Tamaruq

by E. J. Swift

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘That is the truth.’

  ‘Then you must be very unhappy.’

  ‘I am what I am.’

  ‘I never really believed in nirvanas,’ says Ramona. ‘I thought they were just a story. Something made up, to frighten children.’

  ‘Everything’s a story,’ the Alaskan replies. ‘A simple methodology to process chaos. You will tell yourself a story about what you have seen and done in the desert. You’ll tell yourself you did what you could. That your choices were bound. That there was a certain – inevitability – to your actions.’

  Ramona’s anger flares. ‘And you don’t think I did? What I could?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is the story that is told. You will need yours, I think.’

  Something flickers up ahead. For an alarming moment Ramona thinks it is lightning, but then she realizes the light is green, not white. As she watches, the sky to the south transforms into an amphitheatre of colour. Vaults of green and gold cavort across the sky, flickering in and out of being. Ramona has never seen anything so eerily beautiful. It feels as though a performance is being staged entirely for them. She leans back and nudges Mig awake.

  ‘You should see this, kid.’

  ‘Aurora australis,’ says the Alaskan. ‘The southern lights.’

  ‘I’ll use the light to land,’ says Ramona. Exhaustion is crashing around her, taking out her senses one by one. She cannot resist it any longer. ‘And I’ll do your wrist.’

  Late the next morning they reach their destination. The Alaskan, the pilot, and Mig watch as the city emerges from the horizon. For hours it has been a steady line, grey bleeding into blue bleeding into grey. Then something indistinguishable, a smudge or a blur interrupting the line, an emergent structure, mathematical edges gradually coalescing into form. They see the conical silver towers pointing skywards, woven together with fibres of shuttle lines and delicate bridges. Blips appear on the radar of the console as ships and submarines come into the aeroplane’s range. The Alaskan fiddles with the console’s settings, her head tipped to one side, listening, and the channel crackles with the static of conflicting signals. Mig crouches at the window. This is Vikram’s city. This metallic fortress. All at once it fits, that sense of special, because to come from a place like this you’d have to be something different, something extraordinary.

  ‘We need a landing point,’ says Ramona. The Alaskan nods, and holds up her hand – wait a moment. They are approaching the city from the south-west. Ramona banks and takes the plane around its western flank, where the towers are less impressive; dull-faced, they don’t reflect the sun. Some are derelict, cracked open to the sky, some bear the marks of recent attacks, and on the edges of the city, hundreds of small boats are packed tightly together. When they curve to the north, the city changes again, turning back to silver, although now they are closer Ramona can see that this part of the city has also suffered damage in the recent battle.

  ‘Yes, this way,’ says the Alaskan, still listening, and as Ramona banks once again, she says, ‘We need to find El Tiburón.’

  PART NINE

  TO CATCH A GULL

  OSIRIS

  WHEN VIKRAM WAS eight years old his friend Mikkeli showed him how to catch a gull. She had a knack with the net, and it wasn’t long before they had snared their first target. As he watched the creature thrashing in the wire mesh, desperate to escape, Vikram saw the bird’s eye turn upon him, an eye which it was said could hold the soul of a dead Osirian. He felt the bird’s fear mirrored in the racing of his own heart. He wanted to tell Mikkeli to let the bird go, but to do so would be a betrayal of his friend. Then Mikkeli reached into the net, careful to avoid the scrabbling beak and talons, and snapped the gull’s neck.

  When the pirate El Tiburón asks him about the lost city, Vikram doesn’t think of silver towers or Tarctic winds or even the sound of the sea at night. He thinks of the gull. He thinks of the feathers that were left in the net when they pulled the bird out, scraggly and damp from the sea and slightly oily to touch. In the months that followed that first capture, he became adept with the net, but it was always Mikkeli who committed the final act. This part, he does not admit to the pirate.

