At the Edge of the Game

by Power, Gareth

  Commotion upstairs. Heathshade and family clumping around, making the ceiling shake and the dusty lampshade sway.

  The frost makes it hard to look out over the rooftops, but it’s possible to tell that smoke is rising in the distance. Heavy, black, oily smoke caught reluctantly, grudgingly by the cold wind that curves over the huddled city structures.

  The new snow is deepening in the street. There’s going to be no summer. Some powerful ur-sense is kicking in, tells me so. Same thing that makes birds fly south maybe.

  The birds are largely gone now. The ones that remain, or survive, are types I’ve never seen before. What’s this brawny red-legged terror that goose-steps over the iced roof slates so happily? Seen a few of them around lately. Soon the polar bears will trek south on a frozen ocean, and make our living rooms their dens.

  Now Heathshade and co are coming down the stairs hurling curses at each other, including the child. Helen waddles to the door ungainly with child.

  ‘Maybe we should see what’s going on.’

  ‘Their business.’

  She ignores me, opens the door. Already the three are on the bottom flight.

  ‘Marcus!’

  ‘Gotta go,’ he says.

  I can hear the sound of the front door opening. She tries to follow them down, but is incapable.

  ‘Come back in here,’ I call.

  ‘They’re going! They’ve got bags with them. Go down and find out what’s going on.’

  Probably should. I grab my coat.

  I catch up with them a little way down the road. Heathshade has a heavy pack on his shoulder, is dragging the child along using a blue toy sledge. Daisy Carruth is carrying a light pack, is wrapped up in many layers, the outermost of which is fur. Clueless. You’d think Heathshade would know you wear fur on the inside.

  But maybe he just doesn’t care whether she’s warm or cold.

  ‘Mind your own business, George.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A distorted radio voice emanates from inside one of his pockets.

  ‘What’s that? The scanner?’

  He grabs my coat, pulls me close to him.

  ‘Keep your voice down.’

  ‘What are you doing, Marcus?’

  ‘All right. There’s a supply ship out in the harbour, stuck in the ice. I’m going to be on it when it goes.’

  ‘We all are,’ Daisy Carruth clarifies.

  ‘See ya, George.’

  ‘Wait a minute –’

  ‘No. Fuck off.’

  He pushes me away. They depart.

  But ahead of them guns start firing. An APC speeds past at the junction, followed by another. There’s a resounding thud, a grenade, and then the sound of shouting men, and more shooting.

  They turn around and start heading up the hill instead.

  He glares at me. ‘We’ll go the long way around.’

  ‘Let us go with you.’

  ‘No.’

  They turn onto a sidestreet, out of sight.

  The next day I retrieved the flatboat and used it to cross over to the iceberg. I hauled myself down the widest of the shafts melted through the ice by the probe lasers. At the end of the shaft, Dexter had burned an opening through the seaship’s thick hull. A probe awaited me within the dark interior of the vessel. It guided me down a very narrow, curiously echoing corridor and in through a doorway. This was the compartment where Dexter had died.

  I dropped some chemical flares on the floor. Dexter’s body was at the opposite end of the room. Scattered over the floor were about a dozen mummified husks, the remains of those who had died here ninety-eight millennia ago. Fragments of clothing still remained, but most of the bodies were naked. Faces were still discernible on most; wispy hair was still in place; browned teeth were bared through desiccated lips. All the bodies were shrunken to the size of children.

  I went to Dexter. Rigour mortis had locked him into position, and it was difficult to lift him. As I struggled with his inert bulk, I saw a necklace around the nearest of the mummified corpses. I leaned over the body to remove it, and saw that the arms held to the breast the miniscule shape of an infant. The necklace held a locket. I snapped it open, breaking the door off its delicate hinges. Inside, perfectly preserved, was a picture of a man and a woman smiling at each other in that easy way possible only to the young. I sat against the wall, struck by the surprise of this discovery.

