A World of Ash: The Territory 3 (4 page)

The Holy Order dirigible floated through the air as near to soundless as possible. The grinding and clunking of the propeller shafts had slowed almost to nothing as the airship used its momentum to float in toward the walled city of Alice. It hung in the air as if it were itself a cloud, a part of the sky, defying the constant pull of the earth below, seemingly unconcerned with gravity.

Inside, on her hands and knees looking down through the toilet hatch, Lynnette Hermannsburg
was
concerned with gravity. She couldn’t help but wonder how much pull there must be on something as big as a dirigible. If the balloon above happened to suddenly deflate or the airship itself somehow came away from the balloon, as had happened to the pirates’ airship, she would have no choice but to plummet to the ground along with it. Being dropped to the ground in a cargo cage was altogether enough plummeting for her.

Through the open hatch in the floor Lynn could see the slums surrounding the walled city of Alice. She had once thought of this place as the last stronghold of mankind, all that was left of civilization. Now she knew that was a load of old ghoul dust. She had been out beyond the ghoul-proof fence and learned they weren’t alone in this rusted world. She had been further than most people dreamed, but now the Holy Order was bringing her back.

As they approached the Wall between the Alice Inside and the Outside Lynn grew more and more concerned – not only because she was moving ever closer to the High Priestess but because she could see how much the slums had expanded. Even from the air Lynn could tell they were more crowded and chaotic than ever before. There must have been thousands and thousands of people outside the Wall of Alice now, maybe ten thousand. Lynn knew why they were there. They had come from all across the Territory, following the orders of the High Priestess to seek sanctuary inside Alice. Lynn felt a hot rage well up in her. She knew the truth. The High Priestess was going to leave all these people outside to die, to fall prey to the horde of ghouls that even now moved closer and closer to the city. Lynn wasn’t going to let that happen.

After a short time the Wall came into view. They passed over it, and for a moment Lynn’s view down through the toilet hatch was perfectly split between the neat streets of Alice and the disorderly buildings and flapping fabric of the slums. It was a contrast all the more obvious for being in the air above it, a line drawn in the sand dividing the haves from the have-nots.

As they passed over the streets of Alice Lynn stared down through the hole, searching for landmarks she could recognize. It was more difficult than she first expected. She could see people walking, bio-cycles and bio-trucks moving along the streets, but only being able to see the roofs of buildings meant it took quite a while to recognize the streets themselves. Eventually she realized they had flown in over the area of the city known as the Gap, the least prosperous part of Alice but still much wealthier than the slums. The dirigible soon turned north toward the center of the city. They weren’t going to the Supreme Court as Lynn had anticipated; that was over near the Great Gate. They were flying toward Steven Square, and the only building they would be flying to there was the Cathedral of Glorious God the Redeemer.

Lynn calmed herself. It wasn’t as if this was entirely unexpected. It was okay if they were taking her straight to the cathedral. That meant they would fly over Traeger Park, the park she used to visit with her father and eat chocolate fruit-o-licious ice-cream in the shade of the gum trees. It was the park she had seen the Holy Order dirigibles fly over before all this had happened, when she hadn’t known they might have been flying to and from a secret prison beyond the fence. It was the park she planned to use in her escape. She still had no better idea than to drop down out of the toilet hatch and land in the tops of the trees, hopefully catching some branches on her way down.

They followed the streets north and Lynn picked out corners she recognized, shops she had been to. They flew over the schoolhouse where Ms Apple had been her teacher. Lynn knew it by the wide stone steps leading from the street to the building’s double wooden doors. She wondered where Ms Apple was now. Maybe she was in the schoolhouse right that moment teaching Bren and the other students Lynn had shared her class with. Lynn felt a sudden pang, a longing to see Ms Apple again, even if it meant more of her tsking and tutting. She was one of the few people left in the world who Lynn truly believed cared about her.

Once past the schoolhouse and a few more crisscrossing streets Lynn saw the metal fence that bordered Traeger Park, and the paved path weaving among the browning grass and trees. This was it. This was where she would try to make her escape. But as the copse of trees came into view Lynn suddenly suspected that, despite the dirigible beginning its descent, it was still too high for her to jump. The rational part of her mind began to explain that if she dropped from this height it wouldn’t matter if the trees were made of feather pillows, she would still meet the ground very, very hard. They were probably even higher than the pirate dirigible had been when Melbourne had dropped her and Squid in the cargo cage, and Lynn remembered the way the wooden cage had shattered and split when it hit the ground. But what choice did she have? She had to get out of there before they reached the cathedral.

