Survival Colony 9 (10 page)

“We lost Danis,” my dad said. “He was a good man, and a good soldier. We lost a vehicle. That’s not the same as losing a man, but when you have as little as we do, every loss hurts. Some of you might not know this, but I’ve given names to all the trucks. The one we lost was Aggie.”

That drew some quiet laughs. I tried to pull away from his arm, but he held on tight.

“We can survive those losses,” he continued. “We can survive the loss of any one person, any one thing. We all die, right? Yet we survive. Why?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Because of the colony. The colony is the key. If we lose that . . .”

He looked at me strangely, then addressed the crowd again.

“Well, let’s just say I don’t intend to. And I’d like to thank Querry for showing me that we were on the verge of losing it. That if we didn’t make a change, we might just lose it for good.”

Aleka shook her head slowly, her eyes closed, but she still seemed unable to say a word.

That’s when my dad stepped away from me and did something I’d never seen him, or anyone, do. Holding his hands out toward me, he brought them together, slowly at first, then faster, until the palms of his hands made a smacking sound when they hit. Faster and faster, he did this strange thing, as odd and senseless, I thought, as any of the rituals he’d said we could do without. But then, to my amazement, others in camp began to do the same thing, haltingly, as if they’d just remembered it was something you could do, something you were supposed to do, even if they couldn’t remember why. The officers started it, Aleka a bit behind the others but ultimately, as if she’d decided she had no choice, bringing her pale hands listlessly together. Then the rest of the grown-ups added to the chorus, Petra and Araz and Kin and a few others excepted, and the little kids skipping across the walls were drawn by the commotion and started doing it too, giggling delightedly as they did, and the teenagers eventually, grudgingly, joined in, all except Wali and Kelmen and Yov, and Korah put her hand to her mouth and whistled, and the echoes reverberated across the ruined compound like the marching feet of an army ten times our size. It was the most noise by far I’d heard the camp make. The shelled buildings hummed with the sound.

I stood in the center of it with my dad facing me, his dark eyes lit by a triumphant glow. I tried to peer through those eyes, to see the man or not-man underneath, but there was nothing to see. All I could see was that somehow, in a way I couldn’t begin to understand, he’d taken people’s minds off the truck, and the footprints, and the collection jars, and Danis, and quarantine, and everything else in their lives. It wasn’t about any of those things anymore. Whether they liked him or hated him, supported or suspected him for the direction he’d decided to take us, it was all about him.

When he finally signaled for silence and the hand-smacking noise died down, people rose from their seats, looking flushed and feverish. He led us around the place, pointing out features we hadn’t paid attention to before, details only he had discerned: the sightlines from certain second-story windows, the sub-basements that could be used for storage or defense or surprise attack, the supply of untouched brick and stone and wood in an outbuilding that could be used to repair broken structures or build new ones. He told us we could tear down the weakest of the houses, the ones closest to the crater, and salvage their materials to reinforce the strongest. He spoke of how we could redesign the compound for maximum strength, resurrect the gate that at one time had circled the whole, repair the buried pipes that had carried water and waste to and from the desert. He painted pictures of a day to come when we’d be able to use those pipes to channel water from the river and sky, maybe figure out a way to use sand or clay to filter it for drinking, even recover some of the dead garden plots that littered the place like sandboxes. He said we might be able to generate fibers for essentials like rope and cloth and canvas, or develop methods to clean and repair the supply we already had. Given time, we might expand, grow our city, discover ways to make our own brick and metal and glass, build cool and comfortable houses we could rely on to block the heat of day. It was not an easy project he envisioned, he knew that, not something that would be accomplished in a day or a week or a year. It had taken the civilization before us centuries to achieve what he had in mind, a few short years to tear it down. But the advantage we had over them, he said, was that we had learned from their mistakes. We knew our limitations. We would begin anew tomorrow.

During the whole tour, I’d been getting sidelong looks from grown-ups and teens, mostly curious, some admiring, some doubtful. I tried to avoid the stares. My dad had apparently forgotten about me by then, or was too busy with the others to pay me any mind. I kept my eyes on him the whole time, only glancing back once or twice at Aleka, who stayed at the rear of the group without saying a word, her brow knitted. Occasionally I’d hear a snort or a laugh from Petra, who seemed to find the whole thing simply hilarious. For once, Yov and Wali were nowhere to be seen. Korah, though, absolutely glowed. She looked at me a couple times, her eyes both radiant and defiant, but I dropped my gaze in a hurry.

