“I thought I knew all the Elysuim Runners: Chayton’s family.” A frown creased Orel’s forehead.
Wren nodded quickly. “I’m the youngest.” Her head span as she tried to remember the story she had planned. “I've been ill, haven't seen many people. Raw's from Cockaigne, he came to see about courting our sister. It’s our first partner-flight in this direction.”
Cockaigne and Paradise were the colonies furthest from Vaikuntha. Cockaignians were known for their reclusiveness, its Runners least likely to be known to those here. Wren couldn’t remember the last time a Cockaignian had landed in Elysium. Still there was a huge risk: a one in ten chance that the Patriarch had Run from there to partner Genna.
Orel said nothing, his chest rose and fell as he watched her with those intense brown eyes. Under his scrutiny, Wren had to force herself to remain still. But she jumped when the door burst open once more.
A gust filled the room with dust and Wren began to cough as Saqr stomped in, leaving smears of red sand on the blackened floorboards.
He wasn’t alone. A figure lurked in the darkness behind the door, but Wren’s tearing eyes and the smoke from the fire meant she couldn’t see who it was. She rocketed off the bench. Her newly loosened muscles obeyed her much more easily, but still she lurched across the room. After such a long time lying down she was unsteady on her feet and she stumbled.
Orel caught her with one hand. His fingers closed around her arm like a bracelet and he raised his eyebrows as his fingers almost closed around her bicep.
Her skin tingled and she met his brown eyes. For a long moment neither of them moved; then Orel released her arm. Wren licked suddenly dry lips and resumed her run forward. But quickly she saw that the figure Saqr had brought was taller than Colm. This was not her brother. Her feet stuttered to a stop.
“Lister.” Genna blocked Wren’s view of the man who was now sweeping off his long coat.
“I’m not staying.” His voice was smooth as soy-cream.
Wren turned to Saqr. “Did you find news of my brothers? Who’s this?”
Saqr nodded slowly. “This is the Lister.”
“The Lister?” Wren felt like a puppet with no strings, unsure where to go. Her eyes automatically looked for the familiar and Raw slid from behind the massage table to stand by her side.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Ignoring the question, the Lister stepped into the light and Wren’s eyes widened; she had never seen anyone so completely bald. The light burned on his pate and shadows clung to the contours of his forehead and deepened his eyes.
At first she thought he must be old, but then she realised that his eyebrows were black as beetles and she saw that as he stalked towards the table he moved purposefully, like her father.
Her eyes fixed on a bag that dangled around his neck.
When he reached the table, the Lister lifted the bag over his neck. When it thudded onto the wooden surface he rubbed his shoulders and relief lightened his expression, as if the bag weighed more than it seemed.
As the Lister opened the flap Wren leaned forward to see what was inside.
The bag contained a simple flat screen; solar powered, useful for doing straightforward calculations and containing information, notes and the like, that would be uploaded to central data banks later on. There weren’t many operational ones left; Wren had only seen a couple of them in the hands of the Green-men at Elysium. They had run out of the components to repair them fifty years ago. To have one, this Lister had to be more important than he appeared.
The Lister pressed a button on the side and the screen brightened. He flicked to an application and opened it out, pulling the device to his chest to hide it. He sniffed at Wren and Raw. “You’re looking for your family?”
Raw’s hand folded around Wren’s wrist and she let it stay. She nodded her reply, barely breathing.
The Lister grunted. “You think they arrived a week ago?”
Wren nodded again, her voice caught.
“Give me their names.”
Wren forced her words free. “Colm and Jay. M-my father’s Chayton.” She leaned closer, leaving Raw’s hold. The fearful catch in her voice sounded strange to her ears.
The device uplit the Lister’s face as the screen glimmered with a brightness that reminded her of the glow tubes in the CFC factories. He scrolled down pages, searching.
Wren edged closer and he turned and glowered, forcing her back into Raw’s aura.
