Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.

by Joanne Armstrong

  He is right though; they look exhausted. There are four women and two men, all possibly in their thirties. Their clothes are worn and dirty, their hair hasn’t been washed in weeks. Their faces tell of a long, rough journey even before they speak. Two of them are walking awkwardly; limping, and another carries dark bruises on his face. Their cheeks are painfully sunburned, their chapped lips swollen and dry.

  The fish is done within minutes and their hungry eyes are drawn by the delicious smell. They eat quickly, their glances darting this way and that, as though expecting to be interrupted at any moment. I’ve never seen such uneasiness, and it’s infectious. I find myself checking the landscape, and wishing for the reassurance which the thermal imager brings.

  While eating they appear to relax a little, but still regard us suspiciously.

  “How far have you come?” Hayes enquires, amicably.

  The younger man seems to be the spokesman. The others look to him, and he answers us, “Through the pass. From Tika.”

  Hayes has told me to let him do the talking, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “Why?” I ask.

  “Invasion. Those damn soldiers,” he replies bitterly. “You haven’t seen any have you?” He suddenly regards us closely, as though we could be hiding an army in our back packs.

  Captain Alex Hayes laughs easily and explains that we’ve come from Sector Four, and have seen no Polis presence since there. That we have a three-day pass and are turning back later today to return to the hub.

  I wonder what would happen if I told the traveller that the relaxed man sitting opposite him is Polis. There are six of them… maybe I could get them to do my dirty work, or at least escape in the confusion. Then I sigh inwardly as I appraise them. There may be six of them, but they are tired, hungry and physically weakened. They don’t look like they could truss up a chicken, much less a Polis soldier. No, alerting them to his true identity would only put them in danger, and make the chances of my escape tomorrow much less likely. I’m on my own.

  “You fought?” Hayes motions their injuries.

  “No,” the man replies ruefully, “we left before the army arrived. We were robbed.”

  Hayes’s eyebrows fly up. “By who?”

  “We were eight when we started. They took our weapons, horses and hunting gear and left us behind.”

  “You were robbed by someone from your own group?” I ask in confusion.

  The man nods bitterly. “Through the mountains a couple were lagging behind, and they wanted to move faster.” Two of the women look at each other guiltily. “We told them to go on ahead, but they wanted our supplies as well.”

  “Where are you headed?” Hayes asks the travellers.

  I can see by the looks on their faces and the sideways glances that there is dissent amongst the group. The spokesman shrugs. “We set out for the south, for Rakiura. But now…” he shrugs.

  The name Rakiura is unfamiliar to me. “Why Rakiura?” I ask, hoping to gain more information.

  “They say it’s still free,” he lifts his chin defiantly. I picture the map in my mind, sectors in pink. Deep red, far to the south… could he be meaning the island off the southern coast? If so, I now understand the reason for their divided goals. They have only come a fraction of the way, and look ready to give up.

  Hayes’s voice softens. “Life in the hubs isn’t that bad,” he says. “It’s safe, at least. There’s food, and shelter -”

  The man cuts him off. “So speaks the Polis pet! Hubbite!” he swears, and spits into the dirt.

  Hayes says nothing to that, and there is an awkward silence as the travellers finish eating.

  One of the women looks very uncomfortable, and I see her watching me very closely before addressing the leader. “Think about it, Pero. We need to be practical.”

  He shakes his head and grunts. He stands and moves down to the water, leaving the women and the older man with us. When he’s gone, the others seem more willing to talk.

  The woman who spoke up before addresses me. “What’s it really like?” she asks.

  “It’s…” I struggle to find words. I’m rather bewildered by her interest, and I’m not sure what she wants to know. “It’s all I’ve ever known,” I confess.

  “Being fed and cared for like pets; bred as livestock,” another of the women mumbles through cracked lips. “I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Hang on,” I begin, alarmed. “That’s how you think we live? Like livestock?” I shoot a glance at Hayes, but his face is carefully neutral.

  The older man intervenes. “We left as soon as we heard their army had entered our region. It’s been coming for months; they’ve been scouting further and further west of their city.”

  “Was there much resistance?” Hayes’s question reminds me of his professional interest.

  The man shrugs. “I know there were many prepared to fight for their independence. I don’t know though. We left before it could come to that.” He sighs. “In all honesty, Tika wasn’t a peaceful place to live even before the soldiers. There were many ready to embrace the Polis way of life. Protection from the raiders - ”

  “You won’t make it to Rakiura,” Hayes interjects. “But you could reach Greytown.”

  The weary travellers are looking at each other. I get the feeling they are very close to giving in and heading to a hub, but that their direction depends on the younger man.

  I feel extremely conflicted about the group and their destination. On one hand, I always felt trapped living in the hub, my life under complete control of the Polis. I dreamed of the possibilities outside the hub and the chances of survival in the wilderness. However, on the other hand, this group is not one made for survival in the bush. They are artisans or teachers, perhaps farmers, but certainly not hunters or soldiers. They would not survive another week out here, much less reach the island in the south.

