by E. J. Swift
At the end of her story, the girl whispers, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to hunt them down. I’m going to get her back.’
‘Are they cannibals?’
‘Don’t be silly, Gabi,’ says Carla, but her voice is fearful, and Ramona wonders what other ideas have been terrorizing Félix’s people.
‘No,’ she says. Carla looks at her. She repeats it, firmly, ‘No. They aren’t cannibals.’
‘Then what are they?’
‘They’re northerners.’
The night-vision goggles. The paralysing dart. It is Boreal tech, and Boreal or not, the raiders are working for northerners. Of that she is certain.
But what do they want with the highlanders?
Carla has little more to tell. They had sent a tracking party, but as with the villagers who disappeared in the storm, they found nothing. Carla is distraught.
‘I’ve let you down, Ro. I said I’d look after her and I’ve failed.’
Ramona hugs her tightly.
‘You haven’t failed. You haven’t let me down. I’m going to find her. I promise.’
She has one last question for Carla.
‘Félix doesn’t know?’
Carla shakes her head. Ramona takes Carla’s face in her hands. She can feel the roughness of Carla’s skin, lined and mottled from a lifetime under the baking sun.
‘Please, if you hear from him, don’t say anything. He’ll only worry.’
From the sliding city she flies the short distance east to the coast. The plane is not handling as smoothly as it should. The unsettling whining noise is back. Whatever the Antarctican did, it was a temporary fix, or not a fix at all. She feels almost paralysed with frustration when she thinks of the ludicrous route she has taken: all the way down from the Nazca Desert to the archipelago and back up again, when if she had only known about the jinn she would have crossed the continent directly.
Perhaps then she would have been ahead of the raiders. She could have protected her mother.
Or they would have taken you too.
That is what Carla said, but Ramona cannot bring herself to believe it. She could have done something. Now all she can do is guess. She is pursuing a ghost.
There is one more functioning desalination plant on the east coast between here and Panama, an independent, so she need not worry about Xiomara’s influence. Félix’s ship will also need to stop there, and there is a chance that their paths will intersect. She wants to see him; at the same time she dreads a meeting which will force her to lie.
The windshield absorbs the sun, building heat inside the cockpit. Ramona drains another water bottle. She watches the shadow of the plane flitting over the terrain beneath her, and as always when she flies this way, she remembers the long journey by foot made from the sliding city to Cataveiro. She remembers sucking water from huge cacti, the slimy texture of the flesh they chewed on for sustenance.
From above, this territory looks harmless. The land is patterned with swirling stripes where mudslides have crashed through, now pretty to behold. Disintegrating buildings look like a child’s toys strewn across the floor. You cannot hear the sound of rockfall, or the dull implosion of another roof caving in. Out of habit, Ramona takes out her master map, comparing map to ground, pencilling in the slight alterations she notices to the landscape. The precision and focus of the exercise calms her. For a few precious minutes she can lose herself in calculations.
The plane judders alarmingly. One by one Ramona checks her instruments. Everything reads as it should. The battery is three-quarters full and charging cleanly, so what is causing that noise? She touches the instrument panel. Colibrí cannot let her down now.
‘Come on, Colibrí. It’s not that far now. This is easy.’
As they draw nearer to the coast, she spies the lead line of a water pipe. A recurrent glint catches her eye: sunlight on water gushing from a break. The sight makes her hot with fury. All that precious water sucked up by the thirsty ground, never reaching the small villages tucked in the lee of the mountains who will be dependent on this supply. Pipe breaks are more often sabotage than accident. Guerrillas, seeking a tactical advantage.
Or raiders, she thinks with a chill.
Another hour’s flying brings the ocean into view. She descends and heads a short distance out to sea, scanning in both directions for sign of the fleet, but the sea is empty. Returning inland, she makes another awkward landing, a rocking, skidding manoeuvre that flips the contents of her stomach.
What if the plane gives out before you find Inés?
No. That cannot happen. Not to Ramona, not with her luck. She has not one, but three missions now. She has to find her mother. And when that is done, she has to find the Antarcticans and give them Taeo’s message. Taeo promised they would help her to get the medicine she needs for Inés.
An uneasy thought crosses her mind. What if the message had something to do with these raids on the villages?
No, that is ridiculous. Why would Antarctica be mixed up in something like this?
Still the thought lingers, unpleasantly.
The workers at the desalination plant are not aware of the break in the pipe. Ramona draws a map and marks the location. A team of them take out a repair truck.
Ramona exchanges news with a group of workers. She tells them that the pirate El Tiburón has been spotted near Fuego but not yet caught, but his associate is on trial soon, perhaps this week, and the city of Cataveiro is embroiled in another quarrel with the government over taxes. They tell her the pedlars report a new dispute between the Solar Corporation and the Boreal States. The Boreals say they own the patents to greenhouse technology. The Corporation claim they are using new, innovative agricultural techniques. The workers tell her, uneasily, that there are rumours of a new outbreak of redfleur. Even up north, they are worried, and it is spreading south.
‘I’ve heard that too,’ she says. They stand for a moment in unhappy conference.
