The Retreat (The After Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

He peered around the settlement. The people were bustling, going about their work. There was a rhythm to the camp; everyone had their place.

“You don’t feel that?” he said, tilting his head at the Earth humans.

Romy’s brows furrowed and she looked again, seeing the same thing.

Thrym smiled, taking her hand. “You only ever see the good in people, Ro.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s more a feeling,” he admitted. “A threatening vibe. They’re all watching each other.” He shook his head, trying to find the words. “They’re smiling, but . . . everyone is watching each other too closely.”

She couldn’t see anything like that. But then, she wasn’t the most observant of the knot. That skill fell to Thrym. “You’re not just seeing it there because of,” she darted a glance at Tina, “what we’ve learned?”

His lips firmed in a straight line and he shrugged as though his shirt were too tight. “I don’t know, Ro. I don’t know.”

The knot walked between the bungalows on their way to see Deimos. Romy was starting to get a feel for the area. She had to admit Earth wasn’t what she expected. It didn’t mean she disapproved; it was just different from the pictures and stories she remembered studying.

The settlement was contrasting.

Most of it was simple. The washhouse, the bungalows, the agriculture.

Yet the rest was incredibly high-tech: nuclear-powered electricity, machinery and vehicles, advanced medical and nanotechnology. And Romy suspected they also used brain transmission communication. She’d seen a transmitter in Atlas’s ear this morning.

Atlas’s words about self-sustainability echoed in her mind. Romy took a moment to let everything he had said sink in.

Earth was carbon-neutral. That meant the technology on this world no longer emitted more carbon dioxide than it used.

The planet was more stable now than ever before. And yet its rulers were endorsing genocide.

Maybe Houston was right to call the knot “aliens”—maybe they
were
different from the Earth humans. Romy kicked up a cloud of red dust, earning a disapproving glance from Elara. She ignored her and stomped after Tina.

The people were at once the same and different from what she’d always dreamed. They ranged in all colours, heights, and dress. Their skin was more weathered than any of the knot, but Romy guessed that was due to the harsh conditions and higher temperatures.

When they were going about their daily chores, the people weren’t so bad. In time, Romy might consider approaching them. For the moment her “sacrifice” experience and the knot’s uncomfortable lunch in the Hull was putting her off.

“Do you think Atlas is the leader here?” Romy asked the others when Tina dismissed them and left for her office.

“No idea,” said Phobos. “I’m trying to figure it out. The dynamic between him and Tina doesn’t add up.

Knot 27 made their way through the settlement towards their bungalow, doing their best to ignore the stares.

Romy’s eyes widened as a large four-legged creature streaked past, obeying the whistle of a young boy.

“What
is
that?” she breathed. She’d never seen an animal like it. And it
wasn’t
because Romy only liked cute animals. It was kind of like a dog, but much larger.

“Hybridization?” Thrym asked.

Romy covered her mouth with both hands. “Do you really think so?” She squealed and moved a little closer.

It was just one more effect of warming. As the temperature rose and the habitat changed, it allowed animals to widen their spread—into climates that were previously too cold or lacking in certain foods. Species previously unknown to one another came into contact and mated, forming a blend of the two. Where two weaker species could not endure, one stronger species might.

“What animals do you think survived?” Romy asked, not removing her eyes from the dog-wolf thing. “Just insects?”

Elara stood behind Thrym, not seeming too impressed with the hybrid.

“It would explain the 90 per cent drop in population.” Romy brushed at the red dust on her trousers, hardly aware she was talking to herself.

“Warmer temperature, further spread of insects and therefore disease,” Thrym added.

Romy wondered if he’d directly quoted that from one of their lectures on the space stations. “It must have been devastating. Imagine, 9.9
billion
people.”

Grim faces acknowledged her comment.

“And so is what they’re doing to us,” Thrym said.

“I feel so useless,” Phobos said loudly. “I wish we could warn them somehow.” He stared up at the blue sky.

Romy craned her neck to follow his gaze. They couldn’t see the orbitos from here. Even if they wanted to warn the other space soldiers, how could they reach them? And if they did and were caught, would the knot’s actions secure the death of the eight orbitos
and
the Earth humans?

Atlas’s insinuation that the Mandate would simply wipe out all life from the face of the Earth and start again seemed like insanity.

