Fierce September (6 page)

Marba shrugged. ‘Well, I guess that would be right.’ He strolled off but he was smiling.

‘I’m going to see Vima,’ I told her. ‘Want to come?’ She deserved to, if anyone did.

We found Inva with Elden and his grandparents, tucked in an alcove not far from the door. He led us out into the cold of the echoing corridor and down a series of ladders until we came to a door marked Medical Centre. There he lifted his hand in farewell and left us.

Trebe opened the door. ‘Ah, the heroines of the day!’ She smiled at us. ‘Vima will be delighted to see you.’

Silvern and I glanced at each other and shook our heads. If we were heroines it was only because the ship hadn’t sunk.

A door opened and Vima came through, walking gingerly. But she looked well and her eyes were no longer haunted. We hugged her. ‘Can we see him? Is he cute?’

‘Of course he’s cute! He’s my baby after all.’ She laughed at us as she led us back to her room. ‘Look at him.’ She bent over the crib, easing back the blanket to show us his face.

I’d wondered if he would look like Jov, but he just looked like a baby – tiny, scrunched up and bonemeltingly sweet. He had a drift of straight black hair and his skin was so pale it was hard to believe Vima was his mother. She smiled as she watched us fuss over him.

‘You’ve changed,’ I said. ‘You’re softer somehow.’

‘Motherhood,’ Silvern muttered. ‘Be warned, Juno. It fries your brain and gives you a personality transplant.’

Vima just grinned. ‘Yep, motherhood is big – but so is knowing I can escape from the Taris gossip train.’

So she would leave us, whatever else the rest of us decided to do. I’d known she would, but to hear her say it made my heart hurt. I turned back to the baby. ‘What’s his name?’

She touched his cheek. ‘Wilfred. It’s my grandfather’s Outside name.’

‘Hello Wilfred,’ Silvern said. ‘Vima, why’s he so pale? You sure he’s yours?’

Vima laughed and pulled a face. ‘I was there when he was born, you know. Trebe says it’s common for mixed-race babies to start off pale and darken as they grow older.’

Malia poked her head around the door. ‘I’m taking Trebe to the dining room. Do you two want to come too?’

Hot food. I couldn’t wait. ‘You coming?’ I asked Vima.

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s better I don’t.’

‘You should come!’ The words burst out of me. ‘We’d all be dead now if it wasn’t for you.’

She pushed at us. ‘Shh, don’t wake him up. I’m not coming, so don’t yell at me. It’s better this way. Believe me.’ She hustled us back to the outer room.

‘You’re not going to be able to avoid the rest of them forever,’ Silvern said. ‘Get it over with, I say.’

‘Leave her,’ Trebe said. ‘I’ve already had this conversation with her, and so has Creen. But Vima, you must come to the meeting after the meal. You need to know all you can about Outside – you of all people.’

Vima screwed up her face, but I knew she would come.

We hugged her and she held us tight for a moment. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for making the boat wait.’ Then she pushed us to the door – though not before we’d seen the tears in her eyes.

We didn’t speak as we hurried after Malia, who strode along corridors, up a couple of ladders and along another passageway.

‘You reckon Jov’s seen his son yet?’ Silvern whispered at last.

I shrugged. The big question, and we wouldn’t be the only ones wondering.

Malia pointed to a door. ‘Go in there. I hope you enjoy the meal.’

This room was warm as well, but best of all was the savoury aroma of food.

We joined the line at the servery, standing behind Aspa, who had previously employed Vima as an apprentice. He turned with a smile to ask, ‘And the little one – is he stroppy like his mother?’

Silvern laughed. ‘No predictions yet. He was fast asleep.’

Aspa shook his head. ‘Definitely not like his mum then. Is she well?’ He dropped his voice. ‘Is she happy?’ He looked to me for the answer.

‘She is well,’ I took care with my words. ‘She is happy that she is going to leave Taris behind and live in the world without us.’

‘Ah,’ he said.

Others too asked for news of Vima and her son. We said he was gorgeous and, no, he didn’t look like anyone except himself. We were glad to concentrate on the business of getting food on our plates – light, white plates such as we’d never seen before. Cheerful people in chefs’ outfits ladled steaming stew and vegetables onto them. There were no tables in the room, which looked as if it hadn’t been designed to take so many people. Silvern and I found the rest of our stratum and sat with them on the floor.

