Chapter 21

My fears abated slightly when Troyal climbed down from the flyer. His colleague was one of the youngest Guardians that I'd ever seen, and I theorised that he must only recently have completed his training.

"Welcome, Guardian," Haden greeted as Teel and I hid within the crowd.

"Haden," Troyal nodded. "I see that you've captured some Trogs. Would you like me to deal with them for you?"

"You will not hurt them," Vanessa screamed, interposing herself between Troyal and the frightened animals.

"Who are you?"

"She's with me," I interrupted, emerging from the crowd and standing alongside Vanessa.

"I might have known," Troyal sighed, after recovering from the shock of my appearance.

"If you're going to shoot them, you'll have to shoot us too," I told him.

"I don't understand. I thought you were dead. The Silver Demon..."

"Our paths do seem to cross with alarming regularity."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you the same question."

"I was delivering seed to the village," he replied.

The villages turned to watch Troyal's companion unload two sacks of seed.

"Two?" Haden ranted. "What are we meant to do with just two sacks? We normally receive six, and our next harvest is the last before winter."

"I know. Things have changed since seed was stolen from the citadel."

"Nonsense," Teel interrupted. "Only a small fraction of the stocks were taken. You should have replaced it all by now."

"Teel," he gasped, clearly surprised to see the former surrogate. "We thought you'd been captured and..."

His brain started to fill in the gaps. "You helped them."

"I did," she informed him," and I'd do the same again, given the chance."

"Why did you do this?" he demanded. "You can't imagine the damage you've caused."

"I did what I felt was right. The citadel has used the provision of food as a weapon for too long. It's time that everyone reaped the benefit of all the advances we've made, rather than hovering on the verge of starvation."

"You sound like a Utopian?"

"I am a Utopian, I have been since nurturing."

The words struck Troyal like a hammer blow. He clearly didn't know how best to handle the implications of her admission.

"I'm going to have to take you back to stand trial," he muttered weakly. "Your crimes are..."

"That is not going to happen, Troyal," I told him. "She's already been effectively exiled, what more are the High Council going to do to her? Put her in stasis?"

"I ... I..."

"How are these people supposed to survive on what you've just given them?"

He shook his head unhappily. "Since the theft of the seed, and the loss of the three flyers, the High Council has taken a very hard line. Some suspected the villages were complicit in the theft..."

"That's a lie!" Haden exclaimed.

"I never thought there was any truth in it, but then some members of the council are using it as justification to finally abandon our liability."

"People's lives depend on your support," Haden spat.

"I know, but what can I do?"

"Stand up for your views."

"If I did, I'd soon be living in one of your huts."

"Enough," I interrupted. "The village doesn't need your seed anymore. We've cultivated it and provided them with more than enough to live on."

"We?"

"The people from the Ancient city."

"People live in the Ancient cities?"

"They don't tell you much, do they Troyal?"

He shook his head. "Tamar deals with the council. The rest of us just take his orders."

"Tamar!" I grumbled.

"He's driven with hatred since his flyer was shot down." Troyal replied.

"He was in one of the flyers that attacked us?"

"He was the only one to survive the battle with the Silver Demon. He broke both arms and legs in the crash, and has only recently returned to operational duty. He reports directly to the Chamberlain now, and I suspect he knows much of what is going on behind the scenes."

"He sounds dangerous."

"I sometimes wonder whether he's still sane."

"Listen, Troyal. We're trying to help the villages. They need it more than ever, now that the citadel is withdrawing its support."

"I see that but..."

"You have to help us."

"What? No. I can't."

"All I ask is that you make no mention of what you saw here. You dropped off the seed, the villagers grumbled, and you left, simple as that."

"I suppose."

"Good man."

"What about his friend?" Teel asked.

"Don't worry about him. He's a rookie and he'll do as I say," Troyal replied. "Things are getting madder and madder back home. We're being drilled relentlessly for all kinds of combat scenarios. I keep wondering what it's all about, but clearly there's something in the works."

"Do they know the location of the city dwellers?" Teel asked.

"I don't know. I didn't even know they existed."

"Can you find out?"

"Teel!" I exclaimed.

"He could find out. We need to know what they know."

"I ... maybe..." Troyal replied hesitantly.

"Don't do anything stupid," I told him, slightly angered at how Teel pressed him to take serious risks.

"How would I let you know?" he asked.

"Leave word with Haden. We'll be back here from time to time."

"I need to think about this. If I can find out anything without drawing attention to myself, I'll do what I can."

"Troyal, I really appreciate this. For what it's worth, you're ten times the man that Tamar ever will be."

"I must be mad to even consider this, but you're right. The villages deserve all the help we can give them. A girl that I once knew was sent to live in a village some distance away. I'd once hoped to partner with her, but she was exiled before I had a chance to ask her. I still see her from time to time, but now it's impossible for me..."

"When all this is over Troyal, maybe you can be together."

"You really think so?"

