Paul Collins - Earthborn The

He smiled at a thought. Whatever made the elders think they could conquer the Earthborn so easily?

Look at the way Gillian glided down the path. These people were born warriors. Their diet comprised raw foods, full of nutrients, unlike Colony's manufactured tablets that provided its population with sufficient protein and vitamins but were lacking in fiber. Only the elders ate the real food, a point that he had never questioned until Sarah had mentioned it one day. The Earthborn were also considerably stronger in temperament than the Skyborn, because of their tougher lifestyle.

Colony people would be no match for them, if it were not for their superior technology. Physically, we're stronger, he reflected. But how long will that advantage last, now that we're living on Earth with its weaker gravity?

Welkin's brow knitted. We. He still thought of himself as a Sky-born. But I eat like the Earthborn, think like them, live with them. What does it take to be one of them?

The trail suddenly became dark and Welkin felt mild alarm. He had lost Gillian. He broke into a run.

The clouds were gunmetal gray with flecks of black threading through them. Sarah said that winter was around the corner. Now that was going to be exciting! Imagine the rain, the snow, huddling up in front of log fires singing songs!

The sense of being watched grew stronger as he rushed after Gillian. If Colony was going to come after them, as Sarah predicted, it would have to be soon, before the snow and blizzards arrived. It was most unlikely they would ride their cruisers in dangerous weather.

Welkin stopped abruptly and listened. His hand went to the quiver, but Gillian's earlier teasing admonishment made him change his mind and he let his hand drop. "Gillian?" he called cautiously. He stepped away from the rough-hewn track and crouched down among some ferns.

She was playing a trick on him. Somehow she'd doubled back andat any moment would jump out at him and laugh her head off. He cursed the foolishness of the Earthborn, then cursed his own upbringing that had left him without any sense of humor.

A sudden crash of snapped branches broke the silence. Welkin spun about, his knife already drawn.

"Gillian? GILLIAN!" Heedless, and against his better judgment, he charged through the undergrowth toward the noise. Branches tore at his face and snagged his clothes, but he ignored them. He heard a grunt over to his left, then a short gasp for air.

Welkin swerved past a towering mountain ash and almost stumbled over Gillian and what appeared to be the body of a man at her feet. She straightened as he skidded to a halt. There was blood on her knife, which she wiped clean on the body's shirt.

"Is it Bruick?" Welkin gasped.

"Dunno," Gillian said. "Sarah always kept me away from the jabbers—seen them from a distance, though." She was glassy-eyed with shock.

"Looks like a jabber," Welkin said. "How'd you know he was out here?"

"I didn't. I sneaked into the bushes and doubled back to give you a fright, when I almost ran into him."

Welkin frowned at Gillian. It was easy to see that Sarah had trained her well.

Welkin looked down at the body. The kid was maybe twelve, with livid scars across his face—Bruick's idea of tattoos. Earrings and nose studs pierced his skin like dirty pins in a cushion.

"It was him or me," Gillian said, indicating the machete that was still firmly gripped in the kid's hand.

"I've never killed anyone close-up before."

"You did good," Welkin said. He searched the body for valuables but found none. The machete was useful, and he pried it from the dead fingers.

"Do we bury him?"

"I don't think so," Gillian said. "Sarah will want to check him out."

When they arrived back at the clearing, Sarah knew immediately that something was wrong. "What's happened?" she asked, then saw the machete.

"The jabbers," Gillian said. "They're here."

It had taken the best part of a month for Sarah to make contact with the families spread out across the width and breadth of Victoria. It had seemed simple enough at first, spreading the word that a large self-sustaining community existed, that it intended rebuilding a law-abiding society, that it offered safety in numbers, an end to loneliness, and the promise of a future.

When weak signals were finally received, Sarah was disappointed at people's reluctance to make contact. It seemed inconceivable to her that families would want to remain isolated and vulnerable. It seemed that the long years of fear had taken a toll.

There was a real need to contact the smaller families, those that wouldn't have access to transceivers.

She'd sent Budge, Con, and Welkin back into Melbourne's outskirts to retrieve her books and CRCs.

Luckily, most of the cellars hiding her treasure were still intact.

She laid out her precious dog-eared map of Victoria and marked with a small cross any location that housed a transceiver. It took several days to identify locations of the old townships where others might be living.

Sarah chewed her fingernail pensively. If she could work out where they were likely to be, then Colony, with its sophisticated tracking equipment, would have pinpointed them long ago. It also made their position in any one spot very precarious.

She called a meeting of the family. "There's an ancient rule of war: divide and conquer. Cut your enemy into small pieces then wipe outthe pieces. Well, we've done the dividing for our enemies, which means we're easy prey. We have to build our family, and build it fast. To do this, we need to somehow motivate others to join us. If they're happy where they are, they won't risk uprooting themselves on the advice of some stranger. Any ideas?"

"It's good belonging to a family," Con said. He looked about him and at once felt safe. Back in Melbourne, there had been only a handful of them. It had made the going tough. "It's obvious," he added.

"We all help one another out."

"But if they feel they have nothing to be afraid of, why should they move? More mouths to feed is the way they'll look at it." Sarah searched the faces of the Skyborn for an answer.

Budge took a deep breath and swallowed a couple of times. "Do the-they kn-know 'bout Co-lonyT'

he stammered.

"Telling them about Colony will only frighten them more. We have to reduce their fear." Sarah returned her attention to the map. She looked up with an expression on her face that suggested she had

discovered something of significance.

"Maybe they're afraid of us," Welkin said. "We could be planning a trap."

"How to convince them of our good intentions?" "People trust what they see, not what they hear. We have to prove we're trustworthy," Welkin insisted.

Lucida looked thoughtful. "We could establish a network of trade routes with them, exchange goods, and create a market for scarce items. And we could take care of families that are having hard times. We could give them food, find them medicines for their children." "Why would we do that?" Con asked, puzzled. "Because that's what a family does, it takes care of its own." There was a long silence. Most of those present had difficulty with this idea; they had lived most of their lives in perpetual danger because resources were scarce, where a person had to steal to stay alive. The notion that to do more than "stay alive," to live like a human being, perhaps meant sharing, was startlingly new and even a little frightening.

Sarah was staring at Lucida in wonder. "You're right! What's thepoint of telling them we're a family if we don't act like one?"

"That's it!" Welkin said.

"But what do we trade? Or . . . give away?" Con flinched at the words.