The Pegasus Pulp Sampler

II. Jagellowsk-2

Ekaterina Alexeievna Grikova, Katya to her friends and loved ones, sat on a plot of parched grass next to the airfield of Solonitsyn shuttleport, her brother Mikhail by her side, and hundreds, if not thousands of kids lounging all around. It might have been a Founding Day picnic or a regional athletics festival, if not for the occasional shakes of the ground.

The shakes had started two day before — by night, as all bad things did. Laika, their dog, had started barking in the middle of the night. Katya woke up and was just sneaking down the stairs to get herself a glass of milk, when it happened. There was a loud boom — and why did no one ever tell you that earthquakes were bloody loud? — and suddenly Katya found herself on her butt on the stairs.

Back then, she didn’t know what it was, for how could she possibly know? After all, quakes were for other people, other planets. Jagellowsk was geologically stable, so they’d said in school. And the East Continent, where Katya and her family lived, was even more stable than the West Continent.

And so Katya just picked herself up, managed to get herself a glass of milk without waking her parents, and crept up the stairs again, only to find her little brother Mikhail waiting for her at the top of the stairs.

“Katya, there was a noise, a scary noise.”

“I know, Misha. I heard it, too. And now go back to bed.”

But Misha did not go back to bed. “I’m scared,” he said, his voice small, “Can I come and sleep in your bed tonight?”

Katya considered for a moment and then nodded. “Okay, come along then.”

Because Misha was right. That noise had been scary and landing on her butt, when she’d been standing upright only a second before had been scary, too.

But with her little brother huddled against her, everything suddenly seemed a lot less scary.

The next morning at breakfast, they said on the news that loud boom the night before had been an earthquake — they still used the word “earthquake”, even though Katya’s ancestors had left Earth centuries before. Earthquakes were rare on the East Continent, they said. The sort of thing that only happened once every fifty years ago.

But then it happened again. And not fifty years later either, but only a few hours later. Another boom and another quake. This time, the lamps at school even shook visibly and a shelf fell over in Katya’s classroom.

After the incident with the shelf — which almost hit Yuri in the head, when it fell over — they were sent home early. It was a lovely summer day and Katya and Misha had planned to use their unexpected free time to go fishing in the stream behind their farm and maybe play in the woods with Laika.

But once they got home, Mama and Papa wouldn’t let them go out again. For the quake had also hit at home. It had knocked over some glasses and a very ugly vase that Babushka had gotten as a wedding present fifty years or so before. Papa was fretting over a crack in the kitchen wall — a long, ugly crack that went all across the wall from floor to ceiling. Outside, the cows were mooing and Laika was barking like mad.

“Animals can sense danger before it comes,” Babushka said, while chopping up gherkins to make solyanka, “Always pay attention to the animals, Katyusha. They know things that we don’t.”

Katya nodded and sat down to help Babushka. Misha, who was still too little to be trusted with a kitchen knife, was put to work washing mushrooms instead.

There were more shakes, more quakes. The long crack in the kitchen wall was joined by a smaller crack in the ceiling of the living room and the pretty statuette of a ballerina that Katya had always so admired fell from a shelf and shattered into a thousand pieces.

And it wasn’t just happening here, in the Yakovstan province on the East Continent — no, it was happening all over the planet. Something was very, very wrong.

On the news, serious looking scientists talked about “seismic instabilities” and spouted a lot of gobbledygook that made no sense to Katya, even though she was already thirteen and had always had good grades in her science and geography lessons.

It didn’t make any sense to Mama and Papa either. “That’s just bullshit,” Papa roared, while Katya blanched at the swearword she’d never heard him use before, “They’re lying to us, plain and simple.”

“Don’t be using such language around the children, Alexei,” Babushka admonished him.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? It’s plain as day that what they’re saying on the news is b… baloney,” Papa said.

“What’s baloney?” Misha wanted to know.

“Something that’s wrong, just plain nonsense,” Papa said.

“A kind of sausage from DiMonti”, Mama said simultaneously.

“So why is the sausage nonsense?” Misha asked, utterly confused.

