Getting back

by William Dietrich

  The dented and holed aluminum blades of a windmill came first, peeping from the brush near the crumbling remains of its wooden tower. The steel water tank it had once fed was ruptured and sinking into dirt that was the same red color as its corrosion. When Raven touched the metal, it flaked like scorched paper. Five miles farther on they came across the shell of a cattle station, the roof of the ranch house long since ripped off by clawing winds and its walls sagging inward with the graceful weariness of old wood. The weathered gray of the wreck was spotted by scraps of plastic and metal and glass: a disintegrating metal wash tub, a faded plastic shampoo bottle, a broken frame with no picture. There was rusting metal machinery, a garden long dead, and brush-snarled lengths of old plastic pipe, purchased for an irrigation project the plague had not allowed to be completed.

  "It's funny how fast things go in a bit more than a quarter century," Daniel remarked. "People still lived here when I was born, and now everything they did has sunk into the desert."

  "It's interesting how much stuff remains," countered Ethan. "Metal that doesn't have to be mined, plastic that doesn't have to be refined. It's like a rummage sale. There must be huge amounts of salvage in the old cities."

  "You're thinking of treasure hunting?"

  "I'm thinking how fast a group of people could rebuild things, given the kind of junk that's in a place like this. I mean if we had to stay here. Here we are at one farm and we've got enough to make better hunting weapons, containers- even lumber to make a cabin if we wanted it."

  "Yes, lots to take," Oliver said. "Old things everywhere. But so are the spirits of the old ones. The Australians! Everywhere, even here. Can't you hear them?" He cocked his head to listen to the wind. "This is their place, not ours. So it's bad luck to take anything from a place like this, mate. Bad, bad luck. We shouldn't camp here either. They'd come to us, in the night. We have to walk farther on, into the bush."

  "You believe in ghosts, Oliver?" Daniel asked.

  "I don't have to believe. I see them all the time. The dead people, killed by new things. Killed by this stuff here." He kicked at the machinery. "I sleep away. I sleep where they don't come."

  "See them?"

  "They're here, if you know how to look."

  "I agree," Amaya said, as she looked around. "This old station gives me the creeps. I feel like it's infectious."

  "It's just a ranch," Raven said.

  "It's a bunch of sad memories," Amaya said. "United Corporations should document and memorialize this, not hide it by sealing off the continent. This was genetic tinkering gone too far. Ordinary people should see this."

  "Ordinary people can't handle this," Raven said. "They wouldn't understand."

  "Understand that their system is run by blunderers?"

  "Understand that sometimes mistakes are made, or sacrifices ordered, for society's greater good." She was talking about them, they knew.

  "And sometimes lives are wasted because of venal stupidity and greed," Daniel countered. He'd been sour since the previous night.

  Ethan was tired of the arguing. "Let's take what we can use on the trek and leave."

  "No, don't take!" Oliver warned anxiously.

  "I think he must have seen people pick up the plague from sifting through stuff, early on," Amaya speculated. She put her arms on Oliver's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "It's all right," she said to the Australian. "I've seen the ghosts too, and they want to help the living. They want the Australians to come back."

  His look was puzzled. "They're coming back?"

  "Us, Oliver. You, Daniel, Ethan, me. The new Australians." She did not include Raven.

  He looked doubtful, but didn't interfere as they took some metal to try to fashion spearheads, two glass bottles to carry water, and a handful of rusty nails. The fact was, they couldn't travel with much more. The weight wasn't worth the benefit. No wonder nomadic warriors used to destroy more than they acquired, Daniel thought. How much could they steal? So they walked on, heeding Oliver's advice to camp well away in the bush. They joked about it, but they were all secretly relieved in the morning that no ghosts had come at night.

  Dirt station tracks sometimes led east now. When they were encountered the party followed them, making good if monotonous time. When the crude roads turned a different direction the five of them continued east by striking cross-country, the idea of finding their own way no longer foreign. On and on, by compass and by sun, a ceaseless rhythm. The days blurred into weeks and the land became thick with grass, the trees taller. They realized they'd left the worst desert behind. Australia was getting greener.

  The first river with actual water in it was like a deliverance. The water was brown and the current limpid, but by God it flowed- a real river! They plunged in, clothes and all, even dragging a reluctant Oliver in with them, and then shed their clothes and splashed each other like savages, the sand cool and yielding between their toes. There was no self-consciousness; they'd been together too long. Besides, Ethan and Amaya sometimes slept away from the others at night and were assumed to be making love. Raven, however, stayed on her own side of the fire, aloof and unhappy. Daniel dourly watched her.

  They camped by the river for two days to wash, play, and recuperate. Ethan didn't want to leave.

  "This is the first time I've really been happy since I crashed in this nightmare," he confided to Daniel. "Maybe we should just stay here for a while."

  "And not get back?"

  "Just take a break. What's our hurry? I'm finally having a good time."

  "With Amaya."

  "With the wilderness. What I came here for."

  "The batteries on those boxes won't last forever. Raven says maybe a year. We have to signal before then if we're ever going to warn the world."

  "So I have to walk again tomorrow?" The complaint was a deliberate imitation of a childish whine.

