Wants of the Silent

by McPartlin, Moira;

  As we walked through the camp many specials lifted a hand in greeting to Harkin. One boy with intense eyes hugged and kissed her but shied from me. She gave him a cuddle and I wondered what that would feel like.

  ‘Where’re you’re from, was there a gate? Was there a fence, guards?’ she asked.

  I thought about the past months I had spent on Black Rock, in my grandfather’s penitentiary but decided that was a story too far.

  ‘In a Military Base? Yes, of course.’

  ‘So you were a prisoner.’

  ‘No,’ I said a little too loudly, many of the specials raised their heads. ‘It was for our own protection.’

  ‘Protection from whom?’

  ‘Well, natives, I suppose,’ I felt my face pink. ‘And insurgents.’

  ‘So you think you’re safe from insurgents here?’ She swept an arm around the area. There was no fence in sight and I knew where this was going.

  ‘No, but you’re not troubled because of fear of the land.’

  ‘And have you been to any other reservation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And no fence.’

  I remembered the clean neat buildings, the happy natives of those other reservations, I now see it was a scam to keep Privileged kids deluded. ‘No, no fence.’

  I looked at this strange girl with chocolate eyes and I realised she was wise.

  ‘But in all reservations, fence or no fence, if you don’t attend to your work placement you will be terminated and replaced.’ There speaks a Privileged.

  ‘Do you know there’s more radiation in your communicator than in the soil?’

  ‘Where is it? My communicator, where is it?’

  She frowned. ‘I think it will be returned soon. But now I will show you around. Just try not to look so Privileged, you are freaking out the specials.’

  She pointed to the Urban that Bug Eye said wasn’t an Urban. ‘We’re luckier than most reservations who have no materials except recyk. We can strip the material from the plant buildings we do not need.’ She was like a tutor giving a lecture and I wondered what her game was.

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked her.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘You’re older than me.’

  ‘If you say so.’ There was no pride in this statement, it was a matter of fact. At Academy it was a boast to be older. In charge of the younger ones. Show good examples. But I suppose Harkin still believed I was Privileged so age gave no advantage.

  Before we reached the workshops we passed what looked like a recyk midden. A couple of dozen people dressed in heavy coats, with scarves wrapped round their faces, were sifting through the rubbish, throwing bits and pieces of flimsy plastic into multi-coloured hods lined up along the edge of the field. Each sifter had a straw bag strapped to their backs.

  ‘You have a recyk midden?’

  ‘No, this is where the raw material is dumped before being sorted. We collect what we can from the beaches and the tracksides. We discovered a rich seam of old landfill just over there.’ She pointed towards the coast, to where rows of broken and jagged turbine posts stuck out of the seabed like a mouth of rotting teeth.

  ‘The work is hard and dangerous. What we can’t get there we raid from the official recyks. But that is also risky. If we had a moorlogger we could drag more from the ocean.’

  ‘What’s landfill?’

  ‘Ginormous buried middens.’

  ‘Buried? Why?’

  ‘Because in olden days no one recyked.’

  ‘That’s madness.’

  ‘Yep.’

  We seemed to be walking towards the coast. Breeze increased and I could smell the salt air. We passed increasingly larger crates, made from what looked like bio-pulp sheets. In these was stored a varying array of materials the majority of which was plastics.

  She stopped between the midden and a small tent. The young boy who spoke the nonsense words leaned against the door. He lifted a hand in greeting but he didn’t move.

  ‘The plastic is reduced, remoulded and reused.’

  I looked for any sign of a furnace.

  ‘How?’

  She signalled to the largest building on the plant site. But said nothing. Before I had a chance to ask, a hand grasped us both by the shoulder and a bear of a man steered us away from the midden and past a low building made up of higgledy sheets of planks plastered over with mud.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We have to get this young man back to his people.’

  Harkin blinked but didn’t look disappointed. She looked back at the boy in the doorway and I think I saw him signal an OK with thumb and index. What was going on?

  ‘But I was going to show him the workshops, but...’

