Freedom Star

Chapter 12

With adrenalin fading and no immediate threats to limb, life or liberty—a sensation Jon rather thought he could get to like—even the unsettling events of his arrival in camp couldn't prey on his mind enough to keep him awake. He slept, and woke, and ate ravenously, and then slept some more, and when he woke the following morning he felt more like his old self than he had—well, since he'd been shot, he decided, thinking about it. He got up from the fragrant bed of deep-piled leaves on which he'd slept and walked to the door of the hut, scratching his bare chest and thinking hopefully about breakfast.

As he emerged into the sunlight he saw Ellia sitting by the big tree that marked the centre of camp, a cluster of small children around her. He wandered over that way, half-expecting to hear some kind of political-lecture-for-tots, and instead almost laughed as he came within earshot: "...and so Goldilocks set off into the woods. Now, in these woods lived three bears..."

"What's a bear?" interrupted one of the girls.

"It's like a great big bushscreamer that walks on its hind legs and eats little kids!" a boy a couple of years older said with relish.

The little one looked like she was about to cry, but Ellia quickly said, "But that's only wild bears. These bears were very tame. In fact, they were civilized. They lived in a little cottage..."

"What's a cottage?" This time it was the boy who asked.

"It's like a hut, only nicer," Jon said. They all turned around and stared at him, open-mouthed and suddenly shy; obviously they didn't know quite what to make of him. He guessed he couldn't blame them, after what they must have heard from Dar, and then after yesterday...he wished he hadn't said anything. They were enjoying themselves, and doing something very childlike, and now he'd reminded them of Annetta and all the horrible things that had happened...

But he underestimated Ellia. "That's right," she said, drawing their attention again. "And these three bears were so tame, they not only lived in this fancy hut, they had a fire and cooked their porridge—that's a kind of mushy stew—and that's what they were doing one fine morning when..."

Jon walked on, smiling. How long had it been since those children had had a story told to them, or read to them? There'd certainly been no one to do it in Carlson's camp, and some of them were so young when they were taken from their parents that they probably didn't even remember them...his smile faded. The Commonwealth had a lot to answer for, he thought; and remembered the promise he had made Exxil, that he would do everything he could to destroy the Commonwealth's hold on this planet. "I must have been tired," he muttered.

He found the latrine trench and used it, then went to the stream that flowed along one edge of the camp to wash up. Three or four children splashed naked in the shallows, screaming and laughing and throwing water at each other, and he grinned at them as he knelt to throw water over his own head and shoulders—and then stopped grinning as, reflected in the still water at the stream's edge, he saw the unmistakable streak of an airplane contrail crossing the sky. It was so high that he thought that if it just kept going there would be a good chance it hadn't seen anything below—but even as he thought that the contrail bent and the plane began to descend, and he spun around and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Take cover! Skyforce!"

The children playing in the stream stared at him, glanced up, then turned and ran. Jon ran after them, yelling, "Into the woods! Away from the huts!" Children scattered in front of him; he saw Ellia chivvying the brood she'd been telling a story to into the forest. Everyone else seemed to have cleared out safely, but he had to be sure: even though he could hear the Skyforce plane now and knew he had only seconds before it opened fire, he dashed from hut to hut, checking each one to make sure it was empty—and as the sound of the plane grew to a scream he burst into the last hut and discovered Kira, just sitting up and blinking around. "What's that noise?" she said fuzzily, then gasped as Jon grabbed her and hauled her bodily out of the hut and into the open.