Terra Nullius

by Claire G. Coleman

  ‘Yes,’ Jacky replied after what seemed like too short a moment’s thought, ‘he was helpless, I could’ve killed him easy, that was why I couldn’t kill him.’

  A Settler, dressed in a mix of human and Settler clothes, still showing the after-effects of his brush with death, stepped into view. His grey-green face had deep dry wrinkles, white like old scars, where the water had not quite penetrated his flesh, yet he was alive. ‘That is what I thought,’ the Settler said. He raised his hand and lowered it again. The humans around him lowered their guns.

  ‘I am Johnny Star,’ the Toad said, his wide mouth stretching in an attempt at a human smile, ‘you saved my life.’

  Chapter 15

  When the British Empire spread across the world, when other empires from Europe fought them for space, they didn’t just take with them their technology and their culture. Diseases the Natives had never contacted, and had no immunity or resistance to, hitchhiked with the invaders.

  Europe had long been in contact with other continents; it was possible to travel overland across three continents, and this facilitated the spread of disease. Through deaths, through natural selection people developed immunity and resistance to that cocktail of germs. On other continents, long isolated from other people by wide seas, people developed who had not contacted these diseases of Europe, Asia and Africa. Whole communities, whole nations of previously strong people were destroyed by the introduction of these diseases.

  When the invading forces from Britain made it into the interior of the country they later named Australia they sometimes found a country as empty as they could have wished. They also found abandoned camps and plenty of dead Aborigines. Their diseases, travelling at the speed of bad news, had beaten them to that first contact.

  So it was when the Settler Empire arrived on the planet the locals called Earth. From aeons of contact with other planets the citizens of that empire had developed immunity to virulent, multi-species diseases that had spread across all known life in the galaxy. Humanity, isolated on one planet for their entire existence, had not developed that resistance. The toll of human lives was uncountable.

  In the ancient human novel War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, an alien invader from their nearest planet invaded Earth. The human defenders were all but defeated when human diseases, that humans had developed resistance to simply by surviving them, eliminated the threat by infecting the invaders. The reality here is vastly different. Compared to us, the Settlers who have an immune system trained by fighting galaxy-wide pandemics, the humans have a paltry resistance. That is why so many were eliminated by our diseases.

  We could have colonised their planet without the aid of nature but we would have had to be more firm in our taking control.

  – Prof. Kalek Huss

  Grandfather was in an unusual mood. This story, if Esperance had heard it before, was starting different.

  ‘None of us wanted to admit it, shameful it was, but we were losing. The Toads had kicked us out of the city, killed most of us, routed the army, none of our weapons worked, we had no way to win a conventional war.’ His eyes closed, face pained like the story itself was a wound. ‘I don’t know whether someone high up made the decision or just our captain, but the decision was made to disband the unit, give us all the choice – the chance to fight or run.’

  ‘You were a soldier, Grandfather?’ Esperance hated interrupting – the shock forced the words out before she could think.

  ‘I was a soldier then, before we were beaten, but I was not beaten, not ever. You are never really beaten until you give up –’ he paused then with a snort of laughter ‘– or die, I guess. Some of us – the stronger, the angrier, and those who had little to lose – we decided to keep fighting on. All the fancy weapons, the missiles and stuff, that stuff all didn’t work right, the Toads could stop it all – all but guns.’ There was a smile on his wrinkled face when he paused, one nobody in the camp had ever seen; not the smile of a tired old man but the smile of a younger man, a soldier, a predator. It was almost dangerous.

  ‘Guns, knives, they still worked,’ he continued, ‘guns, knives, axes, spears, bows –’ he laughed, though Esperance had no idea what was funny ‘– rocks and sharp sticks and human brains. That was all we had left to fight with against Toads with ray-guns, machines we could never have imagined and real bad attitudes. Me and six others, we took what we could carry and took off into the hills. If they were going to wipe us out we were going to cause them some hurt as they did so.

  ‘Back then we called it guerrilla war.’

  Esperance didn’t want to lose this story, this thread that Grandfather had never traced, and neither did the crowd who were slowly gathering. ‘What happened then, Grandfather?’ Showing the strongest look of concentrated interest she could muster on her face she sat before him, cross-legged, and stared at his ancient face.

  ‘Ch-shh-shh . . .’ It was not so much a shush as it was an impatient exhalation. ‘You don’t want to listen to an old man, I’m even boring myself.’

  Esperance leaned over and placed a patient hand on his shoulder. ‘I would say you are not an old man, Grandfather, but then you would know I was lying. You are an old man, you are the oldest man here but that is why we want to listen. Age has given you wisdom, you have seen things I have only heard of. If you don’t tell me your story, how will I know what happened?’

  Grandfather reached out, without seeming to look, and took the mug of tea one of the men wordlessly handed him. Esperance looked over and nodded in thanks, glad someone had thought to give him tea rather than grog. Studying the ring of intent faces around him like he had never seen them before he nodded with what looked like resignation.

