Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  Contents

  Cover

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by M. Suddain

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Hunters & Collectors

  Copyright

  About the Book

  John Tamberlain is The Tomahawk, the universe’s most feared food critic – though he himself prefers the term ‘forensic gastronomer’.

  He’s on a quest, in search of the much-storied Hotel Grand Skies, a secretive and exclusive haven where the rich and famous retreat to bask in perfect seclusion. A place where the waiters know their fish knife from their butter knife, their carotid from their subclavian artery, and are trained to enforce the house rules with brutal efficiency.

  Blurring the lines between detective story, horror and sci-fi, Hunters & Collectors is a mesmeric trip into the singular imagination of M. Suddain – a freewheeling talent whose poise, invention and sensational sentences have already earned him comparisons to Vonnegut, Pynchon and Douglas Adams.

  About the Author

  M. Suddain was born on a farm in New Zealand. When he was eight, he wrote a novella called Between & Beyond, about an explorer who travels between universes. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in film and worked as a graphic artist before becoming a successful journalist and satirist. He moved to London in 2008, where he wrote a radically expanded version of Between & Beyond. It was renamed Theatre of the Gods and published by Jonathan Cape in 2013. Hunters & Collectors is his second novel. He still lives in London. You can find him on most major social networks: @suddain.

  Also by M. Suddain

  Theatre of the Gods

  For Sarah

  Remember when you were young? When your head contained as many futures as hairs sprang from it? When you had few cares and infinite potential? When you owned the world and almost nothing in it? Remember when you weren’t just a ghost who changes face to suit the weather, or a strange device used by others to manufacture their happiness, but a true being at the centre of the universe? Remember when you could go out with what you had in your pockets, and no map, and leave an adventure unfinished, and return home with lungs filled with stories, eyes bruised with happiness?

  I’m going out. Following the example of the proverbial ancient monk who they say walked thousands of miles with nothing but his robes and a copper bowl for begging, and regained a state of childlike ecstasy under the pure beams of the moon, I’m departing on a spiritual adventure of my own. All I’m taking is what I can carry, or pay someone to carry.

  Ties – one black.1

  Shirts – cotton. One double cuff.

  Suits – various.

  Sweaters – plain, wool.

  Trousers – casual/formal/hiking.

  Overcoat – wool.

  Knife/bullet-resistant undervest – this is optional, but useful for riskier destinations. I use a Leadshield 9F Peacemaker. Tip: the women’s Peacemaker is lighter and more streamlined, so it won’t ruin the line of your suit.

  Shoes/boots – to cover many circumstances. But be sensible.

  Socks – plain, dress and hiking. Cotton only.

  Underwear – cotton, only cotton.

  Gloves – I have a pair of vintage Highliners made from ethically recovered buffalo hide.

  Timepiece – I mostly wear a vintage Nimrod DB99 Chronotek with custom strap.

  Mock wedding band.

  Emergency liquor in compact flask.

  A Bushmaster compact portable cocktail kit – for when the nearest bar is far away.

  Toiletries/pharmacy – too many items to list. But be sure to pack nausea/decompression tabs for zero-gravity cabins.

  Notebooks – Watermargin™ F Series are simply the best. No argument. The series is discontinued sadly, but my mother gave me a stockpile for my eighth birthday.

  Pens – I use a Steelhead Model X1.

  Type-machine – I use a JetSet Atlantic 9 Compact.

  Sewing kit.

  Spot remover.

  Emergency liquor in compact flask.

  Flashlight.

  Compact umbrella.

  Secure billfold + document wallet.

  Copper bowl for shaving.

  Robes. But not silk. Basic cotton is best for travel.

  1 From the journals, letters and published material of J. Salvador Tamberlain. Ellipses denote abridged or fragmentary text.

