I needed to pee. After days of wishing to reach my grandfather I dreaded waking him. And yet something stirred in me when I looked at this old man who once must have held my mother on his knee and taught her to love. My mother had loved so much. He was all I had left of her and he was here in this room with me. I was on my bed so he must have placed me here; maybe he cared what happened to me after all, but more likely he just didn’t want me messing up the floor.
I eased myself to sitting and Davie, with the reflexes of a racehorse, jumped and brandished an old battered gun at me. My hands flew up in front of my face.
‘Don’t,’ I tried to croak, but a small squeak was all I managed.
For all its tired and worn appearance, the gun looked even more lethal than the confused Davie. My head curdled to scrambled tofu; if I fainted I’d be fried. Tears welled in my eyes and my bowels sloshed to water. Was this how my parents felt just before their end? I held my breath as the seconds began to clear his sleeping mind and the recognition of the situation hit him. He rearranged his features from brutal glare to something a fraction softer but not much.
‘Don’t shoot,’ I coughed, my throat bloated dry. He placed the gun back in its holster and rubbed his eyes with his hand.
I reached for a goblet of water by my bedside and almost knocked it over with my shakes. As he took a step towards me, I shrank back. I didn’t mean to, it just happened, and he stopped short of holding out his hand. The water gagged me and I only just managed to clasp my mouth to stop a spew.
‘What happened?’ My voice was stronger this time.
‘The power went out,’ he rasped, as if sleep blotted his mouth too.
‘Why?’
His face tensed but he remained silent.
‘There were Transports and shootings,’ I said. ‘One exploded into the sea.’
‘That’s no concern of yours.’
Anger simmered in my blood but I tried to remain calm. He had to be kept sweet if I was ever to get out.
‘No concern of mine? I have to live here too. I didn’t ask to be brought here.’
Still he refused to answer. My resolve broke and my kickshit whiny voice took over. ‘I had no air, I could have died. Is that not a concern of mine?’ His face clouded and his eyebrows arched over those winter cold eyes.
My rage foamed. ‘I am not stupid! We were under attack. I refuse to be treated as a child or a prisoner – there was gunfire and explosions.’ I pointed to my attempted breakout as if he were an imbecile. ‘I nearly died.’ I stopped when he moved past me to the window and ran a finger over the starburst.
‘You are a child and an idiot to think you could have broken through this.’
‘What was I supposed do, sit on my bed and suffocate?’
He snorted but had no answer for this question.
‘You have damaged a very rare lamp.’ Typical Privileged statement.
‘Why am I being kept a prisoner here? I’ve committed no crime.’
Davie turned and cast his hardened eyes on me. ‘You are not a prisoner, you are my guest.’ He stopped then bowed for a moment as if in prayer. When he lifted his head and stared straight through me, he smiled a sweet smile that sent a ripple of rime to my toes. ‘You are my family, Sorlie.’
Time to strike. ‘If I am your family and I am not a prisoner then let me leave this cell for a time. I want to explore the island.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
He pulled his shoulders back and lowered his voice as if he were a medieval actor playing a monster.
‘I said no,’ he growled.
‘You said I’m not a prisoner and yet I’m held in a prison. I may not be behind that door with the rest of the prisoners but I would be better off there. At least there I would have someone to talk to.’
He laughed. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about. These creatures are animals who deserve to die.’ He didn’t look at me but at some far-off spot hidden within the starburst of the window. I thought of Scud, of his intelligence, his humour. Did Davie really believe they deserved to die? How long does it take a man to live in these conditions before he becomes an animal or as twisted and mad as my grandfather surely was? When he turned back to the room there was confusion in his face.
‘I need fresh air,’ I said in my calmest voice. ‘I should still be growing physically, but my daily blood readings suggest defects. Do you want to stunt my growth? When I was at the Base I trained every day.’ I plucked my puny arm. ‘Your food supplements are limited in their effectiveness. Do you want me to end up looking like a native?’
His head snapped up at this, the confusion still lingered. He racked my face with his eyes the way he did when I first arrived here.
‘Never compare yourself to a native. You are Privileged,’ he hissed. ‘Never forget that.’ He turned for the door, picked up the brass lamp, then swung round to face me.
‘I will think about it – you going outside.’ His back straightened, he adjusted the holster on his hip. Commander of the Penitentiary was back on duty, while the old man scuttled back under the cloak of the tyrant. I should learn to tell the difference.
Chapter Fourteen
Scud failed to show the day after the raid. A toad of a man with greenish tinged skin, hooded eyes and thick lips showed up in his place. He was pretty disgusting. His eyes avoided mine as he manoeuvred the tray through the door and even when spoken to he deferred his gaze, preferring the floor to my adolescent mug.
‘Where’s Scud?’ There wasn’t much hope of a sensible answer but it was worth asking.
He looked to my left shoulder.
‘Doh no,’ he said in a strange slang I couldn’t quite place.
‘What happened here last night?’
His gaze flickered to the damaged window then returned to a spot past my ear.
