The Cloud Hunters Page 12

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’ I asked Kaneesh.

  ‘How about, just for a change,’ he said, ‘we have some sky-fish?’

  ‘Sounds fine by me,’ I said.

  ‘Then you can help catch them.’

  Kaneesh threw a couple of lines over the side. As we fished, a flat, wide sky-ray came past, half gliding, half flying. It skimmed the air like a disk. Its flapping wings made a hollow beating sound. I noticed there was a small wound on its side, a cut, still wet with blood. A few minutes later, a sky-shark came along, heading in the same direction, as if in leisurely and confident pursuit, sure that it would get its prey before the day was out. The sky-ray was a dead fish flying.

  As the boat was heavier now, our progress was slower, but still steady. Soon I could make out a dark shape ahead – unmistakably different from everything around it. It seemed to draw in all the surrounding light, sucking the life and energy from it. There were two immense land masses, one beneath the other, and between them was a long, black hole – a tunnel, a kind of living, sentient darkness, a death that feasted on life.

  I joined Jenine by the rail; she stood with her elbows leaning upon it and her face cupped in her hands.

  ‘So that’s the Islands of Night?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s them. And that’s the corridor.’

  ‘Have you sailed it many times?’

  ‘A few.’

  I hesitated to ask my next question. It was a sensitive issue and bound to upset her. But that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be talked about. Maybe she wanted – even needed – to speak about it.

  ‘Is that where the accident happened?’ I asked.

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  ‘What accident?’

  ‘The accident – when your father . . . was killed?’

  She straightened up and looked at me, her eyes cold.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone did. Someone at school. Somebody said. I don’t remember. It might even have been one of the teachers. The day before you came. She said there’s a new pupil joining, from a family of Cloud Hunters, a girl, and we had to go easy on you –’

  ‘Easy! You think I need any special treatment? I can’t stand up for myself?’

  ‘It wasn’t me who said it. I’m just repeating what I was told.’

  ‘Easy! Huh! It’s me who had to go easy! On all of you.’

  ‘OK, Jenine, but I was only saying. Anyway, I’m sorry – sorry about your father. The teacher said there was an accident – that he was swept overboard by a thermal storm –’

  We stood in silence. She seemed offended and to be debating with herself whether to forgive me or not. She must have decided that I hadn’t tried to be insulting deliberately.

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she said finally.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she repeated. ‘There was no accident. And he isn’t dead – at least not yet. Though he soon may be. What you heard was untrue. Nothing like that at all.’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Then what happened? And what do you mean by “not yet”?’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ she said again. ‘He’s a prisoner. Under threat of execution. We’ve tried every legal means to free him and they’ve all been useless. We’ve a stay of execution but no one will implement or uphold it. He’ll be hanged in eight days’ time.’

  ‘But – who by? Where? How? I mean – what are you going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to rescue him,’ Jenine said. ‘And you can help us. Or, at least, I hope you will.’

  ‘I am? But how? That is, when you say rescue him – where from? I mean, what happens if you fail – if you get caught?’

  ‘Well, naturally, if we get caught, they’ll kill us too, won’t they?’

  Oddly, for a second, the statement seemed extremely reasonable. Of course they would. They’d kill us. Quite obviously. Who wouldn’t?

  ‘So we’d better not get caught, then,’ she said. And she turned away and stared at the approaching darkness that was the Islands of Night. Then she looked at me again. ‘But I’ll tell you this, Christien,’ she said, ‘if they do execute him before we get there – then we’ll have to kill a few of them. And then we’ll be even. Won’t we?’

  Yes, I thought, I guess we will. If you say so, Jenine. If you say that’s how it is. Yes, that seems perfectly sensible. We’ll kill a few people. What else would we do? But then the full implications of what she had just told me sank into my brain.

  Rescue her father? From execution? And if we failed, we were going to kill his executioners? Or die in the attempt? That was it? Apparently it was. That seemed, more or less, to sum it up.

  But nobody had told me anything about this beforehand. I’d just come along for the ride. I’d just thought we were going to sell some water and see some sights. I hadn’t been planning on rescuing anybody or getting myself killed.

  I wondered if there hadn’t been a small misunderstanding somewhere along the way. Somehow, somebody had got their lines crossed.

  24

  quenant

  ‘It was not quite one turning ago. And once every half turning we carry water to the Isles of Dissent,’ Jenine continued. ‘To two of them in particular, to Freedom Isle and Hippy Isle. Sometimes to some of the smaller ones as well.’

  There were scores, possibly even hundreds, of islands in that sector.

  Jenine was staring out at the sky. We were alone in it now. There wasn’t another boat anywhere in sight. To our left a shoal of sky-fish swam level with our sails – ten or twenty thousand of them. The leading fish suddenly veered away, and the rest of the shoal followed, as if they were all of one body and one mind, a single organism with ten thousand parts.

  She turned her attention back to me.

  ‘We went to many of the Isles of Dissent over the years,’ she said. ‘The Forbidden Islanders won’t trade with the Dissenters. They’d let them all die of thirst if they could. And they would die, too, if it wasn’t for us. Cloud Hunters and Dissenters have a lot in common.’

