by Kovacs, Jase
He would not dare hurt the one his Lord desires.
"It is true," I whisper, my voice almost kind. I pity him, in a way. He is, after all, a brainwashed servant. But that does not make him any less culpable for the old wounds he just reopened. "My father was infected, and we knew it was a fate worse than death. So I spared him. I freed him from the curse you now offer as a gift. So tell me this, if you can. Why would I accept that which I killed my father to spare?"
His eyes lock onto mine as I draw back, searching for some hint of my intentions. I pull my bandanna from my belt and pick up the water bottle.
"I am a messenger!" he says frantically. "An envoy. I know nothing of value. I will tell you nothing more."
"You have told me everything. But what you said about my father was... uncalled for. It demands a response." I drop the opened bandanna over his face and draw the cloth tight over his mouth and nose.
He tries to shake his head free but I put my weight on him. His mouth snaps open and closed, as if he could chew his way through the cloth.
Then every one of his muscles goes tight. His back arcs and his legs and arms turn to iron, as if he could levitate out of the room. His mouth opens again, and he begins to chant.
NAW EM SHAB—
I tip the bottle. My bandanna is soaked through in an instant. Water fills his open mouth and cuts off his chant. He chokes, and I pour more.
In my finest moments in the past years, I believe Mum and Dad would have been proud if they were there.
As the prisoner begins to thrash, his chanting smothered by the sensation of drowning, I know that this is not one of those moments.
But I also feel something else as he twists back and forth like a landed fish struggling to breathe.
I feel good.
***
When I was eight, in the third year after the plague, I slipped when stepping from our dinghy onto a concrete wharf in a petroleum facility in northern Borneo. The sea was choppy and, although my father held my hand, I still sank deep. The wharf was covered with a thick carpet of razor sharp oyster shells. I broke the surface, and he got his hand under me and boosted me onto the steps. The whole incident was over in less than five seconds, but it only took an instant for the oyster shells to rake my calf.
He disinfected my wounds as well as he could, but I was a child and kept squealing and twisting away from the painful antiseptic. He had to tie me to the saloon table when he stitched up the worst of the cuts. Infection set in despite his efforts, and I spent the next week in a delirium. I remember floating on a warm cloud, divorced from the heat and pains of the wounds and completely untroubled by the anguish etched into my father's exhausted face as he spent day and night nursing me through my trauma.
When I step from the bunker and into the bright sunlight I feel a little of that floating feeling, where emotions and physical suffering of others are little personal consequence and a deep injury is masked by the human body's own, often chaotic, responses to distress.
Duncan and Kev sit still in the roots of the fig tree. Kev flings a short bladed knife between his feet and the cross-hatched earth shows he has been at it for some time. Duncan cracked a coconut and then, when he had eaten all its flesh, had broken the shell over and over until the ground around him is littered with brown shards the size of my fingernails. Zac looks at me searchingly as he steps back from the door, but I ignore him as I go straight over to Duncan.
"We have to go. Right now. Every boat, every warrior, every weapon," I say.
"Slow down there," says Kev, rising. "What did he say?"
"The Green Lord has sent out his fleets. All of his vessels, all of his followers, in all directions. They're building an army. They're going to finish us off."
"And you want to run?" asks Kev.
"Don't be stupid. I want to attack. Don't you see? The Green Lord has sent out his army, all his masalai, all his canoes, to infect survivors through the islands. There is nothing, no one, to stopping us from going to Dalbarade, straight into his lair and finishing him once and for all."
Duncan walks towards me slowly, his palms up and out. "Matty. Calm down. We have to think this thorough."
"I am calm, God damn it!" The look on his face makes me want to scream. The stupid, slow witted fools. "This is our chance. This is the time for action. We need to get every vessel underway, every sailor we can muster."
"And the prisoner told you this?" Duncan glances at Kev, both of them suspicious.
"He was goading me. Baiting me. The Green Lord wants me to come. So I'm going to give him what he wants. And I'll choke him with it."
