“Listen, honey. The Ivets have been bad, very bad. They’re all funny in their heads.”
“Like waster kids in the arcologies, you mean?”
A sad smile flickered on his lips at the bright curiosity in her voice. “Something like that. They killed Carter McBride.”
“We thought so,” she admitted.
“So we’re going to have to catch them and stop them from doing anything like it again.”
“I understand.”
He slotted the maser carbines into their saddle holsters. “It’s for the best, honey, really it is. Listen, Aberdale’s not going to be very nice for a couple of weeks, but afterwards it’ll get better. I promise. Before you know it, we’ll be the best village on the whole tributary. I’ve seen it happen before.”
She nodded. “Be careful, Mr Manani. Please.”
He kissed the top of her head. Her hair was sprinkled with tiny drops of water.
“I will be,” he said. “And thank you for saddling up Sango. Now go and find your mum, she’s a bit upset about what happened this morning.”
“I haven’t seen Father Elwes for hours. Will he be coming back?”
He stiffened his back, unable to look at the girl. “Only to pick up his things. He won’t be staying in Aberdale any longer. His work’s done here.”
Powel rode Sango over to the waiting hunters, hoofs splattering in the mud. Most of them were wearing waterproof ponchos, slick with rain. They looked more worried than angry now. The initial heat of Carter’s death had abated, and the shock of killing the three Ivets was percolating through their minds. They were more scared for their families and their own skin than they were bothered about vengeance. But the end product was the same. Their fear of Quinn would compel them until the job was done.
He saw Rai Molvi standing among them, clutching a laser rifle beneath his poncho. It wasn’t worth making an issue over. He leaned forward from the saddle to address them. “First thing you should know is that my communication block is out. I haven’t been able to tell Schuster’s sheriff what’s been happening here, or the Governor’s office in Durringham. Now those communication blocks are more or less solid chunks of circuitry with all kinds of redundancy built in, I’ve never heard of one failing before. The LED lights up, so it’s not a simple power loss. It was working when I made my routine report three days ago. I’ll leave it to you to work out the significance of it failing today.”
“Christ, just what are we up against?” someone asked.
“We’re up against waster kids,” Powel said. “Vicious and frightened. That’s all they are. This sect crap is just an excuse for Quinn to order them about.”
“They’ve got guns.”
“They have eight laser rifles, and no spare power magazines. Now I can see about a hundred and twenty rifles just from here. They aren’t going to be any problem. Shoot to kill, and don’t give any warning. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have courts, we don’t have time for courts, not out here. I sure as hell know they’re guilty. And I want to make damn sure that the rest of your kids can walk about this village without looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? To get away from all this shit Earth kept flinging at you. Well, a little bit got carried here with you. But today we finish it. After today there won’t be any more Carter McBrides.”
Determination returned to the gathering; men nodded and exchanged bolstering glances with their neighbours, rifles were gripped just that fraction harder at the mention of Carter’s name. It was a collective building up of nerve, absolving them of any guilt in advance.
Powel Manani watched it accumulate with satisfaction. They were his again, just like the day they came off the Swithland , before that dickhead Molvi started interfering. “OK, the Ivets got split into three work parties this morning. There’s two out helping the savannah homesteads, and one lot with the hunting party to the east. We’ll split into two groups. Arnold Travis, you know the eastern jungle pretty well, you take fifty men with you and try and find the hunting party. I’m going to ride out to the homesteads to try and warn them. I expect that’s where Lawrence Dillon is headed, because that’s where Quinn is. The rest of you follow after me as fast as you can, and for Christ’s sake don’t get spread out. Once you get to the homesteads, we’ll decide what to do next. OK, let’s go.”
Enlarging the Skibbow homestead’s stockade was hard work; the wood for the fence had to be pre-cut in the jungle, a kilometre away, then hauled all the way back. The ground was difficult to prepare for the posts, with a vast accumulation of dead matted grass to scrape away before the hard, sandy soil was uncovered. Loren Skibbow’s lunch had been cold chikrow meat and some kind of flaccid tasteless stewed vegetable which most of the Ivets had left. And on top of all that, Gerald Skibbow was off on the savannah somewhere looking for a lost sheep, which left Frank Kava in charge, who was a bossy little shit.
