Heron Fleet

by Paul Beatty

  Out of my pocket I took a silver and black cylinder with a wrist strap. In a slot at the bottom was a crank-handle which I pulled out and started to turn. The others looked on in amazement, briefly giving me a childish satisfaction of superiority. After about twenty turns, I put the handle back into its place and pointed it into the dark beyond the window-space. I pushed the switch on the top. There was a click and a pool of bright blue light appeared on an object a metre or so inside. The Lady and the guards gasped and stepped back, even more cause for childish pleasure.

  Being careful not to cut myself on any glass left around the window frame, I pulled myself through and stood upright on a rough wooden floor, under a low ceiling which one scan with the torch showed was intact.

  ‘It’s safe enough,’ I called back through the window. Then I turned and offered my hand to The Lady. ‘Would you care to join me?’ I said.

  ‘Do you want one of us to come with you?’ said one of the guards.

  She immediately replied, ‘No. Wait at the entrance and keep your ears open. If you hear us call or think we are in trouble then one of you come in, the other should go immediately for help.’ It crossed my mind that this was a planned move. Something Robert had suggested to her. Something along the lines of, don’t let the guards see too much until we know what this stranger is really after or what he’s worth to us. If this was the case my trick with the electric torch would be well worth reporting back.

  After she had climbed through we could start investigating properly what we had found. In front of us was a row of fifteen to twenty metal racks with shelves, facing each other so that you could walk between them. On each shelf there was a row of books, some neatly upright, others stacked in disordered piles. Some books had fallen on the floor and one of the racks had fallen against the wall near the end of the row but the place was generally orderly and undisturbed. Most importantly there was no indication that either fire or water had penetrated the room. It was dry and did not look as if it had ever been disturbed from the day the City builders had left. It was quiet as well. Even sounds were muted here in this sacred place of the books.

  We walked slowly down the aisle between the nearest racks. The Lady was mesmerised. With a slight smile on her face she ran her fingers down the spines of the volumes, disturbing the dust, occasionally stopping to brush off and read a title. ‘I’ve never believed that this number of books could possibly exist.’ She was trying to suppress her excitement but it still inflected her voice. She pulled down the book her finger had just stopped on. She smoothed her hand over its cover and opened it. She read aloud while I held the light.

  A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre and in a shield, the World state’s motto, Community, Identity, Stability.

  She closed the book and put it back in its place, finishing by running her index finger down the spine as she pressed it home between its companions. We moved deeper into the store.

  Beyond the first row of racks was another, divided from the first by a corridor. On some of these shelves there were half-boxes, out of the tops of which showed smaller documents, just like the one I had found as a boy. The coloured pictures of long-dead heroes and heroines were still bright and clear. I passed one to her. On the next rack, I found one of the things I most wanted, it was full of boxes of newspapers.

  I could not remember exactly when I had first realised that there had been such things as newspapers. After the old man taught me the letter sounds, I started to try to read the magazine I had found. Slowly I got the hang of translating the letters and then saying them aloud so that he could recognise the words. Soon all I had to do was sound the words inside my head to decode them. When I had read the magazine out to the old man several times, so he could confirm I really could read, I became dissatisfied with only having a meagre few sheets. After that scavenging became as much a search for reading material as for food. Gradually my resources grew, a book here and magazine there but only once had I found a newspaper.

  The fragile sheets were buried deep in a pile of trash. They were stained and battered but readable. I hid them away and went on scavenging. That night when most people had gone to sleep I took the newspaper out and by the light of the small fire we had at night in our camp read it. I was fascinated. There were several different stories but they were not about people in the way the stories in the magazines had been. These stories seemed to be about what had been happening in the city and even beyond. There had not just been one city but many, and the City builders had run not just their own cities but had come together to run whole areas of land. I was engrossed which was why I did not hear him coming.

