Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(73)
“I’m still not convinced they’re not cannibals.”
Elise’s group started the morning climb up one of the six towers the Elfreth referred to as the Farming Towers. The six buildings formed a ring and were connected at the seventieth floor by a sky bridge. The tribe had planted crops on the flat roofs of the tall buildings above the low-hanging fog clouds that often covered the sun’s rays.
It took half an hour for the entire group to climb the stairwell up to the seventieth floor. At first, Elise feared they would be walking up in pitch darkness. Fortunately, the tribe had taken off the doors on every level and cut direct paths to the outside, so sunlight could illuminate the darkened stairs.
The group passed the tedium of the long walk by singing tribal songs that told the story of their ancestral home in the south along the Delaware River, in a so-called magical alley with tiny houses where the Elfreth received their namesake, and the long journey up through the terrible Manhattan island, finally to this blessed sanctuary here at the Farming Towers.
To Elise, the songs sounded like a combination of old church hymns and yodeling, except everyone was off-key and harmonizing seemed to have become a lost art. Maybe she was being a little critical. After all, these people were all singing while walking up seventy flights of stairs in a stairwell that was basically one gigantic echo chamber. Also, Elise would be the first one to admit she was tone-deaf, so who was she to judge?
As for the climb up the Farming Towers, Elise had always kept herself in good shape—a requirement in her old career—but by the time they had reached the sky bridges, she was grateful for that small moment of rest.
Looking around, she realized how soft she was compared to the people of the Elfreth. They hadn’t even begun work yet and she was exhausted. She was probably one of the youngest and fittest looking here, the rest of the group consisting of the elderly and the women, yet she had the most trouble keeping up.
Next, they split into six even smaller groups as Franwil delegated where each group was to work. Elise was one of the last chosen. She couldn’t help but flash back to her elementary playground days when she was often chosen last due to her diminutive size.
“You stay with me, girl.” Franwil pulled Elise along by the wrist as if she really were a child. They joined a group of six older women, all either short or so stooped over that their hands nearly dragged against the ground, if they just let them hang down.
The small group climbed another four flights of stairs before they reached the roof, where Elise found several neat rows of tall crops that looked not unlike stalks of corn, but with husks of bloodred vegetables buried just under the soil. The stalks of the crops were a pale gray with a strange finish so smooth that they looked unnatural, almost metallic.
“Dig up the husks and put them here,” Franwil instructed, pushing a brown woven basket into Elise’s hands. “Watch for the stem. Rub your fingers against the grain and you might lose one.”
Elise looked over at a pile of the long rod-like stalks, cut up and stacked neatly to the side. “Do I need a machete to cut the stems?”
Franwil shook her head. “One of the other groups will rotate here later in the afternoon to do that. Our job here is to only gather the blood corn.”
They set about their work as Elise and the women methodically worked their way down the neat rows, their short height making it easy for them to pluck the husks out of the dirt while simultaneously protecting them from getting lashed by the foilage above them on the stalks that could cut flesh by mere touch. It was backbreaking work that continued for the better part of the morning.
Just as they were finishing up, another group arrived to take their place. This time, it was a group of taller women and men, with straight backs and armed with machetes and gloves. The two groups nodded and traded positions. Elise’s people rested while the new group went to work, first using their gloved hands to tear off the leaves and then hacking away at the base of the stalks with the machetes, creating several smaller piles.
“What do you use them for?” Elise asked as she watched the stacks of stalks grow.
Franwil gave her a puzzled smiled. “The body of the blood corn, once shorn, can be used to build shelters that keep the insects away, while the leaves are used for filters to clean the impurities out of the rain.” She paused. “This is mother-to-child wisdom. What poisoned life did you and the chronman find us from again?”
Elise pretended not to hear as her small group left their replacements to do their work. James had decided this morning not to tell the Elfreth where she had come from. Even in such a remote place, the wasteland people knew of chronmen and the Time Laws. If the tribe ever found out the truth about her, who knew what they would do? They might end up turning her over to the authorities, drive them away, or maybe even kill her on the spot.
Instead, James had spun a tale of her abuse and how she fled from another tribe, and how he had found her while she wandered the radiated mountains of Appalachia. They had accepted her easily enough, more so than James, whom they avoided and watched at every waking moment.
The group walked down the four flights back to the sky bridge, and continued on to the next building, where they replaced yet another group who had been laying soil and breaking apart the larger chunks of dirt with hoes and pickaxes. There, they planted seeds brought up by even another group, this time younger children who carried the large sacks in twos and fours. Sammuia was in that group. The boy grinned and made a show of holding her hand in front of the other children. Overall, Elise was impressed with this well-tuned operation.