Walking to the Stars (4 page)

He disappeared off into the rest of the house, and Samuel stared into his mug, watching the motes float around the surface. He was grossly under-prepared for this. Why had no one told him about things? Why did no one know about giant kangaroos and devils? Or exactly how primitive things were? How was he ever going to manage to travel four hundred kilometers by himself, especially now he'd broken a leg?

The house settled into relative silence. The fire creaked and clicked, the entire house seemed to moan faintly, wood settling against wood, and the rain drummed on. Samuel was used to rain; Guyana treated itself to not one, but two, rainy seasons, but the sound of the water hitting metal was different, and it was just plain cold here.

He put extra wood on the fire and nudged one of the racks of clothes over so he could sit beside the fire, and that helped.

After a trip across the sodden garden, with Harold joining him for security, and a visit to the appallingly primitive toilet, Samuel had a look around the house as quietly as he could.

Closed doors led off the hall, and he left them, but the room at the end had its door ajar, so he felt it was reasonable to go in.

It looked like it was a library or study, with shelves on every wall stacked with a chaotic collection of books. The desk was covered in battered medical texts, some of them open, others festooned with bookmarks, and Samuel left them alone. He also left alone the stacks and shelves of notebooks of all sizes that were filled with someone's close scrawl.

He found books there that were useful, on the local fauna and farming, all dating from before the Collapse, and he took two of them and tucked them inside his shirt and hobbled his way back to the fire. He needed information.

He was reading like that, hunched up close to the stove, broken leg propped on another chair to stop his toes from swelling, immersed in the complexities of marsupial anatomy, when Nick trudged wearily in from the rain.

Nick was drenched, completely sodden, and Samuel kept his eyes down while Nick peeled off layer after layer of clothes.

"Josh asleep?” he asked Samuel, moving one of the racks of clothes completely away and pulling up another chair, then sitting on it wearing only his underclothes, and Samuel tore his eyes away from the ugly scars snaking across Nick's chest.

Samuel nodded. “He went to bed hours ago, just after it got light."

"Have you been all right by yourself?” Nick asked.

"Yes,” Samuel said, closing the book and putting it aside. “I found some books, but they don't answer the questions I have."

"My questions first,” Nick said. “How is the feeling in your foot? Pain in your leg?"

His hands, icy cold, prodded Samuel's toes where his foot rested on the wooden chair. “Foot feels good,” Samuel said. “Cold, but not numb or tingly. And my leg aches, especially if I walk on it, but it's much better than it was when I first broke it."

"Good,” Nick said. “Now, what are your questions?"

"What's a procoptodon? Why are the... things like that here? Where did they come from? How long until my leg's better and I can walk?” Samuel asked in quick succession.

Nick chuckled. “All good questions, some of which I might know the answers to. A procoptodon is an Ancestor spirit of the Noongars. Thirty odd years ago, about the time of the Collapse, all the spirits that belonged to the land came back. I don't know why, or how, just that it happened, and that with creatures like procoptodons and thylacines wandering the land, there was no doubt about whose land it was anymore. I've heard of Amerindian Ghost Dances, so perhaps the Noongars and Kooris and Yamaji also did Ghost Dances. It's not something they talk about, but it happened all over Australia at the same time."

"Have you asked?” Samuel said. “Have you asked the Feathermen?"

Nick stared at Samuel, water dripping into his eyes from his hair, skin ruddy and worn from the sun, stretched over ribs and solid muscle, with two ridges of scarring running below each of his collarbones, mat of hair also wet; he laughed, showing worn and marked teeth and a red mouth.

"No,” he said, still chortling to himself. “Can't say I've asked them. Why don't you? I'm sure that I'll be taking you out to the camp, since you can fix things. Nothing works out there, so there'll be plenty for you to do. And the cast is on for another six weeks, so don't plan to do very much until then."

It was a little unsettling, the way things for him to fix were piling up, but he guessed in a community where even the doctor had only bread and sacks of wheat in his kitchen, there were no passengers, even if he had a broken leg.

"Josh showed me the solar array,” Samuel said. “But he didn't know where the batteries were."

