Armwrestling the Dead

by Andrew McEwan

Too much had been risked. The agency, as he termed it, had called the company’s bluff.

  None of which mattered to Harry. There was a detour, an additional port of call between Grandee and the harbour crossing-point. Rumpelstiltskin had entered the lists, muscling astride its orbit, its star a white blip.

  ii

  He was no longer sure of his identity. A momentary panic surged; the name repeated. ‘Matheson!’

  ‘Coming...’ He dropped to the deck, loped to the office with his hands in his pockets, convinced they glowed red.

  ‘Matheson!’ the voice raged from his collar.

  The stockyard was deserted. Even the strutting rooster was missing. That meant one thing, the imminent sterilization of pens and loading equipment. Ivan glanced up at the dome part shuttered, the intense white light soon to go unfiltered.

  ‘Matheson!’

  He shoved the door open. ‘Yeah?’

  Corning feigned absentmindedness.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

  The old man nodded and tipped from his chair. ‘There’s a company vessel headed here. I need you to slaughter some cattle. A hundred ought to do it.’

  Ivan was bewildered. Corning had recently supervised the transportation of his entire mature stock. The only beef left was either gluey-eyed or pregnant.

  ‘Matheson.’

  ‘Mr Corning?’

  ‘You’re still here.’

  ‘That’s right, sir; you...’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, son. I’ve checked on you. You have no background. You’re a fugitive out of some company resort that went blind - and I’d like you out of the way. See?’

  He didn’t. Advice or a warning?

  ‘Did you ever shear a sheep, Matheson?’

  Ivan smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then you’ll know they can bite.’

  He got the message. Corning was a rare individual, a dogged entrepreneur with connections higher up the pile. He had money and a sound disrespect for company plutocrats. He had enemies; was tired and ancient, the sole owner of a planetoid whose business was the raising on the hoof of genuine longhorn meat. The steel fabricated stockyard could hold five hundred of the giants at a time. Right now he was wafting Ivan away with the back of his hand.

  ‘Go hide, cowboy, go hide.’

  Ivan did just that.

  Coasting, he allowed the grass to unroll, the glider to nudge the scenery. Since escaping Deathspoint he had changed his identity more than once, moulding his body and features to another’s, that other subsumed, their identity captive. He’d a talent for it. He usurped. He occupied, accepting it without question, this disturbing ability to physically flow. In orbit a commander had shaken his hand, slapped him on the back. Removing his helmet he found others recognized his face, that of a stranger to Ivan, reflected in his visor an unknown. And now he was Matheson, a cowboy he’d murdered in transit, seagulls on his shirt and blues in his ears on a hospitality barge circling Arcturus. Matheson was a drifter, a backworlds skinflake. Unlike Ivan he had never been to Earth. Killing him was easy; the easy part of it. His existence, the blood on his hands though, was indelible. Guilt? Survival. Yet he was restless, haunted. Oriel poisoned his mind. The planet had become like a person, his tormentor. More than a destination, he wanted to go there and possess its soul...

  Rust-cows dotted the landscape, machines that marshalled and doctored the livestock. Ivan’s job was to oversee their maintenance, a task Corning had previously carried out, running the ranch, as he termed it, singlehandedly. But those days were over. The old man was no longer physically able to operate the planetoid on his own. He had enjoyed the temporal isolation of these cavernous halls for decades, building a breeding programme that was capable of showing a profit. It would be simple for Ivan to take control. He liked Corning, however. He was reminded of his father, his stubbornness in the face of adversity, his absolute commitment to property. Such qualities were not Ivan’s. For him there were too many possibilities. With Corning’s powers waning, the company wolves were already marking up the carcass for butchering.

  A ship was due here. For that purpose?

  He landed. Climbing out he listened for static. Nothing, the channel closed. It puzzled him why Corning had sent him away. No problems down here. Was he plotting something? Ivan got back in the glider. What his boss had said, about him being a fugitive - guesswork? Manoeuvres in yet another escape plan? The glider turned complainingly, stalled, hit the ground and rattled its pilot, who vaulted clear and started walking, sure in the knowledge of the craft’s disobedience. What he had become involved in threw cold water over rational thought. He shivered. It was six kilometres to the wall and he supposed he was lucky as any serious cowpokery might have exaggerated the distance, allowing the old man every opportunity to implement a spectacular exit. He couldn’t say how he knew. It was intuitive. The facts pointed that way. Corning was psychotic. Ivan also.

