Armwrestling the Dead

by Andrew McEwan

scampered, tongue flashing, a lizard as he wound through arches and between stalks too narrow for a grown man, pockets of heat and blackness immersing him in sweat and near vertiginous panic.

  But there was no fall at the end of it. Courtney braced his shoulders and filled his lungs. Eyes adjusting to the gloom, feet and hands levering him on, the pathologist advanced farther into the vermiform jungle. At times the surrounding trees sparkled as if impregnated with jewels, bright flowers whose lifespan was moments, their souls drowned in shades, snuffed like candles...

  ‘Careful, child, the ground is slippery; don’t want you breaking an arm.’

  He glanced toward the door.

  ‘Hurry now, it’s time for your lesson.’

  The bole was layered.

  ‘Irving.’

  ‘Yes, father.’

  In his mind’s eye the door was held ajar. He moved sideways through it, squinting, one hand covering his face. A flight of stairs led into a domed vestibule whose real windows were set high, blurred yellow.

  ‘One day I’ll lose you down there,’ his father joked.

  But he wore his reminder.

  Courtney leant with his back to a trunk. Breathing heavily, wiping the long smears from his vision, he craned his neck and peered straight up into the elevated canopy. The sky was the colour of fish scales. Nothing moved for hours. He blinked and it was dark. Suddenly worried, the Ologist groped about, slapping the insubstantial gauze from his mind. He was lost among the trees, conscious of something behind him, always behind him, no matter which way he turned. He began to climb, flesh clammy, fingers numb, hugging the nearest tree while pushing with heels and toes, braced between this bole and its neighbour. The two grew wider apart. The slick bark secreted the same pungent liquid he had escaped contact with earlier. It soaked him, ran down his chest and over his aching thighs. Struggling higher, embracing the tapered limb, he was kept from slipping by the tenacity of his grip; ever tightening, lubricated, a corpulent machine part as he ascended, made increasingly heavy. The tree’s stinking juices saturated his clothes, seeped into his muscles, infused his blood and organs, until he climbed not with hands and feet but with his entire body, like a slug. Reaching the crown he rolled into the upturned palm of its branching. The night was close above, the planet’s disquieting shell faintly luminous. The stench no longer bothered Courtney. Distracted by a nub of pain, like knuckles twisted against his spine, the odour’s acrid strength went unnoticed.

  ‘Are you going to stay in bed all day, Irving?’ his father said. ‘Some dreams are better left.’

  The pain travelled, shunted along his nervous system until it reached his brain.

  ‘Irving! How are you, boy? How long has it been since I last held you? Oh, what a fuss I’ll make over everything. You have no idea. Decorations. Musicians. And a cake; must have a cake.’

  He freed himself from her grasp with difficulty. She held him at arm’s length and stared at him intently.

  ‘Are you better? Have they made you well?’

  ‘He’s not a baby, Cleo. Don’t coddle him.’

  She scoffed at her husband. ‘He’s jealous,’ she whispered. ‘Wants all the attention.’

  Courtney senior sat at a broad, shining table. His wife ignored his expression. Brushing the hair from junior’s eyes, she asked, ‘Have you missed me?’

  ‘Yes, mother.’

  ‘And you’re pleased to be home?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She kissed him. And the pain was no more. A new sensation, one of comfort, supplanted the distant agony of his bones.

  ii

  There had been that time on Sourpuss, thought Rocard, when a group of mutineers had attacked his vessel, their hearts pumping wildly, poisoned, Mother having sent him in to discover the reason an outpost had fallen silent. The captains relied on his methods as opposed to his discretion. He got things done. Rocard’s was an enviable position. Or so he imagined, lacing his boots in the dirt.

  Standing, gazing around, he noted with satisfaction the way the survey team pretended he wasn’t there, going about their business like a herd of masticating wildebeest, gnus oblivious to the presence of Rocard the lion.

  Jenny stepped off the flyer and shielded her eyes. ‘Busy, aren’t they? Also pretending there’s something important.’

  He shrugged. Jenny took his arm.

  ‘Let’s walk, Darcy.’

  Rocard didn’t move and she frowned.

  ‘Also?’ he questioned, alarmed that she was making fun of him again.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Jenny grinned. ‘Really, Darcy, you have such a way with words.’ She pulled him and he moved. ‘That serious expression,’ the mould-woman continued; ‘those hardened eyes. Like a stiff in a gangster movie: no style.’