  By the time Vikram comes up on deck they are already out in the open ocean. The coast of Patagonia has vanished, and a white frothing wake stretches out behind them, trailing back as far as he can see. The sun glints off the solar sails to the back of the ship, but it seems to be moving very fast, and Vikram cannot help wondering if there is some other, less visible source of power that is propelling them eastwards.

  On the top deck, El Tiburón is stood in her tricorne hat, leathers, and tinted glasses. Vikram notes the pirate frowning at the wake as though she would like to erase it, but cannot, and does not quite comprehend how the ocean has failed to acquiesce to her demands. Vikram looks ahead, letting the wind batter his face, watching the empty horizon, wondering what he has done. He feels like a convalescent. His head is throbbing and the guilt is a weight of waterways on his back. Now he’s away from Patagonia the fact is inescapable. He abandoned everyone. He left Mig behind. For all he knows, the boy is dead. And it’s Vikram’s fault. He let the boy come with him to the archipelago. He let him stay at the camp, knowing it was a risk. He left him there.

  I should have stayed.

  He cannot shift the thought. Whether he would have died there or not, he should have stayed. And then what? He’d never know the truth about himself: the truth about the redfleur, why he is immune, if there are others like him. But now the Boreals have invaded Osiris, there may be nothing left to find.

  There are only bad choices, he thinks. And sometimes there is no choice at all. He has to live with that.

  A shadow falls beside him. The pirate has come to stand at his side. For a moment they stand in silence, watching the waves.

  ‘Why did you help me?’ Vikram asks.

  ‘I did not help you,’ replies the pirate. ‘I helped the Alaskan. We share… a commonality.’

  ‘And that’s why you helped us?’

  El Tiburón adjusts the angle of her hat.

  ‘The Alaskan has an eye for those who are useful,’ she says. ‘When the time comes for negotiations, you will count those who have aided you, I am sure. There are a number of death penalties on my head, Señor Bai. They are heavy. The time has come for these undesirables to, how shall I put it, to lift and fly away like young birds.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, of course,’ says Vikram. He thinks of the Boreals, who have invaded his city, a place where he never planned to return and now finds himself inextricably bound. ‘If we get that far.’

  The pirate’s gloved hands curl and flex gently against the rail of the deck.

  ‘I did consider your death,’ she muses. ‘Your eight pints of blood. One could make a nice presentation of those. I would say. But I decided you were of more value alive.’

  ‘Should I say thank you?’

  ‘It is advisable.’

  ‘Then thank you.’

  And fuck you, he thinks. Like everyone else, the pirate has placed a value on his head and calculated her moves accordingly.

  ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ he asks.

  ‘I have obtained the necessary co-ordinates.’

  ‘How long will it take us?’

  ‘Several days,’ says the pirate. ‘We will have to evade the Antarctican fleet, who will be heading in pursuit of the Boreals. I have no intention of engaging in unnecessary battle and risking my crew.’

  Vikram looks down at the deck below. Once or twice he has caught a glimpse of a crew member, but for the most part, the ship seems to operate without assistance.

  ‘This isn’t a Patagonian ship, is it?’ he asks.

  ‘It was,’ says the pirate. ‘But I have made it something else.’ Her fingers tap the deck rail lightly, playing an invisible spectrum of keys. ‘Señor Bai. May I suggest you spend the next few days wisely
, that is, out of sight. I will summon you when the city is in our sights. By all means listen to the radio broadcasts if you desire. I sense the Boreals are keen to share the news of their latest acquisition.’

  Vikram does as the pirate advises and over the next few days he stays out of her way, confining himself to the cabin or the upper deck, listening to the broadcasts, eating the food the pirate’s crew brings him without question or complaint. Sometimes he wonders if the pirate is telling the truth, or if she has some other plan, which will see him landed upon the shore of a Boreal coast, ready to be handed over for blood money. But when he is up on deck and watches the passage of the sun they appear to be headed in the direction the pirate says they are headed, and so he has no choice but to trust her. The broadcasts on the radio change and multiply. Now they come from the Antarcticans, now from the Solar Corporation. The world, which he had found to be vaster than he could have imagined, has contracted again to the tiny site that is Osiris. It doesn’t feel real to him.