By midafternoon Quinn had already decided that the Skibbows and Kavas were going to be playing a very prominent role in his next black mass ceremony.
The lengths of wood they had cut that morning were laid out across the grass, marking out a square of land thirty-five metres a side next to the existing stockade. Quinn and Jackson Gael were working together, taking it in turns to hammer the upright posts into the ground. The other four Ivets in the work party were busy nailing the horizontal beams into place behind them. They had already completed one side, and were three posts along the next. It had rained earlier, but Frank hadn’t let them stop work.
“Bastard,” Jackson Gael muttered as he took another swing with the sledgehammer. The post shook as it thudded another three centimetres into the soil. “He wants to have this finished by tonight so he can show Gerald what a good keen little boy he’s been. Means we’re gonna be walking back in the dark.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn said. He was kneeling down, holding the black post upright. The mayope wood was wet, difficult to grip.
“This rain makes everything slippery,” Jackson grumbled. “Accidents come easy, and on this planet you get damaged, you stay damaged. That drunken old fart of a priest don’t know shit about proper doctoring.” The sledgehammer hit the post again.
“Relax. I been thinking, this place would be a good target for us.”
“Yeah. You know what really pisses me off? Frank climbs into bed with that Paula every bloody night. I mean, she’s not got tits like Marie had, but God’s Brother, every night!”
“Will you stop thinking with your dick for one fucking minute. I let you have Rachel, don’t I? That’s as well as our girls.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Quinn. Sorry.”
“Right, we’ll start working out who we want to bring, and when we’re going to do it.”
Jackson tightened the scraps of cloth he had wrapped round his palms to give a tighter grip on the sledgehammer’s handle. “Tony, maybe. He’s pretty easy around the village; talks to the residents. Think he could do with reminding where his loyalties lie.”
“Could be.”
Jackson swung the sledgehammer again.
Quinn caught a flash of motion out on the vast plain of rippling grass back towards the thin dark green line which marked the start of the jungle. “Hold it.” He upped his retinal implant to full magnification. The running figure resolved. “It’s Lawrence. God’s Brother, he looks about dead.” He scanned the land behind the youth, looking for a sayce or a kroclion. Something must be making him run like that. “Come on.” He started trotting towards the floundering teenager.
Jackson dropped the sledgehammer and followed Quinn.
Frank Kava was measuring out the distance between the posts, setting them up correctly for the Ivets. Not that those idle buggers would appreciate the effort, he thought. You had to watch them the whole time, and they had no initiative, everything had to be explained. He strongly believed most of them were retarded, their sullen silence certainly indicated it.
He leaned in
on the spade, tearing out the knobby roots of grass. This stockade was going to be a mighty useful addition to the homestead. The original one was far too cramped now the animals were reaching adult size. They’d need the extra room for the second generation soon. Certainly the sheep would be mature enough to be inseminated in a few more months.
Frank had been faintly dubious about coming to Lalonde. But now he had to admit it was the greatest decision he’d ever made. A man could sit back every evening and see what he’d achieved. It was a tremendous feeling.
And there was Paula, too. She hadn’t said anything yet. But Frank had his suspicions. She looked so vital of late.
The sounds made him look up—something wrong. Four of the Ivets were still hammering away at the horizontal bars, but there was no one using the sledgehammer. He cursed under his breath. Quinn Dexter and the stalwart Jackson Gael were a hundred metres away, running through the grass. Unbelievable. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, but they either didn’t hear him, or they just ignored him. Probably the latter, knowing them. Then he saw the figure running in from the jungle, the erratic stumbling gait of a desperate man on his last legs. As he watched, the figure fell, arms windmilling; Quinn and Jackson increased their pace. Frowning, Frank started towards them.
