View from Ararat (19 page)

I looked across at Jules, then I stepped back in front of Galen.

‘We moved,' I said. ‘Somewhere safer. Memorise this.' I punched in the new data-routing protocol. ‘It's encrypted. No one can be allowed to find out where we are. You understand?'

He nodded, and I watched him read the screen.

When I looked up again, I cancelled the code and waited until he typed it back to me. It was correct. And he would never forget it. Jerome Hamita was one of the few people I knew who had a truly eidetic memory.

He looked at me through the screen. ‘You heard what happened?'

‘We heard. How bad is it?'

For a moment he was silent. ‘Worse than they're saying. There are maybe five hundred bodies out there in different parts of the camp. But at least some of the ones who got out will survive – for a while.'

‘How's Kaz?' I asked the question for Jules.

‘She's fine. Sleeping at the moment. I don't know what we did without her.'

I smiled at Jules and he sat down on one of the stools.

I continued. ‘I suppose you'll be packing up soon. No patients.'

But he shook his head.

‘That's the strange thing Charlie. They didn't leave. It was part of their plan. Only the healthy ones actually escaped. The others, the ones already infected, voted to stay. No point in spreading the damned thing any further than necessary. I've got more patients than I know what to do with, and they all say the same thing when they arrive. ‘Gabriel sent us. He said you might learn something useful.' I need more help, guys. Cerruti and Fromme have gone. It's just me, Lomax and the two girls.'

‘Who's Gabriel?' Galen beat me to the question.

‘Gabriel Bernardi. He organised the escape, but he died in the massacre.'

‘How many helpers do you need?' Jules stepped in. Suddenly there was quite a crowd around the console. ‘I could probably rustle up a few volunteers from around here.'

Hamita smiled. ‘Five or six, for starters. And do you have any isolation suits? We're running out here, and I get the feeling we're not going to have regular supply drops from now on.'

‘We've got some. I'll see what else we can get for you. Give us a list of essentials.'

Hamita looked grateful. ‘I'll get it to you by tonight.'

Galen moved the chair forward a touch, gently forcing the rest of us out to the sides.

‘How's our miracle girl?'

I knew he had to ask. For days the child in bed seventeen of the Wieta infirmary had been hovering in a limbo between life and death, still infected, but not defeated. For some reason, though the Crystal had invaded her small frame, something within her was resisting its spread.

Hamita had found her early in the crisis. No one knew her name or what had happened to her parents, though they were probably dead somewhere. The question was, why wasn't she?

She was the one ray of hope in all the avenues of trial and error we had been pursuing, and we didn't have a clue what made her different.

Hamita looked towards one of the screens at his console.

‘She's stable. No change at all. I just wish . . .'

‘Don't worry, Jerome,' I cut in. ‘We'll find the answer. And soon.'

Galen looked up at me and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

Sometimes, Charlie, you're just too optimistic for your own good.

I-C Ward, Community Hospital

Carmody Island

Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

27/1/203 Standard

KAEBA

Again she tastes the tonings, rehearsing in her mind the humanchild's Song of Birthing. And knowing, even as she does, that she has failed to capture it. Again.

But this time she is sensing a response. An echo from a listening mind, gifting back the resonance of her Song. Not Loef, who rests, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, his mind closed to her Telling.

Not Loef but Juulius. The humanchild.

But such a thing is impossible. No human can respond to a Song on that level – not even the special humans trained on the Island in the ways of the Elokoi.

It is a mistake . . . impossible.

She sits up in her chair and stares at the tiny baby as he lies there behind the screen of plastic. His eyes are wide and he returns her gaze with an understanding beyond his few short days.

–
The colours are wrong, Kaeba. Listen . . .

Gently the Song is returned to her, but altered. Subtly improved. The colours refined, the emotions honed, until the images begin to echo the feelings she remembers. The Song is hers, its structure and its form, the intensity of the birthpain and the rapture in the moment of their Sharing, but now the colours shine. Finally, it is True.

–
But how? How can you
—?

–
Understand? I know what Loef knows, and he knows me and what I know.

–
But the Song? Loef is no Teller. He has no gift with Songs. How could he teach you to Tell a Song in such a way? So perfectly. You are not even Elokoi . . .

