Loe raamatut: «Into the No-Zone»

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

If it’s been a while since you read The Sign of One (volume one in this trilogy), here’s a brief reminder of some of the main characters, terms and locations.

PROLOGUE

It’s her turn outside. After all the hours spent hiding in the dark and staying quiet, the cold drizzle that greets her is almost welcome. It’ll be her first time at the lambing. Well . . . sort of.

Old Hicks takes them up the hill to the pens, her and a lad called Marat. Marat’s sixteen, more than twice as old as she is, and won’t waste time talking to a little girl. Fine by her, because talking is dangerous.

Talking can get you found out.

Tucked away in the gloom under the camo-netting, sheltered from the ever-shrieking wind, the girl finally gets to see the woollies close up. She’s a bit disappointed. They’re manky-looking and skinny, scraps of filthy wool still hanging off where they’ve been rough-sheared. Hicks flicks the beam of his shiner about and the girl sees sheep nursing a single newborn lamb each. But one ewe lies apart from the others, and seems restless. It gets up, bleats, paws at the straw-covered earth, then lies down again.

‘That un’s ready,’ Hicks says, squinting at her.

The girl hesitates, unsure. ‘Ready?’

‘To drop. Don’t just stand there gawping. Go see to it.’

Ready to drop. Oh yeah. She swallows and nods. Her sister’s done the telling from her turn outside yesterday. Now it’s up to her to do the remembering and play it so Hicks never guesses that today’s little girl is not the same as yesterday’s little girl.

So she scuttles around to the business end of the beast. Even though she knows what to expect, she still makes a face.

‘You like that, huh?’ Marat jeers.

See, it’s messy back here. A little white head and two tiny black hooves poke out of an explosion of red skin. The girl doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or be sick. Marat sniggers at her.

She gives him the finger, while Hicks isn’t looking.

Fortunately, the old ewe knows what she’s about. The girl watches, bug-eyed, as the lamb slithers out and thumps wetly on to the straw. Only a little woolly thing, but the girl’s amazed. It all goes exactly like her sister said it would. A new life, in front of her eyes. It’s so beautiful.

Hicks is watching her. His slash of a mouth twists into a snarl.

‘What you waitin’ for?’

The girl takes a deep breath and swats the fussing ewe away. Gritting her teeth, she pulls at the stuff on the lamb’s face. It’s hot and slimy, but comes away easy enough. She makes sure the newborn’s nostrils are clear of mucus, grabs a handful of straw and gives its face a quick tickle. The tiny creature – even littler than she is – sneezes. Its warm breath tickles her cheek back. ‘It’s breathing,’ she calls out, excited.

Hicks grunts something at her, which she doesn’t catch.

The worst bit is still to come. But her sister managed it, so she’ll have to manage it too, so nobody suspects. That’s the story of their two-pretending-to-be-one life. She lets the mother ewe back in to lick its newborn clean, fishes out her laser-knife and fires up its glowing green blade. Then, not waiting to think, she slices the cord close to the lamb’s navel, dials up full heat and holds the fizzing green blade on to the bloody end until she smells flesh burning. The lamb kicks a bit, but it’s not so bad. The bleeding stops. A dab of orange iodine from the pot and she’s done. Her first lamb, and it looks fine, shaking less then she is. As she powers the blade down, the lamb lifts its head, wanting to suckle. She reckons it’s a girl.

Hicks stomps over and gobs into the straw. ‘Not a bad job.’

The girl’s not listening; she’s staring at the old ewe. It’s lost interest in the lamb and is pawing at the ground again. Beside her, Hicks curses. The girl looks up, startled, to see him making the Sign of One. Marat comes over. One look and he makes it too – the sign against evil.

The girl’s blood turns to ice. ‘What’s wrong?’

Hicks turns his back, lurches off to a corner of the pen and picks up some filthy old sacking. More cursing as he throws it at her.

‘What’s this for?’ she says. Instantly realises this was a mistake.

‘Same as yesterday,’ Marat sneers. ‘You forget already?’

‘We’re cursed,’ Hicks growls, looking disgusted. ‘Two blasted sets in two days. We’ll be in the upper pens when you’re done at the river. And don’t lose the sack this time, you hear? They don’t grow on trees.’

Finally, the girl understands. This ewe being restless again – it has a second lamb on the way. A twin lamb!

The sack. The river. She can’t help shuddering.

