First Person (12 page)

“Yeah,
there’s that,” I said, throwing a small splinter of wood I had been playing
with onto the fire. Seeing me and the hatch, she had put something together in
her mind, and called me by my name. I sensed this was the key to my
understanding the events that took place in this woman’s childhood. Dana
whispered something into Kari’s ear, and the girl dutifully went off to where
the bed was. She dug in behind the head, into the wall. I looked away,
imagining this to be some sort of secret hiding place.

When
Kari came back, she was carrying a small metal box. Battered and tarnished with
age, the box was handed to Dana. The girl was excused by her grandmother and
she ran off outside. Dana held the box on her lap, sitting cross-legged on her
cushion. She lifted the lid and reached inside. “I have something for you,” she
said. “From Jane.”

It
was a letter. Dana handed it over but I couldn’t take it. I was excited but to
see an aged envelope with my name written on the front was frightening. Dana
said gently, “Do you want me to?”

I
gulped. “You can read?”

Dana
glanced over to the side, momentarily baffled. “Uh-huh. Don’t you? The giants
from the past?”

“Giants?”
I had no idea what she was talking about.

She
brushed me away with the wave of a hand and ripped the side of the envelope.
Inside was a single piece of folded paper. Dana opened it, read it, and then
held it up to me. “It’s only two words,” she said, sounding disappointed and
annoyed.

I
leaned over and looked at the paper. Two words in marker pen said:
First
Person
. Dana raised her eyebrows at me and I flopped back on my cushion.
“It’s our mission,” I said, as if that explained anything. “I need to get to
Edinburgh, well a place nearby. Do you know of Edinburgh?”

Dana
shook her head. From here, our destination by road was over four hundred miles.
Who knows what it may be now, what the conditions the roads were in. We were
trained to think in miles again, instead of the metric used by the military, so
we could rely on road signs if need be. Now that I had seen Jane’s message,
First
Person
, there was really only one choice. We had spoken about the mission
before I was put into hibernation and now she was reminding me of it again.
Perhaps there was no way to unravel the mystery of what happened here to my
team without going to Edinburgh.

I
had made my mind up, and Dana saw it. She said, “Take me with you. I’ve always
wanted to leave here.”

“I
can’t take civilians,” I told her.

“What’s
a civilian?” Dana stumbled over the word. “But I can guess what you mean. It’s
a term for us folk on the surface that looked after you for seventeen
generations.”

I
stopped her. “Seventeen?”

She
glanced at the door. “Kari is among the seventeenth generation, living and
dying while you slept.”

Stunned,
I pulled myself to my feet and fumbled my way out the door. I gulped in air and
held the brick door frame. I was standing on the old runway, covered over with
this grubby old settlement. Seventeen generations? That could mean anything up
to five hundred years, if a ‘generation’ was between twenty to thirty years.
These descendents of the army Engineers, who built this village, had done their
jobs for much longer than they ever should. I blundered towards the end of the
old runway, to the underground facility. Its massive door was closed securely.
I could see it up ahead.

Behind
me, Dana called out my name but I ignored her. I had to get back underground,
back to the hab module, back to my tube. Wanting only sleep again, I kept
going. A few faces looked at me. Dana kept shouting my name. These were not my
people. Mine were gone, left behind in the past.

I
reached the door and raised a hand to its surface. Little crumbles of rust
pattered through my fingers onto the remains of the tarmac at my feet. Slamming
my hand on the door, I called out for Jane. Shouting her name out over and over
until I was hoarse.

The
last of men did wait upon the shore,

for
their enemy to show his hand,

This
final army carried shattered shields,

and
tarnished swords of bronze,

after
journeys near engulfed by storms,

and
fearing Her nine daughters,

would
steal their souls and do them harm.

For
these are the wars which other men,

would
have you fight,

and
die and be forgotten,

Or
worse, be cursed,

Like
that careless King from ancient times,

who
let his Queen be smashed upon the rocks,

Her
name was damned forever.

Be
careful when you stand below those cliffs,

To
face that forlorn battle,

and
escape this broken land,

you
will need the courage of these men,

at
this ancient place.

From
‘
Ragnarok, and other Stories...
’ by Wendy Beauly

First
published in 1956 by Tea Bay Press & Associates

Reproduced
by kind permission

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