Walking Mountain

by Lennon, Joan;

  ‘You called me,’ said the strange Driver. ‘So I came.’

  For a long moment, the two little silver men from beyond the stars stared into each other’s eyes with a joy too huge for laughter or smiling. Pema felt tears welling up and Singay sniffed loudly, causing the strange Driver to leap away from her wildly.

  Rose gave the ghost of a chuckle. ‘Don’t worry. It’s just a breathing thing. You’ll get used to it.’ He closed his eyes again, as if even the effort of holding them open was too much for him.

  The new Driver grabbed hold of his hands, looking stricken. ‘Please, be strong – you mustn’t let go now! You have every right to be angry with me. I know I did everything wrong. Don’t get noticed? I couldn’t have been more noticeable if I’d put a gigantic arrow in the sky saying, “Look, here’s an alien, why don’t you come and kill him while he’s still young and stupid?” Just as stupid as I ever was, I’m afraid, dear friend, but not so young anymore. It’s been so long . . . so long . . .’

  ‘More?’ Rose murmured. ‘More irradiant?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ the other Driver soothed. ‘We have more than enough. But gently does it. A little at a time.’ He leaned down and whispered in Rose’s ear, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you away from them the second you’re strong enough.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Rose. ‘These two are my good friends. I’d never have got back to you without them.’

  ‘But you’re right to worry about the others,’ put in Singay, nodding her head at the workers on the other side of the tank. They were milling about in shock. ‘I don’t think they’re ready for anything more, not after what they’ve been through already today!’ She pulled Pema over to stand beside her, to screen the two Drivers from sight as much as possible.

  Rose nodded his head and then frowned. ‘But where’s Amelia?’

  ‘What’s an Amelia?’ The younger Driver was concentrating on administering more irradiant.

  Rose found the strength to look both modest and proud at the same time. ‘I named us,’ he said. ‘I’m Rose. You two are Trout and Amelia. Aren’t they wonderful names? I’ve been longing to tell you!’

  ‘Careful,’ Pema interrupted. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  It was one of the workers. He was cradling a broken arm, and he leaned against the railing beside them as if he needed the support to stay upright. He seemed to be very carefully not looking directly at them.

  ‘It’s strange,’ he said, to no one in particular, ‘how something huge like this can play tricks with you. I guess it’s the fear and the stress that make you maybe see things you couldn’t possibly have seen.’

  Trout went utterly still, his body as tense as a pulled bow.

  ‘What do you think you saw, sir?’ asked Pema cautiously.

  The man still kept his gaze focused on the middle distance. ‘No need to call me that, boy. I’m just a Flatter. We all are. But I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what I thought I saw. I thought I saw a silver man, riding the crest of the wave like he was riding a great green beast. He was searching for something, or maybe for someone, and for just a fraction of a second he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I thought, He’s coming to save us! We’re not going to die. And he did save us, because look, here we are, not dead! I thought I saw a silver god come out of the Sea to save a bunch of Flatters and oilmen. How likely is that? But it makes a good story.’

  And he suddenly turned and looked straight at Trout.

  ‘Thank you,’ the man said.

  Trout’s eyes showed white all the way around the silver.

  ‘I . . . you . . . I . . . you’re . . .’ he squeaked, ending with a strangled-sounding ‘welcome?’

  The man nodded and walked away.

  ‘Nicely handled, lad!’ said Rose. His voice was still weak but the smile on his face was the old Rose come back again.

  Trout collapsed into a little heap. ‘This is not what I was expecting,’ he murmured.

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ Pema reassured him. ‘It’s a lot to take in all at once.’

  ‘And I don’t imagine Amelia’s going to find it any easier! But where is she?’ Rose asked again, looking about eagerly.

  There was a pause. There should have been something, some sudden chill, a hint to warn them of what was coming next. But there wasn’t.

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Trout. ‘I found her body when I woke up.’