One is good, two is evil. The words pound through her brain as Hicks shambles off swearing, pulling at what’s left of his hair. Marat looks at the girl, his forehead knotted, like he’s chewing on a bone inside his head. This makes the girl sweat. She does her dumber-than-dumb face and sketches the Sign of One. Not because she wants to: because she has to.

What was her fool of a sister thinking? Why didn’t she warn her?

The ewe lies down, strains and bleats. The girl glimpses a second set of tiny hoofs start squeezing out into the world. And then the gate bangs shut against its stone gatepost, making the girl jump. She looks up and Hicks and Marat are gone. It’s just her and the sheep now. She drops to her knees in the straw, shaking. The old ewe takes a break from straining to glare at her out of its dark-slot eye. She reaches out and runs her hand over its firstborn. The tiny wet thing butts her fingers with its snout, mistaking her for its mother. It cries out, desperate for milk.

How can this poor little thing be evil? the girl wonders.

Like everyone else out here she’s half starved. Her pale face is pinched, her stomach swollen. She can’t help thinking that this is two lambs for the price of one: two small bundles of wool and milk and mutton and hope – a blessing not a curse. She says this last phrase over and over again. It’s word for word what her mother whispers to her and her twin sister every night at their going-to-bed time.

It’s only the rest of the world that disagrees . . .

The old ewe tires and needs help. The girl pulls the second lamb out by its hooves, sorts its breathing like before and sees to the birth cord. Without thinking, she helps give the poor little doomed thing life. As the ewe starts licking and nudging it, she fights not to think about how she’ll soon be sticking them both in the sack. Or how it will feel as the sack thrashes in the cold water. Most of all, she tries not to think about what will happen to her and her twin sister if they’re ever found out. It won’t just be a bag over their heads and a trip to the river. They won’t get off so lightly.

The girl almost never cries. She has a quick cry now.

Stones crunch and rattle, dislodged by a boot. She looks around and Marat is back. He leans on the gate, chomping on a piece of bindgrass. Says nothing. Just stares at her. Real hard.

Does he see her tears in the gloom? She can’t be sure.

Quickly, hating to do it, the girl stuffs the lambs into the sack. She shoves her way out and past Marat, shutting her ears to the ewe’s frantic bleating. She runs down to the river, finds a quiet spot. Only she can’t drown them, like her sister did. Instead, she takes a desperate chance. She hides them inside a dead tree, covering them with grass and leaves to keep them warm. She whispers to them that she’ll come back when it’s dark and sneak them home. Her mother will know what to do.

‘You’re a blessing not a curse,’ she tells them.

But as she turns around, the girl sees Marat has followed her . . .

PART ONE

1
SO MUCH FOR BEING A HERO

I’m getting the hang of this being beaten to a pulp thing. They haul me to my feet. I shuffle forward in the fighting crouch I’ve been taught. And then our combat instructor, Stauffer, knocks all kinds of lumps out of me until I fall down again.

He’s hammering me, laughing while he does it.

Plenty of other instructors and trainees are loving it too, watching the ‘hero’ of the Facility raid have his head kicked in.

Why not? If I were them, I’d hate me too.

It’s Ballard’s fault. He won’t let me or my brother Colm fight for real, says we’re too valuable to the Gemini cause to be risked. So while these guys we train with go off on hit-and-run raids, we sit tight here in our hidden base in the Deeps. That’d be enough to get us hated, but there are his speeches too. Rebel units from all over Wrath are flown out here to be rested, or for training. None of them escape Ballard’s we’re-all-in-this-together-and-fighting-for-the-future-of-idents speech. I get shoved in front of them, called a hero and made to tell my edited story – from finding out I was myself an ident and a nublood, through to how I ‘volunteered’ to let myself be captured, knowing I’d be taken to the secret Slayer base known as the Facility; breaking out with my brother’s help and activating the beacon buried in my arm so our rebel forces could destroy the base and rescue the hundreds of nublood kids enslaved there.

Ballard says my story inspires them. Says it’s important.

Yeah, right. He should ask Stauffer if I inspire him. This was a regular empty-hand skills session until he’d picked on Colm even worse than usual, to wind me up. I can keep my temper when I’m taking the hits, but I lost it and called him out.

‘Stay down, Kyle. Don’t be stupid,’ Colm hisses.

‘I can take him,’ I mumble.

I spit a gobful of red on to the dirt and groan. Something scrapes painfully inside me, like one of my ribs is bust. Above me, the bigmoon is already above the overhanging cliff, its crescent and rings bright in the darkening sky. Sky lizards circle in the last of the day’s updraughts, their shrill whistling calls drifting down.

