A Bone From a Dry Sea

by Peter Dickinson

  Kadif was now the natural leader of the group, but he was hurt and unsure of himself. Goor was in no mood to challenge him. The others simply waited for Li to decide. She took them south. There were so few of them now that they could probably find enough food wherever they chose to forage, but with the water-caves gone they must have somewhere else to drink, either the pool or the river to the north. The pool was a place of happiness, but at the river, without land-watch or sea-watch, they would be in great danger. There was no choice.

  They went slowly, clinging to the unfamiliar shore in almost constant alarm, each night having to find a new place to roost. On the third morning they came on the stranded dolphin. It lay far up one of the shingle beaches where the tsunami had tossed it, dead. Already the orange crabs had been out to scavenge at its body. Enormous numbers of them must have been killed by the tsunami, but some had survived. When Li first saw the body her heart leaped, because it seemed clean and undamaged, and she thought that if they could haul it back to the sea it would come alive and swim away, but moving closer she saw that the eye was a hollow pit, ravaged at the edges, because crabs had made their way in there and burrowed in the flesh beneath. When she touched the flank, which she had known as living flesh caressing against her in the song-filled water, she could feel the skin lying against the ribs with nothing at all beneath them. Shocked, appalled, she led the way on.

  That night the true rains began. The earlier downpour had been a freak, perhaps connected somehow with the upheavals beneath the ocean. These, though they came without the days of tension before, were otherwise normal, heavy and steady, driven by the threshing onshore wind, lasting a few days and then passing away to leave a calm clear sea and sparkling air. On the headland beyond the bay where the dolphin lay, the group had found an excellent roosting place, where a fallen slab leaned against the cliff well above wave-reach, giving them shelter from both wind and rain. With all they needed for drink falling direct from the sky they stayed there and waited the rains out.

  Before they moved on Li felt compelled to go back and look at the dead dolphin again. By now the crabs had stripped it completely and only the skeleton was left, a fine white structure, the arched ribs joined to the supple spine which ended in the snouted skull with its huge eye-socket. To Li, dead though it was, and gone, it still seemed to have power. The empty eye looked as if it knew things she could never know. She saw, amazed, that it had a hand like hers. The long thin fingers which had been hidden in the flipper now lay across the ribs, still joined to the stubby arm and shoulder-blade. Some of the finger-bones had fallen away. The shoulder-blade was loose and when she picked it up the arm became separated from the hand, and then the arm fell away too, leaving her holding just a flat triangular bone. That would have to do. She would have liked to take the head, but it would be far too heavy and difficult. This flat bone would be enough. She carried it back to the others and led them on.

  Beyond the next headland a fresh change began. If they’d been travelling further inland they would have been aware of it far sooner, a smothering layer of heavy grey dust spreading over everything, mile after mile, thicker and thicker to the south and west, the outfall of the volcanic eruption. They had for some time been aware that there was a different taste in the sea, but it hadn’t been enough to trouble them, and except in occasional pockets the tsunami and then the ordinary waves and the rains had scoured the shoreline clean. But now, further in under where the main plume of the eruptions had been blown, that had not been enough. When they reached the long beach behind the water pool they found it not white but dark grey. The beach itself had totally changed shape. There was no water pool.

  They hunted desperately for it. With the beach behind so altered they could no longer be sure exactly where it was supposed to be, and plunged around searching at random. It took them a long while to realize that it was in fact gone. Perhaps the earthquakes had closed it or perhaps the colossal shifting of sand beneath the tsunami had for the time being blocked it off, but they didn’t wonder about causes. It was just another terrible change, part of all the other changes. They gathered miserably in the shallows and looked at Li.

  Without her they would probably have turned back north, in an unreasoned hope that the water-caves might somehow have come back, but Li had no such hope. The discovery of the dolphin’s body had changed her. Through the bone she carried it seemed still to be speaking to her, telling her that even its death was part of its song, which she must understand. It said that there was no life for the people any more on this shore. They must go away, or they too would die. The water-caves were closed. The pool was gone. When they reached the shrimping beach there would be no glimmering harvest in the shallows, however many full moons came and went. They must go.

  Where?

  Li already knew the answer. There was another place. She had seen it on the day she had watched the spider, and often since then, when the tribe had been at the shrimping beach, she had crossed the dunes during the long wait between high tides, climbed into the leaning tree and looked west. Often, too, she had seen the place in her dreams. It was important to her because it was part of the process in which she had first become fully aware of herself, and had begun to wonder at the hugeness of the world and the otherness of all the things it held.

  The retreating tsunami had left every hollow filled with salt water, but there were places where the rains that followed had collected in sufficient quantities to dilute it to a point where they could drink it, so that by the time they reached the shrimping beaches they had made up for not finding the fresh-water pool. The beaches were utterly changed. The shoreline here had actually risen, so that the waves lapped far further out than they used to, and the dunes behind were no longer a series of hummocks but a single level flat, runnelled where the water had coursed back towards the sea. The altered level meant that the shoreline continued ahead, with the flattened reed-beds already starting to dry out. It would have been possible to continue south, looking for a new and hospitable shore, but instead Li led the way inland.

