View from Ararat (20 page)

Watching himself in the mirror-surface, Jerome Hamita sees just how old he has become in the last few months.

Infirmary

Wieta Quarantine Camp

Edison Sector (South)

27/1/203 Standard

RAMÓN'S STORY

We all knew the score, but no one was talking about it. Inside that bare room our fears were as naked as our bodies. I wanted to reach out to them – my sister and my lover – to comfort them, to beg them for comfort, but I couldn't. It was as if our nakedness isolated us, even as we shared the horror of understanding.

I couldn't even look at them. How could I reach out and touch them?

I looked towards the mirror which filled half of one wall. Were they watching us from the other side of the glass?

Of course they were. We were specimens. Our sudden curse had made us objects of study. I scratched the itch that spread itself across the knuckles of my right hand.

Later, when they gave us clothes to wear, Élita came across to me and whispered, ‘Talk to her, Ram. She blames herself for all of this, and it's tearing her up.'

Sometimes we learn things about ourselves that we're not exactly proud of.

I loved Maija. Always had. But at that moment, in that room, facing the end of everything, I suddenly realised that as much as Maija blamed herself, I blamed her too.

And I resented like hell the fact that I loved her so much that I'd condemned myself – and Élita – to the fate she'd chosen for herself by coming back into Wieta.

Sometimes I'm convinced my little sister has spent so long obsessed with the Elokoi that she's inherited some of their telepathy, but maybe it's just that she's really good at reading my body language.

‘
Ramón Santos,'
she whispered, but with the power of a shout, ‘don't you even
think
it. I made my own decision and you made yours. We didn't have to come back for her, any more than she had to come back for them. We
chose
to, so don't you
dare
blame her. She doesn't deserve it, and she sure as hell doesn't need it right now.'

Then she did what I should have done minutes before – clothes or no clothes. She put her arms around Maija and hugged her tightly. For a few seconds longer I stood back, angry at myself and shamed by my baby sister who was far older at that moment than her big brother would ever be.

Then I broke the inertia and moved across to join them.

20

Strengths and Weaknesses

NATASSIA'S STORY

In the end the air blockade was about the only part of the carefully constructed Security strategy that was actually enforceable. And it did protect some of the outlying settlements – for a while.

From the time of Müller's address nothing, not even official Security air-traffic, was allowed to leave the ground anywhere on the planet. And, given the huge distances between population centres, it meant that the spread of the Crystal should have been slowed or stopped completely.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it would probably have been better to have grounded the whole planet weeks earlier.

Al-Tiina Village

Wieta Clan Lands, Vaana

28/1/203 Standard

RAATAL

Another of the young humans has slipped away. Her alien fear which had been swelling steadily since before sunrise ceased suddenly moments ago, and now the colours of Ciiv's Thought-song rise gently into the void, to sing her Beyond.

Five days ago there were twenty of them, visitors from
new-geneava
, the tower-city where the Elders of the humankind sit in Council to make decisions. But these were not Elders. They were young, mostly, and full of wonder and noise. And with them came a human Teacher, who shared with them her knowledge of the Elokoi and their ways, and wordspoke them the sacred histories in the harsh tongue of the humans.

Standing inside the door of her family's dwelling, Raatal looks across to the hut where the remaining few lie waiting for the end. Five still live, and three are barely conscious, their lifespirits fading, their fear strong and crying out in colours that tear at the soul, for all their lack of meaning.

So different from the day of their arrival.

She recalls the excited wordspeaking, and how gentle they were with the cubs. And how only two had shown the stomach for Elokoi food – the Yorum meat and the Capyjou – preferring the strange packaged meals they had brought with them. But in spite of this, most enjoyed the ‘tea' that Mael brewed for them from the leaves of the Ocra.

They had been given permission to stay for two days, but something had happened on the far side of the Great Desert – something so serious that their Elderscouncil had forbidden the flyers on all Deucalion to rise from where they stood. This left no way for the young ones and their Teacher to return.

Then the sickness came and they began to fail. One by one they fell ill. One by one they died.

Even Eriin, the Healer, was helpless, though she laid hands on them, and tried to see inside their pain. She said that she felt the sting of death invade her hands when she touched them, but Sang the pain of it away.

For herself.

Not for the children.

