Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (23 page)

“My name’s Knile.  This is Ursie, Tobias, and Lazarus.  We’re travellers on our way across the Skywalk.”

Walt grunted.  “Good for you.”

“Is there someone else here?” Ursie said.

“Huh?” Walt said.

“Who are you talking to?” she said.

“No one.  It’s just me,” Walt said, brushing at a piece of soil with his fingers.  “The others left a long, long time ago.”  He stopped what he was doing, lost in thought.  “Yes, that’s what I said,” he said to himself.

Ursie made a surreptitious coocoo motion with her fingers, and Knile nodded but said nothing.

“I never saw you makin’ supply runs over at Habitat Thirty-One
,” Tobias said.  “So where did you get all this greenery?”

“Thirty-One
?” Walt said.  “Haven’t been there in forever.”  He got to his feet and dusted his hands off.  “Fact is, I haven’t been outside this way station in… well, must be nigh on ten years.  Those others that were here left, but I decided to stick around.  Best decision I ever made.”

“Wait a minute,” Knile said.  “If you were here when the Skywalk was decommissioned, that means you’ve been here for decades.  Twenty or thirty years.”

“Has it really been that long?” Walt said.  “Could be, I guess.”  Then he added to himself, “Yes, time slips away.  You always said that.”

“Why did you stick around, Walt?” Tobias said, seemingly fascinated by the other man’s story.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Walt said, gesturing to the room around him.  “This is my own little slice of paradise, right here.  Why leave it?”

“How in hell have you survived all this time without fresh supplies of food and water?” Ursie said.  “Not to mention air.”

“What are you talking about, kid?  I’ve got all the food and water I need.”  He pulled a tomato from a nearby vine and took a bite.  “What you’re looking at is a self-contained ecosystem.  Water gets recycled and fed back into the system, and waste goes back into the fertiliser.  Food for new plants, and certainly enough for old Walt to get by.  As for the air…”  He pointed to the ceiling.  “The solar panels on the hull are wired to the way station life support.  That’s enough to keep me going.  Yes, to keep
us
going.”

“Why did they let you stay?” Knile said.  “I thought they shut the whole place down.”

“Well
, first I tried to do things the right way.  Went through the appropriate channels
and applied to stay as a caretaker, but that got
shut down, quick smart.  They didn’t want anyone left behind.  So then when things began to wind down, I started to squirrel away supplies, refilled the water reservoirs without anybody knowing.  Tucked a bunch of mature plants over in the northern storage bays.  They were so busy cleaning up that no one noticed.  In the end I hid myself away.  The last one out locked the place up, and then…”  He shrugged.  “After that, it was just me
and myself
.  I re
established the garden, and everything has been sweet ever since.”
  He chuckled to himself.  “Yes, you’re right.  Better than sweet.”

“Well, sorry to say, but the party’s over,” Ursie said.  “You probably haven’t been keeping up with recent events, but as it turns out, the Skywalk is in pretty bad shape.”

“How so?” Walt said.

“It’s collapsing,” Knile said.  “And this way station is going down with it.”

“What happened to the Skywalk?”

“Habitat Thirty-One was destroyed, Walt,” Tobias said.  “There’s nothing left of it.”

“And without the structural support, the Skywalk is crumbling piece by piece,” Knile added.

Walt thought for a moment.  “That’s what caused the shakes this morning?  The rattling I’ve been hearing?”  He scowled and turned his head.  “I know you said it was bad news.  Just be quiet.”

“That’d be it,” Tobias said.

“The way station is about to fall down around you,” Knile said.  “I’m sorry, Walt, but you’re going to have to leave.”

Walt stared at Knile for a moment, then looked about the room, a forlorn expression on his face.

“I guess I always knew the day would come when this would all end, but… I just didn’t think it would be today.”

Ursie stepped forward.  “There’s not much time.  How do we get out of here?”

Walt seemed lost in thought, working his fingers distractedly as he considered.  He reached over to the bench behind him and gripped a handful of hessian sacks.

“Takes these,” he said, handing them out, a spring in his step.  “Take the ripe fruit.  Load up.  We’ll take it with us.  You all look a mite hungry to me.”

“Thank you, Walt,” Knile said, and Ursie and Tobias offered their thanks also.

“I’ll find containers for the water,” Walt said.
  “Yes, I know where they are,” he snapped, as if arguing with himself.

Ursie gave Knile a concerned look, but all he could do was shrug.  It was obvious that Walt had developed a habit of talking to himself over the years, possibly even a fracture of the mind as a result of his isolation, but that didn’t necessarily make him dangerous.  All things considered, he seemed to be doing okay.  Knile imagined that being locked away here without human contact would probably send most people
crazy, and right now, they had bigger things to worry about than an old man’s mental condition.

They busied themselves about the room, and Knile could only feel grateful that, despite his issues,
Walt had decided to help.  Having potable water was a godsend, and the food wouldn’t go astray either.  He wondered how the old man would cope with this abrupt change to his routine; first the arrival of the people in his way station, the only souls he had encountered in decades, not to mention the impending destruction of his home.  Indeed, Walt continually stopped what he was doing as they worked, taking a moment to glance at the others, as if to verify that they were real, that he wasn’t imagining this whole scenario, before getting back to his job.

There was not a great deal of food to be gathered, certainly nowhere near enough to fill the sacks, but they took what they could.  Walt’s mantra as they toiled was “Leave nothin’ behind”, and they did just that.  Knile couldn’t help but take a few bites here and there, such was his rabid hunger, and he noticed Ursie doing the same.  At one point she devoured a shiny red peach, gulping down everything in only a few bites, and shot a sheepish glance over at Knile.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” she said.  “Damn thing was
so
good.”