‘Doh no. Power failure – maybe.’
‘And the firing?’
He backed from the room, a frightened reptile.
‘Doh no,’ he said to the window and hopped off back to his pond.
• • •
My head still grated like a newly filled peppermill. The food the toad left wasn’t worth picking. Maybe sleep would wash away the pain, but the worry of the attack put paid to that plan. The State of Esperaneo hadn’t been involved in direct conflict on their own soil for many years, apart from the reported sporadic insurgent attacks, occasional civil unrest that flashed but was quickly quashed. Was that what this was? But then how was Ishbel mixed up in it? I hadn’t imagined seeing her insignia on the craft. The attack was small scale – a bungled prison escape perhaps. What was puzzling was that the air-con had shut down – why had it not affected Davie or Toad?
Later that evening, when the toad brought my meal, I discovered the truth of my near suffocation. There was an air of jobsworth authority on him as he laid the tray down and walked to the small trip box panel beside the door. He thumped the panel with the heel of his hand and the cover popped. It wasn’t a trip box. He pulled out a mask and a small cylinder and held it up.
‘Eh, yewar grandfather told me to instruct you on this,’ he drawled. ‘Didn’t know did you? About this heh?’ He was a cymry, one of those strange natives from the south vallees. Why do natives always take such pleasure in Privileged ignorance? ‘Scud nevar told you.’ He slurped his big lips, even more pleased with this.‘ In a power failure see, yewar to put this on,’ he said to my left shoulder. ‘See, like this,’ demonstrating the action of donning the mask as if I were a dolt. He stuffed the mask back in the panel and closed the hatch before tapping it with purpose.
‘It’s beside the door, see, for a reesun,’ he stressed with a sinister air and slow deliberate words. ‘So it’s eazy – to find in the dark, see?’ With this final speech delivered to my desk, he turned and left the room a taller man than when he entered.
Jupe sake, what a tard.
• • •
The shakes and thick head had almost vanished when I rose next day. Scud was still missing so I was left to the mercy of Toad of the Wandering Eyes. His bullishness had deflated back down to his normal puny size.
‘Where’s Scud?’
‘Doh no.’
‘So will you help me with my work then?’
‘Oh no, not me. Can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Nevar learned to read see.’
‘Right.’ It appeared the supply of intelligent natives had dried up.
It was back to the routine rut, but a solitary one. The library had a whiff of neglect, the stale air of the shutdown lingered as if a dead rat lay in a corner somewhere. I searched the room for clues to the attack but had no idea what I was looking for. I launched Davie’s workstation and after a couple of attempts at access codes it shut me out.
I picked up a book that lay on a corner table. Kilm’s The Destruction of the Modern World. More propaganda – what was his game?
The trauma of the past few days cast a great weariness over me, so I curled in the familiar chair and allowed myself to drift into the delicious world of half sleep – naptime. A movement in the room snapped me alert. It was him. My heavy eyelids protected me until I was ready to face him. I waited for his bellow, like the last time he caught me napping here, but it didn’t come. Maybe my near death experience had softened him. Had I perhaps pared a sliver off that rock-hard heart?
I gathered my thoughts into neat order before I uncurled my limbs and stretched. Groans and moans escaped my lips, some of which were by no means a put-on.
Something between my shoulders twanged. My physical age had doubled overnight and I would be carted off to an oldies’ refuge soon if this trend continued.
The old man of yesterday had vanished. In his place, standing in front of the dormant hearth was the warden of Black Rock. His mane of hair was brushed back and banded at the nape of his neck. In his hand was a cut-glass tumbler quarter filled with a golden liquid.
‘Well Sorlie, how are you today?’ The gravel in his voice had smoothed with a mix of sand.
‘My head and throat still ache a bit.’ This was a half-truth. ‘The native showed me the air mask. But I still don’t know what happened?’
‘We had a power failure. I told you, as has the native who tends you.’ He held the glass to the overhead lights and peered at the swirling contents. What was he looking for? ‘It was remiss of your first native not to instruct you to the safety features of your quarters. He has been punished.’
‘Scud? He’s alright? Where is he?’
His eyebrow arched. It sounded as though I cared. ‘He’s been replaced.’
‘But I want him back. He helps me with my studies. The replacement can’t even read.’
My grandfather snapped his fingers. ‘I will find you another scholar.’
‘I don’t want another scholar. I want Scud, he’s useful to me.’
‘You say a native is useful? You have expensive superior learning packages. How can a native be useful?’
‘I don’t know, he adds something … I don’t know, an extra dimension the courses don’t give me. I’ve already achieved top quarter marks for original content in my last self-assignment. That’s never happened before.’
The eyebrows relaxed. Obviously my achieving top marks pleased Davie.
‘He adds texture,’ I persisted.
Was that a quiver of a smile on his lips?
‘Texture you say?’
‘Yes, something only experience can give.’ I picked my words carefully. ‘I will gain a great advantage over my peers, when it’s needed.’ What I meant was ‘if I ever get out of here,’ but clipped my tongue on that quip. ‘Texture helps.’ I could see he liked this word so rubbed it a little harder. ‘Texture gets results.’
