The Cloud Hunters

by Alex Shearer

  In the Lower Eastern Forbidden, for example, all people must wear gloves. Nobody really says why, except that it is allegedly unclean not to do so. The punishment for not covering a hand is to have the uncovered one chopped off. You may only remove your gloves when at home in the presence of your family. To remove your gloves in the presence of anybody else is considered deeply offensive and punished accordingly. There are people on the island with no hands at all. And nobody has any sympathy for them, for they brought it all on themselves.

  But the ludicrous wars and quarrels of the Forbidden Islanders have a serious side: they make travel through the area, and trade within it, extremely dangerous. The Forbidden Islanders take the view that if you are not for them, then you are against them – you are for their enemy, which makes you their enemy too.

  So it’s as well to give the Forbidden Isles a wide berth. For you never know what odd cult is going to spring up next. You may find that someone has taken a dislike to other people breathing, or talking, or whistling, or eating lunch. And if they find you doing any of these things, they’ll kill you. Just to show you the error of your ways.

  Now, next door to the Forbidden Isles are the Isles of Dissent. And the contrast could not be greater.

  These neighbouring islands are where those who couldn’t agree with bigotry or live with tyranny took refuge and set up their own societies. Whatever their individual views may be, their main precept is tolerance. They don’t wish to kill anyone for thinking differently. They just want to live in harmony.

  Their essential philosophy seems to be that the majority is always wrong, and that absolute certainty is usually a mistake, and that people should always budge up and make a little room for doubt. (Although they cannot, of course, be absolutely sure of that, for it would invalidate all they believed in.)

  The Dissenting Islanders are the most easy-going people in the system, and their Forbidden Isle neighbours regard them with deep suspicion and hostility. They also refuse to trade with them or to supply them with water.

  The Isles of Dissent, though beautiful, are barren and dry. Little flourishes there naturally except some bitter, inedible weeds. The Dissenters grow what food they can in greenhouses, but these require irrigation. They make some water using condensing machines to extract it from the air; but the local atmosphere is so lacking in humidity that they collect very little.

  Once or twice a month it might rain. The Dissenters collect and store all they can. They use their water frugally, and reuse it, over and over. They filter and distil used water to make it clean again; not a drop is wasted.

  If so much as a cup of water is knocked over, it is a cause of much dismay and recrimination. Small children are kept well away from water containers; it’s not the stuff to play with.

  You might imagine that with such a shortage of water, the Dissenters would have a strong, pungent aroma about them. But they are as clean as anyone. It is just that where some people would use a bath, they make do with a bowl; where others would use a shower, they use a flannel.

  But their biggest fear is not the bigotry of the neighbouring Forbidden Islanders, nor that they might suffer from body odours and stale sweat. Their major fear is fire, for they do not have the water with which to extinguish it.

  The Dissenters rely on visits from Cloud Hunters to keep themselves and their horticulture alive. No other traders will risk passing the neighbouring Forbidden Isles. The Cloud Hunters are the only ones.

  So I wondered long about what Jenine had said to me, about taking water to the Isles of Dissent when the main school holiday came. It sounded like an adventure and a half. And I wondered how they intended to go there.

  The simplest, safest route was along the Main Drift. But this way was also indirect and tedious and time-consuming. The quickest course was between the Islands of Night. But few went that way if they could avoid it. Especially since the people who did go that way stopped coming back.

  That route also took you close to the Forbidden Isles, who were at war with each other again, and suspicious of all strangers – whose presence might unite even them in common cause. One look at Kaneesh and the Forbidden Islanders would have the grappling irons on the deck, the boat boarded in minutes.

  The trouble with Kaneesh was that he looked too much like the heathen he was, all the way from his head to his toes. I’m not saying he was a heathen in any bad sense. He just seemed like a general affront to organised society, and an intolerant one certainly wouldn’t stand him for long. And although he looked well able to take care of himself, there was only one of him. Even he couldn’t have taken on a warship full of Forbidden Islanders single-handed.

  Cloud Hunters, as a breed, are an independent and a fearless race. They travel where they please and trade with whom they choose. Cloud Hunters are afraid of nobody. Or rather, they more than likely are, but they know how to conceal it. And sometimes the appearance of fearlessness is as good as fearlessness itself.

  I think the Cloud Hunters shared the Dissenters’ view that the majority was always wrong, that the law was always in need of reform, that all certainties needed rethinking and that everything forbidden should perhaps be allowed after all.

  And they could have sold their water anywhere. They didn’t have to trade with the Isles of Dissent. It was a long, hazardous journey, but they made the voyage regularly, without fail. And that water they delivered was just enough for the Dissenters to scrape by on, until they came again.

  The Dissenters sometimes tried to hunt clouds for themselves, but never with much success. They had neither the equipment, the traditions, nor the expertise. Also, their neighbours, the Forbidden Islanders, with their compressors and distillers, sucked every cloud up almost the moment it appeared.

  Once or twice there had been clashes between them over this, but the superior forces of the Forbidden Islanders had blasted the Dissenters out of the sky.

  When it comes to war, you can bank on it that the pacifists never win.

