2184

by Martin Parish

  "Just look on the bright side, it could always be worse," Kamal said. True, but not very reassuring.

  "Don't say that," I said. "Let's just say we've been lucky so far and leave it."

  "Fair enough.” He glanced at the foaming stream of mud and water. “We can take some water from this stream here – it's dirty but it's all rainwater - and then maybe we'd better move.”

  "Hadn't we better wait until it stops raining?"

  "We can always go to the train station," Kamal said; "it'll be empty."

  "I thought you thought those were all under surveillance."

  He shrugged. "I don't see what elt;Juste can do though. If we go south along the road we're going back into that other village. If we go north we're going back where we came from. We could cut across country, but we might not find anyplace soon, it's all deserted." He stopped there, and I knew why he stopped. If we went a couple more days without food eventually we'd end up like the skeleton lying across from us in the culvert. There was no point in saying it. "Besides they said the Mods keep some kind of dump near the railroad tracks.”

  "That's crap," I said. "The Mirks don't dump anything. They recycle it, or they burn it, or if they don't want something they leave it out for us to pick through it. But they don't dump things. They're not Mongrels.”

  "We can always see."

  "I think we're better off trying to catch one of the trains south. They go slowly, and if we can hitch-"

  "But those must be under surveillance," Kamal said. "We might as well walk back to the work camp and ask if they'll let us in.”

  "How do you know they're under surveillance? Isn't that just what you've heard? They only ever use them to transport Mongrels and supplies for Mongrels, the stuff we use. None of that really needs protecting."

  "Maybe it's only what I've heard," he replied, "but the other thing is how many trains do they run on this line. They can't come very often."

  "I seem to remember when we were in the work camp they ran a train down every day. Usually just before nightfall; so if they did it'd come by here after dark."

  "So not only are we going to get recaptured, we're going to wait a day or two to do it," Kamal said and shook his head.

  "I say we chance it," I said. "Better that than starving, or getting eaten or shot. God only knows what else goes on out here."

  "All right," Kamal said, "fair enough. If a train comes by tonight we'll take our chances."

  The serried ranks of trees grew close to the tracks. We approached the vacant train station warily, torn between our desire for refuge and our fear of recapture. Decay was evident everywhere; the sign indicating the name of the station had been ripped out, the ticket counters broken, and the water gushed through several holes in the roof. The station clock was eternally frozen at 4:16 PM. A couple of rotting wooden benches in the lobby offered the best chance of comfort – if nothing else they were dry. We sat there shivering and sneezing and watching the rain. As I'd surmised, there was no sign of a dump in the vicinity.

  "Bloody good thing they built this out of coete, or it'd all have come down by now. Anything that's made of wood the termites eat up," I said. Even though I was soaked I was itching like mad. The lice had adhered to me all this time. "Crappy little bloodsuckers, you'd think this'd be enough to drown them."

  "What? lice?" Kamal said. He frowned in disgust. "No, cold water doesn't work. You just about have to light your clothes on fire."

  "If I find a match, believe me, I might."

  "I know. They eat you up alive.”

  "They're God's creatures too, aren't they?" I said drily, remembering Kamal's bilge about Fate the night before. "Didn't God give them to us for a reason? don't they 'serve a higher purpose'?" I added, using my fingers to insert the quotation marks.

  "Good question," Kamal said. “If I get a chance I'll ask someday."

  "If you ever do, save me a place in line, I've got a few questions too." I scratched under my armpit and inadvertently discovered a brand-new tear in my jacket. Another week at this rate and it would be the size of a golf-ball. However durable the jacket had been before, without any patching it would fall to pieces.

  "It'd be nice if we could figure out where we are," Kamal said abstractedly. "Think about how the fellow in the village talked. Not the cannibals, they could be from anywhere, they're probably from the work camp."

