The Wanderers Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Roger Davenport

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Davenport, Roger, 1946-

  Wanderer / Roger Davenport.

  pages cm

  Summary: On an environmentally devastated Earth, two teenagers from opposing social groups, the Wanderers and the City Dwellers, must work together.

  ISBN 978-1-62087-541-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) [1. Survival--Fiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.D2812Wan 2013

  [Fic]--dc23

  2012049142

  To Laura

  ONE

  The blue-stripe was sleeping in the heat of the day with only the raised line on its back showing through the fine dry dirt, visible as a whorl of blue. Kean took note of a nearby rock before he stretched out his six-fingered hand, the one that was abnormal, and poised it above the snake. He flexed his fingers and relaxed them; breathed in, breathed out. His hand darted down and caught the blue-stripe’s tail and with a throwing action cast it up, and then down, whip-cracking its head against the rock. The body was still twitching as he stuffed it into the leather sack on his belt.

  He looked back to where light danced on the reflective surfaces of the big, low tent, a whole mile distant across the scrubland. They would all be asleep. Ahead the landscape became paler, more like desert terrain. Specks of quartz caught the white heat of the sun and sparkled dazzlingly. Good prospecting territory. The valley was hundreds of miles long and over three hundred and fifty miles wide, and while anywhere or everywhere there were treasures to be found just below the surface, the drier the ground, the easier it was to dig. It was not quartz or other minerals he was after; the prize find was fragments of metal, but one might also turn up other materials. It was a very long way from camp, though, and he was already well beyond the limits of safety.

  Untroubled by the weight of his soft, stained leather clothing, he loped onward across the wasteland, breathing easily in a temperature of over 110 degrees and feeling sporadic movement on his thigh through the sack. The nerves and muscles in the snake’s body would go on functioning for several hours.

  By the time you reached the final level of education, you’d had enough of it. Feeling drowsy, Essa looked around the white-walled classroom to keep herself awake. It was a large space, yet the pyramid city of Arcone was so vast that there were those living here who had never entered it.

  The Mentor spoke again. She seemed to be musing aloud, but they all knew it was a question.

  “Does beauty have a purpose?”

  She was a girl not much older than Essa, wearing a metal bracelet that denoted her rank as citizen. Her tunic was very short and very white. Many here wore their tunics short because of thrift; most chose a drab color that could stand a few marks on it. Essa’s own tunic was a washed-out brown.

  Her attention drifted while she waited for a classmate to answer the Mentor’s question. Gazing through the near-opaque thermal window at her side, she could make out the angular shapes of the windmills in the grain fields. Like the great pale pyramid itself, whose white walls had faded to an ashen gray, they were made from a variety of synthetic polymeric materials. As the city’s solar panels had failed one by one in the extremes of weather, the windmills had multiplied greatly and now constituted Arcone’s main energy source.

  A boy got to his feet. Essa knew he had sentimental feelings for the elegant Mentor and suppressed a smile. “Beauty is without purpose,” he said earnestly. “We revere it for itself.”

  Aware of his admiration, the Mentor smiled at him. “That is so, of course. Can anyone else contribute?”

  The stammerer of the class spoke: Essa’s friend Veramus. “In b-b-beauty there is harmony. Harmony p-promotes g-good feeling and eff-eff-eff. Efficiency.”

  “Very good, Veramus.” The Mentor raised her beautifully plucked eyebrows. “Anyone else? Someone else.”

  If someone didn’t speak up they would be asked to meditate in silence for ages. Wisdom and Ethics was one of those classes that had no time limit set on it, and Essa was anxious not to miss Mania.

  She stood up and said courteously, “Very often that which is beautiful is strong. Like Arcone itself, which has stood for so many centuries like a simple shape of rock, in harmony with the land, granting safety even when the great storms sweep in to assail the city walls.”

  Though trite, it satisfied the Mentor. Individuality in thought and character were encouraged only in theory. “Very good, Elessa. Harmony, strength, efficiency. These are the practical benefits of beauty. You express yourself pleasingly.”

  Predictably she moved on to debate the absence of beauty. Essa found herself looking out of the window again. Yes, Arcone had all you could ever need or want, but it would be nice to get outside more than once or twice a year.

  The long day wore on, unremittingly radiant under a cloudless sky. Kean had wandered on to where the sand took over from the scrubland. This was not true desert like the endless expanse of the Big White hundreds of miles to the north, but unfriendly enough.

  When he got back he would get sharp words from Hawkerman for his disobedience. A solitary blue-stripe wasn’t much to show for it. But all was not lost: up on high, four or five gray vultures hovered, so pale in color they were barely visible against the sky. Directly beneath them something must lie dead or dying. If that something was a Wanderer and beyond help, then that person’s goods would be Kean’s by right if he got to him before anyone else did.

  He broke into a shuffling jog-trot.

  It was an albatross. Its phenomenal wingspan lay open in the most vulnerable way. Its eyes were filming as Kean reached it, and he was the last thing it saw, a young human with pale skin and gray eyes, and hair so fair it was almost silver.

