Cataveiro

by E. J. Swift

  They wait. A heavily occupied Patagonian army truck rounds the bend and rumbles past them on its crushing caterpillar tyres. Two smaller trucks follow in its wake. The convoy heads away in the direction Taeo and Vikram have come, its battered solar roof panels glinting in the sporadic sunshine, the mountains rising on either side as the road curves into the distance. Neither Taeo nor Vikram acknowledges the implication, but by mutual consent they keep close to the edge of the road, ready to drop flat at the first sign of danger. Fuego Town is close now.

  Vikram seems to have accepted his status as a fugitive. He has been quiet but alert, and his leg is healing day by day, much faster than Taeo expected. Taeo is finding it harder to reconcile himself. The four-day trek has left him irritable and fatigued.

  They trudge on for another hour, rounding the shoulder of the mountain where the road veers back towards the coast. They make their way cautiously now, keeping to the edge of the forestry, although they see no other expeditionaries. Taeo watches Vikram taking everything in: the ruins of the plundered Neon city, and further along the coast the harbour, the sea walls and Fuego Town with its motley collection of brightly coloured buildings.

  The situation is worse than Taeo feared. Even from a distance, it is clear that the harbour is on high alert. Boats are docked and soldiers are patrolling the sea walls. Two Patagonian cargo ships, which Taeo guesses are a part of the fleet and due to go north, have weighed anchor, and the harbour front is busier than usual with tiny figures, presumably members of the ships’ crews, milling about.

  But further out, beyond the Patagonian water line, is a sight that makes Taeo’s heart leap. An Antarctican ship.

  He points.

  ‘That’s how we’re getting home.’

  Vikram looks at the ship. Not for the first time, Taeo wishes he could tell what the other man is thinking.

  ‘What about those other boats, the small ones around it? Are they Antarctican?’

  ‘No,’ Taeo admits. ‘They’re Patagonian.’

  The Antarctican ship is a beta-class vessel: not the fleet’s strongest ship, but tough and resilient, capable of ploughing through thick ice in the winter months. It looms over the tiny Patagonian boats. There is no one visible on deck. The Antarctican flag twitches when the wind gusts, but other than that the ship appears strangely lifeless. Looking at it gives Taeo an intense feeling of vertigo. There is his passage home, right before his eyes.

  ‘So how do we get to the boat?’ asks Vikram.

  ‘If they don’t let them dock, we’ll have to bribe someone to take us out there.’

  ‘We don’t have anything to bribe anyone with.’

  ‘I have Patagonian currency. And the Antarcticans will pay more to whoever takes us. It’s a good deal for a fisherman. We’ll find someone.’

  He speaks confidently, not wishing to let Vikram see his very real worries. After four days of walking on a diminishing diet, both men look the worse for wear. And Vikram is far too distinctive to be let loose in the harbour. His ethnicity marks him out, but more than that it’s the way he moves, as if he fears the land will give way beneath him. The way he stares at everything. Vikram is even more obviously foreign here than Taeo.

  ‘I’ll find someone,’ he promises. ‘Keep safe here. Stay out of sight.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  Leaving the cover of the trees, stepping out onto the main road, Taeo feels more conspicuous than ever before. He keeps his sunglasses on, hiding his eyes which often attract a second glance. Any moment he expects someone to yell: stop there! But no one does. And at first it seems it will be straightforward after all. The harbour might be on alert but the town remains busy. People have work to do, fish to sell, school to attend, energy to collect, all the mundane chores that fill the average day. Residents are out on the streets, chatting about ordinary things. The radios are on. The buzz on the streets and on Fuego Station is all about the pirate El Tiburón, rumoured to be lurking about the archipelago, although that does not explain why an Antarctican ship would be kept from docking. No one mentions it, but then that is not unusual. The residents of Fuego Town still refer to the archipelago as el fin del mundo. There is no mention of Taeo’s name, or of Osirians on the run. There is no mention of a shipwreck.

  That’s something. The government is being careful, at least on the official stations.