The Lister stopped reading, pursed his lips and sucked air through his teeth as if he was considering withholding what he knew. Finally he spoke. “Two of those Runners are here: Jay and Colm. Arrived seven days ago. Being held in block 7b.”
He switched off the flat screen and closed it back in his bag. Wren flinched as if her brothers themselves were being shut inside.
Part of her wanted to spin around the room; after all her brothers were alive and she knew where they were. But her feet froze to the ground as a nameless dread deadened her body. “What do you mean being held?” she whispered. “When can they come home?”
Raw’s breath warmed her newly shorn neck which now seemed sensitive to every disturbance in the air.
The Lister sniffed again. “What’s your name?”
Wren curled her tongue around the information. Suddenly she didn’t want to give her name to this man; she didn’t want it trapped in his bag.
But Genna answered for her. “His name’s Wren, in from Elysium.”
Wren cut her eyes to the Runner woman, then straight back to the Lister.
He nodded, as if committing her name to memory. “Well, Wren, your father never landed here. Presumably his route took him towards a different colony, perhaps Tir Na Nog.” Another curl of his lip showed Wren what the Lister thought of that.
She opened her mouth to tell him exactly why she knew that was impossible, but for some reason Raw closed his hand tighter on her arm. Instinctively she obeyed his wordless warning and remained silent about the twinkling colony.
“Your brothers are being held with the other Runners who have landed on the main wall - in quarantine.”
Raw’s sharp breath seemed to suck the air from Wren’s canister. Her chest tightened. “In quarantine?” She spun to face Genna. “What’s going on?”
The Sphere-Mistress twisted her hands in her rumpled skirt. “We were going to tell you after you’d rested.” She gestured helplessly. “There’s an illness in the biosphere. It spread through the streets like a dust storm.” She gave a little moan. “It starts with a fever and ends with death.”
“For everyone?” Raw asked, weak voiced.
“So far.” The Lister sighed.
The illness started with a fever? Wren thought of her mother. Then she thought of Tir Na Nog. Had they poisoned their own air, or had something else killed them?
A whimper tickled her throat and impulsively she clawed backwards until she felt Raw’s arm under her own. His hand closed around hers’ and she dug her nails into his flesh.
“That was why you couldn’t land on the main platform.” Adler was saying. “No-one, but the Lister is allowed in or out of the town till this thing burns itself out. The Lister’s got a free pass because well, we need someone who knows what’s going on everywhere. You don’t think there’re usually this many of us in this hut, do you? Most of us are Runners who were out when quarantine started. Your friend over there …” He indicated the smiling man, whose face was dropping. “He’s a Waller, his job is to make sure the wall remains air - and Creature - tight. A Grounder, not a Runner, but he was stuck outside, same as us and can’t go back in.”
The Waller shrugged at Wren’s hard look and Adler carried on.
“We don’t know how the illness started and we can’t risk it spreading until we find a cure. If your brothers landed on the main platform they were taken into custody to prevent them from spreading the plague.” He rubbed his mouth. “If this thing does sprea
d it could wipe us out. Every colony: every last human on the planet. We might as well walk into the sand. We have to keep it trapped here.”
“If it spreads.” Raw’s voice was a pale echo and Wren pictured her dying mother.
Wren swallowed. “But … are my brothers ill?”
The Lister consulted his tablet. Shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Then you have to let them out. Send them home before they catch it.” Panic pounded through her veins and sent her heart racing.
The Lister stroked his bag as if it were a restless baby. “You Runners live in a different world, don’t you? None of us can escape it, so why should you? Just because yer brothers aren’t ill now, doesn’t mean they aren’t carrying. They could fall ill tonight, or tomorrow. They’re going nowhere.” His mouth flattened and he glared around the room. “We don’t know for sure where the plague came from but we’ve got ideas. It came from you Runners, from yer travels.”
