View from Ararat (17 page)

‘She's still alive, you know.'

He was still facing the monitor, but I sensed he was speaking to me. I walked across and stood beside him. On the screen was the image of a little girl lying unconscious on a bed that was too big for her.

The read-out at the bottom of the monitor read:

Bed 17 – I.D. unknown [Day 20].

‘Twenty days and she hasn't died yet. She's about the only thing in this whole place that gives me hope.'

He turned to face me. ‘Funny, isn't it? A couple of months ago a six-year-old girl in a coma would have been a tragedy. Now, here, she's the one small sign of hope.' He held out a welcoming hand. ‘I'm Jerome Hamita. And you must be Karen.'

I reached out and shook his hand. ‘Kaz to my friends.'

He smiled. ‘We're all friends around here. What you see is absolutely all you get. Over there is Katie. She answers to Burke, if you're the formal type. And next to her, that's Lomax, who has a first name, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it. You picked a good time to come, Kar . . . Kaz. Fromme hasn't been here for a week, so we don't expect her back, and Cerruti just quit. Decided it was a waste of time here, seeing as how no one ever gets out alive. And as we're all doomed anyway, he's opted for a more comfortable place to die.'

He looked back at the little girl on the monitor.

‘Maybe he's right. Who knows?'

‘Then why are you here?' I asked. ‘Can't you think of somewhere else to be?'

He looked at me, and I could sense the serious answer forming, but then he forced a smile.

‘What, and miss out on the great retirement benefits?'

I could see he was making an effort not to scare off the new recruit.

I moved across to the console. ‘Where do I start?'

He smiled. ‘Watch out, guys, we've got a keen one.'

‘That'll wear off,' Katie Burke put in, and I noticed Lomax smile and shake his head.

They all looked exhausted, but there was a subdued camaraderie in the room, a shared understanding that reminded me of the med-centre on Carmody.

But on Carmody you could go into a room and touch a patient. And on Carmody, with very few exceptions, that patient was likely to recover.

‘Are you familiar with the Cyrax remote?'

Jerome had moved across to stand beside me, all business, like turning on a switch. And I got a sudden sense of the man.

The banter was a front, a throwback to a time before the Crystal, when patients responded to treatment and life went on. Then, there had been time for humour. But that time was gone. Laughter was the first casualty to die in the infirmary of the Wieta holding camp.

Jerome Hamita was totally focused on his calling. Every death that occurred on the other side of the double-glazing that separated us from the ward was a personal failure. He was glad I'd come, but there would be no gratitude, no matter how long the hours, no matter how great the sacrifices. No matter what.

I had chosen to help to try to stem the tide. And I would share in his responsibility for every failure.

Fine. I could be a bit like that myself.

I looked at the system console. It was vaguely familiar. We'd gone through the principles of isolation ward medicine during one of the early semesters of pre-med, but it was never high on my list of priorities.

‘I've seen it,' I began, ‘but it'll take a few days for me to familiarise myself with the operational—'

‘Take as long as you like,' he interrupted. ‘Up to three hours. If you need to know anything, ask Katie.'

He moved back to the monitor, looked at the image of the little girl for a few seconds longer, then tapped a button and watched a data-file scroll slowly up. I didn't look at the detail, because at that moment Katie Burke came across to where I was standing.

‘He likes you,' she whispered.

‘Yeah?' I replied. ‘And how do you work that out?'

‘He gave you three hours. He's not normally that generous. Just sit down, orient yourself, and if you need anything give a yell.'

I smiled a thank you, and she turned to go back to her console.

‘It's good to have you aboard,' she said.

‘It's good to be here,' I replied. And somehow, in spite of everything, it was more than just the polite, expected response.

I chanced the keyboard, keying in the ward monitor. An old man was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His face was without hope, fighting the pain inside, clenching and unclenching his right fist, while his left arm lay stiff and motionless on the bed beside him.

