by P. J. Sky
Perhaps it would be better if…
The lump rolled up Starla’s throat and from her eye she blinked away a tear.
No, don’t think that. Janus doesn’t deserve that. He deserves so much more… from someone else.
“Starla, Starla…”
The voice interrupted Starla’s thoughts; high pitched, clipped, and strangely familiar.
It couldn’t be, could it?
Through the heat haze, Starla saw a white-robed figure dancing towards her, arms outstretched. As the figure grew closer, she recognised the long, white hair; straggly and unkempt, but still unmistakable.
The girl slowed her approach and Starla took in the wide eyes, the pale lips, the flushed cheeks and the fresh freckles that bloomed from the bridge of her nose. Starla wondered if she’d ever before seen her without makeup?
“Liviana?”
Liviana grinned, exposing a chipped front tooth. “Starla, you don’t know what it means to have you here.”
Liviana reached out and Starla stepped back. She remembered that moment at the party, the last time she’d seen Liviana, and the way Liviana had taunted her, deliberately spilling blue champagne down her dress.
“But… how?”
“I… Starla, it’s me. I’ve been so alone here.”
Liviana's eyes widened and a tear tricked down her cheek. She stepped forwards and took Starla’s hand. Starla looked down at Liviana’s fine fingers and chipped nails. Her bare arms were blotchy and smattered with freckles. Starla remembered how, in those lonely months after her return to the city, she’d found herself missing Liviana. In the city, the boundaries between friends and rivals could be so thin.
“Liviana?”
“Oh Starla, I missed you. Let’s never fight again, okay?”
“What happened?”
“After that thing with my brother I was exiled and, well, it’s a long story but I ended up here.”
“And here is?”
“Well, it was a mine once I think, but that’s all stopped now. Now people come here to worship the Morning Star.”
Starla’s eyes narrowed. This was Liviana; if she’d conspired against her before, could she conspire again?
“What is the Morning Star?”
“Not what, who. But don’t worry about that now, he’ll make it all clear to you. Starla, it’s so wonderful to have you here.”
“Liviana, I need to get back to the city.”
Liviana shook her head and smiled. “No, no, don’t be silly, that’s all over now. The city means nothing now. I mean, they’re dead already, they just don’t know it yet. He’ll explain it all to you soon, I promise.”
∆∆∆
Keshia opened her eyes. A short way away, in what looked like a crater, the balloon's deck was half buried in burnt, black sand.
Dazed, she got to her feet and stumbled towards what remained of the aircraft. When she was close, she stopped and listened to the gentle hiss of air escaping the yellow balloon-like shapes below what remained of the canopy. She read the blue stencilled lettering on their sides:
Life Raft - Entry Point.
She scrunched up her forehead and wondered what it meant.
The old man was sitting on the sand, nursing a large gash on his leg. When Keshia got close to him, she held out his now blood-stained handkerchief.
The old man took it. “Thank ya kid.”
“Umm…” said Keshia, “I’m sorry about your balloon.”
The old man smiled and nodded to himself. “Tha’s okay, I’ll manage.”
Keshia looked back at the balloon.
How, she wondered, did we possibly survive that? If we even did?
There was something unreal about everything, something almost unnatural. Despite the dirt and the soot and the twisted metal and the deflating rafts, there was something fresh about it all, as if this crash had born something new from the violence and destruction.
“Not my first crash,” said the old man. “Probably not my last, but ya know, one day I’ll get around to a proper landing.”
Keshia looked back at the old man. He flashed her another wink. Her heart leapt. “Ari.”
“Yeah, I knows,” said the old man. “But I couldn’t ‘ave done nothin’ else. If she’s really lucky, she’ll be back there with the balloon.” He rolled his head toward the growing plume of smoke.
Without thinking, Keshia started to run. Her legs felt like jelly. The ground felt like it was still moving, in the way the deck had as they’d sailed the skies. Her heels dug into the dry dust. She came to the edge of the smouldering disc of deflated canvas and twisted steel webbing, and in the middle of it sat Ari.
