“We need to share the oxygen equally,” Cameron shouted over the muffled roar. “Turn off the tap as soon as you can breathe freely, then pass on the tank. Waste nothing! We have no idea how long this is going to last.”
The gas in the cavern grew no worse and while many were sickened as a result, they remained alive. When the din outside began to subside the youngest among them fell asleep. For the rest, the meteorite onslaught outside might have eased, but their turmoil inside remained and all they could do was stare into the darkness.
Inside the mini-system, the orbitals, including the great planet, continued on their way around the dark star. The magnetic fields of the two stars acted to repel each other; the counter force growing stronger as the distance between them narrowed. The approach of the intruder binary twin slowed until it might have seemed to a godlike observer to be locked in a fixed orbit around the yellow dwarf.
Earth accommodated the new forces acting upon it. The planet was nothing if not a survivor. It would continue to grumble for days as magma from the excited core expanded and rose to the surface before it reached a new equilibrium. The main event would take place when the dark star-crossed Earth's orbit path as it traveled around the Sun. Then, all hell would break loose on the planet's surface.
Stella checked her digital watch and saw it was two hours past midnight. She patted Summer's head, heavy in her lap. When she finally fell asleep, it was only to wake with a start minutes later to find she still sheltered in a cavern in a hill.
A young Jawindjira woman set down the lit candle on the rocky slab behind their bench and smiled at Stella. “Thank you, for the clean air,” she said to Stella. “Our elders were choking.”
“How are they now?” Stella asked.
“They are better,” the woman told her and she went back to her group.
In the flickering glow from the candles, Stella watched three children as they moved among the refugees. They carried with them containers of dried meat, finger limes, bright pink brush cherries, and green bunya cones they offered in small hands to those who accepted them. In good times their gifts would count only as meager at best, but under the circumstances, they were gratefully received by most.
Boyd protested loudly that the bunya fruit was inedible, and the children came back to show the new arrivals how to extract the small nuts. Among the soldiers, only Kwong and Cameron persevered and were rewarded for their efforts. Cameron collected the remaining cones unopened and placed them on the mat in front of Stella for her to divvy between her own.
Stella stroked her sleeping daughter's hair and watched the corporal move back to his dark corner of their sanctuary. She felt as though she was locked inside a very bad dream.
Among the late arrivals, it was Boyd who was the most aggrieved by the situation.
“This bloody Abo shit isn’t food, Corporal,” he moaned.
“You should be thanking them for giving you vitamins and roughage,” Kwong advised.
“We already got vitamins,” Taylor complained. “I'm with Boyd on this one. The bush crap is going to give us diarrhea if you ask me.”
“I'm not asking you,” Kwong growled in reply.
“Why we do we have to be stuck with blackies anyway, Corporal?” Boyd muttered.
“If you knew what was good for you, you'd be eating the bush tucker,” Matthew called softly to him from the shadows.
“You lot should just live in this hole when it’s all over and done,” Boyd sneered in reply. “It's safer than those bloody humpies you sleep under in the outback. I bet you like to stay close to white fellas so you still get a square meal.”
“When you say—this hole—you mean the cave you are sheltering in, right?” Matthew asked, each word spoken evenly with barely any emotion. “The one you have been invited to share with us?”
“This hole in the hill doesn’t belong to you lot,” Boyd replied. “We got as much right to be here as you have!”
“You ought to shut it,” Kwong said to Boyd.
“We were—” Boyd continued.
“Shut up, Boyd,” Cameron barked at the man. “And that's an order!”
“Yes, Corporal,” Boyd replied. He fell quiet, sullen in his discontent, and after several minutes he groaned and got to his feet. “I'm taking a dump,” he told them. “I think I’ve got the runs.” He made his way to the shadowed end of the cavern, cursing loudly as he stumbled over the unseen rocks.
