Earth Thirst

by Mark Teppo

  The captain of the ship, an angular man in a black pea coat and woolen hat, ambles up the beach. Taking a nature hike while his crew does their work. I crawl over the top of the hill and start sliding down the other side. This gentleman and I have a matter to discuss.

  He spots me coming. I am a black shadow tumbling down the red rock hillside, a bird of bad omen coming to roost. He tugs a large revolver out of his waistband as I reach the base of the hill, and he waits out in the middle of the beach for me as I weave through the copse of lancewoods. I've been exposed to a lot of sun the last few days and my skin is red and peeling. I'm worn out, like a husk of dried fruit, and my mood is as foul as my skin.

  I'm going to try to be nice, though. Just in case politeness will make a difference.

  The captain's got a bulge in his cheek, and as I cross the pale beach, tiny shards of bleached coral, his jaw moves and he spits a squirt of black goo onto the beach.

  I come to an abrupt halt, staring at the dark stain on the coral.

  “Um, hey,” he says, thumbing back the hammer on his revolver.

  I raise my head and stare at him.

  “Oh, shit,” he says, his hand trembling. The barrel of the revolver wiggles off-target.

  I really should be polite, but I'm thirsty.

  He manages to pull the trigger once, the report of the firearm breaking the calm respite of the island. On the rocky nail, birds startle, flooding into the sky.

  His blood is foul, tainted by years of chewing tobacco. I drink it anyway, because I don't want to stain the beach.

  * * *

  The sailors are Maori, their dark skins covered with tribal tattoos, and they don't appear overly agitated. Apparently this isn't the first time their captain has fired his hand cannon on the island. I can only imagine what sort of target shooting he's been doing with the birds, which only makes me happier that I killed him. The sailors have finished whatever unloading and loading they needed to do, and a couple of them are still wandering around the beach as I walk up.

  “Nice boat,” I say. I'm wearing the captain's coat and hat, the handgun shoved in the front of my pants in much the same lackadaisical fashion as he carried it. I don't expect my disguise to fool the sailors; more that I hope to suggest a starting point for our conversation. Ship needs a captain. Captain needs a crew. Everything else is negotiable. To a point. I could probably manage the boat myself, but I'd prefer not to.

  “It's a bucket of rust,” one of the sailors replies. The others begin to wander back toward the boat, trying to look nonchalant, but I can tell from the tension in their shoulders that they are trying hard not to run.

  I keep my gaze on the spokesperson. I'm not terribly concerned about the others. Yet. “What's your name, sailor?” I ask.

  “Winston,” he replies. “Where did you come from?”

  I indicate the landscape behind me. “From the other side of that hill there.”

  He offers a polite laugh. “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “That depends on a small matter, doesn't it?”

  “Aye,” he nods. “It does.”

  “You going to miss your late captain?”

  “Captain Henry was an asshole,” Winston says. “He never paid us shit.”

  “Well,” I point out, “he was captain of a rusty old trawler. What did you expect?”

  Winston laughs at that. He has a lot of strong-looking teeth. A good sign. Virility and self-confidence.

  “I need a ride, Winston. You think that boat will remain seaworthy long enough to get back to Australia?”

  He shakes his head lightly. “It is bad luck to give rides to stranded spirits. Especially kiri mate.”

  “I'd be happy to give you what is in my wallet, except…” I shrug, suggesting that the story of how I lost my wallet isn't that interesting. I don't know what a kiri mate is, but it isn't too hard to guess. “Well, here's the thing,” I continue, taking the late captain's hat off and tossing it to Winston, “I need a ride more than I need a ship.”

  Winston catches the hat and turns it over in his hands for a moment. His gaze strays to the gun stuck in my belt. “Where?” he asks eventually.

  “Somewhere near Adelaide.”

  He puts the hat on, adjusts it to his liking, and smiles at me again. “I might know how to get to somewhere near Kangaroo Island,” he says.

  It is my turn to laugh. It's a small island off the Australian coast, at the mouth of the Gulf of St. Vincent. The Aboriginals call it the island of the dead. “That'll work,” I say.

  “And?” he asks.

  “And you can keep the boat, and as far as I am concerned, there is no cargo below deck.

  “Nothing but empty boxes,” he says, touching the brim of the cap.

  Several of the crew are now standing on the deck of the boat, their AK-47s hanging loosely in their hands. Not in a threatening way. They're just letting me see them.

  I doubt any of them could actually hit me at this range, but I don't need to make them try. “I hope the crew is as lazy as they look and not prone to sudden spurts of curiosity,” I say.

  “The previous captain's quarters are very small, and they smell bad,” Winston says. “But the door locks.”

  “Finally,” I sigh, “something on that rust bucket that works.”

  Winston smiles as he turns his head and shouts at the crew in Maori. The guns disappear and the crew starts to make preparations for departure.

  “Welcome aboard the Black Starling,” Winston says, indicating the boat. “We'll be departing shortly.”

  BOOK TWO

  APORIA

  EIGHT

  Kangaroo Island was the site of one of the first European settlements in Southern Australia; it's still an island and the lure of millions of hectares of unclaimed land just a short boat ride away won out. Now, the island is split between national parks and wineries, which keeps the population density down and the natural vegetation up.

