Beluga Fay (Dragon Bone Hill)

by Wellhauser, David S.

  “Where is he?” Titus asked Synon.

  “First floor canteen—he’d not eaten in a day.”

  “Where is he coming from?”

  “The docks—the fish markets.”

  “And he couldn’t get anything to eat down there?”

  “The government, security forces, the Cartel, and the Whites are all competing for their goods now—prices are getting beyond the reach of anyone who doesn’t have diamonds, government chits, or a force backing them up. Even our influence in the markets has weakened—considerably.”

  “I see.” He did. What food sources remained in the city were being heavily taxed by competing groups—all of which had their own threat to bring to bear. For the rest of the way, they walked in silence. When they finally got to the cafeteria, Simon Aglibut was sitting near the shattered concrete wall drinking a cup of coffee and gnawing on a crust of stale French bread. The kid was in his mid-teens. He was rail thin but wrapped about the skeleton was muscle. This wasn’t much, but it looked hard and as if it had gotten a fair workout. The kid was dressed only in a pair of khaki shorts down to his knees held in place by a narrow, decaying cord of rope. On his feet, stretched out before him as he stared blankly out the window, was a shoddy and sodden pair of rope sandals. Aglibut’s skin was a bronzy-brown about the tone and texture of burnt cinnamon—made darker by days spent in the sun.

  Synon called to him, and as he turned, Titus noticed a ragged weal ran down the left side of his face. It wasn’t new—that wound had occurred several weeks before, but the scar tissue looked sensitive and much lighter than the rest of the skin. That Simon was strong, or resilient, became apparent as he bounced up and ran over with a bright smile to Synon. When he joined them, the kid didn’t embrace the woman, but it was plain he wanted to. There may have been an erotic component to this, but it seemed to Titus there was more of camaraderie than Eros in the urge. As well, there was the fact of Pym himself, which appeared to be restraining the young man.

  Slowly he was coming to terms with his mythic status amongst the new recruits. The notion of them being recruits was sinking in but without much joy. Taken together there was a shift occurring in the Beluga—from opportunists to armed camp. All Titus had wanted was to get enough arms to protect themselves, but this had changed. Was it the Synon/Bannly camp or was Lander inching his way into the Beluga ideologies? Titus didn’t particularly care.

  “Titus, this is Simon Aglibut.” Pym held out a hand, and the young man took this. The grip was hardly worthy of the word—a weak, floppy thing. Titus put this down to a fear of him; if not this, then the child had little by way of character and this would turn out badly for Pym. “Simon, this is Titus Pym.”

  “How are you, Simon?”

  “Good, sir.” The voice a reedy hollow twitter, rich with a Tagolam accent. Pym had been negotiating his way around the dialects of the archipelago with only a little effort. The language was another matter. Although the language was simple enough, with only twenty-eight letters and thirty-three phonemes, the inversion of the traditional expectation of subject and object with no linking verbs had caused some trouble. Therefore, Pym’s use of Tagolam was fractured and problematic.

  His problems were only increased by the fact Tagolam was not the universal language of the islands. Talota, Bula Vina, and Haloket where the other major languages, though Tagolamists argued they remained dialects of Tagolam, but these were, for most islanders, regional languages not spoken beyond the frontiers of the provinces and sometimes not much beyond the mountain region of their origin. In one case, there was a minor language, Namast, which was only used by a village of under three-hundred people. These had made up over a dozen villages dotted along a chain of mountains on the westernmost islands, but over the centuries, the area was depopulated by the development of the economy and the young seeking better opportunities in the cities of the northern islands. The story played out many times around the world over the last three hundred years.

  “I hear,” Pym asked, listening carefully to filter meaning from the heavy accent, “you have some information for me.”

  The young man looked to Synon, who smiled and inclined her chin. Simon’s hands moved to his neck as though attempting to coax words from this; then began.

  “In the Arran Fish Market—you know the place?”

