by E. J. Swift
‘You have a problem with this?’ she says coyly.
He shifts his shoulders uneasily.
‘If it’s the only way, it’s the only way.’
‘Then we have a deal. And don’t think if you renege on it I won’t find a way to have you brutally terminated.’
‘I believe you.’
‘You should.’
The Alaskan allows that to sink in. Now that they’ve had a chance to chat, she is getting a sense for a deeper layer to the Osirian. Calm on top, oh yes, but there’s depths beneath. Troubled depths. He knows he is running out of time.
‘It’s a shame the pilot’s fled,’ she remarks. ‘Callejas could have flown you back to your precious city. Might have appreciated the commission now she’s got a wanted sticker on her back.’
‘Who wants her?’
‘A very nasty woman who likes to drop people into ravines.’ With a glint of pleasure, she recalls Xiomara’s wan, angry face as she applied the skin patch. ‘Oh, and the government. Her employer.’
‘And there’s no way we can contact her?’
‘She’s disappeared,’ says the Alaskan. ‘Last seen in Panama. She’s probably dead. Brutal types, in Panama. They don’t like being crossed.’ The Alaskan waits a beat and adds, ‘We have some things in common.’
‘I’ve been looking at the captains of the Patagonian fleet—’
‘No, no, no. No one legal. That’s no use. There’s only one ship good enough to take you where you want to go without being caught.’
The Osirian waits. She watches him push aside his impatience, as if he were a rock around which water swerves and parts. It occurs to her that he has learned this, that it does not come naturally to him, and she wonders what it would take to propel him back to the other side. The idea fills her with a sense of glee.
Still, there’s no harm in throwing out a name.
‘El Tiburón,’ says the Alaskan. ‘The shark.’
The stories about El Tiburón are enough to keep a grown woman – even a nirvana – awake at night. El Tiburón takes his, or her, inspiration – no one knows for sure and it is said that whoever El Tiburón really is, he, or she, uses doubles – from the pirates of centuries before. Pirates who shot the kneecaps out of their own crew and practised keelhauling as an artistic form. But El Tiburón also likes other toys: things acquired from the north, nerve gases and substances that worm through the brain and change behaviours, identities, the very concept of self. El Tiburón has had enemies dancing on the prow of his, or her, ship like monkeys, naked and sunburned, bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, prattling nonsense to the open seas until they topple to their drowning. El Tiburón likes to fish out the bodies from the water and extract some manner of trophy, which is then hammered to the superstructure of the ship until it begins to decompose.
These are the things that are said, and the Alaskan knows that it does not matter if they have happened or if they are mere rumour – the idea is sufficient. She has never had direct dealings with El Tiburón, but their paths have veered very close. Certainly, El Tiburón will know her name. It would be logical to be afraid, or at the least wary of such an approach, but it is a long time since the Alaskan felt fear. She is not sure she would even recognize it.
After her meeting with Vikram Bai, the Alaskan wheels out into the camp, and selects a spot at the edge of the clearing, where she can retreat into the shade if the heat becomes too much. Twinges of nerve pain prickle her arms. She does not know how long she can keep up this level of exertion. The Osirian is not the only one running out of time.
Vikram Bai’s acolytes go about their business with a quiet focus. There are men and women in equal numbers, of varying ages, although she notes there are no children younger than Mig; this is an adult venture, albeit one the Alaskan cannot bring herself to take entirely seriously. She hears jokes, and occasional laughter, but mostly they are absorbed in whatever activities go on within the shelter of their tents or their hideaways deeper in the forest. Evidently they are self-sufficient. There is food stored on the site; they must have a regular chain of supply. She sees maps laid out on the ground, personal weapons being discussed and compared – she notices they all carry rudimentary arms, and does not doubt it is for the Osirian’s defence as much as their own protection.
Her boy Mig is nowhere to be seen.
After a few minutes Vikram Bai comes out of his cabin. His followers act like children around him. Everyone wants a prophet, thinks the Alaskan sourly.
