Raging Star

by Moira Young

  Jack walks slowly around the room, scopin out the walls. What these’re made of, I got no idea, he says. He runs a hand along them. Smooth an cold, he says. Still in good shape, after such a long time. Some kinda fancy Wrecker tech. They seem to be made in sections. I guess that’s how they brought ’em in.

  On these very walls, I seen light bloom to the dawn of day. Daylight brightened around us as the music of birdsong an stringboxes sweetened the air. All that was wonder enough. But it was only the start.

  I touch the walls where I seen eagles fly. Where giant fish leapt through the oceans. Where herds of beasts galloped vast plains. Where forests an mountains an rivers an lakes an creatures an birds an people dazzled my eyes with sights of such glory that a lifetime ain’t enough to think on ’em. To recall the rapture that shattered my heart. Even if I was to live a hunnerd year.

  I stand in the middle of the room, like he did. I close my eyes. But I don’t feel a thing. It’s cold an it’s dark an that’s all. Without DeMalo, it’s dead.

  Nuthin, I whisper.

  Jest a room where a man has visions, says Jack. People do. Like yer friend, the star reader girl. What did you think we’d find here?

  I dunno, I says. There was somethin, Jack. There is, but I cain’t git at it. It’s like it’s … jest at the edge of my sight or my hearin or— I let out my breath in frustration. I smooth the wall with my hand. I says, Auriel’s th’only other person I know who has visions. Whadda you know of such things?

  Me? He shakes his head. I hang with the lowbrows, he says. Readers of salt spills, entrails an ashes. Every last one a humbug. The only visions they have is from too much white lightnin.

  DeMalo has his at dawn, I says. His visions, I mean. Ain’t that right?

  I think so, I dunno, he says. Listen, Saba. We came, we had a look, there ain’t nuthin here. But, hey. It ain’t bin a complete waste of time. I got my butt shot at. You must be pleased about that.

  I’m sure you deserve it fer somethin, I says.

  Oh, I most certainly do, he says. He kisses me. Softly. Sweetly. C’mon, he says. Let’s scram, we seen enough.

  He waits while I take a last look around the room. So what was that about? That click of the trigger in my head an my gut. The tingle, the tremble of possibility. It grabbed me last night, so powerful, when Jack was talkin about DeMalo. The sudden certainty we needed to come here. That here we’d find some kinda answer. This was pointless. A fool’s errand.

  As we make our way back through the rooms with the bunks I says, So why’d you think the guards?

  Jack says, Why the guards, why the dogs, why does he move from house to house, why does he only eat an drink what his hands touch an nobody else’s.…

  Becuz I drugged him, I think to myself. Two drops in his wine from a tiny brown bottle. Eccinel, that’s what Slim called it.

  DeMalo ain’t easy is why, Jack’s sayin. We shook his throne when we blew Resurrection. He don’t know when or where we’re gonna hit him next.

  All right, I says, I hear you.

  We can trash his playroom, he says. You wanna go back?

  No, I says, we’ll leave it.

  A cool night breeze stirs the earth air of the bunker. A little ways ahead, I can see moonlight stream down the stairs. Jack’s up ’em an out like a shot. He hates these Wrecker places. Claims they’re full of ghosts. I dunno about ghosts, but I’m more’n ready to git outta this tomb. I put a foot on the first step. What was that? From the corner of my eye I caught a gleam. My torch jest glanced on somethin. I cast about till I find what it is. My skin prickles all over.

  The gleam is metal. A lock on a door. A lock that’s bin sanded an oiled. The door’s set well back in the shadows. You’d hafta to be lookin to see it.

  Jack, I says. Git back down here.

  It’s a tumbler lock. Alone, I’d be outta luck. But I ain’t. I’m with Jack. So I’m in luck. He’s got a lifetime of scoundrel knowhow. Sure enough, he’s cracked tumblers before. He protests, he wants to go, but I prevail. Jest a quick look inside, then we’ll be gone.

  He listens an turns. Listens. An turns. He woos that lock open. An we go through the second door.

  This time, I light our way. Torch in one hand, shooter in the other. The ground beneath our feet slopes downwards. Gradual, like a long, slow ramp. Here, too, the walls an floor is hard-packed earth. The ceilin’s shuttered with planks. Propped up with struts an girders.

  I says, Whoever made this place didn’t have comfert in mind.

