Walking to the Stars

Walking to the Stars by Laney Cairo Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com Copyright ©2010 by Laney Cairo First publish...

Author: Cairo Laney

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Walking to the Stars by Laney Cairo

Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2010 by Laney Cairo First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2010 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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CONTENTS Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen ****

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Walking to the Stars Laney Cairo

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Prologue The gurney Nicholas was pushing crashed against the wall, and the woman on the gurney winced but didn't complain, despite having every right to. "Sorry," Nicholas said apologetically. He was supposed to personalize each contact with a patient, using names and that sort of thing, but he'd be fucked if he could remember this patient's name. From the head of the gurney he couldn't see her files, in any case. "Here we are," he said. "The nice technician will take you for an X-ray now, and I'll see you back in Casualty." "Thank you, Doctor," the woman said, and it seemed to Nicholas that someone with a broken arm shouldn't have to be polite. A mere six weeks ago he would have been thrilled at being called 'Doctor', but the novelty had worn off already. "You're welcome," he said, because at least his arm wasn't broken. Sunlight shone through the windows in the hallway, and it seemed profoundly wrong when his body was screaming that it was the middle of the night. But which night? "What day is it?" he asked the nurse in the Hawaiian shirt when he'd buzzed himself back into Casualty. "Friday," she said over her shoulder as she pushed past him. Hawaiian shirts. Friday. Must be casual dress day. He'd remember that for next week. 5


He managed to ignore the logjam of gurneys in the corridor and the staff members who tried to get his attention, and found himself stumbling up the two steps to the staff room and slumping down into one of the many plastic chairs. Hilda, the other resident, was asleep with her head forward on her folded arms, keyboard pushed out of the way. Nicholas shoved the keyboard in front of him aside and put his head down too. The door crashed open, and someone shouted, "Wake up! We've got another trauma bus on the way!" **** It was dark when Nicholas groped his way down the hallway, completely dark, so all non-essential power must have been shut off again. That didn't matter, as long as Nicholas got some sleep. The resident's common room had couches, cracked plastic that smelled of sweat and failure, and someone had been smart enough to prop the electronically locked door open so people could get in despite the power outage. Couches, that was it. Nicholas flopped down on one, stethoscope still around his neck, and went to sleep. **** "Do you have asthma?" Nicholas asked the man on the gurney, raising his voice to be heard over the clatter of the drip stand being wheeled into the cubicle. "Are you allergic to anything? Do you get hay fever?" 6


The man, with eyes too inflamed to see out of and face covered by an oxygen mask, shook his head. He couldn't speak, his throat and mouth were too swollen. Nicholas just knew his sats were going to go off and he was going to have to be intubated. "Have you been outdoors recently?" Nicholas asked. "On a farm perhaps? Or in a park? Have you eaten anything unusual? Chinese takeaway?" The man shook his head each time, and Nicholas felt his stomach sinking. Damn, that was all the easy options gone. That left only hard ones and there wasn't another doctor in sight. This wasn't supposed to happen; he wasn't supposed to be left floundering by himself, not so soon. But none of the medical staff had gone home in days, or even had a decent break. They were all sleeping on couches and the floor, showering in the patients' bathrooms, and eating out of vending machines and even, out of desperation, off the food carts. Supervising the new doctors had become a wistful dream. This was it: the long predicted break down of socialized medicine. If the hospitals—and it wasn't just the one Nicholas was in, it was every hospital in the city—if they didn't start leaving people to die untreated, it was just going to get worse. The sats monitor shrieked, jolting Nicholas out of his daze, telling him the patient was cyanosed, and Nicholas stuck his arm out of the cubicle and grabbed the intubation gurney the nurse shoved at him. 7


This wasn't going to be pretty. In the end, the fact that Nicholas didn't manage to get an airway in didn't matter, not when the man's lungs began to break down. **** If they hadn't all been so tired—if they weren't getting patients transferred in from Darwin and Indonesia, if the hospital intranet had actually been functioning so they could read the mortality figures from the rest of the hospital—then they might have realized there was a pattern sooner. But once someone had noticed how many deaths there were, Nicholas found himself locked inside a quarantined hospital. At least the quarantine slowed the influx of patients down to only the people who showed signs of obvious infection. It took a couple of days to get a protocol in place, and Nicholas was following the steps in his sleep two days after that. The ambulance crew were in plastic suits, and they nodded sympathetically at Nicholas from behind their visors as they pushed the gurney through the automatic doors. Nicholas wondered for a moment why the air smelled strange; it was fresh. The hospital air-conditioning no longer hummed and buzzed, and Nicholas didn't know if it had been turned off to conserve electricity, or if it was to stop the unknown contagion from spreading. Whatever the reason, the air in the hospital smelled bad now. 8


The patient was gasping behind her oxygen mask, so as soon as she was in a cubicle, Nicholas shot her full of midazolam and tubed her. Next was the bolus of cortisone, and the theophylline drip. They didn't have enough salbutamol left, apparently, to use it indiscriminately. Or at all. When Nicholas pushed the woman's gurney into the transfusion unit, for her to be hooked up to the aphaeresis equipment so her antibodies could be harvested, the nurse there said, "Have you heard?" "Heard what?" Nicholas asked. "Seoul's gone." [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter One It got harder and harder to drag himself out of bed in the mornings, and the dim half-light of the May rain didn't help. However, once Josh was crashing around in the kitchen, getting the fire going in the stove and turning taps on so that the plumbing shuddered and banged, there was no point in staying in bed any longer. Yesterday's clothes were on a chair beside the bed, and Nick dressed in the gloom, stuffing his feet into sheepskin slippers and dragging a sweater on over his shirt. The house was cold, not the icy cold of mid-winter, when the wind howled up from the Antarctic and he could smell the icebergs, but the pervasive damp cold that meant it was time to start seeding. "Morning, Dad," Josh said, and Nick sat down at the battered kitchen table and wrapped his hands around the teapot to warm them. "Morning. You had a look at the rain gauge yet?" "Teapot's not full," Josh pointed out, and Nick let go of it. "And I did. We got four mils last night, and I reckon it's settled in." Nick nodded. "Going to start seeding?" he asked. "Think it's time to put the wheat in?" Josh shrugged, solid shoulders under a thick shirt. "Could be. I finished chaining the paddocks ready. Are you busy? Because I really need someone else with me." 10


The kettle hissed and spat droplets onto the stovetop. Josh picked it up using a cloth and filled the teapot on the table, put the kettle on the side of the stove, then carefully spooned in the dried chicory from the tin. "After clinic, I have to go see Mrs. Pocock," Nick said. "And then probably take her to Albany. She really needs a PEG, and I don't want to put one in here. Tomorrow?" "We need things," Josh said, putting two mugs on the table as he sat down opposite Nick and pulled the chopping board and loaf of bread across the table. When Josh had hacked himself off a slab of bread, Nick took the loaf from him and cut off four thin slices. They always needed things. "Eggs or porridge?" Nick asked, pushing his chair back from the table. "Both?" Josh said. "But not at once?" "Sounds good," Nick said, and he reached for his raincoat where it hung beside the back door, above his boots. Harold barked, loud and persistent, sounding the alarm about something, and Nick called out, "I'll get it!" to Josh. Nick shoved his feet into his boots and got halfway across the verandah before he got even one arm into his raincoat. Harold's barking was joined by sustained honking from the geese, and Nick jumped the fence around the veggie garden and took off across the paddock, broomstick in his hand. The chicken coop was half a paddock away from the house, and while it was irritating to slosh through the mud to retrieve the eggs, the smell didn't often reach that far, and if any of the avian vectored viruses reoccurred, the farther the coop was from the house the better. 11


Harold yipped, and a tan dog-sized shape took off, across the paddock, Harold in pursuit. Nick whistled, calling Harold back, and watched Harold waver, mid-lope, trying to decide whether to obey or not. "Get back here," Nick yelled, and Harold's snout and tail dropped, and the dog circled back around, letting the intruder run across the paddock to the tree line and safety. "Good dog," Nick said, patting Harold, when Harold trotted back up. The geese came barreling up to Nick as he opened the chookhouse gate, honking belligerently, but he had the broomstick in his hand ready and took a swing at the gander, and they all backed off. He couldn't find any sign the intruder had broken through the fencing, no feathers or corpses, and quick count showed the right number of birds. The cold weather had put the chooks off the lay, and the laying house held only four eggs; that was fine, there were only two of him and Josh. Still, it was only four weeks until they started killing the pullets; then there'd be as much roast chicken as they could gorge themselves on. Nick followed Harold back across the paddock, and Harold crept back onto his bedding and curled up while Nick let himself into the kitchen. A pan simmered on the stove, meaning that Josh had started the porridge cooking before going off to chop more wood, and Nick hung his raincoat up again and put his slippers back on. 12


"What was it?" Josh asked, as Nick washed his hands and the eggs. "Thylacine," Nick said. "The small one, from the bush block. Chookhouse fences held." "Are we going to have to trap it and move it out bush?" Josh asked, taking the eggs from Nick and cracking them into the sizzling mutton fat. Fried eggs for breakfast. Twenty five years ago it would have been forbidden, but now no one lived long enough to worry about their cholesterol. "We don't know the gender, or if the thylacine's got young, and we'd have to get permission," Nick said. "If we lose any stock, we can ask, I guess. Until then, we'll just keep chasing the thylacine off the chooks." Between the eggs and the porridge, Nick went out to his van, small shovel of coals from the fire in his hand. He loaded the coals into the burner and then piled some charcoal from the box on the verandah onto the coals. The burner would take a while to build up some pressure, but it'd run like a beauty in the wet weather. Next trip with the shovel was to the old tractor, to load its burner up, too. Josh would want the tractor through the day, for harrowing and maybe even a little seeding. The mirror in the bathroom was silvered and streaked, but it was enough for Nick to see in while he trimmed his beard. His hair was graying rapidly, but his beard was still black and thick. If he shaved he had an instant five o'clock shadow. He'd been chubby as a younger man, podgy and homely, but he'd lost all his weight in the army, and had worked too hard 13


ever since then to regain it, so now his face was gaunt, all angles and hollows. Josh was more like Nick had been as a young man, large and bulky with muscle from working on the farm ever since he'd become old enough to help out. He had Nick's hair, dark and tufty, cowlick upon cowlick, but his mother's blue eyes and fair skin. The rational part of Nick's mind looked at Josh and thought 'basal cell carcinoma' because of the fair skin, but the rest of him just loved his son with a deep gratitude that they were both still alive. His beard clipped and teeth brushed, Nick went in search of cleaner clothes. He was, after all, probably going to Albany, and he wouldn't be the only doctor for hundreds of kilometers there, so he'd better not look too scruffy. When he headed out to his van, sandwiches wrapped in a cloth in his hands, Josh was hitching the harrow blades to the back of the tractor. Nick put the sandwiches on the van roof, away from Harold, and went across to help. "You're clean," Josh pointed out when Nick hauled on the hitch. "Could be," Nick said, shoving the hitch pin through the coupling. "Could be you're going to go see Jenny Duggan," Josh said. "Bring back some of her jam, it's better than yours." Nick left Josh chuckling to himself at the idea of his father pursuing a woman, and got into his van. They were only two kilometers out of Jerramungup, and once the van was warmed up it did it in a couple of minutes. 14


Not that the van had any suspension to speak of, and the tires had been replaced with wooden hoops years before, giving a rough ride over the corrugated gravel, but the van had been a delivery vehicle once and had converted beautifully into an ambulance. Nick parked the van beside the old shop that he used for a clinic and put the damper down on the burner so it would keep the coals warm, ready for later. Jo was his nurse and receptionist, a competent amateur midwife and all round decent person, but she wouldn't be there, not with the rain. She'd be harrowing and seeding just like everyone else. The main street was empty, with not a horse to be seen, not outside a store or on a tether pin on the school oval. Nick couldn't see any vehicles on the main street either, apart from a rusting bicycle or two. Anything that could be used to tow a seeder was out in the rain, circling around the paddocks. Every person who wasn't nine months pregnant, so frail they couldn't take the rain, or involved in the school, was out there, too. That left him, the school teachers, and the baker in the town. It would be a quiet morning. He let himself into his clinic, left his boots beside the front door and put on a pair of slippers Jo had left for him. His rooms were dim and the rain was loud on the tin roof, but Nick would be content to see no one for a couple of hours. He lit the fire in the stove in the kitchen with the kindling Jo had left ready, put the kettle over the flames, and went into his office. 15


He had a short wave radio, one of only two in the town; the school had the other, for the older kids to have School of the Air classes. He could call Albany in the event of an emergency, or even Broken Hill directly, rather than relayed through Albany, if the weather was right. The weather wasn't good, but when he hand cranked the radio and tinkered with it, he picked up the relay from Albany. Ten minutes later, mug in his hands, he sat back in his chair, kicked his slippers off, and put his feet up on his desk. Nine in the morning, time for BBC World News. He'd read somewhere, long before the Collapse, that someone reckoned the very last electromagnetic signal from Earth would be the BBC World service, and that person was probably going to be right. They'd kept right on broadcasting through the EMPs, had left Britain for somewhere else safer and just kept right on pumping out their signal, the voice of impartial news reporting, then later of the re-emergent World Governing body which had risen, literally, from the ashes of the UN. It was a good morning to be indoors and listening to the radio while everyone else worked in the rain and mud. **** The Pococks, at least the branch of them he was interested in that morning, lived about fifteen kilometers out of the town, on a farm that abutted what was left of the South Coast Highway, so Nick made good time getting out there. The farmhouse looked deserted, no vehicles or horses nearby, but smoke rose from two of the chimneys and when 16


he knocked, one of the teenage girls in the family opened the door. "Dr. Nick," she said. "Mamma said you were coming to see Nanna. She said she'd come back here if I banged the gong." "Thank you, Janie," Nick said, smiling at her, secretly pleased he'd remembered her name. "Go and do that now, and I'll go have a look at Nanna." The gong clanged before Nick had negotiated his way past the racks of wet washing in the hall. Nanna was tucked up in the middle of a huge bed, a moldering orange tabby cat beside her, pillows piled behind her head and her glasses on the end of her thin nose. "Doctor," she croaked, and Nick took her hand and sat on the bed, on the other side from the cat. "Hello, Mrs. Pocock," he said. "How are you? Did you sleep last night? Have you had some breakfast?" "Can't eat," she said, pursing her lips. "It all just repeats on me something cruel. Can't sleep, either. It's no good, Doctor. I can't keep on like this." Nick surreptitiously checked Mrs. Pocock's skin for tenting while he took her pulse, and the old dear was dehydrated. "I agree," he said. "I want to take you to Albany for the day, to have a procedure done." "I'm not dying off the farm," Mrs. Pocock said. "You can't take me away from here." "There won't be any dying happening anytime soon," Nick said reassuringly. "I want to put a tube in your stomach, so you can eat through the tube, and I want to do it at Albany 17


hospital. No reason you won't still be here when Janie gets married, as far as I can see." The lips relaxed a little, the cat opened one yellow eye and winked at Nick, and the old woman's pulse took a bit of a bound. "Who's been talking?" Mrs. Pocock demanded. "Has anyone been saying anything about Janie?" "Not as far as I know, and Josh tells me everything he hears," Nick said. "Ah, here's Janie's mum coming in the house, I must go have a word with her." Mrs. Pocock the Younger was a stout woman with strong capable hands and a short temper, presumably made that way by her large family. Underneath the caked-on mud, she looked genuinely worried about her mother-in-law, and she took the suggestion of the old dear going to Albany for surgery well, despite it being seeding time. Between the three of them they wrapped Nanna Pocock up warmly. She weighed almost nothing in Nick's arms when Nick carried the old girl out to his van. He strapped her to the gurney in the back, while her daughter-in-law and granddaughter hugged her and she lectured them about looking after her cat. When he drove off, bumping down the rutted track to the highway, he could hear her admonishing him about his driving over the clatter of the van. **** Marsia grabbed Nick's arm as he walked out of Mrs. Pocock's room, and he let her drag him off to her office. 18


"Want some tea?" she asked, and he groaned in anticipation. "Please," he said. "A life without caffeine is hard to take." Marsia had comfortable chairs in her office, worn and marked, but with thick padding on the seats, and Nick settled into one gratefully. Marsia had a kettle in the room, and a tiny fridge. Nick wasn't used to the humming and buzzing that went with electrical appliances, so he was acutely aware of them. While the kettle gurgled, Marsia found two mugs from a cupboard, and put a tin of tea leaves in front of Nick enticingly. "Tempted?" she asked, and they both laughed. "I know, I know," Nick said. "Come and work for you and you'll give me caffeine." "You know you want to," she said, still chuckling. "If I didn't have Josh, I might," Nick said. "But there's no real future for him in Albany. At Jerramungup, there's the farm for him. He'll never be short of food." Marsia was older than Nick, and had lived through as much as he had, and she nodded, suddenly serious. "Of course. I must admit I get uneasy living in a population centre like Albany," she said. "I keep looking at how much there is here; the wind farm, the bio plant at Narrikup, the army base. Someone, somewhere, must want all of this." The kettle boiled and clunked, and Marsia stood up and poured water into the mugs and spooned in tea, then took a bottle of milk out of her insulin fridge. The first taste was heaven, making Nick smile and close his eyes for a moment in bliss, but he opened his eyes again 19


when Marsia said, "I have a favor to ask of you. If you do this, I'll give you my canister of tea." "What favor?" Nick said. "And as always, it's equipment I really want, not tea." "Sure, supplies instead," Marsia said. "I've got a patient here, and he can't really stay. Can you take him for me? Look after him?" "What's wrong with him?" Nick asked. "Can he work? If he can, I'm sure he can find a home in Jerramungup, especially at seeding." "Fractured femoral shaft," Marsia said. "I did an open reduction a week ago, and I need the bed, so I need to move him somewhere." "He's not from here?" Nick said, frowning. Marsia shook her head. "He was crew on a freighter that docked last week, broke his leg only a day out from Albany, or else he wouldn't have survived. No idea where he's from originally, but he speaks English as though it's his first language." Nick thought about the idea, turned it over in his head. "None of the families here can take him?" he asked. "He must have scrip if he worked on a freighter." Marsia shook her head. "No. There were refugees on the ship, and the town has given priority to placing them. Can you take him?" He needed medical supplies urgently; oxytocin, anesthetic, suture thread, needles, dressing kits; and he didn't have the scrip to pay for them. Feeding a stranger for a few weeks would be a small price to pay. 20


"All right," Nick said. "I'll take him back with me. He can talk to Mrs. Pocock for the ride home." Jenny Duggan's cafe was like a trip back in time, full of the intense scent of coffee and the floral waft of cakes, and Nick sat down at one of the tables and breathed in deeply. Jenny was there, wrapped up in an apron, big-hipped and smooth-skinned, and Nick smiled widely at seeing her. "Hello, Dr. Nick," she called out from behind the counter. "What would you like?" "Coffee, please," Dr. Nick said, smiling at her. "And a lamington cake, and a few minutes of your company, before I have to go back to the hospital." Jenny chuckled, and winked at him. "Not a problem," she said. "Thought you might want to buy some of my jam, too." "I do," Nick said. "Or Josh will sulk for a week." "Can't have that," Jenny said, coming over to the table with a mug on a saucer and a plate with a cube of chocolate and coconut encrusted cake. She put them in front of Nick and then sat down opposite him in the otherwise empty cafe. "So, what have you been up to?" she asked. Her smile was undeniably flirtatious, and Nick couldn't help but flirt back. Mrs. Pocock had recovered from her PEG insertion enough to be annoying the staff when Nick checked on her. "I want to go home, Doctor," she said. "I'm sure they're not looking after Tiger properly." Nick took her hand and rubbed at the loose dry skin over her knuckles. She had some spring in the skin now, so her hydration was picking up. 21


"She's had 500 mls, Doctor," the nurse at the end of the bed said. "And has passed a small amount of urine." "Then I think it's time for you to go home," Nick said, smiling at Mrs. Pocock. "And you can make sure Tiger has had his dinner." Once Mrs. Pocock was dressed and wrapped up warm, ready to be carried out to the van, Marsia took Nick to meet the man with the broken leg who would be staying with them. Marsia said, "This is Dr. Nick. He's agreed to take you back to his town to recover, Samuel." Nick smiled at the young man in the bed, and said, "Hi, I'm Nick. I hope you'll be comfortable with us, Samuel." Samuel was young, not much more than Josh's age, and he had the dark skin and hair of more than half the world's population. Apart from the cast on his leg, he looked fit and healthy. Samuel smiled back at Nick, and his teeth were even and white, so he'd either come from damned good genetic stock or he'd lived a privileged life. "Thank you, Dr. Nick," Samuel said, and he had the rich accent of South America, at least to Nick's ear. "I'll help out as much as I can. I worked in the engine room of the freighter, so I can fix pumps and things." "Excellent," Nick said, finding himself grinning back at Samuel. "If Dr. Marsia had told me this, we wouldn't have spent quite so much time loading supplies into my van. Are you ready to go? We've got a long drive ahead of us, and it's nearly dark already." [Back to Table of Contents] 22


Chapter Two The van they were to leave in made Samuel shake his head involuntarily as he hobbled on crutches across the forecourt. A producer gas unit dangled off the back, belching out carbon monoxide no doubt, and the wheels were solid wood. The van looked like it ran on good luck and will power. When Samuel propped his crutches against the passenger side and levered himself into the front seat, a querulous old woman in the back said, "Who's that? Who are you? Dr. Nick! Dr. Nick!" Dr. Nick hopped in behind the steering wheel and turned his head to look into the back of the van. "It's all right, Mrs. Pocock. This is Samuel, he's coming to help me on the farm." "He's got a broken leg," Mrs. Pocock said. "He won't be able to work." Dr. Nick laughed and shook his head at the woman. "I had noticed, Mrs. Pocock; I am a doctor." Dr. Nick pushed the van into gear and hauled the handbrake off, the clutch ground, and the van lurched forward into the rainy night. It took a few minutes to make their way through the outlying suburbs of Albany, houses and warehouses mostly hidden by the rain. Then Dr. Nick pushed the van into top gear and they began to build up speed, cruising down the hills with the cold damp wind whistling through the perished door seals, before slowing down and dropping back a gear to make it up the next slope. 23


The windscreen wipers swished away, but the van's headlights didn't penetrate very far into the darkness, and Samuel wasn't sure how Dr. Nick could manage to see to drive. The vibrations hurt his leg as the van rattled over the potholed road, and it was cold and very dull, listening to the old lady drone on and hearing Dr. Nick's economical replies to her questions. Samuel began to nod off. Something flickered in the darkness ahead of them, several somethings, leaping across the road like they were avoiding the headlights, and Dr. Nick braked the van hard, muttering under his breath. "Owww," Mrs. Pocock complained as Samuel grabbed his sore leg to hold it steady, and panic poured into his veins. Shapes jumped in and out of the lights, as big as large dogs, pitch black with red eyes reflecting in the headlights. Samuel crossed himself reflexively as Dr. Nick brought the van to a skittering halt. "La Madre de Dios," Samuel said, voice shaking, and he would have given anything to still be wearing the cross his mother had given him years ago. "Who are they?" "What?" Dr. Nick said. "What are they? They're devils." He leant across the cab of the van and rummaged around in the glove box and picked out a painted stone. "Stay in the van," he said. "Devils!" Mrs. Pocock wailed, and she began to bang her hands against the side of the van.

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The things, the devils, seemed to have noticed them; they were milling around in the headlights, staring up at Samuel, pink tongues hanging out, red jaws and white teeth gleaming. A little one jumped up, at the windscreen, snarling and hissing, clinging onto the vehicle with vicious claws, and Samuel was so scared that getting out of the van was an impossibility even without a broken leg. "Bugger," Dr. Nick said, and he undid his seat belt and opened the car door. Samuel watched, stunned, as Dr. Nick walked out into the crowd of those... things and waved the painted rock around. The things, the devils, scattered, scampering off into the darkness, even the one that had been eyeing Samuel through the windscreen. "What?" was all Samuel could make himself say over the banging from the back of the van, and Dr. Nick climbed back into the driver's seat and leaned over the back. "It's all right, Mrs. Pocock," he said reassuringly. "They're all gone, you're quite safe." He sat back down and did his seatbelt back up, and Samuel repeated, "What? What were they? Were they demons?" "Devils," Dr. Nick said. "And, just as a courtesy while you're on Noongar land, don't make the sign of the cross on your body. It's exceedingly bad manners." Samuel blinked, and the van lurched forward once again, shaking his bones. "The stone?" he said. "Was that magic?" 25


Dr. Nick shook his head. "Not really. It's a travel stone, given to me by the Feathermen to guarantee me and my vehicle safe passage through their land. The devils should have respected it. I shouldn't have had to get out and tell them to move." Second gear, third gear, grind and crunch each time. "Feathermen?" Samuel finally said. "Who are they? More creatures?" "Feathermen are the clever men, the leaders, of the Noongars. They're people." The rain had eased up a little and the van picked up speed in the darkness, rattling and bouncing over the rough road, until Samuel was sure he could feel the broken bits of his thigh bone grinding together. He was tired, his leg was aching, and the old woman in the back of the ambulance was talking to herself quietly. There were... things... moving around in the darkness, Samuel was sure, half-seen shapes slipping behind half-seen trees. It wasn't until a kangaroo bounced across the road in the headlights that Samuel realized that he wasn't seeing demons or ghosts, but ordinary animals, and the surges of panic began to ease. It was a comforting thought, even if the kangaroo did seem to be about four times larger than he expected, coming right up level with the top of the van. It wouldn't be good to hit one of them, they must weigh as much as a human. It was late when Dr. Nick shook Samuel's arm to wake him up, and Samuel couldn't quite believe he'd fallen asleep, but maybe he'd dreamt the devils, maybe he'd hallucinated them. 26


Dr. Nick helped Samuel out of the van and walked slowly beside him, and Samuel leaned heavily on his crutches in the mud. Someone was standing in the doorway of a house he could just see through the rain, lantern in their hands, and it looked like he'd found somewhere to stay. **** Samuel woke in the damp cold, but it was too still and too quiet to be the freighter. Birds were calling, a dog barked in the distance, and he remembered he was on a farm. He'd gone to sleep with his clothes on, so once he located his crutches in the dark room and worked out how to lever himself upright, he was free to hobble to the bathroom. Dr. Nick had shown him the piss bucket the night before, and Samuel was glad that was all he needed because rain was drumming steadily on the metal roof and the actual toilet was across a garden from the house. Neither of the light switches he tried worked, just clicking backward and forward, but a faint light shone from another room, the kind of golden glow that meant a fire. A young man looked up and nodded as Samuel entered the room. The stranger was dressed in muddy and tattered clothes, sat at a bare table in what must be the kitchen with a plate of bread in front of him. Samuel vaguely remembered meeting him the night before while he was mostly asleep. Josh, that was his name. "Morning," Josh said. "Want some bread and jam? The jam is excellent. I've got the kettle on, too." 27


"Please," Samuel said, as he leaned his crutches against the table and lowered himself into a chair. Light came in through the window now, faint and pale, so it wasn't the middle of the night as Samuel had thought. It showed an austere room, with clothes propped on racks in front of the fire and shelves full of jars, with sacks of dried goods along the wall behind Samuel. He could smell something weird, over the obvious scent of the bread and jam, steaming clothes, and the wood fire. It smelled fatty, and not very pleasant. Josh bit into his slab of bread and jam and lifted an eyebrow. "What's that smell?" Samuel asked. Josh sniffed, then lifted his hand across the table to hold it closer to Samuel. "That?" Josh asked, and Samuel nodded and wrinkled his nose involuntarily. It smelled like an animal had died on Josh's hand. "Lanolin," Josh said. "If you put it on your hands, it stops them from cracking in the cold. There's a tub of it by the backdoor, next to the wash trough there. You'll need it if you're going to help out here." "What is it?" Samuel asked, finding himself watching Josh's hands carefully while he cut a slab of bread then pushed it across the table to Samuel. "Wool fat," Josh said, as though that answered everything. "Where you from?" "Guyana," Samuel said, and Josh looked at him blankly. "South America, next to Brazil." "Guess you don't have sheep there," Josh said. "I've never met someone from South America before. What's it like?" 28


Samuel glanced out of the window to where the grey outline of trees was visible through the rain. "Warm," he said. "How come your lights don't work?" "No electricity here," Josh said. "There used to be, but it stopped working years ago. Something about the solar array, I think. I was just a kid at the time, so I don't remember." "I can fix arrays," Samuel said. "Show me where the panels are, and the batteries, and I'll see if I can get the system going again." Josh nodded and rubbed a hand over his cropped dark hair, then picked up his slab of bread. "Sure," he said, and he waited while Samuel found his crutches and pushed himself upright. The wooden boards were cold and gritty under Samuel's bare feet, and when Josh pushed the screen door open and held it for Samuel, a black and white dog lifted his nose hopefully. "That's Harold," Josh said. "Don't let him in the house. All the panels are there, on the shed roof," he said, and he pointed out through the rain at an outbuilding the size of the house. "Don't know where the batteries are, but Dad will know when he comes in from seeding. He's on the tractor for the morning, giving me a break, since I worked all night." Samuel looked at Josh with new respect, and he began to suspect that Josh wasn't disinterested or stupid, just exhausted. The area at the back of the house, up to the wire fence that Samuel could see, was vegetables; at least the plants he could recognize were. He could see trees, too, around the 29


edge of the garden, and sheep just visible through the rain on the other side of the fence. The ground smelled different, not rich and loamy like he was used to, but sharp and slippery, and the soil between the plants was made up of wet red gravel. Josh yawned, covering his mouth full of half-eaten bread with his hand, and movement across the garden, behind the small building that was the toilet, caught Samuel's eye. Something was lumbering across the paddock, something big and grey, and it seemed to be pausing to eat the pasture intermittently. "What's that?" Samuel asked. "That thing?" Josh yawned again, and said indistinctly, "Harold, go way back." The black and white dog lurched off his blankets and down the steps to the garden, barreling through the rain with his nose down, tail held out long behind, and Samuel could hear him growling over the constant rain. The dog disappeared through the strands of wire, and barked once, loudly. The thing lumbered closer, and Samuel could see it was a hulking huge kangaroo, the size of a horse, loping slowly through the rain. The sky was lighter, possibly as light as it was going to get, and when Harold appeared again, circling around the back of the kangaroo, Samuel revised his estimate of the kangaroo's size upwards. It was huge, compared to the dog. Samuel could feel a thud at each step it took, wet and dull, and Josh bent down and picked a lump of dirt off the grid for 30


boot scraping on the top step, then tossed the clod hard in the direction on the kangaroo. The clod fell short, disappearing among the plants in the garden, but the kangaroo lifted its head and peered at the pair of them. Josh said, "Procoptodon," under his breath, then whistled sharply, twice, and Harold barked loudly and kept barking. The kangaroo picked up the speed of its loping, a steady thud-thud, with a louder thud as it cleared the wire fence into the next paddock. Josh whistled, long and steady, and Harold barked and bounded back through the wire fence. "That was a procoptodon," Josh said. "If you see one heading for the veggies, make sure you yell out and wake me up, or we'll lose the whole lot." Harold trotted through the plants and up the steps and presented himself in front of Josh for a pat. "Good boy," Josh said in a gentle voice. "Good dog." "I didn't know kangaroos got that big," Samuel said, watching the procoptodon cross the next paddock and disappear into the rain and trees. "They don't," Josh said. "Not exactly. Procoptodons aren't kangaroos, not really. They're kind of like land spirits or something. I don't understand exactly, but Dad knows these things. You can ask him." Any hope of dismissing the previous night's experience with the devils was washing away in the rain, dripping off the edge of the verandah, diluted by the huge kangaroo that wasn't really a kangaroo. "What are devils?" Samuel asked. "Do you know?" 31


Josh shrugged, and put the last bit of his bread into his mouth. "Kinda," he said indistinctly, then he swallowed. "There used to be small animals called Tasmanian Devils. What you saw was kind of the spirit form of them, or something. They won't really hurt you, at least not much. Guess you saw some on the drive here, right?" Samuel nodded, and said, "Yes. Your father made them go away with a rock." It sounded ridiculous to him now, saying that on a wet morning, but the cold was seeping into his bones and his leg hurt, and he really didn't want to see another impossible thing right then. "Can we sit down?" The kitchen was still dark, but Samuel sat down at the table gratefully anyway. Josh fiddled around with the fire and then moved a kettle over onto the open top, where it promptly spat and hissed. "Want some tea?" Josh asked, and when Samuel nodded, he spooned coarse brown powder into a pot, then carried the pot over to the stove. When he brought the steaming pot back and put two mugs on the scarred and scuffed table, Samuel sniffed experimentally, trying to get past the smell of the wool fat again. It smelled earthy, and burned, and he scrunched up his nose. "What kind of tea is this? I don't recognize the smell." "Chicory," Josh said. "I think that technically it's closer to coffee, and Dad says it is sacrilegious to associate the word 'coffee' with this, so we call it tea." He smiled, a sudden flash of normality in a bizarre world. "Guess if you're from South America, you get to drink coffee all the time." 32


Samuel nodded, and watched Josh pour the brown liquid into the mugs, and took the mug that Josh pushed across the table to him. He sipped the liquid, bitter and smoky, and said, "I think your father is onto something. Whatever this is, it's not coffee." Josh nodded. "I've only had a coffee a few times, when we take the wool clip to Albany. There's a cafe there, and it has just the most amazing food, and different types of coffee, with milk and sugar." Sugar Samuel could understand, but the lack of milk puzzled him. "Why don't you keep cows?" he asked. "Or is this the wrong kind of land?" "No refrigeration," Josh said. "We can't store the meat or the milk, so there's no point. We tried milking the sheep, but unless we hand-reared them, it just isn't worth the effort of catching the bloody things. And hand-rearing sheep for a few cups of milk just doesn't make sense. Sometimes, if a patient has no scrip but has killed a cow, we'll get some of the meat instead, and that's really good." Samuel was quiet, and the fire crackled and the rain kept drumming overhead. Josh pushed his chair back from the table and said, "I'm going to go sleep for a while. Harold will bark like crazy if there's trouble. Just make sure you keep adding wood to the fire, or the washing will never dry and you'll freeze." He disappeared off into the rest of the house, and Samuel stared into his mug, watching the motes float around the surface. He was grossly under-prepared for this. Why had no one told him about things? Why did no one know about giant 33


kangaroos and devils? Or exactly how primitive things were? How was he ever going to manage to travel four hundred kilometers by himself, especially now he'd broken a leg? The house settled into relative silence. The fire creaked and clicked, the entire house seemed to moan faintly, wood settling against wood, and the rain drummed on. Samuel was used to rain; Guyana treated itself to not one, but two, rainy seasons, but the sound of the water hitting metal was different, and it was just plain cold here. He put extra wood on the fire and nudged one of the racks of clothes over so he could sit beside the fire, and that helped. After a trip across the sodden garden, with Harold joining him for security, and a visit to the appallingly primitive toilet, Samuel had a look around the house as quietly as he could. Closed doors led off the hall, and he left them, but the room at the end had its door ajar, so he felt it was reasonable to go in. It looked like it was a library or study, with shelves on every wall stacked with a chaotic collection of books. The desk was covered in battered medical texts, some of them open, others festooned with bookmarks, and Samuel left them alone. He also left alone the stacks and shelves of notebooks of all sizes that were filled with someone's close scrawl. He found books there that were useful, on the local fauna and farming, all dating from before the Collapse, and he took two of them and tucked them inside his shirt and hobbled his way back to the fire. He needed information. 34


He was reading like that, hunched up close to the stove, broken leg propped on another chair to stop his toes from swelling, immersed in the complexities of marsupial anatomy, when Nick trudged wearily in from the rain. Nick was drenched, completely sodden, and Samuel kept his eyes down while Nick peeled off layer after layer of clothes. "Josh asleep?" he asked Samuel, moving one of the racks of clothes completely away and pulling up another chair, then sitting on it wearing only his underclothes, and Samuel tore his eyes away from the ugly scars snaking across Nick's chest. Samuel nodded. "He went to bed hours ago, just after it got light." "Have you been all right by yourself?" Nick asked. "Yes," Samuel said, closing the book and putting it aside. "I found some books, but they don't answer the questions I have." "My questions first," Nick said. "How is the feeling in your foot? Pain in your leg?" His hands, icy cold, prodded Samuel's toes where his foot rested on the wooden chair. "Foot feels good," Samuel said. "Cold, but not numb or tingly. And my leg aches, especially if I walk on it, but it's much better than it was when I first broke it." "Good," Nick said. "Now, what are your questions?" "What's a procoptodon? Why are the... things like that here? Where did they come from? How long until my leg's better and I can walk?" Samuel asked in quick succession. 35


Nick chuckled. "All good questions, some of which I might know the answers to. A procoptodon is an Ancestor spirit of the Noongars. Thirty odd years ago, about the time of the Collapse, all the spirits that belonged to the land came back. I don't know why, or how, just that it happened, and that with creatures like procoptodons and thylacines wandering the land, there was no doubt about whose land it was anymore. I've heard of Amerindian Ghost Dances, so perhaps the Noongars and Kooris and Yamaji also did Ghost Dances. It's not something they talk about, but it happened all over Australia at the same time." "Have you asked?" Samuel said. "Have you asked the Feathermen?" Nick stared at Samuel, water dripping into his eyes from his hair, skin ruddy and worn from the sun, stretched over ribs and solid muscle, with two ridges of scarring running below each of his collarbones, mat of hair also wet; he laughed, showing worn and marked teeth and a red mouth. "No," he said, still chortling to himself. "Can't say I've asked them. Why don't you? I'm sure that I'll be taking you out to the camp, since you can fix things. Nothing works out there, so there'll be plenty for you to do. And the cast is on for another six weeks, so don't plan to do very much until then." It was a little unsettling, the way things for him to fix were piling up, but he guessed in a community where even the doctor had only bread and sacks of wheat in his kitchen, there were no passengers, even if he had a broken leg. 36


"Josh showed me the solar array," Samuel said. "But he didn't know where the batteries were." Nick looked thoughtful for a while, and water pooled around him slowly on the bare boards. "Not in the shed. I moved them, years ago, so we could fit another shearing stand in. They're on the front verandah here, covered in canvas. No idea what sort of state they're in." He smiled damply at Samuel. "We can check them out, later on. Right now I need to wake Josh up, get some dry clothes on, then head into Jerramungup to the clinic. You can come along, have a look at the town." The drive to the town was quick and Samuel didn't spot any procoptodons, or anything else weird. The town wasn't a town, at least not compared to Georgetown, where he had gone to university. Jerramungup had a wide street, with three or four shops on it; a bakery, a grocers, a farm equipment supplier. A derelict building which obviously used to be a police station was opposite a school with children playing in the grounds and a roof covered in solar panels. The rest of the street was lined with houses, all rundown and shabby and small, surrounded by vegetable gardens. The gutters of the street were full, and didn't seem to be draining anywhere; just gathering more and more water, all stained red by the pervasive red soil. No one was in sight, apart from the children at the school. The place looked deserted, but Nick parked outside one of the houses and held first the van door, then the gate, open for Samuel. 37


