Questors

by Joan Lennon

‘The lift won’t be working,’ it said, ‘but I’ve got access to the stairwell.’ It turned to Dair. ‘Thank you for your help.’ It bowed, not as low as to Ur, but enough to surprise the desert man. Then it walked towards the cliff face.

  When Madlen looked round a moment later, the desert people had disappeared.

  ‘I don’t see how…’ Bryn was beginning to say, when Cam lifted its hand and slid a small section of rock to one side. It palmed the sensor plate – and a door in the rock rumbled open in their faces.

  ‘Obviously we don’t normally take this route,’ it said as it waved them into the cliff. ‘We fly in, up top. But you always need bunkers and safety exits, stuff like that.’

  The door to the outside closed as it was speaking and the lights came on. The other two gazed about, looking stupid. Before them was the entrance to a lift, firmly closed, and the beginning of a flight of stairs.

  ‘Uh… you were kidding, right? About the lift,’ said Madlen. ‘It really isn’t a question of walking, right?’

  Cam just looked at her.

  ‘It really is. The lift’s only activated from the top,’ it said, and started to climb.

  ‘How… much… further…?’ gasped Bryn.

  Madlen was beyond speech. How many hundred steps had they climbed? She’d lost track.

  ‘Almost… there…’ panted Cam.

  They’d seen other doors, presumably leading off into the cliff, but just plodded on past them. Until now.

  ‘Here…’

  Cam put its hand to the access pad and once again it was recognized. The door glided open.

  ‘It’s along… there…’

  Cam pointed down the corridor and slid to the floor. The others collapsed beside it, and for a long time the three were completely occupied in trying to catch their breath and letting their hearts catch up with them.

  At last they were only wheezing a little. They heaved themselves up off the floor and headed for the Well of Light.

  They hadn’t far to go. Madlen had just started to think, I wonder why they call it the Well of Light, when the answer hit her between the eyes.

  ‘Wow’

  They had entered a roughly circular space carved out of the rock and reaching up, up, all the way to the outside world. It was an immensely deep shaft and should have been as dark as the bottom of any ordinary well, and yet the area was filled with natural daylight.

  ‘They do it with mirrors,’ said Cam.

  Looking up, the others could see light flooding down from the surface, broken into its rainbow colours and reassembled as it passed, bouncing back and forth, from one huge, angled sheet of glass to the next.

  ‘The Well of Light,’ murmured Madlen.

  ‘And this… is the Corym somniferos,’ said Cam, as if making a formal introduction.

  There was a raised bed, full of good dark soil. And in the soil…

  Than it?! thought Madlen.

  Bryn nudged her.

  ‘Try to look impressed,’ he muttered, and Madlen quickly rearranged her face.

  ‘I guess I was expecting silver branches and purple leaves or something,’ she whispered back. ‘Not some stunted bit of scrub!’

  ‘Yeah. Well, us stunted types are full of surprises –’ He skipped aside just as she tried to kick him.

  Cam wasn’t paying any attention to them. It was just staring at the little tree, the last lone Dream Apple in all the Worlds. Then it gave itself a shake.

  ‘The Corym orchard used to be up above on the plateau. But the winds and the storms kept getting worse and the sun was burning them up. So we moved them here.’

  ‘Them?’ asked Madlen.

  ‘It’s been so long… there were still three trees when I was here last –’

  Its words were cut off by a sudden, heavy, deep noise. The stone floor ruckled weirdly under their feet, making them stagger and gasp.

  The three peered about wildly and, by sheer good luck, Bryn happened to look up…

  ‘ΝΟ!!’ he yelled.

  The mirrors were beginning to crack. Time seemed to slow as they all stared up into the Well. The sheets of glass shivered like the hide of an animal and then began to split, huge jagged splinters of light pulling apart from each other with a sound like teeth shattering. The black gaps between widened, and widened, until suddenly everything speeded up again and a lethal rain plummeted towards them.

  They hurled themselves towards the tunnel entrance at the last second, landing bruisingly in a heap on the stone floor with all the breath punched out of them. Behind them the shards hit with a sickening slick, slicing noise.

