‘Guilty? Why?’
‘For not protecting you. And the baby.’
I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting this. ‘You mean because we’ve been exposed to the plague? But that was my fault too.’
‘If it hadn’t been for me you’d have …’ he hesitated.
‘What? Gone back to the City when they revoked my banishment? Have a heart. They already had plague there. Have gone off and married Yorick at Black Stump?’
‘Yorick?’ He frowned at that. ‘Do you mean you and Yorick?’
‘Nope. Never occurred to me. Or him probably. Just trying to work out any possible desirable future you might have interfered with.’
He did grin at that. ‘I’m being stupid.’
‘Yes,’ I said gently. ‘But if you want to blame yourself for not being able to zap a virus out of the air, go right ahead.’ I took his hand. ‘I’m where I want to be. With the person I want to be with.’
‘Really?’
I considered. ‘Well, come to think of it, no. I’d rather not be on a floater in an iso skin heading into the desert to find victims of a plague. I’d rather you were somewhere else too. Somewhere safe. A beach maybe …’
‘Tsunamis, blue-ringed octopus, mutant algae, who can fight fate?’ intoned Neil. ‘I could be floating out to sea drowned on my surfboard now.’
‘I didn’t know you could ride a surfboard,’ I said.
‘I can’t. That’s why I drowned,’ said Neil. His grin was almost genuine now.
chapter 24
‘This is it,’ said Neil dubiously.
I looked around.
Grass. Trees. Rocks. Not even a crow in a gum tree.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘either there’s an invisible utopia all around us or our friends back at the tent just camped here.’
‘Yes, but why here? Why come into the middle of nowhere to camp? There isn’t even any water here.’
‘Might be a spring by the rocks.’
‘Ha,’ said Neil. ‘If there’s a spring anywhere around here I’ll eat my toe-nails.’ He opened the door and stepped out.
I followed him more slowly. There wasn’t much point in even leaving the floater. There was nothing to see. ‘Perhaps you got the coordinates wrong …’ I began, when Neil gave a yelp of triumph.
‘Look at this!’
I looked. ‘Can’t see anything.’
‘The grass, dimwit. See, it’s thinner here.’
‘Well, goody gumdrops.’
He grinned at me. ‘Something has rested here, for weeks probably. Long enough for the grass to start to die, but long enough ago for it to have begun to recover.’
‘Their tent?’
‘Bigger than that,’ his grin grew wider. ‘A hunters’ camp. I’m sure of it.’
I’d done a Virtual of a roo hunters’ camp years ago in my old life in the City. I’d given it up halfway through and done a medieval hunting lodge instead. Medieval hunting lodges are romantic: great blazing fires and roasting oxen and galloping through the trees. A roo hunters’ camp is bleak and lonely.
‘See?’ said Neil. ‘I bet this was where the refrigeration plant was. And the floaters over here — the soil’s sort of depressed. And they’d have had the tents over here. Look, bloodstains — the door to the refrigeration area where they kept the roos must have been just here …’
‘Great,’ I said. I’d had enough of blood.
‘So all we have to do is find out where they’ve gone next,’ said Neil.
‘How do we do that?’ I asked.
He smiled again. The small triumph had lifted his spirits. ‘You’re the data-retrieval expert.’
‘Not expert. Just more experienced. And I wouldn’t know where to start looking.’
‘Easy,’ said Neil. ‘Just assume you’re a utopia that wants to trade roo meat and ——’
‘And call up “meat”,’ I finished for him. ‘Okay.’
I shut my eyes — most people do when they pulse. It’s easier to concentrate. I usually didn’t bother, but I wanted to work fast now. ‘Got them,’ I said. I pulsed the coordinates into the floater as I spoke.
‘How far away?’
I calculated. ‘Half an hour. How often do hunters move camp?’
‘Dunno. Till the roos have moved away, I suppose. Or when they hear of a good rainfall that might bring the mobs together.’
