Astra (21 page)

Nimma’s voice rang out deep as a bronze bell as she stated this central truth, and the adults around the Fountain chimed their agreement:
Hear Her. Hear Her. Gaia forever
. Everyone was eager for the story now, Astra could tell. No one was acting for the Kezcams. She risked another glance at Ahn.

Hokma elbowed her in the shoulder.
Look at Nimma
, the sharp nudge said.

‘Gaians are not selfish, no,’ Nimma declaimed to another murmur of agreement. ‘During the Great Collapse, Beltane, like all Gaian communities, offered to share their knowledge and skills – their clean-energy technology, their collective decision-making processes – with the rest of the world, but this offer was rejected. Instead, the Yukay government refused Beltane permission to build more self-sufficient dwellings, and the local media mocked them as backward simpletons. At best, people saw Gaians as cranks, living in a precious little world of our own, sewing our own clothes, home-schooling our children, milking goats. Most people didn’t understand the urgent necessity of our way of life. Most people were racing headlong into the Dark Time, their vision of life on earth smeared blind by oil.’

Oil
. Actually, oil was interesting – Astra had to write an essay on fossil fuels this month for school. And after that poor start, Nimma was Telling better now. Astra rearranged herself into a cross-legged position and, elbows on knees, chin on hands, leaned forward.

‘We know now,’ Nimma said sternly, ‘that oil was a powerful drug, more dangerous than heroin, more addictive than nicotine. Governments and corporations were the drug-pushers, and everywhere, all over the world, ordinary people were the addicts. Oil junkies might come to a Gaian community for a festival but they would drive home in their gas-guzzlers and urban tractors. No one could imagine more than a day without oil. Oh’ – she waved dismissively – ‘oil made life
fun
, there’s no denying that. If people were bored of living in cold, dirty cities, they just hopped on an arrowpain and flew halfway around the world to flop about on a beach of white sand. But this addiction to
fun
’ – Nimma spat the word out as if it were a cockroach in a mouthful of lentil stew – ‘this commitment to
convenience
, to
leisure
, to the
mindless gratification of the senses
, this pandemic lust for
black gold
– as the greediest of those humans
called oil – was having a devastating effect on Gaia. Not only were the oil junkies draining our Mother of Her natural lubricants, they were pumping Her atmosphere full of greenhouse gases, heating Her surface to levels that threatened to render Her waterless and ferociously hot, turning Her into a barren, volcanic crone planet, like Her sister Venus.’

The story of oil was really awful. Beside Astra, Sprig gulped and stuck her fingers in her mouth. Astra put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. It was the first time the little ones would have heard about the Great Collapse. It was
so
awful to think about the near-death of Gaia that the Dark Time was introduced only gradually into their school studies. But it was part of Kali’s story. Shelter parents had been warned the youngest children might need extra care after hearing it.

‘Gaians, of course,’ Nimma went on, ‘didn’t need a turbine to know which way the wind was blowing. As well as building the Earthcastle, Beltane bought guns. And sure enough, when Kali was fifteen and the Great Collapse had accelerated beyond anyone’s ability to stop it, terrified and apologetic oil junkies started to arrive in Beltane. At first this was just a trickle of locals, carrying gifts and begging for shelter. The guns remained hidden and help was given willingly. It doesn’t take long to put up a yurt or even to build an Earthship if everyone helps. For three years Beltane grew stronger, attracting people who had awakened to the dangers Gaia faced and wanted to help defend Her. During this time Kali chose a partner, a young man called Peredur. They lived together in a yurt, planning to eventually build an Earthship with a group of other couples. For now, Beltane was safe.

‘But this safety depended on laws that Gaians had no hand in writing. Around the world floods and droughts and hurricanes intensified, and soon a food shortage gripped the kingdom of Yukay. This was the beginning of the Dark Time. In exchange for tithing one-eighth of their crops to the Yukay Ministry of Agriculture, Beltane Gaians were allowed to stay on their land. In other countries, though, the oil junkies panicked. Instead of respecting the Gaians’ cosy off-grid homes, our fields bursting with fruit, grains and vegetables, instead of asking to learn from us, they decided to invade us. Whole communities were slaughtered and their crops were eaten and never replanted. Yes, the people who could teach them how to live sustainably were killed for one season of food. This was the oil junkie mentality of the late Common Era in action.’

