I shrugged. “To get stuff.”
“No, I mean why do they live in the mountains?”
“To get away from”—I waved a hand around—“all this.”
I didn’t know what I meant, what I was waving my hand at. It was the warning labels and the smoke detectors and the CCTV cameras. Or it was the hard-drinking locals and the smug incomers. Or maybe the yammering telly, and the horrible thick air of the place, smelling of. sweat and scent and food and booze. The yellow light and the blanketed windows. That and the whole shit deal of being a lagger.
Farhad still looked puzzled. “Immorality?”
“Aye, that’s it,” said Murdo. “Immorality and drunkenness.”
At closing time we stepped out into a black night full of stars. No many lights to compete with here. From the hills to the south, across the loch, a faint spark rose and climbed fast up the sky. Almost overhead it flared bright for a second or two and then winked out.
“What was that?” I asked.
“The Space Station,” said Murdo.
“It was abandoned,” I said.
“Yes,” said Murdo, “but it’s still up there.”
“The Chinks put a man on Mars before the war,” said Euan.
“Two men and a woman,” Farhad said, opening the van door.
“Maybe they’re still up there and all,” Murdo said.
“Aye,” I said. “With a soldering iron and a sewing machine. Making stuff to sell us after the war.”
“ ‘After the war,’ “ Euan mocked.
“When I was a wee boy,” said Murdo, “I heard people saying that.”
When we got back to the site I stopped by the computer and applied for a day off. Nothing came up until Sunday, so I took that.
* * * *
VII
THE BLACK HILLS
The site was quiet on Sunday, though I doubt many went to church. I walked out the gate on a fine crisp morning. Blue sky, blue loch. Flat calm. There was a line or two running in my head from one of my father’s old songs: Take me back to the black hills, the black hills of…
The black hills of Lochcarron. Oh aye.
My hand was fiddling with the cross-bolt, still deep in my parka pocket, clinking against some change and a knife. A cat hissed at me from an empty window of the old station, making me jump. Behind all the other smells from the ruin—wet ash, cat piss, mould and weeds—there was the faint whiff of disinfectant. Left by a hundred years of soaking floorboards with Jeyes Fluid. It reminded me of school corridors and the Highway offices.
I crossed the rusty tracks and found a fallen gate among sagging fence-posts. An overgrown path led up into the hills. I followed it. I was glad of my big boots. The grass hid slippery stones that could turn an ankle, no bother. On the lower slopes I saw a few rabbits and here and there a huddled flock of sheep that had gone wild. These feral sheep looked fierce and alert, with thick wool and long legs. Not like farm sheep at all. Evolution happens, man, whatever the Yanks say. Each flock was guarded by a black-faced ram with yellow eyes that stared at me as I went past. It was like being watched by Satan.
Every so often I looked back, taking in the view. After a bit the curve of the hills hid the loch. I was up above the snowline in a world of black and white. Frost and old snow and burnt heather. There was colour in only a few places. Orange lichens on the rocks like spilled paint. A few green shoots in a warm patch that caught the sun most of the day and where water dripped from icicles on to the brown clumps of dead grass.
By ten o’clock I’d passed a couple of tiny frozen lochs and was walking along a wee glen. There were hills to my right and left. Higher hills filled the horizon ahead. The place is called the Attadale Forest. Like most places called forests in the Highlands, it has no trees. Nothing grows higher than the heather. The path had faded to a track that might have been made by sheep. There were no sheep up this high, but the path had been trodden not long ago. And that meant people. I was on the right track, you might say.
I wasn’t worried about wolves or bears. Back along the big glen of the Carron they could be a problem, but not here. Not in this barren land. Even though Attadale and Glen Affric a bit to the south were among the places they’d been brought back to years ago. It was a big thing back then, around the same time as wind power. Failed for the same reason, too. Climate change. Everybody thinks of wolves in the Highlands but it’s down south they’re more of a nuisance. In Glasgow they raid the bins.
On and up I went. After a bit I began to find clues that the path was made by people after all. Like a tarred board that turned the middle of a slope into a step. Stones stacked by the side to make a low wall, or spread out along a metre or two that was soft underfoot.
A wisp of smoke stained the sky ahead of me. I sniffed the air and smelled burning wood, with an odd chemical taste in the smell.
I climbed a slope that opened on to a dip overlooked by a high, steep hill. I stopped and stared.
A frozen loch a few metres across and about a hundred long lay at the bottom of the hollow. Alongside it was a row of low buildings. The nearest was like an old black house, with dry-stone walls. Its thatched roof was covered with a solar-power tarp. The tarp was weighed down with boulders hanging from ropes at the corners. The smoke was coming from the chimney of that house. The next building was a long greenhouse. Then another black house, and another greenhouse. Behind them all were some sheds, with stone walls and turf roofs, again with the power tarps. More power tarps were laid along the tops of chicken runs. A couple of scrawny tethered goats grazed the side of the hill.
