by J Battle
He was fully aware that, in focusing on the boat and the river and the approaching boat laden with apes, he was trying to distract himself from thinking about the other role the Witness fulfilled. It was not working very well.
He knew the role was chosen by chance, but surely, somewhere, common sense had to prevail. There was no sign of it so far. If you lined up everyone here in order of their suitability for the role, he was fairly certain that he would be somewhere near the back, a couple of rows in front of the camp followers.
Now here he was, about to fulfil his role as Witness to the negotiations. And when that was complete and the stage one battle had been fought, and the defender/attacker position was resolved as expected in favour of the Apes as defenders and the Cats as attackers, he would emerge as the Champion of the cats, and be faced with winning the war, single-pawed.
**********
Perdus and Deylus had walked all through the day; the faint glow in the west was all that was left of the day’s light. It would soon be time to stop for the night. Perdus was fairly happy with their progress so far; they had left the temple and Hellion far behind and, below, he could see the icy peaks of the central mountains, jutting half way up the vertical black sides of The Wall.
‘Why aren’t we cold? And why isn’t the air thin? If we were down on that mountain, we’d be freezing, and we’d find it hard to breath.’
Perdus turned to Deylus, who was sitting beside him.
‘Through the generosity of The Wall, we are provided with all our needs.’
‘Oh good! I’m hungry.’
‘You know that’s not what I mean. The Wall provides heat and good air to aid the smooth passage of the people when I…, when it is time for them to be lead into the embrace of the Twin Gods, may they bless the sky and the land.’
‘How far does this wall go, then?’
‘It has never been measured. No-one has walked its length. There are references in the scriptures that suggest that it has no end. That it carries on forever.’
‘Sounds like a very long walk for ‘The People’ then.’
‘When the time comes, they will be adequate for the task.’
‘I really am hungry. Did you bring anything to eat?’
‘The absence of food helps the mind to focus.’
‘The absence of food makes my stomach rumble.’
Perdus lowered his head to his chest and closed his eyes.
Deylus watched him for a moment, then grunted to himself and settled down for the night, his perch no more than two paws wide, and half a league above the jagged mountains peaks below. He didn’t expect he’d get much in the way of sleep.
Chapter 12
Helen sighed with relief when the AEC broke through the cloud cover and entered clear air. Of course the AEC’s onboard instruments had shown it would be there but, after everything that had gone wrong on Apollo’s Arrow, it was nice to see something work out right.
They were low over a flat grey sea, flying away from the land that was their destination. Gripping the controls, she turned the ship in a wide arch and headed back the way they’d come.
Lifting the craft slightly, until it was just below the thick clouds, she flew across a straight yellow road. To her left, she could see a large circular town; to her right, across the river, was another town, spreading along its length.
Ahead was a large, black…something, that seemed to stretch from one horizon to the next. She lifted the craft higher, back into the clouds as she flew over the highest visible part of the edifice, and the mountains it dominated.
She turned the craft to the right, towards the linear development, and dropped back below the cloud cover briefly, using the AEC's observation systems to record the scene below. Thanks goodness the AEC was man-made and not subject to the treachery of the Succ-y-Rist.
She flew back into the clouds and directed the craft towards the circular town, where she repeated the observation process.
‘I’ll land near this black thing; on the side away from the developments, for safety’s sake,’ she said quietly to Milligan, who was gripping both arms of is seat a little too tightly. 'What can we see of the indigents?'
Milligan released his grip and tapped the console, leaning forward to study the screens.
'The inhabitants of the first town seem to be apes, mostly naked and covered in hair. They seem to be wearing … skirts I supposed you'd call them.'
He altered the display. 'You'll never believe this, but I'd swear the other town is full of cats. Well, catlike aliens we should call them. They might look like cats, but some of them walk upright, and they appear to have tool carrying capabilities. That's something we should bear in mind, Ma'am. No matter how cute and tabby-like they may appear, they are aliens, and we shouldn't let the way they look fool us.'
Helen winced; she was a dog person, and had never been fond of cats.
**********
Handus watched as the opposition boat approached. Their boat was also a little small for the job, especially when you saw the size of one of its passengers; he was huge. So big, in fact, that only his head, arms, and upper torso were actually in the boat; the lower parts of his body were trailing in water.
Handus didn’t have much experience of apes, as they didn’t frequent his part of Hellion, but he hoped that the other much smaller beast in the boat was more representative of his species than the monster that seemed to be grinning directly at him. He was only a little larger than Handus, and his hairy body possessed long muscular arms and a deep, heavy chest. His broad jaws hung from a large head, with small white teeth and tiny eyes. His legs seemed disproportionately short, but there was some sort of fabric wrapped around his waist and covering his groin area, so it was difficult to tell. The fabric was bright yellow with red markings. Handus had no idea what benefit the beast received from wearing it.
