Corvus Page 16

  'He really is a cognoscens, you know,' Zach said.

  'But he looks nothing like any of you!'

  He shrugged. 'Better for him.'

  'You know what I mean.'

  'Different DNA coding, maybe.' She frowned as he added, 'New improved model.' She never knew how he managed to convey so much mockery—self-mockery—without the least change in tone or expression. Perhaps it was the way his eyes became as opaque as old glass—antique glass, beautiful and priceless.

  'Are there others like him?' she asked.

  'None that I've run into.'

  Laura understood the unmistakable implications, but before she could question him further, Max appeared in the doorway, pyjamas and toothbrush in hand. Grinning with a certain cheeky sheepishness, he didn't quite meet their gaze, as if he knew they'd been talking about him. You moron, she thought, of course he knows. Only gradually was she beginning to grasp what this all meant, what it must have always meant.

  'How long have you been able to sense our thoughts?' she asked.

  Max glanced at Zach, then reached again for his collar, only to release it when Zach picked up a pillow and tossed it at her brother, who fielded it with his free hand to toss right back. Zach ducked, then laughed. There was an easiness in their exchange which Laura recognised as more than the usual male bonding. She'd always be excluded from parts of Zach's life, and now from parts of Max's as well. It doesn't matter, she told herself sternly, you don't need to read every word to enjoy a novel, you don't even have to own a dictionary. But her throat tightened, her chest, and the feeling came back to her then, that terrifying paralysis when she was called on to read aloud in her first years at school. How hard she had tried to make sense of the black squiggles on the page! On a screen it had been even worse; they would never stay put long enough to share their secrets, though sometimes one or another would stop and wink. Around that time her dreams had come to be dominated by a yew-like maze whose openings would disappear whenever she was about to step through, whose hedges shifted and writhed and grew dense with thorn, while the giggling, chattering voices from the centre grew piercing with teasing: the magic spell, stupid, you haven't learned the magic spell.

  'Sometimes you woke me,' Max said. 'I can still see those monstrous hedges.'

  'Even back then?' Laura asked. 'You were tiny.'

  Max nodded and bundled his pyjamas into his backpack. 'It took me a long time to figure out which stuff was mine, and even longer to realise nobody else was like me, but by then Dad had warned me never ever to speak of it. Though a few times I came close to telling you. When the nightmares were really bad.'

  'Why didn't you?'

  'Why do you think?'

  'I'd never have cozzed you up to Dad.'

  'Yeah, I know. But you'd have been scared of me.' Laura began to protest but Max cut her off with a sad half-smile. 'Just like Dad, though he tries to hide it. Even from himself.'

  Laura went to Max, who submitted to her hug. She could feel the bony jut of his shoulder blades, his ribcage. Over his head she and Zach exchanged glances.

  'Anyway, it got better when I learned to block most of it out,' Max said. 'And Dad gives me medicine to help.'

  'He medicates you?' Somehow this seemed most terrible of all, like a parent plying a small child with cheap booze to keep him quiet, with tranquillisers.

  'Don't be too hard on your dad,' Zach said. 'Max also needs the serum.'

  'That's rich, coming from you.'

  'Maybe I'm learning.' He gestured towards Max. 'Max knows how powerless your dad feels. Fulgur has a stranglehold on its people.'

  'But your own child . . .' Laura's voice trailed off.

  The drift of her thoughts hung in the still, dry air of the room like a pall of acrid smog, and Zach wouldn't have needed Max's gift for it to sting. Abruptly he turned and rummaged in the drawer of his bedside cabinet, while Max found something of great interest on the carpet underfoot, then in the signed and framed photograph on the wall—the one she could never decide whether she liked or hated, even less understood. In luminous black-and-white it showed a small genderless child seated cross-legged on the shore, the glistening sea rising behind it in a huge tidal wave, a glass bowl in its naked lap. In the bowl lay what could only be a human brain, from which the child was eating with a spoon. The child's eyes were dark and lashless and followed you no matter where you went in the room, and you knew that the wave was cresting, cresting very soon. Mostly, Laura thought the child was a girl.

  'Here,' Zach said, handing her a yellowing envelope with his name written in ink on the front, but which bore neither address nor stamps. 'Keep it for me. If the worst happens, you may as well open it. If you're interested.' He sent her brother a swift sidelong glance, and something passed between them from which she was barred. 'Or else give it to Max.'

