Orel pulled her back and pressed his hand over her mouth. “Quiet, someone might hear you.”
His fingers dug into her cheek until Wren nodded acknowledgement. He released her and she stepped back, her wings pooling around her like a cape, the water already at her knees.
“We can’t just leave him.” Tears burned on Wren’s icy cheeks as she whispered.
“Once he reaches the airlock, he can open it himself.”
“What if he can’t?” Wren thought of Raw thrashing in the water, fighting it as thoroughly as he fought the air with his wings. “What if he’s hurt?”
“He’s got his canister on.” Orel tried a smile. “He won’t run out of air. Worst case he’ll go back to the cave and wait for us.”
“But there’s no other way out of there.” Water sucked at Wren’s ankles, foaming in the blinking airlock light, as it was pulled through grids to either side of her. She looked back up to see Orel watching her with a strange intensity to his gaze.
Then Wren remembered the stone gap. She had cleared the brickwork easily enough, but Raw’s shoulders were almost as broad as Adler’s. Orel had refused to bring the big man, telling them he couldn’t use the route he planned.
“You knew this would happen,” she gasped. “You knew he wouldn’t get through to the airlock.”
Orel leaned over her, his breath warm on her face. “Do you want to save your brothers, or not?”
“Of course -” Wren stepped backwards, her feet splashing gently on the drying floor.
“He wouldn’t have let you do this without him. He wouldn’t even stay behind for a damaged wing. It’s easier this way. He’ll wait in the cave and we’ll come back for him when we’re out. He’s safe.”
“No,” Wren hissed. She flung herself back at the airlock and pounded on the palm reader.
“It won’t open until the floor is completely drained,” Orel sighed.
Desperate, Wren peered through the scratched window and out into the endlessly moving darkness beyond. Was that a flash of silver? She pressed her nose to the glass.
The silver was gone, if she’d ever seen it.
Slowly she turned back to Orel. “You tricked us.”
Orel had the grace to hang his head. “I had to. I’m sorry, but I have friends in here too. I need you to help me get them out. This isn’t a one man job.” He looked up at her, his brown eyes damp and pleading. “Forgive me.”
“He’d better be all right,” Wren snapped, but her heart was melting as fast as her skin was drying in the cycled air.
Orel nodded. “He’ll be fine.” He kept his voice low. “We’ll get the rest of the Runners out and then go back for him. I can take a rope through and Adler can pull him out along the river.” He nodded, pleased with his idea.
Wren leaned her forehead on her arm. “I can’t believe we have to leave him. What if something happens to us? No-one will know he’s trapped there.”
Orel didn’t move.
Finally Wren looked at him again. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she shivered with more than the cold.
“He’d want the Runners rescued, wouldn’t he?”
Wren rubbed her aching fingers and nodded. If nothing else, Raw would want to stop the war. “If I don’t make it out, promise me you’ll go back for him.”
Orel squeezed her hand. “I promise. He might even find another way out.”
Hope warmed Wren’s frozen chest. “You think so?”
“Sure.” Orel turned and pressed his palm against the opposite wall. The door cycled open with a sigh and he stepped through, pulling her with him. On the other side there was a tunnel, in it the water came up to Wren’s knees once more. She splashed towards lights that glimmered at the other end.
The tunnel ended and Wren moved out of the shadow of the wall with Orel at her side. He gestured at the city beyond as if he were offering her a gift. “Well, we’re in.”
Wren followed his gaze, her heart pounding. She had never thought to see a colony other than Elysium and now, with Tir Na Nog, she was seeing two. Part of her shrank back: Tir Na Nog, despite its exotic beauty, had been horrifying. What if Vaikuntha was the same, or worse? But excitement made her pulse race. She was going to see inside the great walled colony, perhaps even the giant pyramid her brothers had told her about.
Ahead the water channelled in different directions; creeping in squelching boots, Orel led her along the widest course. The river’s complaint formed a backdrop to the more familiar sounds of human habitation.
