Windrunner's Daughter (32 page)

Wren collapsed against Raw, chest heaving, and split open her eyelids. Escaping O
₂
shrieked around them and made their wings flutter into a blinding silver funnel.

Colm faced her, his dark eyes intent on her face. “
Skies
, Wren, we didn’t think.” She had to read his lips to understand him.

“
Designers
...” Raw went to touch her face, but then stopped. “How much does it hurt?”

“How did you get up here?” Wren yelled. She stared at Colm. Jay was crouched behind her. His hands knotted around her stomach, pinning her to both Raw and the joist and half crushing the breath from her.

“On the O
₂
train,” Colm shouted his reply and his jaw tightened. “Like rockets. Are you all right?” The wail of escaping gas abruptly eased, almost as quickly as it had started. Jay’s hands dropped from her and she could breathe through her halfie again. The wind once more pushed into the Dome.

Wren didn’t dare touch her cheeks. Her skin was numb.

They rolled onto the edge of the platform and looked down. A few masked colonists were staggering, apparently shell shocked, others had collapsed. They looked like ants, frozen in their duties. The pyramid had cracked from bottom to top, but there was no sign of fire.

“Let’s go.” Jay pointed to the open panel. “It’s the perfect take off point. We don’t need the Runway.” His hair streamed in the wind.

“We can’t.” Wren cocked her head at the sun. “The mid-day gales are coming.”

“And we’ve got to shut the panel.” Raw gripped the central node. “I can’t do it from outside. I have to re-programme.”

“Screw the panel,” Jay snapped.

“O
₂
is escaping as fast as it’s being generated.” Wren frowned. “They’re already suffocating.” Below them sirens still wailed and wailed.

“I don’t care.” Jay folded his arms.

Raw squared up. “I’m not going to be responsible for wiping out a whole colony.”

“The world needs them.” Wren exhaled shakily. “Jay, we’ve already lost Tir Na Nog, we can’t lose the Vaikunthans too.”

“Wren’s right,” Colm sighed. “We’ll have to take off from the Runner platform with the others.”

“Wren can’t,” Jay reminded him. “If the Runners see her alive they’ll take her wings and throw her off.”

Raw put his arm around Wren’s shoulders. “We’ll wait till the others have all gone and then go. The Councillor said he’d free us if we opened the panel.”

Colm nodded. “All right. What do we do?”

“I’m going to change the programme; you’ll need to pull it shut against the wind.”

Raw typed more slowly this time and one-handed. He was holding himself close to the keyboard with the other, resisting the pull of the wind.

Wren tried to go to the panel, but Colm held her back. “Stay back, hold our legs.”

He and Jay set themselves in the centre of the panel and gripped the edges. Their wings snapped around them.

“The button,” Raw shouted.

Wren pushed the unlocking mechanism. Something clanked deep inside the panel.

“Pull!” he yelled.

Colm and Jay hauled downwards. The wind blew ever harder, the gale rising and tugging at the panel, desperate to keep it open.

“It’s not moving.” Jay leaned his full weight and the panel groaned.

Wren leaped across and grabbed his legs, lending her weight to his.

Colm gasped as a gust lifted him skywards. “Colm!” Wren cried. Jay released the panel and grabbed him. Then the wind, fickle as ever, changed direction for a mere heartbeat and the panel slammed downward.

Colm was shaken free and Jay gasped as his fingers were trapped in the seam.

Colm slammed into the metal grid and Wren pulled Jay’s fingers free as the panel locked back into place. “Let me see.”

Jay pushed her off and shoved his hands under his armpits. “I’ll be fine.” He looked at Raw. “Happy now? We’re trapped here.”

Raw squatted on the platform. “Look.” He pointed at the stirring colonists. The O
₂
alarm whispered into silence.

“They’ll have to live on low O
₂
for a while,” Wren murmured.

“But they’ll live.” Raw gripped her hand. “I didn’t kill them all.”

Wren shook her head. “Are we staying up here till the gale dies?”

Colm nodded. “No-one else is getting up here, we couldn’t be safer.”

They leaned against the central node, arms and legs around joists and watched the last of the colonists lurch into their homes. Around them the solar panels shook as the high winds drove biting sand against the Dome.