When he was done, my dad let us knock off for the rest of the day. Save our strength for the main event tomorrow. With the camp a bundle of nervous energy, he must have realized nothing more would be accomplished today, anyway.

I went up to Aleka after my dad returned to headquarters. Her face looked even paler than usual, and her eyes were haunted.

“Well,” I said. “You told me he’d have a plan.”

She flinched as if I’d bitten her. “This,” she stammered. “This I never anticipated.”

“Do you still believe in him now?” I pursued. “You still want me to help him?”

She didn’t answer, only passed a hand over her forehead and wandered off like a sleepwalker.

The Skaldi, my dad hadn’t named them once. Apparently, they weren’t part of the plan.

9

Quest

If I was expecting my dad to tone it down the next day, he quickly dispelled that illusion.

So I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t expecting it.

He started up again as soon as we got to work on what he’d decided would be our first project, breaking ground for a more permanent defensive perimeter than the tents and tilting fence posts we’d managed to string together so far. The wall he had in mind, he announced, would circle the entire compound, ten feet high and with guard towers at each of its cardinal points. It would have a locking gate no intruder could breach, barred portholes so our sharpshooters could track and take down an advancing enemy. It would be built, incredibly enough, out of the scrap wood and metal and brick from collapsed houses, along with the bags of sand and cement we’d found in the sub-basement of one of the outbuildings. It didn’t matter that we lacked bolts and screws and saws, that we barely had enough tools or water or knowhow to mix cement. It didn’t seem to matter that eventually we’d run out of ammo for the guns and fuel for the flamethrowers, and at that point any human or non-human enemy could walk right up to our wall and crawl over it without breaking a sweat. Somehow, my dad insisted, this imaginary barricade would be strong enough to repel an army of hungry Skaldi.

We were standing at the site of the dig on the eastern ridge of the hill, gripping our handful of shovels and rakes and trowels, half the camp itching to get started and the other half shaking their heads in disbelief, when my dad turned to me.

“Querry,” he said, holding out his shovel. “How’d you like to break first ground?”

All eyes instantly fell on me. There was no way I could avoid doing what he’d asked without making a fool of myself, so I pulled myself erect and tried my best to stare down the crowd as I grabbed the crooked handle of the shovel.

For a second we held the shovel together, his hand right above mine. Then he let go and took a step back.

“Go ahead,” he nodded. “Show us what you’ve got.”

I pressed the tip of the shovel against the ground, wiggling it until it bit through the crust. When I felt the blade catch, I planted my foot on its heel and stamped. The shovel sliced easily through the parched soil. I put my weight into it, thrust with my arms and shoulders, and hefted a pile of red-brown dirt. Then I straightened, turned with the anthill-size mound balanced on the blade, and dumped it on the ground a few feet away. A wedge-shaped hole, about a foot across and a half-foot deep, marked my labors.

“Good work,” my dad said, giving me another of his grisly smiles. His face looked like it might rip in two. “All right, people,” he said. “Querry’s gotten us started. Let’s keep the momentum going.”

Everyone moved toward the hole I’d begun.

“You’re a real hero, Space Boy,” Yov hissed in my ear before getting to work.

I ignored him and joined in, plunging the shovel again and again into the hole. Korah took her place beside me, while Yov grabbed Wali and Kelmen and set up shop farther down the line. Korah had tied her hair back in a ponytail and shucked her uniform jacket, revealing a white tank top sweat-stained to a shade of mustard yellow. The muscles of her shoulders glistened as she stabbed her blade into the ground. I stood close enough to smell her musky scent, close enough to see the wet strands of hair that came free from her ponytail and trailed along her cheek. At one point our swinging shovels clanged, and she shot me a smile before lowering her head again to her work.

Down the line Yov sang in a deep, raspy voice: “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. . . .” Wali laughed so hard I thought he’d pee his pants.

We worked for a couple hours, the sun climbing to its peak, punishing and inescapable. We took shifts so no one would totally exhaust themselves: some people dug, others smoothed and leveled the ditch, and others carted the dirt away and dumped it over the side of the hill, where it vanished into a fine spray before settling to the plain below. When my dad finally called a break, we rested in the hot shade and looked at our handiwork.