  ‘What got you there?’ said a voice from above my head. I tried to stuff the paper into my shirt but he grabbed my hair and wrenched me backwards so that I lay on the ground. He immobilised me by putting his knee in my chest and snatched the paper from me. ‘You know rules, Toby. I gets first pick of what all my team find.’

  ‘No interest you. Nofin to eat,’ I shouted back, trying to sound like a man but knowing I simply sounded what I was, a boy trying to impress. He slapped me across the face for my cheek. Then he looked at the paper, turning it over and over in his hand.

  ‘What int’rest this? He said in puzzlement.

  ‘Nufin,’ I said again.

  ‘You spend good time on nufin. Me watch you from shadows.’ He increased the pressure of his knee on my chest. ‘What you doin’. Cast a spell on me do you? Don’t think we don’t know you got funny ways.’ He looked at the paper one more time then threw it on the fire. It kindled and flared. He watched to see how I’d react but the hate I felt made it easier for me to look impassive. As the paper turned to black ash he gave in, punched me in the face then let me go.

  That was the turning point. What I had read confirmed an idea I had had from the start, that the City builders used reading to pass on information, in this case what had been happening only a few days before the newspaper was written. That meant that from reading I might discover how the City builders had fed themselves and built the cities. It also showed me that if things were to be improved, if we were ever to climb back to where the City builders had been, then the Scavenger Gangs were no basis as a start. They would consume everything until nothing was left and then they would die. I had to go on reading and that meant I had to get away as well. See if I could find more cities and more books and the knowledge they contained.

  The Lady had been looking at my face as I looked at the newspapers. ‘This is what you’ve really been looking for isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why especially these and not the wonderful books or poems?’

  ‘I have friends out there. They need information to help them grow more food and survive better.’

  ‘Do all your friends read and have books?’

  ‘Most do.’

  ‘And do they scavenge and kill and starve?’

  ‘No, they farm and are at peace, which is why they have time to read, and to write as well.’

  Suddenly she was very close to me I could smell the leather of her coat and the sweat of her body. Smell and taste evoke memory more sharply than anything. In the confined space of the book store that memory was too strong to be resisted.

  She reached up and stroked my cheek. ‘Take me with you when you leave. Take me to such a place.’ There were tears in her eyes and a note of pleading in her voice. She was speaking for herself this time, not using some formula Robert had devised.

  I was torn apart. One side of my mind desperately reminded me how dangerous it would be to say yes but I could not blaspheme against the memory. I rested my hands on her waist beneath her jacket, and pulled her to me. ‘I’ll try,’ I whispered as I kissed her.

  That evening, we brought back some samples from the store, books of poetry, a novel or two that the Lady fancied and a couple of boxes of magazines. She told me Robert couldn’t read, so bringi
ng back the newspapers shouldn’t have been a risk but I was worried I might give away my own excitement in finding them. I persuaded her they needed special care and she agreed to leave them behind.

  When we got back, Robert was holding court in the meeting room. His two bodyguards with their rifles were there as well as his spear-bearer. There were six other men in the niches behind him. I thought they were the captains of his guards. For good measure there were two extras guards armed with rifles, one each side at the top of the main steps. As soon as we entered, the Lady took up her place in Robert’s entourage. I sat in one of the niches near the steps and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible.

  In front of Robert was the woman and the child that had been the first to come to my fireside at the quay. Robert was questioning her.

  ‘Guards tell me you be on boat, yes?’

  ‘No, Lord, no me.’ The voice was weak, husky and full of fear.

  ‘You tell me Leonard lying-you?’ Robert’s voice was low but had an edge of threat.

  ‘Me took scraps only. Never go boat, never Lord.’ She was pleading and her legs were shaking.

  ‘He swear you on boat.’ Robert’s voice was louder and he pointed to one of the guards at the head of the steps as he spoke.

  ‘No, no me Lord, no me.’ Robert got up and circled her. The baby whimpered, wrapped its thin arms round its mother and buried its head in her neck.