"Matty..." Zac is inside the doorway. His voice is concerned, even alarmed. "What did you do with the prisoner?"
The old men’s stubbornness makes me turn to Zac. "The masalai’s chanting, the chanting the Lost Tribe did? I think it's a form of communication. A connection." I see the look on his face, and I push on quickly. "I know, it sounds crazy. But whenever they're communicating, or coordinating, they do that chant, right before action. I think it's them syncing their actions. I don’t know how it works, but it does. He started to chant when he realised he had told me too much. So I had to shut him up before he could report home."
A slow horror spreads across Zac's face. Duncan pushes me out of the way and rushes into the bunker.
My words tumble out and part of me hates the need to justify myself. There were never these explanations when I was alone on Voodoo. A hot flush blooms in my cheeks and throat, and I feel the presence of my sister at my shoulder.
Not now. Not now. I had to do it.
"I had to shut him up, Zac. You know how they communicate. You've seen it happen." I turn to Kev. "He was reporting back to the Green Lord. Telling him that we knew he was vulnerable."
"Well, I hope he had nothing more to say," says Duncan from the doorway. His massive arms are crossed over his chest, and he looks me with an expression that seems to be disappointed and concerned at the same time. When he speaks, it is over me, to Kev. "He's dead."
Kev colours and he closes his fists slowly while giving me the cold glare he uses to stare down his workers. "So you kill the first prisoner we ever capture – our first decent chance to find out what these buggers are up to - after one conversation because you think he's a fucken fax machine?" He shifts his gaze to Duncan, giving him a look as if to say he was right all along. "Now do you believe me?"
"Matty is right," says Zac. "It sounds crazy, but it's true. They chant when they're all under an alpha's dominance. I can't explain how or why it works, but it does. We saw it on Woodlark, and Matty saw it on the Black Harvest. It's how they... commune with each other. And, if what the prisoner told her was true, then she had to do it."
"What, she had to kill ET to stop him phoning home?" says Kev.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I spit at him, sick of his olden days references. "I had a moment to stop him, and I did it, and I'm not going to be judged—"
"Kev!" Locke bursts into the clearing. His scarlet face is shiny with sweat, and he heaves with exertion as he catches his breath. "You've gotta come quick!"
Kev rolls his eyes and spreads his hands, palms to the sky, as if appealing directly to heaven. "Now what?"
"It's the fucken locals, mate. A whole posse of them, coming across the creek."
"Christ give me strength!" He wheels on Zac. "Did you know about this?"
"News to me."
"Fine job liaising there, mate. Duncan, your all-stars are kicking goals today." Kev jabs a short stubby finger angrily at me. "We're coming back to this." Then he's off, following Locke back down the track.
I say, "Duncan—"
Duncan cuts me off with a curt wave of his hand as he follows Kev. "I don't want to hear it." Then he pauses at the edge of the path. His shoulders slump before he slowly turns back to me. The disappointment is gone from his expression. Now he just looks sad. Somehow that's even worse. "Are you sure you had to do that?"
"I am."
>
"Okay. I'm sorry I put you in that position."
"You didn't put me anywhere, Duncan. I went myself."
He shakes his head. "That’s why I’m sorry."
***
I am just about to break from the jungle when I hear Duncan, ahead of me on the path, shout in a voice that lofts startled birds, "Who the hell are you pointing that gun at?"
I sprint around the last corner to find Duncan addressing Piper in the watchtower. I see with a stab of alarm that Piper has the .50 cal. loaded and pointed, not out to sea to ward off vessels breaking quarantine, but down the beach.
"There's a horde of locals coming and they look none to friendly," says Piper curtly, her attention never wavering from her point of aim. She grips the big gun's handles firmly, and her thumbs hover over the leaf trigger. My alarm deepens when I realise she is locked and loaded, ready to open up. I've seen what that weapon can do to boats, and I shudder at thought of her sending a burst of half-inch bullets into a crowd.
"I don't give a damn if they're carrying flaming torches and pitchforks," roars Duncan. "Put the safety on!"