In yellow lettering across the bottom of the image, the I.D. caption read:

Bed 40 – Elias Karampoulos, 57 years 3 months (Standard) [Day 2].

‘Bed forty-three's failing.' Lomax made the comment almost to himself.

17

The Martyrs of Wieta

Roosevelt Foothills

Edison Sector (South)

26/1/203 Standard

RAMÓN'S STORY

Capyjou and Reyjaa. After the best part of a month living in the Elokoi historycave, keeping out of sight behind our shield of bushes or avoiding the occasional patrol, we'd exhausted all the possible variations of the only two native sources of food available to us. The truth is, it didn't matter how you cooked them, they still tasted like . . . Capyjou and Reyjaa.

Reyjaa is a little like sugar beet, except tougher and quite bitter. To soften it, the Elokoi boil it with Naassiar, which is an aromatic leafy plant you can pick up just about anywhere on the flatlands. But it just happens to be deadly poisonous to humans.

Reyjaa isn't too appetising on its own. It's fibrous and hard to chew, and it tends to swell painfully in your stomach if you drink too much water with it. But at least it has a vaguely sweet taste, which is more than can be said for Capyjou, which isn't vaguely anything.

Élita had learned about Deucalion's few edible native plants during her eight-year period of compulsive intimacy with the
Pandora's
edu-files. And it gave her great satisfaction to point out to her big brother that he owed it to his ‘weird' little sister, and her obsessions, every time he ate anything out there in the wilds of Deucalion and lived to talk about it.

I replied that after weeks of indigestion and diarrhoea, and wanting to throw up after every meal, I wasn't sure exactly what I owed her. But I was only joking. At least we were alive, which is more than was true for over half the inmates of the camp.

Every few days I would sneak back to spy on what was happening there. The first couple of times we all went, but the effect of looking helplessly down on the scene from the wooded rise to the southwest of the boundary fence was just too devastating, especially for Maija.

Both her parents and her baby brother were in the camp, and there was nothing she could do to save them from what was happening in there.

I knew how she felt. Sometimes from my hiding place above the camp I tried to pick out our hut, and I tried to convince myself that I could see Nelson or Graçia, that they were still alive and well, but I couldn't. I was too far away. And I couldn't help Maija either.

Sometimes at night, when she thought I was asleep, I would hear her sobbing quietly. Then I'd reach out and try to comfort her, but I knew it wasn't working.

Once Élita moved across to where she was lying next to me and put an arm around her. ‘Things will work out,' she began, but Maija shook her head.

‘They're dead, 'Lita. I know it. I just wish . . .'

But the words faltered. What could you say, cut off, trapped outside as they were trapped inside? If it weren't for the two of us, I think she would have risked the guns of the guards and whatever horrors might have been waiting for her inside the fences of the camp, just to be back with her family. But there was really no choice. Fate had chosen for us, and we were at the mercy of whatever moved it.

Besides, like I said, at least we were alive.

Tremayne's Fall

Overlooking the Wieta Quarantine Camp

Edison Sector (South)

26/1/203 Standard

RAMÓN

The heat beats down on his back, and the ragged shirt provides little protection as he lies full length, staring with disbelief down at the camp. For the first time since the arrival of the Security blockade, the ring of armed men looks thin and vulnerable.

And more significantly perhaps, the air of discipline which has marked their presence has disintegrated during the days since he last looked down on them.

He raises the 'scope and trains it first on one face, then on another, trying to gauge the altered mood of the watchers.

They stand or sit listlessly, hardly glancing at the fence they are there to keep secure, their guns held loosely in indifferent hands or hanging from shoulder-slung straps. And their number has shrunk considerably.

He looks towards the buildings of the camp, watching for movement in the lanes between the buildings. For people trapped so long in a nightmare of death and despair, the weakened Security cordon must seem like a last chance at life.