‘Yum!’ Yin smacked his lips. ‘If this is a sample of Outside food, bring it on!’

‘What’s the baby like?’ Brex asked.

‘Adorable,’ Silvern said. ‘And cute.’

‘Watch out!’ Biddo pointed with his fork. ‘Incoming Hera.’

It was lucky he warned me. I just had time to brace myself before she flung herself into my lap. ‘Juno’s
mean.
Hera wants to see the baby.’

How would Willem handle this? I tried firmness again. ‘You will see him, but not just yet.’

‘Now!’ she shrieked.

I shoved my plate at Silvern. ‘Take this a second, will you?’ I grabbed Hera by her shoulders and held her still. ‘Not now, Hera.’ When? Somehow I had the feeling
later
wouldn’t go down too well. ‘His name is Wilfred and he’s asleep. I’ll take you to see him after we’ve listened to Willem.’

She scowled and drew in a breath.

I beat her to it. ‘And if you yell, I won’t take you at all. Now go back to Mother and Dad, and let me eat my food.’

For a moment we stared at each other, then she patted my face. ‘Okay, Juno. Hera happy now.’

My learning stratum stopped eating and watched her go. ‘A child with a mind like hers,’ Marba mused. ‘Interesting.’

Yeah, for him. He wasn’t the one who had to do the discipline. Life with Hera was shaping up to be quite a battle.

Marba tapped his plate to command our attention, and as we had always done, we gave it to him. ‘Let’s all say one thing we think Outside will be like, then we’ll see if Willem confirms it.’

An easy instruction for once.

Paz stabbed the air with his knife. ‘We’ll go to school for the whole day. There will be hundreds of other kids and when we get home we won’t have to work in gardens, kill chickens or harvest food.’

‘Well, I’m hoping they give us more clothes,’ Silvern said. ‘And I want my hair styled. By somebody who knows what they’re doing.’

Marba snorted. ‘That’s not important. Who cares what we look like?’

We girls yelled at him and Dreeda said, ‘You’ll stand out all by yourself then. Taris tunic. Hair tied back with a flax thread. A bad shave.’

Paz rubbed his own chin. ‘You know, I reckon I’m going to ask Fergus to borrow whatever he uses to shave.’

Marba rapped his knife on his plate. ‘Keep to the topic please. What will Outside be like?’

We were silent until Pel said, ‘There will be movies, concerts and stuff.’

‘But we’ll need money to go to them,’ Biddo said.

We threw around enough ideas to keep Marba happy – technology that would amaze us, different sorts of food.

I asked another question, one that had been preying on my mind. ‘But do you think we’ll stay together? Will we remake Taris on the Outside?’

‘Vima won’t stay with us,’ Fortun remarked, ‘and if she does, then Sina and Jov will go.’

Marba looked at me. ‘What do you want, Juno? Taris all over again, or something different?’

The thirteen of them waited for my reply. What did I want? I scarcely knew myself. ‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘we have to have something different, but what I wonder is whether we can keep the good bits.’

Silvern snorted. ‘Like there were good bits to Taris? Secrecy, murder, control – yeah, fantastic!’

I set my plate on the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. ‘We all helped each other. Nobody had more than anybody else. Not after the crisis. D’you think that’ll be the same Outside? Will we look after each other? Will we all work together?’

Paz leaned back on his elbows. ‘Nope. Nothing’s going to be the same. I’m going to have heaps of money and servants to do all the work.’

We laughed, but then Brex said, ‘Maybe that’s what we’ll all be – servants to the people who have money.’

That sobered us. ‘You know,’ Jidda said, ‘if that happens, I vote we run away and find a place to live by ourselves. I’d rather work like I did on Taris than work for somebody who didn’t even know me and just for money.’

‘But you could get money to buy a car, or … I dunno, whatever the latest techno stuff is,’ Wenda pointed out.

‘Yeah, there is that.’ Jidda looked thoughtful.

Marba sat back and watched us, his own pet lab rats.

A
FTER THE MEAL WE RETURNED to the big room to wait for Willem to talk to us.

‘Why Willem?’ Paz asked. ‘Is he the big boss of Aotearoa?’

