The Deserter Page 11

  He followed on and on, through more corridors than he could count, crossing parks that heaved with people and others where the inhabitants slumbered under fake stars in the pattern of Old Earth’s skies. It was only when they came to an area where most of the people wore Religious garb that the savage felt it was safe to stop.

  Hiresh watched the gentleness with which he laid Jagadamba down on the ground. She still breathed, but she’d lost consciousness and Hiresh wasn’t sure she’d recover. Not without Medicine.

  ‘Are you— Are you planning on eating her?’ he whispered to the savage. He didn’t want anybody to hear him.

  Stopmouth shook his head. ‘Jagadamba has neither died nor volunteered. How could I do such a thing?’

  ‘But you would if she did die, would you?’

  ‘I d-don’t know. It would be very wrong n-not to, but …’ He waved his arms to indicate all the people around him, some pressing very close. ‘I think the local tribe would be angry if I did. My new f-friends on the surface were just like this lot when they arrived.’

  ‘Of course they were,’ said Hiresh. A group of fanatics had got themselves exiled down below. A great lesson for the other Rebels, as their comrades either got eaten or sacrificed or, worst of all, turned cannibal themselves. A great lesson indeed, although Hiresh hadn’t been able to bring himself to watch it.

  A bubble formed at the side of Jagadamba’s mouth. She looked like a wizened baby.

  ‘I think we are about to lose her,’ said Hiresh.

  ‘N-no,’ said the hunter. ‘We can’t. We have no other l-link to Indrani. We’ve lost half a day already! Where is this miraculous M-M-Medicine my woman told me existed up here?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Unless somebody has been stockpiling it—’

  ‘What about Jagadamba’s allies? She said “we”. As if there was m-more than one of her. If we c-could just find them. Do you know somebody, Hiresh? Any of these R-Rebels?’

  Hiresh stared back at the savage, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was not how it was supposed to be. He was to follow, that was all. Somewhere on the vast Roof, Jagadamba was to lead him to the very nest of the enemy where Indrani was being kept. That was his job. No more. Surely, with the hag’s death, it could end at last.

  ‘Or anybody else w-w-with the m-magic cure. I need this w-woman to talk again. It’s not like the surface. I know n-nothing here. Only you can help me. P-p-please, Hiresh.’ He put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘My f-friend …’

  Hiresh shivered. But not from fear – that wasn’t it at all. It was hard enough to betray this poor savage. Especially after the creature had saved him from Sergeant Tarak. But the stutter he’d allowed himself to hear made everything worse. He’d thought it would prove how superior he was, but the only effect was to remind him of what he and the hunter had in common – a lifetime of bullies and disrespect. Turn off the stammer, he ordered the Roof. Just turn it off.

  To a man as powerful as Dr Narindi, Medicine was so valuable that he only ever gave it to the Elite. Was finding Indrani that vital? It must be, but it would be equally important to Jagadamba, and if she got the slightest whiff of Hiresh’s involvement with the Commission … He swallowed hard as he realized there was only one way out of this.

  ‘I don’t know any Rebels, Stopmouth. But … but I may know somebody who does. I’d rather face Chakrapani again. I—’

  ‘Who is Chakrapani?’

  ‘Never mind. Never mind.’ He’d already given too much of himself away. He looked at the savage’s muscles and realized that he himself would never be more than a stick if his fears got the better of him. And what about Tarini? What would happen to her?

  ‘I will show you,’ he said at last, his voice admirably steady, no catch in it at all. ‘We will take a shuttle.’

  ‘We can’t lose any more time, Hiresh.’

  ‘No.’

  Great distances on the Roof were crossed by a network of tunnels. The air had been pulled out of them so there was nothing to slow down a shuttle except for the fragility and comfort of their human cargo. Hiresh logged on to check the location of the nearest station, and in no time at all he was leading the anxious savage across the Plaza of the Abandoned, where great statues of starving men and women looked upwards in despair.