True night had fallen and the settlement was lit wholly by solar lamps and the flickering glow of gas hobs that burned through windows like blue eyes.
“It’s so quiet,” Wren muttered. Her wings moved over her sopping jacket. “Is it always like this?”
Orel shook his head. “There’s a curfew - it’s part of the quarantine.”
They slunk between the first clusters of houses huddled in the gloom and Wren was hit, almost physically, by how different they were from those she knew. Like Elysium and Tir Na Nog, Vaikuntha had been built by colonists who assumed their biosphere would be coming down and it had been built to withstand Martian storms.
The wall was the first of their defences, a vast barrier against the Creatures and the wind. Its presence allowed the houses to grow taller: two-storied, rather than one. The ground floors were each broader than the next floor up and they reminded Wren of a child’s brick tower.
The streets themselves were protected from the winds that would one day come, by canopies made from a thick material. Wren could imagine them snapping with a night breeze, but they had remained unstirred for more than a hundred years.
As they scuttled along on numb feet Wren hunched her shoulders, feeling trapped by the boards over her head.
She looked up between the warp of two mismatched sheets and saw the biosphere far above her, so high that it looked like part of the sky. Near transparent from this side, she could see Phobos almost at apex through the metal joists at the top. The amorphous silicon made it seem stained and decayed.
Wren swallowed back a moan, unable to banish an image of Raw trapped under the wall. She should have made him stay behind. She clenched her fists. One rescue at a time: first her brothers, then her Running-partner.
A loud cry cracked her determination. Orel’s hand closed around Wren’s wrist and they froze. The wail sounded again, close by and he pulled her into him and leaned them both against a wall, trying to melt into the shadow of an overhang. Her wings trailed in the dust, so Orel caught them up and wrapped his own wings around them both.
"Creatures?" Wren whispered.
"They can't burrow beneath the wall and most of the colony's on rock. Just to make sure, the Council let off concussions directed into the earth every few months. The Creatures come no closer than the Runner Station. They don't dare."
"That was human?"
Orel nodded and, as Wren wondered what kind of throat could have made the sound, it came again and Wren jumped as a door across the street flung open and something was shoved over the threshold by a stooped man, who was choking on his own coughs. The high-pitched wail continued inside, but was muffled when the door slammed closed.
“What is it?” Wren frowned.
Orel looked furtively left then right and then he wrapped Wren’s hand in his still damp palm. Their wings billowed behind them as they scuttled over to the bundle. Orel lifted the corner of the tattered blanket with the toe of his boot and Wren shoved her bruised fingers into her mouth to stifle a shriek: he had uncovered a small hand.
Orel propelled her from the house and they ran into a lightless alley the length of a terrace.
Across their path a fallen joist had snapped like a broken limb. They scooted underneath. The awning above their heads flapped unsupported and there was a long rip in the fabric. They ran with the narrowing of the alleyway as if driven.
Wren’s hand remained in her mouth and as air
whistled from her halfie into her nostrils, she noticed the smell, a scent her own full-sized mask would have protected her from: pungent, slightly sweet and overwhelmingly rancid. It was the smell of a poorly ventilated sick room and it tainted the air all around them. Now that she was aware of it, the odour clung like a shroud.
Then her foot slipped in something soft. Bones splintered under her boot and she gagged, instantly horror-struck. Orel caught her by the elbow as she squinted to see a dead GM bun-bun pet rotting against the wall.
“The sooner we get out of here the better,” Orel muttered.
They helped one another navigate the rubbish that was strewn across the end of the alley. Then they peered past the final corner into a narrow street. Here the houses formed taller stacks of blocks with gently sloping roofs. Solar lights were secured to posts outside each door, but most of them were unlit. Only two glowed, like the last beacons on a battleground.
Windows gaped like gashes in each wall and most of the doors had splashes of crimson paint daubed on the metalwork. Grey dust clung to the doorsills.
