by Jase Kovacs
Both of us know how thin the bamboo walls of the hut are, not to mention that the wide-open windows will let our words out as easily as they let in the breeze. I draw close to him, my voice a furious whisper. "Why'd you do it to her?"
"There's more at play here than just Matai's hurt feelings," he says. "You're bright enough to work out that this morning was, in part, a show. Surely you can fill in the rest."
"I didn't come here to play guessing games with you, Duncan."
"Ha, aren't you fired up! It's good to see. I admire a man with self-control, but you take stoicism to another level, lad. There ain't anything admirable about someone locked down so tight he can't feel a thing."
"I'm not here be psychoanalysed by you either."
"Then why are you here, Isaac? I know it isn't for the joy of disrupting my thoughts with your self-righteous theorising. Finish what you started: tell me what I was doing this morning so I can tell you what you're to do next."
I control my anger with difficulty, looking out the window and breathing deeply. A black beetle, as big as my thumb, lands on the windowsill. It trundles from the shadow into the brilliant sunlight; as soon as it does, its obsidian case turns emerald green, flashing brightly enough to hurt my eyes. "All right. You wanted a showdown."
"One's coming whether I want it or not. I'm trying to shape it."
I nod. I find my anger vanishing as I deal with the intellectual exercise that Duncan presents to me. "There's four conflicts. Locals versus expatriates and isolationists versus explorers."
"That's succinct. But I count two conflicts. How do you figure four?"
"There's conflict in the local village as there is in our camp. I suspect that some of ours who favour cutting ties to the outside world will reach across the creek to find allies."
"That's one of our problems — we still see First Landing as a camp. As if we're just waiting for an all-clear siren to sound and we can go back to our lives. People need to realise this is their world now." He waves his own line of argument away. "But I digress. You were saying?"
"Michael will be the leader of the isolationists. Not because he believes in their cause, but because he will front any group who will bring him power. But the man is a buffoon. A demagogue at best. You set up Matty as a public hero because you knew Michael couldn't resist trying to knock her down. And so, because everyone was there, you could see who supported him."
He doesn't react to what I say, except to allow a little glitter in his eyes to let me know I'm not wrong. "So, are you going to tell me why you've been meeting Auntie Ruthie on the sly?"
"My job is liaison."
"Don't be cute. Your job is to liaise on behalf of the Council. Informal sounding-outs are all very well, but you've been going for strolls in the jungle a little too often. People on this side of the creek are noticing — and you can be sure the locals are well aware. The last thing I need is for one of Auntie's enemies to accuse her of conspiracy — or worse, ambush you while en route."
"Look, I'm going to bring any important news to the Council. But I won't bring idle speculation and gossip."
"And that's all you've got?"
I roll my eyes and lean against the edge of his desk. It's an old teacher's desk, looted from an abandoned Catholic mission on the north point of the island. The locals are cagey about what happened, but most people suspect the priest was murdered when it was clear that the Rapture had come and gone and everyone had been left behind. "I've got a whole load of gardening metaphors. She mostly talks about religion while pulling grubs from her vegetables. It's not the most subtle of messages."
"Snakes in the Garden of Eden? And she's the gardener with a big rake."
"Sounds like you've been listening in. Have you bugged her cabbages?"
He snorts. "I see what you did there." Then he sighs and rubs his hand over his face. He turns back to the map, waving his hand over the mainland, where every city has been struck out. "Christ, Zac. I look at this and I can't help but feel what we've lost. What everyone has lost, no matter how much a damn fool I consider them. We have to remember that when times get hot. Even the assholes have climbed a mountain of grief to be here. We're all survivors. We have a duty that transcends our petty egos and jealousies. We've eleven hundred people on Madau: a hundred expats, a thousand locals. Maybe two thousand in the Trobes and, what, let's say another five hundred scattered through the Louisiades. So less than four thousand people, all told, that we know about for sure. And still, there are those amongst us who would wage war."
"And so, the point arises."
