Cataveiro

by E. J. Swift

  Vikram’s face in the shadow of the jetty is strained. He doesn’t understand enough Spanish to follow the conversation.

  Another door opens. A third party comes to join the others. Taeo groans inwardly. The three continue with their pointless speculation. Why couldn’t they stay in their own fucking houses? He can feel his fingers and feet growing numb.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Vikram whispers.

  ‘Just rubbish.’

  ‘We should go anyway.’

  Taeo shakes his head.

  ‘Oh look, the ice folk are off.’

  ‘So they are.’

  ‘No surprise there …’

  Taeo swivels in the water, heart in his mouth.

  Something is happening. Figures are up on the deck of the floodlit Antarctican ship. The huge motors of the ship rumble into life. As he watches, the ship makes a slow, ponderous turn. Taeo’s heart sinks.

  ‘Oh please, no.’

  He knows what is happening. Vikram looks at him, then back at the ship. He says nothing, seems to retreat behind that watchful expression. There is nothing to say. Taeo looks up. He has to see it for himself. They can only watch as the ship makes its way back down the strait, gathering speed as it heads out of the archipelago, towards the open ocean, and Taeo’s home.

  18 ¦

  SLICING THE FURROWED landscape in a dull silver line, the old hover-rail catches Ramona’s eye. The last high-speed link to the northern hemisphere, the rail was a disastrous and costly endeavour, the investment of reckless factory owners hoping to regenerate trade after the Blackout. Its rusting spine curves south–north across the continent, from Patagonia up through the Argentine Desert and into the uninhabitable zone, where Ramona now flies, three days north, pushing the plane harder as the sun sinks in the west.

  Sometimes, when the weather is odd and the atmosphere hangs uneasily over the earth, she imagines the flicker of something lost and mechanical. A metallic shadow whistling across the torn-up land, up to thirty silver pods strung out behind it, and all within it metallic ghosts. They are down there, the conscripted soldiers who guarded the poppy harvest, the adventurers hidden on board, drawn by the promise of north: a better life, a more fantastic life.

  The hover-rail disappears into a stretch of marshland. In the dappled patches of water below, Ramona thinks she catches the occasional glimpse of greening metal, but perhaps it is only a trick of the light, a vestige of what the rail once was, a trace, like the eroded Nazca lines in the desert.

  She flies over the ruins of a Neon city she mapped four years ago. No one lives there. The dark shells of the skyscrapers yawn, their interior structures exposed to the elements, some collapsed into rubble, others rusted, covered in creeping greenery and colonized by clouds of birds. The scrapers are a strange sight, relics of a long-gone era rearing monolithic from the flat. She feels the tug of their presence, drawing her closer. She drops low and flies between the towers. She senses a vibration in the air as she passes, and the shadows they cast are at once fragile and ominous. People lived here. Who were they? She feels curiosity, a gulf in understanding and the desire to bridge it, and a deep, unassailable pity. She wonders at which point the Neons knew their civilization was on the brink. Before the Blackout? After the Blackout? When their complex networks disintegrated around them, like the web of a spider caught and destroyed by a careless hand? She lifts the nose of the plane, bringing Colibrí up and out into the sky, needing now to get away.

  When she looks to the north, Ramona knows she has made a terrible mistake. She had hoped to make the highlands by nightfall. But the sun is low, very low, and the horizon is dark with storm. A strong headwind begins to push against the windshield.

  In her haste to put distance between herself and Cataveiro, she bypassed her usual, tested routes, and took a direct path cutting across the floodlands. The clouds up ahead are cumulus, yellow-tinged, and surging into ever denser formations. She can sense the shift in air pressure as she approaches. If she keeps on this course, she will fly straight into the storm.

  The alternative is to make a landing now. She knows from bitter experience that what looks like solid terrain from above may prove to be no more than the dry crust of a bog. Even if she does find a runway strong enough to support Colibrí’s weight, storms in these parts are strong enough to sweep the plane away, and her with it. This is a land that has swallowed entire cities.