  Looking at them, comparing myself to them, makes me realise just how different I am. Different not only from them but also the other hubbites in Greytown. I’m different in a way that has less to do with my mark, and more to do with my upbringing. Grandad made sure that I did not settle into a contented hub life, instead teaching me skills which other hubbites never had. Even the fact that he encouraged me, behind closed doors, to question our way of life sets him apart as a parent. What was his reasoning? Was he equipping me for eventualities such as freedom from the hub? Did he always intend for me to leave?

  Later when we part company with the travellers, they head south-east and we continue north. Hayes has described the quickest route to Greytown and it looks likely that they will follow his advice, even though the younger man is reluctant.

  “Why were you so keen for them to join a hub?” I ask him curiously, when they have disappeared behind us and off the monitor.

  He toys with the reins for a minute before answering. “It will be safer for them. They’ll be welcomed into the hub, and given what they need. They may be the first of many relocations this year.” He pauses. “They’re the kind of people that would suit life in the hubs. And they’re not safe out here.”

  This makes me think of the livestock comparison, but before I can say anything he encourages his horse into a trot and I am left to follow.

  Later in the afternoon we come to the northern end of the bowl, and prepare to leave the waving tussocks behind us.

  Hayes passes me some heavy lenses and directs my gaze to the western slope. They bring the hillside into sharp focus, making me feel as though I could touch the trees dotting it, which are nearly a kilometre away. Through them I can see a ramshackle farmhouse, all weatherboard and loose timber. I can’t understand what’s drawn his attention. It looks just like any of the other abandoned shelters we’ve passed frequently.

  “Is there something on the monitor?”

  He shakes his head. “We didn’t pass within range. But look closer.”

  I lift the lenses to my eyes again. Although at first glance the farmhouse looks abandoned, the trees around it
have been cut back, trimmed clear of the roof. Solar panels are clearly visible.

  “Someone lives up here!” We have found someone living in the bowl; there could even be a community. Out here in the fresh air. The thought gives me a thrill of excitement. This is someone living outside a hub; how I picture myself. Now that I know what to look for, I can see a track zig-zagging its way up the hillside on our left.

  Hayes nods. “There’s a chance we’ve not been seen. But even if we have, our best course of action is to continue on as planned for the moment. On the other side of the hills we will be able to follow the route of a stream nearly as far as the City. It will disguise our tracks.”

  I have stopped short. My first instinct was to make contact and I can’t understand why he should treat the farmhouse as something to avoid. He was very eager to meet the travellers from Tika. Then I realise that the house must be Polis. Why else would he see it as a threat?

  “It’s occupied by Polisborn?”

  He shakes his head. “I doubt a Polis citizen would choose to reside out here, this far away from the City. But whoever is living up there is doing so with Polis permission. And if they have permission then it means they provide an essential service.”

  An essential service… it sounds unnerving. “What could they possibly provide the Polis from here?” I’m looking around. All I see are waving grasses, rocks, trees. We’re about to lose the farmhouse from sight as we enter the valley between the hills. “Minerals?”

  “I don’t think so. Something much more valuable - information. I’ve visited many such dwellings dotted around the sectors. What would you have done if I hadn’t insisted we keep moving?”

  I’d have approached it, as most would. He’d read me perfectly, and I have nothing to say to that. Instead I pursue his need to be secretive when it comes to the Polis. “Why do you want to avoid them so desperately?”

  His answer is direct, “My orders.” He uses a tone of voice I might adopt when explaining a menial task, as though it should be obvious. I can just about see him shaking his head again at my ignorance.

  “What about the refugees though? You encouraged them to go to Greytown. What if they talk to the soldiers there?”

  “By the time they arrive in the hub it won’t matter. If we aren’t in the City by then, something will be seriously wrong.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The grassland desert and occupied house safely behind us, we pick our way through the rocky pass in the hills. Once out of the bowl, it’s not long before we find the tributary Hayes described. On the map it heads in a north-easterly direction, taking us along the route he has planned. The shallow stream glistens over a shingle bed, and the land rises on both sides of us until we are in the base of a narrow gorge. We take to the shingle riverbed and the horses splash noisily downstream with deliberate steps. Hayes is keen to mask our route, and the water erases all evidence of our passage.

  After an hour travelling down the picturesque gorge, the gagging stench of putrefaction reaches me on the breeze. Up ahead there will be a carcass decomposing in the warmth of the spring day; a beast drawn to drink from the meandering stream. The smell gets stronger after a few more paces, and even my guard’s usually expressionless face is registering discomfort. The horses are noticeably nervous, needing encouragement to continue towards the source of their unease.

  At a break in the willows along the eastern bank, we spy the source of the smell, and try to guide the horses up out of the water, but they refuse. An abandoned campsite littered with implements and odd bits of clothing greets us, and I scan the scene for the decaying beast.

  At first I think that clothes have been tossed around, perhaps by thieves or raiders, but as I stare into the clearing before me, realisation and horror are spreading icy tendrils in the pit of my stomach.

  The bodies are human. The scraps of clothing strewn around are attached to body parts.