She asks if the ships have passed. They say only one. Not the Aires.
Late, she comments.
They agree. It is late. It happens sometimes. Pirates, or storms.
Ramona cannot afford to wait. She’ll have to miss Félix.
Before she leaves she asks the plant manager if she has heard of raiders taking people from the villages. The woman is concerned.
‘We’ve heard nothing here. But we don’t have much contact with the south – only the radio, and travellers like you.’
‘It’s in the highlands,’ she says. ‘They’re kidnapping people – vulnerable people. I think they’re northerners.’
The plant manager looks perplexed. ‘I’ve heard of money kidnappings – but taking people from the villages? That’s new.’
‘You should warn your staff. If any of them have families …’
‘I will do. Thanks for the heads-up.’
Ramona pays for her water and returns to the plane. She is in the cockpit, pulling on her parachute, when she spies the man hastening towards her in the rear viewfinder. It is one of the plant workers, dressed in plain coveralls. The man comes up to the cockpit. He glances quickly behind him.
‘I heard you speaking to the manager.’
Ramona tightens the parachute straps. ‘Yes?’
‘I— About the people.’
‘What can you tell me?’
The man hesitates.
‘What you said – about them being taken – it’s true. Nobody dares talk about it but everyone knows it’s going on. Northern raiders have been coming down the past couple of years, further south each time. They take people to the Exchange. One of the ships picks them up – I don’t know which one – but that’s what I heard.’
Again, he checks the space behind him. ‘That’s all I know.’
Ramona grips his arm. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
‘Did they get one of yours?’
‘They took my mother.’
‘Oh. God. I’m so sorry. I h
ope you find her.’
Ramona smiles grimly. ‘That’s where I’m going now.’
The man strokes the plane’s nose with wistful fingers. ‘Good luck.’
‘Do you know why? Why they would want people?’
The man shakes his head.
‘If it’s northerners, I don’t want to. But you’ll find them. I’ve heard the stories about you. Your aeroplane is beautiful. I’ve always thought the hummingbird was lucky.’
What lies north of here is unchartered. Ramona has never flown into the Amazon Desert. She has only the stories of the pedlars who came to the sliding city when she was a child: tales of sandstorms as huge as a mountain and mirages that dissolve before your eyes.
She flies north between the highlands and the Espinhaço mountain range, their bald peaks rising and receding starkly, as if it is they who are moving while she remains static. The sky is clear, her vision perfect, but mountain flying is strange and sometimes disorientating. She feels that now. A sense of not-rightness, as though the world has tilted and with it her perceptions. She pushes the plane, propelled by fear, shutting her ears to the protesting engine and letting the battery drop below seventy per cent.
On the edge of the desert she spies a camp of traders with their carts and desert motorcycles, and spirals softly down to intersect them. They look up as the plane approaches. It is a bad sign if they can hear the aircraft from the ground. She ignores that too.
She opens the hatch, moving slowly, with more than her habitual caution, the gun ready at her waistband. The traders are a camp of twelve or so, men and women, dressed in desert clothes. As she jumps down from the aircraft she recognizes one or two faces from previous encounters and relaxes a little. The traders know who she is, but exchanges are cautious until she talks to the leader of the caravan. They confirm they are both Panama bound, and he invites her to join the overnight camp.
After that, everyone wants to see the plane. Ramona gives them the superficial tour, batting away playfully probing questions with a smile and a laugh. She never lets anyone have more than a cursory glance at the instrument panel. When they are satisfied, she locks the hatch and asks to take a look at their motorcycles. She admires the robust desert riders, and they stand about in the evening light talking about engines and rudimentary mechanics, sharing tips and tales of the storms they have suffered, each a little more incredible than the last, in the way of travellers north of the habitable zone, until supper is ready.
Ramona has always felt an affinity with these itinerants. She feels it more strongly than ever now, knowing there is no turning back. The emptiness of the land ahead is a pulse in her head, its beat at once a call and a warning. The salty winds and cool oceans of the archipelago lie thousands of kilometres to the south, perhaps out of reach for good. Regardless of what goes down in Panama, Señorita Xiomara has put a price on Ramona’s head. That alone is enough to sever her connection with the government; Lygia will never trust her again, and for that Ramona cannot blame her. She has made her choice.
A part of her life is over. Now she has reason to be glad that she has never, in all the years of mapping, disclosed the location of the sliding city.
The traders heat packet soup and potatoes on a small portable stove. Over supper, the party exchange stories. Ramona eats quickly, grateful for the warmth of the food and the steaming, bitter tea brewed by the cook as the land temperature cools; an opportunity to sit and listen, without thinking. Then someone asks how she got the plane.
‘That’s a long story,’ she replies. But they insist.
‘Must be a good story.’
‘Or make it a good one.’
A ripple of laughter around the camp. They nod encouragingly. Tell us, go on. We want to hear it. Did the spiders show you, like they say? Ramona hides her reluctance. To refuse would be a discourtesy after they have shown her hospitality. The least she can offer them is a tale.
