Capricorn, I said.

  Yes, the Tropic of Capricorn. But all this, she said, fingering the dry band that ran around the middle, people used to live there – millions and millions of them. But not anymore. Only here. And here. Where there’s still skin. North of Cancer, south of Capricorn.

  That’s where people are?

  That’s how the world is.

  Since how long?

  Before the Terror, she said. Just before.

  In that moment, and for years afterwards, I lacked the wit to ask how she knew this. And while I sensed the promise of some form of arcane knowledge, I never pursued it. I was a plains boy after all. The notion of secret information frightened me. And part of me didn’t quite believe her anyway. Because as far as I knew, my mother had never left the plain. I didn’t see how she could know things our neighbours did not. This information was not in the sagas.

  I stared at the orange – which would now never be fit for anything more than bird feed – and touched the hardening scar.

  How will it mend? was all I could ask. The world.

  How indeed, she said. That I can’t tell you.

  Because I’m not old enough?

  No, she said, sending me back to work with a wave of her arm. Because I don’t have the answer.

  We lived eight months of the year above ground. You could still do that on the coast in those latitudes when I was a boy. And in winter, for up to three months, you could still be abroad in the afternoons if you had the kit and wits for it.

  Life was manageable if you were competent. Better than that if you had the right mix of skill and discipline.

  My mother and I kept bees and egg birds, grew figs and olives. In years of good water we propagated paw-paws and dragon fruit, and as cisterns emptied and more underground space became available, we raised mushrooms too. We pressed our own oil, built soil from plant waste, birdshit and chipped carcasses. Everything we couldn’t grow or fabricate ourselves we traded for, like the cheese and milk hamlet folks made from the goats they raised in sheds. Or sun film, batteries, cabling and steel. We ran banks of vertical drum turbines to bolster our array. We cooled the place with fans and HiVap in the winter and AC in the summer, if we had the juice to run it.

  As you know, comrade, it all comes down to how much you can fix and what you can forage. Half your mind is taken up with making stuff. And the rest goes into finding it. Our tech was patchy as hell, but we never went hungry. The only appetite we could never quench was the need for spare parts.

  Knowing we had all summer underground ahead of us, we worked every winter hour we could. The tasks felt endless, but I could cop nearly anything so long as I was topside. Once the season turned, we were captives. As a boy I felt doubly constrained, because the cellar hab was also where I did all my lessons.

  My mother was nothing like the young teachers sent up from the south by the Association. She had the build and posture of a labourer, but she was not a mechanical. Not even an ordinary grower. She retained the only bank of heritage seeds on the plain, of the same stock her ancestors had carried up from the south and those brought down by my father’s people from the range tops. And her knowledge of plants and soil was unparalleled. She had a gift for appliances, too. She built the fork and the digger we used to keep our bund solid. She taught me to wire and weld and rivet, to cannibalize a motor and repurpose parts. But she was well versed in the sagas, too. Could reel them off at will. The choruses and adages. You’ll know the stuff. She who plants and she who waters are one, and each will eat according to her labours. And: virtue lies in our power, and so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act. Right?

  She had hard, blunt hands. But her eyes were beautiful. When random bards or hawkers came calling, she gave them short shrift, and they seemed startled by how fierce she was. Local men knew better than to visit unannounced. Only the filmlayer came out now and then.

  I rarely saw her laugh. She had no patience for frivolity. She’d known hard times. Behind those eyes and within those hands was a reservoir of experience she’d dammed and capped.

