Lost on Mars (13 page)

We all sat there around the fire, eleven of us, now. We were lost in the wilderness, but we were making much more noise this night than we had been capable of the night before.

21

Because we were so used to being sealed indoors as we slept, it took some time to get used to the noises at night. I suppose I was better equipped at dealing with them, thanks to my night flights with Sook. But still, it was disconcerting, to lie there in the midst of a million rustlings and fidgetings, whoops and cries. These sounds came from close by and from miles away across flat prairies, echoing about the hills. We refugees slept huddled round the fire together and our hovercarts formed a barrier around us, sheltering us from whatever life was out there.

I tried to sleep. I tried not to think that all these people were my responsibility. They were looking to me for leadership. Even the grown-up men. Ray had never left town before, and Vernon Adams was much too sweet and gentle to announce he was taking over.

Late one evening the shopkeeper came and sat by me. He said, ‘When I look at you, Lora, it's like your Da is still with us. I can see his wisdom in your face.' Mr Adams was almost weeping as we sat there by the fire. The strain of recent days and weeks had been too much. ‘I know you'll do great things, Lora. I know you'll get us through all of this.'

In a suspicious part of my mind I wondered whether those men – Mr Adams and Ray – were just relieved to become mere followers. They didn't want to take charge and have everyone looking to them for answers. I was amazed at the way they trusted their lives to a girl like me.

I was fifteen now. My first birthday without Da. I had a muted birthday celebration one night, quite early during our journey. Al and Ma conspired to make a cake out of handfuls of ingredients they'd stowed away. It was a flat honey and flour cake they made in a shallow pan on the fire. It was delicious but, even as we crowded round to share it, I thought it was probably wasteful.

Mrs Adams produced a fancy bottle of pink liqueur from the depths of her shoulder bag and they sang to me under the bright Earth light.

I looked at the beaming, well-meaning faces around me and I thought about just a year ago – and still being a kid. On my last birthday I'd wanted toys and childish stuff. Back then I'd thought it was exciting to go into town for a visit. It was a momentous trip, travelling in to see a picture or to visit Adams' Emporium. A year ago, when I was just turning fourteen, Da was still around and so was Grandma and they were standing there as I cut into my cake.

Everything had changed.

We ate our honey cake and each had a sip of the cloying citrus spirits Mrs Adams poured. Then later I wandered into the desert alone as the others were settling to sleep under the stars.

There were no grown-ups who could tell me when or where I was allowed to wander. Not any more. Under the pretext of scoping out the land, checking our position by the stars and spying out signs of wild animals, I wandered away to find some quiet. These nocturnal checks had soon became second nature after two, three, four weeks on our journey. Also, I took the transistor radio Da used to carry with him, when he wanted to pick up the meteorological reports. I turned it on and tuned it into the dry, implacable voice again, telling me about the weather on Mars. Or at least, regaling me with the lists of numbers and strange names.

‘Desperado, Turnstile, Leastways … Mousetrap, Seizure, Cuttlefish…'

Was it my imagination, or was the weatherman's voice even clearer tonight? It was still gibberish. I understood nothing of what I heard, but I felt we were closer. Much closer. That night of my fifteenth birthday I wandered to a spot far beyond our camp. A spot sheltered by blood red rocks and there, when I was sure no one could hear me or see me, I called out to Sook.

I knew she would be out there. I'd had a feeling for some days that she had been tracking us. I knew she wouldn't let me down. In the midst of all those nocturnal noises I'd heard the brushing whirr of her wings, I was sure.

Also, she knew it was my birthday. Though Martians didn't have the same concept of birthdays in their culture, she knew that the day was a special one.

She arrived out of the clouds and dropped lightly onto the sand. Her wings were gorgeous things, more elaborately formed since the last time I saw her, covered in golden scales. When her feet reached the sand, her wings folded tidily into a cloak about her slim body. She was more beautiful and graceful than ever, I thought. I felt so cloddish and dirty before her. So heavy and stuck to the ground.

We hugged and it seemed like months since we had been together. She pulled me into that heavy, scaled cloak of hers. It had a strange, heady smell – like pollen, I guess. I was shivering at her touch. Suddenly I felt able to give in to all the feelings I'd been carefully holding back.

‘Why be upset?' Sook laughed. ‘You're doing so well. You've been amazing.'

‘Do you think so?' I looked into her eyes. By now I was used to them, those kaleidoscopes. I could even read her expression, I thought. She was amused.

But all at once I stiffened. I sensed there was something different about Sook. Something had changed her.

‘You've come a massive distance, you know,' she said, and the words bloomed inside my head. It was a long-absent sensation. ‘That's why it took so long for me to find you. You've done better than anyone would ever expect.'

‘We just keep moving,' I said. ‘Following the signals. Moving on. Surviving.'

‘It's extraordinary,' Sook said. ‘I wish you'd let me tell my people all about you. Your determination. Your fortitude. I know they would be interested and impressed. They might start to see human beings as something better than a mere source of nutrition.'

I shook my head fiercely. I didn't want Sook telling them anything about us. I wanted to be off their radar.

‘Have you been through Our Town?'

She smiled. Again this was a calmer, changed Sook. I felt she was slower in her expressions and choosing her words more carefully, like she was holding back secrets. There were long, considered pauses before she replied to anything I said.

‘I've been through your old town, yes,' she said. ‘But really, those people are of no concern to you now, you know. You left them all behind. They were given the choice. You were most generous. Only a few were brave enough to follow. They are the important ones. The others … not so much.'

Sook wouldn't say anymore about Our Town and I was keen to suggest something now. I had a prickling in my feet and a tingling in my palms. I had an urge to demand a birthday present from her.

