Pallahaxi Read online

  “You’re not losing me,” I muttered unhappily.

  “Listen. There’s something about you and Ribbon, I know there is. Somehow you’re always the one who gets her out of trouble, or are around when she’s unhappy…You seem to share a lot of things. It’s…it’s as though you were meant to be together. Nothing’s ever happened to you and me. We just sort of walk around holding hands, and nothing ever happens to bring us closer.”

  “How do you mean? We can’t make things happen.”

  She didn’t answer. She looked at me steadily and there came over her face an expression so thoughtful, almost calculating, that it wasn’t like my Browneyes at all. She took her hand away from me, smoothed her dress down and lay back on the grass; her expression had changed further so that she looked almost sleepy. I was uneasy about the way she looked at me, and when she lifted her arms and tucked them behind her head, arching her back a fraction, I had to avert my eyes. I think I blushed.

  “Look at me, freeze you, Drove,” she whispered.

  I regarded her apprehensively, and it was as though she were a deep lake and I didn’t know what lurked down there and was frightened of it, yet fascinated. Her eyes still gazed into mine, still with that drowsy look. Her lips were plump and parted, and I saw the flicker of her tongue.

  She wore a blue dress and there was no chain around her neck. My eyes passed hastily over the hypnotic beauty of her new breasts down to her waist and, greatly daring, I reached and touched the outside of her hip, where the little belt encircled, her waist and the dress suddenly filled out with the roundness of her. I stroked the material gently while I let my gaze move on, to where her brown thighs emerged from the blue. I wondered idly if it was wrong for me to feel the way I was beginning to feel; then I decided it must be all right because instinctively I knew Browneyes wanted it that way. I looked at her dimpled knees and plump calves, then from her little white shoes back to her face; and now there was a lazy smile on her lips.

  “Is it nice to have a girl as pretty as me, Drove?” she asked softly.

  “Browneyes…” I mumbled. “I…”

  “Then kiss me, please, Drove,” she whispered.

  I leaned over her and pressed my lips inexpertly against hers. Her arms went around the back of my neck and something happened inside my chest; suddenly our lips were much softer and much more together, and I felt her tongue touching against mine as she uttered a long wordless sound of delight.

  When at last I thought it was time to sit up again, she was looking at me uncertainly. She wanted to say something, but it took her a little while to get started.

  “Drove,” she said at last. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Uh.”

  “I want to tell you something but it’s the sort of thing people much older say,” she said hurriedly. “So it might sound funny. Drove…?”

  “Yes?”

  “I will love you for all of my life, Drove.”

  When we rejoined the others they were sitting apart, staring down at the water, conversation having flagged. Ribbon looked up in obvious relief on hearing our approach.

  “Whatever have you two been doing all this…Oh…” Her expression changed as she looked at us searchingly, then a faint smile crossed her face. Wolff continued to stare silently at the ship beneath us. It had edged considerably nearer the wharf and now I recognized the man in the crow’s nest.

  It was Silverjack.

  “I suppose he was the best they could get,” said Ribbon after I had pointed this out. “After all, he does know the waters well. If only he wasn’t so unreliable.”

  We watched as the ship moved closer. It was the largest vessel I had even seen; two-masted—but all sails were now furled. A shattered spar and some unidentifiable wreckage aft bore testimony to the Astans’ guns. Amidships stood a tall funnel flanked, on either side of the hull, by giant paddle wheels. These too were damaged; jagged timbers dangled as they revolved slowly. On the deck stood a number of objects covered by white canvas and, presumably, the holds were full of cargo. Despite this, she rode the water far too high, perched top-heavy on the grume like a floating snowdiver.

  “They’re having trouble,” said Ribbon suddenly, an edge to her voice.