I had just about time to take this in when I heard a very fast whirring sound and a loud click. Something moved at the corner of my eye and I turned. A little kid had popped up from behind a boulder. He was aiming a crossbow at me.
I held my hands away from my sides.
“Put that down,” I said.
He kept the weapon aimed with one hand. It was a bit shaky but not shaky enough for me to jump him. With his free hand he reached inside his parka—a patchwork of furs and plastic—and pulled out a whistle. He blew hard on it. The blast rang in my ears even after it had stopped echoing from the hills.
“Don’t try anything funny,” he said, trying to sound tough. It just made his voice higher.
“I can give you a spare bolt for that,” I said.
Doors banged and people came running from the buildings. I caught sight of quick sudden movements on the hillside, just black specks moving and vanishing.
Three people ran up the path and stopped behind the boy. Two bearded guys, and Ailiss.
“Hi, Ailiss,” I said.
“You know this guy?” said Beard Number One. He didn’t sound pleased.
“I’ve met him,” she said. She frowned at me. “Jase?”
“That’s me,” I said.
“He’s one of the laggers,” she said.
“What brings you here?” asked Beard Number Two. He had an English accent.
I shrugged. “Just out for a walk. My day off.”
“The Sabbath,” said Ailiss, like she’d just remembered something funny. “Oh well. No harm in that.”
“Would you ask the kid to stop pointing that thing?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Pack it in, Nichol.”
The kid scowled but did as he was told. He lowered the crossbow and wound the cable back.
“This is not clever,” I said. “You can’t go threatening everybody who walks past.”
“We don’t,” said Ailiss. “Not usually. We’re all just a wee bit jumpy.”
“Aye, you can say that again,” I said. I had no idea why they should be jumpy. “Well, I don’t like having things pointed at me.”
“I thought you might be a bandit,” Nichol said. “Or a zombie or a refugee or a soldier.”
Beard Number One looked awkward. “Kids pick things up,” he said.
“Come down to the house and have some tea,” said Ailiss.
I guessed t
hey were trying to make up for the bad welcome.
“Thanks,” I said. “I could do with that.”
The kid walked beside me down the track.
“What sort of a name is Jase?” he asked.
“Short for something,” I said.
“What?”
“Jason,” I said.
“No a bad name.”
“It is if your second name’s Mason.”
“Jason Mason, Jason Mason,” he chanted.
“Not so loud,” I said.
“How will you pay for my silence?” he demanded grandly.
“You been watching too much telly?”
“No telly,” he said. “I read a lot though.”
I took the cross-bolt out of my pocket and waved it in front of him. “Will this keep you quiet?”
“Aye, sure.”
I handed it to him.
“Thanks,” he said. He held it up and skipped ahead, shouting: “Look what I got from Jason Mason!”
Kids.
* * * *
VIII
THE GREEN PLACE
The kid turned around and sauntered back up the path to where he’d been, giving me a nod on the way. The two guys and Ailiss led me to the front door of the first house. We all ducked through the low doorway. They were burning broken planks and other scrap timber in the fireplace. Some of it had paint or varnish. That was what gave it the chemical smell. But it was a cheery enough fire and there was a pot of tea on the hob. I took it black and strong with sugar. Nobody offered me a biscuit and I didn’t ask. The bearded guys told me their names. Martin and Angus. I guessed they were in their twenties and wondered why they hadn’t been drafted. They looked and sounded bright enough for the army. I didn’t ask. I sipped tea and looked around. The bulb hanging from the ceiling was off, so all the light came from the window. The furniture was burst armchairs and a sagging sofa and a battered dresser and chest of drawers. Carpets and rugs lay thick on the floors and more were nailed to the walls. The wall carpets had pictures and clippings and postcards tacked to them. A lot of the pictures looked like they had been printed off the net. Lush green landscapes—you know, historical, like. Trees and flowers, birds and bees. Across other nails banged into the wall were three crossbows, a shotgun higher up, and a couple of air rifles. Tins of pellets and bolts, a box of cartridges on a shelf. The box was brown and waxy with an old-fashioned look to the print. All from before they were banned, I guessed. They sure weren’t robbed from the Highway’s armouries, or the cops.
No telly, like the kid had said. And no even wireless Internet that I could see. But books, on paper I mean, were stacked against every wall. You would think they were part of the insulation.
A colder-looking kitchen through at the back. The water pipes were lagged with bits of old carpet tied on with string. Rusty pick and spade and mattock were propped by the sink. A scythe hung on the wall. I pointed to it.
“What’s the use of that?”
Ailiss peered. “Oh, the scythe.” She smiled. “It’ll have a use. There’ll be crops again. Oats are hardy. There’s a field or two of them run wild down Ardaneaskan way.”
