The Cloud Hunters

by Alex Shearer

  ‘And bring more water, you mean,’ Kaneesh grinned.

  ‘Alms to the poor are a blessing to the giver,’ the hermit said.

  ‘Well, don’t get lonely,’ Kaneesh said. He waved and turned the boat back around into the open sky.

  ‘The true hermit is never lonely in the company of his thoughts,’ the hermit called after us. ‘Solitude is the balm to the soul. Crowds are but noise and confusion. Thoughts and prayers are the best company; thoughts and prayers and contemplation. I’ll pray for you all and for peace in the world, that one day all our islands will join together into one great land.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Kaneesh said. ‘Not in my lifetime.’

  We left the hermit behind us. I felt that although Kaneesh laughed at him, he admired him, too, in a way. He admired his madness, his self-imposed isolation, his stubborn, uncompromising individuality. He admired the fact that he had survived all alone on his arid, barren rock.

  ‘How did he ever get there?’ I asked Jenine. ‘He doesn’t even have a sky-boat.’

  ‘He did once,’ she said. ‘The hermits sail into the middle of nowhere, find an island, load on what they have, then they scuttle their boats and let them fall to the sun. Then they’re committed. There’s no going back.’

  ‘Don’t they ever die?’

  ‘Some do. But then we all die, don’t we – in time?’

  ‘Yes,’ I had to admit. ‘I suppose we do.’

  ‘But then some of them get so many visitors, they’re not really hermits at all,’ Jenine said. ‘People go to them, wanting charms and spells and miracles. They think of them as holy and take them food. You just need to build a reputation for wisdom and holiness, and you’re in business.’

  I went to the bows of the boat and looked back. The hermit sat greedily drinking a cup of water. Then he went to open the bag of cakes, and that was when I realised he wasn’t alone.

  One of the rocks came to life.

  It was a sky-seal. It had been basking there, huge and immobile, all the time we had been speaking. It was fat and ungainly, and it clambered clumsily over the rocks towards the dishevelled hermit, as if it had designs on his barrel of water and his bag of cakes.

  The hermit heard or saw (or, more likely, smelled) it coming. He turned, picked up some stones and pelted the sky-seal with them to make it retreat. The creature hesitated, but not for long. The stones slowed it down but didn’t deter it, and it kept on coming. The hermit grabbed a strut of metal which lay on the shore, a remnant of his boat, maybe. He approached fearlessly and began to beat the sky-seal about its rotund body and its disproportionately small, bony head.

  The sky-seal emitted terrible grunts and roars, but the hermit went on thumping it until finally it scuttled away to escape the blows and slid off the shore into the sky. It was extraordinary to see such a fat thing fly, but it floated like a pumped-up balloon.

  It glided away towards a lower rock, where it would be safe and out of harm’s way. The triumphant hermit reached into the bag and took out one of his cakes. He bit into it. He must have seen me watching him, for he waved and he pointed at the far rock with the sky-seal now upon it.

  I saw him off, his wave seemed to say. Did you see that? Scrawny hermit defeats fat seal.

  And I had to admit that he had. He may have essentially been a spiritual man, but he was pretty handy with a club.

  I waved back enthusiastically, to give him my seal of approval.

  ‘Seal of approval!’ I shouted. I felt the joke was too good not to share.

  Jenine raised her eyes to heaven.

  ‘Funny,’ she said. ‘You have any more like that?’

  ‘Plenty,’ I told her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  She and I were getting on a whole lot better, I thought. Things were starting to thaw.

  15

  cloud bank

  We were well outside the shadow range of any large islands and there would be no darkness for a while and so, for us, no night. Without a nearby land mass to come between us and the sun, day just continued indefinitely. It was strange to feel tired, to expect the night to fall, but to have the light shine as brightly as ever.

  Although everyone gets tired, not everyone gets darkness. Many islands do get night-time, but others are in perpetual day. Our sun is beneath us. But its light illuminates not just the base of the islands, it goes around and is reflected back by the particles in the upper atmosphere. So we usually have light and plenty of it. Our problem is getting hold of the night.

  On my home island, we’re fortunate. Beneath us is another massive island which passes between us and the sun on a regular cycle. So every day (so to speak) we have night. It’s not total darkness, but it’s enough. But some islands are out of range of others; they have no satellite island and so have constant light. So people have to make their own darkness, with blinds and canopies and shutters and with thick, heavy curtains to block out the light.

  Just as true day and night are more convenient, old-fashioned notions than realities here, so are the seasons. There is no comparable rotation of nature, as in the old world; no annual cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter. No seasons, no years. There are just the days, cold or sizzling, depending on how far you are from the core. The sun never really rises and never really sets. It just is. We keep the old time system for old times’ sake.

  But you get used to it. Why wouldn’t you, when it’s all you’ve known? You can get used to almost anything.

  Occasionally two islands orbit so closely and with such synchronisation that the upper isle permanently blocks out all the light that otherwise would have been reflected back to the lower one, which is then held in constant darkness.

  But this doesn’t mean such places are uninhabited. They are. But by nothing savoury. These places are the Islands of Night. And most people with any sense (especially a sense of danger) avoid them, like the plague.