‘Nah,’ said Wenda, ‘he’s the king. He’s captured us and we’re going to be his slaves.’

Silvern kicked a cushion, then sprawled out on it. ‘Well, good luck to him if he tries to make a slave out of me.’

Shallym clapped her hands over her ears. ‘Stop it! That’s too horrible to joke about.’

Marba watched us, his eyes bright as they always were when he watched his lab rats performing.

‘What do you think?’ I jabbed him with my foot. ‘Come on, tell us what you reckon our fate’s going to be.’

But instead of answering, he said, ‘Look, there’s Vima.’

People smiled at her and one or two spoke. Nobody withdrew. I managed not to glance at Sina and Jov as Inva came to meet his sister and lead her to where their family waited in their place in the alcove. Then the door opened again as Willem, Fergus, Malia and Leng came in.

Suddenly I felt tension in the air. The room seemed full of worries.
What will happen? Where will we live?

I slammed my mind shut. I would not let the thoughts of others get into my head. Pel touched my hand.
You
okay
? she mouthed.

I pulled my hands away from my face. I sketched a brief gesture at where our parents sat. ‘They’re worried. It’s like a …’ I shook my head, frustrated. How could I explain? ‘They’re sending worry out into the room. It’s a kind of grey fog with words in it.’

There wasn’t time to say more as the room fell quiet, as we waited to hear our future. I wondered if Marba had caught any of the thoughts, but when I glanced at him his face was impassive. Then Willem began speaking. He was brisk and businesslike. We would live, he told us, for six weeks in a refugee centre.

Grif raised her hand. ‘Willem, with your permission I’ll explain what a refugee is.’

Willem nodded, his face expressionless as he listened to her, but it looked as if our ignorance about refugees was another nugget of information he was storing in his brain – and what it proved was that there was a shipload of learning ahead for these refugees of his.

Fergus was quick to reassure us. ‘Don’t worry. We’re used to helping people in your situation.’ He glanced around with his easy smile. ‘It’ll be hard for you to start with, but in a week or two you’ll be feeling much more at home.’

‘I’ll feel better when I don’t look so different,’ Wenda whispered.

Leng showed us pictures of the building where we were to live. It was a high rise in the city, surrounded by other buildings. We could see no gardens, no animals.

Nixie, who had lived Outside before Taris was developed, asked, ‘I am guessing New Zealand still has a money economy, so who pays for our support? And how will we keep ourselves once the six weeks are up?’

‘Yes, it is still a money economy,’ Willem said, ‘but very different from when you lived here.’ He gave Nixie a brief smile. ‘Banks are now simply clearing houses for the exchange of money. They charge and pay minimum interest. Businesses are run as cooperatives and everything has to be environmentally sound.’

He explained the system at some length but for those of us who’d never really understood the concept of money, it didn’t mean much. He didn’t say where the money for our support was coming from.

Aspa put up his hand. ‘Willem, it doesn’t feel right for us to sit around doing nothing except use up money others have worked hard to get. Can’t we work and learn at the same time?’

Willem looked around the room, assessing the reaction to Aspa’s request. ‘Who feels the same way?’

Every single adult raised a hand, as did all those in Inva’s stratum, the one above ours in age. None of us did. We didn’t want to work. We wanted to explore, go places, be free to do what we wanted.

Silvern muttered, ‘I want some fun first.’

‘We’re bad!’ Paz whispered, but he didn’t look worried about it.

Brex said, ‘Willem’s noticed us.’

He’d done no more than glance at us, but I was sure he’d noted our lack of compliance.

He said, ‘We’ll take your wishes into consideration. But I suggest you wait a few days before you make decisions such as trying to work while you learn. To be blunt …’

‘When is he anything else?’ Silvern whispered.

‘… you’re going to be a lot more use to society if you fully understand how everything works.’

Rofan raised her hand. ‘Willem, please tell us about the governance of Aotearoa.’

He glanced in our direction again, as if he expected we wouldn’t be interested. But he hadn’t lived under a corrupt and evil governance as we had done. Well, maybe he had. Maybe he still did. We wanted to hear every word about the regime we would now be living under.

‘It’s much the same as it’s always been,’ he said. ‘We have a prime minister who is head of government, and representatives of the people who make up a parliament, and they all have to stand for re-election every four years.’