But then, so did everything else that had happened since they crashed here.

“We stick to the plan.” Elara’s voice wavered. “Get our strength back, gather supplies. Get Dei back. And leave. It’s not our problem. We can’t do anything about it.”

Romy noticed Phobos standing off to one side. She approached him, bumping his shoulder with hers.

“You all right?”

Phobos didn’t take his eyes from the sky. “I miss him.”

Romy’s heart squeezed at his forlorn voice. “I know, Pho. We all miss Dei. But we’ll have him back soon. Did you see how much better he was?”

The young man took a shuddering breath. “We nearly lost him.”

Romy hugged Phobos around the waist as his shoulders began to shake.

Thrym and Elara walked a small distance away, knowing Phobos would hate the audience. Romy stroked his back gently as he’d done for Elara.

“This puberty thing sucks.” Phobos dragged an arm across his eyes.

Romy grinned up at him. “Weren’t the mood swings supposed to be a female thing?”

She laughed as he picked her up and tossed her over one shoulder.

“You shouldn’t insult my manliness, little Rosemary. It provokes me to Neanderthal behaviour.”

A few seconds passed, just a smidge too long. “How is that different from your normal behaviour?” she retorted.

Her short white hair swung as Romy stared at Phobos’s back from her upside-down position.

“Did you guys hear that?” Phobos called ahead to the others. “Romy insulted me!”

Romy heard Elara giggle. “Oh yeah? How long did it take?”

Thrym’s booming laugh joined the mix, and Romy grinned, heart lighter for hearing their amusement.

This is true strength
, she thought. The ability to laugh when everything was crumbling to pieces around you.

R
omy sighed as she polished scalpels and arranged medi-tech programmes. While Houston’s surgery had been in disarray when Atlas gave her this job, Romy had organised the whole room in half a day. For the last three days, she’d nearly gone out of her mind. Sure, there was a lot of downtime aboard the orbitos, but there were also her resources as well as four best friends to keep her company.

Deimos was just down the hall, but she could only spend so much time talking to him in his induced comatose state. And she felt like the others were working hard to earn their keep while she was twiddling her thumbs.

Houston sat at a white desk across the room, plugging notes from his latest patient into a nano. Romy estimated another two minutes would pass before he was out the door again.

“An open fracture of the femur which
didn’t
cause artery rupture,” he chuckled. “What are the odds?” Houston glanced up at Romy.

She exhaled loudly. “No idea, Houston. But I can assure you Thrym would know.” Romy waved a scalpel in the air. “Can’t you talk to Atlas?”

Houston returned to the tapping on his screen. “I have.”

Romy sat up. “And?”

“And the answer was no.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “You explained that I’m hopeless with all of this?”

“I believe I used the word ‘clueless’.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Thanks.”

Houston stood and stretched back, his dirty lab coat falling open to reveal a stethoscope and medi-scanner stuffed in his pockets. “Maybe Atlas just likes having you around.”

Atlas hadn’t spoken a single word to her in the last few days. The only times they’d had any interaction was when he left his office. He would glance into Houston’s room and nod to her on his way to Tina’s office. There were no “hellos”, not even a “how are you fitting in on this foreign world?”.

“I doubt that,” Romy said.

Romy wasn’t sure what to think of Tina, the Earth woman who’d shown the knot around the camp. Unlike many of the settlement women who wore comfortable work clothing, Tina wore camo fatigues like the soldiers. The small woman walked as though she could take on any of the soldiers in the camp. Overall, Romy wanted to respect her.

But something held her back.

And it had to do with the way Tina draped herself all over Atlas. Somehow it made her angry at Atlas, instead of Tina. And that didn’t seem fair.

“Doctor H?” a boy panted from the doorway. He held a floppy hat in one hand. “You’re needed in the gardens. Martha’s collapsed.”

Romy watched as Houston snapped closed the clasp of his bag and swept out of the room.

Romy had gone with him on the first few occasions, after which Houston had kindly hinted that Romy might wish to remain behind. She huffed; it wasn’t like she meant to black out. It had turned out she didn’t like blood too much. They were
space soldiers
. Romy shot poachers from hundreds of metres away—and their blood was yellow.

She wouldn’t mind shooting some poachers right about now.

