While We Run

by Karen Healey

  I caught an odd movement and frowned at one of the skeleton trees. After a second, the picture resolved into a woman holding a long rifle and lying across a knobby branch as casually as she might recline upon a sofa. She nodded at me, then returned to sweeping the horizon with her eyes.

  I turned back to Joph. “What do people do out here?” I asked.

  “Not much, now. Used to be a lot of farming, but the Murray and Murrumbidgee dried up, and most of the new farms are closer to Melbourne, where the transport costs aren’t as high. Some people still farm out here, but most sold up and moved, or just moved, if they couldn’t find anyone to buy. The bush is taking over again. The native scrub can do better without much water—though even some of those plants are struggling.” Joph quirked her lips. “Did you really want to talk about horticulture?”

  “No.”

  She waited.

  “How’s Tegan?”

  “Furious. Shouting at Hurfest, demanding to know all the details. It’s Bethari I’m worried about.”

  “Why?” I said, unwisely.

  Joph looked reproving. “She’s really upset, Abdi. She kept telling them they didn’t have the range tight enough yet, and they used it anyway. Bethari’s being quiet and sad. It’s not like her.”

  Well, what had Bethari thought would happen when she built a weapon like a strong EMP generator? I had enough sense not to ask Joph that, though.

  “Did you know they were going to use the EMP?” I asked.

  Joph jolted, looking straight at me for the first time. “Of course not. I wasn’t staying here, you know, until now. When they gave me the okay, I thought Bethari must have gotten the kinks out of that smaller version she wanted to make.” She grimaced. “I didn’t realize what we’d done until we were halfway out of the dead zone.”

  “They’d,” I said.

  “Hm?”

  “You said ‘what we’d done.’ They did it. Not you.”

  Joph looked over the dying grass. “Pretty to think so.” She handed me the computer. “I thought you might like to catch up on what you missed. Don’t worry. It doesn’t auto connect; it’s more like a storage computer. Bethari modified them for us.”

  “Why is she even here?” I asked, and immediately regretted it. Sure, you didn’t need to keep your hacker in the same place as your top-secret hiding spot, but only my mother could deliver a disappointed look like Joph.

  “She couldn’t go home,” Joph said briefly. “She couldn’t go anywhere. Her mother bailed her out of police custody, gave her all the cash she could scrape up in a hurry, and told her to get out and keep her head down. Bethari was the first one I told about this place, the first one who started working on ways to get you and Tegan free. She knew that you and Tegan would never be saying those things about the camps if you weren’t being forced to. She started putting the plans together herself, but she couldn’t get all the components she needed, and she didn’t have the mechanical skills to put it together. That’s why she went to Hurfest for help.”

  I grimaced. “Poor choice in friends.”

  “A journalist like him has sources everywhere,” Joph said patiently. “He has fingers in a lot of pies. And he did help you that first time, don’t forget. Bethari thought she might be able to trust him to help again. There’s no way she could anticipate him taking over like this.”

  “I suppose not,” I said reluctantly.

  “You suppose right. I don’t know why you don’t like her, Abdi, but you need to know you can trust her. She’d been kicked out of her home and her very first thought was wondering how she could help you.”

  I suspected that Bethari’s first thought had been wondering how she could help Tegan, but I took Joph’s point. “I trust her,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. Bethari’s heart was in the right place. It was her mouth I had problems with. I unfolded the computer and snapped it rigid. “So what’s on this?”

  “Whatever I could grab,” she said. “Some news, some music. The rest of that K-drama you like.”

  Double Trouble, I said instantly, feeling only slightly ashamed. Comedy-dramas from Korea were a guilty pleasure, and one I’d managed to keep from my parents and siblings. My mother would think it was frivolous, to be so invested in silly plot devices and ridiculous coincidences, and my sisters would tease me for liking romances.

  But Joph understood. She patted my shoulder. “There’s also a lot of ’casts about you and Tegan.” She pointed at a wooden bench settled into the gravel. “I thought you might like to see.”

  I wanted to say, “Screw that stuff,” and settle down to find out if Jee Sun and Kyu Hwang had finally told each other their various secrets and actually kissed (as opposed to the three times they’d accidentally kissed by falling on top of each other, being pushed together by raucous fans, or both diving for the last dumpling), but I knew where my responsibility lay.

  People died because of you, I thought again, and sat down heavily on the bench. The wood was warm beneath my thighs, a small comfort as I opened the archive marked Ark Project.

  It was almost worse to see it from the outside. Tegan and I marched around, smiling and opening our mouths, and the words of our handlers flowed out. Lighting and costuming and makeup conspired to make us look beautiful; we looked fine as we were, but this kind of beauty was beyond reality. I watched myself enthusiastically shill for the Ark Project in dozens of short ’casts, sliced in with footage of earnest engineers and scientists explaining how the Ark Project worked and how the Resolution would sail among the stars to its new destination. There were three distant solar systems with good candidates for the colony, and people were encouraged to vote for their favorite.

