Cat Karina (9 page)

“Sorry — I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s me, Captain Tonio. You remember me — I’m contracted for your crop.”

“Ah.… Yes.” Pulling himself together, Siervo climbed out of the ditch and led the way to his hut.

“What are they like this year?”

“Fine.… Very good-looking animals.”

“What did you say, Siervo?” Cocodrilo had sidled up, barking the question.

“An excellent crop. Excellent.”

Cocodrilo laid a scaly hand on Siervo’s shoulder as they walked among the shells of dead male tortugas. Tonio avoided the shells but it seemed that Cocodrilo took pleasure in stepping on them, crunching them and squeezing out stinking, decaying flesh. “Always remember this, Siervo,” said Cocodrilo softly. “Tortugas are
not
animals. Not in any shape or form. They are vegetables which go through a mobile stage before maturing. Now, how many times have I told you that, Siervo?”

“Many.… Many times.” The hand was biting into Siervo’s shoulder like a claw.

“So, say it to me, Siervo,” hissed Cocodrilo.

“That’s enough!” Tonio found himself shouting. “Leave him alone!”

“He’s a True Human and I’m a Specialist, is that it?”

“Nothing of the kind.” They halted at the pens and Tonio took his chance to change the subject. “They’ll be ready in time, will they?”

“Of course.”

Tonio bent down and examined the tortugas. They were becoming torpid now, gazing around with lack-lustre eyes, scarcely moving. Meanwhile Cocodrilo had moved off, jaw jutting, sidling towards Siervo’s hut. The tortugas were prime specimens. Tonio picked one up, imagining himself in one of the southern towns, haggling with a merchant over the price of his cargo. Then he looked at Siervo, the pathetic creature whose life was devoted to the tortuga.…

Siervo’s eyes were wide. “No!” He was staring at Cocodrilo.

“You shouldn’t let them get into your hut, Siervo,” called Cocodrilo from the entrance. And he tossed a tortuga out; a thong trailed from its hind leg. It fell among the pregnant females.

“No!” Siervo was scrabbling on his knees, sorting among the animals in the pen.

“Well, if you can’t tell one from another, it hardly matters.” Cocodrilo gave a sharp laugh.

Tonio resisted the urge to hit him. It would do no good. Cocodrilo was immensely powerful; short thick arms, legs and neck; muscular torso. He sighed and turned away, saddened. He heard Siervo utter a cry of triumph and assumed he’d found his pet, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

After the unwholesome atmosphere of the tortuga pens, the shops of the Canton engineer were a welcome change. Tonio and Raoul stood in a wide grassy clearing about two kilometers north of the loading yards. Here the sun shone, gleaming from the leafy roofs of a cluster of workshops, reflecting from the length of the test track.

At the near end of the track stood
Rayo
.…

She was tall, beautiful and two-masted. Probably around thirty meters long, her hull was fabricated from the lightest timbers of balsa, covered with fabric.

“Will it be strong enough, Maquinista?” asked Tonio. He could dig his fingernail into the wood quite easily.

“Certainly it will.” The Canton engineer, a tall, stooping True Human, glanced at Tonio from under heavy brows, then winked at Raoul. “I’ve made a few modifications recently, too. Added a bit to the speed, I’d say. She’s not a bad car. Not bad at all.” His understatement barely concealed a deep pride in his work, and he regarded
Rayo
as a mother regards a new-born baby.

“The strain’s all taken by the masts, the keel and the guidewheel arms. The hull’s just a shell for people to sit in. We’ve been building them too heavy for centuries.”

Rayo
looked clean and fast, like a killer whale. Raoul took his eyes off her with some difficulty and watched the odd little Specialists who swarmed about the yard, chattering interminably as they worked on similar cars with nimble fingers and great agility.
Rayo
stood proudly alone on the test track, ready to go.

They climbed aboard. “I’ll stay on deck,” said Tonio. “I want to see the effect of your modifications. Raoul — you go after and look after the brake. Maquinista, you ride with me on the foredeck. The rest of you look after the sheets.”

The small Specialists, well-drilled, took up their positions.