Ari looked up and squinted. “I thought I’d drop by.”
Click.
The sound was metallic and accompanied by the crunch of footsteps in the dust. Keshia turned.
Heavy boots, army fatigues, black armbands, the shape of a snake, curled up in a circle, head up, ready to pounce, stitched onto an ochre vest. It was a snake cornered, but ready to pounce.
The Black Mulga.
Chapter 11
The soldier’s wide eyes darted between Ari and Keshia. His bottom lip quivered. Little beads of sweat worked their way down his soft face. He levelled the barrel of his rifle. Ari thought of the blade, still in its sheath by her ankle.
How quickly can I reach it? Would he shoot first?
The soldier’s fingers quivered on the trigger.
Would he shoot at all?
Ari sucked at her bottom lip. “Well?”
“Don’t move,” said the soldier.
“Ya gonna use that?”
“Don’t even talk.” His voice wavered, as if it was yet to properly break.
Through the clouds of red dust, more soldiers emerged. One man walked ahead, his stride confident. He carried no gun. Snake tattoos covered his bulging arms. He grinned sideways out of his round face. Blonde hair, short back and sides. Finger by finger, he pulled off a pair of dusty leather gloves.
“Well done, sailor.” He may have been referring to the nervous solider with the gun, but he never took his eyes off Ari. “Looks like ya caught yourself some prawns.”
“Th… Th… Thank you, Sir.”
The man nodded. “Ya know, sailor, did I ever tell ya the story of my father?” Still, his eyes remained on Ari.
“Yea… I mean, n… No, Sir.”
“Well, I’ll tell it again as ya don’t seem so sure an’ seein’ as we got guests an’ all. See, my father was a fisherman. Every day he’d go out on the lake in that little skiff with a net an’ he’d pluck out fish, big as me. Giant, silver things, enough to feed the whole village. He always wanted me to be a fisherman too. But gradually, season by season, the lake grew smaller an’ the fish grew smaller an’ my father, well, he grew smaller too. An’ ya know what happened?”
He looked between Ari and Keshia.
Neither replied.
“Well, one day it was all gone; the lake, the fish, even the village. An’ my father, he couldn’t adapt. He couldn’t separate his own sense of self from that of the lake. For him, they were one of the same. An’ that was his failing. But me, I adapted, I survived.”
Ari’s eyes narrowed. “Ya gotta point?”
“My point, ladies, is I find myself wonderin’ what it is I’ve fished out of the sky. An’ I think I already know.” His smile widened. “You’re spies for the Bone Pointer, an’ that makes ya target practice.”
Ari rolled her eyes. “We’re from Bo.”
The man shook his head. “Tut-tut-tut. Now, why don’t I believe ya? I mean, you would say that, wouldn’t ya.”
“We’re Jackrollas,” said Ari.
“A likely story.”
“It’s true,” said Keshia.
The man glanced at her. “Sweetheart, sweetheart, ya have to know, I’m just not that gullible.” He walked towards Keshia. “If I tell ya that all the years my father fished, I never joined him once. I could see what was happening. The la
ke was a gonna’, the world was changin, an’ I was changin’ with it. I wasn’t gonna waste my time floatin’ around on the old world when there was a new one to fish in with a much more cunning prey. So ya see, I know what I see when I see’s it.”
The man lowered his voice.
“Betcha a little fish like you can run pretty quick, can’t ya? A little land fish.”
The man drew a pistol and levelled it at Ari.
“On ya feet, big fish.”
Ari winced. Pulling herself to her feet, she slid her left hand across her ankle and drew her blade. Her legs felt like jelly.
The man pushed his tongue into his cheek and grinned. “Big fish has got a bite. If the blade makes ya feel safer then that’s okay by me.”
Ari’s eyes darted across the plain towards the crashed deck of the balloon.
Where was the captain?
She looked back at the man. “We can prove we’re from Bo.”
“Is that right?”
“We’re on a mission.”
“We’re all on a mission.”
“Aren’t ya on the same side?”