  Maybe they had to do it in a hurry, says Jack.

  I take a closer look as we pass. There’s signs of fresh repairs. Many of the shutter planks look new. It’s bein kept in good order. We go down, down, deeper into the earth. The air grows cooler an thicker. I hate it. I sweat. I breathe deep.

  Finally, Jack stops. Okay, we seen enough, let’s go, he says.

  As the words leave his lips, I take a step. There’s a click-click-click-click. We’re blinded by light. I shoot, on instinct, an dive at the ground. Wood cracks. Dirt rains down on top of us. My shot must of hit the roof. Probly smashed a shutter plank. As the din fades to silence an no one shoots back, we slowly git to our feet. We cough the dust from our throats. We stare as we brush ourselfs off.

  Eight roundels of light cling to the walls ahead. Four line the left wall. The same on the right. They shine a straight path to a iron slab door. With a big iron wheel in the middle of it. Jack an me look at each other. His eyes gleam pale in his filthy face. His hair’s dusted thick with dirt.

  Door three, he says. Be my guest.

  Sudden sweat wets my hands as I crank the wheel to the right. It moves smoothly. Well oiled, like the lock. There’s a soft hiss. I feel the door sigh. I tug an it swings wide open.

  Let’s see what he’s got in here, says Jack.

  As we step past the door, red lights appear in front of us. They’re scattered all over, high, low an in between. There’s a lot of ’em, but they ain’t bright. Not like the ones on the ramp outside. These murmur a dull glow. Like the last of a sunset on a cloudy winter day.

  It’s our movement that triggers the lights, says Jack. Somehow it sets ’em off.

  We lift our torches. It’s a room full of cupboards. Rows of cupboards. Heavy wooden ones, tall, with glass doors. Trunks an metal chests. Boxes an crates an barrels cut in half. Anythin that could be fitted with a shelf seems to be here. They’re stacked an tucked an crowded together. There’s shelfs in every single one. An every single shelf is filled with jars. Glass jars with lids.

  The jars hold seeds. Seeds of all colours an sizes an shapes.

  It’s a seedstore, I says.

  A Wrecker seedstore, says Jack.

  He starts to move along one of the rows. I make my way down the next one. Starin, touchin. This feels like a dream. It don’t seem possible there could be so much here. Some jars is full, right to the top. In some only a small handful of seeds. There ain’t a speck of dust. It’s all perfectly clean. Shelfs, jars, floor. The air is dry an cool. A bit musty but there ain’t no damp. Each jar has a bit of old paper stuck to it with a hand-drawn picture of what the seed is. Flowers. Vegetables. Fruits, trees, grasses. With a figger of a man to show how tall it’ll be, full grown.

  I’m making a new world, one blade of grass at a time. Healing the earth and its people.

  I wedge my torch between two metal cupboards. I take a small jar an hold it to the light. The seeds inside gleam. They’re tiny an thin, a kinda reddish colour. I give ’em a gentle shake. They shift an sigh in their long, dry sleep.

  Jack’s voice falls dead in the muffled air. There’s tree seed here, he says. If I’m readin these pictures right, they’re good fer drylands. His torchlight bobs on down the row.

  Now it makes sense. What DeMalo said to me. When he’d drunk the drugged wine an his guard was down. Jest before he passed out in my arms.

  I wanted to tell you. I’ve found something amazing. If it’s what I think it is, it’s going to change e
verything.

  He could reseed the whole earth with all this.

  Saba, c’mere. Jack’s voice sounds a tight, urgent note. With clumsy hands, I put the jar back where it came from. I hurry to find him at the far end of the room. It’s clear of cupboards here. There’s four tables bin pushed together to make one big table. Books an papers cover the top of it, piled in neat stacks. There’s stone fatlights to work by. A chair. A cot with a blanket. An a half-empty bottle of wine. DeMalo. He works here. Sleeps here sometimes, it seems.

  Jack’s lookin at the end wall. Starin up at it. There’s big sheets of heavy paper tacked the length of it. They’re coloured, mainly pink, yellow an orange. With thick blue snakes an thin blue lines an blue splodges of all sizes. Words in black. Numbers too. A lotta squiggly lines.

  What is all this? I says.

  They’re maps, says Jack.

  I only seen dirt maps before, I says.