  … Pack light for extended trips. The longer you’re away the more you’ll come to resent the burden of your non-essentials. For religious sites wear dark fabrics and comfortable shoes. Dress up for revolutions or elopements. Make a day of it. Dress down if challenged to a duel to the death. It rarely happens now, but if it does, wear the clothes of a humble person. Show you’re taking it seriously. If you die they’ll drink to you. If you win they’ll say you punched above your weight. The universe adores an underdog. Wear your conjugal band when eating alone in romantic settings so you don’t get unsolicited pity from mooning couples.

  Nanše. I’m in the Sundowner Lounge, on the East Balcony of the Grand Pacific: White Nebula. Is there a better sensation than the first drink on the first evening of a long trip? I can’t say, since this is my first long trip. But I feel happy. Found a large, baby-faced man in my berth for the trip up. Dressed in his father’s old suit and a watch so tight it was embedded in the chub of his wrist. Wouldn’t move for me. Do I call the marshal? Break his nose? I forgave him. This made him angry. Life is good. Later to the Twilight Rooms for steak and oysters. They serve it with shots of a brutally over-proofed liquor called pěsttvář. Till then I have the intoxicating view.

  … Can’t afford a room here, obviously. The drinks cost as much as a night in an average four-star. But one day, if things go well. If I sell a book. I’ll take a junior suite and drink this view all night. You could come up. I’d give you the bed and sleep on the balcony. I’m that kind of man. But for now I’m bedding down at the Imperial Travel Lodge.

  … The Sundowner is designed like a beachside bar. They pipe in sunlight and an artificial breeze. There’s a handsome old gentleman in houndstooth check reading in the shade of a giant cactus. Since I know you have a thing for older men, I thought I’d mention him. Isn’t there a word for the sense of loneliness you feel when you see someone who seems happy in their loneliness? I forget. There are purple dragonflies dancing near his head. All he has to do is brush his thumb against the page and the insects bounce away and return, like miniature parade balloons tethered to his hand with invisible cord. The cities of the world are imposed behind him like a spray of hard water on a foggy mirror. It all looks unfamiliar from this angle. Nikkō is tucked behind Edda like a child peeking from his mother’s skirts. Dipona seems to have no child. Reminds me of that old poem: ‘On the Death of her Small Son’.

  How far beyond recall today,

  My hunter after dragonflies, you stray!

  A waiter just brought the old man’s hat. Two insects hover sadly near his empty glass. Do you remember when your pop would take us down to the docks to catch them in jars? Dragonflies, that is. Not old men.

  … This is the state of play. I’ve run off. I’m on an adventure and it’s exhilarating to imagine how I’ll pay for it. I have about three thousand in cash. I have a third of a thesis: Food, Memory, Meaning: Embodiment and Transmutation of Collective Memories in Culinary Ritual. I know, it’s hopeless. I still have my weekend bag with its school monogram, which packs a lot of goodwill. It’s how I got in here. Have written to the editors at all the best food and travel periodicals: Gastronomica; Vagabond; Hot Food, Hot Nights, Sea Life. Wrote on school letterhead. Nothing. Not a single reply. So now I guess I’ll write to all the second best. And then who
knows?

  … A friend of a kind of friend – his name is Samson – wrote to me because he’s starting a ‘CloudCast’ forum for amateur reviewers. Write to me if you know what a CloudCast is. Basically, people submit to the forum critiques of anything – a book, a brand of pen, a dream they had – and build subscribers depending on the helpfulness or entertainment value of their critiques. Their words are turned into electronic type and beamed out across the Cloud in a process I can’t fathom. Also, the game pays nothing until you’ve built an audience. I know, I know, I’m doomed. But doom might lead somewhere. I’m staying positive. I’ll be guided towards whichever destiny Fate has prepared for me. Or whichever fate Destiny has prepared for me. I will move around obstructions like water. There are unseen currents to the universe; I’ll let them guide me.

  The forum is called Five Stars or Less Fewer.

