by Kovacs, Jase
I know those shapes.
They're the same as those etched and carved into Aotea.
The man grimaces at Matty's rough treatment, and there are gasps in the room as we see that his teeth have been filed to points. Matty holds him like that as she looks up at us. "A distraction? Yeah, I'd agree with that."
Michael looks to Duncan, who rises from his chair. "What is this?" he asks.
She pauses, looking to each of us in turn to make sure she has our full attention. When she gets to me, I see an unsettling hunger in her eyes.
"I'll tell you what this is," she says. "This is war."
CHAPTER FOUR: MATTY
I once had a dream in which my passed family sailed through the night. My mum and dad and Jayden and Katie, each in their own little canoe. Their stern lights were a line of stars leading me across an obsidian sea to Madau island. The dream came to me at the ending of one chapter of my life, as a solo sailor who cut herself off from all the entrapments of land to cocoon her soul with the illusion of safety that comes from solitude.
The vessels that carried my family in my dream, that guided me home, were not yachts. They were small traditional canoes, carved from tree trunks with sails made of woven fibre. They were not artefacts of the 20th century, with diesel engines, synthetic sails, and fibreglass hulls. Their vessels were of simpler, sustainable pedigree that anyone with an axe and adze could create from the trees that lined First Landing.
This dream and these thoughts play through my head as Enzo and I struggle to get Fidelio's twin diesels started. He has a pair of 30hp Yanmars, great little engines back in the day and, thanks to Enzo's meticulous care, remarkably well preserved. But for all his adherence to the rituals of routine maintenance, with its anointing of sacred oils and the ritual evocation of "fuel, filters, water, air" with all the dedication of a priest, our only spare parts are what we have scavenged from the ruins.
Its late morning, and I'm in the starboard engine bay, the hatch open to the sky. I hold the probes of a multimeter against the starter motor. Half the metre’s segments in the screen are clouded or dead, but I can just read its display. Enzo sits at the helm with his thumb hovering over the start button. "Twelve point eight volts," I tell him.
He wears a woven pandan palm hat that casts a pool of shadow over his nut brown shoulders, and his eyes shimmer with frustration as he says, "So it should go!" He jabs at the start button but there is nothing, not even a whimper from the starter. "The battery is kaput."
"I don't think so," I reply. I scratch my chin with the metal probe point as I think. "The voltage is good. But we're not getting the power, the amps necessary to turn over the starter. Let's get in and check the battery cable connectors. I had this problem once on Voodoo, the cable lug looked fine but inside was a corroded mess."
Abella lifts the mosquito netting covering the cabin door. She wears a denim vest, faded white by the sun, canvas shorts, and a small gold cross on a piece of string around her neck. "Have some lunch before you grease monkeys start a new job," she tells us.
"Is the same job," replies Enzo. "Just another part."
"Everything you do is the same job," says Abella as she arches an eyebrow sardonically at me. "The job is called keep the boat floating."
Enzo and I wipe the worst of the engine grease and oil from our skin while Abella places plastic plates, warped with age, on the saloon table. The open forward hatches catch a pleasant cool breeze. She lays out plates of fresh fruit and salted fish and hard biscuits baked from sago flour.
We lose ourselves in the pleasant ritual of lunch. But while we talk, my eyes are drawn to the broad navstation on the other side of the saloon, where Abella has set up an office of sorts. A large corkboard is covered with pinned sheets of A4 paper, faintly yellowed by age. On these she has drawn and sketched medical diagrams and lists of symptoms that are as impenetrable to me as the Yanmar's service manual is to her.
She notices me looking over her shoulder and breaks off her anecdote about the different types of flour she uses for the biscuits. "My noticeboard is more interesting than this story, I see."
I colour, embarrassed. "Sorry. I know I shouldn't stare. This medical stuff is just interesting. I really know little about it. Apart from the obvious stuff."
"You mean the disease?"
