Moonful of silver, p.23
Moonful of Silver, page 23
Silence.
He snarled, feral. “You ungrateful pigs! I’ll skin you when I’m through! Just wait and see what I do when I—”
But he never got to finish. The whole town lifted their scanners as one, and a burst of electricity at his collar silenced him for good.
BROADCAST
Lunar HQ
Can you hear me? Anyone. Can you . . .
Silt, I hope you can hear me.
This is Ronin Smith, Analyst of the Board of Directors at Lunar HQ. I don’t have much time.
We . . . you’ll see changes pretty soon. All over the Moon. The core. It’s . . .
Listen. Contact with Earth has stopped. We’re on our own up here. Some of you will get automated instructions about filling the core and triggering a Moonwide spin. Follow those instructions. And don’t delay.
We already waited too long, and now we’re all paying the price.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry we didn’t do this sooner. I’m sorry about a lot of things. Mallory, I’m sorry.
I . . .
There’s no time.
Listen. You’ll have to change with this Moon. Once the core is filled—and trust me, it won’t take long for that to happen—an atmosphere will form across the entire surface. You hear? The art-ats will pump it out, and changes in gravity will stop it escaping. It’ll hold. It’ll . . . gah . . . it’ll spread.
We sent botanists to the colonies. Into the badlands. They needed them out there more than we did. But now, it’s us who need them.
You’re going to be out of . . . out of food. You’re going to need to leave here and find seeds that can grow. Find the botanists that can keep you fed. That’ll mean travel. It means leaving Lunar HQ.
After you’ve followed your automated instructions from LunarCore, go to the colonies. Tell them things are changing. Tell them you need seeds that’ll grow in dust.
It’s your best hope.
It’s your only . . . hope.
I know many of you think the . . . people in the badlands are just a bunch of rebels. But sometimes . . . gah . . . someti . . . sometimes, hope is an act of rebellion. You have to be rebels now . . . This way, you have a chance at hope. Don’t . . .
Don’t . . . waste it . . . like we . . .
Mallory!
Mallory, forgive me.
Forgi . . .
[End transmission]
JO
Serenity II
Jo watched as the stranger closed the pantry door. Footsteps receded, and then vanished.
The townsfolk exhaled a sigh. She shushed them once more. They waited. Waited. Minutes bled into a haze until finally Nona broke the silence. “Jojo. I need toilet.”
Jo’s shoulders sagged.
“Hasn’t it been long enough?” Ignacio asked.
“I don’t know.” Jo shook her head. “But we can’t stay here forever. Who volunteers to come with me and see?”
Not a single hand raised. Was it because they were so jammed together that none of them could lift their arms? More likely to be fear. That’s what caused people to run. That’s what had brought her here in the first place.
“They might have gone,” Ignacio offered. “We can hope, right?”
Hope. The word seemed so futile. And yet, what else could overcome the unease infecting the courage of their hearts?
“Fine. I’ll go,” Jo said. “If I don’t come back, you stay in here as long as you can, alright?”
The townsfolk nodded.
Jo pushed the pantry door and crept out of the hidden room. She tiptoed through the dome, craning her ears to any sound beyond. But there was nothing. Not even the whisper of a breeze.
With bated breath, she peered around the dome’s door and found the town as empty as she’d ever seen it. She waited. Still there was no disturbance. No sign of anyone.
She left the dome and entered the plaza, analyzing what the raiders had taken. In the center of town, the boiler room door was smashed. She checked inside and where the water tanks had stood, there was only empty space.
Those silt-suckers. She should’ve joined Cap and taken the fight to them. Better to be scanned down than endure the long, painful death of dehydration.
Cap.
Where was Cap?
Jo turned and her eyes met that same silhouette which had always seemed so full of life, only this time, it lay motionless on the ground, painted black by scorch marks.
“Cap!” Jo bounded to where the raiders had discarded the old woman’s corpse. She knelt beside Cap’s body and drew her limp form to her chest. She wept into her hair, tears mingling with the silver strands.
Behind Jo, a rustle of footsteps approached.
“Jo,” Ignacio said. “Jo. What’s happened?”
“I . . . I can’t . . . The water . . . Cap . . . It’s all over, Ignacio. It’s finished. The town . . . we’re done. Serenity. It’s dead.”
Ignacio placed a hand on Jo’s shoulder. “We’ve survived until now. We can survive again. You’re a survivor, Jo. That’s why Cap scrubbed your collar all those cycles ago. And look at you now. Still surviving.”
“What good is survival? What good was it to her?” Jo shrugged him off and ran from the gaze of the townspeople. She barraged her way through the saloon doors, head in hands so no one would see her weep. On Cap’s usual table, two drinks stood. One for her. One for Jo.
She should have been here with her. In another life, they’d be sitting in this saloon, sipping on the diluted booze the traders left. Laughing together. Jo could almost picture the two of them opposite one another, clinking glasses and drinking to the town they’d built. Their oasis in the silt.
But in this life, Cap lay dead in the street and Jo was alone.
No. Not alone. There was still the town. Still this bar. Still the two beers waiting to be drunk. Cap might be gone, but what kind of a tribute would it be to let Serenity die with her? While Serenity was still here, her spirit remained. Even if all that remained of it were two drinks in her favorite watering hole.
