Nation (17 page)

He heard the splash above, and a hand reached past him and snatched the hammer. He looked up into the furious features of Ataba, just as the old man brought the hammer down on the stone. Bubbles rose as the priest man shouted something. Mau tried to grab the hammer and got a surprisingly powerful kick in the chest. There was nothing for it but to swim for the surface with what breath he had left.

“What happened?” asked Pilu.

Mau hung on to the side of the canoe, wheezing. The old fool! Why did he do that?

“Are you all right? What is he doing? Helping at last?” asked Pilu, with the cheeriness of someone who doesn’t know what’s going on yet.

Mau shook his head and dived again.

The old man was still hammering madly at the stones, and it occurred to Mau that he didn’t have to risk getting another kick. All he had to do was wait. Ataba needed air, just like everyone else, and how much of it could that skinny chest hold?

More than he expected.

Ataba was hammering wildly as if he intended to be down there all day…and then there was an explosion of bubbles as the last of his air ran out. That was chilling, and also quite insane. What was so dangerous about a rock that the old fool would waste his last breath trying to smash it?

Mau fought his way down through the running tide, grabbed the man’s body, and dragged it back up to the surface, almost flinging Ataba into the arms of the brothers. The canoe rocked.

“Drain the water out of him!” he yelled. “I don’t want him to die! I can’t scream at him if he’s dead!”

Milo had already turned Ataba upside down and was slapping him on the back. A lot of water came out, chased by a cough. More coughs followed, and he lowered the old man to the deck.

“He was trying to smash the new stones,” said Mau.

“But they look like god anchors,” said Milo.

“Yes,” said Mau. Well, they did. Whatever you thought about the gods and their stones, these looked like god anchors.

Milo pointed to the groaning Ataba. “An’ he’s a priest,” he said. Milo believed in laying out the facts of the matter. “An’ he was trying to smash the stones?”

“Yes,” said Mau. There was no doubt about it. A priest, trying to smash god stones.

Milo looked at him. “I’m puzzled,” he said.

“One of those down there has got calipers carved on it,” said Pilu cheerfully. “The trousermen use calipers to measure distance on their charts.”

“That means nothing,” Milo intoned. “Gods are older than the trousermen, an’ they can make what they like on the stones—Hey!”

Ataba had jumped over the side again. Mau saw his feet disappear under the water.

“That was the caliper stone he was trying to smash!” he growled, and dived.

The water was pouring through the gap now. It grabbed Mau as he swam after the skinny figure, tried to play with him, tried to throw him against the jagged coral.

It had got the priest already. He was struggling down toward the blocks, but the racing tide snatched at him, banged him against the coral, and tumbled him away, struggling, with a thin trail of blood blooming in the water behind him.

Never fight the tide! It was always stronger! Didn’t the old fool know that?

Mau swam after him, curving his body like a fish, using all his energy to keep away from the edges of the gap. Ahead of him, Ataba struggled to the surface, tried to grab a handhold, and was spun away into the foam.

Mau rose to take a breath and swam on—

Blood in the water, Mau
, said Locaha, swimming alongside him.
And there will be sharks outside the reef. What now, little hermit crab?

Does not happen! thought Mau, and tried to swim faster.

Demon boy, he calls you. He smiles in your face but tells people you are mad. What is he to you?

Mau tried to keep his mind blank. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the gray shadow, easily keeping up with him.

There’s no shell for you here, little hermit crab. You are heading for the open sea.

Things happen or do not happen, thought Mau, and he felt the deep water open up under him. The sunlight shone blue through the waves above, but below Mau it was green, shading to black. And there was Ataba, hanging in the light, not moving. Blood uncoiled in the water around him like smoke from a slow fire.

A shadow passed over the sun, and a gray shape slid overhead.

It was the canoe. As Mau grabbed the priest, there was a splash, and Pilu swam out of a cloud of bubbles. He pointed frantically.

Mau turned to see a shark already circling. It was a small gray, although when there is blood in the water then no shark is small, and this one seemed to fill the whole of Mau’s world.