She swung her legs around and let them dangle out of the hatch hole. She could feel the cool breeze moving past the skin of her ankles where her pants had pulled up. Looking down between her knees, the height made her head spin. Her legs tingled as if all the blood in her body was dashing around madly looking for an escape before she did something incredibly stupid.

Lynn knew she had done dumb things in her life – posing as a boy to join an army and march against tens of thousands of undead ghouls probably chief among them – but at that moment this idea felt like the stupidest. Below she could see she was running out of trees and soon she would run out of park altogether. If she missed this chance there wouldn’t be anything else but streets and buildings until they reached Steven Square and the cathedral. She took a deep breath, hoped to the Ancestors that the trees would break her fall, went to push herself over the edge and … did nothing.

She couldn’t do it.

Some instinctive part of her mind was freezing her body, overriding her, too afraid of the fall to let her take the plunge.

The park below was replaced by streets and buildings again. She’d missed her chance. Now she really did have a one-way ticket to the cathedral and an inevitable meeting with the High Priestess. Lynn pulled her feet back inside the airship and dropped the hatch closed. She sat against the wall and waited.

The airship began a series of maneuvers to lower its altitude, and Lynn saw that they would be landing on the roof of the cathedral. She had seen this happen from the outside before. The airships initially flew past their landing site before they turned in ever-tightening circles while reducing their height and speed until they almost hovered above where they intended to land. They dropped guide ropes down to people waiting below, who pulled them taut and held the ship steady as the vessel completely opened its air bladders and sank down to land.

Lynn could hear shouting outside as those on the guide ropes called instructions to each other. This was followed by a jolt as the dirigible landed. Despite knowing she was on the roof of the Cathedral of Glorious God the Redeemer, the place she hated more than any other in the entire world, she still felt a sense of relief to have landed. If, by some miracle, she wasn’t executed in the next few days, she vowed never to fly on another of these Ancestors’ damned contraptions again.

It was over an hour before Lynn heard the door unlock and open. A Holy Order clergyman she didn’t recognize stood in the doorway.

“Up,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Lynn didn’t move. Her thoughts turned to the caged girl she had seen brought into Alice when she was walking with her father that very last time. That girl had stood her ground against the Holy Order. She had even tried to run. Could Lynn do the same thing? At the time she had felt pity for that girl from the Outside, but now she knew how strong she must have been to stand up to the red cloaks. Lynn wanted to be strong like her.

The clergyman entered the hold. “I said, get up. Do you really want to make this worse?”

Lynn felt her heart begin to pound against the inside of her chest. Her breath came fast.

The clergyman stared at her as he stalked forward. He indicated the hold around them. “It’s just you and me in here,” he said. “No one else to see what happens.”

Lynn went cold as she remembered the terror she’d felt when that lone pirate had come for her in the dark. Now she was feeling it again. She hated that her desire to be strong was being eroded by fear. Her muscles quivered as the clergyman continued toward her, but she didn’t move.

The man loomed over her. He shook his head. “Really?” he said. “You want it to be this way?” He leaned down so that his face was only an inch or two from Lynn’s. “This is your last chance to get up and come with me before things turn nasty.” The man ran his tongue across his teeth as his lips turned up in a satisfied snarl.

Lynn stared at the man and something shifted within her, a sudden replacement of fear with hatred and rage. It had happened before, she realized: when she’d first faced the Administrator, when she’d fought Glenden, Tank, Rusty, and Darius at the Academy, and in the slums, and it was happening now. It was that temper she normally tried to rein in. The feeling that the entire world was about to crush her and all she could do was fight madly against it. It was filling her, and this time, she wasn’t going to stop it.

Lynn threw her head forward with all the strength she had. Her forehead connected with the clergyman’s nose in one sudden, sickening, and for Lynn at least, satisfying crunch. The impact hurt her head but she knew it would be nothing compared to the pain the clergyman felt. He threw his head back, howling, blood flying from his face in a stringy arc. Lynn hurriedly stood and launched a kick that landed right between the man’s legs. His howling voice suddenly left him as his hands shot to his groin. He dropped to his knees and then onto his side, moaning.

Lynn looked to the doorway. Two more clergymen were hurrying in, no doubt alerted by their colleague’s cries. For a moment Lynn thought about taking the shortsword that hung at the injured clergyman’s waist, but the fingers of her right hand were still swollen and useless from when that rat-faced pirate had mercilessly broken them aboard the
Blessed Mary
. Instead she kicked the man on the ground in the stomach. He grunted.

