Helix Wars (19 page)

She had an awful presentiment that he was about to tell her that he’d capitulated, backed down, and told Sabine that he was not going to leave.

He said, “She pleaded with me, begged me to stay.”

Her throat felt suddenly parched. She managed to say, “And?”

“And... we came to an arrangement. She suggested it, not me. She said I could see you whenever I wanted, but that I must remain with her.”

She sat up quickly, trying to suppress the tears. “And you agreed to
that
?”

He smiled, drew her to him and cupped her face in his hands. “Of course not. I love you. I want you. The agreement we reached was that I’d spend a week every month with Sabine, and the rest with you...”

She looked into his eyes. “And she agreed?” she asked.

He nodded. “I gave her an ultimatum – it was either that, or I would walk out and never see her again. She relented.”

She swallowed, nodded. “Okay...” she murmured.

He said, “But that’s just a start, Maria. It won’t work out, of course. Sabine will resent you, resent the time I spend away... and given time, given her anger, that will work to my advantage.” He stroked her cheek. “Be patient, Maria, and we’ll soon be together for good, okay?”

She nodded, not liking the side of Dan Stewart he was exhibiting here; the manipulator, the schemer who set people against each other and eventually got what he wanted. She’d seen him employ similar tactics with his team.

She silenced her doubts, told herself she was being disloyal to someone who had only ever shown her love and honesty.

They made love again, and later, as he slept, she lay on her back and stared out through the floor-to-ceiling window at the silent Sails, floating serenely in the light of the setting sun.

N
INE
/// C
APTURE

1

T
HE SAIL-RAIL TRAIN
passed through swathes of agricultural land that extended across the broad plain between the mountain ranges, and Ellis found the view fascinating. Though he had visited over a dozen worlds as a shuttle pilot, his schedules had been so tight that he’d seen little of the various worlds he’d visited. Now, for the first time in years, he experienced a sense of freedom – ironic considering the fact that he was imprisoned in a small room aboard a hurtling train, on the run from the Sporelli.

“For perhaps a hundred kilometres,” Calla said, “the land is like this. All farmland. This area produces much of the food that feeds the planet. We have only a small population; little more than a million souls. Many work the land. Then there are fisher-folk, and a few who work in industry, mainly with timber.”

“A million? That seems a lot compared to the population of New Earth. Of course, we’ve only been here for two hundred years.” He smiled as he recalled the bi-centenary celebrations four years ago; he’d taken Ben to the fair in Carrelliville.

“How many humans live on New Earth?” Calla asked.

“A little over three hundred thousand,” he said. “Half of those in the capital, Carrelliville, and the remaining fifty thousand in a dozen townships scattered across the world.”

“Were you born in Carrelliville?”

“I’m from a small town on the coast, called Hendry. Named after one of the First Four, Joseph Hendry. He retired to the coast in his seventies, when there were only a few A-frames there.”

He recalled how he’d perched on his grandfather’s knee in the main square and gazed across at the A-frame where the famous Joe Hendry and his wife Sissy Kaluchek had ended their days, and his grandfather had told Jeff about the time, as a five-year-old, he’d actually met the famous Hendry.

Calla was watching him. “You have good memories of growing up there.”

He looked into her cobalt eyes, and wondered if she were reading his mind, or rather his emotions. Oddly, the thought did not bother him at all.

“Very good memories. I had a wonderful childhood. I was brought up by my father; he was a good man, if a little strict. My mother died when I was young – I can hardly recall her. My father used to read me the books about the Settling written by Olembe and Kaluchek. I loved the adventure story about the
Lovelock
’s crash-landing and the trek from the lowest circuit to what was to become New Earth.”

She laid a gentle hand on his. “And now, Jeff, you are on an adventure of your own.”

Memories of growing up in Hendry always fetched up against his first meeting with Maria Ellenopoulis, the bittersweet recollection of his initial infatuation, his love for her, soured in retrospect by what had happened to that love.

Calla’s hand was still on his, her touch as light as that of a resting butterfly. She said, almost under her breath, “You can talk about that, too, Jeff.”

He squeezed her hand. “Thank you, but...” If she were reading his emotions, then she would know full well that he did not want to recollect the pain. “So tell me about your childhood.”

She smiled. “My father was a Diviner, my mother a Healer. It was inevitable, I suppose, that I should inherit one of their talents.” She paused, her gaze miles away.

She went on, “We lived in a manse in the high-plateau town of Hansa. I went to a local school from the age of one to three, and then, when my abilities manifested themselves, I moved on to the seminary at Verlaine. I have been based nearby ever since.”

“Based?” he said. “But you travel around your world?”

She inclined her head. “My work is peripatetic. I think I must have criss-crossed my world a dozen times or more.”

“That’s far more than I’ve ever travelled on New Earth. There are places there I’ve never visited.”

“But your duties take you to worlds I can only dream of visiting,” she said.

He explained about the frustration of seeing only the spaceports and their surroundings. “But here I am again, talking about myself. I want to know about you, your work.”

She shrugged her slender shoulders modestly. “I lead what you might think of as a monotonous life, travelling from town to village to town, healing people, settling disputes.”

“I would have thought that a people as pacific as the Phandra have few disputes.”

“There are always disputes, petty squabbles, differences of opinion about how to go about things. In these cases I get to know the people, to read their characters, divine their motivations, and then use the knowledge to suggest a resolution that best suits all parties.”

