by Alex Shearer
‘You’re an embarrassment!’
‘I’m the embarrassment? I don’t think so. Pity we don’t have a mirror on the boat. Then you’d see who the embarrassment is.’
‘Hey. You two! That’s enough.’
‘Well …’
Peggy let out one of her sighs. One of those haven’t-I-put-up-with-enough? sighs. So we let it drop. But I didn’t see why I couldn’t have a go on the crossbow at some point.
Alain came to the jetty. All his belongings he carried in a backpack. He untethered the sky-fin and hitched it to the rail of the boat.
‘She’ll fly along with us,’ he said.
Which she did. So we left the island and the cairns behind us, and instead of three of us, there were four now, and we were all headed for City Island, to start studying. And that was going to make all the difference – so one of us said, the old one – and it would change our lives forever and for the better.
But I still wanted a shot at the crossbow.
10
new passenger
GEMMA SPEAKING AGAIN:
Well, at least it was nice to finally have somebody young on board who wasn’t so constantly and completely juvenile.
I mean, Martin’s all right. Up to a point. But there are only so many stupid questions and smarty-pants retorts that you can tolerate. Maybe not all younger brothers are necessarily idiotic, but mine certainly is inclined that way.
The boy didn’t talk a lot, not at first. He just sat on the deck, looking out into space – of which there is plenty – and you didn’t know if he wanted to be left alone, or if really he wanted you to ask him a question so he could talk about everything that had happened to him.
I told Martin to stop bothering him about the crossbow, but the boy – Alain, that is – said that he didn’t mind. He showed Martin how to use it and they drew a target at the far end of the deck and fired at it. Martin was full of himself when he hit the middle of it, so I asked to try, and I hit the bullseye too – Martin was disappointed to see – so it wasn’t that difficult.
Peggy just left him alone, probably on her time-heals-all-wounds principle. Maybe she’s right about that, or maybe it depends on how much time you’ve got. And how bad the wounds are. Time might heal things, but it doesn’t necessarily do it fast. You could be waiting years for time to put you right. We lost our parents nearly ten years ago now, but time still hasn’t fixed that one. Maybe time can only cure the lesser ailments.
I wondered what had happened to Alain’s parents, and if maybe the soldiers had gone back and had done for them when he was abducted. But it wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask. Only, if they had, he’d be an orphan too, just like me, and Martin.
I said this to Peggy when we were alone by the wheel, and she looked at me and said, ‘Then we’re all orphans, Gemma,’ which took me aback, as I had never thought of Peggy being an orphan before. You don’t think of old people as being orphans. But most of them are, of course. There can’t be many one-hundred-and-twenty-year-olds around who’re still getting birthday cards from their parents.
Alain was kind of ugly-good-looking. It depended on how you saw him, and the facial scars gave him a sinister, but also a rather distinguished appearance. Sometimes he looked almost handsome; others, when he was brooding and lost in his thoughts, he looked like someone with too much experience of too many of the wrong things at too young an age. You even felt sorry for him then, like you wanted to go and comfort him, but afraid that if you tried he might snap at you and bite your head off.
‘You ought to ride that creature or let it go, young man. Look at it,’ Peggy said.
Alain was retrieving the crossbow bolt from the target. We all looked back at the sky-fin, which was flying along behind us, looking as miserable as a sky-fin can – which is pretty miserable. But then miserable is their natural expression, so it doesn’t mean it’s how they feel inside.
The sky-fin was tied to the rail and it flapped along, keeping pace with the boat. It did seem a shame to have it tethered like that.
‘You can always tame another one,’ Peggy said.
Alain looked at her.
‘Easier said,’ he mumbled.
‘Well, it seems cruel to drag it along.’
‘All right.’
He went to the rail and freed the rope, then removed the harness and bridle, patted the creature on its bottle-shaped nose and said, ‘There. You can go now.’
But it didn’t. Not straight away. It looked bewildered by its new freedom – a bit like a prisoner who unexpectedly finds the cell door open, and wonders if it’s safe to make a run for it, or if it’s all some kind of trick.
