Maybe they had promised him both his life and a place on choosing day. Was that why he felt safe in denouncing her?
Then the Runner stepped into a shaft of light from the window and Wren’s spit dried to nothing.
It wasn’t Raw who faced her. It was Orel. His eyes burned into hers for a moment and then he faced the Runners.
“Tell them.” Erb’s expression reminded Wren of a well fed tabby. “Tell them what she is.”
“She …” The Runners raised their voices, a susurrus that sharpened the air and gave it edges.
Orel nodded. “She’s no Runner. She’s a girl.”
“Tell them more,” Erb demanded.
Orel cut his eyes to her and away. Wren’s fingers were almost blue, so tightly was she holding the bars.
Orel opened his mouth to speak then stopped. He was staring at Adler and Genna. “What are they doing here?” He spun to face the Councillor. “When I came to you, you said you’d let Vaikuntha’s Runners remain free in return for my information. What’s going on?”
Erb curled lips like slugs. “They’re here to make sure you hold up your end of the bargain.” He spoke in a low voice that only Orel and Wren could hear. “And if this one isn’t sufficient, we’ll need a few more sacrifices - for the good of the colony.”
“Wait.” Orel spun to face Wren, his eyes pleading. “He said they’d let all the Runners go. Don’t you see? There was no way the two of us could have got them out, but this way … one life for …” he gestured over the grouped Runners before them.
Wren’s fingers fluttered over her lips. “You kissed me,” she whispered.
The Lister snorted. “And it was an excellent signal.”
Erb grabbed Orel’s arm and his wings shivered. “Bear witness and maybe we’ll let the others go.”
Orel squirmed. “You said this one death would be enough.”
“Make it enough,” Erb snarled.
Wren saw the bob of his throat as Orel gulped. He turned back to her. “Yer dead anyway when Convocation gets hold of you. This way you can save all the Runners - not just yer brothers. Tell me you understand?”
Wren shook her head, but her instinctive denial warred with the weight of truth in his words. They dragged at her until she felt weak as a baby; hardly able to hold her head up. He was right. This was the way to save her brothers. “Tell me you’ll get Raw out of the cave.”
“I promise.”
Wren dropped her head into a nod and Orel sagged with a hint of relief. He turned back to the Runners. “She turned up a couple of nights ago,” he shouted. “Said it was her first Run, but it couldn’t have been. I’ve seen her, she’s better than half the adult Runners I’ve known. Better than her partner was.” He hesitated. “It’s unnatural.”
“What partner?” It was Jay. “You’re talking shit Vaikunthan. Wren had no-one to Run with.”
Genna's eyes blazed. “Wren said he was your little brother, Elysian. What’s the truth?”
Jay fell silent.
“Well?” She screamed. “Tell us.”
Saqr gripped the post he was shackled to. “Is it true?” he shouted. “Are you a girl?” His voice was saturated with disgust.
Colm spoke, but ignored the Vaikunthan Runners. “Wren? Who’s your Running partner?”
Wren shook her head desperately. She hadn’t told her brothers about Raw. It was the final betrayal of everything they believed. If they ever caught him, Colm would kill him.
“Wren?” Colm tried to lunge towards her.
“Don’t ask me,” she pleaded.
“I’m asking,” he snarled. “Who’s your partner.”
“He said his name was Raw,” Orel called. “Do you know him?”
“Raw?” For a heartbeat Colm was confused, but then his face cleared. “The Grounder? You’re not serious.” He yanked at his chains, taking out his fury on them. “I can understand your reasons for risking a Run, and you at least know the theory. But to give wings to a Grounder. To that Grounder.” He retched. “That's disgusting. How could you?”
“Colm I-”
“Don’t. There’s no excuse.” He stumbled into Jay. “This is our fault. We let her have too much freedom, gave her your kite to play with - allowed her to dream impossible dreams.”
“So you admit it. She is a girl.” Genna screamed. “Damned Elysians. You’ve doomed us all.”
