Armwrestling the Dead

by Andrew McEwan

Grassland mellowed into a pastel distance, highlighted by waters, spidery threads. Cattle were pale dots, indistinguishable in the singular, arranged in groups of between five and fifty, a rust-cow attending, wet-nursing and electro-gunning tailored hormone shots. The interior of the planetoid was beautiful; more so than his memory of Hucuba. Here the only sheep were in Corning’s imagination.

  Of the three adjoining galleries one housed a glider and another a workshop stacked with parts. The glider was ancient and missing its engine, perhaps used in an earlier repair to the craft Ivan had been forced to abandon. He was thinking of an exit across the green space, an alternative route to the radiation blasted surface. Not having taken it into his head to more thoroughly explore the cavern’s nether reaches galled him now such knowledge was of possible value. His options were limited, and he had no way of knowing how the company might react to any tricks the old man had up his sleeve. The future, as Ivan read it, had always been unpredictable. That was okay. What angered him was a lack of means to combat it.

  Some activity stirred the omnipresent clouds.

  Rain leaked to the meadow. And a grey capsule.

  Ivan watched with interest, not having seen such a thing before. The ranch held many surprises, most with ready explanations. The steel pens in the stockyard, for instance; weighty, expensive constructions necessary to survive the stellar radiation the area was routinely subject to.

  The capsule drifted groundward fifty metres from the wall. Cushioned by magnetism it bumped and rolled gently in the wet grass.

  Ivan, still aching from his fall, took off for the stair and the cavern. He ran through the rain, soaked and gasping, nearly tripping over the man newly descended from the heavens like an angel.

  Harry, hearing someone approach, tensed involuntarily, suddenly desperate to empty his bladder. The rain struck him with a benign ferocity, a break in it as a man leaned across, hands on knees. Neither spoke for several seconds, out of breath for different reasons.

  ‘You came from above,’ Ivan stated eventually.

  ‘I did?’ Harry replied. ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘What’s happening up there? Are you from the ship?’

  Harry nipped his eyes. The haze washed from his features onto his surroundings. ‘Gorgo 9, en route to Blister City...’

  Ivan straightened, dripping.

  ‘Who was the man with the beard?’

  ‘Corning. This is his.’ He spread his hands.

  Harry shrugged, supine.

  ‘What’s happening up there?’ Ivan repeated.

  ‘I have no idea. A steward came for me; took my luggage. I was dead drunk.’

  The rain slackened.

  ‘Were you meant to disembark here?’

  ‘No. Harbour 17. I thought this was it.’

  Ivan’s head was shaking. ‘The old man, Corning, there’s something between him and the company. Did you bring your luggage with you? Ground it?’

  Harry squeezed his eyes shut once more. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As near as certain. The steward loaded it onto the wagon. After that...’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘A conspiracy?’

  ‘They’re everywhere.’

  ‘I’d noticed. Who are you?’

  ‘Ivan.’

  ‘Harry. Is there a toilet round here?’

  ‘You’re on it.’

  Ivan wandered. He rolled the capsule with his foot while Harry divided the grass at his newly planted feet. The dredger zipped his fly and pawed for cigarettes. Ivan dug a nail in his chin.

  ‘Is there some way out of here?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  ‘You know, you seem familiar.’

  That caused his brow to crease. Was Matheson known after all? Would he have to kill this person?

  ‘I doubt we’ve met.’

  ‘Me too. But the universe has been surprising me lately. Your Mr Corning, for example.’

  ‘Corning?’

  ‘Yeah - I thought he was God.’

  ‘Raising cattle?’ answered Ivan without blinking. The fat man was delirious.

  ‘Is that what this place is?’

  Ivan nodded.

  ‘That settles it,’ said Harry, lighting tobacco. The smoke coiled weirdly, barely rising.

  ‘The gravity,’ Ivan told him. ‘Like the weather: fickle.’

  Harry sucked on his cigarette, understanding little.

  ‘Have you any idea what might have been in your luggage? An inducer of some kind?’

  ‘You know about these things?’ Belatedly, his mind had begun ticking.

  ‘Some. Corning’s dying. It wouldn’t take much to drop this rock into the sun. Anything to keep it from the company.’

  ‘God’s a paranoid?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Ivan folded his arms, unsure of the man, how to handle him.

  ‘The worst kind, a rationalist. But I don’t think he could destroy his life’s work. Or hand it over.’