“Because it’s not a very good sausage”, Mama said and planted a kiss on Misha’s forehead. In response, Misha made a face. Like all little boys of eight, he thought kissing was icky and embarrassing.

“And now off to bed, both of you,” Mama said, “Don’t forget you’ve got school tomorrow.”

So Katya and Misha went to bed, both of them huddling close together in Katya’s bed, because shakes and the scary booms and the cows mooing and Laika howling went on all through the night.

What was more, there was no school the next day. For when Katya and Misha came down for breakfast that morning, holding on to the bannister for dear life, when another quake shook the house, while they went down the stairs, they were met by Mama and Papa, both of them grim-faced and serious.

Katya and Misha should go to the bus stop as normal, Papa said. But the bus wouldn’t take them to school. Instead, it would take them somewhere else. Cause all the children in the entire province would be evacuated, sent away, to somewhere where it was safe.

“But I’m not a child,” Katya said, “Misha should go, of course, because he’s little. But I can stay here with you. After all, I’m already thirteen.”

“You both go and that’s the final word,” Mama said.

“What about Laika?” Misha wanted to know, “Can she come as well?”

“On the news, they said, �Only children’, so I guess Laika will have to stay here,” Papa said, “And besides, I need her to help me calm down the cows.”

“Don’t worry, darling, we’ll take very good care of her,” Mama added, “And besides, it’s only for a little while, until the danger has passed.”

Papa nodded. “Just until the danger has passed,” he echoed.

At this moment, Babushka emerged from the kitchen, clutching a thermo-lunchbox. “I made you pelmeni,” she announced, “Pelmeni with minced meat and mushrooms, just as you like them, so you won’t have to go hungry. I also put two cans of strawberry kvass into the box.”

She handed the lunchbox to Katya. “Here, Katyusha. You’re already a big girl, so you take care of the food and make sure that Misha eats. And now you’ll have to go or you’ll miss the bus.”

What followed were hugs and kisses all around, even if Misha made a face every time someone kissed him. The hugs were a lot more intense than usual, which made Katya wonder whether their impending exile was really “only for a little while”. Because it sure as hell did not feel that way. At any rate, her parents had never hugged her like that, when she was leaving “only for a little while”.

“Take good care of Misha,” Mama said as she hugged Katya, holding her tight, very tight. Her voice choked, almost as if she were crying. “He’s just a little boy and he’ll need his big sister to protect him.”

“I promise, Mama,” Katya said, her voice choking, too, and this time it was definitely because she was crying, “I promise that I’ll always take good care of Misha.”

Then Katya took Misha by the hand and began to walk down the driveway to the bus stop by the road. Mama, Papa and Babushka waved after them, waved until were so far from the house that they could no longer see them. Though they could still hear Laika barking and the cows mooing and the birds chirping, the sounds accompanying them all the way down to the road.

And through it all, Katya couldn’t shake the feeling that this was good-bye, that she’d never ever see her home and her family again.

She should have taken along pictures of home, pictures of Mama and Papa and Babushka and Laika and the house and the cows and fields. But they’d barely had any time to pack, so all she had was a picture of herself and Misha and Laika, taken last summer, in the little golden locket she wore on a chain round her neck.

And since Katya didn’t have any pictures to remind her of home, she tried to take in every little detail, tried to absorb everything, so she would remember, so she would always remember. The way the wheat and the barley — almost ripe now, only one or two weeks more — swayed in the wind. Laika’s bark and the mooing of the cows, the chirping of the birds and the buzzing of the insects, the sky above, so bright and blue, dotted with puffy white clouds. The dirt road under her feet and the glossy black beetle that scurried across the path. The wind on her face and the feeling of Misha’s hand in hers, holding on tight.

I’ll keep you safe, little brother. I promise.

The bus was already waiting, when they reached the bottom of the driveway, Pavel, the perpetually grumpy driver was even grumpier than usual.

“Get in,” he grunted, “I’ve got lots more kids to pick up and I can’t wait for you two.”