It is different for nirvanas. A nirvana has no choice but to relinquish dependency. Forge her own path through the world.
She watches the Osirian move from group to group, noting how careful he is to exchange at least a word with each individual. She observes how their faces transform, the eagerness and deference they exhibit. She looks critically at the women. Some of them are pretty. In any case, fervour animates a face, lending a flush to the cheeks and a sparkle to the eye. Probably, these women look prettier than they are. None of them compare to the Scandinavian girl.
Most of these people have lost someone to redfleur. They are here for redemption. To be absolved for having survived. She wonders, now, how much the Osirian truly knows. How aware can he be of the ripples his presence is creating?
She hasn’t told him everything. She has told him about fish and cannibalism but she hasn’t told him about the strange following he is accumulating across the archipelago, and further north into the uninhabitable zone, perhaps even beyond it. She hasn’t told him about the shrines reputedly springing up in homes or the sea-worshippers that stride out into the cool Patagonian waters, letting the waves swirl about their calves and scouring the horizon for a glimpse of a fantastical city. She hasn’t told him about the boats that have already left in search of this strange place, one of them returned smashed to pieces on the shoreline in the wake of a storm, another intercepted, the boat stripped to its skeleton and its crew thrown overboard by pirates, probably El Tiburón. These things, she keeps to herself.
The summer sun is warm against her slack skin and the metal spokes of the chair wheels grow hot to the touch, but the Alaskan keeps touching them nonetheless, her fingers drawn to the searing heat. There is something familiar about this climate. Familiarity is dangerous, provoking memories best left boxed, but the Alaskan allows herself to succumb to this one, very carefully, only thinking about the weather, the soft warmth, nothing more.
After she has been sitting here for a while, people wander up to her. They say hello and introduce themselves. The Alaskan does not offer her own name. No one presses her, but they don’t appear afraid, which makes her think the Osirian has told Mig not to reveal her identity. She can imagine very well how she must present to them: an old woman shrunk against a wheelchair, folded in on herself like a lemon rind squeezed of its juice, a creature already in negotiation with death. Carried here, transported, with no will in the motion, perhaps for one final crusade. Her family, they will think, with sympathy. She’s lost her family and this is all she has left. Empathy rolls off them, the Osirian’s acolytes.
It is a question worth asking. Why is she doing this? What’s in it for her now? She wasn’t joking when she told the Osirian his city would become a war zone. For all they know, the Antarcticans have already made their decision. So why would the Alaskan even consider taking a trip into the throes of the South Atlantic Ocean? Is she exercising some manner of previously unsuspected death wish? Has she, in fact, had enough of this warped and peculiar world?
The Alaskan sits in the sun and watches the acolytes, industrious as ants, and considers these questions.
The nirvana faces away from Mig in the bright light of noon. For two years in Cataveiro he ran her errands, aware of the power that she wielded from the squalor of an attic bed, and yet he never feared her in the way that he does now. The chair is new, and alarming. Like that snake in the jar, at any moment she might spring from a state of stillness into something diabolical.
He ta
kes the piece of rope from his pocket and twists it between his hands, knotting and unknotting, seeking to calm himself. They cannot trust the Alaskan: this is clear to Mig and should be clear to Vikram, but Vikram has not listened. Instead he has invited the Alaskan in. He’s even given her the second cabin to sleep in. However, Vikram’s failure to comprehend the truth brings Mig an opportunity.
Revenge is now within his grasp.
He will have to plan carefully and pick his moment.
If he stares at the Alaskan for too long he finds that his breath becomes short and his vision speckled and so he takes himself away, to the other side of the camp, to occupy himself with the radio hub. The Alaskan is not the only one who knows how to get information.
He holds on to Pilar’s feather in his pocket. There’s not much left of it now, other than the spine and a few sticky strands, but he won’t let it go. When no one is looking he wraps it in his palm and whispers to it.
‘It won’t be long now. I’m going to get her. I promise.’