Aunty Wanganeen got to her feet. “This cave is not a toilet! We've showed you all what we prepared for everyone to use, and that’s down the branch off. Corporal, tell your men to respect this place.”
“I've already tried,” Cameron said with a groan.
“Aunty, you're dealing with a frigging boofhead!” Kwong told her. “He hasn't got anything up here,” the soldier said, tapping his forehead to underline his meaning. “If we ever get out of here, that bugger is going to clean up his mess before he leaves!” Aunty declared.
“Fair enough,” Cameron replied. He was too exhausted to bother making an example of Boyd to the men. Anyway, how could he? What with everyone stuck in the same chamber.
He used a flashlight to find the caffeinated beef-jerky among his rations and stretched out on the platform. The bush bed wasn't so bad. He closed his eyes and slowly, methodically, chewed the thin wad of dried meat. There was a way out of this miserable cavern. There had to be. This hole in the hill was not going to be their tomb. He was going to make damn sure about that.
51
The Squeeze Space
Cameron squinted up at the barely discernible shapes of three soldiers working at the top of the pile of broken rock. “Keep at it!” He bellowed. As he watched, a large slab loosened by the men suddenly slid down the side and crashed to the floor.
Since it was entirely possible that a sizable piece of debris could land on someone's leg or far worse their head, all the sleeping platforms were moved to the far side of the cavern. Water ran down the rock wall at this end, and the damp crept into their makeshift beds and their clothing.
The need to escape the chamber had just ticked up another notch along the scale of urgency Cameron had created in his head.
Matthew shone his flashlight through the dust and across the top of the rubble heap. “How about we focus on clearing a crawl space between the cave ceiling and the rock pile?”
Taylor and Kwong stopped pulling stones to follow the beam of light.
“Hey, who told you two to stop?” Cameron bellowed at the two men.
“The collapse will go all the way to the entrance,” Matthew said. “What they're doing is causing rocks to move down the shaft toward them and us. It's dangerous.”
“He's right,” Taylor told Cameron. “We only aim to clear enough space to crawl out. Not to drive a car through the shaft.”
Cameron wiped the grit from his eyes with the corner of his shirt. “So—where are we at?” He looked around the faces he could see in the dim flicker of candlelight for suggestions. “Okay,” he said when he saw there were none. “We only need to clear a squeeze space. We'll do it in shifts. We'll have four working on top with two in the front and two behind. The rest of you! I want you all to organize yourselves. We will take turns at working in chains to pass the rocks back. Let's try fifteen-minute rounds.”
Summer and Stella watched the beam of a flashlight play on the ceiling. The great pile of rock that had poured from the shaft still filled more than a quarter of the cavern. Clearing a passageway out looked all but hopeless, and yet they held onto hope.
“Mom, Dad's going to be okay, isn't he?” Summer asked. “They will be some kind of shelter at the camp won't there?”
Stella blinked her tears away, grateful Summer could not see them. She gave her daughter a hug. “I think so, Sum.”
Summer looked up at the outline of her mother. Her finger tracing the curve of Stella's jaw upward along the cheekbone. She rubbed her thumb across her fingertips and felt the wetness. Summer put an arm around Stella.
She pressed her head against the breast of her mother, listening to the sound of her heartbeat.
Storm sat close to Penny and Michael. No words had been exchanged between them since Franchette had died. Storm remained hopeful. He gazed at the two in the dim candlelight.
Penny nestled her head against her father's shoulder. Her eyes closed, her face pinched. She was unreachable.
Time passed, and the work continued. Since the laboring required more sustenance it looked like they might run out of food before they were through to the other side.
Cameron figured they must be more than one-third of the way up the shaft. The work shifts were lengthened to an hour atop the pile. Long enough to strain muscles and scrape skin.
Extra bark mats were found for the tunnelers to lie on, but their progress was slow. As the tunnelers were overwhelmed by tiredness, their energy ebbed and mistakes became frequent.