The boat edged away. Finding itself left behind, the sky-fin flew faster, to keep up with us. Then it realised it didn’t have to, and it lagged further back. Then, with a sudden whoop, it dived and was off, streaking across the sky, turning and swooping and performing all kinds of acrobatics before it disappeared into the distance, and that was the last we saw of it.
‘How about some food?’
It was Peggy’s suggestion, but she didn’t look like she wanted to cook it, and Martin had got stuck with the last meal, so it was my turn. When I headed for the galley, Alain followed me.
‘I’ll help you,’ he said.
And I was going to say no, but changed my mind and said, ‘All right then,’ even though the galley was a bit cramped for two. I saw that Peggy was smiling for some reason.
Then, ‘Martin, that’s enough with the crossbow,’ she said. Reluctantly he put it down and Peggy put it away out of his reach, and later on gave it back to Alain, who got edgy when it was too far away.
We went down and got on with the cooking. Alain didn’t say much, but he knew how to cook.
‘How old are you?’ he said at one point.
I told him.
‘You look younger,’ he said.
It turned out that we were the same age. But he looked older to me. But then he would, after what he’d seen. Sometimes you grow up fast. He told me a little about his family, how they’d lived and where they’d travelled and how he was going to find them again one day.
I wondered then about Peggy and all this schooling that she believed was going to be the answer to everything. I wondered if that was really it – or all of it. I’d noticed she was getting slower these days, and creaked more when she moved, and you’d catch her nodding off when she was pre-tending to be attentive and awake. Maybe she was really taking us to City Island because she was getting too old to look after us now. Or even something else, something worse and more final. But then, as I was thinking this, Alain came up next to me and said,
‘Watch out, it’s going to burn …’
I’d been daydreaming and the rice was boiling dry. I reached to take the pan off the heat, and as I did, my arm brushed his. He recoiled, as if he’d been scalded.
‘It’s OK, I’ve got it,’ I said.
I guess being a soldier makes you nervous.
I think journeys must always have those stretches in them where the world just turns into limbo and time doesn’t pass any more and distance doesn’t close. You just go on sailing, and the heat haze shimmers and the sky-fish fly by and it could be today or it could be tomorrow, but you wouldn’t really know the difference. Even talking’s just too much of an effort, so on you go in silence, drifters on the solar tide, and there’s nobody else around and only barren deserted islands to keep you company.
We all sat on the deck, under the canopy, keeping out of the sun. Peggy dozed, Martin got on my nerves, Alain sat saying nothing – with us but somehow alone and self-contained. If you wanted a word from him, you had to talk to him first.
Hours and days went by. We crossed the Main Drift. We saw a faraway sky-trawler, then a hospital ship, one which cruised the outer islands, offering surgery and treatment for those who couldn’t make it to a city. Then we saw a cruiser, a huge floating hotel, its decks lined with loungers and wrinkly old people.
‘Pe
ggy …’ Martin began.
‘No thanks,’ she said.
He just grinned at her.
‘No one’s packing me off on any cruises,’ she said. ‘I’d rather stick skewers in my head.’
And on we went. Peggy altered course.
‘I’m taking the back way,’ she said. ‘Too busy here.’
She didn’t like the Main Drift. She said a boat like ours could get smashed into by a sky-whaler or a factory-ship and be turned into smithereens and no one would even know.
‘Be like swatting a midge,’ she said. ‘We’ll take the less- travelled road.’
So we did.
We picked up another thermal and sailed on past some fishing islands. There were sky-trawlers tied up at the harbours, with their nets hanging beneath them like baggy, droopy underwear. These were all small places – the boondocks, Peggy called them, where people made a living, but only just, and their kids did as they did, and grew up, and went fishing, and had kids of their own who grew up and went fishing as well. I guess they never got as far as City Island or ever caught a school book in their nets. Or maybe they already knew all they needed to survive.