Inside the place was gloomy and cold, and the tap tap of Samuel's crutches echoed as he followed Nick into what had previously been a kitchen. "I'll get the fire going," Nick said, "then I'll crank up the short wave radio." Disbelief flooded Samuel, and relief. There was a short wave radio! In the middle of nowhere, with no electricity and monsters wandering the streets, there was a short wave radio? Nick was kneeling in front of the stove, pushing kindling in, so he couldn't have seen Samuel's face, but he must have heard Samuel's intake of breath because he said, "Albany relays BBC World out here, so you can listen if you'd like, see if there's any news of your home." A bang sounded on the front door, and Nick led in a woman dripping blood steadily from a cut hand. "Come on through, Sue, let's get some stitches in that," he said, and the door to another room closed. Samuel gave the crank handle of the radio another couple of turns and looked at the list of frequencies scrawled on paper stuck to the top of the radio. He found one for the Albany relay station, so he carefully noted the frequency the radio was on and reset it. "Hello, Albany relay station," Samuel said into the microphone, trying to keep his voice low so Nick wouldn't hear him. "This is Albany, over," a crackly voice said over the speaker. He gave the frequency for the Guyanan relay station, and listened to the crackle and hiss of relay stations around the 38


Southern Hemisphere, until someone said, "University of Guyana, over." "This is Samuel Narine, sending from Jerramungup, Australia, over," Samuel said. During the crackling pause, Samuel could hear the ghosts of other conversations; then, when the radio clicked back to receive, he could hear jubilant shouts in the background. The other person said, "Good to hear from you, Samuel. Report? Over." "I'm injured," Samuel said, and he could hear Nick's patient crying through the closed door. "Things are not good here, more complex that we thought, over." "How injured? Can you proceed? Over." The patient had stopped crying now, apart from occasional gulping sounds, and Samuel dropped his voice lower. "Broken femur," he said. "Will delay me by six weeks, out." He broke the connection and reset the frequency to the BBC World Service and was chewing a thumbnail and listening to a report on the latest virii outbreaks when Nick came back in. Patients arrived through the afternoon, all of them peering curiously at Samuel through the open door as they hobbled, limped and bled their way through to Nick's consulting room. Samuel began to realize that, despite what looked like appallingly primitive living conditions, the patients all seemed remarkably healthy. Everyone that came to the clinic was either injured, frail or pregnant; no one was malnourished or weak, even the elderly patients were full of attitude like Mrs. Pocock had been the day before. 39


When Nick put the kettle on, at the end of the afternoon, Samuel said, "Why are all your patients so well?" Nick chuckled and looked pleased when he glanced up from adding wood to the stove. "Because I'm a good doctor?" he suggested. Samuel could feel himself flushing, but hopefully he was dark-skinned enough it didn't show. "No one has any wasting illnesses," he said. "Even the elderly patients are strong and healthy. I'd expected that people would be ill." "Because we don't have much here?" Nick asked, sitting down at the table across from Samuel. "Yes. There should be people with the slow-decline virii," Samuel said. "But there aren't." Nick smiled, and while he looked worn out and thin, there was warmth there that made Samuel smile back. "Australia is a net exporter of food and vaccines, so people here are neither starving nor unvaccinated. The Noongar elders allow farming, and the transport of wool and grains over their land. There might not be much technology here, but it's a decent life." Samuel thought of Josh, working all night putting in seed, out in the dark and the rain, with monsters wandering the land. At his age, Samuel had started university, living a comfortable life in a comfortable city. "Things must have been bad here," he said, and Nick nodded. "We never got invaded, at least not effectively," Nick said. "But there were some bleak years, during the Collapse." 40


The rain seemed to have finally stopped when they clattered and rumbled in the van back to the farm, and in the last pale daylight, Nick, Samuel and a drenched and muddy Josh squelched their way around to what was presumably the front of the house. A column still, clean burnished copper and coiled piping over a charcoal burner, gleamed on the verandah. Nick said, "Works like a beauty. We run it a few times a year, take off the medicinal grade alcohol for me to use as a sterilizing solution, then drink the rest." Samuel stroked the column and nodded. It was good quality construction, copper piping right through, and he said, "Do you use activated carbon for the filter?" "When we can get it," Josh said, and he and Nick began tugging and lifting an oil cloth off the bulk that filled the front verandah. All sorts of equipment lurked under the canvas, discarded pumps and car motors, piled up perished tires, and a stack of batteries that made Samuel grin. "Yes!" he said. "Vanadium batteries!" Nick and Josh stared at him, and he pulled aside what looked like a bore pump to see the batteries more clearly. "This is good?" Josh asked. "It is!" Samuel said. "I thought you'd have a stack of old lead acid batteries, not something decent like these. Can you help me drag them out?" Samuel said, propping himself on one crutch and leaning closer to the metal boxes to examine the terminals. 41


"I wouldn't touch anything," Nick said, and when Samuel glanced up, Josh was pulling on a pair of heavy leather gloves. "Redback spiders and brown snakes," Josh said. "For a start." He moved the bore pump aside and began to drag the first battery out further, and Samuel couldn't believe how many spiders scurried around the verandah. "Are they poisonous?" Samuel asked, and both Josh and Nick laughed. "Redbacks kill. There used to be an antivenom, but I haven't seen any for a long time. As for brown snakes, you get bitten, it's all over," Nick said. "Avoid all snakes. Avoid anything with eight legs, including scorpions." "Anything else?" Samuel asked, swallowing hard and looking back down at the spiders still running around. "Emus; they're all feathers and killer instinct. Any kangaroo bigger than you. Magpies, since they'll swoop and attack anyone who comes near a nest," Nick said helpfully. "Devils have poisonous bites, as do many lizards, and you'd better assume any snake will kill you." "Never hit a wombat if you're driving," Josh added. "Especially if it's bigger than your car. There aren't many around here since they're only now moving back into the area, but even the little ones will roll your car." "At least you don't have any big cats, right?" Samuel said. No one had mentioned exactly how many poisonous things there were in Australia, and if he ever got home again, he was going to have loud things to say about this. 42


Nick and Josh both laughed. "What? Apart from the marsupial lions?" Josh said. "The whats?" Samuel asked. "And we forgot to mention the drop bears," Nick added, and Samuel was sure that he was being teased, and he laughed, too. "There," Josh said, dragging the last of the three batteries out. "So, you reckon they're good?" "The terminals are intact," Samuel said, poking at the nearest one with one crutch. "Saves me from having to install new ones. I'm guessing that the bypass diodes have blown, and that the insulation has all fried, but that's easy to fix." "Can you do this?" Nick asked, and he sounded awed. "Can you really make this work?" "Don't see why not," Samuel said. "Even if some of your panels are damaged, I should get a partial system running for you. It'll certainly be enough to run some pumps and give you electric light at night." There was silence, and when Samuel glanced at Nick, he was staring at Josh. "Um, thanks," Josh said, and his voice sounded thick. "When you said you could fix things, I thought you meant you could fiddle with motors. How did you learn to do this kind of thing?" Nick asked. "I'm an electrical engineer," Samuel said quietly. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Three The road out to the camp was rutted and pot-holed, and the van lurched and bounced its way slowly over the corrugations. They drove through farmland, all the paddocks either dark red with the freshly turned over soil or lush green with lupins or green clover pasture dotted with fat sheep. Then the farmland ended, and was replaced by an area of previously cleared land that had been abandoned, and the fences had either been dismantled or had fallen over. Kangaroos grazed the overgrown paddocks, and birds circled overhead. "Wedgetails," Nick said pointing up and through the windscreen at black dots in the overcast sky. One swooped down into a paddock, and flew up again with something furry in its claws. Samuel realized that wedgetails were eagles, and were a couple of meters across the wingspan, huge and black and beautiful. "Wow," Samuel said. They drove through a tall forest, where the trunks of the trees were pink and silver, the undergrowth was thick, and bird calls filled the air. Screeches and squawks, deep and high, filled the air, and the most gorgeous birds began to swoop down the road ahead of them, pink and grey birds that looked like parrots, larger black birds with a dash of red under their tails, little red and green birds that flitted in and out of the trees. 44


A big boulder beside the track loomed dark and wet out of the undergrowth, and Nick brought the van to a halt in front of the rock. "Get out," he said, and he opened his own door and came around to hand Samuel his crutches. Samuel expected someone to come out of the forest to greet them, but Nick merely leaned forward and pressed his hand against the boulder. A deep sound rumbled, like thunder heard from a long way off, and Nick looked around at Samuel and said, "You too." Samuel knew about rocks. The planet was just a rock with attitude and its own biosphere, and he knew that rocks were hard and rough and, well, rock-like. So this obviously wasn't a rock. It felt warm, and not just sunshine-warm, with a give in its surface, and he could just plain feel the life pulsing through it. This rock was undeniably alive. He must have stood there a while, hand on the rock, trying to rearrange his world view, because Nick put a hand on his arm and said, "Samuel? You right there?" Samuel lifted his hand off slowly and blinked at Nick. "Think so," he said, and he found that when he tried to hobble back to the car his leg didn't deep-down ache as much. They bounced and thudded in the van, down a hillside, where the trees grew taller and taller, different types now, not just the pink and silver trees of earlier. The track ended at a large clearing, where huts made of scrap metal huddled around a collection of ancient cars. Scores of little children 45


swarmed out of the bush, shouting and jumping up and down beside the van and big yellow dogs ran around, yipping sharply. The children were all colors, from darkest black to fairer than Nick, and they all had the same shining eyes and loud voices. When Nick got out of the van he bent down and scooped one of the smaller children into his arms. Adults began to appear, from down the hillside, carrying buckets on their shoulders, and from inside the huts, and the sun was shining even though it had been overcast and grey and damp when they'd left the farm. Samuel opened the van door and eased himself out, and the children around his side shouted with excitement, possibly at his crutches and leg cast. Nick's hand steadied him. When Samuel glanced up from the curious hands patting his leg cast and the cut-off leg of his trousers, an old man walked toward them, pushing his way through the gathering crowd. "Nick!" the old man said, toothless grin surrounded by a bushy white beard against dark skin. Nick and the man spoke for a while in a language that was rich and rumbling and reminded Samuel of nothing so much as the feel of the rock he had touched, then Nick said, "This is Samuel. He can fix things." "Samuel?" the old man said, and he smiled and held out his hand for Samuel to shake. "You're a black fellow? Where's your mob?" Samuel shook the man's gnarled hand. He felt like the rock, and Samuel had no idea what his question meant. 46


Nick said, "Samuel isn't a black fellow, he's a whiteman, and he's from a long way away, in South America. Samuel, this is Ed." Samuel found himself entranced by the man's face, it was like looking back through time. Ed had the solid brow ridge and forward slung jaw that spoke of an uninterrupted genetic descent from the earliest people, with an explosive shock of white hair against his black skin, and eyes that could see the end of eternity. "South America, unna?" Ed said, grinning. "You've seen the Amazon? The mighty river, eh?" "I have," Samuel said. "It was so big that I couldn't see the other side." "You come from the Amazon, and you fix our camp?" Ed said, nodding. "You, Jeeditch, and you, Benji, help Samuel." Nick opened the back of the van and took out the box of tools that Samuel had scrounged from the sheds at the farm, an eclectic collection of woodworking equipment, fence wire cutters, and even, thankfully, an old-fashioned soldering iron that Samuel would be able to heat up in a fire if he needed it. Two of the larger children peeled away from the crowd and took the box, and Nick picked up the carry bag of medical supplies from the van. "What should I fix first?" Samuel asked, looking at the small water tank on a stand and the solar panels that covered it. "Does the water pump work?" "Water first, then have a look at the generator," Nick said, and he walked over to stand beside a heavily pregnant woman and feel her belly. 47


Climbing the water tower to check the photovoltaic panels, even just the couple of meters of rusted ladder, wasn't an option, so Samuel settled for sitting inelegantly on the red gravel at the base, after checking for snakes, and prizing the top off the bore cover, all while dozens of children watched in awe. He could see spiders down there, in the bore casing; redbacks and plain black spiders, big ones, little ones. Lizards scurried around, and one of the dogs couldn't resist the temptation and scrambled over Samuel in an attempt to catch one of the lizards. The lizard hissed and spat, startling the dog into jumping backwards, and the inside of the lizard's mouth was bright blue. The kids swatted and splatted the spiders, clearing them away from the bore pump, while Samuel pulled on a pair of gloves that Josh had found for him and began to move the dried leaves and debris away from the pump. It was actually pleasant, sitting in the weak winter sunlight, listening to the children chatter amongst themselves in their own language, and Samuel's focus narrowed down to the task at hand; to disconnecting the pump, undoing rusted solid bolts, then scraping away the perished gaskets. He'd been doing this kind of thing all his life; taking to pieces broken machinery from before the Collapse, finding out how it worked and how to fix it, and this was no different. He had no spare parts here, and no equipment, but that didn't mean he couldn't improvise. 48


He interrupted the chatter to ask the biggest boy, Jeeditch, "Do you have an old tire? Or a piece of fibreboard, like fences used to be made out of?" Jeeditch scampered off, and Samuel levered the strainer compartment lid off. The strainer compartment was full of gravel, dried on sediment and slurry, baked in long ago no doubt, and Samuel chipped it out with a hammer and screwdriver, then cut new gaskets out of the worn out and perished car tire that the kids brought him. Once that was bolted back together again, he moved onto the controller unit. It was burned out, as far as he could tell, so he just disconnected it, peeled back the ancient insulation from the wires and reconnected the drive unit for the pump directly to the photovoltaic circuit. Whirring and grinding noises came almost immediately from the barrel of the bore unit, and then above him the distinctive gurgling of water hitting the dry tank. He bolted the cover back onto the bore unit, tossed his tools back into the box, then used his hands on the tank stand to pull himself back upright. The drain spigot on the side of the tank was out of his reach, so he gave Jeeditch a hammer and said, "See that valve? Think you can climb up there and hit it hard, so the water comes out?" It took two of the kids to undo the spigot, with a fair bit of hammering, and by the time the valve opened, a crowd had gathered. Water, red and muddy and sandy, but undeniably water, splashed out of the valve and onto the ground, and Samuel 49


could hear the pump picking up speed, whirring away. It seemed that while he'd done some exciting things in his time, this might be the best ever. **** Samuel sat awkwardly on the long grass beside the generator, surrounded by bits of generator motor and too many small children, so Nick shooed the smaller and more inquisitive of the children away and squatted down opposite Samuel. "How's it going?" he asked, and Samuel looked up at him, eyes gleaming. "You can't run a diesel generator motor on linseed oil," he said, as if he was stating the obvious. "It cokes up the injectors." "Oh?" was all Nick could think of saying. "Is that bad?" "It's catastrophic," Samuel said, and he yanked hard at the generator motor and a bit of it come off in his hands. "But I'll take it back to the farm and have a go at cleaning it up and getting it running." He handed the part up to Nick and then used the side of the humpy that sheltered the generator to pull himself upright. Once he was steady on his crutches, Nick said, "You ready to go? I'd like to be home before dark, since Josh has been seeding all day, and he probably needs a break for a few hours." Across the camp, in the stream of water that was gushing out of the tank and creating a rivulet down the hillside, kids 50


splashed and shouted while an adult poured buckets of water over them, also laughing. "I've told Ed not to let anyone drink the water or turn the spigot off until tomorrow. Then there'll be water available in the camp for the first time in years," Nick said. "Is it safe to drink?" Samuel asked as he pointed at tools for Benji to put back in the tool box. "Definitely not," Nick said. "But neither is the creek water they've been drinking, so it probably doesn't matter. Either someone invents, builds and installs a water purification system here, or the community builds real housing with rain water catchment tanks. Neither is going to happen." Samuel had a faraway look in his eyes, and Nick said, "Samuel?" "Just thinking," Samuel said. "Wondering how hot I could get a solar magnifier to run." It was raining again, thankfully, when the van pulled up outside the house fence. Nick left Samuel stoking up the stove and started on his chores. Harold wasn't sitting on the verandah, so he must be out riding the tractor with Josh, keeping him company, but Nick filled the dog's water and food bowls ready for him. He fed the chickens and geese and collected the few eggs that had been laid during the day. When he took the eggs inside, Samuel had the fire roaring, so Nick tossed the leg of hogget he'd been given as payment for Sue's sutures in a pan and shoved it in the oven. Samuel followed him back out to the garden, and sat on the verandah out of the rain while Nick dug potatoes for the 51


night's meal, then found some silverbeet and cabbage to go with them. Nick checked his herb patch next, before the light was completely gone. He grew the essentials; feverfew, poppies, marijuana, comfrey, rue; mostly as insurance against a deterioration in the weather, the roads, or the economy cutting off his supply of pharmaceutical drugs from Albany. He probably had the most wasted snails in the district. Comfrey was rioting, the poppies were dead winter stalks. The marijuana was lagging behind too, not thriving in the cold. It would die off completely with the first frost. The feverfew was robust, and would keep going strong. It wasn't completely dark, so Nick swung the axe a few times, splitting mallee roots from the mountain beside the shed. It was one of the problems with farming mallee country, the damned roots, but at least they never had to go looking for firewood. Samuel was back inside, candles lit in the kitchen, when Nick took the veggies inside, and he had the bits from the generator spread out on the hearth. Nick left him there, muttering under his breath at the blackened bits he was tinkering with. Nick took one of the candles and went through the dark house to his study. He kept detailed notes of everything, trying to make sure that none of the putative knowledge he had was lost forever as the memories of before the Collapse faded in the community, and he wanted to write about the stranger that was with them now. 52


He heard Josh come in, stomping mud from his feet on the verandah, talking to Harold, then the plumbing in the house thudded and gurgled as Josh ran himself a bath, so it was time to put the potatoes on to boil. Samuel was still sitting in front of the stove, candle beside him, plastered leg stretched out across the floor, and he didn't look up from his work when Nick took the lid off one side of the stove and put a pan of water on to boil. Josh was singing in the bath, no doubt sloshing water everywhere, too. Nick rinsed the dirt off the potatoes, and the rain drummed against the roof. He'd been happier, certainly, back when his wife, Fineen, had been alive, but he felt a kind of happiness in this, in having enough food, knowing that a crop was going in, and that maybe things would get easier, if it just kept on raining. Josh came into the kitchen, damp from his bath, grinning cheerfully. "Cold front's coming through," he said. "Can't seed tonight." "Sheep going to be all right?" Nick asked. "I moved the second mob up to the Tree Paddock. There's not much feed there, not yet, but they'll have some shelter under the gums." Josh crouched down beside the stove in the warmth and peered at Samuel's repairs. "What's that?" "It's the injector from the generator at the camp," Samuel said. "It's all coked up, so I'm cleaning it up." Josh said, "You can't fix injectors, I know that. They're a sealed unit, you can't even get into them." 53


"Can if you hit them hard enough," Samuel said, and he held up a chunk of metal. "See?" Nick left them peering at the generator parts and went back to his study. **** The hail woke Nick, deep in the night, and he lay for a while, content to be warm in his bed while the ice crashed against the tin roof until, during a lull, he caught the sound of Samuel's bed squeaking. Samuel probably wasn't quite as complacent about the pounding the house was taking. He pulled a sweater on over his underwear and went and tapped on Samuel's door, and Samuel called out, "Come in." Just enough light crept in around the curtains for Nick to make out that Samuel was sitting up in bed, a blanket pulled around his shoulder as the storm picked up strength again, and the pounding on the roof resumed. Nick knew all about how people smelled, the sting of fear, the sweat of pain, and Samuel was scared, so Nick sat down on the edge of his bed and wrapped his arms around Samuel. The storm picked up, the wind rattled the window panes, and it was cold until Samuel wrapped the blanket around Nick's shoulders as well as his own. They embraced, while the storm raged around the house, and Nick couldn't remember the last time he'd held someone, other than Josh, who wasn't a patient. He was lonely, deep in his bones lonely, and his honesty required that he admit to himself that he was there because of his own needs as well as Samuel's fear. 54


Samuel felt good to hold, his head settling against Nick's shoulder, one hand curling around Nick's arm through his sweater, and when Samuel yawned sleepily, Nick settled them both back on the bed. Samuel lifted the blankets up and when Nick slid his legs in beside Samuel's it felt blissfully warm. The bulk of Samuel's cast was solid against Nick's hip, and it was no real surprise when Samuel's mouth found his in the dark. It was tentative, just a simple brush of lips against his own, and Samuel might have sighed but Nick couldn't hear him over the storm. They stayed like that, then Samuel's hand stroked his cheek, slid around his neck, encouraging him, and Nick kissed him. He'd never kissed another man before, and Samuel's short beard felt rough against Nick's face, but nothing seemed strange or unfamiliar about it. They were just mammals, and on a cold stormy night, when a cold front charged up from the Antarctic, this was what mammals needed. When Samuel's tongue pressed against Nick's mouth, looking for admission, strangeness overwhelmed Nick temporarily, but they were both consenting adults, and there was no reason why Nick shouldn't let this happen between them. He could feel Samuel breathing hard, hand threaded into Nick's hair, holding their mouths together, and he hadn't known Samuel had wanted this, hadn't known anything, not until Samuel's tongue had slid into his mouth. 55


It was the desire he felt that surprised him the most, the fact that his body wanted this, wanted Samuel, and it must have been happening without him noticing, but now he was aching. When Nick lifted his mouth, his lips were tingling and buzzing, and he could still taste Samuel, lingering. Samuel said, "I think you should go." "Why?" Nick asked, and he wanted to stay, wanted to keep kissing Samuel. Samuel's hand intertwined with his, long lean fingers around his own. Samuel guided Nick's hand to the front of his underwear, and Nick had never touched another man's erection before. "Oh," Nick whispered, jerking his hand back quickly. If he stayed... He didn't think he could cope with that just yet. Nick's bed was cold when he slid back into it, and the storm sounded like it was easing, with rain replacing the hail stones, and the wind dropping. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Four The world was quiet when Samuel woke, cold and quiet, and his nose hurt when he poked it out from under the huddle of his blankets. It was definitely freezing cold. He pulled on clothes quickly, putting both of his warmest windbreakers on, and two pairs of socks as well, then propped himself up on his crutches. After pissing and washing his hands in freezing water, he went into the kitchen. It was warmer there, with a fire roaring in the stove and the kettle on the hub, steaming faintly, but it was the sight out of the kitchen windows that he couldn't quite believe and that made him hobble to the back door as fast as he could. For as far as he could see, everything was blanketed in white. It wasn't snow, at least not when he looked down at the ground below the verandah. A thick layer of hail stones ranging in size from tiny to fist-sized, lay at least ten centimeters deep on the ground, and covered everything, including tree branches. It was freezing cold outside, even compared to his bedroom, and he shivered inside his layers of clothes. Across the top paddocks he could make out figures moving around and hear the faint shouts and whistles of commands to Harold. Sheep milled around, and the tractor chugged into sight, pulling a flat bed trailer. When the tractor stopped, a figure clambered off the trailer and began to lift sheep onto it. 57


The rain spat still, almost ice rain, and the wind had dropped. Samuel's face stung from the cold, but it was so eerily beautiful that he couldn't make himself go back inside. He felt unsettled, maybe even uneasy, about what had happened during the night. It had been unexpected, maybe impossible, and he'd been so hungry... The memory made him close his eyes briefly, sense echoes stirred in him, the feel of Nick's hands, so strong and certain, the way they'd kissed. It was such a simple thing, and if Samuel hadn't suspected that Nick was floundering, he would have taken it further, found some release and comfort, maybe even begun a set of interdependency exchanges that would build up the kind of mutual responsibility that would lead Nick to offer to come with him to Perth, but that would have been wrong, dishonest even. The tractor struggled up the nearest paddock, wheels spinning a little in the icy mud, and Samuel could make out Josh on the back, holding onto sheep, and he could hear the bleating now, too. Harold came barreling up to the house, through the wire fence around the garden, and shivered up the steps to collapse down on his blankets. Samuel found a chair on the verandah, cracked seat and uncertain legs, but still good enough for Samuel to pull over beside Harold the Dog and sit on. He pulled one of Harold's blankets over him, and Harold was pathetically grateful when Samuel wrapped one of his hands around Harold's nose to warm it up. 58


Footsteps crunched on the hail, and when Samuel looked up, Nick banged his boots against the bottom step to dislodge the ice. "I didn't want to take him inside," Samuel said. "Since you'd said not to." "Too right," Nick said, starting to unwind the scarf that partly covered his face, revealing skin blotchy from the cold. "He's not even remotely housebroken. I've come to get coals for the stove in the shearing shed, and he can go down there and warm up." Nick left his waterproof coat hanging on the verandah, yanked his boots off and padded indoors, reappearing a moment later with the ash bucket full of coals and cinders from the kitchen stove. He stepped back into his boots, looked at Samuel briefly, as if he wanted to say something, then trudged off across the garden and through the gate to the sheds, pausing only to whistle for Harold. On a cold day, with hail thick on the ground, Samuel would have thought they'd be inside for the day, but apparently that wasn't the plan. "Football," Josh said, when he appeared wearing shorts and a striped sweater, as though that explained everything. "It's Saturday," Nick added. Samuel had lost track of the days of the week somewhere along the line. Days of the week hadn't mattered on the freighter, or in hospital, and he'd thought they wouldn't matter on the farm either, but apparently they did.

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"I'm a ruck," Josh said, as he began to cut slabs of meat off the cold roast. "And hail never stopped the country league before. Is there any other bread, Dad?" Nick shook his head. "We'll get some from the bakery, just cut the meat to go in it." Samuel watched the two of them bustle around the kitchen, putting meat and plates and a knife into a box, along with cups from the cupboard. An unlabeled bottle went in the box, too, and when Samuel took the top off and sniffed, it smelled like the pure alcohol he'd been using to clean the diesel injectors with, only rougher. He put the bottle back in the box. If he was going to run around a paddock in the ice, he'd want some alcohol, too. They jostled and bounced painfully slowly into town on the icy track, and Samuel would have been freezing if it wasn't for the layers of borrowed clothes he had on: heavy trousers, far too large, held up with string; a sweater that reeked of wool fat, obviously handmade, that came down to his knees and over his hands; and a waterproof coat, with scarf and knitted woolen hat over the top. At least it had stopped drizzling rain. A line of cars, trucks and tractors was parked down one side of the school, and horses huddled for shelter under one of the school verandahs. All of the horses and some of the vehicles had blankets over them. There seemed to be hundreds of people there, crowding around the school grounds, chatting and shouting, and more vehicles arrived every moment, including a convoy of decrepit 60


sedans that Samuel recognized from the camp the day before. Josh parked the van outside the clinic, and Nick slid the back door of the van open. He appeared at Samuel's door and helped him out of the van safely. Josh grinned and slammed the driver's door shut, then bolted off toward the school grounds, his boots with spikes digging successfully into the slippery, partly-frozen mud. Samuel was far more careful, and with Nick beside him, holding the box of food with his medical bag balanced on top, Samuel hobbled slowly on his crutches toward the crowd. People called out greetings to Nick as they progressed, and Samuel was acutely aware that they were staring at him, too. He guessed that strangers weren't a common sight. A sudden crowd of Noongar children appeared around them, shouting and squealing, trying to climb into Nick's arms, hurtling around, all wearing the same kind of strange assortment of clothes that Samuel was, only most of the bigger kids seemed to have skin cloaks over the top of their hand-me-down sweaters. Nick said, "Up there, Samuel, where you can sit down properly." Nick scooped up a child, and Samuel made his way through the press of people, all gossiping and chatting and gazing, Nick right behind him. He was getting good at going up steps on crutches, but it was still a relief to sit down on the clear space of bench, beside the hugely pregnant woman from the camp. One of the littler kids, face shiny with a runny nose, scrambled up into Samuel's lap, and Ed walked up to Samuel 61


slowly and took his hand. "You're a good man," Ed said, pumping Samuel's hand. "The water is clean. A clever man, like Dr. Nick." "It won't run unless the sun shines," Samuel said, and he was relieved when the pregnant woman leaned across and wiped the nose of the child he was holding. Nick put the box of food down beside Samuel's feet and handed the child that was in his other arm to one of the women, then removed another child from his back. "Good day, Dr. Nick," Ed said, shaking Nick's hand once it was free. "Your friend Samuel is clever." Nick smiled at Samuel, and Samuel's belly flipped a little. "He was scared of the storm last night," Nick said. "Don't think South America has such big storms." "We thought, 'Oh, now Girdagan will have her baby, the storm will make it come,' but it didn't," Ed said. "Maybe tonight, eh, Girdagan?" "Maybe, Ed," Girdagan said, rubbing her belly through her layers of clothing. "Maybe tonight Dr. Nick will come to the camp for the baby." Samuel listened to more talk, most of which made no real sense. Nick seemed to be running an informal clinic, checking people's seeding injuries, looking at their teeth and ears, listening with his stethoscope to children's chests, until a bell rang, and men in striped sweaters ran onto the school grounds, jumping on the mostly-melted hail, shouting and waving. A woman in a white coat ran onto the grounds carrying a ball, and bounced it hard in the middle of the grassed area, 62


and Samuel almost fell off the bench in appalled surprise when play began. The oval ball had surprised him, but he guessed they played with whatever ball they could find, but this was not football as he knew it! The players threw themselves at each other, scrambling up each other's backs to catch the ball, tossing each other out of the way. He saw no delicate footwork, no considered tactics, no long dribbles and graceful kicks; this was war with a ball in the middle of it. The crowd erupted, shouting and cheering, when a Noongar man in the same color sweater as Josh scrambled over a pack of people to catch the ball. The umpire blew her whistle and pointed, all the players backed off, and the player kicked the ball hard at the posts at one end of the ground. The ball soared an impossible height off the ground, tumbling through the air, and it seemed everyone except himself and Girdagan leapt to their feet shouting. The ball flew between the posts, the umpire blew her whistle again, and a kid waved two flags elegantly in the air between the posts. "That's Talgerit," Girdagan said, leaning close to Samuel so he could hear her. "He's my brother. He's a good man. Have you got a sister?" The umpire caught the ball when the kid with the flags kicked it to her, and trotted out into the middle of the grounds again, and Samuel said, "No sister, sorry." Samuel watched a flurry of hugging amongst the players, which seemed to be independent of the color of sweater they 63


wore, and the umpire blew her whistle and bounced the ball again. That was how the game went: whistle, bounce, a minute or two of play, a goal, much shouting, and it wasn't until Samuel spotted the kids clambering around the scoreboard, moving numbers around, that it occurred to him to ask Girdagan, "Who are Jerramungup playing?" "Ongerup," Girdagan said. "Good fellows, Ongerup. That kid there, with the ball, he's my brother, Jakey." It made sense, all of a sudden, why everyone was cheering for both sides, if siblings were spread across the teams. Membership to a team probably had more to do with which side was short of players than where your farm or camp was. During the first break between the quarters, Samuel made his way down to where Nick was sewing up one of the Ongerup player's foreheads while the player sat uncomplainingly on the grass. Josh was grinning when he came over to Samuel and slapped him on his back, despite the black eye and graze he sported. "You enjoying this? Do you like the game?" he asked Samuel eagerly. "It's fantastic," Samuel said truthfully. "I had no idea football could be like this." "It's a good game. You should hang around until summer, see how we play cricket, too," Josh said, and Samuel's eyes widened. This bunch of blood-thirsty lunatics armed with cricket bats, jumping on each other to see who could catch the ball? 64


"Might do that," Samuel said. "Might play myself once my leg's mended." "Wonderful!" Josh said, and he turned around and shouted, "Hey, blokes, Samuel here is gonna play for us when his leg's better!" A hoarse cheer rang out from the other players, on both sides, and Samuel found himself beaming. Nick sat down beside Samuel once play started again, and he didn't say anything, but it seemed to Samuel that he looked happy. **** The banging on the door woke Nick, and he dragged on a pair of trousers and a jumper and went to open the front door, grumbling, "Coming, coming," to whoever was pounding on the wood. It was pitch black outside, no moonlight, and it wasn't until the person spoke that Nick worked out who it was. "It's Girdagan's baby, Dr. Nick," Talgerit said. "She's been having pains since dinner." "Come in," Nick said, holding the door open. "Come and stand by the fire, and I'll go get the van started." In the kitchen, Nick lit a candle from the embers in the fireplace, and Talgerit knelt down in front of the fire to rest fragments of wood across it, then blew on them with a lifetime's practice. "How is she?" Nick asked while he pulled his boots on. "She's suffering," Talgerit said. "The baby wants to come." 65


Nick nodded and picked up the ash bucket and the small shovel from beside the fire. Talgerit must have driven there in a car, but he'd need his van with him, just in case he needed to move Girdagan before she delivered. No way was he sitting in the back of a sedan with a heavily pregnant woman, using one hand to keep a baby's shoulder off the cord. If that was going to happen, it was happening in the back of the van, where he had some head room. And he scrubbed the van out often enough that he could do a cesarean in it if he absolutely had to. Both he and Talgerit looked up from the fire, at a sound at the doorway. Samuel was standing there, bedraggled in rumpled clothes. "Need me to come with you?" Samuel asked. "In case you need something?" Nick couldn't actually think what Samuel could help him with, off hand, but this was the man who had gotten the bore working at the camp, so who knew what sort of miracles he could work? "Yes," Nick said. "Thanks." "It's cold," Talgerit said. "The moon'll come out later, and there'll be a frost tonight." Samuel nodded, and when Nick came back from loading the bucket of embers into the burner on the back of the van, Samuel was standing bundled up in all the clothes he'd had on earlier, packing the generator parts into his tool box. "Ready?" Nick asked, and Samuel nodded. They drove out to the camp in silence, Samuel in the front beside Nick, Talgerit hanging over the seats from the back of the van, and when the guardian rock finally loomed up 66


through the darkness, Talgerit said, "Just drive on through, they're expecting us." At the camp, Nick left Samuel sliding out of the van, grabbed his medical kit from the back and ducked into the humpy where firelight spilled out from under a blanket draped across the entrance. Girdagan was on all fours, grunting while one of the older women, Lilli, rubbed her back. The humpy was warm, with a fire near the back wall, and another firepit, that had been allowed to go out, in the middle. "How are you feeling?" Nick asked Girdagan, kneeling down beside her, stethoscope in his hands. She grimaced and Lilli wiped the sweat from her face. "Hurts, Dr. Nick," Girdagan gasped. "I'm going to check the baby's heart," Nick said, and he ran a hand over her belly, then pressed the stethoscope against the ridge of the baby's back. "Baby's in a good position," he said a moment later. "And its heart is strong and fast. Now, this will hurt a bit." He took his coat off and pushed his jumper sleeves up, then felt down low on Girdagan's belly, in around the pubic bone. Only an idiot would check dilation internally in a shack with a mud floor, and Nick wasn't an idiot, so he waited for the contraction to ease, then pushed hard, sliding fingers across the curve of the baby's head, through the front of Girdagan's abdomen. There, about two thirds of the way down the curve, was the ridge of flesh that was the cervix. Girdagan was about 67


seven centimetres dilated, and was leaking copious amounts of amniotic fluid, pale yellow and smelling of new life. Girdagan groaned, and the next contraction began, and Nick took his hand away before either Lilli or Girdagan hit him. "That's really good," he said. "Not too much longer, and it'll be time to start pushing." Talgerit was right, the baby wanted to be born. The cold crept in around the blanket, and Girdagan's moans and grunts became louder, but she and the baby were coping well, so Nick left the morphine injection in his bag. Ed and the other elders looked in then disappeared, and the baby's heart rate stayed fast, only dipping slightly with a contraction, coming up again quickly afterwards. Birthing was not a community event, so Girdagan had no audience. When the ridge of flesh was halfway down the baby's skull, to its ears, Nick and Lilli helped Girdagan move so she was squatting over the ashes of the extinguished fire. Nick poured alcohol from a big bottle over his hands and Lilli's, and rubbed a cloth soaked in alcohol over Girdagan's hands, too. Between the alcohol and the sterile ashes, the baby would have a clean entrance to the world. Lilli held Girdagan from behind, arms wrapped securely around her chest, and each contraction and push brought the baby closer and closer. When it crowned, Nick was vaguely aware of a generator chugging away briefly in the background. He guided Girdagan's hands down to her baby's head, and she smiled at him, eyes wide, mouth falling open with delight. 68


It did the trick, making her let go of her pelvic floor, and the baby's head eased out, supported by both Girdagan's and Nick's hands. Quick slide of fingers around the baby's shoulder, to make sure the cord wasn't trapped, and Nick said, "Push now, Girdagan." She did, and the baby slithered out, slippery and limp. Nick cleared the baby's mouth and nose quickly, using a small suction bulb. The baby cried, sharp and high and thin in the cold night air. Nick had brought a clean cut-up blanket with him, and he wrapped the baby quickly, mess and ash and blood, then, when the cord had stopped pulsing, he clamped it and handed the scissors to Girdagan. Two minutes old, and the baby was cradled safely in Girdagan's arms, nuzzling at her breast, breathing well, and Nick said, "Congratulations, Girdagan, on your baby girl." Medical protocol was to check for tears, but the birth had been so controlled and gentle, and the humpy was so dirty, that Nick just couldn't justify it. Faces appeared at the blanket, letting in the cold air, curious and delighted, and Lilli shooed them away with a couple of growls while she coaxed the baby to attach to the breast. It took a while for the placenta to deliver, but Girdagan was losing only a little blood, so Nick didn't use an oxytocin injection.

