Heart of Danger (22 page)

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Heart of Danger
? Read the opening chapter from Book Two of the Juno trilogy:
Fierce September

 

01

THE COMING
OF OUTSIDERS

‘I
f there is a choice, Juno, you must know – we are going to stay,’ my father said.

I lifted my little sister onto her chair. ‘Eat your breakfast, Hera,’ I said. I ignored Dad’s words. There would be no choice. Taris was dying; the dome that had protected our island home for all the fourteen years of my life, and for years before that, was failing.

‘Juno?’ Mother spoke sharply. ‘Did you hear?’

Hera bashed her spoon on the table. ‘Go on big boat.’

Hera often seemed to know things others didn’t. I wouldn’t have to worry about my family being left behind. Hera had foretold the coming of the ship that now lay riding at anchor just beyond Taris’s dome, waiting until daylight to rescue the five hundred of us who lived here. She was so young – most people were not inclined to believe the predictions of a
two-year
-old.

‘Yes,’ I told my sister. ‘So eat up. We have to climb the mountain first.’

My parents were jumpy with worry. I was jumpy from wanting to get going, to start the climb up the mountain. All of us would be there, waiting below the mist for the strangers. We would greet them with songs of welcome, crown them with circlets of bright flowers, then lead them down to our meeting arena where they would tell us at last about the world Outside. Then we would leave with them. All of us.

‘Can I go now? Please?’ I begged. ‘I don’t want to miss anything.’

Mother glanced at Dad and sighed. ‘Very well, Juno. But come and stand with us when we get there.’

Did she think I’d run up through the mist to the landing dock, jump out, slide down the dome and swim to the ship? I laughed and hugged her. ‘I promise.’

Hera held up her arms. ‘Hera come too. Go with Juju.’

‘No, bubs. I can’t carry you all that way and it’s too far for you to walk.’

She held up her arms and drummed her feet. ‘Hera come too!’

Why had I imagined I could go without her?

‘Come on, then – but don’t ask me to carry you.’

I couldn’t help but see the way Mother’s face relaxed. I knew exactly what her thoughts were:
Thank goodness! She can’t do anything extreme with Hera to slow her down
. But I managed not to snap at her. I wasn’t going to do anything outrageous, and I was willing to wager I wouldn’t be the only one heading up the mountain to wait for full daylight to bring the strangers from Outside.

Sure enough, my friend Silvern came bounding out from her house just ahead of us.

‘Wait!’ Hera shouted. ‘We coming too.’

I waved Silvern on. ‘You go. It’s going to take us longer.’ Which was very noble and self-sacrificing of me, because I wanted to run, I wanted to be there. And somewhere unacknowledged was the thought that maybe, just maybe, I would climb up to the mountaintop instead of sticking to the plan we had all agreed of waiting below the mist line.

Silvern ran back to us and grabbed one of Hera’s hands. ‘We’ll swing you, little one. That way we can all go fast.’

I grinned at her. ‘Thanks.’

‘Your parents all jittery?’ she asked.

‘They want to stay. If there’s a choice.’

She swung Hera high. ‘Mine too. Can’t understand it.’ She nodded at Hera. ‘What’s the word from the noisy one?’

‘We’re going. No doubt.’

Others were running along the pathways too. Our world was full of laughter, of excitement, of hope. The arrival of the ship just before dark the previous night had changed everything. Now in less than an hour we would know what news the Outsiders brought. We would know if we were to live, or die along with our doomed, domed world.

We had believed we would die. The systems that kept our biosphere temperate and protected from the wild weather of the southern ocean were failing. We had believed there was no hope when, six months earlier, Hilto, one of our trusted Governance Companions, had smashed the secret communication centre that allowed a powerful trio of our governors to communicate with the Outside world. I didn’t want to think of Hilto. He was dead. He had killed Fisa, our leader, and by his actions had perhaps hoped to kill the rest of us.

But now the Outsiders had come for us and we would survive.

Even before Silvern and I set foot on the mountain path the other twelve members of our learning stratum joined us. Not one of them broke away to speed on ahead.

Marba, the eldest, and two years older than me, picked Hera up and swung her onto his back.

I smiled at him and flexed my tired arm. ‘Thanks.’