What good is survival? Cap had found the good. And now it was up to Jo to do the same.
Jo wiped her eyes and brushed at the puffiness of her cheeks. She drew a lungful of dusty air and marched into the street.
“Alright, listen up,” she called. “We can’t survive if we stay in this town. But we might have just enough supplies to make it to another. I’m going to need all of your help, but with a bit of luck, we can make this work.”
“Bunny can help,” Nona said.
“What do you need?” Ignacio asked.
A crowd gathered around her, ready to hear her plan.
“We’re going to run,” Jo said. “And we’re going to do it together.”
EVEN IN THE LOW GRAVITY of the square, the art-at components weighed the hovers down. The burden of keeping the engines from dragging across the dust was a strain that proved almost too much for them to bear. But still, somehow, they stayed afloat.
Jo led the cavalcade. She passed Cap’s gravestone and whispered goodbye as the town followed her on foot into the wasteland beyond.
The group huddled together beneath the blanket of the art-at, moving with them on the hovers that kept pace with their slow progress across the silt. Distilled in two barrels, the last of the well’s water sloshed, carried on the back of the final hover. It might be enough to see them through a Moonday, but what then?
Jo shook off the tension clenching her jaw. How long had it been since her face had ached like that? There was no use panicking about what came next. Either they found an outpost out here, or they didn’t. At least this way, she gave them a shot.
Dust kicked up at their feet as they dragged the convoy one step at a time. The silt baked beneath the hot sun, and steam hissed as their blanket of atmosphere passed over the ground. Direction became meaningless. There was only one way to move, and that was onwards.
How many Earth-days did they press towards the same horizon? How many steps over the same track of silver silt?
The children’s cries of tiredness and thirst eventually waned. Acceptance wrought a strange submission to their journey. There was no question of how far to go, only the question of how long they could keep this up.
One step.
Another.
Each a stride towards a destination that existed only in hope. Every step, a possibility yet to form.
Dunes shifted. Rising. Falling. In the distance, mountains loomed.
Jo steered them to the hills and their walk became a climb.
As Moonday fell, night brought its chill and the town came to rest inside a cave halfway up the mountain. The water was gone. Their legs, defeated. Pushed past the point of exhaustion. They collapsed beneath the shelter of the art-at as it projected heat that bounced over the cave walls.
“We’ve made good progress,” Jo announced. “Who knows what’s over these hills?”
A murmur settled among the people as they nursed their sleeping spots on the stone. Perhaps there was nothing over the hills? What did it matter? So long as they had something to strive for, something to run to, there was still a chance.
Jo closed her eyes and forced her collar into its sleep cycle. Not that she needed it. After the march across the silt, she doubted any of them required their collars to keep them sleeping until the next Moonday.
But still, in the darkness, Jo released herself to the melatonin pulsing through her veins, and drifted into . . .
SHE WOKE WITH A START. A cry. A child. Nona.
“What’s wrong?” Jo yelled.
“Dada! Dada! Wake up, Dada!”
Nona shook Ignacio as his boys stirred.
No.
Jo raced to where Nona stooped over her father. She checked his pulse. Come on, Ignacio. Don’t do this. She slammed his chest with her fist. Again.
Nona wept.
She tinkered with his collar, but there was no bringing him round. She needed a way of waking him. Of triggering a response—any response—to restart his collar’s wake routine.
Jo dragged his body to the cave’s mouth as people stirred from their dreamless sleep. She held her breath and carried him to the edge of the art-at. The cold of Moonnight stung her hands, shocked her heart until it almost burst. Ice formed on Ignacio’s skin, beading in his hair. And then his eyes exploded open as he gasped for a breath that wasn’t there. She pulled him to her, and his lungs heaved spasms of air. Jo dragged him closer to the hover and the art-at did its work, giving him the oxygen he needed, until his shaking eventually stopped.
Nona bounded into his arms. “Dada!”
Ignacio glanced at where Jo backed away. “Gracias.”
She called loud enough for everyone to hear. “We’re going to survive this. Moonday will be here any moment. Let’s get ready to move.”
As soon as the sun emerged in a white ball of fury, Jo resumed her path up and over the mountains. Beyond, a crater of silt flattened out into a waterless sea—an endless basin coated in silver.
She pressed them on.
Ever on.
One step. Then the next.
On towards what? There had to be a place those raiders had come from. A town. An outpost. Something. Anything. She refused to accept there was nothing for them to reach. They just had to keep going. That was it. Just keep walking. Keep running. Run.
She’d been running her whole life.
Run, Jo.
Only this time, she wasn’t running away.
Run.
She was running towards something, even if that something was only a dream.
Run.
Ru . . .
As the clicks passed and her legs began to fail, she staggered to a stop and dropped to her knees.
Just . . .
Keep . . .
Runni . . .
“Jo!” A voice. Was that you, Cap? No. It couldn’t be you. You’re dead. “Jo, look! Ahead! Do you see it?”
She lifted her eyes and there it was. A shadow. The slightest curve of the top of a dome. The edge of a town.