  We ate our meal as we sailed. Maybe it was dinner, maybe supper; I’d lost track. But it definitely wasn’t breakfast. Afterwards, Jenine and I talked for a while as we lay sprawled on the deck. The sky was clear and cloudless and shimmering blue.

  Sometimes Carla looked anxiously at Kaneesh, or went to talk to him in a confidential whisper. Now and then they argued, as she questioned his decision to pursue the direction we had taken. But he didn’t alter course. We went on heading for wherever we were headed.

  I looked at my watch and saw that it was past midnight. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. Jenine suggested that I go below and use one of the bunks down there. But as nobody else seemed about to do that, neither would I. If they wouldn’t sleep, I wouldn’t either. I was determined to show them that I meant business, that I could be just as tough and had as much stamina.

  At about quarter to one, Kaneesh unfolded a bedroll, shook it out onto the deck, then stretched out upon it. He took the bandana which he habitually wore around his neck, tied it instead around his eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

  So I did the same, making a blindfold from one of my spare T-shirts. Jenine slept too. Only Carla stayed awake, to take the first watch.

  I was woken at about four in the morning by Kaneesh prodding me in the ribs with his foot. I opened my eyes and glanced up blearily to see him looking down at me.

  ‘Your watch,’ he told me. And then, as if by way of explanation, he added, ‘No passengers.’

  So I had to get up, drag myself to the prow and endeavour to stay alert and watchful while the others slept. I felt tired and irritable and a mite resentful. But I was pleased in a way, too, that I had been asked and expected to take my turn and to do my share. The last thing I wanted was any favours. What I wanted was to be accepted.

  I stayed there for two hours, watching shoals of sky-fish drift languidly by. I saw a sky-whale in the far distance, like a cloud itself. But of real clouds there were none.

  I had one false sighting and was about to wake everyone, but realised my mistake. It
wasn’t a cloud at all, at least not of vapour. It was a pillar of insects, hundreds of metres high, moving like a tornado, whirling and spinning as if trying to drill a hole in the air.

  The column passed a long way to starboard. Had it hit the boat, we’d have been in trouble. It could have knocked us off course, or worse. Swarms of sky-midges had been known to get into people’s mouths and nostrils and down into their lungs. A colony of flying sky-ants could turn a living shark into a dead carcass in minutes – stripping it down to the bone. Islanders lived in terror of these airborne termites. When they came, they threw them meat; while they were busy with it, they sprayed the swarms with chemicals or fire.

  At six, Jenine stirred without my waking her and took her turn at the watch. I covered my eyes and slept until eight, when the smell of breakfast woke me. Kaneesh was in the galley. Carla was at the helm, staring into the distance, with binoculars held to her eyes.

  I didn’t quite hear what she said at first, but I looked up at the sound of her voice when she repeated the command louder and more peremptorily.

  ‘Get Kaneesh,’ she said. ‘Tell him they’re here.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What are?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘Clouds.’

  She let me look through the binoculars. They were many kilometres away, some hours’ journey from us still. They were shaped like elephants and dragons, like mountains and hills. They changed form as I watched them, like self-sculpting clay – artist and material all in one.

  I went down to tell Jenine and Kaneesh.

  ‘Clouds!’ I said. ‘They’re here!’

  I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice.

  ‘How far?’ Kaneesh asked. He didn’t seem at all surprised. Nor particularly pleased.

  ‘Carla says four hours.’

  Kaneesh nodded and went on stirring the pot.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you coming up to see?’ I asked, feeling that he could have been a little more enthusiastic.

  ‘Breakfast first,’ he said.

  But then, he’d seen it all before. I suppose he had his priorities and breakfast was nearer the top.

  I turned to Jenine.

  ‘Come on deck with me,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  She looked at Kaneesh, as if to ask if he could manage without her. He plainly could and he waved her away. He gave me a look which was half derisory amusement and half contemptuous; then he turned back to his cooking.

  It was hard to know what was exciting about it, and yet it was. They were only clouds, after all, not living beings or sentient things. They weren’t going to try to run from us, or take it into their heads to escape, or about to turn and attack us. They were only vapour, just moisture, that was all, a haze of mist in the upper sky. But it was exciting, all the same.

  We took it in turn with the binoculars. The clouds were large and puffy, white and grey and tinged with pink. They shifted and divided constantly, endlessly restless. They swirled and grew, joined up, separated and changed shape yet again.

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  Jenine looked at me the way Kaneesh had looked at me, with the same amusement.

  ‘What are you so excited about? You’ve seen clouds before.’

  ‘Yes, I have, only . . .’

  Only not kilometres from land, never out in the vast, empty sky, with nothing but space above and beneath me, in the company of a girl whose eyes were the colour of green gems and whose beautiful, intriguing face was scarred and disfigured with lines which only made her seem even more beautiful and intriguing – at least to me.

  Maybe it wasn’t the clouds at all. Maybe it was her. And maybe she knew it.

  I handed back the binoculars.

  ‘What makes them form here, and not somewhere else?’