  Just beneath the plaza’s high, high ceiling hung a genuine primitive spaceship of the type Stopmouth’s disgusting ancestors had used to flee Earth with the last of its resources. They’d abandoned the poor to what they thought was certain death, never realizing that one day their past would literally catch up with them.

  From this angle, and without the Roof’s help, it was impossible to see the great blackened hole on top of the craft where brave soldiers had cut their way inside. They’d pulled hibernating Deserters out and sent them to live on the surface of this world as punishment.

  The captured craft, and many others like it in parks all over the Roof, reminded the civilized of something they must never become: Deserters. It made Hiresh feel a little better about betraying the savage.

  He led Stopmouth down an avenue strewn with filthy people. Hiresh couldn’t see much difference between them and the statues – not good for morale. Some of the Commission wanted them covered up, but it was only these shared images of despair that still united Religious and Secular factions. To pull them down would be madness.

  Hiresh was already feeling fear of what was to come, but Stopmouth kept distracting him from it with questions – almost as if he knew what the boy was going through.

  ‘How do you manage to move so fast in these crowds?’

  Hiresh couldn’t conceal a show of pleasure. ‘It’s just gap-skipping,’ he said. ‘I just … I just know where the crowd is going to break and—’

  But Stopmouth stopped paying attention to him and looked up at the Deserter spacecraft. Hiresh followed his gaze and blinked in surprise. Was the ship supposed to sway like that? Stopmouth said something then, and a horrible chill settled over Hiresh’s body as he realized he hadn’t understood a word – not a word of it.

  As though by agreement, the Roar of the crowd dwindled to nothing. People’s mouths hung open in puzzlement. Everywhere, Dreamers were stirring themselves awake, looking around like wild creatures.

  And that was when it happened.

  The ground lurched and began to shake so hard and quickly that Hiresh found himself on the floor, with Jagadamba and Stopmouth beside him. All he could hear was the screaming of the crowd and a terrible grinding noise. The vibrations rattled his teeth together. People were flung one way and then the other. The light dimmed to almost complete blackness, with only the pale green illumination of the emergency system to take its place. It wasn’t so dark, however, that he couldn’t see the massive form of one of the statues begin to tumble from its plinth. He tried to stand and back away. He called out Stopmouth’s name and heard an answering cry. But the ground flung him back onto his face, and when he raised his head, he saw the dark colossus pitch over into a mass of screaming people only a few metres away. It struck them so violently that warm gore splashed his forehead.

  ‘Oh Mother Roof!’ he cried, for surely it was the end of the world. And still the tremors continued. He was so afraid, he even screamed at one point. ‘What’s going on?’ he begged the Roof. ‘What’s going on?’ No response came.

  Seconds later, the shaking ended. The lights came on as if nothing had happened. But people didn’t stop screaming for some time after, especially around the bloody mess near the fallen statue.

  Hiresh staggered to his feet. ‘We’ve got to help them!’ he said to Stopmouth.

  The savage nodded, his newly darkened features slack with confusion and fear. ‘I understand you again,’ he said. And then he looked at Jagadamba. ‘What if she doesn’t last? Who will help her? Who will save my tribe?’

  He was right. And even now, hundreds of others were climbing to their feet to help their fellow citizens.

  ‘We’d better go
then.’

  Confusion reigned at the station. Nobody knew what had happened – the Roof wouldn’t or couldn’t say and the Commission was still investigating. But everybody looked afraid.

  Stopmouth too was becoming more and more agitated by Jagadamba’s worsening condition.

  ‘Is anybody here gifted at healing?’ he called out.

  Hiresh had to shush him. ‘You’ll only attract attention,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’s pointless. There are no healers.’

  ‘No,’ said the savage. ‘Nobody does anything here. Nobody can do anything.’

  ‘In another year,’ said the boy, still queasy after the quake, ‘this kind of thing won’t be able to happen. We’ll have nanos again and it can start going back to the way it was before I was born. Perfect; it will be perfect.’

  Stopmouth just shook his head of newly blackened hair. He must have been thinking about his people on the surface, imagining the enemies that were closing in on them with every heartbeat.