"Don't be cute. Right now, Matty's at the height of her tide. You saw most people's reaction. She's a hero and, whether she likes it or not, that makes her a beacon of hope. But how do you think people will react when she has a breakdown and starts ranting about dark stars and pale kings and whatever other horrors that creature put in her mind? What will Michael or his followers do when they realise that the boy she rescued was a mind controlled slave? Or the news that the deadies will walk across the bottom of the ocean given the right motivation? We've got an infected island not two miles away, and we've just learned an alpha could drive them here any time he likes."
"Wait a second. You do believe her, don't you?"
If we were quiet before, he takes it to another level, leaning in and whispering in my ear. As I said, the public forum was the heavily sanitised version of Matty's story. I suspect that Duncan hasn't even told Larry about the fantastical elements — and he's unlikely to change that. "About this new alpha deadie? The Captain or Pale King or whatever he called himself. Yeah. Sure, I believe that. I even believe that he could dominate her mind. Call it psychic or hypnosis or whatever. It's something some of us have long suspected — that there was some malignant intelligence out there directing the deadies. But the other stuff? The meeting in space, the dark star and all that? That was the alpha drawing her into his madness. He shared his delusions and made them hers. But imagine what would happen if that talk got around here. People already are vulnerable to spiritual hogwash. Remember what happened in Year Eight with the cult of the Unascended? Last thing we need is another crazy to latch on to Matty's story and stir up trouble with his own spin."
Duncan draws back and seems relieved to see me nod in agreement. He is right, I can't deny that. Five years ago, a charismatic young man named Arthur Moody, who was a foreign aid worker before the Fall, claimed to have had a revelation from God: we had missed the Rapture and thus all spiritual and natural laws were no longer valid. He drew off perhaps a dozen expats and fifty locals into his cult and withdrew to a small village on the southern tip of the island, deep in local territory, where they engaged in an orgy of bacchanal behaviour before disintegrating in a bizarre murder-suicide spree that saw the lot of them hack each other to death. It was a horrible, dark end to what Duncan believes to be an inevitable symptom of the times. People, when robbed of hope and direction, will follow whatever madness presents them with a way forward — even if that way leads over a cliff.
But even as I nod, a flash of intuition sets my heart racing, and I feel the jet of anger return. "Damn it, you're going to send Matty away, aren't you?"
"Christ, you know I love Matty as much as anyone. But her temper, at a time like this? That woman is a blazing flare in a room full of gunpowder. Don't look at me like that, and wait a minute before you get fired up again. Tell me, ignoring for the moment all the supernatural baggage surrounding Matty's report — What bothered you the most about her story?"
His earnest expression stops me in my tracks, and I consider my reply. "Well. Removing the whole Captain angle, her story is just about another city overrun with damned." Duncan nods, encouraging my line of thought. "We've heard about plenty of those. Hunting infected and scavenging supplies is what she does. But, okay, you know what bothers me? That canoe leaving Woodlark."
He's pleased. "Exactly. Who the hell is going to Woodlark? No one we know uses red sails — not the Trobes, not the Louisiades. T
here's a new player out there, and we don't know who. So yes. Matty will get a new mission. But it won't be to get her away. It will be because she is our best chance of finding out what's going on over the horizon."
"But she's just returned! She's injured, gone through all sorts of traumas. She needs support and care, and you're going to send her out alone again?"
This time he lets his smile grow wide, his grey beard split with teeth that are still impossibly white and brilliant. "I never said anything about her going alone."
***
That night, it takes me a long time to sleep. My own home is towards the creek; near enough to the watchtower and the town hall. It is a warm night, and I've dragged my mattress out onto the porch and hung my mosquito net from the rafters. Big Kev was right about one thing. We do have other diseases besides the plague to worry about. Malaria, for example; most people on the island have had it at least once. Those tiny little bugs carry a microscopic parasite that can render the strongest of us helpless. And our best defence against it is a thin, gauzy net, our shield during our sleep.
