by Oisin McGann
‘We hear what you’re saying,’ Balan reassured him. ‘Every possible precaution will be taken. Now, can we get down to the business at hand? Pedrat?’
‘Yes,’ the northern man piped up. ‘We were discussing signs and symptoms. Outside of what only a doctor is going to find in a detailed examination, there will be bleeding from the lips and gums, lesions on the skin, loss of hair and teeth, headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea …’
‘My God,’ Thomex gasped. ‘How long does it take?’
‘The first symptoms show up between a few hours and a few days after you catch it, depending on the strength of the dose. If you survive the initial effects, there can be some damned awful long-term damage. This is pretty nasty stuff. That is why they are going to need our help. That’s the whole point.’
‘And what if they don’t ask us to help them?’
‘They’ll have to,’ Balan said. ‘We could see whole villages coming down with this. They’re going to need all the help they can get. They’ll need our doctors to treat it and the doctors will need the army to contain it, stop it spreading. Even if they don’t ask us in, we’ll have to insist because of the risk of it being carried up to the plateaux.’
Chamus listened, riveted, to the discussion. So his grandfather was being asked to help deal with the epidemic he had heard about in Bartokhrin. But these men were not medical staff; they were military. Could the terrorists have found a way to carry the disease into the cities? That would explain why his grandfather was being so secretive. He was always going on about security and ‘need to know’. Grandad thought the public would panic if they were ever told even half of what the military knew.
‘And are we ready to deal with it?’ Thomex pressed. ‘Do our doctors know how to treat it?’
‘We’ll be ready to deal with it,’ Pedrat answered, ‘by the time you’ve figured out how to get it onto a plane, Thomex. We’d like that to be less than two weeks from now.’
‘That’s cutting it a bit tight, I don’t mind telling you, everything about this thing is experimental. There’s going to be some trial and error before we get it right …’
‘We don’t have time for messing about, Thomex. There are lives at stake.’
‘Don’t patronise me, you messenger boy. Don’t question my commitment. It’ll be ready when it’s ready, and that will be when it works and not before. Bloody lackeys. Now sod off out of my house. My grandson is due home soon. And mind you don’t slam that door; the coloured glass is delicate.’
Chamus ducked back into the dark as the two men came out. The front door opened and closed, and he waited for a few minutes and listened as his grandfather wheeled himself out of the drawing room and into the kitchen. There was the sound of the kettle being filled and put on a gas ring. It started to heat noisily and Chamus used the sound to close the railway-room door and creep down the corridor. The old man was out of sight behind the kitchen door. Chamus slipped out into the main hallway, opened the front door and closed it again.
‘I’m home!’ he called. ‘Anybody in?’
‘In the kitchen, lad!’ Thomex called. ‘You’re back early. Come on in, I’m fixing a brew.’
Chamus joined his grandfather at the kitchen table.
‘Can we go and run the trains for a bit?’ he asked, because he knew Grandad would expect it of him.
‘In a while. I just need to go in and tidy up a little first. There are some private things I need to put away. So, why are you back so early?’
Riadni led Rumbler by the reins over the narrow ridge which ran along the top of Sleeping Hill. She told herself that she was just searching for howler tracks. The bear-sized dogs had been seen over this way and she wanted to be sure that they weren’t coming far enough into their land to threaten her father’s cattle. A single howler could destroy their herd in a month. That was why she was breaking her promise to her father; that was why she was wandering close to the Hadram Cassal camp.
It had nothing to do with the boy with the blue eyes and the mop of brown hair, whom she had met the week before. Nothing whatsoever. But if she happened to run into him (or if he happened to run into her again), then she wouldn’t object to hanging around and talking for a while. Not for the first time, she wondered what his name was … and whether he was promised to anybody. She shook that thought from her head. Her father had started watching how she behaved around boys and she knew he would be looking for a good match. He might ask her if she liked such and such, or drop hints that what’s-his-name was a fine figure of a young man, from a good family, but the choice was not hers to make. Her mother and father would choose for her – for the good of the family. And she would love him and be loyal to him. It could not work any other way.