  The leaning tree was gone, washed away or buried in sand and ash, but the marsh was still there, stretching away and away, and beyond it rose the line of blue hills.

  Where the ground started to slope down towards the water, Li stopped and pointed. The others gazed ahead, muttering surprise and doubt. Nothing stirred. The tsunami had flattened the reeds, and the rise in land-level had brought the mud-banks from which they grew up above the surface, so that they lay like mats or floating islands between the patches of water. In places further out, the islands seemed to join together and become a path. The water itself looked calm and safe.

  Come, she said, and clutching the dolphin’s blade-bone to her chest walked confidently down the slope.

  NOW: THURSDAY MORNING

  VINNY SLEPT LATE. The first sound she heard was Dr Hamiska’s laugh braying through the camp. She lay for a moment, wondering how she could once have thought it was a cheerful sound. Then she remembered the first drive out to the site, when he was telling her about fossils and things. He’d been really interesting. They’d both enjoyed it. There were probably lots of people who still thought he was terrific, and from their point of view they weren’t wrong. It was just sad that he’d shown Vinny his foul side.

  A faint sound from inside the hut made her open her eyes. Dad was sitting at his folding table, writing. He didn’t stir or twitch when the laugh rang out again. He was using his work to shut all that out, to shut everything out – Mum, May Anna, Vinny. No, wrong again. He had noticed she was awake and stopped writing.

  ‘You’ve slept all right,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. What’s the time? Didn’t you?’

  ‘Bit after seven. No. I’m no good at rows. God, I’m glad it’s all over. Look, Watson took the spare jeep into town, so as soon as he gets back we’ll push off, and that means that someone can helicopter back with the Craig people and pick it up.’

  ‘How long have we got?’

&nbs
p; ‘Plenty of time. Assuming Watson didn’t crash the jeep, driving a load of girls round town, and assuming he managed to get up this morning, he should be back around lunchtime. That’ll give us just time to clear out before the Craig people show up.’

  ‘In a helicopter!’

  ‘They’re the ones with the money. Why don’t you go and find some breakfast? I’ll come when I get to a stopping place.’

  He worked on steadily while Vinny dressed. Before she left she went and stood by his chair and put her hand round his shoulder, looking down at the neat straight lines of his notes. His handwriting was almost as small as print, but beautifully clear. He hesitated, wrote another couple of lines, put his pen down and folded his hand over hers.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said. ‘It’s been a great help not having to go through all that out there alone.’

  ‘Oh . . . Thanks, Dad. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Go and get some breakfast.’

  He squeezed her hand before he picked up his pen and started to write again.

  The others had mostly finished eating, so Vinny got herself muesli and canned milk, fruit juice and a mango, and ate alone. Dad, she guessed, didn’t feel like facing anyone. She could see May Anna working on her skull. Mrs Hamiska was talking to her. Dr Hamiska bustled into the eating area, glanced around for someone and bustled away, pretending not to have noticed Vinny. He was just like Mr Potterson, she thought, on the day of the school play, rushing around as if everything depended on him and everyone would forget their lines if he wasn’t there.

  To her surprise Mrs Hamiska came across and sat down opposite her. Vinny said ‘Good morning’ and Mrs Hamiska answered, but then sat looking at her with her head on one side as if she was trying to decide what sort of person she was. Vinny managed a few mouthfuls before she looked up. Their eyes met.

  ‘I’m truly sorry things have turned out like this,’ said Mrs Hamiska.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘No. You know, I used rather to enjoy these academic rows. They can be almost addictive, like a drug. But now I’m tired of all that.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do now.’

  ‘No. I’m afraid not. I’ve been talking to May Anna.’

  ‘It wasn’t true! He wasn’t trying to keep the site for himself! He wasn’t trying to slow things up! He isn’t like that!’

  ‘I don’t believe he is. I don’t believe anyone seriously thinks that. Ah, well. I’ll do my best . . . Will you tell him, please?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Mrs Hamiska bowed her head and sat studying the backs of her hands. Vinny went on eating until, in a lull in the bustle of the camp, she heard a distant faint drumming sound.

  ‘There’s a helicopter,’ she said.

  Mrs Hamiska jerked up, startled, and listened.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘It’ll be Dr Wishart! He must have caught an early flight! We’re not nearly ready for him!’

  She rose. Others had heard the sound. As it came closer they moved into the open and stood watching the sky. Hands pointed. Vinny moved to where she could see. It was a big machine, with two rotors, and not the bright dragon-fly thing which important people get ferried around in, but fat and painted in camouflage colours.

  ‘Army chopper,’ said someone. ‘Not for us.’

  But it neared and neared, its racket now battering the hillside. It hovered, sank and settled in an explosion of blown dust on the flat ground beside the truck and jeep a hundred yards down the slope. Dr Hamiska was already loping down the path with Dr Wessler trotting nervously behind.