Even they sound like they’re jeering.

‘Hey, Kyle, we need to talk,’ a familiar voice shouts.

I groan again as I see Sky elbowing her way through the watchers, breathing fast like she’s run here. Only before I can say anything, I’m thrown back at Stauffer. Maybe I fight harder now she’s here. Anyway, I nail him once – hard enough to pull a grunt out of him – before he knocks me back down again.

Sky squats beside me. ‘You’re the punchbag today?’

I shrug, so big-gob Colm answers for me, nodding towards the grinning Stauffer. ‘Kyle challenged him.’

She scowls. ‘Challenged your instructor? Smart move.’

Scowls are all I get from Sky these days. Not that we even see each other that often, now she’s flying combat ops.

‘Yeah, like you’d take his shit,’ I growl.

‘Make yourself useful,’ Colm says, chucking her a wet cloth.

Sky dabs carelessly at my face. ‘I’ve got news about my sister,’ she says, all excited. ‘I need to show you something.’

Around me, I hear the trainees muttering. Laughter too.

I grab the rag off her. ‘I’m busy.’

‘You swore you’d help me find Tarn. Remember?’

‘How could I forget?’

I grit my teeth. Mistake. One’s gone. I can wobble others with my tongue. Crap. Teeth take days to grow back.

‘Hey, skinny girl,’ Stauffer yells. ‘After I’m done with your boyfriend here, how about you and me have some fun, huh?’

He makes it clear what kind of fun with hip thrusts.

Sky flicks him her middle finger.

‘Quit messing,’ she tells me. ‘Finish him.’

My turn to scowl. ‘Don’t you think I’m trying?’

The look of scorn on Sky’s face – bottle it and you could sell it as battery acid. ‘You’re being dumb, fighting like they trained you to. Arse-face is catching you because he sees you coming.’

‘So how should I fight?’

‘Like a Reaper,’ she says. ‘Dirty.’

I’m grabbed and thrown back at Stauffer. His mates want blood, not chat. He comes at me, gob hanging open, maybe wanting to finish me quick and show Sky what a big, tough man he is. Nearly does too, with me still thinking about Sky. Only he slips and misses, and I come to my senses. I duck and weave and throw jabs to get him to back up. I don’t let him get close enough to hurt me.

‘Come here, you little shite!’ he snarls, starting to blow now.

Just as I begin to hope, I step back too far, straying across the rope on the ground that marks out our ring. Hands thrust me back at Stauffer, straight into his punch. He rattles my bones.

Down I go again, on to my knees.

And he’s laughing at me again. They all are.

That’s not what lights me up. These gommers can laugh all they like – what do I care? No. It’s seeing Sky standing there, watching with her thin arms folded, contempt twisting her lips. Something rips inside me that isn’t my cracked ribs. Before, I was fighting for Colm, and to wipe sneers off faces. Now I’m possessed.

I stagger back to my feet, spitting curses.

Stauffer stops his strutting and closes on me. I fake a half-hearted spin kick. He leans back, leaving his front foot planted. Careless. I pull out of the kick and stamp down hard, crunching the bones along the top of his foot. He screams and goes down, clutching at it. The fight’s over there and then, but I treat him to a few kicks anyway as he rolls around in the dirt. Afters, we call this in the Barrenlands where I grew up. It sends a message. Mess with me again, Stauffer, and this is what you’ll get.

‘Cut that out!’ Andersson, another combat instructor, shouts.

I glare at him, my chest heaving. ‘Or what?’

Colm jumps between us. ‘Take it easy, Kyle. You don’t have to fight them all. Leave some for tomorrow, why don’t you?’

He hangs his fist out. We bump stumps.

Even now I still cringe seeing my brother’s finger gone. Took it off himself using a wood-chisel after Sky told him that’s what was used on me. Says he did it to show he’s Gemini now. Sky says it shows that Colm’s even more of a gom than I am.

‘C’mon, let’s go!’ Sky chucks my boots and shirt at me.

Andersson moans at us for clearing off before the training day is over, but Sky’s a windjammer captain now and outranks him. She tells him to shut his face.

I give him a wink. I’ll regret that later, but it feels good now.

Triumph wrestles with guilt. ‘Dirty enough for you?’

It’s a few minutes later. The pounding in my head has stopped and I feel less like tearing the throat out of anybody who so much as glances at me. A cold drizzle has started. It helps in a weird kind of way, cooling me down inside and out.