“Ailiss is an optimist,” said the Sassenach beardie one. He sounded annoyed for some reason. He shrugged. “We found it, that’s all. Ailiss thinks of uses for it.”
Ailiss gave him a look like she’d just thought of another one. But after that they all glanced at each other and at me and smiled like Mormons.
“Would you like to show him around, Ailiss?” said Angus, the Scottish guy. “Martin and I have to get back to work. We’ll meet up at the other end.”
“See you, guys,” Ailiss said.
They zipped up their parkas, flipped up their hoods and ducked out the door. I drained the mug.
“Well,” said Ailiss, looking a bit awkward, “let me show you around, Jason Mason.”
“Jase,” I said.
“OK,” she said. She took me out the back door. The back of the house was dug out of the side of the hill. Ailiss turned left and led me along the narrow walled gulley, past a meat safe that smelled of more than meat.
“Goat cheese,” Ailiss said when I wrinkled my nose.
“Did youse build all this?” I asked.
She glanced back. “Just the greenhouses. Not the black houses. They had just the walls left when we found them, mind you.”
“How many of you live here?”
This time she didn’t look back. “No telling.”
“That’s me told.”
She laughed. Didn’t explain.
But she showed me everything. The greenhouse had tomatoes and other vegetables growing in it, with herbs between the rows. Water from pipes trickled everywhere, warmed by the sun and the solar power. There was even a few square metres of spuds. Fertilizer came from rabbits and goats in the sheds up the back. Other meat—venison from deer and mutton from feral sheep—hung in a cold smoke-hut or soaked in salt barrels. In the second house I met Nichol’s parents, who were stitching animal skins with fishing line on a treadle-powered sewing machine. They just looked up and didn’t say much. Along our whole way I saw maybe half a dozen other people come and go from the hills, some with bits of wood, some with shot rabbits. None of them did more than give me a hard look.
“All that tough glass must have cost a bomb,” I said in the second greenhouse.
“Got it from abandoned houses,” Ailiss said. Just as I’d guessed, way back.
“Diamond cutters are handy wee things,” I said. “And an empty house makes a good hide.”
“Oh, you saw that?”
“Aye, on the road from Dingwall. How did you lug all the meat back?”
She shrugged. “Borrowed a car.”
Borrowed, aye right. I said nothing.
“No, it really was borrowed,” she said. “We did that job with some other new settlers from over in the Black Isle.”
She was standing very close, her strange salty smell all mixed up with the fresh air of earth and plants.
“Ailiss,” I said.
She was about to reply when the greenhouse door opened and the two beardie guys Martin and Angus walked in. Ailiss took a step back, bumping her hip on a plant pot. She muttered and turned away to scoop the soil and the plant back in. Martin and Angus half-sat on the edge of a trestle table.
“Well,” says Angus, “you’ve seen our place.”
“Aye, I have, thank you,” I said. “Nice place you’ve got. I’m nae sure why you live like this, though.”
Angus looked sideways at Martin. The big Sassenach stood up and leaned forward a bit. He clasped his hands behind his back and jutted his beard.
“Survival,” he said. “The world is going down the tubes. The American grain belt is being hoovered up by tornadoes. The ice is melting everywhere it used to be and freezing where it wasn’t. The oil’s running out, and we’re deep in a war that could go nuclear at any moment. The Greenland ice is about to slide into the sea. One way or another, the cities are doomed. We’re living the way everyone will have to live, sooner or later.”
“What a load of shite,” I said.
“What?” he said. He looked a bit staggered.
“Youse just like living like this. Fair enough. Don’t kid on you’re going to survive whatever’s coming down. Not unless you can hand-weave solar tarps and make steel for your crossbows and all that. No tae mention the way the wind blows.”
Martin looked like he was just catching up with me. “What do you mean?”
I pointed. “From the west. And what’s sitting west of here? A nuclear power station and the biggest collection of nuclear missiles since Rosyth blew up. If that lot start flying youse are going down with the rest of us, except maybe faster.”
“Now look here—“ Angus began. Martin waved a hand.
“There’s nothing to say,” he said. “It’s pointless arguing with people like that.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll shove off. Thanks for the tea.” I looked over my should
er from the door. “See you down the village sometime, Ailiss.”
“Maybe,” she said. She looked away. “ ‘Bye.”
* * * *
IX
SUNDAY NIGHT
I was halfway back down the track when I got a call from Murdo asking where the hell I was. I told him I was walking up in the hills and was on my way down. He told me I was an idiot. I told him he wasn’t my mother and the conversation didn’t go a lot further. But I enjoyed the rest of the walk and I got back to the site about mid-afternoon. I had a late lunch of pork pie and a tin of beer. I went to my bunk in the laggers’ hut, kicked off my boots and stretched out and caught some Sabbath kip.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection Page 95