Genevieve felt tears readying themselves, pooling. “I think I should go with you. Unless … is there any chance that Awhero could already be in Galul?”
Melanie frowned. “We don’t know. We don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. We’ve had no word at all that she’s been harmed, however, so you can be confident your child is safe.”
Genevieve turned aside to hide the tears that spilled down her face. “I am trying not to think of Dovidi. If I think of Dovidi, I can do nothing. I would be easier in my mind if I could do something active and helpful.”
“Help then. If we’re to leave the marae, we need every hand we can muster.”
The refuge was swarming like an ant hill. Furnishings, books, equipment, bedding, everything was being gathered up and taken through hidden doors into secret rooms and cellars. Some items were hidden between the walls of rooms, some of them were hidden under paving stones that rotated upward when a certain weight was applied. To Genevieve’s astonishment, she found that almost every significant item had a label on it saying where its hiding place was to be: kitchen things near the kitchen, equipment near the garages or the laboratory. Solar panels on the flat roof slid into slots in the parapets and were covered with lines of mud brick. Books were on rotating shelves that turned a blind wall into the library. Bulkier things had wheels on them, and they were pushed down hidden ramps into empty caverns which, once the panels were closed, simply disappeared.
“You’ve done this before,” she said to Joncaster.
“Every now and then our wells fail, and we have to leave the marae for a time. It would be impossible to equip it anew each time, and we daren’t leave equipment where the Mahahmbi could lay hands on it, so everything gets hidden away. If some of our people need sanctuary, they can still find it, for they’ve been taught how to find emergency water or food or a hiding place. When the marae was built, hiding places were built in.”
Later, Melanie came to offer her tea, and Genevieve sank gratefully onto an earthen bench, built along a wall and not, therefore, storable.
“I’ve been thinking,” Genevieve offered. “If this matter is to be discussed in the presence of your people, won’t the so-called malghaste in Mahahm-qum want to take part?”
The question had barely left her lips when she shivered, eyes fixed on the space before her. Malghaste. A dozen of them crouched in an alley while men screamed by bearing strange weapons. A woman, clubbed from behind. “Ahhh,” she murmured. “Get your people out of Mahahm-qum, Melanie. Get them out now!”
“But that will leave Mahahm-qum unobserved,” said Melanie, puzzled.
“Listen to me!” she shouted. “You said you shouldn’t have doubted me. Don’t doubt me now! Get them out! Now! Or mourn their deaths.”
“What are you seeing?”
She rubbed her head, her brow, fighting pain. “I see what will happen in Mahahm-qum! I see malghaste being killed in Mahahm-qum. Men, killing . . . perhaps out of frustration at not finding them here. Can the malghaste get out without attracting attention?”
“It’s more difficult the more of them there are, but they can get out, whenever it’s needful.”
“It is needful now. Send word. Tell them to get to Galul.”
In the warren beneath Mahahm-qum, Awhero sat beside an air duct which ascended along a narrow stair within the wall of a Mahahmbi house. Within the duct hung a thin strand of plaited leather bearing a tassel of broken glass bits. Awhero was feeding a fretful Dovidi, distracting him, passing the time until things settled down. There was too much tumult in the city, too much running hither and thither, too many chattering gatherings of the Mahahmbi, and great loadings of harpta panniers. War, people said. War against the malghaste. Word had gone today to the marae, warning the people there.
Dovidi pushed the bottle away and made a pained face. She put him across her shoulder and patted, waiting until he belched audibly. “Good child,” she murmured. “Such quiet, good little boy.” The good little boy cried fretfully, as though in pain. She put him in his cradle, a box lined with soft rags, and set it where he could see the light beam that came reflected from mirror to mirror down the airshaft. In the light hung a selection of objects—spoons and broken tiles and animals cut out of paper — all turning in the least air, making an amusement for baby. Baby was not amused. He turned fretfully, and went on crying. She felt his forehead. Hot. Whatever this was, he’d had it since this morning. The change of food, perhaps. Some bug endemic to Mahahm that was not endemic to Haven. And, of course, loss of his mother’s milk, with all the protection that afforded.