These islands came and went and soon we were lonely again, with infinities of sky and sparse slivers of land. But then, just as I was dozing, I saw Martin getting up and taking the telescope from its holder by the mast. He raised it up and looked through it at an island that was coming into view.
‘Peggy,’ he said. ‘What is that?’
I went to the rail to get a look. Even without the telescope I could see them. All along the coast of the small island we were approaching were what looked like scarecrows – huge, crucified scarecrows. There were maybe fifty of them. They stood at least three metres tall, and the span of their outstretched arms had to be two metres wide at least. They’d been mounted on posts, shaped like crosses. It looked like there had been a massacre, but what of and who by, I could only guess. But when I tried guessing, I couldn’t.
Alain reached out and took the telescope from Martin.
‘Can I?’
‘Sure.’
He looked, then handed the telescope to Peggy. He waited until she had looked through it before giving his opinion. That was how Cloud Hunters were – respect for elders – well, when they weren’t being soldiers anyway. (Though Peggy said that in her opinion you shouldn’t just respect people for being old. They still had to earn it, same as anyone. But then, I guess she’d earned it too.)
‘It’s a skinner, isn’t it?’
‘Certainly is, young man,’ Peggy said. ‘Thought they’d all died out. Not seen a skinner in decades.’
‘It’s a what?’ Martin said. ‘What’s a skinner? What is it?’ And he would have snatched the telescope away, only it was my turn.
‘Just be patient, Martin.’
‘But what’s a skinner? What is it? What does it do? What are those things on the crosses?’
‘Skins,’ Alain said. ‘That’s all.’
‘But skins of what?’
‘I think –’ he looked at Peggy for confirmation – ‘they’re rats.’
‘Rats!’ Martin said. ‘Rats? But they’re enormous.’
‘Sky-rats,’ Alain said.
‘Wow! I didn’t know they got that big. They’re the size of sharks.’
‘And bigger. You don’t find them everywhere, but in some parts of the sky they’re a plague. The fishermen hate them. They mangle the nets and plunder the catches. There’s a bounty on them – so much per tail. The government pays. And the skins are valuable. They make fine, soft leather. You’d sell those skins for a small fortune when a trader comes by.’
‘Wow …’
It was a grim, eerie sight as we sailed along. All those skins, pinioned and stretched and nailed out to dry. Curious as the view was, we had no intention of stopping.
Yet as we came parallel with the island, a man rushed to a promontory at the shore, and he began to wave and to shout at us. But we couldn’t hear what he was saying.
‘He looks a bit crazy,’ I said.
‘Rat-skinning for a living, who wouldn’t look crazy?’ Peggy said.
‘Should we keep going?’
‘Rule of the sky,’ Peggy said. Which, basically, meant that we had to stop. If someone needs your help, you give it, as you might need theirs one day. That’s the rule of the sky – half altruism and half self-interest.
The man went on waving and shouting, looking a bit frantic and afraid that we might just keep going.
‘OK. Let’s see what he wants. Agreed?’
I nodded, and so did Martin. Alain slightly inclined his head. Then he went and picked up his crossbow, loaded a bolt into it, and cocked the trigger.
11
rat-skinning for beginners
GEMMA STILL TALKING:
The man on the shore continued waving as we sailed in, but now there was a big smile on his face.
‘Come in, come in. You’re welcome, you’re welcome.’
And that was when I noticed the odour.
‘What is that stink?’
‘The skins. That’s why they’re hung out – to cure them. Takes a while for it to go away.’
‘Well, it smells of –’
‘Rats?’ Alain suggested. And he actually smiled. The first one since we’d met him.
‘Come on board, come on board,’ the man shouted. We threw him a line and he tied us in. Then we got off the boat and onto the shore.
He was half crazy all right. He didn’t just smell like a sky-rat, he’d actually started to look like one. And I’d only ever seen the small ones – not the large variety. He had rodent-like features and his moustache looked more like sky-rat whiskers than anything that normally grew on human upper lips.