  Figures were gesticulating on the deck, waving at Silverjack. A dangerous list had developed and the tugs, manoeuvring carefully to avoid the rocks protruding from the surface, were slow to correct it. The steamer heeled slowly until one huge paddle was half underwater and Silverjack hung over the sea from the slanting mast. A fusillade of harsh puffs ascended from the two starboard tugs as they strove to haul the steamship upright. We heard faint cries from the wharf below.

  For an age the ship hung there, teetering on a precarious balance as the thick water churned slowly about the stems of the tugs.

  “It’s all that deck cargo,” Ribbon murmured. “Pull, freeze you!” she urged the tugs. “Pull! “

  She was the daughter of a fisherman and had a feeling for ships and the men in them: a sense of responsibility in such matters which I couldn’t be expected to possess. So I didn’t blame myself too much when I found I was hoping the ship would capsize. The whole thing was so exciting that it would be a crippling anticlimax if the steamship were safely berthed.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she righted herself, water spilling in thick dribbles from among the damaged paddle mechanism. The cables tightened on the opposite side, holding her, and Ribbon breathed a groan of relief…

  The disaster occurred with slow inevitability. One of the port tugs seemed to fidget in the water, propeller churning, simultaneously uttering a blast of alarm on its whistle. The long cable attached to a post in its bows had broken—or maybe the post itself had fractured with the tremendous strain. The cable rose in the air, curling towards the steamship like a striking snake but more slowly, high and heavy. There was a fierce grinding crash as the tug ran backwards into a rock and the screw bit into granite and shattered. Then came the splintering, rending scream as the flying cable sliced through stays and shrouds, looping over the deck of the steamship as men flung themselves in all directions, finally wrapping around the mast and felling it in a tangle of ropes, wires and canvas. As the mast toppled towards the water the figure of Silverjack broke free in a clumsy dive. He surfaced almost instantly, swimming strongly towards the wharf.

  Meanwhile the steamship was heeling over again and this time nothing could save it. Ribbon looked away and there were tears in her eyes; to her the ship represented all ships, and any one of the men might easily have been her father. I put my arm around her and held her as we watched. I knew Browneyes wouldn’t mind, now.

  The deck cargo on the port side broke free, item by lumbering item of machinery, and rolled across the deck to crash into the starboard cargo, dislodging some of that, too. The steamer heeled further and men jumped into the sea as the cargo dropped over the side, raising low, slow splashes. I saw that the underside of the hull was painted green and flecked with weed and shellfish as it lifted slowly from under the water.

  The tragedy of the thing had got through to me now, maybe communicated from Ribbon’s trembling body to mine. Browneyes was gripping my hand as she stared miserably down, and Wolff wore an odd expression of fastidious disgust as though the whole drama was too strong for his gentle sensibilities. So we watched the steamship capsize, and soon only the long, curved green bottom was visible, with the tugs standing by helplessly, defeated.

  The majority of the crew were swimming towards the wharf: swiftly and easily, buoyed up by the grume. There was no danger there; the only tragedy in this was the loss of the living ship. Some of the men climbed on to the tugs where they immediately began to gesticulate in furious altercation. Meanwhile the grummets swooped around and I remember thinking it was fortunate the grume was no further advanced; at the time of maximum density the deadly grume-riders would have been bounding across the surface to the scene. And later, the scavengers…

  We heard a
deep, rumbling roar, seemingly from within the heavy ocean itself. The spine of the upturned ship erupted in a geyser of steam and debris as water reached the furnaces and the boilers burst. Timber, machinery, other shapes terrifyingly manlike were flung into the air; I watched a large piston rod suspended for a long second at the summit of its arc almost level with the clifftop, before it fell away and hit the water with a soft plop, hardly a splash.

  Giant slow bubbles arose like dying gasps as the long cigar of the ship disappeared beneath the surface and sank irretrievably to the bottom of the Pallahaxi Trench.