Riadni wondered again what the blue-eyed boy’s name was. The people on the coast had blue eyes and brown hair. He had very little accent and he sounded educated. Perhaps the son of a landowner. She remembered his laugh … and then remembered that she was on the lookout for howlers, not suitors. Tugging impatiently on Rumbler’s reins, she walked on along the narrow, stony track. Rumbler followed without complaint.
The edge of the ridge fell away ahead of her and she looped the reins around the stump of a bush. Stooping to avoid being caught against the horizon, she made her way forward, getting lower as she saw a herd of mountain cattle on the flat beneath her. Those were not her father’s cattle. There was a boy sitting on a boulder near them, keeping watch. Creeping further forward, she came into view of the camp itself. The caves were right below her and at the foot of the hill was a group of six boys crawling under a net. They scrambled out from underneath it, ran to a high wooden wall and vaulted over, plunging into a pool of water on the other side. They waded out and finished the assault course by attacking six scarecrows with a series of strikes with their knives. Riadni stifled a giggle. It was just like watching her brothers playing war. The boys roared a battle-cry and shook their weapons at the sky. It was all a bit daft.
Then she noticed that the boy she had met in the gully was one of the six. She moved further forward to get a better look. Suddenly a man reared up out of a crevice right in front of her. Riadni stumbled backwards and heard Rumbler whinny. Before she could react, an arm curled around her throat from behind and a knife pricked the back of her neck.
‘Who are you?’ a voice hissed in her ear.
Riadni was terrified, but she wasn’t about to give them the pleasure of seeing it.
‘I’m Riadni Mocranen,’ she choked. ‘You are our guests.’
‘Bring her to Elbeth,’ the one in front of her said. ‘He’ll have to decide.’
She bit the side of her mouth. Decide what?
As the first one pulled her arms behind her and tied them at the elbows, the other went to fetch Rumbler. Riadni decided to let him. There was a shriek and she and her captor spun around. The second man was lying on the ground holding a hand that was bleeding profusely.
‘Oh, I should have told you,’ Riadni said flatly. ‘He bites.’
‘Leave the horse,’ the first man snapped. ‘Come on.’
The wounded man got to his feet, wrapped a rag around his hand and followed Riadni and her captor down the trail. She got a chance to look at them more carefully. They were dressed in working clothes – canvas trousers, cotton lace-up tops and wide-brimmed hats. They wore soft leather boots with thin soles for quiet movement and each had a leather belt with a knife, flintlock pistol in a holster and pouches for powder and ball. She had no doubt they could use both weapons well. Trying to run was out of the question. Besides, the man with the mangled hand was giving her nasty looks and she didn’t want to give him any excuses to get his own back.
They marched down into the camp, attracting some attention from the others there. The boy Riadni knew came up to them, walking alongside her.
‘You’ve caught a live one there, Misho,’ he said to the man leading her, ‘but I don’t think you’re going to get to keep her. That’s Mocranen’s daughter you�
�ve got there.’
‘That’s Mister Mocranen to you peasants,’ she scowled.
‘That’s Mister Mocranen’s daughter you’ve got there,’ the young man repeated happily. ‘Welcome to our humble caves, Miss Mocranen.’
‘They’re our caves.’
‘Welcome to your humble caves, Miss Mocranen.’
She suppressed a smile as Misho waved the boy away. She was led into the mouth of the largest cave, where some older men were hunkered down around a map. They looked up and a few of them smiled. Lakrem Elbeth stood up and beamed at her.
‘Miss Mocranen, you bless us with your presence. But I don’t think your father will be very happy. I’m sure he told you what a bad influence we are. Or perhaps that is the very reason you went against his wishes?’ He spread his hands. ‘Tea?’
‘Sorry?’ she frowned. ‘Oh. No, thank you. I should be getting home now. If you’d untie me …’
‘But you’ve only just arrived. I’m sure you’re curious about what we do here.’