  Laura turned the envelope over. Thick enough to contain several sheets of paper, possibly some photos. It was sealed and looked as if it had never been opened.

  'What is it?' she asked.

  'A letter from my parents.'

  'You haven't read it?'

  Zach addressed Max. 'We should go. Get your shoes and jacket on, then help your sister with her bad foot. I need the toilet.'

  Max shouldered his backpack while Laura hung back, still staring at the envelope in her hand. Zach had disappeared into the hallway, leaving the door ajar. They heard the soft click of a latch.

  'He needs a moment by himself,' Max said. 'But try to talk to him at the cottage. I think he wants to.'

  'He won't say much, he's far too secretive. But I guess that doesn't stop you.' Immediately she was ashamed of the way his chin puckered.

  'You see,' Max said. 'It's already beginning.'

  She gestured helplessly, for they both knew there'd be no slipping back into the old patterns. 'I'm sorry, it's only that . . .'

  The sound of flushing interrupted their silence.

  'Did he know all along you'd be here tonight?' Laura asked.

  'Yeah, but he promised not to tell. He's the sort to keep his promises.' Max's eyes went to the doorway. 'He's very special, Laura. Please don't . . .' He blushed a bit and lowered his voice. 'I mean, he's nothing like Owen.'

  'Not that it's any of your business, but at least with Owen you know where you stand!' she snapped. Then she remembered the bombing. 'Stood,' she whispered. 'Oh god, he's dead, they're probably all dead.'

  Max closed his eyes for a moment, but they flickered beneath pale green-tinged lids as though he were dreaming underwater. When he opened them again, Laura looked away, looked back, looked and looked. It took her a while to surface, and she found she was slightly out of breath. And frightened for him—to live with this . . . to hide it, always to hide it . . .

  But his tone was matter of fact, in that way a child still. 'Tina—have I got that right?'

  'Trina. What about her?'

  'Trina's lost a leg, she's in hospital. But your other mates went outside for a smoke. They're all OK. A few cuts and bruises.' He reached for his collar, then dropped his hand when, in reflex, Laura's darted forward. 'But there's a lot of really bad feelings—hate stuff. Zach needs to disappear for a while.'

  Trina. Trina, who owned slouchy kidskin ankle boots, metallic python dress boots, suede chukka boots, tooled cowboy boots, sheepskin boots, red stiletto hooker boots, vintage white leather platform boots, lace-up work boots, assorted knee boots, stretchy black velvet thigh-high boots with diamante bows.

  Nothing you can do.

  'And the girl who came with Zach?'

  Max shook his head.

  'You're sure?'

  'Yeah, I'm sure.' He move forward to tug her sleeve. 'Come on, Zach's going to be out in a second.'

  She followed him into the sitting room, where she tucked Zach's letter into her bag and put on her 'borrowed' jacket, wondering uneasily to whom it belonged. Though it was tempting to wear Zach's boots, even if she had to crumple newspaper into the toes, there was no point ruining such a
good pair in the snow. They shone; in a gesture of bravado she positioned them on the couch like two stiff strangers forced to make small talk at a funeral. As an afterthought, she set the black king from Zach's chess set on one upper, the white queen on the other. Then, gingerly, she forced her feet into sodden leather, waving away Max's help, and struggled with the wet laces. Together they went to wait for Zach in the hallway, Laura leaning against a wall to take the weight off her foot.

  'How's your ankle?' Max asked.

  'Tolerable.' She flexed it first in one direction, then the other. 'Not too bad, actually.'

  'What about Mum and Dad?'

  'Don't worry about it. I've already rung them.'

  'And told them what, exactly?'

  'The truth.'

  'Stop sudsing me!'

  'Have a go at my brain if you don't believe me.'

  Now his voice was huffy. 'I'm not a snoop.'

  'Then you're a sight more virtuous than I'd be. Maybe it's the simu in you.'

  'Yeah, you mean like how all the Africans are great athletes, the Asians disciplined, the Aboriginals drunk.'

  'What crap! You know I don't think like that.' She slid the zip on her jacket down halfway, it was getting uncomfortably warm in here. 'And I can tell the truth on occasion. I said there was a bomb, and Zach was so shaken up that I was going to spend the night with him, the weekend if necessary.'