“No,” Wren whispered. “I didn’t …” She looked at Colm. He was still hauling at his chains, his face livid red. Tears were sweeping down Jay’s cheeks.
Colm was so angry with her that he might just let her die. And he should, Wren realised. She had broken the Law. She had known was might happen to her when she had made that first jump from the platform. Her thoughts turned to their mother. Her death could buy a hundred lives today - maybe it could buy one more.
“Councillor?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the furiously shouting Runners. Erb pretended to ignore her for a moment then took the few steps needed to bring him to the cage. His pendants swung within her reach and she was briefly tempted to grab them and tighten the chains around his fat neck.
“You’re going to die for this blasphemy,” he hissed.
Wren leaned her forehead on a bar. “I’ve never flown before and I can prove this was my first Run.”
The Councillor snarled and made as if to turn away. Wren caught his sleeve through the bars. “That would be no good to you though, would it?”
He snorted. “What do you mean?”
Wren licked her lips. “You’ve a cure for the plague, but not enough for everyone. Once the rest of the colony finds out there’ll be riots. So, to save those who actually get the cure from those who don’t, you need to provide a different target for their hatred.” Her mind raced. “You thought to use the Runners, didn’t you? But you know how much you still need us.” Wren grew stronger as she felt the truth of her words. “So you need to focus their resentment on one person – on me.”
“Are you threatening me?” His cheeks flushed and he pulled free. The Lister tilted his head, listening.
Wren snatched at his hand, but missed. “I can prove that I’ve never flown before ... or I can admit to bringing the plague down on you.”
A sneer filled the Lister’s brown eyes. “To save your precious Runners?”
“Yes and for one other thing.” Wren licked her lips again. “Give my brother, Colm, enough cure for one person.”
The Lister’s eyes flickered as thoughts chased one another over his face. “He’s not sick - why would you want that?”
“My mother has the plague.”
The Councillor froze and he and the Lister exchanged a horror filled look. “So it is in other colonies.”
Slowly Wren nodded. “In Elysium at least. And Tir Na Nog,” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Tir Na Nog is dead, completely wiped out. I don’t know if it was the plague or something else.”
The Lister paled. “Why are we only just hearing about this?”
Wren couldn’t stop the curl of her lip. “Because you’ve got most of the Junior Runners imprisoned here and the Patriarchs are at Lyot – who knows when anyone last stopped there. I don’t know why they didn’t call for help. Maybe their communications array was down, maybe they didn’t have time.” She exhaled, remembering the horrible cemetery. “I don’t know about anywhere else. So far my mother’s the only one sick in Elysium and she hasn’t seen anyone from the main ‘sphere for ages.” She gripped the bars. “If she gets the cure it won’t spread. You’ll save our whole colony.” She tried not to think about the man at the Doctor’s Surgery and his cough; there were other illnesses.
The Councillor remained silent, his fat mouth working as if he were chewing. Wren pressed her face to the bars and splinters dug into her cheeks. “You know you can’t abandon the other colonies. You need Eden for its food, Aaru for its drugs, the technology from Olympus … without Elysium you’ll lose the
new photo-synthesisers.” Wren pushed on, putting pleading into her voice. “I know you care. You quarantined your own settlement to keep the Runners from spreading this. You were too late, it has spread, but you can stop it - at least at Elysuim - with enough cure for only one.”
“But, my dear,” the Lister whispered and Wren suddenly noticed the exhaustion in his bloodshot eyes. “Which of our people has to die in order to save yer mother?”
Wren’s eyes filled with tears. “I-I don’t know.”
He his head. “Neither do I.”
The Councillor measured her as if he were considering a trade deal. “If we give you this, you’ll confess to anything we say?”
Wren nodded.
The Lister’s shoulders twitched. “You realise, do you not, that if it’s elsewhere then Runners did spread the plague?”
