CHAPTER 9

ARTEMIS

T he pile of scrap metal parts was growing. In my quest to collect the materials for the cave I was also picking up the ship parts I was finding along the way and moving them to the side to keep them in one place to come back for later.

Once I had found enough fallen branches and vines to create the pulley system, I set to work. By the time nightfall started to make its appearance, the light dim but still bright enough for me to continue working on my project, I was just able to make out the sight of Libby leading the women at a slow pace towards me.

It took me a moment to realise why. Two of the women were carrying another who was panting and perspiring, unable to hold herself up without their support. She was one of the two furthest along in their pregnancies, and I soon figured out why she was struggling so much.

Her face twisted with pain as she bent over, then the two holding her up caught her as her legs buckled. She groaned, the sound filled with agony and exhaustion while her partner came in from behind to start rubbing circles on her lower back and hips. She clutched at her stomach and leant heavily on those supporting her as she rode through the wave of pain.

I stood, unsure what was happening which drew Libby’s attention. Her shoulders slumped with relief and she bounded her way over to me, carelessly tripping over the underbrush in her rush to reach me.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘Karmella’s in labour. It started this morning and is progressing quickly. She needs someplace safe and sanitary to give birth, because the baby’s coming tonight.’

Understanding dawned on me, and though I had never assisted in a childbirth before, I jumped into action.

‘I’m almost done creating the pulley system to haul them up. You need to go to the stream and collect some water. The others can help you carry the buckets I made. They don’t have handles but they should be watertight.’ I gestured to the pile of supplies I had accumulated by the almost-finished pulley system.

She nodded once. Her mussed hair was sticking to her skin in sweaty clumps and there were dark circles under her eyes that matched her fatigued posture, but that didn’t stop the determination from taking over. She physically braced herself for the night ahead, squaring her shoulders and clenching her jaw as she dredged up the energy to keep pushing forward.

I was going to need to hunt for larger game tonight to keep everyone energised, because we were all going to have to pull our weight.

‘Francesca, Marcella, Rose and Jasmine, come with me.’

Four women, presumably those Libby just listed, immediately broke from the circle around the woman writhing in agony on the forest floor. Karmella. I committed her name to my memory bank and made a mental note to learn the names of the others when I got the chance. I couldn’t keep going around referring to them by the size of their bellies.

I watched the five of them disappear into the foliage, praying to the stars and whatever deity would listen that they came back safely and promptly.

Karmella let out a sound that was somewhere between a grunt, a groan and a scream, and it jolted me with the reminder of what I was supposed to be doing. I leapt back towards the pulley system and barked out instructions while I wrapped the length of rope around me I’d created with the vines.

‘Bring her over here. I’m going to climb up and secure the rope and then I can haul her up.’

They waited until Karmella’s contraction finished before half carrying, half dragging her to the rocks. I was already on the ledge by the time they made it, wrapping the vine-ropes around the sturdy rock I’d picked for this purpose because of the smooth hole that ran through it. Then I chucked the ends over the ledge, careful not to hit the women down below and hurriedly climbed back down. I made quick work of securing the platform, then I climbed back up to pull from up top. It wasn’t quite the system I had planned, but desperate times called for half-baked measures.

‘Place her on the platform,’ I called down to them after testing the rope’s hold and finding it stable. ‘I’ll pull her up first, then the rest of you can follow one at a time.’

The rope jostled slightly in my grip while they situated her on the wood, then the voice I recognised belonging to Karmella’s partner called up that she was ready. I pulled, making note of the way the vines held together nicely as they scraped against the rock. My enhanced strength came in useful for the task, and I quickly helped Karmella roll onto the ledge. I assisted her as she moved towards the entrance of the cave, though she only made it a few feet before she was in the midst of another contraction and had to stop.

I tried to move back to pull the others up, uncomfortable being left alone with the labouring female, but she stopped me with an iron grip on my hand. ‘Please… don’t… leave me,’ she panted, her last word morphing into a screech of panic and pain. I stayed with her through the contraction, then gently extricated myself from her grasp.

‘I need to bring the others up. If you let me go now, your friend can help you,’ I bartered.

It worked. She released me and gave me an insistent push. I guessed she was eager for someone she trusted over me, not that I blamed her.

‘Karmella’s partner next!’ I ordered after lowering the platform. I leaned over the edge to ensure they obeyed. Indeed, the other heavily pregnant woman quickly settled herself in the centre, and I pulled her up. She didn’t need too much help to get onto the ledge, but I assisted with the initial transfer. She hobbled over to Karmella just in time for another contraction, and I feared we were out of time. At this rate, the baby would arrive before Libby and her group returned with the water.

I definitely wasn’t going to have enough time to boil it to ensure its safety, let alone let it cool before we could use it.

Thankfully, just as I was pulling the last female up I noticed the others rushing through the trees, arms laden with heavy, hastily made bowls filled with water that sloshed with every step. We would need to bring those up before the women, and we would also need to get a fire started as soon as possible.

‘Hey, blondie!’ I called out to the one of the only two in the group with blonde hair besides Liberty. She turned to me expectantly. ‘Think you can start a fire?’

‘I’ve done it before,’ she informed me.

I didn’t want to think about the reasons The Program could have had for teaching her how to start a fire. ‘Good. Start one now. There’s wood and kindling just inside. Water’s here and it needs to boil.’

Her response was to hop to it straight away, and I appreciated her lack of hesitation. I had to coddle some of the women when it came to survival skills at first, but they were picking things up and learning quickly which was making my life a hell of a lot easier.

