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Zaretsky didn’t share their problem. Santa Clara had a medium-sized VTOL spaceplane in its hangar, his contract didn’t call for any contact with the human settlements. Whatever rebellion the Ivets were staging, it didn’t affect him.
When he opened a cha
Jay Hilton sat on the rock outcrop fifty metres from the sava
I just want Mummy back, that’s all.
The other children looked up to her. She was the oldest and strongest of the group. Father Horst relied on her a great deal to keep the younger ones in order. A lot of them still cried at night. She heard them in the darkness, crying for their lost parents or siblings, crying because they wanted to go back to their arcology where none of this horrid confusion and upset happened.
Dawn’s rosy crown gave way to a tide of blue which swept across the sky, erasing the stars. Re
The homestead on the edge of the sava
Jay went in through the front door. The big lounge whiffed strongly—of food, and cooking, and too many people. She sniffed the air suspiciously. Someone had wet their bedding again, probably more than one.
The floor was a solid patchwork of sleeping-bags and blankets, their occupants only just begi
“Come on! Come on!” Jay clapped her hands together as she pulled the reed blinds open. Streamers of gold-tinged sunlight poured in, revealing children blinking sleep from their eyes, wincing at the brightness. Twenty-seven of them were crammed together on the mayope floorboards, ranging from a toddler about two years old up to Da
Shona gave a timid smile as well as she could, grateful for being included in the work assignments and not being treated any differently to the others. Jay had drilled herself not to flinch from looking at the poor girl. The six-year-old’s face was covered in a bandage mask of glossy translucent epithelium membrane, with holes cut out for her eyes and mouth and nose. Her burn marks were still a livid pink below the overlapping membrane strips, and her hair was only just begi
Coughs and grumbles and high-pitched chattering filled the room as the children struggled out of bed and into their clothes. Jay saw little Robert sitting brokenly on the side of his sleeping-bag, head in his hands, not bothering to get dressed. “Eustice, you’re to get this room tidied up, and I want all the blankets aired properly today.”
“Yes, Jay,” she answered sullenly.
The outside door was flung open as five or six children rushed out laughing, and ran for the lean-to, which they used as a toilet.
Jay picked her way over the rectangles of bedding to Robert. He was only seven, a black-ski
“Pop down to the stream,” she said kindly. “There will be plenty of time to wash before breakfast.”
His head was lowered even further. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered, on the verge of tears.
“I know. Remember to wash out your sleeping-bag as well.” She caught the sound of someone giggling. “Bo, you help him take the bag down to the stream.”
“Oh, Jay!”
“It’s all right,” Robert said. “I can manage.”
“No, you won’t, not if you want to be back in time for breakfast.” The big table was already being pulled out from the kitchen corner by three of the boys, scraping loudly across the floor. They were shouting for people to get out of the way.
“Don’t see why I should have to help him,” Bo said intransigently. She was an eight-year-old, meaty for her age, with chubby red cheeks. Her size was often deployed to help boss the smaller children around.
“Chocolate,” Jay said in warning.
Bo blushed, then stalked over to Robert. “Come on then, you.”
Jay knocked once on Father Horst’s door and walked in. The room had been the homestead’s main bedroom when they moved in; it still had a double bed in it, but most of the floor space was taken up with packets, jars, and pots of food they’d taken from the other deserted homestead cabins. Clothes and cloth and powered tools, anything small or light enough to be carried, filled the second bedroom in piles that were taller than Jay.
Horst was getting up as the girl came in. He’d already got his trousers on, thick denim jeans with leather patches, a working man’s garment, requisitioned from one of the other sava
Yet he never wavered, never complained. There was a fire in his eyes that had been ignited by his predicament. He was embarked on a crusade to survive, to deliver his charges to safety. The bishop would be hard pressed to recognize that dreamy well-meaning Horst Elwes who had left Earth last year. Even thinking about his earlier self with its disgusting self-pity and weaknesses repelled him.