–
Part-Elokoi. But I have . . . we . . . have Shared. I know what is within his mind, beneath his mind. Beneath the clanmind and the racemind. You would be a Teller, Kaeba. What is a Teller? One who is open to the Truth. One who can reach down and taste the colours of a Song. But the Song lives beyond the Teller, beyond the Telling. It draws its life from the colours of the soul, in every listener. Without a listener all Songs are meaningless. Loef is no Teller, but he is part of the Song, and I am a part of him. And he of me . . . Kaeba . . .

She stands and moves to where he lies, climbing carefully onto the high stool beside the cot.

–
Juulius
. . . ?

–
I know you, too.

She reaches past the screen, down into the orange aura of a sterilisation field, and touches him. Long Elokoi fingers run gently down the soft white skin of his cheek. Through the screen he is watching her, his blue eyes holding hers, drawing her in, and she feels love.

Then the lids slide shut and the humanchild falls gently into sleep.

19

Preliminary Analysis

Wieta Quarantine Camp

Edison Sector (South)

27/1/203 Standard

RAMÓN'S STORY

We knew where we would find her. Where else would she go? All she knew of Deucalion was the historycave and the Wieta camp, and with the cordon gone, I should have guessed what she would do.

I'd known Maija since I was ten years old, and I think I'd probably been in love with her most of that time. We knew each other pretty well. So I knew she'd have to go looking for her family, no matter how dangerous it might be.

And this created a huge problem for me.

If it had been just me, I don't think I'd have hesitated, but I had 'Lita to think about. Just entering the camp was dangerous. We didn't know anything about the disease that had caused such a crisis, but it was certain that it was deadly – and contagious.

While I might have been willing to risk it for Maija's sake, I couldn't ask my sister to risk it. But I couldn't leave her outside alone, either. She was sixteen and very resourceful, but this was Deucalion. It was one of the toughest environments you could imagine to put a human being into. Besides, I'd seen the massacre. Things were totally out of control, and there was no telling how much worse it would get.

A girl alone, no matter how resourceful she might be, wouldn't last a day.

But Maija was a girl alone, too. And she'd already put herself inside the lion's den.

I was drowning and I couldn't find a straw to grab hold of.

In the end it was Élita who made the decision.

‘We can't leave her alone in there,' she said. ‘What if she was right about her parents? Chances are they're dead, and if they are, she's going to need us even more. What other choice do we have?'

When Élita asked a question like that, she didn't really expect an answer. She'd made up her mind, and if I'd told her she couldn't go after her friend, she was just as likely to follow Maija's example and disappear while I was asleep, just to force the issue.

So it was settled.

By noon we were standing outside the break in the fence, sucking in the air, trying to raise the nerve to take the plunge.

Finally Élita moved forward towards the camp, but she hadn't taken a dozen steps when a voice shouted from the window of one of the huts just inside the perimeter.

‘Are you crazy, child? Get out of here. Now! While there's still a hope.'

Élita stopped for a moment, looking towards the hut. Then she shook her head. ‘Can't do it.'

And she moved forward again. I hurried to catch up with her.

As we entered the break in the wire and passed by the window, an old woman pressed her face against the small space between the half-open glass and the frame.

‘Don't touch anything, then. If you want to survive, don't touch anything. Or anyone. And don't let anyone touch you. In Wieta, one touch is death.'

She sounded insane, but something in the way she said it made me think that – mad or not – it was sensible advice. We kept to the centre of the laneway leading towards the hut where Maija had lived with her family. That was where we found her. She was standing staring at the blackened remains of the hut – what few remains there were.

It had been burned to the ground, like over half the huts in the row. I don't know how long she'd been standing there – we weren't sure how much start she'd had – but she'd confirmed for herself now what she'd feared for so long. Her family was gone.

‘Maybe they escaped with the others.' Élita was trying to sound positive, but she only succeeded in coming across as totally unconvincing.

‘They burned the hut, 'Lita.' Maija sounded unnaturally calm, which was more frightening than hysteria. ‘That means it was contaminated. It means they caught it.'

‘But not that they're dead. We don't know—'

‘They had a ring of soldiers around the camp, for God's sake! They shot anyone trying to escape. Does that sound like they had a cure to you? Because it sure as hell doesn't to me.'

For once Élita was silenced. How could you argue against the facts? Maija was never one to back away from the truth just because it was painful. But this truth was tearing her apart. Élita could see it and I could see it. I stood there and watched my sister standing there with absolutely nothing to say.