Five more rolled bundles lay in the street and Wren swallowed as Orel’s bicep moved against her neck.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
She nodded but just as she was about to step into the open an oscillating squeal jerked her to a stop and her eyes narrowed as a heavyset man plodded from the gap between two houses, pushing a huge plastic barrow with a squeaking wheel.
Behind him, bald head shining in the lamplight, followed the Lister.
Orel’s arms tightened around her again and they watched, barely breathing, as the Lister paused by the nearest wrapped bundle. As he leaned over, the bag containing his flat-screen dangled over the body.
“Stop,” he snapped and his companion dropped the barrow with a thud. A whisper of cloth carried like an echo as something inside shifted and settled.
The Lister pulled the screen from his satchel. He glanced at the door of the house and his hand moved as he added text. Eventually he nodded and the attendant bent down. He twitched the blanket aside, and the Lister seemed to hesitate. Then his hand moved once more as he added to the note.
“Done,” he muttered and the big man scooped up the bundle then tossed it into the barrow, blanket and all.
Wren dug her nails into Orel’s arm. They clung to each other like children hearing nightmares rattling their shutters.
At each bundle the Lister repeated his actions. Wren burrowed her face into Orel’s shoulder, terrified of the small glimpses of the dead that the collector was inadvertently offering them: a wilting hand, a tangle of hair, a still foot.
Then from the corner of her eye Wren saw the Lister bend over. Curious, she had to see what had detained him. A shaft of light revealed a small doll dangling from his hand. It had fallen from one of the bundles. He held it in his thin fingers for a moment then his shoulder jerked as though he were going to toss it into the barrow. Eventually though he shook his head and gently tucked the beloved thing back inside its blanket.
Wren’s eyes watered and her throat closed. Then the Lister and his companion started to move away, the squeak of the heavier laden wheelbarrow accompanying their otherwise silent journey.
Chapter eighteen
Wren stood silently in the circle of Orel’s arms. Finally he gave her a gentle shake.
“This … this…” she had no words.
“I know.” He squeezed her shoulders. “But when it burns itself out, then we’ll rebuild.”
“You think it’ll burn out?”
“It has to.”
Wren thought about Tir Na Nog. Everyone there had died. But it must have happened quickly; too fast for word to get out. Why had it hit them so fast while the Vaikunathans had time to find a cure? Were the Vaikunthans stronger? Or had the disease originated in Tir Na Nog, and weakened somehow since? Perhaps Orel was right and it would burn itself out before it hit all ten colonies.
Her hope felt naïve, but if the disease had been generated by the microbiologists of Tir Na Nog, then it wasn’t wholly the fault of the Runners.
She met Orel’s eyes with a frown. “You sound like you hardly care.”
“Of course I care,” he growled. “You want me to curl up on the ground and cry like a baby. I’ll do that.” He paused. “It won’t help get your brothers back.” He held her shoulders tightly. “Wren, this isn’t as much of a shock to me as it is to you.”
“I know but -”
“D'you want to stand here an talk about how awful this thing is, or do you want to rescue the Runners? What if they have a more effective cure somewhere else? What if they’re synthesizing a drug in Aaru? If we let the Council execute the Runners, who’ll fetch it?”
“No-one.” Ruthlessly Wren pressed both horror and hope back into her stomach. Orel was right. If the Runners died, the colony would die, one way or another, if the illness didn’t destroy it, the inevitable Runner-Grounder war would.
As she drove herself to a semblance of calm, something rattled in the alley behind them. “What was that?” She jumped.
Orel turned. “What?”
“That noise?” Wren stepped backwards.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Orel blocked her body with his own. “But if some Grounder is breaking curfew we’d better move. We can’t be seen.”
Wren frowned into his broad chest then nodded. “Which way?”
Orel looked into the street. “They’re holding the Runners in the centre of the colony, in a part of the council building. We’ve got some way to go.”