  I’m also tempted to say that I never saw her afraid, though that’s not strictly true. She wasn’t scared of people – would back down to no man – but she had a fear of drowning, even if she couldn’t admit it. We lived on a peninsula, surrounded by water, but we never swam in the sea. I’ve seen it done in the south, but it never would have occurred to us. Because of my father, I guess, and because of what the ocean had done to every well and bore on the cape. For all that, though, I think my mother’s preoccupation with drowning had less to do with the ocean and was more a matter of land and sky. She knew plenty about storm surge and coastal inundation. What she feared was deluge. With the deserts so close, rain was rare, but when it did arrive it came with monsoonal force. The bluffs of the range turned to cataracts. The canyons began to fill. Then it was only a matter of hours before the dry creeks and desert channels blew their banks and overran the plain. That’s when we’d sandbag our summer hab, seal all hatches, open the cistern gutters and hope to hell our bund held.

  These cataclysms were necessary. They kept us going. But they terrified us. Because cyclones came in summer, when we were living underground. In the sagas there are always beasts prowling the plain. They haunted the dreams of the ancients and kept them close in the cave. But what we dreaded was not some fanged creature or howling berserker. It was the patter of life turning into a murderous torrent.

  So, every day before bed, she’d ask: have you checked the bund?

  This wasn’t just routine – it was sacred ritual. The earthen levee was the only thing that could save us from drowning in our beds.

  I was content in my way. I knew that in days gone by the world was abominable, its people wild and treacherous. But now there was clemency, and we were steady. There would be better times ahead. If only we held fast. We had eight months of the year in the open. Food to hand, water at our feet and nothing to fear from our neighbours. We were confident we’d never again face the tribulation from which our ancestors had emerged.

  Go ahead and laugh, comrade. Were you and yours any different? Life’s always hard. But didn’t you think you’d been born into the best of all possible worlds?

  One winter morning, I woke early to thuds and clanks in the kitchen. It was still dark. I got up to find my mother stashing food and water into a pack. My breakfast was already on the table, the usual cake of nuts and berries, with a steaming bowl of tea beside it. She had her hard boots on. Her face was already white with sun paste. A scarf was coiled at her throat.

  Eat up, she said. The quad’s charged. We’re out to the ranges in a minute.

  What’s happening? I asked, still dull from sleep.

  I’ve done the feed, she said. We’ll do the pick tonight. This morning I want to show you something.

  As a boy some part of me was forever yearning for a break in routine. And yet, whenever a rupture finally arrived, it came so suddenly I needed time to adjust. For a moment or two I felt disabled by my mother’s announcement, but I recovered enough to drink my tea off in one scalding draught. I stuffed the breakfast cake in the front pouch of my coveralls and went to the bathroom to slather my face.

  Down in the yard, at the bottom of the stairs, my mother had the quad running. She handed me my hat and gloves and we rode out in the warm dark with the lights off, our scarves up against the dust.

  How mild the air was that morning. The wind had no sting in it. A big moon was still up and, alongside us, the tapered wing of our shadow rippled across the silver pools of gibber. The darkling barrier of the range loomed larger the further we went, until at the foothills we parked, strapped our waterpacks on and began to climb.

  I followed her up the lower spurs until we reached the chutes and clefts that led to the terraces. In the gloom we took no risks, went methodically, in stages, from level to level, until we crested out with nothing above us but the stars. Yes, comrade, a sky with stars.

  I thought we were headed for the water cave, but instead we bore north, in the opposite direction. We hiked the riven tops a good while, and when the first light came up, the moon was setting over the pearly band of sea to the west.

  I was glad of the light. Especially once we came to the razorback. Because I could see ahead that, as the ridge rose, it narrowed precipitously until its shale flanks were only an arm’s length apart. And beneath those friable slopes, at either side, lay the canyon whose empty streambed was too dark and too deep to see.

  My mother halted a moment. She turned my way.

  You right?

  I nodded.

  Okay then.

  She stepped out onto the spine of the ridge and began to climb. The incline was modest, but the footing was uncertain. I watched that squat figure, her sprung gait. It was a long traverse, but not once did she hesitate or stop to glance back for my sake, and I loved her for it. She left me to wrestle with the shame of my fear alone. I could taste the cake at the back of my throat. My legs trembled. But there was no possibility of turning back. I put one foot after the other and followed.

