by P. J. Sky
But, then there was Starla’s outreach programme. Starla had been to the outside; she knew more than most the realities of what lay there, and he was foolish enough to indulge her, for ultimately, no matter how stubborn she was, what father didn’t love his daughter? Now, in his twilight days, the mayor had come to realise his daughter formed a mirror of his own faults. And even if he couldn’t forgive himself, he could and would forgive her. Love was ultimately irrational. It made no sense; it simply was. Once one acknowledged this, no further justification was required. Wonderful and terrible things happened because of love, and if you let it, love could become purpose.
In his report, Janus had been clear. “It seems, Sir, she’s being held at a coal mine.”
But Starla was a foolish girl. Could she not see that charity could only go so far with these people? The city already protected its interests, and paid for them more than fairly, so what did she want to go getting mixed up in this mess for? And now she was sitting in the middle of a coal mine which the Black Mulga were poised to flatten, with weapons that he, the mayor, had provided.
In a way, the mayor almost felt responsible.
I should never have indulged her. And what am I to do now? If they knew she was there, all my so-called allies in the city would jump at the chance of getting Starla out of the way. And then there’s the Black Mulga; they too would love to get their hands on Starla and leverage her against the city.
The mayor wanted to scratch his chin; one of the few parts of his body that wasn’t completely numb; but he could barely begin to lift his arm. He sighed inwardly and looked up at the ceiling. He watched the purple lights of passing trains dance across the smooth surface.
No, he thought, the Black Mulga mustn’t get their hands on Starla, but neither can anyone from the city. As far as the city goes, Starla’s whereabouts must remain an absolute secret. And besides, an outright invasion of the mine with city guards would not only be politically poisonous, but it would signal to my enemies exactly where she is. And of course, the chilling warning remains; any attempt to rescue Starla will result in her immediate execution. So if someone’s to go after Starla, it has to be an outsider. So I wish there were another way, but now it’s all down to the girl from the wasteland.
It’s strange, thought the mayor. Such a bizarre coincidence, as if fate had some hand in it, that of all the people in all the wasteland, all those many downtrodden souls, that it ended up being Ari.
∆∆∆
Ari rolled onto her side, pulled off her cracked goggles, coughed, and spat the wretched, oily taste from her mouth. Her jaw throbbed and an acrid smell burnt her nostrils. Squinting, she could see the halo of flames of the other vehicle. She scanned the surrounding riverbed, through the toxic smoke and raining embers, but there was no sign of Keshia or the other driver. She remembered the time by the railway tracks when she’d set fire to a truck and how it had exploded and she knew there wasn’t much time.
Get up, Ari. Move.
The truck lay bottom up, wheels spinning in the air like an upturned beetle struggling to right itself. Ari pulled herself to her feet and hobbled towards the vehicle. The engine still rumbled. Acrid fuel dripped down the side of the front wing and pooled around the driver’s cabin. Ari hunched down beside the upturned passenger seat. Her canteen sat just beneath the seat and she slipped the strap back over her shoulder. She peered into the gloomy space under the seats. Beneath the steering wheel lay Keshia’s body.
Ari’s heart leapt. Ducking under the passenger seat, she reached across and prodded Keshia’s shoulder.
“Come on kid, we gotta move.”
There was no response. Ari felt panic rising in her gut. She remembered Starla close to death in the swamp after the crocodile bit her, and the helplessness she’d felt, and how her mother had been unresponsive, all those seasons ago, in the little hut in the wasteland.
“Dag it, kid, don’t do this to me.”
She felt around Keshia’s neck. It was weak, but she felt a pulse. She reached around Keshia’s shoulders and tugged.
“Dag it. Come on.”
Ari clambered under the truck, passed the passenger seat and into the darkness. The engine rumbled in her ears and her eyes began to tear. Her panic grew. She felt like the truck might explode at any moment. Her fingers shook as she eased Keshia’s arm out from under the wheel. She wedged her elbows under Keshia’s shoulders and pulled. Keshia’s limp torso shifted but her leg was stuck.
