Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  ‘I never run or shout if I can help it.’ I hadn’t even looked at the smaller man yet because I could tell he was the leader, and I wanted to diminish his status. I continued to ignore him as I stepped inside, slid the door closed and locked it, and addressed the larger man, the underling. ‘How can I be of help?’ They never expect you to lock the door. It throws them off their game. They were Eastern exiles I guessed from their accents and tanned complexions. The smaller of the two seemed to have been pressed short, like a cartoon character who’s had a wall safe fall on him from a height. And the way he spoke. ‘You should descend now, lady, to another farther cabin.’ I expected the antiques expert to fling herself onto her belly and skid away like a penguin fleeing the jaws of a supermassive predator. Instead she said, ‘Well, I don’t know who you both think you are … the train police … but unless you are I’m not moving.’ She tried to fold her arms. The confidence of the pregnant woman. They’re like priests. Fuck with me? I dare you. God dares you.

  ‘We would like, if the arrangement can exact, to talk to Mr Tomahawk alone. Just upon a few short minutes,’ said Smaller, with stolen glances at her belly.

  ‘Well, too bad, sir, this is our cabin. If you want to have words with the train you can step outside.’ For effect she picked up Hunters & Collectors and pretended to read it.

  ‘Not train, lady,’ said Larger. ‘Wish we to talk to Tomahawks the man.’ He pointed his elbow at me. She looked up.

  ‘Oh, sure, that’s how it’ll start,’ I said. ‘Talking. Soft words. Promises and whispers. Then they’ll start in with the hands. And they won’t even buy me dinner first.’ I gave her a wink; she returned a blank expression. So I waited. I watched the thoughts filter through her hormone-addled brain. Finally she sat up. ‘Wait. Go back. What did you say? Is he … Wait. Is he saying you’re …’ Hunters & Collectors – the book I’d written while hiding out in a dive hotel in Skalkatan with a set of broken ribs and a budding disgust for humanity – went limp in her hands.

  ‘Is Tomahawks, yes. Mr Foody-food. Keep up, lady.’

  ‘Well, Foody-food is my maiden name. But let’s not quibble.’ I saw this tiny walking incubator as maybe my only way out of this alive. But it would have to be handled delicately. I needed her fully dilated. ‘So, who sent you two?’ I said. ‘Golden Dong’s? The Carnaby? Not Dong’s, I know all his men. And the Carnaby doesn’t have the cash to send you all the way out here. Not since my write-up. If I had to guess I’d say you were oyster goons.’

  ‘No!’ She stood suddenly, more suddenly than a heavily pregnant woman should be able to. She was staring side-eyed at me, and those eyes seemed impossibly wide. I could see not only whites, but rich reds, glistening pinks. ‘You can’t be him. Oh my god oh my god oh my god.’ Now she began to pulse softly from the knees, and burn a deep red. The thugs swivelled their heads slowly towards her.

  ‘Well, naturally anonymity is crucial to my work, so I can’t officially admit to –’

  ‘NO!’ She shouted so loud at me I took a step back. Her palm was raised towards me, and her face was the crimson of a fresh boil. ‘Don’t speak to me! Oh my god oh my god oh my god. It’s … I’m your … a poet … no … it isn’t … you’re … oh god … you’re my … I’m your baaahk-koff –’ she choked on her words – ‘I’m your biggest … No. This can’t be happening. I have all your –’ the book had fallen on the floor – ‘… oh god.’

  ‘She go very red,’ the larger thug whispered to his companion.

  ‘I see, Marcell. Lady, you have managed to be crimson.’

  ‘Yes, maybe sit down again, dear, take a few breaths.’ I went to take her arm, guide her back to her seat, which was a huge mistake, Sanjaya. ‘Don’t touch me! If you touch me I’ll …’ There was a faint popping sound, a sound which will haunt me to the last day, and it was followed by the crisp smack of a phenomenal amount of fluid hitting a linoleum floor. Large men sprang, with incongruously dancer-like agility, onto the leather bench seating, but it was too late for me: my handmade shoes were drenched in amniotic liquor. I felt the warmness of the womb-water through the leather. It smelled sweet and fleshy. I saw it soak through the porous paper of the book which sat tented on the floor.

  ‘Now look what you do, lady! His expensive shoes!’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but it’s fine. Let’s all just stay very calm. This young lady’s waters have broken somewhat.’