He thrust the old man toward Pilu but kept his attention on the shark, looking into its mad, rolling eye as it swam past. He thrashed around a little to keep its attention on him and didn’t relax until, behind him, he could feel the boat rocking as Ataba was hauled up for the second time.

The shark was going to rush him on the next pass, Mau could tell. And—

—suddenly it didn’t matter. This was the world, all of it, just this silent blue ball of soft light, and the shark and Mau, without a knife. A little ball of space, with no time.

He swam gently toward the fish, and this seemed to worry it.

His thoughts came slowly and calmly, without fear. Pilu and Ataba would be out of the water now, and that was what mattered.

When a shark is coming at you, you are already dead, old Nawi had said, and since you were already dead, then anything was worth trying.

He rose gently and gulped a lungful of air. When he sank back down again, the shark had turned and was slicing through the water toward him.

Wait…Mau trod water gently as the shark came onward, as gray as Locaha. There would be one chance. More sharks would be here at any second, but a second passed slowly in the arena of light.

Here it came….

Wait. Then…
Does not happen
, said Mau to himself, and let all his breath out in a shout.

The shark turned as if it had hit a rock, but Mau did not wait for it to come back. He spun in the water and raced for the canoe as fast as he dared, trying to make the maximum of speed with the minimum of splash. As the brothers hauled him aboard, the shark passed underneath them.

“You drove it away!” said Pilu, heaving him up. “You shouted and it turned and ran!”

Because old Nawi was right, Mau thought. Sharks don’t like noise, which sounds louder underwater; it doesn’t
matter
what you shout, so long as you shout it loud!

It probably wouldn’t have been a good idea if the shark had been really hungry, but it had
worked
. If you were alive, what else mattered?

Should he tell them? Even Milo was looking at him with respect. Without quite being able to put words to it, Mau felt that being mysterious and a little dangerous was not a bad thing right now. And they would never know that he’d pissed himself on the way back to the canoe, which as far as sharks were concerned was nearly as bad as blood in the water, but the shark was unlikely to tell anyone. He looked around, half expecting to see a dolphin waiting for him to throw it a fish—and it would feel…
right
…to do so. But there was no dolphin.

“It was scared of me,” he said. “Perhaps it was scared by the demon.”

“Wow!” said Pilu.

“Remind me when we get back that I owe a fish to Nawi.” Then he looked along the little deck to Ataba, who was lying in a heap. “How is he?”

“He’s been banged about on the coral, but he’ll live,” said Milo. He gave Mau a questioning look, as if to say “If that’s all right with you?” He went on, “Er…who’s Nawi? A new god?”

“No. Better than a god. A good man.”

Mau felt cold now. It had seemed so warm in the blue bubble. He wanted to shiver, but he didn’t dare let them see. He wanted to lie down, but there was no time for that. He needed to get back, he needed to find ou—

“Grandfathers?” he said under his breath. “Tell me what to do! I do not know the chants, I do not know the songs, but just once, help me! I need a chart for the world, I need a map!”

There was no reply. Perhaps they were just tired, but they couldn’t be more tired than he was. How tiring was it, being dead? At least you could lie down.

“Mau?” Milo rumbled, behind him. “What is happening here? Why did the priest try to smash the holy stones?”

This was not the time to say “I don’t know.” The brothers had begging, hungry looks, like dogs waiting to be fed. They wanted an answer. It would be nice if it was the right answer, but if it couldn’t be, then any answer would do, because then we would stop being worried…and then his mind caught alight.

That’s what the gods are! An answer that will do! Because there’s food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is no time for big, complicated, and worrying answers! Please give us a simple answer, so that we don’t have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don’t fit the way we want the world to be.

So what can I say now?

“I think he thinks they aren’t really holy,” Mau managed.

“It’s because of the calipers carving, yes?” said Pilu. “That’s what he was trying to smash! He thinks you’re right. They were made by the trousermen!”

