15. Sullha
SULLHA
S ullha watched the scenery passing them by through the bus window, and she still couldn't believe that she was in America.
The land of the free, Yamanu had called it.
Was she free, though?
During the flight, the Guardians had talked about a place that sounded like paradise, about life that was free of worry, with everything they needed handed to them with no strings attached, but that sounded too good to be true, and she didn't trust it.
They had flown through the night, and Sullha had dozed off for a few minutes here and there, waking each time with a jolt, reaching for Tomek before her eyes had even opened to make sure that he was next to her, and each time she'd found him in exactly the same spot as the last time, curled against her side under a blanket someone had draped over them both.
He was asleep again, stretched across the bus seat with his head in her lap and his feet propped against the window, so she couldn't move, but she didn't mind.
His weight was reassuring and comforting.
Without it, she might have floated away, made buoyant by this fantastic new reality she found herself in.
Fantastic didn't necessarily mean good, though.
She didn't know how Yaaf and his friends were doing, and whether the scientists had made the medicine for them yet, or whether the shaking in his hands had gotten worse.
How would she even find out? Who would she ask?
She looked down the aisle and saw Bowen, sitting two rows back beside another Guardian. Bowen would know or would know how to find out. She could ask him.
Later. When Tomek was awake, and she could walk up to the Guardian. She wasn't going to shout her question for everyone to hear.
The bus slowed, turned, and then, without warning, the windows turned opaque, as if coated with a white-gray film.
The women who had noticed gasped, and Zohara's hand shot out to grip the seat in front of her.
"It's all right," Yamanu said from the front of the bus, his voice calm and unhurried, and carrying a slight musical note.
He said it first in English, then again in the old tongue, slower, his accent mangling the vowels but conveying the meaning clear enough.
"Nothing is wrong. It is a security measure.
The entrance to the village is a secret, even from its residents.
No one is allowed to see where the entrance to the tunnel is.
The windows will clear when we reach the garage. "
Sullha released a breath and slumped in her seat.
Just a security measure. She'd lived her whole life in a secure enclosure, and she knew all about security measures.
They served two purposes: to keep undesirable elements out and to keep the inhabitants in.
And if this place was so secure that even those who lived there didn't know how to get in, then why did they insist on keeping Yaaf and his friends out?
Yaaf and his friends belonged in the undesirable category, or at least the suspected category, but what exactly did these people think that they would do to them?
This too she would have to ask Bowen when she had a chance.
The bus entered a tunnel, the windows that had been milky white turning dark gray and the temperature dropping. Then the bus came to a stop, and a moment later, a hydraulic sound was followed by a lurch, and Sullha's stomach dropped toward her feet.
They were going up.
The bus was not moving. She was certain of that, because nothing rolled beneath them and the engine had gone quiet, and yet the whole vehicle was rising, smoothly and steadily.
Around her, the women grabbed for each other and for their seats.
Someone made a frightened sound. Sullha pressed her palm flat against the seat in front of her and made herself breathe, because they had put the women on this bus and driven them into a mountain, and if the clan had wanted to harm them, there had been a hundred easier ways.
Something was carrying them. That was the only explanation.
A platform, some enormous machine built for the purpose of lifting an entire bus and everyone in it, and she added it to the list of things she would ask Bowen about when she got the chance, a list that had grown longer every hour since the boat.
When the windows finally cleared, they were in an underground garage, rolling through a cavern of concrete pillars, painted lines, and rows of parked vehicles.
"Tomek." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Wake up, sweetheart. We're here."
He blinked and then sat up and pressed his face to the window. "Where's here?"
"Somewhere under the village. We go up from here."
"Up the stairs?"
"I don't know. It felt like some sort of machine lifted the whole bus. You slept through it."
He pouted. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"There was nothing to see. The windows turned the color of milk. The glass wasn't see-through."
He looked at the window that was clear now, then back at her, and frowned. "Did you fall asleep, Mama? It must have been a dream."
It certainly felt like it. Any moment now she would wake up and find herself in the tiny room in the enclosure that she'd shared with Tomek.
They left the bus, a group of scared women, several burly Guardians who looked happy to be back home, and two of the strange Kra-ell warriors, who she thought were male but wasn't sure.
They were all tall and unnaturally thin, and wore their hair long, gathered in a ponytail.
The only difference she'd noticed between males and females was that females' facial features were more delicate and prettier.
It had been Bowen who had ended up telling her about the Kra-ell and how the clan had found them, or rather how they had found the clan.
It was such a fascinating story, and she was sure there was much more to it than the shortened version Bowen had given her while Tomek had been asleep on the plane.
Three elevators were more than enough to carry all of them up to the surface, and as she entered the center one with Tomek's hand clutched in hers, she caught her reflection in the mirror and winced.
Her arrival in her new world was not going to be dignified.
She was grateful for the clothes she'd been given in Safe Harbor, but the shirt hung off her shoulders like a tent, the trousers stayed up only because she'd rolled the waistband three times, and the flip-flops on her feet were so oversized that she'd developed a kind of sliding shuffle just to keep them from escaping.
There was nothing to be done about it though, so when the doors opened, she lifted her chin and shuffled forward.
The structure they exited into was made almost entirely of glass, a pavilion one of the Guardians had called it, and through its transparent walls she could see the village.
It was green, though a less vibrant green than that of the island, but everything was so meticulously maintained that it looked like an illustration.
Two people were waiting for them inside the pavilion, a man and a woman.
The woman was lovely, with honey-blond hair, warm blue eyes, and a kind smile. The man beside her was tall and broad- shouldered and so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at him. He seemed uncomfortable, as if someone had talked him into coming to greet them but he wasn't looking forward to it.
"Welcome," the man said, in the old tongue.
"I'm Kian, and this is my wife, Syssi." He switched to English.
"Welcome to our community. From now on, this is your home.
You are safe, all your needs are covered, and nothing is expected from you other than following the basic rules of our community, which will be explained later.
You can take as long as you want to settle in and decide what you want to do with the rest of your lives. "
Yamanu translated, laboring over it, the words coming out bent and simplified, and the women around her were frowning as they tried to reconstruct the meaning.
Sullha stepped forward. "I can translate," she offered in English, and felt every eye in the pavilion turn to her.
Kian's eyebrows rose slightly. "You speak English?"
"I read it better than I speak it. But yes."
"Please," Yamanu said. "I appreciate the help."
As she translated, she studied Kian, this man Yaaf had told her about, the one who had given Yaaf only a single letter of his name while they'd communicated on the phone, and now she had a face to attach to it.
She'd pictured someone colder, more severe, someone who radiated power.
That certain arrogance that powerful men wrapped themselves in, an air of superiority.
Kian wore his power like a burden rather than a birthright, and she wondered whether he was usually uncomfortable around women or just around a group of freed breeders.
Men looked down on women in their situation even though they were the ones who had put them in a cage and forced them to breed. They were the victims, but they were treated as if they were somehow responsible for the circumstances of their birth, or what they had been conscripted into.
Not Kian, though. His discomfort was something else that she would have to figure out later.
"Thank you," Syssi said when Sullha was done translating. "We have refreshments ready for you in the café and a surprise."
Sullha didn't like surprises, and neither did the other women, judging by their tense expressions when she translated, but they all nodded and smiled to show their gratitude.
"It's a very short walk." Syssi started toward the sliding doors. "You can see the café from here."