‘A flight?' she laughed. ‘A night flight? Like we used to?'

Already it seemed like too long ago.

I told myself it wasn't just for fun, this was practical as well. I would get to see the land all around us. I would get to see where we were going.

‘I'm afraid not, Lora,' Sook said. ‘We might be observed.'

‘Who by?'

She looked troubled. ‘These are foreign territories to me. You have travelled far. There are people here watching all the time. They aren't my people. I don't even know their language. If they saw us flying together…'

‘Oh, OK,' I said, knowing she was right. I was so disappointed though. I'd imagined floating and zooming about on those new dark, golden wings of hers. They were strong and supple and now that I looked closer, indigo and chocolate brown as well as gold.

I could have felt braver, if I could have flown again with Sook.

But there were other eyes watching us both. I understood that.

Soon enough it was time for Sook to leave, she said, and we parted. I watched her soar away and again I wondered about the changes in her. She had aged. Perhaps she saw the same thing in me. I was fifteen now, after all. And I was a leader.

I walked back to our camp, exhausted.

Ma was awake and waiting for me, some distance from the slumbering mass of everyone else. She was rigid with fury as she grabbed my upper arms. Always stronger than she looked, Ma. I felt that strength now, like electricity jolting through me. She seized hold and shook me until my feet left the ground.

‘Where have you been?'

I'd never seen her looking like this before. I'd seen her worried, upset and crazy, but never as angry as this. It was like there were sparks shooting out of her.

‘You can't go wandering off at night.'

‘It's OK, Ma,' I told her, trying to regain my calm. ‘I was quite safe.'

But it turned out that she wasn't worried for me.

‘What about the rest of us? What becomes of us if you go away and Disappear? You've made us depend upon you. We can't afford to lose you now.'

Then she broke down and hugged me to her.

I felt a great coldness come up inside me. I needed to harden my heart against Ma. I couldn't help it. She just saw me as the person in charge now. Not even a daughter anymore.

The following days were difficult. We weren't really talking to each other. But Ma had enough to do, seeing to Hannah. My sister had come down with a dry desert cough and she turned feverish for forty-eight scary hours. Old Ruby thought she was coming down with the same thing, and declared she couldn't move an inch further while her lungs and feet were paining her so badly.

The three of them sat atop the hovercart at the rear of our raggy-tailed convoy and dragged along so slowly. I was leading at the front, with Toaster beside me. Toaster trained his electronic eyes ahead, all around us, like an old sea captain exploring the wet deserts of Earth. He was scoping out the land for us as the dusty coughs of our womenfolk rang out pitifully.

Mr Adams walked with us some days and he was glad of the company. His own wife and daughter were feeling raspy and poorly too, and they had decided they weren't talking to him. They had now come to the conclusion that joining our gaggle of sickly refugees had been an almighty mistake. They were poor, homeless and destitute and it was all his silly fault.

The Adams women sat atop their hovercart in their best bonnets as their vehicle went puttering along on its skirts. They looked stupidly snooty. Mrs Alice Adams and Annabel stuck their noses in the air and they wore every ruffle and bow that they still possessed. The blasting heat and scorching winds blew them about, but still these two silly females sat there on show, as if they were on their way to a garden party and we were just their servants.

Madame Lucille walked alongside us up front for a while. She made humorous remarks about the way some people carried on. I couldn't help thinking that Madame Lucille looked a bit of a ridiculous sight herself, with several weeks' worth of chin stubble growing through her cakey layers of make-up. At times I felt like I was travelling with the circus, or a troupe of human freaks, and we were looking for a place to set up our show. I longed to run off – leave them to their own devices and see how far they'd get. But I knew of course that I couldn't. I'd catch a glimpse of little Hannah or hear her poor hacking cough (too big and loud for that tiny body of hers) and remember how much I loved her. I'd remember how much I loved the rest of them – even Ma when she was being so chilly and brusque. Or Al, who seemed to be in a stupendous, ongoing sulk with me.

‘I'm the boy,' he'd reminded me, one night as we sat in our camp, eating a fiercely spicy goulash Mrs Adams had prepared. She had sprinkled her priciest spices into the cauldron over the fire, and let us know just how richly she was treating us.

‘So what?'

‘Why should you be in charge? You should at least let me help you more.'

But I knew Al didn't really want any kind of responsibility. He was just letting off steam at me. He was allowing his resentment to spill over, like milk boiling out of the pan onto a hot stovetop. One night he let out Samuel Clemens, the lizard bird he had smuggled out of town under his coat. Oh, everyone knew he had it. Everyone knew he'd brought it from Ruby's attic. He thought he was being so clever, stealing tidbits of food and snaffling scraps away for that evil-looking critter. In recent days he'd been trapping desert rodents for the ugly thing to tear to shreds. If any of us hadn't known about Samuel Clemens before, we certainly did once he started gurgling and gobbling up the desert rats.

Al got cocky. He let the lizard bird fly free one night. He was showing off to snotty Annabel and little Hannah. I could hear them whooping with delight, some distance away from the camp. At first I was alarmed that Hannah was up and about with her fever only just gone. I went to investigate and, sure enough, there was Al, making Samuel Clemens turn cartwheels in midair while the little girls clapped and cheered him on.

The creature puffed out pretty jets of flame. He blew rings of bright pink smoke. Even I was impressed by the display. I was about to say so. I was also going to tell Al what I thought of him leading the girls so far away from the safety of the camp. These two things were on the tip of my tongue when something terrible happened.

It happened – not in a flash, because the thing that dropped out of the sky was so dark. A flash is a brilliant thing. This was a vast piece of darkness. It fell out of the evening sky. It fell onto the lizard bird and swallowed him up in one go.