Nothing but that he had died bravely, died on his feet, died standing strong, died to stay free.
There was a moment of indecision, a moment when both sides could have ended it there, when the troopers, already uncertain, could have retreated, when the Natives could have stayed hidden. Only Johnny had impetus and energy. Esperance heard a noise and looked over, as he writhed against a strong arm around his shoulders, a hand over his mouth. It was Tucker, the only man who could stop him charging into the circle alone to avenge the human, to die. The tension broke suddenly, the blood-chilling wail of a Settler dying, gutted by a well-sharpened blade, followed almost without pause by the whaaarp of a Settler gun.
In the melee that followed Esperance seemed only intermittently present, never still long enough to be a target. She had never fought like this before, her only experience of actual combat was breaking up fights in the camp, stopping friends and family from killing each other. She was no soldier, to stand and fight, untrained, afraid. Her fear seemed to have given her the right instincts to survive, for this was not a good place and time to stand and fight.
Running from cover to cover, she had no idea what to do, how to fight this battle against an overpowering, better-armed enemy. Screams chased her everywhere, screams of her friends and family, screams of pain and anger from the Toads. She barely had time to look where she was going.
In the chaos that had fallen into the camp it didn’t matter how good a shot she was. She was slightly less surprised than the Toad she bumped into, and pulled her trigger first. It was the first time she had killed but there was no time to think about it, though her stomach churned for a second. Count your shots, that was what Grandfather had told her. Two was a shot at a distant amphibian as it attacked, drawing a plastic-looking gun on a refugee armed only with an aluminium spear. Three was a shot at the same Toad when she missed and he turned on her. That shot did not miss, she was far enough away to see it properly – the spray of blood, the surprised look on the Toad’s face as he fell.
Four and five were fired as reflex when a flailing Toad knocked her down. The fight was by then completely impossible to see, nobody could see the fight for the fighters. In the chaos that followed she fired shots six and seven – one a miss and the other splattering through a Toad’s shoulder. Shot eight took that Toad out of his misery.
There were only two shots left, and before her was a trooper in armour, a difficult target and an impossible target for her small handgun. Around her, people died or were dying, the screams of her people forcing blinding tears from her eyes. She blinked to clear her vision and in that instant the Toad raised his gun to fire. She did not run, did not jump or dive, she merely ceased standing, fell boneless to the ground. The surprised trooper fired where she had been and missed; she fired wild, the shot ricocheted off the impenetrable armour.
The noise should have been deafening yet she could not hear – her ears, her brain had shut down from over-stimulation. There was too much death; it painted the ground beneath her feet, it filled the air with a red mist. We all bleed the same colour, Toads and us, we all bleed the same colour – it looped through her brain.
She had one bullet left, a bullet that had always been meant for her, reserved for her from the day Grandfather had given her his gun. From the ground she was vulnerable, down to her last shot, afraid, despairing. There were too many dead of her people in the trees, on the ground near her. Blood pooled on the ground, a rivulet inching towards where she lay. Raising her gun to under her chin, as Grandfather had taught her, she tightened her finger on the trigger, praying to the god that her people had believed in before the Settlers had arrived.
The shot went wide as a Settler grabbed her hand and pulled it aside, her last shot disappearing with a flutter through the leaves. The air was now filled with the screams of the dying, her vision filled with the smirking grey-green face of the Toad. In silence she waited for death, praying for death, in fear that death would not come; there were worse things than dying.
So suddenly she almost didn’t notice it, the Toad above her died even as he leaned over her with cuffs in his hand; his large, liquid eyes opening with surprise, his head thrown back, mouth open, silent. The face of Johnny Star appeared over his shoulder, his feral smile almost a mirror of that her attacker had been wearing. Johnny helped Esperance stand, the smile on his face turning grim.
He fired past her ear, and she heard a Settler yelp; she did not know how many Johnny had killed but surely he had killed more than anyone else. His clothes were wet with mucus, a sign of his exertion, of his emotion. Looking her in the eye, taking his eye off the fight, it was then he finally earned her respect.
‘There are too many of them, too well armed.’ His breath was laboured, his expression pained, surprising Esperance in that moment with its humanity. He gave her a shove, ‘Run, damn you,’ slipping into a human expression, ‘run!’
‘I can’t.’
‘Run, we are all dead, I would run if I had somewhere to go, something to live for, RUN!’
Giving her a last shove, one hard enough to hurt, hard enough to almost knock her down, he turned to fire. She heard a chirping noise from his pistol, the warning tone, warning that the charge was low. She hoped he had more ammo, and then she heard the flier.
It was flying low, its engine emitting a throbbing whirr – a utility flier, it was not well armed, but what weapons it had it was firing fast and indiscriminately. A sound like a tin roof in a hurricane erupted and again the air was filled with screams and wails as her people, already close to utter defeat, were decimated, massacred. This time there was definitely nowhere to run, the flier would kill them all, she was dead.