  10

  men-of-war

  If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

  So I decided it was time to do some asking. Maybe for just a little at first, then a bit more. What did I have to lose, apart from the breath it took to ask the question?

  A refusal may often offend. But I wasn’t that easily offended, at least not by a simple No. It could change to a Yes at any time. All it needs is a little persistence. That’s the way to change people’s minds: keep at them. Just look at a little child who wants an ice cream, when his parents say no. He rants, he raves, he lies on the ground, he holds his breath until his face turns blue. And maybe it gets him nowhere. Or sometimes it gets him his ice-cream cone.

  Besides, nobody else had invited Jenine to visit their homes or to splash in their half-empty water pools. Almost everyone else in the school was wary of her, and those who weren’t were often snobs, who wouldn’t have allowed a Cloud Hunter anywhere near the house anyway, unless it was to deliver water. And even then they’d have told them not to come in, but to wait outside on the inaptly named welcome mat.

  I thought I’d start by being subtle.

  I ran into Jenine one morning, and asked when she might next be embarking on a cloud-hunting expedition.

  ‘The weekend, I would think,’ she said. ‘Depends on the weather.’

  ‘Well, that would be a nice trip,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been cloud hunting myself.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ she said. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. Not being a Cloud Hunter, and not having a cloud-hunting boat, it’s not that likely, is it?’

  And that was that. So much for subtle hints.

  The following morning, I tried again. My father had happened to drop a useful piece of information while we had sat talking at the dinner table the night before.

  ‘Hi, Jenine.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Jenine –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is it true that according to Cloud Hunters’ custom, hospitality must always be
reciprocated?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know – that one invitation deserves another.’

  She looked as if she might break into a smile, but didn’t.

  ‘Been doing research, have you?’ she said. ‘Into the quaint customs of minorities?’

  ‘No, just – happened to hear about it.’

  ‘What are you getting at, Christien?’

  ‘Well, as I invited you to dinner – you know –’

  ‘You want your invitation returned? You want to eat what we eat? Rice and sky-fish from a bowl? With a pair of chopsticks? Sitting cross-legged on the deck? Wouldn’t you miss your nice cutlery and comfy chairs? And we’re a bit short on napkins.’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind. But I’d rather come for longer than dinner.’

  ‘Oh, would you? Meaning what, exactly?’

  ‘How about I come cloud hunting? One weekend?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Get in the way.’

  ‘Yes, you probably would.’

  ‘No, I’d be useful. I could help out.’

  ‘Help? Doing what?’

  ‘If you showed me what to do I could be useful.’

  ‘Hmm –’

  ‘Is that a yes, then?’

  It wasn’t.

  ‘I think I go this way, here,’ she said. ‘And you go that way, don’t you? I’ll see you around.’

  But she hadn’t actually said no. When I tried the third time, she just shrugged and said she’d ask her mother, if she remembered, that was.

  Just in case she hadn’t remembered, I reminded her again the next day.

  It was another week before I received a proper answer. But it had been worth waiting for.

  Jenine came up to me one lunch hour and said, without preamble, ‘We’re sailing this weekend, if you want to come, in the late afternoon. We’ll be away two nights. You’ll need to bring a bedroll. Be there no later than five. We shan’t wait. If you’re not there, we’ll just go. We’ll be back about six in the evening, Rest Day night.’

  And that was it.

  Rest Day was another expression for the old Sunday. The names of Sunday through to Saturday fell into disuse. We divide our time up just like people used to; and we kept the number of days but changed the names. Rest Day is the old Sunday, First Day is the old Monday, and you can no doubt work out the rest for yourself.

  I went home, worried about getting permission to go off at such short notice. My father would look concerned and my mother would no doubt say, ‘What about your homework? Is it safe? Cloud Hunters, are they reliable? Are they the sort of people you can trust?’

  And so on. But I had some replies ready – antidotes to every objection. I could do my homework on the boat. Of course they were respectable, she had met them, hadn’t she? Of course they were trustworthy; a Cloud Hunter’s word was a gilt-edged bond. Of course it was safe, they were reputedly the best sailors in the whole system. And Kaneesh looked able to handle any trouble. And so did Carla come to that and – and so on.

  So I asked as soon as I got home

  My parents said they’d think about it.

  It seems to me that some people are a little overly fond of thinking about things. Maybe a bit less thinking things over and a bit more decision-making wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  While they were thinking about it, there was an emergency warning on the news. We were used to them; they didn’t really worry us. But this time it was different. A merchant sky-trader had spotted two men-of-war in the vicinity of the island, two sky-jellies that is, and from the way the prevailing winds were blowing, they were heading in our direction. They might pass the island by, or they might sail overhead. We just had to be on the alert and ready to take cover the moment their approaching shapes triggered the sirens and sent people scurrying inside.

  Nine times out of ten the warnings amounted to nothing: the men-of-war would be blown away from us, or they might rise on a thermal, far above us, or even drop underneath our island as they hit a current of cold air.

  People give familiar names to unfamiliar things – perhaps they feel somehow reassured by it – and the sky-jellies were no exception. Like the jellyfish in the sea of the old world, some of these creatures were small and harmless, but others were huge and lethal, and trailed long, poisonous tentacles.