  ‘Yes, the baby is coming, it’s coming, oh god, it’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming at sea. Oh god. It can’t. A devil-baby! Oh god. The sea, the sea. I had a dream last night about Lilith the Night Hag. Oh god, oh god. You’re my biggest …’ She was standing, arms outstretched, in the middle of Lake Amniot, bobbing at the knees in time with her breathy exclamations. ‘It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming.’

  ‘Well, enable it not to come!’ said Smaller.

  ‘Please don’t shout at her, sir, you’ll make it worse.’

  ‘I’m apologies. Am angry at the scenario, not her.’

  It went on like this, as we shot past the volcanic islands of Turmus, and as the skies began to darken. The glass barrel we shot through had been built just a hundred feet or so above the surface of the seas. Massive storm-waves were already licking at the glass.

  ‘Is much forewater,’ said Larger. ‘Means baby not engaged.’

  ‘Right.’

  … They weren’t keen to call for help, Sanjaya. I had to give them my word I wouldn’t try to alert the guards to the fact that these men wanted to harm me. Which is a shame. I could probably have sold tickets. ‘We’ll have a long chat later. I’ll even pay for dinner.’ I gave them my warmest smile. The option, I pointed out, was that we deliver the baby ourselves. Smaller finally grimaced, rubbed his face roughly with his hand, said ‘Fine!’ and ‘OK! But you must act like everything is passable!’

  ‘I always do.’

  Then he climbed down from the seat, stepped like a pantomime villain across the wet floor and lifted the heavy phone receiver on the wall. I returned my attention to the patient. ‘And what’s your name, dear?’

  ‘It’s … Imelda … Nerites.’

  ‘OK, Imelda Nerites. I want you to know that you have a beautiful name, and that everything will be fine. Let’s just sit down here for a bit and try for deep breaths.’ Her fantastical aroma had transmuted. The room was filled with a fetid, semeny smell. She now smelled like a patch of hay where a bored farmhand had recently lain for a casual morning toss.

  ‘Hello! Who is this? A lady is expelling her bubbah in cabin forty and two! No jokes! I know, correct?’

  ‘Try to breathe deeply, Imelda. Do you happen to have a paper bag, big man?’

  ‘No,’ said Larger. ‘Have electrical tape and crafting knife and photo of you.’

  ‘Righto.’

  The TOMAHAWK sounded its horn. We felt the sound wave rummage piece by piece through the train. Through the window the sea and sky had come together to form a silken nothingness. Apparitions would appear and vanish. Time had dilated to the point of rupture. I would miss my appointment in the dining car.

  … She howled like a dog in her misery. Her cultured air, all her studied mannerisms, had vanished. She had regressed to a primitive state. She arched as if a demon inhabited her; her immaculately sculpted nails clutched uselessly at her garments, at the sleeve of my jacket. Her flushed, sweaty face caused the image of my own mother’s face to materialise briefly, seen through the crack in a door, floating above a huge, painted head – like a kind of totem – stiff with mortal agony. ‘It’s OK, Esmeralda.’ I wasn’t sure it was. Would it ever be?

  ‘It’s Imelda.’

  ‘Yes, I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Contractions apart? How would I know this for you?’ Smaller shouted at the eye of the receiver.

  ‘I also have chewing gum and more photographs of you.’

  ‘OK, thank you, Marcell.’

&n
bsp; ‘Just impend your better doctor!’ Smaller yelled. ‘He can conduct the search for this lady’s crown! Also supplement a priest!’

  ‘We don’t need a priest! Tell your friend we don’t need a priest, Marcell. Look, it’s going to be OK, Imelda, just breathe.’ Her hand was a burning, fleshy poultice over mine. I felt the life leaving me in gullets.

  ‘I can’t have him here, Jonathan! I can’t have him at sea! He’ll be a devil!’

  ‘Relax, there’s no such thing as devils.’ I swiped my hand in the air to dispel the image of the painted head, an involuntary gesture which startled her.

  ‘I can’t … believe … phoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa aaaar … you’re actually here – ooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggghh.’

  ‘Nor can I, Imelda. Nor the fuck can I.’

  … So you can see, Sanjaya, how this situation very quickly vortexed beyond my control.