She beat her fists against her legs, willing them back to life, and with every ounce of strength remaining in her, she rose to her feet . . . and ran.
NAMELESS
Present
Nameless lurched up from the table, her chest pulsing as the collar fed her body.
“Don’t be such a baby!” Gabe said. “It’s just a bit of air.”
She punched him in the shoulder with her mechanical arm.
He smiled. “All fixed. You won’t have to wear that stupid mask to breathe anymore.”
She shrugged.
“Don’t tell me you actually liked that thing.” He shook his head. “And as for this,” he pointed to the beaten-up helmet she’d found in a scrap pile, “don’t even get me started. Ay ay ay. I still can’t believe you took your arm off. What in Lunar’s name were you thinking?”
Nameless smiled as she removed the mechanism she’d cobbled together to replace one collar for another.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Wouldn’t have been fair if you didn’t. But still. You almost gave me a heart attack! Caramba. You’re going to be the death of me one day.”
“Doubtful.”
“Oh? You question the wisdom of your elders? Did nobody teach you manners, amiga? And speaking of manners, Sanchez tells me you have a name. After all this time I’ve been calling you Nameless! Why did you never tell me your name was Mallory?”
“That’s not my name.”
“Oh? It’s not, eh? Then whose collar have you been wearing all this time?”
Nameless closed her eyes. An image flashed of the woman who had rode into town when Nameless was nothing but an orphan. The woman who had called herself ‘M.’ Said she came from Lunar HQ. The woman who had performed miracles with collars to keep the town alive. Who had let the little orphan girl watch as she moved her hands with such finesse and grace, and laughed as the girl had tried to copy her. The woman who had taught the girl. Fed the girl. Showed the girl how to survive in the wild with only a collar and a helmet. The woman who had encouraged the mining town to stand up to the captain after he had made them captives. The woman imprisoned for speaking out, for inspiring mutiny. Who still believed in people, even when they were too cowardly to fight against tyranny, too fearful to stand with her. The woman who had sent the girl away on an errand, knowing what the captain was about to do. And by the time the girl returned, she had found the woman who had been so full of spirit and life, but who now lay dead alongside half the town, prostrated as a spectacle and warning. The captain had fled. The town left deserted. So the girl took the woman’s collar and built a machine so she could fix it to her own neck. She rode into the silt with nothing but a helmet and a hover, and became her own woman. A woman who called for justice in the badlands. A woman without a name. A woman without a story.
“She . . . She was nobody,” Nameless said.
“Sure. Nobody. Caramba, when are you going to be straight with me, amiga? Did nobody tell you it’s rude to tell lies, especially to men as old as me!”
Maria entered the junkyard. “How’s it going?”
Gabe crossed his arms. “Nameless has a brand new collar, but she’s still as bad-mannered as ever.”
Maria tutted. “Maybe we shouldn’t have fitted you with Esteban’s collar.”
“Why? He didn’t need it!” Gabe chuckled.
“I’m just saying. If we’d given her the collar of someone nicer, then—”
“Then she might have learned to smile!” Gabe nudged Nameless on the arm.
Nameless scowled.
His playfulness vanished. “Lo siento, amiga. I didn’t mean . . . ay ay ay.”
Maria brushed herself down. “Speaking of the town, everyone’s waiting. Are you ready, Nameless?”
Nameless nodded.
Gabe placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “Bueno. It’s about time we appointed a new captain.”
Nameless stood and followed Maria, Gabe at her heels. In the middle of Main Street, Sanchez had grouped everyone around where Esteban had fallen. His long, black captain’s jacket was folded ceremoniously, and his captain’s pistol rested atop it. Sanchez held the coat and pistol, ready to bestow it on the captain who would take Esteban’s place.
All Tranquility waited for Nameless, watching her, their eyes bright with anticipation.
Maria stepped forward. “We’re gathered here today to appoint a new captain. And we’re all agreed that there is no one better to lead us than the one who rid us from the scourge of—”
“No,” Nameless interrupted.
Maria stopped. “Sorry. Did you . . . did you say something, Nameless?”
She stepped forwards and returned the stare of the entire town. “It was you who rid yourselves of Esteban. All of you.”
“Si,” Gabe said, “but we—”
“Without you, he would still be here. This is your victory.”
Maria closed the gap between her and Nameless. “What does it matter? We still want you as captain.”
Nameless shook her head.
Gabe almost choked. “You’re . . . you won’t do it? But, who else is as . . . qualified . . . as responsible as you?”
“I can’t be responsible if I’m gone, can I?”
Gabe’s jaw slackened. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“This is goodbye, friend,” she whispered.
“What? You just saved Maria and killed the captain! You can’t leave! What will we do without a leader?”
“The town’s got a captain.” Nameless took the jacket she wore that bore the rank of captain and handed it to Gabe.
He glanced up at her, confusion in his eyes.
“It never fit me anyway. Try it.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t be the captain. I’m a mechanic. I was never meant for anything but fixing. I can’t do this. Not alone.” Nameless nodded, then glanced once at Maria, and finally over to Sanchez. She turned back to Gabe and her eyes melted the fear in his own. “You’re not alone.”
