by Lucas Bale
The compound preyed on Gant’s mind in the following weeks and months until at last the need to know overwhelmed him. He began to scout the jungle around it, tentatively at first, then growing bolder in the way only a man desperate to survive can. He found the weaknesses in their security, those tiny chinks in the armour a lone burglar might exploit, and then he slowly began to steal from them. At first he took only food, but eventually he was able to find tools, and even a rifle.
Remaining perfectly still in the high canopy of the jungle’s dense foliage, he watched two more hunts like the one for the man in the river. But it wasn’t until the third time he saw such a hunt that he decided to do something about it. On this occasion it was a woman who came through the trees. There was no fear on her face; instead, through the haze of the humidity, Gant saw intense concentration. She ran lightly, jumping over the fallen carcasses of dead trees, slipping beneath hanging vines. She glanced behind every so often, but mostly, she just ran.
He couldn’t say what it was that made him climb down and follow her. He experienced an urge at that moment that consumed him. He had been alone for more than half a year and had begun to talk to himself in the caves. At first it struck him as madness, these muttered two-way conversations, but he drew comfort from them and so had allowed them to continue. Yet when he saw her, sprinting through the foliage, those conversations seemed suddenly like the fringes of a delirium.
She had found the river by the time he caught up to her, and, like the first of the runners he had ever seen, she was wading through it. If his intention before then had been only to watch her, the memory of what the hunters had done to that man served to change his mind.
He knew the river, understood its flow. He knew where he could swim beneath the surface and where the eddies would carry him across rather than downriver. So he surfaced in front of her, startling her, and showed her his open hands. There were no scars on his face, and he wore no Peacekeeper armour. His hair, while long now and unkempt, was not tied in those orange curls. He hoped she would assume him to be a runner. He raised his finger to his lips.
He pointed to a hollow, similar to the one in which he had hidden before, and she nodded.
The hunters emerged silently from the trees, just as they had done months before, then filtered along the bank, searching for their prey. Gant held the woman tightly, ready to clamp a hand over her mouth. She shivered, as much from the cold of the river as from fear.
The hunters searched for a long while before they left. Still Gant remained there, holding onto her, until the trembling beneath his touch became shivering and he knew the cold was too much for her. Then he led her into the jungle to a place where he knew they would be safe for a while—or at least as safe as the jungle could ever be—and gave her something to eat. She tore at it, chewing quickly. She had a delicate face, tattooed of course beneath the dirt and blood, but it was a face he found beautiful.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, studying him as she ate.
For a moment, he couldn’t answer. It was as though he had almost forgotten how. Then he said, ‘My name’s Will Gant. I won’t hurt you.’
‘You escaped them?’
Gant shook his head. ‘We don’t have time for me to explain,’ he said. ‘We need to leave soon.’
‘There are more of us.’
He shook his head. The two of them could escape the jungle unseen, but a group might easily be spotted. ‘We can’t save them.’
‘We can save some,’ she said. ‘I know where they’re hiding. I went to look for food, and they saw me.’ She nodded back into the jungle, across the river.
‘I call them chukiri,’ Gant said. ‘The hunters. I don’t know why. Maybe they reminded me of the chukiri game hunters on Gerasa.’
‘That’s where you’re from?’
Gant nodded. ‘You?’
‘Jieshou. Look, I can’t leave them behind. You don’t know what it’s like back there. You don’t know what we’ve heard about these chukiri. I have to go back.’
Gant looked away. He remembered the man in the river and found his hands were balled into fists. ‘Let’s find your friends. Quickly.’
The woman relaxed a little and smiled at him. ‘My name’s Kayt,’ she said. She reached over and touched him on the arm. ‘Thank you for my life.’
Her words, their simplicity and the sincerity behind them, touched him. They left something warm inside him that he wanted to hold onto. He managed a nervous half smile.
She led him through the jungle quickly, aware of their urgency. He was surprised she could navigate in the jungle so well, a Jieshouan who ought to be used to desert and crimson rock, but she hardly seemed like she needed to think about it. Eventually she dropped down next to a tributary of the main river and clambered over a natural rock formation beside it. She turned to him and then glanced down. He nodded, understanding. They needed to see her first.
She disappeared, but not for long. Soon she reappeared and beckoned him to follow. He climbed down the rock after her.
There were five of them there, huddled in a cave created by the rock. A woman and four men. All inmates. And as they stared at him, bruised and dirty and consumed by fear, Gant knew that everything had changed.
That now, he was committed.
FIVE YEARS LATER
C H A P T E R 6
THE NIGHTS were warm enough that there was no need of a fire, even on the summits of the lower hills. It was different higher up, where the air quickly grew fierce and cold, but not here in the lower ranges. Gant sat within a crevice in the rock, his legs hanging over the edge. Below, he could just see the roof of Hut One jutting out from behind the flank of the summit. Above, there was only the damask sky. In the far distance, lightning rippled over more smoke-grey mountains, yet the air here was still, and all was quiet except for the occasional rumble of distant thunder from the gathering storm. Even the birds now slept.