  That was when I noticed the letter, folded into a square in the mother’s lap. ‘GEORGE’, it said on the visible side. I summoned the probe and got it to image each fragment as I turned it over to examine its contents. Words here and there were still clearly visible. ‘…the smell in here…’ ‘…sing to her a lot…’ ‘…go to sleep…’

  The fragile pieces did not hold together long. The resistance of the stagnant, stale air was enough to crack each piece, and finally, by the time all the imaging was done, all that was left was a little mound of very fine powder. Soon even that would be gone. But I did have the images.

  I slipped the locket into Dexter’s shirt pocket. With a good deal of effort I managed to get his body out to the flatboat and bring it ashore. I started the ship's engines and guided the ship into the air. I flew slowly at first, in wide circles around the iceberg, and then powered up to Mach 2. Back to the island I went, never to return again to the iceberg.

  Eventually, whether that summer or the next, the berg would melt, and the boat would sink to the bottom of the deep harbour. There the sea water would rust the hull and dissolve the bodies. In a few years, all trace of the ancient vessel and those who died aboard it, whoever they were, would be gone. That was how it should be. All of them, including Dexter, belonged to another time. I should have gone down with the ship myself.

  This jury-rigged apparatus is ingenious, even if I do say so myself. With Helen laying atop three car tyres lashed together with rope, I find that I can haul her along the snow and ice quite easily. As long as this harness holds, we will make okay progress. Our desperate gambit commences on a positive note.

  The bitter wind is shoving us along the solid river ice, lending extra impetus. To the right are the roofs and steeples of the city. The left bank is more wooded, though the trees are denuded, dead, half-buried in snow.

  ‘Warm?’

  She raises a gloved thumb.

  What ill-adapted creatures we are. Effort makes one sweat even in the cold. When I stop moving, the sweat will cool, may freeze on my body, rendering me a goner.

  The fighting was over by the time we left. Seems like one of the factions was wiped out completely. Bodies and blood all over the ice back there. Thought that the soldiers on the quay would stop us heading out towards the harbour, but they don’t seem to care. Surely they know about the ship. They must figure that staying put is a better bet. Cannot agree. This is a dead country. The time has come to get the hell out.

  My eyes are playing tricks. I blink at it at something small up ahead. No, it’s actually real - a dog. A skeletal collie whimpering and wriggling, spread over the ice like an immobile seal, bits of ice frozen into its fur. Lacking that key hardness attribute, I will not just walk past. Placing my hand on top of the animal’s head may in some way comfort it. My knife sinks into the back of its neck incredibly easily and, brain separated decisively from spinal column, it simply closes its eyes and is dead. No blood or anything.

  No point in thinking about the calorific value of the carcass. Got to keep moving.

  The wind suddenly gets stronger, whips up clouds of white. Bare, blasted hills on both sides, nothing ahead.

  This inchoate haze is the edge of the game, a place we’re not supposed to see, the boundary where the developers have put a barrier we can’t cross. Keep going this way and we’ll be pushed sideways, get nowhere, have to return to the field of play.

  In the whipping wind even the sound of my own panting fails to register. Can’t really feel my legs. Walking happening entirely through the good
offices of the medulla oblongata. Concept of origin and destination remoter than maybe is advisable. Concentrate. Make neckache be a mantra. Anchor right in the now. Perceive spreading crystal bits, keening chords in the turbulent air, sea scent. Go deeper than that, to where the weightless weight of the moment is palpable. Observe how the world works, how earth, air and sky interface, how we are stuck in the middle of that. Feel how curious it is to stand on a surface. Such an arbitrary way to exist. Of all the rare phenomena in the Cosmos. Or perhaps not so solid, or how would I have dug Dexter’s grave? I tried to be solemn about it, do it with sufficient ceremony to honour his unusual life. Being alone, though, it was difficult. Nothing seemed real. And I couldn't decide what he had meant to me, whether I had even liked him or not. I didn't know if he had been my friend. In a situation like ours, perhaps the word simply didn't apply.

