A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

by Justin Woolley

  “Stop her! Stop that girl!”

  The girl ran, but where was she going to go? Lynn could guess that she was heading for the Great Gate and its slowly closing doors. She was trying to get back Outside, but it was crazy; she was never going to make it, the gate was crawling with Diggers.

  She was running right toward them. Colonel Hermannsburg wasn’t wearing his uniform—he never did when they took their walks—and so the girl didn’t seem bothered by the man and his daughter in the street. Her eyes were fixed on the gate and the Diggers that were near it. But beside her, Lynn’s father made a move to intercept the girl. He was going to stop her. Lynn knew he would consider it his duty as a Digger even if he disliked the Holy Order as much as anyone. As the girl came closer Lynn could see the desperation in her eyes, the fear that drove her. She might not make it past the Diggers at the gate—there was nothing Lynn could do about that—but she could give her a chance to get a little further. Just as the girl approached and Colonel Hermannsburg prepared to stop her, Lynn flung herself at her father, wrapping her arms around him, burying her face into his chest and embracing him in a tight hug. The girl’s bare feet slapped against the cobblestones as she ran past.

  “Lynn,” Colonel Hermannsburg said as he pushed his daughter away from him and turned to look at the girl, “I could have stopped her.”

  Looking round her father, Lynn saw the girl running as fast as she could toward the Great Gate. She was almost there, only twenty yards to go, maybe not even that, when she tried to dodge one of the Diggers coming for her. She hesitated for a moment and it was enough time for another Digger to grab her. She fought against them for a moment but there was little point. Behind her the Great Gate gave a wooden thud as it closed.

  “You there, girl!” The Holy Order clergyman who appeared to be in command approached Lynn. He grabbed her around the top of the arm. “I saw what you did. You let her go.”

  “Take your hand off my daughter,” Colonel Hermannsburg said as he stepped protectively in front of Lynn.

  The clergyman moved his eyes slowly to meet Colonel Hermannsburg’s. “Do you know who you are addressing?”

  “Do you, Lieutenant? I am Colonel Alfred Hermannsburg, Chief Military Advisor to the Administrator, and you are touching my daughter.”

  The lieutenant didn’t take his eyes off Colonel Hermannsburg, but he dropped his hand from Lynn’s arm.

  “Colonel,” the lieutenant said. “Your daughter was just complicit in the attempted escape of a prisoner of the Holy Church.”

  “What’s your name, Lieutenant?”

  The clergyman didn’t answer straight away, and for a moment Lynn didn’t think he would, but then he said, “Clergy-Lieutenant Helios, sir.”

  “Well, Clergy-Lieutenant Helios, you’ll see that the prisoner has been apprehended, so there doesn’t seem to be a problem.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Helios said in a tone that made no secret of his lack of respect, “even if she was caught, your daughter aided a prisoner of the Holy Order.”

  “Please,” Lynn said. “I was—”

  “It’s all right, Lynn,” Colonel Hermannsburg said, cutting her off mid-sentence and not taking his eyes from the young clergyman in front of him. “The lieutenant was just leaving to ensure that no more of his dangerous criminals escape.”

  “You best be careful, sir,” Helios said. “Not even a colonel of the Diggers is above the law of the Church.”

  “I was just scared,” Lynn said, and this time she wasn’t going to be interrupted. “That was all. She was an Outsider, a filthy Outsider, and I was scared. I didn’t mean to let her get away. I’m sorry if I caused a problem. I would never do anything in defiance of the will of the Church.”

  The clergy-lieutenant stared at Lynn. “The Order will be watching you carefully, girl.” He looked to Colonel Hermannsburg. “And don’t think that your position in government gives you any authority in the Church, Colonel.” Clergy-Lieutenant Helios spun on his heels and walked away.

  Colonel Hermannsburg looked down at his daughter.

  “What?” she said, knowing full well what that look from her father meant.

  “You know exactly what, kitten,” he said. “Don’t get yourself in trouble with the Church.”

