Heart of Danger (13 page)

Eventually the wailing stopped, and when she took her hands away her face was calmer. ‘Yes.’ She took a great, shuddering breath. ‘I will do it. For Mira. Her death will not go unpunished.’

I got up to sit beside her on the bench. ‘He killed others?’

She shrugged. ‘I heard the stories. But I only saw him kill Mira.’

I felt sick. ‘He made you watch? All of you?’

‘Yes.’

We sat without talking again. Every so often her whole body trembled, but I could feel her determination growing.

At last the clerk of the court called her name. She got up and walked out of the room without looking back at me.

I could hear nothing from the courtroom. The clock on the wall had a loud tick. I found myself counting each one. I vowed not to watch the minutes creep by, but it was impossible not to keep checking the time. What was happening out there? Had Callie fallen to pieces? Not been able to tell what she knew?

The door opened and I sprang up.

‘Court’s adjourned for lunch,’ the clerk said. He looked shaken. Callie must have told her story, told how her friend had died. I went to leave, but he barred the way. ‘Sorry, but you’ll have to have your lunch in here.’

More than an hour passed before the clerk escorted me to a courtroom much grander than the one I’d been in a few weeks earlier. Its curved ceiling and decorative walls were impressive. Five judges sat up high behind a long bench.

Secondus was in the dock. He used his mind to zap me with hate and threat. I shut him out and looked for familiar faces among those who had come to watch.

I blinked and stared again – I wasn’t looking at a mirage. Shallym was sitting in the front row with Biddo and Jidda.

They beamed at me, delighted by my stunned expression. Thank you, I mouthed. I felt lighter. My friends had come to help me.

Vima and James, Sina and Jov were all there in the front row with their babies. Camnoon, dressed in his orange robes, sat between the two couples. Sina’s parents, Zill and Harl, were beside their daughter. I felt the love and support of all of them, and of those who watched from afar. Between us, we would free Taris from the taint Secondus and his tribe had tried to stain us with.

My experience of this trial was so different from the previous one. This time I felt approval from the people in the gallery. The five judges asked their sharp questions kindly. I told my story as well as I could, and when I’d finished I asked if Biddo could tell the court whom we believed Secondus and the leader to be.

The judges didn’t even take a moment to confer. They granted permission, and Biddo bounded up to the witness box. When he said the names
Bradwell Zagan
and
Samson Hainsworth
, Secondus broke his silence.

‘The witch who stands before you killed my father-
in-law
! She brought down destruction on my son. Kill her!’

He strained to break away from the guards who held him, shouting out curses. I didn’t look at him and I called on my defences to shut him and his words out.

They wrestled him from the courtroom, and the clerk escorted me to a seat beside Callie. She reached for my hand and squeezed it.

Next the court called D.I. Whitely to the stand. She reported that the police now had forty-six people in custody, fifteen of whom had been on the boat, while the others had been found in the bush around the Mokau buildings. ‘Those on the boat, from what we’ve been able to establish, were the elite in the organisation. They are refusing to talk. The other thirty-one were the workers. By what they say, they were kept ignorant of the purpose of the group. They were controlled by fear. The man known as Secondus was assiduous in carrying out the leader’s instructions to prevent any escape.’

‘It was a religious cult?’ Judge Maliano asked.

The D.I. shook her head. ‘Despite the name, it doesn’t appear to have been. From what we’ve been able to piece together, though, it sounds as if the workers regarded the leader in the light of a harsh god figure who possessed both uncanny knowledge of the future and the power to wreak vengeance on them for any wrongdoing. Occasionally he would talk about the deities but everyone was uncertain as to what these were. All agreed, however, that they had to work hard so as not to displease them and the leader.’

The judges conferred, then Judge Maliano asked, ‘And you’ve no idea still about why these people released the pandemic virus and spread it? Who any of the leaders really are? You don’t know if the young man from Taris is right about their identity?’

‘No, Your Honour. The elite group refuse to talk, and the workers simply don’t know.’ The D.I. sounded frustrated.

‘If I may be permitted to speak, Your Honour? I believe I can throw some light on the puzzle.’ It was Camnoon who spoke.

The judges frowned, fearing perhaps that the trial was getting out of hand, heading off in directions they hadn’t expected, but they gave permission and Camnoon was sworn in. He chose to swear to tell the truth by oath, although he didn’t put his hand on a Bible.

Judge Maliano regarded him as he stood in the witness box, dressed as he always was now, in his orange robes.

‘Camnoon of Taris, a Buddhist monk in a community of humanists who didn’t believe in god?’