The bus was already full, a lot fuller than usual. Katya spotted a free seat next to Tamara, a girl she knew from school, and sat down. They both moved , so they could fit Misha between them, the three of them squeezing into a seat intended for two.

The bus quickly diverted from its usual route to school, stopping intermittently to pick up more kids. Every single seat was filled now, usually with three or four kids squeezing onto seats where two would normally sit. And still more kids piled into the bus, standing in the aisles.

In the aisle next to Katya, there was a girl her age with a baby on her arm. She had problems holding on, whenever the bus swayed, as it rounded a corner, so Katya offered to take the baby. She settled it on her lap, a plump little boy who sucked on his thumb. Misha was fascinated by the baby and kept making funny faces, while the baby squealed in delight.

Then at last, the bus came to a halt. “Everybody out,” Pavel called, so the kids all piled out onto a large paved parking lot. There were more busses and more kids all around, so many kids that Katya held on tight to Misha’s hand, lest she lose him in the chaos.

There were adults, too, men and women in peacekeeper uniforms. They pointed into the distance and told the kids to sit down on the grass and wait, until the ships would come to take them away.

Katya trotted into the direction indicated, still holding Misha by the hand. She looked around and suddenly she recognised where she was. This was Solonitsyn shuttleport. She’d been here once or twice with Papa, as he delivered grain and beets to the big transport shuttles to be taken away to Strugatsky or even further.

So if the bus had taken them to the shuttleport, it meant that, wherever they were going, it was far away, much further from home than Katya had ever been.

But for the moment, they weren’t going anywhere, for the shuttleport was entirely empty. There was no sign of the large agricultural transport shuttles that carried meat and grain and dairy and other produce away to feed the planet and the rest of the Republic. The passengers shuttle that took people from Solonitsyn to Strugatsky and from there to the rest of the galaxy was gone as well.

“Where are the shuttles?” Katya asked a peacekeeper.

“They’ll be coming shortly,” the woman answered gruffly, “Just sit down somewhere and wait.”

So Katya found an empty spot on the grass surrounding the airfield. She spread out her jacket on the still damp grass, motioned for Misha to sit down and then settled down beside him. And so they waited. And waited. And waited.

For contrary to what the peacekeepers said, both when asked and via the shuttleport’s public address system, there were no shuttles coming. More busses arrived, bringing more children from all over the province, but there were still no shuttles.

Katya was close enough to the perimeter that she could overhear the peacekeepers talking into their comms.

“No, I’m not going to be patient. I’m f*****g through with being patient. You promised you’d send us ships. We’ve got five thousand kids here and no evacuation craft.”

It was the obvious nervousness of the peacekeepers and the other adults that bothered Katya more than anything. Because if the adults were nervous, that was usually a sign that whatever was going on was really, really bad.

Throughout the day, the shakes and the quakes got worse, though here in the open there was little danger of anything hitting anybody. But the peacekeepers rolled and swayed like wobbly toys and occasionally someone fell over.

By midday, when the sun was high in the sky and there was still no sign of any shuttles, Katya finally opened the lunchbox that Babushka had given her. She took out the two cans of strawberry kvass, gave one to Misha and kept the other for herself. Her stomach grumbled and she longingly regarded the six pelmeni nestled together in the box.

In the end, Katya gave two of the pelmeni to Misha, because he was still small and needed more food to grow. She kept one for herself and gave the remaining two dumplings to two little girls — sisters, aged six and nine — who were sitting next to them and had no food at all. And since the two girls didn’t have anything to drink either, Katya also let them take a swig of her strawberry kvass.

The younger of the two girls was still hungry and cast a longing look at Misha’s pelmeni, so he broke one in half and gave it to her. “She’s very little…” he explained, “…so she needs more food.”

Katya ruffled his hair in response. And because Misha had managed to get minced meat and mushroom mixture on his hands and on his face as well, Katya pulled a packet of wet tissues from a pocket of her coat and proceeded to clean her little brother’s hands and face. The two little girls sitting next to them also looked in dire need of a wet tissue, especially the younger one, so Katya gave each of them a tissue as well.

And still they waited, waited for the ships to come that would take them all away from the only home they’d ever known.

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