Paul Collins - Earthborn The

"Okay, we officially tar and feather Gillian tomorrow and run her out of town," Welkin said. The image of tarring and feathering the diminutive yet feisty Gillian brought out several rueful smiles and eased the tension. "Where's all this getting us, huh?"

"Better to have these things said than left unsaid," Denton said.

Everybody nodded, even Gillian, who was still smarting from Lu-cida's perceptive words.

Welkin pushed himself away from the table. "I think we should call it a day. Gillian and I are beat."

"Then let's reconvene tomorrow," Efi said. She got up and unexpectedly gave Gillian a big hug.

Gillian's surprise was almost comical. Then one by one each Committee member hugged her, told her how glad they were that she was back and in one piece. Tears flowed down Gillian's face and she couldn't talk past the sudden constriction in her throat.

Afterward, she let Welkin take her hand and lead her out into the midafternoon sun.

"Thanks," Gillian whispered. "Efi was ... so strange. What were all those weird words she used?"

Welkin ruffled her hair. "The elders banned foreign language a long time ago. Some people refused to forget their heritage. It's probably because of her outbursts in Greek that she was found out and discarded to the lower decks. She babbles that stuff only when she's really angry or frustrated."

Gillian thought about that. "Banning hundreds of languages on a ship like Colony makes sense, huh?

But it'd wipe out all diversity— make everything uniform. Neat and tidy."

Welkin cocked his head in contemplation. "Colony couldn't afford the luxury of risking different cultures, the possibility of racial tension. It was okay for the pioneers, because they intended to terraform Tau Ceti III. But when the long journey home began, the elders started on the Great Purge."

Gillian tightened her grip on Welkin's hand. The more she knew about the colonists the more confused she became.

Elab paused beneath a deodar cedar. Hidden behind its gray trunk, he scanned the tree's lofty branches and considered climbing them. Its gold-tipped foliage would present good cover, but he didn't feel like climbing through its needle-sharp leaves.

He glanced over to where Zocky was crouching behind the gray-green foliage of a mugga ironbark. It

seemed inconceivable that anything so horrific as mass murder could have been committed in such an idyllic setting.

With a start he realized the others were waiting for him and Lars to move forward. He gave the signal and advanced warily at a half crouch. He could sense rather than hear Lars behind him. Each footfall dislodged perfumed pollens into the air. Someone sneezed, and he waved frantically to them to keep quiet.

Overhead a kookaburra cackled raucously.

"Damn bird," Lars mumbled. "Reckon I could hit it from here."

Elab stopped, glad perhaps for the chance to break his morbid train of thought. "What on earth would you want to kill a kookaburra for?" he whispered. "There'd be less meat on it than a rat."

Lars pulled his lips back in a tight grin. "Rat ain't so bad."

Elab shook his head. Lars was one of those people who have an irresistible urge to rile anyone and everyone; the type who badger you just to see how far they can push you.

They reached the first outhouse without trouble. Judging from its solitary location, Elab figured it must be the community's toilet. Aloose sheet of corrugated iron banged against the rafters. The intermittent rattling noise was a welcome relief from the township's sullen silence.

In more normal times, Elab knew there might be dogs frolicking in the long grass, children playing in the field, buildings going up or coming down, babies wailing for food.

"What's taking you so long?" Lars hissed. "There's no one here but us and the bodies."

"Shut up, Lars," Elab snapped. "Just shut up." Elab knew he wasn't looking forward to getting up close to those decaying bodies. Already a northerly breeze was sending the stench of putrefaction across the small paddock. Tiny black dots covered the severed limbs, and Elab fancied he could hear the buzzing sound of frenzied blowflies.

"We could always detour, boss," Lars said laconically. "You should be so lucky, Lars," Elab said between gritted teeth. "You're going on burial duty as soon as we scout the place."

Before the other could answer, Elab loped off toward the next building. It was one of a row of decrepit pine-log settlers' huts. Farther afield he could see what appeared to be a sandstone and mud-brick church. It looked as deserted as the rest of the settlement.

He waved the others on. Slowly they reached the innermost part of the town. Elab felt the tension leave him when they finally converged on the town center. A wooden wash trough lay upturned on an untrammeled garden bed. Abutting the church building, an unruly boxthorn hedge was spreading its limbs like a porcupine's quills. It all looked just too normal.

"Nothing," Devan broke the silence. "Looks like they just up and went."

"They didn't 'up and went' anywhere," Lars reminded them.

They heard Lars stomping across a wooden veranda. He held up a crust of bread. "Wouldn't want to eat it, but I'd guess it's only a couple of days old."

"So they got out in a hurry," Elab pondered aloud.

"If anyone was left," Zocky said. She still had her bow strung andheld firmly in her left hand. It was a reassuring sight. If the going got tough she was a good one to have around. Elab twisted around to tell Lars and Devan to dig a burial pit. He gasped as pain tore at his kneecap.

"You all right?" It sounded insincere coming from Lars.

"Fine," Elab said curtly. "Just twisted my knee joint. Look, you and Devan find something to dig a hole with. We can't leave those settlers out there. Even animals deserve a decent burial."

"Sure, boss," Lars said. He threw the laserlite across his shoulder and nodded for Devan to follow him.

Elab turned to Zocky and Harry. "I guess the rest of us may as well conduct a search. There has to be food that's salvageable."

"You reckon it's safe to hang around here?" Zocky queried.

"It's getting dark. At least we'll have shelter for the time being. Sure beats sleeping under the stars and getting rain soaked." When no one challenged his statement, he went off in the direction of the church that dominated the town square.

The church appeared to be the only sturdy structure in the township. Its slanting, rusted roof had been patched in recent years, and the galvanized iron sheeting reflected the sun's late-afternoon glare.

Its facade was a jigsaw of bluestone, mortar, and mud-brick. The folk around here had obviously gone to some effort to maintain at least one symbol of belief that something was right in the world. It was strange how, no matter what else vanished or was forgotten, the systems of belief that had maintained human society for more than two thousand years always survived. Or perhaps it wasn't strange, perhaps religion was the one thing that dark days always nourished . . .

The one glaring mistake the settlers had made, Elab thought to himself, had been to establish a permanent settlement so close to Melbourne itself—and close to Colony. This thought troubled Elab as he conducted his inspection of the building. How had they endured so long? Surely Colony would have known of their existence. Had they struck some sort of deal with the Skyborn? That made sense. Colony would have needed to communicate somehow with the Earthborn atsome level. Information from computers was all very well up to a point, but it needed to be supplemented by data gathered on the spot. He'd learned that particular fact a long time ago.

Elab looked at the two narrow leaded windows that had long since been boarded over with mismatched plywood. Someone had gone to the trouble of painting the patches with intricate patterns in various dyes.