Paul Collins - Earthborn The

"Cruisers?" Sarah queried, an unusual tiredness in her voice.

"Flying bikes," Welkin supplied. "They normally patrol in fours."

"But there were two teams," continued Elab. "It was hard to tell where they were coming from."

"They make a high-pitched whining sound," Harry said. "The noise from their propulsion units surrounded us. We scattered, but there was nowhere to hide. They've flattened whole blocks. It's like the surface of an asteroid back there. Nothing but fused and contorted rock for miles. They've squashed everything."

"They've got their own city," Sarah mused, thinking of the juggernaut known as Colony.

"You never did think we stood a chance of getting back on board, did you?" Harry asked pensively.

"What I thought doesn't matter. It's the trying that does. You tried." She looked at the faces directed toward her. Babes in the woods, each thinking perhaps he or she knew better. She needed to set them straight and she needed to do it now, while they were still raw.

"I've outlived most of my generation, yeah? I don't have the degenerative gene." She searched for the right words. "But it means more than that. I'm alive because I know when to duck, when to run, and when to fight. Some of you were on the lower decks for a while. You also learned, otherwise you wouldn't be here. Well, it's our job to make sure everybody benefits from our experience." She paused, but no one spoke. "And age doesn't mean that I'm infallible. A war is coming. And we have to be ready for it. You have the right to choose your own leader."

There. She had said it. An awkward pause followed, which Lucida broke. "You're doing all right, Sarah. I think I can speak for all of us here. We owe our lives to you."

Sarah looked carefully at each of them, then slapped her hands on her knees and got up. "That's settled, then. I'm off to bed. Early to bed and early to rise, will make you something, something, and wise." At their confusion, she admitted that she'd forgotten parts of the quote.

"I'm worried about these cruisers," Sarah admitted to Elab the next morning. "Also, we're pretty vulnerable here. If you guys could paddle upstream, I'm sure Colony troopers could easily cruise above the river in a tenth of the time."

Elab smiled. "You don't know how much trouble we had taking to the water. None of us can swim.

Skyborn have never bothered with it, although we have a sim game designed to accustom us to it. We always figured swimming was hard work. It was the least-used sim on board Colony."

Sarah swung down with a piece of timber and drove another stake into the ground. She knew that the ninety-yard-high mountain ash forests with their understory of blackwood and tree ferns provided decent cover from Colony craft, but even at this early stage, she was planning to outmaneuver Colony. She had no delusions about ever conquering the Skyborn, but maybe, just maybe, she could discourage them.

Even now she realized that time was her enemy.

She sniffed the air and seemed to soak in the tangy forest smells. Blab's next question snapped her back to the here and now.

"Looks like they've nearly organized the transceiver."

"Couldn't have done it without Lucida," she said, as she heard some voices cheer. "Soon as we've made enough of those huts, we'll be moving out." She smiled. "Everything's going to be portable, Elab.

Even the antenna. It'll mean a shorter range, of course, but we'll be safer."

"What makes you think anyone's left out there?" he asked flatly. Sarah stared vacantly across at the rolling hills of dense bush. "There are people out there, Elab. Families, just like ours. They'll hear the call and come."

"Things will never be the same as they were," he said, looking up at her. "You people have lost too much."

Sarah looked at him curiously. "We don't want them to be the same, Elab. Ever." She could have smiled, but an inexplicable melancholy came over her. "Come on. The day's slipping by."

They were just in time to see Con hooking up a guy rope. Another rollicking cheer went up and it echoed across the hills. Sarah could not describe the sense of overwhelming triumph and camaraderie she felt over such a seemingly trivial achievement.

They all craned their necks to see the tip of the antenna that seemed to probe the dark, scudding clouds. It was Sarah's greatest hope that it might one day link the Earthborn globally. Of necessity it was a simple affair: grafted aluminum struts and cannibalized satellite dishes patched with foil tape. Whatever its shortcomings, the Earthborn were temporarily elated by its accomplishment.

Farther down the track, Welkin finished tying a handle to the side of a hut. They'd made five of them now, and he allowed himself a chuckle. They gave the appearance of a row of rickshaws. He had seen a vid of something similar years ago. Maybe Sarah had seen them in some old book? She was always saying that knowledge was power. Perhaps this was what she meant.

Welkin heard the cheers. He was sorely tempted to start on the next hut, but he'd be expected up there. Suddenly he realized that something was worrying him. It was the silence after the cheers. The cicadas and bullfrogs were stilled, birdlife was no longer chirruping. The countless rumblings of the dense scrub had suddenly become silenced. Then he heard something. The crack of a breaking twig.

He dropped to all fours, monkey-crawled to the edge of the clearing, and sat in shadow as the morning mist cleared. He scanned the immediate vicinity, eyes squinting vigilantly.

He rested on his haunches, cursing his aching thigh. "Ohmistars!"

he said, stretching his right leg even as it began to stiffen. There was no way it should still be healing after all this time.

Without conscious thought, he unhooked the bow from his shoulder, withdrew an arrow from his quiver, and strung it. His fingers straddled the bowstring and he bent the bow, testing its power. If Colony people were out there, as Sarah feared, he was as good as dead if they found him here alone. He knew better than the Earthborn just how inferior Earth weaponry was.

Steeling himself against the fear of ambush, he scrabbled from under his cover at a quick but limping trot. Another distant cheer went up and he silently wished the antenna crew would rejoice in silence. At the bush fringe, he fanned his nocked arrow in a semicircle before continuing down the trail that meandered partway into the shelter of the scrub.

A wild animal thundered through the undergrowth somewhere to his left. A pheasant or, more likely, a wood pigeon flapped in sudden alarm through the upper branches of a stringybark.

Perspiration soaked his face, attracting a swarm of ravenous biting flies. Damn the insects! According

to Sarah, they loved the salt. He brushed them away with his wrist and again cursed their dogged persistence.

He crept silently through the undergrowth. To his own ears each footfall sounded as though some drunken oaf was stumbling across dry leaves; but in fact he moved in silence like a shadow. He had Sarah's tuition to thank for that skill.

"Hiya, Welkin!"

Welkin whirled. His left arm had already powered back to draw the bowstring even as he recognized the voice.

"Gillian!" he hissed with relief. "You could get yourself killed creeping up on people like that."

Gillian laughed. "Sarah's really got you spooked, hasn't she?"

Welkin loosened the bowstring and put the arrow back in his quiver. As well as Gillian, he felt another presence—something else lurking unseen. "You can't be too careful," he muttered through tightened jaw muscles.

Gillian yawned mightily. "You coming up for the celebration? Sarah's asking after you."

"Yeah, I'm coming," he said. He watched Gillian skip lithely along the path.