  Gradually the crowd cleared as shuttles arrived for them. Finally a blue car swept down the tunnel and came to a halt at the platform. It called to Hiresh and he led Stopmouth towards it, his stomach in a knot. He so wanted to turn back. Instead, he found himself asking the car to make a couch for Jagadamba to lie upon while he and the savage sat on another.

  He was so nervous over what was to happen, he found himself gripping Stopmouth’s arm for support. A cannibal! A killer! And soon to be the victim of a filthy act of betrayal.

  The car shot into the vacuum tunnel. Only an hour, he thought, gripping his seat. Scratching it. One more hour.

  When they came to a halt, he led Stopmouth with his burden along a particularly twisty series of alleys. He didn’t need to consult the Roof as to which direction he should take.

  ‘Why are we walking so slowly?’ asked Stopmouth. ‘Jagadamba could die.’

  Hiresh didn’t answer. All around them, there were only Religious. Most of them were from the Golamatr sect – Roof worshippers, who looked on the living computer as an incarnation of the great Mother. Many of them were as naked as savages, despising clothes and painting their bodies with images of the bones and organs that lay just inside. The more hard-core used tattoos. The Roof could see everything, after all, so why try to hide it?

  There were no Dreamers here. None were allowed. Groups of young men ran down the corridors in disciplined ranks, while others tended clumsily to healthy plants under the guidance of the Roof. Eyes followed the three travellers all the way to a door on the last wall of a dead end.

  Hiresh took a deep breath. He removed the veil and opened his robes up at the front. He would be strong now. A pity he couldn’t keep the shake out of his hands.

  The door slid open.

  The woman waiting on the far side had whiter hair than he remembered. Her frame was thinner too, bones showing through and pressing against the tattoos designed to mirror them.

  ‘Who is it?’ called a hoarse voice from within.

  The woman didn’t answer. Instead she pulled her son into an embrace, squeezing hard. He felt her tears against his cheek and a churning in his stomach. His eyes stung. Not this! Please, gods! Don’t let me cry! But he hadn’t addressed the gods in years and there was no reason why they should start listening to him now. He pushed his way inside, hiding his face in the robes again. Not trusting himself to speak, he waved Stopmouth inside past his startled-looking mother.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the hoarse voice again, unable to see him through the unfamiliar clothing. ‘Why are you in our home?’

  Hiresh was breathing too quickly to reply. He wasn’t even sure what the answer should be.

  ‘I apologize,’ he heard the savage say. ‘This woman needs your help. Hiresh said you might—’

  ‘Hiresh!’ His name sounded like an explosion in his father’s throat. Like some curse from the Atharva-Veda.

  ‘Is that him, hiding his face? As if Mother Roof couldn’t see through to his traitor’s heart!’

  The words helped Hiresh to get control over himself again, anger driving out the tears. He pulled back his robes, ready now to face his father. Instead, he saw the man’s heavily tattooed back with muscles underneath such as his son would never have.

  Papa had already told the apartment to absorb the furniture and was helping Stopmouth to lay Jagadamba flat on the floor.

  Hiresh’s mother still stood at the open doorway, trying to take everything in. The sight of her made it difficult for him to keep his composure, but the shock had passed and now he managed it. He told the door to shut, but unsurprisingly, it no longer obeyed his thoughts. He signalled that his mother should do so.

  ‘Of – of course,’ she said.

  ‘Jagadamba hasn’t got long left,’ Stopmouth was saying.

  Papa harrumphed in agreement, his fingers touching lightly against various parts of the woman’s chest.

  ‘Mother Roof says she has multiple fractures. Several broken ribs and probably internal bleeding. She has a day at the most.’

  ‘We need to revive her,’ said Stopmouth. ‘It – it is vital.’

  Papa shook his head. ‘She’s gone without Medicine.’

  ‘Your son said … said you might …’

  And now Papa looked round. Hiresh had expected a glare. But Papa showed nothing for his son to read except startling new creases on his broad, strong face. A missing tooth. And muscle, always muscle, only emphasized by the tattoos that covered every visible part of his body.

