FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
27
Ayers
The Great Inland Eyre Sea provided life, and took it away. That was the first lesson the children of Uluru were taught. Over the years, the lesson had been retaught, again and again, as each fishing venture returned either food or death. Often both. And while that was the framework that guided daily life, it was not the only instruction passed on by the elders, the last of whom had perished more than a year previously.
The eldest child of Uluru, Jon Ayers, was a descendent of the ancient, who had once renamed the island upon which they eked out a living. Like the elders before him, he remembered the calamity that had reshaped the world. Their land had been larger then. A continent. A country. Australia. A desert then, humanity settled along the coast, where most perished when the waves rolled in and the waters surged up. Entire cities, unimaginable to the children of Uluru, now resided under the vast ocean. Eighteen million people had drowned in those days. Five million more had starved in the deserts. And the last million had become food for the
Moyh-ma Lamang
, the wild animals who rose up in the Destroyer’s wake. While the deadly energy that exploded out from the crushed nuclear power plants along the coast added to humanity’s suffering, it had spurred the Moyh-ma’s growth.
That was the theory passed on from one of Uluru’s founding members. A scientist. In his time, Uluru had risen up from the barren earth, glowing red in the setting sun’s light, a marvel to behold that attracted visitors from around the world. Now, it was an island, providing refuge to the last of Australia’s human residents.
Ayers stood on the shore, dressed only in a pair of cargo shorts passed down from the elders who had come and gone. They were torn and frayed, but the pockets and belt loops still functioned well enough to hold some of the tools of his trade: pliers, two knives—one for defense, one for filleting—spare line, bandages, a magnifying glass and a pair of binoculars.
His dark skin warmed in the morning sun. It was, he thought, the only true pleasure left in the world, aside from his wife, Adina. At sixteen, she was young enough to have no memory of the world before. Uluru and the one hundred twenty-one people residing on the island, were all she had ever known of the world.
At twenty years old, Ayers remembered his parents, his house in Port Augusta, cartoons, fast food and the waters that rushed in to take it all away. His faint childhood memories served no purpose in the world remade, though. They brought him pain. Nothing more. So he squelched thoughts of the past and spoke of them only when Adina asked.
The water was calm, but looked a little higher than the previous day. Each year, the tides rose higher, climbing the steep island shoreline. Before dying in the jaws of a Moyh-ma shark, the thirty-two year old elder had calculated that if the waters continued to rise steadily—as the world’s ice caps melted—Uluru would sink beneath the waves within fifty years. But he also said the waters would never reach that high. Uluru was safe. The rest of Australia…was not.
Ayers had set foot on the mainland only twice, the first on a quest to find supplies, including soil, and the second to gauge the possibility of establishing a beachhead from which the children of Uluru could colonize the mainland. Both ventures had resulted in several deaths at the hands of the Moyh-ma, some at sea, and many more on land.
The countryside had been overrun by new life, both animal and plant. While the former elders had recognized some of the creatures as ‘mutations’ of what had existed in the Old World, many of them were new, and hostile. While there was prey in abundance, feeding on new plant life, predators lurked in every shadow. Some of the Moyh-ma posed little threat, but the ones that did were larger than twenty men and had insatiable appetites.
If one of them managed to cross the open sea without becoming a meal in the process, Uluru would be lost. Ayers knew he would have to lead his people across the Eyre Sea and stake a claim on the mainland. The survival of humanity depended on it. But to do that, he needed strong warriors, and to build that strength he needed food. So for now, they remained fishermen.
“How are the winds today?” Adina asked.
“Gentle.” Ayers slid his hand around her back and pulled her close. The canvas tunic she wore was rough against his arm, and it hid her body, but Adina’s light skin burned on cloudless days. When the rains came, she would shed her clothing, like most of the darker-skinned residents of Uluru, who had once been known as Aborigines. Ayers knew even less about his ancient ancestors than he did of the world he’d been born into, but he understood that they had mastered the dangerous bushlands of Australia, and he hoped that he could lead people to do so again.
“I wasn’t asking about you,” she said, snuggling against his broad chest. Adina was a strong woman, a master fisher and a warrior, but she would not be joining today’s hunt, because she was also with child. When her stomach swelled and a sickness had overcome her, Payu, who at nineteen was Uluru’s eldest woman, had recognized the symptoms. She had helped with births before, but Adina’s would be the first she oversaw.
Two years ago, during the Destroyer’s last passing, detectable only as a repeating earthquake, the air had become hard to breathe. Those born long before the calamity had grown ill and perished. Twenty three elders in six months. Ayers was the oldest child of the Old World to survive. Those born after the calamity never fell ill, their bodies already acclimated to the New World’s shifting atmosphere.
Ayers pointed at the placid water. “The sea is far more gentle than me. I will need the oar team for today’s hunt.” The children of Uluru had six seaworthy vessels, two of them pillaged from the Old World, and four built by Uluru’s founders. The pillaged boats had towering sails and carried a large number of crew, or supplies. They were also safer, because of their size. They were crewed by two, five-man teams, who knew every knot and rigging, what the sound of a snapping sail indicated and how to predict the wind itself. The other four boats—long, slender craft—also required five-man teams. But those were comprised of four thickly muscled men to row and one woman, to hunt fish or defend against predators. With Adina pregnant, Ayers had taken her position as a hunter.