  Then Taeo sees someone he knows. The old guy from the Facility. Eduardo. Sat with a cup of coffee in the window of a cafe, reading a paper, but not that attentively. Eduardo, who has no love of Taeo and plenty of love for gossip.

  The sight jolts him. He walks quickly in the opposite direction, head down, hands buried in his pockets.

  Now he is worried. He could easily be spotted and he wouldn’t even know it. For all he knows, Eduardo recognized him, right there. What if Ivra is wandering about? Would Ivra help him? Should he look for Ivra? He doesn’t even know where Ivra lives; his bodyguard never told him, so that idea is screwed, and even if he did run into him, by accident, his bodyguard might be compelled to hand Taeo in, preserve his own cover for the sake of good relations. Or worse, he might want the credit for finding Vikram, scuppering Taeo’s plan to earn his pardon. No. He can’t trust Ivra. He has to do this on his own.

  Of course, if he were taken in, Taeo knows nothing serious would happen to him – he has diplomatic immunity, after all – but what about Vikram? He can’t risk the Patagonians finding Vikram: walking, living proof of Osiris. With their radio network you’d never shut them up, and the Boreals would be down here like a shot.

  They have to get out of this country.

  He makes his way cautiously down towards the harbour, deliberately avoiding the streets he knows best and where he might be recognized. Arturo’s Place. The opium parlour where he got his supplies. Taking a route parallel to the parlour street, he feels a tug of something. Not craving, because the end is in sight now – it’s right there in the strait. But an acknowledgement, that something has happened to him while he has been abroad.

  He wonders if this is a secret he will be able to keep from Shri.

  The streets slope down towards the sea walls. Risky this, but he needs to assess the situation at the waterfront. The atmosphere in this part of the town is different. The sheer volume of people milling about makes it easier to pass unnoticed, but the mood of those people is frustrated, resentful. Two Patagonian ships, the Caracas and the Rio, sit low in the water, heavy with the goods they have brought south. Every crate and freight carton unloaded from the ships is being opened and laboriously checked, a process that Taeo can tell will take hours. He knows that some of the goods destined to go back up the coast will be aboard the Antarctican ship, which has not even been allowed to dock.

  It is not just the larger vessels under scrutiny. Fishing boats are searched as they come in. The fishermen work sullenly, hauling their nets of translucent squid onto the harbour front, and the townspeople walking up to examine the catch do not stop to talk and barter as they usually do, but pay the asking price and leave abruptly, under the watchful gaze of the soldiers on the sea walls.

  A man hawking solar cells approaches one of the fishermen, pushing his wares under the other man’s nose. The fisherman picks up one of the cells and drops it again.

  ‘This is junk. Feel the weight of it!’

  ‘It’s good stock, hours of life in that,’ the man whines.

  The fisherman’s face burns an angry red. ‘You trying to con me? Get out of here!’

  The hawker leers and slinks back into the crowd.

  Taeo cannot see any way of approaching a boatman without being seen, and the number of soldiers is making him paranoid. It all depends on what, exactly, is known about his disappearance from the Facility. Have any of the Antarcticans from the ship come on land? Ivra at least must have guessed where he went, but he has no way of knowing if Ivra has said anything, or if anyone else has connected Taeo to the shipwreck down the coast. For all he knows his absence might not even have b
een noticed; that would be the best possible scenario. Ironic, really, when he has spent so long hating the place for his exclusion.

  There are too many unstable elements. He realizes he has made a mistake. There is no point in approaching anyone until the moment they are ready to leave, and that has to be at night, under the cover of darkness.

  He makes his way back up through the town, stopping only to purchase food and water, avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze.

  Vikram is not where he left him, again, but this time Taeo tells himself not to panic. This time he waits. A rustle of branches makes him jump; when the Osirian swings down from a tree he feels his heart lurch in his chest.

  ‘I had to make sure you weren’t being followed,’ says Vikram. Automatically, Taeo glances behind him. There is no one, of course. He cannot wait for this ludicrous situation to be over. Taeo is not cut out to be anyone’s spy.

