Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (19 page)

 
          
If
I slid down the trunk right away, crushing little bodies by the score as I
broke out of the cordon, mightn't they rouse again as one creature?

 
          
And
if I waited . . . Tiny bodies, huge appetites! Mightn't they wake up just as
hungry in another hour or so?

 
          
I
brooded a bit then worked my way up even higher, to where a neighbouring tree
tangled with my own sanctuary. I transferred. From there I moved with
difficulty to a third tree. After about half an hour of awkward manoeuvres I
descended on the far side of the sleeping pack.

 
          
For
the next league or so I found a convenient roadway through the jungle waiting
for me, stripped bare by the beasts.
Marking their last few
dozen food-sprints and mass snoozes.
Presumably the total slumber that
overcame the mice fooled other creatures into forgetting their peril. The
impromptu road swung this way and that, and latterly vegetation had begun to
reassert itself. I had to leave my tunnel when suddenly it veered off at a
right angle.

 
          
Lalo
had said nothing to me about these hungry hordes. Maybe they only lived in
western jungles. In which case, what else lurked hereabouts? After quitting the
corridor I was nervous and wary for a while, but no further animal prodigies
crossed my path. The jungle cackled at me as if planning dirty deeds. Yet I
never saw the owners of these voices; they did not follow me.

 
          
On
the umpteenth day at last I came upon a trail—one which hadn't been made by
piranha-mice. This was much narrower and had been hacked, not nibbled. Nor did
it run nearly as straight as the rodents' single-minded tunnel spasmodically
did. It took the line of least resistance amidst tree-trunks and tangles.
Generally it ran east to west. I followed this trail inland, hoping that it
would connect with some north-south route.

 
          
I
could never see very far ahead because of the constant twists and turns. After
marching along for a league or so I suddenly heard voices, coming from around
the next comer or the one after.

 
          
Hastily
thrusting aside, I concealed myself behind a mass of dinner-plate-leaves full
of peepholes.

 
          
Only
moments after, three men came along the path. Large boxes were strapped to
their shoulders. All of the men sported untidy beards. They were dressed in
baggy linen trousers tucked into boots, and coarse cloth shirts. Two wore
floppy hats, one a white-spotted bandanna. All were armed, with knives and
tarnished machetes. I didn't like the look of them one bit. These were wild
men.

 
          
And
I could have safely gone on not liking their looks—but for where I had chosen
to hide.

 
          
A
burning needle stabbed my hand as it rested on the soil; then another. I didn't
cry out. I only gasped involuntarily and snatched my hand away—to tear two
insects loose: red things the size of a fingernail. That was enough: the intake
of breath, the rustle of leaves.

 
          
Boxes
were shed. A knife came out. A machete was brandished. Boots crashed towards
me; and I was hauled out upon the trail.

 
          
"What
do we have here?" the hatless one said in wonder.
"A
girl?"
His hair was a wild bush of bright ginger, as was his beard.
He said "gairl".

 
          
"Obviously!"
The black-bearded second man ruffled
the tatters of my blouse.
"In men's raiment.
Mostly."

 
          
"Stop
it," I squeaked.

 
          
"Runaway?"
asked the third man, a rangy blond individual.
"Witch?"
He said "roonaway" and "weetch".

 
          
I
was released, and Gingerbush put his knife away.
"You a
witch?"

 
          
"No,
no." But of course in their eyes I supposed I was. I was a woman of the
river.

 
          
"Do
you think she'd tell?" snapped Rangy Blond. "What are you?" he
shouted at me.

 
          
"If
you don't think I'll tell, why ask me?"

 
          
"Ho,
spirited!" from Gingerbush.

 
          
"Queer
accent," remarked Blackbeard.
"Audibly."

 
          
Rangy
Blond gripped me by the shoulders, and I thought he was going to tear off the
remains of my blouse. Maybe all my dark fantasies of the past few weeks had
come home to roost. He shook me instead. "
What
—
are
—
you?"

 
          
I
stared into this wild man's eyes, suddenly inspired. "You're
upset.
Scared.
I
shouldn't be here. But neither should
you!"

 
          
"Perceptive,"
said Blackbeard.

 
          
Rangy
Blond seemed incensed. "Shouldn't be here? Why not? Who says? We're
prospecting for jemralds." Presumably those were precious stones.

 
          
"Why
shouldn't
she
be here?"
mused
Blackbeard. "A deaf man could tell you she ain't
one of us. So where's she from?
'Tis obvious.
She's
from over the river. Ain't you?" He grinned—though not a cruel grin.
"Shipwrecked, eh? You all use ships."

 
          
"Boats,"
I corrected him unthinkingly. And he chuckled in triumph. After all those weeks
of isolation this was a game too fast for me. Blackbeard might look thuggish,
but he was nimble-witted.

           
He turned to his companions.
"Brothers, we've found us treasure."

 
          
"Okay,"
I admitted. "I'm from the other shore. I'm a riverwoman. Do you want to
know about it?"

 
          
Blackbeard
laughed uproariously. "Do we, Brothers? Do we just!" He calmed.
"So she came across the Satan-channel . . . Doesn't mean as how she was
wrecked, though. . . ." Abruptly he caught hold of my hand and twisted it.
"Sting bites, eh? You need ointment." Letting go, he unlatched his
box and burrowed. Producing a glass jar, he salved my skin with something that
stank. "Nasty buggers, those. So which is it?
Boatwreck?
Or sacrifice? Tossed overboard into Satan's black lips?
Or a
spy?
Found a way over, set up a
camp down south?"