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He stayed for an hour, until Girdagan and the new baby were both curled up in front of the fire dozing, then he took Lilli aside, out of the humpy into the stingingly cold air. A trough was set-up under the tank outlet now, but Nick opted for washing his hands in the water he carried in the back of the van. Lilli washed her hands too, and Nick said, "I'll be back tomorrow, to check on the baby. Make sure that nothing dirty gets near the baby or Girdagan, and keep the dogs out of the humpy." He watched Lilli make her way tiredly back to the humpy. The baby would probably survive; she was a good size and breathing easily, her chances were good. The sky was lightening, it was almost morning, and Samuel was nowhere to be seen. The generator shed seemed the likeliest place, and when Nick peered in, Samuel had bits spread across the ground and was working by the light of an oil lamp with a smoky wick. He looked up as Nick squatted down beside him. "I heard the baby crying," Samuel said, and he sounded choked up. "Is it all right?" "Mother and daughter are both safely asleep now," Nick said, and he curled his hand around Samuel's shoulder. "Ready to go home for a few hours, at least until I have to come back to check on mother and baby?" Nick had to help Samuel stand up, without else anything for him to pull himself up on in the shack, and certainly the shack wouldn't take his weight. They had a strange, sleepdeprived moment when Samuel paused, his weight still 70


leaning against Nick, then he stepped back, steadying himself with his crutches, and it passed. Talgerit was asleep, curled up with one of the dogs, when Nick found him, so Nick left him there; Talgerit could come back with them later on and collect his car then. Right now, Nick just wanted to go somewhere warm. Josh was awake when they got home, stirring porridge and frying up leftover hogget, slabs of bread waiting on a plate on the table. It was a blessed relief to sit down at the table, in daylight, and watch Josh spoon porridge into bowls for the three of them. "Thanks for cooking enough for all of us," Nick said, when Josh pushed a mug of tea across the table to Nick. "No problem," Josh said. "I didn't actually, I was just feeling hungry after the game yesterday. I'll make myself another batch in a moment. Why is Talgerit's heap beside the shed?" "It's not a heap," Samuel said, proving that he wasn't actually asleep and shoveling porridge and jam into himself at the same time. "It's actually a 1982 Mercedes 300 D, with a long block. It's a magnificent piece of machinery, the ultimate precision engineered car, which is presumably why, decades later, it's still running, despite being asked to burn whatever Talgerit can get his hands on." Josh stared at Samuel. "That's precision engineered? I heard it pull up during the night, and it sounded appalling, like a boyee was rumbling through the yard." "I'll have a look when I've had some sleep," Samuel said. "Reckon that I can get rid of the banging at least. Of course, 71


he's probably running it on mutton fat, and there's not much I can do about that." "Good luck," Josh said. "I'm going to take the sheep from the shed back to the wide paddock, get them some decent feed." "Oats?" Nick asked around a mouthful of porridge. "Seeding today?" "Next week," Josh said authoritatively. "We need some more rain, and I want the soil to warm up a little from the hail before I put anything else in. Your garden's ruined." Nick shrugged. "Frost would have killed it all if the hail hadn't. I'm going to have a bath then go to bed." He should've been exhausted, being up all night, but the sunlight of the clear still day shone around the edge of his faded curtains, and Nick found himself lying in bed, wide awake, listening to the quiet splash of Samuel washing in the hand basin. He heard the thud thud of the crutches, and the scuffle of Samuel's feet on the boards, then the creak of his bed. Nick rolled over, bunched up his pillow a little more and tried to ignore the niggling feeling of there being something fundamentally silly about the two of them sleeping in separate beds when they could have been together, sharing warmth, keeping each other company. Damn, he was horny. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Five The Merc was a beautiful car, in atrocious condition but still beautiful, with enough space in the engine bay that Samuel could maneuver his way around it, despite his leg cast being in the way. She was a forgiving car, obviously, able to run with no brake fluid and with a clutch in bits. Samuel flushed the radiator, cleaned the air filter, and tightened the timing chain. Now it no longer sounded like whatever it was that Josh had said it sounded like. He'd done other things, too, repaired one of the engine mounts where it had shorn off with a strand of fence wire, and replaced the blown fuse for the headlights with one from the air conditioner unit. It wasn't likely that the air conditioner still worked anyway, and driving at night with no lights must have been exciting. The fuel gauge didn't work, possibly just because the oil in the tank had solidified with the cold night, but Samuel doubted it. The oil obviously solidified often, if the smoking and charring on the underside of the fuel tank was any indication that Talgerit lit fires under the fuel tank to melt the fuel. It probably was sheep fat, or tallow of some kind. He could have gone with Nick, back to the camp, to have another go at getting the generator to work, but Samuel had chosen to stay at the farm with the car. The seal on the repaired injector wasn't right, and he felt so jangled inside, more than a little strung out from the broken nights, and just 73


plain frustrated, and some time alone seemed like a good idea. The van rattled back into the yard before sunset, and when Samuel looked out of the kitchen window, Talgerit was getting out of the passenger side of the van. Harold barked from the back verandah, and Samuel could hear the banging and thudding of boot cleaning and removal, then the kitchen was full of the sharp smell of unwashed male, and Talgerit slapped Samuel's back and bent over the fire. "How's the baby?" Samuel asked as Nick walked into the room, a chunk of meat in his hands. "Baby is just perfect, feeding well, and Girdagan is recovering smoothly," Nick said, as he put the bundle of cloth-wrapped meat on the draining board. "Ed sent us some roo. Think I'll cook it up with some parsnips and potatoes, and some dried corn. Want a meal, Talgerit?" "Sounds good," Talgerit said. "But I can't stay, I just came to get the car." "I fixed it a bit for you," Samuel said. "Hope you don't mind." "Depends," said Talgerit, grinning. "If I'm not happy, can you break it back the way it was before?" "Not a problem," Samuel said, not quite willing to take his eyes off the hunk of meat yet. He had doubts about eating kangaroo. "We're going fishing," Talgerit said. "Down to the coast. You all want to come? We'll catch fish, have a big feed, then sleep on the beach." 74


"Samuel? You want to go?" Nick asked. "I won't, I really need to sleep." Samuel shook his head. "Me, too," he said. "Ask Josh," Nick said. "He's in the top paddock, fixing up a fence that a procoptodon took out. He wants to talk to you about the thylacines, too, see if we can move them somewhere." Talgerit nodded. "I'll find Josh, and have a look around for thylacines. I can ask Ed if you're allowed to move them." "Do you like the 'roo?" Nick asked later, over dinner, while Samuel chewed another mouthful. "It's good," Samuel said. "I've never eaten so much meat before in my life. We usually only eat poultry in Guyana, there isn't enough land to run ruminants, but this is good." It was, thick and gamey and tender, in gooey gravy, all the corn and vegetables cooked down to a pulp, and Samuel appreciated the quantity of food, too. He'd been hungry on the freighter, but it hadn't been cold, not down in the engine rooms, not like it was on the farm, and the cold made him ravenous. "I'll take your plaster off tomorrow," Nick said around a mouthful. "Time to take the sutures out, before the skin grows over them. Then I'll re-plaster you." "Oh," Samuel said. "I'd forgotten about that bit." "Won't hurt," Nick said, and Samuel decided he couldn't trust him the least bit on that. After dinner, they sat on opposite sides of the stove, a candle each, and when Samuel glanced up from a novel of dubious literary purport, Nick was watching him. 75


It was quiet; the stove crackled faintly; the wind whistled a little around the gaps in the floorboards, and when Nick didn't say anything, didn't shift his gaze, Samuel put his book aside. He could wait for Nick, at least for a while. He wasn't going anywhere for the next few weeks. The wind picked up a little, making the roof creak, and Samuel could hear the branches of the gum tree beside the house rattling against each other. Harold barked once, quietly, on the back verandah, and Nick's face was in shadow, half-hidden by beard and darkness, completely unreadable. Samuel closed his eyes slowly, deliberately, and breathed out slowly, let his shoulders relax, his hand unclasp from the arms of the chair. He heard a creak, a whisper of movement, and fingertips pressed against his uninjured thigh briefly, then a moment later, something drifted across his cheek. The pressure trailed down his cheek, across his beard, and the touch intensified. It was too much to bear, and Samuel opened his eyes. Nick's eyes were hooded, and his thumb stroked across Samuel's cheek, slow and smooth and so good that Samuel could hardly breathe. He felt like he was melting, and it seemed to him that he'd never wanted someone to touch him so desperately before, never needed it. Nick's cheek was fire-warm, stray beard hairs wandering up the curve, coarse and strong against skin that time had marked. His temple was scored, by worry lines and sunshine, and Samuel flattened the lines out with his thumb, coaxing 76


the skin smooth, trying to catch a glimpse of the young man that Nick must have been. When Nick lifted his gaze, meeting Samuel's eyes, he looked so uncertain that Samuel longed to speak, longed to tell him that it was going to be all right, he didn't need to look so scared, but words might have broken what was happening between them; and Nick would ultimately have to live with himself afterward. Nick's hand was around Samuel's neck now, cradling, and the fingertips of his other hand were floating under Samuel's eye, brushing his eyelashes, making his eyelid flicker, and they shared a sound of mutual amusement, exhalation and rumble. Samuel was smiling, he could feel it, feel his cheeks folding and the cool air on his teeth, and Nick smiled back at him, and it seemed like they were going to reach some kind of mutual understanding after all. Laughter bubbled up inside Samuel, overflowed, and then they were both laughing. Samuel slid one hand around behind Nick's neck and guided their mouths together. It was better than the first time, more about liking each other and less about being cold and lonely, and if Samuel's leg hadn't been in a fucking cast he'd be taking charge, lowering them both to the floor. But his leg was in a cast, and the floor looked pretty unsavoury, and besides, they were both old enough to be past that, old enough to take this slow, and, damn, but it was good. 77


Nick made a contented noise, deep in his throat, and lifted his mouth off Samuel's slowly; he tasted of treacle and wood smoke. His hand slid across Samuel's shoulder, strong through layers of wool and skin. He sunk to his knees, between Samuel's thighs, slow burn in his eyes, and said, "You going to throw me out this time, too?" Samuel shrugged, under the weight of Nick's hand. "There's something I need to tell you first," he said. "Something you need to know..." **** The bottles of alcohol were arranged in ascending order of murkiness, and Nick chose the one on the end, toffee coloured in the candlelight, and he poured them both a substantial slug in mugs, and sat down across the table from Samuel. "What is it?" Nick asked. There were so many options, starting with one of the wasting virii, and winding up at aberrations that Nick only suspected existed, but it couldn't be good, under the circumstances. "I came to Albany for a reason," Samuel said, circling a finger around the rim of his mug. "I have to get to Perth, to retrieve something. Something important, that exists nowhere else in the world." Nick nodded and drank some of his whiskey, letting it rip down his throat. "There's nothing that can be worth going to Perth for," he said. "It took direct hits, and then things got worse." 78


"The World Government has a space program," Samuel said. "And plans, big plans, to get off the planet, make a start on expanding into the solar system, mining the asteroid belt, getting a solar sail project working, putting giant photovoltaic cells up, with microwave links back to earth." "That's ridiculous," Nick said. "There's no infrastructure left for that, no resources, no money. The world is bankrupt." Samuel reached out and took Nick's hand and shook his head. "We have to do this, have to make a start, find the resources. That's why Guyana is involved, the bauxite is there, and the means to mine and refine it. Not everywhere was destroyed, there are universities left, research centers, in Guyana and St. Kitts, Gabon and Sudan. It's not all over, there is a chance, a good chance." "Why you?" Nick asked, shaking his head. "What the hell is there in Perth that is so important? It was only a very large country town, it never grew up enough to matter." "At the University of Western Australia there was a gravity wave research lab. The lab invented a thing called a sapphire clock, and they were using it to look for drifts in the Fine Structure Constant, among other things. It was the most accurate time measuring device ever invented." "I went to UWA," Nick said. "Did my medical degree there. What does the World Government want a sapphire clock for? In words that don't require me to recall my undergraduate physics." "Measuring time is incredibly important when you're trying to navigate around space. If you don't know when you are, you probably don't know where you are either. Sure, the 79


moon is close, and you can see it, but after that things are a bit trickier, especially with chaotic orbits like the asteroids." Nick nodded slowly, just once. "With you so far. Now, why you? How come you get sent to find it?" Samuel smiled, that sideways disarming smile he had, and his fingers curled tighter around Nick's. "Because I have an idea of what the thing looks like and what equipment to take to make it work, but I'm not actually essential in any way. Just informed enough to do the job, but disposable enough not to adversely affect the project if it all goes horribly wrong. If I was smarter, I'd be sitting at home, drinking coffee and crunching numbers, instead of freezing in a farmhouse with a mug of the most godawful whiskey substitute in front of me." "It's not that bad," Nick said defensively. "It's actually pretty smooth, compared to some of the batches I've made." He rubbed his thumb over the back of Samuel's hand. "You really can't go to Perth, there're bad lands between here and there, and the city itself isn't unoccupied." "It took direct hits, air bursts," Samuel said. "Who'd want to live there? There's nothing left, is there?" "Not who, what," Nick said. "I've heard the songs, from traveling Noongar..." He trailed off, unable to articulate the enormity of what Samuel was contemplating. "Don't go," was all he could think to say. "I have to," Samuel said. "You get to save people's lives all the time, to really make a difference. The only thing of consequence I've ever done is fix the bore at the camp; and you've delivered babies. All I've done is consume resources." 80


Helplessness was something Nick was familiar with. Bodies failed, people's will to live failed. People chose to do things that harmed them, even killed them. He was used to it, inured by experience and time, but this was different. He was being selfish about this, feeling not thinking, putting his own loneliness ahead of other people's good, but he was so tired of being alone, he didn't want to see the first person he'd connected with in a long time just leave and die. He must have been quiet for too long because Samuel was looking increasingly worried. "Will you help me?" Samuel asked. "Teach me what I need to know?" "Bugger," Nick said under his breath. The map was old and crumpled, but still undeniably a map, and Samuel watched as Nick traced a route. "You'd need to go north, up to Lake Grace. My wife's sister lives up there, she'll shelter you, give you food. Then to Kutter Kich..." Nick shook his head regretfully. "You can't do this, not travel from Kutter Kich to Perth by yourself." "Is that the only way there?" Samuel asked, and he ran his finger over the map. "Wouldn't it be quicker to go this way? Are the roads through here still open?" "No, at least they're not open to people without armored vehicles and grenade launchers. As for this way, through Kutter Kich, that depends whether you think you'll cross yourself the first time something impossible happens," Nick said, and he swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. "Depends how much you're prepared to do for this." "A lot," Samuel said. "Good." 81


When Samuel sat on the edge of Nick's bed, Nick knelt down and took off his borrowed slippers and socks, then lifted Samuel's feet up onto the bed carefully. He didn't turn down the covers, just lay down beside Samuel and pulled the thick blanket at the base of the bed up over the pair of them, then blew out the candle. Samuel's fingers stroked the back of Nick's neck, and Nick could hear Samuel's heart, slow and strong beneath where his head rested. He was struggling on so many levels with what Samuel had said, with the idea that there could be anything of value left in Perth, with the idea that this thing was needed for space travel, that there was even the resources left on the planet to build and launch a space vehicle. "Weren't there any others?" he asked as Samuel's fingers coaxed tension from his shoulder. "There were," Samuel said. "In the US, Japan, Paris and England. They're all gone, people have looked for them." "What if the Perth one is gone, too?" Nick asked. "What if you go there for nothing?" "Then we'll know," said Samuel. "And then we'll have to work out how to build one from scratch." Samuel's fingers circled Nick's C7 vertebrae, and Nick felt himself dissolving. "I'll talk to Ed," he said sleepily. "You'll need help." Samuel kissed the top of his scalp, where his hair was thinning. "Go to sleep," Samuel said, and it was easy to let go, safe and warm where he was. The clatter of pans and the glugging of the plumbing woke Nick, just like usual, and he extricated himself carefully from 82


Samuel's sleeping arms, leaving Samuel sprawled across his bed, still fully-dressed, and deeply asleep. Nick padded out to the kitchen, to the warmth of the fire, and he wondered if he was grinning like an idiot, he felt so good just from having slept beside someone. "Morning," Josh said, and he dropped slabs of fish into a pan on the stove. "Morning," Nick said, sitting down and checking the teapot to see if it was warm. "When'd you get home?" "Just before dawn," Josh said, and Nick couldn't have looked too different from usual because Josh never hesitated to make personal comments. Nick guessed it was the downside of raising a child; they were no respecters of boundaries. "Samuel awake? Should I cook him some fish, too?" "Think he's still asleep," Nick said. Nick waited until Josh had dropped the two plates down on the table and had started in on his own, then he said, "Josh? What would you think of me going away?" Josh stared at Nick, fork halfway to his mouth. "Leaving the farm? Are you going to Albany?" "No," Nick said. "Samuel has to go to Perth. What would you think if I went, too?" Josh chewed his fish slowly, brow gradually creasing into a frown. "Wait on," he said. "Samuel can't go to Perth, no one can. And why would you want to go with him?" The whiskey mugs were still on the table from the night before, and Nick drank what was left of his. "There's a piece of equipment there that the World Government needs him to 83


collect, and it's important enough to be worth the risk of going." Josh ate another mouthful of fish, obviously considering, and Nick wondered if Josh would call him on not having answered the second question. "Why should you give a damn?" Josh asked, and Nick knew he'd been caught out. Josh's eyes were skeptical, and he shook his head slowly. "You're nuts," Josh said. "You should go to Albany, retire there, not go wandering through the bad lands with a stranger who's fucking insane. I mean, you didn't want to leave until Samuel turned up here with his crazy stories, did you?" Whiskey on top of fish was not a good mix, not first thing in the morning anyway, and Nick felt just plain queasy. More fish would compound the problem, so he pushed his plate across to Josh. "Josh, I want to be with Samuel," Nick said, and the words sounded so strange with the spreading gray of dawn coming through the windows. Not even Josh could keep eating through a statement like that, and he stopped chewing, the process of mastication plainly visible. "Oh," Josh finally said. "We're not talking about being best mates and hanging out together here, are we?" Nick shook his head minutely. "I don't think so." Josh went back to eating steadily, pausing only to say, "Can I have some time on this one? This is too weird." "You've got four weeks," Nick said. 84


Boots by the back door, raincoat on a hook, some things didn't change, and Nick put them on and wandered out into his devastated garden. The hail and the frost had wiped everything out, but the warmth would be back in eight weeks, and he'd be able to set seed under glass before then. Harold wandered along behind Nick, nose hopeful against his hand, and Nick patted his head fondly. He slid between the strands of the wire fence, and started out across the top paddock, down toward the creek. The race ran alongside the paddock, and he clambered through another set of strands into it. Halfway down, in a fenced off section of the race, was where Fineen was buried, and he sat down on a small boulder close to the eucalypt they'd planted over her grave. In a different world, he might still be grieving for her, all these years later, but he'd seen death after death after death. He'd caused a few of them himself, firstly in the army, then later when he euthanized people. He understood better than most people how tenuous life was. Babies came and went, old people and youngsters, everyone. What mattered was the continuation of genetic material, both at a personal level, and as a species. He and Fineen had done what they could for Josh, and Josh was an adult now. The farm had passed directly from Fineen to Josh, it wasn't Nick's at all. That was his responsibility to his own genetic code discharged, it was up to Josh to hand it on from there.

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Did he believe Samuel's story? And if he did, would helping Samuel discharge his responsibility to humanity? Was getting genetic code off the earth a good long term survival strategy? "Well, Fineen?" Nick asked the tree. "What do you think, my love?" A fine rain fell, just enough to wet Nick's face, and the sun lurched its way up behind the cloud cover. Kookaburras were cacking at themselves down at the creek, a raven cawed, too, across the paddock, and he could smell the pollen from the acacias along the fence line. Harold flopped himself down at Nick's feet, lifting his head expectantly when Nick spoke, letting his chin drop back onto his paws when it was obvious the words weren't a command. The scars on Nick's chest ached, a not so subtle a reminder, and he let out a breath. Fineen was gone, melted away to nothingness, having fulfilled her duties to the best of her abilities. Nick needed a cup of tea, to wash the whiskey and fish taste down. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Six The house was empty when Samuel woke, Josh, Nick and Harold all gone, and the van wasn't parked beside the shed either. A slab of fish waited on a plate on the draining board, and a frying pan that had obviously been used earlier, so Samuel lifted the pan across into the heat of the stovetop. It took some effort, balancing on one crutch, to get the fish into the fat, but he was getting good at coping. The map was still spread across the table, smoothed out, and Samuel sat down at the table, fried fish on a plate, and peered closely at the map. It was a long way to travel, he doubted that Guyana was that width across, but it was hard to make his mind work that morning. He'd thought, last night in the dark, that Nick was going to offer to come with him, but he'd been mistaken. There had been no offer, and the house was empty, but at least the map had been left out. He was mostly asleep in front of the fire, listening to rain crash against the roof, after washing the dishes and then some of his clothes, and he jerked awake when van rattled into the yard. "Josh here?" Nick asked as he walked into the kitchen. Samuel shook his head. "I haven't seen him at all." Nick stood at the sink and peered out of the window, and shrugged, then turned to face Samuel. "Ready to have your cast replaced?" he asked. 87


The clinic was empty, apart from a diminutive woman called Jo, who chortled at Samuel, and bustled off importantly, and Nick said, "C'mon through." Samuel rested his crutches against the wall and hauled himself up onto a high table. Jo said, "I've got the fire going good and hot, to dry the new cast out. Take your trousers off, dear." It took some squirming but Samuel got his borrowed trousers down and off, and Jo folded them up neatly and put them on a chair. Another table was piled with bandages, with white powder in a bowl, and a steaming kettle waiting. Less happy were the shears that Nick picked up, and Samuel jumped when Nick started hacking away at the cast immediately, chomping through the layers of plaster steadily. Somehow, it seemed like it should happen with due care and caution, not with the feel of the cold metal working its way up his thigh. Nick cut crookedly, starting at the inside the knee, tracking across the thigh and finishing up on the outside of the leg. Samuel could find nothing personal about the feel of Nick's hands on his thigh, especially when Nick grabbed the cut edges of the plaster and yanked at them, breaking the plaster open. The thigh underneath was mottled green and yellow and purple, with a row of sutures up the outside, big black clumps of thread like some kind of caterpillar was climbing up the skin. Nick's hands were cool and smooth when he ran them over Samuel's thigh, pressing gently. 88


"There's no bleeding underneath," he said. "Can't feel any masses. Is there any pain?" Nick asked. "It aches inside," Samuel said. "But there's no sharp pain, and the grinding feelings have gone away over the past week, too." "That's good," Nick said, and he smiled at Samuel. "Ready for the next bit?" "Let's do it," Samuel said. Jo held out a bottle of alcohol and poured it over Nick's hands, over the sink, and the stink filled the air, then Nick soaked a cloth in alcohol, too and carefully cleaned the line of sutures. The alcohol was cold and painful, trickling down Samuel's leg. Nick dunked a pair of tweezers in alcohol, and a scalpel, and Samuel said, "Don't you have an autoclave?" "There's one in the back room here," Nick said distractedly as he picked up the threads of the first suture and tugged on it, making Samuel jump a little. "Hold still." "What's wrong with it?" Samuel asked, and the metal of the scalpel was cold against his skin, then there was a tearing feeling, and Nick dropped the stitch into a bowl that Jo held out. "No power, no water pressure," Nick said, and he moved on to the next suture. "Want me to fix it?" Samuel asked. Jo said, "I love you, Samuel, I think it's only fair that you should know," and Nick paused, clump of stitch in his tweezers. 89


"You can do that? Even though there's no water pressure since the town pump died, only gravity feed?" Nick asked. Samuel shrugged, moving his leg accidentally, and making Nick mutter, "Stay still." "Two options," Samuel said. "Get the town water pump back online, or rig you up a separate one here. I've got no idea what's wrong with the town pump, and it might not be fixable, but I could certainly use one of the pumps from the farm, hook it up to a photovoltaic cell. You'd only have water pressure on sunny days, but it would be better than nothing." "Dear Mike, I love you dearly, but have decided to leave you for a man who can give me water pressure, yours sincerely, your wife, Jo," Jo recited. "Samuel, m'dear, name your price. Fancy any of the local girls? I can set you up with them. Those trousers of yours are a bit shabby, let me run you up a new pair. How do you feel about cake? I'm a good cook." Samuel couldn't stop himself from laughing, and Nick growled, "Stop it, Jo, or we're going to have some kind of incident here. Do you want me to tell Mike you're leaving him for someone who can light up your life and make you wet?" Jo howled with laughter, going bright red and clutching at her sides, and Samuel gave up any attempt to stay still, he was shaking too much. Nick shook his head, holding the tweezers and scalpel away from Samuel's leg and pursing his lips. "Oh God," Jo gasped. "You do that, Nick, just so I can see his face." 90


"Jo, shut up and stop trying to tempt Samuel away. Samuel, stay still!" Once the sutures were out, and Jo had subsided down to an occasional chortle, Nick said, "Want to have a good scratch, Samuel, before I put the new plaster on? Just avoid where I've taken the sutures out." Scratching was bliss, and Samuel closed his eyes and dragged his fingertips over the skin, gritting his teeth to keep himself quiet. It felt unbelievably good, ecstatic even, and if he'd been alone, he might have taken the feeling and run with it, but he could hear Jo clattering around the room, running water and still giggling occasionally, and he made himself stop. When he opened his eyes, Nick was standing beside the table of equipment, and his face was unreadable, but his hands were curled tightly around the edge of the table, knuckles white, bare forearms ridges of muscle. Nick stayed unreadable, even when he began wrapping Samuel's leg in fabric, a soft tube of gauze first, then a thicker layer of padding, but when he began wrapping the plaster soaked bandages around Samuel's leg, his breath was warm against Samuel's arm, and his hands were gentle. The plaster smelled unpleasant, and was hot going on Samuel's leg, and it got hotter with time. Layer after layer of the soggy bandages went on, until he was plastered again, then Nick pressed his hands firmly over the bandage above Samuel's knee, indenting it, and repeated that at the top of his thigh. 91


"That'll stop it sliding around," Nick said. "Plaster may take ages to dry, but it shapes better than any of the fiberglass alternatives that were around when I trained." "Ages?" Samuel said. "How long am I stuck here in soggy plaster?" The plaster was cooling fast, so it was clammy and heavy on Samuel's leg, and Jo wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "Six hours," Nick said. "I'm afraid you're here for the rest of the day. I have to make some house calls, but Jo will stay with you when I can't be here." Samuel must have looked dismayed, because Jo chuckled and patted his arm reassuringly. "I'll feed you and bring you books, I promise," she said. "Will you?" Samuel said, and he sounded pathetic even to himself. When she bustled out of the room, clearing up, Nick took Samuel's hand in his own and held it gently. "I talked to Josh," Nick said. "About going with you to Perth." "What did he say?" Samuel asked, trying to ignore the banging of his heart from the adrenalin surge. "He wasn't happy," Nick said. "And he asked for some time to think about it." His fingers pushed up Samuel's wrist a little, and he shook his head slightly. "We'll talk about this later, all right?" Samuel nodded, and Nick leaned forward and kissed his lips quickly, then pulled back and began to clear away some of the casting mess. **** 92


The air was thick with smoke when the van creaked to a halt beside the shed, and Nick turned the motor and lights off and said, "That can mean one of two things; there's a fire somewhere, and we're all going to die, or alternatively, Josh is smoking the fish he caught last night. I'm betting on the fish option." "Sounds like a much better choice to me," Samuel said, and Nick leaned across in the dark and kissed him, just a brush of lips together. "Today," he whispered against Samuel's mouth. "Watching you scratch your leg..." Samuel's breathing was loud against the tick of the van's motor cooling, then a frog called nearby, loud and piercing, and Samuel jumped. "What was that?" he asked, and Nick slid his hand up Samuel's leg, the unplastered one, just for the opportunity of touching him. "Frog," he said. "Down at the creek, probably." It was cold out there, cold enough their breath was misting, but Samuel was beautifully warm under Nick's hand, making tiny sounds that Nick suspected he wasn't aware of, as though each breath was an effort. "Come to my room?" Samuel whispered, running his hand up Nick's arm, touching his cheek. The right answer was 'no', at least until Josh had gotten his head around the idea that his father wanted Samuel, but the right answer was the wrong answer, and Nick said, "Yes, even if it's just for a little while." **** 93


Samuel was lying on his side, facing the wall, when Nick pushed his door open quietly, candle in his hand. The slump of Samuel's shoulder under the blankets indicated he was asleep, and Nick thought about not disturbing him, but only for a moment. "Mmm?" Samuel murmured when Nick lifted the covers and slid under the covers behind him. "Go back to sleep," Nick said, settling his arm around Samuel's chest, covering Samuel's hand with his own. Nick wasn't naked, no amount of desire would make him walk around the farmhouse naked in winter, but Samuel had no shirt or jumper on, and Nick nuzzled his face against Samuel's skin, breathing in deeply, pressing his lips against Samuel's shoulder. Even that was enough to make the iron bedstead creak, so Nick stopped and reluctantly let his head fall back onto Samuel's pillow. It was blissfully warm, wrapped around Samuel, and Nick put some effort into ignoring what his body thought of the whole situation, and willed himself to sleep. **** The pre-dawn crashing in the house seemed even more forceful than usual, waking Samuel from a deep sleep. Someone was curled up beside him, someone warm and alive and being very persistent with his cock, grinding it against Samuel's arse in a way that could only be described as provocative. 94


Samuel was provoked, intensely provoked, and he thought maybe they were just going to act on this when a huge clatter sounded from the kitchen, and Nick groaned. "You wouldn't believe what I was dreaming," he said against Samuel's neck. "It felt fantastic." "I would believe it, and it will feel fantastic," Samuel said, rocking back against Nick. "Want to find out for sure?" Crash. Slam. "Or maybe not," Nick said, Samuel surreptitiously reached down and squeezed his own cock through his borrowed trousers. The material was rough against his skin, coarse wool, and it would take days to dry, so coming wasn't an option, not right away. Metal banged against metal, then the plumbing belched, and Samuel said, "I think you should know, I'm suffering here." "You're not the only one," Nick said, and it sounded like his teeth were clenched. He lifted the covers off, letting in a freezing draught of air. **** This time, on the ride out to the camp, Samuel kept his hand firmly on Nick's thigh. Nick had left Samuel at the house, wearing a borrowed raincoat and swearing at the photovoltaic cells, trying to get a working array hooked up to the batteries Nick and Josh had hauled over to the shearing shed, and gone out to do his rounds and clinic. When he'd come back, Josh was still out on the tractor, putting in the oat crop, but the meter in the top of one of the 95


batteries was flickering into life, indicating the cells were still putting out some power. Samuel had hoped, given that the house was empty, that there could have been a little celebrating, but Nick had just packed him into the van to go to the camp. Girdagan and her new baby were more important than finally getting to touch each other, Samuel should have remembered that. They repeated the process of stopping at a rock again, but this time it was on the other side of the road from before. Samuel spent some time, hand against the rock, looking at it closely. A rock that size, as wet as the rest of the forest, should have moss and lichen growing on it, but it was clean, spotlessly clean. Maybe the Noongars kept it clean? Nick's hand slid around his waist, steadying him and drawing him closer, and Samuel turned with difficulty, into the embrace. Nick was getting more confident, more adventurous, each time they kissed, and this time his hands slid inside the back of Samuel's trousers, cupping his buttocks through cotton, torture of the best kind, making Samuel moan and grind against Nick. No one was around, not another person or vehicle within earshot. Samuel pushed a hand between their bodies to fumble with Nick's fly buttons, and someone laughed behind them. "Dr. Nick's kissing Samuel, unna?" Talgerit said, and Samuel wiped his mouth unsteadily and reached for his crutches. 96


"Talgerit," Nick said, and he reached down and did up the button that Samuel had managed to get undone. "I wish you wouldn't sneak around like that. Where is everyone meeting?" "Not sneaking, just walking quietly," Talgerit said, and he pointed into the forest, lifting his arm from beneath the animal skins he was wearing. "Through there, by the pond." It was slow going, getting through the forest, even with Nick and Talgerit holding branches aside for him and helping him over the rough ground, and Samuel was just about exhausted, soaked with sweat under his waterproof jacket, and almost stumbling, when the undergrowth gave way to a clearing around a small pond. People waited there, Noongar men, sitting around a fire on a flat rock, and Nick helped Samuel lower himself to the ground close to the fire. "You all right?" Nick asked quietly, and Samuel wiped the sweat from his eyes and nodded. "Just exhausted," Samuel said equally quietly, and Ed squatted down in front of Samuel and Nick. He was dressed in rags; that and his grin should have made him look harmless, but he was exuding power, and it made Samuel feel incredibly vulnerable. "Dr. Nick wants to talk, unna?" Ed said. "About white Samuel, eh?" "Yes," Nick said. "If Ed will allow me to?" "Talk," Ed said, and he settled back on his heels, beside Talgerit and the other men that Samuel didn't know. "Samuel needs to go to Perth, on whiteman business," Nick said. "Important business. Whitemen are going to go to 97


the moon and the stars, make new lives there, but first Samuel has to get a machine from Perth and take it to his home. He needs Noongar help to do this. Will you help him?" "You going to the moon, Samuel?" Talgerit asked. "Can I come with you?" Samuel shook his head. "Not me, Talgerit. I have to stay here and fix things. Maybe you could go to the moon instead of me?" Talgerit looked pleased, smiling smugly and crossing his legs beneath his skin cloak. "You're not a clever man yet," Ed said, pointing at Talgerit. "You're not a Featherman yet. Tell me about this machine, Samuel. Does it fly to the moon?" "No," Samuel said, wondering how explained how accurate the clock was to someone who had probably never owned a watch. "It can measure time forever, and always be right. Time flows differently out between the stars, or at least we think it does, and this clock can measure it." "Forever?" Ed said, his eyes widening. "It can measure time in the Dreaming?" Samuel went to ask what the Dreaming was, but Nick's hand on his knee squeezed and he cut in and said, "Yes. It can measure time right from the very beginning, to the very end." Silence settled in the clearing, from the men, and somewhere in the forest a bird called out, high and clear, ringing through the forest, through the undergrowth and around the clearing. 98


They sat like that for what felt like an eternity, until Samuel's legs were numb from sitting, flies crawled across his face, and he had to fight back the urge to swish them away. Then Ed began to sing, low and deep and tuneless, rumbling words that made no sense to Samuel, that went on and on. Nick touched Samuel's arm, and patted his own knee, and Samuel lay down on the wet ground and rested his head on Nick's knee. The song went on, and Talgerit and Nick and the others murmured along sometimes, and Samuel watched the ants come out onto the soil, scurrying along, carrying grains of sand, and the song began to get inside his head. He felt like he drifting off, as though the forest was melting away and he was flying over the land, above hills and streams and rivers, as if the whole world was unfolding in front of him. He jolted awake when Nick shook his shoulder. It was dark now in the clearing, apart from the fire, and his body was tired and stiff from the cold, and he struggled to sit upright. When Samuel managed to get upright, Talgerit was standing naked beside the fire, and he seemed to be painting stripes on his body with white goop. "They've agreed to help, or at least Talgerit has," Nick said quietly. **** Josh was all bewildered sleepiness, holding the door open, candle in his hand, while Nick half guided, half carried Samuel into the kitchen. 99


"What...?" he asked, rubbing at his face and blinking. "Is Samuel hurt?" "Build the fire up," Nick said, and he lowered Samuel down in front of the stove. Samuel had stopped crying, at least, sometime during the drive back to the farm, when the morphine Nick had given him had begun to work. Josh knelt down in front of the stove, opened the damper, added kindling and then hacked up a mallee root, and dropped the oven door open to let more heat into the room. The water in the kettle was still warm from the last time it had been boiled, and Nick poured some into a bowl and added a pinch of salt. "You can go back to bed, Josh," he said. "Samuel has just been scarred, that's all. I'm going to take care of him, then put him to bed." Josh shook his head disbelievingly, and went back to bed. Nick carefully undid Samuel's raincoat, and Samuel whimpered and opened his eyes. "Is it over?" he asked distantly. "All done," Nick said reassuringly. Samuel looked up at Nick, pupils pinpoints, and nodded. "With you?" he asked. "Don't want to sleep alone." "With me," Nick said, and he undid the string at the waist of Samuel's borrowed trousers and pulled them down carefully. Candles waited on the shelf, beside the stove, and he lit another couple and put them beside the bowl of water. 100


Ed had dressed Samuel's wounds carefully, but it still wasn't good enough in Nick's opinion. "Look at me," Nick said gently, and Samuel opened his eyes again. "I need to clean you up," Nick said. "That's all." The wounds across Samuel's unplastered thigh were packed with moss, and it took a little while to get the moss off and the wounds clean, but Samuel was quiet and held still. Then Nick poured more water into another bowl and added salt. He soaked some gauze in the water and carefully wrapped it around the wounds. He layered clean dry gauze over the bandage, then turned his attention to Samuel's chest wounds. They were much easier to care for, and he just wiped them over with clean water. Ash from the fire had been rubbed into them, the same as his own new cuts, to give the distinctive ridges, so the wounds didn't need to be opened up and cleaned. They could be left to heal without dressing. It took effort to get the groggy and miserable Samuel back on his feet, then into Nick's bed, but Nick managed, and when Samuel was curled up under the covers, Nick went back into the kitchen. He emptied the bowls of water, put away the gauze, closed the damper on the fire and refilled the kettle, then blew all but one of the candles out. He'd put Samuel to bed naked, and he stripped himself before he climbed in beside Samuel. This was a night when they needed the skin contact, no matter how cold the room was. Samuel was cold, really cold, and Nick couldn't tell if it was from the time they had spent naked in the forest, or if it was 101


the morphine, but it didn't really matter which it was. He curled up behind Samuel, wrapping himself around the man. "What about the women?" Samuel asked. "How is a woman initiated?" Nick drew the blankets tighter around Samuel's shoulders and kissed the back of his head. "I don't know," Nick said. "That's women's business. Maybe the process of childbirth is considered initiation enough?" "Does it hurt more than this?" Samuel whispered, and Nick hugged him tighter. "Yeah," Nick said. "It does, at least as far as I can tell. That's why it's so amazing that women keep on having babies. Try and go to sleep, it'll help." Samuel made a sleepy sound, and Nick closed his eyes in the dark. His chest hurt, where the new cuts were, but that was nothing compared to the ache in his belly from having watched Samuel being scarred. **** Light crept into the room and Samuel was alone when he woke up. He wanted to curse or cross himself, but Nick was right; after what he had gone through the night before in the clearing in the forest, he no longer had the right to cross himself. He didn't know or understand what it was he'd seen, only that everyone had shone white, brighter than the fire even. He must have made a noise because the door swung open and Nick appeared, mug in his hands. "I brought you tea," he 102


said, and Samuel struggled upright in the bed and when the blankets fell off him, it was freezing cold. "I need to piss," Samuel said. "Thought you might," Nick said and he reached down under the bed and pulled out a bottle. "Here you go. I'll leave the tea here, give you some privacy." Samuel really didn't feel like getting up, so he propped the bottle on the chest of drawers beside the bed and pulled the covers back up and reached for his tea. A few minutes later, while Samuel was deep in nostalgic ruminations about the inadequacies of chicory as a coffee substitute, Nick pushed the door open again. He took the bottle away and brought Samuel a wet cloth to wipe his hands, then sat on the edge of the bed and handed Samuel a sweater. "Here," he said. "This'll keep you warm. You probably don't want to think about putting clothes on the bottom half of you today at all." "Or ever again," Samuel said ruefully after he had pulled the sweater on. "I had hoped that the first time we saw each other naked might be less painful than that." Nick chuckled. "Me, too." "Is Talgerit really going to guide me to Perth?" Samuel asked, and Nick smiled at him. "You can ask him yourself. He's going to come over and sit with you so I can go to clinic and do a couple of house calls." Despite his doubts, Samuel did manage to pull a pair of Nick's trousers on and hobble out to the toilet, and then to wash himself, at least superficially, in the bathroom sink. 103


Once he'd brushed his teeth, things began to seem better, or at least bearable, and he hobbled back to the bedroom to find Nick stripping the sheets from the bed. "Won't be a moment," Nick said, helping Samuel to a chair. "We both bled on the sheets last night." Samuel's hand went to his chest. "What are yours like?" Samuel asked, and Nick turned from tucking a sheet in and unbuttoned his shirt. There, running right across Nick's chest, were two open sores, swollen and raised, crusting over with blood. They seemed more real somehow than Samuel's matching sores, and Samuel reached out a hand and ran it over Nick's belly, across the sparse hair there, then he unbuttoned the front of Nick's trousers. Nick didn't try to stop him, didn't say anything at all, just kept his eyes glued on Samuel's face. Nick had the most ancient underwear on, sagging and worn and threadbare, and he finally made a noise, a quick inhalation of breath, when Samuel pushed them down. "Satisfied your curiosity?" Nick said quietly, and Samuel looked up at him and nodded. "I'll finish making the bed then," Nick said, and he tucked himself away and did his clothes back up. **** Talgerit turned up in the middle of the day, grinning cheerfully as always, and he clambered onto the end of the bed and sat cross-legged in his filthy clothes. "How're you, Samuel?" he asked. "Sore?" 104


"Very," Samuel said, but he couldn't help but smile back. Nick pulled a clean sweater on over his shirt and said, "How's Girdagan and the baby, Talgerit?" "Doing well," Talgerit said. "Baby feeds all the time, like Aunty Lilli says babies should. Dr. Nick going to work, unna?" "In a moment," Nick said, and he sat down on the chair and opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of socks. "See?" "All the girls in camp said, 'Now Samuel is not a whiteman, we're going to chase him,'" Talgerit said conversationally. "So I told them, 'Oh no, only person Samuel is kissing is Dr. Nick.' All the girls were sad." Nick made a choking noise, then said, "Really? That was a good thing to say, Talgerit." "But Aunty Lilli scares me, I wouldn't dare touch any of the girls at the camp," Samuel said. Talgerit nodded wisely. "Aunty Lilli is scary," he agreed. "Enough to make me run away, too." "You don't want to get married, Talgerit, unna?" Nick asked. "Not to a pretty Noongar girl, eh?" "Not me," Talgerit said decisively. "Then I'd have to hunt even harder, and she might want to drive my car." He patted Samuel's foot through the covers. "The car runs well, with no more banging since you fixed it. And it's good to have the lights on at night. Much easier to shoot roos that way." "That's good," Samuel said. "Thought you might like having lights that work." When Nick had left, Talgerit looked expectantly at Samuel. "You gonna listen, unna? Learn about the Law?" 105