‘She probably deserves it,’ he said. ‘If she hadn’t dropped her little bombshell, Oban wouldn’t have been watching out for a ship in the first place.’

Yes. Most people had scorned Hera’s words, but Oban had prepared the docking gates just in case, and yesterday a ship had come.

Halfway up the mountain we passed Jov, who was helping Sina, his very pregnant wife. He carried a stool for her to sit on once they got to the summit. Seeing them reminded me of Vima whose baby, also fathered by Jov, was due any day.

‘What’s the betting Vima’s already up there?’ Silvern asked.

If she wasn’t, I knew she’d be on her way. Vima, of all of us, burned to escape the smallness of our world, because she and Jov had broken the rules of Taris. On Taris, people chose marriage partners from their own learning stratum. This meant there were only seven possible partners for each person, for the strata were always made up of seven males and seven females. Jov and Vima were from different strata, and Jov was six years Vima’s senior. Worse than that, they had conceived a child. Jov was already married to Sina, who was from his own stratum. Because he and Vima hadn’t gone through the proper pregnancy procedures, none of us knew when the baby would come. We didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. No desirable Tarian traits had been chosen for it. And Vima refused to let Trebe, our physician, do any tests beyond those that checked the health of her baby.

‘Wherever we end up going,’ Silvern said, ‘I bet Vima goes somewhere else.’

And I would lose my friend. But Silvern was right. There was no place for Vima among us now. Sina went out of her way to show that Vima was scum and that she, Sina, was the rightful wife, the good person who followed the rules. That she was the one Jov loved.

It was a mess that wouldn’t ease until Vima could escape into a larger world. She more than anyone deserved to leave dying Taris, for it was she who had evaded the eyes of Hilto and his henchman Majool to climb the mountain in the dark to send a message from the secret communication centre. It was there that Hilto had found her, attacked her and left her for dead before he smashed the equipment. Until yesterday we hadn’t known if she had managed to send the message, because she could remember nothing of the attack or the hour or so before it.

I moved closer to Silvern to whisper to her, ‘What about you and Paz? Will you still marry when you’re eighteen?’ She was sixteen, only a couple of weeks younger than Marba.

Silvern grinned at me. ‘Who knows? I might run off with a tall dark man in a sports car! One from a James Bond movie would do nicely.’

I laughed but I wouldn’t have put anything past her.

We were among the first to gather below the mist, but very soon the sound of excited conversation and snatches of song grew louder as more and more people joined us.

Mother and Dad arrived, their faces solemn and tense, but all four of my grandparents looked as though heavy burdens had been lifted. My grandmother Grif smiled at me and touched Mother on the arm. I saw the words my mother spoke.

Thank goodness.

I turned away. Had she really thought I’d do something crazy? Apparently.

‘Listen!’ somebody shouted.

We fell silent as we listened to the sound of feet hurrying down through the mist. I swear that for a moment none of us breathed. Was it true? Were we really about to have our lives saved by these strangers from Outside?

‘They’re coming! They’re here!’ We broke into a song of welcome as soon as we saw their blurred outlines. Then there they were, three Outsiders, led by Aspa and Trebe, two of our Governance Companions.

The Outsiders’ faces, not so different after all from our own, were grave, and our voices faltered and faded even as Trebe held up her hand to quieten us. There was no trace of relief or joy in her tense face. What was wrong?

Silvern reached for my hand, gripping it fiercely.

‘My people,’ Trebe said, ‘we have little time. Willem from Outside will speak to you.’

The man called Willem stepped free of the mist. He was perhaps the same age as my grandparents, but he wore his years easily. He, like the other two Outsiders, looked somehow smoother than we did – hair tidier, clothes fitting closer to the body. And the woman’s eyebrows – she couldn’t have been born with such perfect arches!

Willem held up a hand as he saw the strain on our faces. ‘People of Taris, do not worry – we can take you with us, and we advise you to come. The damage to your dome is severe.’ He paused, as if regretting what he had to say next. But it wasn’t so terrible after all. ‘I’m sorry, but we must leave immediately. If you are to come, you must come now. We have a big ship, a converted freighter, so not luxurious. But there’s room for you all. We should have left already – there’s a major storm on the way.’ He sent a swift, assessing glance around us. ‘We would like to begin the transfer now for those who wish to come. Can we begin, please, with parents and young children, any elderly who need help and any women who are pregnant.’