Camnoon bowed his head and smiled. ‘Indeed, Your Honour.’ He didn’t offer an explanation. After a moment, the judge signaled for him to continue.

Camnoon’s voice was soft, maybe with age or maybe because he didn’t often speak. ‘I am now the only Taris resident left of the original group who formed the first working party on the island. It was more than fifty years ago, and some years before the settler population was chosen.’

I stared at him. This quiet man held the stories of our past, of a history we hadn’t known to ask about.

‘There were thirty of us,’ he went on. ‘Some of us knew from the start that we wanted to be among those chosen to stay, but for others it was enough to be part of building the island’s infrastructure. We’d been there for about six months and the project was nearly finished when one man almost wrecked it. You will have guessed that Bradwell Zagan was that man. He began preaching – that isn’t too strong a word for it – that a community such as this would need one strong leader. He had proved himself, he said, and he wanted all of us to persuade the participating countries that he should be the sole leader.’

‘He did not succeed, I take it?’ Judge Maliano asked.

Camnoon shook his head. ‘No, but it was close. He was very persuasive, very charismatic. He’d worked so hard too, been such an effective leader under often very trying conditions. Except for two people, those who didn’t intend to stay on Taris voted for Zagan to be the sole leader. Those of us who were to stay – only three of us – voted against it. The matter became an international incident, but the governments who had put money into the project had the final say. They vetoed the idea of a single leader.’

‘Zagan’s reaction?’ the judge asked.

Camnoon looked back into his memory, and we heard the sadness in his voice as he said, ‘He vowed we would live to regret it. He said,
You have crossed me at your peril. I shall not forget. I shall not forgive.’

Nobody broke the silence for ages. We watched Camnoon return to his seat.

Finally Judge Maliano said, ‘We thank you, Camnoon of Taris.’ He shook his head. ‘So much has been lost, so much knowledge we’re now missing. A nation needs its archivists, its historians.’

Then he became brisk again and adjourned the trial for the day.

M
edia people pounced on us the minute the judges left the courtroom, but they didn’t get much sense out of any of us. I was too busy leaping around hugging every Taris person who’d managed to come. Biddo and Jidda looked sheepish but pleased.

Shallym, unlike the boys, hugged me back as I pelted her with questions. ‘How come you’re here? How did you …?’

She covered my mouth with her hand and laughed at me. ‘Whanganui’s not so far away.’

‘But a travel pass? How did you get a travel pass?’

None of us had money, except Biddo who had his after-school job at the techno shop.

‘Easy,’ she said. ‘We found out you could get tickets in exchange for work on the rail system, so all thirteen of us did that one Saturday.’ Her face darkened for a moment. ‘It was the day you were fighting the Children of the Coming Dawn. It helped to work, to kind of put a stake in the future. To say to the world that you would survive.’ She gave me a shove. ‘Quit the tears, girl!’

I sniffed. ‘Okay – but wow! You guys are the best.’

‘Yep,’ said Jidda. ‘That’s us.’

‘But – that Saturday – okay, so you worked just in case I survived, but you couldn’t know there’d be a trial in Wellington.’ Nobody knew, not me, not the D.I. and definitely not the Children of the Coming Dawn.

They laughed at me. ‘Work it out, Juno.’

‘Of course! Marba. Being logical.’

‘Right first time,’ Jidda said. ‘But it was Silvern who said you’d do better if some of us were in court cheering for you.’

That made me choke up all over again.

I kept looking at the three of them, wanting to reassure myself that they were real, that I hadn’t imagined them. ‘Will you be here tomorrow too? Can you stay for the whole trial?’

‘All organised,’ Jidda said. ‘Got the okay from the schools and the parents. Let’s go into town. I reckon Magda at that café we went to before will feed us. She might give us hot chocolates again. Man, those were so good.’

Biddo pulled out a wallet. ‘I have money. My shout.’

Before we could leave, however, Camnoon walked to the front and raised his hands. As we had done so often on Taris, we fell silent, waiting for one of our elders to speak to us.

‘Friends, you will remember Fergus who was so good to us on the boat and later in the refugee centre. He has kindly organised a meal for us at the centre on whichever day the trial finishes. We are all invited.’

I looked over at Vima. She was turning away, but James put his arm around her and said, ‘Thank you, Camnoon. That’s fantastic. We’ll be there.’

‘How kind of him,’ Sina called out. ‘Tell him we’re delighted to accept.’ She turned to her parents, said something and they nodded, although they didn’t look relaxed.

‘Interesting,’ Shallym whispered. ‘What’s all that about?’

