Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (26 page)

 
          
She
directed me in the usual emphatic Jangali style,
then
added, "If you'll hang on a mo, I'll take you myself. I'm
babysitting."

 
          
"Baby?"
I suppose I gaped.
"But
how—?"

 
          
"Why, in the usual way, dear!"
Her laugh boomed
out.
"How else?"

 
          
"I
guess it's a while since I saw them."

 
          
"Best
to get your brood hatched early, I always say! Then all that bother won't wear
you out in your prime. They'll have three babies, I think. The first one's a
darling little boy, so the next should rightly be a big strapping girl."

 
          
I
wondered whether Kish would ever learn to raise his voice as loud as hers. . .
.

 
          
"Has
a woman called Jambi visited recently?" I asked on impulse.

 
          
"Who?"

 
          
So
I described Jambi, reminding Mum that she was a friend of Kish's family and
that we had both been on the boat which brought Kish and Lalo home.

 
          
"Oh,
I remember! She did call once. Rootless, gadabout woman!
Can't
say as I took to her hugely.
One shouldn't encourage that kind of thing.
It's too unsettling, when a young man's trying to adjust to a new style of
life."

 
          
Poor
Kish. . . .

 
          
"I
expect you're right," I said.

 
          
"Of
course I'm right. Now if you'll just wait a mo! There's ever so nice a view
from that balcony."

 
          
"It
really doesn't matter! 1 was only intending to pop in." I slapped my brow
theatrically. "Oh dear, now I've remembered something else I had to
do!"

 
          
Mum
scrutinized me. "Have you really? So what name should I mention to my
Lalo?"

 
          
"None.
Don't bother." I retreated. "Obviously
they're busy. Anyway, I'm quite a rootless gadabout myself!"

 
          
"What
a peculiar whimsical way to behave! Well,
goodbye
,"
said Mum, and shut the door.

 
          
I
left.

 
          
As
I headed back towards the river, I thought of my own mother and father. I still
hadn't been back to see them. Yet that was hardly my fault! Tamath's boat had
kept me to southern waters since my return—far from Verrino, so that I wouldn't
over-excite the Observers, I suppose. We were scheduled to sail downstream
"sometime" but I could be fairly sure I wouldn't be permitted to hop
boats to any old vessel I liked, for an earlier passage north. Tamath was
keeping an eye on me.

 
          
I
had written a couple of times to my parents—initially from Spanglestream—and
had had two letters back. The second had been awaiting me at the quaymistress's
poste restante
when we docked in
Jangali.

 
          
Mother's
first letter had conveyed a certain air of reproach at my having absented
myself
for so long without sending word. (Naturally, I
hadn't told her that I'd spent some of the time gadding footloose and
fancy-free about the western world!)

 
          
I
detected a degree of anxiety about Capsi, too.
(That
still required a personal explanation face to face. However,
any adequate explanation was so intimately bound up with other events on which
I shouldn't enlarge that the problem had only got worse with time.)

 
          
All
in all, both letters from Pecawar were quite complacent. A child had been bom,
of course.
A girl.
Her name was Narya. By now she was
a year and a quarter old. Things were fine at home. Narya was a joy. Her first
word had been "wain". It had rained in dusty Pecawar, impressing her.

 
          
Maybe
my parents were weeping in private, but I doubted it. The keynote was
complacency.

 
          
And
Lalo's mum was militantly complacent.

 
          
And
guildmistresses were fairly complacent too.
Because in their
guts, they couldn't imagine anything ever being very different.
For
them, the extent of foreignness was somewhere distant like Umdala.

 
          
Not,
I hasten to add, that I thought
there was any inherent virtue in striking up acquaintance with the really
foreign, the west. Still, the west existed. And it was pulsing with people,
whose souls were sick; some of whom at least were hatching plans which had to
do with us.

 
          
Such
thoughts occupied me while I walked back to the
Blue Guitar.
Then I put them from my mind.

 
          
That night a gang of us were planning to hit the Jingle-Jangle for
a fine old thrash to celebrate New Year.

 
          
Whilst down at Tambimatu a boat with no name would sail out slowly
to the mid-stream.
Without (thanks
be
!) any
Yaleen on board. . . .

 
          
And
a jolly night it was indeed.
Music, talk and singsongs—as
deafening as ever.
A lot of joshing, some kissing (and resort to a
certain upstairs room for a six-way tangle), even a bit of a brawl, though a
half-hearted one. This time no Port Barbra women were skulking about the
premises. I collected a hangover, which I nursed through most of the morning in
my bunk; as did many of us.

 
          
At
last I just had to empty my bowels. So I dragged myself up. I raided the galley
for a bite of eel pie then crept on deck, to lean on the rail and recover.

 
          
I
decided that I, too, felt complacent.