  "Afraid so, mate. I'd rather stay in bed too."

  "I hope we're getting close to that beach."

  "We've found the sand. It's the ocean we're lacking."

  Their first hamlet was a place called Urandangie, according to a weathered sign still hanging by a nail from the one standing corrugated steel wall of a collapsed building. It was a desolate portal to civilization. Most of the tiny town had burned down, either in a riot or subsequent brush fire, and what remained looked like it had been pillaged. Broken glass crunched amid the weeds that filled abandoned gravel streets. The loneliness was sad testimony to the chaos that must have descended on the continent when its inhabitants realized they'd been abandoned to plague. Oliver didn't want to pause. "Best to walk on," he said.

  They initially agreed with him, but at the far edge of the town there was an old garage that looked inhabited. There were new boards on its sagging roof. Inside they saw heaps of collated junk: old fabric, rusting tools, salvaged bottles. Outside, a fire pit smoldered. Someone lived here, but had fled.

  They looked uneasily at the curtain of dusty trees around the building. There was a clear sense of being watched.

  "Do you think it could be the Warden's men?" Amaya asked.

  "They wouldn't be hiding from us," Daniel said. "Maybe it's others like Oliver."

  "Maybe we should help ourselves to their belongings," Ethan suggested practically. "They'll come out then."

  "No," said Raven. "Maybe they're like us, and if we leave it alone they'll know we're not stealing." She raised her voice. "Come on out! We're peaceful! Maybe we can help you!"

  There was no answer.

  "Let's just go," Ethan said. "Oliver's right. This place is gloomy."

  "No," Amaya said. "Raven's right. We need to help each other. I think we should camp here, away from their things, and wait for them."

  The men looked around the bleak little town and then at Oliver.

  "They're here," the Australian said. "I can feel them."

  "What about the transmitter?" Daniel asked the others.

  "We don't say anything about it until we've sized them up," R
aven replied. "But we might want to invite them along. There's safety in numbers."

  There was a small creek nearby and a stack of firewood. They built a fire, set up camp, and settled down to wait. The smell of their dinner drifted into the trees.

  Their neighbors emerged at dusk. It was a man and a woman, both holding wooden staffs sharpened like spears. They approached cautiously, as if Daniel's group might spring on them at any moment, and they looked like the adventurers did, dressed in the dusty and faded synthetics they must have been wearing when dropped in the Outback. Their skin was clean and the man's beard neatly trimmed. The woman's hair was tied back. They were making an attempt at normality, but strain showed in their faces.

  "Hungry?" Raven asked.

  There was no reply.

  "Quiet," Ethan observed.

  "Why don't you eat with us?" Daniel offered.

  The couple stood far enough away to bolt. "Who are you?" the man finally asked warily.

  "Outback Adventurers, like you."

  They started at that.

  "We're just passing through," Raven added.

  "You're the first women I've seen in a long time," the female said. "That's why we came out. Because you're women, but free."

  "I'm Raven and this is Amaya. We're going east."

  "To Exodus Port?"

  "Sort of."

  "We were told it doesn't exist," the man warned.

  "And you are?" Daniel inquired.

  "Peter. Peter Knowles, and this is Jessica Polarski. We've had a rough time and learned to be wary of strangers."

  "I understand." He made introductions of his group. "And this is Oliver. He was born here."

  The two newcomers looked in surprise at the tattered Australian companion. "I was always here," Oliver said proudly. "This place is mine."

  "Somehow he survived the plague," Daniel explained.

  "Is he your guide?"

  "Sort of. He knows a lot of bush craft and we persuaded him to tag along. He's a little… eccentric, but I suppose we are too. What's your story?"

  Peter sighed. "There were four of us, originally. We got lost, and then in trouble, and fell in with a nomad group. We thought they were hikers but then they said there's no way to get back and we had to join them. Except they were convicts! Thieves, murderers. It became this bizarre nightmare. They said there were morally impaired people being dumped all over Australia. They killed my friend for his gear and started raping his girlfriend."

  "We ran away," Jessica confessed. "It was horrible."

  "We had to," Peter added guiltily. "We hid from everyone we saw."

  Raven looked down.

  "How long have you been here?" Daniel asked.

  "I don't know. A few months, maybe. We wandered for weeks and then this place had water and some shelter. It's not that we planned to be here. We just stopped and haven't been able to get started again. We don't know where to go. How many people are out there, anyway?"

  "We don't know. Maybe more than we thought."

  "We're just so confused," Jessica said.

  Daniel nodded. "So are we. Come have some dinner."

  The group ate, trading brief life histories, and then when Peter and Jessica returned to their garage, Daniel's group talked late into the night. In the morning, the decision was obvious. They asked the couple to join them.

  "We're told there's no Exodus Port either," Daniel explained. "But we do have a transmitter salvaged from a crashed aircraft that mightmight- be able to call for help if we can reach the ocean. It will only work on the coast because of electronic jamming inland. The only one they'll take back for sure is Raven, here."

  "Why her?"

  "She was sent by United Corporations to bring the instrument back."

  "She's one of them?"

