First Horseman, The

by Chambers, Clem

  ‘Didn’t you die of blood poisoning if you got a septic finger?’ said Jim.

  ‘I’m not talking about what we’ve gained, Jim,’ said McCloud. ‘I’m talking about what we’ve lost. Whole ecosystems simply wiped out, natural environments stripped bare, the deserts of the world slowly but surely creeping over the face of the earth. Dead earth, soils without life, a dying planet, Mother Nature on the edge of extinction.’

  ‘Commodity prices aren’t going anywhere in the next twenty years,’ said Jim. ‘Well, not inflation-adjusted. That suggests you might be wrong.’

  ‘How can you know?’ said Cardini.

  ‘It’s my speciality,’ said Jim.

  ‘Maybe you should check out cocoa,’ said McCloud, laughing.

  ‘Why cocoa?’

  ‘Hell, it’s been going through the roof!’

  43

  Kate and Stafford watched the ambulance turn in front of the house and trundle away.

  Stafford was pleased with the result. ‘That’s that, then,’ he said, and smiled.

  ‘What happens next?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, I should hope.’

  ‘What do you think I should do?’ she said.

  ‘Very little,’ said Stafford. ‘At least till Jim gets back.’

  ‘Will that be all right?’

  ‘Of course, my dear, of course. In any event, a house like this needs to be lived in. The more feet moving around the boards, the slower the place falls to pieces.’ He cocked his head at her. ‘Now, I’m afraid I have an appointment to attend. I will return in due course.’

  He set off for the kitchen. In a crate of groceries there was a large white paper bag. He tore it open to reveal a hare, obtained from the butcher. It was a wild animal that some farmer had shot locally and would make fine eating. Holding it with one hand he placed it into his game bag and slung it around his neck. Then he went outside and walked down the garden to the ha-ha, his broken shotgun over his arm. His puttees made his tweed trousers flare out nicely at the calf.

  Lady Arabella had signalled to him with a wave from the far side of the barley and was walking her mount round the edge of the field towards him. It wasn’t her normal point-to-pointer but an enormous beast that looked more like a dray horse, which made her seem waif-like instead of rather robust. There would be no vaulting hedges on this steed, though crashing through one seemed an option.

  She pulled up below the ha-ha and acknowledged Stafford. ‘Hello again,’ she said. ‘Potted anything?’

  ‘Funnily enough I have,’ he said, and produced the hare.

  ‘That’s a jolly good-looking catch,’ she said.

  ‘I was wondering if you would like it,’ he replied. ‘I have a canvas bag if you want to take it.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember the last time we got sight of a hare.’

  ‘One less to be seen now, I’m afraid,’ said Stafford.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’ll be marvellous.’

  Stafford slid the hare into an off-white canvas bag. He pulled the strings to tighten the neck, walked to the edge of the lawn and handed it to her.

  She slung the bag over her shoulder. ‘I say,’ she said, ‘it’s very heavy.’

  He smiled at her and sighed unconsciously. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘quite some weight. Enough for a fine roast.’

  ‘I won’t let Mummy near it,’ she said, bending forward. ‘I shall cook it myself.’

  ‘Good show.’ He wondered whether she would ask after Jim, as she sometimes did. She must be waiting for an invitation up to the house and a chance to impress its wealthy owner. Most English aristocrats were genetically programmed to marry money. Their assets were often just giant money-draining liabilities masquerading as the family mansion and a traditional way of life. To them marriage was a ruthless business of survival. Without a sharp nose for a moneyed man or wealthy heiress, they would already be extinct, like so many of their class before them. One mistake or mishap, and the family tree crashed back into the proletariat from which, at some stage, it had risen. The trouble was, there weren’t many men or heiresses with the right kind of money.

  Stafford was admiring her glowing beauty.

  ‘If there’s enough left for a stew I shall bring you some,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I can be quite economical when the mood takes me.’

  ‘Please don’t waste any on me,’ he said, bowing a little.

  ‘Tsk,’ she said, pushing the horse on. She looked back at him as she went, then sent him another little wave.

  Tsk? thought Stafford. Was she speaking to the horse or to me?