  “It’s the eastern market and the smallest—best prices.” Synon answered.

  “Not anymore—everything is dear down there and only the rich, government, and Cartel shop at these any longer.”

  “You,” Synon’s voice surprised, “certain about that?”

  “Take a look for yourself—the prices are high, very high, and they’ve hired private security to guard the place. If you are caught stealing, you’re shot on the spot.”

  This should have shocked Pym, but it didn’t. Little was capable of that any longer.

  Synon looked to be about to answer Simon, but Pym jumped in. “I believe you. So, you were down in Arran Market—what happened?”

  “Met a man who said he was from the Cartel. They said they know of someone who is looking for you, another foreigner, and they intend to kill you.”

  That someone wanted to kill Pym had not been news to Synon but that they were foreign was. “You know anything about this?” She asked Titus.

  He shook his head, but she didn’t appear convinced.

  “Why did they tell you this?”

  “He wants to sell the information to you.”

  “It’s a trap.” Synon took Titus’s arm.

  “Yes, but if someone is after me...”

  “They’re just saying that to get you down there.”

  “But why foreign? If it had just been another islander, I would have said yes, but foreign—doesn’t seem likely.” It was a trap, but not by those she was thinking of—at least he hoped they weren’t involved.

  “You can’t go down alone.” Synon was adamant.

  “If I take more than Simon here, whoever is behind this will disappear.”

  “You know who is behind this, don’t you?”

  “No.” This wasn’t a lie, but it was a distance from the truth. He’d no idea who was in the hold that night, or why they’d tried to kill him, but he did know what they looked like, and how good they were. Better than he’d been at the time, but times had changed. That’s what he’d been telling himself whenever he’d taken the opportunity to consider the possibility he was not alone. Everyone else had died in the explosion and fire. He’d not seen anyone swim ashore or get picked up by the gunboats or other freighter rescue craft. Pym repeated this again and again when he woke after a nightmare about that night—and these were not infrequent. One more reason he wanted out of the city—if this was who he thought it might be, then he was trapped. Eventually he’d be ferreted out, and when that happened, Pym was not certain what his chances would be.

  “Then you have an idea.”

  “Not even an idea—actually, less than a wild surmise.” Synon wasn’t satisfied but seemed to realize she was not going to have a say in this. Pym knew the lies and evasions where not helping: why he’d been on the freighter; why he’d swum ashore and not to another boat; why he repeatedly disappeared; what he intended to do next. As to the last, he had no idea. For the moment, he was comfortable finding solutions to problems as they arose—strategy was not possible when all of his goals were short term. “But I’m taking young Aglibut down to Arran, and we’ll look his source up. Did they say they’d wait down there for you?”

  “At The Birder.”

  “A bar and grill,” Synon answered, “in the south end of the fish market district. Mostly fishermen frequent the place—can get rough later at night.”

  Nodding, Pym collected Aglibut and headed out.

  They drove to the edge of the market district and hid the car in an abandoned garage. From the trunk, Pym took a sawed off shotgun, more clips for the automatic, and a strap to hold the shotgun under his arm. Simon had wanted a weapon too, but the f
ear on the kid’s face told Titus it wasn’t a good idea. There was the fact, as well, this was more than likely a setup, and he had a strong suspicion either Aglibut was stupid or in on it. Neither were good reasons to arm him. Simon didn’t argue and led the way down into the markets.

  For all the trade that happened in the markets, and the amount of wealth that was generated daily, the place was as rundown as any district Pym had seen—excepting the Dead District, but that was a whole new level of depravity, One he wanted to give a wide berth. The smell of fish was heavy, and beneath this was the odor of sweat, unwashed bodies, and the putrescence of offal. Over the underlying currents of scent were the fishwives, hawkers, and barkers. Mixed in with the stalls, barrows, and carts were shell games, magicians, fortunetellers, thieves, dodgers, pickpockets, whores, and beggars. All were dangerous in their own way, but Pym was allowing the threat of the shotgun to swing loosely beneath his long, canvas coat.