  He looks up at the tree. A slender branch has broken off with Vikram’s drop. The Osirian looks at it ruefully.

  ‘I suppose you’ve never climbed a tree before,’ says Taeo. And then he thinks, what a stupid thing to say, of course he’s never climbed a tree. But Vikram doesn’t seem to mind. He looks pleased with himself.

  ‘Not until today,’ he says.

  ‘Your leg must be better.’

  ‘It is. It’s healed fast.’

  ‘We’re going to have to wait until dark. The town is on alert; there are soldiers all over the place. Everyone seems to think it’s because of pirates, but it’s not safe to approach anyone. I can’t risk drawing attention to myself so soon.’

  Vikram points.

  ‘What about along there?’

  He follows the direction of Vikram’s arm. Beyond the cup of the harbour, a scattering of run-down houses populate the coast, gradually petering out towards the ruins. One or two of them have boats tied to jetties, bobbing in the water on long tethers.

  ‘Worth a try. Not very inconspicuous, though.’

  ‘You don’t need to try. I found someone who will take us. After dark.’

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘I said I would pay. Or you would. My friend will pay. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it’s right, I mean the words are right, but—’

  ‘He needed the money.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Vikram shrugs. ‘You can always tell.’

  Taeo feels illogically annoyed by Vikram’s success; after all, it doesn’t matter how they find a boat as long as they can get on-board the Antarctican ship. What happens after they get picked up is irrelevant. The Patagonians will be angry, of course, but the Antarctican ship can easily hold its own, and in any case even the Patagonian government would not be so idiotic as to risk their good relations with the southern continent by attacking one of its ambassadorial vessels.

  He reminds himself, the only thing that matters is that Vikram is not seen.

  He was never here.

  There is no evidence of Osiris left in Patagonia.

  This is what will win Taeo his pardon.

  He offers Vikram his share of food and drink. The Osirian eats hungrily. Taeo’s appetite is gone now; he can only manage a few mouthfuls. He checks his watch. They have hours to wait.

  He watches the sun setting over the strait, a young summer sun, bathing the Antarctican ship and the two islands in fiery hues. So close now. So close. The colour leaches from the water, grey consuming gold. Against the receding light, the soldiers on the walls are small black figurines. Symbols, he thinks. A gesture of power. So much of this country is built on bluffs and pretences.

  He feels as though he understands it better now, on the verge of leaving.

  Almost time. Almost dark enough.

  Taeo motions to Vikram, who nods his agreement. He senses a change in the Osirian, a quiet confidence that is unexpected. Vikram takes the lead as they start to make their way down the coastline to the straggling line of houses, continuing to use the forestry they back onto for cover. The first house owns a decent-sized fishing vessel. Vikram indicates. Further on. They continue to the last house. In the bluish dusk, Taeo can just make out a little boat moored at a low jetty. They hurry towards the house, moving as quietly as they can.

  They are almost at the house when the lights come on.

  A row of fierce white beams powers up one by one along the harbour walls. The lights illuminate the entire strait: the sea walls, the water, the island across from it. He can see the shape of the Facility, high up against the mountains. The Antarctican boat sits stark, exposed on all sides. The Patagonian army boats idle just outside the harbour walls. Any approach to the ship would be spotted from a kilometre away.

  He swears under his breath.

  You idiot. You should have known they’d turn on the pirate lights. You idiot! How could you overlook this!

  ‘We can still make it,’ says Vikram.

  ‘Look, whoever it is lives in this house, he’ll never take us. How could he?’

  ‘No. We can steal the boat.’ Vikram holds up a key. ‘What I mean is, I already have.’

  Taeo stares. ‘You said you’d convinced the guy.’

  ‘My Spanish isn’t that good. Anyway, he would have given us away, he’d have known straight away I wasn’t Patagonian. I stole the key instead.’

  Taeo is at once angry and impressed.

  ‘What if he knows it’s gone?’

  ‘He doesn’t. Come on, let’s get the boat.’

  Taeo stares at him. He can see the recklessness in the younger man’s eyes. What kind of person would the City of Osiris send? Now he knows. A lunatic.