“Come on, come on…”
Ari reached under the wheel, gripped Keshia’s thigh and pulled. She gasped, pressed deeper into the footwell, and felt around Keshia’s ankle. Her foot was caught under the pedal. She wedged her fingers between the foot and the pedal and dragged the foot around the pedal. Her heart jumped as the pedal leapt forwards. Above, the engine started to slow.
With Keshia’s foot free, Ari wedged her hands beneath Keshia’s shoulders and tugged her body free from under the truck. Out in the open, she blinked away her tears and choked on the heavy smoke. Dragging Keshia’s feet behind her, she backed away from the truck. On the other side of the bank, the other vehicle was a flaming bonfire of fuel and rubber and presumably the other driver.
Ari didn’t want to think about it.
She scrambled up the side of the bank, dragging Keshia’s body through the dry grass. The dusty ground broke away at her feet and she slipped onto her knees.
Ari’s heart jumped as the second vehicle exploded. She winced as a plume of orange flame curled up into the air.
Ari’s arms started to tremble, then her whole body convulsed. She dropped Keshia’s arms, fell to her knees and vomited up the stew. All she could taste was the acrid fuel, as if it was in her lungs, in her blood. The hot flames melted her eyes and she looked away into the darkness.
Gradually, Ari stopped shuddering. She chewed at the corner of her lip and tasted oil. She reached for her canteen, slipped it from her shoulder, unscrewed the cap, and tipped it towards her mouth.
A single drip fell onto her tongue.
Ari held the canteen against the light of the burning vehicles. A clean, round bullet hole had passed right through it.
Chapter 17
When Keshia opened her eyes, she was staring into a pale blue blur. Gradually shapes formed; a red rock, the bleached white stump of a dead tree, a black canteen with a hole punched through it. Far away across the dry and dusty wasteland, a long column of grey smoke curled upwards into the sky.
Keshia rolled her swollen tongue. Her head throbbed. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She leant on one elbow. Pain surged from her right palm to the top of her elbow and she winced. She inspected her red and swollen wrist. She tried to move her hand back, and pain shot up to her elbow.
Overnight, Keshia’s clothes looked like they’d had another year’s worth of wear. They were covered in black grease and soot and tiny, new holes. Her exposed skin was covered in tiny, fresh cuts.
Keshia looked towards the dry riverbed and watched Ari pick through the burnt and still smoking shells of the two vehicles. In her memory, the events of the previous day seeped slowly back to her. The last thing she remembered was the truck driving off the end of the broken bridge. In the darkness, the former bridge had been almost invisible, but now Keshia could see the rusty supports that must have once held a bridge over a flowing river. The rest of the span was entirely missing, as if long ago dragged away and repurposed by people less interested in crossing between the banks.
For a while, Keshia watched Ari work. Ari’s shaved head was covered in black soot and grease. With the palm of her hand, Ari wiped sweat from her face and may have added more oil than she’d started with. She’d taken off her shirt revealing a sleeveless vest that exposed her arms. Down her left arm was a bloody gash which she seemed to be ignoring. There was another on her chin. In the knees of her trousers there were new holes. Ari inspected a bent metal rod and spent time trying to straighten it. In the hot sun, her muscles flexed, and Keshia noticed
a round scar on her upper right bicep that could almost be the residue of a puncture wound left by a bullet. Ari swung the metal rod through the air, as if she might be about to attempt to use it like a boomerang. She knelt down and carved shapes into the ground with it. She nodded to herself, as if pleased with her work, then, head down, she began walking back towards the riverbank. She was quite close to Keshia before she looked up. When she saw Keshia sat up, she smiled.
“Ya okay?” Ari asked.
Keshia swallowed dryly. “I… I think so.” Around her swollen tongue, it was an effort to speak.
“Yeah, ‘cept ya arm.” Ari crouched beside Keshia and compared the metal rod to her right forearm. “This’ll ‘ave to do for now.”