  Daniel looked at her. "She was. Now she's one of us." He waited to see if she'd correct him, but she didn't. "There might be room for Ethan too. I don't think United Corporations will save us, but if we can get word out, maybe someone in power will want to exploit this scandal back home. Then somebody might shut Australia down and rescue us."

  "That's your plan?" Peter sounded skeptical.

  "Do you have another one?"

  He sighed. "No. I'm just not sure anyone will listen."

  "They certainly won't if we don't do our best to bring back word," Daniel said.

  In the end, the couple's decision was simple. To go with these newcomers offered hope. To stay put offered none. "If helping get this machine to the coast could put a stop to all this, it's worth whatever it takes to get it there," Jessica said. "Then we'll wait for… whatever." The possibility of getting back still seemed too remote to dare voice.

  Amaya smiled encouragingly. "I don't think we should have to wait for anything," she replied. "When we get there I think we should start building the kind of lives we always wanted to lead. By the time we really get back home, we'll have learned what to live for."

  Australia continued to unfold ahead of them, vast, seemingly endless, but also steadily changing and ever more intriguingly beautiful. The season had pleasantly cooled and they felt more acclimated to living outside than in. They came through a region of artfully interspersed rocky knolls and forested valleys and then encountered flatter grasslands and scrub savanna again. The continent was becoming a mosaic of landscapes. As they traveled their party began to swell. Adventurers were wandering or camped in this wetter country, dazed and fearful, and the appearance of a large, safe, increasingly well armed group with a purpose and destination proved irresistible. Within two months after fleeing Erehwon they numbered eighteen in all, seven women and eleven men, including a second native Australian named Angus. Oliver seemed briefly stunned by this aboriginal competition for ownership, and then embraced his countryman like a long-lost brother. The two continued to share their survival skills and the others pooled information. It was beginning to feel like a pilgrimage, or a migration. The original quartet enjoyed the company of these newcomers but also privately talked nostalgically of the "old days" of a few weeks before, when they'd been on their own.

  Angus claimed to recognize some of where they were. "We're nearing the great range that runs north to south," he told them. "And beyond that: the sea." His promise brought a murmur of excitement. The east coast had been everyone's goal since departure from civilization. It would be something to actually get there.

  The growing group had developed an intense camaraderie. It came partly from their nightly sharing of tales of danger and trauma, confusion and shame. It also came because the group walked, ate, slept, and bathed together, and within days newcomers would seem more familiar in camp than had office mates who'd occupied an adjacent desk for years in the corporations of home. Soldiers and pioneers must bond the same way, Daniel thought. The sense of human community was novel: strangely missing in the far bigger society of United Corporations.

  But while the new recruits were encouraging, the logistics of the trek were becoming more complicated. There were more people to feed, and the noise of their approach drove game animals farther away. Hunters had to be sent ahead or on the flanks to help bring in food and spot edible plants. People were beginning to instinctively specialize: hunters to get meat and scout, armorers to make weapons and tools, and then gatherers, cooks, menders, fire wardens. An easygoing youth named Rupert volunteered, despite inevitable ribbing, to each night mark out- and dig- a latrine. "Lack of sanitation will kill us faster than a wild bull or poisonous snake will," he said. A flag was fixed to indicate whether the facility was occupied, giving some measure of privacy.

  With the added numbers their pace had slowed. Sometimes the group would camp two or three days to give time to hunt, treat skins, cook more ambitious meals, sleep, heal blisters, repair clothes, and socialize. The delay worried Raven, who feared the Warden might still be doggedly following, but Daniel believed they'd left the convicts far behind. How could they be found again in this immensity? The party did encounter a small gang of other wander
ing convicts one afternoon, but the predators fled from the sight of their greater numbers. The experience boosted their confidence. Surely they were safe! And they needed the rest from the relentless walking. It gave people time to bond. The dire nature of their predicament seemed to push people instinctively to friendship, flirtation, commitment, and experimentation. As a result the group bubbled, sparked, and occasionally boiled over with sexual chemistry as partners tried each other and then split back apart.

  "It's like a cross between a soap opera and the Oregon Trail," Daniel concluded one night to Ethan. "This is so different than what I expected Australia would be, back when I planned to trek with just three friends."

  "If we find many more companions we're going to have to start calling you the Warden," Ethan replied. There was no formal leader but the new recruits deferred to the direction of the initial group and its promise of having the magic to call for help. Unexpectedly, Daniel found himself making more and more of the decisions. There was something about him people responded to, even Ethan. As if he knew what to do. Even Raven noticed it. She said he was becoming more like her.

  "God, I hope not," Daniel now said of the Warden jibe. "But that's a problem with bigger numbers, isn't it? Rules."

  "We've got enough people now to make a real community on the coast while we wait for whatever." Ethan let his finger wave vaguely at the sky. "But it does pose organizational problems. I told you we were naturals for civilization."

  "Can't we do better this time?"

  "That's the test, isn't it?" Ethan stirred the coals of the fire, his voice low. "What will we do different when we do settle down to wait? How will we make decisions?"

  "I don't know," Daniel said. "I just want to let people keep a sense of identity, instead of only identifying with their company or agency- or our new tribe."