Commitment Hour

being, like a parasite inside me… and suffering all the pains of pregnancy, the dangers of labor… yes, I contemplated taking the easy way out. The idea must have crossed a lot of people's minds.

Maybe Hakoore had a point when he took an inflexible stand against Yailey. The cove's way of life depended on a tough Patriarch's Man who ensured that teenagers didn't dodge their commitments.

It made me wince. I was making excuses for Hakoore. I was arguing for the necessity of the Patriarch's Man.

Who was secretly forced to marry the Mocking Priestess. To become hers.

Why was everything so complicated all of a sudden?

Rashid declared he had run out of questions for Embrun. 'Stay here,' he told Steck and me. 'I'll just walk our friend a little way back to town.'

He and Embrun started across the parking lot, Rashid's boots making more sticky sounds on the hot pavement. As soon as they were out of earshot, I asked Steck, 'What's Rashid up to?'

'He plans to give Embrun some money,' Steck replied, 'and he doesn't want to do it where the mayor or I can see. He's afraid we'll think he's a sucker for paying off such an obvious little worm… and he's right.'

'So Embrun didn't have any real evidence about Bonnakkut's murder?'

Steck shook her head. 'Just that his dog had some kind of barking fit about the time Bonnakkut was killed.'

'Embrun's dog has barking fits five times a day,' I told her. 'The poor animal liked female Embrun a lot more than the male version; it's missed her dreadfully since Embrun Committed.'

'Speaking of Commitment,' Steck said, 'how did it go with Cappie?'

I should have expected the question — Steck trying to play the attentive mother. 'Cappie and I have our troubles,' I muttered.

'Would it help if you talked to Zephram?' Steck asked. 'I know we agreed you'd stay with me, but if you wanted to talk to… your father… if you wanted to talk to him alone…'

'It wouldn't help,' I said, mostly out of stubborn pride. 'Thanks for the offer though.'

'If you need to talk to anyone…' Steck didn't finish the sentence. 'When you face Commitment Hour, it's best not to have conflicts weighing on your mind.'

'Is that what happened to you?'

'I made a choice,' Steck said. 'That's all. A choice to be new.'

'What do you mean by that?'

She glanced at me but looked away again quickly. 'Zephram said he told you how we got together: in the Silence of Mistress Snow. Did he tell you that no one else in town chose to visit me?'

I nodded.

Steck shrugged. 'There were reasons for that — reasons I was living alone in my final year before Commitment. I hadn't gone out of my way to make myself popular. Things were better when I was with Zephram, but I couldn't imagine he'd stay with me long. I convinced myself his feelings were… oh, just his way of mourning, I guess. He was vulnerable because he missed his wife. Once he got past the worst of his grief, he wouldn't need me anymore — that's what I thought. That he'd wake one day and wonder why he was spending time with a girl who couldn't give…'

Her voice trailed off.

'You couldn't have been that bad,' I said. 'Leeta wanted you as her apprentice.'

'Leeta only took me because I badgered her,' Steck replied. 'I'd got the idea that if I became priestess I'd suddenly mean something. It's hard to feel worthwhile when you're a teenager with no friends… girl or boy, it made no difference. Leeta accepted me out of pity; or maybe she thought she could mold me into a real person somehow. Either way, she didn't like me. I wasn't likable, male or female. And on Commitment Day, I thought maybe if I picked the third option, things would be different.'

'You thought people would like you more as a Neut?' I asked. 'Not in Tober Cove.'

'I thought maybe I'd like myself more. A new body, a new personality. Leaving behind all the stubborn habits that made me… difficult. I wanted things to change for me. Inside.'

'But you knew you'd be banished!'

'Did I care? What was so attractive about Tober Cove?'

'Me.'

She sighed. 'I know, Fullin. But I thought I could take you with me. I'd leave Tober Cove with my baby… and Zephram would go with me, back to the South… where he told me Neuts and normal people could live as husband and wife…' She shook her head. 'And I'd be a new person. I wouldn't make the same mistakes. I'd stop being… oh, the kind of woman Zephram would hate as soon as he came to his senses.'

Women say such things for only one reason: to have a man tell them they're mistaken. No, no, I was supposed to say, Zephram loved you for yourself. And I think he did; when he spoke to me at breakfast, his voice had been full of fondness, not 'What was I thinking?' embarrassment. Still, it was hard for me to treat this Neut, my mother, as a normal woman who wanted reassurance. A wall of awkwardness loomed between us… and before I could speak, Rashid reappeared at the far end of the pavement.