 
          
Why
had they hacked this trail towards the river?
Simply to
search for jewels?
No . . . that was only their cover story—to hide what
they were up to, from the eyes of other men. I felt sure of it.

 
          
After
the comparative monotony of the past week, a lot happened in a little while.

 
          
The
three men cached their burdens beside the trail and escorted me back to their
camp a league to the west, which a couple more men guarded. They gave me a new
coarse shirt to replace my blouse, and fed me to bursting point on a stew of
meat and veg poured over tapioca; then questioned me.

 
          
The
camp consisted of a crude log cabin and a pair of tents, in a clearing with a
stream nearby. Another narrow trail ran away northwest.

 
          
The
"Brothers" didn't exactly introduce themselves, but it soon became
evident that Blackbeard's name was Andri. Rangy Blond was Harld, and Gingerbush
was Jothan. They weren't actual brothers, except perhaps in roguery. The two
men who had been left to guard the camp were less savoury specimens: one with
teeth missing, the other with a badly scarred left cheek. This pair eyed me
but kept their distance, and weren't included in our discussions.

 
          
Andri
paid intense attention to what I said, questioning me where he didn't
understand and demanding the meaning of words he didn't know. I must have been
interrogated for two hours. I even told about Capsi and Verrino. Yet Andri
never went into unnecessary detail; he blocked in the general picture.

 
          
"Right,"
he said at last. "Yaleen of the River, I believe you.
Mainly
because no one could be such a thoroughgoing liar, except maybe Jothan here.
Lucky you fell in with the likes of us.
Saved your life,
doubtless.
Certainly saved you much pain.
Wised
up to our ways by those Watchers of yours you may have been.
But
not enough.
Never enough."

 
          
"Was
it entirely luck?" I asked. "That I fell in with
you?"

 
          
He
wagged a finger. "A story for a story, you won't get. Don't expect
it."

 
          
"Because
you're
danger,"
said Harld.

 
          
"Potentially,"
agreed Andri. "S'posing she fell into the wrong hands. S'posing she
blabbed her mouth, when those hands started twisting her."

 
          
"But
I'm treasure to you, aren't I?
More precious than
jemralds."
I'd decided to stop being a lost waif, and to capitalize
on my assets.

 
          
"Jemralds
to one man: dung to most others, only fit for burning.
After
you'd shat yourself, in the cellars.
S'posing you tried to hold back,
like a costive. The Brotherhood would always think you
was
holding back."

 
          
"You
don't have to try and frighten me."

 
          
"Spunky
words, girl.
But foolish.
I simply touch on the
truesoil."

 
          
"Do
you. And which one man might I be jemralds to? The person you work for?"

 
          
Andri
picked his teeth a bit. "Truesoil is," he said, "you won't be
learning no names till you meet their owners. What you know not, you can't
babble."

 
          
"What's
all this 'truesoil' business?"

 
          
"Eh,
don't know the word? Happen you wouldn't, either! Truesoil is the gritty, the
down to earth. It's the permitted land. Near the river is all falsesoil. A lot
I'll have to tell you.
Evidently."

 
          
Which
is what he proceeded to do, commencing as night was falling—until I found
myself being borne in his arms into one of the tents, lantem-lit by Jothan. I'd
flaked out.

 
          
Andri
slid me into the luxury of a sleeping-bag. That night I dreamed I was in an
honest bunk aboard a friendly boat.

 
          
My
education continued the next morning, after I'd crammed down a huge breakfast.
Harld seemed edgy and restless, but Andri insisted on wising me up adequately
about life in the west before he would contemplate our setting off (for
destination undisclosed).

 
          
"She
has to know what not to say," he impressed on Harld. "What not to do.
We'll get her a robe as soon as we can. Right now we have to robe her
mind."

           
And learn I did: ten-thousandfold
what anyone else in the east had ever guessed of the western world. . . .

 
          
Men
had come to this world, said Andri,
from
another one
called Eeden, a name unknown to me. And when people died here, their minds
returned again to Eeden. The westerners were convinced that their physical
bodies were artificial dummies or puppets; and these dummies were animated from
a distance. This idea seemed a wholly lunatic one, but it did become more
plausible—or at least self-consistent—the more Andri explained.

 
          
According
to their "Deotheorists" real people couldn't live on any world except
Eeden, for a hundred reasons which had to do with differences in air and water,
foodstuffs, diseases, whatever. Consequently the "God-Mind" had sent
forth to a hundred
worlds
artificial bodies capable of
breeding and reproducing. A "psylink" existed between Eeden and our
own world, such that babies were bom back in Eeden yet they lived out their
lives—their mental lives—in puppet flesh here. Meanwhile their original bodies
lay entranced in cold caverns underneath Eeden, their growth halted at the
infant stage, each to be "revived" when the corresponding puppet body
died—as fully-experienced "cherubs" whose "afterlives" in
Eeden would enrich the tapestry of that world gloriously, complexly, subtly.
The cherubs would bring home to Eeden a hundred different histories, a hundred
strange and varied ways of life, from all over the universe.