Chapter 10 Cora
We reached the Illinois border at dusk on day ten.
The convoy was at the threshold of the last seventy miles before Urbana.
The Steinbeck was on the cab shelf. The carving was on the dashboard.
The Polaroid was in my chest pocket. The chipped diner mug was in the cup-holder between Drew and me.
The count was. I had been carrying the count for three years and the count had been correct, Drew had told me on a bridge two nights ago, and the carrying since had felt like a different carrying. Lighter. Not weightless. Lighter.
I drove.
Drew was beside me. He had not said much since the bridge.
He had read me three more chapters of the Joads across the last forty-eight hours.
He had stopped at the chapter where Casy the preacher gets killed because Drew did not want to read that chapter on the road.
It was Ellen's chapter, he said, and Ellen had taught him to read the death of Casy by reading it slowly, in the dark, with a candle, and the road truck cab was not the right venue.
He would read it to me in a cabin somewhere, sometime. He did not say when.
I had not pressed.
Renn keyed the radio at sunset.
"Cora."
"Renn."
"Two signatures ahead. The Hess scent. Two miles, southwest of our approach line. We will pass through the scent fan at oh-twenty-three-hundred tonight. The second signature is different."
"Different how."
"Lucian."
The cab went quiet.
Drew sat up straighter.
I keyed the radio.
"How many."
"One. Solo. Lucian-individual scent. Not a cohort. Not Tyvor-network. The network is silent, you know that. This is a free-roving individual. North of our line. Close. Half a mile."
"Half a mile."
"Yes."
"Renn."
"Cora. I have been tracking it for forty minutes.
It is paralleling us at half a mile, slightly to the north.
It has not closed. It is. Cora, it is not behaving like a Lucian remnant.
Lucian remnants who survived Tyvor's death and did not accept the ceasefire are either hostile or in deep concealment.
This one is neither. It is paralleling. It is what a Lucian would be doing if the Lucian was.
Cora, I have not seen this behavior. I do not have a frame for this behavior. "
"Has Drew picked it up."
I looked at Drew.
Drew was looking out the window at the north tree line.
"I have been picking it up for twenty minutes. I waited for Renn to confirm. I held the threshold at seventy."
"Why did you wait."
"Because Renn picks up Lucian scent better than I do. The half-Vampyren signature catches Vampyren patrols cleanly. The Lucian signature catches Vampyren-cohort warriors better than half-Vampyren. Renn had the call."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"What do you think."
"I think it is a Lucian who is following us because the Lucian wants to follow us. I do not know why. I think the Lucian is not hostile. I think the Lucian would have engaged at half a mile if it had been hostile. I think we should not engage. I think Renn should radio a non-aggression frequency."
"Renn."
"Yes."
"Drew suggests a non-aggression frequency."
"I heard. The Lucian network is silent post-Tyvor.
The non-aggression frequency would not be received in the same way as it was received in year four.
But if this Lucian is operating outside the Tyvor framework, the non-aggression frequency would be the right test. If the Lucian closes after the frequency, hostile.
If the Lucian holds, curious. If the Lucian peels off, cautious. "
"Send it."
Renn sent it.
The half-mile Lucian held.
The convoy drove on.
The Lucian paralleled us for the next three miles.
Drew watched the tree line the whole time.
* * *
We made camp at the last cache before the Urbana approach.
The cache was a barn outside a town called Sidney.
Cruz had buried fuel and water there in May; the barn was the post-invasion shelter that the post-collapse rural population had built into the wreckage of pre-invasion agricultural infrastructure.
The barn had a working roof on the south half.
The north half had collapsed in a winter two years ago.
The cache was in the south half, in a sealed underground tank that had been the gasoline tank for the original farm equipment.
We pulled in at ten in the evening.
Drew set the camp.
Cruz did the perimeter check.
Sylvia did the medical sweep. Five minutes, post-engagement protocol, even though we had not engaged.
Renn went to the north tree line.
The Lucian was three hundred yards out.
Renn stayed in the tree line for forty minutes.
He came back at eleven.
The team was in the south half of the barn, around a small fire Cruz had built in a metal drum. The fire was warm but not visible from the road. The drum kept the light contained. The convoy was behind the barn. The Lucian was still three hundred yards out.
Renn sat down at the fire.
"Cora."
"Renn."
"His name is Veron. He was in Tyvor's southern cohort eleven years ago.