Shri isn’t sure what she expects of Patagonia. Something – oh, she doesn’t know – different to Antarctica. Something hot and arid, and the people, not struggling exactly, but not flourishing either, a sullenness about them. She doesn’t expect prosperity. It’s summer, a gentle, temperate summer, and the climate feels like an affront. The country where Taeo died should be in turmoil, slabs of ground literally tearing in two, the sea walls under assault. The thought is absurd, and yet she cannot think small. Only extremities are left to her.
Shri steps off the boat alone. The commander, that cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch, explained it had to be this way. You won’t be alone. But it needs to look like you are. The harbour is busy with Patagonian fishers, small boats, small ships, buildings with walls in red and pink and blue, the mountain behind, a quaint air to everything like this is a toy town, a fakery. She struggles to imagine Taeo in this place.
A little further out from the harbour, she sees a flock of gulls wheeling and screaming, their circle interrupted by the occasional swoop to the surface, where more of the fishing boats are gathered. There’s something in the water. Something long and grey, streaked with pink. It’s a whale, she realizes, and it’s dead. The thick grey skin has been sliced into and peeled back to expose the rosy flesh, a hint of white beneath, blubber or bone, and the whale’s blood is leaking into the surrounding water. The fishing boats are herding the carcass towards the shore, presumably to butcher it. Whalers. Shri turns away in disgust.
She looks back at the town. Now she’s here it is tempting to cut and run. Track down the man – the Osirian – for herself. But she knows the Antarctica network will have eyes on her, and besides, there’s the children. She can’t risk any screw-ups.
Strange how you can live within a regime, entirely unaware of the anatomy which underpins it, until one thing happens. And then all at once the bones are visible and you realize it has been there all along.
At the harbour front she asks for directions to the Facility, speaking pointedly, as instructed, in Boreal English, until someone who can understand the language directs her up the mountain. She sees a steep path winding uphill, away from the town – that way? She receives a brusque nod. She starts to make her way through the streets of the harbour town. There are no vehicles, everyone is on foot, and everyone seems to be looking at her, not in a friendly manner, and she begins to feel anxious. She hasn’t got very far when she notices a man hurrying in her direction. Towards her? Yes, he’s definitely heading for her. She slows, alarmed by the thought that he might be dangerous, but on the narrow street there’s no avoiding him. As he reaches her, the man puts a hand on her arm and guides her to the side of the street, shielding their conversation from anyone passing by. She can see the consternation in his face.
‘You came off the boat? The Antarctican boat?’
He speaks in home patois.
‘Yes, I – I just got here.’
Shri is thrown. She did not expect to be accosted so immediately, even by a fellow Republican.
‘You shouldn’t be walking alone in the town. Who sent you here? Who are you? We’re not expecting a visitor.’
‘My name is Shri Nayar,’ she says. ‘My partner was stationed at the Facility.’
The Antarctican recognizes her name. She sees pity creeping into his face and she carries on before he can say something, I’m sorry, or some other useless platitude.
‘I’m looking for someone. He’s known as the Osirian. I need to find him. Can you help me?’
The man’s expression changes. Surprise, this time. He darts a look up and down the street and she has the sense that he is afraid.
‘Come with me. We can’t talk here.’
He makes coffee at his house. The space feels strange to her, cluttered with physical artefacts which she takes to be of native origin. A large fabric hanging with stylized drawings of animals – a spider, a monkey, a hummingbird, and a whale – decorates the length of one wall. The coffee is dark and bitter to taste. The Antarctican’s name is Ivra, he tells her. He was her partner’s – he was Taeo’s bodyguard. He goes on quickly, perhaps afraid she will lay blame. Taeo was a good guy, but headstrong, he says. He had his own ideas. There was a shipwreck, the Osirian boat, then the signal – well, everyone knows about it now, and he assumes that’s why she’s here. Why else would she be looking for the man? Taeo went to investigate, alone. The next thing anyone knew, he was in Cataveiro, in the middle of a redfleur epidemic, with the rogue Osirian. She knows Cataveiro? About the redfleur? Fuck, what a mess. What a catastrophe. He’s lived here ten years and this is the second time it’s struck. The death toll was worse this time. Nearly ten thousand people. They’ve only just contained it. A brooding expression settles on Ivra’s face and he stares into his mug of coffee.
