Beneath Ceaseless Skies #72 Read online

  “Observe the thick lips and distorted nose, clear indications of a brutal nature,” he said, prodding my face with perfumed fingers. “The pronounced slope of the boy’s forehead shows negative benevolence, and you’ll note the convexity of the area above the ears, signs of an overly developed organ of destructiveness.”

  His own features were leonine. He looked like there should be a statue somewhere in his honor.

  “The records state,” his assistant said, “that his father was transported three years ago. He comes of criminal stock.”

  “My pa is no criminal, sir,” I said, voice quivering.

  “That is for the law to decide.” The governor kept poking my head. “Where are you from, boy?”

  “Liddonfield, sir.”

  “An industrial town, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I shall venture to guess that you lived in the immediate proximity of a factory, yes?”

  “Just down the street from the McIver Engine Works, that’s where my pa worked before—”

  “Ah, I see, an engine works,” he said, glancing back at his assistant. “The poor child never had a chance.”

  “Sir?” I said.

  He turned back to me and said, “It’s all here, under your scalp. These protrusions and concavities are the map of your character. I’ve noted a clear statistical tendency towards greater abnormality in those raised in the proximity of industrial facilities. Or, to put it in terms you’ll understand, factories breed mad bastards.”

  “It’s not my fault I am what I am, then, is it, sir?”

  “Your nature is inborn.”

  It was a terrifying thought.

  “Sir,” I whispered, and God help me if I wasn’t earnest, “is there nothing that can be done? To make me become like you are, sir.”

  He leaned back, his gaze searing me to the core. “You impudent pup, you can’t rise above your station. The only cure for your criminal tendencies is piety and hard labor.”

  He dismissed me with a cuff on the ear.

  * * *

  We convicts were dispatched to labor camps across this great continent. I ended up at Harlot’s Bush, an open-pit mine in the foothills at the edge of the McCallum Desert.

  Hundreds of us, covered in crimson dust like so many devils, extracted redrock from the earth with pick and shovel. Veins of it pulsed with strange energy. This was the stuff that powered industry back in the mother country.

  It was dangerous work, make no mistake. None of us were unaffected by exposure to redrock. The side effects were unpredictable. Some poor souls succumbed to the red horrors—the power of the damned stuff drove them insane. Others saw their bodies rebel against them, becoming monstrous, and they were taken out at night and put out of their misery.

  Only a lucky few benefited, I among them. One night I awoke and thought it must be dawn. I saw the world as through a tinted glass, dimmer than in the day yet bright enough. Everything had a flat luminosity. I looked out, saw only a sliver of moon, and knew it should be pitch dark—yet I could see clearly. The effect persisted momentarily when I closed my eyes. Over the weeks, my blindsight improved and I amused myself by watching my fingers through my closed eyelids. I kept my new talent to myself.

  As we toiled, we sang of the day when we would be handed our Freedom Papers. Ten years and I would be released—too late, much too late, I’d be broken by then. But escape seemed futile. Every week, the screws read out the names of convicts who had tried and failed. The ones who didn’t die in the outback were captured and either flogged or hanged.

  Two years into my servitude, the screws lined us up in orderly rows to hear the latest list of shame. The warden gave his customary speech about the wages of sin. I paid little attention until he said my father’s name. He had escaped six months earlier from Sweatfoot in the northeastern territories. And now he was dead.

  Better dead than a slave, he must’ve thought. My father had always been a proud man. That’s why he was sent here. One day the owner of the McIver Engine Works came to inspect the premises and my pa stepped up to him and complained about the unsafe working conditions. That very month there had been two fatalities and nine men wounded. The boss told him to step aside, but pa would not have any of it. They shoved him to the floor. He picked himself up and with a piece of pipe gave his boss a lesson in work safety.

  At the trial, when he was asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he said he wasn’t.

  * * *

  I resolved I would be worthy of being called my father’s son.

