The Cloud Hunters

by Alex Shearer

  It didn’t seem fair to me that we would probably all be caught and hanged now, just because he had made a promise. I didn’t see how we could possibly free those prisoners without getting taken ourselves.

  The city was a mass of Believers by then, with more arriving every hour. Already people were marking their spots out in the square so that they might have a fine view of tomorrow’s executions. They had come prepared to camp out overnight to secure their places.

  Yes, outside, I thought, was a potential lynch mob, a hundred thousand strong. So I didn’t rate our chances of rescue and escape very highly. I didn’t rate them at all.

  ‘Anyone want more of this tea?’ Mikhail asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t mind another cup.’

  Anything to delay the moment. From a limited number of options, more tea seemed like the best available.

  Yet, for some reason, Jenine was smiling.

  35

  rescue plan

  Three of us left the tea shop: Kaneesh, myself and Jenine. Her parents said they would follow after five minutes, and so we threaded our way back along the streets and alleyways and out into the countryside, to return to the secluded cove and the hidden ship, bobbing at anchor in the air.

  By now the entire populace of the island seemed to be heading into the city for the following day’s ‘festivities’ – if that was the correct word for a public hanging. Anxious to remain inconspicuous, we unavoidably stood out from the crowd by the very fact of our going against it. We were swimmers against the tide.

  ‘Where are you going, Believer? You’re heading the wrong way! You surely don’t want to miss the fun!’

  (Fun, indeed? I thought. People being hanged is fun? Which only went to show that one person’s misery is only too often another’s entertainment.)

  People jostled and cajoled us, already in a light-hearted, party mood. Kaneesh bristled, as if he’d like to knock some heads together, but discretion held him back.

  The alleyways widened into streets and the streets turned to country roads. We reached the track we had come along and retraced our steps. We found the boat, still safe and hidden, and climbed aboard to wait for the others.

  They took their time and were late enough to worry us, but eventually they came, arm-in-arm. No doubt they had had plenty to talk about and much to say to each other along the way.

  Kaneesh was preparing a meal when they arrived. But the instant we sat down to eat it, he raised the subject that was at the back of all of our minds.

  ‘So, brother,’ he said, ‘these friends of yours –’

  ‘Fellow prisoners,’ Mikhail corrected him. (‘Friends’ evidently might have been exaggerating the case a little and pitching it too strong.)

  ‘Well, however you describe them, you seem to have some strange loyalty to them. And if you’ve given your word that they will be rescued, then so be it. But let me point something out to you. Right now they are held in a dungeon in a crowded city, which grows busier by the minute. Tomorrow, these three men are to be hanged in front of thousands – tens of thousands. There are five of us. Two men. One woman. One girl. And a useless boy who is not even a Cloud Hunter.’

  (I slightly resented the ‘useless boy’ part of that. But I had never before heard Kaneesh string so many sentences together and was interested to hear what would come next. He was normally a man of few words, but had now grown suddenly eloquent.)

  ‘So how exactly are we to rescue these three friends of yours, brother?’ he went on. ‘Five of us against a hundred thousand or more? Not good odds. Even for Cloud Hunters.’

  Mikhail was pensive and took his time to reply.

  ‘It needs some thought,’ he conceded.

  ‘I doubt we have enough time for all the thought it will need,’ Kaneesh observed. ‘They’re hanging them tomorrow. By the time we work out a way of saving them, they’ll need cremating.’

  His brother glared at him, but said nothing.

  Then Carla spoke. ‘I may have a solution,’ she said.

  Her husband and brother-in-law looked at her dubiously. It crossed my mind that maybe things were a little difficult for her now. Since Mikhail had been taken prisoner, she had captained the ship – with Kaneesh to assist her, true – but she had been in charge. Now Mikhail was back he would no doubt wish to resume his authority; but maybe she would not wish to relinquish hers. Perhaps from now on there would not be one captain for the boat, but a joint – or endlessly disputed – command.

  ‘And what solution is that?’ Mikhail asked.