The brake was a heavy handle projecting from the deck; a system of levers below pressed a heavy block against the running rail. Raoul worked it to and fro, getting used to the play.

“Haul in the sheets!” came Tonio’s shout. “Ease off the brake!”

The wind was light, but as the crew drew the flogging canvas tight it freshened, and
Rayo
took off like a startled tapir. Raoul had never known such acceleration. He hung onto a stanchion as the ground flew past. He heard the rumbling of the running wheels on the rail, the squeal of the lee guiderails — but that was all. The axle bearings — usually a source of much rasping and groaning — were silent.

And
Rayo
gathered speed.

She sped across the clearing and Raoul found he was shouting with joy and excitement. This was what flying must be like. He leaned over the rail and yelled to the people below. Work was forgotten; they stood and watched with wide eyes in their little monkey-faces. One or two shouted back.

“Take care.…”

A small group of ponies shied at their approach and began to gallop alongside, but
Rayo
soon left them behind and they veered off, snorting, eyes rolling. Now a pitching motion developed with the combination of speed and rough track. Raoul clung on. The crew fought for balance as
Rayo
began to porpoise.

“Ease off sheets!”

There was alarm in Tonio’s voice. The crewmen had been surprised by the rapid acceleration and the ropes were cleated down. They staggered about the deck, unable to get back to their posts. Some crawled, hanging onto projections and dragging themselves across the deck.

“Brakes?”

Raoul lurched towards the lever, grabbed it as he fell, and pulled. There was a scream of wood on wood. Sitting on the deck with his feet braced against the lever bracket, he put all his strength into it.
Rayo
streamed a trail of smoke as the brake block heated up. A Specialist rolled across the deck, bringing up against Raoul.

“The track ends —” His shout ended in a grunt as the deck bucked and flung him against a post.

“Let go those goddamned sails!” Now Maquinista was struggling aft, swinging on the shrouds, kicking the crew out of his way, lurching heavily against the mainmast
.

In his hand was an ax which glittered like no stone ax ever did.

Bracing himself with legs astride, crablike figure in a semi-crouch, he swung the ax.
Rayo
pitched, and unbalanced him. The blade thudded uselessly into the deck. He yelled an incoherent string of oaths and swung again. This time the mainsheet parted with a sharp report. The end, whipping away, caught a crewman around the waist and, plucked him overboard. His scream was lost in the roar from the overstrained lee guiderails. The boom swung out, spilling wind, and the motion steadied.

Maquinista charged onto the afterdeck, swinging the ax as he came, and Raoul ducked as the blade swished past his face and thudded into the mizzen sheet. Again the rope parted and the boom swung free.

Now the engineer hurled himself at the brake, biceps knotted, dragging at the lever. Ahead, Raoul saw the forest rushing towards them. He seized the brake and added his strength to that of the engineer. They stood side by side, hauling at the lever while smoke poured from beneath the car, and the crew began to jump overboard.

In those last moments before the crash Raoul noticed small things. Maquinista’s shirt hung open and a livid scar was slashed across his stomach — or what was left of his stomach. At some time in the past the man had suffered a terrible injury. Gulping, Raoul looked away and saw his father standing beside the mainmast, mouth open in a frozen yell. The main boom hit a tree and came swinging back across the deck, carrying away the shrouds. The mast toppled, so slowly. The track ended, Raoul saw the butt end of the guiderail whip past, and
Rayo
leaped into space.

Then Raoul jumped.

Afterwards, he couldn’t remember how it happened. He remembered seeing the trunk of a huge tree passing beside the deck — just a half-glimpsed impression. The deck was beginning to tilt forward and he knew that when
Rayo
struck she would probably go end-over-end — unless she piled into a tree.…

He found himself clinging to a thick bough ten meters from the ground.
Rayo
was gone, buried in the undergrowth. A tunnel of smashed brush showed where she had passed. He looked around, seeking a way down. There were no branches; he lay on the lowest. He would have to wait until someone brought a ladder. He wondered how his father was.

Little Specialists began to arrive on ponies, galloping across the short grass, leaping from their mounts, plunging into the bush. As they ran, the uttered small cries of desolation. Were they mourning the injured, or the loss of
Rayo?
Raoul couldn’t guess.

