Loren Skibbow almost made it. There was something about Quinn Dexter which had always made her uncomfortable, and the sight
of Frank had set every mental alarm ringing. Without hesitating she turned and raced back into the house. The laser hunting
rifles were hung up on the living-room wall. Five of them, one each. Gerald had taken his with him this morning. She reached
for the next one, the one that used to be Marie’s.
Quinn punched her in the kidneys. The blow slammed her into the wall. She rebounded, and Quinn kicked her on the back of the
knee. She collapsed onto the floorboards, moaning at the pain. The rifle clattered down beside her.
“I’ll take that, thank you,” Quinn said.
Loren’s vision was blurred by tears. She heard Paula screaming, and managed to turn her head. Jackson Gael had dragged her
inside, holding her under one arm while her legs kicked wildly.
“Irley, Malcolm; I want the guns and every spare power magazine, any medical gear, and all their freeze-dried food. Get to
it,” Quinn ordered as the other Ivets piled in. “Ann, take watch outside. Manani will be coming out here on his horse, and
keep an eye out for Gerald as well.” He threw the rifle to her. She caught it and nodded crisply.
Irley and Malcolm started to ransack the shelves.
“Shut up,” Quinn yelled at Paula.
She broke off screaming, staring at him with huge, terrified eyes. Jackson Gael shoved her into a corner, and she shrank down,
hugging herself.
“That’s better,” Quinn said. “Imran, put Lawrence down in the chair, then search out the boots in this house, as many pairs
as you can find. We’re gonna need ’em. Got a long way to go.”
Loren saw the young Ivet with the ruined feet being lowered into one of the chairs around the square kitchen table. His face
was grey, sweating profusely.
“You just find me some bandages and some boots, I’ll be all right,” Lawrence said. “Really, Quinn, I’ll be fine.”
Quinn caressed his forehead, fingers teasing back the damp strands of blond hair. “I know. That was a hell of a run out here.
You did great, Lawrence. Really. You’re the best.”
Loren saw Lawrence look up at Quinn, reverence in the lad’s eyes. She saw Quinn slide a fission blade from his shorts. She
tried to say something as the blade came alive in a burst of yellow light, but only a gurgle emerged from her throat.
Quinn sank the blade into the nape of Lawrence’s neck, angling it upwards so it penetrated the brain. “The very best,” he
whispered. “God’s Brother will welcome you into the Night.”
Paula opened her mouth in a silent wail as Lawrence’s body slid down onto the floor. Loren started to sob quietly.
“Shit, Quinn!” Irley protested.
“What? We’ve got to get out of here, yesterday. You saw his feet; he would have held us up. That way we all get caught. That
what you want?”
“No,” Irley mumbled lamely.
“It was quicker than what they would have done to him,” Quinn said half to himself.
“You did the right thing,” Jackson Gael said. He turned back to Paula and grinned broadly. She whimpered, trying to push herself
further back into the corner. He grabbed her hair and pulled her up.
“We don’t have time,” Quinn said mildly.
“Sure we do. I won’t be long.”
Loren tried to pick herself off the floor as Paula’s screams began again.
“Naughty,” Quinn said. His boot caught her on the side of the temple. She flopped onto her back like a broken mechanoid, incapable
of movement. Her vision was fuzzy, shapes were obscured behind blotches of grey. But she saw Quinn take Paula’s rifle off
the wall, calmly check the power level, and shoot Frank. He turned round, and aimed the barrel at her.
The recall whistle sounded sharply through the jungle. Scott Williams sighed and picked himself off the ground, brushing dead
leaves from his threadbare jump suit.
The arseholes! He was sure that had been a danderil rustling through the undergrowth up ahead. Well, he’d never know now.
“Wonder what’s happened?” Alex Fitton said.
“Dunno,” Scott replied. He didn’t mind Alex too much. The man was twenty-eight, and he was happy enough to talk to an Ivet.
He knew some good filthy jokes too. Scott had hunted with him regularly.
The whistle sounded again.
Alex grunted. “Come on.”
They trudged towards the sound. Several other pairs of hunters appeared out of the trees, all of them walking towards the
insistent whistle. Queries were shouted to and fro. Nobody knew why they were being called in. The whistle was supposed to
be for injuries and the end of the day.