I took a couple of steps forward, reaching out my arms, and took Maija's face between my hands. For a few seconds she resisted, then she leaned towards me, laying her head against my chest and crying softly.

‘I'm sorry, Ram, but I had to know. I couldn't have lived not knowing.'

I ran a hand over her long hair and muttered something meaningless. I usually had trouble showing my softer emotions, but not on this occasion.

Élita moved across and joined in, reaching her arms around us both and crying too.

If she hadn't, she might have seen the danger coming. She might have been able to warn us. And we might have been able to leave the camp in safety.

I guess there were a million ‘might-have-beens' in the period of the Crystal Death, and most of them were probably fatal.

At the last moment I caught the movement at the very edge of my field of vision, but before I could shout a warning, he was upon us. You couldn't say he attacked us. He was beyond thinking that clearly.

He was in what we later learned to recognise as the final stages of the disease, and he was stumbling aimlessly, mumbling meaningless words and maintaining his precarious balance by flailing his arms.

A couple of metres from where we were standing he tripped and stumbled into the three of us, knocking Maija to the ground and landing on top of her. I managed to grab Élita to help her regain her balance and stop her falling with them, but not before the dying man seized her hand in an attempt to regain his feet. His hand was like a steel claw, and his nails dug into her skin until she cried out with the pain.

Without thinking, I let go of my sister, stepping around to release a round-arm punch that sent the man sprawling unconscious in the dust a short distance away. Then I bent down to help Maija.

But the look on her face froze me in the act.

The self-imposed calm was gone, as the realisation dawned and the horror etched itself into her face. She looked across at the man, then up at me, and the knowledge that I read in her eyes shot through me like hot metal.

‘If you want to survive, don't touch anything Or anyone. And don't let anyone touch you. In Wieta, one touch is death . . .'

The mad-woman's words echoed at the back of my mind as Élita bent to help me lift her up.

‘Let's get out of her.' I spoke desperately, trying to take charge. But the wave of dread had passed and Maija was in control again. She shook her head and took hold of my hand.

‘We can't go anywhere, Ram. Not now. Look around you. Look at the windows.'

I turned. The unburned huts stood in rows, their windows facing the lane in which we stood. And in maybe half the windows we saw faces staring at us. They were faces without hope, faces that bore the lines of unspeakable fear and pain – and some with enough humanity left to show pity.

For us.

Maija took in the whole scene with a sweep of her arm.

‘Look at them. There's hundreds of them. But the fences are down all around the camp and the guards are long gone. There's nothing stopping them leaving. So why do you think they've all stayed here, in a deathtrap?'

I said nothing. I knew the answer. We all knew the answer, but it was too shocking to put into words.

Except for Maija. But she always was stronger than either of us.

She turned to me, her face just centimetres from mine.

‘They all
have
it, Ram. And they've made the choice. If they leave here, they'll die just the same, but by staying they don't spread it any further. That way, they're not personally responsible for any more deaths.'

‘But how do you know
we
have it?' I was beginning to sound desperate, but I couldn't help it. I was responsible for them and I'd failed the final test. ‘There's no way we can know for sure . . .'

The words ran out as I looked towards Élita. She was scratching furiously at the itch that had begun around the nail-marks on her hand.

Maija chose not to notice the action.

‘There's only one way to find out,' she said, as much to herself as to either of us, though her eyes had shifted their focus towards me. ‘Come on.'

She turned and headed towards the huge old building at the far end of the camp, knowing that we would follow. What else could we do?

Originally the Security post protecting and controlling the Elokoi Reserve that had existed at Wieta before the Great Trek of 102, the building had been converted when the camp was created to house the
Pandora
refugees.

Maija was taking us to the infirmary.

Infirmary

Wieta Quarantine Camp

Edison Sector (South)

27/1/203 Standard

JEROME

They stand completely naked in the room beyond the one-way glass, embarrassed, trying not to look at each other. But things have long ago moved beyond mere embarrassment. The primary precaution is to incinerate all possessions – clothes, jewellery, bags, anything that might harbour the Crystal.

If, by some miracle, the three of them have managed to escape infection up until this point, there is no guarantee that death has not found its way onto what they wear or carry, waiting there to strike. After all, wasn't that how it found its way down onto Deucalion in the first place?