It is sad to see young ones die. It is hard to feel their pain, with no knowledge to ease the fear that it creates. Perhaps Beyond they will find peace.

It is why Ciiv Sings for them . . .

NATASSIA'S STORY

From the absolute safety of the
Pandora
, Müller and his ‘war- cabinet' planned strategy and organised the fight against an unseen enemy. They issued orders to security forces on the ground, passed edicts regarding travel, rationing, the possession of weapons and the disposal – or otherwise – of the dead, and even developed methods of distribution for food and essential supplies.

And, of course no one on the ground took the slightest notice.

Why would you expect them to? Politicians and their brand of power belonged to the old world.

The world BC – Before Crystal.

These politicians made certain that they were safely away from the danger zone before they issued their instructions for everyone else to obey.

RJ Tolhurst, my great-grandmother the historian, once wrote:

The great strength of democracy lies not in its ability to rule the people, or instruct the people, or dictate to the people what is right or wrong – that is the role of kings and tyrants. Democracy's strength lies in its ability to make the people do what the people really want to do anyway . . .

What she didn't add was that, in times of genuine crisis, democracy's strength also happens to be democracy's greatest weakness. At least, it was during the reign of the Crystal.

When death rules, what the people really want to do is stay alive. And many of them aren't entirely democratic about other people's right to want the same thing.

The Fringes

Edison Sector (Southwest)

29/1/203

CINDY'S STORY

They say the Great Desert has only two seasons. Damned hot and a whole lot hotter.

When it's just damned hot, the winds blow viciously in from the southwest, driving sandstorms across the Fringes and bending the Ocra almost level with the ground.

About the only thing that I feel grateful for in the whole ordeal we went through is that we didn't make our way down out of the foothills when it was a whole lot hotter. I hate to think what the winds might have been like then.

Cox was in favour of resting when we made it down, arguing that everyone was exhausted, and that we'd make better time and fewer mistakes if we were rested. It made sense, but Mac had developed a sudden sense of urgency.

Partly, it was because there was less food on offer in the barren Fringes than there had been in the flatlands, and the stocks of Capyjou that we'd carried with us had been severely depleted during the climb over the Ranges.

But that wasn't the only – or even the main – reason for Mac's attack of survival-paranoia.

During the rest periods, and since we'd made it to the foothills, we'd been using the punchboard to link into the news and information network.

Internet, the main news outlet, was reporting non-stop on the deteriorating situation in all the major cities, with CRIOS outbreaks in all suburbs and mob-rule overwhelming the stringent Security measures put in place by the off-planet government. Looting had long since wiped out all food supplies, and the rule of law was being replaced by the law of the laser – or the knife, or any weapon which gave you the edge.

Even following the expert advice and locking yourself inside with a supply of food proved dangerous. Reports were coming in of home-invasions – even murder – by gangs in search of food and valuables, and perhaps the most frightening thing was the fact that many of the offenders were reported to be carrying the weapons and wearing the uniforms of Security operatives.

‘It's not at all surprising,' Mac said, after one of the more disturbing reports.
‘
“Might is right,” Cind. When things are normal, there's a kind of balance that operates. No organised society can exist without laws to control the way we treat each other, and just about everyone realises it and toes the line, for the greater good of everyone. It's a sort of collective self-interest, but now . . .'

He shrugged and looked down at the screen of the punchboard. A building in New G was burning, flames leaping from the windows, blackened victims screaming with pain and loss.

I was out of my depth.

‘But . . .' I began, then I had to swallow before I could go on. A small child was being carried out by one of the rescuers, her arms hanging limp against the man's side, bouncing up and down like rubber as he ran from the flames. ‘It's only been a few days, how can things just fall apart?'

‘How can they
not
?' He stood up and looked across at the twins sitting in the shade of a huge rock, resting while they had the chance. ‘Do you think we're
born
civilised? We learn it. From our parents, from society. But we learn it in different ways. If you grow up being taught that it's natural to share, that other people are just as important as you are, that it's
right
to behave in a civilised way, then you will learn to believe it, and that's how you will behave, no matter what. But if you're taught with threats, if you're punished for behaving differently, you might learn to behave as if you believe it, but only while the threats hold some meaning for you.'

I waited for him to go on. I never really knew my father, and I guess Mac was about the nearest thing I'd come to one since. I'm sure he knew it.