  … There was no time to get her to the mainland. A medical unit had landed on the helipad at the next available stop – a maintenance platform attached to an electrical substation – and set up an emergency tent on the concourse. The place was floored in once-polished concrete with a wall of thick storm-glass at the far end. Explosions of water smashed against the glass, and the substation cones were arcing blue hoops of energy into the air. The medical team rushed her into the tent. Several other doctors had arrived from their cabins to help. And they’d found a priest, strangely. There were four security guards assigned to the train, each armed with the new Automaster 10s, stun batons, cuffs. They came out of the train to smoke. One of them even wandered over to chat, briefly. I said nothing to alert him to my situation. I’d made a promise, and promises mean something to some people, Sanjaya. Besides, I’d already worked out that these oyster goons were not who they said they were. Marcell, I was sure, once trained in dance. I could see by the way he walked on the balls of his feet. The smaller man, whose name I’d learned was Androni, had a set of gestures which had been convincing for the first twenty minutes, but whose sequence was too studied. He’d also applied his bronzer recently. There was a telltale streak on the inside of his now loosened collar, which I could see when he leaned in close to say, ‘Just be suarve. Don’t consider funny business.’

  ‘I don’t do comedy, Androni. Tragedy is more my bag.’ He couldn’t fathom why I was playing along.

  Now the storm was making the platform shift and shudder, and the flashes of electrical light were maddening. We could hear Imelda’s throaty screams from the tent. The priest went in to help, came stumbling out backwards a minute later, banished by a demonic voice which shouted: ‘GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, GOD-CUNT, OR I’LL CUT YOUR COCK OFF AND FEED IT TO YOU!’

  ‘Androni, do you ever feel like you’ve showed up at the wrong play and stumbled out on stage before you realised?’

  He frowned. ‘Well. Maybe everyone feels themselves there from time.’

  ‘So who sent you anyway? I assume it’s one of the oyster syndicates.’ (The oyster market on Zoraster is run by a number of mob syndicates who control distribution for the entire Cloud.)

  ‘Cannot tell. Can only divulge an insistence upon your departing before arrival. You are not welcomed here.’

  ‘Oh. Well, let me ask you this, then: why would whoever sent you decide to send actors instead of real enforcers?’

  The question caught him off point. He glanced away to mask his surprise, then came back with marshalled features and looked coldly at me: ‘What you say we are actors?’ Marcell had wandered away down the platform, as far from the sounds of emerging life as possible.

  ‘Well, you’re passable enough, Androni. A fairly believable accent, reasonably good tanning application. But your friend needs work. I’ve met a lot of you, remember. And neither of you has thugs’ hands. You have several “tells” on your hands alone. So if I had to guess, I’d say you were actors.’

  ‘Oh, fucking hell.’

  … His real name was Antony. He told me how the organisation they worked for was stretched. It was a struggle for them to find good, reliable enforcers. And they were expensive. So they’d begun to hire actors. Actors like Antony. Actors are cheaper, and follow directions better than most enforcers. It seemed like a risky strategy to me, Sanjaya. ‘What happens if people don’t play along? Do you hurt them?’

  He shrugged with his mouth. ‘We’re very convincing, Jonathan. Usually.’ He’d abandoned his Kaukassian accent for his natural Western one. ‘We usually have a third guy called Robert. We make out he’s an informer we’ve been working over. He lost some fingers in an accident. We rough him up with stage make-up. Then we leave them alone in a room together, and Robert cries and tells them all the things that are about to happen to them. He’s good. It usually works. We’ve only had one guy who pushed us to the edge. A real tough guy.’

  ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘What could I do? I broke his thigh bone with the handle of an axe.’ He gazed coldly at me; I couldn’t tell if he was acting. ‘Ours isn’t a friendly sport, Jonathan. You have to make the fuckers believe. Commit or get the fuck off the stage. You have to be ready to hurt them, Jonathan. You know.’

  Actors. They’re mad. But I did know what he meant.

  Then a nurse arrived and said, ‘She needs you.’

  ‘She what now?’

  ‘That’s your stage call, Jonathan.’

  And that’s how I found myself in a tiny white tent with a stranger who tried to crush the bones in my hand to dust while screaming above the sounds of the storm: ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!’ And in between contractions, and lit by strobing bursts of lightning fire, she’d whisper things which still haunt me. You’re more handsome than I could have imagined. I’ll think only of you, whenever I’m with him. I’ll think of you in the night when we’re together. The next baby will be yours. His soul will be yours. I feared for my soul then. And then more when I saw the tiny creature hauled from her gullet and held up to the whickering light for the first time, still gleaming in its embryonic slick. His eyes were black, his ears bulbous and pointed, a glutinous thread of pinkish goo hung from the end of his tiny prick, and as he shrieked at the roaring world he showed his gleaming teeth. No baby should be born with teeth, Sanjaya. But mother seemed happy. ‘He’s beautiful. So beautiful. I’ll call him Tommy. My husband would be suspicious if I called him Jonathan.’