He defected at the Battle of Newport Beach three years ago, before Brecca killed Tyvor.
He has been alone since. He has been at Mojave-adjacent camps in Nevada for the last six months looking for a way to make contact with Rael's network at Mojave.
He did not know how to make the contact without being shot on sight.
He saw our convoy at Vegas. He has been following at half a mile because half a mile is the distance at which he can make himself heard without making himself a threat.
He wants to come into the alliance. He wants to be the second-Rael for the western alliance. "
"How do you know."
"He told me."
"You spoke to him."
"I sent the non-aggression frequency twice. He responded with the cohort handshake. The pre-Tyvor Lucian handshake, the ceremonial one. I went out to him. We spoke for forty minutes. He is what he says he is."
"Renn."
"Yes."
"Is this real."
"It is real."
I looked at the team.
Cruz was at the metal drum, the SAW broken down and cleaning, his Marine-evaluative face.
Sylvia was at her field kit, her medic-evaluative face.
Drew was beside me, the half-Vampyren-clinical face that had been gone for nine days and which had come back at the Lucian signature and which had stayed because the situation had not yet been resolved.
I looked at Renn.
"What do you want to do."
"I want to bring him in. Tonight. I want him to camp at the south end of the barn, twenty yards from the team.
I want him to ride with us into Urbana tomorrow at dawn.
I want him to walk into the Urbana enclave as an alliance asset.
I want him to be the proof that the Lucian network can produce a second defector without Brecca's intervention.
I want him to be the start of Rael's western cohort.
I want it tonight because if I wait until morning, Hess will be at Urbana before us, and Veron will be a Hess-cell target by sunset. "
"Drew."
"Cora."
"What do you think."
He looked at the fire.
He looked at Renn.
He looked at the tree line in the dark beyond the barn.
"I think Veron is the analog to me," he said.
"Lucian instead of half-Vampyren. He has been at the perimeter for six months trying to come in.
He has not been let in because the perimeter has been Vampyren-eyes.
I have been at the perimeter for nine months.
I was let in because Cora signed the paper.
He has not been let in because nobody has signed the paper for him.
Renn is asking Cora to sign the paper. I think Cora should sign the paper. "
"Drew."
"Yes."
"That is the most explicit endorsement you have given anyone in nine months."
"It is."
"Why."
"Because I know what nine months at the perimeter feels like. I know what six months feels like. I know the cost of waiting. I would not wish another night of waiting on Veron. Sign the paper, Cora."
I looked at Renn.
"Bring him in."
Renn went out.
He came back twenty minutes later.
Veron walked in behind him.
* * *
Veron was Lucian-tall, Lucian-pale, Lucian-silver-eyed.
He was wider than Rael. Broader-shouldered, heavier-set, a Lucian who had been a frontline fighter rather than a scout.
The luminescence on his skin was off. Drew explained it to me later, in the cab, on the way to Urbana: Veron had been deliberately suppressing the glow for six years to avoid being scent-marked at night.
The suppression had become permanent. His skin was the matte-pale Lucian-skin without the silver-blue shimmer.
He was the first Lucian I had seen who did not glow.
He stood at the fire.
He did not sit.
He said: "I am Veron." His voice was the doubled-tonal thing, the harmonic-undertone-in-the-skull-hum that I had heard from Rael at the Mojave camp dozens of times. But Veron's second tone was lower. Sternum-vibration. Not skull-hum. Different.
I looked at Drew.
Drew was watching Veron.
"He's a Tyvor-southern, not a Rael-bond-bearer," Drew said, low. "The voice difference is the cohort difference. Renn told me about this on the bridge yesterday."
"Okay."
I stood up.
I said: "I am Cora King. I am the team's lead.
Renn vouches for you. Drew supports the call.
You are inside the alliance perimeter as of now.
We move at dawn. You ride with Renn in the second truck.
We arrive at Urbana before sunset tomorrow.
Renn will hand you to Rael when Rael returns to Mojave. Are you listening."
"Yes."
"Veron."
"Yes."
"Welcome to the count."
He looked at Renn.
Renn translated something. The doubled-tonal Lucian language, low, the harmonic-undertone-frequency.
Veron's face changed. He looked at me again.
Something at the corner of his mouth. The Lucian-not-quite-smile, the same one Rael did, the same one I had seen at the Mojave kitchen tent the first time Rael had been offered a piece of bread and had not yet known to take it.
Veron said: "Thank you."
He sat at the fire.
The team ate.