The Outback Stars (49 page)

“No,” he said to whoever was listening. “I won't go.”

“You don't have to,” his mother said. She was standing right beside him now, her sun-colored hair pulled back from her fresh, dewy face. This was his mother not as she had died, worn and wasted and gray. This was his mother as she had stood on an Australian beach, a smile on her lips. She was not so tangible that he could reach over and touch her, but that didn't stop him from trying.

“Terry,” she said.
“Jungali
.
”

That was a name he hadn't heard since her death. Jangali, she would say, and kiss his nose. My little Jungali, she would sing, as she poured water over his head in the tub. His special name, she said. His father never used it. His mother never mentioned it in front of Colby or Daris. Perhaps they had their own names, or perhaps he was the only one so favored. Before he could ask, his mother dissolved like dust in a storm. All the gray particles of her being reassembled into the shape of the Wirrinun.

“Choose,” he said, and slammed his staff into the ground. The Rainbow Serpent burst from the ground and swallowed the Wirrinun whole. It swayed before Myell's eyes, lifted its alligator head to the height of Myell's head, and repeated, “Choose.”

“I don't understand,” Myell said. “What am I choosing between? Are you the Wondjina? Where are we?”

“Older than the Wondjina,” the snake insisted. “Wiser.”

Lightning sheeted across the sky, followed by bellows of thunder. Myell had never conversed with a snake before and preferred to see his mother again, but he felt strangely calm in this place. He decided he was not dreaming in the normal fashion, nor was he anywhere that could be pinpointed by a map or star chart. He was in the great elsewhere older than Time itself.

The snake's eyes widened as if it were pleased. “In the Dreamtime, yes. But will you stay?”

The sky split open. Rain flooded through him and carried him away to a land of rain forests and desert and seashore, and the dark-skinned natives who walked across its width and length with songs on their tongues, and the winged, furred, and scaly creatures who climbed out of the ground or descended from the trees to take part in the cycle of rain and drought that extended back to the eternal time of the Dreaming. Among the people and animals and trees he saw a dozen wirrinun, or maybe a hundred dozen, or a thousand dozen, all of them leading their people single file across the landscape. Each of them wore Myell's own face. Each was named
Jungali
.

“No,” he said, and the land fell away to the flat landscape outside his parents' farmhouse, which was nothing more than stone and shadow.

“The world you know as your own is itself but a shadow,” the Rainbow Serpent said, coiling its tail as if holding up a finger to test the wind. “Surrender it and embrace the Dreaming. You will be well rewarded.”

Myell wanted to. His bones already felt like the rocks of the world, his blood like its rivers. It would be easy to surrender—to
choose
—the ancient power of the Dreamtime. To embrace what was his birthright. But then he thought of Jodenny. Of Colby and his family, of friends like Timrin and Gallivan and Chaplain Mow.

“No,” he said. “I choose Terry, not Jungali.”

“As you wish.” The snake twirled its way up toward the sky. Impossibly high it rose, a sinewy ribbon climbing toward heaven. “Touch my skin.”

Another choice. Trust it, distrust it. Myell took one last glance around the dark landscape. He reached out and laid his hand flat against the shining colors.

“Jodenny,” he whispered, right before the snake took him up into the sky and down the Alcheringa, the great river between the stars.

*   *   *

Jodenny meant to stay awake. The hunger pains in her stomach should have helped, but it had been a long day of keeping vigil over Myell. Once or twice he had murmured words she didn't catch, but he had never woken. She tried rubbing her knuckles over his breastbone, but he remained stubbornly unconscious.

“He'll be all right,” Osherman had said, which angered her. He couldn't know that. Couldn't promise it.

When Jodenny finally fell asleep she dreamed of snakes and birds and vines closing in, choking her with their growth. She awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of insects and the rustlings of animals in the brush. The air was heavy and wet. Osherman had predicted rain before sunrise.