  ‘Updrafts – temperature – humidity. The conditions have to be just right.’

  ‘Will they stay like that?’

  ‘No. Sometimes they vanish before you can reach them.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘You keep on looking.’

  ‘What if you don’t find any?’

  ‘You go home empty.’

  ‘And then? If you’ve no water to sell? And you don’t make any money?’

  She looked at me with amusement again.

  ‘You go hungry for a while.’

  Was she serious? Nobody went hungry, did they? Not these days. My doubt must have showed.

  ‘Look, Christien,’ she said. ‘Your parents have jobs, don’t they? Work and salary and promotions and insurance and pension schemes.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They work for sky-traders?’

  ‘My father does, yes. He’s an administrator. It’s a huge company.’

  ‘What happens if it loses all its ships?’

  ‘That could never happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s a huge fleet – it just couldn’t.’

  She sat on the rail and raised the binoculars to her eyes.

  ‘Anything can happen. The world lives on danger,’ she said. ‘We’re all insecure, all of us. You think you’re stable, but you’re not. It’s just an illusion. You’re standing on clouds, not solid ground. And clouds can melt at any time. You’re no more secure than we are. You just don’t happen to have realised it yet.’

  She turned her gaze towards the cloud bank.

  I could see them quite plainly now, even without the binoculars. They went on building, becoming denser and darker grey. Jenine called to her mother.

  ‘They’ll rain if we don’t get there soon.’

  ‘I know,’ Carla said.

  ‘Is that bad?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course it is. If they rain, they’re gone. Use your head.’

  I must have blushed, because Carla laughed.

  ‘Don’t take everything so personally, Christien,’ she said.

  ‘Can’t we go faster?’ Jenine asked.

  Just as she did, Kaneesh came up from below, carrying a pot of food and some bowls. He handed them around.

  ‘The clouds are thickening,’ Carla told him. ‘How long, if we go to full speed?’

  ‘Two hours maybe,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be pleasant.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  He shrugged and went over to the selection of levers set into the deck by the helm. He pulled back the guards to open the solar panels, then he told me to come and help him while he unfurled the wind sails. I wasn’t a lot of use and he knew it and he should have asked Jenine. But he didn’t. I think he just wanted to show her how stupid and impractical I was. Or maybe he really wanted to teach me something. Either way, I learned how to do it, and the next time I’d be able to get it right.

  My food was cold by the time I got back to it, but I ate it anyway. We were moving swiftly now, so much so that I had to put on a coat against the chill. The boat bucked and rolled on the thermals, sometimes jumping alarmingly, twenty, thirty, even fifty metres or more up into the air; or it suddenly plunged the same distance down.

  ‘Want a life jacket?’ Kaneesh asked me.

  ‘I can air-swim,’ I told him.

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In open air? In thermals like these?’

  ‘Well – off the land.’

  He threw me a life jacket.

  ‘Put it on,’ he said.

  I felt a little embarrassed, but saw Jenine put one on too. He was right, anyway, I’d never swum in the air in the presence of thermal currents which could toss you twenty metres in the air or suck you down like a feather into a whirlwind.

  The clouds seemed to be retreating, but not as fast as we were gaining on them. The grey of them was turning to black. Then I saw a dark haze falling.

  ‘Rain!’ Kaneesh muttered angrily. And he followed that up with what sounded like a lot of swearing in a dialect I didn’t understand.

  But it didn’t rain for long. There were still plenty of clouds left, wh
ole mountain ranges of them, enough to fill the holding tanks to their brims.

  My excitement went on mounting, the nearer we got. Everything else was forgotten now, there was just us and the clouds. It was the perfect hunt – at least for me, for it felt thrilling and dangerous; there was the chase and the chance of failure, and to cap it all, nothing got hurt, nothing got killed, nothing died, no living thing was destroyed.

  The prize was water, that was all. You didn’t have to stab it or kill it or rip it apart. You had only to collect it. Cool, clear, pure water, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, a crop of chemicals in its way. The clouds were a herd of giant, peacefully grazing, wool-gathering, virtual sheep.

  The vapour went on swirling. The ship cut through the air. Carla’s long, braided hair streamed behind her. Kaneesh went to the helm and stood next to her, his hand on the wheel by hers, close enough to touch, but not touching.

  ‘How long now?’ she asked.

  ‘Few minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll check the compressor. Hey, you!’ he called in my direction. ‘Come here.’

  I went with him to check the compression equipment.

  ‘Does that look all right to you?’ he asked. The amused expression never left his face.

  I nodded. I didn’t really know what I was looking at, or looking for. But if he was satisfied, then so was I.

  While we were checking the gear, I looked around to see what had happened to Jenine. She was standing by the deck rail, with her hand shielding her eyes, staring at something off to our left. The clouds were straight ahead, so it couldn’t have been those. A moment later she turned around and shouted.

  ‘Kaneesh!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at this!’

  We looked to port, following her extended arm and pointing finger. Kaneesh cursed again, worse than before. I heard Carla mutter something too. She looked at Kaneesh and he made a gesture with his hand, as if wishing to put a hex on something or to give it the evil eye.