanks waiting to swallow the whole town of New Hobart; the battle; the ring of blood around the town, from our futile attempt to free it.
“I had a wife.” The Ringmaster’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. “We got married young. We were going to have a child.”
“Children,” I said.
“Call it what you like.” He lifted his glass again, avoiding my eyes as he drank. “For nine months we watched Gemma’s belly grow. I left the army, started working for a Councilor, because I didn’t want to be away so often. I wanted to see my child grow up.
“When Gemma went into labor, the Alpha came first. She was beautiful. Perfect. I got to hold her, while we were waiting for the Omega. But it couldn’t come out. It got stuck.” He paused for a moment. “We had the midwife there. We did everything we could. But its head was deformed.” He looked down, his mouth distorted, as though the memory were a bitter taste on his tongue. “There was something wrong with it. Two heads, maybe, the midwife thought. Anyway, it wouldn’t come.
“My wife told me to get the doctor to cut it out of her, to try to at least save the baby. But I couldn’t do it. I should have done. It was stupid of me. As it was, I lost them both.”
For a second, I thought he meant both twins. That he was at least acknowledging that he’d lost his Omega child, too. But he went on.
“My baby girl first. And then my wife, too, within a day and a half. The other baby was stuck in her, dead, and Gemma got sicker and sicker. She went gray. Her fever was so high that she was half-crazed. And the whole time she was asking about the baby, our little girl. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was wrapped up, on a chair in the kitchen, dead.” He looked up at me. “If anyone tells you they don’t fear Omegas, they’re lying. You are the curse that the blast left us with. You’re the burden that the innocent have to bear.”
“Your son,” I said. “Wasn’t he just as innocent as your daughter? And the children of New Hobart—aren’t they innocent, too?”
“The Omega baby killed my whole family.”
“No. He died, and they died, too. And it was terrible, and cruel, for all of them. But when your wife died, her Omega twin died as well—and that’s not her fault either. If you turn tragedies like that it into a reason for hating all Omegas, we end up with people like Zach and the General arguing that we should all be tanked.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “After she died, they cut it out of her. I asked them to.” He looked up at me. “I wanted to see it for myself.”
“He was your son.”
“You think that’s why I wanted to see it?” He shook his head slowly. “I wanted to see the thing that had killed her. Not two heads, or not quite. One huge head, with a second face bulging out the side of it.” Disgust contorted his face. “I told the midwife to get rid of it. I didn’t want it to be buried with my wife and daughter.”
“He was your son,” I said.
“You think if you keep saying that, it will somehow make it mean something?”
“And do you think if you keep denying it, ignoring it, it will make it untrue?”
He stood. “I can’t help you free New Hobart. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do it in time.”
“At least tell me this,” I said. “What do you know about the Ark, or Elsewhere?”
“Nothing,” he said. I scanned his face, and could find no lie there. “Nothing but conversations that stop when I enter the room. This isn’t something they discuss openly, in the Council Halls. I’ve heard whispers of an Ark. I know it’s part of their plan, but I don’t know how it all fits together. And I know it’s something to do with what they’re searching for in New Hobart.”
“If we free New Hobart, I can help you find it. We can find the Ark. We can change everything.”
“Do you believe that?” he said.
I stood and pushed back the tent flap. The canvas was heavy