‘I never tire of being up here,’ Nikolaj said quietly, perched beside him in the crevice. ‘Especially when there’s a storm coming.’
Gant looked at him and smiled. Nikolaj’s rifle, like his own, leaned against the wall of rock next to them, his pack propped to the side of it. Nikolaj was much younger than Gant, young enough that Gant sometimes wondered what Nikolaj could have done back on Sippar that warranted being sent to the Kolyma fleet. You still question, don’t you? Even now. As if judgments made by others somehow define who these people are. Do they define you?
‘No,’ Gant replied, answering his own unspoken question. He looked back at the landscape and nodded. ‘I like being up here too.’
‘There’s something I need to ask you,’ Nikolaj said. His voice trembled with nerves, as though the evening’s climb had been building to this point and the tension of that silent need might soon get the better of him if he did not voice it. ‘If you don’t mind, that is.’
Gant sighed. He knew what was troubling Nikolaj. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But he knew he couldn’t hold the young man off forever. ‘So ask,’ he said.
‘I want to do the next run.’
There it was. Nikolaj was growing up. He could shoot well, Gant admitted. Many in the colony could, because it was the easiest way to hunt for enough protein to balance their staple diet of root vegetables and fruits—whatever they could grow up here.
Gant closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I just don’t think you’re ready yet.’
Nikolaj was silent, but Gant could sense his resentment building. He watched the young man rub the palms of his hands on his trousers and take in a deep breath before he spoke again. ‘I get that you’re trying to protect me, all of us, but you can’t do everything yourself. You need to let others help you.’
‘We’re safe here. They don’t know where we are, and they won’t find us unless they come looking in this sector. And they’ve no reason to do that right now. We make a mistake—’
‘I won’t make a mistake,’ Nikolaj said.
&nbs
p; Gant didn’t look at him, but he could feel Nikolaj’s eyes burning into him.
‘I’m not saying you would,’ he said finally.
‘You’re saying you don’t trust me.’
‘I’m saying I want to be careful.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘I know you will.’ Gant sighed again and rolled his shoulders. He could understand why Nikolaj had grown restless, why he so desperately wanted to shoulder his own burdens, but it was too soon. There was too much at stake. ‘There’s one hundred and twenty-seven of us, Nikolaj. For the last six months, the chukiri have concentrated on getting off-planet rather than trying to find us. We’re happy. We’re safe. So that makes every run more dangerous than the last, because we can’t afford to antagonise them. We can’t let them think we’re a threat. You know what they would do if they caught one of us? You remember Dawson? What he looked like when we found him?’
Nikolaj closed his eyes. ‘I know—’
‘No,’ Gant growled, his anger overtaking him. He instantly regretted it, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d worked too hard, built too much. Lost too much. ‘You don’t know. I know, because I found him. I know, because I’m the one who had to bury him—what was left of him. I know, because I sent him on that run.’ Gant reached over and took Nikolaj’s arm. His grip was tight, perhaps too tight, but he didn’t care. Fear drove him, and he hated himself for it. ‘So you listen to me. You’ll go when you’re ready, and not before.’
Nikolaj tore his arm away, then stood and faced Gant. He looked as if he was about to speak, but instead he took up the rifle and pack, swung them over his shoulder, and climbed down over the edge of the crevice. An instant later he was gone.
Shit, Gant thought. Some leader. He wanted to go after Nikolaj and try to explain to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Instead he stayed there until the moon’s glow brightened in the night sky. Nikolaj was ready, he thought. He’d been ready for a while, and Gant had simply been putting off the inevitable. He wasn’t the young man’s father, and in reality there was nothing he could do to prevent Nikolaj from making the run. Gant hadn’t even wanted to be their leader—he had never wanted that responsibility. It had happened over time, approaching him unawares and taking him by surprise.
He had been the one who’d found them, the first of his small colony, fleeing captivity, huddled in a cave in the jungle. All of them inmates of the Kolyma fleet, brought here as prey by Peacekeepers. Prey for those Gant called the chukiri. That had been five years ago.
That small group, those four men and two women he’d guided into the lower mountain ranges, became the seeds of their community—its leaders and decision-makers. Between them, they built the first hut. A place that was sheltered from the vicious winds and rain that thrashed the lower ranges, while also hidden from all who wanted to find them. A place they could sleep, eat, and talk. Somewhere they could be safe. Somewhere they could call home.
Slowly, and over many months, maybe even as much as two years, the group had picked up more survivors and taken them in. More huts had been built, and now one hundred and twenty-seven of them lived in seven huts, all hidden in the mountains of the lower ranges.
Five years ago, after he had left Papin’s broken body, it had taken Gant hours to learn how to use the tool to remove his own implant, and then weeks for the wound to properly heal. He was much better at it now, so when they found a new one, it was quick, and the wound healed within days.
One hundred and twenty-seven. It was a figure he was proud of.