"I'm listening," Samuel said, and Talgerit arranged himself more comfortably on the bed. "Ah, whiteman beds are good. Now, in the beginning of the Dreaming, the land was flat and black, and there were no rivers or oceans, there was nothing. Then the ancestors came, out of the land and the sky, and with their will they made everything as they moved around. "The Wagyl was one of those ancestors, it was a big snake that made things where my mob comes from. The waterholes are where it surfaced after traveling underground, then went back down into the ground again. At a place whiteman calls Mt. Stirling, the Wagyl slid down a hill, and you can see that. And the Wagyl made a track with its body, long winding track, and a river filled the track. "And when the Wagyl came to the place whiteman calls Guildford, it rested for a while, at the neck of the river, then it went down the river, until it found where the water becomes salty from the ocean. It didn't like that, so it went back up a bit, and into a cave under a cliff, and that's where it lives." Samuel knew the place name 'Guildford' from the maps he'd studied, and in fact he was pretty sure he had one of the maps with him. "Talgerit, will you go get the big bag that's on the floor of the room next door?" Samuel asked. Talgerit scrambled off the bed and bounced out of the room. He was back in a moment, carrying Samuel's duffel bag. Samuel undid the bag when Talgerit put it on the bed beside him, and rummaged through his clothes. He had a small amount of personal stuff with him, some maps of Perth, 106


copies of detailed diagrams of the clock and academic papers about it, too. He found one of the maps and unfolded it on the bed. He found Guildford, up where the river looked quite narrow. "Is that where the Wagyl rested?" Samuel asked Talgerit. Talgerit peered at the map, tracing patterns on it with his fingers. "Sure is." He tracked his finger down the river, winding it carefully around the curves, rapt concentration on his face. "And here," he said. "That's where the Wagyl is in the cave. The whiteman put buildings there, silly people. They didn't know the Wagyl was there, not until it came out and ate them. We told them, over and over, 'Don't disturb the Wagyl', but they made the buildings anyway." "The Wagyl ate people?" Samuel asked, looking with deep concern at the map, and how close Talgerit's finger was to the yellow area that marked the University of Western Australia. "Ate whiteman," Talgerit said. "Not people. It wouldn't eat Noongar unless they'd pissed it off." He looked up from the map and grinned at Samuel. "You're Noongar now, maybe it won't eat you." "Maybe not," Samuel said, but he didn't think that was enough of a guarantee, he'd like a little more certainty about these things. He shifted his finger to the yellow area. "That's where I need to go, Talgerit. Think you might know the way there?" Talgerit peered at the map and shrugged. "I've not been to Perth since I was a little boy, before the bombs, and I can't remember the roads, but since the roads aren't there 107


anymore, that doesn't matter. I can find it, find Samuel's clock." "Josh said there were bad lands between here and Perth. What's there?" Samuel asked. Talgerit shrugged, eloquent expression of unconcern. "Don't know. Ed says that the Dreaming has come back in places, and we'll have to cross them, but we can do that." "Are you scared of that?" Samuel asked. Talgerit lifted his substantial eyebrows. "I'm not, but I didn't scream when Ed scarred me. Maybe you and Dr. Nick will be scared, but I won't. Now, I want to hear your Law, about going to the moon. How will we get there? What does the machine look like that will take us?" Samuel folded the map up and put it away, and leaned back against the bed head. This was something he knew all about, something he'd lived with for the past seven years, he could talk for hours about the project. He was still talking when Nick came back to the farm, with Talgerit wide-eyed and enthralled, listening to every word, even though Samuel had given up attempting to translate from the engineering terms he was so familiar with into something that Talgerit might have the life experience to understand. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Seven Talgerit hauled on the starter cord, yanking it hard, yet again, and the generator gave a hopeful chug that time. "Gonna work, Samuel, eh?" he asked, looking hopefully at Samuel, who was soldering connections in the lighting switch board he'd rigged up for the camp. Samuel reached over and pressed his fingers over the repaired injector unit, and it felt like the seal was holding. "Could be," he said. "Keep trying." Talgerit gripped the end of the cord again, where it had wound back, and flexed his muscular arms. They'd been doing this for a while, trying to get the generator started, and it was hard work, at least for Talgerit who was doing the sweating. This time the chug lasted longer, then died off. Talgerit said something in Noongar, and the tone made it clear it was obscene, then hauled on the cord again. This time the generator spluttered into life, the chugging catching, and Samuel could hear the compression building in the chamber. Talgerit shouted jubilantly and bounced out of the shack the generator was housed in, and Samuel followed him more slowly, moving cautiously and pausing to pull his trousers away from the wounds on his thigh. Talgerit was running around the clearing in the middle of the shacks, leaping in the air, and Samuel grinned widely. He felt a bit like that himself. "I'll try the lights!" Talgerit shouted as people began to appear from the bush and shacks. He dove back into the 109


generator shack, behind Samuel, and began flicking switches at random. The floodlight over the clearing began to glow faintly, and Samuel stood there, propped up on one crutch still, nodding to himself with satisfaction. People in the clearing cheered. Talgerit bounced out of the shack again and slapped Samuel hard on the back, making him wobble. "It works!" Talgerit said, shining brighter than the floodlight that was glowing under the overcast sky. "I've hooked it up to the bore pump, too," Samuel said. "So the bore will run at night if you need it to." "What you going to fix next?" Talgerit asked expectantly. Samuel looked around the camp. "Where's the toilets?" he asked Talgerit. Everyone pissed in the forest, he knew that, but they couldn't shit in the forest, too, not and be hygienic. Talgerit looked puzzled. "Toilets are for whiteman," he explained. "Noongar don't have them." It was Samuel's turn to look puzzled. "Where do you shit?" They'd run into a cultural difference, obviously, because Talgerit said, "Wherever we want to. Not next to the creek, not in the camp, because that makes people sick." "Doesn't it make people sick, just leaving your shit lying around?" Samuel asked, now genuinely curious. Talgerit started laughing, and in between guffaws he said, "Doesn't lie around. That's what dogs are for." Samuel looked at the collection of wide-faced pointy-nosed yellow dogs that were gamboling around the camp, playing with the kids, with horror. He'd patted those dogs, especially 110


the puppies that one bitch had with her, let them climb into his lap... Talgerit elbowed Samuel, chuckling away. "Samuel is Noongar now, he has to shit in the bush. Don't worry, we'll take a dog with us to Perth. So, what are you fixing?" "Think I should go fix Nick's house," Samuel said. "I still haven't got his lighting working yet. Will you drive me there?" "Drive you anywhere, Samuel," Talgerit said. "And you have to make Dr. Nick happy, or he might not kiss you again." **** In the darkness of the winter night, with rain just starting, after spending an hour with a fretful Mrs. Pocock the Elder, Nick pulled the van in beside the shearing shed and stared at his house in amazement. Instead of a faint yellow splinter of candle light in the kitchen window, the whole place was lit up, bright white light spilling out onto the garden, the light over the back door was on, and the whole place looked like the Christmas trees of his childhood. He hung his raincoat up, stepped out of his boots, patted a bewildered Harold on the head, sniffed appreciatively at the cooking smells and pushed the kitchen door open. Samuel was standing in front of the stove, lit brilliantly by the light bulb hanging in the middle of the room, stirring something, and the full wave of spice and onion hit Nick's nostrils.

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Talgerit was leaning over the stove beside Samuel, and he looked up and grinned at Nick. "Hey, Dr. Nick," he said. "Samuel has made your lights work." Samuel smiled at Nick, and Nick said, "Forget the lights, that smells fantastic. Where's Josh? He can't possibly have gone somewhere else for dinner, not with whatever you're cooking on the menu." "He's off at Jo's, swapping a goose for the ingredients for tonight's dinner," Samuel said. "Thought we could eat something other than roast sheep." "So what are we having then?" Nick asked, peering over Samuel's other shoulder and breathing in deeply. "Something with some flavor in it," Samuel said determinedly. "For a change. I was surprised to find out from Jo that it is possible to buy spices in Albany. For some reason, perhaps having only had hospital food and the food here, I'd got the impression that there was no flavoring available anywhere." "Spices cost scrip," Nick pointed out he stuck his fingers into the mess in the pan and snared a piece of meat. "Oh, that's good," he said, licking his fingers. "What is it?" "Metagee," Samuel said. "Or it would be if I could get all of the ingredients. It's something close to metagee. And it only takes a tiny bit of spice to make something taste good." The rich first taste of the metagee faded, and a burn spread through Nick's mouth. He gasped and said, "That's not just a little bit of spice." Talgerit said, "He put his fingers in the food! That's not fair. You won't let me do that." 112


"That's because you come from a camp with no toilets," Samuel said. "And Dr. Nick washes his hands all the time." Samuel looked at Nick and added, "How can the conditions be bearable? With the dogs eating the shit?" "They're coprophagic," Nick said. "It's a reasonable huntergatherer solution to the problem, but you're right, too, there's no way I'd let Talgerit put his hands in the food." He grabbed another piece of meat and ate it. "You'll change your mind," Talgerit said. "When you want me to catch and cook rabbits, when we go to Perth." Talgerit's car rumbled into the yard, beside the shearing shed, and a minute later Josh walked into the house, nose in the air, sniffing. "That just gets better and better, each time I smell it," Josh said, sitting down at the kitchen table. "When's dinner?" "When the wheat is cooked," Samuel said, lifting the lid off another pan, letting out a blast of steam. "You can't boil wheat," Nick said, looking at the roiling water, and the grains of wheat swirling in it. "Of course I can," Samuel said. "It was the closest thing I could find to rice, to go with the metagee." At the dinner table, across the loaded plates, Nick said, "That's so good." Talgerit looked up from shoveling food into his mouth voraciously. "Excellent," he said around a mouthful of wheat and meat. "Dr. Nick, no wonder you want to kiss Samuel." Nick caught the momentary pause in Josh's gorging that Talgerit's comment caused, ignored it, ate another mouthful, and let the taste linger. He could remember food he'd eaten a 113


lifetime ago, curries and fried chicken and sushi, and wine he had drunk, but he'd never expected to taste anything remotely like them again. The metagee was sweet and spicy at first, then meaty and salty, then hot, burning his mouth. Josh was racing Talgerit, by the looks of it, though he was hampered by having been taught at least some table manners by Fineen, where as Talgerit was using two spoons and his fingers for maximum efficiency and not bothering to chew as he went. Samuel was watching Nick's face when he glanced up, and Samuel had an intensity about his gaze that reminded Nick of watching Samuel scratch his leg a few days before. The wait for Samuel to be healed looked like it was going to be even more difficult to bear. Josh and Talgerit ate two huge platefuls each, piling the plates up with boiled wheat and metagee, and guzzling vast amounts of water because of the burn, but Nick stopped after one ordinary serve. He didn't want to make himself sick, and it was so much more fun to watch Josh and Talgerit do it anyway. Talgerit left after dinner, clutching his belly and almost waddling, leaving behind a mess that was plainly visible in the electric light. "I'll clean up," Nick said reluctantly. "Since Samuel cooked and Josh has been working all day." "Haven't you been working?" Samuel asked. "No," Nick said. "I've actually spent the entire day sitting in my office, eating the scones with jam and cream, and cups of tea that Jo has been bringing me." He grinned. "Of course 114


I've been working. Got to sew up Claire from Ongerup's arm from where she fell off the tractor." "She needs a stump-jump plough," Josh said wisely. "She needs lots of things," Nick replied. **** When the electric light was off, and the room was back to its usual nighttime inky blackness, Nick slid into bed beside Samuel, and Samuel's hands found him, drawing him close. The sheets were chilly against Nick's bare skin, but Samuel was warm and willing, mouth open and tasting of bicarb of soda from brushing his teeth, and Nick kissed him deeply. Samuel's hand stroked down his back, dragging sharp edges of nails across his ribs, and in the dark it all became so certain, so real, shivering and present, then Samuel's hand curled around his cock and began to stroke him. "Samuel," Nick whispered. "Don't... Too much..." "Let me," Samuel murmured back, mouth against Nick's. Nick did. **** The crashing from the kitchen pulled Nick from bed, making him pull on clothes in the dark and find his slippers on the icy floor. He pulled the covers tighter around Samuel without waking him, and closed the door quietly behind himself. It was strange, being able to turn the bathroom light on to piss and wash his hands and face. In the silvered mirror, his 115


face was unfamiliar, an almost-smile right there, under his beard. It was strange to find a fully-lit Josh in the kitchen, whistling as he stirred his porridge on the stove, dressed ready for a day in the cold. "Morning," Josh said, as Nick reached for the teapot. "Morning," Nick said, and he felt as well-lit as the room. "Kettle's not boiled yet," Josh pointed out. "We had another frost last night." "That'd be winter then," Nick said, and some of how he felt must have been in his voice because Josh studied him closely, with that faraway gaze of his. When the kettle boiled, Josh filled the teapot and spooned in the chicory, and sat down at the table, opposite Nick. "Dad," he said. "If you want to do this, then I think you should. I can run the farm by myself, if I don't crop as many paddocks, run some goats as well as sheep, keep a couple of pigs to sell in Albany." "Time's running out for me," Nick said. "I've had several lifetimes' worth of radiation exposure, and received every vaccination the armed forces could think of. I'm not going to be here forever." "Like Mum," Josh said. "I'd realized that. I think I'd just been fooling myself, telling myself you wouldn't leave, that the community needed you and you wouldn't leave your patients." Nick put his hand over Josh's, on the table. "I had to think about that, too, had to remind myself that being a person matters more than being a doctor." 116


"I couldn't think of a reason to not like Samuel either," Josh said. "He's a good bloke." He smiled a little and added, "And he can cook. Really, I think that's the most important thing. If you both survive this, bring him back here, and he can learn to drive a tractor, then he'll be perfect." "Thank you," Nick said. "For everything." Josh smiled wider. "Looks like I'll have to pursue Jenny Duggan myself if I want to keep eating her jam." "She can drive a tractor and cook," Nick said. "She'd meet your criteria." **** The rain water tanks for the house and shed were both overflowing, the dams on the farm were full, too, and the paddocks that Josh had sown with wheat, oats and clover were all a foot deep in green growth, and it was still raining. "It'll stop soon," Josh said morosely, standing on the back verandah and watching the deluge. "There'll be no more rain, not till next year." The sheep in the top paddock all looked waterlogged, dragging around immense burdens of soggy wool as they grazed, and Samuel watched a bedraggled and dripping procoptodon hop slowly through the top paddock, Harold barking at its heels, scattering the sheep. "Stop exaggerating," Nick replied, his arm slung around Samuel's shoulder. "There'll be a late summer storm, with hail and lightning strikes, and the crop'll be ruined." The procoptodon took out the fence between the paddock and the nascent wheat crop with a loping hop, and Josh 117


reached for his waterproof jacket where it hung beside the back door. "Bloody things," Josh said, and waded out into the mud after retrieving a pair of pliers from the windowsill. "I'm going to take your cast off tomorrow," Nick said, nuzzling against Samuel's neck. "Then we can go." Samuel leaned against Nick's shoulder and slid his arm around Nick's waist. After all he'd done to get that far, he found himself reluctant to leave the farm. "It's comfortable here," he said. "Besides, we'll have to find Talgerit, he could be anywhere." "You watch," Nick said. "Talgerit will turn up exactly when he's needed, he's learning to be a clever man." **** This time, when Nick cut Samuel's cast off, Jo wasn't there, and when he'd yanked the cast off, and cut away the padding and gauze, Nick kissed Samuel and said, "Scratch yourself, I want to watch this." Samuel looked down at his thigh and said, "That's disgusting. I can't scratch that until I've had a bath." Dead skin was flaking off, mixed with shreds of gauze and tufts of padding, all stuck to his leg, and it looked hideous. "With the cast off, you can have a bath now," Nick pointed out. "Stove's been on all morning, there'll be plenty of hot water." "A bath..." Samuel said, sighing. "That would be wonderful. I've never been so grubby in all my life." 118


"It'll be the last time you'll be clean for a while," Nick said. "Make the most of it." The bath was heaven. Samuel had never seen a bathtub long enough for an adult to stretch out in, but the one at the farmhouse was, and with the rain drumming steadily against the roof and the gutters gurgling he didn't need to feel bad about using so much rainwater. Nick was there, scissors in one hand, in front of the mirror, hacking away at his shaggy beard and scruffy hair. Samuel had done his before the bath, and consequently hair bits floated in the water. Samuel washed his head with the slab of soap, scrubbing away at the skin, then sunk down under the water to rinse the suds off. When he emerged, Nick was trimming under his chin, pulling absurd faces in the mirror, and Samuel slid a hand down his belly. The scars on his chest and thigh were much the same, dark red ridges of new skin, and Samuel found that he was now proud of the scars. Nick knelt down beside the bath and slid his hand across the scars on Samuel's chest as well. "Need a hand washing?" he asked, and he reached for the bar of soap. A thudding and grinding sounded from outside, and it wasn't the steady thumpthump of the tractor. Nick put the soap down. "Sounds like company," he said. Harold barked, just once, then gave a scared yip, and Talgerit called out, "You two kissing again?" and the back door thudded open. 119


"Yes!" Nick called back. "Have some food while you wait!" Samuel dropped his voice and murmured, "Testing my leg is not an option, unna?" Nick chuckled, and said, "I don't think so." Talgerit called out, "Heard that. This is good jam." When Samuel had dried himself and dressed, Talgerit and Nick were in the kitchen, apparently negotiating what they were taking with them. "...then Josh will be unhappy," Nick said, picking up the bread knife from the pile on the table and putting it back in the sink. "And the jam, eh?" Talgerit said hopefully. Nick took a pot of jam off the shelf and put it on the table. "Jam." "Some of the stuff Samuel uses to make food, eh?" Talgerit said. "So he can cook rabbit that makes our mouths hot?" They both looked at Samuel expectantly and Samuel shrugged. "Or roo. It would taste good with roo." "Lots of roo," Talgerit said. "If I can catch it." "You're not taking your shotgun?" Nick asked Talgerit. "No, Ed said I have to do this the old way or I won't be a Featherman." Talgerit looked as morose as he could with his exuberant good nature. "Roos are hard to catch." "What's a Featherman?" Samuel asked. "No one has ever told me." Talgerit spread his hands wide, dropped his gaze, and his body became still, more than still. His expression fell away, and when he looked up at Samuel again, his eyes focused 120


right through Samuel. Samuel would have sworn the room temperature dropped. "Stop it, that's creepy," Nick said. "A Featherman can walk through this world without a trace, act without consequences. Right, Talgerit?" Talgerit was back, and the prickling cold left Samuel. "That's right, Dr. Nick. A Featherman is a clever man, and he can seek revenge without anyone knowing." Samuel nodded. He was getting used to the oddities of Talgerit's language, and to the idea that clever meant more than intelligent. **** The wooden slats of the shearing shed floor were silver with age and slick with lanolin. Josh was squatting down beside the mothering pen, guiding an orphaned lamb onto its adoptive mother's teat. "Evening," Josh said when Nick squatted down beside him. "Much easier to do this with decent lighting, isn't it?" "Seems so," Nick said, watching the lamb latch on, despite the adoptive mother's attempts to get away. "You're really leaving tomorrow morning?" Josh asked. "For sure?" "Yes," Nick said, and he stroked his hand across Josh's shoulder. "I love you. Just seemed important to make sure you knew." "Love you, too, Dad," Josh said, and he let go of the lamb, now securely attached, and wrapped his arms around Nick's neck and hugged him hard. 121


**** "My car," Talgerit said, and he sounded as immovable as the boulders near the camp. "It needs fuel, Talgerit," Nick said. "We'd have to carry enough oil or fat to run it. My car we can run on charcoal and wood." Talgerit crossed his arms and glowered, and the yellow dog he had with him snarled at Harold, who promptly bolted for the verandah. Josh sauntered over from the big shed, coil of fencing wire over one shoulder. "You can't take a car over the song line, can you?" he said. "Means you'll have to leave the car wherever that is. Someone might steal your car, Talgerit. It's not like it locks or anything." Talgerit looked horrified at the idea, and said, "We take Dr. Nick's van, unna? Doesn't matter if anyone nicks that." "I'll look after your car, Talgerit," Josh said. "If you let me drive it." Talgerit slapped Josh solidly on the shoulders, rocking him despite his build. "Brother's son, you can drive my car." "What else do we need to take?" Samuel asked, looking at the box of food and the small sack of flour, and nudging the dog out of the box with his foot. "My medical bag's in the van already," Nick said. "I'm leaving most of my supplies here, Josh. Make sure Jo gets them." Josh nodded, and said, "Blankets? You should be right for water, at least until you have to leave the van." 122


Samuel wasn't quite used to be able to walk around easily, it was still a novelty to have both hands free, and he jumped up the back steps to the verandah, just for the joy of it, and left the others deep in discussion. His duffel bag was too big, so he transferred the maps and articles on the clock to a small fabric bag, shoved in a clean pair of underpants, a shirt and his toothbrush on top of them, and grabbed his waterproof jacket from its hook on the way back out again. The side door of the van was open, so he tossed his bag in the back, feeling as bouncy as Talgerit. Josh and Nick were hugging, and Talgerit had a soppy look on his face, watching them. Samuel knew they'd said goodbye the night before, because Nick had woken him when he'd finally come to bed, frozen and sorrowful, and Samuel had held him in the dark for a long time before Nick had finally gone to sleep. They didn't say anything, not that Samuel heard anyway, and Josh let go of Nick and hugged Talgerit, and then Samuel. Some things didn't need words. When Samuel looked back, leaning out of the passenger side window, Josh and Harold were standing beside the shed, Josh with a coil of fencing wire over one arm again. Talgerit leaned forward, over the seats, and said, "Where we going first?" [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Eight The first couple of hours were familiar territory to Nick, he traveled these roads constantly; the smooth run out of town, where the bitumen had actually been repaired, then slowing down for the slippery gravel out past the Passell's farm, and then the ford. It wasn't a ford for nine months of the year, then it was a dip in the road, but this was one of the other three months, and water roared over the road, at least a meter deep. "How do we do this?" Samuel asked, rising up in his seat to peer over the cracked and pitted dash. "Talgerit?" Nick asked. "Can you help?" Talgerit leaned right forward, over the back of the seats. The dog jumped up behind Samuel, and Samuel had to work hard at not cringing back from its mouth. "Might," Talgerit said. The back door of the van slid open, and Talgerit jumped out and walked in front of the van, so the water rushed up to his ankles. He waded out slowly, taking careful steps, and the water crept up his legs. "What's he doing?" Samuel asked in a low voice. "Some magic is slow, some is quick," Nick said, turning the motor off. "I'm guessing this is an in-between one." Talgerit didn't do anything, not that Nick could see, just stood there with the water up to his ribs. Time passed, the dog hopped in and out of the van a couple of times, wandering around a bit. It had been drizzling rain at first, and 124


that stopped, and the cloud cover broke up a little. The wet mark on Talgerit's jumper grew larger, then the top of his trousers were above the water level. The creek dropped slowly, the water slowing, then when it was down as far as Talgerit's ankles, Talgerit splashed his way back to the van and hopped in the back. He looked tired, or at least as tired as someone who was manically hyperactive could be. Nick started the van again, and they rolled carefully across the rutted ford, wheels jarring down into potholes. In the rear vision mirror, when Nick looked back, he could see the water rising quickly, surging back down the gully. "The parting of the Red Sea," Samuel said. Talgerit leaned wetly over the back of the seats. "Someone parted the sea, unna?" he asked. "Very clever man to do that." The further north they drove, slow jolting kilometer after kilometer, the larger the paddocks became, the drier the air was, and the worse condition the land was in. This area was badly acidic, desperately in need of liming, and phosphate, too, and the mallee was shorter and thinner. This had never been prime sheep and wheat land, up near Lake Grace, and only a few people had hung on there, farming the land and surviving. Lake Grace itself was a collection of almost derelict buildings, with chickens scratching the main road and a pig glaring balefully at them from what used to be a petrol station.

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They stopped the van, and the dog began to yip, earsplitting in the confines of the van, so Talgerit slid the door open, letting the dog out. "Does anyone live here?" Samuel asked. "Why would they?" "No chickens without whiteman," Talgerit pointed out, and he hopped out of the van, too. "Tru lives here," Nick said, opening his door and climbing out. "We need to ask her permission to stay tonight." The front of the post office was crumbling, piled with pieces of broken farm machinery, windows and door boarded over, but Nick led Talgerit and Samuel around the side of the building, past piled up worthless electrical equipment and fridges. A rotting fence was propped up with junk, and Nick pushed the gate in it open, holding it on its hinges, then closed it after the three of them. The yard looked like a jungle, overgrown with vines and weeds, but Nick knew there was a system to the garden, that Tru lived successfully off the tubers and tomatoes and dandelion roots. Tru was sitting on the back veranda, a shrivelled old woman with a pipe in her mouth, mangy cat at her feet and the inevitable mountain of books beside her sagging chair. She looked up, pushed her spectacles up her nose, and called out, "Come on through," to them. "Good to see you, Nicholas," Tru said. "Who're your friends?" 126


"Good to see you too, Tru. This is Samuel and Talgerit." He climbed up the wooden steps to the veranda, carefully stepping over the one that had rotted out completely, and took Tru's hand and kissed it. "We're passing through Lake Grace," Nick said, sitting down on a clear place on the veranda amongst the books. "Mind if we camp?" Tru lived utterly alone, keeping no chairs for visitors, so Samuel and Talgerit sat down where they could, Samuel trailing his fingers over the spines of the books beside him. The late afternoon sun shone fitfully through the clouds, and the pollen in the air was briefly silver, the same colour as the weathered wooden boards of the veranda. Tru peered at Samuel, who had extracted a hard cover book from a teetering pile and opened it reverently. "Where did you go to university?" Tru asked. "Only an educated person would know Aristotle's On the Heavens, even in translation." Samuel looked up, and smiled briefly. "Guyana," he said. "University of Guyana, Faculty of Natural Sciences. Where did you get this from?" "University of Western Australia," Nick said. "Tru stole a truck and backed it up to the library and packed it full of books, when it became obvious the city was under attack." "I didn't steal the truck," Tru said. "I just failed to book it out through Transport. And there didn't seem much point in returning it to Transport after the bombing started."

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Talgerit picked up a book, too, and opened it up, turned it around the other way, then back again. "This is beautiful," he said, stroking fingertips over the glossy surface. "What is it?" "Kandinsky," Nick, Samuel and Tru all said simultaneously. "What does it mean?" Talgerit asked, looking up briefly, then turning the page and touching the next color plate. "Not sure it means anything," Tru said. "Except what you want it to. You folk might want to look around the buildings, find some space to sleep before it gets dark. Did you bring some food with you?" **** Samuel found a system to the books, once he began peering at the spines by candlelight, working his way around the rooms of the old post office. First room was philosophy, religion, politics and law, Dewey numbers 000 to 330; next one was languages, science and medicine, up to 620; the big front room was the arts and literature, and the hallway was floor to ceiling with biographies. Cats wandered in and out of the building, but the chickens seemed to be shut outside. Nick came to find Samuel, when he was crouching down in the front room, touching the spine of Goethe, sending dust tumbling down the shelving. Nick squatted down beside him and stroked his neck. "Ready to eat?" he asked. "Talgerit has made damper, and Tru killed and plucked a chicken and roasted it." "These books are amazing," Samuel said, filled with awe. "Why are they here? Why didn't Tru take them somewhere like Albany, so people could read them?" 128


"Tru doesn't think Albany is safe enough," Nick said, standing up. "She thinks it'll be occupied eventually, but no occupying force will get this far inland, not with the Feathermen in between the books and the invaders. Here, where it's dry, the books will last for decades, until its safe for them to be taken to a university." "Or off-planet," Samuel said, and he stood up slowly, the muscles in the leg he broke complaining bitterly. Nick's hand wrapped around his elbow, steadying him. "We're sleeping in the petrol station," he said quietly. "Talgerit wants to stay outside, watch the stars." In the candlelight, Nick's face was sunshine orange and opaque shadow, but Samuel could smell him clearly enough to read the lurch of desire there. "No squeaking bed?" Samuel whispered. "No," Nick said, and his mouth was urgent against Samuel's. When they went into the kitchen, Tru and Talgerit had started eating without them, and Talgerit looked up from chewing the meat off a chicken bone. "No food left," he said. "You two aren't hungry enough." There was a still only partly-dismembered chicken carcass on a chipped plate, and a big hunk of damper, and Talgerit laughed, obviously amused by his own joke. Nick laughed, too, rumbling good humour that Samuel suspected had more to do with the way they'd kissed than Talgerit's joke, and Samuel added his candle to the two on the table and sat down on one of the empty crates at the battered table. 129


The chicken was tough, almost too tough to chew, and the damper wasn't easy to break up either, but Samuel was glad to eat anyway. When they'd finished, apart from Talgerit who was industriously biting each bone open and sucking the marrow out, Samuel picked the plates up and stacked them in the sink and Tru put the kettle over the fire in the stove. Whatever it was Tru spooned into the mugs, it wasn't something Samuel had ever tasted before, and he found it made him sleepy and peaceful, listening to Nick and Tru talk about their old lives while Tru puffed on her pipe, until Nick touched his hand and said, "Wake up, Samuel, and come brush your teeth, then I'll put you to bed." A strong wind blew, rattling the trees, blowing bits of junk around the street, and Talgerit's dog came snuffling up to them and followed them across the dirt road before wandering off again. Enough moonlight shone, with the same wind blowing the clouds apart, and Samuel was cold underneath his sweater. "That's an easterly," Nick said. "Beginning of jilba, turn of the seasons. Josh was right, there won't be much more rain." The wind felt gritty on Samuel's face, dry and cold, and he asked, "What is there east of here?" Nick stopped, halfway across the road, and looked in the direction the wind was blowing from. "Nothing," he said. "Next mountain range is the Blue Mountains, on the east coast. This is the edge of the desert, there's four thousand kilometers of nothing." 130


"It's called Lake Grace. Does that mean there's a lake here?" Samuel asked, and Nick started walking again, heading towards what looked like a shop with a huge awning in front of it. "Salt lake," Nick said. "There'll be water in it at the moment, but not for much longer. Tru relies on an old well, hand lifts her water from twenty meters underground." The ground underneath the awning was cracked and pitted cement, and Samuel identified it as a gas station by the bowser lying on its side on the cement. The door to the shop pushed open easily, and it was remarkably uncluttered, unlike Tru's house, with some shattered pieces of furniture in a corner and nothing else. The emptiness explained where Tru had found the shelving for her books; she must have cannibalised the entire township for it all. "I put some old cardboard on the floor," Nick said. "This'll probably be the last comfortable place we sleep." It was dark, dark enough that Samuel had to rely on his sense of touch to find the buttons on Nick's shirt. "Don't care," he said. The cardboard crackled and crunched underneath them, and the blanket was rough against Samuel's skin, but it was worth it when he kissed his way down Nick's chest and belly. They hadn't done this before; there'd been Samuel's wounds. That and the sure knowledge that every creak of Nick's bed was audible through the house, coupled with Josh's tenuous acceptance of Samuel, had held them back. 131


Not this time. Nick moaned, deep in his chest, and his hands pushed against Samuel's cropped hair, pushing him lower. The easterly wind picked up outside, rattling at the loose boards of the gas station, chasing dust across the concrete floor. Samuel's hands were shaking as he undid the buttons on Nick's trousers, sliding under layers of material until he found Nick's cock. Nick said, "Please," and Samuel dragged his teeth across Nick's belly, until his cheek rubbed against Nick's cock. Then he turned his head and breathed out, lips against skin. The concrete was hard under Samuel's knees through the cardboard, but he didn't care. He didn't care that Nick's fingernails caught at the back of his neck. Nothing mattered, as long as Nick kept gasping and rocking his cock into Samuel's mouth, hot and perfect. Nick came, long and slow, a rising gasp against the wind pulling at the building, with Samuel's hands holding his hips down. When Samuel crawled back up Nick's body to fall down beside him, Nick took a deep breath in. "You..." Samuel yanked the buttons of his trousers undone and reached for Nick's hand. With Nick's hand wrapped around his cock and his face buried against Nick's neck, coming was sweet. They left early the next morning, taking charcoal from Tru's stove to reload the van, leaving her part of the sack of flour. Nick drove the van off the main road, down a track, past abandoned houses and fallen fences, and a building that 132


used to be a school, playground equipment swinging emptily in the easterly wind that was still blowing. The lake, choppy and steel under the early morning cloud cover, twisted trees around the shore, stretched as far as Samuel could see. Talgerit said something in Noongar, sounding reverent, and Nick stopped the van. Sea birds, white and huge, hovered over the lake and landed on the water, and it smelled sour, with salt crunching under Samuel's feet as he walked down to the edge of the water. "It's like a part of the ocean was trapped here," Samuel said to Talgerit. Talgerit nodded and hitched up his track pants and walked out into the water. "It's a beginning place," Talgerit said. "Maybe one day something will happen here." Nick walked off, along the shore away from them, and Talgerit put a hand on Samuel's arm, stopping him from following. "This is an ending place for Dr. Nick," Talgerit said. "Tru is his son's mother's sister. He'll be wanting to think of things." "Did you know her?" Samuel asked. "Josh's mother?" Talgerit nodded and said, "Let's not talk about people that have gone." They went back to the van. Samuel knocked the sand and salt from his shoes and climbed back into the front seat, out of the wind, and Talgerit disappeared off into the low-growing bushes around the lake. 133


Nick came back, before the bright patch in the cloud cover that marked the sun's presence had risen much higher. He opened the van door and banged his shoes against the wooden tire and climbed in without saying anything. Talgerit slid the back door of the van open a moment later, dog bounding alongside him, and climbed in, too. "Where we going?" Samuel asked eagerly. "Kutter Kich," Nick said. "Talgerit says we've got to go there. Got some family there, Talgerit?" "Got family everywhere," Talgerit said proudly. "Bet they kill a roo for us, the Kutter Kich mob." They drove out of town, with the wind buffeting the van around, jolting over the broken road, slowing right down where the wind had blown sand across the road. Huge tanks stood beside the road, and they didn't look like water tanks. "Wheat silos," Nick explained when Samuel asked. "This area used to crop heavily, before the salt ruined the ground. It'll probably slowly return to good soil, as the mallee scrub grows back and reclaims the area. Then some poor bastard will have to pull all the bloody stumps out again. Of course, we should have stopped cropping this area years before we did. Probably never should have bothered coming here in the first place." "You're talking like a blackfellow, Dr. Nick," Talgerit said from the back of the van. "Whiteman should just have sailed on past, gone ruined someone else's country." "Mine," Samuel said. "Whiteman sailed to my country, Talgerit. Made a mess there, too." "Really, eh?" Talgerit said. "Didn't know that." 134


"Think the Noongars and Kooris and Ptinjarra people have won after all," Nick said. "Not many whitemen left, Talgerit. They'll be all gone, in a few hundred years." Talgerit said, "Just us blackfellows left after that." The shapes in distance, moving slowly through the scrub, were larger than Samuel expected, when the van rattled past them. Samuel craned past Nick, staring at the herd of animals, all of them bigger than horses and the shape of capybaras. "What are they?" Samuel asked, as Nick coaxed additional speed out of the van. "Trouble," Nick said. "Let's hope we can get past them. They're diprotodons." "No good to eat," Talgerit said. "So we make them stay out here, away from the whiteman farms." The van shook and rattled over the rough road, and the creatures broke into a run, chasing the van. "Talgerit?" Nick asked. "They won't catch up," Talgerit said. Talgerit was right, and the van charged over the top of the next hill and down a long slope, with Talgerit and Samuel hanging onto anything they could find to stop themselves being shaken apart while Nick clung to the steering wheel. "Gone now," Talgerit called, looking back, out of the filthy back window of the van, and Nick let the van slow down again. Samuel turned around in his seat, to look back at Talgerit. "So, the Noongar keep the diprotodons away from the farms? To protect the crops?" 135


"That's right," Talgerit said. "And the whiteman teaches our children and shares Dr. Nick with us. And you, Samuel." "There's more to the agreement," Nick said. "In exchange for allowing whiteman to farm, whiteman has to stay unarmed, not make war, and respect Noongar ways. No killing Noongar animals, like the thylacines on our farm. The thylacines are supposed to be there, and we're not." "What about the military presence?" Samuel asked. Talgerit stared out the front windscreen. "One day, they'll be gone, too. We've got most of our land back, there's only a small bit left under military control." The trees became gradually taller, and Samuel actually spotted someone in a paddock, walking behind a cow pulling a plough, turning the soil over slowly. The person raised their hand in greeting as the van drove past. They drove past a farmhouse, close to the road, smoke rising from its chimney, and a huge faded sign out the front, crudely painted, that said, Trespassers will be shot. Shotgun pellet holes peppered the sign. Sheep grazed the paddocks, and the occasional cow. A woman on a horse rode past them, going the other direction, and she waved a greeting, too, and Nick and Talgerit waved back. Samuel saw other faded, and shot, road signs. Hyden, Bush Living at its Best they said. Hyden welcomes safe drivers. An arrow pointed to Kulin, and another to Kondinin. This had been a population centre once. People were still there, in the townsite, when the van rattled into the town in the afternoon. A hand-painted sign 136


outside what used to be a petrol station, said high-grade vege oil, and a store had tables of dry goods outside and a generator chugging away beside it. People looked out of windows and doorways, and children pointed as they drove past the school. Nick drove through the town and continued on, following Talgerit's directions, past a faded Wave Rock sign. The camp was more substantial than Ed's, with a windmill spinning slowly and feeding a water tank, and shacks with chimneys and doors. Children milled everywhere, shouting and running with the yellow dogs. Talgerit slid the back door of the van open as soon as Nick had stopped it, letting his dog out into an instant dogfight, and Samuel watched as small children climbed over Talgerit, shouting greetings. Flies swarmed over Samuel's face immediately, and he rubbed at his face, moving them off. The adults ignored the dogfight, too, rushing up to greet Talgerit, and Nick raised his voice over the ruckus and said, "Come on." Talgerit said something and pointed at Nick and Samuel, and one of the elderly men hobbled over to them and held out his hand. "Balgang," he said. "Brother's son Talgerit says you've got scars." Nick pulled his sweater up over his head and undid the buttons on his shirt to show his chest, and nodded at Samuel to do the same. Samuel exposed his chest, feeling very self-conscious in front of the crowd. The children were still giggling and 137


pointing and Balgang reached out a filthy finger with a cracked and yellow nail and traced it over Samuel's new ridges of scar tissue. "Where are you from?" he asked Samuel. "Are you a blackfellow, eh?" "I'm a whiteman from Guyana," Samuel said. "I came here on a boat." Balgang nodded and smiled, glistening huge teeth against the black of his skin, and people began slapping Samuel and Nick on the back and greeting them. They sat down under a huge tree, in the shade, all the adults, and the children went back to running around. Someone went over to hit the fighting dogs, separating them and cowing them both. Samuel waved at the flies on his face, again, and Nick handed him a twig and said, "Here, use this." They were given water in an ancient plastic bottle, and Samuel managed to put aside his squeamishness enough to drink from it without wiping the bottle first, then he passed it on to Nick. "Are you going to treat any of the people here?" Samuel asked Nick in a low voice, watching a child with infected and crusty eyes run past, and he swished at the flies more fervently. "No," Nick said quietly. "Pete is the doctor here, he lives in Narrogin, comes out here to Hyden and the camp. Not my patients, not my place." "There are other doctors?" Samuel asked. "I thought there were just you and Marsia." 138