‘What can we do for you, friend?’ Peggy asked him. ‘You need something? You got some trouble?’
‘I do, I do. Cheese, I need,’ he said. ‘Have you got any cheese?’
He wasn’t half crazy, I thought. The halves didn’t enter into it.
‘Cheese?’ Peggy said. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I sure am. I need some. You got some? I’ll pay you. Name your price.’
‘I haven’t seen cheese, my friend,’ Peggy said, ‘in over eighty years. These two kids here have never seen real cheese. I don’t know about our cloud-hunting companion –’ Alain shook his head. ‘You won’t get cheese this side of the Main Drift for crime, love or money. I can give you some soya cheese.’
‘No, no, no. The rats won’t go for it. It has to be milk cheese or nothing.’
‘Friend, don’t you know your history?’
‘I know I need some cheese.’
‘They brought a few animals from the old world, and that was all. A lot of them didn’t survive and the rest – with a few exceptions – only just. And cattle, well, when did you last see an island with grazing on it? There’s two islands I know of with cattle on them and that’s it. And even there the feed’s grown in greenhouses. Cheese is gold dust, friend. Why can’t you just have soya?’
‘You don’t understand, lady,’ the man said. ‘It’s the rats.’
And he twitched, in a kind of rodent-like way, wrinkling his nose up as if it was a snout.
‘Can I go and look at the skins?’ Martin said.
‘Is that all right?’ Peggy asked.
‘Help yourself,’ the man said. ‘But are you sure you don’t have maybe just a crumb of cheese? There’s a big one out there, a big, big one. Been trying to catch it now for two turnings. Wrecks the nets, eats the catches, even killed a shark – I saw it do it. But I just can’t catch him. Ignores all the traps. His stomach’s too full and he won’t be tempted. Doesn’t matter what bait I put out, he won’t bite.’
Martin and Alain went to inspect the skins. I reached up and felt one of them. They were surprisingly soft – luxurious, even.
‘But he’d take some cheese.’
Peggy looked dubious.
‘How do you know?’
&nb
sp; ‘Had some once. Bought it off a trader. They love it. Can’t resist. Sky-rats and cheese, like catnip. Talking of which, is that a sky-cat you’ve got there?’
He’d spotted Botcher, peering over the deck rail, wondering if he should risk stepping off the boat and onto land.
‘It is.’
‘He a mouser?’ the man said.
‘He’s bone idle,’ Peggy said. ‘He wouldn’t even chase his own tail.’
‘Pity,’ the man said. ‘I could do with a good mouser. I had a mouser but he’s gone.’
‘What happened?’
‘Rat ate him.’
‘What rat?’
‘The one I’m after catching. Hence I need the cheese.’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Peggy said. ‘We’d help you if we could –’
‘Wait up,’ the Ratter (as I’d started calling him in my head) said. ‘You’ve got no cheese, but you’ve got kids. How old’s the boy?’
‘What?’
‘The young one?’ He was looking at Martin. He and Alain were still wandering among the pegged-out skins. ‘Not the older one, he’s no good. He’s come of age, hasn’t he, or he wouldn’t have the scars.’
‘Why are you asking?’
‘Because they like boys.’
Peggy was looking alarmed now.
‘Who do?’
‘The rats. Like boys. Kids. They like the smell of them. How’d the kid there like to make some money?’
‘What was that?’
Martin had big ears when he wanted to have them. You could ask him to do the washing-up and he wouldn’t hear you. Mention money and he’d have no problems hearing a pin drop.
‘Oh no,’ Peggy said. ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea. I really don’t think so. I’m these children’s guardian. And I really don’t think –’
‘Safe, lady,’ the Ratter said. ‘Safe as houses. No risk at all. We just leave him out on the far shore there, let the wind carry the scent of him, the big old sky-rat out there gets a sniff, in he comes, we plug him, the boy’s fine. No worries.’
‘No, wait a minute,’ Peggy said. ‘Just hold on –’