The Rivening

Hiding Echo

In the morning, before starting to tinker, Olan sat with Peter to walk him through the principles of how the echo stations work. She tried to recall some of the Earthside ham radio terminology she learned during her Earthside year, now over 60 years ago.

"It's a bit different," Peter said. "But the basics are the same. I think I'm getting the idea. How do you want to proceed?"

Not long after they settled in, Vossey stumbled into the shed, sobbing, "Gun people take Quill. Shoot Aldo."

Olan and Vossey spoke rapidly in dialect. The old woman hugged the little girl. Tears leaked from her sightless eyes. "A bird came in the night. She just saw the message," she told Peter.

Peter gripped Olan's arm and squeezed Vossey's shoulder, "We'll get this working. And we'll do everything we can to save Connie and Quill. We won't let them down."

Olan nodded, "You and I can do this. We must." After she spoke to Vossey in dialect, the girl wiped her eyes and left.

"I told her to send Zatch one of his birds and return Lina's bird and let them know that we're working on fixing the echo station. And I told her, if Aldo was dead, the message would have said so. They'll take care of her like they did Brome. How terrible for Tori and Lina and everyone. I also told her they may frighten Quill, but they won't hurt him." She closed her eyes tightly. "I hope I'm right."

"I think that's true. Most, but unfortunately not all, Earthside people consider it taboo to harm a child. This will make Connie frantic."

"Vossey told me the message said Connie knew the woman who shoot Brome. The one who came and took Connie. Her sister?"

"What? Connie doesn't have any sisters. Oh god, could that be Ainsley? She's Connie's stepsister...sort of. That's terrible."

"You know her?"

"She's a very bad person, Olan."

"Then we better get moving. I told Vossey to bring a few builders. Though I think the village is a little empty right now."

"You have people who know about echo stations?" Peter said, "Maybe you don't need me."

"Oh, I definitely need you. Not a lot of nerds, as you call them, in this neighborhood. No, it's for something else. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice."

Vossey brought four people from the village. Peter thought two women and two men though wasn't sure, gender indicators being much more fluid in Dahria. He was vaguely aware of others also arriving at different times with planks of wood and other materials. They went farther up the mount. He could hear noises carrying down as he and Olan worked on putting components together.

"What are they doing? They've been at it for a while."

"They're building a shelter for the new station. It needs to be well hidden. Once we're able to transmit, Ladore will probably pick us up fairly soon. If the mercenaries come back here, I want it to look like this echo station is still broken. We made a mistake not hiding Connie well. I'm not going to repeat that."

Olan and Peter fell into a productive routine, using her touch and knowledge and his agile fingers and intuitive sense of her objective. She felt fairly certain that the station would work but wanted to wait until everything was set-up and hidden away at the shelter on the mount before she began transmitting to farther-away stations.

While they did the tedious work, Peter encouraged Olan to tell him stories about Misgy. Many were about Zatch and his youthful escapades, which she laughingly said seemed to infuriate everyone but her.

Peter returned to the half-burned station to re-clutter it and ensure that it looked like nothing had been touched since it was trashed.

The builders finished their work and came down to move the refurbished echo station components to the hidden site. Peter helped them carry things and Vossey led Olan through the woods.