Those younger children who weren’t burying their faces in their Shelter parents’ laps gazed at Nimma with dumbstruck eyes. Adults were shaking their heads; a tear slid down Congruence’s cheek. Even Torrent was tense and alert; Stream huddled beneath his arm as if he could save her from imminent annihilation. Astra ground her teeth. Worse almost than picturing Gaians being massacred was the thought of people eating grains and vegetables and not replanting the seeds. Who could savagely waste Gaia’s fruits like that? No wonder She had taken such a terrible revenge.

In the front row, Mr Ripenson clapped the earth with his palm. ‘We. Remember. The Dark Time Martyrs,’ he chanted.

‘WE. REMEMBER. THE DARK TIME MARTYRS.’ Nimma and Klor threw their voices and arms to the sky. But all attention was on the teacher now; he was small and energetic, and good at taking assembly. His body rocking, he scanned the Circle. Around him first Sorrel, then Modem, and then a long row of Or-adults joined the chant:

‘WE. REMEMBER. THE DARK TIME MARTYRS.’

Everyone was chanting now, and the whole Circle was drumming the earth, harder and harder, louder and louder, until the vibrations were travelling right up Astra’s spine. Sorrel, too heavily pregnant to bend, clapped her thighs. Torrent and Stream drummed with one hand each, their other hands interlocked in Torrent’s lap. Congruence and her friends stretched forward and with both palms beat the earth around the Fountain pit. Hokma, Astra and Sprig did the same, and with another sly glance before she dropped her head, Astra saw Ahn gaze upwards, his head rolling clockwise as he directed an aerial shot of the Circle united in a thundering wave of defiance.

The chanters peaked and stopped. With their thunder in her voice, Nimma resumed the story. ‘Then came the Neuropean floods. In a matter of days, the coastal cities of Yukay were under six feet of water and the kingdom’s low-lying regions had disappeared into the sea. The power grid was locked and many people had no electricity. The government declared a state of emergency and ordered the army to control the roads. Beltane, of course, still had power, and Kali and Peredur kept a constant check on Tablette news, meeting with the community every evening to discuss the worsening situation, for every day, the chaos in Yukay drew closer to Beltane.

‘Before, refugees in Yukay had always been from other countries. Now millions of the nation’s own citizens had been displaced and for a time,
even with every soldier in the country deployed, the government lost control of the roads. Oil junkies fled from cities and towns, and though many became stuck in massive gridlocks, some escaped, burning the last of their petrol in their cars as they scorched up motorways and headed for the country lanes. Many of these refugees were peaceful people, now homeless and helpless, but others were armed marauders: street gangs with knives and guns, or rich men in four-wheel drives, toting weapons they’d bought from criminals and didn’t really know how to use. The government established tent cities in the midlands and moors, where the peaceful refugees gathered, sleeping in their cars if there weren’t enough tents. But the armed men – for it was mostly men with the guns – didn’t want to be herded into camps. And although in the cities all these different gangs had fought each other, now, in the dark and lonely countryside, the night lit only by their headlamps, they realised that they were stronger together.

‘Soon the gangs formed super-gangs, convoys of dozens of vehicles. When one car ran out of petrol they would dump it by the side of the road and set fire to it, then they would all pile into another. The more crowded the cars, the more violent the gangs became. They terrorised villages, ransacking houses and petrol stations, violating and killing anyone who tried to stop them. They never stayed anywhere long. They only wanted more petrol and then they’d move on – but the more violence they committed, the more they developed a taste for it. The worst atrocity occurred in the Black Mountains south of Yr Widdfa. A roaming super-gang entered a Gaian community called Dawntreader, and though the Dawntreadian Gaians had staves and knives, the gang had automatic rifles and they slaughtered everyone there, down to the last infant.’

Nimma’s voice was low and grim. Beside her, the Fountain light cast a lacy golden shawl over the Craft-worker Moon and her new Birth-Code son, Aesop. Moon’s cheeks were glistening. In her arms, Aesop’s face wrinkled as if he was about to cry, but instead he yawned and reached vaguely for his mother’s nipple. Moon lifted him up and buried her face in his belly.