“Sam?” she asked. He was nowhere to be seen. Jodenny shook Myell's shoulder, but he wouldn't wake. She searched for the mazer and flashlight, but they too were gone. She lifted a burning branch from the fire and stepped past the choking ferns toward the waterfall where Osherman had left Chiba. The rain forest stirred all around her, palm fronds bowing in the breeze, lianas tugging at her trousers. A few drops of rain pelted her face and she heard a steady pattering, but the canopy overhead caught and collected most of it. She hoped the rain stayed off them. Myell would probably catch pneumonia if he got drenched.
We don't need any more bad luck,
she thought grumpily, and then a mazer shot zipped by her face so close that her nose began to tingle.

The bolt hit a massive cathedral fig tree instead, searing a hole right through it. The mazer was set to kill, then. Jodenny threw her makeshift torch to the side and dived to the ground, where she rolled behind a bush.

“Come on out, Lieutenant,” Chiba said, a snarl to his voice. He stood a few meters away with Osherman's flashlight in hand, an easy target if only she had a mazer as well. “Let's talk.”

Jodenny found a good-sized rock in the dirt and hurled it at him. A solid thump and Chiba's yelp of pain let her know she'd hit her target. He dropped the light. Jodenny scrambled to her feet and tried to flee behind the fig tree, but faster than she could have imagined Chiba tackled her and drove her to the ground. She landed hard, his weight and strength nearly crushing her. Jodenny scratched and kicked and screamed, everything she'd ever learned in self-defense classes vanishing in near-panic.

“Always a bitch.” Chiba pinned her arms. “Not so high and mighty now—”

Jodenny squirmed one hand free and hooked her fingers into Chiba's eyeballs. He yelped and fell away. She started to crawl again, but his hand clamped down on her ankle. Jodenny grabbed the nearest plant at hand, a stem with heart-shaped leaves. She ripped it out of the ground and whipped it around into Chiba's face. He recoiled with a gasp.

“Fuck, what's that?” he demanded.

Jodenny's hand began to burn. She crawled away from Chiba anyway, putting as much distance between them as possible. He was still saying, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and now he was wheezing for air. Maybe he was allergic to whatever was in the plant. Cradling her hand, Jodenny picked up the flashlight and went in search of first the mazer and then Osherman. The mazer had rolled under some bushes. Osherman was curled up on the ground ten meters away, just beginning to wake up. He'd scraped open his scalp when he fell, and blood matted his head.

“Chiba,” he said when he could form a coherent word.

“He's not going anywhere,” Jodenny said.

He insisted that they check. Chiba wasn't where Jodenny had left him. They stumbled through the brush, trying to follow a trail of broken branches, and then the clear mournful call of an ouroboros cut through the air.

“Fuck,” Osherman said.

By the time they reached the Spheres, Chiba was gone. “He won't get far,” Osherman said, which sounded a lot like wishful thinking. Jodenny thought he might plunge into a chase after him, but common sense ruled and they went back to where they had left Myell.

He was still asleep, his face wan in the firelight. Jodenny used a piece of cloth and some of their water supply to wash and bandage Osherman's head with her left hand.

“What's wrong with your right hand?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, though it was swollen and red. She poured water over it, but the stinging didn't ease.

Osherman shifted clumsily from his position and settled beside her. He was taller than Myell and had a different smell to him—blood, unfortunately, but also something spicy and strong, something that reminded her of the
Yangtze.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I'll keep watch.”

Her fingers were hot, but she otherwise felt cold. “You've got a head injury. Better we both stay up.”

He poked at the fire. “You know, back on the
Yangtze
—I don't know if I told you this. My job was one thing. What happened with us—well, I shouldn't have let it. I could have put you in grave danger.”

“Or maybe you just slept with me to find out if I knew anything about the smugglers?” None of it mattered, really. The
Yangtze,
Aral Sea
, all of Team Space, were millions of miles away. Chiba was gone and Myell was perhaps dying and what was her honor, really? Why should she care?

“No,” Osherman said. “I didn't just use you that way.”

“It would have been a logical tactic.”

“Jo, no,” he repeated, and touched her arm. “I didn't want you involved.”

“I don't believe you.”

“What if I told you that I was afraid Lieutenant Commander Ross's influence would subvert you?”