Finally he sees it. A tight group of men, maybe twenty or twenty-five of them, congregates in one of the wider laneways, gesturing and shouting demands towards the guards on the other side of the fence.

The Security force seems leaderless. For a long time nothing happens on the outside. Then, as if in response to some unspoken order, the depleted cordon seems to shrink towards the source of the disturbance, and as the group of inmates masses to make a move towards the wire, a few guns are raised to the ‘ready' position. As if in response, the rest of the dispirited force seems suddenly galvanised.

One of the Security operatives steps forward to address the protesters, though his body language shows no sense of authority or confidence. Through the 'scope, on full magnification, he looks young. The sweat shows on his face and he wipes it with a shaking hand.

From his position on top of the rise, Ramón can hear nothing of what the man is shouting, but it is clear that it has little effect on the group inside the fence. They spread out to form a single line, arms folded, facing the guards defiantly.

Then, from between the buildings inside the camp, a lone figure makes his way towards the line of protesters. He moves with determination, his gaze fixed beyond the wire.

Through the 'scope he looks calm, not confident. There is no sense of authority about him, but he seems unnaturally composed, under the circumstances.

Pausing barely a metre in front of the silent line of men, he shouts something across the intervening space. No one on either side makes a movement. He speaks and the Security troops listen. The he steps backwards one pace and is absorbed into the group.

The guard-leader looks nervously back towards his men, shouts something, then raises an arm. Three men step forward, raise their guns, and fire a salvo of pulses into the ground, barely a metre in front of the line of grim-faced men.

The ground explodes in fountains of fire and dirt, but still the line holds. Not a single man takes a step backwards.

At another signal from their leader, the remaining guards raise their weapons, training them this time directly on the dogged group facing them through the fence.

It is then that Ramón catches the flash of sunlight on metal – just inside the boundary line, perhaps a hundred metres from the scene of the confrontation. It is not far away, but far enough to be obscured at ground-level by the nearest line of huts, and close enough to take advantage of the gap in the circle of defence caused by the contraction of the cordon.

He refocuses the 'scope. Three men crouch beside the wire, cutting it strand by strand until it parts, and they have created a hole big enough for a man to push through.

As the first escapee scrambles out, another quite large group – mostly men, with a few younger women and some children – moves quickly out from the shelter of one of the huts, running towards the breach in the barrier of wire.

And still the Security force is unaware of the ploy.

Turning the 'scope back towards the scene of the confrontation, Ramón suddenly recognises it for what it is – a well-planned tactical diversion.

From his elevated position, focusing and refocusing the 'scope, he can see the same gambit being played out in different places around the camp, and his chess-player's disposition smiles with approval for the tactician's mind. Concentrate your opponent's forces with feints at locations of your choice, then exploit his weaknesses in other areas.

As the thinly stretched isolation cordon begins to fragment, forming small groups at the points of confrontation, sections of the fence out of their direct line of sight are left unguarded, and it is at these points that the same scene is played out over and over. The wire is cut and large groups make their bid for freedom, while the troops have their attention distracted by the carefully orchestrated shows of force.

Finally Ramón returns his attention to what is happening directly below him.

And what he witnesses next is a scene which will haunt him through a lifetime of sleepless nights and cold-sweat nightmares.

From one of the laneways close by, another larger group, made up of men and women – no children – emerges to join the first, walking in twos and threes with a slow, determined step. Some are limping, some are in obvious pain, but all are focused on the fence and the armed men beyond.

For a moment they pause, forming a number of ranks behind the first row of demonstrators. Then, as if by some prearranged signal, the first line begins to advance on the fence.

Through the 'scope they look composed. Resigned. Like people with nothing left to live for.
Or no more fear of death . . .

Magnified two hundred times, the eyes of the Security troops register the complete range of emotions, from fear to confusion, from anger to dread and loathing, but their reluctant leader is frozen. His hand is raised ready to issue the order to fire, but the enormity of what he is about to do has overcome the years of training and robbed his muscles of volition.