  ‘Oh no,’ breathed Pema, and Rose made a small sound of pain.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Singay couldn’t believe her ears. This can’t be happening. We’ve come so far, been through so much.‘How could she die?’

  Trout looked at her with his not-Rose eyes.

  ‘She lost hope,’ he whispered. ‘So she died.’

  Singay shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Rose. His voice was bleak, but calm.

  Trout’s words came out in a rush. ‘You must understand, we had no way of knowing what had happened to you. The interference from all this’ – he gestured at the metal devastation around them – ‘meant we couldn’t hear you. We just went on nudging the tectonic plate, year after year, because we couldn’t think what else to do.’

  He reached out and touched Rose on the shoulder, as if he needed the contact to reassure him that his friend was finally, truly there.

  ‘We were afraid something terrible had happened to you, some awful accident. Maybe the humans had discovered you and you were dead. I mean’ – he looked embarrassed as he turned to Singay and Pema – ‘maybe some bad humans had discovered him. And if he wasn’t coming back to us, you see, we wouldn’t be able to leave.’

  ‘Because it takes three to drive a comet,’ said Singay slowly.

  Trout nodded. ‘Without Rose, we’d never be able to go home. It was then we decided that I should go into longsleep.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It’s a good way to conserve resources. Drivers can go on for a long time without needing irradiants when they’re in longsleep.’

  ‘But I thought you said it was really dangerous,’ objected Pema. ‘I thought it was something you can’t easily wake up from.’

  ‘That’s right. You need to be called. But Amelia never called me. I think she must have decided it was all over for us, and it would be better not to wake me, just to let me go on, unconscious of our fate, until, eventually, I was dead too. She was always so kind.’

  ‘Kind? To let you die in your sleep?’ Pema was incredulous.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ said Singay. ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Trout. ‘She lost hope.’

  ‘Nobody dies of losing hope!’

  ‘Drivers do.’

  And then Singay suddenly remembered all the way back to the day they’d first met Rose, inside the Mountain. He’d said, ‘I don’t lose hope, of course. That would be fatal.’ And she’d thought he was just being dramatic, just using a figure of speech.

  I should have known better.

  ‘How did you wake up, then?’ she asked. ‘If Amelia couldn’t call you anymore?’

  ‘I heard, er, Rose,’ said the young Driver. It was obvious the name still felt unfamiliar.

  ‘You heard him? But you said you couldn’t hear him! I thought—’ Pema stopped abruptly and shivered, remembering the intensity of Rose’s silent cry, just before the world fell apart.

  Trout was remembering too.

  ‘I can’t tell you how awful it was – waking up, thinking, “But that’s him! He’s not dead – we can leave!” and almost in the same instant seeing her, and realising that she was dead, and our chances with her.’ He rubbed a silvery hand across his face. ‘You must think I’m bad, to have such thoughts. It isn’t that I don’t grieve for her – I do! – but I so want to go home!’

  Pema put a hand on Trout’s thin shoulder. ‘Of course we don’t think you’re bad – not for a second,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Do we, Singay?’

  There was a pecu
liar, still expression on Singay’s face, and for a moment she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Singay?’ Pema prompted.

  ‘What? Oh no, we don’t think you’re bad,’ she said abruptly. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘If only she’d been able to hold on,’ the young Driver whispered.

  Another voice interrupted. ‘If you’d all just gather round . . .’ It was the man with the broken arm. He was standing in the centre of the tank. He must have been some sort of shift leader, for even though he was starting to look really ill with the pain, the habit of authority was clearly stronger.

  ‘You go, Pema,’ said Singay. ‘I want to stay here with Rose and Trout.’ There was an odd note in her voice.

  As he joined the edge of the crowd, Zamin appeared suddenly at Pema’s elbow. He looked down at her. I should hate you, he thought wearily, for what you did. But somehow I can’t find the energy.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Za’s gone to tie up a little unfinished business with Impeccable.’