The trench we’d begun digging was about two feet wide and five deep, and so far, with the lack of tools and the strength-sapping sun, we’d created a jagged line maybe thirty feet long, with a rough patchwork of sticks propping up the sides. It looked more like an open wound in the ground than the foundation of anything that would stand above the surface. If I’d had to estimate the perimeter of the compound, I’d have guessed about a half-mile. Which meant somewhere around a hundred similar shifts to dig the trench, not to mention all the work that would go into preparing it and erecting the barrier itself. Maybe we could run two shifts a day.

At the end of which, if we ever got to the end, we’d have a wall protecting basically nothing.

I thought of a story I’d heard once, I couldn’t remember where. Maybe from the old woman. About a guy whose job, or I guess his sentence, was to roll a rock uphill, only to watch it tumble back down every time he reached the top. Till now, I’d thought the story had to do with the tragedy of never seeing your dreams fulfilled. But at the moment, I felt like it carried a warning to be careful what you dreamed in the first place.

After a while we got back to work. The gash in the ground grew incrementally longer. Mika, the person in camp next to Araz who knew the most about building things, inspected our progress and told my dad it looked okay except for the places where the ground had proven sandier than we’d thought and the walls of the trench had collapsed. She suggested diverting the trench around those spots, or reinforcing the walls with stronger pieces of lumber. What she thought about the project itself she didn’t say.

While we worked, my dad hobbled around the site, passing on Mika’s instructions, shouting encouragement. One time he picked up a shovel and lowered himself into the ditch, then went to work flinging dirt onto the ground, the blade of his shovel blurring and glinting in the afternoon sun. I saw Korah watching him, her cheeks flushed beneath smudges, her eyes gleaming.

After about fifteen minutes, though, he was beat, his uniform sweat-soaked, his lank hair glued to his forehead. He handed the shovel up to one of the workers and accepted their hand to haul him out of the ditch. His foot slipped on the crumbling edge a couple times before he managed to make solid ground.

“Thought I’d show you kids how it’s done,” he panted. He flashed us a look, then ducked his eyes and limped off to check in with his officers.

“That was truly inspirational,” Yov growled. Korah glared at him, but I thought her own face registered disappointment that my dad hadn’t succeeded in digging the ditch and building the wall all by himself.

In another hour Aleka came over. By this time the flying dust had stuck to wet skin and coated all of us in red, making us look like the clay figures the little kids sculpted sometimes and played made-up stories with. The only dolls they had, which always ended up ground to dust after a day’s playing. You could still see the whites of people’s eyes and patches of skin here and there, but grit caked everything, including our lips, and our hair hung heavy with beads of muddy brown.

“This seems like it’s going well,” Aleka said. But this time I definitely heard the strain in her voice.

“If you think this is going well,” Yov grumbled, “I’ve got a dead truck I’d love to sell you.”

“Not funny,” Korah sang out.

“Not meant to be,” he shot back.

“Not helpful either,” she fumed.

Yov rested an elbow on the stick he was using in place of a shovel and smirked at her. “Not meant to be that, either.”

“All right,” Aleka said. “Let’s call it a day and get cleaned up. Yov, you can collect the tools. Korah, come with me.”

“Uh-oh,” Yov grinned as Korah climbed out of the ditch. “Looks like someone’s going to get a spanking.”

The teens close enough to hear him cracked up, Wali hardest of all. Yov’s smile widened.

“Well, all right, people,” he hollered, doing a bad imitation of my dad’s voice. He limped down the line, his back hunched and his hips jerking spastically. “Hand ’em over. No time like the present. Let’s get a move on!”

The teenagers laughed even harder. Some of the grown-ups laughed too.

I ignored Yov’s routine and handed him my own digging stick, which I’d been using ever since one of the adults swiped my shovel. I saw that Aleka and Korah had stopped a short distance away. Korah, her arms and hair a solid shade of red, was gesturing energetically and saying something I couldn’t make out. All I heard was the rich sound of her voice. Aleka was listening, it seemed, but shaking her head the whole time. Finally Korah stopped gesticulating and walked off, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. She did look, oddly enough, like a little girl who’d just been bawled out by her mother.

A clattering noise made me jump. Yov had thrown the tools to the ground right at my feet. I looked around and realized the other workers had sought the shade, leaving me alone with him. His smile had faded, and his long, gaunt face looked pained, as if his teeth hurt. His eyes blazed as hot as the late-day sun.

