The boy stares at another enormous framed window on a stand. ‘Another computer?’
Cherenkov shrugs.
The boy finds a box not dissimilar to the receptionist’s one, just longer and thinner, and also covered with buttons. He presses them in various combinations and, suddenly, with a click, the computer window comes alive. This one is different from the one in Eboreus; it does nothing but show moving pictures.
‘I think it’s a television set,’ says Cherenkov, who had seen one before leaving for Europe; though that had been a myopic square the size of an ash tray and with only a vague colourless image trapped in its depths.
They find out how to change from one set of pictures to another on the television: mostly it is people jabbering at each other. Sometimes it is like a movie, at other times it is as if they are spying on people as they played bizarre and meaningless games. Octavio’s eyes light up when they hit upon some cartoons but, increasingly disturbed, Cherenkov is drawn back to a pair of Americans; a man and a woman, who talk directly to them and give them news – it is like a Pathe newsreel, but all in extravagant colour and everything chops and changes at a bewildering pace; as if there is too much news to fit into the time available. Cherenkov drinks in strange landscapes scarred by disasters of every kind: wrecks of vehicles; screaming women; explosions; coloured children with flies crawling over their faces.
‘Cherenkov, you’ve looked at this enough!’
When Cherenkov ignores him, Octavio stands between him and the television. Cherenkov crumples into sobs. White-faced, the boy tries patting him, and shakes him gently, but Cherenkov is inconsolable. Eventually, Octavio manages to put him to bed and lies beside him rocking, and singing Eborean lullabies.
❖
Octavio watches Cherenkov lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling. Earlier he had used something Cherenkov told him was a telephone; though he had complained that it was somehow different from the ones he had known. Octavio used the telephone to talk to someone somewhere in the hotel, and got them to bring some food. He ate ravenously, but Cherenkov still hadn’t touched anything.
‘We’re returning to Eboreus tomorrow morning.’
‘What?’ cries Octavio.
Cherenkov continues to stare at the ceiling. ‘This world’s too crazy: they’ve learned nothing.’
‘You go, I’ll stay behind.’
Cherenkov turns to look at the boy. ‘You’re still a child: how do you imagine you’ll survive out here on your own? Besides, I made a promise to look after you. We’re going back together.’
Octavio protests, but Cherenkov silences him with a glare. ‘It’s decided!’
Octavio creeps to the bathroom and shuts the door and mouths obscenities. Anger has given way to crying when Cherenkov comes in to see him. He crouches in front of the boy and smiles at him. ‘I’ll ask your sister if she’ll let us both return to see the Neanderthal: I’d like to look into that light again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
The boy sniffs, and nods.
‘Well then,’ says Cherenkov with a grin, and he tousles Octavio’s hair.
❖
When Cherenkov awakes, Octavio is nowhere in sight. He rushes to the bathroom, but the boy is not there. He curses, and is about to leave the room when he notices a letter on a table by his side of the bed.
In a peculiar hand Octavio has written:
“I have left you and it is better that you accept this. I have taken the money card, so I shall be all right. Without it you cannot hope to survive in this world. Please return to Eboreus as you intended and wait for me there. I shall return after eight years in this world. When I do we can go and seek the singing light together.”
Cherenkov slumps on the edge of the bed, and the letter dangles from his hand. At last he folds it and puts it carefully into the pocket of his frockcoat. He rises, splashes some water on his face, leaves the hotel room and retraces their steps back to the Casa Lorentz.
∞
Cherenkov gazes at the fire, and glances with gratitude at the Neanderthal, who has invited him to share his food as if they were old friends. For all he knows, from the Neanderthal’s point of view, he, Septima and Octavio have only recently sailed away.
When he arrived, he slept and, though there is no way to tell, he feels certain he has been on the island for at least a day.
The Neanderthal offers him a hunk of charred fish, and Cherenkov accepts it and pats the giant on his arm as thanks. The Neanderthal reveals his huge teeth in a grin.
❖
The stranger comes from duskward in a boat very like the one that brought Cherenkov to the Neanderthal’s island. The stranger runs his boat aground alongside Cherenkov’s on the undulating seaweed shore. Cherenkov goes down to meet him.
The stranger appears to be about his age, brown-skinned, his golden hair matted with brine, and wearing a tricorn hat and a long tatty old coat. He struggles to drag his boat out of the surf. Cherenkov rushes forward and together they heave the boat up onto the dryer sargassum.
The stranger turns his handsome beaming face towards him. ‘Hello, Cherenkov.’
Cherenkov stares at the stranger. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m little Octavio now all grown up.’
❖
‘Octavio?’ Cherenkov slumps down on the ground. Laughing, the stranger drops down beside him.