  ‘So you him liar-callin’?’

  ‘No, Lord. He make…’ she hesitated ‘…mistake. No boat. No me.’

  Robert stopped in front of her and sneered. ‘We no make mistake,’ he said, leaning towards her.

  She saw it coming and tried to turn and run but she had not got fully round by the time he had raised his pistol and fired. The bullet smacked into the side of her head from no more than a metre. A small entrance hole spouted a fountain of blood. The bullet’s exit took half her skull, and showered blood and brains onto the stone floor in a fan-shaped pattern. The report of the shot echoed round the room like a wave trapped in a sea-cave. As her body hit the floor the baby was knocked from her arms. Covered in blood it started to crawl back towards the corpse. Robert nodded and his spear-bearer stepped forward and stabbed it. A moment’s twitching, then it was still.

  Robert thrust his hands in the air in joy, his head back. ‘Remember all you,’ he roared at the beautiful ceiling, ‘we no make mistake!’ Then he relaxed, returned his pistol to its holster and swept out through the private door, followed by his entourage leaving only the two guards at the top of the stairs and me alone.

  When he had gone the guards leant their rifles against the wall and relaxed. The one Robert had pointed to came over to look at the corpses. Emotionless, he looked down, then he hawked and spat into the congealing pool of blood. I recognised him as the guard who’d been left as sentry on my boat.

  ‘Leonard, why you not clean up yen mess,’ said the other guard.

  Leonard shrugged his shoulders. ‘No fault me. She’d had it commin. She were too fess to part er legs,’ and he spat again. ‘Ramshacklum she is now, ant serve er right,’

  ‘You no heart. Kiddy no urt yen.’

  ‘Why you worry? Two less to feed.’

  Out of the darkness of the stairs came three older women and a man. All were thin and badly fed, though not quite as emaciated as the dead woman. They washed the floor of its blood with mops and buckets they had brought, and put the bodies on a blanket. Then they carried them out. As they passed Leonard, the oldest woman held out her hand to him. Leonard spat into his own hand and shook hers.

  ‘Make sure you stick to yen bargain,’ said the other guard. ‘Bad luck if they get leery. Yen pay or them come for yen in the night,’ then the guards left, leaving me alone.

  I’d seen brutality of all kinds in Scavenger Gangs but this was one of the coldest killings I’d witnessed. Most chiefs made pretence of helping their subjects, of trying to be seen to be fair. They realised that it was one of the things that kept the gangs together. Of course, it didn’t make any difference in the long run. As the resources of a city dwindled to exhaustion more labour was needed to accumulate even survival rations. Well-run gangs slowed the process of starvation but they didn’t prevent it.

  Very few gangs I had met grew anything or developed new relationships. One or two were near enough to farming communities to trade raw materials like metal and brick from city ruins for food. It was possible they might survive in the future by a sort of symbiotic relationship but most went round and round the same vicious circle out of habit. The end came quickly when cannibalism took hold.

  The four who had taken the corpses away might well be cannibals. That might account for why they were reasonably well-fed. Perhaps the remark about them being leery, which I had taken to mean upset but it could also mean hungry, carried more of a real threat to Leonard. Perhaps it meant that if Leonard did not pay for their services, they would cut his throat one night and eat him. It was not so long a step from making use of the bodies provided by Robert’s violence, to killing to feed yourself.

  I got up and walked to the other side of the room to relieve the stiffness induced by the cold of the stone and the cold of foreboding in my heart. I could not think of Robert as much more than a mindless murderer but maybe that was a misjudgement on my part. Perhaps he saw the end coming. Perhaps he was choosing to drive towards it as hard as he could, rather than sit and wait timidly for the end. There might be a sick nobility in such a course of action. Either way how was I to find a way to negotiate with him?