  Lynn didn’t say anything. Her father sighed but then smiled.

  “Come on, let’s go and get that ice-cream.” Colonel Hermannsburg reached out and took his daughter’s hand. “You’re a good girl, kitten, and I know you wanted to do the right thing, but in this world doing the right thing is sometimes too dangerous.”

  Lynnette Hermannsburg looked back to see the copper-haired girl being escorted through the doors of the Supreme Court. Then she turned and walked hand in hand with her father through the streets of Alice, for what would be the last time.

  CHAPTER 12

  Parry, thrust, parry, thrust. Lynn continued this pattern with the wooden sword until her arm burned. There’d been a time when her father would let her stand outside the training yard at the Diggers’ barracks and watch the men train with swords. She had mimicked the movements, slowly at first, but had grown faster and faster as her confidence grew. Now, as she practiced in her bedroom, she knew her form was good. Better than good. It was as near to perfect as any other person she had seen. Melbourne may have had more natural talent, but she had raw determination. She would show them all what a girl could do.

  Lynn was practicing a robe cut, using two hands to slice diagonally from the base of the neck to the opposite hip, when she heard a bang outside her window, as though a door had been opened too fast and had hit the wall. Then there was a scream. She spun toward the window just in time to see a flash of black fall past the open shutters. The scream ended abruptly in a splintering crash.

  As Lynn looked out her window she cupped her hand over her mouth in shock. Below, shattered like the wooden barrels he had fallen into, was the body of a man. One of his legs was twisted at an impossible angle and his opposite arm was wrapped around himself in a reverse hug. He had landed face down so Lynn couldn’t see who it was, but the only window above hers, the window the man must have fallen from, was her father’s. She leaned out further, balanced precariously on the window ledge, straining to find something familiar about the man, something that might tell her it was not her father. The broken man was dressed all in black, including a hood that was pulled up, or had at least fallen that way in his unpleasant meeting with the barrels, and so she could see no distinguishing features. The man didn’t seem to be the same shape as her father, though. The shoulders weren’t broad enough, for one thing. But if he wasn’t her father, then—

  Lynn moved so fast that her feet barely touched the steps. The wooden sword she still held in her hands scraped along the wall. Her anxious heart pounded in her ears. As she reached the next level she looked toward her father’s room and found the door slightly open. She took a deep breath and pushed it wide. Squeezing the hilt of the wooden sword, she entered the room. Lynn stopped when she saw the body on the ground. Her father lay on his back in the center of a large rug. The rug was very old, and its intricately patterned diamond border was being slowly obscured by the gradual spread of blood. The wooden sword clattered to the floor as Lynn stared at her father. Colonel Hermannsburg made a noise somewhere between a cough and a gargle, and then Lynn was kneeling beside him before she even realized she had moved.

  Colonel Hermannsburg’s hand was clutching the side of his neck, where the end of a spoon stuck out from between his fingers. Blood oozed from beneath his hand, some of it running the length of the spoon and falling off in slow drips like crimson custard. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Her father was Colonel Alfred Hermannsburg, and he was invincible. She placed her hand on top of his, feeling the warm blood under her palm. In that unfathomable moment her mind tore itself away, wandering off on thoughts it could handle. How embarrassing that her father had been killed by a spoon.

  “Should I pull it out?” she asked.


  Her father opened his mouth to answer, but coughed instead and drew in a ragged breath. He shook his head weakly, closing his eyes. No, Lynn thought, don’t close your eyes. She shook him ever so gently and they opened again. He smiled at her, then reached out and touched her cheek, brushing it gently with the backs of his fingers. Lynn didn’t notice the streaks of blood his fingers left behind and wouldn’t have cared if she had. She heard her father’s voice, softer than a whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No,” said Lynn forcefully, “don’t!”

  Hot tears began to stream from her eyes as she lifted her head.