  When Kean was sure the bird was dead, he stroked the feathers of its neck and lifted it up. How extraordinarily light it was, for its size … Wanderer lore held that it was unlucky to take anything from an albatross, though Kean would have liked one long snowy feather as a keepsake from the only living thing that was capable of crossing the Big White itself.

  The vultures were no lower in the sky, which surprised him; they would normally land by a victim before it had even died. He looked around carefully, reading the situation. It was his eyes that had named him. “He sees keen and long”; it had been recognized and at last he had an identity.

  So, then. What was bothering the vultures? Was that tiny dark spot on the landscape a stand of acacia trees? That meant at least a modicum of water—and shade. And shade and water could mean …

  He began to run back the way he had come. Not a trot this time but running, with long strides.

  Terrible screams rang out in the Middle Chamber, the most often used of the three immense public chambers built one above the other in the center of the Pyramid. The slightly smaller arena above this one, just below the plastics hothouse, was the Concert Hall, only used on ceremonial occasions or for publi
c celebrations, while beneath their feet was the Measureless Chamber. In here, young people thrashed around on the white floor, squirming singly or together and shrieking at the top of their voices. Some of the sports were organized; the others were simple expressions of chaos, the only rule being that all must involve violent exertion: wrestling, Keep-Ball, Tag Two or Die.

  Members of the security force, the Pacifiers, stood in pairs at intervals around the walls. For the policing of the mass hysteria of Mania, they were without the actual electric pacifors. All were large men, over twenty-five years old, with the dark star of justice stamped on their tunics. They would interfere only if blood was spilled.

  Essa saw that Veramus needed looking after. Wriggling rather tamely on the floor and shouting as he was meant to, he had been swept up in a game of Keep-Ball. Three girls had stuffed the little round sack of beads down his tunic and had begun to use Veramus himself as the ball, dragging him over to others in their squad. Everywhere players were being grabbed and hurled aside, but the action was naturally fiercest around Veramus. Essa got to her feet and ran at the kidnappers, making herself into a human battering ram. The little pack of players stumbled and fell to the ground. Essa reached into Veramus’s tunic, plucked out the ball, and flung it away from him. One of the girls said, “That’s not fair!”

  Essa scrambled to her feet. “You’re not fair. Leave him alone.” She was tall, with dark hair, and she looked dangerous: the girl said nothing more. When Essa walked away, she did not look back at Veramus. He would be embarrassed by her intervention.

  She had caught the eye of one of the security officers. Unlike the others, he stood alone, a giant of a man whose uniform was less than spotless. His gray hair was cut close to his heavy head, and his face was bitter and scarred. It was Grollat, Commander of the Pacifiers.

  The smallest twitch of his head summoned her, and she went to him.

  “Name.” His whisper cut easily through the tumult.

  “Elessa of Bonix and also Marran.”

  “Ah.” He looked down at her impassively. “Bonix … Maintenance. A citizen now.”

  Why wouldn’t he know? Her father had some stature in Arcone these days. Still, Essa was impressed how Grollat could at once bring him to mind. “Yes,” she said, wondering what she could have done wrong.

  “You have courage.”

  Oh. That was it.

  “I don’t like to see people oppressed.”

  “Better keep your eyes on the ground then, Elessa. There’s always someone who needs help.” He smiled cynically. But he had not finished with her. “Would you say you have an independent spirit?”

  “No. Not at all,” she said quickly.

  “You wouldn’t say you have an independent spirit?”

  “No, Commander.”

  “I would.”

  Essa could not resist the urge of her questioning nature. “What are you doing here? I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

  He was untroubled by her rudeness. “Looking. Looking for new recruits. Shame you’re a girl … Essa.”

  He gestured for her to leave him. A hot flush came to Essa’s cheeks, although she was warm enough already. He knew her nickname. Why?

  She made herself start screaming again like all the others and ran as far away from the Commander as she could.

  There, at last: a flash of reflected light: the tent. But so tiny in the distance. Kean had been running for minutes. It was becoming hard to breathe. When the shrill barking came, he couldn’t help but look back. A single charjaw stood, one paw raised, pointing the way to him. The others would be along soon. They should pause to rip at the albatross, but there was not enough meat on it to hold them long. How stupid he’d been; where there were vultures, you could expect charjaws to arrive sooner or later. His imagination conjured up a closer image of the creature: its huge head and balding body, the incredibly broad mouth with the curved and ragged teeth that kept the beast’s mouth open at all times. Those terrible teeth that were too big even for a charjaw’s skull.

  It called again with more excitement, a rapid series of yelps. Kean ran on; it had seen the others and was guaranteeing them a rich feast if they hurried. Lengthening his stride, he fought to maintain a steady rhythm, one that would carry him all the way to safety without collapsing from cramps or exhaustion. Dehydration was already making him feel lightheaded.

