by Murray, Lee
“Oh my God,” Tonya breathes, when Ari has finished acting out his charade.
Tall only needs to be shown once. She is all urgency as she leads them through the labyrinth, making them run hard, and in single file. In Rowan’s ears, the sound of his own panting resonates. Twice they come up against impenetrable walls of pine and are forced to back-track using Tall’s scent markers. Rowan doesn’t know how long they can keep up this pace. His lungs are on fire, his legs are shaky from lack of food, and he is desperate for a drink. All the Terreans are flagging. They’re running out of space, out of time...
“Hurry,” Tonya calls. “It looks like Tall’s found the way out.”
But the tiny speck of light is elusive. Like players on a chess board, the soldier-trees move to block their passage. Tall turns the party again and again as the channels become narrower and more convoluted with every minute. Soon the space between the team members stretches out to allow them each to manoeuvre through the trunks. The last in line, Rowan can barely see Mathilde in front of him, her arm stretched forward to Lavender, when an unexpected pine steps in his path, its roughened grey trunk separating him from the others. Quickly, Rowan moves to his right and squeezes through the narrow fissure, shoving his way through the branches, the needles poking at his arms and face, the bark tearing at his clothes. He breaks through to find a second network of branches blocking his progress. He can’t see the others. Should he go back? He attempts to twist, but already the opening is too small to turn. He’s stuck. In just a few minutes, the air turns hot and stale. So, that’s the plan, he thinks. The trees will suffocate him. Squished like modelling clay between a child’s fingers.
“I’m here,” he calls, choking back his terror. “Over here!” Mercifully, the thick branches part, creaking in protest as they are pulled back on either side by Ari and Tall, whose feet are planted firmly on the ground, their muscles straining against the hungry clamour of the boughs. Bracing herself against the trunk, Lavender reaches in and grabs him by the shoulder seams, yanking him out over her head like a Jack-in-the-Box. As soon as he is clear, Ari and Tall let go, the branches snatch back into place, the forest closing behind him as neatly as a cupboard door.
21
“Come on!” Mathilde shouts. “We’re nearly there.”
Rowan has barely been dragged to his feet when they’re on the run again.
Nearly where?
In just seconds, he realises that they’re in the marketplace outside Conclave Village. Rowan risks a backward glance. The forest has gone and all that stands in its place is a wooden fence, a Morpheus travel poster iSplayed on its surface. He swings around. There’s the bookies’ platform, and the remains of the Silici cement foot like a random paving stone in the middle of the dusty alley. Not too far off he can hear the roar of the Stadium, and he can see the carved pillars of the Village. What if all they have left to do is make it to the stadium? That might not be so easy. Without the reassurance of their guide, the crowds of creatures, the smells and the noise make the marketplace seem as menacing as the forest. There’s a shady band of Gyptors lurking down an alleyway, and Rowan has noted several Fhage loitering alongside the food stalls, hoping to hoover up some stray fries or perhaps some hapless visitors. At the moment, though, no one seems to have noticed that the four humans amongst them are actually the Terrean team. Perhaps the presence of the Taikarions makes them appear as casual spectators taking a break from the Games’ coverage to spend a few cregals in the pop-up bars.
Rowan feels that prickling again at the base of his neck.
Not again. Pushing bodily through the crush, Rowan shouts over the din, intending to warn Mathilde, who is now at the front of the group.
“Hang on, Rowan. Mathilde’s trying to find us a Fhage to trail,” Tonya calls back.
After a moment, the prickly sensation passes and Rowan puts it down to his synapses being on overdrive after his experience in the forest. Besides, he should expect to feel ill at ease with so many strange species roaming the shanty town. There’ll be more iSplay security receptors here in the marketplace too, which would explain why he feels they’re being watched. Rowan pushes the concern to the back of his mind, and before long, Mathilde tucks the group in behind a particularly voluminous Fhage, taking advantage of the drafting technique Galileo had shown them. The Taikarion aren’t keen to get anywhere near that gaseous disposal unit, but Ari and Tonya usher them forward, while Rowan closes out the group.
