Paul Collins - Earthborn The

"So you're off to seek your fortune?" Patrick O'Shannessey said. His thick brogue was a mixture of Highlander accent and an old form of pidgin English that was currently sweeping through the Earthborn families.

Gillian could understand it all right. But she almost giggled when she remembered the first time Welkin had heard it.

Patrick's partner, Mira, trudged ahead, machete hacking scrub from their path.

Gillian set her face mischievously. "Since the united family came together, we've discovered that there's more 'out there' than just isolated pockets of survivors. I wouldn't be surprised if big cities have come to life somewhere. There's a giant sea that separates us from other continents," she added, repeating Sarah's teachings. She pictured the Silvan Reservoir and marveled that once her ancestors had traveled across a sea mass a zillion times larger than the reservoir. In the glory days the Silvan Reservoir had supplied water to whole suburbs, maybe even Melbourne itself!

"You'd be best to forget them fool notions, girl," Patrick said. He heaved a sigh of despair. He was eighteen and dying of old age. "There's monsters in the deep—anyone'll vouch for that."

Reality snapped back at Gillian. "Haven't seen any monsters in these parts," Gillian contradicted.

"They been cleaned out long time since," Patrick said authoritatively. "Bigguns they were, heard tell."

He thought for a moment. "In water where there ain't no humans, reckon there'd be monsters big as these trees," he said, looking up with wonder on his face. "Bigger, maybe."

Sometimes she felt like screaming. She had her sister's keen mind but lacked Sarah's book-learned experience. There had been monsters, but they dated right back in Earth's preholocaust history. To fight the false beliefs of most families, she needed to know everything Sarah had, and more.

Gillian swallowed her annoyance. Her silence seemed to spark a hope in Patrick. He shrugged to rearrange his backpack. "So what are your plans, girl?"

"My plans are my own," Gillian said. She doubted Patrick would be a spy for Bruick, but the Committee believed they had been infiltrated. Despite their considerable care, Colony still managed to find them, though they no longer believed that Colony homed in on their transceiver signals. This had worried Sarah until the end.

Despite her own suspicious nature, Gillian remembered how close the O'Shannesseys had been to Sarah before her disappearance. If her sister had trusted them, then that was good enough for her.

"Sorry. It's just that I'm still working things out."

"You're right, and you're wrong," Patrick said. "Your business is your business and I've no wish to interfere, but the family needs you. That's a responsibility not lightly cast aside."

Gillian reached out her hand and laid it on Patrick's shoulder. "You two got to know Sarah pretty well."

Patrick nodded slowly. Mira stopped abruptly, and Gillian felt a tension rise between them. "So?"

Mira asked. It sounded like a challenge.

Gillian filed it for future reference. "So," she said casually, "you should know where I'm coming from. I need to follow my sister's example. I need to experience life . . . then I'll be useful to the family."

Mira seemed to think this over. Patrick gestured for her to continue hacking a path, but she shook her head vehemently. "Nay, Patrick." Her face hardened. "You say you're off adventuring, girl. I see no provisions. You'd be ill equipped even to reach Ferntree Gully across the way."

"Mira, it's a Committee person you'd be defaming. Mind your tongue, girl."

Mira took a step forward. Her sharp-edged blade was now menacingly close to a strike position.

Patrick barred her path. "She'd nay be of Bruick's lot. She's Sarah's kin, for God's sake." He sounded horrified at Mira's lack of respect for someone for whom he felt admiration.

"Then of all the families leaving for the plains, why'd she choose to travel with us? And going east, not north like the others?"

Patrick looked quickly over his shoulder. "I can't see it's any of our business, Mira." Nonetheless he looked pleadingly at Gillian to explain.

"She has no answers," Mira said curtly. "Because she's going to the Stockade to report to Bruick."

Her eyes glistened with malice.

The sudden turn of events struck Gillian as odd. Something wasn't right. "I might ask you the same questions. Why are you heading east? No one comes down this way."

Patrick and Mira exchanged quick glances. Mira's eyes went wide, but she said nothing.

Patrick squared his shoulders then, and the backpack fell from him. He took a step back and was immediately aware that Gillian had similarly unhooked her pack.

The three stood in a silent tableau for several seconds. Something scuttled in the underbrush and made a high piping sound, but none of them moved.

Finally Patrick said, "We'll not budge another step till you tell us why you teamed with us rather than any of the others."

Gillian looked from one to the other. Patrick's earlier reaction had obviously been a bluff. She almost laughed when she thought back to when she had first approached the couple, asking to travel to the bottom of the trail with them. It was united family policy to assist fellow members in any difficulty whatsoever.

Patrick had nearly choked. He'd warned her they were "blazing a new trail," that she would be better off traveling with a better-equipped family that wasn't hell-bent on hardship.

She now realized this was no normal family. Her gut instinct was that Mira loathed Bruick with an almost obsessive hatred. This fact became apparent whenever Bruick's name came up. What were the odds of stumbling across a family with motives similar to her own?

"Speak now, Gillian," Patrick said. His voice had turned cold.

"By virtue of my Committee rank I am not bound to answer your questions, Patrick." She looked meaningfully at Mira. "Sure, I have my own agenda. As I now know you have."

"You'd be a mind reader to figure that one," Mira said scornfully. Her knuckles were white on the black haft of the machete. "Go from us." It was almost a plea, Gillian noted with surprise.

"Bruick ..." Gillian said thoughtfully. She looked up at the darkening sky. "You deliberately left the more accessible trail down the east slope to make the going tough so I'd leave you." The thought hit her like an avalanche. "You haven't deviated from your preferred course that much, just enough to make the going tough."

Mira and Patrick seemed to share a silent communication. Mira's affirmation was a barely perceptible nod of her head.

Gillian had been ready to flee. She could possibly take out Mira with a well-aimed knife throw. She felt the reassuring cold steel flush with her calf-high fur buskin. But Patrick would be a hardier combatant.

Weaponless, Gillian didn't fancy her chances at unarmed combat against the more powerful Patrick.

A look of dawning understanding flickered over Patrick's face. "You'd not be Bruick's eyepiece at all." He crinkled his face sheepishly. "Fool's talk, you'll understand. But what then?"

Gillian chewed her lower lip. She tossed up whether to lie or simply give them the facts.

"I'm finishing the business my sister started out to do," she said. She dared either of them to laugh. Her teeth closed tightly. "She'd have wanted that."

"I see," Patrick said. "And this business—would it be to do with the villain Bruick?"

Gillian waved the question aside. "Bruick's going to outlive all his contemporaries." She had never seen the man close up, but her sister's description of him flashed through her mind. "He's devil dealt and now has to pay the price."

"And you'd be settling that score by yourself, like?" Patrick's voice held doubt. For the first time he seemed to collect his thoughts, and he looked about him as though expecting to see an army of family materialize from behind every bush; even Mira altered her stance.