"We want to bridge the gap between the citadel, the villages and the city people. Things have stagnated, and we need to start moving forward again as a society. The decisions that were made years ago perhaps saved us from extinction, but now just hold us back. We occupy just a small fraction of the country, so the excuse about preventing overcrowding is absolute rubbish. The same applies to the other citadels. We also need to find a way to check the radiation levels in the areas affected by the wars. Maybe they are not as badly contaminated as we once feared. Maybe there are even people still living there."

My musings were obviously too much for Troyal to think about. "I'd better go. You need to be more careful in the future, I could see there was something going on here from miles away. Those things are pretty hard to disguise." He pointed in the direction of the Trogs.

"I take your point," I admitted.

"How do you stop them from attacking you?"

"They're not as vicious as you've been led to believe. They're probably more afraid of you than the other way around."

"This goes against everything I've been told."

"When I next see you, I'll tell you more. It's absolutely fascinating."

"I'm sure," he replied, finally retreating back to the flyer.

He exchanged a few words with his confused colleague before they both climbed aboard. The flyer's engines started and within a couple of minutes, they'd ascended and disappeared from sight.

Relief flooded us all until Haden walked up to the two bags of seed, continually ranting about the unfairness of the citadel's action. "If you hadn't antagonised them by stealing the seed..."

"Oh shut up," Gem snapped back, "the citadel's been looking for an excuse to do this for years. The sooner we accept that fact, and do something about it, the better. Mark and his friends have made the first steps, and we need to do what we can to help. He didn't have to come here with all this food. He could have stayed in the safety of the city and left us all to starve."

Suitably chastised, Haden slunk away to nurse his bruised ego.

We spent the night in the comfort of our own cabin. Glow globes flooded the interior with light, evidence of the efficiency with which power was now distributed.

"It's actually quite cosy," Vanessa opined.

"I helped design the heating systems, and it was my idea to install the waterwheel generators," I boasted.

"Clever you," she teased. "Can't resist getting involved can you?"

"I guess not."

"You were certainly busy while you were here," Teel added, "a regular one man population explosion."

"That's the way things turned out. It wasn't intentional."

"Mark was the father of Bella and Gem's babies?" Vanessa asked in surprise.

"Keep up at the back," Teel mocked. "Who else is there that's capable?"

"I'm used to the city, where everybody has to be careful or we'd end up with more children than we can feed. Now that our own food situation is stable, I'm expecting a surge in the number of pregnancies."

Teel laughed.

"I can't believe that Guardian helped us," Vanessa opined.

"Why? He's still a person underneath the uniform. Despite his job, I'm sure he'll do the right thing," I replied.

"The Guardians have attacked the city several times. My mother would still be alive if it wasn't for them."

Teel put her arm around Vanessa's waist to provide comfort. Vanessa leant her head on her shoulder, relishing the contact. Teel took this as sign for them to retire to bed, having already claimed the main bedroom.

A loud knock startled us. Before I could answer the door, Haden burst in. "Please help me, it's started."

"What?"

"Gem."

All three of us jumped up and sprinted after Haden, who'd already left to return to his stricken partner. Drenched with sweat, Gem was clearly in a lot of pain, judging by the noise she was making. Vanessa took control, having witnessed many births in the city. Thinking that it was the correct procedure, I placed a pan of water onto the electric hob, another convenience that Darian had succeeded in implementing.

Teel secured the medical diagnostic unit to Gem's arm and after a few moments, it buzzed as it injected a mild sedative into her bloodstream. Haden held her hand as the labour progressed, but it wasn't until the early hours of the morning before the baby's head finally made an appearance.

"It's all covered in blood!" Haden exclaimed. "Is it hurt?"

"I think it's always like that," I assured him, thinking back to when Angela was born. More of the head slowly emerged, and before we knew it, we had a crying baby boy in our midst.

Vanessa took the baby away to clean it up, whilst Haden held Gem in his arms and reassured her that everything was fine. Gem was older than most of the women in the village, and I was fearful of complications. With no trained midwife or emergency doctor to call upon, I saw how childbirth could be a life threatening experience. Vanessa returned with the baby swaddled in a soft blanket.

"Haden, say hello to your son."

He cradled the bundle in his arms and started to cry. Despite being exhausted and in considerable pain, Gem struggled to sit up and then stroked the baby's head.

"Take him and sit over there," Vanessa instructed Haden. "I need to clean Gem up inside."

Haden looked nonplussed, but nevertheless complied. Teel and I sat with him as Vanessa completed her ablutions. When we checked later, Gem was soundly asleep.

Leaving the new family in peace, we returned to our cabin. Vanessa collapsed on the bed and fell asleep at once. I left Teel to keep her company and then crawled into the small bed in the outer room.

We spent several days instructing the villagers on the best techniques to plant their new crops, and ensuring Gem and the baby remained in good health.

"Your son represents the future," I told Haden.

"Except he's not mine, he's yours," he replied despondently.