  ‘Is miracle. What a thing, yes?’

  ‘You can cut the bloody accent, Simon, he bloody well knows we’re bloody actors.’

  ‘Oh bloody hell, seriously?’

  Imelda and spawn had been loaded back onto the train, and the train had left. I’d retrieved my weekend bag. We were alone, the three of us, and the two pilots who peered out from the glass pod of their copter. Its rotors spun slowly.

  ‘So what happens now?’ The balance in power had shifted since I’d confirmed they weren’t the thugs they claimed to be, but I wasn’t out of trouble yet.

  ‘What happens now, Jonathan, is that you’re going to give us the photo. Then we’re all going to get in that copter and fly back to the mainland. Then you’re going to go directly to the airport and never come back here again.’

  ‘What photo are you referring to?’

  ‘Jonathan, don’t.’

  ‘If you mean the photo from Station One, I don’t have it.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘No bullshit. I loaned it to Imelda just before she ruptured, and in the fuss I forgot to get it back. She still has it.’

  ‘Jonathan, please tell me you’re joking.’ I saw him turning pale behind his bronzer.

  ‘You can check if you don’t believe me.’ I kicked the bag beside me. They didn’t have to check. They knew I wasn’t lying. The larger man strode quickly over to the emergency phone unit on the wall of the concourse, punched in a number.

  ‘Fuck, Jonathan,’ said Antony. ‘How could you give it to someone else?’

  Antony took me over to the medical copter, past his large friend, who we heard
saying, ‘Yes. Another team intercepted the photo. We’re in pursuit. Yes, I know how fucking serious it is, Jeremy!’

  ‘Could it be, Antony, that this business is much bigger than I thought?’

  ‘Jonathan, this business is bigger than you could imagine. These boys will take you back to the mainland.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’

  ‘No. We have to wait for another copter and go after our fertile friend.’

  So I climbed into the detachable cargo-pod on the back of the DX20. We’d flown these in cadet training. We rose up, the engines straining against the wind. We were flying into the storm. A gust nearly flipped us. I woke up. You know when you’re conscious, then suddenly find yourself waking to an even higher level of consciousness? Your eyes seem to dilate to take in your whole field of vision, and the implications of those visions are experienced as a kind of weight. You can feel the barometric changes in reality as it sweeps around you. That’s how you know you’re about to experience great pleasure, or great pain. The co-pilot turned in his seat and solemnly gestured for me to put my headset on. I guessed he wanted to share some bad news with me. And I was right. I put on my headset. I heard his voice crackle.

  ‘Sorry, can you say that again.’

  The man’s smile appeared and vanished. ‘I said show me your ass.’

  ‘… I’m sorry, what?’

  His voice crackled in my ear. ‘Show me … your ass. I want to see your ass.’

  ‘… What?’

  ‘If you don’t show me your ass we’ll throw you out into the sea. Show me your ass,’ he screamed in my ear. The pilot was facing ahead, concentrating on flying through the terrible crosscurrents. But I knew he could hear us. We sat like that for a while. The co-pilot said, ‘You should not have lost that fucking photo, Jonathan,’ then reached up to pull a lever just above his head. I knew which lever it was. I heard the safety locks retreat. I had time to shout, ‘Well, fu-u-u-u-ck … YOU!’ and get a smile back before the cargo-pod detached entirely and fell away. There was a bridge of seven seconds before the pod hit the water, enough time to brace, but I still had the wind knocked out of me. I came to my senses. The pod had landed on its back, so the security grille between cabin and cockpit faced the raging sky. I could hear the copter leaving. I was strangely calm. As the pod began to fill with water I took off my jacket, tie, and with my beloved tiepin – a birthday gift from a dear friend – I set to work on the lock of the security grille. The pod pitched around in the seas. I was thrown repeatedly off my feet, and had to work while blinded by blood from a gash in my brow. I actually laughed. ‘This game is completely fucking ridiculous!’ At times, when the pod fell into a deep trough between the waves, everything went dark, and I could see the sides of the wave-trough, frozen like walls of solid glass.