  Kicking through the rough grass he approached a rust-cow motionless on a rise, flesh and blood cattle munching below. The Angus were square and bald, their horns arrayed like cacti, retained to scratch and pacify. The rust-cow was suspended on a magnetic thread from the cloud-obscured cavern ceiling, spinning slowly to face him as he trudged toward it, needing transport. He prised open a panel and stood back. The machine would not leave its charges without some short-circuiting and inside glittered the engine, a hub surrounded by wires and light, the cow’s electric heart and functional satellites, crudely bundled and taped. Corning had adapted the machines from bumper cars and still referred to them by their original numbers, fading numerals on battered casings. This was 28. Ivan had no tools with him. All the cows watched. But they always did. It took some getting used to, that and the network of veins in their stout necks, a map showing where to cut. He ignored the bovine stares and fumbled, shocking himself, causing a smoky outburst and a cough. The rust-cow dropped several centimetres then righted itself. He clambered on, sliced his hand through the invisible cord holding the machine up and it shot forward ten metres, nearly throwing him off. The cattle shook their heads and started to follow. Ivan gripped with his knees, whitened four fingers on the casing and whipped his free hand through the cord again, back and forth as the quiet air streamed over his gaunt features. Shortly after, with the grey wall in sight he ceased the motion and prepared to jump. The rust-cow decelerated slowly, bringing him closer as the grass blurred and hissed. Ivan scanned the rough vertical horizon for a door. Spotting one to his left he gritted his teeth and began to slide off the machine’s rear, feet incising tramlines in the virgin pasture, ankles raw and hot. The distance was difficult to judge with any accuracy. He let go, hit and rolled, right leg jammed under his body. The clouds spun in a louring blue vortex. The ground was suddenly full of rocks. He sat, blood dribbling on his shirt, but otherwise he was okay. A low thumping explosion jolted him and he turned to see a black scorch mark on the wall a hundred metres away. The door had disappeared completely. He stood. Wiping his nose on his shoulder he walked leftward until the door showed itself again, the lights of the stairs beyond cool and yellow.

  It was a long climb. The lights dimmed as he ascended. Power drained for priority use. The company ship was nearing, he surmised, edging into realspace along the star’s appointed curve and looping in toward the ranch.

  And Corning? He began to run, ribs soon biting guts. The lights dimmed further to red.

  The doors were locked. What was the old man playing at?

  Ivan slumped, his back to a hermetic seal. He’d wait and find out.

  iii

  This haze was mystifying. Harry fumbled uselessly at the heavy lenses someone had strapped round his head. Finding nothing, his environment actual, he lurched erect and was grabbed by one wrist, a steadying motion that snapped his eyes into sharp focus.

  The old man had a white beard and a cane. Harry ordered a drink.

  ‘No booze,’ whitebeard said. Then, ‘What’s your name, son
?’

  He unfocussed again. ‘Harry...’

  His hand was shook. ‘Thank her for me, will you, Harry?’

  ‘Who?’

  Laughter. His back was slapped. ‘The lady!’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  Furniture manifested, solids and colours swinging in his skull like crane jibs.

  An idea happened. ‘How’d I get here?’

  The old man looked like God.

  Harry remembered something from childhood. In six days God had created the Earth, and on the seventh dropped it.

  ‘See the bird, Harry?’

  Harry did. A lake of steel separated.

  The old man said, ‘Fine.’ He winked jovially.

  The cockerel led him across the glare, a pounding brilliance against which the bird trotted confidently, feathered brown and gold, silver flecks in its folded wings. For a moment he was in a dusty farmyard in Peru, the guest of honour chasing a plump fowl for the pot. The bird clucked, flapping as he lunged. Landing atop a raised section, a metre wide dais, it stared at Harry, menacing him with its beak. He let his tongue loll and sidled closer, bent at the waist like a man about to tickle a fish. The rooster spread its wings and the dais rose to reveal an entrance cut from the tubular block.

  God was at his shoulder, creasing his moustache.

  ‘Down you go,’ he said.

  iv

  From the gallery it was possible to view a sizeable chunk of Corning’s ranch.