He motioned with his hand and Misho quickly untied her arms.
Riadni stared at him. The only advantage of wearing Shanneyan make-up was that it made her feelings harder to read. Elbeth’s expression had a mask all its own, but she did not see the welcome there that his words offered. She had broken a promise to come here, had been caught spying on a place that was supposed to be secret. She knew he was weighing all this up and wondered with sudden fear if the decision that the two lookouts had spoken about, Elbeth’s decision, was whether or not she was to be killed.
‘My father will be asking where I am.’
‘I’m sure he asks that all the time,’ Elbeth shrugged. ‘He is a devout man, and you are not exactly an ideal Shanneyan daughter. It is still early. Misho, where is the lady’s horse?’
‘Up on the hill. It bit Carlec’s hand, so we left it.’
Everyone turned to look at Carlec, who was standing to attention with his ragged bandage dripping blood.
‘It nearly took off my fingers, Master Elbeth,’ he blurted out, cradling his hand.
‘Which would have no doubt halved your mathematical abilities,’ Elbeth muttered. ‘Have Jasker see to your wound. Misho, leave the horse where it is for now, but return to your post. Miss Mocranen … may I call you Riadni?’
Riadni was stumped. As a friend of her father’s, he was entitled to call her by her first name. As an older man she had met only once before, he was required to be more formal. Most men were, until they were told otherwise.
‘No,’ she said, ‘Miss Mocranen, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course. Well Miss Mocranen, I couldn’t help noticing that young Akhna recognised you when you walked in. You’ve met before?’
She hesitated. She hadn’t realised he had watched them walk through the camp.
‘I’ve seen him. I didn’t know his name.’
‘His name is Benyan Akhna,’ Elbeth gazed out at the boys practising stick-fighting, ‘a fine figure of a young man. We expect great things from him. Perhaps you’d like to fetch your horse and join his group for some riding exercises?’
Riadni blinked. Perhaps she would.
For Chamus, it was like being back on that taxiway – scraped, battered and barely conscious. The sound could still be heard from a few streets away, even though the sireniser was already winding down. It must be one of the Haunted, he thought. Another insane Fringelander committing mortiphas for his ‘cause’. We shouldn’t even be able to get this close without ear protectors, and a real sireniser goes on for hours.
He was with his classmates, on their way to the war museum on a school trip. Their tram had been stopped, along with all the other traffic, by police, half a mile from the old building. Then suddenly they had heard it. Crisp, but heavy and mournful, the sound of a sireniser going off. There was the split of concrete and the shattering of glass as every window near the blast blew out. Everyone in the tram covered their ears, except Chamus. He knew that if the sound was going to hurt them, it would have already. A cloud of dust rolled down the street towards them, most of it thinning out and dispersing before it hit them.
‘Here, Constable,’ Vel Sillian called to one of the policemen, ‘what did they hit?’
‘The war museum,’ the copper replied. ‘The nutter stood there chanting for nearly ten minutes. Looked like he was having an argument with himself, apparently. Seems like the bad half won the toss. Still, we had time to get most of the people out.’
Most of the people, Chamus thought. Wonder how many that left?
‘Trip’s over then, Miss?’ Sillian turned to their history teacher, Mrs Archaw.
‘Sit down, please, Sillian, until the police tell us whether or not we can go.’ Mrs Archaw was a plump, jovial woman, but there were tears in her eyes now and a quiver in her voice.
‘Oh, you can take the youngsters away, Miss,’ the policeman nodded, ‘no need for them to hang around. Only adding to the noise if you know what I mean.’
‘Only too well, Constable,’ she said shakily. ‘Right, all of you, there’s no sense sitting in all this traffic. Out you get and start walking. That means you too, Roddins. Don’t make me say it twice.’