  I slipped under the barbwire fence, equipped only with a flask of water, matches, and several lumps of redrock. There was no moon but the pitch darkness didn’t slow me down. I ventured into the outback, nerves raw with terror and exhilaration.

  At dawn, I headed to higher ground through stands of trees pungent with eucalyptus. From the edge of a bluff, I saw Harlot’s Bush some six miles behind me, nestled in the curve of the foothills that rose to the Eastern Range. I felt like the master of all I surveyed.

  When the sun was high overhead, I heard my pursuers. Birds took flight, cawing in alarm, as the screws rode through the brush, slowed by the thick trees. Since I had little knowledge of bushcraft, the tracks I left must’ve been as easy to read as a broadsheet.

  I didn’t have much time. My plan was desperate—I set fire to the undergrowth. Fueled by the redrock, the flames spread with alarming speed and soon engulfed the dry trees.

  I heard men shouting, “Bushfire! Turn back!”

  I hoped I could outrun it. Fire leapt from branch to branch, always slightly ahead of me. Burning leaves spun in the acrid air. Behind me I heard the roar of an inferno.

  For miles I ran. My lungs were needled with quicksilver pain and the taste of smoke and blood was in my mouth. I began to see through a red filter, but I kept up my pace until at last I came to the edge of the forest.

  A great plateau stretched out before me, nothing but rocks and sand where fire could not take hold, and I have never been so happy to see such a desolate place.

  * * *

  The next morning, in a shady copse where I’d collapsed after trudging across the plateau, I woke to the sight of a young man in a safari suit staring down at me with a supercilious sneer. He was a gentleman of means, from the looks of him. A lady in a riding outfit and a pith helmet leaned against a tree, toying with a shiny brass instrument.

  “What say we play blindman’s run?” he said.

  “Let’s,” she said. “I wager ten pounds he won’t last more than half a minute.”

  “I accept. He seems an agile little monkey.” The gentleman kicked me in the belly. “It’s time to rise.”

  I curled up around the pain. “Please, sir.”

  He hauled me up and tied my hands behind my back and put a burlap sack on my head.

  “Now we shall have some sport,” he said. “On my command, run through the trees as fast as you can. If you slow down or stop, you’ll find I’m a crack shot. Now—run!”

  I charged off, blind as the proverbial. Low branches raked my head. At any moment I could’ve tripped on a root or run straight into a tree.

  I let my instincts take over. The space around me revealed itself to me. I could visualize the forest, each root and fallen tree, all the colors strange and smeared. Weaving through the trunks at full tilt, I believed that I might escape after all. I heard muted cries and pistol shots, and my blindsight revealed the trajectories of the bullets.

  My hot breath washed over my face. I could’ve kept running forever but the burlap around my head didn’t let in enough air. Still I kept running until I was out of breath and collapsed gasping onto the ground.

  Rough fingers untied the bag.

  “Damn your eyes, boy, you led us on a merry chase—how did you do that?”

  I whispered, “Redrock.”

  They exchanged glances. The woman placed her hands behind her back. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  Wit
h my eyes closed, I could see them clearly. “Four.”

  She tried that a few more times and I got it right every time.

  “It’s uncanny,” he said.

  She examined me from head to toe. “He would pass for a proper little gypsy.”

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, then?” he said.

  “It would be most amusing.”

  “Good, it’s decided then. He’ll be a sensation, I’m sure.” He tapped my cheeks. “Won’t you, little gypsy?”

  I nodded—whatever they had in mind would be better than being forced to return to Harlot’s Bush. He hauled me to my feet and untied the rope around my wrists.

  “How many years do you still owe His Majesty’s Government?” he said. “Don’t lie, lad. I’ll check.”

  “Eight.”

  “Sir.”

  “Eight, sir.”

  “Then you’ll serve out the rest of your sentence with us.”

  I glared at them with suspicion. “And then you’ll let me go?”

  “You have my word.”