"I mean most of it. We were on passage when it happened. No contact apart from a couple of radio messages. I've heard others speak about the news, the speed at which the disease spread. The way it mutated..." I drift off, aware that the plague really isn't lunchtime conversation. But, if I can't talk about it with Enzo and Abella, then who can I speak with? "Were you working in a hospital at the time?"
Her mouth twists into a bitter line as she glances over at her workstation. "No. No, Enzo and I were in Polynesia when it happened. Far away from where I could help. But I was still on my old alumni email lists. We sailed into port and my phone went crazy with emails and notifications. Doctors and scientists all over the world, madly sharing information, trying to work out what was going on. How the disease worked, its infection vectors, mortality rates. Why it was mutating so fast. I downloaded and printed out as much as I could in the days that followed, before the net went down and the phones went dead. But, I'm a field nurse and a general practitioner, not an infectious disease researcher. What they sent me would make as much sense to you as it does to me."
"I doubt that," I laugh.
"It's like... you're good with engines. But could you design a brand new one from scratch?"
"Me? But of course," says Enzo with a modest smile and a wink to me.
"You are a dreadful liar," says Abella affectionately. "At least Matty pays attention. Let me explain. Before we had modern medicine, physicians and doctors would see symptoms but not the causes. You have a hole in your tooth? Well there must be a worm digging that hole. Medicine was a strange mix of invention and superstition. Alchemy and inspiration. Prescribing leeches and mercury. Four humours that must be kept in balance, bloodletting to balance sanguine temperaments against black bile."
"I know a few people in the camp who could do with a bit less black bile," I say.
I get a grin out of Enzo, which is always good, but Abella, caught up with her long held frustrations, doesn't hear my joke. "I feel like one of those old fashioned doctors. I see a bunch of symptoms on the diseased — the uncontrolled growth of teeth, the red eyes, the pack hunting and now the mental domination of the alphas you've encountered — and I feel that all I can do is prescribe a course of leeches."
After lunch, Enzo and I crack open the lugs on the starter cables and find the starboard engine's earth cable is a mess of green corrosion. We clean it up as best we can with a wire brush, itself rusted from years of the sea air, then reseat the cable within the lug and crush it closed with a g-clamp. When we reattach everything and Enzo turns the key, the motor turns over with a whining protest. After a few seconds, the engine lurches to violent, awkward life, spluttering and shaking on its engine mounts like an old man having a seizure.
"Shut it down!" I cry.
Enzo sucks angrily at his teeth as the engine clatters into silence. "The timing belt, she is stuffed."
"That not sound so good," I said, copying Enzo's accent and grammar.
Enzo gestures to the ball of black exhaust smoke rolling downwind. "The fuel pump is kaput."
"If the timing belt has stretched, then the fuel injectors aren't being fed in the right sequence."
"But of course. If this is true, then it is problem – I have no spare belt. But I think you are needed elsewhere," He points at a canoe coming from shore.
Zac's face shines with perspiration, his jaw set in a grimace, as he paddles as fast as he can."Matty! Matty, you need to come. The prisoner wants to talk. But he'll only talk to you."
"Jesus!" I turn to Enzo. "You okay if—"
"Don't be stupid. You go." Then he does something unexpected. He takes my shoulder in his hand and gives me an intense look. "But Matty
. I have to say. You have come so far. Before, when you first come here, you are like robot. But now, you are alive. A woman. You have to fight, so we fight. But don't lose your spark. Never let them take that from you."
I'm not sure who they are, and I don’t know how to respond. So I nod until he lets go. He looks dissatisfied, but I don't give it a second thought as I drop into the canoe, snatching up a spare paddle so we can get to shore all the faster.
***
We run along a path that leads through a coconut plantation. It's cool beneath the palms and the air hums with droning cicadas. An orange butterfly as big as my two spread hands keeps pace with Zac, waiting for a chance to land on his bare shoulder and drink his sweat.
We pass the solar farm, a motley collection of scavenged panels that Kev's lads tend to with the dedication of hospice nurses. The blades of a dozen wind generators are a blur in the steady breeze, filling the air with a moan that drowns out even the cicadas. A couple of lads stare at us as we pass, their faces impassive. Then one of them says something and they all laugh.