  ‘This boat of ours,’ Carla said, ‘is a sky-boat – correct?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘With a rounded hull for buoyancy, which prevents it from ever landing and keeps it air-bound. It has to dock and tie up. It cannot land on solid earth the way a sky-barge might.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘But the fact it cannot come down to land does not prevent it sailing over land, or under it, or around it . . .’

  ‘And?’ Kaneesh said, increasingly impatient.

  ‘So it is quite possible for us to sail from here to Quenant City. To sail over and above the cathedral in the city square – over tomorrow’s crowds, in fact.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And who will be expecting that?’ she said. ‘Who will be expecting a ship to appear right over their heads – right over the gibbet, right over the scaffold, right at the moment when . . .’

  Mikhail and Kaneesh looked at each other, and then at Carla, with a grudging, and possibly reluctant, admiration.

  ‘It’s a thought,’ Kaneesh nodded.

  ‘It is a thought,’ Mikhail agreed.

  ‘It’s more than a thought. It’s the best idea we have,’ Jenine pointed out. ‘In fact, it’s the only idea.’ And I felt she was right. But made no comment. It’s best to stay out of other people’s family affairs. (Sometimes it’s best to stay out of family affairs even when it’s your own family. Especially when, on some occasions.)

  ‘Does anyone have any other suggestions?’ Carla asked.

  But – judging from the silence – they did not.

  We slept badly that night. I certainly did. When I opened my eyes to see other eyes as wide open as my own, I didn’t feel so bad about my nervousness. Thoughts of tomorrow prevented us all from sleeping, except in fits and starts. It always seems to be the way that when you most need rest because of what is ahead of you, then what is ahead of you stops you getting any.

  We ate an early breakfast then we cast off. Clouds were mustering not far offshore, so we headed for them to replenish the water tanks. Then we made course again, back to the Forbidden Isles and on to the city of Quenant.

  Kaneesh was at the wheel. He tilted the rudder and the boat angled upwards. As we sailed over the coastal areas we ascended. Higher and higher we rose, still moving inland. The city of Quenant grew visible in the distance, but we went on ascending until the metropolis was little more than a toy town directly beneath us. Had I dropped a stone over the side of the boat, it would have landed smack bang in the middle of the cathedral square.

  Jenine took the binoculars and peered over the side.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You can see the gallows. They’re up and finished. Everything’s ready.’

  We could see both the gallows and the gathering crowds below us. The square was filled with the faithful, crammed shoulder to shoulder, waiting patiently for the execution hour of noon.

  We waited. Mikhail checked the water hoses. Kaneesh was tending to the mooring ropes, knotting their dangling ends into sliding nooses, the kind you could use to loop around a capstan – or even around a man.

  Still we waited. There was nothing else to do or to be done; no other means of occupying the time other than patiently waiting and watching through the binoculars and telescope.

  Finally, it was ten minutes to noon. Then the chime of midday rang out.

  ‘Here they come,’ Kaneesh said. He handed the teles
cope to his brother. He looked down, then nodded.

  ‘Let’s descend.’

  Carla, at the helm, angled the boat down.

  We sailed down, smoothly and silently. The breeze was cool upon our faces. The insects in the square turned into people; the toy, miniature buildings became life-size and real. The little needlepoints of the cathedral became magnificent spires.

  The city square was packed. People stood on carts, looked out from windows, crowded onto balconies, all desiring a glimpse of the gallows on the podium and of the prisoners about to be hanged in honour of Quenant the Martyr and all that he stood for – whatever it was.

  Here the prisoners came: three men, their arms tied behind them; walking solemnly, and not without courage, to their deaths. Not without courage, but not without fear either. For without fear, there is no courage. How can there be, when courage is fear overcome?

  We descended swiftly now, sailing down and in from behind the crowd. Nobody had seen us – yet.

  A robed priest stood upon the gallows’ podium, intoning what he, no doubt, regarded as a few apt and significant words.