Piper lifts her thumbs away from the trigger but otherwise doesn't move. There is something sardonic about the way she waggles her thumbs, as if to say these are my safeties.
"Oi, Duncan, come on!" Locke comes back up the track, no doubt sent by Kev to see what is holding us. Abella follows, her face a white sheet of dread, the expression of someone who knows all too well how quickly the world can turn into a nightmare.
"Duncan!" she says. "Thank god. You must come. Those idiots! Those stupids are about—"
Duncan doesn’t look away from tower. Thick beads of sweat belt his neck, and his face is blotched as if someone had just slapped him on both cheeks. "Piper, stand down. Safe that weapon and come down here. I need you—"
"You need me exactly where I am," Piper shouts. Her biceps shake, and the gun’s barrel trembles. The gun dips as she wipes her face. For a moment, hope blooms within me she has seen reason. Then the barrel lifts as she settles behind it again. "The Watch protects First Landing from all threats!"
Duncan opens his mouth but no words come. He has the look of a man facing something entirely outside of his experience. For a moment, I feel the horror of seeing our leader at a loss.
In the silence — with everyone looking at Duncan to see what happens next — we hear a roar lift from down on the beach, as if a far off crowd just witnessed an upset on the sports field. "Piper!" I shout. "I need you on my crew down here."
Piper's shoulders tighten as if I had just turned a key mounted in her back. "I'm not on your crew anymore, Matty." There is a level of venom and invective there that I never suspected she felt. "You've made your opinion on the matter very clear."
Piper sailed with me on our first mission to Woodlark, but spent the entire time underway hopelessly seasick. I assumed that she would avoid future sea voyages but I see now that I offended her when I didn’t ask her to join the sea patrol. "My opinion is that you are a fine warrior who is currently in the best job for her. But I tell you this both as your former skipper and your friend – you are committing a grave sin that cannot be undone. We need you, right here, right now. Get down here and tell us what you see."
She doesn't look down at me. But the tension flows out of her shoulders. Slowly she lowers the barrel until it is rests on its mount.
Duncan's look of gratitude is snapped off by another roar from the beach. Piper's feet have barely touched the ground before we take off running.
***
We've always known that there are at least ten locals for everyone of us expats. It's one of those figures of speech that is easy to live with, provided you don't really think about its implications.
But as we break onto the beach, we suddenly see what this actual ten to one ratio means.
A tide of people fills the beach, from tree to waterline. Every expat is down here, just over a hundred of us, clustered near the border creek. People like Kev, Martha, Larry, and Cynthia have pushed their way down to the front of the crowd, with most of Kev's boys and Watch members forming a wedge behind them.
But the flood is not our group, but those coming down the beach towards us. There are hundreds of locals – men, women, and children. I am brought up short as I try to take in the size of the crowd and that number – ten to one – echoes in my mind like a stone clattering down into a cave. The advancing tide of people seems like everyone left in the whole world.
The expats melt away as Duncan pushes his way through the crowd. People look scared, or angry, or excited, a mix of emotions that tells me that no one has any idea what is happening. I think this scares me more than the idea of trigger-happy Piper opening up over our heads with the fifty.
When no one knows what is happening, it means anything can.
Like us, the locals approach in a wedge, following the leaders. I see Auntie Ruthie but ahead of her is Jacka and Ivan Bossman and another older man who I don't recognise. And behind them come... well, everyone, I guess. There is no order or formation to the crowd. Some of the men carry heavy sticks or old, rusty bush knives and machetes but they do not seem angry or threatening. Instead they look resolute and united in purpose.
Zac is at the front of our group, with Big Kev who nods his head slowly and steadily as if this is the day he has long expected. Zac looks calm but the tip of his tongue plays over his lips before he speaks, loud enough so that most of us can hear. "Let me talk to them. No one else moves."
Kev's voice is unusually subdued as he says. "I can't promise anything if they cross the creek."
"If one of us shoots..." Zac turns and looks Kev directly in the face. "Then, by god, you kill that person without hesitation. Otherwise it will be a massacre."