When the two clergymen grabbed her roughly by the arms she didn’t bother to struggle. She cocked her head back and spat in the direction of the wounded soldier. There was no reason to do this except to satisfy herself, and satisfy her it did. She even smiled as she watched the red-cloaked shape on the ground as the other two clergymen began pulling her toward the door. Taking down one Holy Order soldier wouldn’t accomplish anything in the long run but it had done something for Lynn. She wasn’t afraid of them anymore. Burning desire had reignited within her. She would expose the Administrator’s crimes, she would expose the High Priestess’s plans for the Territory, she would take the Holy Order down, and she would find a way to get all those out in the slums inside the city before the horde arrived. And right now, with the fiery rage within her, nothing was going to stand in her way.

Squid stared at Ernest in disbelief. His gaze traveled from the man’s face to the double-barrelled gun he held. A confusing rush of emotions overcame Squid: anger, betrayal, fear. He turned to Nim, who was looking around at the men from Reach. His face didn’t show confusion, however. The tattooed lines covering his skin curved in and around his eyes in a mask of fury.

“What are you doing?!” Nim snarled in his rasping voice. “Put your bloody guns down.”

“I’m sorry,” Ernest said to Squid, ignoring Nim, “but there ain’t no other way. Take us to the vaccine, and do it quickly.”

Squid knew he should have trusted his instincts. Somehow he’d known that those banging on the door couldn’t be trusted. He wished Lynn was with them. She would know how to get them out of this mess. Never again would Squid be burned by the self-interested people of this world. Never again would he trust anyone. Nim, Lynn, his mother, they were the only people in the entire world he could rely on. Everyone else was a ghoul or a predator in their own way.

“Why are you doing this?” Squid asked.

“I told you, lad. We’re the protectors of this place. That has been our role for hundreds of years. It’s up to us to see that the vaccine ain’t wasted.”

“Why can’t we just take some each?” Squid said. “There’s so much down there, easily enough for everyone. We all want the same thing.”

Squid couldn’t read Ernest’s face as he stared at him. For a moment Squid thought maybe he would agree, but instead the older man motioned with his gun for Squid to move back into the dome. Squid did so and the other men dressed in the white uniform of the Reach Border Patrol followed them inside.

“Close the door,” Ernest said. One of the Border Patrol hit the green button on the inside wall. The doors slid closed and once again sealed them inside the Center for Disease Control.

“It’s your people that caused us to lose all this in the first place,” Ernest said.

“What?” Squid said. “What do you mean?”

“We have your people to blame, Squid, the people of the Central Territory. Your prophet Steven was the one who stopped the release of the vaccine. He destroyed our chance at stopping the ghouls hundreds of years ago. If it weren’t for him the world wouldn’t be a wasteland. Your people consider him a saviour but he ain’t. He was a destroyer.”

“Steven,” Squid said, almost to himself. “The log that Fiona showed us. Isabelle Andrews was saying something about Steven Millner, the man who attacked this place. He was the prophet Steven?”

“I don’t know who those people are, Squid, but I’ve heard the stories you people tell. Steven didn’t lead your people across the desert to safety. He was fleeing his crimes, and he wasn’t alone. He had followers even then. That’s why he was able to take Alice.” Ernest shook his head. “That city. The last city from before the Collapse, and it’s been held by religious nuts and criminals for hundreds of years.”

“We’re not all like that,” Squid said. He thought about one of the tenets of the Church.
The sins of the father are the sins of the son.
Was that what the Church meant? That the people of the Central Territory would always be blamed for what had happened hundreds of years ago? Squid preferred what Lieutenant Walter had told him in Dust, and he repeated it now. “The sins of the father should not be the sins of the son.”

“Maybe not, lad,” Ernest said, “but it doesn’t seem like the sins of the Central Territory stopped with Steven.”

“My mob don’t care anything for the Dweller God or their prophet,” Nim said. “Why can’t I take some vaccine to save my people?”

“Sorry, Nim,” Ernest said. “Ain’t no one who lives inside your fence getting their hands on the vaccine. We’ll let the ghouls destroy the Central Territory and wipe the blight of God’s Redeemers from the land, and then our people will retake Alice and New Sydney and begin the long process of regaining the rest of the world. We’re going to make the world a better place.”

“There’re innocent people in the Territory,” Squid said, his voice cracking and fading with emotion and the dryness of his throat. “They’ve done nothing wrong. You can’t just let them be killed.”

