Walking to the Stars (19 page)

"Did you do that?” Samuel asked quietly, as Talgerit started walking ahead of them, over the melted bitumen, towards where the towering trees and wild profusion of what Samuel knew as bottlebrushes indicated a water source.

"No,” Nick said. “As a doctor I was too valuable to send into a blast zone. I euthanized the people that needed it, when they arrived at the military hospital camp."

Samuel slid his hand around Nick's elbow and squeezed it gently, and Talgerit looked back and waved at them vigorously.

The river was thick green in color, opaque and murky, with brown foam clinging to the banks where the tree roots were making a stand against erosion. It looked about thirty meters across, and was running slowly, the surface roiling a little.

"How deep is it?” Samuel asked, leaning over the edge of the bank and holding onto a tree to look at the water more closely. “Can we get across?"

"Deep,” Talgerit said. “Too deep."

"A raft?” Nick asked. “If we made one we could float down to the city at least."

"Can't hide on a raft,” Talgerit said. “But it'd be easier than walking."

They walked down the river, finding the remains of a path that Nick had vague memories of riding a bike down as a child, and the wild forest of bottlebrushes and wattles that had grown around it gave them some cover. They clambered and pushed their way through, until the shattered remains of a concrete bridge came into sight.

Nick swore, under his breath, and stopped and stared at the pylons that still towered out of the river water. “Three lanes each way,” he said.

"That wasn't bombed,” Samuel said. “Damage is all wrong. Look how the road surface has been removed systematically. Someone blew this up, made sure that no one was going to use it."

Talgerit looked up at the pylons and shrugged. “Waste of a bridge,” he said fatalistically, and he pushed another wattle branch aside and waited for the others to follow him.

The dog yipped, and snarled, and a figure stepped out of the thicket of bottlebrushes in front of them, rock in their hands.

They had a dog with them, too, a mangy mongrel, underfed and threatening, just like the person who lobbed the rock at them.

Talgerit moved fast, just like he had with the dog, scooping up a rock and tossing it hard and flat at the person, the rock glancing off their shoulder.

The person backed off, hands held out in front of them, face so disfigured by growths that Nick couldn't tell the person's gender, even when he got a good look at them, and he pushed Samuel hard, urging him past the person, sliding along the path, too, while Talgerit held another rock in his hand, ready to strike again.

Samuel was shaking when Nick grabbed his hand and dragged him down the river path, Talgerit running behind them, the dog still snarling, but Nick just kept running, pulling Samuel with him.

They crashed through the undergrowth, burst out into a clearing and found themselves facing the business end of a sub machine gun held by a bored looking young man in khaki.

"Stop!” the young man said, and Talgerit tossed the rock he was still holding at the man and bolted for the river, only a few metres away across clear ground.

Samuel didn't need any urging this time, throwing himself after Talgerit while the soldier clutched at his face one-handed and attempted to aim his gun with the other.

A burst of gunfire sounded behind them, and the man started yelling. Nick found himself making outrageous promises to the Ancestors based on the fact that the gun was set on single shot, not automatic, so the bullets weren't peppering his body.

The water was cold and slimy, and Talgerit and Samuel were both swimming for all they were worth, across the river ahead of Nick.

They had about 100 meters of water to cross, and it was running quickly, swiftly taking them downstream from the military post they'd stumbled into. Nick picked up the speed of his strokes further, before anyone with larger ordinance turned up.

Samuel pulled himself out of the river first, scrambling up the slippery mud bank, clutching at overhanging branches and tree roots, hauling himself out of the water, then reaching down to drag the dog out of the water.

Talgerit was ahead of Nick, up on the bank, and Nick beached a few metres up from them, against some rocks that had at some stage slid down the bank from the retaining wall at the top.

He scrambled up the slope, and back to where Samuel had got to Talgerit first, slipping down again in the mud.

"Are either of you hit?” Nick said urgently, wiping water out of his face and grabbing at Talgerit and Samuel to stop himself from slipping into the water again.

Talgerit retched and said, “My arm, I think."

Samuel said, “I'm fine, but Talgerit is sick,” and he nudged the dog away from where it was trying to get at the vomit.

"Can you move, Talgerit?” Nick asked. “Enough to get up the slope and away from the water?"