He wondered how he’d reached this branch. It was much higher than
Rayo’s
deck had been, and quite a way from the trackside too. He examined the trunk below him.

He saw a series of deep scratches in the bark, where his fingernails had stabbed into the wood. He’d climbed almost five vertical meters with fingers and toes alone. He examined his fingers. The nails had always been thick, but.…

Not for the first time, he began to wonder about himself.

Karina wondered, too.

She watched from the trees; first in astonishment as
Rayo
accelerated, then in anxiety as it rocketed towards the end of the track. She saw Raoul hauling on the brake, and she saw the smoke.

She saw Raoul jump.

He ran to the rail and leaped sideways and upwards, arms outstretched and fingers hooked like claws, and smacked into the trunk of the great tree. As he hit, he was already climbing, and he almost
ran
up the trunk into the crook of a branch. The toppling mast, swinging, slashed past his back, missing him by a centimeter.

At least he has some sense of self-preservation
, thought Karina. True Humans were notorious for dying in the face of danger.
Rayo
raised a fountain of broken branches and flying leaves as she ploughed into the jungle. For a moment there was silence, then people began picking themselves up, crawling out of the bush, yelling; and a mob of wailing monkey-people leaped onto their tiny mounts and galloped towards the scene of the accident.

It occurred to Karina that Raoul had probably died on many happentracks; his escape had been nothing short of miraculous and she glanced around, half-expecting to catch sight of the handmaiden. But the jungle was empty, and after a while a procession began to move back to the huts; the injured limping, some being carried on stretchers, one motionless form laid over the back of a mule.

Karina sighed, then caught herself in some surprise. Why did she feel sad because the True Humans’ fast car was wrecked? Her own father had said that
Rayo
could be used as a weapon against the felinos.

But the car had been a beautiful thing.…

She began to work her way around towards the village. She would find out more about this secret place in the delta, carry the news back to El Tigre, and bask in the admiration of the felinos.

“When will you be able to let me know?” asked Tonio.

“Let you know what?”

“I have arrangements to make. I’m going to need a fast car for the Races — the Lord gave his orders.” His expression was stony. A bandage was wrapped around his head; blood already showed through. He sat in a rough chair in the Engineer’s hut. The walls were hung with antique mechanical devices — and the nature of some of those devices did nothing to improve Tonio’s temper.

Raoul had rarely seen his father so furious. Maquinista stood in the centre of the room, arms dangling limply by his sides, eyes blank and dazed, his shirt hanging in rags around his waist so that the cavern of his stomach was clearly visible.

“Oh … that. I’ll see what I can do. Right now I have other matters to attend to. You’d better go.”

“Go? I want to hear your intentions first.”

Maquinista walked to the doorway, looked out, walked back. “Give it a rest, will you? One of my men was killed. I have to make arrangements.”

“One of your
men?
” Now Tonio was standing too, white with rage. “You have the impudence to call those Specialists men? You’ve been living in the delta too long, Maquinista. It wouldn’t surprise me to find you were friendly with the felinos, too!”

“The felinos?”

“We’ve had word they’re aware of developments here. They’ve had spies in the trees — probably your own mechanics. They know about
Rayo
, Maquinista!”

“There are no spies among my people.”

“God, man, you talk as though you’re some kind of father to them! They’re Specialists, just like the felinos! Can’t you see that? You can’t trust them. They have different values!”

The engineer shook his head slowly. “You can’t class all Specialists together. My mechanics will do anything for me. They’re loyal and they’re trustworthy. But maybe you wouldn’t understand that, living up in Rangua.”

“Have the felinos approached you? Have you seen any of them sniffing around?”

“Probably. I don’t know. Does it matter?” The engineer rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted.

“It sure as hell matters if they find you’re building cars which can climb hills without felino help!”

Raoul stared at his father. Cars which didn’t need felinos?
Rayo
, certainly, had moved fast enough to climb most hills. So the felinos would be obsolete. What would they do? Would they run wild, hunting meat in order to survive? Would they sabotage the sailways? Would they march into Rangua?