Survivors (Harmony Book 3) Read online

  Jef shook his head. “We never heard about any of this. The newsers blamed the shortages on Esilian saboteurs.”

  The staff sergeant let out a disgusted huff. “Riiight. And you bought that story?”

  “I was a kid,” Jef said defensively. “I was more interested in hologaming than in watching the news.”

  The surviving farmers had their own hard-luck stories. Bandits. A winter so cold the edges of the river froze. An epidemic of something called “the burning cough,” which Jef had heard mentioned in the city. A cooperative that had been taken over by lunatics who tried to make slaves of everybody they could catch, until a bunch of women whose husbands had been taken burned its walls down. No, that wasn’t why so many other places were burnt up. That was just what happened when you were trying to keep warm in winter, with open fires, and the volunteer fire fighting leagues were long gone and the hoses to bring water from the river were rotting.

  As they got farther from the city, perversely, things seemed to get better; lending strength to his sergeant’s belief that Harmony City had been the most destructive force around. They found people who’d planted gardens as soon as the ground thawed, who were now watching their produce ripen while they lived off “wild game,” which seemed to mean “any animal you can get your hands on.” There were a lot more domestic chickens than river ducks in the meals they shared in trade for the crackers and flatbread in rations, a lot more sheep and goats than native mountain doats. But there was also hope for the future: the ripening gardens, a few animals penned off for breeding, talk of sowing fields that had been left fallow for almost a year for lack of labor. Jef made a note to tell the colonel that the next supply fleet should include a shipment of seed corn and some powered barges to bring it up the river.

  At their designated stopping point, what had once been a dairy cooperative seemed to have become a mixed-use farm that was doing reasonably well. “The women always kept bees,” Ruven, the farm manager, told him. “As for the sheep and chickens, those sort of joined us after the bad winter. We’re a bit short of dairy cows, actually – most of them didn’t make it – but we put the three that were left to Three Hills’ bull and they’ve calved already.”

  A tugging at his knee attracted Jef’s attention and he looked down to find a horned bundle of whitish hair attempting to eat the stripe he’d hastily stitched on his pants the day of his surprise promotion. Half the stripe had already vanished into the animal’s mouth before it encountered a bit of solid stitching near the knee.

  “Bar-burque, stop that!” A handsome woman, a tumble of light hair coming down about her shoulders, dashed out of the kitchen and seized a rope that trailed behind the bundle.

  “His name’s Babar!” a girl called.

  “If he doesn’t give up the officer’s uniform,” the young woman said grimly, “his name is going to be Kebabs.” She hauled on the rope; the hair-bundle placed hooves on the ground and braced itself, but slowly lost its position. The rest of the strip of cloth came out of its mouth in a disgusting condition.

  “I’m sorry about your uniform,” the young woman said. “It’s supposed to be a good quality in Afguernsey goats, that they’ll eat anything, but this particular guy takes it to extremes.” She handed the rope to the girl who’d complained about the name, and picked up a small child that had been heading for the loose strip of cloth with an acquisitive gleam in its eye. “I would barbecue him, too, but he’s still our only billy and we want to build up the flock. I know the top layer doesn’t look like much, but their undercoats give the finest, softest stuff. We’ve been thinking we might even trade some to the city in return for seed corn; I know everybody swears by smartcloth, but there’s nothing like real cashmere for a cold day.”

  “Jilli, didn’t I tell you to stop picking up Tomi all the time? He can walk, and he’s way too heavy for you in your condition.” The farm manager swung the baby out of his wife’s arms. Jef looked at her again and realized that she was pregnant.

  “Sorry, Ruven. I didn’t think the officer’s stripe would be good for his digestion. And I apologize for our farm’s tendency to attack you,” she said to Jef.

  He smiled. “It’ll be a good story to tell Kri – the folks at home. Nearly decommissioned by a goat and a toddler.” He was wondering if he ought to know this woman. She looked extremely familiar. As she smiled up at her husband, he sorted through memories of his parents’ parties. No, there had been no one like this sunburnt woman with her sun-bleached hair. She might have been beautiful if not for the scar running down one cheek…

  Mentally removing the scar, he recognized the fine-featured oval face. “Jilli – Jillian – Lisadel!” he exclaimed. “You’re Jillian Lisadel!”

  She put an arm around the farmer’s waist. “I was once.”

  “But – how did you wind up here?” He gestured at the muddy farmyard where chickens pecked in search of food while two girls combed out the Afguernsey’s coat.

  She and the farmer exchanged another smile, one so private and intimate that Jef felt like a voyeur. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Jef compared the cluttered, chaotic space of the Chop Shop in Esilia with his parents’ perfectly decorated apartment in Harmony City, and nodded his understanding. “Me, too.”