The Knife of Never Letting Go

it.

“Hello, sheep!” Tam shouts.

“Sheep!” say the sheep.

First on the path is a big wooden barn, built as watertight and solid as the bridge, like it could last there forever if anyone asked it.

“Unless ye go a-blowing it up,” Hildy says, laughing still.

“Like to see ye try,” Tam laughs back.

I’m getting a little tired of them laughing about every damn thing.

Then we come round to the farmhouse, which is a totally different thing altogether. Metal, by the looks of it, like the petrol stayshun and the church back home but not nearly so banged up. Half of it shines and rolls on up to the sky like a sail and there’s a chimney that curves up and out, folding down to a point, smoke coughing from its end. The other half of the house is wood built onto the metal, solid as the barn but cut and folded like—“Wings,” I say.

“Wings is right,” Tam says. “And what kinda wings are they?”

I look again. The whole farmhouse looks like some kinda bird with the chimney as its head and neck and a shiny front and wooden wings stretching out behind, like a bird resting on the water or something.

“It’s a swan, Todd pup,” Tam says.

“A what?”

“A swan.”

“What’s a swan?” I say, still looking at the house.

His Noise is puzzled for a second, then I get a little pulse of sadness so I look at him. “What?”

“Nothing, pup,” he says. “Memories of long ago.”

Viola and Hildy are up ahead still, Viola’s eyes wide and her mouth gulping like a fish.

“What did I tell ye?” Hildy asks.

Viola rushes up to the fence in front of it. She stares at the house, looking all over the metal bit, up and down, side to side. I come up by her and look, too. It’s hard for a minute to think of anything to say (shut up).

“Sposed to be a swan,” I finally say. “Whatever that is.”

She ignores me and turns to Hildy. “Is it an Expansion Three 500?”

“What?”

“Older than that, Vi pup,” Hildy says. “X Three 200.”

“We got up to X Sevens,” Viola says.

“Not surprised,” says Hildy.

“What the ruddy hell are you talking about?” I say. “Expanshun whatsits?”

“Sheep!” we hear Manchee bark in the distance.

“Our settler ship,” Hildy says, sounding surprised that I don’t know. “An Expanshun Class Three, Series 200.”

I look from face to face. Tam’s Noise has a spaceship flying in it, one with a front hull that matches the upturned farmhouse.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, remembering, trying to say it like I knew all along. “You build yer houses with the first tools at hand.”

“Quite so, pup,” Tam says. “Or ye make them works of art if yer so inclined.”

“If yer wife is an engineer who can get yer damn fool sculptures to stay standing up,” Hildy says.

“How do you know about all this?” I say to Viola.

She looks at the ground, away from my eyes.

“You don’t mean—” I start to say but I stop.

I’m getting it.

Of course I’m getting it.

Way too late, like everything else, but I’m getting it.

“Yer a settler,” I say. “Yer a new settler.”

She looks away from me but shrugs her shoulders.

“But that ship you crashed in,” I say, “that’s way too tiny to be a settler ship.”

“That was only a scout. My home ship is an Expansion Class Seven.”

She looks at Hildy and Tam, who ain’t saying nothing. Tam’s Noise is bright and curious. I can’t read nothing from Hildy. I get the feeling somehow, tho, that she knew and I didn’t, that Viola told her and not me, and even if it’s cuz I never asked, it’s still as sour a feeling as it sounds.

I look up at the sky.

“It’s up there, ain’t it?” I say. “Yer Expanshun Class Seven.”

Viola nods.

“Yer bringing more settlers in. More settlers are coming to New World.”

“Everything was broken when we crashed,” Viola says. “I don’t have any way to contact them. Any way to warn them not to come.” She looks up with a little gasp. “You must warn them.”

“That can’t be what he meant,” I say, fast. “No way.”

Viola scrunches her face and eyebrows. “Why not?”

“What who meant?” Tam asks.

“How many?” I ask, still looking at Viola, feeling the world changing still and ever. “How many settlers are coming?”

Viola takes a deep breath before she answers and I’ll bet you she’s not even told Hildy this part.

“Thousands,” she says. “There’s thousands.”

16. THE NIGHT OF NO APOLOGIES

“They won’t be a-getting here for months,” Hildy says, passing me another serving of mashed russets. Viola and I are stuffing our faces so much it’s been Hildy and Tam doing all the talking.

All the a-talking.

“Space travel ain’t like ye see it in vids,” Tam says, a stream of mutton gravy tracking down his beard. “Takes years and years and years to get anywhere at all. Sixty-four to get from Old World to New World alone.” “Sixty-four years?” I say, spraying a few mashed blobs off my lips.

Tam nods. “Yer frozen for most of it, time passing you right on by, tho that’s only if ye don’t die on the way.”

I turn to Viola. “Yer sixty-four years old?”

“Sixty-four Old World years,” Tam says, tapping his fingers like he’s adding something up. “Which’d be… what? Bout fifty-eight, fifty-nine New World—”

But Viola’s shaking her head. “I was born on board. Never was asleep.”

“So either yer ma or yer pa musta been a caretaker,” Hildy says, snapping off a bite of a turnipy thing then giving me an explanashun. “One of the ones who stays awake and keeps track of the ship.” “Both of them were,” Viola says. “And my dad’s mother before him and granddad before that.”

“Wait a minute,” I say to her, two steps behind as ever. “So if we’ve been on New World twenty-odd years —”

“Twenty-three,” says Tam. “Feels like longer.”

“Then you left before we even got here,” I say. “Or your pa or grandpa or whatever.”

I look around to see if anyone’s wondering what I’m wondering. “Why?” I say. “Why would you come without even knowing what’s out here?”

“Why did the first settlers come?” Hildy asks me. “Why does anyone look for a new place to live?”