When the boats were within a couple of legs of each other, ropes were thrown between them by the ape he assumed was the Negotiator, to prevent them from drifting apart.
Flextus braced his hind paws against the inner sides of the boat and stood upright.
‘Be wary Old Enemy,’ he announced, his voice loud enough to carry to the bank behind him, ‘we come to wage war and we will not be withstood.’
Handus recognised the traditional words, learnt by all kittens.
‘Be wary Old Enemy,’ the ape repeated his pronouncement, word for word.
With the rote warnings completed, there followed a long hour of negotiations; a mixture of ritual phrases interspersed with the occasional sentence that actually had some reference to today.
Handus watched his opposite number, who’s lips were moving as he listened to the to and fro between the Negotiators. It was obvious that he was not here for his brains as a Witness, and was much more suitable for his possible future role as Champion. Even if Handus was lucky enough not to have to fight him as a Champion, he would still have to deal with him as a Defender, admittedly with nine others to help him. He was far from certain that those numbers would make a big difference to the outcome.
At the end of the negotiations, Flextus leant his head to one side and the Ape’s Negotiator lifted his chin up and down twice. Fighting ground Number Three had been decided upon as the place where this cycle’s war would be decided.
Handus could see both good and bad in the resolution. Number three was on this side of the river, which was good for the cats. The apes would have to cross the river before hostilities could commence, and any losses during the crossing would count.
As an avid student of history, Handus knew that, the last time Number Three had been the appointed place, the cats had prevailed, when the remarkable General Endus had executed a brilliant three pronged attack at the very last minute and secured an unassailable territorial advantage; taking the field with minimal losses and great glory.
It was unfortunate that the exalted general was no longer alive. Handus couldn’t help feeling that their current general, though an excell
ent cat manager, was hardly a brilliant tactician.
Those point were on the good side of the equation.
On the bad side was the fact that fighting ground Number Three was the closest of all the grounds, so the battle could be fought the following day.
He looked at the great beast lolling across the back of the other boat. Then he cast his eyes across the river. How many more like him did they have over there? Although he knew that their force could not exceed one thousand individuals, as he looked across the water at them, it seemed to him that there were many more than that number facing him. And it was him, personally, that they seemed to be facing.
He looked back at his opposite number. He was grinning at him again.
Chapter 13
Perdus dreamed.
He knew he was dreaming because his limbs were straight and furless, and he was locked inside a long narrow room, filled with other creatures similarly denuded. There were a variety of noises being emitted by the small round mouths of the creatures; he knew they words of some sort, but they were indecipherable to him.
A door opened in the side of the room and all of the strange creatures trooped out into the open; Perdus found himself amongst them. The Wall towered above them, higher than he’d ever seen it, blocking out half of the sky. The ground at his feet was dusty and flat, the only visible vegetation an odd squat unhealthy looking shrub, low to the ground a few legs from him.
Now that he had a better opportunity to study the creatures, Perdus could see that they were apelike in appearance, though it was difficult to be sure as they were covered from neck to feet in a dull silver material. Their faces were flat and naked, with small mouths and tiny, almost vestigial snouts, and there was fur covering the tops of their heads. They held themselves upright with apparent ease and stamped about the area near the base of The Wall, their heavy shod feet raising dust.
Perdus looked back at the room and was surprised to find that he had exited the strange object he had seen flying across the sky. He turned to the creatures again. Where had they come from? What was their purpose here?
Then one of the creatures spoke directly to him, and, suddenly, he could understand her.
‘What do you think, Armstrong?’ Her head was covered in a light coloured fur and her covering looked a little tight.
The words that came out of Perdus’s mouth were not his own; they were short, clumpy, awkward sounds.
‘Well, it certainly looks odd, stuck out here in these barren lands. It’s nearly three kilometres high here, and if you look to the north, you can see that it is getting higher the further it goes. It is also warm; seven degrees Celsius above the ambient temperature and the oxygen level is raised, eleven percentage points at its surface above the level ten metres away.’
‘And your conclusion?’
‘To be confirmed, pending further investigation.’
*********
Perdus awoke with a jerk. Deylus was nudging his shoulder with one paw.
‘You were having a nightmare.’
‘No, it was a dream.’
‘Well, you looked like you were going to fall off the wall.’
‘I’m a cat, I never fall.’
‘If you say so.’
Perdus looked around for a moment. Dawn seemed close, so it made sense to start off now.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Just give me a moment to imagine the breakfast I should be having, then I’ll be ready.’
They had travelled for a couple of hours when Perdus stopped and turned to Deylus.
‘We are coming to a dead zone, where The Wall changes. It’s colder and the surface is crumbly, and the air is thinner. So we have to be quick, but we also have to be careful.’
