by Candy Rae
When darkness fell the search parties returned to the settlement. They had found none of the missing children.
The Council met in emergency session.
“Twelve of them,” said Stuart MacIntosh, Leader of the Colonial Council in a perplexed voice. “All vanished without trace.”
“There were no tracks,” volunteered Jim Cranston, another member of the Council. Like Stuart MacIntosh he had been a crewmember aboard the WCCS Argyll.
“No sign of any struggles either,” said another man.
“We have to keep looking,” declared Jim. “I vote that all of us hunters go out again first thing in the morning.”
“I agree,” Stuart said, “and any trail will be easier to find in the sunlight.”
The ex-crew of the WCCS Argyll had, on the whole, kept together, performing tasks that the farming colonists did not have the time or inclination to do. Jim Cranston had become the colony’s expert with spear and bow. The other more advanced weapons had not survived the storm having been locked away on the officers’ deck in the section of the ship that had sustained a lot of damage when the space debris had hit.
“All the hunters?” spluttered Robert Lutterell, one-time Chief Petty Officer on the spaceship.
“Of course.”
“No. We can’t spare that many personnel to make up search parties to hunt for youngsters who may merely have run away. We need all of them here to bring in enough food to last us through winter. We must concentrate on that. Food stocks have not yet reached the required level and there aren’t enough live animals in the corrals.”
Jim glared at him. “Run away? All twelve?” he said, disbelievingly. “I think not. There is something strange about all of this. Why these twelve? Why was there no warning? There must be a reason. We must keep looking. One of the missing is Kath Andrews. She is almost adult, seventeen, rising eighteen and a member of the crew. I do not think she ran away. We will go out again in the morning.”
The Council members looked worried as Jim continued. “Then there are Will Armstrong’s twins, Bill and Geoff. Their sixteenth birthday was only days after landing. Will wants something done about finding them and pretty pronto too. His wife’s in a state: she doted on these two boys.”
“Who else exactly has gone?” asked Jean Farquharson. “I came in late to the meeting, remember?”
“Moira Craig, Brenda Urquhart and Yvonne Benoit. They’re a year younger than the twins,” answered Jim Cranston with a glance at the list he was holding.
“I know these three,” declared Jean, “always skiving off when there’s work to be done. The only thing that concerns them is their looks and how to attract the opposite sex.”
“That’s true,” said Jim with a smile. “Thomas Wylie is next in age, he’s fourteen. He’s the mechanical one amongst them, a clever boy, and excellent grades in all his learning outcomes, especially science and mathematics. Good with his hands too. Then there are three thirteen-year-olds, Emily Stanton, Mark Ampte and Alan de Groot. Alan’s one of the survivors of colony section six; he’s being raised by his uncle. Mark’s from farming stock same as Bill and Geoff.”
“Emily?” questioned Jean.
“Bit of a dreamer with a passionate interest in language and history, at least that’s what the personnel datdisc has recorded about her. Peter Crawford is the youngest. He’s only ten, small for his age but a normal wee boy, leastways he was until a week or so ago.”
“That makes eleven,” said Jean, totting up the names she had jotted down. “Who’s the twelfth?”
“Tara Sullivan, aged twelve, another section six survivor.”
Winston Randall raised his head.
“I remember that one. She lost both parents and a little brother when their cabin decompressed. I intended to keep an eye on her after we landed but you know how it is – never enough hours in the day.”
“She was billeted at Lower Hamlet with the rest of the orphans,” said Jim. “Her disappearance was the last to be reported. Old Marion Mackie is getting on a bit and lost track of the time. I think though that she was probably the first of them to vanish. Nobody’s seen her since early morning. The last one for which we have a positive ID sighting is Mark Ampte. He was last seen walking in the general direction of the woods by his father who told him to be back by suppertime. By then of course the first missing person’s report was coming in but we hadn’t got round to warning everyone.”
“So,” said Stuart, “a farmer’s three children, one ex-crewmember, three work-shy girls, one embryo mathematician, one dreamer, two orphans and a young boy still in junior school; quite a varied bunch. Why them and how, for heavens sake?”
“All of them bar Thomas Wylie were living outside the settlement area proper,” ventured Jim, “and we know Mark, Kath and Tara were in the woods.”
“It’s a conundrum,” said Robert Lutterell.
“A conundrum?” exploded Jim. “It’s a disaster for the families. Agnes Crawford is hysterical and the rest of the parents not in much better shape. There’s something going on here we don’t understand, but we will, I promise you. We’ve got to find them, get some answers.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Robert in his loud, forceful voice. “We can’t all go out looking for them. We don’t even know in what direction they went. It’s all supposition. You said there were no tracks, no sign of any struggles. Get this into your head; we simply don’t have the manpower.”
The discussion rumbled on.
Robert let them talk for a while then interrupted again, with more bluntness this time and uttering the words that most of those seated round the table were thinking.
“They might have been taken by predators. We know so little about the planet outside the immediate area. We must warn all personnel. Youngsters may no longer wander around unattended. I advise one hunting party to search for traces. I wish we could spare more.” He looked at Stuart MacIntosh. “Surely you must agree sir?”