  The Black Starling comes within sight of Kangaroo Island during the endless dusk, and for a parting gift, Captain Winston gives me a rubber raft and a pair of plastic oars. I don't complain as the weather is pleasant and the mild current pushes me toward shore. I float/row for about an hour, and in that time, the Black Starling slips around the curve of the island. I doubt I'll see Captain Winston and his crew again, which, I'm sure, suits them fine.

  I never did find out what kiri mate means.

  My destination is a thin stretch of rugged beach, more rocky spurs than smooth sand. I run the raft aground, and splash through the last few meters of tidewater. As soon as I feel firm ground beneath my feet, I start to run.

  I used to be able to run from sunset to sunrise without stop, and now I barely get five kilometers before I'm winded. Another kilometer and my legs begin to cramp.

  Fortunately, I'm deep in uncontrolled woodlands now, where the ground is soft underneath broad-limbed trees. Even though all I want to do is lie down and breathe all the rich oxygen the trees are exhaling, I drop to my knees and dig. The ground accepts me, but it doesn't want to hold me tight. It doesn't remember me like it should. Mother is too far away, and I've been gone too long.

  I'm tainted.

  * * *

  I rest for a few days, and when the itching in my legs becomes too distracting, I claw my way out of the ground. Low in the northern sky, a pale half-closed eye of a moon winks at me, and the forest is quiet but for the scattered calls of silvereyes and grey warblers. I lean against the trunk of a black cypress and listen to the birds singing to each other. My fingers trace the patterns of the tree's bark, reading its history. It stands tall and straight, and there is very little warp in its bark. The birds sing openly, without concern of who might be listening to them.

  It would be so easy to sit here all night. And the night after that. And the one after that. But I can't, because I don't have that kind of time anymore. My body is decaying.

  My bullet wounds—a good half-dozen of them scattered across my chest and t
wo more on my upper right arm—are still there, sullen and weeping holes in my flesh. They're infected, slick with a sickly yellow pus. My legs are trembling beneath the tattered remnants of my pants, and the skin is a tangled map of knotted flesh—half-melted, half-healed. The chemicals are in my bloodstream too and until I can flush it out, my immune system is compromised. The airborne toxins of the twenty-first century are going to gang up on me, and it's a battle I'm already losing. I'm rotting, slowly and surely.

  If I could get back to Arcadia, Mother could heal me, but I'd have to convince the Grove to let me return to her embrace. I have no idea what has happened to the others. Did any of them survive? I've had more than a few nights to reflect on what happened during the last hours of the mission, and I'm not sure who fucked who. I can't be sure that Talus and Nigel haven't poisoned the Grove against me.

  Even then, Mother might still reject me, even after I make the journey back home.

  I get wearily to my feet, dust off the worst of the dirt stains, and go looking for something to eat.

  One problem at a time. Start small; work your way up. An old soldier's rule.

  * * *

  The first house I break into doesn't have a landline. The second has an old rotary phone, and the resident is on an equally antique phone service plan. I can't even get an international operator. I settle for stealing a change of clothes from the master bedroom closet and a half-gallon jug of unfiltered organic apple juice that I find in a small refrigerator.

  The next house I stumble across is a tiny cabin nestled in the vee-shaped clearing. The land to the north has been cleared and converted to a vineyard; on the east and west, the forest comes in close to the house. It's fairly isolated, and I know better, but it is too tempting. The apple juice has taken the edge off my hunger, but my skin still itches. I can almost feel the poisons swirling in my blood.

  There's only one person in the house, an elderly caretaker, and he wakes up when I bite him, but it is easy to hold him still. Afterward, I close his eyes and pull the heavy covers up over his face.

  I should burn the house down, but that is liable to draw unwanted attention more than cover my tracks. I'll just leave all the doors open when I leave. Maybe there are enough four-legged predators on the island that they'll find the dead body.

  The phone works. I dial a memorized number and a computerized voice tells me the call is subject to international charges, and I quietly tell it to proceed. The line clicks, a surprisingly analog sound for a digital connection, and then I hear the ghostly echo of a harpsichord—just a few notes. One of Callis's original compositions. Just enough to let me know that I'm being recorded. I speak quickly, outlining my situation, and I end my request with the ritual words used by Arcadians. When I am done, I hear a series of clicks and then the line goes dead. No confirmation necessary; I know my message will be heard.

  I hang up the phone and raid the refrigerator.

  Ten minutes later, as I'm polishing off my third piece of honey-slathered sourdough toast, the phone rings. As it is the middle of the night and since I'm expecting the call, I answer the phone.

  “Hello?” I say around the last bite of toast.

  “Hello, Silas.”

  I swallow, clearing my mouth. “Hello, Callis.”

  “It's been a long time since you've needed rescuing,” he says.

  “It was the other way around last time,” I remind him.

  “Was it?” he muses. “I don't remember.”

  He says it offhandedly, but the fact that it might actually be true strikes a sour note in our conversation, and neither of us say anything for a moment.