  “What was your name?” the lady asked.

  “Ma’am, my name’s Jack Cunningham.”

  “Was, lad. Jack is dead now. Eaten by a beast, perhaps.” She ruffled my hair. “Let’s think of a more colorful name for you, eh?”

  * * *

  Stiff in a starched tuxedo, I stepped through velvet curtains into a drawing room. Some thirty men and women in eveningwear watched me with expressions of mild interest. I bowed to them and said, in an outrageously thick accent, “Good evening. I am Radu Malik. Please may I have volunteer?”

  “I shall outfox the pikey, just you wait and see,” someone whispered—a tall young twit, his thin cheeks ruddy from drink. He made a show of patting his pockets and said to one and all, “I still have my pocketbook and watch on my person. Not for long, I venture.”

  There was muted laughter.

  “Please come to stage, sir.”

  “Right ho. Well, then, show us your gypsy wiles.”

  I handed him a blindfold. “Please tie around my head.”

  “Nonsense. That’s the oldest trick in the book.” From his pocket, the twit produced two handkerchiefs, which he then folded into squares. “In the Seventh Regiment, when blindfolding a man we first place pads on his eyes to ensure the sneaky blighter can’t sneak a peek, what.”

  “Very well, sir.” I refrained from quipping that I hoped his handkerchiefs weren’t used.

  Once he had tied the blindfold, I said, “Now we start with simple trick. Please take this pack of cards, choose a card, and hold it up.”

  “Oh I shall, once you’re facing the other way,” he said, and turned me around.

  I saw him clearly behind me. He drew a card and I said, “Ten, sir. The ten of hearts.”

  This produced applause. I smiled, knowing I had them now.

  “Once more, sir.”

  Again I answered with the correct card. He grunted and flexed his fingers restlessly, then drew two cards.

  “Would sir please decide which he would prefer, the queen or the jack,” I said, to much laughter, and the twit wheeled on his heels and returned grumbling to his seat.

  At the back of the room, my new masters looked on with amusement at my first performance. They were Terrence and Jane Groves, aristocrats of leisure and amateur bounty hunters.

  “We try harder tricks now, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The hardest trick of all would have been to escape. Trying to run away from them would have ended badly for me. Without money and identification, I could never leave Sutterland—and in this blasted country, a fugitive was never safe.

  In the months that followed, I performed for army officers, diplomats and wealthy merchants in all the civilized outposts of this godforsaken land, and never broke character in public.

  When I was not Radu Malik, I did menial chores for Anthony, the Groves’ manservant. He taught me to read—and from him, I learned about the speech and ways of gentlemen, knowledge that I knew would serve me well when I was a free man.

  * * *

  After I turned fifteen, things changed.

  One evening, my masters summoned me to the smoking room. Terrence said, “Little gypsy, you’re a useful wee beastie.”

  Jane puffed on a most unladylike cigar, leaned back in her leather chair, and said, “We believe we might have further uses for you.”

  “An adventure, if you like,” Terrence said. “Are you a horseman?”

  “I’ve ridden a nag, sir.”

  “Good. Anthony will instruct you further. Next month, you’ll join us on the hunt.”

  “Sir?”

  “I think you’ll enjoy it. Now run along, there’s a good lad.”

  * * *

  We set out at dawn from Agatha’s Misfortune, a labor camp in the southern coastal forests. Red light filtered through the trees as Anthony and I rode at a respectful distance behind Terrence and Jane. They hardly glanced at the spoor—two days ago, in their pursuit of the escaped convict, the screws had left a trail so clear that even a novice like me could follow it.

  We headed deeper into the woods until we came to a wide brown river. The water squirmed with vicious snakelike creatures as thick as a man and twice as long. This is where the screws had turned back.

  “Chances are that our escapee has long since been digested and his bones spat out,” Jane said. She dismounted and examined the ground through a brass instrument. “Or perhaps not!”

