The Ask and the Answer

"No," I say, "you'll have to show me how to do it. I can't ask you to risk your life."

"Yer goin for Todd?"

I nod.

"Then Ah'll take yoo."

"Wilf-"

"Still early," he says, backing the oxes into position. "Ah'll at least get yoo close."

He doesn't say another word as he reharnesses the oxes to his cart. They ask him Wilf, Wilf, in surprise at being used so quickly again after thinking their night of work was finished. I think about what Jane would say. I think about putting her Wilf into danger.

But all I say is, "Thank you."

"I'm coming, too." I turn around. Lee is there, rubbing sleep out of his eyes but dressed and ready.

"What are you doing up?" I ask. "And no, you're not."

"Yes, I am," he says, "and who can sleep with all that shouting?"

"It's too dangerous," I say. "They'll hear your Noise-" He keeps his mouth shut and says to me, Then they can just hear it.

"Lee-"

"You're going to look for him, aren't you?"

I sigh in frustration, begi

"You're going to the Office of the Ask," Lee says, lowering his voice. I nod.

And then I understand.

Siobhan and his mum might be there.

I nod again, and this time he knows I've agreed.

No one tries to stop us, though half the camp must know we're going. Mistress Coyle must have her reasons.

We don't talk much as we go. I just listen to Lee's Noise and its thoughts of his family, of the Mayor, of what he'll do if he ever gets his hands on him.

Thoughts of me.

"You'd better say something," Lee says. "Listening that close is rude."

"So I've heard," I say.

But my mouth is dry and I find I don't have much to say.

The sun rises before we get to the city. Wilf pushes the oxes as fast as they'll go, but even so, it's going to be a dangerous trip back, with the city awake, with Noisy men on our cart. We're taking a terrible risk. But on Wilf drives.

I've explained what I want to see, and he says he knows a place. He stops the cart deep in some woods and directs us up a bluff.

"Keep yer heads down now," he says. "Don't be seen."

"We won't," I say. "But if we're not back in an hour, don't wait for us."

Wilf just looks at me. We all know how likely him leaving us is.

Lee and I make our way up the bluff, keeping down in the cover of the trees, until we reach the top and see why Wilf chose the place. It's a hill near where the tower fell, one where we've got a clear view of the road coming down toward the Office of the Ask, which we've heard is some kind of prison or torture chamber or something like that.

I don't even want to know.

We lie on our stomachs, side by side, looking out from some bushes.

"Keep your ears open," Lee whispers.

As if we need to. As soon as the sun rises, New Prentisstown ROARs to life. I begin to wonder if Lee even needs to hide his Noise so much. How could it not be possible to drown in it?

"Because drowning is the right word," Lee says when I ask. "If you disappeared into it, you'd suffocate."

"I can't imagine what it's like growing up inside it all," I say.

"No," he says. "No, you can't."

But he doesn't say it in a mean way.

I squint down the road as the sun brightens. "I wish I had some binocs."

Lee reaches into a pocket and pulls out a pair.

I give him a look. "You were just waiting for me to ask so you could look all impressive."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, smiling, putting the binocs to his eyes.

"C'mon." I push him with my shoulder. "Give them to me."

He stretches away to keep them out of my grabbing range. I start to giggle, so does he. I grab onto him and try to hold him down while I snatch at the binocs but he's bigger than me and keeps twisting them away.

"I'm not afraid to hurt you," I say.

"I don't doubt that," he laughs, turning the binocs back to the road.

His Noise spikes, loud enough to make me afraid someone'll hear us.

"What do you see?" I say, not giggling anymore.

He hands the binocs to me, pointing. "There," he says. "Coming down the road."

But I'm already seeing them in the binocs. Two people on horseback. Two people in shiny new uniforms, riding their horses. One of them talking, gesturing with his hands.

Laughing. Smiling.

The other keeping his eyes on his horse, but riding along to work.

Riding along to his Job at the Office of the Ask. In a uniform with a shiny A on the shoulder. Todd. My Todd.

Riding next to Davy Prentiss.

Riding to work with the man who shot me.

31 NUMBERS AND LETTERS

***

[TODD]

THE DAYS KEEP PASSING. They keep getting worse.

"All of em?" Davy asks, his Noise ringing with badly hidden alarm. "Every single one?"

"This is a vote of confidence, David," the Mayor says, standing with us at the door of the stables while our horses are made ready for the day's work. "You and Todd did such an excellent job with permanently identifying the female prisoners, who else would I want to be in charge of expanding the program?"

I don't say nothing, not even acknowledging Davy's looks at me. His Noise is confused with the pink of his pa's praise.

But then there's also his thoughts about banding all the women.

Every single one.

Cuz banding the ones in the Office of the Ask was even worse than we thought.

"They keep leaving," the Mayor says. "In the dead of night, they slip away and cast their lot with the terrorists."

Davy's watching Deadfall get saddled in a small paddock, his Noise clanking with the faces of the women who get banded, the cries of pain they make.

The words they speak to us.

"And if they keep getting out," the Mayor says, "they obviously keep getting in, too."

He means the bombs. One every night for the past two weeks nearly, so many they must be increasing for a reason, they must be leading up to something bigger, and no women have been caught planting 'em except once when a bomb blew up while the woman was still putting it in place. They didn't find much left of her except bits of clothing and flesh.

I close my eyes when I think of it.

Feeling nothing, taking nothing in.

(was it her?)

Feeling nothing.

"You want us to number all the women," Davy says again quietly, looking away from his pa.

"I've said it before," the Mayor sighs. "Every woman is part of the Answer, if only because she is a woman and therefore sympathetic to other women."

The groomsmen bring Angharrad into a nearby paddock. She sticks her head over the rail to bump me with her nose. Todd , she says.

"They'll resist," I say, stroking her head. "The men won't like it neither."

"Ah, yes," says the Mayor. "You missed yesterday's rally, didn't you?" Davy and I look at each other. We were at work all day yesterday and didn't hear nothing bout no rally.

"I spoke to the men of New Prentisstown," the Mayor says. "Man to man. I explained to them the threat the Answer poses us and how this is the next prudent step forward to ensure safety for all." He rubs a hand down Angharrad's neck. I try and hide how prickly my Noise gets at the sight. "I encountered no resistance."