‘How long is this dead zone?’
‘This is about a quarter of a league; there are longer ones later.’
‘What causes them?’
‘There is nothing in the scriptures, so we don’t know.’
Deylus paused for a moment, more than a little stunned by the news.
‘If they’re not in the scriptures, does that mean they are new? That The Wall has changed?’
‘It would be wiser not to jump to conclusions. Of course The Wall cannot change; it is a perfect gift from the Twin Gods, may they bless the sky and the land.’
‘Obviously I’m wrong then.’
A few legs later, the surface of The Wall changed colour to a dark, grainy grey, and it was already colder to the touch.
Deylus paused to examine the edges that were no longer sharp. He raked a claw against one edge and tiny crumbs came away, leaving a clearly discernible scar. He glanced at the back of Perdus, who had not stopped, and followed after him.
As they continued, he found it more difficult to breath, and the cold burned his paws. It was with great relief that they came to the end of the zone and were able to rest on the warm black healthy surface.
Whilst Perdus said nothing further about the condition of the wall, Deylus was beginning to worry. It really seemed to him that The Wall was dying, and, despite his cynical stance, he couldn’t help feeling that, if that was possible, nothing else in his life was safe.
Chapter 14
Handus climbed back onto the bank with a sigh of relief. That was his first and, hopefully, his last experience of being on the water. It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t natural.
The Negotiator had been called to meet the General to give his formal report. When he was finished, Handus would be required to give his confirmation. He was looking for Lus, when he saw the pale female from the tower walking towards him. Every male she passed turned to watch her slinky movement as she switched her tail and strolled towards him, her tail held high.
Handus felt more than a little nervous as her green eyes bored into him, then he caught her scent and all reservations were driven from his mind. She sidled up to him, gently bumped her shoulder against his, and then moved on, her tail bobbing seductively behind her. Without another thought, Handus followed her.
Lus had watched the whole thing from his perch at the top of the tower, and he chuckled to himself as he turned his attention back to the river. On the other side, the ugly apes were breaking down their camp and preparing for the short march to the ford that would take them to fighting ground Number Three. With a little luck, the river would rise up and wash them all away. It struck him how large the apes seemed this year, but surely that was just an illusion. It had to be; nothing changes.
Half an hour later he was having this very argument with one of the assault troop; a big, heavy black cat who wore the scars across his chest like medals.
‘Doesn’t matter how big they are; apes are not built to fight. Not like we are. We have five natural weapons that they don’t. Our four claws, and our teeth. They can’t bite and they can’t scratch; all they can do is punch; if you get close in, they can’t even do that. No, we’ll win the battle and our ten will beat their champion, even if he is enormous.’
Lus looked around to make sure that Handus hadn’t returned.
‘We better win the battle; I don’t think our champion is going to be successful otherwise. And we can’t afford another three years without access to the Field’
**********
‘There’s nothing here for us. I think we should try a bit further north. The land might be better there, especially if we land away from this edifice.’
Armstrong frowned at the captain.
‘Before we leave, I think we should try to learn more about it. It would be foolhardy to leave before we know what it is.’
Helen studied him for a moment; she understood his curiosity, but she had the safety of the whole group to consider, small as it was.
‘We can’t afford to waste time on this. We need to find a suitable place to set up, before we run out of fuel.’
‘Let me take some soil samples and do a full scan of the edifice. It will take just a couple of hours. That can’t do any harm, can it?’
‘Okay, thi
s is what we’re going to do. The sun, if we could even see it, is due to go down in three hours. Do your tests and we’ll stop the night and set off at what passes for first light here.’
‘Thank you Captain.’
‘Have you seen technician Jones?’
‘He just over there; leaning against the edifice.’
Helen followed his gaze and saw Jones with his head pressed against the black surface. He appeared to be listening to something.
‘What are you up to Jones?’
Helen had surprised him with her silent approach. He jerked away from the edifice, and sweat glistened on his forehead.
‘Good evening Sir. I was only listening, Sir.’
‘Listening to what?’
‘To The Wall.’
Helen leaned back, looking up the edifice as high as she could see.
‘You think it’s a wall? What would need such a big wall to keep it in?’
‘Or to keep it out.’
‘Yes, that too.’
‘I don’t know. But if you listen, you can hear something. Press your ear against it.’
‘It’ll just be the blood in your ears that you can hear.’
‘No, it’s a rustling sound.’
Helen placed her palm against the edifice. It was warm, and so smooth. Your hand wanted to slip off its black shiny surface. She leant her left ear against it, and listened. For a couple of seconds, there was nothing. Then, she thought she heard something, so low she could have been imagining it. It could have been a rustle; it could equally have been her succumbing to the heightened suggestibility of the whole situation.
Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to admit it to Jones; not when he was standing just a little bit too close for comfort.