  CHAPTER 13

  I was of an age when the concerns of the adult world around me rarely entered my consideration. Although I was technically at the mercy of that world, I paid scant heed to its climate, rarely bothering to enquire the reason whenever I saw my parents creeping about the house in sepulchral silence, glum of face. Whatever the crisis was, I had confidence that it would soon go away. An offshoot of this attitude was the scepticism with which I regarded my mother’s war map. Although she could be practically in tears when moving back an Erto war flag—thus conceding our native soil to the Astans—to me it was just a flag, nothing more. I could not appreciate the symbolism behind the strip of coloured paper.

  In the rapid events which followed that day on Finger Point, however, I was forced to acknowledge the existence of this other world, and the fact that it applied to me, here and now.

  We received an early visitor on the morning after the sinking of the steamship and this in itself should have alerted me; but it was pleasant in bed, and through the window I could see right across the bay. Whatever discussion was proceeding around the breakfast table was of no interest to me. I heard a motorcart arrive, I heard voices from the front door and later from downstairs, but I paid no heed. I lay there dreaming of Browneyes and the things we’d said to each other yesterday.

  At last I put some clothes on and went downstairs. My mother and father sat at the table, looking grave; and with them was HorloxMestler. He smiled at me cheerfully. As the conversation resumed I had the distinct impression—and this is nothing unusual—that the topic had been adroitly switched with my arrival. Things had been under discussion which were not suitable for young ears.

  At present they were discussing the time and place of some unspecified event. A favourite gambit of my father’s is to carry on an intriguing conversation with another adult without actually mentioning the crux of the matter, thus driving me insane with the suspense.

  “The fishmarket will be quieter by mid-morning,” he was saying. “The early catch will have been sold off.”

  “The evening would have been best,” Mestler said thoughtfully. “But we can hardly contravene our own curfew. No, it will have to be mid-morning.”

  “The temple?”

  “I think so. There’s something so…undignified, about an open-air meeting.”

  “A meeting about what? “ I asked.

  Father barely glanced in my direction. “I quite agree.” He wiped his lips methodically and rose. I’ll see to the announcement and organize the temple staff.”

  “I’ll be down later,” said Mestler, remaining seated. “I’m in no hurry. I always like time to collect my thoughts before these occasions. Then I don’t become flustered by hecklers.”

  “Hecklers?” Father’s expression was grim. “By Phu, there had better not be any hecklers!”

  “Oh, go along with you, Burt,” chuckled Mestler. “There are always hecklers. It’s part of the game.”

  Grunting, my father left and shortly afterwards I heard the puffing of the motorcart. Mestler turned to me. “Perhaps I can give you a ride down to the town later on, Drove. My cart is outside.”

  “Oh, that is kind of you, Horlox-Mestler,” said my mother before I could reply. “Thank Horlox-Mestler, Drove.”

  “Uh,” I said.

  “I noticed you in the temple the other day with young Pallahaxi-Browneyes and Ribbon,” said Mestler with twinkles in his eyes.

  “He spends so much time with them,” lamented mother. “I’ve spoken to him again and again but it’s no use; he just won’t listen. The daughter of an innkeeper and the daughter of a political agitator.”

  “Don’t forget Wolff, mother,” I put in. “The son of a Parl.”

  Mestler laughed outright. “Don’t worry about the boy, Fayette. Let him choose his own friends. Besides, there’s no harm in your son being acquainted with the general public. It might even come in useful.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that last remark, so I preserved a careful silence while mother chatted on about shortages and rationing—subjects about which she knew nothing. Ignorance, however, has never inhibited her conversation.

  Later Mestler and I climbed into his motorcart—it was an even more imposing vehicle than my father’s—and drove to the town. The crier was standing at the foot of the monument, portable steamwhistle fired up beside him. As we passed, he pulled the handle of the machine and the small basin of the harbour echoed to the shrill squeal, then he began to announce the meeting in his stentorian voice. I noticed sullen faces around; the people had divined that any meeting called by the Government was likely to have unpleasant consequences.