  She had been a present, appeared no more than eighteen, brash and energetic, a company toy. They were cultured on Lobo, popular myth giving the address as ‘lobotomized’. Rocard hadn’t cared for her at first. With or without wires, she’d made him uneasy. But Jenny was all his now, and she didn’t bruise.

  Walking, he listened to her talk, relating details of their journey, the express route from Earth via Grandee via Badmove via the massing-station at Harbour 14. To him it was a blur, a series of interchangeable walls. Jenny though, absorbed every lampshade and duvet, each hour and minute spent in this hotel or that compartment, what they ate and how much it cost, her capacity for observation a tool he recognized like any other. The mould-woman digested everything. She talked to Rocard, falling silent whenever a third party became involved. The world of Jenny, the strictly bordered world of her thoughts and needs, revolved round his own. Her chatter was for two ears, Darcy’s, his to interpret and understand.

  The reason they were on Oriel was simple. On this strange island lived an Ologist.

  The forest covered four-fifths of the land mass. Courtney had vanished in it and Mother wanted him found, convinced he was alive as the space wagon still registered his presence. Standing before the trees, glancing up, Rocard had his doubts. True, the signal was there, he had seen that for himself. But how did it move so fast? No man on foot could cover so much ground, even across terrain hard and flat; that Courtney achieved it through dense, alien growths, was beyond comprehension. Something wasn’t right. It irked him how little information the captains had. The Ologist had been first-foot. Alone.

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘You invoke the saviour, Darcy?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You’ve been doing that a lot lately.’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘Yes...’

  She tapped her foot. Rocard kicked a fallen trunk. The sound it made disturbed him. Like a ship’s hull, he thought, absurdly thin, the space beyond vast and empty, without echo.

  ‘Tell me what you see, Jenny.’

  But she appeared hesitant.

  He waited, intrigued.

  ‘I see...a garden.’

  ‘A garden?’

  She nodded, almost embarrassed, biting her lip.

  iii

  The survey, headed by a petrologist named Johanna, took numerous core samples.

  Bored, special investigator Rocard folded his arms, put his feet on the table that had been raised in the open and rocked back in his chair.

  ‘Sedimentary?’ he interrupted.

  ‘Yes,’ the Ologist replied. ‘From the ocean floor.’

  ‘I would have thought that much obvious.’

  She reddened, disliking his attitude. Her patience thin. ‘Do you wish me to continue?’ she asked brusquely.

  Rocard swayed through several degrees on the chair. ‘No, not unless you can help me locate your colleague.’

  Johanna sat up straight. Her contempt for him was patent, dominating her face like a wound.

  ‘Don’t you want him found?’

  That caught her off-balance. She reeled, had been watching Jenny turning circles. ‘I don�
�t know what you mean.’

  ‘You Ologists,’ he said, enjoying himself now. ‘Your superior ways. I can’t but think you all have it in for each other.’

  ‘If you’re trying to bait me, Rocard...’

  ‘Why?’ He stood, fists on table.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Better composure, he observed; the barriers raised.

  ‘Why should I bait you? Got something to hide?’

  The woman smiled, not about to lose her manners. ‘A game.’

  ‘A game?’

  ‘A power game,’ she elaborated. ‘You like to play. You like fucking with lives. You have jurisdiction. Authority.’

  She fiddled with her necklace.

  ‘I can get away with it,’ Rocard said. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  She didn’t answer.

  Jenny danced closer.

  ‘This is a peculiar world,’ the special investigator commented.

  ‘They all are,’ replied Johanna, ‘to begin with. After a while those peculiarities are ironed out by the company. There comes a sameness to every stage. Conformity is a given.’

  Who was baiting who? he wondered. ‘Those are not loyal words.’

  ‘So arrest me.’

  Rocard shook his head. ‘Not my job, arresting.’

  The petrologist smirked, left her chair and walked away, leaving him with his fists still indenting the table.

  A movie stiff, he recalled.

  The means justified the ends, Mother had taught him. The ends he failed to question. If Rocard was honest he would have to say he enjoyed the fear he brought, the pain he metered out, the killing. It was part of him. He was too old to change. He did what he did and that was all. He prided himself on a job well executed. Or had done.

  Too old?

  ‘Christ.’