  Then there was the Lady. Perhaps she could see disaster coming as well by comparing the situation now with her father’s day. Maybe she was just sick of Robert’s abuse of her and everyone else. I was convinced she had been looking for a way out before I’d arrived. Then I remembered the kiss and desire was like a clenched fist in my stomach and a tingling in my genitals. Flashes of what The Lady would feel like naked intruded into my thoughts. I could feel the promise of the future blending with vivid memories from the past. I knew I should cut-and-run while I could but, as they say, when your brains are in your balls, prudence stands no chance. I would take her with me when I left no matter what.

  So the whole problem would revolve around how much I could convince Robert that what was on offer was really valuable to him. Bad news, for judging from the display I had just witnessed value in Robert’s eyes meant what gave him the most power and satisfaction minute to minute. If I failed it would be a bullet in the head at short range, for me and the Lady.

  There was a kiss on my forehead, a sense of someone soft close to me. I woke up. It was early morning but still dark. I could just make the Lady out as a dark shape kneeling next to me. I reached for her but she stopped me.

  ‘I can’t, he’ll miss me if I’m not back soon. I came to warn you,’ she whispered. ‘I showed him the books and the magazines. He’s interested in two things, where the goods you have come from and what power the books give you to make it worth you risking your life to get them. He’ll send for you in the morning. Then will be the time for a deal,’ then she was gone.

  I lay awake for most of the rest of the night, thinking about how my meeting with Robert next morning might go. I worked out a few strategies but didn’t have much faith in any of them. Breakfast came too soon for me. There was no obvious way out and I knew it.

  I ate with the guards, so I ate as well as anyone except Robert and the Lady. By definition what scavengers ate was what they could find. This morning there were tins of pressed mixed meat and some of tomatoes, luxuries to add to grey, watery porridge to give it some taste. I longed to get down to the boat for some of the salt bacon and fresh eggs stored in the hold but there was no chance.

  Across the table from me was the second guard from the night before. He was pleasant-looking with thinning red hair and a decent colour to his cheeks, a man doing well despite privations. He caught my eye but showed no sign of recognising me. I smiled and nodded. Maybe he hadn’t seen me the n
ight before.

  ‘Where frumenty come from?’ I said.

  ‘Frumenty? More rafty-mixen, think me,’ he laughed. ‘Big store found when we come. Too ramshacklum for yen, Trader?’ there was sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Had worse.’ I laughed and added some of the tomatoes to the porridge. ‘Me name Tobias.’ I held out my hand to him. He looked suspiciously at it but in the end shook it.

  ‘Angus,’ he replied.

  ‘Bin Robert long-time?’ I said

  ‘Yeh. With im in burbs before we gwain. Good day’s work that,’ he grinned.

  ‘Find it big store scran like this.’ I splashed my spoon into the porridge. ‘Big boost yat Robert?’

  ‘Sure. Avroze first winter without.’ He stirred in a couple of tomatoes to his bowl and slurped the resulting mess. ‘Chief afore ad good stores. Yen Robert give food to all. No much left be now.’

  ‘Tot afore duty?’ I took a small bottle of apple brandy from an inside pocket, uncorked it and offered it to him.

  ‘Friendly,’ he said taking the bottle. He saluted me. ‘ To yen,’ he said and swigged from the bottle, coughed and licked his lips. ‘Me no taste nufin that-like years. Mehbe your really are wot captains jaw yen.’

  ‘Wot that.’

  ‘Yen last ’ope get loosed way.’

  ‘Wot that?’

  ‘Last ’ope to move where pickin’s better.’

  He went to give me the bottle back but I indicated he should have another drink. ‘ No ave nother tot Angus.’ He happily took up the offer and took another swig. ‘If yen’s said why none tried be chief instead Robert.’

  Immediately he looked at me with hostility. ‘Yen understand nufin Ostlander. All bin Robert long-time. He lucky. He no ramshaklum us. We die for him if yat future.’ He corked the bottle and set it on the table between us, a visible symbol of the distance between us. ‘Thank for spirit,’ then he left. I put the bottle back in my pocket.