Saving Grace by Merry Farmer

Author:Merry Farmer [Farmer, Merry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-07-13T05:00:00+00:00

Grace stopped dead and stared when they reached the crest of the hill and looked down into Kutrosky’s camp. Their previous interaction had taken place in the valley they had just climbed out of. She hadn’t imagined what the other crash site would look like. The half-deconstructed wreck of an emergency ship five times larger than theirs—roughly the size of the planetarium on the Argo but narrower—dominated the valley, like a giant twisted metal whale washed up on an unfamiliar shore. It had the same silent, dead feeling as ES5, no functioning technology at all. The ground was churned in a gouge at least ten feet deep across the valley showing the path of the crash.

Alcoves and caves had been dug into the walls of the gouge. Boxes and bundles from the ship were stored in haphazard stacks and piles inside and around them. A few tiny huts and lean-tos had been constructed on the higher ground from the remains of the wreck and from logs and branches taken from the forest half a mile away. The dirty, ramshackle appearance of the camp sent cold fingers of dread into Grace’s stomach. Even if their ship was dead, it was far from the cramped tin box that ES5 was. Why send people to live in the ground when adequate shelter was right there?

Dozens of people moved and worked in the thrown-together camp. She noticed a group slaughtering an animal of some sort at the far end of the gouge while others figured out what to do with its hide. A steady stream of mostly women came over the far hill with containers of some sort, storage bins from their ship if she was right, loaded with fruit. They all looked tattered, tired, and filthy. Here and there she made out what she thought were troughs and barrels of water, but the overall picture was of people trying to survive, not build.

“Don’t say anything,” Grace cautioned her friends, prickling with anxiety. “I don’t like the look of this. Don’t speak unless I let you know it’s safe.”

“Gotcha, Boss,” Stacey agreed.

The moment they had appeared on the top of the hill they had been seen. By the time they descended into the valley and reached the edge of the camp beside the gouge, people were swarming toward them. Some had guns. Grace greeted them as if they were all on level footing at one of the social events on the Argo.

She recognized a few of the men and women who came up to shake her hand and ask how she was, how the others were, if she had seen their friends. Most were merely the faces she had passed in the corridors each day. The vast majority of them were other women in ill-fitting uniform shirts and pants like the clothing that had been stored on every emergency ship. She needed to get them all out of this ramshackle camp and to safety, not just a few.

“Grace Hargrove.” Kutrosky’s voice carried over the crowd that had come to greet them.

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