Scott was surprised to see a big group of people lined up waiting at the top of a steepish earth mound, there were about forty
or fifty of them. They must have come out from the village. He saw Rai Molvi standing in front of them, blowing the whistle
for all he was worth. He was very conscious of all those eyes on him as he and Alex Fitton made their way up the incline.
There was a large qualtook tree straddling the brow of the mound. One of its thick lower branches overhung the slope on the
other side. Three silicon-fibre ropes had been slung over it.
The group of villagers parted silently, forming an alley towards the tree. Definitely worried now, Scott walked through them
and saw what was hanging from the ropes. Jemima had been the last, she was still choking and kicking. Her face was purple,
eyes bulging.
He tried to run, but they shot him in the thigh with a laser pulse, and dragged him back. It was Alex Fitton who pulled the
noose tight around his neck. Tears ran down his cheeks as he did it, but then Alex had been Roger Chadwick’s brother-in-law.
The run back to his homestead had nearly killed Gerald Skibbow. He had been returning anyway when he saw the smoke, tugging
the errant sheep along on a leash. Orlando, the Skibbow family’s Alsatian, bounded about through the long grass in high spirits.
He knew he’d done well following the sheep’s scent. Gerald smiled indulgently at his antics. He was almost fully grown now.
Oddly enough it was Loren who was the best at training him.
Gerald had traipsed across what had seemed like half of the savannah that morning. He couldn’t believe how far the damn sheep
had strayed in just a few hours. They had eventually found it bleating at the end of a steep-walled gully about three kilometres
from the homestead. He was just grateful that sayce kept to the jungle. They had never had any trouble from the kroclions
which were supposed to roam the grassland, a few distant glimpses of sleek bodies in the grass, some night-time roars.
Then when he was a couple of kilometres from home that terrible blue-white streamer of smoke twisted idly into the sky ahead
of him, its root hidden beyond the horizon. He stared at it in cold fear. All the other homesteads were kilometres away, and
there was only one possible source. It was like watching his own life’s blood pouring up into the cloudless azure heavens.
The homestead was everything, he’d invested his life in it, there was no other future.
“Loren!” he called. He let go of the sheep’s leash and started to run. “Paula!” The laser rifle banged against his side. He
slung it away. Orlando barked urgently, picking up on his master’s agitation.
It was the grass, the bloody grass. It clung to his pounding legs, hindering him. Rucks and folds in the ground kept tripping
him. He fell headlong, grazing his hands, knocking his knee. It didn’t matter. He picked himself up and kept on running. Again
and again.
The savannah sucked sounds away from him. The slashing of the grass on his dungarees trousers, his laboured panting, the grunts
each time he fell. All of them soaked away into the hot, still air as though it fed on them, hungry for the slightest noise.
The last two hundred yards were the worst. He topped a small rise, and the homestead was revealed to him. Only the skeleton
remained upright, sturdy black timbers swathed by shooting flames. The slats and roof planks had already burnt through, peeling
off like putrid skin to lie in crumbling strips around the base.
The animals had scattered. Panicked by the heat and roaring flames they had butted their way through the stockade fence. They
had run for a hundred metres or so until their immediate fear slackened, then wandered about aimlessly. He could see the horse
and a couple of pigs over by the pool, drinking unconcernedly. Others were dotted about among the grass.
There was no other movement. No people. He gaped numbly. Where were Frank and Loren and Paula? And the Ivet work team; they
should all be trying to put out the fire.
With legs like weights of dead meat, and breath burning in his lungs, he ran the last length in a daze. A bright golden rain
of sparks swirled high into the sky. The homestead’s frame gave one harrowed creak, and buckled in on itself with a series
of jerks.
Gerald let out a single wretched wail as the last timbers crashed down. He slowed to a halt fifteen metres from the wreckage.
“Loren? Paula? Frank? Where are you?” The cry was snatched up with the sparks. Nobody answered. He was too frightened to go
over to the remnants of the homestead. Then he heard Orlando whine softly. He walked up to the dog.
