Getting back

by William Dietrich

  "If we hadn't bitten the apple there'd be no Genesis, no Bible, and no Gutenberg press to tell us about Eden," Ethan countered. "This isn't us, not really, Daniel. Civilization is. I've changed my mind about being out here. I was a gadget freak, and quite frankly I miss my gadgets. They were my toys. I like logic, regularity, and predictability, and all those things seem in short supply out here. So to me, the challenge isn't surviving without civilization. It's learning from the wild and bringing that experience back to make civilization better."

  "You sound like Outback Adventure."

  "First we believed everything they told us and then we believed nothing. I'm just wondering if some of what they said is really true, in a deeper sense than they intended."

  "So what are you going to do if we get back?"

  Ethan sighed. "I don't know. My worry is I'll end up not feeling I fit in either place, or will be on the run as an underground outlaw. Maybe I could make a life here, but not like Oliver. Not like an animal. I'd want to build back some of what I had, and strike a compromise." He looked at Amaya, walking ahead. "Find someone to build with."

  The dusty, ragged, and unkempt members of Rugard Sloan's Expedition of Recovery, as he'd grandly decided to call it (although it was more like a lynch mob in mood and moral development), almost tiptoed along the blacktop road in wonder. Pavement! A small thing, but as fervently appreciated in this trackless wilderness as an exercise yard in a prison compound. Here was evidence of past civilization! Of destination! Possibility! Somewhere over the horizon were ruined cities and salvageable luxuries. Somewhere over the horizon was Raven's electronic key to getting out of this whole sorry mess. And because of that, the hardened, bitter inmates of Erehwon ran up and down the skin of asphalt like excited children, clucking over the road as if it were an open gate in a coop of fenced chickens.

  The reaction made Rugard slightly uneasy. His followers were angry, yes, for the slaughter in the canyon. They were set on getting back what the bitch had stolen if it meant even the slightest chance of escape from this continental hell: and he'd told them that Raven held the key to getting back. But at Erehwon his rule was the only possibility. In leading them out into the desert, Rugard had made possible the danger that some of them might actually begin to think. He'd have to drive hard to discourage that.

  What drove him was not just the desire to break out of this unwalled prison but to revenge himself on the urban smart-asses who had run away. Rugard hated their type, these wealthy urbanites who came here- hated their manner, their unconscious superiority, their naivete, their indignant outrage, their privilege, their whining, and their clumsy helplessness. How well he knew their kind! It mattered little to him that they were stuck in Australia as he was: they were of the same class of arrogant bastards who had imprisoned him. The same class that had held him down all his life: quietly sneering at him, ignoring him, jailing him, always trying to crush him. He was better than they were! Smarter, tougher. Now they'd done it again, humiliating him in his own home, and the possibility they might escape was so maddening he couldn't rest until he hunted them down. Yet Raven and her accomplices had a long head start because of the time it had taken Rugard to assemble supplies, saddle the camels pressed into service to help carry them, sharpen the weapons, and muster resolve. Some of his inmates had balked at following the fugitives at all! The Warden had reacted swiftly, making clear the necessity of fearing him more than they feared the desert. "You can stay with the ants then," he'd growled, burying one of those who hesitated to his scrawny neck and squeezing fruit pulp over his screaming head. Rugard had waited until the insects had eaten out the man's eyes and he'd begged for death, and then ordered him dug up, alive, his head pitted and bleeding with bites. A bandage had been wrapped around the victim's empty sockets and he'd been brought stumbling along, a reminder of the consequences of disobedience or hesitation, infection swelling the man's face like a balloon. The lesson had been salutary, the Warden judged. Still, the thieves were far ahead and the Expedition of Recovery needed help if it was to catch up. They needed an advantage.

  Rugard looked with dislike at Ico Washington, kneeling on the pavement with a battered map spread before him. The weasel was oily and obsequious and slyly mocking. No wonder his former superiors had encouraged the little toad to run off to this wasteland! The Warden couldn't wait to get rid of Ico himself. Still, the man was convinced his piece of paper might give them a chance, even though to Rugard it looked like the kind of fantasy chart that fools bought from liars.