We stepped into the floater and he shut the door.
chapter 25
More grass. Yellow erosion gullies that the bio-Engineered grass still hadn’t colonised. Stunted scarecrows in the distance that only grew tree-like when the floater drew close.
And then we saw it: dark smudges against the tan and yellow that slowly grew into the refrigeration plant and tents — not bubble tents, but solid, massive ones — and, to one side, the wide transport floaters that moved them all from site to site.
It looked a good place to camp. There was a river, thin pools and a wide film of water between broad gravelly banks, as though the river was too tired to move faster to dig itself a proper place to flow. But trees grew on either side of the gravel — proper trees, with solid white trunks faintly patched with green and ochre and grey streaks of peeling bark and high leafy branches whose shadows dappled the grass.
‘Not a good sign,’ said Neil.
‘What is?’
‘No-one’s coming out to meet us. You would have thought someone would have seen the floater land.’
‘Maybe they’re all sick.’ Or dead, I thought. Then I corrected myself. ‘No, it doesn’t happen like that, does it? Everyone wouldn’t get sick at the same time. And some people would be naturally immune.’ As we might be, I thought. Please, please … though the chances of both of us being immune were unlikely. No, I didn’t want to think of that. I had too recently almost lost Neil to face it again. Both of us, or neither … ‘Maybe they’re all indoors looking after the sick ones.’
‘Maybe,’ said Neil dubiously. ‘But look, if the Centaur was infected by the campers, and the campers caught the infection here, the first ones must have become ill more than a month ago.’
‘So?’
‘So why didn’t they call for help? A place like this would have Link facilities.’
‘Michael said the plague comes on suddenly.’ But not that suddenly, I thought. Not so suddenly that it strikes everyone at once.
Why hadn’t someone called for help?
Neil switched the floater onto manual. ‘We’ll land over there,’ he said, pointing to a patch of shade about fifty metres from the camp.
‘Why so far away?’
‘So if there’s any … trouble … you can get away fast,’ said Neil.
‘No way.’
He looked surprised. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This time I’m coming with you.’
‘But …’
‘Being pregnant’s no excuse for being a wimp. Anyway, what can threaten us? The worst we’ll see is,’ I swallowed, ‘bodies.’
‘I don’t think ——’ began Neil.
I interrupted him. ‘Listen, oh male, who’s gone all masterly just because he’s going to be a father, I’m not asking permission. I’m coming, that’s all.’
He still looked uncertain. I patted his hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘If I faint you can carry me back.’
chapter 26
The camp was quiet. No, that isn’t true. I could hear the wind, too high in the sky to do more than rustle the leaves down here. I could hear water trickling from pool to pool. But there were no human noises.
‘Hello! Is anyone here?’ My voice echoed — ’ere, ’ere, ’ere.
‘We’re here to help you!’ called Neil.
‘Are we?’ I said, then shrugged. I supposed we could at least take any survivors back to the isolation clinic at the utopia.
No-one answered.
‘That looks like the main tent,’ said Neil. ‘Let’s try that one first.’
It was more demountable than tent. Although
the walls were obviously collapsible and the frame erected piece by piece, the roof shone silver with solar paint and there were windows all along the sides. I peered inside, but it was too dim to make out much.
We made for the door. It too looked solid, lightweight NewWood. I turned the handle and the door opened.
A gust of air hit us: stale, smelling of hot plastic. I peered into the gloom, then pulsed the light signal. Instantly the room lit up.
It was evidently a common room — comfortable chairs that I suspected were inflatable, giant pull-down vid screen and a long table to one side.
There were coffee mugs on the table. I peered into them. Most of them still held coffee, the milk congealed around the edges. Realcoffee too, by the smell of it. The meat harvest must be a profitable one.
There was a wall, about halfway down the length of the building, and another door. This time I let Neil go first.
The smell here was stronger.