  “Is there a faster way to The Birder?” The narrow lanes were choked by barrows, carts, and stalls. Weaving in and out of these was the foul smelling crush of sellers, customers, security, and everyone else.

  “The alleys are filled with thieves and murderers. Everyone has seen the shotgun and will want it—someone down there would try to take it from you. When that happened you’d kill them; then security would come.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Not in the alleys it isn’t. Once they saw the weapons, they might try to take them or turn you over to government security forces for a reward.”

  “Best we avoid that.”

  Simon nodded and wound through the throng; Pym followed as best he could.

  Occasionally, one or the other of the two lost the other. When this happened, Simon would wait until Pym caught up or shouted after him. Pym tried not to do this because he had already caught the attention of many in the market. Some would know who he was, others would know he was out of place and, definitely, foreign. No one, it appeared, seemed to want any trouble—most were making money and that would have them wanting to keep it all quiet. Still, there were a fair number who weren’t. Those he wanted to keep as uninterested or frightened as possible. Now and again, Pym was harangued by a whore but kept walking and never responded to the abuse. That much he knew before getting to the city. They’d all be carrying knives and would have had a fair amount of experience with these. Pass on, pass on—he did.

  All the time the lanes appeared to be getting smaller and smaller, but the miasmic air was lifting until he could just catch a hint of the sea and the wind blowing north up off of the bay. Mixed in with this, once the fetid rancor of the market began to break, was the smell of diesel and coal smoke from the boilers of the freighters that would be anchoring in or departing the bay. None, for all he’d heard, put into the docks any longer—if they did, the gunboats would not allow them to leave until they completed a month of quarantine and two health checkups. Normally what happened was there were platforms where the food, medical supplies, and fuel were left, and these would be picked up once the freighter crews had returned to their ships. It was at this time squabbles broke out between the various elements of the city government. Sometimes these ended in gunfire or a knife fight, but for the most part, all proceeded as they were supposed to.

  Then, abruptly, Lagarat market ended and the two stumbled, literally, into a broad street that was sparsely travelled and looked, from the crest of a hill, down onto the docks. Pym had not been back to these since the night he entered the city. Part of him was still afraid of being connected to the killing that evening. Since getting to know the city, this seemed unlikely, but he preferred to keep his distance. The docks did not have the reputation of the Dead District or Lumang Mapoot but its reputation was dark—and deservedly so, from all he’d heard.

  “We close?” Pym asked, breathing deep and stretching. Turning, the throng of bodies closed the entrance to the southern market, and the air was still etched by the heavy smell of life and industry.

  “Down a couple more streets, then a right.”

  Nodding, Titus turned and strode across the street in the general direction Simon had pointed. On the other side of the wide road, he stopped and waited for Aglibut to catch him up; doing so he took in the bay, dotted with freighters and the frothing wakes of the high-speed gunboats used by the blockade. Their function was more than just preventing escape, but making certain the rules of the quarantine were strictly followed by the freighter crews. The opportunity to make a lot of cash with minimal risk was difficult for many to avoid. Smuggling out people was only the most obvious. They sometimes ran weapons, drugs, fuel, and anything else the wealthy wished to procure.

  As a result, cargoes were always inspected before these were permitted off the ships, and ships would again be inspected before they were allowed to leave the bay. This would periodically lead to exchanges and arrests—even the deaths of freighter crew members. Looking down on the bay and at a distance, it was all very beautiful and peaceful. Titus knew it was anything but this, still these moments were precious to him—moments when where he was and what was happening faded and he could simply enjoy being alive and free. There were a lot of reasons to be happy about that last bit. As Simon stepped up behind him, the last thought closed itself off and he was back on the docks. “Lead the way.” Aglibut stepped forward and they walked down the sparsely populated broad street. Turning right, the sunlight was shut out by the high buildings on either side. These leaned forward, as he remembered from his first evening, and appeared about ready to topple over. Nonetheless, they held.