Shri nods and then shakes her head. She has a vague concept of redfleur, as something that happens over there. Over here, she thinks. Over here. She should feel something. The sheer number of casualties should affect her, but all she has is a niggling impatience that Ivra is talking about this, this other catastrophe, when she has come here to investigate her own tragedy.
‘The Osirian,’ she reminds him.
Ivra cradles his coffee mug. His hands engulf it. He’s a big man and the whole house seems too small for his frame.
‘What do you know about him?’
Shri tells the truth.
‘He sent me a message.’
‘A message?’
‘A holoma.’
‘That’s strange,’ he says. ‘He shouldn’t have been able to work a personalized holoma. Unless… unless Taeo gave him access.’
He falls silent, either unwilling to or wary of speculating further. Shri ignores the implication.
‘I don’t care how he did it, I need to find him. I want to speak with him. You knew my partner. You’ll help me, won’t you?’
Ivra is distracted. He says she will hear some things, some strange things, about this Osirian. There are stories, he says. People are – well, they’re becoming obsessed, with the idea of it, of him, that’s what’s happening, but no one will believe it back in the Republic. Stories are powerful things and it’s foolish to underestimate their currency, the way they grab at hearts and minds, especially hearts open to listening, and in this country…
Ivra laces those large hands nervously. He says he’s worried the Republic will do something foolish. Or they’ll do it but not quick enough and before you know it the Boreals will be on the doorstep.
Shri decides not to mention the protests back home in Belgrano. She doesn’t want to divert him further. She wants facts. She wants to know where the Osirian is. Ivra says the rumours are he’s still on the archipelago, but no one knows where exactly. Or even which island. People go to find him and most of them don’t come back. Those who do return are interrogated by the Patagonian government, but it’s like they’ve been bewitched, and still no one knows anything. The route to the Osirian is fiercely guarded and
there are no identifiable geographical clues or markers from the actual hideout to suggest his whereabouts.
Still, says Ivra, it can’t go on forever. Sooner or later he’ll slip up.
‘So what happens to these people? You said most of them don’t come back. Is this man dangerous?’
‘Dangerous? Of course he’s dangerous.’
But there are lots of ways you can be dangerous. This is what he means when he talks about the stories. The Osirian is an idea. The most dangerous kind of dangerous. But perhaps Shri doesn’t know – he might as well tell her, if he doesn’t, someone else will. Ivra’s voice drops a level. The Osirian survived. He survived the redfleur, that’s why everyone wants to find him. Ivra hesitates and then he says, he’s a miracle, the tinge of sarcasm in his tone not entirely eradicating the suggestion that he might believe it.
Not for me, thinks Shri. Not unless he can bring people back from the dead. And she feels a surge of rage that this Osirian should survive when Taeo did not.
Ivra drains his coffee before speaking again. It’s unlikely the Osirian is killing people off, if that’s what she means. More likely he’s assembling them.
‘Like an army?’
Ivra doesn’t know. Maybe.
Shri can’t decide what to make of this. In coming here she has not really considered the Osirian’s motivations – she only wants to see him, and gain the opportunity to interrogate him. Vikram Bai is the last piece of Taeo that exists in this world. She was told that his body was burned. The ashes buried, in haste and without ceremony, in a foreign piece of ground which she will never see or know. It’s been strictly impressed upon her that under no circumstances should she attempt the journey to Cataveiro.
Ivra, left in silence, now turns the questions upon Shri.
‘You’ve come here alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do the Republic know?’
Shri’s moment of hesitation is enough. He slumps.
‘Of course they know. You’ve been sent here, of course you have. That’s how they do things.’