As before, he stopped at the rusting OldTech cart. For a moment, he leaned into the engine again, presumably to look at the black radio box. Then he suddenly straightened up, and lifted his eyes to the hill behind Mayoralty House. His face broke into a jubilant smile.

'Damn,' Steck whispered.

'What?' I asked.

'He's figured it out. He's figured it all out.'

She suddenly flinched, as if she hadn't intended to speak those words aloud. Before I could ask what she meant, Rashid started running toward us.

Rashid's feet slapped the pavement like waves clapping against a boat's hull. His smile gleamed with excitement. Long before he reached us, he called out, 'On top of the hill… that antenna…'

'It's an OldTech radio tower,' I told him.

'The hell it is,' he answered. 'Have you had a good look at that dish assembly on top? The OldTechs never built anything close.' He stopped in front of me, panting lightly. 'Quickly, O Native Guide — show us the fastest route up the hill.'

Steck put on an irritable expression as she got to her feet. 'What's this all about?' she asked.

'Radio relay,' Rashid panted, pointing back to the rusted cart. His finger swiveled around to point to the antenna on the hill. 'Main receiving station. That's got to be the answer.'

'What answer?' I asked.

'Take me up the hill and I'll show you.'

The top of Patriarch Hill was a patchwork of bare limestone ledges alternating with scrubby clumps of brush and buttercups. Paper birch and poplar ringed the area, like hair around a man's bald patch; the trees even had a distinct lean to them, as if the prevailing westerlies had tried to comb them over to hide the bareness.

The antenna squatted on limestone in the center of the open area, with three wrist-thick guy wires strung out and anchored into other sections of rock. Kids occasionally climbed a short way up those wires, going hand over hand until they got high enough to scare themselves; but I couldn't remember anyone climbing the antenna itself. Its base was enclosed by a rusty chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire and big signs showing pictures of lightning bolts. That meant you'd get hit by lightning if you touched the tower itself… and heaven knows, the antenna must have had enough lightning to discharge because it got hit a dozen times in every summer thunderstorm.

Neither the fence nor the signs fazed Rashid. In fact, he gave the chain-link a quick look-over, then turned back to me with a gloating expression on his face. 'When you were a young boy, didn't you ever go places you weren't supposed to?'

'Sure,' I answered, 'there was one time we found this garbage dump—'

'But,' the Spark Lord interrupted, 'I've never seen an OldTech fence in this perfect condition.' He threaded his fingers through the links and gave a yank; the fence barely yielded. 'With any other fence,' Rashid said, 'local kids would have pulled up the bottom to crawl under, or made dents crawling over.'

I pointed to the nearest lightning sign. 'We didn't want to get zapped.'

'Come on,' Rashid scoffed. 'In four hundred years, kids never dared each other to give it a try? And what about wild animals? You'd think a bear would have pushed in a section while using it as a scratching post, or maybe a big deer hit the fence in the dark.'

'Tober Cove prides itself on its hunting,' Steck told him. 'Bear and deer know better than to come this close to town.'

'Still,' Rashid answered, 'OldTech fences don't survive this well.' He gave it another tug; no response but a small rattle. 'Proof it's not OldTech at all.'

'If it isn't OldTech,' I said, 'what is it? We Tobers didn't build it.'

'No,' Rashid agreed, craning his neck back to stare at the arrangement of gadgets high up the aerial. 'You probably don't need a maser array that can squirt several hundred terabits of data every millisecond.' He waved his hand to stop me before I could ask what he meant. 'The details aren't important. Just trust me: the OldTechs never reached the technical sophistication of those dishes up there. They've got more bandwidth for sending and receiving than the communication systems for an entire OldTech city.'

I turned to Steck and whispered, 'Bandwidth?'

She patted my arm soothingly. 'Most of this is going over my head too.'

I didn't believe her. Rashid shouldn't have either, but he was too excited to pay attention. 'We won't learn anything standing out here. In we go.'

He reached toward the hip of his armor. As he did, a section of the green plastic slid back and a small holster pushed out of the armor's thigh. The holster held a green plastic pistol: very flat and compact, with none of the chunky menace of the Beretta he'd given to Bonnakkut.

'Laser,' Rashid said, drawing the gun.