  Hiresh allowed the disgust into his voice: ‘You look well-fed.’ It was all he had to say to break the mask that confronted him.

  ‘How dare you, you little Deserter! You traitor!’

  Mother said, ‘You know I do it willingly, Hiresh! You know our people need him to be strong!’

  Hiresh ignored her, hating the sight of her thinness. All masks were stripped away from his voice and he let the bitterness of years wash through every word. ‘You’re eating her up, Papa. You’re no better than the savages below.’

  Papa launched himself across the room. Hiresh didn’t flinch.

  Mother cried out to his father to stop, even as the two fell to the floor together. Hiresh saw a fist raised against him, a great club of gristle and bone and scarred knuckle. He didn’t care, he didn’t care. He’d said what he’d never been able to say when he lived here. Papa was starving his mother to death. He was starving her to death, and she was letting him. And all for the love of a machine they worshipped as a goddess.

  The blow never landed.

  Part of Hiresh’s robe had fallen away to reveal the scarring along his arm where once the tattoos had been. Papa froze. Perhaps he was imagining the pain or the desperation that would drive somebody to such an act. Or perhaps he was simply horrified that a good Religious boy would perform such a blasphemy on himself.

  Stopmouth pulled Papa away and set him down next to Jagadamba while the man’s jaw worked.

  ‘The lady is dying,’ said Stopmouth. ‘She needs this “Medicine”.’

  If Papa ever allowed himself normal human feelings, he wouldn’t have been able to answer his guest. Yet the mask came down again remarkably quickly, apart from a little sneer at the corner of his upper lip.

  ‘People are dying all over the Roof,’ he said. ‘What little Medicine remains is needed for warriors of the coming struggle. Look at her … she is close to her final escape. She has given all she can give.’

  ‘No,’ said Stopmouth. ‘She has more to give. Much more.’

  ‘Father,’ said Hiresh. ‘She knows where Indrani is.’

  ‘Indrani who?’ He didn’t look at his son.

  ‘You know, the old High Commissioner’s daughter. The Witch, you called her. The one they’re turning the Roof upside-down to find. That old woman – she knows where to look.’

  ‘And how did you get mixed up in this?’ But there was interest in his eyes now. A chance to annoy the Commission would please his bitter heart. ‘Shouldn’t you be helping the other
side?’

  ‘I should be, yes.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re changing, at last,’ said Papa.

  ‘I assure you I’m not. Please stop wasting time. We need the Medicine.’

  ‘Relax, Deserter. The Medicine is coming. I already made the call.’

  Everybody sat in separate corners of the tiny room. Hiresh had a chance to notice the changes since he’d run away two years before. The apartment was smaller, of course. When he’d first started crawling, there was room for a dividing wall that allowed his parents a bit of privacy. He had vague memories of lying in a soft cocoon while the Roof played bright shapes across the ceiling to keep him amused. In his first year or two, or so Mother had told him, the shortages weren’t too bad and Father hadn’t beaten either of them.

  The decoration was more sombre too these days. The glorious scenes of the Roof’s bounty no longer played in the background. The pictures in the walls were all of sterner aspects of the great Mother – the palms of her many hands cupping spearheads and spaceships, flinging them into the four quarters of the galaxy to punish aliens and other demons.

  Mother served tea to everybody, then came to sit beside him. He allowed her to take his hand, amazed that they were now the same height. I must have grown, he thought. Or perhaps she was the one who’d shrunk. Such a thing could happen to the old – look at Jagadamba! But Mother wasn’t that ancient – couldn’t be.

  This was Papa’s fault. He was eating all her food so he could pretend to be a warrior.

  Jagadamba’s breathing had almost stopped by the time the Medicine arrived. Hiresh had never seen any before. It looked no different from a pale cream in a simple green jar. Before Hiresh’s birth, anybody could have had as much of this as they wanted just by thinking about it. The Roof could have exuded it from the wall of an apartment, or sent it into the air as a gas.

  Papa wouldn’t let anybody touch it. ‘Not with your bare skin!’ he said. ‘None of us are perfect and the nanos might expend themselves in trying to heal us instead.’