Boyd had crushed the fingers of one hand in a rock fall. Darren stripped wood from the stick platforms to use as splints. For the ties, he used the bandages from the first aid kit. Stella decided not to waste what little morphine remained, and with no alcohol to lessen the pain, the injured man was left on the bark mat to moan himself to sleep.
The able-bodied worked in shifts. No one wanted to stop digging, but the lack of food and sleep slowed their effort, and a mood of resignation developed. There would be no rescuers from above coming to their aid. They tried to remain optimistic. They told each other the hard work and sacrifice would reap them a reward, and they were right. Their bleak situation was about to change for the better.
It happened when Kwong and three young men from the Jawindjira mob completed a long shift at the top of the pile.
“You feel the wind, boss?” Kuparr Naaiang asked in an urgent whisper.
“I feel nothing but pain,” Kwong muttered in reply. “Fucking rocks have scraped all the skin off my knees and my ribs.”
“Well, I can even taste it,” Kuparr told him. “And it tastes good.”
Kwong was beginning to believe they were never going to dig their way out of the pit. Still, he could hear the urgency and excitement in Kuparr's voice and he couldn't ignore it. He sidled up closer to the man, groaning with the effort. Then, he felt a draft on his cheek. A waft of cool air that brushed the perspiration clinging to his skin, and he responded to it like it was the breath of a lover.
“Oh—yeah!”
“Like a splash of clean, cold water,” Kuparr suggested.
“Like an ice cold beer!” Kwong replied.
They laughed together and set about digging with renewed vigor.
It took them two hours to pull away the stones before the two men caught their first glimpse of sunlight in five days. When the others heard the good news, the cavern echoed with wild whoops. It happened on the morning of the sixth day of their entombment.
Kuparr slid down the rock fall and landed on the sandy floor of the entrance in the hill. He looked around in stunned silence.
Kwong pushed aside enough stones for his large frame to wriggle through and he too tumbled to the floor.
Although it was little more than twilight inside the small cave the two men were squinting. They breathed deeply, waiting for their eyes to adjust. When they reached the mouth of the cave, they saw the stone surface was blackened and still warm to their touch. Outside the world was stark and sterile.
“There's nothing left!” Kuparr whispered in dismay.
A fiery inferno had swept the narrow valley. Blackened stumps stood like spines amid the heat fractured boulders. Smoke and ash drifted in the breeze. Above their heads, the sky just like the land was blanketed in gray.
The heat that remained in the ground underfoot was still tremendous. It worked its way through the thick tread of their boots and threatened to cook the soles of their feet as they made their way down the slope.
When they saw they had reached the end of the valley, they whooped with relief. But it didn't get better, at least not straight away. Each step they took, resulted in hot ash billowing around them in acrid clouds filled with sparks that stung their exposed skin. After several minutes their throats had become raw from coughing.
“Stuff this!” Kwong exclaimed and raised his forearm to cover his mouth and nose.
Kuparr looked at him and shook his head. “Do like me.”
Kwong watched Kuparr pull his T-shirt over his head, tying it around over his mouth and nose and knotting it from behind.
“I spotted a pond next to the fence line when we drove in,” Kwong said, and the two set off down the slope. He knew he could not hope that the vehicles somehow survived the fierce bombardment and the fire. He tried not to think about the long walk they had ahead of them.
Spirals of ash rose with each footfall. Picked up by the wind gusts that came and went. Scattered over the wasted land.
They gazed down the slope toward the cliff face and saw a scattershot of craters. The weathered undulations went all the way back to the hills. Chunks of glassy dark meteorite protruded from the earth patched ash-white and burnt orange by the heat of the impacts.
“Looks like the Moon, eh?” Kuparr said, looking about him and Kwong nodded in agreement.
The pool was much smaller than Kwong recalled when he saw it from behind the cannon. It resembled nothing so much as a tar pit in a desert.