"I’d like to see them try. We’ve still got guns."
"Some guns. You'll take down a hundred, for sure. That'll leave only nine hundred to hack us all to death. So, for the love of God, hold your fire.” Zac glances at me, and I see a resolution in his eyes I never knew he held. "Matty."
Then he is off, walking towards the local leaders. I feel pressure against the small of my back as Piper slips a pistol into my belt, and then I am walking after him. I feel the ridiculous desire to take his hand in mine. The two of us, marching forward away from our people, alone but for each other.
"They're showing us their strength," murmurs Zac. "A precursor to a meeting. Don't do anything rash."
"How can you be sure?"
"If they wanted to kill us, the first we'd know about it was when the machetes fell on us in our sleep. This... this is reminding us of the balance of power. Of whose island it is."
"I asked how can you be sure?"
"This is what I do." Zac raises his hand and forces a smile onto his lips and into his voice. "Bossman! Bossmeri! I am happy to see you all."
I stumble and stop. "Zac."
He keeps walking forward, his hand up, the smile on his face. "Yeah. I see it."
"The creek."
"Yes. I know."
He comes to the creek, the traditional boundary between our people just as Ivan Bossman and Jacka and Auntie Ruthie stop on their bank. But, whereas before the swiftly flowing spring water always was a natural barrier that would remind us of where the line is drawn, for the first time we face each other unrestrained.
The creek has run dry.
CHAPTER FIVE: ZAC
A storm kicks its way across the southern sky, and every palm tree bows before the wind like a crowd of supplicants prostrating themselves at an altar.
While I wait for the old man to finish his preamble, a long rambling narrative in tokples that none of us can really follow, I watch a flock of black birds hopping around the naked arms of a long dead ironbark tree. Each bird moves independently from the others, hopping amongst the grey skeletal branches according to whims of their tiny bird brains. But, as the old man drones on, I see that there is a pattern of movement not immediately apparent. One bird will hop to a n
ew branch and a few seconds later another will fill the branch vacated by the first. An equal number of seconds later a third bird will hop to the space vacated by the second. The old man has been talking for so long that I have seen the twenty-three birds complete a dozen circuits of the old tree, according to a plan beyond the comprehension of their tiny bird brains. They're not communicating intent or motivation to each other nor is there any coordination between individual birds, save for a wait until a space has appeared. But yet there is a pattern and a timing as exact as clockwork.
The councils of the two communities sit in the creek bed. The sand is still damp; I assume the tremor choked its source. I'm one of the only people in the expat community who can follow tokples, but it is not until the old man starts talking about the creek itself that I realise his preamble has been a recounting of the entire history of Madau Island, from the creator legend of the crocodile which brought the first peoples from the mainland in ancient times, up until the day thirteen years ago when the survivors from the Fall landed on their shores.
I am not the only person lulled to inattention by the old man's speech. None of our council can understand a word of tokples, so they stare across at their counterparts – and the hundreds of locals who sit quietly along the shore, the beach, and the treeline – with a fixed, glassy expression that vacillates between anxiety and boredom.
But the local leaders obviously have heard this all before. Jacka sifts through the sand between his crossed legs as if he is hoping to find a shellfish or crab there. Auntie Ruthie doesn't even bother pretending interest; she has closed her eyes and her breasts rise and fall with the steady rhythm of someone sneaking a quick nap. Only Ivan Bossman remains alert, taking his time to look each member of our council over with the casual, assured gaze of a man surveying a feast with an empty plate in hand.
But when the old man says "-and we agreed that the whites and the Asians who came from over the sea would live on the land above Bottom Rock Creek so long as they shared of their cargo and gifts-" Auntie's eyes snap open, instantly focusing on me as if the storyteller's words were the trigger of a trap. Jacka dusts sand off his hands like a man preparing to heft an axe, and Ivan leans back, arms stretched back behind him as he slowly smiles, exposing teeth stained black from years of chewing betel nut.