  There are people who live down there, individuals scratching out a living at the edges of the marshes, whose borders themselves shift from year to year, so places change and maps are redundant. It is a strange, isolated, amphibious life, bound to houseboats, mummified in mosquito netting. The marsh-people are not friendly to strangers.

  Now she is faced with two dangerous choices: risk the unstable ground or fly into the storm and hope for the highlands. Somewhere ahead, their plateaus rise up, hidden behind the cloud banks which extend to east and west as far as she can see. There is no chance of flying around this giant.

  The plane’s shadow flickers along the black and brown ground. Already she is flying beneath sporadic cover. To her left, the sun winks, in and out. She can see the encroaching rain line, a dark, opaque wall.

  Directly ahead, the cumulus banks congeal.

  Five minutes until she hits? Four?

  The headwinds are strengthening.

  Ramona braces herself. Her heart is hammering and sweat rises stickily on her back and neck. She tells herself what she always tells herself.

  If you crash it will be quick.

  She hears a pattering of raindrops on the roof of the fuselage. For a moment they hang beneath the ledge of the clouds, in shadow, the light behind a yellow gleam lancing off the tail and the long curved edges of the wings. Then the deluge strikes. Cloud envelops the plane. Water streams over the windshield. Her vision turns to shades of grey, mist and pummelling rain and dense, impenetrable cloud.

  The land is gone. The sky is gone. The light in the cockpit glows pale amber. There is only Ramona, the empty passenger seat and the thin shaking metal shell around her. She feels incredibly small and not quite real. She switches on the plane’s forward lights. Two bright tunnels appear in the cloud, illuminating the frenzied rain rushing towards the windshield.

  As they go deeper into the cloud bank the plane yaws and rolls and she battles to hold it wings-level. The compass needle wavers. The airspeed is showing seventy kilometre headwinds. She checks her map, and adjusts her course again. If her calculations are correct, it is less than fifteen minutes of flying to the highlands. She remembers a village on the edges that she mapped five, six years ago. That is her best hope of shelter.

  Ten minutes inside the cumulus pass like hours. There are clouds within clouds, sudden chambers open up and are swallowed again. Every muscle in her body is taut as she wrestles with the plane. She needs to drop below the bank but she is afraid of flying straight into the highlands. In the viewfinder, the topographer is beginning to pick up the outlines of higher plateaus ahead.

  She checks the map in her lap. The tiny topographer screen. It correlates. She has to trust it.

  She needs enough runway to skid. Colibrí will skid. This aeroplane was not designed for extreme weather; it is going to be touch and go.

  Come on, Ramona. Follow the lines, follow the lines on the screen.

  The plane shakes like the skin of a struck drum.

  Deep breath. Down.

  Now.

  She reduces altitude. The plane drops alarmingly. She banks. The topographer indicates she is flying alongside the mountains, but in the lashing rain she cannot make out a thing. The sensor picks up a swirl of ridges.

  She checks her parachute. Her fingers are tingling.

  Far too rapidly, they descend. Lightning sears to her left. The topographer haywires and whites out; she is blind. She drops out of the cumulus and into the midst of the lightning storm. Looming plateaus flare and disappear. She is close, terrifyingly close. She veers away. A bolt hits her ri
ght wing and she sees residue flashes dancing before her eyes. But in the dark sky it is the only thing left to guide her. In the next flash she spies a cluster of square, regular formations against the landscape. The village, below. She has one chance to make the landing.

  The plane lurches down at a terrifying speed. The landing gear hits ground, shocking her. The plane bounces, hits, bounces again. She slams on the thrusters. The plane zigzags drunkenly and for a moment she is convinced they are going over the edge. She wrenches the wheels away. High-speed winds buffet the aircraft. The landing gear slips and slides, struggling to get a purchase on the streaming ground.

  The wheels grip. The plane skids to a juddering halt.

  The next flare of lightning reveals the edge of the mountain, just a few metres away.