  Well, look on these real good, he says. He takes my hand an pulls me to the furthest map on the left. This one’s New Eden, he says. Divided into sectors. See the numbers? Weepin Water, where we are now, that lies south, right? Sector One.

  Uh huh, I says.

  He puts his finger on the map. I figger that puts us about here, he says. Got that? Okay. He tugs me along to the next map. Here’s New Eden agin, he says. You see the shape? This is how it sits in the land all around it. It’s the one an only green patch. That must mean trees an growth. Becuz we know all these yellow bits an they’re bleak. We got the Raze to the east, to the west lies the Waste, to the south—d’you see?—here’s the Black Mountains, an south of them lies where Hopetown was, an here’s Sandsea—

  —Silverlake’s there somewhere, I says.

  It won’t be on no map, he says. An here, to the north, it’s the Shield all the way to this big stretch of blue. Must be water.

  New Eden looks so small, I says.

  He moves me to the next map. On this one, it’s even smaller, he says. On the next one, New Eden’s jest a dot. Saba, d’you see? This is the world beyond. Beyond any place you an me ever bin. This is a world we never heard of, never dreamed of.

  How come there’s numbers all over? I says. They’re everywhere. I go back to the second map. The Waste, I says. An the Raze an south of the Black Mountains. I glance about. From the maps with their numbers so tiny an neat. To the table with its stacks of papers an books. There’s numbers on these papers, I says.

  Numbered maps, says Jack. Numbered papers. There’s numbers on these rows of cupboards. A number on every cupboard. Did you notice the seed jars have numbers? It’s a plan, Saba. To plant.

  I stand stock still. I stare at Jack, not seein him. Every hair on my head shivers. The tiny hairs on my arms. To reseed the earth, I says. This is what it’s all about.

  This is why the locks an the guards, says Jack.

  The resettlement party, I says. This is why they was headed to the Raze. It explains the new bridge at the Eastern Defile.

  It explains why DeMalo was with ’em, says Jack.

  That worn leather bag strapped over his chest. His hand went to it, touched it from time to time. As if to make sure it was still there.

  I bet he was carryin the seeds, I says. He wouldn’t trust nobody else.

  He’d wanna be the first one to sow, says Jack. To teach the Stewards how to grow an care fer whatever it was.

  One blade of grass at a time.

  He actually meant it. He can actually do it. A new world. A healed earth. With grass an trees an crops to have food enough fer all. But not fer all. Only fer them he deems worthy. His Chosen ones.

  My head’s tight with tryin to make sense of this. I open a book. I stare at the letters I cain’t unnerstand. The words they make tell DeMalo what to do. If only we could read these, I says. Tommo reads some. Maybe if we brought him here, he could—

  That’s detail, says Jack. We don’t gotta read to know what this means. DeMalo will rebuild the bridge an be sowin seed in the Raze within a couple of weeks. He’ll start with test beds, I figger. To see what takes an what don’t. Hell, he might of done that already. He’s planned this real careful. With this seedstore an his book knowledge an fear an guns to power the project—Jack sweeps a hand at the maps—he’ll make everywhere jest like New Eden. A green paradise of slave labour, all controlled by him. Yes sir, yes my lord, yes my master, my king. With nobody old or sick or weak or anybody less than perfect. He’ll decide who’s fit to live.

  While the hive pumps out endless Steward drones to work work work work work, I says. His Chosen Ones. What a lie. They’re slaves too. You jest cain’t see their chains.

  We’re silent fer a moment, lookin at the maps.

  We thought it was jest New Eden, I says.

  The tyrants I’ve known don’t think small, says Jack. Their ambition is usually their undoin. But none ever sat on a arsenal like this one. If anybody can do this, he can.

  We gotta stop him now, I says. Before it gits beyond us. There’s numbers all over these maps. There won’t be nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to live free or be anythin or do anythin other than what DeMalo decides.

  There won’t be nobody runnin, says Jack. Fear’s a powerful weapon. If people fear you, you control them. Most of these New Eden folk ain’t never known freedom. An they never will know it, unless we win it fer them.

  I reach fer Jack’s hand. It’s warm an strong. A hand to hold on tight to. We stare at the wall. At the future laid out so starkly. A future earth, a future people controlled by DeMalo.

  Yer right, I says. He can do this. He has the will, the belief an the power.

  Case closed, Jack says. We kill him. I go back inside the Tonton right away.