‘Dunno. But it looks like James and Sina have a plan. He’s gotta have been talking to her – he knew this morning that they’d be here today.’

‘They want to throw Vima and Jov together?’ Shallym asked, watching Vima almost run from the room. ‘But why?’

We talked about that and not about the trial as we walked with the boys through the city.

‘A disaster waiting to happen,’ Shallym said.

Jidda said, ‘Yeah, could be. But at least James and Sina will know. Wouldn’t be much fun living with somebody who thought they were desperately in love with somebody else.’

I jabbed him in the ribs. ‘What do you mean
thought
? Vima loves Jov desperately. She always will. Nothing’s going to change that. It’s cruel to throw them together. And stupid.’

‘An interesting problem,’ Biddo said, moving out of the way of my fist. ‘Is it better to live with doubt, or is it better to find out for sure? One way or the other.’

‘What would you do, Mr Philosopher?’ Shallym asked.

I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but it turned out he was thinking it through. ‘I’d want to find out for sure. They didn’t have the chance to be together as a couple on Taris, so I’d take the gamble that their attraction wasn’t real enough to last if they’re allowed to see each other.’

I shook my head. Attraction. What a weak word for what Vima felt for Jov. Biddo was wrong. He hadn’t sat with Vima while she wept for the man she couldn’t have. He didn’t know what it felt like to have the one you loved ripped away from you.

Then of course Ivor popped into my mind. I stamped a foot hard onto the pavement. ‘Love! I don’t know the first stupid thing about it. None of us do.’

I wished with all my broken heart that there was even some sliver of doubt that I could be wrong, that Ivor might really love me.

Shallym took my hand. ‘Come on. Let’s run. I’m starving.’

The boys took off, and she laughed. ‘Too much emotion. They can’t take it. Let’s hurry.’

Magda was about to close up her café for the day, but she let us in, then locked the door behind her. She brought us mugs of hot chocolate and plates of food from the cabinets. Then she joined us at the table. ‘Ah! Nothing like a good gossip.’ She pushed the food towards us. ‘Excellent work today, team. I had a café full of customers who came specially to watch.’ She pointed at a television screen mounted on a wall. ‘All of us stayed riveted from start to finish. I must say, court trials have got a lot more lively since you guys have been around. But before we get into all that, tell me what Vima’s doing these days. And that delectable wee baby. I totally lost my heart to him.’

‘I’ll tell her to come and see you,’ I said. ‘She’s going to uni now. She can take Wilfred with her till he gets a bit bigger.’

‘And that boy you spoke of? Ivor?’ Magda asked me. ‘Broke your heart, didn’t he?’

I stared at her. ‘How did you know?’

‘That bit was hard for you to tell. Easy to see why.’

‘Yeah.’ I didn’t want to talk about it. ‘I just didn’t understand how different love is Outside from how it all worked on Taris.’

‘The only thing to know about love,’ she said, ‘is that there are no rules. You try loving by some rule book and you’ll stuff up, every time. Now, come on, you boys —’

She urged them to eat, deflecting attention to give me time to control threatening tears. Damn Ivor!

‘So this is the end, do we think?’ She looked at us, her eyes bright. ‘We’re done with the rogue viruses? The bombs and the hate campaigns?’

‘I’d say so.’ Biddo looked relieved with the change of topic. ‘That leader guy seems to have been the power behind the whole thing. He must have had quite a brain on him.’

‘There’s gotta be others around the country though,’ Jidda said. ‘They’ll probably show up sooner or later.’

‘Quite the little joy germ, aren’t you!’ Magda passed him the food plate again. ‘Eat it now or take it away with you.’

We stayed chatting and eating until the day began to grow dark. I marvelled at how easy it was to be with those I’d known all my life. We could be ourselves without needing explanations of why we were as we were. Magda was captivated as she listened to us relate the small, unfamiliar things that tripped us all up in our new lives. As we walked back through the city, though, Shallym returned to the issue none of us really wanted to face again.

‘I think you’re right, Jidda. About those people showing up at some stage. We need to keep our eyes and ears open, I reckon.’

‘I’ll tell Marba,’ he said. ‘He’ll be onto it. Have us organised before we can blink.’

‘How lucky we are to have the mini-comps,’ Shallym said. She sounded wistful.

I took her arm. ‘Things okay with you and Yin?’

She nodded but sighed too. ‘It’s not the same, being apart like this.’ Then she cheered up. ‘But it’s been so good to meet up today. And there’s still days of the trial to go.’