From the ground beside Keshia, Ari recovered her discarded shirt. She held it up and the bright sunlight shone through its many holes and highlighted a pattern of dark red blotches. From the shirt, Ari tore three strips of material.
“This might hurt,” she said, “but I can’t do much about that.” Ari looped the material around Keshia’s forearm. “Ready?”
Keshia nodded.
Ari slid the rod next to Keshia’s skin and tightened the loops of material.
Keshia winced and bit her lip.
One by one, Ari tied knots in each of the strips of fabric.
“Will it be okay?” asked Keshia.
Ari shrugged. “Sure, if we can get it mended proper. But ya arm ain’t our only problem.”
“You got a list?”
Ari grinned. “Well, we got no water. We got no food. We got no weapons, ‘cept my blade.”
Keshia nodded. “You want to go back?”
Ari sucked at her bottom lip. “I mean, goin’ back won’t necessarily help us. An’ it ain’t gonna help Starla. An’ it ain’t like I gotta a plan for what to do when we get to the mine. An’ we might yet find food an’ water. I ain’t worried about food, plenty out ‘ere if ya know where to look, but water’s a problem.”
Keshia nodded. She watched as Ari picked up a loose stone, rolled it between her fingers, and flicked it away.
“So wha’ do ya reckon?”
Keshia shrugged. “I guess the Commander isn’t too happy with us so I’m thinking we’re not welcome in Freehaven. And we have the same problems getting back to Bo as we do going on to the mine, except in Bo the syndicate will be waiting and we’ll be empty handed. And I sure don’t want to end up in the hands of the guard.”
“So?”
“I say we go on.”
Ari patted Keshia’s knee and grinned. “Good on ya, kid. Though don’t go thankin’ me too soon, this ain’t gonna be easy.”
“With you,” said Keshia, “I’m not really sure anything ever is.”
∆∆∆
Starla and Liviana sat at the edge of the North ridge, their feet dangling in the air, and looked out over the silent railhead below. Railway cars that once carried coal now sat in their sidings, rusting and discarded. Open hoppers now contained only the black stains of coal dust. Above, the lift tower stood silent, a forsaken idol from another time when this place spluttered coal from deep in its grumbling bowels.
“So when will I meet him?”
“Who?” asked Liviana.
“The Morning Star.”
Increasingly, Starla was convinced that her path to escape lay with the Morning Star. She didn’t seem to be a prisoner, but he was the only person here that anyone seemed to attribute any power and influence to. And if anyone knew who was responsible for the crash, she was sure it would be him. But her first priority was escape.
Liviana picked at her nails. Between her teeth, she tugged at her thumbnail. “Soon.”
“I’d like to meet him. I should do. He must know who I am.”
“And Starla, you will.”
“He does know who I am?”
Liviana tilted her head. “Of course he does.”
Starla picked at her own chipped blue nail varnish. The more time she spent with Liviana, the more the past nagged her. “You knew about Max’s plan, didn’t you?”
“Oh Starla, don’t worry about all that, it’s in the past, why don’t we pray together?”
Starla rolled her eyes. “Because I don’t want to pray. Tell me what happened. You knew the plan, didn’t you?”
Liviana looked away. “Not all of it, not that you’d be taken from the city.”
“But you knew anyway, you conspired.”
“I…” Liviana’s voice cracked. “It’s in the past.”
“Tell me, Liviana.”
“But… It was different then.”
Starla looked at Liviana. “How?”
Tears fell down Liviana’s newly freckled cheeks. “It seems so long ago. It’s difficult to remember.”
“Try. Tell me, what did you think was going to happen?”
“Just…” It was as if Liviana was struggling to open a locked door, as if she’d somehow walled away those memories. Her lip trembled, and then the words spilled out. “Just… You’d be brought to our tower. You’d never leave the city. I’d have been there. Father was scared, he thought your father was going to destroy our household, that we’d got too powerful and that your father would choose this moment to strike. Max thought he had a way of changing things, by holding you as protection. It was wrong but I promise, we were never going to hurt you.” Liviana looked down at her feet and her shoulders shuddered. “Starla, I’m sorry. If I'd known what would happen, if I'd only known…” She looked up with those big, round eyes. “Starla, I’ve missed you so much.”