  He grabs the Osirian’s arm.

  ‘Vikram, have you seen how many Patagonians are patrolling the water between here and there? We go out on the water, we’re target practice.’

  ‘You think they would shoot us?’

  Taeo hesitates. ‘I don’t know. They’ll certainly stop us.’

  ‘We should try. I can drive a boat.’

  Taeo can detect no doubt in the Osirian’s voice, but after what has just been revealed, how can he trust him either? He looks at the Antarctican ship.

  That’s Shri.

  That’s home.

  Vikram is looking at him, waiting. Taeo feels trapped.

  ‘I hope you’re as good as you think you are.’

  They skirt the house and creep down towards the jetty. A dim light burns in the window of the fisherman’s single-storey house. Taeo can see the man inside, sat at the table eating his supper. He can hear the radio. The man would only need to turn his head …

  Taeo can’t see how they can possibly get into the boat without being seen, not under those unforgiving harbour lights. Already he is thinking that this is a terrible idea, but Vikram is on the move, flat to the ground, slithering down the slope to the water.

  Taeo glances again at the man in the window, lifting his fork to his mouth. He drops to the ground and follows Vikram. He feels hideously exposed. Something will distract the man, a noise, a bird flying by, he’ll turn his head, glance out the window …

  He told Vikram the Patagonians wouldn’t shoot, but truthfully he has no idea what they will or will not do.

  The boat bobs a few metres out from the jetty on a long storm tether. Taeo sees Vikram slide into the water and disappear under the jetty. Out of sight, for now at least. He braces himself. Quickly. Even in summer, full immersion is a shock. He puts his hand to his mouth to stop shouting out and clings to the slimy struts of the jetty, drawing in sharp breaths with the sudden cold. Vikram sculls out, glances back at the house, and rolls easily over the gunnel of the boat. Taeo sees it rock a little with the impact, the water lapping at the hull. He holds his breath and follows. The seabed drops away sharply and already he can’t touch his feet to the floor. He grabs the side of the boat and prepares to haul himself up and over.

  ‘Wait!’ Vikram hisses.

  He freezes. Vikram has dropped right down inside the boat, out of sight. W
hen Taeo dares to turn his head, just above the water, he sees the door of the next house along has opened. A woman is walking across.

  ‘Quick, get out,’ he urges.

  Vikram rolls back over the gunnel and drops into the water without a sound. The woman knocks on the door of the house. Vikram points to the jetty. Taeo nods and they move back to its cover.

  He hears the door of the house open and the owner of the boat comes out. The faint burr of the radio trickles from inside. The conversation carries quite clearly but Taeo has to concentrate to catch the thick Spanish.

  ‘Evening.’

  ‘Been a nice one.’

  ‘Was earlier. Now my youngest can’t sleep, what with the lights.’

  ‘True, they’re bright tonight.’

  ‘I’ll say it’s bright! El Tiburón better show his face, if it is him. The amount they’ve had those on lately, we’ll be getting brownouts come winter.’

  ‘He’s had a spree, of late. Captain of the Bogotá had a run-in.’

  ‘Has he, now? What happened?’

  ‘You didn’t hear? How’d you miss that one?’

  ‘Eh, go on, tell us.’

  Taeo clenches his jaw. Shut up and go inside!

  ‘All right then. If you must have it. What happened is, El Tiburón boarded the ship in the guise of a merchant. He had his face changed and what they say is, he was dressed as a woman. He looked so like a woman he fooled everyone on board the Bogotá, including the captain. In fact, he seduced him. And then he trussed up the captain like a fish in a net and put on the captain’s clothes and took over the Bogotá. And none of the crew were the wiser. Nor are they now.’

  ‘Go on with you!’

  ‘Have you seen the Bogotá? But I haven’t told you the crucial detail. The disguise was not a disguise. You get me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean they say he’s a woman. El Tiburón.’

  ‘Everyone knows that! You know what I think. He’s more than one person, three, or maybe four. Brothers and sisters, I reckon …’