View from Ararat (15 page)

‘Sleep with me?' he whispered.

It was so sudden that I didn't know what to say. I could feel my mouth hanging open.

He reached out and touched my hand. ‘Nothing has to happen.'

I looked down at his useless legs, then back up at his face. He was reading my eyes, but I don't know what he saw there. I didn't know what to feel. He removed his hand and sat back in his chair, prepared for my rejection, but trying again anyway.

‘I just want to feel what it's like to wake up next to you.'

I reached over and touched him, running my fingertips over his face. Then I leaned forward and kissed him. And I knew.

I stood up and walked towards the bedroom. At the doorway I stopped and looked back. ‘I get the right side.'

He smiled and thumbed the control on the chair. I turned away.

I could hear the hum of the motor approaching as I made my way inside.

Quarantine Camp, Old Wieta Reserve

Edison Sector (East Central)

20/1/203 Standard

KAROL

It is evening. Karol Wojcik stands where he has stood, off and on, for the past three hours since the shift-change brought him in aboard the Security shuttle from Edison. He is staring at the wire of the fence, and at the empty camp beyond.

It looks so desolate now. But of course, it is not as empty as it looks. Inside the huts the living hide, the dead decay. And he has his orders. His is the job of maintaining the status quo.

Not that there's a whole lot to do. Not any more.

In the early days there were crowds of people milling around inside the fences, begging to be set free.

‘Look at me, I'm not infected. Let me out . . .'

‘I can pay. I've got money invested . . .'

And later there were the individuals, sneaking from the shadows when it grew dark, seeking out a single sympathetic face, whispering through the wire.

‘Do you want me? You could have me. I'd do anything. Just let me out. I could be good to you. I'm not sick. Look at me . . .'

At first he had watched them, fascinated. Repulsed. Then he had stared right through them, giving them no sign that he even heard. Finally he had looked the other way, unable to face the empty despair in their eyes.

In the end they had stopped trying.

There had been escape attempts, of course, but there were no weapons inside the camp. And the fences were strong. A few fatalities and the attempts had ceased.

Now, standing there looking in, he is nothing more than a member of the deathwatch. If there was ever going to be a solution for the inmates of the Wieta Camp, it would all be over already.

In the shadows beyond the fence he catches a sudden movement. His hands tense on the weapon he is holding, but he does not raise it. He watches, his breathing shallow, his shoulders tense.

A man appears, stumbling into the blaze from the lighting towers, and shading his eyes with his upraised arm. He is maybe thirty years old, thick-set and strong, and weaving towards them. At first he looks drunk, but there is no alcohol left in the camp. At least, no one thinks there is.

Besides, it isn't drunkenness that makes his step unsteady. He is dragging his near-useless left leg behind him as he makes his way towards them. As he approaches the fence, his eyes are wide and crazy.

Karol looks away.

Beside him, Pete Rayston slips the safety off and raises his pulse-rifle to ‘ready'.

‘Bastards!'

The man yells the words and grips the wire of the fence so hard it draws blood. But Karol does not see. He is staring at the clouds above the camp, blood-red in the dying light.

‘It wasn't my fault,' the man's voice continues. ‘I was clean, damn it. I didn't have it. You bastards . . . You killed me.'

The sky is bleeding sunset over the distant Ranges. So beautiful. So desolate.

‘Bastards!'

He doesn't see the man bend down and pick something up. He doesn't see him take a few awkward steps away from the fence and draw back his arm. He doesn't sense the small rock, arcing over the high fence towards him.

‘Karol! Look out!' Pete's voice startles him.

He tears his gaze away from the mountains and catches the movement in the corner of his eye. But it is too late to avoid it. Before the fact of it can register, the rock strikes him on the cheek, splitting the skin and drawing blood. It hits the ground and skitters off across the rocky surface, while a huge pain swells suddenly in his face.

