Paul Collins - Earthborn The

Sarah came up silently behind them. "Gillian? You got a problem?"

"Sorry," Gillian said quickly, then disappeared toward the gaping rent.

"That's about it," Sarah said wearily. "We can't carry any more."

There was an explosive burst of small arms fire from the ruins. Sharp spits in the cold air.

"That's not one of ours," Sarah said. "It means the others have arrived. Could be good, could be bad."

"Sarah," Welkin said. "A few people from the lower decks need help. They're probably scared to come out."

"How many?"

"A dozen or so."

Sarah turned to the others. "You all know where to rendezvous. Con and Lucida, you come with me.

Let's move out."

Gillian and Budge covered them while they crept toward Colony's crumpled hull. Eddying smoke began to rise as though subterranean caverns were spewing fire.

Harry emerged from the tunnel, followed by Efi. Others scrambled out; a few toppled at the first rock or depression that they encountered.

"Listen up," Sarah said. She had to raise her voice to be heard. Everyone seemed so excited. "Follow me closely." She looked at them. They were hyper but edgy, in awe of the planet. There was no time to explain anything to them.

"Where's Lee?" asked Lucida, standing on tiptoes.

"He's not coming," Harry said. "Something about unfinished business."

"You can't let him stay in there while everyone escapes," Lucida said. She went to push past Harry, but Sarah pulled her backward.

A quartz halogen flared, throwing light on the uneven ground. Figures froze, then sought cover.

"It's Bruick. The idiot!" Sarah spat. "Come on. Lucida, forget your friend." She dragged Lucida after her.

A cannon laser scattered Bruick's gang. Clouds of burst mortarjumped from the ground as bright red photons raked the air.

They had barely covered the open terrain to the shelter of the nearest building when a solar flare bathed the area in white light. Lee appeared then, a maniacal figure spraying laser fire at the spotter. It winked out even as cannon fire picked him up and dropped him dead.

Dario ran to where Lee lay sprawled.

"Leave him. He's dead!" Sarah yelled. She cursed the impulsive kid.

Then random cannon fire churned up the ground. In the flickering half-light, Dario went rigid, then slowly toppled to the ground.

"DARIO!" Sarah screamed but knew it was pointless. She had to run to catch up with the others.

She hadn't quite made it to cover when a staccato report from a submachine gun knocked her off her feet.

"Sarah's been hit!" Welkin cried and rushed to her side.

He turned her over. Blood was seeping through her fatigues. "Too late," she said. Blood gathered about her lips. She shut her eyes and grimaced, her jaw clenched tight.

Someone towered over them. Before Welkin could look up, Bruick said, "Now you're the one I was really after, alien."

Welkin squinted. Intermittent flashes illuminated Bruick's scarred face. A bloodstained bandanna was wrapped about his forehead. A smile touched his lips. "Pedros! Green! Over here! Look what I've found!" he crowed. He turned for a split second to search for the others.

It took less time for a throwing star to find its mark. The sliver of metal caught Bruick across his throat. He jerked backward in shock and clutched at the sluicing blood, his face suddenly contorted.

Lucida rushed to Welkin's side. "I killed him, didn't I?" she asked. Her eyes were shocked.

Gillian suddenly appeared from the night. She looked at Lucida with new respect. Perhaps the colonist wasn't as useless as she had first seemed.

"You saved my life!" Welkin exclaimed. He shook her. "Come on, Lucida. Help me with Sarah."

Lucida tore her eyes from Bruick's convulsing body.

They hefted Sarah between them and staggered off in search of the others. Gillian fanned her weapon in a wide arc and followed in the rear.

Behind them, Bruick stanched the blood from his throat with a rumpled bandanna.

Con had forced them to march all night long and into the next morning, taking turns to carry the crates of food and the improvised stretcher on which Sarah lay, her wound lightly poulticed by Efi with herbs from her own emergency kit. He was aware that the Colony people could ill afford to be out in the open when day broke. It would take some of them many months to become accustomed to harsh light.

They rock-hopped across a bubbling brook fed by the Yarra River, which arose in the foothills and flowed through the city and out into the bay. Once a flourishing river, now parts of it were thick with sludge, occasionally given life by torrential rain. Farther upstream they could see raging smudgy waters as they leaped over craggy rocks. At one point they came across a curtain fig tree, whose descending aerial roots fell from its strangled host tree, which had long since rotted away.

"It looks like some swamp thing," Welkin said; then quickly realized the Earthborn wouldn't even have heard of their own comic monsters.

They soon entered a pocket of ghost gums and climbed an escarpment. When they reached its zenith, they looked over acres of semi-burned bushland.

"Fires," Gillian said. "Mundine—the gimp I learned from—used to say it's a natural process. Nature's way of sweeping the ground clean so that eucalypti, bracken, and ferns can regenerate. That right, Sarah?"

Sarah's eyes indicated a smile. "You've been reading, too," she said proudly. Most of all she wanted the kids to read and write. It was the one ability that would place them above the likes of Bruick.

Con pointed at something. Flying low was a pink-breasted galah. The parrot screeched loudly as it disappeared into the foliage of a towering palm.

"What is it? What is it?" the Colony kids squealed in unison.

"Dunno," Con said helplessly.

"Colorful food," Gillian joked, and they all laughed. "I bet Sarah knows—"

She looked back. Sarah had fallen asleep. "Sarah's got a library hidden in a basement back in Melbourne. When we can, we'll come back and take it to the Dandenongs. We'll know everything then,"

she said naively.

During the next hour they were no longer surprised to see wonderfully colored birds. Crested bellbirds with their white faces and black breast bands, Gilbert's whistlers with their distinctive cinnamon throats and black lores, and rufous-bellied flycatchers all flew across their path.

Dumbfounded by all these new experiences, they kept going until daybreak.

Sarah slept for most of the trip, tossing fitfully and moaning from time to time. Angst-ridden, tortured cries. Welkin had not been able to understand her and wasn't sure he wanted to. After a time the outbursts stopped and she fell into a trancelike sleep. Con announced with firm conviction that she was going to pull through.

They bedded down in what Sarah had deliriously described as an old barn. The long-deserted homestead was actually a huddle of makeshift huts. Rusting corrugated iron flapped wildly whenever a gust swept through the rotted timbers.

Despite Sarah's earlier warning, Con lit a campfire to heat water to bathe Sarah's wound as well as to cook some of the pilfered food. While Gillian would not usually disobey her sister, she was quite happy for him to do so this time. Sarah was in no condition to complain; she needed the warmth more than anyone until her fever broke.

The leaping flames fascinated the Colony kids for hours. Zedda andthen Efi managed to burn their fingers despite Budge's warnings not to get too close. They sucked furiously on their wounds and went back for more.

Despite the many wonders Earth held for them, the Skyborn were drawn inexorably to Budge. He held them captivated for hours on end with stories about life on Earth. They were simply fascinated by his bulk and stammering. Zedda, Sarah noted wryly, seemed to have developed a crush on the big kid.