Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle

And then, as the sun broke over the horizon, promising the terrible, unending heat they had known before, Billin scrambled up a sand dune that leaned against a house and cried out at the top of his voice, "It's enough! We're finished here!"

They turned and looked at him.

"There's no hope here anymore! We have no water, we have no food, we have no clothing, our children are dying!"

In alarm, Wix and Hoom came ru

"I take no orders from you," Billin said. Then he shouted to everyone, "It's listening to Stipock and Wix and Hoom and the Bitch that's got us where we are! I say I'm through taking their orders! Who made them Wardens! Who put them in charge?"

Hoom climbed up the dune and took Billin by the arm. "What did you call my wife, you bastard!" Hoom shouted at him.

"How did you know I meant your wife?" Billin said triumphantly. At that Hoom swung back his arm to hit him, but Billin dodged and cried out, "See! The murderer wants to kill again! Murderer!"

And at the word Hoom backed away, confused. By now all the people had gathered, even Stipock, who watched dispassionately from a few meters behind the rest.

Billin pointed his finger at Stipock and shouted (and his mouth was dry and it was hard to make the words come, but still he shouted), "There he is! The man who taught us that Jason wasn't God! Well, that's true enough. But neither are you, Stipock! You and your damned iron. Machines that fly through the sky! Where are they! What about a machine that keeps our children alive, what about that? Where's that, Stipock?"

People began to murmur to each other. Cirith came to the foot of the dune and spoke to her husband. "Billin, don't make people lose their hope," she said.

"Damn right," he answered. To the crowd he said, "I'm making you lose your hope, my wife says. Damn right, I say. Look around you! They say I'm crazy, but only a crazy man would look at this and still hope!"

"He's crazy!" Dilna shouted. "Don't listen to him!"

Billin ignored her. "Think for a minute! Think of this! You all saw how much food I took with me. Enough for three weeks! How long was I gone? How long?"

Three months, they realized.

"Why didn't I starve to death? I came back so weary I was sick, came back hungry because I had run out of food two days before. But not ten weeks before! That's because I found food! Whether you believe all that I said or not, you have to believe this: I found food out there! And that's more than you'll find here!"

Billin looked at Stipock and still the man didn't show any emotion at all. Billin looked at the impassive face and realized he had no hope of persuading anyone. When Billin had stirred crowds before, he had done it with the words Stipock had taught him. And now Stipock was silent and stood there uncaring, because he knew that Billin couldn't persuade the crowd on his own.

So Billin slumped his shoulders, then looked up at the crowd again and said, "Never mind. I don't care what you do. Stay here and keep digging for the damned iron and wait for the sand to come again. But I'm going. Because even if I'm crazy and there's nothing out there, it's better to die looking for something than to die here in the sand, with the wind to dry us out because we've lost our power even to bury or burn the dead."

And then Billin let himself fall backward and slide down the dune to where Cirith caught him and cradled his head. The crowd stayed for a while, then went back to their homes to begin sweeping out the dust.

That night the wind came up again, as hard as ever, and the dust came back in and hung in the houses.

And the next morning at dawn Billin, Cirith and their two children loaded pitifully scrawny packs on their backs and left their house. They walked west to the stream and then set their faces south, uphill into the shadeless trees that had been stripped by the storms.

They had not gone more than a hundred meters when they heard a hoarse cry behind them. Billin turned and saw Serret and Rebo and their two surviving children (one from each set of twins) also loaded with meager packs.

"Wait for us!" Serret called again.

They waited.

"Billin, may we go with you?" Serret asked.

"I thought you didn't believe me," Billin said.

Rebo shrugged. "Does it matter whether we believe you?"

Billin smiled, a dry, ghastly grin, he knew, but the first time he had smiled in weeks. "Come along then."

They went up the stream all day. Gradually, as the miles went by, the sand grew less, and the stream was deeper, better to drink. They filled their waterbags and went on (after drinking deeply and pouring the clean water on their heads). And finally they came to a place where the stream bent to the west and their path went to the east a little.

Billin went to a tree that bore a small cut, and with his knife made the cut deeper and more plain. He turned the mark into an arrow, pointing the way they went. Then he looked ahead until he saw a tree with another small mark, and led them to it, where again he made the mark plainer. "In case others follow."

They were nearly out of food when they came to the mountains, but already the land was far greener, the trees and undergrowth lusher, water more plentiful. Billin killed a tree squirrel and they ate the meat. And while they camped there, with a fire and water enough to wash all over, two more families joined them.

"We saw your fire," they said, "and realized you weren't so far ahead as we had thought."

So they waited a few more days, killing more squirrels and catching some small freshwater fish in a mountain lake one of them found while exploring the area. And when they finally left, heading downhill this time, there were thirty of them, counting women and children — half of the colony. Billin knew now that he hadn't dreamed — everything was as he had remembered it, and he couldn't stop talking about what they would find at the bottom of the mountains.

And after another week they reached the end of the craggy paths and found themselves by a placid bay, with a coldwater river rushing down, and fruit trees and berries so thick around that there was hardly need to plant. Of course they did plant, because one never knew what other seasons might be like in a place like this — but who needed to bother with watering and tending the fields, when they knew the seeds would grow and the harvest would come without worry?

And Billin's children stopped wearing clothing as they played in the sun, day after day.

Over the weeks more and more people came down the mountains and into the village, where the only houses were roofs — no walls were needed, and the roofs were just to keep a few things dry when the rains fell, and to keep the sun off during the heat of the day.

At last Billin counted who was there and realized that between those who had died and those who were there, only seven people remained unaccounted for: Stipock, Wix, and Hoom and Dilna with their three children.

He told Cirith.

"Will they come, too, do you think?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Billin said. "What would they do here? The only way they know how to live is by telling other people what to do."

"You tell people what to do."

Billin laughed. "Only when they want to work. We built a boat — so what! Those who wanted to work on it did. The rest just did as they pleased. Next week maybe we'll go over to that other place across the water. Who knows? Who cares?"

"I see, now. You're just lazy." She laughed.

"Of course," Billin said. "And you're just fat."

Cirith looked ruefully at her bulging stomach. "I was hoping I was going to have a baby, but my time of month began yesterday, so it isn't that."

"It's berries. Always when I kiss you you taste like berries," Billin said.