‘Texture,’ he said to himself, as if he enjoyed the sound of a new word in his mouth. ‘Well, we’ll see. He has other duties, this past native of yours.’
I wobbled a little as I stood and my grandfather stepped towards me as he had done in my room. At first I thought he was going to steady me, but as he put out his hand it froze in mid-air and he stared at it as if it didn’t belong to his body. I sank back in the chair as my grandfather turned his attention to his drink. Then he pressed the call button on his communicator.
‘Go to your room and rest, you are still not recovered.’
‘I want to go outside to explore the island.’
His grasp tightened on his glass as he looked to the ceiling in exasperation.
‘You said I wasn’t a prisoner.’
‘You said, you said,’ he mocked me.
I coughed feebly. ‘I’ve not breathed fresh air since entering these prison walls. My head thumps constantly. I’m ill.’ His eyes narrowed again and I could see I was starting to get through to him. ‘Confinement is not healthy for me and is probably hampering my recovery.’
‘It does not seem to be hampering your insolence in persisting with this line of request.’
I pulled up the sleeve of my tunic. ‘My white blood cell count is dropping.’ He would know this was true because my body’s activities were monitored hourly.
‘I have been brought up on a daily dose of daylight, your daughter saw to that. If I remain indoors much longer I will turn into an awful gobo.’ I heard a gasp from the corner of the room. The toad had arrived at Grandfather’s bidding and cowered in the periphery of the scene, failing to perfect the native invisibility.
I would not be deterred. What was the worst he could do to me? Kill me? I was slowly dying anyway.
‘Send one of the guards with me if you must keep me prisoner.’ And then I remembered my project and pulled my ace card.
‘Have you ever heard the corncrake?’
‘What?’ He puzzled at the change of subject. Confusion crossed his brows then settled into a frown. Fear entered his eyes again. His gaze searched the bookshelves as if seeking an answer there.
‘You know – the corncrake? The fabled bird?’
‘Corncrake, yes, yes of course. A fabled bird, the corncrake.’ But I could see he was bluffing. ‘I have a book on them somewhere.’ The fear was still there.
Easy does it. It was like cradling a cup of nitro-glycerine in my hand while trying to gyrocycle. ‘Well, you’ll remember a corncrake was a rare bird that in the last century lived on the islands and it is believed to have become extinct fifty years ago.’ His face relaxed an inch; he was interested. ‘It had a very distinctive call, like a creaking piece of metal.’ I paused for effect.
‘Yes, yes I know what a corncrake is,’ he said. Who was he trying to convince, him or me?
‘I think I heard one the other night,’ I announced.
He shook his head. ‘That’s impossible; from your side of the installation the sea dominates the noise. And as you have said they are extinct.’
I shook my head. ‘No they aren’t. I’m sure. The other night it was calm, maybe the tide was out, I don’t know, but I heard something different, something weird, ghostly, something rare.’ I was hamming it so changed tactic. ‘Imagine what this would do to your profile with the LRP if we,’ I stressed the word we, ‘if we discovered a bird believed to be extinct.’ I showed him the download stored on my communicator. ‘Look at the habitat it prefers, it is a scene from right here. Black Rock.’
He snapped his fingers and I handed him the device. He read the detail then signalled for the native to leave us.
Davie moved to his screen and blinked when he found it already powered up. He flopped down wearily and glanced to me but said no words. He turned his back on me as he keyed in his access pin. Seven characters, all on the left-hand side of the keypad.
A list of names and times dotted onto the scree
n and he took a few minutes to scrawl through them.
‘Go to your room,’ he said without turning round. ‘You seem to have miraculously regained your strength. And I need time to think.’
‘Can I go outside then?’
He spun in his seat to face me. ‘I said go to your room.’
• • •
‘Textured – nice one, wee man.’ Scud, the old Scud, returned after more days of routine. His infliction seemed cured although he was more fidgety, shifty even. He placed a tray on the table and chuckled to himself. Even though I was rapt to see him back his constant trips to the window were as irritating as ever.
‘Don’t you have a window?’
‘Just a wee crack below the ceiling, just enough tae let daylight in.’ He stopped and tapped his nose, ‘And the beacon of course. We couldnae sleep without that wee comfort blanket.’ It was a strange thing to say but he was a strange sort of guy.
For aeons I had waited to give him the stolen paper, still tucked in my tunic, but now he was here I almost forgot.
‘Art project,’ I blurted out as he opened the door to leave. He pulled up, closed the door again and slowly turned back to the room, his broken top teeth biting his bottom lip.
‘Aye?’
‘Remind me. Why is it so important to do?’
‘It’s fur yer education. Huv ye no sussed that yet?’
This was getting us nowhere. ‘You know that I don’t have access to paper?’
‘Aye.’ He laid the tray down next to Beastie and stood with his arms folded. For once he had all day to waste.
Ways of the Doomed Page 10