  On the night of the fifth day the radio picks up an intermittent broadcast which Vikram thinks is o’dio Isis 100 and El Tiburón comes to find him in his cabin. The pirate cocks her head, listening a moment. Two journalists are discussing the ceasefire.

  El Tiburón sweeps a hand across the table and a display of glowing dots appears, like constellations in the night sky, in a formation Vikram does not recognize but which feels nonetheless familiar. The pirate indicates.

  ‘We have taken a wide berth south of Osiris and are now approaching from the south-east. This is your city, as my sensors have it. The Boreal fleet is located to the north. The Antarcticans have moved down to the south, but we passed them without detection. There are of course concealed vessels on both sides which are neither north nor south but somewhere in between, and in the case of the Boreals, underwater.’

  The pirate looks at Vikram, her eyes dark and shadowy behind the tinted glasses.

  ‘Do you have a plan? Who are you intending to contact?’

  ‘There’s a man called Linus Rechnov, if he’s still alive.’

  ‘Which side of the city will you find him?’

  ‘East. But he could be anywhere. If so much has happened—’

  ‘Is Linus Rechnov an Osirian like yourself?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You should consider taking your case to someone with authority. Your people no longer have authority here.’

  ‘You think I should speak with the Boreals?’

  ‘Personally I will not have dealings with the Boreals,’ says El Tiburón. She looks at the representation of the city, a meditative expression on her face. ‘They would have my body on a pike.’

  That doesn’t answer my question, he thinks. The journalists are now talking about the summit.

  Little word from the inside – know there are Osirian reps…

  ‘Wait—’ says Vikram. ‘I want to hear this.’

  ‘If you wish to deal with the Boreals, you are on your own,’ says El Tiburón.

  Also know that Adelaide Rechnov’s testimony was heard today by video link—

  Vikram freezes.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘We are discussing the Boreals—’

  ‘But they said—’

  Spoke with her earlier today… advice for the city…

  The pirate frowns.

  ‘But I would very much suggest that you approach the Solar Corporation.’

  I want to tell the Osirian people to remember our city’s strength. It is a particular kind of power: the power of the ocean.

  There’s no mistaking it. He would know that voice anywhere. The voice emanating from the console, from a signal broadcast from the city of Osiris, belongs to Adelaide Rechnov. Vikram turns deliriously to El Tiburón.

  ‘That’s Adelaide Rechnov!’

  The pirate reaches over to the console and cuts off the channel. The o’dio falls silent.

  Vikram stares at the pirate in disbelief. El Tiburón ignores his gaze, either oblivious to or choosing to ignore the sudden turbulence in Vikram’s head.

  ‘It was her,’ says Vikram. ‘It was her speaking. It was Adelaide!’

  ‘Adelaide Rechnov, yes, the Silverfish.’ The pirate makes for the door. ‘Are you coming? We are on the outskirts of Osiris. This is as far as I take you.’

  Vikram stares at the console, numb with shock. The pirate’s footsteps are receding. He runs after her.

  ‘Will you listen to me? Adelaide Rechnov is dead. How can she be speaking?’

  The pirate halts briefly.

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Yes, I— she died, months ago. I was there!’

  ‘Then she was resurrected,’ says the pirate. ‘But not for long, I fear. She was badly injured when the Boreals attacked and the border in your city fell, less than a week ago.’

  She continues walking, climbing the stairs to the upper decks, ducking slightly to accommodate her hat as she passes through the hatch. Vikram stumbles after her.

  ‘That can’t be true. There must be some mistake—’

  ‘I cannot tell you about the truth,’ snaps the pirate, striding onto the deck. ‘Whatever the truth is, I will leave you to discover it. This is as far as I go. These waters are infested with Boreals. I will not risk going any closer.’

