Fierce September Read online

  ‘Gardens,’ Paz said slowly. ‘Rabbits, chickens, but pigs instead of goats.’

  ‘No engines,’ I said. ‘And I’m betting that kids and teachers all work in the gardens and on the farm.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Christina said, ‘but that’s because it’s excellent training for the children. They learn alongside adults doing the same work.’

  ‘But why don’t you use tractors – tools that would make your lives easier?’ Marba asked. ‘Why would you want to live the way we had to?’

  The answer was simple and sounded sensible. The people here strove to be self-sufficient. ‘We learnt during the worst of the epidemics, during the worst of the weather events, that we couldn’t rely on imports,’ Christina explained. ‘So we are as self-sufficient as possible.’

  There was more to it than that. Thomas yawned and wandered away. They talked for ages and it was like listening to James, except their ideas were down to earth and practical. The school’s philosophy, they told us, was to live simply in the world, to care for the planet, and that was best done by limiting production to necessities, by zero-importing which in turn would reduce unnecessary production in other countries.

  It sounded good, it sounded logical, although I could tell Marba was ready to launch into a whole set of counter-arguments. All I knew was that no way did I want to have anything to do with a recreation of Taris.

  ‘Count me out,’ Silvern said, echoing my thoughts. ‘I’m not going back to a Taris life, not ever.’

  Jethro stood up. ‘Well, you don’t have to. Plenty of other ways to live.’

  The chatting appeared to be over. ‘Hang on!’ Paz said. ‘What about Willem? Why would people want to harm him? He’s not exactly the sort you’d expect kidnappers to grab.’

  Jethro kept walking. ‘It’s no mystery, no surprise either. That lot have been protesting about the school since it started.’

  ‘Wait!’ Silvern called. ‘Tell us what happened – have the police caught the culprits? There are too many damn secrets around, and I don’t like it.’

  Jethro turned and smiled at us. ‘Come along with me. It’s work time. You can help. We’ll talk as we work.’

  We got up. ‘Good luck with getting me in a garden,’ Silvern muttered.

  But we did end up in the gardens, chipping away at the weeds as Jethro talked. ‘Soraya and Khan are in custody,’ he told us, ‘as are the four of their community who went with them to capture Willem. They belong to a very conservative religious group. According to them, Willem’s mind-training is paying due to the devil. I’m not surprised they kidnapped him.’

  ‘Were they going to infect him and kill him that way?’ Marba asked.

  Jethro’s answer made no sense. ‘They most likely would have brainwashed him and sent him back into the world to preach their own beliefs.’ He saw our blank faces and explained what brainwashing was. We stared at him, horrified. ‘Welcome to Outside,’ he said.

  Marba frowned. ‘But I thought religious means good.’

  Jethro’s smile was wry. ‘It should – depends on which side of the fence you’re on.’

  ‘Could they have released the virus?’ Silvern asked. ‘Could they have manufactured it?’

  But Jethro and Christina said no, they had no expertise. ‘Although,’ Christina added, ‘they’d be crazy enough to do it. If you die of a sickness, it’s proof that you’re not godly enough.’

  ‘But I’d be willing to bet they’re not the ones behind the virus or the ones posting all the lies on the net about you either,’ Jethro said.

  We hoed in silence. Random parts of the day’s revelations collided and bounced through my mind. The kidnapping – there had to be another reason. Nobody would do that for such a pathetic reason. But then I thought of Hilto who would have done that, or worse. Of Majool who had ordered the killing of Mother’s sister and Dad’s five-year-old brother. And then the possibility that these people had nothing to do with the virus, so there was a whole other mystery to solve. I threw down my hoe. I needed to run before all this stuff blew my mind into meltdown.

  Jethro didn’t call me back.

  Running didn’t calm me. I sprinted back to the woodheap I’d passed a couple of times, grabbed the axe and started chopping. Majool. Hilto. Lenna. Secrets. Lies. Treachery. One vicious slice of the axe for each word.

  ‘You chop well.’

  I spun around, the axe wavering in my hands.

  The boy jumped back. ‘Whoa! You’re one scary lady!’ He stood there laughing at me before he stepped forward to take the axe. ‘Jethro says to come back now.’

  Tiredness crashed in on me. ‘Okay.’

  The boy chatted about easy things as we walked back along the paths. His name was Ivor Shimanska, he was seventeen and in his last year at school. His words hovered in the air around me, undemanding and calming. Maybe he was Jethro’s son. Different last names, but who knew how things worked in this crazy place? They were both tall and rangy, dark hair clipped close to their skulls. Huh! They wanted to be like Taris? They should shave their stupid heads.

  I sensed there was banter under Ivor’s easy chat. Too bad. Let him make fun of me. What did he know about living in a place like Taris with three manic puppeteers pulling strings the rest of us didn’t have a clue were there?

  He touched me on the arm. ‘Sorry. I’m not really laughing at you.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You’re so weighed down with trouble. I was trying to bring you light.’ He pulled a face. ‘Looks like I should practise more.’

  I straightened up. ‘S’okay. It helped. A bit. Probably.’

  ‘D-minus for light-bringing,’ he said.

  I liked that he could laugh at himself. It was easy to smile at him. ‘A-plus for effort.’

  I felt better. Not great, but definitely better.

  Ivor delivered me to the others, now back in the big room, gave the thumbs up to Jethro and disappeared.

  I expected Jethro to comment about the way I’d run off, but all he said was, ‘Come and eat, then we’ll take you to the train.’

  ‘In a wheelbarrow?’ Paz asked.

  ‘If you like. But we usually use the horse and trap for such a journey.’

  It was nice to know we wouldn’t have to walk. But which century was this place in? It was full of contradictions too, because they seemed happy enough to use computers and there was other technology in the office. I asked, ‘So how come you have computers if you don’t use modern equipment?’

  ‘You had them on Taris,’ Jethro pointed out. ‘We use them because they’re part of the modern world, but if the worst happens we can still function without them.’

  Jethro and Christina called the hospital before we left to ask for news of Willem. He was resting comfortably, his vital signs stable. I called Mother and again it was Sina who answered.

  ‘Juno! I’m so glad to see you. Sheen gave me strict instructions to wake her up if you called again.’

  ‘Is that wise, Sina? Shouldn’t we let her sleep?’

  Sina was reassuring. ‘She’s doing fine, honestly. I think it would be stressful for her not to talk to you.’

  I watched as she took the mini-comp into the bedroom and woke Mother. For a moment I was gripped by panic that she wouldn’t recognise me, but I need not have worried.

  ‘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.
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  ‘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.’

  Have you heard? Oban saw the police arrest Willem’s kidnappers. He said they shouted about God and infidels.

  Do you know? How did Marba and the others know Willem was being taken to New Plymouth? Was it Hera again?

  Have you heard? Sheen cries when you ask her if Hera knew about Willem, but she doesn’t answer the question.

  www.warningtheworld.blogspot.com Taris strikes again

  20

  TROUBLE

  OUR 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.’