Then the advancing line reaches the wire . . .

NATASSIA'S STORY

History has named them the Martyrs of Wieta, and different estimates put their number at anywhere between two hundred and a thousand, but all accounts agree on a few key facts.

They were organised by Gabriel Bernardi, a 43-year-old balding Italian biochemical engineer. Outside of his Research, he'd never done anything in the least noteworthy, and probably never would have, in normal times.

Gabriel Bernardi was definitely not the type you'd pick as a potential hero – or villain. Or martyr.

But these were definitely not normal times.

I guess it just goes to demonstrate the truth of what my grandmother always said about appearances, which was, ‘God may be responsible for the shape of your face and the colour of your skin, but the rest is entirely your own doing.'

According to the legend, backed up by the account of survivors, it all began when Bernardi's daughter Francesca began to show CRIOS symptoms. She was fourteen, she loved painting, and she played violin like an angel, and she was all he had in the world.

It is not clear exactly what happened. Bernadi took all possible precautions, but somehow she was infected. Of course, death was inevitable and Bernardi was left alone with nothing but his memories, and a slowly burning anger against a society that could leave so many innocents trapped in there to die, slowly and in pain, the healthy as doomed as the dying.

There were those who stated that the Crystal Death couldn't touch Gabriel Bernardi, and there might be some truth in the claim. He wandered the lanes of the camp, watching and waiting and planning, until eventually the answer came to him.

He was a biochemical engineer, a Researcher who had brought a standard-issue punchboard into the camp with him, and using it to ether-link into the communications systems, he could monitor what was happening on the outside.

For a long time this meant he knew as little as the rest of us. But with the outbreak in Edison, and the news a few days later of outbreaks in Roma and New G, and even the mining-town of Madison on the northwestern Fringes, suddenly there were no more secrets.

The blockade of Edison fell apart in less than a day, as Security personnel looked for ways to escape a doom that was spreading by the hour. No attempts were made to ‘contain' any of the other outbreaks.

Things had moved too swiftly, and all the ‘worst-case- scenario' plans were swamped in hours by the speed at which the horror had moved from city to city, town to town across the face of human settlement. All intercity transport had been halted the moment the Edison outbreak was reported, but by that time it was far too late. Death had already hitched rides to wherever the flyers travelled, which meant, effectively, that almost no place on Deucalion was now safe.

Logging in on his punchboard, Gabriel Bernardi must have realised what that breakdown in order might mean for the inmates of the Wieta camp. It placed them in great danger of retaliation from mobs of doomed Deucalians, who might see in the refugees from the
Pandora
the ideal scapegoats, to be punished for carrying devastation into their midst. But ironically, the worldwide threat might just provide a slim chance of survival for everyone in the camp as yet untouched by the Crystal.

That was when the plan began to form. He went from hut to hut wearing nothing for protection but a pair of thin gloves, and at each stop he talked, often through a locked door, to the people inside. And as he talked, he outlined a plan so devastatingly simple that it won supporters among young and old, promising to some the chance of life beyond the fences, and to others a death with purpose and perhaps even a little dignity.

Later, some commentators asked why the inmates of Wieta didn't simply wait it out. If the pattern being played out elsewhere held true, they only had to be patient for a few more days and the Security presence surrounding them would diminish to a point where they could simply walk out without opposition.

There are no easy answers. At least none that make much sense to people looking back from safety after the event.

I suppose it boils down to the fact that there was no guarantee that anyone would be allowed to leave Wieta alive. Rumours circulating on the alternative news services told of a leaked government plan to destroy the camp and everyone in it, if no other solution could be found. Perhaps with other outbreaks to deal with, the thought of so many extra contamination threats existing in the one place might push the authorities to remove at least one source of danger.

Besides, with the rate of infection increasing at an exponential rate within the camp, even a few days might mean the difference between life and death for hundreds – even thousands – of those as yet not affected.