  “We haven't heard from your team,” he says after clearing his throat. “There's been a lot of attention.”

  “I'm out of touch,” I say. “I fell overboard…” I realize I don't even know the date. “What happened?” I ask instead, figuring I'll get the news straight from him.

  “Where are you?” he asks, and I know he's asking about the security of our conversation.

  “I'm in a two-room house in the middle of Kangaroo Island,” I point out with a laugh. “I'm the only one for a couple of kilometers in any direction. It's pretty fucking secure.”

  “Nothing is secure,” he says. “Your mission was compromised. Maybe from the beginning. Maybe from this end. I do not know how deep the infection goes.

  “What infection? I thought this was an isolated mission.”

  “As did I, but there is something amiss, something that goes back into our roots. Why was the reporter there?”

  My hand tightens on the phone. “Which reporter?” I ask.

  “Vanderhaven. She was on the boat…”

  It's almost a question from him, but not quite, and I hesitate on the cusp of replying.

  Callis and I have known each other for a long time. We've schemed our way into and out of a number of tight situations over the centuries. Typically, he plays the scoundrel role—the charming and devious one—while I play the silent and invisible heavy, and I've seen him extract information with an insouciant ease simply by leaving a sentence hanging, neglecting a final piece of punctuation that his listeners instinctively leap to supply. In doing so, they also tumble along a path he has arranged for them to take.

  “Vanderhaven,” I reply. “The one who did the Beering story?”

  “That was your job.”

  “It was.”

  “The Grove has been expressing some concern.”

  “Now? That was two years ago. I've been in Mother's care since then. Up until about a month before we went to Adelaide and got on the boat.”

  “Why was she on the boat, Silas?”

  I glance around. The phone is on the wall outside the kitchen, and I'm standing at the mouth of a narrow hall that runs from the living room of the small cabin to the other rooms. There's a single entrance to this cabin, and I can see it from where I'm standing, but there are also windows in the rooms. The doors to the rooms are shut. If there's a good place to be standing in this cabin, I'm in it.

  I am in an isolated location, and I am the only one in the house, but his questions have set off a survival check in my brain. I'm doing a tactical assessment of my location. Figuring out my exit strategy. Wondering about my security.

  “I didn't say she was,” I reply carefully.

  “There's a poison at work here,” he says. “I fear it may touch members of the Grove. I don't know who you can trust.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “Stay away from Arcadia. Be rootless.”

  Rootless. My breath catches in my throat. It's a hard word to hear. On my own, unable to return to Arcadia and to Mother's embrace. I have only the foul soil of the world to sustain me.

  “Why?” I croak.

  “The Grove is protecting its interests,” he says. “They started as soon as the story broke. It's been three weeks, Silas. We haven't heard from any of the team. We had to assume you were all lost, or compromised. The Grove doesn't want to lose the mission data, but they have to protect Arcadia.”

  “Of course,” I say. I know the drill. We all do—the priority is always family. Arcadia must be protected. Nothing else matters. That is the price we pay. Rooted, we live forever. The rootless—those who can't return to Arcadia and Mother's embrace—they simply… die.

  “Your assets have been reclaimed,” he says, a touch embarrassed, and I suspect the task of seizing my assets fell to him. Arcadia has managed to survive as long as it has by maintaining deep relationships with long-standing banking houses. It makes it easier for us to survive the ebb and flow of global finance, but it also means we are centrally managed. That much easier to excise the rootless from their allowances.

  “Spend it on some tree farms, would you?” I ask.

  “Gladly,” he laughs. “Silas,” he says, his voice becoming serious. “I'm not telling you to give up. Don't crawl off into the woods and let the humus have you. Stay hidden. Do you understand? It'll be the only way you can find out what is going o
n.”

  “What is going on?” I ask.

  He ignores my question. “Do you remember Victoria's Diamond Jubilee?” he asks.

  “Vaguely,” I reply. We had been in London for the celebration, and he had dragged me into some scam involving gold from Witwatersrand. He had claimed it was an opportunity investment for Arcadia, but I hadn't entirely bought that line of bullshit. I had been right too; the other party had tried to cheat us, and a rather straight-forward enterprise had become complicated. And bloody.

  “There was a party we attended. A masked ball.”

  “There was?” I have the same memory problems as Callis—all Arcadians did—and the older memories suffered the most. But Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee had only been a little over a hundred years ago.

  “I met a woman there, a banker's daughter. She introduced me to her father. I made a small investment with him before we left London.”

  “Ah,” I say, suddenly understanding why he was telling me this. “And this investment has been quietly maturing ever since, hasn't it?”

  “The bank has a branch in Adelaide,” he says. He tells me the name of the bank. “They'll be expecting you.”

  “And then what?” I ask.

  “Find out what happened,” he says. “Find the reporter.”

  Mere.

  A strange emotion tugs at me. “And then what?” I repeat, at a loss of what else to say.

  “Help me find the root of this poison before it infects all of Arcadia,” he says.

  What other choice do I have, really? The rootless die after a while. They can't find soil that will nourish them, and the other method of staying alive is bloody.