  … School will kill my scholarship when they realise I’ve run off. And Esmeralda will kill my payments. Or just kill me. Anything is possible. Life is filled with possibilities. She said she’d destroy me if I ever squandered my gifts on criticism. And she wasn’t speaking metaphorically. She described how she’d do it in detail. So I’ll need to work invisibly, and from a distance. I’ll let the currents take me far enough that she won’t find me.

  … I’ll stick to the familiar districts. If that goes well I’ll move out through Central Park, the Western Orients …

  … then Tycho, Nekos, the Wounded Cities … and the Angels, Zahir, Zohar, the Red Palaces …

  … and the Hebrides, the Bay of Plenty …

  … then the Schemata, the Ellipses, Kamrokura, the Blossoms, the Barrens, the Cities of the Dead … then the Stallions, Centralia, the Titans …

  … and Zoraster, for oyster season …

  … and the Silver Isles.

  … and the High Orients, if there’s time …

  … There’s a bird native to those parts, the wincing thrush. Its flesh is delicate, but toughens at any fright. The chefs at better restaurants keep them in soundproof boxes. They put them gently to sleep with gases while whistling to them in their native song. The scene is very tender, I hear. The flesh can also be re-loosened by long cooking.

  … A young couple have come to lean against the barrier and gaze east. She’s in a dress of cool silk which clings adoringly to her hips. She touches the gas shield with her finger and watches the ripples spread across the cities like a catastrophe and vanish. You can almost hear a crack of thunder. She’s a station or two past him. He’s doomed. You can see it in the shoulders. But his shoulders haven’t told him yet. So he’s happy.

  Test. Test. This is a test. Hello, new Watermargin™. It’s good to meet you. Test, test, test.

  … I’ll write in you to remember, and also so I remember to remember, and also so that in years to come I remember that I remembered to remember.

  … Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Calm, wind, feed this to your hungry child.

  Testing, testing, testing.

  The new Steelhead is good.

  … I know you’ve explained this to me twice already, Samson, and I respect your patience. But just once more, for old times’ sake, and in language a child might understand, please tell me what a CloudCast is. Assume I’m just a boy from the Terrestrials who doesn’t share his city-dwelling peers’ limitless appetite for electrotype messaging and cross-platform Ethernet publishing. Pretend I was born on Solidad to a mother who bound her own monographs and thought programmable air con was sorcery, and a father who wrote poetry and enjoyed lovingly gluing keys back on his Everwood 4. Pretend we had a family salon every Friday, just the three of us around our Vinolite table in our little kitchen with its ProVeneer cabinets and chromium-framed portrait of Schuberman, to discuss the plays of Sontilla, or the wordless performance poetry of Sakō, before we each retired to a wingback chair to drink White Oysters – mine child-strength – and listen our way in contented silence through an entire auto-stack of vintage Motel 6 Quartet recordings. Pretend I still prefer my music to be stamped into a lump of hot vinyl, and my books to be letter-pressed upon the wadded meat of dead trees. Pretend I have a piece on the Hunter’s Lodge which has your name written all over it, and I’m only waiting for you to explain to me, before I send it, how a system where we all give you our content for free, and then you give that content to people for free, and then you somehow magically pay us – though only if people happen to read it – and all without any money changing hands – can possibly work. No, I will send it to you anyway. Because I have faith that I’m somehow missing something. But know this: I still have a mother, and this mother swore to dismantle me if I ever stooped to criticism. So while you’re reassuring me that this project is not some massive literary pyramid venture, please also reassure me that when you say our work will be anonymous, you fucking mean it.

  … The Palomar, the Fantasia, the Heidelberg …

  … the Empress, the Peninsula, Hotel Cerberus …

  … to the Ox and Lion, the Sentinel, the Rainbow Kitchen … The waiters, who all look like brothers from the same crime family, linger near the bar where one of them languidly removes fingerprints from a glass. I sense these boys have removed a lot of fingerprints.