  Sipping from the mug he continued. ‘We didn’t have much success, we killed a Toad or two, blew up a couple of their buildings, nothing much considering what we thought we were capable of, who we thought we were. They nearly caught up with us a couple times, both those times we lost someone: Robbo, when he stayed back to delay them while the rest of us ran like cowards; Andy, poor bastard, just wasn’t fast enough.

  ‘They aren’t really warriors, the Toads. Given a chance and equal weapons we coulda wiped them out. They love a fight, that’s for sure, but take away their guns and they are useless. I could kill a man, a Toad with a spoon; hell any of you could, no way a Toad could. It was like their technology had made them weak. They didn’t need skills to survive – they were so advanced and in being advanced they were weak. Unfortunately we never had equal weapons, never had a chance.

  ‘Most of the time that was what we tried to do – make the fight more equal, as equal as we could, catch them unarmed or steal their guns. A couple times, a few times, we succeeded at the first, caught them unprepared and took them down hand-to-hand, knives, spears even sticks and clubs. Catch them unarmed and alone and you can kill them caveman style . . .’ At that a sound like a strangled giggle escaped his throat but didn’t reach his lips. ‘Only twice did we manage the second, manage to steal their guns.

  ‘When I first fired that gun of theirs – you just squeeze this handle and it fires – I knew why we were losing. One squeeze and a tank disappears – one of our tanks, not theirs, they have shielding on theirs. That handgun of theirs I got, smaller than a cellphone, smaller than a walkie-talkie, could do more damage than an anti-tank rocket. They have other guns the size of an anti-tank rocket. I hate to even imagine what they could do.’ He paused in thought and once again, for a moment, had the expressions and manner of a much younger man. ‘I would love to get me one of those.

  ‘The other weapon of theirs, it was, dunno, about the size of a rifle. I never fired that one but Dave did, and it took down one of their fliers – “thwap” and it was falling from the sky. Only other times I saw one of them go down it was in a dogfight with at least six of our planes. Sure, we can out-fly them but their fliers are armoured like a tank and armed like a battleship.

/>   ‘We fought our way across the country, fought and hid and ran. We were tired of the war and wanted to get back to our families, those of us who had families . . . we were trying to get home, see if there was anything left of it. Those who didn’t have anybody, well they came anyway. Everyone we knew of was in Perth. The city had fallen but everyone was probably alive and enslaved. We would free our families and head to the deep desert where the Toads couldn’t live. We couldn’t hide there forever but we might be able to for a bit.

  ‘Maybe we could die of old age before they caught up with us.

  ‘Crossing a ridge, carefully between some trees, we saw lights, a scattering, not many, but more than we would have expected in the middle of nowhere. There is a difference between the lights humans like and what the Toads like. When we still had electricity we made lights slightly yellow, like a candle, or a little bit cool blue. The Toads – they like their light a watery blue-green, maybe the light where they come from is like that, who knows. Anyway we were crossing this ridge and there were so many lights below us, like the land was a mirror reflecting the sky and they were the colour of human lights.’

  Despite his being obviously tired from the telling, the story seemed to be taking decades off Grandfather’s age. ‘There was no real way to tell for sure what the lights were, so we were real careful going down the slope, real careful. It was an old camp area, old rest spot on the highway – our highway, not the canals the Toads build. Stupid Toads even build canals here where there is not even enough water to drink. There must have been a couple of hundred of them – caravans, motorhomes, families sleeping in cars, even a few tents, shelters made of tarps. Refugees camped. They must have got out of the city any way they could – a great moving village, heading inland where the Toads didn’t go.

  ‘We must have scared them half to death. Dirty, ragged from sleeping under trees, in ditches, we were armed, that must have scared them a bit. None of them would listen – I told them to kill their lights, douse their campfires, told them that the Toads might not be able to live there, they could still overfly it. They thought they were safe.

  ‘Or they didn’t want to think how unsafe they were.

  ‘I lost two more of the guys getting out of there when the fliers strafed the camp. I still remember the screams, the guns like eighties synthesiser music. Dave copped it when his Toad rifle failed – probably out of ammo – as a flier flashed towards him. Smitty, well he was just unlucky, caught some shrapnel from an exploding motorhome – it went up like a bomb . . . they had fuel and a couple of gas bottles I guess.’ Tears were pouring down his cheeks, unregarded, even unnoticed. ‘The other two guys copped it trying to get back into the city. I could run faster and I was lucky I guess, I was lucky a lot I reckon.’

  Looking Esperance straight in the eye he continued, ‘I got your grandmother out; your auntie, your grandmother’s sister – well, she didn’t make it. I couldn’t save your mother’s brothers and sister, they were so little – the Toads had already taken them. Your grandmother was pregnant with your mother. I couldn’t save her, not out here.

  ‘I’m so sorry, she died giving birth to your mother. Now you are all I have.’

  Esperance was so shocked by the unnecessary apology that Grandfather disappeared into the scrub before she could stop him. He had nothing to apologise for. A better woodsman than her, even at his age, she could not find him.