The Runner men grunted as if he’d struck them and the Lister narrowed his eyes. “Maybe they made it in Aaru - all their work with drugs - or in Paradise, or the Arcadians started it by messing around modifying another Martian species. Maybe it’s a local virus brought to life by the current stage of terra-forming, like Caro’s. We don’t know, but we’re checking our records right now for surges in illness after landings. Once we can prove this is yer fault …” He fell silent, as if only then realising that he was surrounded by the very people he was insulting.
Adler started forward and The Lister shouldered his way past Saqr and out of the door. His bald head floated briefly in the darkness then the night wrapped itself around him and he was gone.
Wren stared at the men glowering murderously after the Lister.
“What does the Lister do that’s so important?” she whispered.
Saqr turned to her with tragedy on his face. “He’s our record keeper. Right now he’s mostly keeping lists of the dead.”
“It’s bad in there.” The Sphere-Mistress nodded in the direction of the walled Vaikuntha. “Really bad.”
“Is it true?” This time Wren turned to Orel, her eyes pleading. “Is it possible that we spread this? Runners I mean.”
Orel stepped towards her, his face dark. “They can’t know for sure. If it’s like Caro’s it could be carried in infected seed - that’s how it started in Olympus. But it could be airborne, or carried by Martian bugs - anything. They haven't identified the vector yet. They don’t even know if the plague is anywhere else, so how can they blame us for bringing it here?”
“For spreading it,” Raw spat. “He’s right. Runners could be carrying it around the colonies - to Elysium, Wren.” He shook her bruised elbow until she pulled away with a hiss.
“I know.” Tears sprung to her eyes. She didn’t dare believe her mother’s illness was caused by the Runners. If Mia had this plague the whole colony was in danger. She thought of the man coughing at the Doctor’s surgery, had it already moved from Avalon to Elysium? But how was that possible? No, sometimes a cough was only a cough.
Another thought struck her like a rock to the chest: she had to hide the truth of her mother’s illness from these people. If they thought Wren was already a carrier she’d be quarantined and left with no chance of finding a cure.
The weight of her secrets was suddenly too much and she sank onto one of the chairs. “What do we do?” She looked at Raw. “Fly on? If the plague is elsewhere, someone else will have a cure, won’t they? What about Aaru?”
For a moment there was silence. Raw turned towards the door as if he was considering the wings leaning on the wall outside and wondering how much further he could go.
Then Orel sighed. “We have a cure.”
“Orel!” Genna lurched forward.
Orel shrugged. “Why shouldn’t they know?” He held Wren’s eyes with his own. “Vaikunthan biologists have been working day and night. The first patient’s fever broke during the dust-storm.” He held up his hand to subdue her elation. “We have something that works, but not enough of it. Not even close. We don’t have enough ingredients and we lost the auto synthesiser for manufacturing years ago. Everything’s slow time now. The Council’s favourites'll be all right perhaps, but the rest of the colony … I don’t know what'll happen to them.”
“That’s what you found out?” Genna looked stricken and her skirt suffered another series of brutal twists. “How?”
Orel squinted across the room at her. “People don’t look up. You’d be amazed what you can hear from a rooftop.” His eyes were bleak. “The Council needs scapegoats. When the rest of the settlement realise the cure isn’t reaching em the Council plan to aim their anger somewhere else - at the quarantined Runners.”
“Their anger …” This time Wren’s voice created the echo. “It doesn’t matter how the disease is spread, they’re going to blame us anyway.”
“I think so.”
“How much time do we have?” Adler’s fists were clenched in front of him, as if he planned to personally rip through the walls of the biosphere.
Orel shrugged. “They’re looking fer proof, anything they can use. If a Runner comes in with news of plague elsewhere, or if they can find evidence …” He exhaled. “Not long.”
His words rung in Wren’s mind - news of plague elsewhere – shaking, she dropped her head into her hands. They could not tell them about Tir Na Nog, not if it was possible that the plague had destroyed the colony. Her mother was dying of what sounded like the same illness. Her brothers were about to be thrown to an angry mob, and she was pretending to be a Runner, leaving herself open to the most horrifying of punishments. “What am I doing?” she murmured.