  … Then the Grand Incarné, the Orient, Red Heights Lodge …

  … Simplicity is fundamental. But sometimes food can be too simple. If all I have in front of me after forty-seven minutes is my own hungry shadow on a clean white tablecloth – that’s too simple.

  … and the Amygdala, the All Seasons, the Fantasia, the Royal Centaur …

  … and the Imperial Firebird, Aboukir Bay, the Nibelung …

  … The restaurant is lavishly depressing, filled with stunned yet well-dressed people: like a reception for a wedding where the bride ran off with the groom’s father. They have a hunter’s cheese called Masemola: made from the milk of sea cows, harvested by seasoned mammal whisperers. Yellowish brown with a rind like the skin on a fisherman’s hands. Hermit-aged in a cave. Reintroduced to society for its seventeenth birthday. He arrives on a special wooden rack, like a pungent martyr. A room-clearer. A woman at the next table started weeping. Might keep some on me for the voyage, for when I need to be alone.

  … These Cloud Dwellers are a strange breed, Nanše. I’ve gone too far. The Rising Orients are maddeningly dense. The cities are monstrous and disturbing. Idia, with her glittering rings from the debris of a former city. Tashiba, with his long, protruding arrays, like the antlers of a stag.

  … I have no idea what function the antlers have, or what rules are used to assign genders to each city.

  … I miss home. I miss Monsterat’s. I miss laughing with you. I miss your pop and his terrible jokes. I miss Solidad. I miss the weird old houses with their familiar spirits living under the floorboards and in the stovepipes. These floating cities have no spirits, good or bad. They’re empty. There’s no history out here – life is too impermanent. You can’t dig in the earth to find the past, since there is no earth. Time is a nightmare. Not a nightmare. It is nightmare. They use a thousand different measures: Synodic month, Integral month; Sidereal day, Incorporeal day. Can you imagine how many fucking boats I’ve missed?

  Off to the High Orients tomorrow.

  Cybil. Thanks for an astonishing sequence of notes. I’m flattered you’re enjoying my reviews in such a personal way. To answer your strange questions: I am six foot five. I suppose I weigh about 170 pounds. I suppose my eyes are brown. I don’t know my blood category. I can’t tell you my real name since our reviews must be anonymous. But I’m from the Terrestrials, o
riginally. Solidad. I recently turned twenty-one. This is my first Grand Tour. No, I don’t communicate by electrotype messenger. Some gods used foxes to speak for them, and even that makes more sense to me. I don’t like the word ‘critic’. My job is to exalt. I believe food is the greatest art form. With what other art do we ingest and become one with the medium? As my hero, forensic gastronomer and nine times international blind-tasting champion Eliö Lebaubátain, once said: ‘Food is the form I choose to access the divine content of mundane matter.’ This discovery of greatness in ordinary material is an alchemy all people in this universe are divinely ordained to experience.

  … But the universe is vast, and the challenge of discovering evolved life within it is monumental. There is a poem, ‘An Equation for Discovering Intelligent Life’, by Lebaubátain.

  If C is a cloud of cities.

  And if R is the rate at which new cities are added,

  And fh is the fraction of those cities with quality hospitality districts,

  And Av is the average number of venues in those districts,

  And Ag is the average number of good or very good venues among those,

  Then, my quest is hopeless!

  They built twelve new restaurants while I ate this soup!

  You’re from the cities, so maybe you don’t read the polysynthetic Menaian, but hopeless is probably closest in meaning to our word ‘impossible’, or even, interestingly, ‘preordained’. And there were only a few hundred thousand cities in the Cloud when Lebaubátain lived. Now they’re almost uncountable. And things are worse still when you consider that the most evolved establishments might not need or want to advertise their presence to us.

  … It’s like the quest to catch true love, I suppose. The expansion of the pool both increases the chance that your perfect fish exists, while decreasing the likelihood of catching it. Should you delude yourself into believing you have a mathematical chance, and continue your search; or delude yourself into believing what you have caught already is perfect, and be happy?