  In the sudden dimness, Cam could hear someone whispering, ‘Oh no oh no,’ over and over. It was a moment before it realized the voice was its own.

  Bryn cleared the dust out of his throat.

  ‘Everyone all right?’ he asked hoarsely.

  He was on his feet again and pulling Madlen up. Cam nodded and dragged itself upright against the wall.

  ‘What happened?’ Madlen whimpered, just as Bryn gasped, ‘The tree – oh, Cam – the tree!’

  It was hard to see in the Well now. The distant sky was a brassy patch far above. Very little light from it could reach them where they stood. As their eyes adjusted, though, a crystalline phosphorescence from the walls did offer some illumination. It was an alien kind of light and it revealed a scene that was nightmarish and surreal.

  The subterranean bed had a new crop. Spiky fragments of glass punctured the soil, some as tall as a man, others barely showing, ready to shred any unwary foot. In the centre, where the tree had stood, only scraps of raw wood remained, broken branches, a shattered trunk.

  And all around, like drops of blood, the fruit lay scattered.

  ‘Ur!’ gasped Madlen. ‘She knew!’

  ‘How –?’ began Bryn, but Cam shook itself and took charge.

  ‘Come with me,’ it said.

  There was a side cave a little way back along the tunnel where gardening equipment was kept. The quake had tumbled the orderly array of tools into a heap on the floor, but Cam waded in, heaving spades and forks and pruners aside.

  ‘Here, take these,’ it said, tossing some bags at the others. ‘There should be baskets too, if they’re not smashed. You start.’

  Madlen and Bryn looked at each other.

  ‘Um…?’ said Bryn.

  Cam sat back on its heels.

  ‘Look,’ it said, trying to sound patient and failing. ‘We haven’t much time. The Well is probably going to collapse. This will mean several hundred tons of rock on top of the last crop of Corym my World will ever see. It seems sensible to try to collect that crop before this happens, rather than after.’

  ‘Right,’ said Madlen.

  ‘On our way,’ said Bryn.

  But when Cam caught up with them, a salvaged basket under each arm, they were still standing in the doorway.

  ‘It’s just… not getting our feet sliced up,’ Bryn explained apologetically.

  Cam thought for a moment, then nodded to itself.

  ‘Here, use these,’ it said.

  There were some small paving stones stacked against the wall. Cam took one over, dropped it on the lethal soil and went back for another.

  ‘Portable path! Clever!’ said Bryn, following suit.

  The fruit was surprising to touch. It was hard, for one thing, and felt almost ceramic. It was also warm and gave off a strong scent of lavender and something else. They could easily have been overwhelmed by the perfume, which sang to all their senses of sleep, sleep – but the thought of more tremors worked wonders at keeping them alert.

  ‘That’s it, Cam.’ Bryn straightened up. He’d slung the bag over his shoulder to keep his good hand free and now it was bulging with fruit.

  ‘All clear here,’ said Madlen, her basket full.

  Cam set down the second heavy basket for a moment and looked about. It was true. All the Corym had been gathered up, down to the shattered fragments. Their hands and clothes were stained with sp
ilt red juice so that they looked like extras from a massacre.

  ‘I’d say it’s time to go.’

  They humped their loads down the corridor towards the stairwell.

  ‘And now we’re going to go down, down, down, and discover a nice safe bunker,’ grunted Madlen as they puffed along, ‘and have a shower maybe, or a long soak in a bath –’

  The floor shook again and bits of the ceiling dusted down. Their pace picked up considerably.

  ‘Tremors – they come in twos, right?’ muttered Bryn nervously.

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be threes,’ Madlen started to correct him, when the big one hit.

  It was impossible to keep their feet as the rock rolled in irregular waves and sideways jolts. The noise battered at them, rising up from deep underground, and the air grew foggy and thick with rock dust. Choking and gasping, they staggered forward and skidded to a stop at the stairwell door.

  The drifting dust parted, to show the wreck of the stairs leading down. That route was closed, impassably blocked by splintered stone.

  The only way left was up.

  54

  The Plateau

  The hot wind hit them as soon as they climbed out on to the high plateau. It battered them with grit and sucked the sweat off their skin without making them any cooler.