  ‘What? Where?’ But then Pema saw Impeccable, skulking amongst the oilmen. He’d been hit on the forehead by something sharp and had blood all over his face, but he was alive. He’d come through the horror. He’d turned the world inside out and it had cost him no more than a scratch. Pema felt a wave of fury so fierce it made him feel sick. He forced himself to look away.

  Standing in the centre of the tank, the shift leader was speaking.

  ‘. . . still some hope. We have to remember, the Flats are – were – near enough built on boats. It’s my belief some Flatters will have survived. Some Flatter boats will have survived too. It’s only a matter of time before they come looking for us. When that happens, those of us who are still fit will stay put and the injured will be taken ashore first. I think we’re safe here. I think all we need at this moment is patience. Meantime, we have some medical supplies. If you need help, line up here, and we’ll have a look at injuries . . .’

  Without appearing to have moved, Impeccable was suddenly at the front of the queue. Pema turned away in disgust and started back to Singay and the Drivers.

  ‘The man said they’re expecting boats to come out, looking for survivors,’ he told them. ‘So we just stick tight till that happens. We’ll have to wait till the ones that are hurt get off, of course, but then it’ll be our turn to go to shore. Right?’

  When Singay just shook her head at him, he had no idea why.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Singay’s Choice

  ‘Pema,’ she said. ‘I’m not going back to the shore. I’m going to go with Rose and Trout.’

  Pema could feel his face freeze in a silly smile. What on earth is she talking about?

  ‘I’m going to be the third Driver.’

  It was as if she’d suddenly kicked him in the stomach. Her words tapped straight into the fury he’d just suppressed against Impeccable and shoved it out of his mouth.

  ‘DON’T BE STUPID!’ he yelled. Heads turned on the other side of the tank, but he didn’t care. ‘YOU’RE HUMAN!’

  Singay flinched, then reached out, putting her hand for a moment on his arm.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I don’t have to be. Look, we’ve known from the very beginning that to save the world there needs to be three Drivers. Three to stop the Mountain forever, three to keep all the land from getting dragged back into the Sea until there’s nothing left but those things, you know, the fossils. So, if I can become a Driver, the third Driver, and we can make things safe again, for everybody, then I have to do it, don’t I? But – I want to be honest – there’s more. Pema, how can I make you understand?’ She looked down, struggling to find the words. ‘It sounds so pathetic – so wrong-headed! – saying it out loud, but all my life, I’ve wanted to do something special. Be something special. Have a great adventure.’ Her laugh was sad. ‘And getting here, getting Rose to the Sea, you’d think that was enough of an adventure for anybody! But now I know that journey was just the beginning. I want to be a Driver, Pema – I want to do this. It’s as if everything has finally come together, as if everything has been leading up to this. Even those awful dreams I kept having – Trout and Rose think I may already have some sort of an affinity. To rocks, you know? Like the way you are with animals? I know this is the thing for me to do. I . . . do you understand? At all?’ There was pleading in her eyes, but also a strength, a sureness, that he didn’t remember ever seeing before. It made his heart hurt.

  ‘You never needed to do anything to be special, Singay. You always just were. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.’

  Singay just looked at him. She didn’t answer. Desperately, Pema turned to the two Drivers. ‘This is crazy talk, isn’t it? How could it even be physically possible?’ Distress made his words a wail. Rose didn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Um, yes, it’s perfectly possible,’ said Trout nervously. ‘It’s just a question of mineral manipulation.’ He took a step back from the flare of anger in Pema’s face, but floundered on. ‘Perhaps I could explain the process in terms of organic and inorganic proportions. Human and Driver anatomy have some things in common – the organic bits are surprisingly similar. However the inorganic bits aren’t, and the ratio of organic to inorganic is where we differ the most.’ He went on talking, explaining about the relation between the organic components in humans which kept them alive, ‘and the inorganic ones that do the fine-tuning. With Drivers, it’s the other way around. So with Singay, all we would need to do is encourage the mineral side of things and discourage the non-mineral side.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about and I don’t think you do either.’ Pema didn’t care how rude he sounded or how upset the young Driver looked. He turned on Rose and snapped, ‘You’re very quiet through all this – what do you have to say for yourself? Well?’