The prisoner is kept in an old Japanese bunker. There are a few of them dotted around Madau, where a garrison of soldiers spent the war waiting for a fight that never came. This one overlooks the north east coast, where a chaotic mess of granite rolls into the sea like a grey wave frozen in time.
Kev and Duncan wait at the bunker. Kev's face is pink, and Duncan flexes his fists rhythmically, and I wonder what tense words they were exchanging only moments before. "Hold up," says Kev, placing his hand in front of me. "Catch your breath first. He isn't going anywhere."
We sit amid the buttress roots of an ancient fig tree that spreads its branches so widely that its leaves are a great green cloud. Duncan hacks the top off a green coconut with his machete. The water within is cool and sweet.
"So?" I ask. I undo my bandanna and mop my face dry before tucking it into my shorts.
"So nothing for two days. Zac, Duncan, and me taking turns to brace him. Good cop, bad cop, and worse cop." Big Kev smirks at his own wit. "But nothing. The guy's silent as a grave. Doesn't eat, doesn't drink. Just stares forward with those blank eyes, his jaw slack like he's waiting for me to put something in his mouth. Jesus Christ, I think to myself, why'd Matty have to capture a retard? Then this morning, I go in, give him my usual good cheer and he looks at me. It was like looking into the eyes of a shark. And he says, 'I will talk to Matai.' Nothing else."
"How'd he know your name?" Duncan’s casual tone doesn’t hide his tension.
"I don't know. Maybe he heard Blong or Enzo name me when we had him on board Fidelio."
"I've never heard the kid call you anything but 'lady.' And Frenchy always says 'Matty.'"
I shrug. Duncan and Kev look at me cautiously, and I suspect what they were arguing about when we arrived.
"I don’t think anyone calls you Matai anymore," says Zac.
"Except this guy." Kev jerks his thumb at the bunker.
As he says this, a sick chill drapes itself over me like a wet cloak.
And the voice in my dreams.
***
Inside the bunker is dark and cool. Light leaks in around the palm fronds we've stuffed in the gunslits and the hard packed earth under my feet is damp. The walls are green with almost a century of moss save for where the pale stone face of some forgotten Japanese god peers from the concrete.
The man lies on top an ancient diesel generator. His wrists and ankles are lashed to the machinery but he can raise himself into a sitting position, which he does as I come in. The generator is fused into one block of corrosion by years of neglect; its top end scavenged long ago.
"Wait outside,” I say to Zac.“Close the door. Don't come in."
"Matty..."
I press my index finger against his sternum. "Don't. Come. In."
I wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom before I step closer. The man watches me, his body as still as if he has ceased to breathe. I don't think his eyes are blank like Kev says. To me, they seem to hold an unnatural intensity, as if they were the lenses of a camera controlled by someone far away.
On the ground by the generator is a gallon bottle of water. I glance at it as I sit on a plastic crate. "Thirsty?"
The man licks his white, chapped lips. Then he opens his mouth so I can see his pointed teeth and runs his tongue over their tips, as if testing their sharpness. His voice is parched but calm. "You are smaller than I expected."
"And what did you expect?"
"Of Matai? The vanquisher of the Pale King? The slayer of Deborah? The killer of a thousand of my kind?"
"You're misinformed."
"Have you not murdered the Chosen?"
"No, not that. That's true. I've shot every infected I could. But I didn't kill Deborah. Rueben, her own man, was her Judas."
His slack face tightens as the first emotion I've seen crosses it. He smiles. "Rueben was no more responsible for his betrayal than Judas was his. They both were servants of a higher plan. But make no mistake. You created the situation that tore her people apart."
"We have two dozen of 'her people' here, each grateful to have escaped her death cult."
"There are none so blind as—"
"Look, I haven't come here to exchange platitudes and philosophy with you. You want to play bible trivia? I'll get Zac. You wanted to talk to me? Here I am." I spread my arms, a movement that attracts his attention. His button eyes follow my right hand then snap to my left, as blank and deadly as a shark.