The voices led Frank for the last twenty metres. All three of them were crouched below the wispy grass.
It was another Ivet, the young one. He was lying on his back, sucking down air in huge gulps, trying to talk in a high-pitched choking voice. His feet were reduced to bloody meat. Quinn and Jackson were kneeling beside him.
“What’s going on here?” Frank asked.
Quinn glanced back over his shoulder. “Take him out,” he said calmly.
Frank took a pace backwards as Jackson rose. “Wait—”
Paula and Loren were in the homestead’s living-room, waiting for their freshly prepared elwisie jam to boil. The elwisie was one of the local edible fruits, a dark purple sphere ten centimetres in diameter. A whole cluster of the small, wizened trees grew on the fringe of the jungle; they’d had a long picking session yesterday. Sugar was going to be the main problem; several people grew cane in the village, but the few kilos they’d traded weren’t particularly high quality.
It would get better though, Loren thought. Everything about Aberdale was slowly getting better. That was part of the joy of living here.
Paula took the clay jars from the oven where they’d been warming.
“Could do with a minute longer,” Loren said. She was stirring the mixture that was bubbling away inside the big pan.
Paula put the tray of jars down, and looked out through the open door. A party of people were coming round the corner of the stockade. Jackson Gael was carrying someone in his arms, a teenage boy whose feet were dripping blood. Another two Ivets were carrying the unmistakable figure of Frank.
“Mother!” Paula charged out of the door.
Frank’s face was terribly battered, his nose squashed almost flat, lips torn, eyes and cheeks swollen and bruised. He groaned weakly.
“Oh my God!” Paula’s hands came up to press against her face. “What happened to him?”
“We did,” said Quinn.
Loren Skibbow almost made it. There was something about Quinn Dexter which had always made her uncomfortable, and the sight of Frank had set every mental alarm ringing. Without hesitating she turned and raced back into the house. The laser hunting rifles were hung up on the living-room wall. Five of them, one each. Gerald had taken his with him this morning. She reached for the next one, the one that used to be Marie’s.
Quinn punched her in the kidneys. The blow slammed her into the wall. She rebounded, and Quinn kicked her on the back of the knee. She collapsed onto the floorboards, moaning at the pain. The rifle clattered down beside her.
“I’ll take that, thank you,” Quinn said.
Loren’s vision was blurred by tears. She heard Paula screaming, and managed to turn her head. Jackson Gael had dragged her inside, holding her under one arm while her legs kicked wildly.
“Irley, Malcolm; I want the guns and every spare power magazine, any medical gear, and all their freeze-dried food. Get to it,” Quinn ordered as the other Ivets piled in. “Ann, take watch outside. Manani will be coming out here on his horse, and keep an eye out for Gerald as well.” He threw the rifle to her. She caught it and nodded crisply.
Irley and Malcolm started to ransack the shelves.
“Shut up,” Quinn yelled at Paula.
She broke off screaming, staring at him with huge, terrified eyes. Jackson Gael shoved her into a corner, and she shrank down, hugging herself.
“That’s better,” Quinn said. “Imran, put Lawrence down in the chair, then search out the boots in this house, as many pairs as you can find. We’re gonna need ’em. Got a long way to go.”
Loren saw the young Ivet with the ruined feet being lowered into one of the chairs around the square kitchen table. His face was grey, sweating profusely.
“You just find me some bandages and some boots, I’ll be all right,” Lawrence said. “Really, Quinn, I’ll be fine.”
Quinn caressed his forehead, fingers teasing back the damp strands of blond hair. “I know. That was a hell of a run out here. You did great, Lawrence. Really. You’re the best.”
Loren saw Lawrence look up at Quinn, reverence in the lad’s eyes. She saw Quinn slide a fission blade from his shorts. She tried to say something as the blade came alive in a burst of yellow light, but only a gurgle emerged from her throat.
Quinn sank the blade into the nape of Lawrence’s neck, angling it upwards so it penetrated the brain. “The very best,” he whispered. “God’s Brother will welcome you into the Night.”