Talgerit nodded, and Samuel and Nick hauled him to his feet between them and towed him up the bank, physically lifting him over fallen trees and into the cover provided by a patch of creeper that had gone wild.

Nick unbuttoned Talgerit's borrowed jacket and pulled it off him, lifting the sleeve that had blood oozing through the river water off carefully, and he found himself sighing with relief.

"It's an in-and-out wound,” he said. “I can see the exit hole clearly."

"Fuck, it hurts,” Talgerit said, and he looked as white as it was possible for him to.

"I'm going to clean it up, put some stitches in,” Nick said. “That's if any of my medical gear survived the swim."

"What do you want me to do?” Samuel asked, unwinding the now drenched feather shoes from Talgerit's neck and putting them aside.

"Fire,” Nick said. “If you can. And find a can or something to boil water in."

It didn't take long to assess the damage to Talgerit's arm.

"It missed the bone,” Nick said, and Talgerit made desperate whimpering sounds in his throat while Nick's alcohol-dipped fingers poked at the wound and blood trickled down Talgerit's arm. “Tore through your deltoid, missed anything else major. You were lucky."

"Fuck,” Talgerit swore. “It fucking hurts."

"I'm going to sew it up, at least temporarily,” Nick said. “If we get out of this mess quickly, I'll do you a proper repair."

"If we die tomorrow?” Samuel asked, looking up briefly from where he was crouched over a mound of shredded paperbark, chipping away with a chunk of rock on a piece of scrap steel.

"Then I won't have wasted hours and put Talgerit through agony unnecessarily,” Nick said.

Samuel fed the fire twigs and leaves, coaxing it along, then chunks of a dead and partly charred tree. Nick squatted beside him, hand on Samuel's shoulder. “Find something we can boil water in,” he said quietly.

Samuel glanced up at Nick, and nodded, and Nick tightened his grip on Samuel.

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Ruined houses ran close to the riverside, blackened shells of buildings, and Samuel took a deep breath and climbed into the rubble of the first one.

Someone had been there ahead of him, had even lived there for a while, sheltered by propped up sheets of plaster and the remains of doors, and then he found their corpse, desiccated and skeletal, curled up under a pile of rags.

"I'm so sorry,” he whispered, but it didn't stop him from rummaging through the pile of belongings beside the corpse.

The dog met Samuel at the edge of the scrub, whimpering, and Samuel patted his head and followed the dog back to the corpse overgrown with creeper.

Talgerit was asleep, or unconscious, Nick crouching beside him, and Samuel held out the metal disc of a street light, the underside already charred from being used over a fire. “Will this do?” he whispered.

Nick nodded. “Go and fill it from the river, and put the water on to boil."

Sometime later, Samuel said, “Water's boiling,” and he scooped the last little bit of scum off the water.

"Good,” Nick said, and Samuel watched as he opened the sodden packets of suture thread and needles and dropped them into the water.

A chunk of scrap metal simmered in the water, too, that Nick had scrubbed in the first batch of water that Samuel had carried back to camp, and Nick gritted his teeth and put his hand in the boiling water and pulled that out first.

Samuel had collected balga leaves for him, the cleanest looking he could find, and Nick put the scalding hot chunk of metal on them to cool. Ten minutes later, out came the suture thread and needles, and the scissors from his kit.

Nick plunged his hands briefly into the pan to scald them, and Samuel flinched, then it got worse when Nick picked up the scissors and cut a piece of meat off Talgerit's arm.

"I'll take the dog, go have a look around,” Samuel said, because staying around and watching Nick cut up Talgerit was going to make Samuel throw up.

"Good idea,” Nick said distractedly, and he carefully threaded the needle for the first time. “Hold still, Talgerit."

Talgerit said something in Noongar through gritted teeth, and Samuel almost retched as Nick drew the needle through flesh.

The dog followed him, much to Samuel's relief, and he made his way up the hill, past the house with the corpse, into what had once been a residential area.

The trees that grew out of the rubble were tall and stately, covered in purple flowers, the bricks and car bodies beneath them carpeted in the same purple. The dog caught a rat, eating it in three quick gulps, but they found no feral dogs, not like they had seen over the proceeding days. Samuel didn't put down the rock he carried, just in case.