“What?” Orel frowned at her.
“I-I –”
Raw grabbed her hands, pulled them from her face and shook her. “Get a grip, Wren.”
Suddenly Adler leaned over her, throwing a twisted shadow on the wall. “You’re not a real Runner are you?”
Raw spun to face him. “Don’t be ridiculous, man.”
“Not you.” Adler growled at him. “That one.” He indicated Wren with a tilt of his head. “He’s far too young to be Running. No muscles where a real Runner would have ‘em.” Abruptly he crouched so he and Wren were eye-to-eye. She flinched. “You took those wings without permission, dint you, boy?”
Wren’s breath caught, but … Adler had called her ‘boy’. He thought she was too young to Run; he did not suspect the truth. Still holding her breath, she gave a tiny nod. Raw edged closer to her side and Wren’s eyes widened. It almost looked as if he was ready to protect her. Perhaps she could trust him not to give her up.
She swallowed. “What are you going to do to me?” Involuntarily she glanced at Raw.
Adler straightened. His eyes slid past the Sphere-Mistress and the Waller, to the other Runner men.
Genna folded her arms. “We can’t have wings going without permission.”
Wren pressed herself into her seat.
Orel nodded towards Raw. “At least they were partner-Running. And they are looking for other Runners.”
Adler sighed. “There’s protocol. If the last Runner in a settlement is lost, the Council have to wait for the next arrival, then they can send a message to Convocation for a replacement.”
Saqr wrung his hands. “So many Runners are in quarantine here.”
“We haven’t had a Runner in for weeks,” Wren whispered.
Raw raised his chin defiantly. “How long should we have waited? No harm has been done. We did a partner-Run and we did it fine.”
Wren looked at Adler with pleading in her eyes. “I know I did wrong,” she murmured.
Saqr caught Adler’s arm. “He’s only a boy - a Runner boy - one of our own. These times ain't normal.”
“So we should ignore the law?” Genna narrowed her eyes.
Saqr spoke to Adler. “We can’t make a decision like this without the Patriarch, brother, and there’re more important
things to talk about than disobedient children. What do we do about the quarantined Runners? If we don’t get em out of the settlement -”
“They’ll be killed.” Raw stated the fact unemotionally, but his eyes slid to Wren and her expression made him flinch.
“More than that.” Saqr looked miserable. “When Convocation finds out what they’ve done here, it’ll be war between Runners and Grounders.”
Wren’s eyes widened. The Runners would refuse to fly and trade would end. The baby exchange would vanish and inbreeding would decimate the Colonies within generations. In return the Runners would lose their support and they would starve. It could be the end of everything.
“We have to get them out,” she whispered.
“Yes, we do.” Orel nodded. “But feelings against Runners are running high. They’ll have blocked off my usual route in and out by now. I barely made it out this time.” Genna gasped but Orel shook waved a hand. “I’m fine, mother, and I have another way in, remember. I’ll have to start usin it.”
Adler nodded. “So, we use your ‘other way’ to go for the others.”
Orel shook his head. “No offence, big man, but you can’t get in my way and the other Runners can’t get out.” He looked at Wren and Raw. “There’re only two here who could go with me.”
Raw closed his hand over Wren’s shoulder. “It’s too dangerous.”
Wren whirled around. “Since when do you tell me what to do?” She stepped to Orel’s side. “I’m going after my brothers.”
Raw hesitated. “At least rest one night.” He appealed to Genna. “We’ve been flying non-stop. Surely nothing can happen tonight.”
Genna looked at her son. “What do you think?”
Orel shrugged. “A day to plan - it might be a good idea. I can’t break the others out on my own – we need em.”
Wren nodded. “All right then, one night to rest.” She sighed as the idea of sleep brought a flood of weariness. Head in her hands she wondered how her mother was and if she’d managed to eat anything. She would be expecting her home around now.
Windrunner's Daughter Page 14