 
          
Partly
this was a consequence of the hangover: I had no desire to exert myself. Mainly
it was due to being there once again on deck at Jangali dock, just as I'd been
once before. It seemed as if nothing essential had changed, after all.

 
          
So
I lazed about.
Had lunch with the other walking wounded.
Played several hands of cards, winning a few fins and losing
them again.
There was desultory talk about mounting a return expedition
ashore that night, though no one was overly enthusiastic. The air was a hot
muggy blanket. The sun boomed down on the river.

 
          
At
around two o'clock the tall new signal tower to the north of Jangali began to
flash. (Oh yes, there
had
been little
changes.)

 
          
Idly
I spelled out the message, which was in plain language.

 
          
A
moment later I was not so idle.

 
          
"Tamath!"
I screamed.
"Boatmistress!
Someone tell her to come!"

 
          
Minor
commotions occurred on other vessels, too, as more people began to notice the
flashing and pay heed.

 
          
Tamath
was by my side in record time, sprinting from her cabin. She too stared. She
had missed the start of the signal, but that didn't matter. It was soon being
repeated. Briefly Tamath hesitated between dashing to the lookout station
where young Melesina—about the only person actually on duty—was copying the
signal down. As the message sank in, she stayed by me . . .

 
          
The contents?

 
          
Urgent alert.
Ex Umdala.
Repeat
onward. Black current withdraws upriver ex sea. Head of current passes Umdala
midday. Speed 17 LH. Wake upsets small craft.
Head of current
size of small hill.
Look of giant croaker. River clear where head has
passed. No current remains.
Umdala endit.

 
          
Two
hours since that signal had set out! The black current was withdrawing upstream
at a rate of seventeen leagues per hour. Soon the "head" would be
passing Firelight.
A little over an hour later, Melonby.

 
          
Maybe
something wild and terrible in the ocean had driven it upstream ... I doubted
this. The current was winding itself back towards the Far Precipices, like some
huge rope being winched in. And on the end of that black rope was the living
head which had never been seen, or even guessed at, in all our history! A head
the size of a hill!

 
          
Tamath
called to boatswain Hali (no relation to the Hali of the
Sally Argent)
to send someone aloft with a spyglass to observe the
midstream; Hali climbed the shrouds herself.

 
          
"Nothing
can possibly have happened at Tambimatu," Tamath muttered to me.
"Last night, I mean. Not to provoke this. Or we'd have heard by now. So
has your precious Doctor Edrick doctored the current, after all?"

 
          
"How
do I know? How can a current flow w^-river, Tamath?"

 
          
"Ah,
its substance is curious." She was quoting the Chapbook of the guild, not
telling me anything new. Her voice was singsong. Her eyes looked glazed with
shock. "It seems a liquid. Yet it flows within itself, and is one. Like an
oily sinew, like a tapeworm."

 
          
"A worm with a head, so it seems!"

 
          
"It
doesn't really flow like water. Waves simply pass along it; it remains."

 
          
"Till
now it did! Incantations aren't going to help us any, Boatmistress!" I
spoke as sharply as a slap on the cheek.

 
          
She
recoiled,
then
recovered herself. "No, of course
not . . . You're right."

 
          
"So
is there a brain in its head? And eyes that see? And a mouth that feeds? And
speaks? Maybe speaks!"

 
          
"Speaks,"
she repeated dully. "What could it say? Now that anybody can cross the
river? Now that anyone can sail? The world's turning upside-down. . . ."

 
          
"It
told me the world would turn on its hinges, on the day when it moved. Now it's
happening.
Today.
Maybe Edrick didn't start this.
Maybe the current decided long ago."

 
          
"What's
going to
happen?"

 
          
From
the topgallant Hali called, "I can see ripples rushing all along the
midstream water. It's moving, all right!" Hali ordered Zemia aloft to take
over the watch, and began to climb down.

           
"What's going to happen,
Tamath, is that it'll pass us here in Jangali.
Unless it
decides to halt halfway."

 
          
"If
the head displaces enough water to upset small craft . . . then we'd best
slacken our moorings ... Or even put out, a hundred spans or so. Hali!"
she shouted to the descending boatswain.

 
          
"Hang
on." I interrupted. "It's withdrawing at seventeen leagues per hour.
If it keeps on coming, it won't pass here till. ..." I calculated.
"Um, tomorrow, around midnight.
Maybe
very early, the day after."

 
          
"Oh
yes, of course . . . Quite right."

 
          
"And
I want to see it pass," I added.
"From close
by."

 
          
Hali
had joined us by now. "Do you just?" Her tone was sarcastic. "We
hear and obey. Right, Boatmistress, let's all jump to it and sail the
Blue Guitar
right out so that Yaleen
here can get an eyefull!"