  At the narrowest point, which was underhung by sandy slumps – awful to contemplate – I simply watched her boots and set my own in her wake.

  Eventually, at the highest point of the incline, we reached the foot of an enormous limestone stack, a rock pile that teetered at the tip of the ridge. Atop the pile, against the pinkening sky, was a fortress of gnarled white sticks. It was so broad and strong, it looked as if a grown woman, if she were brave and crazy enough, could climb up and see the horizon in every direction.

  From where we were, halted at the foot of this great stack, I could only see its leading edge and the foot of the wickerwork ramparts. Without warning, my mother dropped to a crouch. Then she prostrated herself. I stared a moment before following her lead. I watched the soles of her boots as she wriggled forward and I wormed along after her until we came to a marginally wider lintel. She twisted around, motioning me forward with one arm. I hesitated. At either side, the abyss was close. As the first sun hit the western wall, the rapidly heating air set off an updraft. It launched a churning pall of dust that hung just below us, beautiful and sinister. By noon the heat in that wadi would be lethal.

  I looked ahead to my mother. She did not beckon me again.

  I writhed up against her, tight to her side.

  Good, she said. Good boy. Now watch.

  Out of nowhere, a breeze swished by. A shadow ran over me and poppled across the rocks ahead. Then it disappeared. My mother seized my arm. When she hissed my name, it came hot and shocking against my ear. That’s when I looked up. Saw a creature hanging in the air. Like something from a dream, it shone bronze and gold and umber. It was enormous.

  Is it real? I asked.

  Just watch, she whispered.

  The bird alighted on the massive platform of sticks and waded in a half-circle, eyes glinting with every turn of its head.

  I knew it, she whispered. Been seeing her all week.

  What is it?

  An eagle. That’s a wedgetail.

  Looks mean.

  You think we work hard for our food. You should see what this gal will do, the country she has to cover to get a feed.

  You’ve seen it before?

  Not this same one, I don’t think. But yes, we used to see them now and then, your father and me. They hunt lizards and snakes and mice – even small roos.

  So it’s a bird? Like a chook?

  Yes, she said. It’s a bird. But it’s more like you and me than any chook. She doesn’t just peck around between her feet. She’s a worker. She’ll fly the whole range and plain looking for food. If there’s nothing alive or dead out here, she’ll die looking. She’s a traveller. And she’s fierce.

  Can she see us?

  Oh, she knows we’re here.

  Doesn’t look happy.

  I wanted you to see her. It’s important. Which is why I want you to stand up.

  What? I asked, having heard her perfectly well.

  I said stand up.

  But. Why?

  To see better.

  I can see good right here.

  Stand up, now, she said firmly. And watch.

  I was terrified. But I obeyed. Because she was my mother, and that’s how I was raised. And as I got to my feet, legs wobbling, the bird twitched, turned its head, and took me in. It hitched its elbows and set its wings back against its flanks. Its eye had the sheen of a polished stone.

  Sometimes, said my mother behind me, you need to stand up and be seen. This bird will remember you. When we’re gone, it’ll remember you and wish you’d been small enough to eat. There you are, upright meat. Look! She’s watching, wondering. Figuring the odds.

  The eagle opened itself up in stages, as if assembling and enlarging itself moment to moment. It was a mighty thing to behold.

  Then those wings cranked out, feathers fluttering five colours in the updraft, and the only noise I heard as it lifted into the sky was the rattle of dry sticks.

  It’s scared of me, I said exalted and relieved.

  No, said my mother. She’s discounted you. That bird’s hungry. And you’re not what she’s after. She’s got work to do. And so do we. Let’s go.

  I was never entirely sure what my mother was trying to show me that day. We never discussed it directly – then or later. Perhaps it was simply to show me how majestic an eagle was. And, of course, how exceptional it was that we should see one. Later that winter, I thought I saw it again, but it was probably nothing more than a mote of dust in my eye.