When they had almost finished, there was a jolting sensation within the greenhouse, and the familiar
sound of tortured metal in the distance.  For one horrible moment Knile thought that they’d lingered too long, that the collapse had reached them, but the way station seemed to steady once again.

“That’s it,” he said.  “We have to go. 
Now.
”

“No argument from me,” Ursie said, slinging her sack over her shoulder.

“Here,” Walt said, handing Knile and Lazarus a container of water each.  “Take these and follow me.”

Walt smacked the plastic curtain roughly aside and ploughed through, the others hot on his heels.  They headed down a narrow corridor, then into an antechamber of sorts, which appeared to be Walt’s living quarters.  There was a filthy pile of rags in one corner, a cup and some bowls stacked nearby, and rudimentary etchings on the wall: people standing beside a house, a pair of orbs that might have been Earth and the Moon.  Abstract swirls and ripples.  Walt paid them no
mind, continuing on and pulling
a lever that opened a bulkhead door.  On the other side, they passed through more rooms, much like the ones they had seen at the other end of the way station, although these were stacked with garden pots and sacks of dirt and other odds and ends.  The air was pungent with the smell of soil and decaying matter.

Moments later they arrived at a more spacious cargo area.

There was another jolt, and more grinding of metal in the walls around them.

“Get your stuff loaded up over there,” Walt said, pointing to the dock, where a replica handcar to the one they’d used previously sa
t waiting.  “I’ll get the door.  Yes, I’m hurrying,” he added.

They tossed their sacks up on the flatbed and climbed aboard, stowing the water containers as well, and then Knile assumed his position at the hand crank.  He flexed his blistered fingers, all too aware of the distance that still lay between themselves and Sunspire.  His h
ands were going to be nothing but raw slabs of meat by the time they got there, he figured, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

The door to the Skywalk shuddered, then began to rise upward as Walt worked at a lever on the wall.  As it neared the top, he moved to a console nearby, and Knile was surprised to see it light up.

“Still some life in the old girl, if you know how to route the power,” he called over his shoulder, eyes glinting.

“What are you doing?” Knile said, but as the Skywalk door locked into place, the answer came.

Before them, the controls of the handcar lit up, the glowing LEDs muted beneath a thick layer of dust.  Knile scrambled forward and swept a hand across the console, removing a swath of grit as he did so.

“Fancy a joyride?” Walt said, looking up at him with a smile on his face.

“Is this for real?” Knile said, incredulous.  “Will it work without the crank?”

“There’s not much juice left in the batteries, I’d say, just what’s dribbled in from the solar panels over the years, but it might be enough to get you started.  It’ll work until the way station goes under, or the batteries flatline.  Whichever comes first.”

Something in the man’s voice made Knile stop what he was doing.  He got down on his haunches to look Walt in the eye.

“You’re not coming,” he said flatly.

“No, I’m not.”
  He turned his head in that familiar way as he spoke to himself.  “No, and that’s final.”

“Walt,” Knile said, “there’s room here–”

“I said I’m not coming.”

“That’s suicide,” Ursie said.  “Didn’t you hear what we told you?”

Walt took a step back from the handcar.  “I made a decision, a long time ago, that this was where I would live out the rest of my days.  I’m going to stick to that, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?” Ursie said.  “What’s the point of that?”

“I couldn’t tell you, exactly.  I just know it’s the right thing to do.”  He looked around.  “I have to stay.  Yes, this is where it ends.
”

Knile glanced at Ursie, uneasy about leaving Walt to face certain death, but the old man raised his voice at them.

“Go!  Get moving!”

He hustled back to the lever on the door, and Knile used the console to move the handcar forward.  It crept jerkily away from the dock, groaning and vibrating as if it were rolling over rough debris, but after a few metres it began to glide more smoothly.  Knile looked over at Walt as they passed him, and the old man’s face seemed full of conflicting emotions: sorrow, fear, but also a kind of relief.

Knile wondered if perhaps a part of him was glad that his long vigil was finally coming to an end.

They entered the Skywalk, and the door behind them slid downward, coming to rest with a thud that resounded down the tunnel.  Knile looked back again and saw what might have been Walt’s face at the small round window embedded in the door, but he couldn’t be sure.  The handcar was positively rocketing along the track, and in moments they had left the way station in their wake.

28

Dawn was coming, but as Talia arose from a fitful, nightmarish sleep, she could find no comfort in the fact that the night was finally over.  A part of her was telling her that this
was
a nightmare, that she was only dreaming that Silvestri was dead, and that any moment she would awaken to find herself on the floor of the tavern with him sleeping soundly beside her.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

It was true.  Silvestri was dead, murdered in the most meaningless way – a random victim of the raiders – and he wasn’t coming back.

She left Roman to sleep and got up, padding over to the window of the place in which they’d sought refuge, the third floor of a nondescript apartment block, and looked out across the ruins.  The city seemed empty and ghostlike, forlorn in the grey light.  If the raiders were still out there, they were being awfully quiet.

In the distance, Talia could see the expanse of the lowlands, uninviting and desolate, stretching on to the horizon.

The whole scene was like a mirror of the bleakness within her heart.

She turned and made her way from the room.  Outside the dwelling, Norrey and Kolos were standing there murmuring to each other while nibbling on cold rations.  Upon seeing her, Norrey extended his hand, offering her the pouch.

“Something to eat?” he said.

“No.  Thanks.”

“How are you holding up?”

“How do you think?”