  The Polis monitor shows no sign of life. Hayes has dismounted and I do the same. We lead the nervous horses further up the riverbed, away from the butchery, and tether them out of the water. We are both cautious as we loop back, but I realise that the grisly scene must be weeks old.

  I am covering my mouth, repulsed both by the smell and the carnage, but unable to tear my eyes away. Hayes stands in the centre of what may have been their campsite, surveying the scene. A boot attached to a leg is near him; the boot’s partner two metres away.

  He is lost in his thoughts, and pays me no heed. His expression is one of disgust.

  “Animals?” I ask him.

  He looks up at me, as though he had forgotten I was there.

  “Wild cats and other animals have been here, but that’s not what killed them.”

  His answer makes me look more closely. Limbs have been separated from torsos, heads from shoulders. I’m familiar with butchery and have handled the carcasses of sheep or cattle often enough, but suddenly I have had my fill of the gore and return to where we have tied the horses.

  With the image in my mind, I realise that the limbs had been cut, not torn apart. This was done by people with weapons.

  I take the jumpy horses and leave the soldier in the clearing, moving further into the brush, until I can no longer smell them. For the first time he’s willing to let me out of his sight for a length of time. He seems to understand that there’s no danger of my going far. He’s right; for once the thought of fleeing is not foremost in my mind.

  My mind empties itself of all thought and I come back to myself to find I’ve lit a fire and have a dead woodpigeon in my hands. I must be in shock. I have no recollection of killing or preparing it, but there it is, on a spit and ready to roast. My hands had kept themselves busy doing something familiar while my mind tried to cope with what I had seen. I don’t know how long it’s been, but Hayes is pressing his way through the brush and the light is failing. I push the memory of the scene away. I don’t want to dwell on it.

  He drops a backpack in the dirt on the other side of the fire.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “Anything useful they had on them… a couple of knives, spears, tools, some medicines, blankets…”

  He lets this hang in the air between us for a moment, and busies himself with the contents of the backpack. It’s not lost on me that the people in the clearing were not robbed. So why were they killed?

  I watch him unpack the bag, and a couple of vials catch my eye. I move forward and scoop them up, my heart thudding in my chest. Holding them up to the fading light, I know that I would recognise those symbols anywhere. All at once I realise who the dead people are.

  “Four bodies?” I ask, with apprehension.

  “Probably. I found four heads,” he replies, matter-of-factly. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but he adds quietly, “I buried them.”

  “Two adults, two teens?” I whisper, watching him.

  He looks up at me from where he is hunkered down next to the items. His cool, grey eyes narrow. “How would you know that?”

  I remember the last time I saw the father. He called at our pod a couple of days before he left with his family, to trade for some of Grandad’s forbidden items. He was excited about leaving, something he’d always wanted to do when the kids were old enough. They had been planning on going inland, towards the mountains. They would fish and hunt through spring and summer, and find somewhere to settle before the colder weather came.

  “If it doesn’t work out,” he’d smiled at Grandad, “we’ll see you in the autumn.”

  He’d been treating it like a camping trip. Now he and his family were dead. They had been slaughtered violently and senselessly, their bodies left to be picked at by scavengers.

  Hayes’s question is still unanswered. “They were from Greytown,” I explain. “They left a month ago, heading for the mountains.” Their name comes back to me. Roberts… the Roberts family.

  “They didn’t get very far,” he shrugs ruefully. “What are they?” he asks, indicating the small container
s in my hand.

  “This one is a scent masker - you can use it when you’re hunting to get closer to your prey. This one is ah - an antiseptic.” The second is contraband; a hubbite having it in their possession is a punishable offence. He doesn’t ask me how I know, and I don’t offer it, although I’m sure he suspects. “Who would do this?”

  Immediately his face goes blank, which just about gives me my answer. “I can tell you know something.” I sit down opposite him and lean forward. He appraises me steadily. He’s deciding what to tell me. “I’m not going to stop asking,” I say.

  He raises an eyebrow as if to say that wouldn’t sway him. He takes the wood pigeon from the spit and starts peeling the flesh back, offering some to me. I’m not hungry though, and my stomach just about turns at the thought of the meat. He doesn’t eat it either. He looks it over then puts it down.

  “It was a tracker. Sent to find and kill those people.”

  “Sent by… the Polis,” I finish. Who else? “But why would the Polis want them dead?”

  Hayes shakes his head, as though marvelling at the extent of my ignorance. “We can’t have people going off on their own, starting up their own little unmonitored hubs. We can’t have bands of nomads roaming the country. It would be a return to the dark times.”

  “But…” I’m at a loss for words, “we’re allowed to leave… it’s okay…”

  “And a very handy way of weeding out the independently-minded,” he finishes, looking at me meaningfully.

  I run my hand down my face. “So, anyone I ever knew who left…”

  “Is dead, yes.”

  “Slaughtered… dismembered… ”

  He wipes his fingers on his pants, then smooths the hair on his head and replaces his cap. He takes a deep breath. Hesitates. “What happened back there… that was revolting. Unnecessary. I’m sorry you saw that. The tracker who was sent after them was a monster. He showed no respect for them.” He looks down at his boots. “We’re not all like that.”