  Instead of heading for the cannery Mestler took the Finger Point road and soon we were bumping along the track among the trees, the water gleaming far below. I was annoyed. I’d intended to get off in the town and call on Browneyes, but he hadn’t given me a chance. He stopped close by the place where Browneyes and I had sat yesterday, then motioned me out and together we walked to the edge of the cliff and stood looking down at the water. The grummets were even more numerous than before and I saw several small skimmers below, their inquisitive crews peering into the depths for signs of the wreck. There was very little activity on the new quay; the crane stood idle and two or three men sat around a lox and cart.

  “So you know Strongarm pretty well,” said Mestler unexpectedly.

  “Uh.”

  “I understand he’s the best seaman hereabouts…I’ll put it to you frankly, Drove, we’re in trouble. The sinking of the Ysabel yesterday makes matters very awkward for the Government. You’ll hear all about that at the meeting.”

  Ysabel. The name was familiar.

  “We want to raise her,” he continued. “To do this, we need a man with a complete knowledge of local waters and the grume. We need an expert sailor—but more than that: a man who can round up crews, persuade bubble-divers to go down, estimate the tide and the density and the currents. We need Strongarm.”

  A curious thought had occurred to me; I don’t know why. Mestler was unaware that I had witnessed the sinking of the Ysabel from close range—he probably thought the only witnesses, apart from those actually involved, were the few fishermen who may have been passing at the time, too far away to see much.

  “After the way Strongarm was treated at the last meeting, I don’t think he’d help the Parls,” I said firmly.

  Mestler’s eyes widened, he looked almost comically bewildered. “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s going on? If he helps Parliament, he helps himself and all of Pallahaxi. How did this hostile attitude come about? Do these people in Pallahaxi realize who the enemy is? Has everyone gone insane?”

  “Well, if you don’t know, I’m sure I don’t,” I muttered. I wanted to get back to town. I wanted to get away from Mestler because I thought he was going to try to persuade me to use my influence with Strongarm.

  “The grume…” Mestler was murmuring, recovered from his outburst. “That’s what’s at the bottom of it all. That’s why the people around here think they’re different from anyone else. The grume knits them together; their whole life-style is moulded around one phenomenon…” He was staring at the heavy ocean as he spoke almost to himself. “Inland, it’s either desert or farming or industries. Until the war broke out there was an expanding motorcart industry in Horlox, do you know that? The biggest in Erto. But we’v
e never been able to raise the sugarplant successfully here, so we had to import nearly all our distil from Asta. And when the war came…There were a lot of people thrown out of work in my town, did you know?”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about what happens up there,” I said shortly. Adults infuriate me, the way they always ramble on about hard times.

  He was looking at me closely. “You wouldn’t, would you? In a way you’re much closer to Pallahaxi than even your own town. I wonder why that is? The grume seems to get into the very blood of you people.” He smiled, and despite myself I felt flattered at the way he included me with Pallahaxi. I’ll swear that if a Pallahaxi man cuts himself at this time of the year, the blood runs thick. And yet they’re ignorant. They accept the grume for what it is, and they never pause to consider the reason, the implications.”

  “Why should they?” I was annoyed. “The grume is a fact. It happens. Isn’t that all that matters?”

  Below us a large skimmer was ghosting quietly across the water with net-booms stretched like welcoming arms. It weaved its way carefully through the protruding rocks then tacked, sail swinging lazily, and headed out to sea, along the line of the Trench. The man at the tiller was Strongarm and I wondered what he was doing there, well off his usual fishing grounds.

  “You disappoint me, Drove. You speak like the people here, as though the grume has always been with us. Remember, everything has to have a beginning. Once there was no grume. The water remained the same consistently, and at almost the same level, all the year round.”

  This was hard to conceive, and I said so. “Our world revolves around the sun Phu on an elliptical orbit,” I quoted from my learnings. In summer we come close to Phu, and the ocean evaporates, causing the grume. In the drench comes the rain as the water condenses from the atmosphere. Winter is cold, because the sun is a long way off. It’s quite simple.”