He sat down on the ground and wiped the sweat from his face before continuing.

‘Nothing society can threaten comes close to the danger of the Crystal, so overnight the power is gone from the rules. Some people will go on following them, because, for them, it's right to act civilised, even under extreme circumstances. But others will do whatever they think it'll take to survive. And because the threat they fear most is invisible, they'll attack what they can see. And take what they think they need. Because none of the old rules apply any more.'

‘And if you already wear a uniform and carry a gun, then you're in a pretty good position to make the new rules.' I spoke the thought out loud, as I stared across the empty expanse of the Fringes, in the direction of the small mining town of Baden, another two or three days' journey away.

NATASSIA'S STORY

Stay or leave? Run or hide? The Crystal Death was like no disaster in history. In a war you can run from the fighting. When a flood threatens, you can carry your valuables on your back and head for higher ground. As the fire approaches, you can fight it back, with water and explosives and courage.

But no amount of courage can stop something small enough to be invisible and so deadly that a touch is enough to seal your fate, and the fates of all those you love.

A war, a flood, a fire. If they are too big to stand against, then you join your neighbours in flight, and you share the struggle and the hardship, and the triumph of surviving. Allies against adversity.

But with the coming of the Crystal, suddenly there are no allies. Your neighbour is a threat to you, as you are to your neighbour, because the Crystal is not ‘out there', it is here and now, in you, in me. And if I flee, and if you flee, I cannot touch you or help you, or touch what you touch. Perhaps I cannot even walk where you walk.

We cannot share the struggle if we cannot even share the road. We endure the hardship alone.

So what do you decide? Stay or leave?

I stayed.

I had a job to do, and where was I going to go, anyway? The roads were choked with desperate people willing to risk the crowds for a few short days to get away from a place where food was running out, where violence was law, and every surface could spell death.

Perhaps they felt they had to do something, but where could they go? Edison was a thousand clicks from anywhere, and if you managed by some miracle to get there, you'd find that ‘anywhere' was no safer than Edison anyway.

I ran my broadcasts from an isolated booth in the three-quarters-deserted Internet complex, dragging in visuals over the link-ups and writing my own copy, which wasn't at all bad, though I do say so myself.

Diane, my tech, sat locked in her control-box, feeding in interesting reports from the field and keeping track of the satellite downloads. I even had a direct ether-link to Terry Eiken, Müller's press-aide on the
Pandora
.

He fed me information about the ‘war-council's' latest edicts, which I broadcast and the world ignored, and in return I filled him in on the state of the nation. He was getting ‘by-the-minute' briefings from government officials in every city and town, but I was in the information business. There were things going on across Deucalion that the officials in their ‘safe' houses were totally unaware of.

The world was coming apart at the seams, and they were still giving ‘status reports'.

‘How's the old man?' I asked him once. It was pushing midnight, and I was off-air and in a talkative mood.

He shrugged and reached off-screen for his drink.

‘He's burning out. I've never seen him work so hard in all the time I've been with him. He spends hours scanning the reports and the networks, attending strategy meetings, making decisions and sending down instructions to the few loyal Security units we have left.'

‘Doesn't he realise he's pushing shit uphill?'

I had to ask. Terry was as loyal as any political aide could be, but he was a realist too.

‘Off the record?'

I smiled and nodded. All our late-night conversations were ‘off the record' and he knew it.

‘He realises. More than you know. But what's he supposed to do? He has a job that was given to him by the sovereign vote of the people, and he's just honourable enough to believe that they might still want him to do it. What happens if they suddenly discover a cure down there, and there's a total power vacuum because the President went fishing. How are they going to get the news out? How are they going to distribute it if the system has crashed? He's a good man, Natassia. He just happens to be a politician as well.'

‘I'll try not to hold it against him.' I smiled and half-turned my chair away from the screen. ‘But right now I've got to get some sleep. Want to join me?'

He put down his drink and stared into the pick-up. ‘When this is all over, I just might take you up on that.'

I turned back to face him. ‘When this is over, I might just let you.'

I punched the disconnect, watching the screen go blank and smiling to myself.

When this is over.

If it's ever over. If any of us are left to see it.

Suddenly the warm feeling dissipated. The smile disappeared and I made my way out of the booth.