The man has rushed at the thin barrier in a desperate attempt to scale the wire, but before he can drag his useless leg up off the ground, a single blast from a pulse-rifle throws him screaming away from the fence. Then there is silence. He lies, unmoving, a smoking shape in the shadow of one of the buildings.

Slowly Pete Rayston lowers his weapon. He looks away from the dead man and towards his friend.

Gingerly Karol touches his cheek, and the tip of his finger comes away wet and tinged with red.

‘Shit.' Peter whispers the word and takes a step backwards. ‘Karol, he hit you.'

Part of Karol's mind registers the pointless redundancy of the statement, but it is not his friend's words that sends the shaft of fear through him. It is the expression that accompanies them. A mixture of horror and terrible pity.

It is then that the significance of what has happened dawns. The sudden sharp pain in his cheek. The look on Pete Rayston's face. That horrified stare.

He tears his gaze away, but the same dread is reflected in the eyes of the man beside him, a new recruit, who just minutes before was sharing a joke with him.

Suddenly the gap that has grown between them is immeasurably wider than the few short metres of rocky ground.

‘
Captain
!
' the man shouts. ‘
Captain
. . .' His mouth continues working, but no more words come. Words are unnecessary.

Within seconds Karol is surrounded by a ring of armed men – his friends, fellow Security operatives – all with their weapons raised, pointed at him.

Captain Mallory appears and steps into the silent ring. No words. He tosses a bundle across the space between them. It lands at Karol's feet.

For a few seconds he stares down at it. He knows what it is, of course. They have been through the drill often enough in training. Slowly he reaches down to pick up the isolation-suit and begins to pull it on.

Moments later someone carries a small canister from the command post and holds it out at arm's length, pointing it towards him. He makes no attempt to avoid the jet of flame that leaps across the few metres to engulf him. He closes his eyes tightly, and feels the temperature as it starts to seep in through the protective skin of the suit.

Then it is over. The circle parts to allow him through, and he walks away towards the infirmary entrance at the far end of the camp. For a moment he looked back. The circle remains intact, and the man with the canister is carefully and methodically playing the yellow flame across the earth, searing a wide circle in the vicinity of where the rock landed.

This is procedure. Any contact and the victim must be isolated for ten days, under the observation of the medical staff in the infirmary, until it is clear that no contamination has taken place.

Ten days.

The period is meaningless. In a quarter of that time he will be dead. He knows it with the kind of certainty that drives away all fear. And all hope.

The wound on his cheek has stopped bleeding already, but the telltale itch has begun in the flesh around it. Just before he enters the infection-lock of the isolation ward, he stops and looks out towards the mountains for the last time.

So beautiful . . .

The crimson tinge is fading behind the line of peaks, and the crescents of the twin moons hang like empty parentheses in the darkening sky. Enclosing nothing.

From his duty-position, standing with his gun lowered, Pete Rayston watches the lonely figure standing there before the doorway, perhaps 30 metres away. He allows his gaze to stray to the dead man lying near the wall of the small hut inside the fence.

Bastards!

The man's angry accusation echoes in his recollection.

I was clean. You killed me . . .

Unconsciously he scratches a small, annoying itch on the back of his left hand, and smears to invisibility the tiny drop of contaminated blood that landed there unfelt a few minutes earlier, when the impact of the flying rock drove it towards him from the damaged face of a doomed man.

When Pete Rayston looks back towards the infirmary at the end of the camp, Karol Wojcik, his friend, has disappeared inside.

PART THREE

LE DÉLUGE

No matter how much you feed a wolf,

he will always return to the forest.

Russian Proverb

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

John Milton

15

The Sharing

Medical Centre

Carmody Island

Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

22/1/203 Standard

KAEBA

It is dawn. Kaeba is composing a Thoughtsong for them. She sits in the corner, curled up in a large offworlder chair, and explores the Songcolours, tasting the remembered emotions and echoing them, seeking the still-elusive tones and textures that will speak their essential truth.

It is Cael's idea. The Song exists in the fabric of the events that form it. It sings its colour to the Songmaker, but softly.