It was Paula. Darling Paula, the little girl who would sit on his lap in their apartment back in the arcology and try to pull
his nose, giggling wildly. Who grew up into a lovely young woman possessed of a quiet dignified strength. Who had bloomed
out here in this venturesome land.
Paula. Eyes staring blindly at the swarm of sparks. A two-centimetre hole in the centre of her forehead, cauterized by the
hunting laser.
Gerald Skibbow looked down at his daughter, knuckles jammed into his gaping mouth. His legs gave way, and he slowly folded
up onto the trampled grass beside her.
That was how Powel Manani found him when he rode up forty minutes later. The supervisor took in the scene with a single glance.
All the anger and hatred that had been building up during the day crystallized into a lethal Zen-like calmness.
He inspected the smouldering ruin of the homestead. There were three scorched bodies inside, which puzzled him for a while
until he realized the second male was probably Lawrence Dillon.
Quinn would want to move swiftly, of course. And Lawrence’s feet had been in poor shape even back when he killed Vorix. Christ,
but Quinn was a cold bastard.
The question was, where would he go?
There were just six Ivets left now. Powel had arrived at the Nicholls’ homestead where the second Ivet work team was busy
assembling a barn. His maser carbine had picked them off one at a time under the horrified eyes of the Nicholls family. He
had explained why afterwards. But they had still looked at him as though he was some kind of monster. He didn’t much care.
The rest of the villagers would put them right tomorrow.
Powel stared at the band of jungle a kilometre away. Quinn was in there, that much was obvious. But finding him was going
to be difficult. Unless… Quinn might just head back to the village. He was a true bandit now, he’d need food and weapons,
enough supplies to get well clear of Schuster County. A small roving band could elude the sheriffs and even a marshal (assuming
the Governor sent one) for a long time out here.
Orlando nosed around his legs and Powel stroked him absently. He missed Vorix more than ever now. Vorix would have tracked
Quinn down within an hour.
“Right,” he said to the Alsatian. “Back to Aberdale it is.” It was his duty to warn the villagers what had happened in any
case. Quinn would have taken the homestead’s weapons. Thank Christ the colonists were only allowed hunting rifles, no heavy-calibre
stuff.
Gerald Skibbow said nothing when Powel covered Paula with a canvas tarpaulin used to keep the pile of hay dry. But he allowed
Powel to lead him away, and mounted Sango when he was told.
The two of them rode off across the savannah back to the Nicholls homestead, Orlando racing alongside through the thick grass.
Behind them, the abandoned animals began to wander over to the pool to drink, nervous with their new-found freedom.
Jay Hilton was bored. The village felt most peculiar with no one working in the fields and allotments. By late afternoon all
the children had been called to their cabins. The whole place looked deserted, although she could see people glancing out
of their cabin windows as she wandered aimlessly along the familiar paths.
Her mother didn’t want to talk, which was unusual. After she had come back from the search for Carter McBride she had rolled
onto her bunk and just stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t joined the party which left with Mr Manani to hunt down the Ivets.
Jay walked past the church. Father Elwes wasn’t back yet. She knew he’d done something terribly wrong from the way Mr Manani
had reacted when she mentioned his name earlier, more than just his drinking. But it still wasn’t right for him to be out
in the jungle alone with the evening coming in. The sun was already invisible, skulking below the tops of the trees.
Her enthusiastic and imaginative mind filled the blank jungle with all sorts of images. The priest had fallen over and broken
an ankle. He was blundering about lost. He was hiding up a tree from a wild sayce.
Jay knew the jungle immediately around the village as though a didactic map had been laser imprinted in her brain. If she
was the one who found Father Elwes she’d be a real heroine. She threw a quick glance at her cabin. There was no light on inside,
Mother wouldn’t notice her missing for half an hour or so. She hurried towards the sombre fence of trees.
It was quiet in the jungle. Even the chikrows had departed. And the shadows were deeper than she was used to. Spires of orange
and pink light pierced the rustling leaves, unnaturally bright in the gathering gloom.
After ten minutes she thought that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. The well-worn track leading to the savannah
homesteads wasn’t far off. She cut quickly through the undergrowth, coming out on the path a couple of minutes later.
This was much better, she could see for about seventy metres in each direction. Some of her anxiety evaporated.