In Solitary (8 page)

When I had finished, I asked Tangiia what the Soal had wanted, even though I was sure that Endrod was pursuing us, and had calculated our approximate position.

‘They asked me about three humans,’ replied Tangiia, ‘two male and one female, and asked if I have seen you. When I ask them “what for?” they tell me both men murder one Soal each and break Soal Law.’

I nodded at Stella, ‘Trust Endrod! The Soal Law! He would overstate his case.’

She was about to answer me when Tangiia spoke again.

‘This is not why Soal came.’

We both looked at him. Fridjt was shuffling around by the fire throwing more fuel on. An open fire was new to both him and Stella and he was playing with it like a toy. The sudden flaring of the dry grass illuminated Tangiia’s face. It carried a puzzled frown.

‘Reason, Soal said, is he wants me to help him. He said sky is falling down.’

I taught Stella how to activate the single
brainstinger we found in the chiton.

It was like most Soal innovations, intricate in design and delicate in construction – holding it was like handling a crayfish with long metal legs and the trigger was a hair-thin wire that was activated by the warmth produced between a thumb and fingertip, pressed together. The victim of the weapon’s waves was transported instantly into a dream world of demons and succubi that tore open the outer flesh to gain entrance to the inner organs – except that to the victim it was no dream. The brainstinger melted all the walls in the brain between the conscious and sub-conscious.

I taught Stella how to work the weapon but we could not test her skill. It could only be used on a sentient being. Stella liked it.

She also became very fond of the fire – in fact there were times when we literally had to pull her away from it.

‘It’s clean and bright,’ she told me incessantly. Why the fetish with cleanliness I had no idea. I saw no harm in a little filth. Sometimes Stella washed and swam so much I could hardly smell her, and that was not conducive to a good sexual atmosphere.

She did all our cooking for us (another excuse to fondle the flames) and made some superb dishes from the local fish and fruit which Tangiia introduced us to. We had breadfruit and yams and several new types of shellfish. Tangiia told us that if we went collecting ourselves we should avoid the cones, for some of them were poisonous. The textile
cone, for example, had a barb harbouring a poison which could be lethal.

All in all our new environment was pleasing, but I feared it was only a matter of time before we were caught. So I resolved to make the best of the time I did have and fill my life with the fruits of enjoyment. This was not a good idea as far as the other two men were concerned, for Stella reserved herself for me alone and would not let either of them touch her. Naturally they became edgy and dispirited and Fridjt never failed to do me some physical annoyance when Stella’s back was turned. I of course replied with a verbal attack, but the whole situation began to turn sour on us. Finally I decided something had to be done, mainly because Tangiia was keeping me awake all hours of the night telling me mournful stories of some girl or woman he had once loved – he thought it was quite in order to wake me from a deep sleep to relate a sorrowful tale that he had already told me a dozen times previously. After walking the long, lonely shallows one evening I went back to the clearing to make a sacrifice and approached Stella with a proposition.

As I entered the patch of jungle which Tangiia had cut especially for the hut he had built for Stella (hoping, I suppose, for a return favour), she was bending over the fire turning a spitted fish that Fridjt had trapped in one of his snares. Tangiia was sitting behind her, a few metres away, rigidly regarding her brown, smooth buttocks. The main problem was in full view.

‘Stella,’ I began as I trod the grass towards her, ‘we’ve got to do something for the other two men.’

She turned and cocked a bushy eyebrow.

‘In what way?’

‘Well,’ I was trying my best to be casual but Tangiia had already perked up and was looking at us intently and I was thankful that Fridjt was nowhere around, ‘not
us
exactly, but
you
. They need a woman. I think you ought to give them what they want, what they
need
– occasionally – when I’m not around.’

She snorted.

‘You
give them what they want! I don’t like them – not for that anyway.’

Tangiia’s head sunk between his knees again and I tried not to look at him.

‘Don’t be foolish,’ I pleaded. ‘You can’t be
that
averse to it – I mean you once had sex with Fridjt.’