  "Well, we know where we're not. We're not in Scotland, because the fellow in the village spoke English. And we know we're not in Wales because he didn't sound like a cow. And he didn't sound like a Scouser or a yam-yam or-"

  "No, no," Kamal interrupted; "let's narrow it down a bit more than that. We don't want to know where we're not. We're not in Mexamerica or Australia either. I mean, that's good but it doesn't help us."

  "If I had to say - I'd say he sounded like a Brummie," I said. "But that doesn't mean anything. He might not be from here, so there's really no way to know. And as long as we're going to try and hitch a ride on the train it doesn't really matter. We'll find out where we are once the train gets to – wherever.”

  "We don't want to stay with it all the way there. We want to get off it before it stops, you know, in case it gets unloaded.”

  "Well, then, it's pretty simple," I said. "We can stay with it until we come to a city or town then hop off before it gets to the terminal."

  "Then wander round and beg for food," Kamal said. "That'll be fun."

  "Not much else we can do. Shelter won't be a problem, there's always deserted houses in the towns, just think of London." I pictured the future awaiting us: an unknown city with no food, no money and no place to go. And now we'd beg to live - if the Mods didn't pluck us from the train like rats from a cargo hold. Or if they weren't watching us right now. “Maybe if we're really lucky the train goes right through to London."

  "If we're unbelievably lucky," Kamal said in disbelief. "Maybe. Maybe anything'll happen. You really want to get to London, don't you?"

  "Well, my girlfriend must have absolutely no idea what's happened to me. I don't know what she'll think."

  What would she think? You could always visit one of the buildings off the Strand(as Kamal had done to complain about the water) to inquire about a missing relative or friend. The Mods wouldn't ask why you wanted to know - they treated everything relating to Mongrels as public information; and in answer to your question they'd quickly retrieve the record and tell you that yes, Mark Henshaw was arrested for violating the Lesser Species law. Make too much fuss about it and they'd help you back out; threaten them and they'd give you the privilege of joining your friend or relative. While they seemed to feel obliged to treat us with a modicum of fairness, they could only put up with so much of us, just as you and I sometimes feed wildlife and at other times release our cats to kill them or hunt them ourselves.

  But although Becky could find out what had happened to me, I suspected she'd be too frightened to ask questions. She'd simply assume the obvious: that I'd been deported. It had happened to too many others. We all knew someone who had disappeared and only returned years afterwards, and Becky would think the same fate had befallen me.

  "What's she look like, this girlfriend of yours?" Kamal asked. I hesitated. It's difficult to describe someone, because your mental picture of them is indelibly coloured by your impressions, but there are no words sufficient to convey your impressions. You could say someone is hook-nosed, or slender, or dark-haired, or tall; and yet it doesn't do them justice. It's not a picture, it's only a caption, because the person you know is more than all this.

  "She's brown-haired, she's got brown eyes, she's oh - probably about this tall, and she's absolutely gorgeous. I used to have a picture of her in my wallet but they took my wallet when they arrested me. I've known her for five years but we've been together for a year and a half now."

  "Ah." He nodded. "So that's why you're in such a hurry. But you know," he said with a sly grin, "maybe you shouldn't be in such a hurry, because if you just go straight there w
ith that beard she's not even going to know who you are. She's going to look at you and say, 'Get away from me, you nasty creep, do I know you?'" he said, affecting a posh accent.

  "Well, yes, I know that, I wasn't just going to go straight back over to her place, I do have some self-respect."

  "Now that's the thing about cats," Kamal said. "If Raja is still there when I get back - which like I said I don't know - he won't care either way. People always have expectations. Cats don't care. My brother - if I turn up like this, well, we'll see."

  "Nice brother."

  "Actually, no, I shouldn't say that," Kamal said. "He kept me alive back when I was just a kid. It's just people get older, and things change. Like I said, I don't know. We'll see."

  "Why, what happened back when you were a kid?" I asked.

  "He kept me alive after our parents died. My dad died when a mob looted his shop - they killed him when he tried to stop someone breaking a window, and my mum died after that during the war, got hit by a Mongrel sniper. My brother kept me alive. So it doesn't matter what's happened since, I wouldn't be around if it wasn't for him."

