The End Has Come

Ishim was catching a nap and Karron had the wheel as she guided the ship, keeping the boat turned so the big sail held a bellyful of wind. This way would narrow too much for sailing soon and they’d have to break out the poles or risk the racket of the steam engine for a while. They’d decide when Ishim woke, probably with a shared glance, a look at the river conditions, and a nod. A decade and a half relying on each other made words irrelevant. Karron smiled to herself as a Kingfisher dove into the water ahead. Sometimes they’d go weeks without words.

Not like their passengers. Nolan and Jill talked to each other a lot and sometimes attempted to engage Ishim or Karron in small talk, more and more as the days went by. They said idle things mostly. When they spoke to each other, they used Esper instead of Covenant. Their accents in that tongue put them from the south, maybe from as far as Nawlins. She and Ishim never sailed too far south. Too many sharks and crocodiles, too much heat, unstable weather, and biting insects. Too many Covenant Peace Keepers. The north was safer.

Nolan had insulted Karron and Ishim the second day in Esper, calling Ishim a night pig and Karron his little white slut. Ishim didn’t speak Esper and Karron had decided not to respond, curious as to why the man went off on them with such a pleasant tone and a smile on his face. She’d figured he was trying to see if she spoke the language. Her training was still there, lurking beneath her skin like the nanotech. So she said nothing, just shook her head as though she had no idea what he was saying.

This morning they’d been whispering about a broken bridge. Their excitement, the anticipation they couldn’t keep out of their body language, it scared Karron. Felt to her like the thick heat before a bad storm, air crackling with energy as the world held its breath.

War Children. She hadn’t told Ishim. No way to tell him without chancing being overheard. The kids had stayed aft all morning, crouched together and watching the world with dark, quiet eyes that didn’t quite meet hers when she risked looking their way.

Wherever they’d come from, wherever they were going, they weren’t her crèche, her brothers and sisters. Not her problem. Killing took her away, took her to the warm place it was hard to come home from. She wouldn’t go there for strangers. She couldn’t.

The children as she’d known them were gone. These kids? Not. Her. Problem.

The wheel beneath her hands creaked and started to splinter. She forced her grip to relax.

Ishim woke, and they shared a quick meal of flatbread and dried fruit. Supplies were low and it hadn’t rained in a few days. They’d have to start boiling river water soon, or use the precious gallons of filtered water on their passengers. They had filter tabs, but those made water taste awful, and Karron’s shit turn to tar, so she avoided them unless it was dire. There was a settlement nearby, just upstream where their Covenant coin would spend. Fresh water, maybe fresh fruit and vegetables. Maybe even game meat. Karron was getting tired of fish and flatbread.

They doused the sails after losing the stern wind as the river narrowed, and pushed the boat with long poles through the smaller canal-like passage that should connect up to the Zouri tributaries. She hadn’t sailed this way since the previous summer, and the winter rains and flooding could have changed things. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Hours of poling felt good on her muscles, taking her mind off the kids. Something red caught her eye off the port side as she shoved the long pole into the canal bed. Metal, the remnant of a settlement here probably before the Ring, back when Earth had a moon and this whole land was called the United States. Fragments survived even in the wilderness, sometimes rising like the carcass of a long-dead beast from reeds and swamp.

Part of a bridge, Karron realized. She’d seen it before, the broken expanse stretching like an accusing finger pointing over the water. It hadn’t been red then. It was painted on the side toward her, bright and fresh.

She went still, pole in her hands nearly forgotten.

Ishim cursed and she made herself turn and look to the starboard side. Nolan had a .38 revolver pointed at Ishim’s head. The way the man held it, it was clear he had practice with a gun and was ready to kill.

“Pole over to the bank there by that bridge,” Jill said. She stood near the mast, another gun held in one hand, pointed down but with her finger near the trigger.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Nolan added.

Karron contemplated doing something stupid. The nanos in her head were angry insects begging to be let free. They buzzed through her, little twitches of muscle and thought which she had tried to euthanize with time and quiet.

Jam the pole into the river, shove the ship hard right. Grab the gaff two steps fore, take five steps, remove gun from man. Throw gaff and rope at woman. Take gun, kill. Two shots.