The Peacekeepers had searched for them, but had never found them. It was Bradman who had explained why—who had suggested building huts in the mountains in the first place. A mineral ore deposit in the rock, coupled with the charged particles in the solar wind, meant the gunships’ scanners suffered too much interference when they flew through the lower ranges. So as long as they were in the mountains, they were safe. But down there, in the jungle… that place belonged to the chukiri.
Gant couldn’t say for sure why Peacekeepers had brought inmates from Kolyma to the planet—no one could, not even those who escaped. There were theories, of course, but all the survivors could say for sure was that they had been kept segregated from each other for weeks. Some were taken from their cells and never returned. When they themselves were hauled from their cells, they were taken into the jungle and told to run. An hour later, without fail, the chukiri followed.
Of course Gant had continued to watch the chases from high up in the jungle’s canopy of trees and vines—as much as he was able to without getting too close and giving himself away. It was how he had sometimes been able to rescue others and grow their small colony. It was also how he had come to realise that it was not the chukiri who presided over the hunt, but the Peacekeepers. They followed the chukiri through the jungle, watching them, guiding them.
Then, nine months ago, everything changed. The air trembled with the sound of explosions that didn’t come from training exercises or random hunts. Gant ran through the mountains, climbing quickly to the summit he knew would give him the best view of the compound. Over fifty miles away, he watched with Nikolaj through ocular lenses as the flames licked the sky and a great cloud of smoke mushroomed upwards. In the hours that followed, more explosions came, along with the chatter of gunfire in the distance. Gant knew what it meant. It was the day he had hoped would never come.
The inmates were breaking out. The chukiri had turned on their masters.
Gant didn’t know, back then, what it would mean for his tiny community. Whether the chukiri would come looking for them, as the Peacekeepers had done, or whether they would simply leave them alone. After that, the runs into the jungle became less frequent as the community tried to assess the new landscape unfolding in the valleys surrounding the compound. The two community members who had been found most recently had the most vocal opinions, driven by fear and rage. They had seen the worst of what the inmates had been trained to do—what they, themselves, had refused to do, and which had thus made them parāyā. And therefore prey. There were questions which needed answers: like whether the community had a future, and what they could do to protect themselves.
When Gant came upon the totems in the jungle, he was given his answers.
The soft glow from a single bulb flickered in the windows of the hut he shared with a dozen others. Perhaps it wasn’t right to call it a hut—it was larger than a hut might be said to be. A three-level wood and steel structure built on the steep side of the mountain in a couloir, so it was almost completely hidden from the valley. It had taken six months to build, with wood cut from the jungle and tools stolen from the compound. Fortunately, there were a variety of skills to be found among the inmates of the Kolyma fleet, including those of the men who had been constructing scaffolding and temporary settlements for mining camps for decades. Every single log had been laboriously hauled up the mountain by a system of pulleys Bradman had devised, and then bolted into place. It was slow, careful work until the first floor was complete and they could sleep on site. Then the second floor formed, and finally the third. Six long, hard months, fuelled by their lust for freedom and their fear of being discovered.
There were six more huts just like it, each within five miles of another.
It was in the upper level where Gant saw the light as he approached. The common room where they took khana and talked. As it was his hut, it was where the leaders of the other six would come to voice their concerns. At this time of night, he thought darkly, the light of the fire could only mean that they were again discussing the damn shuttle.
Raised voices drifted from above as he entered at the lower level. He dropped his pack and set the rifle in the rack. One was missing, which likely meant Nikolaj hadn’t returned. Gant felt a pang of guilt. He climbed the stairs quietly, past the dormitories where some were already sleeping. As he walked towards the refectory, he could hear Bradman shouting again.
‘I can’t believe we’re just going to
sit here and do nothing.’
‘We are doing something.’ Kayt’s voice. Gant imagined her open palms displayed in an effort to calm the big man down. She spoke again as he reached the door, and he waited before entering. Kayt and Bradman had been among the first he had found, and they knew each other as well as anyone did here. She knew how to calm him down. Always the diplomat—much more so than Gant had been so far that evening. He wished she had been there to talk to Nikolaj.
‘We’re watching and waiting,’ Kayt said calmly. ‘Seeing what happens. We’ve built too much and come too far to make the same mistakes again.’
Gant smiled and nodded. You should listen to her, Bradman, he thought. Instead of always rushing in like you do. She’s speaking sense.
He pushed through the door, and they turned to look at him—Bradman, Kayt, and the rest of the leaders of the seven huts.
‘And what is it you want us to do, exactly, Bradman?’ Gant said. ‘The shuttle is gone. They got it running and it’s off-planet now.’
‘Which means there’s a ship up there,’ Bradman protested. ‘The shuttle doesn’t have ion drives to see it through a tunnel. It’s a short-range transport.’
Others nodded with him, muttering their agreement. He has support, Gant thought. People had been growing restless; the tension that came with their now uncertain future had been damaging to morale in all the huts. They had found freedom, and all they could see was it being snatched away from them again, or worse. It was blinding them. Tonight’s discussion was not going to be an easy sell.
‘And?’ Gant said. ‘We’ve been through this. How the hell are we going to get up there? And why would we even want to?’