“It must be a wonderful gift.”

She smiled. “I know, intellectually, that it is. Yet, as I have always had it... We have a saying, among my kind. Now, let me see if I can translate it.” She paused a second or two, frowning, then said. “We say, ‘familiarity can lead to apathy.’ Well, I hope that doesn’t apply to me.”

He smiled. “I’d never accuse you of apathy.”

He stared into her eyes, wondering if she were reading his emotions, his feelings.

She turned quickly to the mullioned window and said, “We are almost at the plateau’s edge. In one hour, maybe two, towards sunset, we will arrive at the junction town of Lamala. It is one of the most beautiful places on all Phandra, clinging to the lip of the escarpment and overlooking the lower plains and the distant coastline. And it is most beautiful of all when the sun is setting. When we arrive, Jeff, we will leave the room and go to a small deck directly above, and watch the sun sink into the ocean, yes?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“But first, I will fetch supper.”

He took the precaution of bolting the door behind her, and opening it minutes later when her five insistent knocks sounded. She hurried into the room, bearing a hessian bag, and crossed to the window.

“I met an Elder in the refectory, Jeff. He had news from the interior.”

“News? Bad news, I take it?”

He sat down on an ancient sofa, sinking back so that his knees projected into the air. She joined him. “The Sporelli are rounding up Healers and Diviners and taking them from this world. So far they have arrested over a hundred of my kind.”

He shook his head. “Why? What do they want with...?”

“The Elder says that they will force the Healers to mend the casualties from the imminent conflict with the D’rayni.” She bit her lower lip. “And the Elder reported that the Sporelli have agents in Mayalahn.”

He repeated the word. “So?”

“Mayalahn is where the sail-rail terminates on the coast. It will be the end of our journey. The Elder says the Sporelli will check everyone who alights from the train.”

He rubbed his jaw, feeling the beginnings of a prickly beard. “And how will I get off the train undetected?”

She took his hand and led him across to the window seat. “Open the window,” she ordered.

He clumsily worked at a stiff wooden catch, and finally it came free. The small window panel swung outwards. “Now look out,” Calla said.

He stuck his head through the narrow gap, thinking he would be hard pressed to force his shoulders through the opening.

He peered down at the grassland speeding by thirty metres beneath the ship. “A long way down.”

“The plan was to wait until the train had emptied. The Elders had arranged for a ladder to be placed against the stern of the train. You would climb down to a covered wagon which would take you to a boat in the harbour.”

“And now?”

“A change of plan,” she said. “The Elders have arranged for the train to be delayed. Before we reach Mayalahn, a stretch of track will be found to be in bad repair and the train will halt. Once we have stopped, we will make our escape.”

“You’ll come with me to the coast?”

She nodded. “But there we must say goodbye, and I will make my way inland, to the central mountains and relative safety.”

“You’ll be in danger?”

“Wherever I go, I will be in danger.”

“Then make the crossing to D’rayni with me,” he urged. “And after that...” What was he saying? That Calla could come with him to New Earth? The idea was ludicrous, if appealing.

She smiled, reached out and touched his cheek. “Then I would perhaps be in greater danger, a Phandran on the world the Sporelli are intent on invading.”

“I’m sorry.”

She smiled. “Don’t be, Jeff. I am doing this, helping you, because it is the right thing to do, for you, for me, and for my people.”

She opened the bag. “Now, I have brought red bread and garl cheese, a local delicacy, and white wine from the region where I was born. We will eat, and then watch the sun go down as the train arrives at Lamala.”

2

T
HEY LEFT THE
cabin and Calla led the way up a narrow, twisting staircase. Ellis squeezed uncomfortably between the timber planks, climbing the tiny treads as he would a ladder. They emerged onto a small, high deck with a view over the rails curving ahead towards the setting sun on the horizon.

“Oh. I expected the sails to be up,” he said. The masts and rigging were bare, the sails furled.

“They are only used on the plains,” Calla explained. “For the past twenty kilometres we have been travelling down a slight incline towards the escarpment’s edge.”

“Freewheeling,” he said.

Calla leaned against the low rail, staring ahead, and he sat down on the deck and admired the view.

The sun was going down to their left, a molten globe spreading its orange light across the horizon. Directly ahead, Ellis made out a string of lights. “Lamala?” he asked.

“The junction town. From there, the track branches three ways – north, south, and straight ahead to the coast. We will arrive shortly.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said. The air was warm, heavy with a spicy, floral fragrance.

Calla watched him as he inhaled. She said, “This region produces a number of spices used in cooking. The predominant scent is the yander tree. We are passing through a plantation now.”

Far below and to either side, he made out orderly rows of tall trees hung with a dark ribbon-like fruit.

The sight provoked a sudden bitter memory. Maria’s father had been a fruit farmer: the regimented rows of trees brought back memories of a particular vacation spent looking after the farm one summer, during which he and Maria had argued, seriously, for the first time.

He realised that Calla was watching him in the twilight, her large eyes catching the last light of the sun. She said softly, “You humans, you are a strange people.”

He smiled. “Met many of us, have you?”

“Just you, Jeff.”

“And you deduce collective strangeness from a sample of one?” he said.

“I know you well enough to know – vicariously, I admit – several of your acquaintances, friends, lovers.”

He stared at her. He murmured, “Like who?”

“Your father; your friend, Michael, a fellow pilot. And Maria...”