  No no, I need to think, I says.

  About what? He looks at me in disbelief. How can it not be clear to you yet? DeMalo needs to go. Speakin of which, he says, we need to go. It’s easy to lose track of time down here. The new guard shift’ll show fer duty at dawn. We wanna be well away by then.

  In silence, we crank the wheel an close the great door. We press the cracked roof plank into place an scuff away the fallen dirt on the ramp. If we don’t leave cause fer him to look up, DeMalo might not notice the damage. Jack sets the tumbler lock dial back to where we found it.

  Now the light from outside that streams down the stairs ain’t moonlight. It’s dawnlight. Pale an uncertain.

  Told you, says Jack.

  As I douse my torch, I hear it. Faintly. From inside the bunker. My heart jolts. Then it starts racin. I grab Jack’s hand an make fer the stairs.

  He frowns, pullin aginst me. Hang on, he says. I hear music.

  I don’t hear nuthin. We gotta go, I says.

  He shrugs me off. Yeah, he says. Sounds like it’s … comin from that room. You must hear it. Listen. There.

  Faint but unmistakable. It’s music. My eyes meet his. It’s too dangerous, I says. Please, let’s jest go.

  He stares at me a moment. Then he takes off at a run. Towards DeMalo’s white room.

  I hare after him. Through the rooms with the bunks in the wall. I know this music. I heard it before. It’s the sound of his visions. DeMalo. He’s here. In the room. There ain’t no guards, the bunker door’s open. Anybody else would come lookin fer the cause. Not him. He’s playin with us. Drawin us in.

  I’m jest in time to see Jack reach the door. Reach fer the handle. His shooter held next to his head.

  Jack! I says. Don’t!

  He dumps his torch. We’re in total blackness. I inch forwards, feelin the wall. I got my gun at the ready. My throat ticks with fear.

  A line of light glows as he cracks the door open. Then, slowly, slowly, it widens. Gentle light spills out. Light an birdsong an sweet stringbox music. That’s all though. No outcry. Nuthin else.

  Saba! Jack calls to me softly.

  I hurry to join him, still tense, still alert. But there ain’t no need fer our shooters. We’re the only two people here. Jack stares in confusion. So do I, but
fer a very different reason. Dawn glows on the walls of the room, all around us. The air that was dead is alive with music.

  The light brightens an brightens to the gold of fresh mornin. The music grows louder an quicker. The walls leap to life. Jack starts with surprise. An, jest like I remember from before, we’re soarin above grasslands, lush an green, with a bird’s-eye view of the world below.

  What the hell is this? he says.

  Great herds of beasts thunder the plains, with snow-topped mountains in the distance. It’s still magical. Incredible. Unimaginably beautiful. Last time, I wept. This time, I don’t. It’s DeMalo’s vision. But without DeMalo.

  I got no idea, I says.

  Jack’s tried to touch one of the shaggy big-horned creatures as it leaps from crag to crag. Jest like I did when I seen it. Suspicion darkens his face. Visions, my ass, he says. This is Wrecker tech. That trickster sonofabitch.

  Eagles fly beneath his hands as he feels the walls. Seekin to know how they work. Far from bein overcome like I was, he takes little notice of these glimpses of a long-gone world.

  It’s like the walls hold the memory of the past, he mutters. Somethin must set it off. With the lights, it was us, our movement did it. But this was playin already, so what triggered it?

  Trigger. Light. Memory. Suddenly I remember. The tiny pinprick of light in the ceilin.

  As it grows to a weak beam, I start to see DeMalo. He stands in the centre of the room, right unnerneath it. He lifts a chunk of clear, glassy rock. The light beam latches onto it. The rock begins to glow with a faint pink light. But not jest the rock. The whole room. The light grows stronger. Birds begin to sing.

  DeMalo ain’t here now. There ain’t no rock. But still the birds sang. Still the day dawned on the walls of this room. I stand in the middle an squint at the ceilin. It’s harder to see now the room’s so bright. I can only jest see the pinprick of light in the dome above me. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t think to look. You’d never notice it.

  Jack, I says. Could it be triggered by light from outside?

  He’s beside me in a second. We stare up. You genius, he says. The first light of day sets it off. Somehow it gits in here, maybe … through a pipe or somethin. I cain’t hardly see that. What made you look there?