  ‘He’ll have no interest in that.’ The bear scowled over his significant eyebrows. ‘He’s already seen enough.’

  ‘But Con—’

  The man’s eyes widened and she seemed to step back.

  ‘No buts, I said he’s seen enough.’

  ‘Do you know where my grandmother is, sir?’ It was worth a try.

  The man scratched his stubble and looked somewhere into the distance but he remained silent.

  ‘Vanora?’

  Something changed in his expression at the sound of her name, subtle, no more than a flutter like a baby’s breath.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’ I persisted.

  ‘No,’ but he’d already given himself away. He was lying. ‘We have no need for such knowledge here. We’ve a good life, see? Settled, steady. We want left alone.’

  ‘But not every native has a good life. There are experiments. They’re going to kill you all. DNA dilution.’

  The man laughed then in much the same way as the girl did.

  ‘I’d like to see them try,’ he said.

  As the man handed over my communicator and knife, he tapped the knife. ‘You’ll have no need of that here.’ There was a warning in his voice.

  Ishbel

  ‘Come on!’ Ishbel huckled Dawdle along the beach but he was intent on his comms.

  ‘Official sources say Purists are fighting a fair campaign tae regain power in the next election.’

  ‘Fair and Purists don’t work in the same sentence.’

  ‘Ma sources say voting has awready been rigged. Purist activists are intimidating Privileged in the Capital and Beckham City.’

  ‘Fake news! How do you know that’s true?’ Dawdle raised an eyebrow in response. ‘I wonder if Vanora knows, she could use this to try and pull some Privileged on her side.’ Ishbel knew she should report Dawdle’s intel. But not yet, she would do it once they checked on Scud.

  ‘Things are hotting up Ish. Just sayin.’

  They arrived back to find Reinya sat outside in sullen silence. She squatted on hunkers, a waif in her tattered prison uniform, her head slung low between shoulders as if asleep, but when Ishbel spoke her name she lifted a tear-streaked face to meet her gaze.

  ‘‘e’s dead.’ The words choked her throat and barely made it passed her lips before she dropped her head again.

  Dawdle jumped past the girl and into the van. Ishbel followed. Scud lay where they’d left him but Reinya’s sleeping bag had been placed over his own, its blue colour highlighting his deathly grey pallor. His head twisted towards the side panel, his eyes closed. Ishbel touched his forehead. It was stone cold. Dawdle checked his pulse.

  ‘There’s something, faint but something. We need tae get him tae the settlement healer.’

  ‘We can’t move him.’ Ishbel rearranged the cover over him. Dawdle scratched his head.

  ‘Well, get in beside him an ah’ll go get help.’

  ‘No, you get in, I’ll go, I’ll be faster.’

  Dawdle looked horrified. ‘No way, dae ye no ken the penalty for man on man?’

 
‘Get a grip, Dawdle, it’s an emergency. And you owe me one.’

  He shot her a glance, he knew what she meant. He was cute enough to know if the debt was paid now she couldn’t recall it later.

  ‘Quick, man, before he goes or you’ll be done for necrophilia.’ She didn’t mean to joke, it just happened sometimes.

  Outside Reinya hadn’t moved. Ishbel grabbed her by the uniform front and yanked her to her feet.

  ‘You were supposed to keep him warm, I told you, body heat.’

  The girl shivered. ‘Uh give ‘im ma covers.’

  ‘That was big of you.’ But Ishbel’s anger fizzled and died when she saw the girl’s hurt.

  ‘What do you know? Nuthin’, that’s what.’ She shrugged off Ishbel’s grasp. ‘Uh couldn’t do more. There’s paedos everywhere,’ Reinya whispered.

  The words slapped Ishbel hard. ‘He’s your grandfather.’

  ‘He’s a stranger,’ she hissed.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ishbel said and moved to smooth the girl’s hair.

  ‘Piss off.’ The girl sprang back like a wild cat.

  ‘Look, Reinya, get yourself a brew then crawl into the other bag. You’ll be safe with Dawdle.’