  44

  McCloud put the Zimmer frame to one side. ‘Let’s go in and get something to eat. I have one helluvan appetite.’

  Cardini smiled at Jim triumphantly. Behold and wonder.

  Jim grinned back. TRT truly was amazing.

  They followed McCloud, who was walking unsupported, if bowed and unsteady, back to the lounge.

  ‘Where is my freakin’ Segway when I need it?’ McCloud said jokily. He looked back at Jim. ‘Should have put a monorail in,’ he said, then set off again shakily.

  With a mix of horror and awe, Jim watched the determined old man forcing himself over the acres of carpet, hobbling to some distant location. Why was he hanging on to life so desperately? Jim was sure he’d shoot himself rather than be in such a terrible state. Yet he knew that the will to live was overwhelming. When he had lain in a hospital bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, he hadn’t hoped to die. Then all he had wanted was to feel better, to be back in control of his mind and body. McCloud was the man he would one day become, if he lived long enough, a frail, brittle vehicle for a mind that wished to go on and on. It was a sobering and rather depressing realisation.

  ‘Come on,’ called McCloud, waving them forward. ‘We’ve got a meal to eat.’ He started to hobble faster, his arms swinging.

  ‘Really, Howard,’ complained Cardini. ‘You are incorrigibly irresponsible.’

  ‘Use it or lose it,’ grunted McCloud, pressing on.

  ‘Use it and lose it is also a potential outcome,’ Cardini remarked. A twisted smile broke on his lips.

  The dining room was a vast restaurant-cum-cafeteria. The door plaque said, ‘Dining Room Four’. A waiter wearing a badge with ‘Andy’ engraved on it took their orders.

  ‘This is an amazing house you’ve got here,’ said Jim.

  ‘Thank you,’ said McCloud.

  ‘Was it, like, a hotel before?’ asked Jim, secretly wondering why it was so institutional and not homelike.

  ‘No,’ said McCloud. ‘I designed it myself with Perry.’ He paused. ‘My late wife. We built it in ’ninety-two.’

  Why would you build a house like a Las Vegas casino? thought Jim. Maybe it was meant to be a casino, but they’d built it first and planned to get permission later. He had heard that there were casinos outside Nevada on Native American land: perhaps this would turn into one when some legislation got passed. McCloud was clearly either very mad or very clever. Both seemed likely.

  ‘You’ve got the most massive chunk of land,’ he added.

  ‘Has Cardini been telling you all my secrets?’ asked McCloud, grinning.

  ‘Only the important ones,’ said Jim.

  ‘OK, OK,’ nodded McCloud, ‘I’m down with that. Well, son, if you see the apocalypse coming and you’ve got the money, it makes sense to give yourself a buffer zone.’ He took a mouthful of iced water. ‘I wanted a piece of land so big that when the marauding hordes arrive they’ll think hard about coming my way, purely on the basis of the energy they’d expend getting here.’

  ‘Marauding hordes?’ queried Jim. ‘Do you get many on the east coast?’

  ‘You know, Jim, I hear ya. No, we don’t get many this way, but there have been a few around these here parts over the last few hundred years. One every fifty to a hundred years in fact.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Wel
l, son, this used to be Indian land, until they got wiped out by us European marauders. Then there was the army of the north and then again the army of the south. Just because there’s been no marauding for the last fifty or so years doesn’t mean there won’t be any tomorrow.’

  ‘Howard worries that when the environment collapses so must civilisation,’ said Cardini. ‘War and ecological stress are closely linked.’ He was drilling Jim’s skull with his unblinking stare again. ‘It was, for instance, a period of hard weather that set the Mongols on their course of destruction and conquest that in its turn brought the Black Death to Europe.’

  McCloud gave Cardini a hard look. ‘That’s right, Chris. War, famine, disease and death. That’s what happens when the environment breaks down.’

  ‘We’ve been kind of getting on well without them,’ said Jim. ‘Well, a lot less of them than in the past.’

  ‘It’s down to a stroke of luck that’s about to end,’ said McCloud.

