Star of Hope

by Moira McPartlin

  ‘How can you say you were an animal? You were only twelve.’

  Dawdle shrugged. ‘He saved me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ah dinnae really ken. At first ah thought it wis tae get back at Dec, but he niver asked me tae gan back tae that hellhole again. He let me be who ah wis and treated me like a son.’

  ‘What happened to Dec?’

  ‘Once Jacques established himself in Lesser Esp it wis easy fur him tae take ower the operations. He made a deal wi the Military Base commander near the tower. Contra ciggies, Mash and meat was aw they needed, along wi somethin cried coffee. They exchanged this fur fuel. It worked a treat. Once Jacques got vans movin he took the men fae Dec. They didn’t even need tae kill Dec, he just disappeared.’ Dawdle stood up and brushed the back of his trousers. ‘So ye see it’s the same model The Prince used to take ower Vanora’s network. It seems aw that wis needed wis a bit of patience and organisation.’

  ‘But Jacques is not like The Prince. He doesn’t want to save natives.’

  ‘And what the fuck dae you ken about his motives?’

  And just like that the old Dawdle was back.

  ‘Reinya,’ he shouted. ‘Get that bint ready, ye’ve hud enough rest. We need tae get crackin.’

  Ishbel

  The storm lasted over an hour and when it stopped the sky lighted and Ishbel thought she heard the goose overhead, out for more food.

  ‘We should go,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ Merj filled a rucksack with the remains of the food.

  ‘Shouldn’t we leave some for the next person?’

  ‘Come on Ishbel, there wasn’t that much to begin with.’

  She grabbed the sack from him and pulled out a fistful of grainer bars, stored them in the compartment under the floor and clicked the lock to. She turned to him.

  ‘You had a key for this,’ she said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you’re well connected.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

  They opened the door to find a flooded land. The van was surrounded by half a metre of muddy water.

  ‘How can that be in such a cold climate?’

  ‘Better take the snowshoes off Ishbel, and swap them for wellies,’ he said. ‘But strap them to your back. The permafrost is underneath and you never know when it might snow again.’ She thought it was doubtful but did as he said.

  They jumped down and started to wade but the going was tough. The water moved against them.

  ‘At least it is flowing, it should disperse,’ Merj said.

  ‘But the ground is permafrost, where will it go?’

  ‘Into the rivers.’ Merj looked up to the canopy of trees. ‘Maybe we could swing from tree to tree.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not an Amazonian.’

  After a while the water level lowered and the trees began to thin out but the forest floor had a boggy skin and sucked their boots with each step.

  Ishbel checked her communicator. They’d been tramping for hours and had yet to see the forest edge.

  ‘Do you have another van we can visit?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s still ten kiloms to the next rendezvous point and I’m three days late.’

  ‘They’ll still be there.’

  ‘How do you know, Merj?’

  ‘Because The Prince sent word for them to wait.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous? We already know there’s a traitor.’ She pushed back the thought it might be Merj.

  ‘They will do as The Prince says. This mission is very important to him.’

  ‘I thought it was important to us all.’

  ‘It is.’

  The wind changed direction and the floodwater fringed with ice. Ishbel’s feet were freezing. She stopped and sniffed the air.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ she said.

  ‘Is that your Celtic intuition again?’

  She checked her comms. ‘We need to start heading south.’ She showed him the coordinates on the dial. Merj nodded.

  After what seemed like aeons wading through the freezing flood, heads bent against the wind, Merj tapped Ishbel on the shoulder. She whipped round. Her mind had been back in Freedom with Vanora, planning what they would do with the community once their mission was complete.

  ‘What?’ she shouted to him.

  He held up his mitted hand. In it was a grainer bar. Despite the damp, the wind chill had brought the temperature down and the cold was soaking into her bones. Her eyelashes were beginning to freeze. She took the bar but daren’t take off her glove. She knew only too well how quickly the cold could bite you. She tore the top wrapper with her teeth and tried to bite the bar. It was solid and she dare not risk breaking a tooth out here. She sucked on the bar, letting some of the sweetness fuel her sapping energy.

  ‘We need to get out of this wind,’ she shouted.

  She risked pulling back her cuff to check the map on her comms but the comms was dead. Cheap rubbish, she thought. She dug the old-fashioned map from her pocket, careful to grip it tight against the wind and the risk of it being whipped from them. She hunkered low and was amazed when Merj hunkered beside her, shielding her from the wind. She roughly knew their position. The map showed a small square sitting on its own out on the vast white emptiness, denoting the huge expanse of the plain on the plateau they were on. She was sure this square symbolised a shelter, possibly a hut. And there, a few kiloms further on from the square, a forest began again. In there they could find more shelter. She pointed out the square to Merj but he shook his head.

  ‘Too far out of our way.’

  ‘No, we go,’ she shouted, stood up and began walking on a compass bearing for the hut. Merj held his ground and didn’t follow but she knew he only had a communicator which, like hers, would not be working in this cold. She held the only map and therefore all the cards. Eventually he followed her.