‘Kitchen,’ said Neil unnecessarily, nodding at the decaying Flashpaks by the ultrawave, a pot in which something had burned and blackened before the Heatpak had gone dry. ‘It looks like they were cooking something and were interrupted.’
My stomach was churning. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said.
The fresh air was a relief. We looked at the row of smaller tents. ‘May as well investigate systematically,’ I said, crossing over to the first one.
But there was nothing special to see. Airlift double bed, evidently slept in but not for some time; Carrysak of clothes; terminal, still working; Reality console in one corner.
The next tent was the same and the three after that.
The fourth was different.
‘Three beds,’ I said softly. ‘All in a row. I wonder if when the first people got sick this was a makeshift hospital.’
‘Possibly,’ said Neil. ‘But where are the patients?’
‘Dead.’
‘Then where are their bodies?’
‘Maybe they buried them.’
‘Where? The grass hasn’t been disturbed. And if everybody died who would have buried the last of them?’ He shook his head. ‘It shouldn’t be like this. Someone must have survived.’
‘One more tent to go,’ I said.
It was the tent we should have checked first, but there had been nothing on the outside to tell us this tent was different from the others. It was the office.
Neil looked at the console on the desk. ‘That’s probably got everything we need in it,’ he said, ‘if we only knew the bloody comsig.’
I grinned at him through my mask. ‘Watch the mistress at work.’
‘You mean you can hack it?’
‘Of course. I can get into just about anything. The secret is speed. And I’m fast. Pulse on open, check for fluctuations — look, try Linking in with me. It’s easier to show you than explain.’
He looked uncertain. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
I pulsed ‘on’, a universal pulse that any kid knows. Then pulsed again.
A stream of data is the best way I can explain it. Or possibilities may be a better term. And then a break, the first Link in the comsig. I kept the pulse steady.
Each time I’d Linked like this since my restoration I’d felt exhilaration — it felt good, like flying, like living a whole life in a few seconds. Fifteen seconds, then I had it.
Neil was pale. ‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘It wasn’t too much?’
‘No. No. Just … startling, that’s all.’ He blinked. ‘The comsig — it’s open.’
‘Told you I could do it. Hetty the hacker, that’s me. What do we want first? Personnel records?’ I flashed them up on the screen. ‘Twenty-four people, three of them kids, there’s the record of Wanderers too … look, that must be the couple at the creek, there’s the date and everything.’
‘Linda and Paul Harrisdaughter,’ said Neil slowly. ‘Brother and sister? Husband and wife?’
‘Who knows. At least we can trace them now.’
‘How?’ asked Neil.
‘Look up the records … oh.’
‘No central Outland records to look up,’ finished Neil.
‘Inconvenient. Wait a sec, I’m trying to find a day-to-day diary.’
‘Stop,’ said Neil suddenly.
‘Why? It’s only a sales and order book. What use is tha … oh, I see. Neil, look!’
‘I’m looking,’ said Neil grimly. ‘When did you say the plague started in the City?’
‘Three months ago now.’
‘An order to the City. Four months ago. A big order too.’
‘I bet they delivered it in person,’ I whispered. ‘They’d have had temp passes to the City. Several of them would have gone to unload the meat. They’d have looked around the City while they were there. Gone to a Realtime maybe, a dance or show. That’s why the infection didn’t conform to a pattern. The roo hunters spread the plague in the City’s public places and then were gone before they showed any symptoms.’
I bit my lip and tried to think. ‘Could the plague have started here? They were in close contact with animals after all. Maybe the plague is a roo disease that mutated and spread from kangaroo to human.’ I hadn’t found a case where an influenza-type virus had passed from roo to human. But, I reminded myself wearily, I was no expert.
‘One way to find out,’ said Neil.
‘How?’
‘Test the meat in the refrigeration plant. See if the diagnostic finds the virus in the roos.’
‘I didn’t think of that.’