  In the blinking light of the instrument panel, Ramona can see her hands are trembling. Sweat coats her waistband, her armpits, her scalp. Her neck is clammy and cold.

  Now the plane has stopped shaking she can hear the full fury of the storm overhead, and she knows just how close her escape was. Lucky, she thinks. Lucky again. How much luck can you have before it runs out?

  When she can breathe again and her limbs have stopped shaking, she activates the chameleon and the suction pads and climbs out the hatch.

  The storm smashes her back against the plane. Should she get back inside? No, she’s scared she might lose the aircraft. Instinct makes her want to stay with Colibrí, as though she could offer protection. But she would be as much use as an insect.

  Thunder and lightning continue overhead. She sees the village houses, shielded between two slopes, a few hundred metres away. Hunched against the wind, she sprints in the direction of the houses. Twice the wind knocks her to her knees, and the second time she stays there, crawling the final stretch. She pounds on the first door she reaches.

  ‘Hello! I need shelter!’

  No response. Can they even hear her? She tries the next building, yelling with all her might.

  ‘Hello! Hello, can you help me!’

  Something – faint.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘My name’s Ramona Callejas, I’m a traveller. I got caught in the storm. Can you let me in!’

  The door inches open. In the gap is a scowling face, bearded and suspicious, and just below it, the metal glint of an axe. Ramona recoils. Water streams over her face.

  ‘Who are you? Are you the doctor?’

  ‘No, I’m a map-maker. I came here six years ago and I need shelter. Please, let me in!’

  No movement. The man’s expression does not change. She doesn’t recognize him, and he clearly does not recognize her.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Ramona Callejas,’ she repeats. Her teeth are chattering now. ‘I’m the one with the aeroplane. Please, let me in!’

  The door opens without warning and Ramona falls inside, losing her balance. The door slams behind her. A man grabs her roughly and wrenches her arms behind her back, hauling her painfully to her feet. The bearded man raises the axe. The edge of the blade glints in the light of a flickering lamp.

  ‘How many are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many are you? Where are the others?’

  ‘What others?’

  He grips the axe harder, bringing it to within centimetres of Ramona’s throat. Her shoulder joints are a fiery pain where the other holds her captive.

  ‘Tell us where they are!’

  She darts a glance left and right. She is aware of other figures in the room, indistinct faces, waiting, watching.

  ‘It’s just me! I’m on my own. I’m a traveller. I have an aeroplane. I came here five, six years ago to make maps. Someone here must remember me. Please help me.’

  ‘I remember her.’ A male voice, soft and nervous. ‘She does make maps. She was here.’

  ‘Maps for whom?’ says a woman.

  Someone else chimes in. ‘Yes, who. Who knows we are here?’

  The axe-man squints at Ramona. This close, she can see he is younger than she thought, just a teenager, and scared. The beard makes him look older, but does not quite cover the pox scars that pit the skin of his neck and cheeks.

  ‘You swear you’re alone?’ he says fiercely.

  ‘I swear.’

  He lowers the axe and after a gesture the other man releases her. She rubs her aching shoulders.

  ‘Thanks for the welcome.’

  ‘We’re expecting raiders,’ says the teenager.

  ‘I gathered you’re expecting someone. Nazca keep us.’

  There are seven people in the room. The teenager with the axe, a stocky, sallow-faced man who had her arms, two women, a man with white hair and quivering lips, the one who spoke – this one she recognizes – and two young children in worn jeans and tees. Each of them stares at Ramona with the same mistrustful expression.

  They have boarded up the windows. The room is almost empty except for its rudimentary furniture, and she guesses they have buried everything of value underground. That is what Inés used to do. Not that it worked.

  ‘Raiders?’ she asks.

  ‘They’ve been making their way across the highlands. They use the storms for cover. We’re next in line.’ The woman who speaks is thin and angular with a face that would be considered plain in Cataveiro but has, to Ramona’s eye, a stark and bird-like beauty – a highlands beauty, she thinks. The youngest of the two children, a girl, looks just like her, or will do when she is older. The girl is cradling her arm awkwardly against her chest and is wrapped in a woollen shawl. Her face is blotched from crying. Ramona remembers the first response to her knock at the door.