“It ain’t nothing personal,” Ernest said. “That has been the plan of our people since the Redeemers first struck against this dome. The Central Territory won’t exist when the world is saved.”

“Nothing personal,” Nim said. “How much more personal could it get? You want everyone we know to die.”

“You claim you want to make the world a better place,” Squid said, “but you’re doing exactly the same thing as the High Priestess and her Church. Just letting everyone die is her plan, too. You’re no better.”

Squid saw a flicker of something cross Ernest’s face. It was fleeting, maybe just a moment of hesitation before he gestured with his gun again. “Take us to the vaccine.”

Squid didn’t move.

“Come on, Squid,” Nim said, the defeat clear in his tone. “Probably we should do what they say.”

There was a moment in which Squid was convinced he would stand his ground, but as he looked at the guns facing them his determination faded.

“Fine,” Squid said. He turned and stalked toward the elevator. At least, he attempted to stalk; his legs were still so weak that halfway there he needed to lean on Nim to help him cover the rest of the distance.

“Hello again,” Fiona said as they approached.

Ernest stared in awe at the bouncing white line on the blue glass. “What is that?” he said. “It’s a computer, ain’t it? We’ve heard stories about them, a machine more powerful than any human mind.”

“Fiona,” Squid said, ignoring Ernest and with no idea what he was talking about anyway, “could you give us access to the vaccine again?”

“Certainly,” Fiona answered. The center elevator door slid open. “Proceed down the elevator to Basement Level Two for access to activated drones. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, Fiona. That’s all, thank you.” Squid entered the lift, Nim still helping him. The men from Reach followed.

“Have a nice day,” Fiona said.

They descended as before, emerging at the sign for B2 Vaccine Drone Storage. Again the doors directly in front of them slid open, revealing the lines of shelves housing the rows of silver birds. Ernest pushed past all the others and entered the room first. He reached out and took a bird from the shelf, holding it up, turning it one way and then the other as he examined it.

“This is it,” he said. “This is really it. We’ve finally got it.” He spun on his heels, turning back to the rest of the group enthusiastically. “Take as many as you can carry,” he said to the other men from Reach. “But be careful with them. These are the most precious things in the world.”

The other Border Patrol men dropped bags off their backs and moved to take birds from the shelves, fitting them carefully into their packs. Ernest indicated two of the men and told them to keep their weapons trained on Squid and Nim. There was nothing Squid could do but watch as the men took the vaccine he and Nim had traveled so far to find. He turned to Nim. Nim must have seen some intent written on his face because he shook his head as if in warning.

“All right,” Ernest said as his men gathered back near the door, their bags full of the silver birds, perhaps sixty or seventy all up, as many as they could carry. There were still shelves and shelves of the birds left behind, hundreds and hundreds. He gestured for Squid and Nim to move forward first. “Let’s go.”

The elevator door opened and they made their way back to the upper level and the main entrance to the dome.

“So,” Nim said. “You’ve got it, what happens now?”

Ernest looked at him. “We get out of here before another group of suckers gathers outside.”

“Yeah,” Nim said, “but what happens to us?”

“You’ll come with us,” Ernest said. “We’re taking the vaccine, but that don’t mean we’re gonna leave you lads to the suckers. You’ll come back to Reach. The Council of Five can decide what happens after that. Perhaps you’ll be staying with us a while.”

“No!” Squid and Nim said in unison.

“We’ve got to go back,” Squid said.

“You said you escaped,” Ernest said. “Why would you want to go back?”

“One of our friends has been taken to Alice. We need to rescue her. My mother needs our help too,” Squid said.

“My family are still in the Central Territory,” Nim added.

Ernest shook his head. “Like I said, lad, it’s no decision I can make. The council will decide.”

“All my mob are there,” Nim continued, stepping aggressively toward Ernest. “I’m not going to let you keep me from them.”

Ernest raised his rifle, stopping Nim mid-movement. “What are you going to do?”

Nim stared at the man but didn’t reply. Squid knew that even if they weren’t recovering from ghoul bites that had sucked all but the last traces of their energy they still wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the twelve armed men around them. Ernest gestured with his weapon again, indicating for Squid and Nim to move toward the door that would lead out of the dome. On Ernest’s orders the men of the Reach Border Patrol stacked themselves near the door, their collection of rifles at the ready. Ernest nodded and one of them stuck their palm on the green panel. The door slid open and the men, Squid and Nim with them, moved out from the safety of the dome into the streets of Big Smoke.