Footsteps in the semi-circle entranceway had her looking up. Atlas. Returning to his room.
Probably from Tina’s
, she thought darkly.

Romy’s feet moved of their own accord. “Atlas,” she called.

Atlas glanced over his shoulder, one hand on the door, the other on the frame halfway into his office. Romy knew what happened once he entered. The door slammed shut, and no one went in. Ever.

Grey eyes met her blue ones. “Rosemary. What do you need?” He reached up a hand and clicked the gadget in his ear.

She looked at the device curiously.

“Transmission device.” He answered her unspoken question.

“That’s a whole lot smaller than our transmission devices.” The ones aboard orbitos were huge. They took up an entire room.

He smiled. “The limited space aboard the orbitos does not lend itself to much research.”

Romy remembered what she was there to talk about and she felt a twinge of anger at what she coined the “bush smile”. Otherwise known as the smile from before she knew he was lying to her.

Romy wanted answers. More personal answers. And considering he’d lied ever since they’d met, that fact was irritating to the extreme. Was he really forbidden from disclosing everything to them? Was it really unsafe?

His barebones explanation seemed like the convenient excuse of someone trying to take advantage of the situation.

With a start, Romy realised he was waiting for her reply. “I want to talk to you about this job,” she said. “I know Houston spoke with you. And Atlas, he’s not being cruel—I really suck at it.”

A glint entered his gaze before winking out of sight. “Houston needs an assistant.” Atlas continued into the room, gesturing Romy inside.

She swept past him, arms crossed. “Yes, he does. An assistant who
assists
. Thrym would be—”

“No.”

Romy looked askance at the sudden anger on his face. “But . . . why?”

Atlas took her in, his soft grey eyes reading her face. She couldn’t make out his thoughts at all when he stepped towards her, brushing one hand across her cheek. “Just no,” he said.

“That’s not an answer.” But Romy was captivated by his mouth. It was directly in front of her. Usually she was fixated on his eyes, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why his mouth suddenly intrigued her so much.

His lips. They looked soft. What she wouldn’t give to see what they felt like. Her fingers lifted of their own accord and she reached for Atlas’s mouth, stuck in awe’s thrall.

She was mere millimetres from connecting. She held her breath. Would they be as smooth as they looked? A warm hand encased hers, squeezing a little to stop her movement. With a jolt, Romy’s eyes flew up to meet his and heat flooded her cheeks.

“That’s why you’re staying in here,” Atlas said in a husky voice. He accompanied it with a single kiss to the back of her hand that somehow made her stomach flip.

Romy furtively looked back through the open door, thankful, for once, that no one was around. She remembered why she was talking to Atlas.

“But why does my knot get to work outside and I don’t?”

Atlas broke away and retreated behind a large black desk. She rubbed her fingers together, feeling where his hand had been just moments before.

She glanced around his office. Apart from his desk, there were only two other seats. Everything was organised in neat piles, each document apparently having its place. His nano was set in the middle, emitting a pale blue light.

If it was like the one in Houston’s room it would project multiple touch screens—much more advanced than anything on the orbitos.

“Because I said so,” he replied. Atlas was now tapping on his device with a long pen, brow furrowed as he looked over something Romy couldn’t see.

“Let’s get this straight. Elara gets to tag after one of your mechanics.” Romy raised her brow until he nodded.

“And Phobos is with the agriculturists.”

No response.

Romy didn’t mention Thrym’s allocation to the washhouse. In her opinion his placement was just as bad as hers. It was infuriating that Atlas assigned Thrym there when her knot mate had such a good understanding of medicine. And it would have given them ideal access to materials needed to escape. Romy had no idea what to get.

He put down the pen with a sigh. Romy thought his face even softened. Atlas looked at her for a long beat before standing with a scrape of the chair.

He leaned forwards over the desk.

“You will stay here,” he said firmly. “Every person has a role in this settlement. You are needed here. Everyone has to do jobs they don’t like—that includes you.”

Romy studied her feet, hands clasped behind her. He made her feel like she was twelve years old again.

“And,” Atlas said, “if another position comes up, I will consider moving you. For now you will assist Houston with medical.”

His grave expression never changed as he sat down and returned to his nano.

She had no idea what he was doing, and this, on top of his refusal to switch her and Thrym, only made her angrier. “What are you doing?” she asked.