The man shrugged. “To a fashion, one might say, dependin’ on the day.” He raised his voice and shouted towards the soldiers. “What day is this, sailor?”
A soldier answered. “It’s… umm… Thursday, Sir.”
“Are we at peace with Bo on Thursdays?”
“Umm… Yes, Sir, I think so.”
“Weren’t we at peace with them last Thursday?”
“Umm… yes, S-S-Sir.”
“Well then, we don’t ‘ave to be at peace with them every Thursday, do we?”
Ari looked at Keshia, who looked back and raised her eyebrows.
“Now,” continued the man, “I went an’ lost my concentration. I was in mid-flow, we were all gettin’ along, I was tellin’ a story, an tellin’ it good, an’ now I’ve totally lost where I was.”
He looked up at the pale sky while the soldiers stood in nervous silence.
His eyes fell back on Keshia. “Oh yes, so I’m wonderin’, how fast can you fishes run? Which one of ya is faster? Big fish? Or little fish?” He pointed the gun at Keshia. “You know, little fish, I think big fish looks pretty beat up. I don’t reckon she can go anywhere fast. I reckon you’ll be faster, which is good for you. Do you know what they say about outrunnin' a dingo?”
Keshia shook her head.
“Ya don’t ‘ave to outrun the dingo, you only ‘ave to outrun the person next to ya.”
He waved the gun back towards Ari.
“Come on, let’s get ya both standin’ together. An’ smile a little. My boys didn’t think we’d have survivors to shoot at. Pretty impressive, you two surviving like that. I’m genuinely impressed. Just ‘cause we’re gonna shoot ya, let’s not forfeit any sense of occasion. Ya both shoulda died in the crash anyhow. Be glad that, in these final moments, ya can still find some… sense of purpose.”
Ari limped towards Keshia. Her legs were stiffening but she kept limping anyway.
The man looked back at his men.
“Ya ready boys?”
“Sir?”
One of the soldiers had spoken. He was moving his gun towards the direction of the crashed deck.
“Midshipman?”
“Someone else is coming.”
“Another survivor?”
“Maybe, Sir, he’s waving something.”
“A weapon?”
Ari saw the old man hobbling towards them waving something in the air.
“Sir, it looks more like paper.”
“Paper?” The man looked back at Ari. “Jackrollas, ha?”
∆∆∆
The man turned the paper over in his hands and examined the seal.
“God damn cheeky Jackrollas. Ya say this is genuine?”
The short man in army fatigues nodded. His eyeglasses glinted in the harsh sunlight.
Sweat dripped down Keshia’s forehead. Her arms ached from holding them up.
“Yes, Sir, I think so.”
“Ain’t no room for ‘I think so’ in my unit, sailor. Either it is or it isn’t.”
“Yes, Sir,” said the short man, his voice wavering. “It’s genuine sir. An’ it says it just as I told ya.”
The other man nodded. He sighed and folded up the paper.
The short man took off his glasses and began using the loose corner of his shirt to wipe away the beads of moisture that had collected on the lenses.
“Well,” said the other man. “‘suppose I might as well introduce myself then. They call me Krebs, Commander of the 3rd Battalion of the Black Mulga an’, as of yesterday, Liberator of Freehaven, an’ it looks like you little fish got lucky this time. Tonight is a party an’ you’re my guests. So, get ya stuff an’ follow us into Freehaven. Tonight we’ll dine together, right where I can keep an eye on ya.”
“We ain’t stayin’ ‘ere,” said Ari.
“Little fish, ya stay the night. Freehaven’s on ya way. The line is just the other side of town, an’ then it’s virgin territory all the way to the mine.”
Chapter 12
The Commander walked ahead.
“Ya know if it was up to me,” he said, calling back to Ari and Keshia, “an’ let’s face it, it might just be. Well, if it was up to me, I’d ‘ave ya stick around an’ follow my boys in. We’ll be at the mine in days. Hell, whatever business ya got there, we’ll liberate it for ya.”