  ‘You should mix an anti-depressant with your serum, Chris,’ said Jim. ‘What’s the point of living for a million years if you’re going to be as miserable as sin the whole time?’

  ‘You’re a live wire, Jimbo,’ said McCloud. ‘And you’re right. It’s time to lighten up. You know, I’m not really so unhappy about things because I do what I can to avoid the bad angles. I think of the bad things that may happen and I do what I can to fix them.’

  Andy returned with a heavily laden tray, popped open the tray support and set it down. It was salads, steak and beer all round.

  Jim’s steak looked like it would keep him going for a week and he wondered if he was meant to eat all of it. He set to work immediately. It was the sort of steak that just didn’t seem to exist in England, almost as if it came from a different kind of cow, which was quite possible, as far as he knew.

  ‘So, Jim,’ started McCloud, ‘how come a young guy like you gets to have so much money?’

  Jim looked up from sawing a large chunk of bloody flesh from his personal beef joint. He swallowed the piece he was chewing. ‘Well, I used to say I made my money from guns and drugs, but people always believed me, so I’ve stopped saying that.’ Cardini was watching him rather as a teacher watches a child take a test. ‘I’m a trader.’ He half grinned and corrected himself. ‘I was a trader.’

  ‘And how come you came by such a big Japanese honour?’

  Jim was eyeing a forkful of steak that he felt needed to be in his mouth. ‘I sold some antiques to a museum there for a very reasonable price.’

  ‘You get a medal for that in Japan?’

  Jim had the piece of steak between his teeth, ‘Umm,’ he said.

  ‘What was it? The freakin’ Crown Jewels?’

  ‘Umm.’ Jim nodded.

  McCloud laughed. ‘You’re a crazy guy.’

  Jim began sawing off another piece of juicy red steak.

  ‘Hedge funds,’ said Cardini, as if it was a sentence with a subject, object and verb in it.

  ‘That’s right,’ said McCloud, as if that meant anything.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Jim. ‘How did you make your money?’

  ‘Guns and drugs,’ said McCloud. ‘Legal ones … They call it satellite TV, but it’s a drug and you can be pretty sure that they show plenty of guns.’

  McCloud was recovering his youth before Jim’s eyes. From a doddery old man with a quivering voice, he was quickly becoming merely elderly. There was a sparkle in his eyes and the tremor was fast disappearing. His cheeks, which had been pale and almost translucent, were now rosy. ‘I borrow a ton of money, build businesses and sell them on to someone else who can also borrow a ton of money. It’s a shell game.’ McCloud looked a little sour as Jim failed to react to his pithy revelation.

  ‘I don’t really understand businesses,’ said Jim. ‘So many balance sheets look bust to me – I don’t understand how some of the companies even exist.’

  ‘Money’s an illusion, son,’ said McCloud. ‘A company is a poker hand you play. You just have to make sure you’re not holding the bag when it has to fold.’

  ‘What do you think about business, Chris?’ asked Jim.

  ‘I’m a biologist, not an anthropologist,’ said Cardini. ‘Such activities are a mystery to me.’

  ‘Says the man with the ultimate product,’ said McCloud, waving his steak knife at him. ‘A man who sends me invoices that make me weep.’

  Cardini ignored him.

  ‘So, you gonna buy your way to immortality, Jim?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  McCloud examined Jim as if he was scoring him against a pre-set check list. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘To be honest,’ said Jim, ‘I’m more interested in what it could do for medicine than in living for ever.’

  ‘Really?’ said McCloud. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I’d’ve thought it was pretty obvious. The medical implications of wide-scale production would be miraculous.’

  ‘Miraculous?’ McCloud suddenly shrieked. ‘Catastrophic, more like!’ The atmosphere had chilled, as though Jim had uttered the most obscene blasphemy.

  Cardini had reached over to McCloud and grasped the old man’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think this is the right time to debate the hypothetical impact of the serum. There is no near-term likelihood of mass manufacture. Indeed, when this kind of technology is possible, chemistry will be on such a plane as to change much else besides simple human lifespan.’

  ‘I’m interested in that, too,’ said Jim.

  McCloud was clearly fizzing inside.