Jerrin, who cared for our animals, called out, ‘How long have we got? We can’t leave our animals to starve.’

‘Thirty minutes,’ Willem said. ‘That’s all the time we can give you.’ But Jerrin had shot off down the path with several of his stratum to help slaughter our goats, rabbits and chickens. Better that than leave them to a lingering death.

Dad took Hera from Marba’s shoulders and put one arm around me in a hug. ‘You get your wish, my daughter. Make sure you’re on that ship!’

As if he had to tell me!

We stood to the side of the path to let other parents pass with small children in their arms. Jov and Sina followed. Jov’s hand was under his wife’s elbow, and he still carried the stool.

‘Vima!’ Where was the wretched girl? I couldn’t see her, or her family. I grabbed Silvern’s arm. ‘I’ll go and find her.’

The baby
. She must be having the baby. It was the only reason she wouldn’t be here. I hurtled back down the path, hoping against hope I’d meet her with her family as I rounded each bend. But there was no sign of her.

I ran on, my feet pounding the seconds away. At the foot of the mountain, I took the path to Vima’s house – it would have to be the furthest away. I tore past Grif and Danyat’s house without glancing at it, raced up the steps of Vima’s but didn’t have the breath to call out. Instead I simply burst through the door.

Vima’s brother Inva hurried to meet me. ‘Juno! Thank goodness! The baby’s coming. What’s the news of the ship?’

I bent over, hands grasping my knees as I fought for breath. ‘Leaving now,’ I gasped. ‘Got to get her up the mountain.’

He didn’t protest, just turned and ran to Vima’s bedroom. ‘We’ll have to carry her,’ he shouted. ‘There’s no other way.’

Elden, Vima’s father, came running. ‘Juno – we must go now?’

I nodded. ‘Might be too late, but we have to try.’

He didn’t stay to listen. Shouting at Inva to follow, he raced out to the garden. Seconds later the two of them were back, carrying a section of trellised fencing, pulling vines from it as they disappeared into Vima’s bedroom. Meantime, I went to the sink and held my mouth under the tap, gulping down the cool water and trying not to listen to the sounds coming from the bedroom.

‘I can’t do it!’ I heard Vima shout. ‘Go! Leave me alone.’

Galla, her mother, spoke quietly, firmly. But there wasn’t time for gentle reasoning. I rushed in. ‘Shut up, Vima. Get on that stretcher and do as you’re damn well told!’

She stared at me for long seconds, then she snarled, ‘All
right
. And it’s your fault if I die.’

I chose not to see how the moving hurt her.

There were four of us. I knew we could carry her, but I also knew how hard it would be to get back up the mountain in the time we had left. When Silvern, Paz, Oban and I had carried her after she had been attacked by Hilto, we hadn’t had to hurry – and we were going down the mountain, not up it against a deadline.

But we had to try.

Vima grunted and writhed as the pains took her. I gritted my teeth and kept plodding on upwards. The track was empty, with no sign even of Jerrin and the others running back from the slaughter. Beside me, Galla murmured soothing words whenever she had the breath to do so. My footsteps beat out a rhythm that sang
They’ll go without us, go without us.

Suddenly I remembered Marba and how he’d shouted words into my brain on a day, months before, when Hilto had accosted me. Could I do the same? Over such a distance? I would try. I drew my concentration into my head so that all my awareness was focused in my own mind. I sent out the thought to Marba, picturing in my mind HELP.

It took energy I hadn’t expected, and I stumbled.

‘Do you need to rest, Juno?’ Elden called.

I shook my head. There was no time for rest. Vima suppressed another cry. We kept walking.

Moments later, we heard the drumming of feet ahead of us.

‘What …’ Inva gasped.

Paz thundered around the corner, followed by Oban, Marba, then all the boys of my stratum. They didn’t speak, just took the stretcher from us and kept going almost at a run up the path. The four boys who weren’t carrying Vima raced ahead. They stopped a hundred metres or so along the path, then swapped with Oban, Marba, Paz and Yin, who ran ahead to wait their turn. And so between us all we relayed Vima to the top of the mountain. Elden and Inva pulled Galla with them when her legs would hurry no more.