  Several of the richest donors had already had themselves frozen, and this was trumpeted as proof of their commitment and dedication. I thought of Ruby Simons, who had gone gladly to her unwrinkled sleep. She was planning to wake on a world ready-made for her, as if this one wasn’t enough.

  While some interviewers asked harder questions, most of the footage was positive, objections brushed away with, “We’ll have to look into that more closely as the time nears.” But the time was nearing, and not just for Australia.

  China had announced its own starship construction project. Korea and South Africa were planning a joint project, with space for colonists from Indonesia and Brazil available in return for resources. But the Resolution was the starship closest to completion; one more year of scheduled construction, maybe less. The Resolution was what the world was watching. And Tegan and I were its ambassadors.

  The next file opened with a shot of President Nathan Cox, sandwiched between Tegan and me. He looked paternal, and Tegan was giving him her brightest smile. I was nodding solemnly, as if I’d just been given some important advice and was letting it sink in.

  I couldn’t remember when that footage had been taken. It must have been one of the days I’d lost to pain.

  When Cox spoke, his voice was mellow and rich, a soothing voice you wanted to take care of you. It was a long speech, by ’cast standards, appealing to donors. The conclusion was the only part that touched upon the people I was concerned about. “But this isn’t just an opportunity for our wealthiest citizens,” he said. “The poorest people from the most wretched places of the world are also leaping to the stars.”

  And in the video, I smiled and nodded along.

  My skin buzzed with the urge to throw the computer from me. Wretched places.

  The footage of the refugees was sickening. They were lining up to volunteer for the Ark Project, waving at the bumblecams. They were short, tall, dark, light, black-haired, and platinum blond, and everything in between. But they were all thin, all hungry. And they smiled at the cameras, too.

  Hands trembling, I turned the computer off.

  Joph had wandered into the garden to poke at things with a stick. She looked up when the noise ceased.

  “How can this be happening?” I asked. I knew why, but I wanted someone else to say it.

  �
�Because people are selfish,” Joph said. “And because… they’re like my mum. I love her, but she wants to believe so badly that everything is okay that she’s convinced herself it is. And if it’s not, if the world’s oceans are really failing, if humanity really has no future on Earth, they want to believe that there’s an escape clause. They’ve decided this is it.”

  I waved my hand at the dry garden, which might never bloom again. “An escape clause to the end of the world.”

  “Or the end of the species. Geologically, the world will be fine.”

  I snorted. “You say that calmly.”

  “I’m a scientist. I can take a longer view.” She sat on the bench beside me, tucking her legs up under her.

  I rested the computer on my knee. “I’m surprised there isn’t any footage of us singing.”

  “None exists. They’re very careful about that. You only get to see the famous Abdi Taalib sing at the fund-raising dinners, and pay dearly for the privilege.” Joph hesitated, a very obvious pause.

  “What is it?”

  “Your mother resigned.”

  I stared at her. “She… what?”

  “The opposition parties put a lot of pressure on the president of Djibouti. You know the kind of thing: ‘How can we know Madame Taalib didn’t conspire with her son, endangering Djibouti’s relationship with Australia—’ ”

  “What relationship with Australia?”

  “Well, with firster countries in general. I don’t know. I don’t speak Arabic, and not all of it is easy to access from here. The media monitors have cut down, quietly, on a lot of international feeds. But I get the feeling your mother jumped from the party before she was pushed.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About four months ago.”

  “But she and my father have been talking to me every week. They never said a thing.”

  Joph nodded. “That makes sense. Because as long as you never asked about it, they knew that you didn’t have free access to information, whatever the project personnel said.”

  I thought back to those carefully cheerful conversations: them asking how I was, me following the script to convince them I was fine and working for the project of my own free will, knowing that Tegan would pay if I wasn’t convincing enough. My father’s light eyes had been tense sometimes, but my mother had been serene always. She had a perfect politician’s face, one that would never show anything without her permission.

  She’d trained me to wear the same face; I wasn’t as good at it as she was, but it had helped me survive while I was in SADU hands.

  And behind that face, she’d hidden the destruction of all her ambitions. She’d been one of the president’s best ministers, helping to balance the allocation of power between Issa Somali and Afar interests at home, slated as a likely Somali candidate when Abdullah Haid, the popular Afar president, stepped down. By now she should be planning how she would help lead Djibouti. Instead she’d had to toss her career into the trash. Because of me.

  “Hey,” Joph said, and put her hand on my shoulder. Her long fingers were warm. “People make their own choices.”

  Guilt was sour on my tongue. “I forced her into this one.”

  “Her opponents did.”

  “Because of me. Because of what I did, thinking that I could help people. I got you to make those medicines. I knew Hooyo wouldn’t like that; I was supposed to be here to make contacts, not cure disease. I had no business breaking the law; I knew that would reflect badly on her. I should have thought about the consequences more.”

  “You saved lives.”

  “You made the medicine, Joph. You saved lives. I was just the conduit.”

  “I wouldn’t have done it without you,” she said. “And without your help, Tegan would never have gotten her story out. Without you, Tegan would be dead.”

  I couldn’t say I regretted that.