  ‘Mummy-maker,’ said Cam.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what we call this wind. They say it can draw out the last drop of moisture from anything and mummify it.’

  ‘Ever seen one?’ asked Bryn, running a dry tongue round his mouth. ‘A mummy?’

  Cam shrugged.

  ‘Saw a rat once. It might have been a fake, though. Still, it looked a lot like you…’

  Madlen butted in. ‘Cam,’ she said, scratching at her arms, then her neck, ‘I think I’m allergic to this juice stuff. My skin’s crawling.’

  ‘Now you mention it…’ Bryn joined in, ratching his nails through his hair.

  But Cam waved a dismissive hand.

  ‘Storm’s coming,’ it said. ‘Always does that. Come on. We need to get the Corym to the hangar.’

  Bryn shouldered his sack and looked around.

  ‘What hangar?’ he said.

  Cam was already off, staggering under the weight of its baskets, apparently heading into the broken wilderness. Then, slowly, it disappeared.

  The others hurried to catch up – and found Cam at the bottom of a wide, shallow ramp leading down into a gully. At its base huddled a low building with a metal roof and large, tightly shut double doors.

  ‘Come on, palm print, work your magic!’ it muttered.

  With a screech, the doors parted slightly.

  They dragged themselves and their cargo through the gap and into the gloom beyond. Cam rummaged out some lamps and lit them. The wind still whined and quested round the narrow opening of the doors, but their sanctuary was comparatively still.

  Madlen slumped down on the floor. Bryn went to nosy round a number of interestingly plane-shaped things under tarpaulins, and Cam headed for an office area to one side of the hangar, where the meteorological records and reports should be.

  When it came out to them again, it wasn’t hard to interpret the expression on its face.

  ‘Oh, great,’ said Madlen wearily. ‘More good news.’

  Cam shook its head.

  ‘Not really. It’s a haboob,’ it stated.

  They didn’t respond.

  ‘A very bad sandstorm,’ Cam explained.

  ‘So we’ll need to stay put here till it’s over, right?’ Madlen looked wistful.

  Cam sighed and shook its head again.

  ‘When I lived here, you know, ten years ago, already the haboob had become bigger, more frequent. But – here, look for yourselves –’ and it thrust a sheaf of weather read-outs at them.

  Bryn glanced and shrugged.

  ‘I don’t speak Weather,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to translate.’

  ‘OK.’ Cam thought for a moment. ‘Wind doesn’t come simple, but I’ll try and explain. This’ll have started as an electric storm, way off in the desert. It’s had plenty of time to pick up speed. And then, when you might think it should be wearing out, a pattern of downdraughts inside the storm starts. Gust fronts form.’

  ‘Downdraughts?’

  ‘Gust what?’

  Cam sighed again.

  ‘Air blows down, all right? Fast. And when it hits the ground it blasts up a bunch of sand and dust, and then it pushes it forward, fast, and now there’s this wall of grit maybe a kilometre high, and it basically sand-blasts everything in its path into nothingness.’ It drew breath. ‘That’s an ordinary haboob and there’s a monster one on its way.’

  ‘So… we sit tight?’ offered Madlen again.

  ‘If we stay here,’ replied Cam, ‘we have every chance of being killed in a number of interesting ways, including being buried alive or blown away.’

  ‘So… we run?’ suggested Bryn.

  Cam tapped the read-outs.

  ‘This thing’s travelling speed is predicted at over eighty kph. Last time I checked, that’s faster than me.’

  ‘So we fly out?!’ Bryn’s eyes sparkled in the lamplight.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Madlen snapped. ‘None of us knows how to fly a plane!’

  ‘I do.’

  Cam’s voice was flat. They could see it was holding itself unnaturally still, as if afraid of something inside escaping.

  Bryn let out a whoop.

  ‘That is so cool! We grab a plane and we outrun the storm and…’

  But Cam was shaking its head.

  ‘We’re not flying away from it,’ it said, and a little excitement leaked through. ‘We’re flying over.’

  55

  Over…!

  Madlen was appalled. As Cam wandered around the hangar, checking under tarpaulins, she waved her hands about and spluttered.