Nick looked thoughtful for a while, and water pooled around him slowly on the bare boards. “Not in the shed. I moved them, years ago, so we could fit another shearing stand in. They're on the front verandah here, covered in canvas. No idea what sort of state they're in.” He smiled damply at Samuel. “We can check them out, later on. Right now I need to wake Josh up, get some dry clothes on, then head into Jerramungup to the clinic. You can come along, have a look at the town."

The drive to the town was quick and Samuel didn't spot any procoptodons, or anything else weird. The town wasn't a town, at least not compared to Georgetown, where he had gone to university. Jerramungup had a wide street, with three or four shops on it; a bakery, a grocers, a farm equipment supplier. A derelict building which obviously used to be a police station was opposite a school with children playing in the grounds and a roof covered in solar panels. The rest of the street was lined with houses, all rundown and shabby and small, surrounded by vegetable gardens.

The gutters of the street were full, and didn't seem to be draining anywhere; just gathering more and more water, all stained red by the pervasive red soil.

No one was in sight, apart from the children at the school. The place looked deserted, but Nick parked outside one of the houses and held first the van door, then the gate, open for Samuel.

Inside the place was gloomy and cold, and the tap tap of Samuel's crutches echoed as he followed Nick into what had previously been a kitchen. “I'll get the fire going,” Nick said, “then I'll crank up the short wave radio."

Disbelief flooded Samuel, and relief. There was a short wave radio! In the middle of nowhere, with no electricity and monsters wandering the streets, there was a short wave radio?

Nick was kneeling in front of the stove, pushing kindling in, so he couldn't have seen Samuel's face, but he must have heard Samuel's intake of breath because he said, “Albany relays BBC World out here, so you can listen if you'd like, see if there's any news of your home."

A bang sounded on the front door, and Nick led in a woman dripping blood steadily from a cut hand. “Come on through, Sue, let's get some stitches in that,” he said, and the door to another room closed.

Samuel gave the crank handle of the radio another couple of turns and looked at the list of frequencies scrawled on paper stuck to the top of the radio. He found one for the Albany relay station, so he carefully noted the frequency the radio was on and reset it.

"Hello, Albany relay station,” Samuel said into the microphone, trying to keep his voice low so Nick wouldn't hear him.

"This is Albany, over,” a crackly voice said over the speaker.

He gave the frequency for the Guyanan relay station, and listened to the crackle and hiss of relay stations around the Southern Hemisphere, until someone said, “University of Guyana, over."

"This is Samuel Narine, sending from Jerramungup, Australia, over,” Samuel said.

During the crackling pause, Samuel could hear the ghosts of other conversations; then, when the radio clicked back to receive, he could hear jubilant shouts in the background. The other person said, “Good to hear from you, Samuel. Report? Over."

"I'm injured,” Samuel said, and he could hear Nick's patient crying through the closed door. “Things are not good here, more complex that we thought, over."

"How injured? Can you proceed? Over."

The patient had stopped crying now, apart from occasional gulping sounds, and Samuel dropped his voice lower. “Broken femur,” he said. “Will delay me by six weeks, out."

He broke the connection and reset the frequency to the BBC World Service and was chewing a thumbnail and listening to a report on the latest virii outbreaks when Nick came back in.

Patients arrived through the afternoon, all of them peering curiously at Samuel through the open door as they hobbled, limped and bled their way through to Nick's consulting room. Samuel began to realize that, despite what looked like appallingly primitive living conditions, the patients all seemed remarkably healthy. Everyone that came to the clinic was either injured, frail or pregnant; no one was malnourished or weak, even the elderly patients were full of attitude like Mrs. Pocock had been the day before.

When Nick put the kettle on, at the end of the afternoon, Samuel said, “Why are all your patients so well?"

Nick chuckled and looked pleased when he glanced up from adding wood to the stove. “Because I'm a good doctor?” he suggested.

Samuel could feel himself flushing, but hopefully he was dark-skinned enough it didn't show. “No one has any wasting illnesses,” he said. “Even the elderly patients are strong and healthy. I'd expected that people would be ill."

"Because we don't have much here?” Nick asked, sitting down at the table across from Samuel.