‘You don’t have a farmer’s mind,’ said Neil kindly. ‘Are you sure you want to come?’
‘A few dead roos aren’t going to bother me.’ I followed him into the sunlight, then over to the refrigeration plant. ‘Neil, Neil, listen!’
‘What?’
‘Voices. From inside there.’
‘From the refrigeration plant? But …’ he stopped. ‘It’s just possible,’ he said. ‘Think about it. No isolation suits. No way to exclude infection out here. But you could seal yourself off in there.’
‘You’d freeze!’
‘The temperature can be controlled. As hot or cold as you like. Take in food and water …’
I shivered. ‘No. It’s insane. No-one would shut themselves off with a fridge full of dead roos.’
‘Even to avoid the plague? These people work with dead roos all the time.’ Neil reached for the door.
‘Wait!’
‘Why?’
‘What if they’re dangerous? What if …’ my voice trailed away.
‘Then we run like hell,’ said Neil. He opened the door.
chapter 27
A wall of white air fell on me, enveloped me, the cold burning through my suit. I blinked through the condensation. ‘Is anyone there?’
Timid, weak sounding voice. Of course there was someone there. I could hear them even more plainly now. One person’s voice, almost a monotone, from the far side of the fridge.
No way to see them. The roos hung down from long rods thrust between the sinews of their giant feet. They had been skinned and gutted, but apart from that were whole. The cold had turned the bodies dark red.
‘Hello! Can you hear me?’ The roo corpses soaked up most of the sound. Neil tried again, ‘Hello?’
The voice didn’t falter.
Neil glanced at me, and shrugged. We stepped into the fridge and edged into the narrow corridor between the bodies.
Ten steps, twenty. I couldn’t see the door from here. All at once I panicked. What if someone shut us in? What if the people outside had been hiding and ran out now and shut the door?
But that was stupid. There was no-one out there. Nowhere to hide out there. No reason to shut us in.
We kept walking.
The bodies stopped suddenly. There was a clear space at the end of the fridge, enough room for a bench with bloody cleavers and two laser saws. A heap of skins lay on the floor.
There was no-one there
.
Neil pointed to a corner. There, on one end of the bench, a small figure gestured and pointed. Words flashed up into the air: ‘… nesting occurs from January to November. Status: critically endangered,’ then were gone.
‘A teaching hologram,’ I said, my voice breaking with relief.
Neil nodded. He stepped back to the first frozen roo, and pressed the diagnostic to it. Nothing happened for perhaps twenty seconds, then it beeped. I looked at the screen over Neil’s shoulder at the results. ‘No plague.’
‘No,’ said Neil. He held the diagnostic to another, then another. Same result.
‘What do we do now? Contact Michael? Tell him that at least we know how the plague reached the City? Not that I suppose it’ll help much.’
‘We can trace hunters’ contacts over the past few months,’ said Neil. ‘Take another look at their customers. Maybe we can still trace the plague back to its source.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish to hell we knew where they’d gone. The bodies. The survivors.’
I shivered. All my instincts said to run from the plague, not try to find it. But our best chance for survival lay in tracking it down.
chapter 28
It was good to be back in the floater, away from the silence of the hunters’ camp. I even considered asking Neil to select some music. But that seemed frivolous after the deserted scene below.
The floater rose and headed down the river. There had only been two deliveries in the past three months, apart from the shipment to the City. It seemed that the City was the roo camp’s main customer and probably their main source of supplies too.
I took a gulp of cold water, then put the cup down. ‘I’ll call Michael,’ I began, when Neil said, ‘Wait!’
‘What is it?’
‘Down there. Look.’
I looked.
No crows this time. The bodies were too long dead for crows. But they were bodies, scattered along the river in pairs or threes and fours.
I felt nausea rise again and forced it down. ‘Should we land?’
‘No need,’ said Neil. ‘We know they’re dead. We don’t need the diagnostic to tell us what they died of.’
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