–
Songmaking
, he says,
is the capturing of whispers
.

A Teller must come to understand the essence of the Song, and one who would aspire to the Telling, even one as talented as Kaeba, must learn. She must learn that there is more to understanding than mere remembering.

–
To mimic the tones is to recreate the Song, but to truly understand them is to create it anew – each time, at each Telling. Only then can the Song survive, to live forever in the minds of the clan . . .

Cael's words. The ancient lore of the Tellers.

. . .
to create it anew
.

She returns her attention to the echo of the unformed Song. And she recalls the moment of the birthing, when the pain of dying was driven out by the pain of being torn away from the warmth of the woman's failing womb.

She remembers the instant when the faint blood-shadows became a sudden, searing light, blinding and burning through closed lids. She remembers the moment when the muted sounds of a world unknown, drowned for so long by the beat of blood, and the movement of rib and lung, exploded in a deafening chaos of light and painful sound.

The child, Juulius, lies staring up at the ceiling. He is two days old, but he is like no newborn ever known. For he has Shared. He has Shared in a way that even an Elokoi cub does not Share. He has experienced a meeting of minds so deep and powerful that the link may never be broken, except perhaps by death.

Beside the cot Loef keeps up his vigil, crouching on the floor of the ward, in the manner of his kind. His eyes are closed, but he is not asleep.

She looks towards him, then slowly slips inside . . .

Newman Plaza

Central Edison

22/1/203 Standard

INA

A sudden shove and she is sent stumbling towards the railing. Six floors below, the fountain in the mall changes colour, as the lighting display shifts into another of its random phases, but she is too angry to take much notice.

‘Hey you!'

Her words echo back from the shopfronts, but the man takes no notice. He staggers on, oblivious.

‘Bloody ether-heads.' She mutters the words to herself and turns to leave, but her anger gets the better of her, and she changes direction abruptly, following him as he weaves away towards the moving footway.

Catching him, she tries again, grabbing his arm to spin him around.

‘Why don't you watch where you're going?' she begins. ‘You could've . . .'

But the words run out, as he looks at her for the first time. Something in that look dissipates the anger, and a sudden fear ices through her chest.

He says nothing, trying instead to break free of her hold, but her fingers have locked in place. For in his eyes, behind the gleam of delirium, she has glimpsed his wordless terror.

‘Please . . .' He falters. The word is a hoarse whisper. A warning. A desperate plea. ‘Get away from me.'

He reaches up to remove her hand, but thinks better of it, and pauses without making contact. His hand is almost rigid, more like a claw than a hand. He stares at it then back at her.

‘Don't touch me . . . Get away. For God's sake . . .'

For a moment longer their gazes remain locked. Then he coughs, a sudden chest-deep explosion, and she takes an involuntary step backwards. A second cough, and his hand is up to cover his mouth.

She watches as he stumbles away, but she does not see, as he does not see, the small drops of Crystal-clotted blood on the palm of his hand.

For a moment he loses his balance, and it seems as if he will fall, but at the last instant he reaches out and grasps the railing to steady himself, before continuing on his way.

Later, sitting on the Edison–Roma shuttle waiting for lift-off, she will recall his hunted look and the desperate fear behind his eyes.

And she will scratch at the tiny annoying itch on her cheek, where a small drop of saliva landed unnoticed barely an hour earlier.

Ina Franck will never know his name, or understand what killed her, but as she looks out of the window at the busy flyer-port of Edison, she will understand instinctively that she has looked into the eyes of a dead man.

Then, as the flyer rises from the landing-pad, she will look back from the window, glance at her watch and think of her family at home in Roma, just a short flight away. And the memory of the man will fade from her mind.

And later still, as the flight attendant, her attention already on the second leg of the trip to Elton, reaches across to place a drink on the tray-table in front of her, their hands will touch.

Just slightly. Just for a moment.

But for some things, a moment is more than long enough.

Carmody Island

Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

23/1/203 Standard

JULES'S STORY

Kaz squeezed my hand from behind, and I turned to face her.