They took a circuitous route back to the Centre so that they could walk with me to where I turned off to slog my way up the hill to James and Vima’s house. I let myself in and walked right into an atmosphere as cold as icy winter winds.

Vima went straight into attack. ‘I guess you think this is a dandy idea too? Throw Vima and Jov together, stand back and watch the fun.’

I took off my cape. James was on one side of the room, standing with his arms folded and determination on his face. Vima was as far from him as she could get without leaving the room. I sank into one of their big chairs, covering my face with my hands. ‘I don’t know what I think! What do I know about love? All I know is what a broken heart feels like.’

There was an electric silence. James broke it. I’d never heard him speak so softly, so sadly.

‘I know too. So do you, Vima. I know you love Jov. You’ve never pretended otherwise. But still I married you.’ He paused and I sensed Vima’s rage fading slightly.

I didn’t look at either of them. I shouldn’t have been there, listening. But I didn’t want to move in case I broke the fragile bridge between them.

‘I loved Miriam,’ James said. ‘With all my heart. And our baby. When they died, I knew I would never love again. Vima, I knew it. I was utterly certain.’

‘That’s why you married me? Because I knew what it felt like? Because you knew you’d never love me?’

He laughed so joyously that I sneaked a look at him – he was smiling. I dropped my head and listened. ‘No. I married you because Wilfred stole my heart.’ He paused and I suspected he was shaking his head. ‘Still can’t credit how that kid got into my blood, but he did. He’s my kid, Vima, just as much as he’s yours.’

He stopped again, and I wanted to jump up and tell him to finish there, not to say the next bit.

He said it.

‘He’s more mine than he is Jov’s. But he still has to know Jov. It’s not fair to keep him from his father and his brother.’

‘Half-brother,’ Vima said automatically.

I wanted to leave, but Vima had started talking. ‘Wilfred can know them. I want him to. I do. But I need to stay away. Surely you can see that? Think how you’d feel if Miriam walked in that door right now. You’d want to be with her, not with me. I get that, so why can’t you understand?’

I saw James’s feet go across the room. I guessed he was taking her hands. ‘I do know how you feel. I promise you, I do. But I know too that Miriam won’t come through that door. I put her in the coffin myself. I wrapped her arms around our baby. I helped carry her to the grave. She isn’t coming back.’

‘Why do you want to torture me?’ she cried. ‘When you know what it feels like?’

I wished I was out of there, but I couldn’t move.

James sighed. ‘You torture yourself. Every moment of every day. You steel yourself to face life without the man you love. You have to live with the fact that he’s only a thirty-minute walk away.’

She didn’t say anything. She was crying.

‘Vima, we’ll never have the chance to see if we can love each other. Not if you won’t find out if Jov really is the only man you can ever love. Juno —’ I jumped when he said my name. ‘Tell me. Is this too cruel?’

I took my hands down from my face. James had one arm around Vima, but she was turned away from him, trying to stop crying. I didn’t know what to think, what to say.

‘What does Sina want?’

James answered me but spoke to Vima. ‘She says it rips her apart to see Jov struggling every day to keep Vima out of his thoughts. She wants to know one way or the other. If they still feel the same when they’re allowed to see each other freely, she says she’ll think about what to do. But she wants to know.’

Biddo and Jidda were right. But so was I. It was cruel.

I had hoped my question would be enough, but James asked, ‘So what do you think? You two have a rock solid friendship. You probably know my wife better than anyone else does.’

Yes. I knew her pain. I knew her stubbornness. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was going to hurt her. ‘I did think it was cruel. To make you meet him.’

James demanded, ‘You still think so?’

I tried to meet Vima’s eyes, but one look was enough. ‘Yes, it is cruel. But I think Sina deserves to know. Every day, it’s cruel for her too.’ I knew that would hurt. I kept going. ‘Vima, we don’t know anything about love. Not how it works out here. James and Sina want to take the risk. I think you should too.’

She turned on me, snarling. ‘Just like you need to talk to Thomas. You’re a raving hypocrite, Juno. You know that?’

Before I could think, I was on my feet and yelling back at her. ‘All right! I’ll do it. I talk to Thomas. You talk to Jov. It’s a deal.’

She stared at me, horrified. ‘I can’t.’

‘You bloody can,’ I shouted. ‘Who’s the raving hypocrite now?’

James gave me a swift smile, and flicked his head towards the door.

I ran from the room. I wanted to be home. No. Thomas would be there, waiting to pounce. I longed to be with Ivor, but with Ivor as I’d imagined him to be.

I went to bed exhausted. The trial had been easy compared with this. Vima had been my friend. Was she still?