“They were inside coral,” said Milo. “Reefs are old. Trousermen are new.”

Mau saw Ataba stir. He went and sat down next to the priest as the brothers maneuvered the canoe around and fought it back through the gap. People had gathered on the beach, trying to see what was happening.

When the brothers were busy, Mau leaned down. “Who made the god anchors, Ataba?” he whispered. “I know you can hear me.”

The priest opened one eye. “It’s not your place to question me, demon boy!”

“I saved your life.”

“It’s a ragged old life and not worth saving,” said Ataba, sitting up. “I don’t thank you!”

“It’s very ragged indeed and smells of beer, but you must pay me back, otherwise it belongs to me. You can buy it back but I set the price!”

Ataba looked furious. He struggled as if he was being boiled in anger and resentment, but he knew the rule as well as anyone.

“All right!” he snapped. “What do you want, demon boy?”

“The truth,” said Mau.

The priest pointed a finger at him. “No you don’t! You want a special truth.
You
want the truth to be a truth that
you
like. You want it to be a pretty little truth that fits what you already believe! But I will tell you a truth you will not like. People want their gods, demon boy. They want to make holy places, whatever you say.”

Mau wondered if the priest had been reading his mind. He would have needed good eyesight, because rosy clouds of exhaustion floated across Mau’s thoughts, as if he was dreaming. Sleep always wanted paying; if you put off sleeping for days on end, then Sleep would sooner or later turn up with its hand out.

“Did the gods carve the white stone?” His tongue slurred the words.

“Yes!”

“That was a lie,” Mau managed. “The stones have trouserman tool marks on them. Surely gods don’t need tools.”

“
Men
are their tools, boy. They put the idea of carving into the minds of our ancestors!”

“And the other stones?”

“Not only gods can get into a mind, boy, as you should know!”

“You think they are
demons
?” said Mau. “
Demon
stones?”

“Where you find gods, you find demons.”

“That might be true,” said Mau. Behind him, he heard Milo snort.

“It is my position to know the truth of things!” Ataba shouted.

“Stop that, old man,” said Mau as gently as he could. “I’ll ask you one more time, and if I think you are lying, then I will let the gods blow your soul over the edge of the world.”

“Ha! But you don’t believe in the gods, demon boy! Or do you? Don’t you listen to yourself, boy? I do. You shout and stamp and yell that there are no gods, and then you shake your fist at the sky and revile them for not existing! You need them to exist so that the flames of your denial will warm you in your self-righteousness! That’s not thinking, that’s just a hurt child screaming in pain!”

Mau’s expression did not change, but he felt the words clang back and forth in his head. What
do
I believe? he thought. What do I really believe? The world exists, so perhaps Imo exists. But He is far away and does not care Locaha exists—that is certain. The wind blows, fire burns, and water flows for good and bad, right and wrong. Why do they want gods? We need people. That is what I believe. Without other people, we are nothing. And I believe I am more tired than I can remember.

“Tell me who you think carved the stones, Ataba,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Who brought them here and carved them, so long ago they lie under the coral? Tell me this, because I think you are screaming, too.”

All sorts of thoughts twisted their way across the priest’s face, but there was no escape. “You will be sorry,” he moaned. “You will wish you didn’t know. You will be sorry that you did this to me.”

Mau raised his finger as a warning. It was all he could manage. The pink hogs of tiredness trampled through his thoughts. In a minute he would fall over. When Ataba spoke next, in a whispered hiss, it echoed as if Mau was hearing it inside a cave. The darkness was made of too many thoughts, too much hunger, too much pain.

“Who brings rocks here and leaves them, boy? Think on that. How many people will you hurt even more with your wonderful truth?”

But Mau was already sleeping.

Mr. Black hammered on the door of the
Cutty Wren
’s wheelhouse for the second time.

“Let me in, Captain! In the name of the Crown!”

A hatch in the door slid back. “Where is she?” said a voice full of suspicion.

“She’s below!” the Gentleman shouted above the roar of the wind.