"Yes. There should be people with the slow-decline virii,” Samuel said. “But there aren't."

Nick smiled, and while he looked worn out and thin, there was warmth there that made Samuel smile back. “Australia is a net exporter of food and vaccines, so people here are neither starving nor unvaccinated. The Noongar elders allow farming, and the transport of wool and grains over their land. There might not be much technology here, but it's a decent life."

Samuel thought of Josh, working all night putting in seed, out in the dark and the rain, with monsters wandering the land. At his age, Samuel had started university, living a comfortable life in a comfortable city.

"Things must have been bad here,” he said, and Nick nodded.

"We never got invaded, at least not effectively,” Nick said. “But there were some bleak years, during the Collapse."

The rain seemed to have finally stopped when they clattered and rumbled in the van back to the farm, and in the last pale daylight, Nick, Samuel and a drenched and muddy Josh squelched their way around to what was presumably the front of the house.

A column still, clean burnished copper and coiled piping over a charcoal burner, gleamed on the verandah. Nick said, “Works like a beauty. We run it a few times a year, take off the medicinal grade alcohol for me to use as a sterilizing solution, then drink the rest."

Samuel stroked the column and nodded. It was good quality construction, copper piping right through, and he said, “Do you use activated carbon for the filter?"

"When we can get it,” Josh said, and he and Nick began tugging and lifting an oil cloth off the bulk that filled the front verandah.

All sorts of equipment lurked under the canvas, discarded pumps and car motors, piled up perished tires, and a stack of batteries that made Samuel grin.

"Yes!” he said. “Vanadium batteries!"

Nick and Josh stared at him, and he pulled aside what looked like a bore pump to see the batteries more clearly. “This is good?” Josh asked.

"It is!” Samuel said. “I thought you'd have a stack of old lead acid batteries, not something decent like these. Can you help me drag them out?” Samuel said, propping himself on one crutch and leaning closer to the metal boxes to examine the terminals.

"I wouldn't touch anything,” Nick said, and when Samuel glanced up, Josh was pulling on a pair of heavy leather gloves.

"Redback spiders and brown snakes,” Josh said. “For a start.” He moved the bore pump aside and began to drag the first battery out further, and Samuel couldn't believe how many spiders scurried around the verandah.

"Are they poisonous?” Samuel asked, and both Josh and Nick laughed.

"Redbacks kill. There used to be an antivenom, but I haven't seen any for a long time. As for brown snakes, you get bitten, it's all over,” Nick said. “Avoid all snakes. Avoid anything with eight legs, including scorpions."

"Anything else?” Samuel asked, swallowing hard and looking back down at the spiders still running around.

"Emus; they're all feathers and killer instinct. Any kangaroo bigger than you. Magpies, since they'll swoop and attack anyone who comes near a nest,” Nick said helpfully. “Devils have poisonous bites, as do many lizards, and you'd better assume any snake will kill you."

"Never hit a wombat if you're driving,” Josh added. “Especially if it's bigger than your car. There aren't many around here since they're only now moving back into the area, but even the little ones will roll your car."

"At least you don't have any big cats, right?” Samuel said. No one had mentioned exactly how many poisonous things there were in Australia, and if he ever got home again, he was going to have loud things to say about this.

Nick and Josh both laughed. “What? Apart from the marsupial lions?” Josh said.

"The whats?” Samuel asked.

"And we forgot to mention the drop bears,” Nick added, and Samuel was sure that he was being teased, and he laughed, too.

"There,” Josh said, dragging the last of the three batteries out. “So, you reckon they're good?"

"The terminals are intact,” Samuel said, poking at the nearest one with one crutch. “Saves me from having to install new ones. I'm guessing that the bypass diodes have blown, and that the insulation has all fried, but that's easy to fix."

"Can you do this?” Nick asked, and he sounded awed. “Can you really make this work?"

"Don't see why not,” Samuel said. “Even if some of your panels are damaged, I should get a partial system running for you. It'll certainly be enough to run some pumps and give you electric light at night."

There was silence, and when Samuel glanced at Nick, he was staring at Josh. “Um, thanks,” Josh said, and his voice sounded thick.