She stared at him, all injuries and fatigue forgotten. “Jem had nothing to do with smuggling.”

Osherman's expression was shuttered. “This isn't the place to talk about it.”

“No,” Jodenny said. “You'll never convince me.”

“Jo…”

Jodenny turned her back to him. Her hand still ached like a son of a bitch and fury kept her wide awake. To insinuate that Jem condoned or participated in criminal activities was a new low for Osherman. She closed her eyes against angry tears and when she opened them again, hours had passed. The fire was cold, Osherman sound asleep, and sunrise had started to lighten the edge of the sky with dark gold. Myell was standing nearby and staring at her with an odd expression on his face.

“Terry?” she asked.

He walked into the forest. Jodenny pulled herself up. Her hand was red in the sunlight, swollen, but it didn't hurt as much as it had the night before. “Terry—” she called, but he moved so quickly that she lost track of him for several seconds. Then she saw him enter the Child Sphere and followed him into the gloom. Though she'd heard no horn, an ouroboros was waiting for them.

She touched Myell's shoulder. “Terry?”

“I know where to go.” Myell bent down next to the ouroboros. “Two stops on this line, transfer over to a Father for one stop, transfer back, and we'll be back on Warramala.”

Jodenny rubbed his shoulders. “Come on back to the fire. Let's see if we can scrounge up some breakfast.”

“Do you believe me?” His gaze was earnest. “We're four stops away. The Rainbow Serpent told me.”

Jodenny kept her opinion of talking snakes to herself. Myell was quiet on the walk back. She started the fire again, had him sit close to it, checked on Osherman, and went in search of water and food. For several minutes she soaked her stinging hand in a pool of water, and that seemed to help. When she returned Myell and Osherman were arguing.

“A dream means nothing, Sergeant. We're staying with the Mother Sphere we know.”

“We'll never make it.” Myell sounded entirely sure of himself. “Humans were never meant to travel this way, Commander. It's the Wondjina's network, not ours.”

Osherman retorted, “I'd think twice about counting on the word of a talking snake.”

Jodenny stepped out of the trees. With forced cheer she said, “Some mangoes here. Anyone hungry?”

Osherman asked, “Did the sergeant tell you about his dream?”

Jodenny met Myell's serene gaze. “Yes.”

“And your opinion?”

She shrugged, still angry with him over the previous night's conversation about Jem. “Four stops sounds much more manageable.”

“What's wrong with your hand?” Myell asked, noticing the way she was holding it.

“Some kind of plant. I grabbed it the wrong way.”

Myell made a careful examination of her palm and fingers. “Probably a stinging tree. Sometimes comes as a shrub. You'll need a doctor to fix it properly.”

Osherman smothered the fire. “Then we'd better get moving again. Chiba's got several hours on us, but he'll be sick, maybe injured. He won't be still traveling. We can catch him.”

Jodenny looked at Myell.

“Chiba doesn't matter,” Myell said. “The snake will take care of him.”

“Sam, at least look at the ring in the Child Sphere,” Jodenny said. “See if any of the glyphs match ones we've already passed through.”

“It's probably gone already,” Osherman said. But when they got there, the ouroboros hadn't moved on. After a moment's inspection he said, “No. I don't recognize any of these.”

“You don't have to,” Myell said.

Osherman brushed dirt from his knees. “Jodenny, it's crazy. You detour off here, and god only knows what corner of the galaxy you'll wind up in.”

“I know the way home,” Myell said. In the glow of the flashlight she recognized the set of his jaw. “Do you trust me, Kay?”

Jodenny didn't hesitate. “Yes. I just don't trust your snake.”

Osherman spread his hands. “Jodenny, choose. Come with me and we'll get home for sure. Go with him and you could be lost forever.”

Decide between the two of them, between crazy and safe, between the proven path and the way of Myell's Dreaming. Jodenny knew Osherman to be a methodical, intelligent man not prone to flights of fantasy, even if he was horribly wrong about Jem. She knew Myell was stubborn, reliable, and practical. She remembered that Osherman had more knowledge about the Wondjina network. She remembered the way Myell had sacrificed himself for her in T18.