Hot Sauce challenged, “So if someone says, ‘I’m a necromancer,’ we should wait around to see what they do next?”
Nona dared a glance at Camilla. She was in a posture of perfect stillness, face a mask behind dark glasses, but listening as hard as she possibly could, which made Nona doubt it was Camilla. She sat as though she had been bolted to the floor. The others were absorbed by this verbal cut-and-thrust between their leader and the Angel, leaning forward to hear what the Angel would say.
The Angel said, “What, right now? ’Course not, start running in the opposite direction … No, don’t fight them, Hot Sauce,” she said, as Hot Sauce opened her mouth. “If you valorise paranoia so much don’t be a hypocrite about it, all right? If you’re scared of necromancers, run from them. If they really are a necromancer, there’s no point in fighting them, is there? It’s like big animals, you can’t actually exert your will on them. If you think you can, you’re in danger. I learnt that back at my first job.”
Honesty said, “Are you scared of necromancers?”
“Terribly. I was born on Lemuria, you see,” said the Angel.
Honesty gave a long, slow whistle. Beautiful Ruby looked at his feet. Hot Sauce relaxed minutely. But Camilla said— “What happened on Lemuria?”
The Angel glanced across at Kevin, who had his knees tucked up to his chest and had wedged himself tightly into the desk. He had one of his erasers with the face on it out, and was stroking it against the desk so that it left waxy streaks. She said, “The usual. It had been under contract for a long time. I mean, we were the third settlement wave, they built the Crescent in the bones of two other cities, you couldn’t dig up anything without finding remnants of a people we’d never known. The microbial population didn’t show signs of serious decay until the moment before the sea went anaerobic. The things crawling out of there … they seemed to mutate all at once … The Houses pulled support, said they’d prep us for an early move, but they left minimal forces in the barracks. We dug up old caches of materiel and used them. On the mutants from the sea, on the animals as they changed, on one another, on the Houses when they saw what we’d got our hands on and came back to take control. Blood of Eden was there too, you know. And in the end the Houses won and most of us surrendered and we were moved. Two moves later, and I’m here. There’s still a facility on Lemuria, of course. A decade later the Houses made it safe for geopolymer refining. It must be desolate.”
Camilla said, “What kind of mining?”
“Microsilicates, zeolites. Industrial sands.”
Camila pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and said, softly, “That must have been hideous.”
“I was a zoo director. I did the big nonclumpers. We were trying to work out if we could save them,” said the Angel. “We had to cull all the animals when the Houses pulled out. That was horrible.”
Honesty said gruffly, “That’s not right.”
“No, but what can you do? Sometimes you step in to make sure someone won’t suffer,” said the Angel.
“No, I mean, the animal stuff’s evil, but I thought you were a real doctor,” said Honesty.
“I’m an animal doctor, Honesty. I’ve been learning a lot about human medicine down at the clinic.”
Honesty absorbed this. “Do you know where I can get animal tranqs? They go for a lot.”
“Bugger off, Honesty,” said the Angel tolerantly, not much like a teacher at all.
Beautiful Ruby, who had been far more deeply affected by that story, drummed his hands urgently on his desk. “I can’t let Sweetie do this. I don’t wanna get moved again. We used to live in a house and now we live in a tip, what’s next? I’ve got to stop her.”
Then the Angel said, “But your mum isn’t a necromancer, Beautiful Ruby … the people saying, ‘Let’s not fight, let’s get a resettlement,’ they’re not your enemies … If you think in black and white your brain can’t be agile.”
Beautiful Ruby still didn’t look convinced. “But she’s embarrassing me. She’s letting us down. And she’s probably going to get her lights punched out if she says that on the street.”
“Nobody ever died of being embarrassed,” said the Angel. “Try to understand her point of view … and wait until she does something. And trust her to keep herself safe too.”
Nona lifted her hand. The Angel said, “Nona, you work here, you can just talk,” and Nona said— “Are we going to have normal school?”