I've kept an oil lamp burning: an indulgence. Big Kev and his crew have got a coconut oil press working — they've managed to refine a thick, dirty fuel that we use in lamps. He thinks he can produce biodiesel soon. The lamp's wick is guttering, the beam from which it's hung is black with soot. Geckos dart back and forth in the pool of light. They are fat, pink little creatures with large, luminous eyes that glimmer with mirrored flame. They race around upside down in contempt of gravity. Their gripping toes grow dark with soot, and they leave black footprints on the beam when they retire, their bellies full of bumbling moths drawn by the light.
I grew up on the other side of the river, in Auntie's house. They say I was insensible for the first year. Auntie called me her little pork crackling; the boys called me puk puk, a crocodile, after the burn scars that ridge my left arm and back. I was one of the first refugees, brought back to the island by Auntie herself, who found me drifting in the sea during a trading voyage down to the Conflicts and beyond in the first year post-Fall. And then, when the split happened, I found myself a refugee from my refuge, the colour of my skin and the nationality on my birth certificate, not the country where I was raised, deciding in which community I should live.
Thirteen years have brought us to this place. The ebb and flow of time, of people, of lives and deaths. The islands of Papua New Guinea were always forgotten by the mainlanders, by the governments who were not bothered enough to provide decent services to places only accessible by boat. They were left to their own devices for the most part, left to muddle along as best they could. For them, the death of the world meant the radios went silent, ABC Pacific and BBC World dying one confused news report at a time. When the radios went, the only news was brought by traders and fishermen blown their way, the facts garbled by a chain of Chinese whispers, the interpretation of events given over to wild speculation.
The first expats to come were yachtsmen, cruisers passing through, searching for a new hope and for other survivors. Most pushed on towards Australia or Asia and were never seen again. Some stayed or went out and brought others back, refugees and survivors from other islands. Most people arrived on the Queen Victoria, the old rusting ferry making one last overloaded voyage to bring them. They say that in the Time Before, Papua New Guinea attracted three types of foreigners: missionaries, mercenaries, and misfits. From these stones we build our future.
When I finally sleep, I dream. And I dream, as I always do, of the Time Before. Dad and Uncle Clem would spend every Saturday morning out fishing in Hooked Up. If I had been good, I could go with them. I loved those fishing trips and looked forward to them during the long dreary hours at the International School. Since my fishing trips were dependent on my behaviour, I was always good.
They'd take the boat out of the harbour and fish off Kalibobo Point, where the shallow water of the lagoon abruptly dropped off two hundred metres. We'd sling long lines weighed down with heavy sinkers down to the foot of that underwater cliff. After an hour or two of drinking, Dad and Uncle Clem would pull coral trout and triggerfish from the depths. These fish had grown accustomed to the pressure of their dim world and, without fail, would be dead by the time we hauled them on board, their organs and eyes bursting from the change in pressure as they were rudely summoned to the surface.
I loved my Saturdays on the water: the fishing, the laughter of my dad and his brother, the way I could sit with them, sipping my lemonade as they downed beers, and feel like I was all grown up. But the sight of the blinded fish, their limp bodies rising to the light and breaking the surface, the water draining from their empty eye sockets, always filled me with horror.
***
I'm woken at dawn by rain. My thick thatch roof mutes even the loudest tropical downpour, and it's only by looking into the thoroughfare that I can gauge the rain's strength. The drops hit the ground hard enough to fling specks of mud into the air. The only creature to brave the rain is a thin dog, trotting along determinedly on some important canine errand.
I lie on my porch, listening to the rain and thinking. Duncan plans a Council meeting for this afternoon; I expect discussion to be spirited but, without the public theatre of yesterday, more reasoned. However, I am certain that the Council will endorse Duncan's plan to dispatch a yacht, skippered by Matty, on a round trip to the Louisiades and the Trobriands — nominally a trading voyage but really to gather information as to behaviour of the damned and discover the identity of the red-sailed vessel that visited Woodlark in defiance of all common sense. Michael may be an isolationist, but he would be a fool not to welcome the chance to put Matty back to sea, where her impatience will not act as a lightning rod for those who oppose him.