  These men-of-war were the largest, their dimensions staggering. They could be as big as whole islands. Their tentacles would drift for astonishing distances. It could take a day for a giant man-of-war to pass overhead. And until it did, there was nothing you could do but to stay inside and wait for it to go. If one of its tentacles touched you, it would scar you for life, possibly kill you, and your death would be a prolonged and an agonising one. Their tentacles held sacs of poison.

  Even after a man-of-war had passed, it left trouble behind it. Its drifting tentacles would attach to buildings and rocks, and then tear away as its vast, translucent body floated off with the breeze. The loss of a few tentacles seemed not to bother it in the slightest.

  The discarded tentacles would lie, matted on the roofs and dangling from the sides of buildings, trails of slimy jelly, corrosive and dangerous to touch. The fibrous covering held in the moisture, so the remains would take a long time to evaporate. They had to be neutralised with chemicals and then burnt away, or scraped off, by workmen wearing thick gloves, protective suits and goggles.

  The gunge would be everywhere, on your doors and windows, on the walls of your house, on the doorbell, the door handle, on the garden path. It was horrible stuff and had a bad odour, smelling every bit as foul as it looked.

  We were lucky that the men-of-war jellies didn’t pass by often. There were frequent warnings, but mostly came to nothing. The wind would change direction and the men-of-war would drift elsewhere.

  Sometimes a gunship would go up and try to create enough air turbulence to make them alter course. Or it would simply blast them out of the sky – fragments of poisoned jelly splattering everywhere. Then down they would go.

  The sky-jellies often had babies with them: small pulsating things, no bigger than kites, their tentacles only a few feet long and as pretty as paper streamers. The babies even looked quite cute. Instead of being wholly transparent, they were vivid red, with traces of pink. But they were every bit as poisonous.

  I was out by the beach when the siren sounded. I could see the blob in the distance, far off in the sky. There was plenty of time to get home, but I ran.

  When I got back, both my parents were there – home from work early. We locked the doors and windows and I went up to my room. I sat there, with my elbows on the sill, peering out, as the sky gradually darkened and a convoy of men-of-war drifted into view. I wondered what Jenine was doing. I guessed she and her mother and Kaneesh would have battened all the hatches and be sheltering in the cabins of their boat.

  The men-of-war came, their tendrils leisurely trailing across the rooftops, like fingers stroking a face. The first wave of them passed without incident, but then a second wave came. These were larger, floating lower in the sky. Their tendrils dragged all over the island, leaving globules of slime.

  I watched them float towards our house. Then I heard a voice – the voice of a panic-stricken man shouting. He must have somehow ignored the early warnings – or hadn’t heard them – and become trapped outside.

  He was running, terrified, over the fields, with the men-of-war right behind him. Their tentacles dangled like those bead curtains they have in the doorways of food shops, to allow the cool air in, but to keep the insects out.

  He ran, shouting for help, desperately seeking shelter. He beat on doors and hammered on windows, but nobody would dare to let him in.

  On he ran, the men-of-war following, moving swiftly with the wind. The man tripped and fell; he got up, stumbled again, then got up once more. He limped on, hobbling painfully, as if he had twisted an ankle.

  The men-of-war were gaining
on him, yet floating with such effortless grace. They looked so beautiful it was hard to believe they were dangerous. They could have been the great blooms of giant flowers.

  The man hurried limpingly on. I lost sight of him for a moment, but then heard his cries again, and I could hear him begging for help as he hammered at our door, the last house around. There was no other shelter.

  I dashed to the stairs, but my father was already in the hallway. He yanked the front door open and pulled the man inside. The man tumbled in and collapsed on the floor. My father slammed the door shut, just in time, for a second later there was the soft, flaccid sound of scraping tendrils dragging along outside. The house grew so dark it was almost like night. We turned on the lights; we waited; we listened. At last the sky lightened. The men-of-war had passed. Our windows were smeared with slime.

  My father helped the man up and took him to the kitchen, where my mother bandaged his ankle. She offered him some tea, but my father poured out rum. The man thanked us profusely.

  When we saw him out, we discovered that the paintwork on the outside of the door had peeled and blistered where the sky-jelly had brushed against it. It was like the scar of a burn mark, and gave off a bitter, acrid smell.

  We stared at the mark, and though nobody said anything, we were all thinking the same thing: that it could so easily have been the man and not the door; that he might now be lying there on the doorstep, in the final throes of death.

  At least they had passed, though, and we wouldn’t see them again for a long while.

  Or so we hoped.

  But the wind changed direction. And they came back.

  And this time it was Jenine they came for.

  11

  deadly waltz

  We were at school next morning when the men-of-war returned.

  First we heard the sirens, telling us to get inside and to close all doors and windows. Then we saw them come. The siren stopped and the world fell to silence. The teachers locked the outer doors.

  We gathered at the windows to watch them. It was a free show. They were riding the thermals and rippling with the wind. They blocked half the light. Silence fell, heavy and thick, like a blanket; it seemed to envelop the whole island. We jostled for space to get a decent view. Some people stood on their desks, but the teacher let them and said nothing. We watched, and waited, and listened.