Paul Collins - Earthborn The

S'posed to scare their enemies. If you ask me, it's lucky they don't have mirrors."

But Welkin wasn't listening. He uttered an involuntary cry of distress, and before he knew what he was doing, he had launched himself forward.

"Oh, no you don't, young fella!"

Welkin swung clumsily at her, but she deftly deflected his punch and wrapped her forearm around his neck.

"Lemme go! Lemme go!" he screamed. The woman's hand clamped over his mouth, muffling the words. After a long moment, he subsided. She took her hand away but kept it poised, ready.

"You're cannibals!" He spluttered the unfamiliar word. It triggered a series of flashbacks from Colony's, video archives. "Argh!" he screamed and bit down hard on the woman's palm.

"Mongrel!" She yanked her hand away and grabbed him roughly by his tunic, jerking him forward.

Welkin's face collided with hers. He could smell the earthiness of her skin, her sweet-sour breath. Itwas nothing at all like Lucida's fresh breath and crisp smell. Thought of his sister propelled him backward, but the woman's fingers drove deep into either side of his jaw like steel clasps.

"Listen, you little ..." With an effort she loosened her grip, and the ferocity in her eyes faded like a passing shadow. She flicked him backward and he fell back on his elbows.

The woman went to drag him up, but something held her in check. She knelt down beside him, clicking her tongue, and shook her head disapprovingly.

"Don't ever call me a cannibal! Got that, spaceboy? 'Cause if you want to meet real cannibals, I can introduce you. Any time you like!"

His stomach began to constrict, and before he knew it he was vomiting.

"Oh, shit," the woman swore and jerked backward. After a moment she said hoarsely, "You done now?"

Welkin nodded miserably. He couldn't control his body. It spasmed with fright, and for long moments he felt as though the foul-tasting air was killing him. He had to let her think that he was cooperating. If her attention glitched for one second, he'd be dead.

"Take long, deep breaths," the woman said and illustrated her instructions. She glanced about furtively. "We're running out of time, kid. Do it now!"

Welkin sniffed and wiped a cuff across his face to clear it of vomit. He tried to follow the woman's instructions, but he barely had the energy.

He looked anxiously around. The "ferals" were ripping packs from around their victims' waists.

Pocketing whatever they could. Ever watchful. Distrustful—some fighting over bounty. Shoving one another. Wrestling on the ground.

Welkin whimpered.

With a yank the woman snapped his head around sharply. "Pay attention!" she barked. "They're dead.

We're alive. There's nothing you can do to help them.

"Ferals," she repeated. "Run for your life when you see them." She shook him roughly. "Stay awake, kid. You need your wits about youout here. Name's Sarah." Her voice softened, but it still had an urgency about it, a tenseness. Like she had something on her mind that she would rather discard.

Welkin swallowed hard. His throat was parched. Confused thoughts crowded his mind. He was on Earth and he could breathe the air. He pushed hard at all the counterproductive thoughts that tore at him.

The elders had said the Skyborn would die out here without oxygen. Colony personnel had been told the Earthborn had plundered the Holy Earth, and redemption by genocide was the only solution.

Sarah quickly checked their position. "I asked your name," she snapped. "You people talk another language now or what?" Her patience was thin edged. "Maybe now you're all a bunch of uncivilized barbarians, huh?"

Welkin was momentarily too shocked to answer. The idea that this . . . primitive creature . . . could regard the Skyborn as uncivilized was so staggeringly ludicrous, so far outside the narrow box of his thinking, that for a brief instant he thought he was misinterpreting her.

She prodded him and spoke to him as though he were a moron. "Me Sarah. You Spaceboy."

"Welkin. My name is Welkin. And I'm Skyborn," he said proudly and with enough adolescent conceit to draw a slight smile from Sarah.

"That figures." Sarah was contemplative. "Old Earthspeak. Not tainted like ours. Something about a plum. A plum in the mouth," she muttered to herself. "Well, your lordship, my apologies for saving your life just now, but I reckon that if we don't get the hell out of here— reckona t'we dung't t' hellouda 'ere

—we're gonna be on somebody's menu tonight. You reading me?"

He stared at her in sullen contempt, then nodded. She's quite mad! Welkin watched her carefully, waited for her to loosen her grip. But then something else occupied his mind. For the first time in his life he felt a cold wind rushing at his face. He touched his cheeks and worried at their numbness. It was how he'd imagined being thrown into deep space might feel. Cold and desperate. With a knowledge of certain death.

"You're an odd one," Sarah said meditatively. She watched him with fascination as he wiped sudden tears that coursed down his grimy, unblemished skin. She clicked her tongue as though annoyed and with the dirty edge of her shirt sleeve wiped the last of the vomit from his face.

Sarah suddenly looked up at Colony, and her expression hardened. "Reckon they'll have us on infrared right now. What to do, what to do," she pondered. Her grip on Welkin was still viselike.

They sat there staring at one another until the crimson sky became darker and the shadows lengthened across the rubble-strewn street.

"It's time," Sarah said. She turned away but reconsidered. "I'm not with the blokes that just killed your comrades. All right?" His expression was blank. Perhaps he was having as much trouble understanding her as she did him? She talked more slowly. "There are dozens more gangs like them. But my people aren't like them. Understand that. Even if you understand nothing else." She looked down at his unusually thick thighs. Steroid injections? "You can run from me—you people are damn fast—but it'll do you no good. They're all murderers out there. See?"

Welkin nodded warily. On Colony she would be one of the degenerate renegades lurking down on the lower decks. Bilge fodder. Then an odd thought occurred to him. Maybe some of the lower deckers weren't degenerates. Harry had seemed normal enough, had even been his shipmate. Was he really

"diseased"? It was very confusing. But right now he was on this woman's turf. Degenerate or not, it made sense to go along with her, learn as much as he could.

A vague idea came to him, something to do with Harlan Gibbs . . .

Welkin's stomach tightened and he gasped. It was a cramp reflex that occurred when he had what the elders warned were revolutionary thoughts. Never have those thoughts!

"You okay?" Sarah said. "Don't die on me, Skyborn."

Welkin nodded and cleared his head of the bad thoughts.

"Good. I hope that's settled. Stay close." She lowered herself and belly-crawled over the tumbled bricks.

Welkin watched in frank amazement. She reminded him of those eels he had seen on Colony's viewbacks: a slithering thing that rolledfrom side to side across the bottom of murky water. Or a snake—

a... sidewinder.

Sarah hadn't gone five yards when she looked back. "It'll be dark soon—you people don't like the dark, do you?"

When Welkin's face darkened, she said, "We've been watching your lot for days. No activity at nights to speak of," she mused.

Welkin hesitated. Colony was no longer an option. They'd put up a shield to prevent entry. The ferals— feras —would murder him for his suit. It was getting dark as deep space was dark. Darkness was a prospect that further churned his stomach. He tested his legs gingerly. Whatever malady had caused him to lose his control had dissipated. He scurried after her, mimicking her belly-crawl as best he could.