  'And they believed you?'

  'Beautiful, isn't it? They weren't quite sure what to believe.'

  'But—'

  'I've got my mobie, I'll keep clocking in. What are they going to do, ring the police?'

  'They might.'

  'Never. They won't even try my friends. Mum's terrified that Fulgur won't promote Dad. After the hospital mess, they'll cover up anything I get into.'

  'She'll have a tantrum when you come home.'

  'Fuck her,' Laura said viciously. 'Maybe this time I'll have a tantrum right back.'

  'They're going to ask me if I know anything. With thumbscrews and cattleprod.'

  'You'll do fine.' She ruffled his hair, which she knew he hated. 'You're turning out to be even more secretive than Zach.'

  Max swayed out of reach, then with a grimace jammed his woolly cap onto his head and zipped his jacket. They could hear Zach moving about in his bedroom, probably picking out a few last essentials. Otherwise the flat was quiet, with the sepulchral hush of a theatre after the audience and actors have left, and there is only a lone cleaner collecting the discarded programmes and crumpled sweet papers and used tissues. Max prodded his backpack with a foot, whistling tunelessly. His breath smelled of Zach's clove toothpaste. Finally he regarded Laura.

  'Zach's not really secretive, you know.'

  'Oh yeah?'

  'No, listen. He's angry a lot of the time. Prickly. But underneath, he's scared and lonely and uncertain. Just like everyone else.' Max paused, kicked some more. 'Believe me, just like everyone else.'

  Chapter 22

  For the next three days Zach practises a great deal on what could be deemed a clarinet only by a play of his imagination, gradually developing his facility so that, at times, the instrument becomes his own. Lev dismisses Zach's questions with an infuriating 'the best learning is self-taught'—admittedly reminiscent of Sean—and as the tent shrinks, Zach spends longer and longer outside in the blizzard. He and Lev take turns exercising the dogs, though Lev insists on a safety line, as if Zach were fool enough to race off at the first whiff of caribou. When Lev proposes yet another game of Pace, Zach barely controls his flare of irritation. He stalks to the strut from which the traces are hanging.

  'I'll be back soon,' he mutters, 'the dogs could use a run.'

  'Don't forget your own tether.'

  'Sod it, stop reminding me!'

  'Need to cool off?' Lev asks rather too solicitously.

  Zach tells himself that he'd probably be ready to throttle a teddy bear after another day at such close quarters.

  The wind has dropped, and though it's still snowing, the flakes are fat and soft and almost frothy, falling lushly rather than flinging themselves like shards of glass into his face. The temperature must be rising; in the extreme cold, snow is powdery. The last time he'd gone out, his goggles clogged, and he made the mistake of lifting them. The tears which spurted into his eyes froze his lids shut almost straightaway, and he hauled himself back to the tent along the guide rope, blind and thoroughly chagrined.

  Perhaps they'll be able to break camp tomorrow. He stops to switch off the torch and peer at the sky, trying to convince himself that the cloud cover is thinning. He hasn't seen the moon in days but knows it's out there. Out there, and singing offkey. With a bitter laugh at his own absurdity, he nevertheless risks frostbite by baring his ears for a spell of magical listening. In the meanwhile the dogs vanish like wraiths, their silhouettes blanching into the snow on their extra-long traces. There's a moment of cognitive fade, when it's impossible to tell whether he still sees them or merely remembers their shape. Bella is the last to disappear.

  In thickly falling snow you move through a labyrinth of self-sealing chambers, recursive like the worst metafiction. Now would be the time for Someone Authorial to pitch up and juggle those fictional devil sticks. Yo Zach, break outa that sad sealed self. Rap an epiphany? An alchemist's retort? A matrioshka brainwave? Or how 'bout Ben? Pesky, tagalonelong Ben? Gotcha. WHAM! BANG! ZAP! Right over there, bro.

  But no matter which way you turn, you see no further than the billowing sheets of snowy, tangled neurofibrils. No matter how loud you call, your voice won't be heard. What would you say to Ben, anyway? The treasure was never real? You're sorry, so fucking sorry? Two choices, Zacho, that's all we get: to untie the tether or take it in our clumsy mitts and flounder through the fragile, lonely, dogged business of survival.