They’d left the captain behind with the crashed balloon and Keshia assumed he was going no further. The last they saw of him, he was gathering the remains of the burnt balloon, like a fisherman pulling in his net.
“The thing is,” continued the Commander, “ya shoulda picked another day to fly over my battlefield, this being Thursday an’ all. We always conduct offensives on Thursday. If you’d picked Wednesday ya woulda’ been fine.” He stopped and turned. The soldiers that followed almost walked right into him. “But ya didn’t, ya picked Thursday. So this really is on you. But, we’ll see ya right.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t meet ya schedule,” said Ari.
The commander grinned at Ari for slightly longer than Keshia found comfortable.
They walked on, towards the ghostly structures of the town that now emerged from the red dust. Stripped of their mud-brick foliage, the buildings looked more like a dead forest of bare, burnt trunks. The aged amber light of the late afternoon cast shadows through the petrified skeletons of houses and workshops; the shattered structures that once formed the focal points of people’s everyday lives. This transparent quality allowed Keshia to see through the exposed interiors, seared of the residue of human habitation, to steel structures with large windows and swept, curved roofs. Somewhere, towards what Keshia could only assume was the centre of town, still stood a tall, white, column-like tower, noticeably pockmarked. Wider at its top, its shape was reminiscent of an inversion of the convent’s chapel spire.
Overhead the crows circled, their black wings outstretched, beaks dipped towards the ground. Keshia shuddered.
“Ya know, I’ve always had a certain thing for Freehaven,” said the Commander. “Way, way back, this used to be a place they’d call a flyin’-port.” The Commander lifted his arm and swept it through the air. “If ya can imagine it, great flyin’ machines would pick up folk from ‘ere an’ take ‘em to places all over the world. I guess, once upon a time, folks were pretty keen to get away from here.”
Keshia had the feeling she knew how they might have felt.
Along the edge of town, men in fatigues forced large metal spikes into the ground at angles, as if adding to the porcupine-like prickliness of the surviving structures. There was nothing appealing about the battle-worn town. Waves of grey smoke billowed through the spikes and the bare, blackened structures, and everything smelt bitter.
They passed under a makeshift archway from which hung two bodies, their feet bare, hands tied behind their backs. Large, red blotches formed on the sacks where their faces should hav
e been. They gently swung in the breeze. Where the bodies were tied, Keshia read the red letters scrawled across the beam:
Collaborators.
Keshia shuddered. This could be her, swinging from a rope outside the city walls. Or, just as bad, this could be the convent. The convent was taken by the Black Mulga. But if the syndicate has an arrangement with the Black Mulga, was she now collaborating with the ones who burnt the convent?
Keshia couldn’t believe she’d never considered it before. Was it so easy for the lines between one side and another to blur? She’d escaped to Bo, which also had an arrangement with the Black Mulga. Was Bo too large for the Black Mulga to take? Were the syndicate too powerful? Or had the convent, and by extension Freehaven, just not made arrangements with the Black Mulga?
The thought began to make Keshia’s head hurt.
They passed into the remnants of quiet streets. Blackened rubble was piled up on either side. Within the hollow shells of buildings remained the cast-off fragments of a shattered world; a coloured rug missing a burnt corner, a child's discarded doll with empty, dead eyes. A scruffy, brown mongrel had its head buried in a discarded cooking pot.
Overhead, the webs of mangled electrical cables sparked. Along an alleyway, Keshia spotted a set of open-top army trucks, wedged into a tiny square.
“Sir,” said one of the soldiers.
“Yes, sailor,” barked the Commander.
“We found ‘im hidin’ in an alley.”
On the ground, huddled against a wall, like a cornered rat, and half starved, the soldiers now stood around the frail figure of a man. His fatigues were tattered, blood dripped from his broken nose, his inflamed eyes were wide. His palms trembled as he held them up to the soldiers.
“2nd Battalion, Sir.”
“One ‘a Jones’ men eh,” said the Commander. “Turned spy for the Bone Pointer, did ya?” He looked down at the shivering man. “God damn spies everywhere. Bottom feedas, the lot ‘a ya.”