  After about an hour walking, this time with the full force of the wind in their faces, the square materialised in the near distance. Ishbel had guessed correctly. It was an old timber refuge hut. The door hung off its hinges but was still there. They stumbled inside and the relief of being sheltered from the relentless wind brought them both to their knees to get some breath back into their lungs and some heat into their depleted cores.

  Ishbel slapped her hands against her thighs and then stuck them under her oxters to get the circulation going.

  Merj crouched on the floor and, when he looked up at Ishbel, she saw for a fleeting moment a murderous look pass over his face.

  ‘What a relief to get out of the wind,’ she said, trying to judge his mood.

  He sat back on his heels and stuck only his right hand between his legs to warm it. Of course, she thought, his prosthetic would not feel the cold.

  ‘You do realise, with this detour of yours, Ishbel, we are now even later for the rendezvous.’

  ‘Look Merj, you know as well as me that we could not have gone on much longer in those conditions.’ She tapped the map. ‘Look, there’s a forest there. It’s not that far. If we get there we’ll be sheltered, we can travel faster through the break and still be out of the wind.’

  ‘Maybe the wind will let up.’

  ‘No, it is fourth quarter. In my home in the Northern Territories, this wind continued all season.’

  Merj didn’t look convinced. ‘So just because you lived in NT, you’re the leader of this expedition.’

  Ishbel had to practically pull her jaw off the floor. ‘I can’t believe you’re pulling rank on me. We’re in an extreme environment, one I’ve some knowledge of. Does that not count?’ She pulled a deep breath to push her anger inside. ‘And this is my mission, so yes, I am leading it.’

  ‘You disobeyed an order back there. I could have you shot.’

  ‘Get a g
rip, Merj. I’ve a job to do. I didn’t ask you to turn up here.’

  ‘No, but The Prince did.’

  ‘So you say.’ She studied the map. ‘You go back onto your old course if you like but I’m following this forest route and we’ll see who gets to Bieberville first.’

  The hut proved to have nothing of use to them except shelter from the wind. It was stripped bare. Ishbel was surprised that the door and walls were still standing. But the natives must have realised that such a structure was more important than its component parts so it was allowed to stand. Ishbel put her grainer bar under her oxter too and eventually it thawed enough for her to eat it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said after only a few moments.

  ‘I decide when we go.’

  ‘Merj, you’re being stupid.’ Ishbel began to wonder if perhaps the cold was freezing his brain.

  When she could see he wasn’t budging she pulled her jacket close.

  ‘Give me the map,’ he ordered.

  ‘Can you read a map?’

  Even under his thick balaclava she could see his face rage. ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Liar. If you think I’m letting you out in that wind with a map you can’t even read then you’re madder than I first thought.’ She pulled her hood over her head and walked out the door. He made to grab her but his mitts were too thick and they slid off her jacket like snow off a pitched roof.

  The wind dropped slightly from hurricane-force to gale-force. This time they headed for the forest in the southeast. A gust hit them broadways, battering them sideways. Ishbel being tall and willowy blew over many times like a grass on the prairie. But the going was easier and in no time the dark expanse of the forest appeared. At the sight of this they both moved faster. As soon as they stumbled into the plantation the relief from the wind was immediate.

  Merj looked at Ishbel below pringled brows. But she ignored him. She wasn’t going to say ‘I told you so.’ She wasn’t going to be drawn into his childish games.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Merj shouted at her back.

  Ishbel stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at him. ‘I cannot believe you said that.’

  ‘Why? It’s true.’

  ‘You sound like Sorlie.’ That had been his eternal chant before his life changed. She had no idea Merj would say it too. He must have had a pretty privileged life if a little hunger made him believe he was starving.

  ‘I bet you don’t even know what starvation is.’

  Merj held her stare but gave nothing away. There was a crashing in the woods and they both dropped to the ground. They were in a natural break between the trees, not a path as such, but it could be used as one. They both crouched and crawled off the path into the denser wood.

  ‘What is it?’ Merj whispered. The crashing sounded again.

  ‘No idea, but it sounds pretty big.’ Ishbel’s first thoughts were of the Big Foot that the cannibals feared but she knew that was nonsense. She checked her map again. There was no Military Base for kiloms. Could it be a training exercise? Ishbel’s fingers and feet began to numb again.

  ‘We’re going to have to move soon or we’ll freeze. The sound is coming from over there, why don’t we skirt round it?’

  ‘Are you mad? It might be a pack of wolves,’ Merj said.

  ‘Wolves don’t make that much noise. It’s something big and it’s alone.’ Merj stared into the dense forest in the direction of the noise, clearly not convinced by Ishbel’s words. ‘Come on,’ Ishbel whispered.