  My mother said that when my father was a boy there were still emus on the plain – giant birds that couldn’t fly – and quail, too, tiny ones that could. But apart from that single eagle and the fowls we kept for eggs, the only birds I ever saw were the finches. They arrived after rain once the sudden clouds of insects had dispersed, when the spinifex tussocks woke up and shed seeds like golden dust. They sounded like a million gleeful children. When the feed thinned out, the finches moved on, and for a day or two the plain felt lonely. The loss of them stung. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to lose birds the size of people.

  Emus, said my mother. They didn’t just eat seeds – they spread them in their scat. But during the Terror they were hunted for meat. And when they dwindled, so did the plants of the plain. By the time your father was a boy, only a few stragglers held on this far north. Then came the ten-year dry. Those that didn’t perish went south.

  And what was there? More water?

  Yes. And more hungry people.

  The day of the eagle, it left its mark on me, comrade. I still think of it now and then, especially when I’m grasping for some sort of perspective. You see, like yourself, I’ve lived a life of watchful concealment. Yet for a while, and in its way, it was also a form of standing up. Despite my fear. Whatever the odds. To allow myself to see. But to act, too. When so few understood what taking action might mean. But remember, to serve was to remain secret. Nameless and invisible, right? Hiding in plain sight amongst our own. To most citizens, we didn’t exist. We were inconceivable. Those who dreaded us, well, they only suspected our existence, wondering if perhaps we were anything more than a fever dream. The only time we revealed ourselves was to an object. At the moment of acquittal. When we did stand up to be seen, it was before those who, within a second or so, would cease to exist.

  So yes, I think of that day of the eagle now and then. And puzzle over my mother’s words. For once my childhood was over, it was never again possible for me to be properly known by those I loved. Perhaps, in the end, that was all I ever really wanted. To appear before them as I am. To see and be seen. But that’s not how things went.

  During the long, grinding summer after the eagle, while we were boxed in below ground, my mother came into the hab, sat on my bed and drew a book from a canvas slip cover. It was a small sketchpad. Every page was covered in drawings. Some were mere outlines, others finished likenesses of seeds and fruits and vegetables. But there were animals, too. Creatures whose names hung suspended above them in block letters. The wedgetail eagle was there. Also the emu and the black-flanked rock-wallaby and the desert hopping mouse.

  This was his, she said. Your father’s.

  He saw all these? Here?

  Some, I think, she said. When he was a boy. But most were those his parents and grandparents told him about. See this one?

  Bowerbird, I read.

  These were the birds that lived in the tree over the cave.

  You remember all these?

  Well, I remember the stories about them.

  I thumbed through carefully.

  Keep it, she said. Learn all the names.

  In case I see them?

  Yes, she said. In case you see them.

  I looked up at her. There was a certain look on her face. Of course, being a kid, I read it as longing. For my father.

  I’ve kept that book with me all these years. And in my travels I’ve seen some of those creatures a time or two. It’s back in the vehicle, in the duffel behind the seat. If I live long enough I’ll show it to the child. I never got the chance with my own. Or maybe I never made the time.

  I can draw most of those creatures from memory. Knowing their names feels important. Even now. Which sounds a bit mad, I know. As if saying the names of things might bring them to life. And maybe me as well. You know there’s no magic in it. It can’t be done, can it. But you do it anyway, because it’s all you have in the face of extinction. Nattering, naming, uttering. Hot air, comrade. But haven’t we both been borne aloft by exactly that? We’ve seen things we once thought were magic. So why shouldn’t I tell stories and chant names?

  Jesus, says the bowman, agitating his beard. Don’t you ever shut up?

  Am I boring you?

  Fella, you’re not the only one who’s seen shit and done shit. We’re all from somewhere better. We’ve all seen better days.

  I thought you should know who we are. Figured you might appreciate some conversation, some intel. It must get lonely.