‘Can you imagine Kali’s fear at that news?’ Nimma asked. ‘Everyone in Beltane knew that the murderous oil-sick gangs would soon arrive in their Yr Widdfa fastness. Although the community was miles off the road, four-wheel drives could easily traverse the terrain. They kept their guns at the ready and established lookouts and patrols. Then one evening
the radio announced that the Yukay army was sending reinforcements to Yr Widdfa to subdue the super-gangs once and for all. Everyone living in the hills was to report to the nearest Safety Point, where army troops would protect them until the gangs had been dealt with. Travel was advised in the morning, because it was well known that the gangs caroused all night and didn’t wake until the late afternoon. Now, the nearest Safety Point to Kali’s community was a village at least four hours’ walk away. That evening the Beltane Gaians gathered in their Community Hub to discuss what to do. Even the children had a voice and a vote.’

Nimma looked round the Circle. ‘What do
you
think, Or-children? Should Beltane have obeyed the government order?’

‘No way!’ Torrent, to Astra’s surprise, emphatically announced. From his place beside Moon, Russett, his Code-Shelter father, cast him a sharp look, as if to say,
About time, boy
. Stream, who was tracing Torrent’s abdominal muscles with her forefinger, didn’t look as if she cared an aduki bean about the fate of the Beltane Gaians. Astra snuck a peek at Congruence, but she was gazing soulfully at Nimma, shaking her head.

No way. No way. No way
. The younger children echoed Torrent gleefully, Spring and Tulsi shrieking so loudly Astra covered her ears with her hands. Hokma elbowed her in the ribs and she chimed in, ‘No way! No way!’

Nimma waited for the clamour of agreement to subside. ‘That,’ she announced, ‘is exactly what the Beltane Gaians decided. If they left their land, the government might seize it. If they left their animals, the animals would starve or be butchered by the refugees. And besides, they hadn’t spent their lives building a new world just to jump when the oil junkies whistled. So they stayed where they were. Everyone dressed in combat clothes and those who could fight armed themselves with weapons: rifles, pistols and crossbows. For six days, nothing happened. But on the seventh day, the army arrived.’

Astra stiffened. Everyone over ten knew this bit of the story from their Tablette history lessons. A bit of her didn’t want to hear it, but most of her had to listen and understand.

‘The army came in a host of jeeps, ripping up the mountain turf. Kali’s Code-Shelter father, Elphin, was on lookout over the Earthcastle ramparts, and he reported that there were about twenty vehicles, with three or four soldiers in each one, all wearing helmets and flak gear. The jeeps stopped in a semicircle in front of the ramparts and the lead officer
spoke using a loudspeaker. He said that the army was here to protect Beltane. He asked the Gaians to evacuate their dwellings and in groups of five, enter the back of the jeeps so he could take them to the Safety Point.

‘The Gaians refused. Elphin had his own megaphone, and through it he told the army that Beltane would protect itself until the army cleared the roads of the gangs. If the officer wanted to leave a jeep and some soldiers behind, Beltane would feed and shelter them in exchange for their support. The officer replied that under the special powers accorded to him by the current State of Emergency Measures, he was now ordering them into the jeeps. And when the Gaians refused again, he sent his soldiers in to take them by force. There were nearly eighty armed soldiers against fifty-one Beltane adults and twenty-eight children, half of them under ten years old, with forty guns and thirty crossbows between them.

‘That was the Battle of Beltane, in which many brave Gaians defended our Mother. None had shed human blood before, but in battle they killed six slaves of the oil junkie government, losing twenty-two of their own number in return, including Kali’s Birth-Code-Shelter mother Ravena. But though the Beltane Gaians were prepared to fight to the death, the Yukay soldiers were well trained and well armed and finally they broke into the Community Hub and took the ten smallest Gaian children hostage. Kali saw it happen. She saw Peredur’s niece and nephew crying in the soldiers’ arms as they emerged from the Hub, and she heard the loudspeaker announce that the children would be taken away and any adult who wanted to join them should lay down his or her weapon. The rest should be prepared to lose their lives.

‘Kali saw Peredur’s Birth-Code aunt lay down her crossbow and walk to the jeeps. Then, one by one, the Beltane mothers and fathers followed, surrendering to the Yukay army rather than let their children be taken away. Kali’s Shared Shelter mother, Rhiannon, walked that path. And when Peredur’s father shouted,
Gaia is always with us
, and laid down his gun to join his wife and children, Kali and Peredur looked at each other from across the Beltane pond. With that glance, they silently agreed that they would follow their families into the jeeps. For Gaia is not just in the land: She is everywhere, even in a cloud of petrol fumes, and She is within us too. When we protect ourselves and each other, we are also protecting Her.