  ‘You said you make maps,’ says the one with the axe, his voice accusatory.

  ‘My maps are for the government. I don’t sell them to anyone else. Certainly not to raiders. I grew up not so far from here. I know raiders. I know what they do.’

  She speaks to the thin woman.

  ‘What happened to your girl? I’m not a doctor, but I may be able to help.’

  The woman hesitates before speaking.

  ‘She fell, yesterday. It’s her wrist. We sent word to the doctor this side of the highlands. She should have come by now but then the storm and …’ She does not finish the sentence.

  ‘Will you let me look?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, all right. Ana, show the woman your arm. Get off that chair, you.’

  The boy slides off the chair and disappears under the table, from where he stares at Ramona through narrowed eyes.

  Ramona sits on the vacated chair and opens her pack. She takes out the med kit, aware that every move she makes is being scrutinized by seven pairs of eyes.

  The little girl twists away.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ana, I need you to take off that pretty shawl so I can look at your arm.’

  ‘You’re not the doctor.’ The girl speaks barely loud enough for Ramona to hear.

  ‘No, but I know a few things about injuries. I’ve been hurt lots of times when there was no one else around and had to look after myself. Maybe I can make this a little better too.’

  Ramona makes her voice as soothing as she can. She sees its effect on the others as well as the child. The mother is doubly worried: worried that the girl is hurt, and terrified by the prospect of a raid. Ramona puts all of her concentration on the first concern. If she’s going to help them, she has to gain their trust.

  She coaxes Ana to extend her arm and unwinds the girl’s shawl. Ana’s face winces despite the careful movement. The rest of the group is silent. The teenager has gone to stand by the boarded window, hands clenched on the axe, listening intently. Ramona can hear nothing except for the rain drumming on the roof and the shrieking wind.

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’ She keeps up a steady stream of murmurings as she examines the wrist. It looks like a clean break. The flesh is swollen and discoloured, but Ramona is more concerned with the grazing, where the skin is cu
t and blood has congealed.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I fell.’

  ‘She was climbing. I’ve told her about climbing.’

  ‘I wasn’t high.’

  The mother purses her lips.

  ‘How old are you, Ana?’

  ‘Seven.’

  Paola was seven. Even now, the comparison is instantaneous. She remembers Paola’s lips, red as chillies in her final hours.

  ‘Have you ever broken a bone before?’

  ‘No.’ Ana looks at her mother to verify the fact. Her mother nods encouragingly.

  ‘Then this must really hurt, I know. It happened to me. Here –’ Ramona touches her collar bone ‘– and my leg.’

  ‘And you got better?’

  ‘As you can see. I’m fine now.’

  ‘Old Ant broke his leg and they had to cut it off,’ she whispers.

  ‘The bone came out,’ says a voice from under the table. ‘It went black. It went rotten.’

  ‘Shut up,’ the mother says angrily. She turns to Ramona. ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘The scrape needs cleaning. I can set the bone and put a splint on. You should still get the doctor to have a proper look when she can get here.’

  ‘She’s a day’s walk away.’ The mother does not add what everyone is clearly thinking. The room is ripe with it: And if raiders come … ‘Please, do what you can.’

  ‘Hold her securely for me.’

  ‘Yes. Ana.’

  The woman takes the child on her knee, holding her in a firm embrace from which there is no escaping. Sensing the hopeless inevitability of what is ahead, the little girl begins to cry again, but her sobs are barely audible through the storm outside and the rattling shutters. Ramona knows that there will be no warning of anyone approaching the hut.

  The thing about raiders is you never know what you’re going to get. Some of them want to steal. Some of them want to rape. Raiders don’t kill but they’ll break things. They’ll break people.

  Concentrate. Setting a bone is a delicate operation. She could do with more light than the single lamp, but she has worked in worse conditions.