Pandora's Genes by Kathryn Lance

they rode, their blankets and each night’s fire provided welcome warmth. Evvy could not know, of course, that the Capital lay to the north and east of them, that they were moving farther from it every day.
    Three nights after they had crossed the river, they camped in a grassy clearing. Zach felt drowsy and comfortable; he had managed to catch two fish that afternoon, and he and Evvy had eaten both of them. Crickets and new-insects chirped in the trees; the night air in this part of the District was moist and heavy.
    “I miss your lyre,” said Evvy.
    “So do I,” said Zach. He leaned back with his hands behind his neck and watched as the stars appeared.
    “Zach?”
    “Yes?”
    “Why won’t you tell me the truth?”
    For a beat Zach was silent. He didn’t look at the girl but kept his gaze fixed on the dark sky above him. “I haven’t lied to you,” he said at last.
    “It can be a lie to tell only part of the truth,” she said.
    He looked at her now, sitting cross-legged against a tree. The fire was burning low, and he saw that she was gazing at him calmly and openly. For the first time he realized that she was not, after all, a child, but a nearly mature young woman. He couldn’t think what to say to her, and after a moment she spoke again.
    “We’re not going to the Capital, are we?”
    He spoke slowly and with relief. “No, we’re not.”
    “That’s why you left your things at the camp all those days ago. You wanted the Principal to think something had happened, so he won’t look for us.”
    “Yes,” said Zach, wondering what else to add, how much to tell her, how to explain what he had decided when she was nursing him back to health. But perhaps he had unconsciously made the decision even before that, on the day he had reluctantly agreed to travel to the remote part of the District where Evvy’s family lived.
    “What will happen if he finds us?” she asked.
    “He won’t find us,” said Zach. “Don’t worry.”
    “Don’t say that,” she said. “That’s all my parents told me the whole week before you came to our house!”
    “Ah, Evvy. Let me put it his way, then. I don’t intend to be caught. Not by the Principal or anyone. And as long as I’m with you, I promise that I won’t let anything happen to you.”
    “How long will you be with me?”
    “Until I know that you are safe and happy.”
    She didn’t speak again for several moments, then: “Will you tell me where we’re going?”
    “The name of the place wouldn’t mean anything to you, but it’s where I grew up. I’m very sure that you’ll like it and the people there.”
    “When will we get there?”
    “In two or three days at the most.”
    “What will we do then?”
    Again Zach hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I have an idea, but I haven’t made up my mind. I’m not lying or hiding anything from you. I just don’t know yet.” The only thing he did know, for certain, was that he could not stay at the Garden, nor could he ever return to the Capital.
    Evvy sighed. “All right,” she said, accepting his answers for the moment.
    Between them was the knowledge that she had not yet asked the most important question: why.
    Now that the decision had been made and uttered, there was no reason to delay, and the next day they rode hard and long. Zach was sure that the girl was as tired as he of constantly living off the land, the daily search for clean water and food, the animals and insects everywhere. Besides, he felt a growing excitement at the thought of returning to the Garden for however short a period, for the first time in nearly twenty years.
    The remainder of the journey took just under three days from the evening Zach had admitted the truth to Evvy. Though they often passed the time in talking as before, Evvy seemed unusually quiet, lost in her thoughts, and not once did she mention the Capital or the Principal.
    When they approached the large shallow lake which lay near the Garden, at first