‘Fridjt once had sex with me, which is
an entirely different matter. The fact that I chose to let him do that, rather than punch my face did not mean I enjoyed it. However,’ she lowered her voice placatingly as I began to wind up my fury against Fridjt, ‘it’s all over and finished with. We have a problem, but the answer doesn’t lie with me. It lies with them.’ She pointed towards half their number, which was all that was present.

Tangiia smiled broadly. ‘You mean we should go and get woman each?’ he shouted, astounding me by his quick grasp of things.

‘That’s exactly it,’ answered Stella. ‘The sooner the better. We shall all be happier for it.’

Suddenly Tangiia leapt to his feet and began running, down towards his canoe. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was on his way.

‘Wait!’ I called, running after him. ‘Tangiia, wait. Fridjt will want to come too.’

He paused on the sands.

‘No room,’ he said as I caught up to him. The sand was still hot from the day and I had to keep changing feet in a kind of ritual dance to prevent them from burning.

‘Only small canoe. Only room enough for me and,’ he grinned, ‘two females maybe?’

My hopping was amusing him but I felt I had to make sure he would not leave Fridjt without a woman.

‘How will you manage to bring two?’

He nodded and winked.

‘I bring two, don’t worry,’ he replied in that deep resonant voice I envied.

Two strong hands,’ he showed me his opened scarred palms and fingers, then closed them as if gripping hair, ‘two females. I will bring them back – you will see.’

‘Not
too
young,’ I said nervously.

‘Who needs children?’ he tossed his head at me contemptuously as he turned and dragged his canoe down the sand to the edge of the island. The water was low, and would not be up for some time so I tried to persuade him to wait, but he was too eager. He pushed it out towards the reef into
the foam, and swam after the outrigger canoe. His mating canoe.

On impulse I ran after him, I didn’t know why – perhaps it was the thought of riding high in that splinter of a boat that appealed to me? Or was I running away from something? It did not matter – the main thing was I knew I wanted to go.

Tangiia tried to prise my hand away from the canoe as it bobbed up and down in the surf.

‘One of the women will have another boat,’ I said. ‘Please let me come?’

He stared for a moment. ‘We may be gone long time.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I insisted.

He shrugged. ‘If you die, you die. She will hate me,’ he nodded back towards the camp. ‘Maybe. But I don’t care about that. Come.’

With that I scrambled aboard and Tangiia ran the Satawal out, leaping inside when it was near the reef. We rode over the top as if we were as light as the breeze which carried us.

I watched the shoreline until it was a black grin on the vast blue ocean and then I turned and talked to Tangiia to hide the fear I felt at leaving firm ground behind and courting the dangers of the open sea.

‘Have you thought,’ I said to him, ‘what a useful weapon fire would be against the Soal? They cannot abide any sudden change in temperature. Stella wants a rebellion. Perhaps we could find some way of using fire.’

I thought about it for a few moments but realized that the reason I liked the idea so much was because it was a weapon that was remote from the user.

‘If I were practical,’ I continued, ‘I should have to admit that the only sure method is to attack the roots of their existence – the mushroom towers. Destroy one of those and the thermostatic balance over the whole world would be upset. Of course, the whole idea is insane,’ I added regretfully. ‘We have nothing with which we could cause damage.’

Tangiia stared ahead but said, ‘Is that why they are so worried about Ostraylean mushroom? Why they want me and other islanders to help in repairing damage?’

‘Probably. The Ostraylean tower has always had trouble
with subsidence.’

Tangiia paused and idly wiped some seawater from his face while looking in the direction of the great Ostraylean mushroom. There were many such towers scattered around the world but none so large as the one that rose from the north-eastern area of the island continent, up into the banks of cloud above the Earth’s surface. This monster was the thermostat for the whole of the south ocean.

‘If we could only cause that tower to fall,’ I murmured. ‘But one of its girders is as wide as a needle tower. It would take more than a handful of humans to move that monster.’