‘All quiet?' She looked past me into the ward as she spoke.

‘As a mouse,' I replied.

You wouldn't expect anything else. For the past three days Loef hadn't moved from beside the cot in the I-C, and most of the time Kaeba was there too. But it was fascinating to watch, all the same. There was a subtle change in both of them when they were near the child – an intensifying of their normal . . . Elokoiness. And don't ask me to explain that, because there is no explanation.

At times I tried to enter the communion, the way I'd always done with Loef, but there was a barrier. It was not a conscious one. He would never consciously exclude me – we were brothers. But the barrier was there just the same. He had moved beyond me, to a place where I couldn't follow.

The Linking between the two of them was totally different from anything Loef and I had managed to achieve.

It was deeper and more complete – a connection of souls that drew them down beyond the mere conscious world to something more essential. I was pretty sure that Kaeba could tap into it – mainly because sometimes, when she was in the room, I lost contact with her too. But she couldn't explain it to me, when I talked to her later.

–
They are growing
, she told me once.
Soon, Juuls . . . Have patience. The child must learn. Loef must learn. Cael says I must try to Sing it, so that others will understand, because I was there at the birthing. But . . . I cannot find the truecolours for the Telling. Not yet. Perhaps today they will come . . . Perhaps tomorrow . . .

Kaz moved away from the viewing window, and punched an entry into the 'board she was carrying, then placed it on the console.

Inside the I-C, Kaeba shifted in her chair and scratched behind her ear. Then she settled back into her original position.

‘Charlie called earlier.'

Kaz was talking. I dragged my attention away from the scene on the other side of the glass.

‘News?' I probably didn't sound particularly hopeful. If there was any news of importance, it would have been the first thing she brought up.

‘Not really. Just checking in. She sounded tired, but . . .'

I watched her. She was smiling slightly.

‘But?'

‘Happy. She's moved in with Galen.'

For a moment I was floored. ‘You mean . . .'

‘I mean “moved in”, co-habitation. Last night.'

‘Just like that?'

‘What do you mean, “just like that”? They've known each other forever.'

I didn't exactly know what I meant. But I'd started to dig a hole and I couldn't get out of it. ‘I know, but . . . I mean, he's . . .' I looked down at my legs. ‘You know . . .'

‘What? A genius? She's not all that stupid herself.'

She was pushing my buttons and she knew it. Kaz never did let me get away with much.

‘That's not what I'm talking about and you know it.'

‘What then?'

‘You know what! He can't walk. He's paralysed from the waist down. What kind of life . . .'

I trailed off, partly because of the look that crossed her face, but mainly because I suddenly realised what I was sounding like.

Of course, it was too late.

‘You
shit
.' She stepped up and stared into my eyes. ‘Who died and made
you
God?'

Suddenly I was a microbe under her microscope. Squirming.

‘I didn't mean—' I began, but I didn't get any further.

‘Of course you did! “Some of my best friends are cripples. I just wouldn't want my sister to marry one.” Christ, Jules. I expected a bit better from you. He's clever, he's funny and he loves her. So, what is it? The sex? Because if that's as much value as you place on a relationship, you can—'

This time I cut in.

‘I'm
sorry
, alright? I wasn't thinking. I'm happy for them.'

She looked at me for a moment, like she was deciding whether I was worth the effort of a reply.

Before she decided, a chime rang on her console. Incoming. She held my gaze for a moment longer, then turned towards the screen.

‘Answer,' she said, in the general directon of the v-a pick-up.

I was watching her back. She was standing between me and the screen, so I didn't see who was calling, but I recognised the voice.

Charlie.

‘Karen,' she began, then paused, and something in the way she said that one word made me step around to where I could see her. ‘It's happened. It just came through. We have an outbreak in Edison. CRIOS has escaped.'

I saw Kaz lean forward using the console for support. I wanted to reach out, to give her my support, but I was frozen to the spot. I couldn't move.