Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2009 by Patrick Ness
Cover photographs: copyright 2009 by Pierre Perrin/Sygma/Corbis (horsemen); copyright 2009 by Julio Lopez Saguar/Photonica/Getty Images (clouds)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First U.S. electronic edition 2010

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Ness, Patrick, date.
The Ask and the Answer : a novel / by Patrick Ness. 1st ed.
p. cm. (Chaos walking ; bk. 2)
Summary: Alternate chapters follow teenagers Todd and Viola,
who become separated as the Mayors oppressive
new regime takes power in New Prentisstown, a space colony
where residents can hear each others thoughts.
ISBN 978-0-7636-4490-1 (hardcover)
[1. Science fiction. 2. Space colonies Fiction. 3. Social problems Fiction. 4. Telepathy Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.N43843As 2009
[Fic] dc22 2009007329

ISBN 978-0-7636-4837-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5217-3 (electronic)

Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

visit us at www.candlewick.com

Your Noise reveals you, Todd Hewitt.

A voice

In the darkness

I blink open my eyes. Everything is shadows and blur and it feels like the worlds spinning and my blood is too hot and my brain is clogged and I cant think and its dark

I blink again.

Wait

No, wait

Just now, just now we were in the square

Just now she was in my arms

She was dying in my arms

Where is she? I spit into the dark, tasting blood, my voice croaking, my Noise rising like a sudden hurricane, high and red and furious. WHERE IS SHE?

I will be the one doing the asking here, Todd.

That voice.

His voice.

Somewhere in the dark.

Somewhere behind me, somewhere unseen.

Mayor Prentiss.

I blink again and the murk starts to turn into a vast room, the only light coming from a single window, a wide circle up high and far away, its glass not clear but coloured into shapes of New World and its two circling moons, the light from it slanting down onto me and nothing else.

What have you done with her? I say, loud, blinking against fresh blood trickling into my eyes. I try to reach up to clear it away but I find my hands are tied behind my back and panic rises in me and I struggle against the binds and my breathing speeds up and I shout again, WHERE IS SHE?

A fist comes from nowhere and punches me in the stomach.

I lean forward into the shock of it and realize Im tied to a wooden chair, my feet bound to its legs, my shirt gone somewhere up on a dusty hillside and as Im throwing up my empty stomach I notice theres carpet beneath me, repeating the same pattern of New World and its moons, over and over and over, stretching out for ever.

And Im remembering we were in the square, in the square where Id run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her

But there werent no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men and they took her from me, they took her from my arms

You notice that he does not ask, Where am I? says the Mayors voice, moving out there, somewhere. His first words are, Where is she?, and his Noise says the same. Interesting.

My heads throbbing along with my stomach and Im waking up some more and Im remembering I fought them, I fought them when they took her till the butt of a gun smashed against my temple and knocked me into blackness

I swallow away the tightness in my throat, swallow away the panic and the fear

Cuz this is the end, aint it?

The end of it all.

The Mayor has me.

The Mayor has her.

If you hurt her I say, the punch still aching in my belly. Mr. Collins stands in front of me, half in shadow, Mr. Collins who farmed corn and cauliflower and who tended the Mayors horses and who stands over me now with a pistol in a holster, a rifle slung round his back and a fist rearing up to punch me again.

She seemed quite hurt enough already, Todd, the Mayor says, stopping Mr. Collins. The poor thing.

My fists clench in their bindings. My Noise feels lumpy and half-battered but it still rises with the memory of Davy Prentisss gun pointed at us, of her falling into my arms, of her bleeding and gasping

And then I make it go even redder with the feel of my own fist landing on Davy Prentisss face, of Davy Prentiss falling from his horse, his foot caught in the stirrup, dragged away like so much trash.

Well, the Mayor says, that explains the mysterious whereabouts of my son.

And if I didnt know better, Id say he sounded almost amused.

But I notice the only way I can tell this is from the sound of his voice, a voice sharper and smarter than any old Prentisstown voice he might once have had, and that the nothing I heard coming from him when I ran into Haven is still a big nothing in whatever room this is and its matched by a big nothing from Mr. Collins.

They aint got Noise.

Neither of em.

The only Noise here is mine, bellering like an injured calf.

I twist my neck to find the Mayor but it hurts too much to turn very far and all I can tell is that Im sitting in the single beam of dusty, coloured sunlight in the middle of a room so big I can barely make out the walls in the far distance.

And then I do see a little table in the darkness, set back just far enough so I cant make out whats on it.

Just the shine of metal, glinting and promising things I dont wanna think about.

He still thinks of me as Mayor, his voice says, sounding light and amused again.

Its President Prentiss now, boy, grunts Mr. Collins. Youd do well to remember that.

What have you done with her? I say, trying to turn again, this way and that, wincing at the pain in my neck. If you touch her, Ill

You arrive in my town this very morning, interrupts the Mayor, with nothing in your possession, not even the shirt on your back, just a girl in your arms who has suffered a terrible accident

My Noise surges. It was no accident

A very bad accident indeed, continues the Mayor, his voice giving the first hint of the impayshunce I heard when we met in the square. So very bad that she is near death and here is the boy who we have spent so much of our time and energy trying to find, the boy who has caused us so much trouble, offering himself up to us willingly, offering to do anything we wish if we just