  She led us northward and away from the river until the light faded.

  Jane called me to the front and said, “What do you see?”

  “Shadows, ma’am.”

  “Can you detect his trail?”

  I closed my eyes. At first, I saw nothing but the forest. Then I picked up on evidence—a broken twig here, the faintest impression of a footprint there.

  I nodded.

  “Right then,” she said, “we shall have our supper and a nap.”

  It was full dark when we resumed the hunt. With me at the lead, we made slow but steady progress. My masters and Anthony followed behind with the horses, illuminating their way with hooded redrock lamps. All through the night I tracked the convict, predatory excitement mounting, a steady thrum of bloodlust. I could understand why my masters were as addicted to the hunt as an opium fiend to his pipe. God help me, if I had come upon the poor soul in that darkness I would’ve tried to kill him myself.

  Dawn flooded the forest with golden light. Jane picked up on the spoor and led us on.

  “Good little gypsy,” she said. “We’ve gained on him.”

  At around noon, we emerged from the forest onto grassland. Further off, a lake shimmered and on its rocky shore sat a lone human figure. We closed the distance at a furious gallop.

  The escapee took to his heels, but it would’ve been better for him to stay where he was. A predator that sees fleeing prey is consumed by a single thought—to kill. The man’s back was an irresistible target for Terrence’s polo mallet. The escapee sprawled, and in moments my masters had dismounted and were on him, kicking in his head and ribs. They laughed as they hauled him up and Jane slipped a noose around his waist and tied the other end to Terrence’s saddle and I too grinned with delight. Terrence mounted and spurred his horse on, the man screaming as the rocky ground tore him.

  Anthony met my eyes for the briefest moment, moved by a rare flicker of emotion, then rode to the edge of the lake. There he watched the water until our masters had finished with their fun.

  It took the escapee an hour to die.

  * * *

  On the way back, we set up camp for the night.

  During my watch, I listened to my masters snore and thought about how they had killed the convict, all pretence of civilized behavior gone.

  We had hung the man’s body by the feet from a tree to keep it safe from carrion beasts. I had not seen his face clearly before my masters turned him into something unrecognizable, less than human. It disturbed me now that I
had helped kill him, but I couldn’t even say what he looked like in life.

  I walked to the edge of the firelight where the body was suspended. His face was nothing but meat and bone, but the shape of his skull revealed itself to my blindsight. I recalled my encounter with Governor Bidwell, the amateur criminal anthropologist. If he had been there, he would certainly have said that these concavities and bumps were a map of a defective nature.

  On impulse, I attuned my eyes to my masters’ tent—I had never before dared to examine them, under the skin. Their skulls were finely sculpted, model specimens of superior humanity. We could not have been more unalike. Yet I saw myself in them and them in me, for now I understood that if factories breed mad bastards, so does privilege.

  Terrence coughed once, then crawled out of the tent.

  “Something the matter, little gypsy?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I felt something pass over me. A chill of sorts.” He came over to the fire in his long johns and sat down, then took a sip from a silver flask and passed it to me. I savored the whisky, and for a long time neither of us spoke.

  He looked into the fire, his eyes like oil. “What did you think of the hunt?”

  “Most exciting, sir.”

  “That it was. But there’s a curious emptiness that follows. A sense of futility.” He drank long and deep. “I wonder, was that how you felt when we captured you?”

  “Sir ...”

  “You may speak freely.”

  “Yes, sir. I longed for freedom—but I was relieved to hear that I wouldn’t be sent back to that hellhole, sir.”

  He gestured toward the dead escapee. “It’s an act of mercy to bring them back dead. Those places aren’t fit for beasts.” As if reconsidering his words, he shook his head. “Then again, many of these buggers are worse than animals.”

  “But not all, sir.”

  “No, not all. When your time with us is over, you’ll be able to start afresh, with a new identity. Not many men have that opportunity.”

  “Thank you, sir.”