  "Well? Did they come this way?"

  Ico squinted upward. "Obviously we don't know. If I were them I'd stay off the roads to avoid contact with groups like us. But this highway could be the break we need. If we follow it we might be able to get ahead of them."

  "The road goes north and south, not east. You said they'd go east."

  Ico nodded. "They must, to use the transmitter. But look here. If this map is correct, this road must join an east-running one a few hundred miles north of here. We can make twice the time on graded pavement that they can cross-country, I'll bet. We follow these highways, get ahead of them, and throw out a net near the coast. They'll be lulled into complacency by then. We find them, get the transmitter back, and escape."

  "That will take months!"

  "The alternative is to rot like savages. And that could take years."

  Almost imperceptibly, the country began to change as the quintet of adventurers hiked eastward. It rained a couple times, hard but not torrential, and that eased both their minds and the search for water. So did the ecology. The vegetation was getting denser as they traveled, changing from dead-looking desert scrub to savanna bush. The trees were fuller and grew closer together. The grass clumps were less separated. It was still dry country, with empty rivers and starched sky and conical red clay termite mounds that jutted from the soil like dented dunce caps, but for the first time since they'd landed in Australia the continent seemed to be getting greener. There was no hint of the sea, but their spirits improved with the health of the landscape.

  Oliver half led and half tagged along, both guide and pet. It was difficult to get any kind of clear history out of him. He must have been a child when the sickness hit, and probably lost a piece of his mind when he watched a whole nation dying around him. Yet he'd survived from some inexplicable immunity and been wandering ever since. He was skittish, as if he might take it into his head to drift off at any minute, but he wasn't difficult to travel with. Content to mostly walk by himself, muttering at rocks and whistling at birds, he'd periodically demonstrate some bush skill or disappear to come back with fresh meat. Occasionally he'd hang on them like a dog, as if he took periodic comfort from human company. The next day he'd walk and sit and sleep apart. He displayed little curiosity about the modern world they'd come from and ate by himself, squatting on his haunches. He smelled rank but efforts to get him to wash were rebuffed, and perhaps he had a point. Even the insects kept their distance.

  Among the other four, awkwardness persisted. Raven sulked, Daniel felt alternately fulfilled and at a loss, and Amaya seemed wounded. She reacted to Ethan's attempts at quiet conversation with gratitude but seemed cautious about striking up a real relationship. She'd obviously had a crush on Dyson. And Daniel still seemed smitten with Raven, who'd led him on. Only the journey held them all together.

  So they walked, and talked of day-to-day things, but their feelings were temporarily corraled lest they threaten survival. Until one evening when Ethan approached Amaya as she took a turn gathering firewood.

  "What's with Daniel and Raven?" he groused.

  She sighed. "What do you mean?"

  "They sidle around each other like gunfighters. I feel like I'm at a bad dinner party of a dissolving marriage."

  "They're just in love." She said it morosely.

  He looked at the two cooking silently by the fire already started, Raven unhappily avoiding eye contact. "One of them, maybe."

  "It's both, Ethan. They're a
lso mad at each other."

  "For a while they were sleeping like spoons."

  "Until they weren't so exhausted that they could start thinking about it. Now they're like repelling magnets. Serves them right to shiver."

  "I like sleeping next to you."

  She didn't reply. She knew he wanted more.

  "But you're edgy around me in the daytime. Don't you like me, Amaya?"

  She straightened at that, a forearm full of firewood, and looked levelly at him. She didn't answer.

  "I like you. I like how you're smart. I like talking about building things with you."

  She frowned.

  "I like being with you."

  "Here." She handed him the firewood and marched back to the campfire. Ethan followed. Oliver looked up with interest, sensing she intended to make an announcement. Indeed, Amaya now stopped and drew herself up.

  "I think that now we need to talk about Ico."

  Raven and Daniel looked at her curiously. Behind her, Ethan looked confused. "What?" he said in surprise.

