Fierce September (27 page)

‘Juno! I’m so pleased you called. Is all well? Did you find Willem?’ She sat up carefully as if her head hurt when she moved. The bruising was dark around her eyes and down into her cheeks.

Quickly I told her the bones of what had happened. ‘We’ll be home at midnight on the train. I love you, my mother.’

She would be all right, she was still the mother I knew.

Everyone at Fairlands came to farewell us. This time I didn’t feel crushed by their crowding around. Ivor handed a basket to Paz. ‘Food for your journey.’

We called our goodbyes and climbed into the trap – a sort of cart with bench seats – pulled by a horse with a splotchy coat. Ivor vaulted into the driver’s seat.

‘Nice horse,’ Silvern said.

Ivor flicked the reins. ‘He’s a good ’un. We’ve got another one – takes off when he sees you coming. But Aussie likes work. Never makes a run for it.’

There was no need to ask why the horse was called Aussie. The left haunch with its brown splodge in the shape of Australia was right in front of us.

‘Don’t you get sick of it?’ Paz asked instead. ‘All the drudgery? Doing work a machine could do in half the time?’

‘Yeah, I do. But it’s a good place to live. The school is part of a whole community.’ He paused to drive around a gaggle of kids spilling across the road. ‘The school farm is the only one without modern gear. The other farms and factories round here all have tractors, electrical machinery and power tools. Cars too. It’s a whole cooperative set-up – they pool resources and money to buy equipment.’

We thought about that. ‘So why does Willem keep the school in the dark ages?’ Silvern demanded. ‘Dumb, if you ask me.’

‘It wasn’t always like that,’ Ivor said. ‘When he started it, he put in all the mod cons, but when the world heated up and the pandemics hit, people had to be more self-reliant. He believes now that the country needs a pool of people skilled in ways to grow food, generate their own electricity – all that stuff.’

Let somebody else do it, I thought. I had all the survival skills I wanted.

Ivor pointed out landmarks as we trotted sedately through the city: the site of what used to be the boys’ high school (now a hospital outpost during pandemics), the race course (next weekend it would host a solar-powered cart derby); ahead of us was a long spike rising into the sky (a wind wand, fixed up and re-installed earlier in the year).

Marba asked, ‘So what are you going to do with your life, Ivor? Stay at Fairlands?’

Ivor shook his head. ‘Not me. I’m off and away at the end of the year. Going to do predator control in the forests for my compulsory service, then I’m going to uni. Studying engine design.’

We let a couple of clip-clops of Aussie’s hooves go past before all four of us repeated, ‘Compulsory service?’

‘Why has nobody told us about this before?’ Silvern demanded.

Marba frowned. ‘I think Willem did mention it. When we were on the boat. But then I guess so much happened it just got lost.’

I had a vague memory too that he’d dropped it into something he was telling us. It seemed as if we were stuck with it.

Ivor sounded relaxed. ‘I’m looking forward to it – all day out in the open air. What could be better?’ It was another of Willem’s initiatives – make all school leavers do one year compulsory service for the good of the country. ‘It’s a good idea. My sister did it last year – that was the first year.’

Just in time for us.
Oh joy
.

‘What other work?’ Silvern demanded. ‘I’m not running round a forest, no way.’

But according to Ivor there was a wide and varied list to choose from.

‘And if we choose not to choose?’ Silvern had the light of battle in her eyes. Me too. The boys, though, didn’t look bothered.

‘You choose or they choose for you,’ Ivor said. ‘Much better to choose for yourself. Working in an orphanage or an old people’s home. Lots of work stabilising coastal areas. Roading projects. Market-garden work, orchards. Building restoration. Heaps of different stuff.’

Paz wanted to know if we’d get paid, but Ivor just laughed. ‘You get food and lodging plus any clothing required,’ he said. ‘It’s a good way to get things working properly again. The government hasn’t got spare money, so this scheme means we’re catching up on a lot of stuff that got neglected during the bad times. But now, do you mind if I ask some questions?’

He turned around to glance at us. ‘Tell me about Taris. Please? Was it scary living under a dome that could fail at any second?’