  The tent was getting nearer but he wouldn’t make it. His bare feet thudded down on the hot soil, and behind him he could hear a cacophony of increasingly savage calls from the pack of charjaws. He didn’t dare look around for fear of slowing even momentarily. Soon he would be able to hear their paws scuffing the dirt behind him—then the first teeth would crunch into his ankle. He would be down, rolling in the dirt like the greenback deer he had seen brought down and eaten alive. This couldn’t be happening. He began to shout, but his lungs were close to exploding and all that came out was a gasping bark. The sound at least had the effect of breaking the panic which gripped him. He reached into the leather sack on his belt and threw the blue-stripe over his shoulder as he ran. A savage snarling announced that the carnivores pursuing him had been distracted by the flesh and were squabbling over it. Perhaps he had a chance, after all; his strength was renewed, and he found he was capable of sprinting. The tent was getting nearer.

  So were the charjaws, enlivened by the little diversion. Now Kean had overstretched himself—he was off-balance, leaning forward, his feet struggling to keep up with his toppling body, falling …

  He went down, rolling on bended arm so that he came up running again. Only he was no longer racing alone. Other steps tore into the earth only inches away from him. Fear brought a last burst of speed, and then he was off-balance and fell again. It saved him. The leading charjaw was already lunging at him, but its bite caught only the leather sack as they rolled in the dust together. The beast was winded by the impact of Kean’s body, and he could pull himself away from its jaws. As he staggered back, falling again, Kean saw the dozen other charjaws bounding toward him. He drew his knife and swept it around. The first charjaw gave a hoarse honking cough and fell sideways. Kean had a moment to register something silver sticking out from its bald ribcage.

  He turned toward the tent and reeled away from the charjaws. They piled onto their wounded companion and began to eat.

  The tent was three hundred yards away, its reflective silver foil leaves dazzling under the sun. In front of it, a small dark figure raised up an object to head height and pointed it. Kean heard no noise as the weapon fired but caught the whistle in the air as another steel dart whizzed past him into the pack of charjaws.

  He was down to a walking pace, limping, by the time he reached Hawkerman. The team leader said, “Come nightfall, you go and get my darts. There’s three of them out there.”

  “You could have hit me,” Kean gasped.

  Hawkerman was a small man, all sinew and lean, hard muscle. His eyes were splinters of blue set in narrow slits, and his face was as dark as the near-black leather clothes he wore, the traditional broad-shouldered jacket and leggings. He slung the compressed-air dart gun over his shoulder, looking past Kean to where the charjaws continued their cannibalism. His floppy patchwork leather Voyager hat lay beside him on the dirt where he had let it fall. He stooped to pick it up. His face under its wide brim was in complete shadow when he responded to Kean’s outrage.

  “Either way I was doing you a favor. You owe me.”

  Which was exactly what you would expect Hawkerman to say. He walked back to the entrance flap of the tent. “Since you’re awake, you can watch the pot. Only came out to keep it moist.”

  The sexes were separated in the robing rooms, where all was quiet. Women brought scented towels woven from recycled clothing and softened cornstalks. There was no wool or cotton here, only compounds of plant fiber and plastic. Like the Wanderers’ leather apparel, it encouraged perspiration. After so many years on the plains, the Wanderers had adapted to the extent where water loss was mi
nimal, but the more pallid Arconians needed to dry off after exercise. The perfumes were more a luxury than a necessity: left to its own devices, skin eventually emanated only the faintest of feral smells.

  Only the highest-ranking citizens were permitted to wash in water. Essa remembered standing near the Prime Conscience, Maxamar, on the occasion when her father was elevated to citizenship. Twice a year the Arconian leader had the privilege of full immersion in the underground reservoir in a ceremony attended by the whole Council. As a consequence of this infrequent dousing, she had been conscious that he exuded a not-altogether-pleasant odor.

  The ritual rub-down over, the participants in Mania dressed and returned to the Middle Chamber, where those who had inadvertently injured one another met up to exchange formal apologies. Mania itself was a cleansing process, a renewal of the spirit through physical means. After it you felt gloriously calm.

  “What did the Commander w-want?”

  It was Veramus. His quick, nervous smile was all the thanks she would get for saving him from a mauling.

  “Just said hello.”

  “He always looks so dirty. He doesn’t take p-pride in his appearance. Perhaps you can l-look any way you want if you’re him. What’s he like?”

  “Kind of nice, really,” Essa said casually. Inwardly her answer was, “Dangerous.”

  TWO

  After the evening meal, families were reflective. Essa sat silently with her parents. On gaining higher status, Bonix had been given larger living quarters, though many had grumbled that with just one child, he and his wife, Marran, should have stayed in the single chamber that had housed them for so long. Essa herself would have been happy to stay there, the child within her disliking change. Their new quarters were furnished plainly, and Essa’s own tiny room held only a sleeping pallet and a plastic chest for her clothes, along with one of her pictures. Marran was known as an excellent artist, and a few of her larger sculptures had been spared by the judges for long periods. When efforts at art or music notation were examined at the monthly exhibitions, most creations were deemed substandard and were recycled. Ideally a work would speak in some way of the wonder of Arcone.