  ‘That narrows his options,’ Harry said. ‘He might take out the ship. But there’d be others.’

  ‘Would there?’

  It was Harry’s turn to muse uncomfortably. He decided not to tell Ivan about his suitcases going missing on Grandee. That would make him look foolish. And Ivan frightened him. Whatever Corning’s intentions, or for that matter the company’s, Harry was no nearer Oriel.

  The cowboy slicked back his hair, shook the water from his hands as a rumble passed through the clouds.

  ‘I’ve run out of questions I need answers for,’ Harry stated, fingering the Zippo in his pocket. ‘I have to get back to the ship, regardless.’

  ‘Sure,’ the man responded. ‘Go ahead.’

  Harry inflated his cheeks and began walking briskly toward the wall and the exit he’d spotted there. Dizziness echoed in his brain and his eyes stung. He pressed on, hit the stairs and spiralled into red lights that turned yellow. At the top were corridors, ingresses rimmed, sealed, colours fading as he approached. A shrill alarm permeated the steel and the lights dazzled momentarily, as if at a power surge, then as quickly softened. He let out his breath, crushed his cigarette end against the smooth outline of a door, which opened automatically. A tunnel widened, the metal beyond lifting steam, partly shaded. Harry passed along the tunnel feeling the raw heat on his face. The soles of his shoes made sucking noises on the cooling surface. He looked around for Corning.

  Everything was folded away. Afraid to stand in one place too long in case his shoes melted, he wandered in circles, staring up through the dome in the hope of catching sight of the Gorgo 9. Its silhouette was absent, but the yawbus might easily be obscured as his vision was limited to thirty or forty degrees by the shutters. A noise distracted him. Pushing from the still hot floor was a clear-walled structure, furniture inside, a hat-stand toppled, papers strewn as if by a gust of wind. Slumped in a sprung chair behind a desk was the old man with the white beard.

  Harry crossed over. Corning was smiling resplendently, silver stars in his eyes, toying with a pile of coins, burnished gold and copper hues between his dextrous fingers. He looked fifty years younger than Harry’s blurred memory of him. The divinity had undergone metamorphosis.

  ‘Radiation’ said God, his chair squeaking as Harry entered the office. ‘Wonderful stuff.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘Of course. The rock soaks it up. Little residue.’

  Harry frowned. ‘Ivan seemed convinced you were about to attempt something drastic.’

  ‘Ivan?’

  Harry was baffled. He’d tread carefully. His head pounded. ‘Your ranch hand. I met him below.’

  ‘So that’s his name. I’d wondered. Don’t turn your back on him. Remember that, okay?’

  ‘Okay...’

  Silence lingered. Harry tried to spot his luggage. Ivan emerged from the tunnel two hundred metres away across a lake of shimmering steel. He strode purposefully, a man with a
mission; his mind made up, now prepared to act.

  Corning glanced over. ‘He’s learning,’ the rejuvenated meat baron whispered, coins clicking.

  Harry couldn’t stand it. He was trembling by the time the cowboy made it to the door, steam rising from his shirt and idling flatly, the planetoid’s gravity augmented magnetically, the air thickest two metres above the ground.

  ‘Matheson.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I hope your trip wasn’t too great an inconvenience.’

  They stared at each other with physical force. Harry felt sandwiched, crushed to insignificance.

  ‘If you’d like to settle with me, sir, I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Oriel?’

  Harry’s heart stumbled. His mouth fell open.

  Ivan swung his stare aside briefly before fixing once more on Corning.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘I wish I could go with you. I’ve unfinished business, alas, which precludes that design. Another time, perhaps. The wagon’s due any minute.’

  ‘From the ship?’ Harry blurted.

  ‘Where else?’ said Corning. ‘You didn’t think I’d leave you stranded. On the contrary, as a gentleman I pride myself on my hospitality.’

  The atmosphere became more uncomfortable. Harry, drying out, sweated buckets. He failed to apprehend the situation. Ivan or Matheson or whoever he was stood with his hands meshed, a grave realization in his sullen expression, while Corning amused himself turning coins through his fingers, the knuckles of which might have been deliberately shaped for such an idle purpose.

  ‘And my suitcases?’

  v

  Blister City.

  The galactic hub. Harbour 17. All change.

  Rumpelstiltskin left a stain, a tide-mark on his consciousness. It was no good trying to wash if off. What had transpired amounted to a lot of fishy clues wrapped in old newspaper, a