Finder's Shore by Anna Mackenzie Read Free Book Online Page A

still. I remember little of our journey back to Vidya.
    Vidya. Behind me the city sprawls in an untidy jumble, shadowed by the fire-stained hills beyond. I don’t look back. I have no desire to mark the slow progress the Decon teams are making as they labour to regenerate sections of the old city ruins.
    Instead I watch my feet and the flickering light through the trees. The hilltop lookout, with its fallen railings facing the sea, has long been my refuge. Today, when I reach it, I find it’s been breached. Ronan sits at the cliff edge.
    Limping across the cracked tarmac I lower myself beside him.
    “How’s your leg?”
    “Healing.”
    “Amar said you were lucky.” I quell my surprise that they’ve discussed it.
    Beyond us, wind ruffles the sea’s surface into shifting ridges of silver. “At Summertops you asked whether I missed the ocean,” Ronan says. “I did. I hadn’t realised how much.”
    It’s a feeling I share. “Marta wants to send an envoy to Dunnett Island.” The words lie starkly between us. “She hopes the Council will be interested in trade.”
    He turns to look at me. “Will they?”
    “Dunnett’s Council disapproves of just about everything : books, learning, modern technology; anything from the past that hasn’t been made in a way they can understand. They’re not likely to approve of Vidya.” I stare out across the ocean. “Refugees from the mainland once brought an epidemic that wiped out half the population. Since then, there’s been no welcome for strangers.” Understanding their response doesn’t mean I approve of it. “The Council’s policies are based on fear,” I add. Fear and hate.
    “Fear’s not always a bad thing. Vidya’s governors are right to be afraid of the Paras.”
    I turn to face him. “But looking for other sources of farm produce: when Truso finds out, he’ll feel betrayed.” Saying it aloud helps to clarify my objections. “Rightly,” I add.
    “He doesn’t know?”
    “Nor Brenon.” I shake my head. “If there are more attacks — on the farms or the line — people will start to think that Marta’s right; that the farms are too far away and patrols and surveillance too costly.” The idea troubles me more than I care to admit.
    Ronan is quiet, his finger worrying at a furrow in the tarmac beside him. “It’s not such a bad idea, Ness,” he says at last. “You told me there were food shortages in Vidya last winter.”
    “Yes, but if they abandon Ebony Hill, where would it end? Why would the Paras stop there? Walking away is no solution.”
    “The governors have invested too much to abandon the farms, but there’s nothing wrong with looking for ways to diversify the city’s food supply. It’s not only about Ebony Hill and the Paras, it’s about Vidya too. The city’s population is growing. And with sea-sci already expanding, it makes sense to at least think about the islands.”
    In the distance a gull glides the wind, wing tilting to follow some whim of its own.
    “You could get news of your family.” I feel Ronan’s words like a gripe in my belly. I’ve not let myself look at the heart of my ambivalence to Marta’s proposal. Ronan sets his boot on a protruding nub of concrete piling. “You told me you have a brother still living on Dunnett. And your cousin and your friend, Merryn.”
    I wave a hand to stem the flow of his words, each one tearing a piece of my armour away.
    “What, Ness?”
    “I just —” I shake my head, pressing the heel of my hand against each eye. I feel as jagged as the cliff edge, disloyal to both Dunnett and Vidya.
    Marta was right: Vidya has done a lot for me. As for Dunnett: it was Colm Brewster, not the islanders, who drove me out. I exhale abruptly. Colm will be the biggest opponent to Marta’s plan, unless he can be made to believe that it’s in his own interests to develop trade. If he thinks he has something to gain, he’ll turn the Council to his will and the islanders will follow. People