Wants of the Silent

by McPartlin, Moira;

  ‘Aye well, we’ll soon find out,’ Dawdle said. ‘We’re getting close tae docking. Batten down the earholes Scudster.’

  As we emerged from the murky water we saw dull-light emerge. Grey skies hung over Steadie. A smir rolled off the sea peppering the windscreen with spray. There was no one on the jetty to meet us. It was eerily quiet.

  ‘They’re no expecting us so we’ll creep in and have a lookie just tae make sure everything’s kosher. We don’t want tae hand yous two ower tae the Military.’

  We docked under a pier and climbed up onto the plastic duckboards. As soon as we were over the beach Dawdle jumped from the boards and told us to do the same. My ankle still stounded from the sprain but I managed to sit on the boards and swing myself down to the sand. We crouched low and crabbed along the beach on the lea side of some dunes. When we were parallel to the hot building we crawled on belly to the boundary markers and looked into Steadie on an ordinary day. Specials were working at their task under the supervision of the oldies; lifting, carrying, sorting, silent. I searched the scene for a sign of Harkin but there was none. Scud searched with his eyes too, for Reinya no doubt.

  ‘Looks OK,’ I said. We all rose to move. Then the klaxon whawhaed. I grabbed Scud, we hit the sand. Dawdle was already down. ‘Raid,’ I whispered although the klaxon drowned every sound.

  Like the last time the specials started screaming and were herded to the hot building. Where was Harkin?

  And then I saw her running, her medic’s graith strapped to her body, beside her ran Con. He carried someone in the same way he’d carried me there. ‘It’s Pa.’

  ‘Oh Sorlie.’ There was such pain in Scud’s voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fuck,’ Dawdle said.

  And then I saw. It was Pa, but it was only half Pa. One arm was slung round Con’s neck the other missing, tears ran down his face as his body bumped against Con’s back. His face contorted in a scream no one could hear.

  ‘His legs. Where are his legs?’

  ‘Oh son, he has no legs.’ Scud put his arm around my shoulder but I pushed him off, turned and puked in the sand.

  ‘That’s his reason. He wasn’t ready for you tae know.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Dawdle said again.

  We lay in the sand while the biosuited unit, sent in to weed out oldies and specials, rampaged through Steadie. But I heard nothing. The image of Pa flashed through my mind over and over. And my words to Scud a short while ago. ‘It’s not really him. It’s a trick.’ But it was him. I just wished it was a trick.

  ‘How?’ I said as we lay in safety while chaos raged just over the sand dune barrier. Scud took and squeezed my hand and immediately let go. His native ‘no contact’ training still ingrained.

  ‘Looks like mine damage,’ Dawdle said.

  ‘Or torture,’ Scud added, preparing me.

  The raid didn’t last as long as the last one and the klaxon sounded before I was ready.

  ‘I can’t go.’

  ‘Get up and get in there,’ Dawdle said grabbing hold of both my lapels.

  ‘Leave him be,’ Scud growled. Dawdle dropped me as if I’d combusted. Scud held his hands out in front of him. They were free of blemishes with only a slight shake. ‘Look at that. Remember all those times you saw me in a state in the prison, all the times ah nearly died, getting zapped, getting messages tae you.’

  I nodded. I knew what he was getting at. ‘I couldn’t understand. I thought you were stupid, then realised you were brave.’

  ‘Aye well, maybe stupid sometimes, eh? But d’you know what kept me going?’ He thumbed to the land. ‘The dream o’ this, where we are now, on the cusp of revolution. Look at you, wincing over a sprained ankle. Did you see how much pain that man was in?’

  ‘But how can he…?’

  ‘Why do you think he came all that way to the island in that state?’ I hung my head. ‘Ah’ll tell ye, will ah? It was so he could speak to you. He knew he could speak to you through that Merj’s short range reader. We all thought he was dead. He’s probably now the most wanted man on the planet and he came tae speak to you. Now get up there and reward him for that. None of this ‘why did you leave me?’ crap. That can come later. He had his reasons.’ Scud stood up. ‘And now ah have my granddaughter tae see.’

  Dawdle threw me a look of disgust that I deserved.

  We saw Reinya first, the blaze of her hair clashing with the green of the tent. She was tending to one of the specials, a little girl of about five; she cleaned a wound then pulled the child onto her lap, wiped her tears and gave her a cuddle. She looked up at us as we lumbered unhindered into the camp. Scud held his breath and stood petrified. And then she smiled and raised her hand to her forehead in a little salute and I thought I might need to catch Scud as he relaxed in relief.

  ‘He’s in Harkin’s tent,’ she said to me as if she had been expecting us. She pointed towards the midden.

  It was the tent where Harkin had stopped that day she showed me round, where the boy stood in the doorway watching us. I knocked on the frame and when no answer came I pulled back the flap and entered. He was in bed but propped up. Thankfully his lower half was covered.

  Harkin was rigging up drips. Pa noticed me first. Fleeting expressions of surprise, delight and then worry scudded across his face. He opened his mouth to speak and Harkin put a hand on his shoulder to stay him then whirled when she realised someone had entered.

  She almost smiled, I’m sure. ‘He’s very weak. That raid took its toll.’

  ‘It’s OK, Harkin, let him in this time...’ Pa’s voice was a whisper of its former self.

  She turned to me. ‘I’ve given him a strong sedative. You can stay ‘til he falls asleep.’

  ‘What do you mean this time?’

  Pa took a breath. ‘I was here before…’ but Harkin held up her hand.

