Windrunner's Daughter (11 page)

“It’s human nature, not some stupid wheel.” Tears pricked Wren’s eyes. Raw moved away from her and leaned against a cabinet. She looked at him with her hand on her mask. “We should eat.”

Wren pulled her mask up, licked sticky gel from her fingers and dropped her mask back down. She glared at him as she swallowed. “It’s sweet!” Her taste buds sparkled like sun from quartz. “If you’re waiting for me to throw up or something, you’ll be waiting a while.”

Raw lifted his own mask and took a pull from his pouch. His eyes widened. “What’s it made of?”

Wren shrugged. “Dead-Earth stuff. Let me see your packet.”

Raw handed it over.

“It’s a kind of fruit.” She pointed at a small picture on the front. “See? A plant.”

“
Edible
fruit?” Raw frowned. “Gingko seeds are poisonous.”

“Chayton said they were developing some in Eden, I wondered what it would be like.” She licked her hands again.

“Give mine back.” Raw finished his packet and started to pick through the others in the cupboard. “We should have some protein too. Here.” He tossed another pack over. It had a different picture on it.

“That looks like a GM bun-bun pet.” Wren peered closer. “Why would it have a bun-bun pet on it?”

“We didn’t always live on soy and supplements.” Raw shrugged. “Don’t you Runners know
anything
?”

“Of course we do. I know a lot. I know how to repair a net, mend wings, read semaphore and the whole theory of flying. I can fix the solar panels at Avalon when they break down, sort out the water pumps when they break, massage an incoming Runner for over an hour, feed my family with soy beans that anyone else would have thrown out. I can-”

“You’ve made your point.”

“But
you
think I should go to the Grounder Women’s Sector and make babies. You think what I’m doing is blasphemy.”

“I’m … starting to rethink.” His eyes slid away from hers’.

“Why?”

“Like you said, I’m doing just as much wrong.” Raw took another swallow from his pouch. “If I’m caught I’ll be punished.”

“Killed probably.” Wren nodded. “Both of us.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“Then why?” Wren leaned forward. “Why did you follow me? Why risk your life?”

Raw said nothing.

When she realised that she wouldn’t get another word from him, Wren sighed. “We have to talk about what happens when we get to Vaikuntha. You need to pass as a Runner.”

“I’ll just do what you do.”

“You can’t say the Rites before meals, or at bedtime.”

She saw Raw flush. “Fine.”

“You have to be respectful to the Sphere-Mistress. No talking about the Women’s Sector or anything like that. She’ll be responsible for treating your injuries, massaging you, making sure you’re okay to fly again when we set off.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“You don’t know our ways.” Wren gnawed at her lips. “You should go back to Avalon.”

Raw set his jaw and Wren dragged her hands through her hair. “Just … do what I do. Don’t speak unless you really have to. I’ll have to think about who we say we are and why we haven’t Run to Vaikuntha before.” She opened her second pouch and put it her lips. “Yuck.” She threw it down. “Tastes like garbage.”

“Stick to the sweet ones then.” Raw picked her discarded packet up. “Who knows when you’ll get to eat again?”

“Tomorrow,” Wren said firmly. “As soon as the sun gets high enough to warm the thermals we’ll take off. We’ll be in Vaikuntha before noon.” She looked at the corridor outside the kitchen, at the lines of closed doors. “If this is residential, do you think there’ll be a bed?”

A distant hunting cry came through the floor. Raw ignored it.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Raw had to force the door, the power was barely enough for him to get his fingers through. Wren stood peering into the gloom. Then the corridor lights cycled on again. Sure enough she could see a low cot made up with a mouldy foam mattress and a foil blanket. On the wall was pinned an ancient picture; a smiling trio standing in front of a forest of greenery.

“Dead-Earth.” Wren pointed. She held her wings close and wedged her way through the opening. Raw followed.

“What’re you doing?” She glowered at him.

“There’s not enough power to open another door. And do you really want to be alone?”

Wren was about to say she was perfectly happy by herself when yet another eerie wail reverberated through the factory. “You’d better stay.”

Raw nodded. “I thought you’d say that.”

“But there’s only one bed.” Wren fidgeted anxiously.