I'm less certain of Matty's response to the mission; I spoke honestly when I said I didn't think she was ready to go out again. However, Duncan disagrees. And thinking of it now, I wonder if perhaps I divined his intentions at the time and that it was not Matty who I thought unready but myself, for Duncan intends that I accompany her as ambassador, translator, and advisor. Even now, the thought of stepping off the island, for the first time in years, fills me with a nervous tension. I wouldn't say it is fear… but could be its neighbour.
My scars ache; I'll see Abella later for some ointment.
CHAPTER FOUR: MATAI
Duncan begins to sweat when we are less than a hundred metres from shore. The sun has just risen above the coconut palms. The bay is postcard perfect, a deep settled azure, banded with cyan patches where the reef rises. Out to sea, birds wheel and dive on a bait ball, a school of sardines tightly driven to the surface by the frenzied attacks of barracuda and trevally.
There are a pair of rods in the boat, but I soon realise his suggestion we go fishing was a ruse. He glances over his shoulder, his brow shining with perspiration, and adjusts his course a little, so we are heading towards the anchored yachts. We're in his dinghy, a three-metre Aussie-style aluminium tinnie.
I wait until he has begun to pant before saying, "You want some help?"
"Shut up, you brat. You're the invalid here, not me."
I hold up my hands, palms out, so he can see that, scarred though they are, my wounds have healed. "Not I. Abella has given me a clean bill of health. So you can drop the pretence and tell me where you want me to go."
He gives one of his rare chuckles. "Zac told you?"
"He's about the only one who hasn't. He's like you — he thinks he's a clever bastard but still doesn't realise that, in the absence of facts, people will just make shit up."
He dips the oars, pulling strongly. He's an older man, must be over sixty now, but his back is good, and his arms are still corded with muscle beneath grey hair and faded, blotchy tattoos. "And what shit have people been making up?"
"That the Council wants me out again, back to the Black Harvest to pick her clean."
"Do you like that idea?" He pauses every couple of words to breathe, so his speech develops a cadence to
match the stroke of his oars.
"Hell yes! Let me finish what I started."
"Then I'm sorry to disappoint you." He ships his oars, and we glide up to the side of his yacht, Excelsior. She's a thirteen-metre sloop of German design, about forty years old. Her white hull is faded and bubbled in places with rust, but she still sports a handsome red stripe along her side. She's strong, solidly built of welded plate steel with a double-pipe bowspit. But she was never an elegant yacht; she's heavy, slow, and unwilling to go to windward. As always, I can't help but compare other boats to the one on which I grew up; as always, they can't compare. Voodoo was a sprightly racehorse of a yacht; Excelsior is more a belligerent bull.
Duncan sailed with his partner in the Time Before but set the boat up to be handled comfortably by a solo sailor. He holds the stainless steel transom railing and motions to the stern ladder. "Come on."
"You know, if you wanted to talk somewhere private, we could've just walked on the beach."
"I thought you'd like a proper handoff."
I jump from the dinghy to the aft deck as he says this. I offer him my hand, which he angrily waves away as he heaves himself on board — a good thing, as my strength wavers as what he said registers. "Handoff?"
"Now who's a clever bastard? Yes, handoff. You didn't think I would send you out in that canoe of yours again? Don't get me wrong, she's an impressive bit of improvisation. But I don't think you'll fit a crew on board."
"Whoa, slow up there, mate. Handoff? Crew? What are you talking about?"
He gestures to the cockpit, an airy affair that can sit six people comfortably, protected by a hard fibreglass dodger and tinted Perspex windscreen, sheltered on each side by roll-down canvas panels. "Let's sit."
Excelsior has been moored here for at least three years that I can remember. Barnacles and coral encrust her hull, but Duncan has kept her clean above decks, sweeping her fore and aft regularly, cleaning out the swallows that insist in nesting in the boom each season. I follow his invitation and sit in the cockpit, my hands flat against the seat so he can't see them tremble.