  Now I have time to think about the choices facing me. With the Unquiet Spirit I can go almost anywhere I desire. Pandora’s box is open.

  I’ve managed to access the ship's records of Dexter’s voyage to the Betelgeuse Nebula. It was not the exotic wonders he encountered that touched me so much as the commonplace beauties, those so familiar and yet so inconceivably distant. I had seen those same beauties on my own voyage to a completely different part of the Galaxy. How could rainclouds, volcanoes, forests, rivers, bolts of lightning, flocks of flying creatures, desert vistas, craters, cliffs, coastlines on worlds separated by thousands of light years be so similar, share the same magnificence? Yet they did, manifestly.

  I have rejected the notion of embarking on another great interstellar voyage, crossing the Galaxy and never turning back. I don’t doubt that the ship and its relativistic boosters are still up to the job. I could escape the world forever, create a future free of the legacies of human toil. But there is a far better option. I shall travel great circuits of the local group of stars, returning to the Earth every few years of ship time, every few thousand years of Earth time. There must still be many humans scattered throughout space and time. As the millennia and aeons unfold, relativistic space explorers will continue to return to the earth. Generally, they’ll appear a few at a time and have experiences similar to those of myself and Dexter, but I don’t think it unlikely that at some juncture sufficient numbers will come together to restart a full-scale human society. The loud city streets of ancient times will live again. I can’t quite recall the peculiar desperation that drove me from the world when last it was filled with humans. How good it would be to have that back again.

  A physical realignment is underway in my brain. Gone is that feeling of pacing the walls of a cage. Ahead of me is an infinite trail, an open, unlimited expanse. Or is it? Why, then, should I stumble? Have I in fact hit the edge of the game, the boundary force field?

  ‘George!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Struggle up out of piled snow. Wandered into dead thicket at the Suir’s edge.

  The course of the river has veered south, and ahead it widens out, merges into the three-rivered harbour and then the sea.

  Our goal is visible as a dark shape away to the indistinct horizon. That better be it anyway. Also ahead: several other trudging groups. We’re not the only civilians hoping to secure a berth.

  We’ve lost the assistance of the strong blasting airflow. The wind buffets like it’s trying to knock some sense into us, but it’s a bit late for that. Important thing is to keep moving, not forgetting to judiciously look back from time to time to make sure Helen hasn’t fallen out of her tyre chariot.

  Arms and legs move of their own volition, autopiloting while I concentrate on enduring pain in neck, shoulders, back. I may never stand up straight again.

  Just keep going. Another bit and we’ll be there.

  Dozens of people are already at the edge of the ice, staring the fifty metres across dark water to the rusted mass of the Italian ship. Also vehicles, crates, sacks, parka-ed men with guns. Beyond is a naval vessel. Must have come to the rescue of these fellas.

  The harness snaps. All my weight goes through my wrists into the unyielding sea ice, which sends it right back as agony shooting up my arms.

  Don’t want to rise again. But Helen groans. Focus returns.

  I touch her pale face with a de-gloved hand, and drag her off the tyres, gently as I can, get my arms under her. Ergs flow from somewhere, and I lift her up.

  Close enough to feel the shake of the ship’s foghorn when it sounds.

  Stumbling forward now. Got to keep upright, rise above the lactic acid fire, the crunching vertebral compression, the rupture of alveoli.

  People part to let us through. There’s more blood here, all over the ice. Puts me in mind of a seal cull. Lined up over to the left are several military corpses. Nearby, machine gun-toting Italians stand over a bunch of men sitting miserably on the ice. Irish soldiers. The Italians and the natives must have had a shoot-out.

  ‘Alright, George. You made it, then.’

  Heathshade.

  ‘You did it for nothing, mate. Bastards are letting nobody on.’

  He sees Helen, and a light flashes in his eyes.

  ‘Hey, mate!’

  He beckons to one of the Italian sailors, points at Helen.

  ‘Sick lady. Pregnant.’

  The Italian comes over with a colleague, and they peer at her, mutter to each other. One of them speaks into a radio.