Sky shrugs and keeps walking. ‘That loser had it coming.’

‘I should’ve stayed down, like Colm said.’

My brother nods, bites his lip and looks away.

Sky blows air out of her mouth. ‘What good would that do?’

I sigh, my ribs killing me, not needing another row about how I always take his side against hers. Which is crap anyway.

‘Stauffer will heal, then he’ll kill me.’

‘He wouldn’t dare.’

‘Maybe we should tell Ballard what happened,’ Colm says.

‘I can’t go running to Ballard the whole time.’

‘Seriously,’ Sky mutters.

We all shut up for a while as we trudge down the trail from the training grounds to the canyon floor. Scraps of golden evenshine strobe over us, sneaking through the camouflage netting that’s hung overhead to hide us from any eyes in the sky. I clutch my hurting ribs, glare at Sky’s back and think dark thoughts.

She glances back at me. ‘What?’

I’m so startled, I blurt it out. ‘When you hooked me up with Gemini, you swore we’d be among friends, all fighting together for the nublood cause. Hasn’t worked out like that, has it?’

Sky snorts, her wet face glistening.

‘Get real, Kyle. Nublood makes you faster and stronger, but it doesn’t stop you being an arse like Stauffer.’

‘Never said it did. It’s just – oof ! ’

I trip. My ribs have another go at me, shutting me up.

Sky stomps off again, limping as fast as she can on her bad leg. Behind her back, Colm rolls his eyes at me. Not helpful. Ever since we were flown out here to the Deeps after the raid, this is how it’s been. It’s like they can’t stand each other and I’m stuck in the middle, dodging glares and making excuses. I’m not saying it’s his fault that things have cooled between me and Sky – that’s more down to the way things have worked out – but he doesn’t help.

‘What’s the rush?’ I call out, not thinking.

She turns, her face one big snarl. ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’

‘Okay, okay,’ I say, not wanting to get hit again. ‘You’ve got news about Tarn. Can’t you just tell us?’

‘I figured you’d like to see!’

She takes a deep breath and looks away real quick.

Not quickly enough. I glimpse the bitter disappointment in her eyes and my guts twist themselves into knots. A winter ago, I swore I’d help her find her sister, Tarn. We bumped stumps on it. One way or another though it hasn’t happened. There’s always another mission for Sky to fly. I’m not allowed out of the Deeps. As excuses go it’s a good one, but I feel I’ve let her down.

‘Sky, I’m sorry. I –’

‘What’s that doing here?’ Colm says, pointing.

I look. And my next heartbeat is a long time coming. On the landing field squats a matt-black Slayer windjammer.

‘Relax,’ Sky says. ‘We forced it down a week or so ago. Took a while to get it launched again. I flew it in here today.’

‘It’s massive,’ I say, taking in the bulk of it.

Sky’s not listening. ‘Hurry up. We’ll hitch a ride out.’

Just then I hear the whoosh of a steam boiler. Seconds later I smell coal smoke. Gears grind and tracks clatter. Sky sets off at a stiff-legged run. Colm and I go after her, me clutching my side. As we emerge from the trail gloom I see a battered tractor chugging away from us. We chase after it, hang off the back.

Sky cheers up enough to nearly smile.

‘Like hopping a windjammer!’ she yells over the noise.

As we lumber across the field I check out the transport. Apart from some impact damage from a hard landing, and blast scars from the firefight that followed, this is one hell of a machine. It wasn’t cobbled together from scrap in a back-of-beyond workshop. Our rebel jammers are rust buckets by comparison.

We drop off as the tow-tractor chugs around to the bow end. Sky has a word with some heavily armed guards. They nod, she waves at us, and we follow her inside the windjammer through a hatch high on its side, hauling ourselves up handholds set into the hull. Easily done any other day, but my ribs are killing me.

Colm offers a hand. I wave him away.

Techs are poking around inside. Sky ignores them and leads me through an internal hatch into the cargo bay. ‘It’s in here!’

‘What happened to the crew?’ I ask.

Sky shrugs. ‘Killed or ran. What’s it matter?’

Over to one side is a metal cage. The light from the few glowtubes in here doesn’t reach, so she pulls out a shiner and thumbs it on. By its light I see the cage door gaping open. The lock’s all melted as if someone’s taken a plasma lance to it.

Sky clambers inside, squats down and shines the beam on to the hull at the back.

‘Her tag,’ she says, looking back at me, her green eyes shining.