Raw put one arm around Wren and she closed her eyes.

Chapter twenty-six

When Wren woke her brothers were muttering to one another. As she stirred Jay looked at her guiltily. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.” Wren rubbed her eyes and winced. Her skin felt as if it had been sanded. “What’s happening?”

Raw pointed towards the Runner platform. Even from their high perch, Wren could see that the airlock had cycled green.

The first Runner was already through it and racing along the platform. As soon as his feet left the red line, the second pelted out onto the boards and, like a silver ribbon, the row of Runners unfurled into the wind; escaping from Vaikuntha to Run over the delta.

Wren was used to seeing far reaching views; she lived at the top of Elysium Mons, yet the sight of the Runners from the top of the Dome was one she knew would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She turned slowly, taking in the whole delta. Around them, rocks, abraded to smoothness, formed organic looking ridges like veins across the desert. They glittered with seams of mica, quartz and obsidian, gold and other precious metals, bright colours that the height of Elysium made bland orange or brown. The recent gale had ironed out the dust, but even as she watched, arrows grew and moved, sand-writing drawn by the Creatures. If she squinted she almost felt she could read meanings in the senseless scrawl of their movement.

Clouds scudded across the violet sky and patches of green shimmered in the distance like mirages. Beyond them the rising grey line of the approaching mega-storm and then the Runners, seeking height and distance from captivity.

When the last of them had left the airlock, Colm stood up. “Time to go.”

Wren stretched and Raw helped her to stand. She shook her legs, trying to loosen them up.

“Just glide to the platform,” Colm said. “There isn’t any wind, but we’re dropping, so we should be all right. You just have to keep your wings locked till you get there. Don’t forget to lower your legs at the platform.”

“She knows what to do.” Raw straightened. “The question is, do
you
?”

Wren touched his forearm. “Stop it, Raw.” She looked at Colm. “I’ll be fine.”

“All right then.” Colm glowered. “Follow me.” He leaped from the platform and thrust out his arms. His wings locked and Wren held her breath as he started to glide downwards, too fast; there wasn’t enough air, they had vented it all. Colm aimed for the platform and slammed into the staircase below it with an audible thud.

Wren clutched her wing straps, until he waved. Then she relaxed. Colonists were hastening towards the platform; she thought she recognised Erb, the fat Councillor among them. She indicated their rush with a tilt of her head. “We’ve got to go.”

“You next,” Jay said.

Wren shrugged. She rotated her shoulders and then set her face towards Colm’s swiftly climbing figure.

Before she could jump, Raw caught her shoulder and spun her around. His lips touched hers. He released her almost before she realised what was happening. “Good luck.”

Wren smiled. Then she turned and in one smooth movement, leaped from the metal grid.

Joists flashed in front of her face, silver against the violet of the sky beyond the stippled Dome. She angled herself between two and felt the gentlest of air beneath her unlocked wings. Unable to prevent herself, she half closed her arms and rolled into a joyful spin, slanting downwards and whooping as she heard Jay’s horrified shout. She evened out, flicked her arms straight and locked. Catching the updraft from the damaged O
₂
tanks, she glided smoothly towards the Runner platform and her brother who had turned at Jay’s cries.

She landed lightly just above him, closing her wings neatly into her sides as she touched down.

Colm was flushed red. “What did you think you were doing? You could kill yourself flying like a … like a -”

Wren laughed. “It was an easy glide, Colm.” She looked up. The Runner platform was only a level above them. A shout from below demanded that they stop. She peered over the railing: Erb. She waved at Raw and Jay. “Come on!”

They leaped together from the top of the Dome, a pair of wings flashing in a ray of sunlight.

Like Colm, Raw was almost too heavy for the weakened air. Jay flew above him, his lighter frame giving him more lift. Raw came in first, almost too fast to see. He crashed into Colm with the force of an uprooted gingko. Colm grabbed him and they reeled backwards to crunch into the railing. The whole staircase juddered with the force of their impact. Jay followed, hammering into the pair of them, in a tangle of wings and limbs.

Colm groaned. The staircase creaked and Wren looked over the side. The Councillor was taking the steps two at a time. “No time to lose.” She dragged Jay off Raw and the relief in his green eyes told her that his back had taking a beating. She pushed Jay towards the last set of stairs. “Climb!”