  These streets were cobbled, whereas the broad street was done with tightly fitted paving stones. The cobbled lanes, Pym didn’t quite see these as streets—even if he’d brought the car down here, he’d not have been able to fit down one of these. The lanes were broad enough alone, but they were littered with trash bins, carts, stalls, and the occasional knot of what appeared to be traders haggling over something or other—his Tagolam still wasn’t up to the idioms of these men. As they approached and brushed by the two of them, Pym watched them carefully, but none had any interest in the pair. Then they were turning left and right again. “Much further?”

  “Round the next corner—on a wide street.”

  Pym nodded and followed behind. Occasionally he allowed his right hand to reach for the automatic to make certain it was loose in the holster. If they got inside and there was trouble, the sawed-off wouldn’t be all that much use, and it would take out not just the target but anyone else in proximity of the spray. The handgun would be a better choice, unless everyone was a target—the last was a real possibility.

  Then Simon stopped and pointed. “The Birder.” It had a typical sign hanging outside of it over the entrance. This was painted with a white and blue bird, something similar to a swallow but different enough as to be something else or a stylized interpretation of it. The painting was either impressionistic or crude with its sloppy wings and the ragged, shit-brown branch in its mouth with liquid leaves daubed at irregular and suspicious points along this. Outside, next to the entrance, was a low wood bench—no armrests, no back—the seat was worn and split along the grain of the wood. On this sat an old man—a rotund old drunk whose head, with a long yellowish-grey beard, hung lifelessly forward. Pym would have thought him dead if it’d not been for the snoring. As they stepped up, the old man broke wind loud and long but never woke or moved in response.

  As the air filled with a mephitic ooze, they stepped through the door. Pym was laughing, but the kid didn’t get the joke. Titus could have told him about expectations and the grey lives of the northern hemisphere, but there’d be no point—he’d have nothing to reference it. “Who are we looking for?”

  “Kanor.” Scanning the room the kid frowned. “Not here.”

  “Simon...”

  “Don’t panic—the barman should know where they are.” The wound toward the same rough, scored, and stained bar he’d seen that first night on the docks. The whole district
was geared toward making as much money as possible from those that could least afford it. As a result, the architecture was little more than shanty, while the furnishings were kept until they literally fell to ruin. The bar was nowhere near the green side of its best-by date. The barman, on the other hand, looked little better than that sleeping on the bench. “Seth.” Aglibut called over from near the center of the room where he was still looking about.

  “What?” The basso voice suited the barrel chest, which was, nonetheless, eclipsed by the protuberant gut, which had the man pushed back from the bar.

  “Where’s Kanor?”

  “Lunch—raw fish.”

  “You know which stall?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “You could have a drink and wait—said he’d be back soon.”

  Aglibut looked to Pym who shook his head. The bar had too many doors in and out to defend if he was being set up. Waiting here would only give Kanor, and whoever they were working for, time to set them up—if they’d not yet done so.

  “Check back later.”

  The barman didn’t respond, but turned to serve another customer.

  “You know where that is?” Pym asked as they stepped outside. The air had cleared, but there was a generally sour smell coming off the old mariner.

  “Yes, but we’ll have to go back to the market, and it will be tight this time of day.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “If you’re worried about anything, it might be better to wait.”

  “Here?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Not a good place.”

  Simon raised his eyebrows at this, but Pym could not believe he was that stupid and turned back toward the markets.

  “We could get some lunch down here—somewhere else?”

  Titus had to wonder if Aglibut were setting him up, but somewhere else didn’t sound like it. How would they find him? “No, I want to get this over with.” It might have been he was simply hungry—looking at the kid, which made sense. However, there was no time. If someone was looking for him, Pym wanted to know who this was and if it were the same crewman from the Beluga.