  Sister Bagra was only pretending to read. Although she stared intently at her plaque computer, although she made the thumb movements that one would make to turn pages, she was not reading. Secretly, illegally, she had installed the software on her plaque that gave her almost complete control over the security cameras in the mission buildings.

  She was using her plaque to watch Mel.

  It was hard work, this secret investigation, watching one of her nuns while ensuring none of them became aware she was doing it, while covering her tracks so nobody in authority would find out. Briefly she contemplated asking someone else to help, finding someone she was more sure was loyal and getting them to assist watching, but in the end she rejected that thought. How could she be certain that whoever she asked was not part of it? There was also the chance that seeing Bagra act paranoid, or seem to act paranoid might stop whoever she asked from trusting her.

  Right now she could only really trust herself.

  The worst thing about this all was that she could find no proof. The damned girl did nothing on camera that could be regarded as treachery, nothing Bagra could complain about. Bagra stared and stared at the camera feed on her plaque. She spent so long watching, and the silly girl did not even send out any correspondence, not even the inevitable letters home to family that girls like her could not resist.

  She was kinder to the Native children than any of the others were, but that was no proof. She could be nothing more than a soft-hearted fool.

  It was suspicious, this kindness. Surely someone that soft-hearted would be tempted to complain of cruelty to the Natives.

  It had been a highly illegal hack, and entirely unethical, but Bagra had been in the email system reading Mel’s mail. Or she would have been reading Mel’s mail if there had been any. There was nothing, no communication at all. Bagra didn’t know what had alerted the girl to the possibility of an internal investigation, but someone had. She was clearly keeping her head down.

  Bagra had been forced to inform the other sisters, all of them, of the upcoming official investigation. If she had not, she could be certain that they would be furious, suspicious when the inspector came. Her chances of passing the inspection without any complaints were minimal if the other nuns believed she had hidden the note.

  So Bagra had told them, told them all at once, first thing the morning after she caught them hiding the escape attempt. She had hoped that Mel, who must have been tired that morning, would have her guard down. When she heard, it would show something on her face. You would have expected triumph at her success, or guilt if her complaints had gone further than expected, or fear if she thought she would get caught. There might have been something, but it was almost invisible. The girl had clearly steeled herself for this information when it came. Bagra simply couldn’t prove even to her own satisfaction that Mel had done it.

  Feigning illness, Bagra spent days upon days in her cell. It was possible, if she was careful, to face her plaque in such a way that what was on the screen would not show on the security camera that was in her room. There was no way to tamper with the permanent record kept of the camera footage so it was best to leave no footage in the first place. It would not do to leave any record of her illegal hacks of the surveillance.

  Finally, there was what she had been waiting for: all the nuns, but her, were out working in the mission, in the schoolrooms, outside among the children. She was alone in the building. Quickly she tapped a command into her plaque. Nothing happened that she could see but she hoped the hack she had cajoled, then finally bribed, out of a security department technician had switched off cameras in the entire building for half an hour. He told her it would and the gap in the footage would look, to any investigators, like nothing but a computer glitch. She waited a few moments before moving just in case the hack did not work immediately. Gliding silently down the hallway of cells she made it quickly to the door behind which the girl Mel lived. There was no lock – nobody believed there was any reason for a lock on the door of a nun’s cell – so she walked straight in.

  All the rooms were the same: a bed with a simple coverlet, and a dresser that contained all the nun’s personal belongings. Bagra started there. The guilt she felt riffling through another’s personal space was useless to her – she ignored it. In the dresser she found nothing with which to condemn Mel, no evidence that it was her who had contacted home.

  The contents of the drawers were completely acceptable, completely conventional. Nothing, even, that the most conservative sister would find unacceptable. S
he appeared to have accepted the doctrine of simplicity, the vow of poverty completely. There was nothing there to suggest she had any life outside of the Order.

  If it was not for her soft heart, for the fact that her soft heart led to her betraying her sisters, contacting home with those accusations, Bagra might have thought her a fitting protégé.

  Bagra slipped her hand under the mattress – nothing; then bent down to look under the simple bed – nothing there either. The evidence she needed must be in the girl’s plaque, where Bagra would never get it. The privacy of plaques was sacrosanct; they were also almost impossible to hack. Checking she had left no evidence of her violation of the room, she slipped out and closed the door carefully.

  There was very little time left. She walked swiftly – but with due decorum just in case someone came in – to her cell, and closed the door. The timer on her plaque said she had returned early enough. If the tech who had given her that hack could be trusted – and she would condemn him to unimaginable torment in the afterlife if he could not – she had not been recorded on camera. Sighing she lay back on her hard bed staring, again, into her plaque as if reading.

  There was nobody else in the building. Maybe just for something different she should actually read. She would find the evidence she needed soon, she was sure of it – the girl would make a mistake.

  The book she was reading, a study of the Native, was satisfyingly ridiculous. People who had never worked with the creatures had no clue what they were like, some of them even believed the Native intelligent. She was glad she had taken the moment to download the book from the library. She knew the authors intended it as a serious essay but to her it was the most delightful of comedies. She needed a good laugh. She was still reading the book many hours later when the others returned and collected her for the evening meal.