  “Help,” she said, quietly at first and then louder. “Somebody please help! Help me!” She looked down at her father, saw his chest rise and fall. “You’ll be all right, Father,” she said, “you’ll be all right, won’t you?”

  Colonel Hermannsburg’s voice was thinner than air. “Kitten,” he said, coughing gently, “promise me you won’t let anyone stop you.”

  “Shhh, Father, don’t speak,” she said, her voice cracking around her grief.

  “You don’t let anyone stop you being whatever you want to be,” Colonel Hermannsburg said, forcing these words out with the last of his energy.

  “I love you,” Lynn said, rocking gently on her knees, her words giving way to sobs, “I love you.”

  Lynn held her father. She didn’t notice exactly when his chest stopped rising and falling, but at some point she realized he was gone. Her soft sobs gave way to terrified screams.

  “Help! Somebody please!”

  He was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  In her room Lynn sat on the edge of her bed staring out the window at the stringy clouds sliding quickly across the pale blue sky. How dare the clouds continue to move, didn’t they know her father was gone? She could hear the sounds of activity from the city, wagons, bio-trucks, people moving through the streets, everyone going about their business as if everything was normal. Was she the only one who cared? She wanted to yell out to them, tell them all to stop, tell them that her father was gone and there was no point to any of this.

  She listened to the murmuring sounds of Ms Apple talking in the next room. Ms Apple had been staying at the house since her father had died. There was no one else to look after her. The person Ms Apple was speaking to had a voice Lynn didn’t recognize, but she could tell he was a male. Most of the conversation was unintelligible, though she overheard enough to know they were talking about the Administrator. Ms Apple hadn’t shooed whoever it was away as fast as the other visitors, so Lynn assumed that it must be important.

  There was a soft knock on the door. Lynn guessed it was Ms Apple. She had come in to speak to her a few times over the past two days, trying, unsuccessfully, to console her in some way. It hadn’t worked then and it wouldn’t work now. Lynn didn’t care about anything. She was going to sit here and stare out the window for the rest of her life. Ms Apple knocked softly again, waited a short time, and then opened the door. She came in carrying a tray bearing a small white teapot and two cups. The news must have been bad; she had come armed with tea, surely a lady’s most potent weapon. Ms Apple placed the tray on the small table by the window and looked at Lynn.

  “Tea, dear?” she asked.

  Lynn didn’t reply.

  “I’ll pour you one. You might feel like it later.”

  Ms Apple placed the cup and saucer down on the bedside table and dragged one of the chairs from the table closer to the bed. She sat and sipped from her own cup.

  “Lynnette,” Ms Apple said, “the Administrator sends his condolences. He said he would very much like to see you, perhaps for dinner tonight?”

  Lynn sighed. Her eyes moved from the blue sky outside to Ms Apple’s face, searching it for a moment before moving back to the clouds.

  Ms Apple reached out and put her hand on Lynn’s shoulder. “It will get better, dear, I promise. After my husband died I thought I would never feel anything again, but time does heal the wounds, if not completely, then enough that you can face the world again.”

  Lynn’s eyes flicked again to her teacher’s face for the smallest of moments.

  “Lynn, you must come out of your room eventually.”

  “Before Father di—” Lynn’s words caught in her throat as though after two days of silence she had forgotten how to speak. “He told me I should be whatever I want to be.”

  Ms Apple put her hand under Lynn’s chin and gently turned her face until Lynn found herself looking into her eyes. The lines around them were deep and numerous, easily betraying the lady’s age, but they still burned with a fierce youthful love. Lynn had once thought the crow’s feet edging Ms Apple’s eyes were horrid and ugly, but she couldn’t see that now.

  “You are the strongest girl I have ever known,” Ms Apple said. “You will be fine.”

  Lynn took a moment to strengthen her resolve and then asked the question that had been running through her mind for two days. “Who did this, Ms Apple? Who killed him?”

  Ms Apple sighed. “We don’t know. The Diggers have begun an investigation.”

  “This is my fault.”