  Rose looked up, his face still pale, his eyes sad.

  ‘Pema, go to the railing. Look out. Tell us what you see.’

  No, Pema thought. No! He’d been aware the wind had picked up, and the obscuring mist was dispersing. He’d been aware that he could see the damage, see what the wave had done, but it felt like there was no room left in his brain for any more pain. I don’t want to go, he thought, I don’t want to see, but he went anyway. He clutched the railing with his hands so tightly his knuckles showed white, and he looked out over the world the wave had left.

  The City and the Flats and the Wall were gone. The mud and fine palaces and the barrier between had been smashed and swept away. Where they had been was now a great basin of sea water, oil-slicked and uneasy, pierced with jagged metal that seemed to move in the swell, like twisted creatures in a death throe.

  Pema could see rubble strewn onto the shore and floating thick on the waves and, bobbing about with the other detritus, the thing he had feared most to see and feared he would see forever, to the end of his own life – hundreds of corpses.

  They were alive – they were all alive. He covered his face with his hands.

  Rose’s voice was gentle and inescapable.

  ‘Trout and I won’t abandon your world. We’ll do our best, for as long as we have the strength. But two Drivers are just not enough. He and I can hold the Mountain steady for a time, but we can’t ground it. We can’t make it so it will never walk again. As we weaken and lose control, there will be earthquakes and tsunamis and destruction far worse than this, and the life that depends on green things will die as the mountains return to the Sea. We need to be three to finish what we came here to do, to make good again. We need Singay.’

  Singay put her hand on Pema’s shoulder. ‘They need me. We need me – and I want to do it.’

  I don’t care. I don’t care! He was desperate to argue and kick and scream, do anything to make Singay change her mind.

  He looked into her face, and he knew there was nothing that would do that.

  ‘Will it hurt?’ he found himself asking instead. ‘When you change her?’

&nbs
p; ‘We won’t let it.’ Trout spoke solemnly. He was about to continue when, suddenly, Zamin and Za popped up with a money sack and smug expressions.

  ‘Impeccable owed us,’ Zamin said, as she poured a pile of coins into her hand. ‘The rest is yours.’ And she handed the sack to Singay.

  Singay looked confused. ‘I don’t . . . what’s this for?’

  Zamin tutted. ‘What do you think it’s for? It’s Rose’s fee for doing Impeccable’s job. Minus our finder’s fee.’

  ‘That’s right – for finding the money sack in his pocket when he wasn’t looking,’ Za grinned.

  And with that, they walked away.

  Singay stared after them, spluttering, ‘I . . . they . . . they really are the most incorrigible, barefaced . . .’ She shook her head and then she handed the sack over to Pema.

  ‘Here. Use it to get home. And then, if there’s any left, maybe you could send it to the Abbey.’

  Pema nodded.

  ‘It can be a replacement for my dowry. Or they could send it back to my family. Whatever they think is best.’

  Pema nodded again. He was looking at the sack in his hands as if he would never look at anything else again.

  ‘Pema, please, talk to me!’ Her voice broke on the words.

  ‘All right. And when I do that – give them the money – what do you think I should tell them about you?’ He looked up then and his eyes were hot and angry. ‘Do I tell them I just lost you, somewhere along the way? Terribly careless of me, so sorry? You think they’re just going to accept that?’

  ‘No, of course not. You must tell them the truth. All of it.’

  ‘They won’t believe me.’ He sounded sulky and tired now, as if the fight had suddenly gone out of him.

  ‘I think they might,’ said Singay slowly. ‘Rose and Trout have got things steady again, in the short term, and when I’m fully a Driver, the three of us will be able to ground the Mountain and make it be still at last. But there will have been damage. Every time Rose lost control . . . Now, they’ll be busy repairing, rebuilding, but still afraid of what might be coming next. I think they’ll be happy to be told that it’s all over!’