Wren’s chin dropped again. “My brothers know about my mother. If you let them go free, they’ll make sure the Patriarchs are told.”
A bead of sweat made its slow way over the Councillor’s mountainous forehead. “I should kill you all - that might save more lives from the plague.”
Wren remained silent. Erb had to know that if he did so, Convocation would do what it took to destroy Vaikuntha. What more could she say?
Finally Erb called a guard forward and murmured an order. Wren strained, but only meaningless syllables floated, disjointed to her ears. The guard began to jog from the platform. He had to stop at the steps for a coughing fit and then he was gone.
The Lister looked from her to the Runners, who were starting to stir as if woken from a dream. “What’s the punishment for a female taking Runner wings?” he called.
“Death,” Genna screamed.
The Councillors formed a line and slowly, each raised their black pendant.
“Death,” the Lister agreed.
The ringing of an enormous bell shivered through the chamber, loud enough to shake dust from the walls. Wren clutched the bars. The colonists were being called in.
The noise of the gathering crowd pressed against the building and swelled like the river. With each surge of sound, Wren’s terror grew until she felt utterly numb. She was going to die.
Before her, the Runners were muttering and shouting curses. Words chased one another up and down the line, unable to go anywhere but forward and back. Jay’s face was pale and ghostlike and he talked in an urgent undertone to Colm, who was shaking his head.
Then she lost them as the main entrance opened.
Wren only had a moment to see an expanse of lavender sky before the crowd eclipsed the crack of light.
Suddenly she was grateful for the safety of her cage as the colony entered the auditorium. Families clustered together; the ill supporting the dying. A few healthy men and women held their sleeves over their faces as coughs blew through the gathering like the cracking of joists.
She focused on the people immediately before her, her mind skipping to the trivial and latching onto it gratefully. Fashions here were similar to those of Elysium, but women’s dresses were shorter and cut lower in the front and their head-scarves were tied low across their foreheads. The men wore their tunics longer and their trousers looser. Many of the tunics were hooded, but most wore them down over their shoulders. A single man stood out to her; his hood was pulled low over his eyes, hiding his face in the folds of its shadows. He looked like Death himself.
These people were here to watch her die. Wren could look at them no longer. And indeed they soon became a faceless mass, pressing against the chained Runners; an amorphous hungry beast.
When the door closed behind the last of the crowd there was a moment of confused hush broken only by the coughs of the sick and dying.
Erb lifted his voice to the ceiling. “We finally know how the plague started. This girl, who thought to fool us all, broke Runner and Designer Law by taking wings not her own.”
He looked at Wren and gestured sharply for her to stand. She rose on shaking legs, careful to balance against the swing of the cage.
“Remember our bargain,” Erb whispered. “Make them believe and I’ll let the Runners go.”
Orel leaned close to her. “They have to hate you, Wren.”
Wren nodded and for some reason her eyes went to the hooded man. She would talk to him alone, persuade Death to let her people be. “I-I’ve been Running for ages -” she began.
“Liar!” Jay wailed, his tears showing in the growing daylight. “Why say that? You never used wings before. You never had the chance.”
His voice drowned in the wave of disgust hurled from the crowd. The hooded man was lost for a moment in the surging crowd and Wren looked at Colm. His face was white and he was standing perfectly still.
How very like Chayton he was. Now he watched her with calculating intensity and she could almost read his mind: Wren’s life or theirs? His sister, or all the Runners? A girl who’ll die at the hands of Convocation anyway - a sister who let a Grounder take wings - versus a war that could destroy their whole way of life?
There really was only one conclusion.
Finally tears blurred his eyes. Colm’s decision had been made. He caught Wren’s gaze and then, with a sudden tilt of his head, indicated Orel.
Wren understood. He’d let her die for them, but Orel would not Run free.
But Jay was still shouting. “Leave Wren alone,” he cried. “She was trying to help ...”
“Shut up, Jay! Colm, shut him up.”