Up ahead, a Phemere hovering near Mathilde catches his attention. Probably just a passer-by. Yet Rowan’s instincts tell him otherwise.
And there. Another. Closing in on Tall.
Are they connected?
Eye contact! They definitely looked at each other. A brief hush falls over the crowd in the stadium and Rowan realises they’re watching the scene play out on iSplay. Holding their breath? Expecting something suspenseful? His blood runs cold. Suspenseful means dangerous. This time, Rowan won’t be reasoning away his worry. This time, Rowan is going to listen to his intuition.
“Mathilde!” he yells, shoving at the slow-poke Gyptor in front. “Get out the way!” He shoulders past, leaping onto the bookies’ platform. Luckily, it’s not the same Gyptor who attacked the Silicess before the Games, and, grumbling, it moves off. “Tonya! Ari!” Rowan screams. “Phemeres!” Ari turns. Rowan points to the spot, but the Phemere has disappeared into the mob. Rowan fixes its last location, then leaps from the platform and hacks through the crowd, meeting Ari there. There is no sign of the creature. But in a blur of black, the Phemere appears from inside a stall on the other side of the street. It lunges at Mathilde, who has her eyes on Ari and Rowan.
Mathilde, look out!
Thankfully, Tall has seen the creature, or perhaps she’s smelled it, because like a soccer goalie, she throws her body in the way. There’s a tussle. Rowan can’t see what’s happening, the mass of bodies too thick. Rowan fights upstream against the throng, close to panic. Where’s Tonya? Lavender? Mathilde shrieks and suddenly the crowd clears, as if the anguish of her cry were a signal to them all to get the hell out. Tall is on the ground, a blade sticking from her side, violet blood gushing from the wound. Her assailant has gone. Ari howls. He snatches up a tent pole, hauling it out of the ground, collapsing the stand. The merchant wails in protest, but in that moment Ari is all Spartacus. He rushes to stand over Tall, waving the rusted nail at the base of the tent pole at the crowd, roaring at the top of his voice, daring them to come. At his feet, Mathilde presses her hands around the blade to staunch the blood pulsing from Tall’s body. Her hands are blue, Tall’s lifeblood spurting through her fingers. Rowan yanks a tablecloth from the nearest table, the startled occupants still sitting there over their drinks, and throws it at her. But it’s Lavender who snatches up the fabric. Quickly, she stuffs the padding around the blade, tightening it about her compatriot’s torso. Still the blood seeps through the wadding. Tall’s violet skin has paled to a translucent lilac. While Mathilde and Lavender have their heads bent over her attending to her injuries, Rowan catches Tall’s diamond eyes. She’s calm, blinking purposefully. A message for him? Keeping his eyes on her, Rowan breathes in deeply through his nose, searching for her words. Breathes again. Over the stench of sweat and filth, he’s rewarded with the faint tang of alcohol followed by the scent of strawberries. Rowan puts his hands to his temples and concentrates hard. Alcohol. So, a warning. And strawberries. Success. Take care. Win Conclave. Tall blinks again, and Rowan nods back.
Take care. Win Conclave.
Rowan whirls now, scanning the crowd. Take care: there’s another Phemere out there.
“Tonya!”
“Ro—” Her voice is muffled.
“I see her. That way. The Phemeres have her!” Ari shouts. “Quickly!” He drops the tent pole, about to head off in pursuit, his heroic genes clouding his senses.
“Ari, no!” Rowan wants nothing more than to dive into the crowd after Tonya, but still he pulls Ari back.
“Rowan, let go! They�
��re getting away.”
“And following them is exactly what they want us to do. They want to lead us off in the opposite direction, while they win Conclave!”
Mathilde steps over. “What are we going to do?” she wails. “We can’t just leave Tonya, but we need to get to the stadium. Tall needs medical help, and we can’t get it while we’re still competing. No outside interference or support, remember?”
For once, Ari seems wracked with indecision.
“We’ll have to split up,” Rowan says. “You guys get Tall to the stadium. I’ll find Tonya and meet you there.”
Rowan turns and forces his way to the bookies’ platform. Clambering up, he scans the crowd. Already Ari has Tall in his arms and is making for the stadium, flanked by Lavender and Mathilde, each brandishing pitchforks they’ve filched from a nearly stall.