“Then we’d better move.” Wren turned and started to march. Orel squinted doubtfully down the alley then followed.
It wasn’t long before Orel had to take the lead. The layout of the settlement was too confusing for Wren to aim herself in any one direction and the floor was so covered in litter that she had to watch her feet all the time.
When she tripped noisily on a discarded cook pot, Orel gripped her arm. “We’re going to get caught,” he growled.
“I can’t help it.” Wren snapped. “How are you missing this stuff?”
Orel seemed to float through the alleyways like a ghost.
A noise inside the nearest building made Orel drag her into a tiny lane. “You’re right, this isn’t working.” He looked up. “We can do it here.”
“Do what?” Wren tried to follow his gaze, but there was nothing above them but another canopy.
More noise behind them filled Orel with urgency. “Up you go.” He grabbed Wren around the waist and she gasped as he boosted her upwards. “Grab the roof - got it?”
Wren stretched, but her fingers touched only smooth wall. “No,” she gasped.
Orel got his shoulders beneath her knees and shoved her higher. “Now?” he asked.
Wren’s fingertips curled round the lip of the first floor and Orel managed to balance her toes on his shoulders. Wren got one elbow onto the roof and, with Orel pushing from below, managed to pull herself up.
She held a hand down for Orel but he waved her away, took a few steps back and jumped. With one foot against the wall, he pushed himself up and caught the roof just as she had, with one hand. Wren grabbed the neck of his tunic and when he was beside her, she looked up. They were sitting on the top of the first floor of the house. The canopy was attached to the brick just above her head. If she rose, it would brush her hair.
“Now what?” she whispered.
Orel ripped the canopy away from the brick. It flapped onto the ground like a broken wing and Wren blinked at the destruction.
“A few weeks ago that would have been repaired by morning,” he sighed. Then he held his fingers to his lips. “Sleeping quarters are usually on this floor. There’ll be someone right there.” He pointed to the wall by her elbow then he helped her to her feet. “Up again.” He boosted her once more upwards.
She reached towards the sky and caught the roof of the next level.
Sitting
on the highest point Wren stared out over the settlement. Although it was mostly dark, solar lanterns glowed intermittently like sickened stars. Sporadically illuminated by their guttering glow she saw a sea of canopies. The river’s prattle was distant and Wren almost relaxed, allowing herself to imagine that the scene below the material was tranquil and safe.
She could see a pattern to the rooftops now. The lights cobwebbed into the centre of the settlement and in the middle … her mouth fell open … there was the pyramid her brothers had told her of. It rose through the darkness, one, two, three, four … eight stories high. And that building was still lower than the walls, which hemmed them like the edge of the world.
She shivered, still damp from the river and hugged her arms to her chest. At least the colonists in Elysium could see the desert and sky through their biosphere. These people saw nothing but ceilings and walls.
Orel crouched behind her and smiled. “What do you think?”
Wren exhaled. “Is that the council chamber?” She pointed to the pyramid.
“Yes and the labs where the scientists work on the GM. That’s where the bun-bun pets were developed from dead-earth rabbits. Even if the Runners have been moved, they’ll be nearby.”
“It’s huge.”
“Bigger than the council chamber at Elysium.” His eyebrows twitched. “But then we have a much larger population. Are you ready to run?”
“Run?” Wren judged the rooftop with a frown. “This isn’t big enough for a takeoff.”
“Not a real Run, we’ll jump between houses and use our wings to make the extra distance.”
Wren squinted at the space before the next roof. “There’s no wind under the Dome.”
“We’ll be making our own.” Orel walked to the far edge of the roof. “Try and be light on your feet and don’t shout - if a guard sees us, we’ll be in trouble.”
Wren’s heart thudded. “You’re sure they’re all looking outwards?”
“They’re watching for incoming Runners, aren’t they?” Orel bent into a starting position. “Don’t lock, just let your wings lift you.”
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