“Look, Space . . . Querry.” He swallowed as if to get the taste of my name out of his mouth. “When are you going to tell the old man to give it a rest?”

“What do you mean?”

He let a long string of brown liquid drip to the ground. “Our fearless leader,” he said. “Can’t you talk some sense into him?”

“If the work’s a problem . . .”

“It’s not the work,” he snarled. “And you know it. It’s this place. The place he’s apparently decided to turn into his own little personal nirvana. It’s crazy.”

“How so?”

“God damn it!” With his cheeks coated in dust and his hair sticking out every which way, his face looked wild and desperate. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. This place is dangerous. It’s been dangerous since the day we arrived. And yet here we are, in plain sight of anything that happens to be snooping around, and what are we doing? Prancing around like a bunch of Boy Scouts, building a fence that won’t ever get built! What are we going to do next, sing campfire songs? Roast marshmallows?”

I had no idea what Boy Scouts or marshmallows were. They might be things I’d forgotten, or they might be things everyone had forgotten but still talked about. There were a lot of those things.

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

“Talk to the man!” His arms shot out and caught my shoulders. The stench of his breath bathed my face, hot and fetid. “Talk some sense into him!”

I shook free, more easily than I expected. In the second his hands had gripped me, I’d felt their strength, far greater than my own. “Back off, Yov.”

He fell away from me, looking appalled. His breath came in husky bursts, and for the first time I could remember, he seemed unable to look me in the eye.

“Tell him,” he said heavily. “Just tell him, for God’s sake.”

“He won’t listen to me,” I said. “He never has.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient.” His red-veined eyes seemed to bulge beneath his brow. “Must be nice to always have that excuse. Crazy old man won’t listen to poor little Querry. And so the rest of us have to pay the price.”

I looked into his furious, miserable eyes, and for an odd moment I was moved to tell him what festered in my own mind. To tell him I knew what had happened to his father, knew why he was so angry at my dad, why he wanted others to suffer and rage too. More than that, I almost told him I agreed with him, that my dad had gone off the deep end and put all of us in jeopardy. I almost told him what I’d overheard during the interrogation of Petra, almost told him of Aleka’s doubts, as well as my own. For that single moment, it seemed possible to tell him we had something in common: a common fear, a common enemy, maybe even a common purpose.

But I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t. Tell him I understood, sympathized, felt sorry? Tell him we were more alike than he realized? More alike than I had realized until this moment?

Yeah. And what would we do next? Sing campfire songs? Roast marshmallows?

“I’ll talk to him,” I said. “But don’t expect any miracles.”

His lips drew back as if to bite me, but he didn’t try to stop me as I turned and walked away.

“You’ll be sorry if you fail, little man,” he spat at my back. “You’ll all be sorry.”

I left him standing there, coated in dust as red as blood. I was already more sorry than he could possibly know.

*    *    *

The sun stood too tall to continue our work, so we spent the rest of the day puttering around camp and planning for tomorrow.

Muddy as we were, we couldn’t really clean ourselves. The best we could do was chafe our bodies with crusty rags that removed as much skin as dirt. The camp crazies collected the dust, scooping it into their palms and looking around for their jars, only to remember they’d been stowed away and the officers had failed to return them despite my dad’s change of plans. So they stuffed the dirt in their pockets for a later time. Then there were those who withdrew from the group, took off their uniforms, and beat their clothes against walls and fence posts until the air grew cloudy with miniature dust storms. Wali and Kelmen whacked their uniforms the hardest. Watching them, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out who they’d rather be beating.

But lots of people, probably the majority, seemed too exhausted to wipe down at all, and they went through the remainder of the day coated in a second skin of dust. As evening fell they sat by the bomb-scarred wall of the building we’d designated as the commissary and waited with clenched hands and drawn faces for Tyris to dole out another paltry serving of canned rations. There’d been a time, recent enough for me to remember, when people had stood in an orderly line to receive their food. But that time now seemed as distant as my own forgotten past.

Yov didn’t make an appearance at dinner. In fact, he vanished right after our conversation, leaving the tools behind for me to pick up and deposit in their basement storage space. While people sat in silence and wolfed down their meager meal, while they prepared for bed, some of them unsure what to do now that their rituals had been interrupted and their pockets hung with their own dirty skin, Yov kept to himself, hidden away somewhere. For the rest of the day I kept an eye out for him, but he never showed. His absence brought a knot to my stomach that grew larger and tighter as the day dragged into night.