Cherenkov peers at him amazed. ‘I can see that it is you, but last time I saw you was not more than two weeks ago.’
‘And I was a boy of eleven!’
‘What’re you doing here?’
Octavio grins. ‘I could very well ask you the same.’ His face grows serious. ‘I can see that you’re a little thrown by my sudden appearance; let me tell you of my adventures since we parted.’
Cherenkov nods and the young man begins to recount his adventures, with smiles and pictures gestured in the air; Cherenkov hears little, more interested to examine this face that is familiar and yet so unfamiliar.
Octavio falls silent, grins again. ‘You’ve not heard a word I’ve said, have you?’
Cherenkov has to admit he hasn’t. Octavio’s eyes twinkle as he smiles, and Cherenkov cannot help but smile back. Laughter is born from their looking at each other. They end up leaping about with whoops, and end with a bear hug. It is Cherenkov who pulls away. ‘You’ve grown.’
Octavio grins and Cherenkov blushes and looks away.
They move apart, sit down again. Cherenkov watches Octavio wind a dry twist of seaweed around his finger. ‘What news from Eboreus?’
Octavio looks up with a frown.
‘What’s the matter?’
Octavio raises a hand to reassure him. ‘Everyone was fine and only one year older than when I last saw them.’
Cherenkov sees the anxiety in his face: ‘But there’s something else.’
Octavio examines Cherenkov’s eyes. ‘There’s a child.’
‘A child? What’re you talking about? What child?’
Octavio sags a little. ‘When I returned, Septima had a little girl, a few months old by outer world reckoning: Octavia.’
Cherenkov frowns, inspects his hands. He looks up. ‘I’m glad Septima has found herself a husband.’
Octavio concentrates on playing with the dry seaweed.
‘Who’s the father?’
Octavio glances up with a grimace.
Cherenkov slumps. ‘She’s mine?’
‘She’s yours.’
Cherenkov jumps up and paces about. ‘So that’s why she behaved so coldly towards me.’ He throws his head up: ‘And why Sexta was positively hostile; and why Heinrich, though he was perfectly polite, seemed to be constantly pretending I wasn’t there.’
He stands over Octavio. ‘Why didn’t they tell me?’
‘Septima forbade them to.’
‘Why?’ Cherenkov slaps his forehead. ‘She didn’t want me there.’
‘She’s proud.’
‘She knows I don’t love her. No wonder she was s
o quick to let me have the boat I asked for!’
Octavio gazes at him. ‘What will you do?’
‘What can I do? I’ll have to return!’
Octavio’s face reddens. ‘Even if we were to leave this moment, the child would be six years old by the time we get back.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’
Octavio pulls something out of a pocket of his coat.
‘Hey, that’s my old raincoat!’
Octavio grins. ‘So it is.’
Cherenkov sees how worn it is.
Octavio extends his hand, and, upon his palm, is a flat ovoid of gold. He flips it open to reveal its clock face. Cherenkov stares at the maritime chronometer. He watches the most delicate of its hands go round, and is still bemused by the large eight at the top of its face. His mind reels as he tries to make sense of everything: this man who was so recently a boy; a daughter he did not know he had, who was a baby when Octavio set off and who would be six years old if they were to return now to Eboreus. He won’t even allow himself to contemplate how much time has passed in Venice since he left.
Octavio pats Cherenkov’s arm, and looks at him kindly. ‘The child does not know you, and I believe Septima is determined to keep it that way. You know what she’s like. By the time we get back she might even be Tribune.’
Cherenkov nods deeply and slowly. He regards Octavio. ‘You came all this way to tell me this?’
Octavio smiles, crookedly. ‘Would I put myself more years adrift from Eboreus merely to come and tell you something you can do nothing about?’
‘Why did you come?’
Octavio colours again and, for a moment, is recognisably the boy Cherenkov knew. ‘To honour the promise I made to you so long ago.’
Cherenkov grunts. ‘Almost yesterday for me.’ He delves in the pocket of his frockcoat, brings out a folded paper and offers it to Octavio. The young man stares at the paper, his lips pinched. He takes it, unfolds it and sees on it his childish writing.
He looks up at Cherenkov through tears. ‘On all my travels it was this meeting with you, here, now, that was the beacon I aimed for.’
Cherenkov feels Octavio’s emotion become his own. He feels the purpose that brought Octavio there burn up in him.
❖
They stand upon the island’s highest peak and gaze towards the light.
Cherenkov pulls his hat down and turns to Octavio. ‘Shall we go seek its source together?’
Octavio grins, his eyes glowing sapphires.
Cherenkov asks to see the chronometer. Octavio holds it out to him. ‘It shows the number of days and octals since I left Eboreus.’