  ‘Another man!’ The girl stayed where she was.

  ‘But you trust Dawdle, I’ve seen that.’

  Reinya growled like an animal.

  ‘Go on, before you make yourself ill. I need to get help.’ Ishbel handed Reinya her gun. ‘Take it. Try to keep close to them even without touching, the more heat the better.’

  She left her without waiting for the girl to do as she was told. Ishbel had wasted enough time.

  Sprinting the beach was quicker than negotiating the dunes. There could be boats out in the Minch, or air reconnaissance, but the cloud was low so she risked it.

  A rusty old post she remembered from before told her where to cut through the dunes to the wheelhouse.

  She rapped with what she remembered of Dawdle’s secret chap. She heard the lock scraping, the door opened a crack. The darkness inside hid the host.

  ‘Well, well, well, this is a surprise.’

  Her legs turned to water at the sound of the familiar voice. The door opened fully and there he stood. A patch over the left side of his face and the tunic sleeve pinned on that side, empty.

  ‘Hello, Merj.’ Ishbel only just managed to keep the composure in her voice.

  ‘The lovely Ishbel.’

  The last time she saw him he lay bleeding, presumed dead, on the Black Rock beach hours after both she and Merj had accompanied Vanora to Black Rock.

  Merj had been so charming to both Ishbel and Vanora, basking still in his new promotion to Vanora’s first lieutenant. Immediately after the meeting Merj had requested leave to visit his sick mother. What Vanora didn’t know was of his intention to kidnap Sorlie, but Ishbel guessed. She had watched the way Merj studied Sorlie during the meeting, she could almost smell greed on his breath as they travelled back to base on the Transport. Ishbel deserted her post and followed Merj, stowing away on the small boat he used to return to Black Rock. He’d held a gun on Kenneth, Ridgeway and Sorlie until he had Sorlie in his grasp. That was when Sorlie surprised Ishbel and pulled a knife on Merj, puncturing his face. They’d wrestled; Ishbel had forgotten what a fine wrestler Sorlie was, he used to spend all his days in the Games Room wrestling with his virtual friends, nagging Ishbel to keep the room dust-free. But good as he was she had thought Sorlie was beat so she intervened by throwing a butterfly bomb in Merj’s path. He reached out a hand to hoist to his feet and it blew his arm off. He’d been left for dead but somehow managed to get back onto the boat and get help. She was a fool to have pushed the suspicion of his survival from her mind when she found the boat missing. That was an admission of her own stupidity at not finishing off the creep when she had the chance.

  Now he held his good hand out to her and stroked her cheek. Once they had been lovers, something Ishbel couldn’t even contemplate now. Another life. Vanora had thrown them together, had almost orchestrated the perverse arrangement, despite her jealousy. Ishbel jerked her face away.

  ‘I need to speak with the healer.’ She took a step to enter but Merj blocked her way.

  ‘Get out my way.’ Sorlie’s blade had scarred his perfect good looks and Ishbel clawed her hand ready to inflict more when a figure appeared at the door, the young woman who had hooded Ishbel before. She placed a protective arm on Merj before she snipped, ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘I need help, your healer for our friend, he’s dying.’

  The girl let go of Merj’s arm. ‘Wait here,’ and returned in to the wheelhouse.

  ‘Looks like you’ve been in the wars, Merj. What happened to you?’

  ‘Hadn’t you heard? You’re losing your touch. Or have you lost the boy already.’

  ‘I never found the boy.’

  ‘Oh? And where have you been?’

  Ishbel knew she had walked into a verbal trap so kept it shut.

  ‘Went running back to Vanora, did you? She’s short of a lieutenant.’

  Ishbel shoved her bunched hand in her pocket. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Same as you, seeking a healer.’ He moved to stroke her cheek again and Ishbel pulled away. ‘We will finish our business later perhaps,’ Merj said and disappeared behind the door.

  ‘Creep,’ she said under her breath. Even though she wanted to shout it, her native training prevented that.

  Ishbel expected an old healer, instead the girl returned with a felt bag.