Marba moved up to sit beside him, but I barely listened to what they said. The rhythm of the horse’s clip-clopping soothed my mind. Ivor and Marba – nearly the same age, nearly the same childhood. Ivor taller than Marba – more muscles too by the look of his arms. Not that Marba would care.

Silvern nudged me. ‘He’s hot.’

‘And going to live in a forest,’ I retorted.

‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘that would be life.’ 

O
UR TRAVEL PASSES MEANT WE WE were able to sit in proper seats on the train. Silvern got her wish to look out the windows. The towns and small settlements appeared more and more neglected the further south we went from New Plymouth. Scrubby trees and bushes grew where once there must have been paddocks, creating a landscape of vibrant, tangled green.

Darkness fell as we travelled between a couple of ruined towns. The first one had a bright sign: Inglewood. Two buildings close to the rail tracks had fresh paint and all their windows were intact. But there was no sign of life in the next town we passed – there may have been a name on the station, but we couldn’t see it in the gloom of the evening.

Once it was fully night, our minds turned to food. I ate one of the chicken pies the Fairlands’ staff had packed for us, and managed half an apple, then gave up. I was exhausted.

The others must have slept too, because the loud shouts of the guard – not Mac this time, but a younger man – startled us.

‘We can’t be here already,’ Silvern muttered. ‘I didn’t see a thing.’

‘It was dark,’ Paz pointed out.

Silvern, too tired to snap at him, just gave him a look.

It took us a while to get our bearings again – the city was dark, and it seemed an age since we’d raced through the streets to the station in the early hours of the morning. Now we trudged along the waterfront, relieved we didn’t have to pass the place where the bomb had wrecked the wharf. By the time we reached the Centre I might as well have been sleepwalking for all the sense anything made.

Mother was there to welcome us. Her eyes were black from the beating but she was smiling. I remember that, and I remember the strength of her arms as she hugged me.

She was sitting on my bed the following morning when I woke. ‘Juno, dear girl, if you don’t get up soon your stratum is going to bash the door down.’

‘Just five minutes,’ I mumbled. ‘Wanna go back to sleep.’

Hera jumped on me. ‘Get up, lazy wench.’

That made me sit up. ‘Wench? Where did you hear a word like that?’

She was pleased with herself. ‘Willem says, do as you’re told little wench.’

There was no escape from the day, although Mother and Sina asked no questions while we breakfasted. I was grateful.
Thomas, son of Hilto.
I didn’t want to think about either of them one second more than I had to.

Jovan fell asleep on his mother’s shoulder as we went down to the big room. Others were there already but we were such a small group now, barely filling a quarter of the room. Camnoon welcomed us back – he was a steadying presence and I wondered what it cost him to abandon his habit of silence.

He waited until everyone sat down, then spoke to us of Willem. ‘The hospital people are cautiously hopeful, even though he is still in a coma.’ He paused as we whispered among ourselves – was that good news or not? Surely a hospital wouldn’t say they were hopeful without good reason? He waited until our murmurings stopped. ‘And now let us listen to the story our four adventurers must have to tell.’

By unspoken agreement, Silvern told our story. She spoke well, beginning from when we jumped on the train, making the people hear Mac as he growled at us, describing for them Willem’s bleached face and the surprise of Fairlands being like Taris. Then she paused, her head bowed. Nobody even murmured. How did she do that? Create that air of expectation, that feeling of something yet to be told, something unwelcome?

When she lifted her head, her words fell into a tense silence.

‘My people, at Fairlands we met a child of ten. A boy called Thomas. He is Hilto’s son. Eleven years ago, Hilto, Majool and Lenna asked for a ship to come to Taris. Thomas was fathered by genetic material sent back on that ship. The one that called at Taris eleven years ago.’

Nobody spoke until Camnoon pulled himself to his feet, holding onto the lectern for support. ‘Silvern, I find this difficult to take in. Are you saying that a ship called at Taris eleven years ago? We could have had help from Outside eleven years ago, and probably for many years before that? There is proof?’

‘There is Thomas,’ Silvern said. ‘Hilto’s son.’

‘What’s he like,’ shouted Berl, a man almost as old as Camnoon, ‘this spawn of Hilto?’