  Torch in hand, Zach trudges back to the tent, where he tramples a short path in front of the entrance, but makes no effort to clear away the snow which has drifted high above the snow flaps and helps insulate the interior from the cold. His chest twinges, though it's nothing like that early pain. A few more days, and he'll be ready to run in harness with the huskies. A few more days, and he'll run naked, tearing at his skin.

  Back and forth he tramps, back and forth, playing out the rope to its limit. A bit out of breath now, he forces himself to keep going. Slack muscles will slow them down. And he certainly doesn't want to give Lev an excuse to put off their departure.

  Bella comes bounding out of nowhere. Zach rubs a hand across his goggles and through the smeared plastic sees Patsy and Jagger close behind. All the dogs are covered in snow, and Zach laughs when Bella shakes her head, trying to dislodge the clingy stuff. After a quick sniff at Patsy, Bella thrusts her muzzle in his crotch, then at one of his mittened hands. Some affectionate roughhousing seems called for, part of their usual routine, but Zach is soon puzzled by Bella's actions: repeated nips at his forearm, interspersed with odd little yelps. Huskies rarely bark, but when Bella lifts her head and yowls, his own hackles rise.

  'Where's Rosie?' he asks, suddenly aware that the fourth husky is missing.

  At the sound of Rosie's name, Bella's howling intensifies, with Patsy and Jagger joining in, until Zach begins to edge backwards towards the tent, images of wolves baying at a full moon flashing through his mind. Silver moon, silver snow, silver . . . Of course he doesn't believe in superstitious nonsense like Norse berserkers or skin-walkers or shape-shifters, but an uneasy sense that legends often have some basis in fact nudges him faster towards the entrance. And faster still when he wonders about Mishaal's reading habits; the other programmers. Computer geeks were known for their fondness for fantasy, weren't they? Mythical creatures. Hostile landscapes. The unending, desolate, inhuman snow.

  Might that explain Lev's presence after all?

  'What's going on?' Lev says, his head thrust between the edges of the outer door. 'Why are the dogs making such a racket?'

  Lev's matter-of-fact tone dispels the dense graupel
clouding Zach's thoughts. He reels in the long trace to discover that Rosie's harness is still attached. She must have managed to slip free, something a clever husky will occasionally bring off. Lev takes Jagger out to search.

  'No sign of Rosie,' Lev says an hour later, gratefully accepting a mug of tea and some dried fruit.

  'What could have happened?' Zach asks.

  'Hard to say. We tracked her a good ways, but the terrain became too creviced, the fresh snow cover too thick.'

  'A fall?'

  'Maybe.' But Lev doesn't sound convinced.

  *****

  For the night run before bedding down, Lev checks over the harnesses and traces, then obsessively rechecks them. His better-safe-than-sorry spiel loses its selling power as soon as he takes the gun from his pack and slips it into an anorak pocket. Zach would like to get a closer look at it, and a demonstration if possible, since Lev has been cagey about its particulars, warning that cognitive weapons aren't for the untrained. 'You're a powerful cognoscens, I can't take any chances.' After days of near sloth, the dogs are frisky whenever they're about to be let out, and Lev must perforce leave quickly before they begin to jump around.

  Zach picks up the clarinet with the intention of working on something, just a phrase or two so far, nothing you could even call a melodic fragment, much less a sustained, explicit motif. Electronic reproduction of sound in the last century changed music forever, and no acoustic violinist is without his digital collection or his John Adams; and often plays an electric violin as well. But now Zach has been confronted with an entirely new . . . new what? technology? medium? He has only an inkling of its potential and is already wondering if there's any way to obtain—construct?—such an instrument outside the Fulgrid. Instead of lifting it to his lips, he shuts his eyes and runs his fingers along its length. It could almost be his favourite Buffet. Almost, it could be breathing. Now that's a real twist for Andy: a liquorice stick more alive than the surfeit of hollow 'dead wood' you hear in the clubs. Lev calls it something unpronounceable, loosely translated as 'the joystick which hypnotises infinity beyond angst'—worth a quick laugh but hardly an irresistible sound bite. Zach will stick with clarinet. Never, but never, some sickly-sweet nickname like the saxists fancy. Mouthy up-themselves cretins, most of them.