  ‘Oh blessed Quenant,’ he proclaimed, ‘we offer these wrongdoers to your mercy. Forgive their transgressions. Allow them to have the honour of your martyr’s death. As you died for the faith, let them die for their sins, so that they may be absolved. May the rope be strong and the gallows be sound. May the death be quick or the death be long, as is your will. In the name of . . .’

  He made the sign of the noose. The crowd in the square did the same in response. The guards and the hooded hangman ushered the prisoners forwards. Three dangling nooses waited for the three condemned men. It was just a matter of putting those nooses around their necks, the blindfolds around their eyes, the weights around their ankles, then pulling the trapdoor levers. But . . .

  ‘Look! Look! Look!’

  We were seen by one pair of eyes. In an instant we were seen by all.

  ‘Dive!’ Kaneesh shouted. ‘Dive!’

  Down we went. All we had was surprise, our sole, valuable element. If we lost that now, we lost everything.

  Our ropes were at the ready, dangling over the side. Two rope ladders were also flung over, from fore and aft.

  We were there at the scaffold, hovering right above it. Mikhail was clambering down one of the rope ladders, a dagger in his hand. Kaneesh was at the other ladder, a dagger in his hand also, and his new, second knife between his teeth. Carla kept the helm steady. Jenine and I held the water cannon. Jenine turned it on. A cascade of water shot out at maximum pressure and highest speed.

  We aimed the jet down and hosed the running guards clean off their feet. They slipped and slithered and scrambled around the podium. Kaneesh and Mikhail were by now running and scrambling along the podium too. They lost their balance, regained it. The guards drew swords and daggers. The crowd advanced, shouting angrily, funnelling up the steps, sensing that the day’s long-awaited entertainment was about to be snatched from before their eyes.

  ‘Archers!’ a voice cried. ‘Arrows! Arrows and guns!’

  The prisoners ran, slipping and sliding. They ran to their salvation, towards the dangling rope ladders and our hovering ship. But they couldn’t climb the ladders for their hands were tied behind them. Kaneesh freed one set of hands, Mikhail another. Those prisoners scurried up the ropes, Kaneesh and Mikhail behind them. The guards and the screaming crowd were almost upon them. There was no time to cut the third prisoner free.

  ‘Ascend! Up! Up!’

  Carla began to take the boat up. The guards were climbing the rope ladders towards us. Kaneesh cut the tethers. The ladders fell to the podium, and the guards with them.

  ‘The other prisoner!’ Jenine shouted. ‘Use one of the mooring ropes!’

  I left her to handle the water cannon. She blasted a guard with it, who was still hanging onto the boat. He fell to earth with a bone-shattering crunch.

  I dangled a mooring rope over the side. I prayed to all the gods that I did, and did not, believe in that my aim would be good and true.

  It was. I got him. Hooked him tight. My noose fell over the third prisoner’s head and chest. Then, as we ascended, the rope slid on its slip knot, tightened under his arms, and pulled him up with us. He cried out in pain, the noose around his chest crushing the breath out of him. But we soon got him on board.

  ‘Full power! Go!’ Mikhail shouted.

  Beneath us was an ocean of angry faces. Arrows rose into the sky. Some thwacked into the boat. There was the crack of gunshot. You could hear the bullets as they ricocheted off the bulwarks, or embedded themselves into the hull. But soon, even they could no longer reach us. Some of the angry crowd tried to air-swim after us, but they didn’t get far. It’s one thing to swim off the coast or from a boat, but to swim up far from solid land is beyond even the strongest.

  ‘Aren’t they coming after us?’ I asked Jenine. For no ships seemed to be following.

  ‘Of course they are,’ she said. ‘Look! There they come!’

  Far down beneath us, boats were rising into the sky, angling up in pursuit.

  ‘Empty the water tanks,’ Mikhail yelled. ‘We’ll outrun them!’

  The last of the water trickled from the cannon. The wind sails opened fully, the spinnaker yawned wide; the solar engines took up every last watt of energy that they could extract from the sun.

  We rode the thermals like a skimming stone. We bounced and flitted, we sped and flew, fast as sky-fish fleeing from a sky-shark, and on we sailed across the Great Divide. Soon we had lost them. The pursuing ships were motes of dust in a beam of sunlight; the Isle of Quenant was a distant rock.