He didn’t spare her a glance. “You know I can’t tell you that. . . . I have work to do.”

With bitter surprise, Romy realised she was dismissed.

Burning with anger, she turned for the door. As she did there was a nearly imperceptible sigh. But when she glanced over at the mysterious man behind the tidy desk, Atlas had the same stone expression she remembered from when they first met.

Slamming the door made her feel better.

Romy pulled up sharply as Tina and an unknown soldier strode out of her office for the entranceway.

Romy smiled uncertainly at the woman who gave her a withering look in return, eyeing Atlas’s door behind her. It gave Romy a certain degree of pleasure to know her presence in his room annoyed the put together woman.

“Don’t you have work to do?” Tina asked. Her tone was assertive, but fell shy of rudeness.

Romy shrugged. “Not really.”

Tina rolled her eyes and swept out the door. The man accompanying her held back slightly. His features were pale, though his eyes were pitch black. An uncontrollable shiver trembled down Romy’s spine at the lack of emotion on his angular face. He was dressed in the same patterned green clothing as the other soldiers. But none of the others had stared at her this way.

Tina’s sharp voice echoed back into the building and the man cut their uncomfortable exchange off, ducking out of the doorway after Tina.

Romy returned to Houston’s room for a mere five minutes before finally acknowledging she couldn’t do anything else to help. Even if Houston came back, she wouldn’t be needed.

Wandering down the hallway, right to the end, Romy peered at Deimos through the glass and expelled a shaky breath. It was still so close to the surface—how they nearly lost him. She understood how soldiers aboard the orbitos went insane after the death of their knot members. It didn’t happen often, because usually the entire craft was blown to smithereens, but space walks failed, or sometimes surviving members were miraculously pulled to safety after evacuating the battlers. These soldiers—the insane soldiers—were sent to Orbito Four. It was the orbito no one wanted. Because if you went there, it was because everyone you’d ever loved in your short, controlled lifetime was dead.

Romy slid open the transparent door and stepped inside, closing it behind her.

Deimos’s breath came evenly now. The ragged splutters of a few days ago were blissfully absent. There was colour in his cheeks and lips. And the long black lashes that matched his long wavy hair were spread out against his high cheekbones. Romy doubted Deimos could pull himself up with how weak he appeared. But this was an improvement, so she wasn’t complaining.

She’d pulled up a chair and had just grabbed hold of Deimos’s hand when the door slid open behind her. She was jerked from her thoughts as a blood-splattered Houston entered the room. Romy wrinkled her nose at the sight.

“Why aren’t you polishing my scalpels for the tenth time?” he asked with a wink.

The young man approached the screen at the end of Deimos’s bed and studied the information there over his glasses. It all looked like nonsense to Romy.

She shrugged, not answering. She was pissed off at Atlas and not in the mood to talk.

“Huh,” was the bemused reply to her silence. “How ‘bout we wake Frankenstein up?”

She knew her expression was utterly blank. “Who is—?”

Houston pushed a series of buttons on the screen. A single beep sounded, and the doctor pushed his glasses up, watching Deimos expectantly.

Deimos groaned and Romy flew out of her seat. She tore her gaze away from her knot mate, who was very clearly waking up.

Houston had both arms stretched outward, hands clawed. “It’s alive!” he shouted.

Romy stepped back as the doctor erupted into manic cackles. The sound cut off abruptly and Houston rounded the table to Deimos’s side.

He took in her shocked expression. “Haven’t seen
Frankenstein
?”

Romy shook her head warily.

“Ah well,” he replied. “You won’t need to now. That was an Oscar-winning rendition.”

He grinned at Romy, who turned her wide blue eyes instead to what the man was doing to her friend. The lanky doctor made sense most of the time, but Romy wondered if he walked close to the edge of madness. Then there was the fact that he wore his archaic glasses when the tech to restore his vision was ancient. Houston was a conundrum.

Deimos was moving his head side to side. Very slowly, as though floating in zero-gravity. It wasn’t long before his eyes visibly moved under his eyelids. Romy held her breath, leaning in to kiss his forehead.

“Dei,” she whispered, stroking his matted black hair. “Wake up, Dei.”

“Ro—” His voiced cracked. His throat worked as he swallowed, painfully judging by the resulting wince on his unmarked face. “Ro?”