  Heathshade glances at me with those sly reptilian eyes.

  ‘They’re getting ready to leave.’

  Four Italians are sitting in the boat at the ice edge, ready to return to the ship. The four on the ice are obviously making ready to disengage.

  ‘What are those?’

  I point to the crates.

  ‘That’s food. Those soldier fuckers will be on top of it once the Italians set them loose. What I wouldn’t give to have me gun back.’

  ‘Where are Daisy and the child?’

  ‘Over there,’ he says without evident interest.

  I see them through the cluster of dejected refugees. They’re sitting on their packs of belongings, looking across at us. Time to remind this man of his responsibilities. I gesture at them to come over. Daisy takes her daughter by the hand and they trudge across to us. She kneels down beside Helen, touches her belly in universal sisterhood.

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say, mainly for Helen’s own benefit.

  The Italians come back over. One of them speaks in slow English. ‘The pregnant lady can come with us. And the father.’

  Heathshade is ready.

  ‘That’s great, mate. Thanks.’

  He steps forward towards the boat.

  I grab his arm.

  He shoves me, and I fall onto the ice. I scramble forward and rugby-tackle him. The two of us fall into a heap.

  I shout at the Italians, but they’re lifting Helen, pay no attention to me.

  Heathshade clatters me in the jaw. Grab at him rolling across the ice. He’s over me, kicking. I grab his legs, pull him off his feet. He lands on his back, and I throw myself on top of him, delivering a punch powered by all the pain this man has caused me since he got mixed up in my life. Gristle and bone yield as fist impacts with nose. I get upright, steady myself, finish off with an excellent kick in the ribs.

  Where’s Helen? Call her name.

  There she is looking back at me from the boat, flanked by Daisy Carruth and child, and by the rowing Italians. I call again, but she does not answer, just stares. They reach the ship, help her on board, get her down below. She’s gone.

  The ship’s foghorn sounds again, and its propeller starts turning. People around me scream, as though it has just occurred to them that their chance has gone. One man leaps into the water and starts swimming. Several more follow. I find that my legs are all of a sudden bereft of strength. I slump down, watch as they flail and struggle.

  Heathshade comes over, crouches beside me, wipes some of the blood from his face.

  ‘No hard f
eelings, mate.’

  He looks at the splashing swimmers.

  ‘Well, I’m not finished yet. I’m going for it.’

  ‘Do it. Go.’

  He strides to the water’s edge and dives in.

  His first few strong strokes take him metres out, and then I can distinguish him no more from the others out there.

  The ship moves slowly away at first, leaving a trail of white water behind it. It’s not all that long before it’s beyond the reach of the swimmers one by one expiring of hypothermia.

  It rounds the headland, slips out of sight.

  I go and sit beside a crate for shelter against the cutting gale and the resurgent snowfall. But someone pushes me away so that they can get at what’s inside. It turns out to be sacks of flour.

  The soldiers haul these into the APCs and, twilight gathering, start up the engines to return to the city. Civilians cling to the vehicles.

  When they’re gone I am alone, the only live human being left at the edge of the ice.

  I stare out to sea, at the bobbing corpses and the darkening horizon, at the surf. It’s getting rougher as another angry storm makes ready to scour the earth.

  EPILOGUE:

  GONE WITH THE WORLD

  The old man wheezed Luca’s name. Luca came from the window of the derelict old palazzo, where he had been watching the ships bob about in rough Tyrrhenian waters beyond the red pensioni roofs of Positano. He crouched beside the old man and laid a gloved hand on the rattling chest, felt the shallow rise and fall of the bony ribcage.

  ‘What is it, signore?’

  ‘I had a dream.’ The ancient, faded eyes remained closed.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I was at home.’

  Luca glanced about the damp, mildewed room with its cold stone floor. ‘This is today’s home. Tomorrow you’ll have another.’

  The old man sighed. He did not speak for some time, and Luca thought that he had gone back to sleep. But then his eyes opened.