And Liviana looked different, her earlier buoyancy had gone, replaced by a frail vulnerability that Starla had never seen before. Liviana had always been a person of many faces, but of all of them this one seemed most genuine. And Starla knew that here, she had little other options but to trust her.
“Do you think,” said Starla, “between the two of us, we could make it across the wasteland?”
Liviana sniffed. She tilted her head. “Why?”
“To get back to the city. I can’t make it on my own, but maybe together, if I could trust you?”
Liviana smiled. “But why would we want to do that?”
Chapter 18
The hot sun reflected off Ari’s smooth, skull-like head; her cheeks gaunt around her cheekbones. Tiny beads of sweat worked their way through the bristles of her exposed scalp.
Here in the wasteland, Ari didn’t look to the floor, or not that Keshia could tell, but instead her grey eyes seemed to roam the barren landscape, like a wary animal, keenly aware of the dangers this ancient landscape posed. Nothing of Ari’s figure seemed wasted, as if her lean body was entirely made up of muscle and bone, stretched taut, at any moment ready to spring. At times, she seemed like a mother kangaroo, ready to fight or flee in equal measure. Keshia began to suspect that, for the first time, she was now seeing Ari in her true form. It was as if, only out here, deep in the wasteland, did anything about Ari truly make sense. In Bo, Keshia had been drawn to Ari’s strength and that hidden warmth that Keshia suspected Ari was entirely unaware of. Ari provided that useful combination of strength and loneliness that Keshia had exploited. But here, Keshia sensed she was now in Ari’s world, and for the first time she wondered about Starla, the girl Ari was so set on saving. She knew it wasn’t for the half-moon coins that Ari had come here, nor the lust for adventure that Keshia now sensed within herself.
Keshia swallowed dryly. Her throat stung. “So, what’s the deal with this Starla anyway?”
Ari glanced at Keshia. “Wha’ do ya mean?”
“Are you in love with her?”
Ari scowled. “No, I ain’t in love with ‘er.”
“Well, it just occurs to me we might die out here. Now, I’m okay with that. Better here than at the end of a rope. The way I’m starting to see it, life’s short anyway, you have to take risks or you end up like all those people camping outside the walls of Bo. So I’m here for the half-moon coins and to get the syndicate off our backs.
But I don’t reckon you really care about any of that. I reckon you’re here to save this Starla, or to die trying.”
Ari stopped. “Ya know, ya can always turn back. If I make it back to Bo somehow, I’ll see ya right. Ya don’t ‘ave to worry about the coins, they’re all yours.”
“Whatever, the way I see it, I don’t have much of a choice now. I won’t make it back alone so I’m going with you, so the least you can do is tell me why we’re doing this.”
Ari sucked at her bottom lip. She started walking again and Keshia followed.
“It was a couple a’ seasons ago,” began Ari. “Maybe more, I don’t rightly know. I mean, every day out ‘ere’s pretty much the same as every other. Anyhow, I was workin’ down in Cooper on the salt plains when this girl from the city just falls right at my feet, an’ it turns out she’s lost her way, it was all part of some kind of conspiracy that I don’t rightly understand. All I know is she’s the mayor’s daughter an’ she needs to get back to the city so we struck a deal see, I get her back an’ she gets me in.”
Keshia’s mouth dropped. “You got into Alice?”
“Hah, I coulda I guess. An’ I got her back an all, safe n’ sound, but then I turned back. I decided against all that city high livin’.”
“Why?”
Ari shrugged. “It were’n’ for me.”
“It wasn’t for you? I thought high living in Alice was for everyone?”
Keshia knew the rules around Alice; no one got into the city from the outside, and those that left the city were exiled, never to return. Well, Nero must have got in and out somehow, and Starla was apparently abducted outside the city, and now apparently Ari had almost got into the city. The rules seemed to be at least slightly flexible. But apart from that, no one was allowed into the city.