He read her lips. Although Colm’s chains shortened his reach, he grabbed Jay around the neck and pulled him close. Jay struggled while Colm muttered urgently in his ear. Then he started to shake his head and kicked harder for freedom. Colm tightened his grip and Wren had to look away. Her eyes went to Adler, who was looking at her as if she’d eaten his children. Everywhere she turned she saw horror at what she had done. The freedom of Running had felt so right, but now it really did seem blasphemous.
As her adrenaline started to seep away, shock set in. She’d never see her mother or father again, never have a family of her own.
She was suddenly fighting for air. Hunching over, she groped beneath her shirt for the tucked end of the sheet that bound her chest and pulled it out. She wriggled to loosen the bands and as they fell at her feet and her breasts sprung free, her whole body shivered with relief.
The cage jerked and her face was splattered with foul smelling liquid. She wiped her cheek with a shaking hand and stared at the rotted soy patty that oozed over the bars. Soiled baby-pads smashed against a higher joist and, as if that was a signal, rubbish rained over the heads of the Runners and struck her cage like a dust-storm.
Most of it erupted on the bars, but some got through and her clothes were soon fouled. Mouldy soy products slimed her bare arms and rancid chiz mushed against her cheek.
She cringed in the swinging cage. From the corner of her eye she saw the Council and Lister retreat. They left her cage exposed in the centre of the platform; a lone target. Even Orel went with them, abandoning her finally and completely, without even a pitying glance in her direction.
In the end the crowd ran out of rubbish and instead used their voices to attack.
With her eyes tightly closed, Wren started to bang her head on a joist. Harder and harder she hit herself, because each time she knocked her head it rang and for one blessed second she could hear nothing.
After an eternity the crowd’s cries quieted. Slowly Wren opened her eyes, rubbed slime from her face and saw the guard sent out by the Councillor. He stood in front of the Runners pointing a gun. She lurched for the bars, scanning desperately for her brothers.
Then she realised that the Runners were silent and that none had fallen. The gun had not been fired. The muzzle was, however, aimed squarely at Colm.
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no’; heart thumping it’s message of dread, Wren rubbed her stinging eyes and saw a second guard standing over him.
Colm tilted his hand to show Wren a s
mall package. Then he tucked it into his shirt.
The guard moved away and both stepped back to allow the Council to return to the platform. Erb stopped close to her cage. “I am not an unreasonable man.” His eyes were yellowing as if left out in the sun too long; he turned them on her with a look that was almost regretful. “If you don’t hold up yer end of the bargain, I will shoot your brother and take it back.”
Wren nodded meekly.
“Then let us continue.” The Councillor waved for Orel to come forward and her erstwhile partner strode over the boards like a conquering hero.
The sun had finally come to Vaikuntha. Climbing the wall, its rays now found their way through the windbreak and into the avenue of windows, just in time to catch his wings and turn them to pure light. He swept his hair from his forehead and, even though he was a hated Runner, Wren could feel the adoring sighs of half the audience.
“As you were saying.” The Councillor gestured and Orel began to speak.
Chapter twenty-two
Orel told how Wren arrived at the secondary station, having known not to land on the main wall despite the fact that so many other experienced, Runners had made the mistake of landing there. How he had found her half naked at the station, yet he appeared to be the only one who could see through her disguise. How he had crept out to find the Councillors that night and told them what was going on and how they realised that such unnatural behaviour could cause a shift in the order of things, a change so great that it could cause other unnatural occurrences - such as a plague.
This was a community that had started out as scientists, who still worked to investigate the biology of awakening Martian species and who had blended Martian DNA with dead-earth organisms to help them survive on Mars. Their willingness to believe that Wren’s actions could have unbalanced nature and caused a plague made her realise just how strong their superstitious worship of the Designers had grown. Wren hunched as the crowd hushed, as though her actions were so abhorrent that an outcry was not enough.
The eerie quiet was terrifying and Wren shook so hard her bones jarred against the bars.
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