Paula opened her mouth in a silent wail as Lawrence’s body slid down onto the floor. Loren started to sob quietly.
“Shit, Quinn!” Irley protested.
“What? We’ve got to get out of here, yesterday. You saw his feet; he would have held us up. That way we all get caught. That what you want?”
“No,” Irley mumbled lamely.
“It was quicker than what they would have done to him,” Quinn said half to himself.
“You did the right thing,” Jackson Gael said. He turned back to Paula and grinned broadly. She whimpered, trying to push herself further back into the corner. He grabbed her hair and pulled her up.
“We don’t have time,” Quinn said mildly.
“Sure we do. I won’t be long.”
Loren tried to pick herself off the floor as Paula’s screams began again.
“Naughty,” Quinn said. His boot caught her on the side of the temple. She flopped onto her back like a broken mechanoid, incapable of movement. Her vision was fuzzy, shapes were obscured behind blotches of grey. But she saw Quinn take Paula’s rifle off the wall, calmly check the power level, and shoot Frank. He turned round, and aimed the barrel at her.
The recall whistle sounded sharply through the jungle. Scott Williams sighed and picked himself off the ground, brushing dead leaves from his threadbare jump suit.
The arseholes! He was sure that had been a danderil rustling through the undergrowth up ahead. Well, he’d never know now.
“Wonder what’s happened?” Alex Fitton said.
“Dunno,” Scott replied. He didn’t mind Alex too much. The man was twenty-eight, and he was happy enough to talk to an Ivet. He knew some good filthy jokes too. Scott had hunted with him regularly.
The whistle sounded again.
Alex grunted. “Come on.”
They trudged towards the sound. Several other pairs of hunters appeared out of the trees, all of them walking towards the insistent whistle. Queries were shouted to and fro. Nobody knew why they were being called in. The whistle was supposed to be for injuries and the end of the day.
Scott was surprised to see a big group of people lined up waiting at the top of a steepish earth mound, there were about forty or fifty of them. They must have come out from the village.
He saw Rai Molvi standing in front of them, blowing the whistle for all he was worth. He was very conscious of all those eyes on him as he and Alex Fitton made their way up the incline.
There was a large qualtook tree straddling the brow of the mound. One of its thick lower branches overhung the slope on the other side. Three silicon-fibre ropes had been slung over it.
The group of villagers parted silently, forming an alley towards the tree. Definitely worried now, Scott walked through them and saw what was hanging from the ropes. Jemima had been the last, she was still choking and kicking. Her face was purple, eyes bulging.
He tried to run, but they shot him in the thigh with a laser pulse, and dragged him back. It was Alex Fitton who pulled the noose tight around his neck. Tears ran down his cheeks as he did it, but then Alex had been Roger Chadwick’s brother-in-law.
The run back to his homestead had nearly killed Gerald Skibbow. He had been returning anyway when he saw the smoke, tugging the errant sheep along on a leash. Orlando, the Skibbow family’s Alsatian, bounded about through the long grass in high spirits. He knew he’d done well following the sheep’s scent. Gerald smiled indulgently at his antics. He was almost fully grown now. Oddly enough it was Loren who was the best at training him.
Gerald had traipsed across what had seemed like half of the savannah that morning. He couldn’t believe how far the damn sheep had strayed in just a few hours. They had eventually found it bleating at the end of a steep-walled gully about three kilometres from the homestead. He was just grateful that sayce kept to the jungle. They had never had any trouble from the kroclions which were supposed to roam the grassland, a few distant glimpses of sleek bodies in the grass, some night-time roars.
Then when he was a couple of kilometres from home that terrible blue-white streamer of smoke twisted idly into the sky ahead of him, its root hidden beyond the horizon. He stared at it in cold fear. All the other homesteads were kilometres away, and there was only one possible source. It was like watching his own life’s blood pouring up into the cloudless azure heavens. The homestead was everything, he’d invested his life in it, there was no other future.
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