  “What?” Ms Apple said sharply, then lowered her voice to a calmer tone. “Lynnette, my dear, what gives you that idea?”

  “I started trouble with the Holy Order. I got him in trouble with them.”

  “No,” Ms Apple said. “No, child. This isn’t your fault, don’t think that at all. Your father was a powerful man. His death was not your fault.”

  Lynn sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t think I want to go and see the Administrator tonight.”

  Ms Apple sighed.

  “I’ve been told, my dear, that tonight’s invitation for you to see the Administrator is not optional.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Lynn walked through the double wooden doors into the Council Room of Government House accompanied by Ms Apple. This was the seat of the Council of the Central Territory. The room was not what Lynn expected. It was more a hall than a room, and it was the most splendidly decorated place she had ever seen. Long flowing banners hung from the high arched roof. The sides of the hall were lined with tiered bench seats, all empty. The walls were adorned with scattered paintings, suits of armor and relics of the time before the Reckoning, antiques so obscure that only the engineers might know what they were for. The main feature of the decoration was in the center of the hall. Up in the rafters, positioned on a suspended platform, was a pre-Reckoning automobile, a type of small truck, Lynn thought, with a tray on the back. It was blue, or at least it had been, once. The body was dull and faded now, patched with brown rust. The platform the vehicle rested on bore a large golden plaque that read: “Ute of Steven, First Administrator and Prophet of God.”

  Beneath the precariously positioned relic was a table. As they passed Lynn couldn’t help but notice the spot where her father would have sat. The name plate on the seat marked for the Chief Military Advisor had already been replaced with a new one reading “Colonel Jack Woomera.” At the head of the table was the Rock Throne, the seat of the Administrator, which Lynn knew was carved from a piece of the Rock itself. Looking down the length of the table, Lynn could see the Administrator sitting casually on his throne, one leg dangling over a polished red stone arm. The Administrator watched Lynn approach as an alpha lion might watch a younger lion chancing his luck in a new pride.

  It wasn’t until she was right before him that Lynn noticed the tall man who stood beside the Administrator. He was a lean, dark-skinned man who stood impossibly straight, like a branchless tree. Even here in the brightly lit room he seemed to have materialized from the shadows. His face was long, the bridge of his nose an extension of his forehead. His angular features gave him the appearance of one who was constantly looking down at you, both in height and mood. This, Lynn knew, was Knox Soilwork, Chief Minister.

  “You must be Lynnette,” the Administrator said as he rose from his chair. He stepped towar
d her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “My very great condolences on the death of your father. He was a good man.”

  Lynn didn’t answer, she just stared at the man. Over the last two days her mind had raced and raced in a search of answers, trying to understand who would murder her father. After all her consideration she could only reach one conclusion.

  The Administrator turned to Ms Apple. “And Ms Apple,” he said. “Nice to see you, as always. I hear you’ve been staying with Lynnette.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “That’s great. Thank you for doing that, and I hope my Bren is still performing well in class?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, of course he is.”

  Even given the circumstances Lynn still found this mildly offensive. Bren was never performing well in class; he simply sponged off the other students.

  “Please,” the Administrator said, “sit.” He indicated the council table. They both pulled back heavy wooden chairs and sat in the positions usually reserved for ministers of government.

  The Administrator tapped one of the Rock Throne’s arms. He looked at Lynn. “Do you know why they make me sit on this uncomfortable stone monstrosity?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Lynn said, barely managing to speak, then hazarded, “because it’s from the Rock?”

  “It is indeed,” said the Administrator. “They say that no matter how many cushions are placed upon it the Administrator will always feel the Rock beneath him, a constant reminder of the burden of ruling.”

  Lynn shifted her weight in her own chair, feeling uneasy. There was a sense of tension in the air. She could already tell the news she would be receiving would not be good.

  “Today, though, Lynn,” said the Administrator, “I feel the pressure on my backside more than usual. The Territory is at risk in ways you cannot understand. Now I receive news of your father’s death.” He shook his head.