There was no answer.
"Let's just go," Ethan said. "Oliver's right. This place is gloomy."
"No," Amaya said. "Raven's right. We need to help each other. I think we should camp here, away from their things, and wait for them."
The men looked around the bleak little town and then at Oliver.
"They're here," the Australian said. "I can feel them."
"What about the transmitter?" Daniel asked the others.
"We don't say anything about it until we've sized them up," Raven replied. "But we might want to invite them along. There's safety in numbers."
There was a small creek nearby and a stack of firewood. They built a fire, set up camp, and settled down to wait. The smell of their dinner drifted into the trees.
Their neighbors emerged at dusk. It was a man and a woman, both holding wooden staffs sharpened like spears. They approached cautiously, as if Daniel's group might spring on them at any moment, and they looked like the adventurers did, dressed in the dusty and faded synthetics they must have been wearing when dropped in the Outback. Their skin was clean and the man's beard neatly trimmed. The woman's hair was tied back. They were making an attempt at normality, but strain showed in their faces.
"Hungry?" Raven asked.
There was no reply.
"Quiet," Ethan observed.
"Why don't you eat with us?" Daniel offered.
The couple stood far enough away to bolt. "Who are you?" the man finally asked warily.
"Outback Adventurers, like you."
They started at that.
"We're just passing through," Raven added.
"You're the first women I've seen in a long time," the female said. "That's why we came out. Because you're women, but free."
"I'm Raven and this is Amaya. We're going east."
"To Exodus Port?"
"Sort of."
"We were told it doesn't exist," the man warned.
"And you are?" Daniel inquired.
"Peter. Peter Knowles, and this is Jessica Polarski. We've had a rough time and learned to be wary of strangers."
"I understand." He made introductions of his group. "And this is Oliver. He was born here."
The two newcomers looked in surprise at the tattered Australian companion. "I was always here," Oliver said proudly. "This place is mine."
"Somehow he survived the plague," Daniel explained.
"Is he your guide?"
"Sort of. He knows a lot of bush craft and we persuaded him to tag along. He's a little… eccentric, but I suppose we are too. What's your story?"
Peter sighed. "There were four of us, originally. We got lost, and then in trouble, and fell in with a nomad group. We thought they were hikers but then they said there's no way to get back and we had to join them. Except they were convicts! Thieves, murderers. It became this bizarre nightmare. They said there were morally impaired people being dumped all over Australia. They killed my friend for his gear and started raping his girlfriend."
"We ran away," Jessica confessed. "It was horrible."
"We had to," Peter added guiltily. "We hid from everyone we saw."
Raven looked down.
"How long have you been here?" Daniel asked.
"I don't know. A few months, maybe. We wandered for weeks and then this place had water and some shelter. It's not that we planned to be here. We just stopped and haven't been able to get started again. We don't know where to go. How many people are out there, anyway?"
"We don't know. Maybe more than we thought."
"We're just so confused," Jessica said.
Daniel nodded. "So are we. Come have some dinner."
The group ate, trading brief life histories, and then when Peter and Jessica returned to their garage, Daniel's group talked late into the night. In the morning, the decision was obvious. They asked the couple to join them.
"We're told there's no Exodus Port either," Daniel explained. "But we do have a transmitter salvaged from a crashed aircraft that mightmight- be able to call for help if we can reach the ocean. It will only work on the coast because of electronic jamming inland. The only one they'll take back for sure is Raven, here."
"Why her?"
"She was sent by United Corporations to bring the instrument back."
"She's one of them?"
Daniel looked at her. "She was. Now she's one of us." He waited to see if she'd correct him, but she didn't. "There might be room for Ethan too. I don't think United Corporations will save us, but if we can get word out, maybe someone in power will want to exploit this scandal back home. Then somebody might shut Australia down and rescue us."
"That's your plan?" Peter sounded skeptical.
"Do you have another one?"
He sighed. "No. I'm just not sure anyone will listen."
"They certainly won't if we don't do our best to bring back word," Daniel said.
In the end, the couple's decision was simple. To go with these newcomers offered hope. To stay put offered none. "If helping get this machine to the coast could put a stop to all this, it's worth whatever it takes to get it there," Jessica said. "Then we'll wait for… whatever." The possibility of getting back still seemed too remote to dare voice.
Amaya smiled encouragingly. "I don't think we should have to wait for anything," she replied. "When we get there I think we should start building the kind of lives we always wanted to lead. By the time we really get back home, we'll have learned what to live for."
Australia continued to unfold ahead of them, vast, seemingly endless, but also steadily changing and ever more intriguingly beautiful. The season had pleasantly cooled and they felt more acclimated to living outside than in. They came through a region of artfully interspersed rocky knolls and forested valleys and then encountered flatter grasslands and scrub savanna again. The continent was becoming a mosaic of landscapes. As they traveled their party began to swell. Adventurers were wandering or camped in this wetter country, dazed and fearful, and the appearance of a large, safe, increasingly well armed group with a purpose and destination proved irresistible. Within two months after fleeing Erehwon they numbered eighteen in all, seven women and eleven men, including a second native Australian named Angus. Oliver seemed briefly stunned by this aboriginal competition for ownership, and then embraced his countryman like a long-lost brother. The two continued to share their survival skills and the others pooled information. It was beginning to feel like a pilgrimage, or a migration. The original quartet enjoyed the company of these newcomers but also privately talked nostalgically of the "old days" of a few weeks before, when they'd been on their own.
Angus claimed to recognize some of where they were. "We're nearing the great range that runs north to south," he told them. "And beyond that: the sea." His promise brought a murmur of excitement. The east coast had been everyone's goal since departure from civilization. It would be something to actually get there.
The growing group had developed an intense camaraderie. It came partly from their nightly sharing of tales of danger and trauma, confusion and shame. It also came because the group walked, ate, slept, and bathed together, and within days newcomers would seem more familiar in camp than had office mates who'd occupied an adjacent desk for years in the corporations of home. Soldiers and pioneers must bond the same way, Daniel thought. The sense of human community was noveclass="underline" strangely missing in the far bigger society of United Corporations.
But while the new recruits were encouraging, the logistics of the trek were becoming more complicated. There were more people to feed, and the noise of their approach drove game animals farther away. Hunters had to be sent ahead or on the flanks to help bring in food and spot edible plants. People were beginning to instinctively specialize: hunters to get meat and scout, armorers to make weapons and tools, and then gatherers, cooks, menders, fire wardens. An easygoing youth named Rupert volunteered, despite inevitable ribbing, to each night mark out- and dig- a latrine. "Lack of sanitation will kill us faster than a wild bull or poisonous snake will," he said. A flag was fixed to indicate whether the facility was occupied, giving some measure of privacy.