  They crawled on hands and knees, stopping every time they heard something. When they were level with the noise Ishbel stopped and peered into the forest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Merj said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Ishbel gave a little laugh. ‘Look.’

  Through the trees was a four-legged bulk, antlers as big as year-old saplings sprouted from its head.

  ‘What…?’

  ‘It’s an elk. Harmless unless we get in his way. Those antlers could toss us to the moon if it wanted to.’

  ‘An elk?’ Merj had obviously never heard of such a thing. ‘Can it be eaten?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s very tasty.’

  Merj unclipped his gun and aimed. Ishbel dived for him and knocked the gun. It fired wide, missing the elk but sending it crashing into the forest away from them.

  ‘What the snaf did you do that for?’ His eyes blazed with anger and hunger.

  ‘What good is a whole elk to us?’

  ‘We’re starving here, Ishbel.’

  ‘And so are the rest of the people up here.’ She pointed back the way they’d come. ‘You heard the story I told about Huxton. If you killed that animal we would have used what? Half a leg at most. We’re not going to drag it with us. Its meat would have gone to waste. Its death would have been a waste. This world cannot afford any scrap of waste.’

  He did not deny what she said was true but she felt his anger percolate and Ishbel was sure she would eventually be made to pay for denying him his kill.

  ‘Does your precious map tell you how much further?’

  Heavy snow fell again and Ishbel held her face to the sky, tongue out to receive the welcome morsel of moisture. She felt the vibration on her wrist indicating the comms might be working again but she daren’t check. She enjoyed revisiting her old navigation skills and having the upper hand on Merj.

  The cocoon of trees had shredded the wind blasts and reduced the chill. She scanned the map and calculated another hour walking before they left the forest. The first settlement of the Bieberville borderland was only a couple of kiloms further on. She showed Merj on the map but he just grunted. He’d pulled off his balaclava and she noticed his face was paler than normal. He’d always been a strong soldier but maybe his injury had softened him.

  Her calculations proved correct; she smelled the wood smoke before she saw the settlement. She’d expected a shamble of huts similar to the cannibals, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. This settlement had high walls made from huge plastic panels laced together with plastic ties. Small holes had been peppered across the surface to allow the wind to whistle through. Any solid structure in this environment would be whipped into orbit in a mild gale, never mind the hurricane they’d just walked through.

  A Blue Pearl flag fluttered from the top of the wall.

  ‘The Blue Pearl, look. You got us here,’ Merj said grudgingly.

  ‘What if it’s a trick?’

  ‘Ishbel, you’re the one who led us here. Why would it be a trick?’

  ‘But if the Blue Pearl are already here, why would The Prince send me?’

  Merj sighed. As if on cue Ishbel’s comms buzzed. Merj narrowed his eyes on her and checked his own comms.

  ‘How long have they been working?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Don’t give me that native shrug crap. You tricked me, Ishbel.’

  ‘It’s a short range signal, it must be coming from in there.’ Ishbel switched to the frequency on her instruction and received an authorisation code that matched the one she had memorised. They were clear to proceed.

  ‘It’s OK, let’s go.’

  As they left the trees and walked across the expanse of white wilderness Ishbel had to gulp back her fear. The situation should be right and her instructions told her it was right but her instincts told her something was wrong. They were halfway across the wasteland when the door began to open. She swallowed hard.

  The boom came from nowhere. A small Transport, of a kind Ishbel had never seen before, whipped round the side of the settlement from the south and began firing artillery at them. Merj pushed Ishbel to the ground and dived on top of her. The Transport overshot them. They heard a shout from the door.

  ‘Run!’ Ishbel looked up and saw a small white face anxiously peering at them.

  ‘Run!’ the roar came
again.

  They leapt to their feet and pelted for the door. A boom erupted behind them and Ishbel felt the downdraft just as they made the door. This time bullets bounced off the plastic walls. A hand grabbed her and hauled her in. She collapsed in a heap, Merj sank beside her. A small man, the size of a child but with the face of an ancient, bent down to meet their gaze.

  ‘That was close,’ he said, his accent thick and dark.

  Ishbel looked up expecting the Transport to drop into the settlement. It was there, hovering above them like a pesky insect but between it and them was a clear plastic dome.

  ‘What was it?’ she asked.

  ‘Border guard. We’re not allowed to admit any more refugees.’

  Sorlie

  The rain started again. Reinya pulled the oilskin over her head and threw a piece of tarp to cover the girl completely.

  I turned to view the way we came. Dawdle sat at the back of the canoe, shoulders hunched, face like fizz. He was probably sorry he had opened up, but his story told volumes. The girl, who sat facing me, dropped the cover to around her shoulders, allowing the rain to soak her head. Her thick matted hair plastered her crown.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  She glowered at me from below her heavy brows.

  ‘Come on, I can’t keep calling you “girl”.’ I held out my hand. ‘I’m Sorlie, enchanté.’ Reinya sniggered from the bow.

  ‘You dolt.’ I heard her say under her breath.