  His story wasn't unusual. In a way it was the story of everyone who'd grown up during the war. We lived through the kind of events you witness only once in a lifetime, we were each of us torn loose by the tidal wave that washed over our world; as a result we all had our own unusual story to tell. We were survivors. You met people who remembered looting stores for medications to save a sick relative, hiding in a cramped loft for a week, setting traps for pigeons and stray pets to find meat for a hungry child. Our lives were exceptional by 23rd century standards, but we never knew it: the lives of our acquaintances were all exceptional as well. So in my mind's eye I could imagine it clearly. Two children hiding by night in abandoned buildings, the elder one masking his fear with counterfeit courage, knowing his younger brother depended on him. And even as their species lost, they won their own private victory.

  "I'm sure he won't give you any trouble," I said. "I mean I don't know him, but I'd be surprised if he's like you say. So I wouldn't worry about it. The really great thing is we've only been gone - what is it now, four months?”

  "Too long. Everything I have'll have been stolen. I'll be surprised as anything if my bike is still there. It was a good one.”

  "What do you want to bet?"

  He laughed. "What do you mean what do I want to bet? I don't have any money, what am I going to do, bet you my shoes? Come on. I've got to have something I can walk in tomorrow."

  "I don't want your shoes! I meant you can pay me when you get back."

  "When we get back I think I'll keep my money and get a new bike. If I can find one.”

  “And there's one other reason I've got to get back,” I said. For a moment I paused, remembering Shelley's warning: The most important thing of all. Don't tell anyone. There are more traitors on our side than theirs. I knew Kamal was a Heavenward, but I was tired, I wanted advice, and his easygoing affability persuaded me he was a moderate, not one of the die-hard fanatics. “You remember the lady on the train? the one who wanted to plant a chemical bomb?”

  “A little. Yes.”

  “She died after a few weeks in the camp. Someone killed her for some batteries.”

  “Makes sense. I didn't think she'd last too long anyway. Too outspoken.”

  “Well,” I said, “point is, she told me something before she died. On the train she said she and this group of people were going to plant a bomb, right? That wasn't true. She just said that on the train because she didn't know who was listening. She told me her group had actually designed a virus. A bioweapon to use against the Mods.”

  Kamal eyed me curiously, his face unusually alert. “I didn't think that was possible. They've got better immune systems than us.”

  “She said she'd found a way. They'd kept the code for it – the DNA code – stored on a computer. It's hidden in North London, together with a GeneWrite, you know, one of those DNA writers.”

  “That's unbelievable.” For a moment he stared at the floor. “A bioterror attack against them? That's a suicide mission. So she wanted you to go back and – and print out this virus and try and – I don't know, put it in the water or something?”

  “No, I don't have to do it. She said her husband is still in London, he's in hiding, so all I have to do is find him and tell him where Shelley hid what's left of their project. Then he can do the rest.”

  “I'd make sure you can find your girlfriend first.”

  I paused a moment, struck by a new thought. Becky and I would have to leave London. In a hurry. We might not be able to leave. Would she be willing? would she believe me if I explained Marengo? We would have to loose the torrent, then run for our lives. Before it drowned us too. “There'll be time to do that once-”

  Kamal's face creased into an ugly frown. “You know what's going to happen when the Mods start falling sick with a virus? They'll analyse the virus, they'll find out it's a new strain, they'll realize it's terrorism. Any of them that survive'll take revenge. It'll be a bloodbath. A total absolute bloodbath. Just like the war.” I hadn't imagined it like that before, although obviously he was right.

  “Well, yes, but it's the only way we can get rid of them, now, isn't it,” I said. “I mean, something like a chemical bomb isn't going to do it.”

  “It's a high price to pay. You remember the war? You want to see that happen all over again? You think the survivors are going to care whether or not they're free?”