  They wouldn’t catch us now. We were at liberty, where – with luck – we would remain. The three rescued prisoners sat there on the deck and smiled. I saw that one of them was massaging his neck, as if surprised to find it still there in one piece.

  I joined Jenine at the stern of the boat.

  ‘What about the man who took your father prisoner?’ I said. ‘I thought you all wanted to be revenged on him. I thought you wanted to cut his throat. Or hang him, the way he’d tried to hang that dog.’

  She gave me a smile.

  ‘As long as my father’s back – what does it matter? And anyway, hanging’s too good for some people, don’t you think?’

  She turned and stared back at the islands.

  ‘You usually sit at the prow,’ I said. ‘At the front of the boat, not the back.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I usually like to see where we’re going. But sometimes . . .’

  ‘Sometimes what?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘it’s nice to see where you’ve been. To remember what you did. Sometimes it’s nice to look back.’

  I couldn’t disagree with that. So I sat beside her, and looked back too.

  36

  home

  ‘What did they do?’ I asked. ‘To warrant hanging?’

  The boat seemed somewhat crowded now. There had been four of us when we set off, now there were eight – twice as many and half as much deck space. There was twice as much stew to cook and twice as many bowls to wash. Somehow the washing-up had again fallen to me.

  ‘The other three prisoners, you mean?’ Jenine said.

  ‘Yes. The ones the Quenant were going to hang along with your father. What had they done to deserve it?’

  ‘Well, one let his dog mess on the footpath, and forgot to clean it up,’ Jenine said. I thought at first that she was joking, but she wasn’t.

  ‘And they were going to hang him for that?’ I said.

  ‘They were going to hang the dog too. It turns out that it was the dog my father tried to rescue.’

  ‘And the other two?’

  ‘One left his handcart in a no parking area.’

  ‘And the third?’

  ‘He tried to kill the President, on the grounds that he was an unelected tyrant.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to them now?’

  ‘Well, t
hey’re on the run, aren’t they? So that more or less makes them Dissenters.’

  ‘Depending on how you look at it.’

  ‘It’s how we’re looking at it. And they seem to agree. So we’re going to drop them off at the Isles of Dissent. They can go on from there. If they don’t like Hippy Isle, they can cadge a ride to one of the other islands. There’s usually one to suit everybody.’ She looked at me. ‘There might even be one where you’d fit in.’ She grinned.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘I might of course –’ I said tentatively, after a pause ‘– fit in here.’

  She thought it over, then shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so, Christien,’ she said. ‘To fit in here you first have to fit in nowhere else. And you already have a home. And you’d also need a couple of scars on your face. I think you’re better off without those.’

  She got up and went down to the cabins, leaving me with the washing-up.

  We docked at Hippy Isle in the Isles of Dissent. I wouldn’t say that the people there exactly gave a warm and enthusiastic welcome to the new arrivals we deposited on the quay; the locals were too laid-back to be enthusiastic about anything. But they were friendly enough towards them.

  ‘Ah, right, man,’ said the harbour master, a tall, long-haired individual, whose head was in a permanent swathe of mist from the pipe he was smoking. ‘Yeah, right. Quenant, right?’ he went on. ‘Going to hang you, man? Yeah. Crazy. Well, well. Evil scene, man. Bad vibe. Well out of it, man. Yeah, you can crash here, no worries. Just go downtown, man, and say the harbour master sent you. You should find a squat there, in one of the communes or somewhere, man. No worries, my friend. Yeah. Right. Just take it easy, dudes. Peace, man. Cool.’

  Then he looked at Jenine’s family, at their scarred faces and at their tattoos, at their plaited hair, at the medallions around their necks, at the gold bands upon their arms and wrists and ankles, and he exhaled a plume of smoke and said admiringly, ‘Cloud Hunters, eh, man? Cool, man. Cool.’ He caught sight of me and said, ‘You a Cloud Hunter too, man?’