Rowan scans the alleyway for a disturbance. There. Something moving swiftly through the crowd about sixty metres away. But it looks like they’re stopping. Are they waiting for Rowan to catch up? Well, two can play that game. Rowan leaps off the stage and enters a nearby food stall, taking a seat at a table near the front. He orders the first thing on the menu: a tureen of soup. He doesn’t have to wait long. Soon the Phemeres are back: one holding Tonya, and the other lurking behind. They aren’t looking for a Terrean having his lunch. His spoon in his hand, Rowan feigns interest in his soup and lets the first Phemere pass.
At last, the second is just steps away.
Rowan picks up his bowl. “Hey, you,” he shouts, flinging his soup in the Phemere’s face. But the soup misses, only scalding the Phemere’s shoulder.
“Fifty cregals on the Phemere!” shouts a diner.
Rowan doesn’t pause to see if anyone takes up the wager, as the scalded Phemere charges, but the creature is acting on impulse, whereas Rowan has had time to consider the tools available to him. Rowan merely steps to one side, pushing the Phemere deeper inside the little stall, where he shoves it headfirst onto the hotplate, searing its proboscis medium rare.
22
While her captor is distracted by the furore in the food stall, Tonya jerks out of its grasp, shoving it hard as she slips into the crowd.
Free!
And it was so easy. Tonya’s heart skips. All she has to do is navigate through a few crowded lanes and get herself to the stadium. That’s it. She’ll be out of these stupid games forever. She could be home in time to celebrate her next birthday. Who would’ve thought that she’d come through Conclave alive? Ducking behind an awning, she glances back to check that the Phemere isn’t pursuing her.
Hang on. The Phemere doesn’t seem bothered that she’s got away. It isn’t even looking for her. Instead, it’s heading back toward the food stall to help its compatriot. But Tonya can see that Rowan has his back turned, unaware of the attack coming from behind.
Tonya hesitates. She’s so close to the stadium, so close to being out of all this. Then she spies the glint of metal stealing from the folds of the Phemere’s cloak.
That sneaky piece of work.
Quickly, she slips back into the crowd.
23
Rowan runs into the street. “Tonya!”
“Over here.”
Rowan laughs. He should have known she wouldn’t need rescuing. Her captor is face-down, pinned to the ground at the shoulder by a knife through its cloak. Its hands are tied behind its back with a strip of fabric that Rowan recognises as the remainder of the cord that made Tonya’s t-shirt ear plugs.
“Good thing you didn’t throw that away.”
“It wasn’t expecting my back flip,” she says, smiling.
A disgruntled punter approaches them, crumpling his betting slip in his hand. “You two just lost me three hundred cregals,” he hisses. Rowan and Tonya don’t hang around.
It takes them fifteen minutes to get to the stadium. They race inside the gates.
“Where are they?”
“There!”
On the far side of the stadium, Ari, burdened by Tall’s bulk, is lumbering towards the screen, which is just under the judges’ podium. But fixed on getting Tall to the finish, Ari, Mathilde and Lavender don’t see the two Phemeres coming at them at right angles from another entrance.
“Ari!” Rowan screams.
“Save your breath for running,” Tonya huffs in his ear. “He can’t hear you over this noise.”
“We’re not going to make it.”
“Well, we’ve got no chance if you’re going to take that defeatist stance!” Tonya shouts, using his own words to goad him. But they can both see that Ari is slowing, exhausted after carrying Tall all this way. And the Phemeres can run. They’re as fast as the Vauxhons.
“I have an idea.” Rowan veers off, dashing off to the bleachers.
“What?”
Rowan doesn’t have time to tell her. He runs into the dug-out and is already on his way back as Tonya arrives.
“I hope you’ve got the right one,” she says. There’s no way of knowing. Leaving her there to manage the crank, Rowan sprints into the stadium, and straight at the Phemeres, hauling on the hose. Suddenly it jerks him back. No more hose. It has to be now. Rowan flips the nozzle, aims low and prays for decent pressure. He presses the trigger. Instantly, foam sprays through the air in a long arc, hitting the Phemeres in the feet. They stumble, dropping to the ground, paralysed by the solidifying foam. Incredulous, Rowan drops the hose.