Silvern frowned at him. ‘He’s a kid. Just an ordinary kid who didn’t have a much better experience of his father than we did.’

She told them Thomas’s story, how Thomas thought his father wrecked the communication equipment because he was angry with him. ‘But
we
know that he’d just come from attacking Vima. That he must have realised the secrets the three of them had held for so long were about to be told. That their reign was over.’

‘How many more secrets?’ Sina asked. ‘For so long we lived a lie. Please tell us quickly, Silvern – was there anything else?’

Briefly she told them the rest of what we’d learned – of Majool’s Outside child dying, of the danger to Taris because of the measles on board the ship.

‘The measles epidemic!’ Mother gasped. ‘
They
brought measles to Taris.’

A wave of talk broke out among those old enough to remember. Camnoon signalled for quiet. ‘That answers the question of where the disease came from. Trebe will be pleased to have that mystery solved. She always said it couldn’t have sprung from nowhere. But seemingly it had.’

We were still absorbing that when Roop jumped up, her face contorted with fury. She pointed at me, her arm outstretched and her finger shaking. ‘That girl shouldn’t be here. She’s dangerous. She should still be in quarantine but instead she breaks the rules – again! She puts all our lives at risk. Again!’

I was stunned by her venom. Mother stood up, her hand steady on my shoulder. ‘We will return to our quarters. We’ll stay there until the quarantine is over.’

Sina stood too. ‘I too will stay quarantined.’

Hera shouted, ‘You a mean lady, Roop.’

Mother hushed her and we walked to the door as Silvern’s voice rang out. ‘I’m not going into quarantine. There’s no need. Juno’s not sick. She hasn’t been in contact with anybody who is, and there’s treatment available now.’ She sent Roop a scorching glare. ‘Get over yourself, Roop.’

It warmed my heart, but I knew it wouldn’t endear me to Roop. As we left the room we heard an argument breaking out behind us.

Three more days of being shut up and now one of our own hated me.

We got in the lift, Hera stomping her feet. ‘I want to play with Merith. Roop is mean.’

‘Shush, darling,’ Mother said. ‘She’s just frightened.’

Hera shook her head. ‘She’s mean.’

‘Are you worried too?’ I asked Sina. ‘I’m really sorry but it’s a bit late now, even if I keep away from you.’

Sina thought for a moment. ‘No, strangely I’m not. Don’t know why – maybe it’s because these past seven months have been so difficult and I don’t have any worry left.’ She smiled. ‘I’m just looking forward to Jov coming back – did you hear that he’ll be back in a week, and so will your dad and grandparents?’

That was good news, such good news.

‘Can we still go up to the roof, do you reckon?’ I asked as Mother opened the door to the apartment. ‘I can’t bear being stuck in here after all those days with Vima, then being out in the world for a day.’

‘No,’ Mother said. ‘We gave our word.’

I knew she’d say that.

‘Read me a story,’ Hera demanded. ‘
Three Little Pigs
.’

But I’d left my book behind. I wondered if Vima would read it. She might read the stories to Wilfred the way I had done.

Late in the afternoon, my stratum came visiting. ‘You shouldn’t,’ Mother said, welcoming them in all the same.

‘It’s a bit late to worry, we reckon,’ Wenda said. ‘And anyway, we’ve got work to do, according to grandpa here.’

Marba, as always, was unworried by the teasing. ‘We need to keep working on all this. For example, how many of you have checked the hate campaign today?’

‘None of us, I’m betting,’ Pel said. ‘But since you have, why don’t you tell us?’

Mother and Sina left us to it, going across the corridor to Danyat’s rooms. Hera plopped down beside Brex.

‘So?’ Fortun asked, ‘the hate campaign. Has it stopped? Has it turned into a Love Taris campaign?’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ Marba said. ‘We’re still the villains, the evil bringers of disease, the foul fiends who turned on those who saved us.’

‘Damn!’ Paz thumped his fists against the floor. ‘I kinda hoped it was the lot that kidnapped Willem who were behind the hate stuff. Arrest them and stop the hate.’

‘They can’t have arrested the whole group, though,’ Marba said. ‘They must be well organised to have kidnapped Willem like that. There’s probably a whole bunch of them beavering away, working out how to hate us each day.’