Fierce September (2 page)

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.

‘Go ahead, Juno,’ Elden urged me, but I couldn’t. I had no strength left. The ship would be gone, I was sure. We had dragged Vima up the mountain for nothing.

But ahead of me Oban shouted, ‘Wait! We’re here! We’re coming!’

We’d done it! We would live.

I ran on up to the docking gates at the top of the mountain with a new burst of energy. Oban grabbed me, tugging me through the gates.

‘Down you go, Juno!’

For the first time in my life I stepped outside the dome of Taris. There was no time to savour the moment. Wind thumped at me as I scrambled down the metal steps set into the dome. How would they get Vima down? No time to wonder. A small boat waited on the bucking waves below. Willem was standing at the front, shading his eyes to watch me. Two other men reached up their arms.

‘Jump now!’ the taller one shouted.

I jumped, and even as he caught and steadied me I was gabbling about Vima, the labour and the stretcher.

Willem frowned and rapped out an order. ‘Hank, get the cradle.’

The tall man bent down to a locker, pulled out a sling affair made of rope, then with the rise of the next wave he leapt, seized the bottom rung of the steps and began climbing. Marba met him halfway, then passed the sling on up to Yin, then Fortun, who passed it to Jidda, who climbed with it to where Oban, Paz and the others waited at the top. We could hear them shouting at Vima to hold tight even as they tied the stretcher into the sling and lowered it towards us.

Inva climbed down beside his sister, shielding her as best he could from thumping against the wall of the dome. At the bottom, he leaned far out to keep her steady as she swung over the little boat that was careening wildly in the wind. Her hands were bleeding from gripping the sharp trellis, but she let go and instead pressed them over her mouth.

‘Hold on. Hold the ropes!’ I bellowed. ‘You’re nearly there.’ She couldn’t give up, not now. ‘Vima! Grab the ropes!’

She didn’t seem to hear. The men reached up. Hank, the tallest of them, snatched at a trailing rope and guided her down until Willem and the other man could reach her.

I huddled out of their way.

‘Steady, lass, we’ve got you.’ Their voices were kind as they settled her into the boat.

I shuffled over to sit beside her. There was blood on Vima’s face from where she’d bitten through her lip. ‘It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.’ She didn’t seem to hear. If only Galla would hurry.

I looked up at the dome. Elden was almost down now, and as he came he kept his eyes on Galla just above him. ‘Nearly there. Just a few more steps.’

She said nothing, her face grey with the effort of scaling the mountain and now this perilous drop down to the boat.

Following her, the boys and Oban shimmied down one after the other. Oban was last, and the sudden surge of the boat accelerating as he landed sent him tumbling. He lay in the bottom, laughing. ‘We did it!’ He sat up and spoke to Willem and the others. ‘Thank you. We thank you.’

‘From the depths of our hearts, we thank you,’ Galla whispered.

The rest of us nodded our agreement, but we were subdued. It seemed our actions had endangered us all, for Willem’s face was set.

Vima let out a muffled shriek.

We still had to get her on board the ship. I caught glimpses of it growing bigger and bigger as we bucketed towards it. The waves belted us, spray drenched us, and we could see the ship fully only when we crested the huge swells. Vima’s family and I did our best to stop her sliding around. The boys slithered over to add their strength and we managed to keep her more or less stable.

She looked ghastly. Galla gave up trying to hold her and concentrated on talking to her, soothing and encouraging her. I hoped the ship would be steadier than the boat. It was closer now and didn’t seem to be bucking around the way we were.

In the next few minutes we came close enough for the ship to loom as a great wall in front of us, then we were alongside, ropes swinging down towards us. Tiredness swamped me – I couldn’t climb up that far. Galla couldn’t. Vima …

But it turned out to be easy, for they simply left us all in the boat while they hoisted it onto the ship with ropes and pulleys.

I looked up at the sky as they lifted us. It was grey, not blue as I had dreamed. Grey and full of turbulent clouds. But there was no time to stare. Even as the boat settled on the deck, hands were lifting Vima. Trebe, our physician, aided by Creen, her apprentice and Vima’s friend, were waiting to whisk Vima away on a wheeled stretcher to somewhere within the ship.

I climbed out of the boat, bracing myself for the reproaches of my parents. They ran to me, tears streaming, and hugged me. ‘Oh, Juno – how could you frighten us like that?’

But they said no more. They would have done the same, and was I not their daughter? Hera and I weren’t their genetic children, but in every way that mattered we were their daughters. A memory of Fisa, my genetic mother, hovered in my mind. She, too, would have done as I had.

I huddled into my parents’ arms, suddenly aware of how inadequately dressed I was. I’d never felt such cold before. The climate under our dome had been balmy and mild.

‘Come on,’ Mother said. ‘Come inside before you freeze.’ 

I
STUMBLED INTO A CONFUSING SWIRL of activity and noise. Voices echoed, bouncing off bare metal walls; feet thudded on the metal floor. There were no windows. It was warm, though, and a relief from the outside chill.

Silvern had been waiting for me. She waved when she saw me, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. I glanced around, conscious of a quietening of the hubbub as people noticed me. I shrank back, sheltering behind my parents. People’s thoughts were all too clear on their faces:
Juno
went back for Vima. Of course, it
would
be Juno. Only
she
would risk all our lives.

Silvern, dressed in Outside clothing of trousers and a top with long sleeves, reached me at the same time as my grandparents did. ‘We told them not to worry, dear girl,’ said Grif. ‘We knew you would return in time.’

Silvern grabbed my hand. ‘Excuse me, everyone, Willem wants to see Juno and the boys.’

‘Me too!’ shouted Hera.

Dad swooped her up from the floor and handed her to me.

‘Make Juno stay on the ship, Hera,’ he said. He was only half-joking. Hera wrapped her arms around my neck in a strangling hug. ‘And you, Juno, stay with Hera.’