The vehicle stood out, conspicuously intact amongst the jumbled, rusted and blackened car bodies, and Samuel ducked behind what looked like it had once been a bus, holding his breath, listening anxiously for movement or voices.

He heard none, and the dog looked at Samuel curiously, tipping his head on one side. Samuel guessed the dog knew far more than he ever would, and he crawled out from behind the wreck.

The shining vehicle was military, on tracks, gun on the top, and Samuel peered in through the open door cautiously. “Tell me if anyone comes,” he whispered to the dog, and he clambered in.

The vehicle had two seats at the front, one behind the other, and a row of canvas seats on each side of the bulk of the car. Above the rows, stuffed into webbing, was exactly what Samuel had hoped to find: first aid kits. He grabbed both of the kits, and the large clear container labeled water, and bolted.

It wasn't sophisticated, and it wasn't pretty, and if they lived Talgerit was going to have a crater in his arm, but it stopped the bleeding mostly, and that and not having a massive infection was about the best that Nick could hope for.

When Samuel came hurtling back into the shelter, Nick was boiling a chunk of cloth torn from the bottom of his shirt, ready to bind Talgerit's arm, and Samuel handed him two first aid kits.

"Where did you get these?” Nick asked delightedly, opening the first kit and taking out a field dressing and wrapping it around Talgerit's arm firmly, then tying it in place.

"Military vehicle,” Samuel said. “I grabbed the water, too."

Talgerit stirred weakly on the pile of balga leaves and said, “Army car, unna?"

"Up there,” Samuel said, pointing away from the river, up the slope.

"Army car. We steal it, eh?” Talgerit said.

"Where there're army cars, there're usually people with guns,” Nick said. “And that's bad."

"Reckon they're looking for us,” Talgerit said. “That's bad, too.” He struggled up to sitting, Nick's arm around him. “Steal it,” he said.

Nick looked at Samuel hopefully. “Did it look like it worked?"

Samuel nodded. “It did. I didn't know how to tell how much fuel it had, but the tracks had green leaves stuck in them. Worst case scenario, we get shot. Best case, we don't have to walk anymore."

"I'm already shot,” Talgerit said. “Steal it."

"I agree,” Nick said. “Think you can stand, Talgerit?"

"No,” Talgerit said. “Help me up."

Talgerit's feather boots squelched faintly when he walked, but the stillness was with him, and he moved silently, dog slinking along behind him, Samuel and Nick on either side of him, holding him upright and carrying first aid kits and the water canister.

A small APC sat in the middle of a partially cleared road, surrounded by destroyed houses and a crumpled block of flats.

"Can you start it, Nick?” Samuel whispered.

"I drove one twenty-five years ago, and they don't have keys,” Nick said. The M113s had been the preferred armored personnel carrier when Nick had been in the armed forces, a supposedly improved machine that had been a complete failure in Nick's opinion, useless at off-road recovery work, and so fuel-thirsty that as soon as the gas and oil fields were bombed they became scrap. Someone must have opened up an oil field again.

They left Talgerit and the dog crouching down in the tumble of rubble and Samuel and Nick snuck across to the APC.

Nick opened the door as quietly and quickly as he could. No sirens blared, so he slipped into the driver's seat and looked at the controls.

The gauges were up close to eye level, and the levers and steering column were lower. The backdoor of the M113 slid open, then closed again, and Nick pushed in the fuel supply lever, and tapped the ignition button.

The engine spluttered and the starter unit whirred, and Nick pumped the fuel supply, then glanced back at where Samuel was helping Talgerit into a sling seat.

"Samuel, come here,” he called out, and Samuel scrambled across the metal tray of the vehicle.

"Accelerator,” he said, pointing at one of the foot pedals. “Brake. And that's the steering."

"Big vehicle,” Samuel said, and Nick slid out of the driver's seat, leaned over and flicked the switch to lock the doors.

"Get us out of here."

Blood was soaking through Talgerit's field dressing, so Nick grabbed the second first aid kit and pulled it open. More field dressings and a compression bandage were stacked among the supplies, so he ripped the compression bandage open and wrapped it around Talgerit's upper arm, then strapped his arm to his side with tape.