Cherenkov looks grim. ‘If we go towards the light, we must surely lose for ever everything we leave behind.’
Octavio nods. ‘I know.’
He lets Cherenkov take the chronometer.
‘What need have we of someone else’s time?’
Octavio lowers his hat and looks into Cherenkov’s eyes. ‘I suppose none at all.’
‘Are you sure?’
Octavio’s smile is ravishing. ‘I’m sure.’
Cherenkov opens the chronometer in his hand and angles it like a compass towards the light.
Octavio points at it with a smile. ‘The eight – on its side like that – is the symbol for infinity.’
Cherenkov smiles at him, draws back his arm, and hurls the chronometer in a glinting arc that expires in the ocean.
They push back their hats and bathe in the pouring light. Gently Octavio takes hold of Cherenkov’s hand.
Coda
They sail the boat up onto the sargasso, leap ashore, and drag it up out of the ocean. Seven figures watch them from a ridge. Cherenkov and Octavio approach them with caution. They hope that this is the Neanderthal’s island.
Not long ago, they had reached the centre of the infinite ocean and found there a man brighter than the sun, and frozen in the act of reaching for something. It was Cherenkov who had yanked Octavio back when he had stepped towards the shining man. Cherenkov had torn a button from his waistcoat and thrown it. The button had stopped near the man just as bright, just as frozen.
As they near the seven figures they adjust their tricorn hats, and gape.
Octavio turns in wide-eyed wonder to Cherenkov. ‘Is this then what Man has become?’
About the Author
Ricardo Pinto moved from programming and designing computer games in the far and distant past (when computer memories were smaller than your average email), to creating sci-fi worlds for tabletop games, and into writing books and graphic novels. His fantasy epic The Stone Dance of the Chameleon is soon to be reissued in a re-edited second edition in seven volumes. He lives and works in the foothills of the Lammermuirs in Scotland.
He has a blog and website at www.ricardopinto.com
NewCon Press Novella Set 4: Strange Tales
Gary Gibson – Ghost Frequencies
Susan MacDonald knows she’s close to perfecting a revolutionary new form of instantaneous communication, but unless she makes a breakthrough soon her project will be shut down. Do the odd sounds – snatches of random conversation and even music – that are hampering her experiments represent the presence of ‘ghosts’ as some claim, deliberate sabotage as suggested by others, or is there a more sinister explanation?
Adam Roberts – The Lake Boy
Cynthia lives in Cumbria, where none suspect her blemished past. Then a ghostly scar-faced boy starts to appear to her and strange lights manifest over Blaswater. What of the astromomer Mr Sales, who comes to study the lights but disappears, presumed drowned, only to be found wandering naked days later with a fanciful tale of being ‘hopped’ into the sky and held within a brass-walled room? What of married mother of two Eliza, who sets Cynthia’s heart so aflutter?
Hal Duncan – The Land of Somewhere Safe
The Land of Somewhere Safe: where things go when you think, “I must put this somewhere safe,” and then can never find them again. The Scruffians: street waifs Fixed by the Stamp to provide immortal slave labour. But now they’ve nicked the Stamp and burned down the Institute that housed it, preventing any more of their number being exploited. Hounded by occultish Nazi spies and demons, they leave the Blitz behind in search of somewhere safe to stow it…
Learning How to Drown
Cat Hellisen
Cat Hellisen is a South African writer of dark fantasy. She has the ability to conjure a sense of ‘otherness’ that most writers can only envy, casting grounded characters driven by passions and ambitions we can all recognise in situations that take a step away from the reality we know. Her stories have already featured in such venues as Fantasy & Science Fiction and Tor.com, and she is the winner of the Short Story Day Africa Prize.
Learning How to Drown represents Cat’s best work to date, gathering together seventeen fabulous stories, two of which appear for the first time and all of which showcase why Cat Hellisen is being tipped as one to watch.
“Cat Hellisen is one of the most accomplished writers of African SFF. This fine collection gathers the best so far of her wondrous fictions.”
– Geoff Ryman, author of The Child Garden
“Cat Hellisen is a writer of wonderful and allusive stories; rich,
engaging and often unsettling. Be prepared to be both submersed – and transformed – by the gripping magic within!”
– Nick Wood, author of Azanian Bridges
“I loved this stunning collection of stories, every tale limned with
beauty and steeped in a darkling strangeness that is absolutely unique. The bookshelves of any reader interested in the modern short story should proudly display a copy of Learning How To Drown front and centre.”
– Neil Williamson, author of The Moon King
Learning How to Drown is available now as a paperback, eBook, and as a numbered limited edition hardback, signed by the author.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
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Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
∞
Coda
About the Author
Matryoshka Page 8