  ‘Good,’ said Cardini.

  Jim put another piece of steak into his mouth so he had no need to answer quickly if any more questions came his way.

  McCloud relaxed a little. ‘Let’s hope we all have the luxury of time to see things turn out for the best.’ He put down his knife and fork. ‘What do you think about global warming?’

  Jim looked up from his steak – it was a lot smaller now than it had been when it first arrived. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The world’s been warming for ten thousand years, right, since the ice age ended. I’m pretty glad there’s no glacier in north London any more.’

  McCloud was fizzing again.

  Jim went on, ‘I mean, the sea has come up, like, three hundred feet since then, and that’s pretty good. If it hadn’t the UK would still be part of France.’ His joke didn’t seem to have gone down very well. ‘What I don’t understand is why islands like the Maldives are only a few feet above sea level. Were they poking up three hundred out of the water in 8000 BC?’

  ‘The coral grows faster than the water rises,’ said Cardini, quietly.

  ‘Ah,’ said Jim, ‘that explains it. Someone needs to tell them that. They seem to be really worried over there about getting flooded.’

  ‘But not if you concrete over your goddamn island,’ said McCloud.

  ‘Right,’ said Jim.

  McCloud was shaking his head. ‘You’re not a nature lover, are you, Jim?’

  ‘I love nature,’ said Jim. He held his fork up. ‘This bit of it tastes just great.’ He hoped that would get a laugh, but it didn’t. He felt suddenly angry. ‘Look, Howard. I don’t think nature is better than people. That’s kind of a fundamental for me.’ He shook his head. ‘You think the end of the world is coming because you’re getting confused. The end of the world is coming – but for you, not the rest of us, not yet anyway. The world’s not going to die, Howard, you are.’ Jim regretted pointing his fork at McCloud but it was too late by the time he’d done it. ‘It’s the end of the line for you, Howard, not the planet.’

  McCloud let out what might have been a laugh. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, suddenly looking certain about something and pleased.

  ‘Howard has a baseball team,’ interjected Cardini. ‘Do you follow baseball, Jim?’

  Jim was bemused by the sudden change of subject. ‘Hell, no,’ he said, influenced by all the Americans he had ever spoken with.

  ‘Pity,’ said McCloud. ‘It’s the gr
eatest game.’

  Thank Heaven, thought Jim. Maybe they’d cheer up now.

  45

  Renton sat by the glass case and watched the bald rat shivering in the far corner. The mosquitoes were all over it and drinking. Others, having fed, had taken to their perches and hung there upside-down, red and bloated. He loved watching them feed. Eat, reproduce, die – that was all they did. Now that pointless cycle had a bigger purpose, to clear the world’s tropical realms of a much larger parasite, which, like the mosquito, would mindlessly kill its host.

  The mosquito’s proboscis was an object of enchantment to him. He got an almost sexual buzz as it penetrated the white flesh of the rodent. It was like watching a thousand tiny deaths inflicted by innumerable miniature stilettos. The insect was so beautiful, so perfectly designed for its purpose of feeding on the mighty, draining and poisoning them.

  He had been sitting there for two hours watching the tiny spectacle, the beginning of the end for five billion people. He was loading the insects with Ebola, something to kick off the initial plague, an accelerator for the process, a mathematical guarantor of epidemic. The true killer, however, was the breeding aggression of these engineered mosquitoes. They were male, irresistible to females, and carried all the genes necessary to reproduce their breeding proclivities as well as their flaw: the regurgitation of their last meal, the poisoned blood of their hosts.

  Just like the dirty hypodermic syringes that had done for so many in the past, the mosquito would spread disease to all it bit. Its release would be the tiny spark on the dry haystack of mankind, a vast tinderbox. His action would turn the desert back into virgin jungle, savannah and plain.

  He would soon be a god, a dark Ajax who would deliver the scourging message of pestilence. Where there was malaria, there would soon be plagues untold. Into all of the hideous places where man heaved in heat and filth, the first horseman would ride unchecked and scythe them down. Then the northern people would be left to a pristine world released from inevitable ecological collapse that would otherwise destroy civilisation.