Paul Collins - Earthborn The

"You'll live." She gestured toward Welkin. "This one's another matter."

She cautiously poked her head up, then down. "Looks like we've got them bluffed. Gillian's probably easier prey for them." She scrabbled to where Welkin lay sprawled. Even in the dark Sarah could see that his face had blanched.

"Listen to me, Welkin," Sarah said. "Depending on the arrowhead, this is either going to hurt a lot, or it's going to tear a lump out of your thigh and you won't know a thing, because you're not going to be with us. Okay?"

Welkin blinked, unable to understand her. His entire body was convulsing.

Sarah pushed a wad of cloth into his mouth. "Bite down hard."

Before Welkin could answer, Sarah pushed down hard on Welkin's leg and gripped the arrow shaft.

"I hate this," she said and pulled.

Welkin's muffled scream was short. His body spasmed and then went limp.

Sarah held up the arrowhead to the meager light. "Wasn't barbed," she said to Con, tossing the piece of metal to him. They salvaged everything they could.

"He's lost a bucket-load of blood," she said. She tore more material from her shirt and quickly bandaged Welkin's leg. Lucky he fainted, she thought. Bet he'll ache like all else when he comes to.

She retrieved the laser lance and handed it to Con. "You can use this as a crutch. Yeah?"

He nodded. "You okay with Welkin? We can send somebody back for him."

Sarah hesitated. "No. If Bruick comes looking for us, he'll get him for sure. Best we clear out fast."

Sarah pulled Welkin across her shoulders and scrambled over the ridge and down a steep incline. No one followed them, but back at the warehouse there was a long blast of semiautomatic fire. Sarah dived for cover; Con was a split second behind her.

Guttural voices grew louder. The sounds moved closer, then suddenly veered away. Distantly they could hear the ferals' monotonous drumming and the tinny shrieks of brass instruments.

"You don't think—" Con began.

"Gillian's too good," Sarah said, but the worry on her face betrayed the fact that her confidence was a facade.

"Yeah," Con said, looking over at Welkin. Even now the Skyborn was showing signs of waking. His wounded leg was twitching.

"Okay," Sarah said and scrambled up.

"The cellar?" suggested Con when the three finally slid into a small crater on one side of a vacant block.

"Good thinking," Sarah said breathlessly. Sweat lines ran down her blackened face. "We've stirred up a hornets' nest." She looked at Welkin. He'd woken up some moments before and had already vomited.

"You must be freezing. We have utilities down there. C'mon, it's not far."

"It hurts," Welkin said quietly. If the Earthborn could voice their innermost thoughts, so could he. It was a welcome relief from Colony's rigid social regulations. "I'm giddy." He was finding it hard to concentrate. The dull throb in his leg was the only thing keeping him awake.

"We're nearly there. Promise," Sarah added, her voice tired.

Welkin felt himself being lifted once more, and it was easier to sleep than to worry about things beyond his control.

It didn't take them long to reach their "safe house."

Welkin woke to find himself being supported by both Sarah and Con.

"You're with us again," Sarah said, relieved. Her breath was ragged, Welkin noticed. They must have come a long way.

As though reading his mind, Sarah said, "There are quicker paths leading to wherever we want to go.

But the quickest path is often the most dangerous."

"Since Colony crashed, a lot of the tunnels down there aren't so stable, either," Con added.

"Here it is." Sarah held open a disguised trapdoor. It was a heavy wooden plank with jagged pieces of glass and red brick embedded in it.

Sarah descended into the darkness first, followed by Con who waited for a muted light to appear down below before gently helping Welkin down the stairs. Sarah reached up to lend support.

Sarah froze at a sudden noise. She had a quick look about, then pulled the plank back over the opening. She waited for a moment, listening intently. Too jumpy by half, she chastised herself.

Downstairs, Con had helped Welkin into a chair. He fetched a small crate for Welkin to rest his leg on. Welkin winced as he wearily sank into the chair.

Sarah wedged up a loose floorboard and pulled out a box of herbs. She rummaged around in it until she found what she wanted. "I'm no doctor," she said when she noticed Welkin watching her, "but I'm the best on offer."

"She fixes everyone," Con said confidently. "What she doesn't know about herb lore isn't worth knowing."

Sarah looked at Con. "Now that's a lie." She kneeled down beside Welkin and managed to control

her anxiety. Blood had seeped clean through the bandage she'd applied. She went to the table and made a poultice. "I'm going to fix you up like brand new, Welkin," she said. Another lie.

Welkin craned his neck as Sarah began mashing the herbs. "What are you doing?"

"Mixing up a concoction." She thought a moment. "Comfrey leaves, thyme, and goldenseal, steeped in vodka. You've no idea howprecious this stuff is. Jabbers would kill for it. But they'd drink it and let their people die of infection."

"They call it happy juice," Con said knowingly. "They've found our hidden caches a few times."

"It should stop the inflammation. If nothing else, it'll kill any germs down there." She wanted to keep well clear of the gangrene topic. The last thing she needed was for Welkin to believe he was going to lose his leg. If his wound began to stink in a few days, she would get him back to Colony quick smart. She promised herself that.

"Happy juice," Welkin said morbidly. "Sort of like witchcraft?"

Sarah frowned but kept crushing the herbs. "Bring that water to the boil, would you, Con? And careful. I'll tape those glasses, okay?" She restrained a laugh. Con had somehow balanced the dangling glasses across his nose.

"You're laughing," Con said.

"You look like such an idiot."

She turned to Welkin, suppressing her mirth. "I guess you Sky-born might well call natural remedies a kind of witchcraft." She gave Welkin a quick smile. "I've always had the theory that if the great witch-hunts of the Dark Ages had never taken place we would've all been at peace with ourselves and the Great Whiteout would never have happened. Instead of everything becoming mechanized we would've had a different history. One where Nature would have governed, and not the computer."

Welkin shook his head. "Computers are everything, Sarah." He was almost speechless with incredulity. "How can you say things would have been better without them? Technology got us to the stars!"

"I rest my case," Sarah said. She wrapped the crushed herbs in a tatty piece of muslin and immersed them in the boiled water. When the poultice was soft and mushy, she squeezed out the water and positioned it over Welkin's wound. "This is going to hurt. Try not to think about it."

"Hey, Welkin," Con said, getting his attention. "You see, when computers were invented, they took away a lot of jobs, because they were so efficient."

"What's wrong with being efficient?" Welkin asked. Again hefought for words. The things these Earthborn were saying just made no sense whatsoever. "OUCH!"

Sarah winced. "Nothing's wrong with efficiency," she said, bandaging Welkin's thigh, "but it put a lot of people out of work. In the end, no one had jobs except a handful of computer buffs. The governments sold off everything it owned to get short-term funding, and within a hundred years everything the workers had fought so hard for over centuries, like free medical care, schooling, and social welfare, was abolished."