  “It might not be like that,” I argued, borrowing Shelley's logic to defend myself. “If most othem die there won't be enough of them left to keep control and we can get what we want. Equal rights. That's it. We don't want to destroy them.”

  “That's insane. It'll be war to the death. You really think they'll talk to us after we kill that many of them?”

  “They'll have to.”

  “I don't believe it.” He shook his head. “Besides killing them like that is murder. It's terrorism. It's the same as lighting off a car bomb in a street full of Mongrels.” A typical Heavenward reaction.

  “So what are you saying?” I asked. “You'd rather they keep on shipping us off to labs and work camps whenever they feel like it, and if we're good and we follow all the rules we get food until they're sick of us? What are we, their cattle?”

  “No...but you think equality is worth a war to the death? I mean, we can all be free once we're all dead but that won't do us any good.”

  “It's not a war to the death. We don't have to get rid of them completely. That's not the plan. But they're not going to give us equal rights except at gunpoint. They've proven that over and over again. You think they have the right to stick humans in labs? to treat us like shit? Are you saying that doesn't mean anything to you? Look at what they've done to the two of us.” His unexpected objections angered me. I'd never wanted to fight the Mods myself, but I didn't understand how anyone could defend them. Probably it stemmed from his religious convictions. I suddenly felt glad I wasn't encumbered with any similar illusions.

  “And just think about this,” I added. “They've used bioweapons on us during the war. For all you know they're planning a genocide right now.”

  Kamal frowned at the floor, wavering. At last he looked at me again. He seemed to have made some kind of decision. “It's not something I want to see happen myself. But I see what you're saying, there's really no other way to stop them, is there, they're not just going to listen to us and give us respect, they're going to try to wipe us out. It's Mongrels versus Mods, isn't it, can't be any other way.”

  “Not as long as they keep on treating us like crap.”

  “But you'll need help,” he said. “To find this friend of hers. You won't want to do it alone.”

  “I don't know I'll need help but it'd be welcome. Like I said, I don't actually have to do anything myself, just find whatever's left of her group.”

  “Then I'll help you.”

  “Why? You don't have to,” I
said, perplexed.

  “I don't see why not. I owe you one,” Kamal said with a grin. “Besides, I don't think you realize just what's going to happen after you use this - bioweapon. All hell will break loose. London will turn into a war zone. I'm not going to be able to keep my plumbing business, I'll have to forget about it. So I'd like to know exactly when and where this bioweapon's being released, because that way an stay clear of what happens next.”

  “I see.”

  “And like I said. I'd make sure you can find your girlfriend first, and that she knows what's going on, and that she's ready to leave. Otherwise there's an even chance you won't see her again. Because if we use bioweapons on them – they'll use bioweapons on us. As soon as you use this you're going to have to get as far away from London as you can.”

  “Of course, of course,” I said uneasily. I'd only once stopped to think about what would happen after the Marengo plot, and now that Kamal described what it would entail the vision was disturbing. Was it really a suicide mission? Would everyone involved be killed? I tried to postpone all the unanswered questions, defer them till later and hope that the answers would be obvious when the time came. “And the other thing is this. Now that I've told you that, don't pass it along. Don't tell anyone, I don't care who.”

  “Of course. That goes without saying.” He nodded. “With something like that.”

  And I trusted him.

  The rain persisted until the afternoon. We talked of anything except food to keep our minds off our hunger, and during all that time the only life we saw was a rat, slick with iridescent filth, that poked its head out from a hole in the wainscoting. By that time, I was so hungry I wondered whether I could kill it. I thought of the knife in my pocket. The rat, however, crept back into the ruins of the train station, as disappointed as us to discover there was nothing to eat. Meanwhile water from outside seeped under the doors to join water from the roof, and a stream eddied around the broken ticket counters that would never see a passenger again. At odd intervals I wondered whether we'd end up like the man beneath the bridge, skeletons in a station, dead men waiting for a train. I quickly stifled such thoughts. Pessimism poisons your mind, it robs you of the will to survive. If you don't keep a sense of humour you go crazy.