There were reluctant nods from the rest of the Councillors and Stuart MacIntosh.
“I will lead the search party,” Jim announced in a very loud voice, “and I will find them! I leave first thing in the morning and no one is going to stop me!”
He rose from the table.
“Who are you taking with you?” asked Stuart. “Better make it four or so. A small party will make better speed than a larger one.”
Jim thought for a moment. “Young James Rybak. He was out searching with me earlier and is most distressed about young Kath. McAllister too I think. We may need his strength before this is over. Laura Merriman would also be a good choice. She is adapting better than most to the alien environment and is developing into a rather good tracker.”
“I don’t think you’ll find them,” muttered Robert Lutterell, “and I say again how sorry I am that we can’t spare more to look, but go. If you can’t find them then no one will.”
“I concur,” said Stuart MacIntosh looking round the table. “Is everyone in agreement that Jim here should take an away team and go and look for them?”
There were murmurs of agreement, tinged with regret from those who felt bad that they could do little more, but most felt that Robert Lutterell had the right of it. The winter season was almost upon them and the eight thousand colonists needed all the food they could catch and gather if they were to survive.
Jim vowed to himself that he would do all in his power to find the missing children and if it should take months, then that was just too bad. He, unlike Robert and some of the others, did not believe that the children were dead.
He left the Council meeting and went straight to find James Rybak. It was not hard. The young man was pacing up and down outside the medical facility, face set with worry.
“Well?” James asked. “When do we leave? I’m going no matter what they say. I know the Chief is against it. Give him his due, he is trying to see the bigger picture but we can’t just let twelve youngsters disappear into the blue mist like this.”
“He was in t
he majority,” growled Jim.
“We leave tonight?”
“No, in the morning, early,” was Jim’s terse reply, “and had they said no I would have joined you anyway.”
“How many of us?”
“You, me, Laura and Francis McAllister.”
“You think that is a good idea Jim? He’s a bit of a troublemaker.”
“He is as upset about the children going missing as you and I.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You go and tell Laura and Francis. I’m going to speak to some of the families. The children may have said something. As I said before, I think there is far more to all this than meets the eye. We’ll meet back here in two hours. Tell them to prepare for a long trip.”
James chuckled as he nodded. He understood perfectly. They would not be returning without the children, no matter how long it took.
In the hardwood cabin that housed the Crawford family, young Peter Crawford’s mother was in tears. The face that faced Jim when he arrived was one of anguish, the anguish of a mother who has lost her only son.
“He is only ten years old,” she cried, “he’s just a little boy.”
“I know,” said Jim sitting down beside her, “and I am going to bring him home.”
Her tears stopped for a moment and her face changed to one of entreaty.
“You will find him, won’t you? He’s not dead?”
“I will not return without him, and no, I do not think any of the children are dead,” he vowed, devoutly hoping that he could make good the promise, but he couldn’t leave her like this. She had to have some hope. “Now, you can help me if you will?”
Her face was raised to his.
“Anything, just ask.”
“Did Peter say anything to you that sounded odd over the last few weeks? Was he acting strangely at all?”
Agnes Crawford considered for a moment and then shook her head. “No, he was much the same as usual, perhaps a little quieter, that’s all.”
Jim sighed. This was much the same reply as he had been getting in all the cabins that he had visited so far. He was none the wiser than when he had set out on his round of visits over an hour before. One or two parents had said their children seemed preoccupied about something but they had no idea what.
A very matter of fact young voice piped up from the huddle of bedclothes in the corner.
“Was it the wolves that took Peter?”
Jim pivoted round at once. “Wolves?” This was the first he’d heard of any wolves.
A small tousled-haired girl was sitting up in bed staring at him, her eyes puffy with sleep.
Agnes Crawford looked at her daughter. “Wolves? What wolves? Has Peter been scaring you with his tales again?”
The girl shook her head.
“Not bad wolves, good big wolves. They have been talking to Peter, in his head. He said it was a ginormous secret and I wasn’t to tell anyone but now he’s gone.”
Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.
Agnes rushed to her daughter’s side and gathering her up in her arms, carried her over to her seat beside the fire.
“Ask her if she remembers anything else,” Jim prompted, but the little girl did not.
As he left the cabin, Agnes rocking the girl back to sleep, Jim was thinking deeply. Good big wolves? What the Dickens does she mean?
When he discussed it with the other three they were inclined to dismiss the girl’s words.
“An over-vivid imagination,” was Lesley’s comment.
Francis McAllister was more blunt, “Balderdash.”
Jim was not so sure.
“Let’s not discount it without investigation," he said. “It’s the only clue we have so far.”
“Clue or fairy story?” was Laura’s rhetorical question.
“I’d better take a large spear with me,” Francis said sarcastically, “in case we meet up with these imaginary wolves.”
“I thought you’d be taking it anyway,” was Jim’s laconic answer, half serious, half in jest.
Soberly, the other two smiled. Although they said they did not believe the Crawford girl’s story, they would take no chances and none relished the thought of meeting up with large wolf-like creatures, however friendly they might turn out to be.
* * * * *