  ‘But I have to get into the city – we’ve come this far—’

  ‘I can give you a boat,’ says the pirate. ‘But not a boat that may be detected, or any kind of motor that will be heard. One of my crew will row you there. The night should give you some cover.’ She turns towards him, her eyes leaden behind their glasses. Her fingers flutter by the pistols at her hips with a soft, repetitive motion. ‘Unless you wish to rescind on our bargain?’

  Vikram remembers the scorpion in the envelope.

  ‘Fine – yes, I agree. I don’t care how I get there, as long as I can get inside the city.’

  And find her.

  ‘He will go with you.’

  El Tiburón nods to a short, stocky man, who nods silently to Vikram.

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  ‘You can call him Juan. Are you ready?’

  Vikram nods. His head is reeling.

  ‘Then I bid you good hunting.’

  She turns away. Vikram stares after her, still unable to comprehend what he has heard. Adelaide was in the tower. The tower collapsed. They hunted everywhere, Linus told him. Did Linus lie? If she survived, why wouldn’t she come forwards?

  As the small rowboat is lowered over the side of the ship, Vikram can see the ghostly green lights of the ring-net, stretching away on either side, and the faint shadow of the watchtowers. Is anyone manning them now? Beyond the net, the city glimmers, an invitation in the darkness. Cloud cover blocks the moon but between the clouds are patches of stars. The sea is a soft dark mass that folds around them as the boat settles into the water. The crewman he is to call Juan takes the oars and manoeuvres them away from the ship. There is no call goodbye from above, no face overlooking to watch them depart. Within a few strokes of the oars, El Tiburón’s ship with its camo-tech skin is invisible to Vikram.

  He looks ahead. They are approaching the ring-net. A large rent in the net is evidence of a ship’s earlier passage into the city, whether Boreal or Antarctican Vikram does not know.

  The lights of the ring-net worry him. Knowing how effectively El Tiburón’s ship is shielded from sight he cannot help fearing there are other ships out here, ships on the watch, ships that might notice a boat slipping through, however small. He starts to say something to Juan but Juan shakes his head, indicating silence.

  They approach the ring-net. He can hear the clanking of its chains, a sound that brings back instant, distracting memories. He thinks of Drake and Nils, driving out to the ice-field, the laser cutters dissecting the sheet into pieces. He thinks of Adelaide on a waterbike speeding towards the net, her hair streaming in the wind, her face intent and conflicted in a way he did not understand, and unders
tands no better now. His chest is tight and the memories threaten to overwhelm him. She is alive. He cannot stop thinking that one thought, true or not. She is alive, and he didn’t know.

  The rent in the ring-net looms. Vikram realizes he is holding his breath. He forces himself to exhale slowly. This is the power of his city, though he has forgotten it; the power to suck you in, co-opting you to its slow agendas. He has to stay alert. Find Linus. Find the Solar Corporation. Get to the summit.

  Find out what happened to Adelaide.

  Juan lifts the oars and brings them together and the boat passes through the gap, the green lights of the ring-net washing over them, before they fall away again. Vikram waits for the shout, a warning shot to say they have been seen. But the sea remains quiet.

  They are in Osiris waters now.

  The clanking sound of the ring-net fades behind them. Now he can’t hear anything except the soft lift and splash of the oars as Juan guides them through the waters, the beat of the oars never changing, alongside it the erratic rhythm of Vikram’s own breathing, and his heart, faster than usual.

  The structure of light that is Osiris begins to separate and solidify into individual towers. Vikram is struck by their height and power, a sight familiar but newly strange to him, like a scene from a dream.

  Adelaide is alive.

  They are coming into the south-east side of the City. Remembering not to speak, Vikram points to one of the towers which is less brightly lit and Juan adjusts the boat’s course to head for it.

  They are less than a hundred metres from the tower when Vikram feels something bump against the bottom of the boat.