  “I could have found another way,” I said instead. “I owe my mother everything, and now I’ve cost her everything, too.”

  Joph shook her head. “You’re her son, and she loves you. From everything you’ve told me about her, I can’t see her blaming you for a second.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but I wanted to. “Why does Lat think Tegan’s so important?” I asked instead. It came out wrong, but she knew what I meant.

  “Because she is. I mean… to us, of course, but also to the campaign. Do you remember how people were trying to help you while Tegan told her story?”

  I did. It had been a surreal experience; Tegan talking and talking to what became nearly two billion people from every part of the world, and me sitting just out of camera view as the messages came in. Hundreds of thousands of them, moving far too fast for me to follow. People had gathered outside the starship base in Tasmania; they’d hacked government records to find the location of the other frozen-refugee facilities; they’d gathered money for legal fees and put together a dozen nodes campaigning to have Tegan freed—and this before she’d been arrested.

  “Save Tegan,” I said, remembering. “It started even before we were caught.”

  “Yeah. Except, now it’s more like three campaigns in one.” Joph was rubbing at her thigh again. “There are the people who started it, the people who think that telling the truth about what Tegan found and what’s happened to her afterward is the most important thing. They’ve been putting up posters—hard copy—and using graffiti to get the message out. Raising awareness, the same way Tegan would have in her time.”

  “That’s…” pointless, I thought. A foolish stunt. “Retro.”

  Joph heard what I didn’t say and looked rueful. “We didn’t want to speak for Tegan, you know? That would be wrong. But we were using her name, and without her to tell us what she wanted, we were kind of stuck. Then there are the politicals, who want Tegan to speak for them and have their own ideas about what needs to happen. They’re pushing for governmental change. Tegan’s sort of a symbol to them, of the things that need to be improved. They want to place a halt on the Ark Project until it’s been more fully investigated. Make the camps better; more food, better accommodation, introduce proper schools and work. Relax some of the strictures on the No Migrant policy, so that if you marry an Australian, you can apply for residency. That kind of thing.”

  “Not close the camps altogether? Not give the current refugees citizenship or legal residency?”

  Joph’s voice was a singsong. “Australia’s resources are limited! Australians have a right to an ethical government, but its first priority must always be the welfare of its own people!”

  “Bring in the new boss, same as the old boss.”

  “I think they would be better than what we have currently, but not ideal. Those are the people behind Carl. He doesn’t think just telling the truth will help; Tegan did that already and look what it got her.”

  I snorted. “The incorruptible Carl Hurfest. Who would have guessed he just wanted power?”

  “I don’t think he’d turn power down,” Joph conceded, “But he means it, you know. He thinks things can be better, and he thinks that if he were in charge he could make it that way.”

  “You’re so nice,” I said. “Always thinking the best of people.”

  She shrugged, looking embarrassed. “Well. Anyway, Hurfest is also backed by the third, more… intense faction. They think we’re already at war with an illegal government that lied to its people.”

  “Lat’s faction,” I said. It wasn’t a guess.

  “Well, he joined them, I guess. But he really believes in Tegan. To most of them, Tegan’s… not exactly a martyr. The first casualty, maybe. A fallen comrade who could be a convenient figurehead.”

  “She wasn’t the first casualty,” I said, thinking of those dead children in cryocontainers.

  Joph was silent, and I knew she was seeing the same thing.

  What would happen if Hurfest’s people won and the project was halted? Would those sleepers ever be woken? Not that they’d even figured out how to wak
e them, yet. From the ’casts, it seemed as if Tegan was still the only successful revival.

  And if Lat’s people were the violent type…

  “I take it these militants were the ones who pushed for using the EMP?” I asked.

  Joph leaned her head back and closed her eyes, hand still working at her leg. “I should have known,” she said wearily. “They kept saying things like, ‘casualties are inevitable,’ but I thought it was just hyperbole. I didn’t want to see that they meant it.”

  “How do you talk to these people, anyway?”

  “Oh. Online, mostly. It’s relatively safe. We’re decentralized and anonymous.”

  “There will be spies,” I said.

  “Sure. Bethari handles all that, and her security’s tight. When she spots a spy, she gives them lots of useless information—she’ll even make them work for it a little, so they think it has to be real. But you don’t get to know about operations like last night’s without personal contact and demonstrating you can be trusted. This, we didn’t plan online.” Her expression lightened. “Soren tried to join the movement.”

  I choked. Soren Morgensen had been the worst of the fame-hunters at our school. He’d tried to befriend Tegan when she was famous, but he’d started tormenting her the second she’d made it clear she preferred the company of a dirty thirdie like me to that of a selfish party-hound like him. “He did?”

  “He tried. He somehow failed to realize that everyone who joins Save Tegan actually listened to Tegan’s story, and heard just what she thinks of him. Not even the politicals had any use for Soren Morgensen.” She leaned over my shoulder to check the time, then pulled a pillbox from her overalls pocket. “Time for my dose.”

  “Does that hurt often?” I said, nodding at her leg.

  Her brown eyes were steady as she looked at me. “All the time.”