  A door opened. Four soldiers leaped out, guns at the ready. Then steps were lowered and a tall man wearing an embroidered pill-box hat and a long white robe came slowly down and stood between the soldiers gazing round him. Dr Hamiska strode up with his hand outstretched in welcome, but two of the soldiers raised their guns and barred his way. He stopped, held his hands half up and said something, protesting or questioning, but the tall man ignored him and came slowly up the path to the open space in the middle of the camp, where he stood looking proudly round him. He had a small neat beard. His face was dark brown, with rounded muscles on the cheek-bones below the impenetrable black sun-glasses.

  He spoke at last, an order, with a gesture of the hand. One of the soldiers fetched a folding table out from under an awning and another of the group who’d followed the man up the path spread what looked like a map on it. It was at this point that Vinny saw Watson standing at the back of the group, looking for once as if he didn’t specially want to be noticed.

  ‘Where is Dr Hamiska?’ said the tall man, in English, with a strong, throaty accent.

  ‘Here,’ said Dr Hamiska calmly, as if all this was normal. ‘Mr Multan, isn’t it? Honoured to welcome you, Minister. How can we help you?’

  He moved to face the visitor across the table. Mr Multan gazed at him from behind his shielding glasses, obviously trying to do his own trick of facing him down, but Dr Hamiska gazed confidently back. At length Mr Multan tapped the map three times with his forefinger.

  ‘You have been digging outside the area for which you have your licence,’ he said.

  ‘If we have, it’s an oversight. Or a misunderstanding. Fetch the licence, will you, Jane? Forgive me, Minister, but I believe you gave us a licence covering the whole of the Dunahil district.’

  Mr Multan tapped the map again, barely glancing at it as he spoke.

  ‘This (tap) is the Dunahil district, here (tap). Here (tap) is the boundary. You have been digging (tap) here.’

  Dr Hamiska looked at the map, peered more closely, started to say something about it, stopped and straightened.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s an oversight. There wasn’t a map with our licence.’

  ‘That is your affair.’

  ‘In any case I would of course be willing to take out a fresh licence to cover this outlying site, where we have, as you say, started a minor exploratory dig. I must explain, Minister, that we are expecting other visitors today, the Director of the Craig Foundation, which . . . ah, thank you, Jane . . .’

  Dr Hamiska took the paper and was beginning to unfold it when Mr Multan snatched it from his hands, refolded it and tore it twice across. He dropped the pieces on the ground.

  ‘Your licence is taken away,’ he said. ‘Your visas are taken away. You will leave the country within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘This is ridiculous . . .’

  ‘Be silent. You think this is a tin-pot country. You think you can come here and do what you wish. You think you can take the treasures out of our soil and we will not know what you are taking, because we are savages. You think your Craig Foundation and its dollars can bribe my officials to look another way. I make it clear we are not your children, we are not your donkeys, we are not your servants. We are your equals. I ask, does it take a white man to dig a hole in the ground?’

  ‘Colour’s got nothing to do with it. But it takes an expert, black or white, to know where to dig. I’ve worked with excellent black colleagues – Dr Azikwe, your nephew, I think, shows every sign . . .’

  ‘I am not interested in your opinion. Dr Azikwe will now be in charge of these excavations.’

  ‘Are you serious? In that case – no, I will not be silent—Let me tell you that it’s perfectly obvious to me that this so-called boundary on this map has been recently drawn in. A child could see that it’s been done with a different pen, in another sort of ink . . .’

  He stopped because a gunpoint had been thrust against his throat but he kept his dignity as he backed away. Mr Multan spoke with one of his aides, who came forward and clapped for attention.

  ‘Everybody will go to his hut, please, and wait there. We are sorry for the inconvenience. We will not be very long.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ whispered Vinny.

  Dad glanced at the door.

  ‘It was always a risk,’ he muttered. ‘I must say I’ve got a certain amount of sympathy
for them. Suppose a lot of – oh, I don’t know – Martians turned up and said they wanted to excavate a site on Salisbury Plain where several ley-lines meet, and we could have a few token humans on the dig but we mustn’t interfere because we didn’t know enough about it. How’d we feel? This country is still finding itself. For years it has been regarded as a kind of pariah by the rest of the world. Now it can do with all the prestige it can get, including (the Minister evidently thinks) the prestige of taking charge of the excavation of a really important early hominid site. They’ve got something no-one else has got – why should they hand it all over to a pack of Europeans and Americans?’

  ‘But they don’t know how.’

  ‘They can hire people. Fred for a start. And I didn’t say I thought they were right, I just said . . . Hold it.’

  He’d been talking in a low voice so Vinny had already heard the approaching footsteps, but it was only Watson. He looked almost as cocky as usual, now that he was out of his uncle’s presence.

  ‘Hi, Vinny,’ he said. ‘Hi, Sam. Sorry about all this happening. Didn’t mean it this way.’

  Dad grunted unencouragingly.

  ‘They’re saying you been fired, Sam,’ said Watson. ‘That right?’

  ‘I have resigned over a disagreement with Dr Hamiska, if you must know.’

  ‘Right. Well now you’re unfired, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You hear the Minister saying I got to take over everything? Can’t do that all by myself, you know, so I’m going to need help. Experts. Pros. How d’you feel about that?’

  ‘Heavens. I’ll have to think. Have you asked Dr Wessler?’

  ‘Sooner have you, Sam. Came to you first.’