"Kevin is in Margaret River, Linda lives in Collie. There're at least two doctors and a hospital in Geraldton, and probably the same in Carnarvon. I don't know about the Far North, but Derby had a hospital, as did Broome. Karratha was wiped out, bombed out of existence, so there's nothing there, same for Kalgoorlie. There's an unknown number of nurses out there, too, delivering babies and sewing up wounds and doing what they can." "And the bio-plant at Albany?" Samuel asked. "There must be doctors there." Nick looked grim. "That's a military installation, any medical staff there are serving officers. They don't look after the population." "Who do they think is going to invade?" Samuel asked. "Who'd want to?" It was warm, even in the shade, and the surface the children played on was red gravel. The windmill clacked above them, and Nick looked around the camp, too. "I suspect New Zealand thought the same way," Nick said. They went out roo shooting, piling into the camp vehicles, after the young men, Talgerit included, had spent the afternoon making shotgun shells, melting scrap lead in the camp fire and pouring the metal into a concrete mould to make pellets, then rolling the shot up in card with a primer and a charge. In the dusk Samuel could barely make out anything as the car he was in bounced and crashed through the bush, squashed in beside Nick in the front seat. 139


Talgerit was sitting out of one of the back windows, only his legs in the car. He banged on the roof, and the driver braked hard, stopping the car, and making all the following cars stop, too. Talgerit scrambled completely out of the car, so he was standing on the buckling roof, and Samuel heard two shots, close together. "Got it!" Talgerit shouted, and people piled out of the cars and crashed through the bush. Something shot out of the undergrowth, right beside the car, and Samuel jumped and grabbed onto Nick. "What was that?!" he asked, watching... something lope down the track. "A spirit?" Nick laughed, hugging Samuel hard. "No," he said between bursts of laughing. "That was an emu." "A what?" Samuel asked. "It was huge! Why aren't we hunting emus?" "They're all feather, no meat," Nick said. "And virtually impossible to shoot. You shoot one, feathers fly in the air, and it keeps right on running." Two of the younger men from the camp appeared on the track, carrying a huge kangaroo between them with difficulty. When they tossed it in the trunk of the car, the car rocked with the weight, and the smell of the animal filled the car. It smelled hot and gamey, and Samuel was just a little appalled that he liked the scent. They repeated this process, loading a roo into the back of each of the three cars. It was completely dark when they headed back to camp, the three cars careening down the 140


rough track impossibly fast, no lights on at all, bumper to bumper. When they got back to the camp, Talgerit took Samuel's arm and dragged him aside. "Don't leave the camp," he said. "Yes, eh?" "Yes," Samuel said, surprised at the intensity in Talgerit's voice. "Why?" "There are things here," Talgerit said. "Not like Jerramungup. Don't go into the bush, even to shit." "What kind of things?" Samuel asked. "You watch, tonight, at the edge of the camp, you'll see them. You want to shit, you tell me and I'll take you into the bush." The fire roared, so the sparks flew up into the night in the easterly wind, and the stars gleamed, no clouds in the sky at all. When the kangaroos had been gutted and skinned, the dogs fought over the guts, and the hunks of flesh were tossed onto hubcaps and put over the fire. Damper, made by the women from flour and water, was thrown onto the hubcaps beside the meat when it began to cook, and the smell of roasting meat filled the air. Samuel could follow very little of the conversations around him, just catch the occasional word, but he was happy to sit and listen to the people laugh and wait for the meat to be cooked. The roo tasted stronger than the roo that Talgerit had brought to the farm, gamier and more pungent, but the damper cooked in the meat juice was filling and delicious. 141


After dinner, the littler children gathered around Balgang and another elder, Vernon, clamouring for something, and once the grownups had smiled and patted their heads, the children settled down, sitting quietly in front of the elderly men, the best behaved Samuel had seen them so far. Balgang clapped his hands and held them out, and Samuel stared as his hands filled with light, shining out even in the firelight. The light gathered up, into spheres, and he sent each sphere floating off into the night, like soap bubbles. Vernon did the same, and with the release of each sphere, the children laughed and shouted and pointed, and the air above the camp was spotted with these bubbles rising slowly, then fading away in the darkness. Nick leaned across to Samuel and whispered, "Magic," to him, and Samuel wasn't sure if that was an adjective or an explanation. Balgang said something that obviously meant 'enough', and stopped making the spheres, as did Vernon, and the children were bustled off into the shacks, where their faces appeared at the doors intermittently, making adults get up from the fire and go and settle them again. People began to sing, taking it in turns. Samuel couldn't understand the songs either, and he lay down on the dirt, his head on Nick's thigh. Nick's fingers stroked over Samuel's cropped hair, finding the tiny curls that were already forming and unwinding them, then stroking down Samuel's neck slowly and gently. The singing went on and Samuel's mind drifted off, back to his own home, impossibly remote from where he was, and he gasped and sat up suddenly. 142


There was a small person, not a child but still tiny, covered in hair, scurrying through the bush behind the cars, darting out of sight. "The other people," Nick said, putting his arm around Samuel and drawing him close. "They want to steal the food." "What are they?" Samuel asked. "Don't know," Nick said. "I think they're a Homo species. Guess they could be a remnant floresiensis population. Could be something else entirely. The whole issue of human habitation of Australia is contentious, beginning with the Homo erectus populations that survived until ten thousand years ago, and going on from there. Was contentious. I doubt anyone argues about it anymore." "I had no idea..." Samuel said, then he trailed off. "I could never have made the trip by myself," he said, feeling very vulnerable. "Lie down again," Nick said, patting his knee. "You're safe here, and we'll sleep in the van tonight." Samuel lay back down again, and but he kept one hand tightly wound around one of Nick's while the singing went on. **** Talgerit woke them, long before dawn, and they slid the van door open slowly and quietly. Balgang was waiting for them in the darkness, along with some of the other adult males, and Talgerit took hold of Samuel's hand and they started off through the bush. Samuel couldn't see a thing at first, since the moon had set already, but slowly he began to be able to make people 143


out in the gloom, as they seemed to shine faintly. They walked for what felt like a long time, and Samuel became acutely aware of exactly how loud he was, even louder than Nick. Every breath rasped out loud, and grass cracked and snapped under his feet, and the people around him moved silently, passing around bushes, clambering over boulders, and it felt like there were many, many people moving around them, all silently. The bush ended, and the boulders became larger, and the sky had the first silver of dawn, when the weirdness began. "Kutter Kich," Talgerit whispered in Samuel's ear. "It's a Wagyl place." [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Nine There were advantages to having Talgerit squashed into the front of the van with them, Nick decided. Samuel was pressed against Nick, jostling his arm when he had to swing the steering wheel hard to swerve around a pothole or a goanna, legs spread with the gear shift stick between them, convenient for Nick to rest his hand on Samuel's thigh when they were on a decent bit of road. Talgerit was scanning the countryside, eyes constantly on the move, singing to himself quietly enough that Nick couldn't hear him unless they were on a smooth bit of road. This was Talgerit's birthplace, Nick knew that. Talgerit had left the area, Quairading, Pantapin and Badjaling, when he was a child, fleeing the radioactive clouds blown inland from Perth, heading south with his mob. Coming back, seeing the hills and trees of his own Dreaming, must be an intense experience for Talgerit. Talgerit's song, crooning in the van cabin, made Nick wonder what it would be like to return to Perth. He'd been back, of course, as part of the military response to the bombings, taking care of evacuees, but he could remember very little of that time apart from the patients he'd treated. People lived here, farming the land, running sheep and wheat, and exactly how settled the land was became obvious when the road into Quairading was barricaded and a man in khaki uniform held up the hand that wasn't holding an HK MP5, indicating for them to stop. 145


Samuel tensed up beside Nick, digging his fingers into Nick's thigh. "Oh fuck," he whispered. "Talgerit," Nick said, taking the van down through the gears quickly, bring it to a halt. "Got it, Dr. Nick," Talgerit said, and he opened the van door and hopped out and walked up to the man who was approaching them. Nick couldn't read Talgerit's lips, but he knew what he'd be saying. The remote military outposts tried not to tangle with the Feathermen, because there were plenty of things out there that couldn't be shot at successfully. Like boyee. Last thing a military installation wanted was for a Featherman to send a boyee in; heavy earth-moving equipment was scarce and so hard to explain in triplicate. Talgerit strolled back to the van, wide grin on his face. When he'd slammed the door shut and the man in khaki was moving the barrier, Nick said, "What did you threaten him with?" "Bad things," Talgerit said. "I said I'd make him smell if he didn't let us through. Reckon young man like him'd be shagging a girl for sure, eh?" "For sure," Nick said as they rolled through the checkpoint, and he could see the reflection of the man sniffing himself surreptitiously in the rear view mirror. "Can't go shagging if he smells bad." "Will there be many road blocks?" Samuel asked worriedly. "I don't have refugee papers or anything." "Dunno," Talgerit said. "Won't be any at Walwalinj, there's too much Dreaming there, they'd go mad." 146


Two hours later, when the farmlands had been replaced by bush again, Talgerit pointed at the hill ahead of them. "There, go there, Dr. Nick. That's Walwalinj." The track ended at the base of the hill, and Nick parked the van. He climbed out and put the damper down on the gas unit, while Talgerit's dog pissed its way around the van tires. "What's that sound?" Samuel asked, coming around the back of the van, too. Nick lifted his head and listened to the faint keening as the wind whistled through the gum trees. "Is that the wind, Talgerit?" Nick asked. "That's Walwalinj," Talgerit said. "The hill that cries. You're going to be Noongar now, if you can hear Walwalinj." They followed Talgerit through the scrub, past the red bull ant mounds, Talgerit moving faster and faster, following his dog up the hill, up ahead of them, so that Nick was running, Samuel out of breath behind him, crashing through the bush. Nick lost sight of Talgerit halfway up the hill, bounding between the boulders, and Samuel wasn't keeping up, so Nick let Talgerit go and waited for Samuel to catch up. They climbed the hill more slowly, finding what had previously been a firebreak instead of following Talgerit's manic dash through the bush. They found a crushed shed, near the top of the hill, a relay station of some sort Nick guessed, and Samuel paused beside the wreckage. "What happened?" he asked, and Nick shook his head. The shed had very obviously been destroyed rather than just left to fall down, and it was a puzzle since all the rest of 147


the buildings they'd seen as they had driven through Quairading were dilapidated, not broken. "Talgerit might know." Talgerit was on the brow of the hill, standing on the very pinnacle, looking out toward the coast, eyes shaded against the afternoon sunshine. The twisted wreckage of a relay tower lay at the top of the hill, again very obviously crushed and mangled, and Talgerit turned and nodded to them. "This is where my mob come from," he said, deep pride in his voice. "My land." "What happened to the tower?" Nick asked. "Do you know?" Talgerit jumped down from the boulder he was on and clambered over to the broken tower. He ran his hands over the metal structure, climbed around it a little, and lifted something up into the air triumphantly. "Look, eh?" he called out, then he jumped down off the girders and walked back to Nick and Samuel. He had something in his hand, a piece of translucent glass, perhaps, that shimmered and shone in the sunlight. When he handed it to Nick, it was too light to be glass, and too rough, and its surface shone like oil on water. Nick handed it to Samuel and asked Talgerit, "What is it?" "Wagyl," Talgerit said reverently. "Scale of the Wagyl. Wagyl didn't like the metal things on the hill, so it broke them." The scale in Samuel's hands was the size of a dinner plate, and Samuel went visibly pale under his dark skin. 148


Talgerit took the scale back and rubbed it against his torn T-shirt to polish it. "The Wagyl is big," he said, with admirable understatement. "Listen, Walwalinj isn't crying anymore." The keening had gone, leaving just the wind whistling in the gum trees and hakeas. "Why has it stopped?" Samuel asked, looking around them, at the clouds scudding across the high blue sky. "We came back," Talgerit said. "Let's make camp." A trickle of water came out from underneath boulders on the other side of the hill from the van, filling a small waterhole, and Talgerit cleared away the dead undergrowth near the boulders and built two small fires while Nick collected the leaves from the balgas near the camp and spread them thickly on the ground. "Good camp," Talgerit said, and he gave the Wagyl scale to Nick to hold. "Hold this, Dr. Nick, and I'll get dinner." Talgerit's idea of hunting was simple and effective: he gathered up small round rocks, sat motionless on a boulder in the dusk, and tossed the rocks at the rabbits that inevitably came out to graze. Once a rabbit was stunned or injured, he snapped its neck and handed it to Nick to be skinned and gutted, and went to sit on a different boulder to catch another rabbit. Nick had done a surgical rotation in the army; skinning a rabbit took a couple of seconds, three quick cuts with his pocket knife and a flick to take the skin off, then a twist and a shake to vent the guts.

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What Samuel thought of this, Nick wasn't sure. Samuel sat between the fire, Wagyl scale cradled in his lap, a distant look on his face. When Talgerit came back with the third rabbit, he took the Wagyl scale back and sat down in the dirt and began to sing, while Nick propped the three carcasses over the coals. It took a while for rabbit to cook, and the sun set completely, leaving stars and a sliver of moon, and Talgerit's voice rose, telling the story of this place and how the people came back. Samuel gasped, and Nick looked up, reaching for his pocketknife reflexively, and took his hand out of his pocket when he saw the child standing at the edge of the firelight. The child was naked, and obviously Noongar, black as the night itself apart from his eyes and his teeth. He stood there silently, not making any move toward the fire. Talgerit held out his hand, and a sphere of light formed on his palm, and he released it to float off into the night. The child laughed, a sudden bright sound, and Nick realised that the child was Talgerit, too, from another time, from Talgerit's own Dreaming perhaps. The child was gone just as quickly, leaving just the night and Talgerit's song. Talgerit's voice faded away, and he looked at Nick and Samuel, and his eyes were huge. "You saw him, unna?" he asked uncertainly. "We saw," Nick said. "That was you, wasn't it?" Samuel asked, sounding just as uncertain. 150


"Kind of," Talgerit said. "I didn't ever see people here, a long time ago. I must be still here then. I like that." He looked at the fires, folding his lip over in thought, rubbing at the Wagyl scale contemplatively. "We'll stay here tomorrow," he said. "There's something I need to do." Talgerit was an almost invisible figure, sitting motionlessly on a boulder, his back to the fires, looking out at the bush. Nick piled wood on the fires and pulled a blanket over Samuel and lay down beside him on the balga leaves. "What about the small people?" Samuel asked, and Nick pulled him closer. "Talgerit will keep watch. Think he's doing some magic tonight, and tomorrow, something to do with his child-self coming to the fire tonight." The ground was hard, and gravel dug into Nick's back despite the mattress of leaves, but Samuel's head on his shoulder was comforting. The stars were bright and sudden in the night sky, and the moon was low, hovering over the treetops. It would have been cold if not for the two fires. Nick could feel magic in the ground and trees, making his scars ache a little, and he could see why Talgerit thought that whiteman wouldn't come to this area. Spirits lived here, old and deep, stirring beneath the earth, making the hill sing for the people that had gone away. **** They ate cold rabbit for breakfast, and the sky was overcast, low clouds that spat rain. Samuel bathed quickly in the pool and put his clothes back on over his damp skin. 151


Talgerit had gone, sometime before Samuel woke, leaving behind his clothes, and a puddle of white paste on a boulder, beside a pile of split stones, but Nick didn't seem worried. "Clever man business," Nick had said, and he'd gone to brush his teeth in the pool. They sat there, leaning back against one of the boulders, in their waterproof jackets. The morning passed slowly, the rain clouds thinned, and birds began to sing from the tall trees around the base of the hill. Nick named them, one by one. The maniacal laughter was a kookaburra. The harsh cries were ravens. Black cockatoos flew overhead, eerie cries that left Samuel feeling even more unsettled. Magpie larks sang, rising warble, and honeyeaters tweeted, settling in the bushes around the camp, little brown birds that peered at Samuel and Nick with curiosity. When the rain stopped, armies of ants came out, huge ants, little ants with white wings that buzzed around the clearing, all scurrying around industriously. Other insects came out, too, big flies that bit, and the persistent smaller flies that crawled all over Samuel's face and drove him mad. Nick didn't seem to mind the flies, or even notice them, he just flapped his hand in front of his face regularly. Samuel went to sleep. He hadn't slept well the night before, or the night before that, and what had originally seemed like a frustrating waste of a day when they could have been travelling to Perth was a needed break.

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He curled up beside Nick, head on Nick's thigh, closed his eyes and went to sleep gradually, Nick's hand stroking his shoulder regularly. "Wake up," Nick said, shaking Samuel's shoulder gently, and Samuel struggled blearily upright. Talgerit dumped the carcass of a huge bird, an emu, that was the word for it, in the clearing. He was naked and streaked with smears of white, intermixed with the brown marks of blood, and he looked as old as Ed, with forever wrapped around his shoulders. "Can we help?" Nick asked, kneeling beside the emu carcass and looking at the bird. Stretched out on the ground, it was taller than a man, with legs that made up half of its height. Most of the other half was neck, and the feathers were mottled brown and white, plumed extravaganzas on a particularly unappealing looking bird. "Gotta pluck the feathers," Talgerit said. "Make the fires up first, then we can eat the meat, too, later." "Can you pluck a chicken?" Nick asked Samuel, looking over his shoulder. "I've never tried," Samuel said. "Is it hard?" "Samuel can get wood for the fires, eh?" Talgerit said. "Emu feathers are bastards." Samuel found plenty of branches on the ground, under the trees at the foot of the hill, old dead branches that snapped easily when Samuel jumped on them, splintering open to show thousands of little ants with white wings scurrying around inside the wood. Samuel broke up some branches and 153


dragged them back to the camp, then piled up twigs on the ashes of the previous night's fires and blew on them. He felt an intense satisfaction at seeing the tiny flames crackle up as the twigs caught fire. Nick and Talgerit sat on either side of the emu, tugging at the feathers, yanking each one out and putting it on Talgerit's abandoned T-shirt, until they'd built a pile of feathers and the emu was denuded. It looked even more ridiculous without its feathers, not much bigger than a chicken really, certainly not as big as a turkey, and Nick used his pocketknife to gut the bird. Talgerit's dog, which had been absent since they arrived, appeared immediately in the clearing, and Talgerit tossed it the guts, the head and neck, and the bottom half of the legs. "Rest is for us," Talgerit said, and he balanced the tops of the legs across the fire. Nick hacked the carcass into sections, and Talgerit buried them amongst the ashes. Emu was tough and tasteless, Samuel decided, really not worth the eating, unless you happened to be hungry, and he hadn't done anything that day to make himself hungry. Talgerit ate Samuel's share. After dinner, when the sun had set, Talgerit put thick pieces of branches on the fires and took his ragged clothes off again. This time, after he'd sung and shuffled his way around the clearing, he sat down beside the pile of feathers, with pieces of grass beside him, and began to wind and bind and twist the feathers, tongue protruding from his mouth in his effort. 154


It wasn't until he'd nearly finished the first one that Samuel realised what the shape he was weaving was; he was making baskets of grass and feathers for his feet. Somehow, Samuel had always thought that a Featherman would put feathers on his arms, the same as the Inca priests had done, but of course that was his own cultural assumption. There was no reason why Noongar Feathermen would do the same, no reason why they wouldn't make feather shoes for themselves instead of capes. Talgerit went off that night, wearing his feather shoes and nothing else. **** The van didn't start easily the next day, even with coals from the fires, and Nick said, "Have we taken the van as far as we can?" Talgerit shook his head. "Not time to leave it yet, we can drive a bit further, to the place where the Wagyl came down the hill, that way." He pointed to the west, and Nick could see the darker green of taller trees that marked a waterway. "Is that the Avon River?" Nick asked Talgerit. "Dunno," Talgerit said. "I've got maps," Samuel said, and he took his bag out of the back of the van and rifled through it. "Here," he said, holding a map out to Nick. Nick spread the map out on the dirt beside the van and the three of them knelt down around it. "Kutter Kich," Nick said, pointing at Wave Rock on the map. "Quairading. There's the road we drove down, through 155


Balkuling and Kauring." He tapped the map. "This is where we are, I think, Mt. Stirling." A river snaked across the map close to Mt. Stirling; the Avon river, which became the Swan River. Samuel tracked his finger across the map. "And there's Perth." "Long way to go yet," Talgerit said. Even once they got the van started, it didn't run well, sputtering and complaining, but they coaxed it down toward what had previously been York, but was now a blackened collection of stumps and charred bricks. The bridge had burned, too, leaving only twisted metal pylons in the riverbed, and Nick parked the van beside the road and turned the motor off. "Going to swim and walk now," Talgerit said. Samuel took his bag, with his maps and papers in it, as well as the half bag of flour. Nick took his medical bag. Talgerit tied a strand of material torn off his T-shirt between his feather boots and slung them around his neck, despite the smell they were beginning to give off from the bits of emu still clinging to the ends of the feathers. They crossed the shallow river, where the bridge had been, wading between the pylons. The town was ruined, the bush beginning to reclaim the land, the trees encroaching amongst the foundations of the houses, and Talgerit said, "Dead people are here." He led them out of the town site quickly, almost running, and headed inland, away from the river and the ruins. The other side of the river valley was a large hill, outside of the 156


town, and even Talgerit slowed down going up the slope, scrambling up the hillside. At the top, they turned around and looked down over the valley and the river, and even in the midday sun the place looked haunted. There wasn't any question of which way to go, a peeling and faded road sign made that clear, when they found the remains of a bitumen road on the other side of the hill. Perth, 102 kms it said, and the arrow pointed west. "Toward the sea," Talgerit said. They walked, following the road, broad bitumen expanse, designed to carry trucks and buses, now slowly being taken over by the bottlebrushes and gum trees, but it felt like they were walking between tall trees, and even in the sunshine it was cool and shady. Soon, the shapes of the trees were visible, looming over them, casting a deep shade, and the ground smelt of wet soil, not bitumen. Samuel stopped, gripping Nick's arm, and he sounded panicked when he said, "Nick! Talgerit! What's happening?!" "Dead trees," Talgerit said. "There used to be a forest here, and the land remembers." A phantom kangaroo hopped past them, appearing from nowhere, and disappearing just as rapidly, and Nick said, "Seems the land remembers other things, too." Talgerit's dog yipped, up ahead of them, and Talgerit said, "C'mon." Every step forward, the remembered forest became more and more real, and Nick wound his hand securely around 157


Samuel's wrist and hung on tight. If the stories, and songs, were true, the land remembered lots of things, more than just trees and kangaroos. They kept on walking, focussing on the faded painted lines on the bitumen, trying to ignore the phantoms around them, Talgerit pausing occasionally, with his dog, to wait for Nick and Samuel to catch up. It was hard work, as hard as walking through real forest, and Nick found himself inordinately proud of how long Samuel kept going, eyes down on the road, ignoring his surroundings. For someone who was terrified of devils and small people, he did remarkably well. The sun set, up ahead, and Talgerit kept them walking until it was so completely dark that it was impossible to find the lines on the road. "We need water," Nick said. "And to sleep, Talgerit." A sphere of light formed on Talgerit's hand, lighting his face, then slowly their surroundings, and Talgerit did not look pleased. "Bad place to stop," he said. "Are there any good places here?" Nick asked rhetorically, and Talgerit shook his head. This was the bad lands, the place that no one went voluntarily, there were no good places and Nick knew it. Talgerit led them down into a gully, lighting the way with a sphere of light, and they all stumbled and slid down the hillside, unable to distinguish real boulders and trees from remembered ones, not by the ethereal light of the sphere. They found a clearing, where there were neither real nor remembered trees, and Samuel sat in the middle of it, his 158


arms wrapped around his knees and his eyes shut, hanging onto Talgerit's dog, while Nick and Talgerit foraged a little, collecting twigs and leaves to start a fire with. They found water, at the bottom of the gully, and Nick took Samuel down there to drink while Talgerit started the fire with one of his spheres. The bush around them rustled, and eerie faces peered out of the darkness. When Nick lobbed a rock, the rock sailed right through the figures, but they still drank from the creek as quickly as they could. The fire was burning brightly in the darkness when Nick stumbled back into the clearing, pulling Samuel along behind him. They had damper, flour mixed with water to make a paste, then stuck onto twigs and held over the fire, because, as Talgerit said, "No good hunting, can't tell live from dead, and it won't be good eating dead." Talgerit built the fire up high, so sparks flew up into the night, to keep them warm in the cold that crept up the gully, and Samuel shivered and wrapped his jacket closer around himself. They sat like that, the three of them around the fire, and things that Nick didn't know the names of were attracted to the light of the fire. They saw remembered people, too, ghosts of Noongar and whiteman both, peering out of the darkness, and Samuel kept his eyes tightly closed and hung onto Talgerit's dog and Nick. None of them slept. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Ten Morning came late, with sunlight not managing to struggle through the gloom of the gully enough to cast a shadow. Talgerit took Nick's pocketknife and went down to the creek to get them breakfast. They heard him shrieking, and Nick took off down the hillside, stumbling and falling, Samuel right behind him, to the creek. Talgerit was up the creek a little, underneath a eucalypt on the bank, struggling with something, shouting and yelling, his dog yipping frantically and jumping in and out of the water. Nick charged up the creek, slipping over rocks, Samuel struggling to keep up with him. Talgerit was wrestling with an enormous thing, easily the size of his dog, with massive pincers and a brown and blue shell. It had one pincer around Talgerit's ankle, and Talgerit had the knife in the back of its head, but Talgerit was obviously feeling more pain than the thing. Nick picked up a decent size rock and crashed it into the thing's head, and Talgerit's dog got his teeth into the other claw and shook his head and wrenched the claw off. It didn't take much, after that, to force the claw open and free Talgerit's foot, and Talgerit aimed a vicious kick at the dead thing with his good foot. "Bloody thing," Talgerit said with feeling. "Bet it tastes good." 160


Samuel looked down at the claws and body, and the only shape that fitted in his experience was 'lobster'. "It's enormous," Samuel said. "I had no idea lobsters got so big." "It's not lobster," Nick said, flipping the carcass over and inspecting the underside. "It's marron, freshwater crayfish, just ten times bigger than it should be. Wash your ankle in the creek, Talgerit, and I'll look and see if you need stitches." They sat around the fire, the marron buried in the ashes, sizzling away, and Nick poured alcohol over Talgerit's wound, making him flinch, then sewed him up quickly, drawing the edges of the cut together to keep dirt out and speed healing. Samuel could well believe Talgerit's claim that he didn't scream when he was scarred, since he bore the suturing stoically. The marron tasted amazingly good, fresh from the ashes, its charred shell falling away to reveal pink and cream flesh that melted in the mouth, and Talgerit got the privilege of cooking and then bashing open with a rock the claw that had done the damage to him. Going back to the creek for one last drink of water was not appealing, though. The gully seemed to have changed shape during the night, and the path they had taken to find the clearing and creek was no longer there. Talgerit muttered, "Boyee," when they found their way blocked by boulders. "Do we climb over?" Samuel asked, looking up the slope. "No!" Nick and Talgerit said simultaneously, and Talgerit's dog barked, across the gully. 161


"Follow the dog," Talgerit said. "Dog always knows which way to go." Following the dog was hard work, with even Talgerit struggling to cope. Samuel's leg ached, where he had broken it, an ache that just grew and grew the more they struggled through invisible forests, and up real hills that never seemed to end. He'd given up being scared that morning, when the monster attacked Talgerit. Eating the lobster afterward had not really been any consolation, even though Talgerit and Nick both seemed to consider it the ultimate victory. Samuel would rather live in a world where lobsters lived in the ocean and stayed the right size. "Why was it so big?" Samuel asked Nick, when they sat down at the top of a hill so Talgerit could rest. "Radiation," Nick said. "We're at the edge of the blast zone now. And a lack of predators, at least until Talgerit came along." "Good eating," Talgerit said, and they all inspected the wound in his ankle. It was nasty, and if he survived, Talgerit was going to have a huge scar, but considering the hatched scarring across Talgerit's back and chest, he might actually approve of this. "It nearly ate you," Samuel pointed out, and Talgerit shrugged and grinned, a flash of his usual cheerfulness showing through. "Good eating." Once he'd decided he was beyond being scared, Samuel found he could keep going much longer, even with his leg 162


hurting. They walked on, through the day, up and down hills, sticking to the painted lines on the old road where they could, resting for Talgerit's benefit, following the dog. It rained, making the day even darker. Rivulets ran beside the road, and they drank the water while they could get it. At dusk, after Talgerit had lit one of his spheres to guide them, Samuel realized they were being followed. "Something's behind us," he said, tightening his grip on Nick's arm. "Something moving." They heard a deep rumbling noise, like thunder far off, and Talgerit said, "Boyee! Run!" They ran, a strange stumbling, halting flight, sticking to the road, and when Samuel glanced over his shoulder, a fucking boulder was rolling at them, actually rolling at them, and he had a horrendous moment of realization as to what the boyees he'd heard of were. He clenched his teeth tightly together to stop himself from praying, clenched his mind equally tightly, and his arse, and Talgerit shouted, "That way!" and pointed down into a gully. Samuel didn't care how large the lobsters were, he'd rather deal with one of them than a fucking rock that could chase him, and they all plunged down a slope, slipping and falling, to splash into the creek and up the opposite slope. Talgerit was stooped over at the top of the slope, amongst the bushes, breathing hard and clutching his ankle, blood oozing between his fingers, when Samuel and Nick made it up the gravel beside him. "Shh," Talgerit said, and Samuel held his breath to stop his chest and throat from rasping, and the bush was silent. He 163


couldn't hear any bird sounds, no breeze rustled the trees, there weren't even any flies buzzing around them. It was silent. "It's gone," Nick said and knelt down beside Talgerit to prize his fingers off his ankle. "That's not good, Talgerit. I need to wrap it up." Talgerit pulled what was left of his T-shirt off and handed it down to Nick, who tore it with his teeth and tied it tightly around Talgerit's ankle. The Wagyl scale was secured around Talgerit's neck by twine, and it glowed faintly in the dusk now it wasn't covered by his clothes. Talgerit slung his emu feather boots back over his shoulders so they hung beside the scale. They didn't move, just stood still in the dusk, and then Talgerit slowly took his feather boots off his shoulders again and undid the cord that held them, then slid them on his feet. "It's time," he said. "Gonna be a Featherman now. You all follow me, and dog." He walked slowly, with a limp, his feet looking absurd, as though he was wearing giant feather slippers, and he held aloft a ball of light. Dog led them back to the road, Talgerit walking carefully behind him, and the night stayed still and silent. Samuel followed behind Talgerit, equally carefully walking in his footsteps, and Nick's hand was wound in the back of Samuel's jacket, solid and certain behind him. A timelessness settled about Talgerit, like there had been back in the farmhouse kitchen, as though the turning of the earth didn't matter. The remembered trees seemed more 164


substantial now, less like ghosts, but they still slipped through them easily and smoothly. The lines on the old road shone in the light from the sphere, and the moon and stars seemed brighter, wheeling over them in the night sky. Samuel should have been hungry, they hadn't eaten since the marron at the beginning of the day, but his stomach didn't rumble, even though they must have walked twenty kilometers that day already. When Samuel looked up from the line on the road, shadowy shapes moved along with them, ghosts of people, ghosts of places, but the most surprising were the two cartoon-like characters they passed, looming garishly beside the road, remnants of the white occupation that the land remembered, too. In the faint glow of the dawn, the dog sat down, then flopped on the road, nose on its paws, and went to sleep. Talgerit took a deep breath in, and the stillness slipped away from him, and Samuel became aware of the wind rustling the trees and the cockatoos shouting, welcoming the sun. "Rest," Talgerit said, and they all sat down, right where they were on the road. It was only when Samuel stretched out on the hard road that he realized how exhausted his body was. His legs were trembling with fatigue and he felt weak and light-headed, and it was obvious he wasn't the only one who felt like that. Talgerit was moaning weakly, and Nick slumped against him, taking shuddering breaths in. 165


They should move off the road, find some shelter and some water, but it all seemed too hard right then, and Samuel closed his eyes. **** A fire crackling woke Samuel; the sun was shining fitfully on his face, and he could smell the most wonderful odor of roasting meat. Talgerit was asleep still, curled up around his dog, while the dog was munching on a rabbit carcass. That was what Samuel could smell, roast rabbit, and Nick was sitting beside the fire, skinned rabbits propped over the heat, and he looked up and smiled when he noticed Samuel moving. "Want some water?" he asked, and he held out a metal container to Samuel. "You caught rabbits?" Samuel asked, and his body shouted at him when he sat upright, his legs feeling wobbly and useless. He drank water gratefully out of the container, gulping it down, and Nick said, "If Talgerit can, so can I." Samuel didn't think he could make himself stand up, so he crawled over beside Nick and leaned against him. "How come you're not exhausted?" Samuel asked. "A long time ago, I had my exhaustion perception centre surgically removed, when I first started working as a doctor," Nick said, and it took Samuel a moment to work out he was teasing. 166


"Do you think you could take mine out, too?" Samuel asked weakly. "I suspect you've burned yours out now," Nick said. "And look, down there." Samuel lifted his head and shaded his eyes, peering through the remembered trees. A road, wide and black, wellmaintained, cut a swath through the trees, both real and long past. "What is it?" Samuel asked. "Whose road is it?" "That's Great Eastern Highway, according to both your map and my memory. I've watched a couple of huge trucks laden with drums go down it, with military escorts. Guess someone is mining something, somewhere north and east of here. Idiots." "What could they be mining?" Samuel asked. "What is there left?" "You name it, it's out there," Nick said. "If it's in drums then it's probably not natural gas or oil, since they'd be moved in tankers. Presumably it's an ore." Something made a faint rumble in the distance, felt rather than heard, and Samuel made himself get up on his feet and shade his eyes to watch the truck roll past, half a kilometer away at least, the back of the huge tracked stacked with drums, all bearing a triangular warning sign. What he saw was not good. He sat down again and looked at Nick with horror. "That's yellowcake they're moving," he said. "They're mining uranium." Nick looked like he was going to throw up, and Samuel understood it completely. They were about to walk into what 167


had previously been a city, before it had been decimated by nuclear weapons, and the military was escorting uranium ore right past the city. "Where are they shipping it out of?" Samuel asked, reaching for the map that Nick had beside him. They looked at the map, and Nick pointed at the coastline. "Fremantle is gone. Rockingham, too. There's a train line from here, in Midland, that runs down the coast to Bunbury, they could have fixed that up. I wonder if someone has rebuilt the port at Bunbury?" "Would you know if they had?" Samuel asked, looking at where Nick was pointing. "Is the area populated?" "It's not supposed to be," Nick said. "It's supposed to be heavily contaminated still. Oh, fuck, it might not be. All anyone would have to do is just say it is, and no civilian will go near the area." Samuel's stomach churned. "There're no satellites that cover the Southern Hemisphere, there's no way that anyone would know if the port was active. The World Government would have stopped them if it suspected uranium was being mined again. The worldwide moratorium on nuclear power is binding; breaking the moratorium will stop all trade in and out of Australia." Talgerit lifted his head and said, "What, eh?" "There's a road," Nick said. "With trucks on it, just down the hill." Talgerit stood up, stretching and yawning, and looked where Nick was pointing, then took the can of water Nick offered him. 168


"Clever, getting water in old cans," Talgerit said, sitting down again. "What do we do about the road?" Samuel asked. "Can we walk along it?" "Dunno," Talgerit said, and he poked one of the rabbits with a filthy finger. "Not cooked yet." He flashed a grin at Nick. "You hunted?" Nick nodded and said, "Threw rocks at rabbits, just like you. If I'd had a shotgun with me, I would have got a roo." "Can't be a Featherman with a shotgun, Ed said so," Talgerit said. "Magic doesn't work if you do, have to use Noongar tools." "You used a knife," Samuel said. "To get the marron." Talgerit shrugged, and smiled disarmingly. "And if I hadn't, maybe it wouldn't have bitten me. Maybe it would have." When Nick unwrapped the T-shirt strips from Talgerit's ankle, the skin was open and torn still, but it looked far better than Samuel thought it had any right to, as though it was healing already. "I've been fixing it," Talgerit said. "Soon won't need Dr. Nick at all, except to be a brother. Then I can stay at camp, and Dr. Nick can go hunting for me instead." "You should get a wife," Nick said, his sunburned cheeks crinkling with a smile. "Then you can send her hunting, and stay at camp and get fat." Talgerit chortled at the idea while Nick wrapped his ankle back up again. "Gonna get fat anyway," he said, grabbing the flat plane of his belly and shaking it. "Gonna have a Featherman belly, get all round and strong." 169


**** After they'd eaten the rabbits, they stood, reasonably sure that between the remembered trees and Talgerit's feather shoes they were not easy to see, and looked down the cutting to the road. "Over there," Nick said. "If we cut across the road, we should be able to work our way through what used to be small farms, and approach the city that way." "Road's not good," Talgerit said. "Even Feathermen get squashed by trucks." "They're hardly quiet," Samuel said, sliding his fingers into Nick's hand, and Nick squeezed his grubby hand. "We can hear them coming." "Guns are quiet," Talgerit said. "Until they're loud. We can go across at night." "I hate to tell you this, Talgerit," Nick said, "but the guns can see in the dark. Night won't be any safer." "Is there anything magical you can do?" Samuel asked. "To distract them?" Talgerit was quiet for a while, long enough that another military vehicle rumbled past on the road below them. "What about a boyee?" Nick asked. "That'd make trouble for them, stop the trucks and APCs." "That's a fuel store, isn't it?" Samuel asked, pointing further down the slope. "Boyee in there would make a big mess, and they couldn't possibly suspect that there'd be people moving around." 170


The yard held distinctive cylinders of liquefied petroleum gas, surrounded by a high fence, with machine gun turrets on the fencing. It looked like the intention was to stop people getting in and taking the cylinders out. "Is it protected magically at all, Talgerit?" Nick asked. "Can you tell?" "No Noongar magic there," Talgerit said. "Might be whiteman magic, but boyees don't care." "What's whiteman magic?" Samuel asked, and he sounded intrigued. Talgerit thrashed his arms and legs around, stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, presumably miming the effects of the whiteman magic, and Nick said, "Electric fences, right?" "Too right," Talgerit said, rearranging his limbs back to normal. "Never piss on them, ever. Dog knows that too, eh?" His dog panted and flopped down at Talgerit's feet. The boyee took time, since Talgerit had to either tame or persuade one of the wild ones to help him, or create one from an ordinary boulder, and Nick could understand Talgerit's reluctance to try and catch something that wanted to catch him, so they waited while Talgerit made a new one. "Not making one," he tried to explain. "Just waking one up." They sat, over the brow of the hill and out of sight of the road, hemmed in by remembered trees, and Talgerit squatted on top of a granite boulder, humming to himself quietly and drumming his hands on the huge rock. 171