Trusting she had it in hand, I ignored Karmella’s cries through another contraction, this one seemingly even stronger than previous ones, and focused on my own tasks.

‘Water first, then one at a time!’ I called down, and again they followed orders without hesitation. A sense of pride filled me at how well we were working together as a team in this time of crisis. It gave me hope for the future that we could coexist as a community. Already, trust was being built. These women may be ignorant to survival in the wild, but they weren’t stupid.

They were strong.

They were warriors.

The water was a little trickier to pull up due to the flimsiness of the containers. They had been an afterthought, a little side quest I took as a break from my more important task. I was glad to have taken that break now, however. I only spilled a little of the water by the time I managed to situate them safely on the ledge, and I noticed the blonde woman had managed to create a few sparks and was slowly blowing on the kindling to coax the fire to grow.

She worked fast, and I was impressed. My respect for these women was growing by the tick.

I began lifting the others up, my anxiety over Libby being left down there alone as the last to arrive may have caused me to behave a little tersely towards the rest. I immediately felt better as soon as she was up and safe in my sight. I detested leaving her for any reason.

I was well aware that my anxiety over Libby stemmed from my guilt over leaving her behind once before, as well as how long it took to find my way back to her. She told me countless times this past solar that I shouldn’t feel bad over it. If I hadn’t left her then Baldr may never have been born, nor would we all be fighting for ourselves in the wilds of whatever planet we were currently occupying.

But there were only so many times I could tell myself it was worth it in the end before the shame and the guilt overwhelmed me again. It should have been the both of us against the world, and I had broken that promise once.

Never again.

I didn’t want to be so clingy that I smothered her completely, however, so I tried my best to temper my unease as much as I could. She hated the way I hovered even if she did feel a sense of safety from it, but she would have to deal with it. At least to a certain extent. I didn’t want to cling so hard I ended up pushing her away, but I needed to keep her within my sights for my own peace of mind just as much as I knew she needed the same from me.

I had no clue how I was going to manage leaving her behind to rescue the kids, but it had to be done. Baldr was the only reason I would ever leave her now, but finding my way back to her once had given me enough confidence that I could – and would – do it however many times I needed to.

Once the fire was simmering nicely inside the cave, Blondie rejoined us. She took one look at the leafy bowls of water, glanced back towards the fire, her brows furrowed. ‘You said we had to boil it, right?’ she asked.

‘Yes, we need to boil anything out of it that could be potentially harmful towards Karmella or the baby. The heat will kill off any harmful bacteria or parasites squirming around in there.’

‘Why didn’t we do that for the water we drank in the forest?’ she asked, Karmella’s grunts and screams almost drowning out her question as yet another contraction took its toll.

‘That was rainwater. Anything harmful would have been left behind when the water evaporated. Drinking from puddles in the leaves was the safest way to stay hydrated until we found a more consistent water source.’

She dipped her chin to show her understanding, but her brows remained furrowed which told me she had a different question that asking her previous one hadn’t answered. ‘How are we going to boil it? Won’t the leaves just burn and we’ll lose the water?’

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. She had a point. I hadn’t thought of what to boil it in yet. ‘Good question. We’ll need something that can withstand the heat of the fire.’

‘Like a bowl made from rock?’ asked Libby, drawing our attention to her. I grinned at her when I noticed just that cradled in her hands. It was large and mostly flat, but one side was a little more concave. Enough to contain a significant portion of the water. We would have to boil in batches, but it could be done.

‘Exactly like that,’ I said, taking it from her. I cupped a small amount of the water in my hands and dribbled it over the makeshift bowl, then used my hands to wipe it clean of debris. I inspected it for a moment before taking it over to the fire, arranging some rocks to rest it on and placing it over the flames. By the sound of Karmella’s labour’s astonishingly fast progression we were out of time and it would have to do.

Just as Libby and I were pouring the water to boil, Karmella let out a particularly panicked scream. ‘It burns! Why is it burning?’ she screeched.

Then her partner, who was in between her legs to get a closer look at what was happening, called out, her voice high-pitched from distress. ‘The baby’s crowning! I can see its head!’

I froze, my task forgotten as I watched in both awe and horror as a new life was brought into this world. It took quite a few clicks for Karmella to push, and there was gore everywhere, but soon enough the cries of a newborn baby filled the air, echoing back from the cave as if there were more than one.

‘It’s a little girl,’ someone said as the child was place on Karmella’s chest. Her arms came up to hold her, and her screams became whimpers until all of a sudden they quieted down. It took my brain a moment to process what I’d just witnessed before I realised Karmella had stripped bare and her new daughter was feeding from her breasts.

A sting in my eyes was followed by the blur of tears and a hitch in my breath. That was the most incredible thing I had ever witnessed. And now, watching as a new mother took to her role, the whole event was bittersweet.

All those solars spent inside The Program my dream had been to be free, to find love, and to have children of my own. To live a normal life filled with love and happiness, and to cherish those moments with a family I had built with my own body… It was a beautiful thing to watch someone else achieve a part of that dream, but it was like being simultaneously stabbed in the heart and the gut to witness that dream being fulfilled with the knowledge it would never be mine.

Libby, sensing my warring emotions, placed her hand in mine. It was all that was necessary to pull me back from the brink of a breakdown. I had Libby, and I would bring back Baldr. They were all the family I could ever need.

Now if only I could stop thinking about the people still back on Nova Station that also felt like family.