She had assumed that Grandfather had run, that someone had packed him away, led him into the woods and safety. That was until he stepped out of his hut, walking more erect than she had ever seen him before, more confident than he had been in her entire life. He stopped in the middle of the camp, standing among the dead, and lifted a sky-blue plastic tube to his shoulder. Again the world seemed to hold its breath, time seemed to slow; if anyone was moving, if anyone was fighting still, Esperance could not see it. Then her world stopped.
She wanted to scream ‘no’ but no words came out.
Grandfather fired his Settler rifle, with the fire-power of a howitzer, at the same moment that the flier fired its rapid-fire pulse cannon. The plasma splattered into Grandfather’s skeletal chest; there was no blood, not right away, maybe with the heat of the plasma there would never be. The only family Esperance had, the only hope she truly felt, her entire world, died at the same moment that the flier stalled and accelerated to earth at the speed of gravity.
As Grark had hoped the morning did bring conclusion but, to his despair, not the conclusion he had hoped for. The tracker rode slowly into the mission, bringing the feel of dust, of heat with him, drooping on his saddle with exhaustion, even the mount, that tireless beast, hanging its reptilian head with fatigue. Dismounting slowly, he dragged a bundle off his pommel. It was thin, but the length of a body.
Grark feared what it was, knew what it was, and that was quickly confirmed. The tracker stood back in utter breathless silence as one of the arriving nuns unwrapped the bundle. Mouth open yet silenced forever, skin impossibly papery, lay the remains of Sister Mel. As Grark had feared she had not found water in the two days – at most two days – their people can survive without it.
Striding over to the wailing nuns he grabbed Bagra by the shoulder. She turned, mouth open, eyes seething. ‘Sister Bagra,’ he snarled, ‘what did you say to the girl the night she ran off?’
‘I did not see her,’ she hissed, looking not at him but rather at the other nuns.
‘You and I both know you are lying,’ Grark stated with confidence, ‘you because you are lying and you are not that delusional, me because, unlike you, I have security clearance and saw you argue with her on camera. I am angry with myse
lf about that. If I had thought of it before last night we might have known more to let us find her.’
‘She betrayed us,’ she said surprisingly haughtily, almost arrogantly. Did she not know the trouble she was in, did she not care? ‘She sent that letter that brought the Inspectors down on us, that brought you here. She had to know I knew, she had to feel sorry, she couldn’t live with the consequences of that. She must have killed herself when she knew I was on to her.’
One of the older nuns – one so old, so nondescript she was almost furniture, stepped forward. ‘She did not betray you, Mother Superior,’ her voice thin and tired, old, quavering with the need to stay calm, ‘you betrayed the Order, betrayed our duty, our mission, with your cruelty. She did not even send the letter,’ she paused, sobbing, ‘I did.’
‘Why?’ Bagra gasped, knowing with the death of Mel and the old woman’s words the investigation would send her home, knowing it was all over.
‘You are too cruel to be a Mother Superior,’ she stated matter-of-factly, ‘and I have been a member of Save the Humans for the last ten years.’
‘Spy, traitor, bitch,’ screamed Sister Bagra before collapsing to her knees. Hands on the ground, she wailed.
Johnny Star had always known he would die alone, that his own people would end his life. The only decision he had the power to make was how, fighting to the death, fighting to stay free or public ritual execution. A blaze of gunfire or the mocking, laughing, faces of the smugly ‘civilised’.
This death was neither. All around him were the bodies of the dead and dying, some he had brought with him, some he had just met. All of them were his friends, his family. The death he had brought with him, the Settlers chasing him and his little gang, had killed this place, for a camp, a village, is not the ground it is on, it is the people who live there. On hands and knees he crawled, too pained even to scream from the plasma burn in his gut, the section of intestine scraping in the hot dust. The firearms of his people kill his people even more efficiently than they kill the Natives.
He was already dead, he knew that; there was no hope of survival. Even with the best of medical care he would most likely die of that wound, and that medical care was too far away even if he was not denied it. He did not know why he was still alive; his heart beat with nothing left to beat it, his blood surely could not be flowing. Yet alive he at least appeared to be to himself, and nobody else’s opinion mattered.
Why was he still alive, what was driving his clear, ridiculous, desire to stay conscious, keep moving? Covered in blood, the blood from the ground where so many had died, the blood from corpses, Settler and Native, Toad and human, that were nothing more than obstacles on his path to who knows where, who knew why, he kept moving. There was so much blood it had flooded the dirt under him turning it into dark red mud.
Finally, after an age of crawling, no longer on hands and knees, an age of sliding on his torn-open, burned crispy, belly, he found a corpse that did matter, that he recognised even in his depleted, agonised state. It was a destination of sorts, one his unconscious had chosen for him once his conscious mind switched off. Through blurring eyes he could see the contented human face of Jacky, dead from the moment the fight had started, from before the fight had started. His body lay untouched, lying on his back, with his head to the left.
Johnny had not known Jacky for long, yet the human’s death had been something for him to die for. Staring into that beautiful face Johnny from the stars breathed his last. He did not know if there was a heaven, or if he deserved to go there – he had killed so many of Jacky’s kind – yet in that final view of that peaceful human face he felt he was as close to heaven as he would ever deserve to get.