She grabbed Raw’s arm and helped him to his feet. Raw took his own weight, put an arm around her and drove her forward. She looked back to see Colm lurching upright and running to overtake them.

The four Runners raced to the platform, their wings flying behind them.

Jay gripped a railing and jumped over, saving himself half a staircase. Colm copied him and was soon in front. Raw pushed Wren ahead of him. Coughing and gasping for breath she looked back. They were leaving the fat Councillor several flights below them.

Then they were facing the Runner platform. Wren put her hands on her knees, panting. There was a Runner station behind them and ahead, an airlock cycled red. The platform itself was built so that it went through the airlock and continued on the other side. The leaping lines were outside the Dome, above the desert. A ragged looking net hung beneath the platform. It would catch her only if she fell straight down.

“Who first?” She moved towards the airlock but Colm raised his eyebrows.

“We fly in order of seniority. I go first. Then Jay, you and the
Grounder
is last.” He glared at Raw and then strode past Wren, towards the airlock.

He pressed a palm against the reader and it cycled green. Then he stepped backwards shook out his wings and bent into a starting position

For some reason the snick of the opening door caught Wren’s attention when she should have been wholly focused on her brother. She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes widened. “Genna!”

The Sphere-Mistress emerged from the Runner Station. She was almost unrecognisable her face was so twisted with hatred. Her bun had come undone and her hair stuck out wildly from her head. Her eyes blazed and her lips were pressed together, pale with rage.

At Wren’s whisper, Colm stopped his preparations and turned. “Sphere-Mistress Genna.” He nodded a greeting. “You can come out of hiding. Your Council has agreed to let us all go.”

Genna came closer, one hand was snarled in her skirt, the other fixed behind her back. Wren couldn’t take her eyes from the hand she could not see. As Genna came nearer, some instinct made Wren retreat towards Raw.

“You’re alive,” Genna rasped. “We thought you were dead.”

Wren shook her head; she had no answer.

“We’re going to deal with her over in Elysium.” Colm said, keeping his tone low and calm. Why was he talking like that? Wren frowned.

“So, you’re going to let her fly again.” Genna spat. “Blasphemy on blasphemy.” Her voice rose.

Colm held his hands out, steady and walked carefully forward. His voice remained low and clear. “Patriarch Chayton will want to deal with her. We’ll send word once her punishment has been carried out.”

“Why wait?” Genna lurched forward. “Why not throw her from
this
platform?” She reached with her free hand for Wren’s wings and Raw yanked her out of Genna’s reach.

Colm kept talking. “I’m not Elysium’s Patriarch.” He gave a deprecating smile. “I can’t make the decision. Once Chayton is back from Lake Lyot -”

“You don’t need your Patriarch to pass judgement. You know exactly what Convocation would decide.” Her lip curled.

The platform shuddered again and Erb appeared at the top of the stairs. The fat Councillor was gasping for breath, his halfie half dangling from his nose, his chin wet with spit. Damp patches crept from his underarms towards his waist and his breath heaved in wet sucking rasps.

He saw Genna and froze.

Wren wriggled from Raw’s grasp. “Genna, I didn’t cause the plague. Runner’s spread it, that parts true, but not me. I’ve never Run before this.”

Genna wailed, an insane sound, full of fury, hatred and frustration. “The plague? What has that to do with this? You stole Runner wings, you filthy, irreverent, disgusting, blasphemous …” she sputtered, seeking further insults and Colm moved nearer. Now he stood beside Wren. He edged a hand between her and Raw and pushed her backwards, towards the platform.

“What are you doing?” Genna roared and her hidden hand came into view.

Wren saw what had stopped Erb. Genna wielded a long, sharp graphene knife, one of the tools of a Sphere-Mistress that would have been kept inside the Runner station. “Hand her over, Elysians,” she growled.

Wren’s gut tightened.

Colm glanced at Erb, who held his hands up, still unmoving.

“We’ve been granted clemency,” Colm said again. “The Councillors have said we’re free to go.”

Then why is Erb here? Wren thought: trying to stop us from leaving.

“What has the Vaikunthan Council got to do with Runner law?” Genna spat. “I don’t care about the rest of you, but that vile witch has to die.”