Dusk fell, settling quietly over the valley, and still Talgerit hummed. It wasn't until the night was dark that he stood up, on the boulder, and stretched, then leapt off the rock onto the dirt beside Nick and Samuel. He led them up the hill again, so they were looking down on the fuel store, and the whole way Nick felt like something was following him, but whenever he glanced over his shoulder, he could see nothing but darkness behind them. Talgerit squatted down, and when Nick sat beside him and asked, "How long?" Talgerit's teeth were white in the darkness. "Dunno," he said. "Not easy to get a rock to hurry." They sat there, and Nick tracked the stars moving overhead through half the sky, then a siren sounded somewhere below, and a plume of flame shot up into the sky. A huge bang echoed, and the night lit up briefly as a ball of fire rose up into the sky. Talgerit took off down the side of the cutting, his dog at his heels. Nick hauled Samuel to his feet, and they all dashed across the road as a truck coming the other way squealed to a halt beside the fuel depot. They kept running, scrambling through the bush, up and over the hill on the other side of the road, down into an area that had previously been hobby farms and market gardens. Nick had marked a road on Samuel's map, and they had to blunder around in the dark for while, climbing over fibro fences, and under barbed wire strands, before finding it. In the darkness the desolation didn't seem too bad, but as they walked toward the city, through what had been an 172


affluent area, and the sun lightened the sky behind them, the appalling scale of what had happened became obvious. The houses were flattened, car hulks strewn around, across the road so they had to climb over or go around them. The air was silent, with no dawn shrieking from cockatoos and parrots, just the three humans and the dog, making their way slowly toward the edge of a ruined city, beneath an overcast sky. When the sun was up fully, a brighter patch of cloud amongst the grey, Nick said, "We should take shelter, get out of sight." "Why?" Talgerit asked. "No one comes here, and whiteman don't have planes to look down on us, not like they used to." "Samuel?" Nick asked. "Do you want to keep walking, or rest for the day?" Samuel looked around him, and up at the hills rising on either side of them, at the bush encroaching once again on the gardens and houses, and said, "I'd rather walk through here during the day than at night, but there might be someone in the hills, watching us." "Guns can see at night," Talgerit said. "Dr. Nick said so before." It had begun to rain again, falling steadily and Nick wiped the rain out his eyes. At least they might all smell better now, if it rained heavily, though the worst culprit was undoubtedly Talgerit's feather shoes. "Then we walk now," Nick said. [Back to Table of Contents] 173


Chapter Eleven They made their way through the abandoned streets slowly, not moving any quicker than they had through the remembered forest. There had been no attempt made to clear the streets after whatever had happened to cause the destruction, and power poles were down too, leaving cabling lying haphazardly over the debris. Nick was reassured by the knowledge the city had been without power for twenty-five years, so at least they weren't at risk of electrocution. Food was there to be found, when they scrounged around the overgrown fields, renegade tomatoes that had been selfseeding for years, grape vines hung with bitter grapes, apple trees, twisted and gnarled from not being pruned, but still fruiting. It was a relief to eat something other than meat, and even the dog wolfed down the maggoty tomatoes they found. "Where are the other animals?" Samuel asked. "And the bodies? Obviously no one has attempted to clean up here, so shouldn't there be corpses?" Nick looked around him and shrugged. "You're right, there should be feral dogs and cats, at least. As for the corpses, all there'd be left after twenty-five years would be teeth, if the person died outdoors. Indoors, there might be remains, what the rats couldn't eat." "Cats and dogs taste good, if you're hungry enough," Talgerit pointed out. "Easy to be that hungry." 174


"Could there be people left?" Samuel asked, looking around worriedly at the shattered house nearest to them. "Bound to be," Nick said. "Maybe not out here, but down in the city." During the afternoon, through the rain, the cause of the damage became obvious, with a completely flattened and blackened area that covered an entire hillside. "Guess the bombers missed the city," Nick said. "Probably a good idea to go around the area, just in case there's any unspent fuel." "Bad place," Talgerit said. "Can we run?" His dog whimpered, from where it was waiting ahead of them, beside a charred car body, and they broke into a run, around the edge of the blasted area, skirting twisted wreckage of houses and more cars, over the brow of the hill and down into the valley on the other side. Over the top of the next hill, after even Talgerit conceded that he was out of breath, Samuel asked between pants, "How far... to the... city?" Nick clutched onto a broken brick wall that had once obviously graced the stucco pile of rubble that was now covered in creepers. "Forty kilometers," he said breathlessly. "If we keep going today, we might get within sight of the city." It was a struggle, keeping going, but they used the roads when they could, and clambered over destroyed fences and through backyards. The houses, or what was left of them, got closer and closer together, the nearer to the city they came. They found one area, marked on Samuel's map as Hovea, where the blast damage had left the old trees standing, and 175


where a few houses still remained. When the sounds of birds returned, Talgerit said, "Cockatoos are here, we can stay here, too." A truck rumbled by, the sound of its motor and wheels echoing through the valley they were in, sending the black cockatoos above them squawking and circling against the lilac sky, and Nick said, "Don't think we can risk a fire." "We can make a fire without smoke," Talgerit said. "Using rubbish." "No fire, no food," Samuel said. "There's enough flour still in my bag to make damper, if there are no rabbits." "No food," Nick said. "We'll need the damper tomorrow, and we really don't want to show up on an infrared scan of the area any more than we have to." **** They were up and moving at first light the next morning. Apart from the dampness left by the rain, and an uncomfortable night without a fire, Samuel was too jumpy to sleep anymore. He'd peered at the map, late the day before, found a twisted street sign, then found the street on the map. They were so close, Perth couldn't be more than one or two hills away from the gully they'd slept in. A creek ran at the bottom of the gully, so Samuel drank deeply, and went off to piss, and when he went back to where he'd left Nick and Talgerit, they were both awake. "Reckon we find a house tonight, eh?" Talgerit said. "Somewhere warm, where we can have a fire?" 176


"We can try," Nick said. It was still early, with the sun rising behind them, so their shadows bobbed ahead of them when they came over the last hill. There, across a partly washed away road, was a parapet, and the city was spread out in front of them, stretching all the way to the ocean, a sliver of blue in the distance. A river wound through the city, from somewhere below them, past the shattered remains of skyscrapers in the middle distance, shining dark and green in the morning light. Down the last of the hills, down hundreds of metres of scarp face, suburbs of houses jostled right up against the hillside. Some of the houses looked intact, roofs still in place, some were nothing more than piles of rubble, and a lot of the city looked blackened and cratered, where trees hadn't regrown. Scattered across the metropolitan wasteland were patches of smoke rising, too small to be spontaneous fires, too far apart to be evidence of a military encampment. "That's Perth," Nick said. "And it's not unoccupied." They made their way down the scarp slowly and carefully, slipping and sliding on the loose gravel soil, slithering into the trees, spiking themselves on the balga plants. When Samuel slammed particularly solidly into a balga tree, Talgerit leaned over and steadied him, then reached across and squeezed the top of the plant, so milky liquid oozed into his hands. He licked the liquid off his hands and said, "You try," to Samuel. 177


Samuel squeezed the top of the plant, and sure enough milky sap flowed into his hand. He licked his hand experimentally, and the substance tasted like a plant, green and thick, but to a belly that hadn't eaten for a while, it tasted good. They snacked their way down the hillside after that, squeezing balga plants and consuming the sap of the plant, and Samuel wasn't sure that it counted as a meal, but at least his stomach had stopped growling at him. The first houses, balanced precariously on the edge of the hillside, looked undamaged apart from smashed windows and wildly overgrown yards, but the houses had something unsettling about them that made Samuel want to rush past. A little more destruction and fewer ghosts might have seemed easier to bear in the patchy sunlight. Life survived among the trees leaning against sagging walls, with rabbits bounding through the undergrowth, tempting the dog to chase them, at least until the pack of feral dogs appeared. Talgerit's dog snarled, warning the humans trouble was ahead, and a huge dog, shaggy and mangy and thin, stepped out of the waist high weeds and snarled back. The wild dog's pack followed, sliding through the wild grasses, massing behind their leader. "Can you call your dog off?" Nick asked Talgerit. "No," Talgerit said, but he bent down and scooped up a lump of granite so quickly it seemed like he hadn't moved, then flung it at the huge dog, hitting it squarely in the face with a thud and crack that resounded solidly. 178


The dog went over, curled up and howling in pain and the pack scattered as Talgerit bent down and picked up another rock. Talgerit's dog looked smug, or as smug as a dog face could manage, and Samuel said, "Please kill it, Talgerit." The second rock crushed the dog's spine, and Talgerit said, "Done, Samuel. Do you want to eat the dog? It's mighty thin." "No," Samuel said, relieved the dog's howls had stopped, and he really didn't think he had the stomach to eat an animal he'd heard suffer like that. "Not good eating," Talgerit said. "Rabbits much better. Not poison." "Do you have any idea where we are?" Samuel asked Nick sometime later, sliding his hand into Nick's and catching up with him as he strode down the obviously cleared middle of the road. "Yes," Nick said, and he looked so grim when Samuel glanced at him that Samuel stopped, dragging Nick to a halt. "Are you all right?" Samuel asked. Nick looked bereft, his face deeply shadowed by sorrow. "I used to live here," Nick said. "Not right here, obviously, but in this city. And it's all gone." Samuel hugged Nick hard, squashing him in his embrace. "We're nearly there," Samuel said. Nick hugged him back, just as hard. Talgerit slapped Nick hard on the back, knocking both of them sideways. "It's Dr. Nick's dreaming now," he said 179


cheerfully. "His turn to see ghosts. Which way are we walking now, Dr. Nick?" "That way," Nick said, pointing toward the city. "We have to cross the river somewhere, and we might as well do it at Guildford." Talgerit had Samuel's jacket on, and he opened it and rubbed at the Wagyl scale around his neck, between the feather shoes. "The neck of the river," Talgerit said. "Dangerous place, by song, but I'm not scared." He took off, long paces across the pitted and crumbling bitumen. "You two scared, eh?" he asked over his shoulder. "You should be." "We're scared," Samuel called back, and he took Nick's hand and started after Talgerit. If there were other people around, they didn't see any during that day. They heard the occasional sound of a truck or heavy vehicle rumbling, but no one challenged them or tried to stop them. Feral dogs roamed the ruined suburbs, rabbit holes riddled what had once been gardens, and they found what looked like it had once been a golf course, not far from where the map said the river was. They stopped there. "Think we can have a fire tonight," Nick said. "We need to eat, and there're rabbits everywhere. We should boil the water, too, no way of knowing what sort of residual biological agents are here." "Anthrax?" Samuel asked. "Because boiling won't kill it." "Talgerit and I are both immunized," Nick said. "I know that. And I can't imagine you wouldn't be either. I was 180


thinking of good old-fashioned E. coli, or something similar. There's bound to be something lingering in the Laporidaes around here." "Eh?" Talgerit said. "Rabbits," Nick clarified. "And hares. Hideous creatures, if you had any idea of what was inside them, you'd never eat one again." "Rabbits are good," Talgerit said. "Easy to catch, quick to cook. Pigs are bad, full of worms. I'll go and catch some rabbits." Talgerit left them sitting under a grove of eucalyptus and headed off into the dusk with his feather shoes on, becoming almost invisible immediately so that they would never have seen him if they hadn't known he was there. Nick lay back on the thick layer of grass and held his arm out for Samuel. "I stink," Samuel said, but he crawled over the scratchy grass anyway and curled up with his head on Nick's shoulder. "Me, too," Nick said. "Thought I might treat myself to a wash in one of the ponds around here." "The ones I saw had scum on them," Samuel said. "Not sure that's good." "Probably not," Nick said, and he kissed Samuel's forehead. "We're going to have to swim the river tomorrow, that'll be cleaner. I really want to kiss you, but I'm horribly aware that I haven't brushed my teeth in days." "Me either," Samuel said, and he lifted his head and smiled at Nick. "I think if we both stink, then it's fair." 181


Nick was heavy over Samuel, pressing him down into the grass, so that snails crunched under his back and small things scurried around him. Samuel wriggled his precious bag of papers and maps off his shoulder and wrapped his arms around Nick and opened his mouth. There they were, surrounded by a devastated city, supposedly avoiding the military and the remnant human population, and all Samuel's body could do was scream how long it had been since Lake Grace, and how much he needed this kiss. Nick was hard, the length of his cock pressing urgently through the layers of filthy clothes they wore, and they had just gotten to the interesting stage of fumbling with clothing, trying to get more skin contact, when Talgerit's dog yipped. "You," Talgerit said, and Samuel took a deep breath and unwound his arms from Nick's neck. "Where's the fire?" "No fire," Nick said, and he lifted his weight off Samuel. Talgerit flopped four rabbit carcasses down on the grass and said, "Eh?" "Because you can start it with magic, and I'd have to find two rocks to hit a spark off," Nick said. "Rabbits didn't take much time to catch." "Too quick, unna?" Talgerit said, chuckling. "Not enough time." He waved his feet at them, still clad in the feather boots. "Rabbits don't see me. Easy to just pick them up and kill them." They had roast rabbits, and water boiled in old tin cans which they found among the grass and filled from a creek then propped in the fire. 182


"Save the flour," Nick said. "We might not be able to catch rabbits tomorrow, and we'll need damper then." "If we die tomorrow, then we'll wish we'd eaten damper now," Talgerit said. "When the Wagyl eats us." "I was hoping not to get eaten," Samuel said. "Not tomorrow, not any day." "Me, too," Nick said. In the dark, Samuel felt safer nestled in the thick undergrowth, Nick's arms wrapped around him, than he had for quite a few nights. He didn't think anyone could sneak up on them, not with Talgerit's dog audibly gnawing on rabbit skins and bones, just a few meters away. They were out of sight, not cold, not hungry, and when Nick pulled at the buttons of Samuel's trousers, he slid them down willingly. It wasn't ideal, with no oil, and no one had touched Samuel for months, but it still felt amazing, once Nick had worked his way inside. Samuel whimpered, just once, and curled his hand around his cock and began to stroke himself steadily. If they did die the next day, at least they would have had this, just once. **** Talgerit bent over and nudged at something with his bare toes, and small yellow and cream shapes appeared in the dirt. "Teeth," Talgerit said. "People died here." Nick bent over, too. "Lots of them," he said, and sadness welled up in him. "Not from the initial blasts, the teeth aren't 183


blackened. They must have died from radiation poisoning after." Samuel looked around the area, the houses were relatively intact, walls and roofs still standing, but the entire area was littered with broken glass and torn metal. "Why didn't anyone help them?" he asked. "Why weren't they even buried?" Nick stood up again and looked around. "See how the bitumen has bubbled? Over there?" There was an area ahead of them where the trees and undergrowth hadn't yet claimed back the ground, and where a road had once been. The bitumen there had been melted, the surface bubbling and running, burning off the paint marks and leaving the road looking like rippled liquorice. "Yes," Samuel said. "I can see." "There was a blast within a short distance of here, a kilometer at the most. These people had no chance. If help had arrived, if this happened early enough in the bombings that the military had responded, they just would have shot any survivors, as a matter of mercy." "Did you do that?" Samuel asked quietly, as Talgerit started walking ahead of them, over the melted bitumen, towards where the towering trees and wild profusion of what Samuel knew as bottlebrushes indicated a water source. "No," Nick said. "As a doctor I was too valuable to send into a blast zone. I euthanized the people that needed it, when they arrived at the military hospital camp." Samuel slid his hand around Nick's elbow and squeezed it gently, and Talgerit looked back and waved at them vigorously. 184


The river was thick green in color, opaque and murky, with brown foam clinging to the banks where the tree roots were making a stand against erosion. It looked about thirty meters across, and was running slowly, the surface roiling a little. "How deep is it?" Samuel asked, leaning over the edge of the bank and holding onto a tree to look at the water more closely. "Can we get across?" "Deep," Talgerit said. "Too deep." "A raft?" Nick asked. "If we made one we could float down to the city at least." "Can't hide on a raft," Talgerit said. "But it'd be easier than walking." They walked down the river, finding the remains of a path that Nick had vague memories of riding a bike down as a child, and the wild forest of bottlebrushes and wattles that had grown around it gave them some cover. They clambered and pushed their way through, until the shattered remains of a concrete bridge came into sight. Nick swore, under his breath, and stopped and stared at the pylons that still towered out of the river water. "Three lanes each way," he said. "That wasn't bombed," Samuel said. "Damage is all wrong. Look how the road surface has been removed systematically. Someone blew this up, made sure that no one was going to use it." Talgerit looked up at the pylons and shrugged. "Waste of a bridge," he said fatalistically, and he pushed another wattle branch aside and waited for the others to follow him. 185


The dog yipped, and snarled, and a figure stepped out of the thicket of bottlebrushes in front of them, rock in their hands. They had a dog with them, too, a mangy mongrel, underfed and threatening, just like the person who lobbed the rock at them. Talgerit moved fast, just like he had with the dog, scooping up a rock and tossing it hard and flat at the person, the rock glancing off their shoulder. The person backed off, hands held out in front of them, face so disfigured by growths that Nick couldn't tell the person's gender, even when he got a good look at them, and he pushed Samuel hard, urging him past the person, sliding along the path, too, while Talgerit held another rock in his hand, ready to strike again. Samuel was shaking when Nick grabbed his hand and dragged him down the river path, Talgerit running behind them, the dog still snarling, but Nick just kept running, pulling Samuel with him. They crashed through the undergrowth, burst out into a clearing and found themselves facing the business end of a sub machine gun held by a bored looking young man in khaki. "Stop!" the young man said, and Talgerit tossed the rock he was still holding at the man and bolted for the river, only a few metres away across clear ground. Samuel didn't need any urging this time, throwing himself after Talgerit while the soldier clutched at his face onehanded and attempted to aim his gun with the other. 186


A burst of gunfire sounded behind them, and the man started yelling. Nick found himself making outrageous promises to the Ancestors based on the fact that the gun was set on single shot, not automatic, so the bullets weren't peppering his body. The water was cold and slimy, and Talgerit and Samuel were both swimming for all they were worth, across the river ahead of Nick. They had about 100 meters of water to cross, and it was running quickly, swiftly taking them downstream from the military post they'd stumbled into. Nick picked up the speed of his strokes further, before anyone with larger ordinance turned up. Samuel pulled himself out of the river first, scrambling up the slippery mud bank, clutching at overhanging branches and tree roots, hauling himself out of the water, then reaching down to drag the dog out of the water. Talgerit was ahead of Nick, up on the bank, and Nick beached a few metres up from them, against some rocks that had at some stage slid down the bank from the retaining wall at the top. He scrambled up the slope, and back to where Samuel had got to Talgerit first, slipping down again in the mud. "Are either of you hit?" Nick said urgently, wiping water out of his face and grabbing at Talgerit and Samuel to stop himself from slipping into the water again. Talgerit retched and said, "My arm, I think." Samuel said, "I'm fine, but Talgerit is sick," and he nudged the dog away from where it was trying to get at the vomit. 187


"Can you move, Talgerit?" Nick asked. "Enough to get up the slope and away from the water?" Talgerit nodded, and Samuel and Nick hauled him to his feet between them and towed him up the bank, physically lifting him over fallen trees and into the cover provided by a patch of creeper that had gone wild. Nick unbuttoned Talgerit's borrowed jacket and pulled it off him, lifting the sleeve that had blood oozing through the river water off carefully, and he found himself sighing with relief. "It's an in-and-out wound," he said. "I can see the exit hole clearly." "Fuck, it hurts," Talgerit said, and he looked as white as it was possible for him to. "I'm going to clean it up, put some stitches in," Nick said. "That's if any of my medical gear survived the swim." "What do you want me to do?" Samuel asked, unwinding the now drenched feather shoes from Talgerit's neck and putting them aside. "Fire," Nick said. "If you can. And find a can or something to boil water in." It didn't take long to assess the damage to Talgerit's arm. "It missed the bone," Nick said, and Talgerit made desperate whimpering sounds in his throat while Nick's alcohol-dipped fingers poked at the wound and blood trickled down Talgerit's arm. "Tore through your deltoid, missed anything else major. You were lucky." "Fuck," Talgerit swore. "It fucking hurts." "I'm going to sew it up, at least temporarily," Nick said. "If we get out of this mess quickly, I'll do you a proper repair." 188


"If we die tomorrow?" Samuel asked, looking up briefly from where he was crouched over a mound of shredded paperbark, chipping away with a chunk of rock on a piece of scrap steel. "Then I won't have wasted hours and put Talgerit through agony unnecessarily," Nick said. Samuel fed the fire twigs and leaves, coaxing it along, then chunks of a dead and partly charred tree. Nick squatted beside him, hand on Samuel's shoulder. "Find something we can boil water in," he said quietly. Samuel glanced up at Nick, and nodded, and Nick tightened his grip on Samuel. [Back to Table of Contents]

189


Chapter Twelve Ruined houses ran close to the riverside, blackened shells of buildings, and Samuel took a deep breath and climbed into the rubble of the first one. Someone had been there ahead of him, had even lived there for a while, sheltered by propped up sheets of plaster and the remains of doors, and then he found their corpse, desiccated and skeletal, curled up under a pile of rags. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, but it didn't stop him from rummaging through the pile of belongings beside the corpse. The dog met Samuel at the edge of the scrub, whimpering, and Samuel patted his head and followed the dog back to the corpse overgrown with creeper. Talgerit was asleep, or unconscious, Nick crouching beside him, and Samuel held out the metal disc of a street light, the underside already charred from being used over a fire. "Will this do?" he whispered. Nick nodded. "Go and fill it from the river, and put the water on to boil." Sometime later, Samuel said, "Water's boiling," and he scooped the last little bit of scum off the water. "Good," Nick said, and Samuel watched as he opened the sodden packets of suture thread and needles and dropped them into the water. A chunk of scrap metal simmered in the water, too, that Nick had scrubbed in the first batch of water that Samuel had 190


carried back to camp, and Nick gritted his teeth and put his hand in the boiling water and pulled that out first. Samuel had collected balga leaves for him, the cleanest looking he could find, and Nick put the scalding hot chunk of metal on them to cool. Ten minutes later, out came the suture thread and needles, and the scissors from his kit. Nick plunged his hands briefly into the pan to scald them, and Samuel flinched, then it got worse when Nick picked up the scissors and cut a piece of meat off Talgerit's arm. "I'll take the dog, go have a look around," Samuel said, because staying around and watching Nick cut up Talgerit was going to make Samuel throw up. "Good idea," Nick said distractedly, and he carefully threaded the needle for the first time. "Hold still, Talgerit." Talgerit said something in Noongar through gritted teeth, and Samuel almost retched as Nick drew the needle through flesh. The dog followed him, much to Samuel's relief, and he made his way up the hill, past the house with the corpse, into what had once been a residential area. The trees that grew out of the rubble were tall and stately, covered in purple flowers, the bricks and car bodies beneath them carpeted in the same purple. The dog caught a rat, eating it in three quick gulps, but they found no feral dogs, not like they had seen over the proceeding days. Samuel didn't put down the rock he carried, just in case. The vehicle stood out, conspicuously intact amongst the jumbled, rusted and blackened car bodies, and Samuel ducked behind what looked like it had once been a bus, 191


holding his breath, listening anxiously for movement or voices. He heard none, and the dog looked at Samuel curiously, tipping his head on one side. Samuel guessed the dog knew far more than he ever would, and he crawled out from behind the wreck. The shining vehicle was military, on tracks, gun on the top, and Samuel peered in through the open door cautiously. "Tell me if anyone comes," he whispered to the dog, and he clambered in. The vehicle had two seats at the front, one behind the other, and a row of canvas seats on each side of the bulk of the car. Above the rows, stuffed into webbing, was exactly what Samuel had hoped to find: first aid kits. He grabbed both of the kits, and the large clear container labeled water, and bolted. **** It wasn't sophisticated, and it wasn't pretty, and if they lived Talgerit was going to have a crater in his arm, but it stopped the bleeding mostly, and that and not having a massive infection was about the best that Nick could hope for. When Samuel came hurtling back into the shelter, Nick was boiling a chunk of cloth torn from the bottom of his shirt, ready to bind Talgerit's arm, and Samuel handed him two first aid kits. "Where did you get these?" Nick asked delightedly, opening the first kit and taking out a field dressing and 192


wrapping it around Talgerit's arm firmly, then tying it in place. "Military vehicle," Samuel said. "I grabbed the water, too." Talgerit stirred weakly on the pile of balga leaves and said, "Army car, unna?" "Up there," Samuel said, pointing away from the river, up the slope. "Army car. We steal it, eh?" Talgerit said. "Where there're army cars, there're usually people with guns," Nick said. "And that's bad." "Reckon they're looking for us," Talgerit said. "That's bad, too." He struggled up to sitting, Nick's arm around him. "Steal it," he said. Nick looked at Samuel hopefully. "Did it look like it worked?" Samuel nodded. "It did. I didn't know how to tell how much fuel it had, but the tracks had green leaves stuck in them. Worst case scenario, we get shot. Best case, we don't have to walk anymore." "I'm already shot," Talgerit said. "Steal it." "I agree," Nick said. "Think you can stand, Talgerit?" "No," Talgerit said. "Help me up." Talgerit's feather boots squelched faintly when he walked, but the stillness was with him, and he moved silently, dog slinking along behind him, Samuel and Nick on either side of him, holding him upright and carrying first aid kits and the water canister.

193


A small APC sat in the middle of a partially cleared road, surrounded by destroyed houses and a crumpled block of flats. "Can you start it, Nick?" Samuel whispered. "I drove one twenty-five years ago, and they don't have keys," Nick said. The M113s had been the preferred armored personnel carrier when Nick had been in the armed forces, a supposedly improved machine that had been a complete failure in Nick's opinion, useless at off-road recovery work, and so fuel-thirsty that as soon as the gas and oil fields were bombed they became scrap. Someone must have opened up an oil field again. They left Talgerit and the dog crouching down in the tumble of rubble and Samuel and Nick snuck across to the APC. Nick opened the door as quietly and quickly as he could. No sirens blared, so he slipped into the driver's seat and looked at the controls. The gauges were up close to eye level, and the levers and steering column were lower. The backdoor of the M113 slid open, then closed again, and Nick pushed in the fuel supply lever, and tapped the ignition button. The engine spluttered and the starter unit whirred, and Nick pumped the fuel supply, then glanced back at where Samuel was helping Talgerit into a sling seat. "Samuel, come here," he called out, and Samuel scrambled across the metal tray of the vehicle. "Accelerator," he said, pointing at one of the foot pedals. "Brake. And that's the steering." 194


"Big vehicle," Samuel said, and Nick slid out of the driver's seat, leaned over and flicked the switch to lock the doors. "Get us out of here." Blood was soaking through Talgerit's field dressing, so Nick grabbed the second first aid kit and pulled it open. More field dressings and a compression bandage were stacked among the supplies, so he ripped the compression bandage open and wrapped it around Talgerit's upper arm, then strapped his arm to his side with tape. The vehicle lurched and whirred, and they were off. "Where we going?" Samuel called back over his shoulder as the vehicle crunched over debris and rumbled down a slope. "That way!" Nick called back, pointing south and west. "At least until we run into a bomb crater." "Fuck!" Samuel said almost immediately. "Bomb crater." Nick belted Talgerit into his seat and slid forward across the metal floor, thudding into the dog on his way and making it yelp. "Oh fuck," he said under his breath, and he took over the controls from Samuel again. They were only a few kilometers from the city centre, where they'd come ashore. The area had been pretty much bombed flat, and then reclaimed by rampant introduced plants, growing over the rubble. He steered straight west and pushed the vehicle through the jungle of morning glory vines and pampas grass plants, plunging the vehicle into hidden pockets of nothingness beneath the mat of wild green, then jerking and hauling it back onto the level. 195


"Samuel," Nick said. "Pop your head up through the hatch, have a look around for me." "Is this the gun?" Samuel asked, grabbing hold of the controls of the gunnery seat, then reaching above himself to open the hatch. "That's the gun," Nick said. He spotted a familiar spire amongst the debris and swung the vehicle hard left, around where he hoped the Maylands train station was, with its sunken underpass, and hopefully level ground. The train tracks, when they crashed through the razor wire fence and across them, were clear, confirming the line was in use. Nick pushed hard on the accelerator, lined up the spire of the old Peninsula Hotel that he'd seen still standing, and headed for what he hoped was Central Avenue. Samuel had either spotted something, or hit the wrong control, because a boom resounded around the metal box they were in and cordite filled the air. "Army?" Nick shouted, and Samuel swung his seat around, just in the corner of Nick's vision, and another shot rang out. "Yes!" Samuel shouted back. "Go faster!" The road map in Nick's memory unrolled across the wilderness in front of him; a hill, down the other side, hard left, and the road in front of him was cleared of debris and chewed up by tracked vehicles. Not a good choice, and he swung the car hard right and took off through what had once been a leafy and expensive suburb. It was certainly still leafy, with jacaranda trees marking where roads had been, purple flowers flushing the area with color where the trees had regrown after the bombs. 196


Up another hill, and Samuel shouted, "Not chasing us!" "That's not good," Nick muttered, and they went over the top of the hill and down the other side. What was left of the city centre was spread out in front of them. For kilometers the ground was blackened and melted and charred, and only the faintest tendrils of green struggled to survive in the rubble that had been superheated and then melted to a glossy black sheen. The mounds in the middle distance marked the city centre, where concrete and steel had folded over itself over and over, like an obscene batch of cake mix, and Nick swung the steering column hard right when Samuel shouted, "Ghosts!" Nick didn't need to be warned, he could smell the despair and loss coming out of the ground. There were some places no one would go, even if the military was chasing them. They skirted the blackened blast zone, Nick keeping his eyes averted from the horror there, and he didn't ask Samuel if he was avoiding looking, too. "Where are we going?" Samuel shouted over the roar of the vehicle. "Army!" The vehicle had bolt on steel panels, something Nick became intensely grateful for once whoever was pursuing them opened fire. Unless someone had a lucky shot, the APCs could exchange fire comfortably without doing any real harm to each other, though the noise of the rounds hitting was overwhelming. He had no chance of shouting instructions to Samuel, but hopefully Samuel could work out that if someone was shooting them, he should shoot back. 197


Samuel dropped back into the APC, and slid into the seat behind Nick. "They stopped chasing us," Samuel said. "That's not good, is it?" "Depends why," Nick said, slowing the APC down and leaning forward to peer through the viewing slot. "No vehicles have been through here, not in a long time." The ravine the APC was driving into was man-made, with crumbling concrete walls and a slimy creek at the bottom. Trees and creepers grew thickly through the ruined concrete, and Nick was sure he saw things scurrying in the shadows. "This was a freeway," Nick said. "I've been here before." The tracks on the APC whirred and slipped uselessly, trying to climb out the ravine, and Nick had to poke around amongst the ruined exit ramps and overpasses, looking for an easier way to climb out. On the other side of the freeway, the trees towered over the APC, crowding the vehicle and making Nick frown. "They weren't here," he said. "Much further up the hill, yes, there was a huge park. Guess the trees have spread..." "Are we going to have to walk?" Samuel asked. Nick put the APC into neutral and put the brake on. "That depends on Talgerit." Talgerit opened his eyes and yawned when Nick crouched down beside him, the dog whining and sniffing around his feet. "How's the arm?" Nick asked. "Sore," Talgerit said. "Where are we?" 198


"Trees," Nick said. "I think they're not just trees. Could you have a look?" Talgerit shuffled to the front of the APC, Nick hanging onto him to keep him steady, then he leaned against the front of the APC to look out of the viewing slot. "Trees," Talgerit agreed. "This is someone's country." Nick nodded, and Samuel asked, "What does that mean?" "We're not driving the APC over the top of the trees," Nick said. "Talgerit? Can you walk?" Nick asked. "Anywhere, anytime," Talgerit said. "What do we take?" Samuel asked. "Drink the water, rather than carry it," Nick said. "Take whatever food there is. Grab anything else that looks useful." Samuel clanked faintly, when they climbed out of the APC, and Nick lifted an eyebrow at him as the pair of them helped Talgerit out, to lean against the nearest tree while the dog ran around pissing and sniffing. "Tools," Samuel said, patting his pocket. Talgerit wriggled his toes in the dirt and took the camo jacket that Nick offered him, sliding his undamaged arm into a sleeve and draping the jacket around his shoulders. "How does the arm feel?" Nick asked, feeling Talgerit's shoulder and elbow under the jacket, where the field dressings ended. "Like you think it would," Talgerit said, wriggling his fingers and wincing. Nick felt Talgerit's forehead, and shrugged. 199


"No sign of infection, which is a good thing. There must be antibiotics in what's left of the city somewhere, but I wouldn't want to try and find them." "Carder?" Talgerit suggested, and Nick nodded. "If we have to." As they pushed their way through the undergrowth, Samuel asked, "What's carder?" "Goanna," Nick said. "The fat stops infection." Samuel was silent, apart from the crackling of twigs under his feet, and Nick looked back at him and said, "Applied topically, not internally, if that helps." Samuel nodded. The trees were close together, so they had to push between them, climbing over fallen branches and between balga plants. The shells of buildings poked up through the trees, and Nick found the remains of a set of traffic lights, the paint peeled off the pole and a honeyeater's nest in the green light. "This is the top of the hill," Nick said. "It should be downhill from here." Talgerit, who had been leaning on Samuel, pushed past Nick with his dog following at his heels, and said, "There's a track ahead..." When Nick stepped out onto the track, Talgerit was kneeling down, looking at the leaves and bark on the dirt. Samuel almost trod on Nick, coming out of the trees, and Nick made a mental note to try and teach Samuel the basics of moving through the bush, before he injured himself or a bystander. 200


Talgerit stood up again. "It's well-used," Talgerit said. "Who made it?" Samuel asked. "The Noongar who live here?" Talgerit grinned at Samuel, and Nick said, "I believe that would be the good option." "What animal made it, unna?" Talgerit said. "This is an animal track." "Not procoptodons," Nick said, looking up at the trees closing over the track, just above their heads. "Not diprotodons either." "There are other really big things?" Samuel asked. Talgerit shrugged. "Probably. We'll walk this path, if it is going to where Samuel's clock is." Nick pointed, south and slightly to the west, the direction the path curved through the trees. Talgerit walked ahead of them, standing straighter with each step, and his dog sniffed ahead, disappearing into the bush, then sliding out between the trees again. The trees were loud with black cockatoos calling, and honeyeaters buzzed them on the path. Lizards slithered away, and Nick had to grab Samuel to stop him from standing on a dugite snake warming itself in a patch of sunshine through the trees. The track twisted occasionally, but kept heading in the right direction. After a couple of kilometers, Nick caught up with Talgerit, who had been stalking several paces ahead of them. "Still going the right way," Talgerit confirmed, pointing toward where in Nick's memory the University of Western Australia stood. 201


"There's only one reason I can think of that the track would go there," Nick said. Talgerit nodded. "Whoever, or whatever, uses this track walks there." "You're moving better. Does your arm hurt much?" Nick asked, as Samuel caught up with them. Talgerit shook his head slowly. "This is a good place," Talgerit said. "Look?" He held out his hand, and a bubble of light swelled, bright enough to see in the late afternoon sunshine filtering through the trees. The bubble grew bigger and bigger, until it was wider across than a man's arms could reach, and was too bright to look at. Talgerit let the bubble slide to the ground, where it melted away, into the leaves and gravel. "That's a lot of magic," Nick said, and Talgerit nodded. Nick touched Talgerit's arm, above the edge of the dressing, and Talgerit shrugged. "Okay, let's have a look," Nick said. "If you've healed yourself, then I'll take the tape off your arm." Talgerit slid off the jacket, and Nick undid the compression bandage, then lifted the pack off slowly, but no fresh blood welled through the field dressing underneath. He kept the sterile side the bandage clean, away from everything, and undid the field bandage carefully. Underneath, when he peeled the gauze and wadding off the dried blood and curled sutures, Talgerit's skin had granulated across the wounds, the new skin gleaming and healthy, with no sign of infection. When Nick glanced down at 202


Talgerit's ankle, where the marron had clawed him, the skin was smooth and healthy. "Accelerated healing?" Samuel asked. "That's amazing." Nick nodded. "I'm going to cover this up again, Talgerit, to stop the stitches from catching. Then you can use your arm again." With a smaller field dressing, taken from the APC, covering the sutures, Talgerit swung his arm experimentally. "Give me some rocks," Talgerit said. "Let's get dinner!" Samuel pulled a food bar from his pocket and handed it to Talgerit as they started walking again. "We stole dinner," Samuel said. "No need to catch rabbits tonight." Talgerit looked dubious about the protein bar Samuel had just given him, but he tore the foil wrapper open anyway and bit into it. "Is it bad?" Samuel asked, and Nick had to admit that the expressions Talgerit was pulling gave that impression. Talgerit chewed hard, then swallowed. "Can we run my car on this? It'd be better than mutton fat." Samuel shrugged. "If you steal a truck full of the bars, I'll work on the refining process." "Because stealing trucks from the army is such a good idea," Nick said. The path curved around, and began to track downhill, between smaller trees than before. "We're close," Nick said, and he began to run down the track, the dog bounding ahead of him. 203


The track led into a clearing, and Nick slid to a halt, Talgerit and Samuel on his heels. Across the clearing, partly hidden by tangle of vines, the clock tower of the university reached up, in the dusk. The clock face was broken, the hands of the clock hanging loose, and the roof was missing from the tower. "I've seen pictures of this," Samuel said. "Before I left home." They walked on, across bitumen reclaimed by the vines and balga plants, and past wrecked traffic lights, until the ground dipped sharply, and the tower was close enough it loomed over them. Samuel leaned against Nick, once they'd slid down the embankment. "This is the place," Samuel said. "We made it." Talgerit turned to look at them over his shoulder, as the gloom of dusk settled around them. "Keep moving," Talgerit said. "Can't stop now." The cloisters surrounding the quadrangle they'd slid into were still standing, and Talgerit led them through the cloisters, and under cover. "Is there anyone here?" Nick asked Talgerit in a whisper, when Talgerit paused and peered around the corner of the building, his dog pushing between his legs to snuffle at the stone wall. "No people," Talgerit said. "No nothing." "What?" Samuel whispered. "No birds, no dogs, no nothing," Talgerit said, and he walked out into the open. Nick grabbed Samuel's arm, and pulled him after Talgerit. 204


"Do you know where we're going?" Samuel asked. "I had maps, but they're gone, in the river." "Physics Department is ahead of us," Nick said. "At least it was, the last time I failed a physics exam." The ground was rough, vines growing over rubble and thick bushes, but in the very last of the daylight, Nick could see the shape of the Geology Department on his right, and the Physics Department looming behind it. Nick pushed ahead, through what his memory said had once been a tropical garden but was now a dense thicket of bushes and trees, all of them with sharp edges that whipped at his face. "Hey, Talgerit, can you make some light?" Nick asked as he almost fell out of the thicket, the dark shape of a building looming overhead. Talgerit slid out of the thicket behind Nick, Samuel after him, crunching fallen branches and muttering about the trees. "Don't need to," Talgerit said, and when Nick glanced back, Talgerit's face was lit by a pale glow. Talgerit opened his stolen jacket, and the Wagyl scale on a cord around his neck glowed, blue and white, shimmering in the darkness against his chest. "What does it mean?" Samuel asked, as Talgerit covered the scale up again. "Don't know," Talgerit said, and he held out his hand, a glowing sphere of light forming on his palm. "That way," Nick said, pointing at where his memory said the Physics Department was. 205