In this case, though, no miracle has occurred. Even without the results of the blood tests, it is clear that they are infected. Through the glass Jerome Hamita has already noted the tell-tale signs – the small red marks, like welts, and the unconscious scratching of the irritations.

The preliminary visuals completed and noted, he pushes a button on the console, and the chute in the ceiling delivers three small packages, each containing a sterile disposable jumpsuit, which they accept gratefully and hurriedly slip into.

The dark girl moves slowly around the room, examining the featureless cubicle for clues to help her understand her new environment. He checks his punchboard read-out – Maija Galli: just seventeen in Old Earth years, which made her about fourteen Standard.

According to the records, she should be dead. Her parents and baby brother were admitted twelve days ago and died within hours of each other the other day. For the other two, it is a similar story. The records show their guardians as Graçia and Nelson Rios who died at almost the same time as the Gallis.

And yet these three have managed to survive. Until now.

As he watches them, a light flashes on the console, and he reaches across to punch up the read-out.

PATIENT: GALLI, MAIJA E. (Record # 9028765/27/1/03)

PRELIMINARY BLOOD ANALYSIS:

# 0.0078-0.0089% CRYSTALLISED HAEMOGLOBIN EVIDENT, TRACE INDICATORS OF TRANSITIONAL IRON AND ZINC IONS: CRIOS CRYSTALS PRESENT IN PERCENTAGES CONSISTENT WITH RECENT EXPOSURE – ANALYSIS CONTINUING . . .

PATIENT: SANTOS, ÉLITA, R. (Record # 9028766/27/1/03)

PRELIMINARY BLOOD ANALYSIS:

# 0.0098-0.0109% CRYSTALLISED HAEMOGLOBIN EVIDENT, TRACE INDICATORS OF TRANSITIONAL POTASSIUM AND ZINC IONS: CRIOS CRYSTALS PRESENT IN PERCENTAGES CONSISTENT WITH RECENT EXPOSURE – ANALYSIS CONTINUING . . .

PATIENT: SANTOS, RAMÓN J. (Record # 9028767/27/1/03)

PRELIMINARY BLOOD ANALYSIS:

# 0.0078-0.0099% CRYSTALLISED HAEMOGLOBIN EVIDENT, TRACE INDICATORS OF TRANSITIONAL IRON AND ZINC IONS: CRIOS CRYSTALS PRESENT IN PERCENTAGES CONSISTENT WITH RECENT EXPOSURE – ANALYSIS CONTINUING . . .

END OF PRELIMINARY RUN: TERMINATE DISPLAY?

‘Damn!' The word explodes from between clenched teeth, and he slams an open hand against the edge of the console.

It happens every time. The telltale visuals, the weight of experience, and still he prays for the impossible. Three young people, barely adult, strong, attractive, and each with less than three days to live.

For a moment his head drops, and for the thousandth time since the crisis turned into a disaster he is ready to give up.

As it is, there are only days left for the residents still in the camp. With most of the untainted inhabitants already gone, his job is to wait for the inevitable deaths of the remaining Wieta victims.

Kaz moves across to stand beside him. There is no need to ask the question. She has read the answer already in his lowered shoulders and bowed head. She reaches out to him, but he pulls away. Not violently, but firmly. In the control centre there is no room for weakness. Or sympathy.

Do what you can and bury your feelings. Survive and fight . . .

Kaz shakes her head and returns to her console. He watches her back as she resumes her work.

When everything here is finally over, he will return with the Carmody Island helpers to their secret Research base, where they'll try to use the evidence they have gleaned to fight the next battle of a near-hopeless war.

‘Don't beat yourself up, Jerome.'

Galen's words. Galen the irrepressible. Galen the boy-genius. Galen, who, with Charlie his gentler soul mate, represents probably the only real chance they have of defeating the Crystal.

‘Don't beat yourself up. Thanks to your data, we have a clear picture of the problem. Without that, there's no chance at all of finding a solution. You're a hero, man.'

Hero . . .

Jerome Hamita smiles ironically at the compliment.

‘Tell that to the dead, Galen.' He speaks the words to the glass, watching the three young people gathering in the centre of the room, as if somehow, together, they can fight this thing that spreads its poison through their veins and into the core of their doomed lives.

‘Tell that to the dead.'

He turns a switch and the glass grows opaque then reflective. Then he sits back, waiting vacantly for the machine to finish its task of analysis and deliver him the inevitable sentence.