He licks his sharpened teeth salaciously. "My lord welcomes you. You and all your people who hide from the truth on this island of lies. Humanity's reign is over. Come to my lord and be welcomed with grace into his new world. Or resist and die."
"I notice you haven't accepted his gift. You can play at being infected with your pointed teeth, but you're still human."
"The greatest gifts come with the greatest price. My Lord offers immortality for those who yearn for release from the burning sun. But whilst his enemies reject his gift, he must have guards to stand watch while he rests. I am honoured to be one of those guards."
"So, what — you sailed all this way, engaged me in battle just to say 'join or die'? Don't worry, we all got that message long ago."
"He wants you, Matai. Navigator of the South Wind. He will raise you up to stand beside him. You and you alone."
"Why?" I can't help but smile at this. He speaks with the calm serenity of the truly deluded, but it is my duty to indulge his fantasies if there is a chance to gain a single insight. Many survivors who worship the alphas are simply weak, scared souls looking for meaning in a world gone mad. The Green Lord uses them for his own ends, as he did to Deborah, the leader of the Lost Tribe who we confronted on Woodlark Island six months ago.
"Could an ordinary person have defeated the Pale King? Could an ordinary person — a simple orphan girl — survive the Black Harvest? You are more like those you hunt than you realise, Matai."
I'm on my feet before I realise it, that same cold cloak around me again. "How could you possibly know about the Black Harvest?"
His face twitches as if someone was yanking a fishhook embedded in his lip. It takes me a moment to realise he sees something humorous about this. When his words come, the cold cloak wraps around me so tightly that it cuts through my flesh and sinks deep inside to chill my bones. "I have read your book. Father killer. Murderer. Abandoner."
Words.
Nothing but words.
The same words that the Pale King used to taunt me on the Black Harvest. The words that reveal the truth that I fight everyday to hide.
Even from myself.
The images that fill my mind: my mother and brother standing on the dock in the fallen city of BauBau, staring hungrily at Voodoo as day dips into night, and my father and myself lose ourselves in our screams.
And then my father fighting his way up through the delirium, as the disease filled his body with corruption, fighting his way up like a drowning man struggling
to surface, to beg me for mercy. I'm twelve years old. His rifle is so big in my hands.
Nothing but words.
MERCY. The last words of the Captain of the Black Harvest, written carefully in English when the rest of his log was in Chinese: I AM THE MERCY.
My strength goes out from my legs.
I slump to sit on the ground.
The prisoner looks at me curiously. "Nothing to say? I am disappointed. I expected more of you. I hate that my Lord chose you. You, a weak girl so unworthy of his love. So hateful, who has killed first her father in life and then her father in death. Why should you have a third chance? When I, his faithful servant, is passed over. No matter. Even now, my Lord's fleet spreads far and wide. All of his canoes voyage from Dalbarade throughout the archipelago. To Misima and Goodenough and the Louisiades and the Trobriands hunting survivors, spreading his gospel, welcoming all to his embrace. Raising a great army that is—" He breaks off, his strange, awkward expression tilting quizzically. "Why... why are you smiling? He is bringing your doom. What are you doing? Why are you laughing now?"
His hooks, baited as they were with the horrors of the past and the cost I have paid to reach this place, have lodged painfully inside me. But it is worth it.
I have learned what I needed to know.
Yes, he has sunk his hooks deep. But the thing about fishing line is that it works both ways. A great fish can draw the angler down to the depths and drown him.
"There is nothing funny about what’s coming," he says, but his voice has lost its calm centre. He flinches as I stand. "I have nothing to say. I am but his humble servant delivering a message and nothing more."
My finger is on my lips to shush him. I place my spread hand against his chest and press him gently down until he is lying flat. His eyes are alive for the first time, as if fear has chased his confidence from the house. I lean down so I can whisper in his ear. He could turn and snap at me with his filed teeth, but I am not afraid.