The globe of light bobbed ahead of them, drifting toward the building, until it nudged up against a substantial pale red brick and sandstone wall. Nick scrambled through the undergrowth and across the rubble of what had once been a covered walkway, to where the glowing globe lit a shattered window. "Think this was an office," Nick said, carefully pushing broken glass off the windowsill. "C'mon." He heaved himself over the windowsill, and fell into the room, landing in a pile of dried leaves and, probably, rat shit. Samuel was next in the room, and Nick barely got clear in time, then they both leaned out to help Talgerit climb in. The globe of light followed Talgerit in, reminding Nick of childhood balloons floating on a string. "Wow," Samuel said, and Nick looked around the office, where books crowded the shelves and the shell of a computer sat on a sagging desk. The office door opened, with some shoving, and the light drifted ahead of them, into a long hallway. "Dusty, but intact," Samuel said, following the globe of light. "I'd expected the building to be bombed, or gutted by looters." The next door that Nick pushed open was a computer lab, with rows of desks holding desktop computers, the chairs at the desks still in place. Apart from the faint scurrying of rodents, Nick could see no indication the room had been disturbed since the university was evacuated. "Why is all this untouched?" Nick asked. "Why hasn't the army, at least, taken all the hardware?" 206


"Could the building be radioactive?" Samuel asked. "If I can find a real laboratory, I might be able to tell..." The ball of light flared briefly, and Talgerit said, "We have a problem." Nick closed the computer lab door and asked, "What kind of problem?" Talgerit opened his jacket, and the Wagyl scale around his neck shone as brightly as the floating ball of light. A long roll of what sounded like thunder echoed through the building, the floor under Nick's feet vibrated and dust rained down on them. "Explosions?" Samuel asked. "The Wagyl," Talgerit said. "Maybe on the roof." [Back to Table of Contents]

207


Chapter Thirteen "You had classes in this building?" Samuel asked, watching Nick push the double fire doors open, onto an echoing entrance hall of broken glass and shifting shadows. "First year medical students had to do compulsory science units," Nick said. "It wasn't pretty. It doesn't mean I have any idea where the research labs are, though." "I'm guessing the basements," Samuel said. "It's easier to keep things secure down there, then there's the whole containment issue. If you're going to make a mess, do it where there are no windows." Talgerit looked upward, to where the crunching and crashing on the roof of the building had come from. "I could go, see the Wagyl..." he said, sounding hopeful. "Oh no," Nick said. "Firstly, we're not going to the basement without you and your lights. And secondly, we're not going to the basement without you because there are things running around here, and they're not rats. I don't think they're even really things. If you'd like to tell me they're very small Wagyls, I'm not going to be surprised." Samuel swung his head, and sure enough, something hopped and slid, just on the edge of his vision, melting away. The dog whined, pushing between Talgerit's legs, until Talgerit settled him. "I don't know what they are, but they're not Wagyls," Talgerit said. 208


Nick rubbed at the dust on the wall, revealing a building directory and map. "Stairs are down this corridor," he said, pointing. Samuel followed Talgerit and Nick, staying within the glow of Talgerit's globe and watching out for the things that were moving in the shadows, out of reach of the dog as he rushed at them. "Don't stand on any of those things," Talgerit warned, unnecessarily in Samuel's opinion. "I think they own the building." "Should the labs smell?" Nick asked, as they crept down the stairwell, the stink of mould and decay growing stronger, even over the lingering smell of Talgerit's Featherman boots, which dangled around Talgerit's neck on a cord. "What does physics research smell like?" "The labs I'm used to smell of coffee and shorted circuits," Samuel said. "I have no idea what gravity wave research smells like." The stairs ended in a hallway so dark that Talgerit's globe struggled through the opaque and musty air, and the floor was dank and slimy underfoot when Samuel stepped off the final stair. Samuel grabbed onto Nick's shoulder, and said, "I guess we just work our way along the corridor, opening doors." Talgerit set more balls of light floating around them, and Samuel picked his way through sticky slime, to the first door. The sign hanging crookedly off the door read Experimental Quantum Dynamics, and Nick nudged at the door and asked, "What's Experimental Quantum Dynamics?" 209


"About as magic as Talgerit's lights," Samuel said, pushing his shoulder against the door, alongside Nick's. "High energy, high impact electron destruction physics, I suspect. Well outside of my area of knowledge." The door gave way with a rending of rotten wood and corroded metal, and they shoved it open far enough for one of Talgerit's globes to float in. "Oh," Samuel said, at the hulking machines that filled the lab. "They're electron lasers." Nick tugged on Samuel's arm, and said, "Keep moving, no matter how exciting the lasers are." The next room was an office, with shelves that had collapsed under the weight of mildewed files and journals, and the door after was a workshop. It wasn't just an ordinary workshop, but a huge machining workshop, with precision lathes, heat pumps, gas expanders, spot welders and banks of tanks of compressed gas, some of which had ruptured messily sometime in the past. The workshop ran back, into darkness, and Samuel picked his way over upturned lab stools, to where the little things hopped and scampered around, just ahead of the dog. "This workshop..." Samuel said, shaking his head. "This must be where most of the equipment was manufactured. That's a precision mill, and that's a plasma welder." "Can you use all these?" Nick asked. Samuel shook his head. "Maybe the lathe, and the mill, as long as no one wanted me to produce anything usable. I'm not sure there's anyone still alive how knows how to even power up some of these things." 210


They worked their way through the workshop, past equipment that Samuel couldn't identify, and each intact drill press and recognizable 3D printer made Samuel more and more hopeful that if he could find the right lab, the guts of the gravity wave clock would still be intact. He'd hoped for identifiable, or locatable, so intact, or assembled, or potentially functional would be better than he ever dreamed of. The doors at the far end of the workshop didn't so much open as fall apart, when the three of them pushed on them, the rotten wooden panels and cracked glass panes crumbling. "The Condensed Matter Research Group," Samuel read off the wall sign on the other side of the door. "BioAcoustics, Medical Radiation Physics—that's a lab we don't want to go into—and..." He rubbed the heel of his hand across the pitted letters on the sign and leaned closer to peer at them. "Gravitational Waves Research Group. Down this corridor." "You found it?" Talgerit asked, sending more balls of light bumping off the ceiling ahead of Samuel, and this time, Samuel could hear the little things skittering around in the corners, making the dog whine. "Nearly," Samuel said. Nick slung his arm, sweaty and filthy, around Samuel's shoulder, as Samuel slid through the muck on the floor, past the door with the BioAcoustics lab sign. "How does it feel?" Samuel grinned sideways at Nick. "Ask me again when we've found the lab, and it hasn't been gutted already." Part of the sign was missing, but the half that still hung from the door clearly read Waves Research, and that was 211


good enough. The doors were stuck, warped and swollen in the dampness, but the three of them persuaded one of the doors to pull free of its hinges and frame. "Well, the lab's not empty," Nick said, and Talgerit whacked Samuel on the back. "Steal the clock, go home," Talgerit said. "I'm hungry." Samuel walked into the lab, Talgerit's lights floating around him, and touched the nearest desk, then the rig in the middle of the lab. "Now how do you feel?" Nick asked. "It's all here," Samuel said. "This would have been the superconductor containment vat, for the niobium bar. The laser set-up for the clock should be..." Samuel pushed aside a stepladder, and pulled the remnants of a tarpaulin off the structure beside the containment vat. "This is the laser for the clock," Samuel said, and he could hear his voice was odd, his throat too tight to speak properly. "We have to carry that home?" Talgerit asked. "Is it heavy? Can we borrow a truck, unna?" Nick patted the containment vat. "Possibly not all of it." He sounded hopeful. "Only some of it," Samuel said, pulling the stepladder closer and testing his weight on it, then deciding that was a bad idea when the ladder creaked and the rung snapped. "The important parts. You might want to get comfortable, because this could take some time." Talgerit lifted the dog up, onto a desk, and the dog curled up in Talgerit's lap when Talgerit sat on the desk, too. Nick 212


said, "Let me know if you need a hand," and propped himself on a workbench, and began to chew on a meal replacement bar. "Could I have some more light?" Samuel asked Talgerit, reaching into his jacket pocket for the shifter he'd stolen from the APC. More globes bobbed past Samuel's shoulders, sending crazy shadows across the side of the clock laser housing, and Talgerit said, "You could make your own light now. The Wagyl lives here, so lights are like breathing." Samuel looked up from adjusting the shifter to fit the corroded bolthead on the side of the clock laser housing, and Nick held out his hand, palm up, and creased his face in concentration, rearranging the dirt and his beard. Talgerit laughed, making the dog yip, and said, "Breathing, Nick. Not that thing you're doing." Nick stopped squinting and let out a long breath, and they all stared at his extended palm. "I don't know, Talgerit," Nick said, before breathing in and out again loudly. "Not all of us have trained for years to be Feathermen." "You can breathe, eh?" Talgerit asked. "Last time I checked," Nick said. Samuel turned back to the bolt he was attempting to loosen, gave the bolthead another unsuccessful twist, then hit it with the side of the shifter, so the thud echoed around the lab and rust flaked off the bolthead. On the next try, the shifter gripped, and the bolt moved, undoing slowly. Behind him, Talgerit started laughing, as loud 213


as the clang of metal on metal had been, and Nick laughed, too, sudden and surprised. Samuel glanced back, still twisting the shifter, and laughed as well, because Nick had managed to make a small, stickylooking ball of light, but with his other hand, not the one he'd been holding out and concentrating on. "Told you it was like breathing," Talgerit said. Samuel pulled the bolt he was working on out of the laser housing, and moved on to the next bolt, and Nick said, "Now how do I get it off me?" Samuel shook his head, whacked the bolthead hard, just to start with, and began unscrewing it. Eventually, the housing cover pulled off, and the cryogenic chamber lid lifted, exposing the workings of the laser clock, and Samuel let out a long sigh. Talgerit grunted, possibly in his sleep since he was curled up on a desk with the dog, and Nick asked, "Found something?" "Want to look?" Samuel asked. Nick squelched across the lab floor, and leaned over Samuel's shoulder. "Wow," Nick said. "That is a big chunk of glass." "That's a piece of flawless sapphire," Samuel said. "That's what we're here for." Samuel touched the rounded side of the sapphire, where the housing had exposed it, just to feel the cold rock under his fingertips. "Is it going to be an issue to get it out of the machinething?" Nick asked. 214


Samuel shrugged. "The manuals indicated that it should just lift out on its cradle. Of course, those manuals are now somewhere in the river, but I spent enough nights memorizing the instructions on the freighter that I'm not too worried. There should be a carry case for it somewhere. Do you want to look for it?" "That's it?" Nick asked. "That's all we're here for?" "The sapphire, and some of the peripherals," Samuel said, reaching into the housing and feeling around for a release lever. "Spend a few minutes searching, see if the back-up discs were left onsite, then crack open the desktop computers, and pull out the hard drives." The cradle the sapphire rested in wiggled in Samuel's hands, but didn't swing, so he yanked on it, trying to pull the hinges past the corrosion stopping the mechanism. "Hard drives?" Nick asked, over the noise of him yanking open storage cabinets and store cupboards, searching for back-ups and for the case. "Won't they be useless after the bombs and all this time?" "What?" Talgerit asked sleepily. "Stiction will be an issue," Samuel said. "But we're in a high energy physics research facility, inside a Faraday cage, which should have shielded and isolated everything enough to have protected the data in these machines." Nick pulled a crate out of a cupboard and sat it down solidly on a worktable, which creaked alarmingly. "So, all the computers in this basement are potentially salvageable?" Nick asked. 215


Samuel nodded. "Possibly. If I could carry every hard drive out, I would, but I can't, so I'm just going to do my job." "What's stiction?" Talgerit asked, as Samuel found the clasps that held the sapphire's cradle securely, and began to force them undone with a screwdriver he'd dug out of his pocket. "When things have been resting against each other for a long time, it can be hard to get them to move apart," Samuel said. "Especially machines." "Boyees," Talgerit said, sounding like he understood. The clasp Samuel was prizing at snapped off, so Samuel gave the block of sapphire a heave, expecting it to be stuck solid, and it lifted jerkily upward on its runners. "Grab the foam packing for the sapphire," Samuel said. "Let's lift this out." "Is that the clock?" Talgerit asked, as Samuel lifted the disc of sapphire, on its cradle, out of the housing and across onto the workbench beside the crate. "That's it," Nick said. "It's a rock," Talgerit said, splaying his hand across the clear stone disc, sounding deeply pleased. "Of course, time would be inside a rock. That's where it belongs." Nick muttered something under his breath as they slid the sapphire on its cradle into the padded box, and Samuel said, "Let me guess, you were wondering why it couldn't be in something easier to carry?" Samuel took the screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Nick. "Strip hard drives, while I pull the niobium bar out of the containment vat." 216


"I haven't touched a PC for more than twenty years," Nick said, as Samuel crouched down in front of the access plate to the containment vat. "And I've never worked on desktop computers like the ones here," Samuel said. "So you're a long way ahead of me. Besides, if I do the hard drives, you have to remove the niobium bar from the containment vat." Nick was silent for a moment, while Talgerit laughed, then Nick said, "Can I use a hammer? For either task?" Samuel knelt back on his heels. "Sure, because I'm just going to force my way in here." He smacked the side of the containment vat repeatedly with the shifter, until the steel sheeting buckled enough for him to wedge the edge of the shifter under it, then lever up. The house popped up, revealing the control board, and Samuel went directly for the manual handles, winding each undone in turn, so that the side of the house dropped down completely, revealing the innards of the containment vat, with the coils, condensers and niobium bar buried in the middle. Given time, and a truck, he'd pull the resources out of the basement, gutting the machines and computers. There'd be a server room somewhere, and if it had been shielded and earthed adequately the drives would have survived... He could only imagine the research that was on the servers, amongst the memos, emails and clutter. Then there were the other buildings, like Engineering and Chemistry. If he could get back here, with a real recovery team, then out to Trudy's library at Lake Grace, to copy her books, huge gaps in the archives would be filled. 217


Of course, they had to get out of here alive first. The pile on the desk grew steadily, as Nick added drives and Samuel dismantled the optical frequency synthesizers, taking the polarizers and the optical fiber chains. "How much are you taking?" Nick asked, when Samuel put the second polarizer on the pile. "Only as much as one person can carry," Samuel said, and Nick nodded. "Then it's time to stop," Nick said. "Do physicists keep bags in their labs?" Samuel opened drawers and cupboards at random, until he found a stack of bags made from robust plastic fibres. He shook the bags out, dislodging rodent droppings, and found a couple of bags that hadn't been chewed on. "So, what do physicists put in bags?" Nick asked. "Polarizers, sapphires and their lunch, I suspect," Samuel said. "And flasks of coffee." They packed the bags, and Samuel took the bag holding the sapphire in its cradle and foam packing. He wasn't planning on letting go of it again for a while. Talgerit climbed down from his perch on the workbench, wound his feather shoes onto their cord and around his neck, woke his dog up, and they worked their back through the workshop, down the hallway, to the stairs. The cluster of globes, bouncing ahead of and trailing behind them, cast enough light that the shapes on the stairs were clear. The things, whatever they were, had lined up on the stairs, filling each step, blocking the exit. 218


"Talgerit?" Nick asked. "Don't hurt them, unna?" Talgerit suggested, pushing his dog behind his knees. "I don't think they want us to leave," Samuel said. "Or take things with us?" Nick asked. "Do you think they could be part of the building? Or the work that was done here?" Samuel asked. "Why don't you show them your credentials, see if that helps?" Nick suggested. "If they're physics creatures, they're not going to be impressed by my medical qualification." Samuel edged closer to the stairs, and the things shuffled, but didn't clear a path for him. "Hello," Samuel said. "So, I'm part of an international project to build a spacecraft, to explore the asteroid belt, and maybe beyond. I'm an electrical engineer, not a physicist, but there are physicists working on the project, I promise. And they need the equipment we want to take with us." Samuel paused, and waited, and nothing happened; the things didn't move out of the way, or seem to respond at all. "Hey, Nick," Samuel said, standing back up again, and trying to ignore the feeling of slime from the floors soaking through his clothes, where he'd knelt down. "Can you do that sticky light ball thing?" "If you want light from me, that's the only option," Nick said, holding his hand out, the palm filling with luminescent goo. Samuel dipped his finger in the light and started drawing in the air. "This is how you calculate pi," Samuel said, 219


drawing a circle in the air then drawing a line through it. "This is pi, but I'm only good to about fifteen decimal places." He scribbled in the air quickly. "Right triangle. Sine, and cosine. With me so far? Now, let's get into something I'm more comfortable with, free electrons in a metal lattice. And electrical potential..." He dipped his finger in the light again, and drew Ohm's Law in the air, and then Ampere's Rule, talking all the time, because it felt like the things on the stairs were listening, like his words or the symbols were getting through. Nick touched Samuel's shoulder, stopping him midsentence, because the things had moved aside, clearing a path for them up the stairs. "I liked that," Talgerit said, at the top of the stairs, as they crunched over the broken glass and dead leaves in the hallway on the ground floor. "Samuel is a kind of talking clever man." Samuel hitched the bag he was carrying more securely onto his shoulders and smiled to himself. The darkness outside had lifted, and first light filtered in pale and murky, through undergrowth that had climbed into what had once been the foyer, straggling vines over crumbling brick pillars. At the top of steps down, through vines and ferns, to a clearing surrounded by buildings and towering trees, Talgerit flung out his arms, stopping Nick and Samuel, and said, "Look!" In the darkest shadows of the clearing, a long shape shifted, lifting a small head on a sinuous neck, so large eyes glittered at them from across the clearing. 220


"The Wagyl," Nick whispered, and Talgerit nodded, his dog whimpering. "What do we do?" Talgerit slipped his feather shoes off from around his neck, freeing them from their cord, and bent down to slip them on. "Don't know," Talgerit said. "No one has ever told me." The Wagyl moved, uncoiling itself from the darkness, and Samuel said, "Mosasaur? Plesiosaur?" "I don't think any of them flew," Nick pointed out. "Be quiet," Talgerit said, sounding annoyed, and he began to pick his way down through the undergrowth, toward the Wagyl, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders. "C'mon." "Us, as well?" Nick asked. Talgerit looked back at them. "Do you want to be eaten? Show your scars, too." Samuel followed Nick's lead in undressing, and dropped the bag he was carrying and pulled off his shirt, then grabbed the bag and followed Nick and Talgerit down the steps as quickly as he could in the half-light. Talgerit reached the edge of the clearing, and began to walk silently and smoothly across the open ground, the Wagyl rising up above him, long snake-like neck and a huge body with giant flippers. Something buzzed in the distance, growing steadily louder, but Samuel didn't dare take his eyes off the Wagyl, not once he began to cross the clearing, too, behind Nick. The buzzing was a roaring by the time Samuel had caught up with Nick and Talgerit, and the Wagyl loomed over them, sharply outlined against the overcast early morning sky. 221


Samuel's scars hurt, on his chest and thigh, burning deep inside, and the roaring was so loud and close, he couldn't hear what Nick was saying, even though Nick had turned and was shouting directly at him. The branches of the trees around the clearing began to whip around, and a helicopter lifted over the roof of the Physics building. The Wagyl swung and twisted, slicing huge flippers through the air above their heads, and Talgerit lifted his hands, as though to touch the Wagyl. A huge noise rocked them, booming over the cacophony of the helicopter, and a tree and part of the building behind the Wagyl crumbled and broke. Nick's hands grabbed Samuel, tossing him down, into the undergrowth, and Samuel lay shaking, partially covered by Nick, as the Wagyl lifted up, into the air above them. [Back to Table of Contents]

222


Chapter Fourteen The boom of the chopper exploding reverberated around the buildings, and the ground under Nick's knees shook. Beneath him, Samuel was wild-eyed, teeth obviously clenched tight. Talgerit was making odd noises, somewhere buried in the fern fronds, so Nick patted Samuel's cheek, leaving muddy smudges behind, and crawled through the ferns to find Talgerit. The ferns were trampled, the muddy ground churned, and palm fronds and branches were strewn around. Somewhere in the mess, and nearby, Talgerit muttered unhappily. "Talgerit, unna?" Nick asked, shaking his head to get the ring of the explosion out of his ears. "Hurt?" "Nick," Talgerit hissed, closer than Nick expected, sounding like he was right beside him in the undergrowth. "Something happened." "The chopper exploded," Nick said. "We need to move, get out of here, before anyone else arrives with guns. Can you move?" "Not until you get off me." Nick poked at the crushed bracken in front of him, which actually felt kind of substantial and person-like to the touch, and Talgerit grunted. "Talgerit," Nick said, and he wondered if he sounded as tired as he felt. "This is a new kind of Featherman hiding, isn't it?" 223


Something moved past Nick's ear, something that might be Talgerit's arm, and Talgerit said, "Maybe." The undergrowth crunched and cracked, then Samuel bumped against Nick's side. "Is Talgerit hurt?" Samuel asked. "Again?" "Not hurt; invisible," Nick said. Samuel frowned, looking down at where Nick was poking at what felt like Talgerit's chest and looked like undergrowth, then at Nick. "The physics fairies?" Samuel suggested. "We should get away from here anyway, because you and I can still be shot at." Nick would have chuckled at Samuel's name for the creatures in the Physics building, if he wasn't still terrified. "Do you feel like you can walk, Talgerit?" he asked. "My feet feel wrong," said Talgerit, as Nick and Samuel scrambled to their feet, stepping back to give an invisible Talgerit room to stand. Nick retrieved the bag of hard drives he'd dropped in the dive for cover, and shrugged at Samuel, who shrugged back at him. "Away from here first," Nick said. "Then I'll work out how to examine your feet, and Samuel can eat." Something small and quick brushed past Nick's ankles, making him jump, and Talgerit said, "Can't see the dog either." Nick led them around the edge of the clearing, and down a well-worn track, around what had once been the Faculty of Arts. "How did you know I was hungry?" Samuel asked. "Because I ate last night, while you worked," said Nick. 224


"Where are we going?" "To the river," Nick replied. "Because that's where the Wagyl lives." Talgerit, beside Nick, made a sound of approval. "Let the Wagyl fight the army." The Moreton Bay Fig was still standing, looming over the side of the building, so Nick pulled Samuel into the shadows of the huge buttressed roots and out of easy sight, and handed him a meal replacement bar. "What's that building?" Samuel asked, pointing over Nick's shoulder at the crumbling limestone blocks and rusted wrought iron gates as he chewed. "Arts. Recite Shakespeare to the fairies," Nick said. "Or Chaucer. Talgerit?" "Here," Talgerit said. "So's the dog." "I think I can smell the dog, now. How are you with boats?" Nick asked, hitching himself up over the top of the tree root, to look across the relatively open ground, between them and the river. "I can swim," Talgerit said. "Where are you going to steal a boat from?" "There used to be a yacht club, down the river from here," Nick said, holding his hand out for Samuel to take. "Twenty five years, at least," Samuel said. "No one has done maintenance on those boats in twenty five years." "I'm not going to steal a yacht," Nick said. "I can't sail a—" The screech was eerie and shrill, going right through Nick's head, sounding like something undead was coming for them, which was always possible. 225


Samuel squeaked, and Talgerit said, "Nick?" Nick hitched himself back over the tree root, and slid down, into the slimy leaves and humus, nowhere near as quiet as he would have liked. Something whispered beside him, as Talgerit followed him, and a rock disappeared from in front of Nick, meaning Talgerit had picked it up. "Monster?" Talgerit whispered, as another cry rent through the early morning. Something glimmered in Nick's memory, amongst the ancient fragments of history from when he'd been a student on campus, hidden in the campus-lore about the tea-bag lined ceiling in the library cafe and AC/DC playing the campus tavern, decades before he was even born. Something about the Faculty of Arts... "It's a peacock," Nick said. "They lived in that building, in front of us." "What are they?" Talgerit asked. "Monsters?" "Birds," Nick said, standing up and gesturing for Samuel to join them. "It's a really loud bird." "Good eating?" Talgerit asked. "Like emu," Nick said, and Talgerit's culinary anticipation was still detectable, despite his invisibility. They walked past the shattered windows of the Arts building, Nick keeping an eye on the sky above them, and listening for any more choppers. Behind him, Samuel said, "About peacocks..." Nick looked back, and Samuel was holding an enormous, muddy and trampled peacock tail feather, that would be easily taller than himself if it was unbroken. 226


"My experience of peacocks is only as a literary and cultural reference," Samuel said. "I had no idea their feathers were so long." Another screech ripped through the morning air. "They're not supposed to be," Nick said. "Let's move." He led them, as fast as the rough ground and tall weeds would allow, between the Arts building and the restaurant and function building he'd never been into, down to a car park. They kept moving past the rusted cars, to the tangle of reeds and mud that marked the edge of the river. Nick scanned the river, steely gray in the overcast morning, but no boats were approaching the bank. Why this was so became clearer when the Wagyl swooped down on their right, landing out in the middle of the river without a splash, then disappeared underwater. "Yacht club is this way," Nick said, pointing to the right. "Why do you know about a yacht club?" Samuel asked. "Didn't you have to study too hard for boating?" "The yacht club had a bar," Nick said. "This was important." They pushed their way through the bushes. Burned-out cars lined the road, where the river had left it intact. Apart from the peacock calling behind them, the air was silent. Nick shifted the bag he was carrying to his other shoulder and wished he had some drinking water left. "Not far," he said to Samuel, who was looking even more tired and wretched than he had been the night before. "It's a long way," Samuel pointed out. "To get home." 227


The dog yipped, up ahead of them, the sound muffled and muted, and Talgerit said, "Stop, before there's kissing. Steal a boat." The sun barely moved in the sky in the time it took them to walk down the open, curving road lined with charred vehicles, to the ruins of the yacht club. There were more wrecked vehicles, then they found the clubhouse itself, every pane of glass broken and the walls falling in. "The sheds," Nick said. "Down by the moorings." The jetties were rotten, claimed by the river, and the yachts left in the water were hulks, river water lapping at caved-in hulls and toppled masts. The storage sheds, built out of sheet metal with rust-proof frames and no windows, had fared better, and the sight of the doors standing solid and closed made Nick run up to the first shed to pull at the handle. He grabbed the door and dragged on it, Samuel beside him tugging as well, but nothing happened. "Talgerit? Can you help!" Samuel called out, and Nick couldn't stop himself from reflexively looking around for Talgerit. "Sure," Talgerit said, on the other side of Samuel from Nick, then shouted in dismay, his voice echoing and hollow, on the other side of the metal door. "Talgerit!" Nick called, shaking the door. "Dr. Nick!" Talgerit called, definitely from the other side of the door. "Help!" "Did you walk through the door?" Samuel asked. "No, unna?" Talgerit said. "Can't do that." 228


"If you're in there, then you either walked through the door, or you blinked and appeared in there," Samuel said, in what Nick knew was his Be Reasonable Voice. "Which was it?" "Walked through," Talgerit said. "The dog has, too." "I think you're phase-shifting," Samuel said. "In terms of physics, anyway. Try and relax, be a Featherman, and walk back out." Something banged against the other side of the door, and Talgerit grumped to himself. "Featherman," Samuel said. "Invisible, silent, moving without footprints." The door shifted slightly under Nick's hands, and Talgerit said, right beside Nick, "Featherman worked. Thank you, Samuel." "Phase-shifting?" Nick asked. "What?" "Talgerit is kind of at a hundred and eighty degrees to the rest of the world," Samuel said, taking the screwdriver out of his pocket and pushing the bag he was carrying between his feet, leaving both of his hands free. "Atoms are mostly empty space. Talgerit is just utilizing that space." Samuel dug at the lock mechanism on the shed door with the screwdriver, and Nick said, "How?" "Magic," Samuel said. "Or, some really weird physics. Don't ask me, I'm neither a physicist nor a magician. Maybe I could hit the lock?" Nick held the screwdriver steady, and Samuel bashed at it with the shifter, but nothing happened except that they made a lot of noise, the metal of the shed door ringing with each blow, the sound loud in the silent morning. 229


"Corroded solid?" Nick suggested, and Samuel nodded. "It's going to be easier to take a panel off the shed," Samuel said. "I can do this!" Talgerit called out, from inside the shed once again, and the dog's yips echoed metallically. "Can you open the door as well?" Samuel asked. Nick and Samuel stepped back from the door, and Nick looked at the screwdriver in his hand and tried to remember something that was niggling at him... Talgerit thudded and banged inside the shed, and Nick asked, "Why can't we see Talgerit's clothes?" Samuel blinked and twirled the shifter around on his finger. "And," Nick continued, "when Talgerit picked up a rock, it disappeared." Samuel nodded slowly. "That would explain the dog, too." "It would?" Nick asked. Samuel shrugged. "It's something Talgerit does, rather than something he is." "So he could stop?" "Probably," Samuel said. "Though, he might need to talk to either a clever man or a physicist first." The door to the shed swung open, creaking and groaning on its hinges, and Nick managed a grin at Samuel, who pocketed his screwdriver and hitched his bag more securely on his shoulder and nodded back. The shed was stacked with moldering boating gear, racks of engine parts, and rolled sails, all gone with time. Some 230


things, however, were corrosion and mold resistant, like fiberglass and aluminum. Nick craned his neck, looking up at the rafters of the shed, three meters above their heads, and said, "Who here knows how to paddle a canoe or kayak?" "What?" asked Talgerit, from somewhere behind Nick. "Does it involve electric motors?" Samuel asked. "Or something I might have learned on the freighter?" The rafters held a couple of aluminum dinghies, and what looked like a fiberglass paddleboat from underneath. "Probably not. Let's get these boats down, find out what still floats," Nick said. "Where are we going in this boat?" Samuel asked. "Are we paddling all the way to Albany?" Nick shook his head. "Ocean is too rough for that, at least it was when I was a child. We're going up the Canning River, to the main road south. Then we're going to steal a military vehicle of some kind." The dog yipped, and bounded past, chasing something small that flickered in the corner, hopefully only a rat, and Samuel said, "I can see the dog!" The dog was definitely visible, and that was definitely a rat it had just caught. Nick and Samuel both swung around, and Talgerit was visible as well, smiling and inspecting his hands like they were new. "Look!" Talgerit said.

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Nick's gaze dropped to Talgerit's feet, checking for injuries, and despite years of practice at hiding concern and surprise from patients, he still made a noise of dismay. Samuel said, "What?" and Talgerit gasped, because where previously Talgerit's feet had been encased in a pair of increasingly mangy and dirty boots of emu feathers, now the feathers were clean and evenly layered, pressed tightly against his feet... "I have feathers," Talgerit said, sounding less surprised than he possibly should be. He lifted his foot up, to rest it on a workbench beside a collection of rusted shifters and ruined power tools, and the three of them inspected his foot. "May I?" Nick asked, and Talgerit nodded, so Nick touched the feathers, spreading them apart to see how they were attached to Talgerit's skin. "Do you know any stories, unna?" Nick asked, looking up at Talgerit again. Talgerit shook his head, then grabbed at his chest, and pulled his jacket open. The Wagyl scale had gone, leaving just the cord dangling around Talgerit's neck. "The Wagyl took the scale back," Talgerit said. "The new feathers smell better," Samuel said. "And I say that in a supportive and loving way." Talgerit put his foot back down again and slapped Samuel hard on the back, in return. "What about your shoulder?" Nick asked. Talgerit slid his jacket down, and Nick peeled the dressing off. The sutures fell out, fluttering down from the dressing, 232


and the skin and muscle underneath was completely healed, new and smooth. "You're healed," Nick said, rolling up the dressing into a ball and tucking it out of sight, on a shelf. Talgerit looked up, at the roof of the shed, and said, "I can hear something..." Nick concentrated, and nodded. "Another chopper." "Won't a boat be a bad idea?" Samuel asked. "With the helicopters around?" Nick gripped Samuel's arm, and squeezed it gently. "I'm going to get a boat down, somehow. And you're going to teach Talgerit how to phase-shift all of us, and a boat." "I don't know how," Samuel said. "And I'm far too old to be climbing around shed rafters with rope, lowering boats," Nick said. "Or we could ask Talgerit how much being shot hurts." Talgerit looked up, from fluffing the feathers on his feet. "Hurt more than the marron." Nick clambered up on to the workbench, then tested the strength of the racks that held the rotten sails, and pulled himself up onto a rack, two and a half meters above the ground and level with the nearest aluminum dinghy. Below him, Samuel was talking quietly and quickly to Talgerit, something about gauge transformation and degrees of freedom. The dinghy was chained in place, rather than roped, which explained why it hadn't fallen, and Nick tried not to think about how, at his age and with his patchy lifestyle, his bone density probably wasn't up to an impact injury as he leaned 233


out and unhooked the chain holding the dinghy in place, and lowered one end of the dinghy down carefully. The other end of the dinghy dropped easily, too, until it was suspended a meter above the ground, and Nick sent silent thanks to the people who had packed the boatshed, a quarter of century before, and had done it right. Lowering the fiberglass dinghies involved more swearing and hanging from overhead rafters, but they were rigged the same way as the first dingy, so didn't smash to pieces on the floor, just swung wildly around, colliding with each other, the workbenches, and Samuel. While Samuel rubbed his head and swore in a language Nick didn't recognize, Talgerit helped Nick lower the boats to the floor of the shed. "I don't understand Samuel," Talgerit said. "Not even his words." Nick paused to listen to a chopper circle around, maybe kilometers away. "I don't understand Samuel's words either," Nick said. "But sometimes the story makes sense anyway." Talgerit nodded. "You listen, I'm going to get water for us," Nick said. The shed provided several clean-enough buckets, so Nick slipped out of the shed, into the daylight, and checked for military vehicles, then picked his way through the hulks of boats and wrecked jetties, to where the river lapped against the shore and he was mostly hidden from sight by pylons and fallen walls. 234


His memory said the river was salty down at the yacht club, but he didn't want to even test that without boiling the water first. He filled one bucket, discarded it because it leaked, and filled another, then looked up to scan the river and shore again in case someone was planning on shooting him. The Wagyl was watching him from a couple of hundred meters out, bobbing on the water, sleek and dark, and Nick felt his scars tingle in response. "Thank you," he whispered to the Wagyl, then filled the buckets that worked and carried them back into the shed. "What's the plan for purifying the water?" Samuel asked, when Nick put the buckets down and pulled the shed door closed. "I was going to boil and distill the water," Nick said. "Because of the salt. But, on a hunch, I'm going to taste it first." He poured water over his hands, to wash some of the grime off them, then cupped them together and lifted his hands to his mouth. The water was as fresh and clean as the rainwater from the tanks on the farm, and was certainly not river water. "It's safe to drink," Nick said. "Probably cleaner than anything we've had before." While Talgerit drank, Samuel said, "We're not making progress. I don't think my inadequate understanding of quantum physics and his world view are ever going to intersect." 235


Nick looked at the boats, and the paddles he'd collected and stacked beside the door. "I think we should just go ahead, start rowing. Talgerit will work it out as we go." Talgerit looked up, then pushed one bucket over for the dog to drink from. "Nick understands." "Understands?" Samuel squawked. "Understands that we're going to be shot at, rowing a boat out in the middle of the river?" "It's Talgerit's magic, or physics. He's not going to find it in a shed," Nick said. Talgerit nodded. Samuel's gaze swung between Nick and Talgerit, and he let out a long breath and nodded. "Let's do that, then." The first fiberglass boat was cracked, letting water in immediately, so they pulled that one back ashore and floated the second. That boat seemed fine, rocking gently in the swell on the river, but Nick made them pull the aluminum dinghy down to the water and test that one as well. "The aluminum one is bigger," Nick said. "It's going to be harder to paddle, but also harder to tip over." "We can all swim, unna?" Talgerit asked, and Nick and Samuel nodded. "Take the small one. The river isn't like an ocean, it has sides to swim to." Talgerit put the dog into the fiberglass dinghy, and clambered in, his feathers dripping over the bottom of the boat. Samuel followed, and took the paddles that Nick handed him, and the bags, then Nick almost tipped the boat over climbing in. 236


"Take a paddle," Nick said. "Try not to lose it, but if you do, I have extras." A short, splashy and uncoordinated time later, Samuel said, "Perhaps we should walk." The dog yipped, the noise drifting away on the mounting southerly wind that meant it was going to rain later, and the world went glassy and smooth. "Talgerit?" Samuel asked. Nick looked down, at the boat shimmering slightly and his own hand on the paddle, then back over his shoulder at the others, who began to gleam as he watched. The boat lurched in the water, then slid forward smoothly, gliding over the small waves, without their paddles touching the water. "That's not me making the boat move," said Talgerit. The boat picked up speed, so the waves slapped against the hull, and the bits of Nick's hair that weren't matted solid blew against his face. "We've got some help," Nick said. They slid down the gray river, against the flow of the water, past ruined buildings on the foreshore, under the remains of bridges, and without being noticed by a chopper that buzzed over the top of them. A kind of peace settled over Nick. They'd come so far, with all of them still alive, and now they were heading home again, carrying the sapphire from the clock. A seagull swooped past them, then two, then a flock of gulls flung themselves squabbling into the water, and Talgerit 237


said, "We're away from the poison, the animals have come back." The river narrowed, as they moved upstream, and the boat lifted up over the remains of a weir, then slid under a bridge, this time intact. "Can you hear vehicles?" Samuel asked, in a whisper. "Cars, like boyee," Talgerit said quietly. The boat beached itself, without Nick touching the paddle. They clambered out, and dragged the boat under trees, hiding it from the bridge. Talgerit crouched down, at the side of the river, and washed his face and hands, then stayed there for a moment, and Nick didn't hurry him. Talgerit stood up, then slung arms over Nick and Samuel's shoulders. "Home," Talgerit said. They walked, through bush and abandoned suburb, to where the bridge came down, in a long slick of black bitumen. From the shade of a gum tree, they watched as military truck rumbled past, heading south. "Military means checkpoints," Nick said. "If we follow the road, we'll find one." "I don't care that I'm not carrying papers," Samuel said. "Not now." "Steal a truck with food," Talgerit suggested. The checkpoint was a couple of kilometers from the bridge, with substantial chain link fencing across the full width of the road, a lookout turret, and armed guards at the gate.

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On the other side of the gate, two small trucks were parked behind a hut, and Nick said, "We'll have one of them. Any suggestions for walking through things, Talgerit?" "Be a Featherman," Talgerit said, not very helpfully. They walked up to the fence undetected, and that, more than the glassiness of the world, confirmed they really were invisible. Talgerit walked through the fencing, the dog trotting at his heels. The fence was solid when Nick touched it, and Samuel didn't seem to doing any better, poking at it with fingertips and frowning. Samuel took a deep breath, let it out, and closed his eyes and walked through the metal mesh, to join Talgerit, then gestured at Nick, triumphant grin on his face. Nick closed his eyes to slits, made himself relax, and pushed through the fence as well. It was deeply weird, almost feeling the metal mesh inside himself, but he was intact and functioning, and they had a truck to steal. The dog sniffed around the trucks, peeing on the tires, and Nick peered through the passenger window of the truck farthest away from the hut. "Shift this one," Nick whispered, pointing at the truck. "A truck?" Talgerit asked. "A whole truck?" "Not all of it," Samuel whispered. "Just the visible bits." Nick's brain refused to work out what that might mean, but it seemed to make sense to Talgerit, who nodded and let his shoulders drop as he concentrated. The truck wavered, fading in and out of sight, then it was smooth and glossy, and not quite right to look at. 239


"Talgerit drives," Samuel said, and Talgerit grinned. "You have to," Samuel pointed out, "or the truck won't be able to pass through the check points." "But..." Talgerit said, and Samuel shook his head and pushed Talgerit toward the driver's side door. The three of them slid into the cab of the truck, the dog under their feet and in the way, and closed the doors quietly. Nick leaned across the cab and flicked the ignition of the diesel truck live, then switched on the pneumatic self-starter. "Wait..." Nick said, watching the dashboard controls. "These things take time to warm up..." The light flickered out, indicating the diesel engine had warmed up, and Nick said, "Out of here." Talgerit slammed the truck into gear, did bad things to the clutch while swinging on the steering wheel, and lumbered the truck forward in a tight circle, swiping the truck against the chain link fencing. Nick held his breath as the truck glided through the fencing soundlessly, and Talgerit wiped the sweat from his forehead, banged the truck up another couple of gears and hit the accelerator. Samuel hung out of the open passenger window, looking backward, for a moment, then pulled his head back in. "Don't think they noticed," Samuel said, winding the window up a bit to discourage the dog's attempts to hang out the open window. "They will eventually," Nick said. "How much fuel is in the tank?" "Half a tank," Talgerit said. "How far will that take us?" 240


"Depends if it's a long range tank," Nick said. "Maybe as far as Albany. Just keep driving south, right through any checkpoints." Talgerit changed gears again, building the truck's speed up. "Faster than walking." Samuel opened the storage compartment in the dashboard, and pulled out meal replacement bars. "Snack?" They slid through the first checkpoint, ten kilometers down the road, at a slow crawl, Talgerit's fingers locked around steering wheel and his eyes half-closed in concentration. The truck's motor growled quietly, and they rolled undetected past the guards who were standing around, talking on radios or to each other. "It's working," Samuel whispered, something like awe in his voice. "It's really working." Talgerit radiated smugness as the truck picked up speed again, on the other side of the checkpoint. "If we can go to the Wagyl, and get the stone that holds time, we can do anything," Talgerit said. The next checkpoint, outside where the city used to end, was on full alert, with vehicles parked across the road and infantry patrolling both sides of the gates. "Anything," Talgerit repeated, slowing the truck to low gear roll, and trundling it through the blockade. The next checkpoint, a hundred kilometers away from what was left of the city, wasn't even on alert, and Talgerit didn't bother slowing down.