‘Well, it starts in Cataveiro. I know, all the best ones do. I was doing my apprenticeship in a garage, cleaning the army trucks, and the cars owned by rich folk from the enclaves. Sometimes people waited around while I cleaned, and they talked about this and that, the way people do. There was a woman from the south who wore a pendant with the Nazca spider. She had a beautiful voice, and a beautiful car, and I always took particular care while I was cleaning it. Yes, I had favourites.’
They laugh again.
‘She could tell that I liked the car. She asked me if I’d like to have one of my own one day, and I said yes, of course. Well, who wouldn’t?’
There are appreciative nods around the circle. She cannot help glancing towards the silver-winged plane. Its cells are charging up the battery as it glows in the last of the sunlight.
‘She asked me why. I told her that if I owned a machine like hers I would go places where people didn’t usually go. I’d explore the wetlands and the stormlands. I said I would make maps, like those I’d made of Cataveiro already. That interested her. She told me there was a better machine than a car to do that, so she had heard.’
‘Was it hers?’ asks a round-faced young man.
‘No. But she knew a story about the plane, which I’ll tell to you now. It was the last of its kind, she said. It had disappeared with its owner, half a century ago in the year of the storm, you know the one, when the sea city disappeared.’
Murmurs of assent. She hears the soft whine of a desert wind and the cook adjusts the windbreaker around the stove.
‘The owner’s name was Violeta del Torres. Her family owned a number of prominent radio stations, and they had money. The plane had been preserved and passed down from generation to generation, but it was like an object in a museum, never used. Until Violeta. She decided she was going to make it fly. She was a reckless character. She loved the power of flying. It became …’ Ramona thinks. ‘I suppose you could say it was a kind of addiction for her. She liked to fly through storms. The more catastrophic the storm, the greater the lure. Her family despaired. Not only were her escapades illegal, they were convinced she would kill herself. They tried everything to stop her – reason, entreaties, even threatening to lock her away. In the end she took the plane and cut all contact with them.’
Ramona’s audience is rapt.
‘That was the last they saw of her?’
‘She was witnessed flying out towards the Atacama Desert, at the head of a storm. No one knew why she went. Some say she had the jinn. Some say her mind was stolen by the winds. No one ever found her, alive or dead. They assumed she had crashed in some uninhabited place, perhaps out to sea. But the woman at the garage told me, del Torres’s aeroplane is out there somewhere. And I knew then that I had to look for it. I can’t explain – but I knew it was out there.’
‘And you found it.’
‘Yes, I found it.’ She lets the pause drag out a little. ‘It took me a long time, but I found it.’
‘How?’
Ramona glances around the camp. A woman stretches out on a sleeping bag, her head propped on her hand. A man watches her over the rim of his tea mug.
‘I spent all my savings on an old solarcycle. It took me three weeks to get it fit for travel. I hitched a ride with the army as far as the mountains and after that it was me and the bike. I had provisions for three weeks, no more. I went all over the Atacama Desert. Of the few travellers I met, none had heard of the plane. Days passed. I began to doubt the woman’s story. I was almost ready to give up, convinced that Violeta must have crashed into the sea after all. I had only two days left of supplies. And that was when the spiders appeared.
‘I spotted the first one scuttling past my foot. It joined another, and another, and then I realized there were hundreds of them, all running in one direction. A river of spiders. They were the first living creatures I had seen in the desert. When I put my hand in the way of their path they ran around it and carried on. They had a purpose, I thought. I left the bike where it was and I followed them. Why? I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a choic
e. I walked for over an hour. I was thinking, how do they live here, where there isn’t even a fly? Where have they come from? After a while I could see the old telescope array, away to the right, where I’d already searched and found nothing. And then the spiders disappeared into a hole in the ground.’
She waits.
‘And?’
‘And I looked up, and there it was. The aeroplane. Its body was the colour of the desert, it blended almost perfectly into the background.’
‘That’s the truth?’
She smiles mysteriously.
‘The truth is whatever you believe.’
The woman on the sleeping bag sits up.
‘What about Violeta del Torres? Did you find her?’
Ramona pictures the site. The long shadows of the derelict telescope array fell across the plane, perched on the desert floor as though it had alighted there only moments before, with the hatch jammed halfway open. Inside was the fragile skeleton of Violeta del Torres, her skull dipped towards her sternum. Clothes still swaddled the human remains, sculpted and stiffened by the winds that swept through the barren desert. She remembers gently removing the body from the cockpit, and the way it disintegrated in her hands, as though Violeta had held together only long enough to be discovered, before she could disappear completely. She remembers lying in the desert that night with the unearthly clarity of the heavens opening above her and wondering if this was the last thing Violeta del Torres had witnessed, and if so, if perhaps her life had ended well.
She remembers drawing the lines of the hummingbird in the sand where the molecules of Violeta had dissipated, vowing: I will keep the secret of your grave.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I never found her.’
‘It’s a great mystery,’ says the eldest of the group. Ramona feels his gaze upon her, thoughtful and intelligent. ‘You were meant to find the plane, it seems.’
