I nodded. 'Allie's right We will have a better chance together. Lone travelers make good targets.'
'I've traveled alone before,' she said.
'I have too. And I know that alone, you have to fight off attacks that might not even happen at all if you aren't alone, and if you and your companion are armed.'
She sighed and nodded. 'You're right I suppose I don't really mind traveling with you. It won't be for long.'
I shook my head. 'That's right. You won't have to put up with me for long.'
She frowned at me. 'Well, what more do you want? We'll get to Portland, and that will be that. We'll never see each other again.'
'For now, though, I want to know that you're someone I can trust with my life. I need to know who you are, and you need to know who I am.'
'Allie told me you were from a walled community down south.'
'In Robledo, yes.'
'Wherever. Your community got wiped out, and you came up here to start another community. It got wiped out and you wound up here.' That sounded like Allie, giving only the bare bones of my life.
'My husband was killed, my child kidnapped, and my community destroyed,' I said. 'I'm looking for my child— and for any children of my former community. Only two have been found so far—two of the oldest. My daughter was only a baby.'
'Yeah.' Len looked away. 'Allie said you were looking for your daughter. Too bad. Hope you find her.'
Just as I was beginning to get angry with this woman, it occurred to me that she was acting. And as soon as the thought came to me, it was followed by others. Much of what she had shown me so far was false. She had not lied with her words. It was her manner that was a he—filled with threads of wrongness. She was not the bored, indifferent person she wanted to seem to be. She was just trying to keep her distance. Strangers might be dangerous and cruel. Best to keep one's distance.
Problem was, even though this girl had been treated very badly, she wasn't distant. It wasn't natural to her. It made her a little bit uncomfortable all the time—like an itch, and in her body language, she was communicating her discomfort to me. And, I decided, watching her, there was something else wrong.
'Shall we travel together?' I asked. 'I usually travel as a man, by the way. I'm big enough and androgynous-looking enough to get away with it'
'Fine with me.'
I looked at her, waiting.
She shrugged. 'So we travel together. All right.'
I went on looking at her.
She shifted in her hard chair. 'What's the matter? What is it?'
I reached out and took her hand before she could flinch away. 'I'm a sharer,' I said. 'And so are you.'
She snatched her hand away and glared at me. 'For god-sake! We're only traveling together. Maybe not even that Keep your accusations to yourself!'
'That's the kind of secret that gets companion travelers killed. If you're still alive, it's obvious that you can handle sudden, unexpected pain. But believe me, two sharers traveling together need to know how to help one another.'
She got up and ran out of the room.
I looked after her, wondering whether she would come back. I didn't care whether or not she did, but the strength of her reaction surprised me. Back at Acorn, people were always surprised to be recognized as sharers when they came to us. But once they were recognized, and no one hurt them, they were all right. I never identified another sharer without identifying myself. And most of the ones I did identify realized that sharers do need to learn to manage without crippling one another. Male sharers were touchy—resenting their extra vulnerability more than females seemed to, but none of them, male or female, had just turned and run away.
Well, Belen Ross had been rich, if not loved. She had been protected from the world even better than I had been down in Robledo. She had learned that the people within the walls of her father's compound were of one kind, and those outside were of another. She had learned that she had to