There was some moaning from the class, but Chamus was glad for the chance to walk. The other girls and boys were talking excitedly and even he was caught up in the atmosphere. All around them, people were getting out of their vehicles and talking about the attack. People in the street never talked to each other, but today they all had something in common, he realised. Today, someone was trying to kill them. The terrorists picked on ordinary folks, not soldiers or politicians; the attacks were aimed at anybody who lived in Victovia or any of the other half-dozen major cities in Altima. You didn’t have to be fighting against the Fringelanders; you just had to be one of a few million people living in the wrong place.
This was one of the oldest parts of town, right in the centre of the city. The buildings were ornate and permanent, made of sandstone and granite, with tall windows, high ceilings and proud workmanship. The streets were cobbled and the kerbs high, from the days when horse-drawn carriages were still used. That would have been almost two centuries ago, Chamus thought to himself; the first powered flight had happened back then, when even motorcars were still in their infancy. Man had ruled the skies for nearly a hundred and fifty years and there was still so much room up there to explore.
He looked up into the sky. The dust was joining the smog, blocking out the blue he loved. Police balloons hung at regular points across the city, anchored to the tallest buildings, the overcoated constables watching over the inhabitants with binoculars. As always, at least one or two other aircraft could be seen under the low, scattered clouds. Sillian caught him staring skywards and punched him on the shoulder.
‘Do you ever think about anything else, Cham?’ he asked. ‘When are you going to start staring at girls like that?’
‘When they grow wings and a propeller,’ Chamus smiled back.
‘Now we know why your canopy gets all steamed up during flying lessons,’ Sillian chortled. ‘Oi! Cham’s never taking the rear seat in my bird again!’
There was a cackle from the other boys, and Roddins grabbed his crotch with one hand and stuck the other out like a wing, buzzing from side to side with an engine sound.
‘Demonstrating poor use of your joystick there, Roddins,’ Sillian barked, like their flying instructors. ‘Ride the plane. Don’t let her ride you.’
‘Sillian!’ Mrs Archaw snapped from the front, looking around. ‘Don’t think I can’t hear you!’
‘Yes, Miss,’ the dark-haired boy answered dutifully. ‘Tell us some history, Miss.’
‘Well I’m glad you asked, Sillian. This is the perfect opportunity.’
‘Arse-licker,’ Chamus whispered. ‘We were going to miss class.’
‘We still will,’ Sillian muttered back. ‘She can’t hear a thing over the sound of her own voice.’
‘You’d be surprised what I can he
ar over the sound of my own voice. Now pipe down.’
The two boys paid great attention to their feet.
‘This is the perfect opportunity to cover some Fringelands’ history. It might put today’s events in some perspective,’ Mrs Archaw began, and the whole class sighed silently. They could tell when she was preparing for one of her lengthy lectures. ‘There are four Fringeland nations bordering the Altiman plateaux: Majarak, Bartokhrin, Constantin and Nathelem. Each claims to be a democratic republic, although Majarak is currently ruled by a dictator who seized power with the army two years ago, and Nathelem has had seven governments in three years because of various coups and scandals.
‘Altima and Traucasis fought a number of wars for the domination of the valuable resources in these lands.’
‘Where did they fight the wars, Miss?’ Chamus asked. They didn’t often do Fringelands’ history, and it sounded like they might be missing out on some gory stories.
‘Well, normally in the land that was the subject of the dispute, Chamus. That is the tradition with wars. Now, Majarak was the first to win its independence, forming its first political party late in the last century …’
And so it went on. Like so many history lessons, it was a collection of political facts, dates and places. Chamus wished they could hear more of the stories – especially the war stories. He thought about why they were walking back to school. Their school trip had been cancelled because people had been killed and all they were worried about was not getting back in time for their afternoon classes.
‘Why do they hate us, Miss?’ he asked suddenly.
‘They don’t all hate us,’ she said slowly, ‘but the problem is that the ones who do are the ones we see and hear. It’s like being in a room full of strangers, who all look similar and most of whom talk quietly. But there’s one who wants to shout all the time. The others have things to say, if only you would listen to them, but you only listen to the man who shouts, because his behaviour has your attention. Violent behaviour gets our attention.’