  "I think there are a lot of things being unsaid here that we should talk out," Amaya went on. "To help the group."

  "What things?" Daniel asked warily.

  "Well." Amaya looked at them each in turn. "Ico betrayed us, but we have to decide whether we're willing to forgive him. If we don't, there's going to be this poison."

  There was a moment's uneasy silence.

  "I don't forgive the little bastard," Ethan said, dumping the firewood onto the ground. "If he hadn't run to Rugard I wouldn't be fleeing here through the bush."

  "Yeah," Daniel agreed. "Screw Ico."

  "Who's Ico?" Oliver inquired.

  "A former friend," Amaya told the Australian. "We didn't trust him." She turned to the others. "So why should he have trusted us?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You didn't trust him to take the pack and come back for us when we were dying of thirst, Daniel. Remember? We didn't trust him to represent us back home. He was the one who most wanted to go, and we all said no."

  "That's because he's this weird little blowhard," Ethan scoffed, sitting down on a rock disgustedly. Amaya looked at him reprovingly but he just returned her stare.

  "And what difference does it make if we do forgive him?" Daniel added. "He's not even here."

  She looked at the men impatiently, as if they were particularly dense. "Because I think there's a lot of anger people are bottling up that's getting in the way of… other things."

  "Jesus Christ." Feelings. Women wouldn't let them lie.

  Raven said nothing.

  "For example," Amaya persisted, "your anger toward Raven."

  He glanced at her. "It's not me who is angry with her."

  "Isn't it? You blame her for putting you here, Daniel. You don't really trust her. But she's right. We came here ourselves."

  "Amaya…" Ethan objected.

  "And Raven's angry with you. If you hadn't been so damned… attractive"-she said it with exasperation- "she'd never have gotten confused about what she was doing, and never been assigned to Australia. And then you throw away her means of escape! I think you were trying to punish her."

  "I was trying to get away from this Ico you want me to forgive and who was coming at me with a sword!" His look was stubborn. "I'm just trying to let Raven experience what she sends other people to."

  "No. You're in love with her and couldn't stand to have her leave you."

  "You don't know that!"

  "And she was so guilty about sending you here that she came herself."

  "Amaya," Raven groaned.

  "We're not going to get comfortable until everyone sorts their feelings out."

  "Well, you're certainly getting your feelings out," Daniel grumped. He turned to Raven. "Is that true?"

  She looked embarrassed. "I'm here on a mission. Don't flatter yourself."

  "Why didn't you tell me things from the beginning?"

  Her look was sullen. "Because you wouldn't understand. You couldn't handle the truth of things. You still can't."

  "What does that mean?"

  She looked away. He knew what it meant.

  "You're just so damn difficult to talk to half the time…"

  Raven was suddenly furious. "Only because you won't listen!" She glared at the group. "Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe I tried to save him when he wouldn't save himself- that he didn't listen to me- and that I never expected to have to deal with all of you when I came out here? I'm just trying to get back!"

  Daniel scoffed. "Save me? How about making a damn fool out of me?"

  She glared at him, wounded and in pain. Then she sprang up and bolted into the bush.

  The men were uncomfortably silent for a moment.

  "Go after her, you dolt," Amaya finally advised, quietly, sadly. He looked up at her and, for just a moment, a look of longing flickered in her eyes. "Forgive her. Forgive yourself. And move on to what you're meant to do."

  Dusk was falling as Daniel followed Raven as he'd once followed her running down an urban street. It was easy to track her now: a sandy footprint here, a broken twig there. She was climbing up the ridge they'd been following, making for a rocky outcrop that would provide a view in every direction. He half trotted to catch up with her, breathing anxiously, the oily perfume of Australia beguiling as he sucked it into his lungs.

  He saw her form ahead like a slim phantom, disappearing in the shadow of an overhang and then rematerializing as a silhouette along the crest of the ridge. Rocks skittered out from the feet of both of them and she heard him once and turned. But she didn't stop and didn't call, just kept moving upward, as elusive as hope.