Raw pulled his hair down over his scarred cheek. “I’ll take the floor. It’s not a problem.”

“Not the floor.” Wren pulled the disintegrating mattress from the cot and dumped it by the door. “This’ll be less cold to sleep on.” She looked at the cot. Beneath the mattress thick plastic was pulled taut over struts. “That’ll be fine for me.”

She tested it carefully, bouncing her fists on top to make sure it would take her weight; then she climbed on, wrapped her wings around her shoulders and pulled the foil blanket to her chin.

Raw watched her from behind his dangling wave of hair; then he sat on the mattress and leaned against the wall. Finally he sighed. “I’ve got observances to make.”

“So make them.” Wren rolled over, turning her back on him. Her breath fogged her mask and she was soothed to sleep by the soft murmur of Raw’s prayers to dead-Earth, the originals and the deified Designers who had started to terraform the planet.

Chapter eight

Wren woke to the flickering of lights. She was curled up in the exact same position in which she had fallen asleep and her legs and arms were numb, like blocks of wood. She tried to stretch and roll over. Pain spiked through her; electricity that curled fire around her muscles and cramped her fingers until they went into spasm. She cried out.

From the floor Raw groaned as her cry woke him.

Wren rolled from the cot to land on the floor in a tangle of wing and blanket. Beside her Raw moaned again, his own limbs shaking as he tried to sit.

“It hurts,” he gasped.

“That’s why we offer massage when a Runner comes in.” Wren forced her cramping fingers into the rock hard muscle of her thigh. “To prevent
this
from happening.” She winced as feeling started to come back to her legs.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Morning?”

Raw staggered as he tried to get to his feet. “No way to know unless we go and have a look. It feels warmer.”

“The room’s small. Could just be our body heat.” Wren managed to get to her knees, then her calf seized and she rolled again, clutching it.

Raw had dropped to the floor and was leaning on his hands. His wings flowed around him like sand. All she could see was his hair as it hung down over his face.

“How are we going to take off like this?”

“It’ll pass.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Give it time.”

“How much time?” Raw groaned again.

“Get moving.” Wren trembled as she tried to stand again. “It’ll help.”

“Hah,” Raw spat and he finally looked at her. “Guess it’s not
all
fun being a Runner, after all.” Then he clutched at his shoulder. Even Wren saw the muscles twitching beneath the silver material that lined them.

Wren used the wall to climb to her feet. “I’m going to eat something. Follow when you can.”

Wren squeezed through the opening and into the flickering light-dark of the corridor. She lurched to the kitchen and, after some swearing, managed to stretch high enough to pull down a fruit pouch. She swallowed it down, the pain of her cramped and aching muscles almost over-riding her sense of taste.

Then she leaned against a cabinet as she silently pleaded for her legs to come back to life. Raw was right, if they couldn’t Run, they wouldn’t be able to take off. They could stay here another day, until they both felt stronger, but Wren had promised her mother that she’d be back in three. If they remained in the factory her mother would be a day closer to death and Wren would have achieved nothing.

She tossed her pouch on the table and clenched her fists, wishing there was something to strike. The opening door made her look up. Raw stood in the entrance, still shaking. His jaw was set and his scar deformed his face in the half light. Automatically Wren leaned away from him and he quickly jerked so that his sandy hair flopped over his face. He stepped close, reached past her without looking her way and snagged a pouch.

“After this we should go to the roof,” Wren mumbled, awkwardly.

He nodded, still without looking at her.

“We should at least see what time it is,” Wren pressed. “We don’t have to take off straight away, we could rest up there for a couple of hours even, until we’ve loosened up.”

Raw muttered his obligation and turned from her to remove his mask. His back moved as he drank and then he threw his empty pouch onto the floor. He replaced his mask. “Let’s go then,” he muttered.

Wren followed him to the end of the corridor, where dust motes floated in the stale air, lit by the faint blue light of the glow tubes. She stumbled through them like a drunk, making whorls in the atmosphere. Raw had stopped at the door. He pressed his ear to the metal.

“I can’t hear anything,” he said eventually and before Wren could speak, he put his palm on the reader and the door cycled open.

