A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 by Justin Woolley Page A

continues to ignore the overpopulation. It breeds impurity. There are only so many Sisters to ensure that the word of God is heard and adhered to. The coming horde is our punishment.”
    “The Holy Order exists to serve Your Holiness, if you have need of us.”
    “Thank you, Provost. I trust you are making progress with the preparations we discussed?”
    “Of course, Your Holiness.”
    “Good. Whatever the outcome, the Administrator must be controlled and we must be ever vigilant about removing the impure from the Territory. It appears the Administrator is unwilling to do so.”
    “Anything else, Your Holiness?”
    “No,” the High Priestess said. “You may go about your business. Praise be to the Pure.”
    “Praise be to the Pure.”

CHAPTER 11
    Lynnette Hermannsburg walked beside her father as they strolled through the bustling streets of Alice. They spoke of how her singing lessons were going and how Ms Apple had said she had her grandmother’s voice and she might even be able to perform one day, if she put her mind to it. Lynn had declared that while she did like singing she didn’t think she wanted to be a songstress like her grandmother. This led to her complaining about how her singing teacher, Mrs Hipcoat, smelled too much like musty cupboards, and how Bren was just so annoying even if he was the Administrator’s son, and it wasn’t fair that she never got to ride the steamcycle anymore. Alfred Hermannsburg simply nodded and smiled.
    Lynn talked and her father listened. That’s how these walks usually went. Lynn loved spending this time with her father. It was almost the only thing they got to do alone together anymore. As Chief Military Advisor to the Administrator, Colonel Hermannsburg was an incredibly busy man, but he always, always made time for his Saturday walk with his daughter, even if she sometimes had to wait until the evening. Today they were going to do Lynn’s favorite thing, which was to sit on the grass in the small park with the gum trees and together eat a whole tub of chocolate fruit-o-licious ice-cream. It was late in the afternoon, and the gas street lights were already flaring into existence.
    Around them Alice hummed with life. Lynn knew that this city was the sole remaining stronghold of humankind in the red wasteland of a world gone crazy, a world gone to the ghouls. But Lynn had noticed that people tended to ignore the greater problems of the world by turning inward and focusing instead on their lives and their jobs and their exciting dinner plans. Well-dressed people were out and about: young women in flowing floral dresses and oversized hats hung off the arms of young men with stark white shirts and giant colored cravats flowing from their necks. Colorful carriages drawn by strong horses moved through the streets, the sound of their click-clacking hooves on the cobblestones occasionally drowned out by the rumble of a lone bio-truck or the puttering hiss of a steamcycle recklessly weaving through the traffic. The lights of hotels, clubs and restaurants had begun to glow invitingly, and in the sky above dirigibles hung soundlessly in the air.
    As they turned a corner and looked down the next street, Lynn could see the Wall rising out of the ground ahead of them, the overwhelming boundary that separated the city of Alice from the Outside. At some point during the Territory’s history, a huge wall had been built around Alice, likely as an ancient defense against the ghouls. This boundary had slowly been pushed out, stretching the Territory’s borders to where the ghoul-proof fence currently lay, but those within Alice rarely ventured beyond the Wall. Everyone knew that the Outside was full of backward citizens who were good for little other than digging in the dirt or slaving in bio-fuel plants. Outsiders were barely law abiding at best, and merciless outlaws at worst; at least, that’s what was always said. Lynn wasn’t sure whether this was true, because as was the case for