  ‘This is crazy! Why don’t we just throw ourselves off the cliff and be done with it?!’

  ‘It’ll work, Madlen – I know it’ll work!’ Bryn was just this side of jumping up and down. ‘Flying… now that’s an adventure!’

  ‘Besides, it isn’t just us we’re trying to save,’ said Cam quietly, coming out from yet another tarpaulin.

  Madlen stared at it for a long moment – and gave in.

  ‘It’s still crazy,’ she said hoarsely, turning to the shrouded shapes. ‘Which one?’

  Bryn leapt into the air, shouting, ‘Yee-hah!’ and Cam allowed itself a pale grin.

  ‘This one’ll be fine,’ it said. ‘It’s what I’m licensed for. Private two-seater.’

  ‘What do you mean, two-seater?’ fussed Madlen. ‘Last time I looked there were three of us.’

  ‘One of you gets to be luggage,’ it said.

  ‘You!’ Madlen and Bryn chorused instantly. ‘No way –!’

  ‘I could do with some help here,’ Cam interrupted.

  For a while, everyone’s attention was focused on the work at hand: uncovering the plane, making sure it was fuelled up, loading the sacks and baskets of Corym into the tiny storage space behind the seats. Then, suddenly, Cam stopped.

  ‘Hear that?’ it said in a small, tight voice.

  The others peered about, trying to pinpoint the source of some new menace. But there was nothing, not even the whine of the wind forcing itself in through the crack in the doors. No sound at all…

  ‘We’ve run out of time,’ said Cam, dropping down from the cockpit. ‘You two help me open the doors.’

  ‘But…?’ Madlen began, then stopped. It’s not the moment to try and understand meteorology, she scolded herself. It’s the moment to get out of its way!

  As they dragged the heavy doors apart, Bryn glanced up at the sky – and swallowed nervously.

  ‘You can’t tell me that’s normal,’ he muttered, pointing, ‘even for this World!’

  ‘Well, you know the old saying,’ Cam called back over its shoulder as it ran for the plane. �
�Green sky – better fly!’

  ‘You just made that up!’ Bryn sprinted after it.

  ‘Even old sayings were young once… Get in!’

  Bryn rushed round to the other side, wrenched open the door and began to pull himself up and in – only to discover Madlen firmly ensconced in the passenger seat, grinning at him.

  ‘In the back, Suitcase!’ she crowed.

  Bryn growled and crawled past her.

  ‘There’s… no… room!’ he complained, but the others ignored him.

  ‘Here goes,’ muttered Cam.

  The engine caught on the second attempt. Cam eased the plane forward, through the doors and on, a bit jerkily, up the ramp. In the eerie green light, it started the long taxi to the end of the runway, travelling away from the cliff edge.

  As they rumbled along, Madlen noticed little dust devils beginning to form beside the runway. Wind’s back, then, she thought. Now, what do they call those eddy things? – when suddenly Cam turned in the pilot’s seat. Its face was greeny-white and urgent.

  ‘I can’t not try!’ it said, sounding desperate. ‘You see that, don’t you? I know I’m not Ivory…’

  Madlen stared.

  ‘Of course you’re not Ivory. Who says you should be?’

  Cam looked ashamed.

  ‘She’d know what to do,’ it muttered.

  ‘Don’t be stupid – you know what to do. What you’re doing is what to do!’ Madlen insisted, a little obscurely. ‘Best bet, remember? Best shot – clearly stated in the Questors’ Handbook nobody bothered to give us!’

  ‘But –’ Cam began, when Bryn interrupted.

  ‘Look, kid, I’m folded in half back here and there’s sacred fruit digging into my butt, so – do you think we could GET ON and discuss how good an idea it is when it’s all over?!’

  ‘Yeah, listen to your luggage,’ said Madlen.

  Cam nodded, turned the plane and braked. It muttered to itself a little while, checking switches and dials, and then began to ease the stick forward.

  The sound the engine was making deepened. They could feel it fighting against the brakes, like a bird tied to a perch. Madlen glanced across at Cam and saw that it was tensed and vibrating slightly in just the same way.

  ‘Let’s fly’ she said, with hardly a quaver in her voice, and patted it on the arm.