Wren tensed her abused muscles, but nothing sprung through the door towards them. Raw stepped into the stairwell, his footsteps echoing in the silence. Once more the opening door triggered the lights and they clicked on, taking the stairs from darkness to pale blue light.

Wren shivered as Raw leaned over the rail and looked down. Then he carefully leaned back. Beneath his scarring, Raw’s face was white. “There’s something in the stairwell.” He spoke so quietly that at first Wren couldn’t make out his words. Then her eyes widened and she clutched her fists to her chin.

“Creatures?” she barely mouthed the word.

“Must be.”

“You can
see
them!”  

“Only movement. They’re right down at the bottom."

“They can’t climb the stairs, or they’d have been waiting for us to come out.” Wren spoke too loudly, the Creatures stirred and their cry echoed around her. She clapped her hands over her ears.

Raw grabbed her arm and shoved her towards the stairs. “Run.”

“They can’t climb,” she gasped again, as Raw pushed her ahead of him. Her legs could barely take her weight, and she collapsed as she tried to take two steps at a time. Wren grabbed the rail and sagged. “You’re not thinking.” She wrapped her arm around the rail. “Slow down.”

Raw tried to pull her free. "Listen.”

Wren tried to quiet her breath, but all she could hear was the slithering and wailing of the creatures below them. “They’re no closer.”  

Raw grabbed her face and, as she tried to fight free, he pushed her cheek and ear into the cold wall. “No,” he hissed. “
Listen
.”

Furious, Wren tried to kick him, but he held her against the concrete until she calmed, and then she heard it: the rattle of debris, the dragging of great bodies through stone.

Her eyes widened. “They’re in the walls?”

Raw nodded. “
Now
, will you run?”

“How are they in the
walls
?” Wren half screamed at him, as though it were Raw’s fault. “I said we should have stayed in the upstairs room.”

“They’re burrowers,” Raw closed his hand around her elbow, drew ahead and began to pull her after him. “They can’t climb the stairs, but they can …”

“Burrow through concrete? They can’t get through rock. None of the colonies would be safe if they could.”

“The walls won’t be solid inside, they’ll be filled with some kind of insulation. Easy as sand.”

“Then they can’t get through the wall to reach us.” Wren’s legs were quivering jelly now.

“You’re right.” Raw halted suddenly as the lights flickered above them. Wren bumped into his back and stood panting on the step below. “They shouldn’t be able to get through. So what are they doing?”

Wren watched him silently. Now he had drawn her attention to the slithering in the walls, it was all she could hear. She clenched her fists, staring from side to side as though the concrete would burst open at any second, and sprout teeth.

“They’re driving us,” Raw said eventually.

“Driving us where?” The warmth Wren had rediscovered overnight, fled, leaving her chilled from top to toe. Then she answered her own question. “The saboteurs - the explosions. We didn’t see any sign downstairs, perhaps the bombs here went off-”

“In the living quarters.” Raw finished. “Somewhere up here there are holes in the walls.”

Wren froze, as though another step would take her in reach of one. “We didn’t see any on our way down” she whispered finally. “Did we?” She remembered entering the building, exhausted, in the dark. They hadn’t been looking for gaps in the walls. Shadow still clung to every corner, even in the stairwell. “Did we?”

Raw groaned. “We could have missed something, we didn’t know to look.”

“So they could be waiting in the top room.”

“Or somewhere else. I don’t know.” The sounds around them intensified and Raw shivered. “They want us to go up.” He looked up at the stairwell curving around and out of sight. “So wherever the hole is, it has to be above us.”

Wren closed her eyes. “What are our choices?” Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing grew more deliberate as she thought. “We can go back to the corridor we came from – that was safe - but we can’t stay there forever, there were only about ten food pouches: we’d starve. We can’t go down, that takes us towards the ones in the stairwell. And if we go up …”

“We end up in their trap.”

“We might,” Wren conceded. “Or we could move fast enough to get past them. It’s our best chance.”

Without another word, Raw started up the stairs once more.

The glow tubes burned with their low blue light, on and off, light and dark, almost in time with Wren’s steps. Just above her she could see Raw’s wings flapping around his legs, billowing slightly with each step, as if the air could take them even in here. As she climbed, she kept one hand on the rail and wrapped the other around the growing knot in her stomach.