Kuparr was already sinking below the surface by the time Kwong reached the edge of the water, and he stood and waited for the man to come back up. He needed to know the water hadn't turned to acid. When he saw the other man standing upright he was stung by a sense of shame. His sense of humanity had been tested over the past days and now he was shocked to find it lacking.
Kuparr wiped sticky ash from an eye as he stood before Kwong. “You were waiting to see if it poisoned me, right?” He laughed at his joke. When realized the truth in Kwong's face he shook his head.
Kwong wasn't hesitating any longer. He let out a yell and ran like a five-year-old into the pool, shallow diving below the floating layer of ash and brown scum. He held his breath for as long as he could, rolling joyously like a seal pup in the ocean. It was as good as a warm bath. He kicked his legs and let the warm water take the edge off the pain in his feet.
On their way back to the cave, Kuparr stopped suddenly and turned to stare at Kwong.
“What?” Kwong asked.
“You are going to scare your soldier buddies,” Kuparr said with a grin so wide it threatened to split his face.
“Why's that?” Kwong asked, but not really wanting to know.
“Now, you look like me,” Kuparr told him.
Kwong lifted his arms and looked down to see he was coated in wet ash. “Oh, yeah,” he giggled. “How about that?”
They arrived at the cave entrance to find two young Jawindjira men waiting for them. The last lingering feelings of elation disappeared. Without a word spoken the youngsters pointed to the rockfall at the back of the short cave.
Kwong had missed the bundle of scorched clothing stacked against the wall when he broke through to the outside of the tunnel. He gasped when he saw that it was a body curled like a child huddling in fear.
He didn't need to examine the dog tags. He knew it was Keech frozen in rigor mortis. The soldier's khaki uniform was full of smoldering holes. The big man slumped onto the charcoal covered grit. He rested a hand on his brother's shoulder and cried like a baby.
52
Survivors
Over the next hour, they struggled to maneuver themselves through the squeeze space, driven by their eagerness to leave the stinking sanctuary. The elders in the Jawindjira mob were laid flat on sleds of bark made from the converted platforms and pushed and pulled over the top of the debris pile. Pale daylight barely cut through the darkness from the outside, but it was just enough to see without the candles.
Stella collected several candle stubs on a strip of bark. She set them down. It took a while to get the tiny wicks to produce a flame, but eventually, there was enough
light to see the two. She and Summer had determined they would talk Michael and Penny into leaving the cave system. So far though, their efforts had met with little response.
Michael and Penny continued to stare blankly as others made their way out of the cavern. The two of them were trapped behind a high wall of their own making for the purpose of keeping all others out. Michael had his arms wrapped around his knees. On occasion, he lifted his head and rubbed his meaty palms against his forehead. He was clearing away the images he didn't want to see. His eyes were swollen and his face red and chafed. He had been rubbing at it a lot over the long night.
It took more than an hour alone with them in the chamber that had almost become their tomb, for Stella to get a response from Michael.
His hollow eyes stared back at her. “You never bloody give up, do you?”
“You should visit Franchette,” Stella told him gently. “Wouldn't she like you to do that?”
“The way we buried her—that was not correct,” Michael told her.
Stella nodded in agreement. “But it was the best we could do under the circumstances.”
“Franchette was the only medical professional we had...” Michael continued.
“And she wasn't so well herself, was she, Michael?” Stella asked. She had to keep the man talking.
“She has had the black dog—on and off—over the years,” he said pursing his lips. “That's true. I tried so many...” He gazed down at Penny curled in his lap. “We both tried.”
“I didn't know,” Stella replied.
“She hid it very well most of the time,” Michael said. “The move from Sydney was too much for her. I think it's been my fault all along.”
He squinted in the dim light at Penny and sighed. He gently lifted her into a sitting position, then he got to his feet, his movements slow and deliberate. He looked down at his trousers and began to brush off the dust he could not see. He straightened up with a groan. “Come on, Penny. It’s time to go outside. It’s better than dying in here.”
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