  The sky was a vast blue bowl, its color deepening with approaching night. Australia lay around them in a shadowy panorama, its reds having faded to cobalt. There were no lights, no roads, no memory of civilization. It was the dawn of time. The crest of the ridge was a dragon's back, a series of short pinnacles like the plates of a dinosaur. For a moment he thought he'd missed her in the shadow of one, or that to avoid him she'd doubled back and slipped down to camp. But then he saw her ahead at the uppermost peak, alone under the first stars.

  She was sitting hunched, knees pulled up to her chest, on a shelf of time-smoothed rock that was slick but dry and still radiating heat from the day's sun. A full moon was cresting the horizon. It was orange and huge, an autumn lantern, and it threw enough warm light to illuminate the profile of her body and the architecture of her face. Her features had the same polished fineness of the rock, immaculate and tan, her eyes large and dark as she looked sorrowfully out across the grass and scrub plain. Her back was bent, the pattern of her spine visible against the tightness of her tattered cotton shirt, and her breasts swelled where they were pushed against her thighs, her slim arms holding her knees. Her black hair was tied with the scrap of a leather shoelace to fall toward her waist. A withered flower she'd picked earlier in the day was still tucked into the knot. She was the most beautiful creature Daniel had ever seen, a nemesis who was vulnerable, lonely.

  She heard his footsteps behind her. "Go away."

  He ignored that, kneeling at her back.

  "Please, just leave me alone," she said wearily. "It's too hard."

  He touched her shoulders.

  She stiffened. "Daniel, just let it be!"

  He ignored her protests. He held her by her shoulders and bent to kiss her rigid cheek, wet with tears. Then her neck, and then he let his lips drift up to her ear. "Amaya's right. I think I do love you, Raven," he whispered.

  "Daniel…" she groaned.

  "I'm sorry I haven't said it. I was angry, because it's true I came to Australia because of you. But not because you tricked me. That's what I've been thinking about, and what I've had to admit to myself. It was because you were the one thing in life I could decide I wanted, after a lifetime of not knowing what to want. So I came to the Outback on a million to one shot that I'd find you and somehow break through to you- that I c
ould somehow convince you to love me like I love you."

  He kissed her cheek and then her neck, again, and again, descending to her shoulder.

  She remained rigid. "You can't. You can't convince me."

  He stopped, and took a breath, determined now. "I came because there was something in you that hit me with instant recognition when I met you, some part of you that I recognized in myself. I knew you, Raven. Or I'm going to know you. In some past life or some future one. That's what I thought way back in the city. I couldn't forget you. The only reason I haven't been able to forgive you is because I couldn't forgive myself. I couldn't forgive wasting so much of my life, going after the wrong things. I blamed you for me. But when I climb up these rocks and look out at the wilderness in all its timeless size and beauty, I realize how conceited such unforgiveness is. We're both so microscopic. We counted for nothing at United Corporations and we count for nothing here. We're nothing- except to each other. To each other, we count for everything."

  He reached up to touch her face and turn her to him, her eyes wet, bending to kiss her fully on the lips.

  And then she thrust him away. "No. Don't do this to me."

  "Raven…"

  "I count for something, Daniel. I count in that world because I believe in it. You're a dangerous man, Daniel Dyson, dangerous to them and dangerous to me. So I'm going to leave you here, abandon you in Australia, while I go back and let them decide what your fate should be."

  "They put you here. They don't deserve your loyalty!"

  "And I don't deserve yours. Please don't complicate things with this love of yours. Because I don't need it. I don't need it from anyone."

  "You know you do…"

  She rolled away from him and kneeled, looking at him intently. "Look. I need you to help get me out from under the Cone. Do that first. Do that for me. And then I'll decide where to go, or what to do, or how to live my life. Then, and only then, when I have a true choice, am I going to decide my why."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  As the land grew more hospitable, the fugitives began to encounter ruins that seemed both reassuring and disturbing. The decaying structures proved that humans had lived here, and presumably could again. They also warned of the impermanence of existence. People had not just lived here, but lived in comfort, with machines and full pantries and regular mail. Now they were gone, their memories weeded over.