“You will be careful,” Adina said.
“When am I not?”
She smiled up at him. “Every time your feet leave Uluru.”
“I take risks,” he said. “But I’m not reckless. I will live to see our child born, and the children of Uluru return to the mainland.”
“Unless the Destroyer returns.”
He looked down at Adina, whose gaze had fallen to the ground. “There is little left for it to destroy.”
“There is you,” she said. “The last change nearly killed you.”
“My strength sustained me,” he said, squeezing her tightly. “It will continue to do so. During the hunt. Against the Moyh-ma. And in the Destroyer’s wake. Now…” He kissed her forehead and removed his arm from her canvas-wrapped waist. “Fetch the others. Two teams. The sun rises.”
Alone once more, Ayers walked down the steep path that used to lead to the desert floor, but now stopped a hundred feet down, where they tied off the boats. He stopped at a tall shack that would eventually have to be moved higher up the path. He took eight oars and two long spears, each tipped with the sharpened bones of slain Moyh-ma. He then distributed the gear between two of the boats and stepped into the water. The scent of salt water had once invigorated people, connecting them to something primal. That was the way the elders had described it. But for Ayers, it reminded him that they lived on an island prison.
We will be free,
he thought, looking to the northeast, where land could be found, beyond the horizon, now glowing orange in the morning’s sun.
But first, we must eat.
Eight groggy men and one woman walked down the winding path, their bare feet slapping against the warm stone. Each of them was a seasoned hunter, but would have been considered children in the Old World. Now they were Uluru’s best hope of survival, of expansion and of freedom.
Without words shared, they took their position in two boats and shoved off, paddling into the deep, dark blue, where food and monsters lurked. Ayers stood at the front of his long vessel, spear in hand, but not yet at the ready. His counterpart, Yindi, whose dark skin and hair matched his, stood at her bow, eyeing him. “You do intend to catch a meal today, I hope.”
The men rowing behind her chuckled. The two teams had developed a friendly rivalry since Ayers had taken over for Adina. She and Yindi were close friends, and neither believed Ayers could do the job. He had done well enough, but he never brought home quite as much food as Yindi. Luckily, the sea was bountiful. There was food to spare. But the sea was also dangerous.
“And live long enough to eat it.” Ayers hefted his spear into position and raised his chin to the water ahead. “There.”
Yindi looked forward and frowned.
A portion of ocean, eight feet across, was smoother than the rest. The ‘footprint’ could have been left by a whale, which would benefit them greatly, or it could have come from a Moyh-ma shark—a mutated shark still recognizable from the Old World—or from something worse. Ayers preferred hunting seals or large fish, as they were easier to haul back inside the boats, which left less blood in the water. Larger prey were considered worth the risk, but they usually had to fight for them, first against the prey animal, and then against creatures drawn by its blood.
“A second,” Yindi said, pointing with her spear and shouting, “Yiyah!”
The men behind her dug their oars into the water, chasing a creature they had yet to identify.
Ayers felt unsure, but ordered his men to follow. The hunt was on, and it would require both ships to complete. His fears faded as the wind whipped through his long hair. He held his ten-foot-long spear in his left hand, and cupped the bottom of it with his right.
A turquoise glow slid past beneath the hull, white flesh reflecting the morning sun.
“Beneath us!” he shouted, turning to watch the massive form pass by, hoping to identify it. The creature’s shape proved elusive, broken up by bands of darker color. All he knew was that he had never seen anything like it, and that was bad.
Very bad.
They had books on Uluru. Through study and experience, he could identify most creatures of the Old World, even those that had mutated. But something new…that meant they were dealing with a pure-blood Moyh-ma. The greatest danger from a new Moyh-ma was that no one knew how it would behave. Was it docile? Was it hunting them? Unpredictability made the Destroyer’s spawn lethal, even when they weren’t predatory.
As the boat turned to follow the creature, he saw its footprint swirl to the surface ahead of them. And then again to the side of Yindi’s boat.
“It’s circling!” he shouted, and they all knew what that meant. Prey moved in a straight line, away from them; predators circled. Luminous water surged up on the far side of Yindi’s boat. The beast was charging. “Yindi! To your side!”
The four men holding oars did their jobs well, tipping away from the creature, plunging their bodies into the water, and flinging Yindi away. The reinforced hull would protect the oarsmen, but Yindi, the more valuable crew member, would need to be retrieved.
A set of jaws, lined with human-like teeth, emerged from the water, a thick purple lip peeling back. A loud crack filled the air, as the jaws clamped down on the hull and squeezed. Wood cracked and splintered, but held, protecting the men still inside. Yindi hit the water and started swimming toward Ayers’s boat, which surged through the water, straight for the floundering craft.
Yindi saw them coming on fast and kicked out of the way. “What are you doing!”
The answer to her question became clear a moment later, as his boat’s bow struck its counterpart. The impact jolted the vessel to a stop and shot Ayers forward. Spear cocked back, he looked down at the Moyh-ma. Its broad body warbled with color. It wasn’t just striped light and dark. The color of its body shifted, pulsing with energy. Its six eyes, mounted atop flimsy looking, translucent skin sacks, gazed up at him. He saw fins in the ocean, at least eight of them, beating backward. The creature released the tipped boat and shifted back, away from Ayers.