  Kaneesh and Carla were watching us from the other side of the boat. But when I looked in their direction, they turned away.

  ‘The Dissenters mostly live by hydroponics,’ Jenine continued. ‘They grow fruit and vegetables in greenhouses. So their need for water is high. Most islands have their own extractors and condensers. But they still need to buy-in water. They can never make enough. Clouds are few and far between in that region and often blown away by the prevailing winds.

  ‘The Dissenters also make artefacts that they trade at island markets, selling or bartering them for whatever they need. Some of the things the Dissenters believe in are quite sensible; others are quite mad –’

  ‘Such as?’ I had to ask.

  ‘You ever heard of people who believe that God is a jellyfish?’

  ‘Well, no – but I’ve heard of other things just as improbable.’

  ‘Look – there’s one there!’ Jenine pointed. ‘Divinity in person.’

  In the distance, a medium-sized sky-jelly drifted by. But it didn’t look particularly divine. Just a bit rubbery.

  ‘Anyway, they’re the weird ones. Others are more sensible. You get free thinkers and Quakers, pacifists, hippies, pagans, witches, animists, all sorts – you name it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, obviously the Forbidden Islanders next door don’t like them. They don’t even like each other. And they didn’t like us selling water to Dissenters.’

  ‘They’d try to stop you?’

  ‘They have done. Or tried to warn us off. They’d send a gunboat, while we were collecting water. Just to be intimidating. But we’d ignore or outmanoeuvre them or lose them in the clouds. They’d get bored after a while and go.’

  ‘But –’ I said. ‘What’s the but?’

  ‘How do you know there’s a but?’

  ‘There’s always a but,’ I said.

  For, even
in my limited experience, there usually was.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that was how it was. But none of the Forbidden Islanders actually attacked us. And as we never docked at any of their harbours, we were relatively safe.’

  ‘But then . . . ?’

  ‘But then . . .’

  Her voice trailed away as we watched the sky-jelly float by. I could see its veins; they looked like threads.

  I waited for her to pick up the story.

  ‘But then . . . one trip . . . our last big voyage . . . we had trouble. Our solar engine failed. We couldn’t fix it and needed spares. There was so little breeze, the wind sails were useless. We had no choice than to drift with the thermals. And as luck had it, they carried us to the Forbidden Isles. And we put ashore at the very worst of them.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Isle of Quenant.’

  ‘What do they believe in there?’

  ‘I can tell you what they don’t believe in.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Making allowances for other people. The Quenant – the people have the same name as the island – don’t like Dissenters at all. Not in any shape or form. They loathe them. All Dissenters are deemed to be heretics. And the Quenant penalty for heresy is death.’

  ‘Death?’

  ‘By hanging.’

  I swallowed.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere near there, are we?’ I asked.

  Jenine looked into my eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly where we have to go.’

  ‘H-how near?’ I said. ‘How near do you mean?’

  ‘Near enough to land there. Because that’s where my father is. Rotting in jail.’

  ‘But why do they hang people? What for?’

  ‘They do it in imitation.’

  ‘Imitation of who? Of what?’

  ‘Of the founder of their religion, who was himself put to death, only by some other bunch of intolerant bigots. He was hanged, and after his death, he was revered by his followers as a holy martyr. The Quenant adopted his means of execution as a religious symbol. It’s everywhere you go, all over the island. There are nooses hanging all over the place, small and large, in chapels and shrines. And whenever you enter a holy building, or give, or ask, for a blessing, you make the sign of the noose.’

  ‘The sign of the noose? What’s that?’

  She showed me.

  ‘Like this,’ she said. ‘More or less.’

  I tried it for myself. It felt an uncomfortable and sinister gesture to be making.

  ‘So what else?’ I said, keen to find out as much as she knew.

  ‘The Forbidden Isle of Quenant is a ghastly place,’ Jenine said. ‘Even as you sail in, the first thing that you see on a hill above the dockside is a huge gibbet, a gallows. It’s massive, with a great noose suspended from it, waving in the wind. One moment it almost seems to be beckoning to you, inviting you to draw near; the next, it seems to be warning you to keep your distance and to stay away.’

  ‘Horrible,’ I said. ‘What a gruesome symbol.’

  She was thoughtful for a moment. Then,

  ‘Hmm . . . yes . . . maybe. That was what I felt at first. But is it though?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you look at some of the other religions, the old established ones. They often have symbols like that too. Look at Christianity. Look at the cross. Is that such an attractive image? A poor man being crucified? Isn’t that a bit gruesome?’

  ‘But that’s different!’ I protested. My own parents were Christians. Not that they were exactly regular church-goers.

  ‘Is it though?’ she said. ‘Is it so different? Then how?’

  I didn’t want to argue with her, so I just shrugged and let her go on.

  ‘Now the law on the Isle of Quenant is that any stranger who sets actual foot on the place is obliged to adopt their religion. You can tie up by the dockside, you can stay onboard your boat, people can come and trade with you, and that’s all right. But if you ever step off your boat, walk along the jetty and then put one foot onto their land, you can be seized and made to convert.’