I fell silent then and allowed Tangiia to manage the outrigger without interruption. It was a pleasure to watch him and I felt very envious of his skill. He was a man, complete and able – confident in himself, and he needed no one else, as I did, to lean upon for support. For all his lack of intelligence – and even that fact might only have been a product of my pride, which would not allow me to believe
anyone
was as clever as myself – he could stand alone. He needed motivating, however, otherwise he would have fetched himself a woman on his own initiative.

‘You know she will be very angry with you?’

He meant Stella, of course, and I nodded.

‘You don’t need to go back,’ he added. ‘There are thousands of islands in my ocean. You can stay away.’

I shook my head.

‘No,’ I said. I needed Stella, whatever she might lead me into. Then I asked him a question.

‘Why haven’t you found yourself a woman before this? Surely everyone does not obey the law to the letter? In fact,’ I added, ‘I seem to be the only human on this earth who does take the law seriously. It appears to be quite normal for young men to slip out into the night to seek comfort in a woman’s arms.’

‘This may be true,’ replied Tangiia, ‘but I do not like all women. Most of them live some way from my island – and I want only one woman – she is … special to me only. Do you understand? I would have gone for her anyway – one day.’

Tangiia had some palm leaves spread on the floor
of the canoe and I began to arrange them on top of me. Partly because it would keep the sun off me the following morning and partly to hide me from prying Soal eyes, should a chiton find its way over us. It was not foolproof – but then nothing was that.

‘I understand,’ I said wearily; falling off to sleep. It only occurred to me as I started to doze that I might offer to help the tanskinned sailor – perhaps take a shift in the night – but his golden statue in the dying light faded from my mind as I drifted off without speaking.

Polynesian navigation is legendary. Legends based on historical
fact. In the early times, long before the Soal arrived, migrating Polynesian fleets carried with them navigators higher in rank even than their kings. Tangiia was aware of only small excerpts of these old stories but he carried in his frame an inherent aptitude for crossing the wide waters of his ocean. It was an inborn skill that had survived a period of high civilization, though it was necessary to couple natural talent with knowledge. The latter had been retained by the fishermen and adventurers, and Tangiia’s ancestor, at the time the Soal arrived, survived because of it.

Legends are stories of adversity dressed in the mysticism of age and the beauty of fine words.

One legend tells that the
Fafakitani
, the Feelers of the Sea, were born on a voyage from Samoa to Tonga when King Taufa’ahau’s catamaran-style canoes lost their way. The chief navigators had confessed their ignorance of their location on the wide blue waters when a blind old man, a navigator of low rank, dipped a hand into the sea.

‘Tell the King we are in Fijian waters,’ he announced after touching the waves.

The chief navigators scoffed but the stores were low and the King asked for more information. He was told by the blind old man, Kaho, that when the sun was in the middle of the sky the flotilla would sight land. A few hours later the fleet arrived at a group of islands to the east of Fiji. Kaho was a hero.

It is said that Kaho confessed many months later to having been informed of the presence of a fish-eating
bird that never ventured far from land – but the Feelers of the Sea did not lose their prestige.

The islands of Tangiia’s ocean were green stars flashing on a convex watery sky. Imbedded in millions of square kilometres of sea, they glittered like the scattered fragments of epidote crystals in the morning light. Tangiia paused at the first island with rich growth tumbling down to the beaches that he came across, to take on stores of yams, breadfruit and
nyali
nuts and wrapped them in
pandanus
leaves. Our meat would come from the sea in the form of fish. The boat was already stocked with drinking coconuts.

He was careful not to disturb the undergrowth as he collected his foodstuffs – we did not wish to arouse any occupant of the island. A fight was not what we sought on this journey.

Once on the ocean again he took his course from the wind and current. He was bound he said for Raiatea, where he knew he would find Peloa, the lava-tongued young partner of his recent mating. The spear and the deep narrow target would again find each other out.
(Is it the spear that finds the mark? Or is it the magnetic cleft that draws the spear towards its deep centre?)