  ‘I’ll tell him.’ She turned to me but with a professional air. ‘He wanted to see you, that first time. He was very sick, so I brought you down here before Con took you to the tower. He thought you were safe in Freedom. He didn’t believe you were the injured boy brought here just after him. He had to be sure, so I brought you down for him to see.’

  I looked at Pa and by his closed eyes I could tell she was telling the truth. ‘We knew he was The Prince but we didn’t know he was your pa. He didn’t say.’ She swallowed. ‘He told us to take you to the tower to find Ishbel. Con wanted nothing to do with it. We…’ she gestured to Pa. ‘We had to convince him.’

  She pulled a plastic chair from the corner and placed it by the bed. ‘Sit.’ And she left us.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes but I knew time was short.

  ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry.’ His words came slow and weak. ‘I thought I would be dead by the time Ishbel had taken you to your grandfather.’ He swallowed. ‘I never meant it to be like this, Sorlie. I went to avenge your mother’s death. But by the time I reached her commander I realised it wasn’t the answer. There was another way.’ He shifted under his covers, pain washed over his face. I tried not to imagine how little was left of him. ‘I’d been establishing the Blue Pearl network for many years. Your mother and I knew Vanora’s plans weren’t working. We planned to take over. And then.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Well you know…’

  ‘Is she really dead?’ This question I’d buried ever since I knew Pa was alive.

  ‘Yes Sorlie, unlike me, she isn’t going to make a miraculous entry back into our lives. She really is dead. I saw what was left of her.’ His lips were cracked and raw, he licked them as he tried to smile. ‘We are going to beat them, Sorlie. You and I.’

  ‘But how? Why can’t we stay here? Safe.’

  He shook his head. ‘No – it needs to end. It’s all planned. We have the means. We only need to wait till next quarter. The Blue Pearl don’t even need me
now.’

  I felt the panic whoosh through my body.

  ‘You’re not going to die.’

  ‘No, not this time.’ His eyes drooped, he was going to sleep.

  ‘What happened to you, Pa?’

  ‘I got careless. After we took Jacques and shipped him off to Black Rock we headed north to intercept Vanora.’ He licked his lips. ‘My boat was caught in the destruction of your Transport. It exploded almost directly above us, raining our boat with metal and explosives. I’m lucky, the rest of the crew perished. Our other boat picked me up and rushed me here.’ His eyes closed, he shifted, every feature contorted with pain. He was doing it to stay awake.

  ‘It’s OK, tell me later.’

  ‘No, no, you need to know. I didn’t know Vanora had you with her. The men who kidnapped her panicked at seeing my boat explode. They shouldn’t have killed the Noiri man. They should have checked the back.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Sorlie.’ I could hardly make out the words.

  ‘What?’ but he’d gone under.

  And suddenly Harkin was at my shoulder. ‘He said sorry.’

  Harkin brought another chair and sat beside me. ‘He was bad when they carried him in here. The healer was working on him when you were brought in. That’s why we suspended you for over a week. Your injuries were not so urgent, but your father is strong, he recovered well from his operations. We transferred him to a moorlogger to recover on his way to Black Rock. He wanted to go there to speak to Jacques and Vanora through a short range device.’

  ‘It didn’t work.’ Why did he put himself through so much pain? But I knew. Like me they would never have believed the holo on its own. He had to be there in person, but give the illusion of being whole and strong.

  She took Pa’s hand and enclosed it in both hers. ‘I’m going to heal him, Sorlie. I can do it. We can make him prosthetics here, teach him to walk. Don’t worry.’ I looked at the tiny half man on the bed. It didn’t seem possible he would ever be whole again.

  ‘Thank you.’ I looked at her lips, the lips I’d kissed when I’d left. I wanted to kiss her again, but something stopped me. The time, the place, the situation. Or was it the determination in her eyes, the way she held Pa’s scarred hand in her small clasp.

  Scud pulled the tent flap back and stood in the doorway, Reinya by his side.

  ‘We are going tae beat them Sorlie. Ah know we are.’

  This time I believed him.

  Wants of the Silent

  Moira McPartlin

  © Moira McPartlin 2017

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified

  as the author of the work in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Fledgling Press Ltd,

  Cover illustration: Graeme Clarke

  Published by:

  Fledgling Press Ltd,

  39 Argyle Crescent,

  Edinburgh,

  EH15 2QE

  www.fledglingpress.co.uk

  Print ISBN 9781912280001

  eBook ISBN 9781912280018

  Praise for Ways of the Doomed

  Book One of The Sun Song Trilogy

  “If you liked Divergent and ‘that one about hunger’, you’re

  going to love Ways of The Doomed. Moira McPartlin’s prose

  is rich but unpretentious, her storytelling, thumping. An

  exciting new voice in YA fiction.” Helen FitzGerald

  “Chilling, intelligent, and thought-provoking, this richly

  imagined vision of the future gripped me from the outset.

  Beautifully written with fully realised characters, vivid

  settings, and a clever and playful use of language, Ways of

  the Doomed makes for a thrilling read. I loved it! My only

  complaint? I can’t wait for book 2.”

  Christina Banach, author of Minty

  "Moira McPartlin has created a scarily believable setting and populated it with mysterious characters and a teenage protagonist who is way out of his depth”

  Sue Wallman author of Lying About Last Summer (Zoella Book Club Pick 2016)

  “Ways of the Doomed is a vision of a damaged future which resonates for today. Beautifully written, Moira has created a plausible futuristic world which we half-recognize with its historical echoes and imagined outcomes.”

  Alex Nye author of Darker Ends

  ALSO BY MOIRA MCPARTLIN

  THE INCOMERS