Grark examined the room with a look of disgust he no longer even wished to disguise. Those walls, how could anyone stand to work in a room with those walls? He had never seen something so busy, so densely layered with bullshit. The contrast between the empty, obsessively plain desk and the walls was painful, nauseating, distressing.
It had taken too long to organise this meeting with the Head of the Department for the Protection of Natives, the legendary Devil. Strange that no matter how hard Grark tried, he couldn’t find Devil’s real name; the name that should surely be on government records was apparently not known to anyone in the colony. His real name if it existed at all was either hidden or excised from the records. That was madness. That was impossible.
Finally they were to have a meeting and yet the famous – infamous – Devil was not there, and not currently available. It was only Grark’s supposed status as an important representative of the Church as well as having some power in government back home that prevented his banishment to some dreary waiting room. Instead he rated the right to wait in the Head’s actual office, although having now seen it he could not imagine how any waiting room could be worse.
This was pure and simple power play – making him wait when a meeting was scheduled. If Devil was trying to annoy him it was going to work, yet Grark knew he was too disciplined to lose control. Losing control here, in the office of a senior bureaucrat, would lose him everything.
When Devil finally opened his door and walked into the office like he owned the place, which for all intents and purposes he did, Grark was ready and calm. ‘Inspector Grark,’ he said in an artificially cheerful voice, ‘how good it is to finally meet you. I have heard so much about you.’ ‘Nothing good’ was implied in the tone.
‘Mr Devil,’ replied Grark just as falsely, ‘I must admit to being impressed with the efficiency with which you run your department. Everything seems to be operating extraordinarily well. If only all departments were as well run as yours.’
Devil beamed, delighted at the compliment, seemingly unaware of the sarcasm dripping from Grark’s voice. They could both play at that game.
‘We do our best. It is our job to manage the safety and quality of life for the Native. They are like children, they don’t seem to be able to look after themselves, and it is our duty to ensure that they are protected from the suffering their position and lack of civilisation might cause.’
Grark nodded. He had heard all this before, and a nod was at least safe while saying nothing. ‘And what would you say to the accusations that your idea of protection, taking children, taking complete control over their lives, forcing them to work without payment,’ his voice was ice, ‘is not helping them at all, is in fact far worse than leaving them alone?’
‘I would say it’s unfounded, ludicrous rubbish,’ Devil snapped. ‘The Native Rights Association, or Save the Humans –’ he said the name as if he was vomiting ‘– if that is who you have been listening to, don’t know what they are talking about.’
Grark stood, took a few paces. It was obvious all his considerable mental strength was focused on containing his anger. ‘What do you say then, to the further accusation that paying the Natives nothing but rations is actually slavery? You know of course that slavery has been outlawed in our Empire.’
‘Of course I know slavery is outlawed, I read the news, I read the endless memos I get sent from home. It is illegal to enslave a citizen, and all members of intelligent species have the same right to citizenship, that is the law.’ Devil was so angry he was shaking, yet the quivering of his muscles was the only real clue. ‘You can’t enslave an animal. It is not slavery when we ride a mount, when we keep pets. It is not slavery because the Native is an animal.’
‘The Church has been studying the Native,’ Grark continued in a conversational tone. ‘We have concluded they are intelligent – whether or not they are our equals is still being debated, but the debate regarding their intelligence is over. So is the debate about slavery of intelligent species, that has been over a long time now.’
‘You people from home, you know nothing,’ Devil was almost screaming, drops of saliva spraying from his mouth. Grark backed off, more to keep himself clean than for fear of that vapid little man.
Grark turned to leave. Trying for a passing shot Devil would have no chance to reply to, he turned as he reached the door. ‘Of course, I will have to report to the government and the people back home about the slavery here.’ He could no longer keep the scorn he felt for Devil from his voice. ‘It cannot be tolerated. Pray the administration is merciful and you get to keep your job.’ With that said he stepped out the door before Devil could respond, walking away from the furious squalling behind him.
Chapter 21
Many recently have called for the ultimate end to the so-called ‘Native Problem’. The Natives are intransigent, rebellious, uncontrollable and ultimately destructive. Whilst some have been trained to be useful in some small roles in our society, others have refused to learn our ways, follow our laws, and become useful servants. These rebellious uncivilised Natives collect in camps in and around towns, they drink and consume drugs. Having no means of support they survive by begging and by theft.
This problem is far more obvious in the frontier cities on the edges of the deserts, near the land where we cannot live. For so long we have been reliant as a society on using Native workers to manage our concerns in those areas, and the Natives who work are also harassed by those who will not – begging from working relatives is almost an institution for those Natives who do not work. Increased policing will, of course, take control of the problem, allowing the punishment and imprisonment of the Native, but would be costly – a cost we would not wish to bear as increased taxes.
The recent rebellion by the Native Jacky Jerramungup was relatively short-lived, but far too public; it drew attention back home to the ‘Native Problem’ while seeding rebellion in the minds of the other Natives. In the months since then the Native population has been even harder to control, harder to tolerate than usual.
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