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They rolled into Albany in the afternoon, visible and substantial, rain beating against the windscreen and seeping around the door seals of the truck. Samuel shifted the bag between his knees, and asked, "What happens now?" "We go to the hospital. Marsia will feed us and provide us with showers and clothes," Nick said. "I think I'd like a bath." When he lifted his hand up to inspect it in the watery light, it was filthy. "Food..." Talgerit said, in a reverential tone. "Good food?" "Absolutely," Nick said. "Roo and damper, if you want it." Talgerit sighed happily, and the windscreen wipers swished in the rain. "And tea," Nick added. "Real tea." "Then I guess I wait for a freighter heading in the right direction," Samuel said. "You shouldn't have to wait long; ships dock every couple of weeks," Nick said. "Turn left here, Talgerit, past the school." Talgerit parked the truck out the back of the hospital, in the staff car park, and Nick said, "Take it with you tomorrow, Talgerit. The military won't come looking for it on Noongar land." "Not easily," Talgerit said, letting the dog out of the truck, and pushing the dog off into the bush around the hospital. A nurse stopped them at the entrance to the hospital, saying, "You can't come in, not in that condition."

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Nick looked at Samuel, filthy with ragged clothes, then at himself, in even worse condition, and sniffed at his arm, and he had to agree. "Could you let Marsia know that Nick, from Jerramungup, is here?" Nick asked. The nurse nodded, then caught sight of Talgerit's feet and backed away in a hurry, before bolting down a corridor. "Your feet are amazing," Samuel told Talgerit, who nodded his agreement. Marsia appeared, seconds later, running down the corridor toward them, the nurse trailing behind her. She skidded to a halt, in front of the three of them, and said, "I'd hug you, Nick, because I thought you were dead, but you smell like parts of you really have died and the rest of you hasn't realized yet." "Hi, Marsia," Nick said. "Remember Samuel, who you sent to convalesce with me? I brought him back. And this is Talgerit, a Featherman." Marsia smiled at Samuel, and then spotted Talgerit's feet, and kind of froze in place. Nick coughed, and Marsia managed to lift her gaze up to Talgerit's face, and say, "Welcome, Talgerit." "We could do with a wash, some clean clothes, and food," Nick said. "Of course," Marsia said. "They told me you were dead." Nick grinned. "We just had to go somewhere, and it took a while." [Back to Table of Contents] 243


Chapter Fifteen The water in the bathtub was hot enough that Samuel managed to wash himself thoroughly at least three times before it began to cool and he had to rinse off one final time and climb out. The nurse had left a folded pile of worn blue clothes on the narrow bed for Samuel, so he dried himself quickly then pulled on what were obviously hospital work clothes. While he brushed his teeth, the mirror over the sink showed that his stubble had progressed to full beard, and shaving it off seemed less important than finding something substantial to eat. Marsia, who Samuel almost remembered from when he'd first broken his leg, waved at Samuel from a doorway when he looked out into the hall. "In here," Marsia said. Samuel hitched up his borrowed trousers and picked up the bag holding the sapphire, then made his way into a tiny office where dented folding chairs crowded around a battered stainless steel table, squeezed in beside an examination table and shelves of files and books. "Food's on the way," Marsia said. "Would you like tea or coffee?" Coffee? "Coffee?" Samuel asked. "Real coffee?" Marsia reached into a box, under the table, and pulled out a tin, which she held out to Samuel, saying, "I think it's real." 244


Samuel prized the lid off the tin and sniffed cautiously, remembering the odd liquid that Nick and Josh drank on the farm. The brown powder smelled like Samuel imagined coffee would if it was stale and over-processed, but it was still recognizably coffee, and he nodded his approval. "This, please," he said. "Do you have a radio I could use?" "Shortwave?" Marsia asked, and Samuel nodded. "Sure," Marsia said. "The main office has a radio, and Albany has a working relay station, unless the weather is bad. I'll take you to the office when you've eaten." Samuel let out a long breath, and watched Marsia spoon the coffee powder into a jug then pour hot water from a kettle over it. The electric light in the room glowed steadily, and a small heater hummed in the corner, blowing warm air around Samuel's ankles. "Milk?" Marsia asked, opening a box wedged under the table that was actually an ancient refrigerator. "No, thanks," Samuel said. "You have cow's milk here?" "Shh," Marsia said. "Don't say that too loudly. I let people pay their accounts with milk sometimes. And coffee, obviously." The mug of black liquid was hot and almost coffee, and Samuel slumped in his chair, cradling the mug in his hands and breathing in the condensation. "How's your leg?" Marsia asked. "Healed?" Samuel nodded. "It was still aching, in the cold, but that stopped after what happened..." He trailed off, and Marsia looked at him expectantly. 245


"I have no idea how to explain it," Samuel said. "But it has something to do with Talgerit's feet?" Marsia asked. "I think so," Samuel said. Marsia looked up, and Talgerit said, "What about my feet?" from the doorway. "How are they?" Samuel asked, as Talgerit sat down, his hair and feathers still dripping water freely, soaking his borrowed clothes and the scuffed carpet. Talgerit lifted one foot up and propped it on the table, and Marsia asked, "May I touch?" "Does this have anything to do with dinner, unna?" Talgerit asked, sounding suspicious. "Nothing," Marsia said. "You can have dinner, and diesel for the truck, whether you let me examine your feathers, or not." Talgerit grinned. "Oh, don't need diesel for the truck. The truck ran out of diesel long before we got to Albany. Haven't worked out how not to need dinner yet." Samuel tried to think through an explanation for the truck running without fuel, and gave up because he was too hungry and tired, and Marsia lifted the finer feathers around Talgerit's ankle apart and peered at his skin. "That's a big scar," Marsia said, and both Samuel and Talgerit replied, "Marron." "Right. Big marron, then," Marsia said, ruffling through the feathers across the top of Talgerit's foot, then crouching down to peer underneath, at the sole. 246


"Here's your food," Marsia said, straightening up and lifting Talgerit's foot off the table as a young man carried in a tray holding three covered plates, reminding Samuel that he'd been living on meal replacement bars and rabbit for some time. "Is Nick still washing?" Samuel asked, lifting the cover off a plate and finding a slab of dark meat and a chunk of bread. "That's mine," Talgerit said, passing Samuel a plate of unrecognizable mess that still smelled ridiculously good. Samuel handed Talgerit his meat and bread, and Marsia said, "Nick has gone to the harbor, to find out if any freighters are expected." Samuel shoveled a forkful of vegetables he couldn't identify into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Nick ambled in a few minutes later, passing a bunch of keys to Marsia and shrugging off an oversized jacket that dripped rain. He'd trimmed his hair and beard down to stubble, and he was several shades cleaner than the last time Samuel had seen him, pre-bath. He didn't meet Samuel's gaze as he took the plate Samuel handed him, just nodded his thanks. "There's a passenger freighter due soon," Nick said, picking up his fork. "The harbor is in radio contact with it. We can probably arrange your passage on it, if someone in Guyana will guarantee payment when you arrive there." "I'll get the university to contact the ship, when Marsia takes me to the radio," Samuel said. "What was your exposure like?" Marsia asked, and Nick shrugged. 247


"Edge of blast zone, so environmental shouldn't be too bad. We drank water and ate vermin, though," Nick said. "I hate to think what we're hosting at the moment." Marsia made unhappy tutting noises and opened a box that held medication and took out containers of tablets. "Potassium iodide," she said. "Anti-nematode therapy. Please, none of you father any children for at least three months. Make it six months if you can. Samuel, when you get home, get someone to run a Geiger counter over you, check if you have actually been exposed to any significant levels of radiation." "You don't have a Geiger or scintillation counter here?" Samuel asked. Marsia shrugged. "Never have had. We just assume that people who have been near blast zones have been exposed, and give them potassium iodide. If they don't die of cancer twenty-five years later, it was unnecessary or it worked." "If you want to be dismayed about equipment we don't have, worry about the lack of dosimeters for the X-ray tech here," Nick said. Samuel shook his head and went back to his dinner. In the hallway, after dinner, Talgerit said to Nick, "I'm going home now. Do you want me to tell Josh you're not dead?" Nick nodded. "Please, yes. Tell him I'll be home soon." Talgerit turned to Samuel, and hugged him tightly for a moment. "Thank you," Samuel said, when Talgerit let go of him. 248


Talgerit grinned, the wide irrepressible smile that Samuel had become so used to, and strolled off down the hallway, borrowed blue trousers sliding down, his feathery feet sticking incongruously out the bottom of the baggy legs. "Radio?" Marsia asked, switching off her office light and closing the door. "Samuel wanted to use the radio?" Outside the main admin office for the hospital, after a brief exchange of radio messages with a disbelieving early morning radio operator at Guyana University, Samuel tired to grapple with the idea he was going home. "I'll see you both in the morning," Marsia said, waving as she headed toward the main part of the hospital. "Nick knows where breakfast is served." "How long until the freighter arrives?" Samuel asked. "Do you know?" "Tomorrow," Nick said. "It will only be here long enough to restock with food and water, maybe a few hours." In the hallway, before they reached the bedroom doors, Samuel took hold of Nick's elbow, stopping both of them from going any further. "Stay with me tonight," Samuel said. Nick looked wrecked, dark shadows under his eyes spreading like bruises down his hollow cheeks, but he nodded and said, "I was hoping you would ask me to." Samuel left his room in darkness, dropping the bag with the sapphire to the floor and banging his shins against the cold metal frame of the bed as he lifted the blankets down, then pulling his borrowed clothes off and letting them fall on top of the bag. 249


The bed frame creaked and settled as Samuel climbed on the mattress, and the sheets were clammy and chilled against his skin. Nick slid under the blankets beside him a moment later, just as cold. The sound of Nick letting out a tense breath was loud in the room when Samuel wrapped his arm around Nick's ribs and rested his head on Nick's chest. The ridges of scar tissue on Nick's chest were easy to trace, dipping over the grooves of Nick's ribs, and Samuel traced each line of scarring carefully, memorizing each one. When Samuel lifted his head, hoping to read something on Nick's face, even in the gloom, Nick met him halfway. Nick's stubble brushed against Samuel's chapped lips, then they connected, half-open mouths warmer than anything else in the room. The sheet underneath Samuel crackled when he rolled onto his back, pulling Nick with him, so Nick sprawled across him, all angular hipbones and bony knees. Nick kissed Samuel, then crawled down the bed, dragging the blankets with him, and Samuel didn't care about the cold air and being exhausted anymore. Nick's tongue was gentle on Samuel's chest scars, and his stubble rubbed the goose bumps on Samuel's skin. "Don't go to sleep on me," Nick said, then he slid further down the bed, so his cheek brushed against Samuel's belly. "I won't," Samuel said. "Promise." Nick laughed, low and quiet, then his fingers touched the scar on Samuel's thigh and his mouth pressed against the 250


head of Samuel's cock, a fleeting touch that might have been a kiss. When Samuel grabbed above his head, looking for something to hang onto, he found cold metal bars for the headboard, and gripping them made the bed creak alarmingly. Nick was slow and careful, the touch of his mouth on Samuel's cock more flickering licks than anything else, so tentative that Samuel shook the bars of the headboard in frustration. He couldn't tell if Nick was just being hesitant, or was actually trying to drive Samuel crazy, and it really didn't matter, not once Nick pushed fingers wet with spit across Samuel's ass. No, not hesitant at all. The fluttering touch on Samuel's cock stopped for a moment, and Nick asked, "Can we?" Samuel had to work to speak, because Nick was easing a finger inside him, so damned good. "Yeah," Samuel said. "I'd like that." "Beside the bed, on the floor," Nick said. It took long seconds for Samuel to work out that Nick wanted him to pick something up from the floor, and even longer to get his fingers to unlock from around the headboard. Samuel fumbled around in the darkness, his hand finding Nick's clothes, in a pile, then locating something lumpy in one of the pockets. 251


"Resourceful," Samuel said, pulling out what felt like a condom in a packet and a sachet of lube. Nick lifted his mouth again, long enough to say, "It's a hospital." Nick moved his finger slowly, dragging and pushing, making Samuel gasp. Soon, Nick lay back down, half across Samuel, replacing the cold of the night with warm skin. Samuel pushed the packets into Nick's hand, then reached down and curled a palm around Nick's cock, which was nudging against Samuel's thigh. Nick flinched, and said, "Do you have any idea how cold your hand is?" "No," Samuel admitted, and Nick wrapped his own hand around Samuel's, tightening Samuel's grip, and Samuel could feel Nick's cock pulsing faintly, in time with Nick's heart. With the blankets dragged back up over them, it was almost warm enough, and Nick's fingers were gentle and firm, rolling Samuel onto his side, then rubbing down Samuel's spine, making him flex and stretch. Nick pressed his mouth against Samuel's neck, his breathing loud in Samuel's ear, and the fingers that pushed against Samuel's ass were slick with lube. Desperation flared in Samuel, sharp and sudden with regret, and he thought that Nick must have been feeling it, too, knowing that time was slipping away from them. Samuel curled forward, gripping onto the edge of the bed frame, and Nick hitched himself half over Samuel, tangling their legs together, and pushed in. 252


The bed squeaked with each rock of Nick's weight, and the heat in Samuel's belly grew, from a spark of warmth, spreading through him, until he felt like he was burning, waves of sparks rolling across his skin. Nick came, in long, slow gasps, then his hand tightened around Samuel's cock, pad of his thumb circling, and Samuel gave in to the heat and came, too. Afterward, with Nick's arm draped around his waist and Nick's sleeping breaths slow against his neck, Samuel listened to the wind pick up outside, rattling rain against the window of the hospital room, until his exhausted body fell asleep. Samuel woke up alone, but the other side of the narrow bed was still warm to touch, and he had a vague memory of Nick talking to him and getting dressed. Nick came back before Samuel had finished bathing, calling Samuel's name and clattering around the bedroom. When Samuel opened the bathroom door, letting the warm, damp air out and the cold air in, Nick had dropped a pile of clothes on the bed and was sorting through them. "Marsia found some warmer clothes for you," Nick said, holding up a sweater. "Guess you won't have to freeze on the freighter now." Nick's eyes were sparkling, and Samuel smiled back at him. Nick was wearing a new selection of clothes that almost fitted him as well. "And?" Samuel asked. "Talgerit drove back into Albany this morning, with several of the other Noongar clever men. They're in the dining room." 253


Samuel took the shirt that Nick held out to him and pulled it on, then stepped into a pair of work trousers and tucked the shirt in. "Talgerit is back?" Samuel asked. Nick nodded and held out a pair of shoes, worn and shabby. "These look about the right size for you." The shoes fitted fine, with thick socks to pad them, and Samuel dragged on the sweater and felt adequately dressed for the first time in months. "Breakfast," Nick said, holding the door open. The dining room at the hospital was small, containing half a dozen tables and a buffet table holding steaming platters and an urn. Two of the tables were surrounded by medical staff eating toast and porridge. Another table was crowded with Noongar men, all with heaped plates of toast and scrambled eggs in front of them, eating enthusiastically. Talgerit waved at Samuel and Nick, and Nick pushed Samuel toward the buffet. "You can get food first," Nick said. "Clever men value breakfast." Samuel stacked toast on his plate, added a scoop of scrambled eggs that seemed to be genuinely made from eggs, and decided to take a chance on the brown liquid coming out of the urn. Extra chairs had been added to the table, beside Talgerit, when Samuel walked over carrying his plate and mug, so Samuel sat beside Talgerit, who elbowed him affectionately but didn't interrupt the pace of food consumption. 254


Clever men did value breakfast, obviously. Samuel moved his knees so Nick could slide in beside him, and Talgerit chuckled around a mouthful of toast. "You read minds now, unna?" Nick asked Talgerit, picking up his fork. "Necks," Talgerit said, and Samuel could feel the heat radiating from his own cheeks. After the plates had been emptied, Ed, who Samuel remembered from the forest clearing, drained his mug of the brown liquid that definitely wasn't coffee, and said, "Dr. Nick, Samuel. Talgerit has told us of the journey you have made." Nick said, "Samuel and I would like to thank Talgerit, and everyone else, for their help with the journey. Thank you." "Thank you, Talgerit, and everyone," Samuel added. "What's that thing called?" Talgerit asked, turning to look at Samuel. "Which thing?" Samuel asked, and Talgerit waved his hand, passing it through the table. "Phase shifting," Samuel said, poking Talgerit, where he was pressed against Samuel's shoulder, to make sure the rest of Talgerit was substantial. "Phase shifting," Talgerit said to the rest of the people at the table. "That's what it's called." Ed, and the other clever men, nodded and muttered amongst themselves, and Ed said, "Talgerit has shown us how to do this thing." Nick leaned forward eagerly, one of his elbows in Samuel's plate. "Everyone can phase shift, unna?" Talgerit said, "It's easy, sort of." 255


"Talgerit told us about the trains carrying poison," Ed said. "We've decided to stop them, now we can do this." Nick wiped his elbow and said, "Samuel will tell the world, all the people, this important thing you are doing." Samuel said, "You will save many lives, and maybe stop a war from happening." Talgerit took a stone, covered in painted markings, out of his pocket and handed it to Samuel. "You can travel safely with this, everything will let you past." Samuel looked at the stone in his hands, and smiled at the memory of his first ride in Nick's van, and Nick using his own stone. "Thank you, Talgerit. I feel safer already, knowing I have a stone." Marsia walked over, stethoscope around her neck, and said, "Thank you all so much for visiting, I hope you have enjoyed your breakfast." The clever men all made pleased noises, and Marsia said, "And while you're here, who would like some free medical care?" The men all shook their heads, not meeting Marsia's gaze, and Nick said, "Ed needs a kidney x-ray, and Jake needs his feet looked at." "I'll arrange that," Marsia said. "And I'm sure lunch will be delicious." Samuel solemnly shook hands with each of the Noongar men, then Talgerit and Nick stood outside the bedroom door while Samuel packed a spare shirt and a toothbrush in with the sapphire and the drives. 256


The ride down to the port was made in silence, and Samuel kept his gaze firmly out of the windscreen at the town as they made their way down the hills, past rows of houses, to the town center and the port. Talgerit parked the truck near the port, where a jetty curved out into the bay, three ocean-going ships moored along its length. Two of the ships looked like fishing vessels, but the closest ship, with extra decks and two masts, had the look of the passenger freighters that Samuel had seen before. The three of them walked down the jetty, to where the gangway to the freighter rocked in the swell, and the canvas sails slapped in the damp rain, ropes twanging and humming as the crew adjusted the rigging and cleaned the solar panels. Samuel tightened the jacket Marsia had given him around his chest and hitched his bag holding the sapphire and the drives more securely onto his shoulder. A crew member, on the upper deck, called down, "Is one of you Samuel Narine?" and Samuel waved back at him. "Ten minutes," he called back. "We're finishing loading supplies." Talgerit leaned over the edge of the dock, the rain spotting on his T-shirt, and inspected the ship. "How far to your country?" Talgerit asked. "Other side of the world," Samuel said. "Several weeks sailing." Talgerit shrugged. "Or you could stay here." Seagulls swooped around them, crying in the cold wind blowing up from the Antarctic, and Samuel felt cold, right down to his bones. 257


"I have to take the stone," Samuel said. "Then come back," Talgerit said. Nick's shoulders were hunched against the cold, and he was shivering when Samuel hugged him. "I don't know what to say," Samuel said, stepping back. Nick shook his head. Samuel stepped onto the gangway, grabbing onto the rope to steady himself, the fibers of the rope catching the skin of his palm and stinging, like the cold rain on his face. "Wait!" Nick said, behind Samuel, and Samuel turned around, the gangway shifting and sliding as he stepped back onto the dock. "This is ridiculous," Nick said, and Samuel nodded. "But I have to go," Samuel said. The freighter's boatswain swung down from the foredeck, to where the gangway swayed, and waved at the crewmember pushing a trolley laden with crates of vegetables down the jetty. "Do you have a ship's doctor?" Nick called out to the boatswain. "You are joking, right?" she replied in an accent Samuel thought was European, holding the gangway steady for the trolley of food. "Do we look like the Old American Navy?" "Could a doctor work passage?" Nick asked, and Samuel had to remind himself to breathe. "Do you have a spare doctor?" the boatswain asked. "Yes," Nick said. "Then get onboard," the boatswain said. 258


Nick turned to Talgerit, and said, "Tell Josh I'll be back, but I have to go to South America." "I already told him," Talgerit said. "He knows." Nick followed Samuel across the gangway, onto the ship, and the pair of them turned to wave to Talgerit as the gangway was pulled up on ropes and lashed into place. When Samuel looked back, at Nick's face, Nick's smile was creasing his cheeks, and Samuel had to smile, too. [Back to Table of Contents]

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Chapter Sixteen Waves of sound washed into the room, and over Nick. People called out in the street, their voices loud through the open window. Music played nearby, perhaps in the bar two buildings away from the room the university had allocated them. Nick rolled off the bed and put the tablet he was reading from on the shelf. He still wasn't over the thrill of having new books to read again, and he'd only stopped reading then because he hadn't adjusted to his new contact lenses properly yet. Leaning out of the open window, Nick caught the whisper of the cool breeze blowing up from the ocean, shifting the humidity of the day. He couldn't see the ocean from the house, just rows of buildings covered in shimmering solar collectors, with palm trees crowding the sides of the streets, and creepers and vines sprawling up the walls and fences, encroaching on the solar collectors. Across the city, the spires and towers of the World Government buildings gleamed in the afternoon sun, and Nick couldn't tell if ultralight gliders or birds were slowly looping around the tallest towers. He'd been debriefed twice, along with Samuel. The first time had been in a meeting room at the Georgetown University, but Nick suspected the microphone had mostly picked up the clink of wine bottles and the clatter of forks on plates, because the catering had been excellent. The second 260


debriefing had been in a sealed room in a building without a name. The woman who'd interviewed him had been older than Nick, with glossy gray hair, and had spoken English with Received Pronunciation. She hadn't taken her gaze off Nick once, hadn't changed facial expressions when he'd talked about diprotodons, trains carrying uranium, magic or the Wagyl. She'd just listened to him talk for hours. He'd had a thorough medical examination, and discovered that his PSA levels were elevated. He needed dental work, had nutritional deficiencies, couldn't see adequately, and he was told he had a heart valve noise he already knew about. What he didn't have were detectable radiation contamination levels, despite everything that had happened to him. Samuel's result had been the same, and Nick had been even happier about Samuel's radiation results than his own. A scooter whizzed through the pedestrians and bikes on the street below, and the rider waved an arm up at Nick, so Nick waved back. Samuel was home, from the university. Footsteps clattered up the stairs, echoing through the building, then the door to the room burst open and Samuel breezed in, tossing his bike helmet on the chair and grinning broadly. "Good day?" Nick asked, watching Samuel peel his shirt over his hear and toss it into the corner. "Great day," Samuel said, reaching for a clean T-shirt, from the pile on the shelf beside the door. "Want to go out for a beer? To celebrate?" 261


Nick reached for a T-shirt for himself, from the same pile. "Sure. What are we celebrating?" Samuel waited until Nick had tucked the T-shirt into his shorts, and then slung an arm around Nick's shoulders. "We've been invited out to the Installation, to be there when the clock is formally transferred to the development team." "The Installation? Out in the jungle, where they're building the ships?" Nick asked. Samuel nodded. "Where the elevator is, where everything is happening." Nick grinned, too. "When do we go?" "Tomorrow," Samuel said. "There are seats on the heliships for us." Nick hugged Samuel. "Beer, and then you can order me food I can't identify, again." Samuel's grin grew wider. "Eventually I'll find something you won't eat." Nick thought of roast mutton, plain vegetables and chewy bread, year after year. "I doubt it," he said. **** The heliship swayed unpleasantly, going over the hills behind Georgetown, but Samuel didn't seem to notice, and Nick didn't comment on the buffeting, in case it sounded ungracious. Once the heliship had inflated its helium bladders and risen higher, the rocking stopped, and the urban sprawl 262


beneath them turned to farmland, in deep green squares of crops that clung to valleys and hillsides. The heliship swung inland, leaving the silver streak of the Atlantic Ocean on the horizon behind, and lifted higher, over hills that were probably mountains, far below. Samuel, who was pressed up against the same window, said, "We've got a couple of hours, I think. I suppose we should sit down properly." "Are you kidding?" Nick asked. "When am I ever going to see equatorial rainforest from a heliship again?" Samuel laughed, over the hum of the rotors. "When we fly back?" Below them, a river snaked through a ravine, a tiny silver line, then fell over a cliff, sending water misting across a valley. "Not bored yet," Nick said. "Not like the freighter," Samuel said. "The plateau is a kilometer above sea level, that's why we're so high." "I didn't know Guyana had a plateau," Nick said. "It's not Guyana's. Old Brazil leased it to the World Government. Presumably someone still collects the rent on it, though I've never asked who." "We're going to Brazil?" "I've already made them promise to take us out to the Amazon." When Nick turned from the window to look at Samuel, Samuel was cradling the stone Talgerit had given him, studying it. "Making sure he's here?" Nick asked, and Samuel nodded. 263


"Also, hoping the stone will stop things from eating us," Samuel added. "Starting with mosquitoes." "You survived Australia, and the snakes and spiders. You'll be fine in the Amazon rainforest. Besides, aren't you from here?" "I'm an electrical engineer," Samuel said with dignity. "I ride a scooter and drink beer, though not at the same time. I don't go to scary places." Nick shook his head, and went back to watching the rainforest far below. The Installation site was a cross between a military camp and a factory, all surrounded by towering jungle. The team from the university, including Nick and Samuel, were issued with locator bands and security passes, strapped securely to their wrists. Then Samuel got to push the trolley of equipment, including the sapphire, the final meters across rough bitumen and between huge silos through drizzling rain, with the university team following and Nick watching from the side. A silo door stood open, and a crowd of technicians and construction workers, wearing clean room suits, jeans and Tshirts, and sometimes just grubby shorts, waited inside the huge building. Samuel paused, looked over his shoulder, and called out, "Nick! You, too." Nick pushed his way past someone with a camera and grabbed hold of the trolley handle, taking care not to bump Talgerit's stone off the equipment, and the two of them pushed the trolley across the threshold and into the silo, 264


where huge arc lights hung from the roof high above, brighter than the overcast day outside. People cheered, and Samuel hugged Nick, Talgerit's stone in his hand, while the silo team took the trolley from them and trundled it across the factory floor, to an enormous silver and black machine. "Is that it?" Nick asked, when Samuel let go of him. The pair of them looked up at the machine, as large as Nick's house and covered in scaffolding, still very much under construction. "That's the main unit," someone said, from behind them. "It'll be sent up the elevator in modules and assembled in orbit." "What happens now?" Nick asked. "I want a beer," Samuel said. "Then an honorary doctorate and a comfortable job in the physics department at the university, doing the dusting and washing the coffee mugs, for the rest of my life." Nick waved down a technician and said, "Is there anywhere we can get a beer?" "Sure," the technician said, wiping the sweat out of her eyes. "Once the techs here have stopped petting the clock, there will be lots of beer, at the end of the silo in the offices. Just head that way, toward the people with clean hands." When the technician had pointed and walked away, Nick said, "Right, that's the beer sorted. I'll see what I can do about a fake degree and tenure for you tomorrow." After beers and truly toxic drinks that seemed to be made from home-brewed rum, smashed limes, ice and brown 265


sugar, Nick let a giggling Samuel lead him out of the offices and the silo, into the equatorial dusk. Outside the silo, someone on a scooter halted and said, "Hey, do you want to be taken to the accommodation units?" Nick went to answer, then noticed that Samuel was staring upward, into the fading sky. Above them, glittering and flashing, hung a new constellation, with flashing lights spiraling down below it, to a point off in the jungle. Samuel made a sighing noise, and Nick had to agree. "So, that's the elevator?" Nick asked. The woman on the scooter said, "The flashing lights are navigation lights, to stop heliships flying into it. The steady light, there, above the horizon, will be a capsule in transit. The bright lights at the top are the solar collectors. There's a permanent occupancy up there now, too." A mosquito smacked into Nick's face, and he swatted it away. "The clock is going up there," Samuel said. "Then it's going out, somewhere else." **** Something in the room chimed, a gentle and persistent sound. Nick had found his underwear and staggered to the door, and the blinking light beside it, when someone started tapping on the door. Nick pulled on a T-shirt and opened the door to the hallway, blinking in the bright light. 266


A balding man, probably as old and tired as Nick, and wearing camouflage fatigues, was muttering into a headset and looking apologetic. "...really, I'm sorry, but I've not been there for decades... Yes, it is a recognized dialect..." The man shrugged at Nick and said, "Sorry about that. I'm Paul Denson, and they sent me to wake you up because apparently you're Australian, too, and there's someone on the radio to Head Office, trying to talk to them in Ablish, which, while I might have been able to speak it once, I'm a little rusty at." Nick nodded. "Ablish, Aboriginal English. I can speak it." Paul looked relieved and handed Nick a headset, which Nick pulled on. "Hello?" Nick said, into the headset. "Connecting you," a voice said, and then over the distant static, hissing and crackling, Nick heard Talgerit saying, "Hello, unna? Anyone, unna?" "Talgerit, this is Nick." "Dr. Nick! Hello! Samuel said to use this frequency!" The stream of Noongar from Talgerit dropped in and out, as the connection faltered, and Nick made writing motions at a bemused Paul, who was presumably listening in over his own headset. Paul handed Nick a tablet and stylus, and Nick scribbled notes as Talgerit talked. The connection failed in the middle of a circumlocution from Talgerit that had Nick shaking his head, and Paul said, "Headquarters said there's a storm rolling across the Indian 267


Ocean, so he probably won't be back in touch for a while. Friend of yours?" "Friend," Nick said, looking at his notes. "Talgerit would like the World Government to know that the Noongars of Western Australia have taken back control of the southern part of the state from the resident military force, and they wish to be recognized as the, um, I guess de facto government is the best option, but that's not quite right. How about custodians? Also, they have some freighters and trains loaded with uranium ore that they don't know what to do with, and they rather hope someone will help out with that, too." Paul rubbed at his forehead, looking confused. "Australia is just a couple of blokes in a shed in Broken Hill with a radio set. At least, that's what we thought." Nick handed the tablet back to Paul. "I made notes. Good luck." Another middle-aged man came through the door at the end of the hallway, calling out, "Did you find someone, Paul?" "Yep," Paul said. "This is Nick, and he speaks Noongar." The man, weather-beaten and just a little battle-scarred, beamed at Nick and held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Nick. I'm Dan. Guess you're from the same place I am then, though the only Noongar word I know is 'marron', not that I've had a marron in twenty years." Two more people ran through the door and skidded to a halt, the woman looking back over her shoulder and pushing masses of dark hair out of her face to call out, "No, Tamburlaine, stay outside!" 268


"Hi! You must be the stray Australian," the man said, draping himself over Dan. "I'm Sid." "Go back," the woman said, sounding exasperated, and a procoptodon pushed its way into the hallway, completely filling the space and crushing the light fittings at that end of the hallway. Behind Nick, Samuel said, "That's a big kangaroo. Why is it in South America?" "Why is in the hallway?" Dan added. "Get Tambourine out, Kit." "Sorry," Kit said, heading down the hallway to push ineffectually at a large amount of procoptodon. "We would have dropped in sooner," Sid said, smiling disarmingly. "Only we were doing things elsewhere." "What...?" Samuel started to ask, looking at Kit wrestling the procoptodon backward down the hallway. "Security," Dan said. "Fly in, fly out, sort out problems, that sort of thing." Paul looked down at the tablet Nick had handed him back. "How do you all feel about a trip back home, to sort out some uranium ore issues?" Paul asked, holding the tablet out so Sid and Dan could read it, too. **** Talgerit was waiting for them, on the dock, when the freighter thudded alongside the jetty. "Wonder what customs and immigration look like under the new management," Samuel said, leaning over the railing to wave to Talgerit, who waved back with both arms. 269


"Talgerit?" Nick suggested. "I'm not sure we had customs and immigration before, just some people at the military post above the town, making sure no one was raiding the harbor." Nick looked up, to where the turret and rocket launcher had been, then down into the harbor, at unfamiliar shapes sliding in the shadows under the jetty. "Guess they're using a different approach now," Nick said. Talgerit hugged them both hard, as soon as they were on the dock, and Samuel asked, "Do you meet all the freighters, or just this one?" "Waiting for you," Talgerit said. "To give you a ride to the farm. Let's go." "Can't," Nick said. "We brought some supplies with us." He pointed at the crane lifting a pallet off the deck of the freighter and swinging it across onto the dock. The heat hit them, as soon as Talgerit's truck rumbled over the large hill outside town and rolled down, away from the coast. It was scorching hot, and so dry it made Nick's skin feel like it was cracking across his knuckles, just like every other summer on the farm. Beside him, in the cab of the truck, Samuel made a sagging noise, like someone had punched him, and Nick retrieved the water bottle from under their feet and passed it to Samuel. "Thought it was hot in South America," Talgerit said, sounding like he was laughing to himself. "Hot, yes," Samuel said. "But it's rainforest. Rain. Forest. With actual rain. How do people live here?" "Drink plenty of water, eat salt," Nick said. "And it will rain in June." 270


The wheat in the paddocks they were passing was golden and heavy on the stalk, bending and swaying in non-existent breezes, the soil around it dry and dusty, so the truck left a plume of kicked-up soil, like smoke. The seat under Nick's legs stuck to him with sweat, and the sun pounded through the glass of the windscreen. Talgerit was full of news, about Girdagan's baby, the dismantling of the military presence, and the fire that had burned down to the coast, near Ravensthorpe. Samuel was quiet beside Nick, gulping down water, sweat running in streams down his neck and arms. Samuel would adjust, like everyone did. At least Samuel wasn't prone to whining. Talgerit slowed the truck down, turning into the lane to the farm, and Nick asked, "Does Josh know we're back?" "Josh has been busy," Talgerit said. "Wheat crop," Nick said." Of course." Craning past Samuel, Nick could see the harvester, tracking slowly around one of the wheat paddocks, stream of chaff flying out of the back of it, a figure completely covered in protective clothing at the wheel in front. Talgerit sounded the truck's horn as they went past, and parked the truck beside the largest shed, setting the geese off into a burst of crazed honking. Nick noticed that Talgerit seemed to have moved past the need for keys, or ignition controls at all, for the truck, which made sense if it was no longer powered by fuel. Samuel clambered out the truck, and Nick followed, pushing Samuel toward the wide verandah of the house, 271


Harold bounding around them, barking excitedly. There'd be cooler water inside, out of the sun. Someone appeared at the door of the house, a young woman, and Nick had to hunt through his memory to find a name for her. "Meggie. Meggie Maitland," Nick said. "Hello there." "Dr. Nick!" Meggie said. "C'mon in, I've got some cool water. Hello, Talgerit." "This is Samuel," Nick said, as they walked into the cool darkness of the house, past the racks of dusty raincoats and abandoned boots. The kitchen had been cleaned since the last time Nick had seen it, scrubbed and tidied. Meggie lifted a jug of water out of a bucket draped in wet hessian, and poured them all drinks in glasses Nick hadn't seen in years but had vague memories of receiving as a wedding present, a lifetime ago. "Unload the truck," Talgerit said, putting his empty glass down and nudging Samuel with his elbow. "Your room is just the same," Meggie said. "Josh thought you might be back." "Thanks," Nick said, and he followed Samuel out, into the heat again. Talgerit had lifted the tarpaulin off the back of the truck, and they'd started lifting crates and sacks down, when Josh came running down the lane, peeling off layers of insulating clothing. "Dad!" Josh shouted, and Nick turned and held out his arms. 272


Josh hugged Nick, then he stepped back and studied Nick, safety goggles shoved on top of his head. Nick grinned, and Josh said, "Your teeth!" "Dental care," Nick said, running his tongue over his newly capped front teeth. "You should try it some time." Josh hugged Samuel, and Samuel said, "I brought you some things." Meggie walked over from the house, wide-brimmed hat on her head shading her from the sun, and Josh grinned at her. "We have things from South America." Samuel reached into the back of the truck and grabbed a sack. "Here," he said, handing it to Josh. "Coffee." "And cacao powder," Nick said. "That's raw, solid chocolate." "What else is in the truck?" Meggie asked. Samuel lifted down a crate. "Everything," he said. "Everything I could think of that I could freight. Electronic equipment, solar film, medical supplies, and enough spices to keep Talgerit happy for years." Talgerit lifted another crate out. "I'll be back later, with a 'roo, then, if Samuel's cooking." Samuel wiped sweat from his face and grabbed the sack of spices and seeds. "I'm cooking," he said. "If people want me to." Later, when the sun had gone down and the heat had eased, Nick would come back outside and stand under the stars for a while. Maybe Josh would follow him out, and they could have a talk in private, about their lives and the future. Maybe he'd just listen to the whistle of the easterly howling 273


through the gum trees and the distant boom of a procoptodon loping. Right then, it was too hot to stand around in the sun, and Josh gave Nick an affectionate pat on the back, and they walked back toward the house and the shade. End [Back to Table of Contents]

274


If you liked this book you might like: The Australis Liminus series: 1) Running the Nullarbor, 2) Monsters Past

275

Walking to the Stars

Walking to the Stars

Walking to the Stars

March to the Stars

To Trade the Stars

Step to the Stars

March To The Stars

Leaping to the Stars

March to the Stars

March to the Stars

To The Stars Trilogy

Agent to the Stars

Return to the Stars

Subway to the Stars

Step to the Stars

Agent to the Stars

Ascent To The Stars

Thiotimoline To the Stars

Stairway to the Stars

March to the Stars

Stairway to the Stars

Twice to the Stars

Trader to the Stars

Return to the Stars

March to the Stars

March to the Stars

March to the Stars

Agent to the Stars

To the Stars

To Touch the Stars

Now To The Stars

Walking to the Stars