  ‘And if you don’t convert? Or won’t?’

  ‘Then you’re regarded as denying the Quenant religion. And it’s heresy to do that. And the penalty is –’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think you told me.’

  And, for some strange reason, my collar felt suddenly tight around my neck.

  ‘Are you all right, Christien?’ Jenine asked. ‘You look pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘So what happened next? When you docked at Quenant harbour? Did your father go on land? If so, what made him risk it?’

  ‘Get me a cup of water,’ she said. ‘And I’ll tell you.’

  25

  capture

  We drank some water, and she resumed the story.

  ‘So there was a problem with our boat and we had to dock at the Isle of Quenant. That was the island the thermals carried us to. We had no choice. We tied up at the jetty and hadn’t been there long before some officials came striding along the pontoon and invited themselves on board. My father explained to them what had happened and that we needed to repair the boat.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They said that was fine; that they would send someone to trade with us so that we could buy what we needed.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘That was what we did. They kept their word.’

  ‘So why –’

  ‘Just be patient, will you, Christien? Stop interrupting and let me get on with the story.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘OK. Now. We got the parts we wanted and we paid for them with water. We fixed up the solar engines and we were ready to sail. It was shortly before we were due to leave when it happened. It was early morning, towards the end of the sleeping time. The quay was deserted. We were preparing to cast off when we heard this noise and commotion.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was a man. We’d seen him before, and he was a nasty-looking piece of work. He was dragging a dog along by a length of rope. The dog was trying to dig its feet in to stay put and it was plainly terrified. It was barking and whimpering all the way. But the man kept pulling it along. He brought it to a gibbet by the dockside – part of a shrine where the Quenant sailors prayed before setting off on a journey. He threw the free end of the dog’s lead over the gibbet, pulled hard on it, and yanked the dog up by its neck.’

  ‘He did what! Why?’

  ‘It was a sacrifice, I suppose. An offering to heaven. He was sacrificing the dog.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘My father leapt from the boat. He ran up the jetty and onto the shore. He struck the man down and freed the dog. But as he was untying the lead, the man shouted for others to come to his aid. He was yelling at the top of his voice: “Heathen on land! Heathen on land!”’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘There was just my mother and me. Kaneesh wasn’t with us then. We ran to help my father. But he shouted at us to stay on board, or we would be taken too. There were men coming from everywhere, almost as if they had been hiding, ready and lying in wait for this to happen, almost as if –’

  ‘The whole thing had been arranged?’

  ‘Yes, as if the whole business with the dog had been put up, a staged event to get one of us to come off the boat and go to its defence.’

  I remembered Jenine and the small puppy, that time when the sky-jellies had drifted over our school and how she had risked her life to save it. I wondered if she had done so because she had seen her father act in the same way. Maybe it had been done in his honour. Maybe she just hated to see suffering. Or maybe it was simply that nothing inspires people more than living example.

  ‘So then?’ I said. ‘What next?’

  ‘They overpowered him. He’s strong, but he was just one against many. They seized him, tied his arms, and put – they put a noose around his neck – and led him awa
y.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We didn’t know what to do. We were afraid to leave the sanctuary of the boat and equally afraid to leave the island. We couldn’t abandon him and yet we dared not set foot on the dockside. People came and gathered at the end of the jetty, as if waiting for us to step on to their land, so that they could take us too.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘We waited. Waited and waited. For hours and hours. Riddled with fear and dread and indecision. Finally a man came to see us. He was dressed differently to the others and looked important. He wore an ornately woven necklace around his throat, which on closer inspection turned out to be another noose. He said he was a priest. He said that my father would be tried the next morning and given the chance to convert to their religion –’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or he would be hanged in due course. On Quenant’s Day.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He refused to convert, of course. As we knew he would.’

  ‘So did they –?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s still imprisoned. They had a trial, of sorts. They like to put on a display of legality to disguise the fact that they’re intolerant bigots. But the verdict’s always guilty. Then they hang all their prisoners at their great annual festival. They like to make a big celebration of it. And that’s on Quenant’s Day. Of course, as it takes place but once a turning, that means you could be on death row for as little as a day or for long as a full twelve dividings.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Everything we could. But it’s all been useless. The Quenant don’t recognise any law but their own. They don’t admit to any higher authority than their saviour and redeemer, Quenant himself. So even though inter-island law bans them from carrying out the sentence, that makes not the slightest difference.’

  ‘So you went to the courts?’

  ‘We went to the International Court and got judgement against them. But so what? What use is judgement without enforcement? And the inter-island authorities don’t have the resources. They’ve got millions of kilometres of sky, and tens of thousands of islands, to patrol. They’ve got all sorts of trouble on their plate – piracy, smuggling, contraband, trafficking. They don’t care about the life of one Cloud Hunter. They’ve got bigger things to worry about. We’re an irrelevance, a speck of dust. And the politicians don’t care either. There are no votes to be had in saving Cloud Hunters from a noose.’