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘There is a short cut to your van.’

  When they arrived Dawdle hadn’t moved, he had Scud in a huddle but his face looked grave.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he snapped.

  ‘Tell you later.’

  He opened his mouth to say more then noticed the girl and smiled. ‘Glad you could come, Shasta.’

  Shasta nodded and moved to Scud’s side. She removed the cover and Dawdle crawled into the corner of the van. ‘His pulse is still weak.’

  The girl dug into her bag for an ancient-style syringe and vial, the types only found in run-down non-Military hospitals. She pulled the liquid into the vial and plunged it into Scud’s stomach. Reinya yelped in sympathy.

  The girl clocked the van. ‘He can’t stay here. We’ll carry him to the wheel. We must make a stretcher.’

  ‘What did you give him?’ Ishbel asked.

  ‘Something to deepen sleep. Give his body a chance to fight the withdrawal, keep him alive till we get expert help.’

  Scud’s colour seemed to have greyed even more, if that were possible. Shasta grabbed the other sleeping bag from Reinya. She sat back on her heels. ‘Do you have any rope?’

  Dawdle hauled a tow rope from under the front seat. It was frayed in parts and duck-tape mended.

  ‘Thread it through the bags.’

  She slashed the bottom of each bag and eased Scud into both, the rope threaded on either side of him. He looked like a shish balanced on two skewers.

  ‘Ish, you take the front, ah’ll take the back.’ Dawdle helped Ishbel get her rope ends wrapped round her wrists before moving to the back. ‘Right, lift.’

  Ishbel pulled on the ropes, which burned her wounded shoulder but they soon had Scud hammocked between them.

  ‘Watch out,’ Reinya shouted. Scud had begun to slide out of the bag. Ishbel was taller than Dawdle so let out more slack to level the field.

  ‘Reinya, you follow us, watch he doesn’t slip again,’ Ishbel said.

  The early mizzle had turned to a downpour. Shasta grabbed a tarp from the van and flung it over Scud and Ishbel pushed the image of a body bag from her mind.

  This time the healer headed for the beach. ‘I know it’s longer but it’s level terrain, better for the patient.’

  By the ti
me they reached the wheelhouse Ishbel’s shoulders seared and she was soaked to saturation.

  Merj stood in the doorway and watched their approach, his hand rubbing his damaged cheek. He nodded to them as they passed and Ishbel had a queasy feeling; the look passed between him and Dawdle was not that of stranger to stranger.

  Shasta led them through the wheel into a cramped corridor. Ishbel had to crouch to enter a small room with only a slit opening to the sky, giving a concentrated intense light beamed onto a stone table in the centre where Shasta instructed them to lay Scud.

  ‘I’ll get Llao,’ she said.

  The room had bottles and trays of instruments arranged on shelves. The pins and needles in Ishbel’s arms were excruciating and as she swung her arms round to try and relieve it she collided with Dawdle doing the same.

  ‘Maybe your Shasta can give you something for that.’ Ishbel saw from Dawdle’s step back she had hit her mark.

  Scud’s breathing seemed non-existent, but when Ishbel leant down towards him she felt a faint current like a butterfly’s wing on her cheek.

  The old lady with the knots in her hair entered and examined Scud while they looked on. Reinya shuddered a sigh. Ishbel had almost forgotten her and moved towards her but the girl shoved her off and scuttled ninety degrees round the room.

  ‘Where’s Shasta?’ Ishbel asked. ‘We need a healer.’

  ‘I am a healer as well as an elder, young lady.’ It was always difficult to tell with seniors but Ishbel detected Privileged genes in this elder. ‘My name is Llao, Shasta is my apprentice and is preparing some medicine.’

  ‘Can you help him? We can contact our base, see if we can get some remote help,’ Ishbel said, clutching at straws, she wasn’t even sure if she could get reception on this coast.

  The old woman ignored her and set to her task. Ishbel noticed her small hands and neat, clipped nails. The hands of a Privileged.

  ‘How is he?’ The hands waved Ishbel’s question away.