It worked! He stopped the Phemeres!
The crowd explodes, the tiny section of green and blue supporters instantly leaping to their feet. In the middle of the stadium, the sound wave hits Rowan full in the face. Then Tonya is there, her hand in his. Even right beside him, he can’t hear a thing she says. Instead, he reads the laughter in her eyes.
“Way to go, Rowan,” her lips say.
Exhausted and elated, Tonya and Rowan run across the grass to join the others. Ari waits for them to arrive. Then, he lifts Tall’s hand clasped in his own, their fingers together, and they touch the screen.
It blips, their DNA registered. Two teams, finishing the competition as one. Conclave Seven is over!
Seconds later, the tangy scent of the ocean makes Mathilde and Lavender cry.
24
It’s early evening when Tonya and Rowan follow Galileo’s replacement through the deserted marketplace to the boarding stage for their voyage back to Terra. Two Vauxhon moons on from the conclusion of the Games, and still nothing has been resolved. Rowan smiles as they pass the bookies’ platform. The bookies especially are furious. Of course, they’re still poring over the fine print on the betting slips, but it seems likely all those wagered cregals will go back to the punters. Some of the sponsors have withdrawn their support, too. There’s talk that the Games themselves are in financial collapse, and certain groups are calling for their abolition on moral grounds. It seems many think there are better ways of holding an election. One iSplay headline had read: Sons of Sparta Spark Revolution. Tonya had bristled when she saw that.
“You’d think the four females involved had nothing to do with it,” she’d fumed.
Boarding the craft, Rowan takes a last look back towards the stadium as the sun winks through the empty seats. It seems odd to be leaving without Ari and Mathilde. Mathilde is staying on to study interspecies communications. Of course, she’ll never be able to speak Taikarion—humans don’t have the capacity to create the advanced chemical signals without use of a translation device—but she and Lavender are learning to communicate through sign language for the hearing impaired, Mathilde accompanying her signs with speech and Lavender overlaying hers with aroma. Once, Rowan had come across the two of them chatting, the whole room filled with the aroma of roast beef and gravy, leaving Rowan wondering exactly what that conversation was about.
Taking his place in the cushioned cinema chair next to Tonya, Rowan straps himself in, extending his foot rest and waiting while the straps tighten around his ankles. The foot rest isn’t necessary, but it’s a nice touch. Trans
port manufacturers have realised people still like the illusion of gravity.
“Look at us,” Tonya says as she clicks her own straps into place. “Going home. I was sure I was going to end up as a centipede’s breakfast.”
Rowan smiles. Home. Back to Andy and Lisa, and his dog Bernie. Rowan can hardly believe it either. With a bit of luck, there’ll never be another Conclave, not if Ari has anything to do with it. Rowan’s friend left the Village a week ago for an internship with the League of Governors. If there was going to be a new order, Ari wanted to be part of it. Said it must be the Spartacus in him. They’d laughed about that. Rowan has promised to keep his friend up-to-date with any Praxel Cyrus’ releases, although they’ll probably never meet again.
“Hey, wanna watch a movie?” Tonya says, nudging Rowan softly with her shoulder.
“Sure.” They scroll through the options in the armrest.
Outside, the Vauxhon landscape blurs, its suns setting over the Conclave Village as the transport moves off.
Peach and Araxi
Celine Murray
“Good morning, Peach! It is now eight hours into the day cycle. School starts at eight-thirty in Hall Six B. Good morning, Peach! It is—”
A blue laser light slams into the alert machine’s receptor, cutting off its cheery condescension. Peach thumps the remote back on the table before stretching her legs to the far corners of her bed. Would the system let her off school if she used ‘sprained motivation’ as her cause of absence? Dragging herself up, she pulls her covers off the bed and over to the chair where she starts up her screen. She’s only had maybe ten day cycle absences this year anyway, so it’s probably not hurting her academics when she types SERIOUS HEADACHE into school administration and requests a web link of her course for later. It’s just history anyway—why do they even bother teaching that?
