The Islands of Sand and Steel

Chapter Two: The Machine of Segregation

Klangaua pulled the supply baskets out from the interior of the submarine, her strong arms bulging under their weight. She joined the group, falling in beside her sister. Ahead of them, Luava and Mali walked in a pair, while Angama made her way to the front.

From the dock where the submarine rested, a foot-bored dirt path wound through the rocks and hills, leading to the nearest train station. Rather than follow it, they trooped over grass and mud, under the shade of the occasional tree, keeping away from as many eyes as possible while the grasses massaged their bare feet. To their right, the city stood over the bay, a great metal scar on the landscape. To the left lay a band of farmland, with red barns and wooden fences in the colonial fashion. Beyond the farms, a dense jungle rose proudly from the land, defying the colonial foresters who had stripped so much of the island bare. Far behind the, a railroad horn blared rudely.

Finally, Luava saw two silver lines embedded in the greenery, a long-forgotten railroad that lead straight into the city.

"This is it!" said Angama. "There's a handcart on the siding not far from away. It can take us to the city."

"A handcart..." said Luava. "A colonial machine that lacks an engine. That is rare."

At the overgrown siding, in the shade of an apple tree, Luava and Angama cleared brush away from the metal thing, revealing a broad platform with no walls. A double lever sprouted from the center, one end sticking eagerly up.

Luava came aboard first, seating herself calmly on the cold, hard deck. Klangaua slammed her baskets down on the other side and took one of the handles. Mali took the other, and Halusha and Angama squeezed onto the deck beside Klangaua's baskets.

"I'll push down, you push up," said Mali.

The two grunted with effort, and the ponderous cart began to move. Mali's handle squeaked each time it reached its highest point, adding a rhythm to their movement as they rolled steadily along the old track.

Luava looked out on the houses belonging to well-to-do rural natives, where stilts held up the dwellings close to shore. They were clustered into villages, each with a luxurious two-story home in the middle, for the chieftain.

A biplane rested on the grass outside each village, and a few others were airborne, tracing gentle arcs through the sky. On the ground, bronze-colored people tended to vines, trees and bushes, or else joined the dense mass of canoes that fished for mollusks and turtles in the bay, just as their foremothers had.

"Luava," said Mali, "would you like an apple? I picked a few from the tree. They're good now."

"Yes," said Luava. She held out a hand, and Mali pressed an apple into it, not breaking her rhythm. Luava examined the fruit, and her spirits fell. These were not the oblong, crimson treats native to the islands, but the yellow-stained spheres that the colonials had introduced.

"This fruit is foreign," said Luava.

"Oh, by my goddess, Chief, will you ever let that go? It's not the apples we eat that make us who we are. Why won't you try it?"

Luava looked confrontationally down at the apple. Rejecting it would do no good, she realized. She took one bite. Her teeth sank into firm, fibrous meat, and sweet juice filled her mouth. She ate it down to its core, and when she cast it aside, she did not have to look to know that Mali was smiling at her.

As the city grew closer, Klangaua and Mali labored up a steepening hill. At the top, finally, the track ended where the rails twisted into a mangled braid. The handcart stopped.

"Something bad happened here," said Klangaua, as she picked up her baskets.

"I think a locomotive crashed here once," said Mali.