Part 17
You shake your head firmly, aware that Elizabeth is trying to protect you as newest of the Tomorrow People.
"I'm ready for this, Elizabeth." You tell her. "I can be more help there than here. TIM can monitor the studio and call John when it's safe but there are people's lives in danger!"
Elizabeth studies the determined look on your face for just a moment before joining the rest of you on the jaunting pad.
"I'll let John know what's happening as soon as possible." TIM promises.
"Thanks, TIM." Elizabeth says. "Jaunt us out please."
The Lab dissolves from around you, replaced by a barren landscape and air thick with ash. The smell of burning permeates everything and within seconds you can feel the gritty, dirty feel of ash against your skin as it gets into your clothes. Occasionally you feel a pinprick of pain as a burning ember dies against your skin.
You cough, just to clear your throat at first but then more violently and you can hear the others cough around you. The sky is dark, as if night has come where bright sunlight should illuminate the day. Squinting through the dust and tears in your eyes you can just make out Elizabeth as a silhouetted form in front of you. Beyond her shines a square of light, the window of some building.
[We have to get inside!] Elizabeth calls telepathically, unwilling to open her mouth and breathe in the thick air. [This must be ash from the small eruption TIM was talking about.]
You feel Andrew's disbelief. This was meant to be a small eruption? As your eyes become accustomed to the gloom you begin to make out the steep-sided mountain looming above you, a dark form only a shade darker than the charcoal sky. If this is the minor eruption what will the explosion Tim predicts be like?
[The village.] Hsui Tai calls, [It is ahead. A few hundred metre's no more.]
You fight through the ash clouds, trying to keep track of where the others are around you. It would be too easy to become separated in this murk, only the sense of their minds act as beacons in the night. Elizabeth is the first to make it to the building you saw. She hammers on the square of light that is your only real point of reference and you hear startled exclamations from within. In just a few moments a widening rectangle of light appears to one side of the window and the four of you stumble through the door, coughing the dust from your much abused lungs.
The air in the room is thick with the smell of people and smoke but it is clear of the volcanic ash and it feels like honey against your raw throat. You know your face and clothes are smoke-blackened. You can see the soot coating Andrew and Hsui Tai and Liz. As your eyes adjust once more to the light of candles and a fire illuminating the room, you become aware of people staring at you. Eight? Nine? You're not sure. They range in age from a couple of small children to a grizzled old man who looks as craggy and weather beaten as the mountain above.
They exclaim and the women fuss over you, pressing cups of cold water into your hands, wrapping blankets about you despite the stifling heat. You can feel their surprise and concern but the words are lost on you, sounding alien to your ears.
[Concentrate on what they mean.] You hear Hsui Tai urge in your mind. [Interpret their thoughts. It is not easy - they are Saps - but it can be done.] You do as she instructs, focusing on the sub-vocalisations of the people around you, their intentions rather than their words and slowly the conversation becomes clear to you.
"But children?" One of the men is exclaiming. "Outside while the mountain is angry and the very air becoming solid!"
Elizabeth is the first of you to recover.
"I have to speak to your leaders!" She exclaims with a slight cough behind the words. "You have to leave the area. Soon."
"Hush, child," One of the women tells her. "The eruption has come and the danger is past. We are safe enough here until the ash is settled although what will become of us through the long winter with our fields buried and our crops destroyed I just don't know."
"You don't understand!" Hsui Tai cries and her intensity grips everyone in the room. "This eruption is just the first. A second will follow and it will be terrible!"
"We came to warn you." Elizabeth presses as the certainty of the men in the room begins to waver. "The mountain will erupt again and the explosion will destroy all this." She waves a hand around the room, around the faces of the people, their old folk and children.
"You have to evacuate the village." You add your voice and let the people here the rock hard certainty in it. Andrew just nods and lets the earnest expression on his grimy face speak for itself.
"Listen to the children." It is the craggy old man who speaks from the corner where he has been sitting. As he stands, his lanky figure unfolds and you realise that this was once a powerful man. The others in the room nod their respects to the elder. "Our people have lived here for long years before ever the soviets in distant Moscow brought their order to the land. We know that the mountain was once powerful and dangerous. He has slept and we allowed ourselves to believe him dead but our ancestors stories tell of fire filling the sky and death and destruction all around. If the mountain has truly awoken we must flee as these children say."
Eyes turn to the middle aged man who opened the door to you. He stares at the elder for long moments before nodding once.
"Gather what you can," He orders sharply. "Our people were once nomads roaming this land, able to move all we had to safety. Now we are tied to this place and must abandon almost all. We were promised, when this village was built for us by the Muscovites, we were promised that the mountain was dead."
"There is little purpose in lamenting what cannot be saved." That was one of the women, probably the man's wife, and her tone was firm but tender and comforting. "First we must save ourselves. We must warn the rest of the village, solnyshko moyo, and the other villages nearby."
Elizabeth nods urgently.
"Do you have telephones?" She asks. "Who can organise an evacuation?"
The man laughs wryly.
"The telephones and power in this village were destroyed in the first minute of the mountain's anger." He tells you. "But we are an old people and remember the old ways." He calls to three of the young men and women in the room and they wrap cloth around their faces and a thin gauze around their eyes. "All the houses will show a light to guide the traveler home," He tells you, "And we know this village well. We have some vehicles although they may not work in this choked air. And we have our feet. We will warn everybody and organise our departure from this place."
You exchange anxious looks with the other Tomorrow People before nodding agreement.
"Please hurry," Elizabeth urges. "You only have a few hours and you must be many miles from here."
"What about the other villages?" Andrew asks.
The man hesitates.
"We cannot send runners so far. They would surely be lost in the dusty night even if they can travel so far in time."
"How many villages?" Elizabeth demands. "Where are they? Describe them."
"Three. One to four miles to the south of here, two north and west of this place. The closer is six miles away, on the bank of a fast flowing river, the more distant 10 miles and more westward on the very slopes of the mountain."
[TIM, can you find us coordinates for those villages?] Elizabeth look over the three of you, her eyes anxious. "We're going to have to split up," She tells you, her mouth dry. "Hsui Tai, can you find the village on the river?"
"Jay and I can take the village on the mountain." Andrew volunteers in a serious tone before Liz can assign you to the safer southern village. You hesitate before you nod agreement. You know it will be the most dangerous but you don't want to see either of the girls out there.
"Jay, are you sure?" Elizabeth catches you with her deep brown eyes. "You're still new to your powers. I was going to ask you to go to the southern village and take Andrew northwest myself. You're not completely on top of your powers and you might need to do a lot to help the villagers. We wont think any less of you if you take the less strenuous task"
Do you:
a) Risk the more dangerous village to protect Liz?
b) Accept that the others have better training?
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