The Fall of Tartarus (27 page)

They
crossed the verandah and went down the steps, then halted in the compound.
Jenner grimaced as the sunlight pounded his bare head. Silently, with a
peculiarly alert stance and minute movements of her head, Cahla scrutinised the
perimeter fence on three sides.

He
put a hand around her shoulders. ‘I don’t see anyone.’

‘Here,
was! Man!’

‘Who?
A team worker? McKenzie?’

‘Nai
- tribesman.’

At
that second, Jenner saw him. Evidently, so did Cahla. Her body stiffened
beneath his arm. She pointed. ‘There!’

The
tribesman was jogging around the compound, inside the perimeter fence. From
time to time he dropped to one knee, sketched something in the dust with his
finger, then continued running.

‘What’s
he doing, Cahla?’

‘Jungle
spirits follow him,’ she said. ‘Do
karakai,
he.’

‘What
does he want?’

Cahla
twisted her lips to one side of her face, admitting puzzlement.

Never
in his tour of duty here had a tribesman come to him - always it had been the
other way around. He realised that he was sweating. He pulled a bandanna from
his pocket and mopped his face.

The
tribesman disappeared around the rear of the compound, and minutes later
reappeared and jogged to the spot where Jenner had first seen him. Then he
stopped, turned and faced them. For a couple of seconds he stood still, very
upright, something proud and indomitable, almost arrogant, in his bearing.

Then
he walked with measured paces across the compound.

He
was tall and slim, tanned and blond. He wore a loincloth and body-paint, green
stripes covering his torso and arms. In a diagonal from shoulder to hip was
slung a thong of leather, holding a dozen darts like a primitive bandolier. In
his left hand he carried a long blow-pipe.

Watching
him, Jenner could not dispel the sense of incongruity at beholding a Caucasian
in such a guise.

The
tribesman stopped before them. His expression was neutral but bold, reminding
Jenner of Cahla. Oddly, he felt suddenly possessive of the girl, and he
tightened his grip around her shoulders.

He
held out his free hand. ‘Welcome to the station.’

Cahla
spoke in her own tongue, translating. The guttural sound seemed strange coming
from lips he had heard speaking only fractured English.

The
tribesman replied.
‘Dhaykum arkim, karan ee.’

Cahla
glanced up at Jenner. ‘Tribesman, say he, “Honoured he. Be here pleased he.”‘

‘Can
you ask him where he comes from? What he wants here?’

Cahla
stared at the tribesman, repeating the questions. The tribesman shifted his
gaze from the girl to Jenner, then back again. He nodded, tipping his head
quickly upwards.

His
reply was a rapid stream of incomprehensible plosives. Jenner assumed an
expression of polite attention. In the full glare of the sun, he was beginning
to wilt.

When
the tribesman paused, Cahla said, ‘Far away from. Ey’an he. With you talk he.
His name - Makhabi.’

Jenner
took hold of Cahla’s chin. ‘Ey’an he? Are you sure?’

She
gave a restricted nod. ‘Yay, Ey’an he.’

He
felt suddenly dizzy with a combination of the intense heat and the
unprecedented situation.

‘Will
you tell Makhabi to come into the shade?’ he said, gesturing towards the
verandah.

Reluctantly,
it seemed, the tribesman agreed. He followed Jenner and Cahla up the steps. The
transition from sunlight to shade was as refreshing as entering a pool of cool
water. They sat in a triangle, cross-legged, on the rush matting.

‘Will
you tell Makhabi that two of my workers visited the Ey’an people three days
ago. Did he see them? Do his people know what happened to my friends?’

Cahla
repeated the questions. Makhabi spoke quickly, perhaps dismissively.

Jenner
nodded as Cahla translated the replies. Again, Makhabi assumed ignorance. He
knew nothing. ‘Ask him what he wishes to discuss with me, what he wants to talk
to me about.’

This
question, when relayed, provoked a torrent of words from Makhabi. Cahla nodded
at intervals, taking in his speech. At last the tribesman stopped, and the girl
licked her lips, looking at Jenner from beneath her fringe.

‘Say
he, with him go you. Land of Ey’an people. Will be safe you. Danger no.’

‘What
do his people want with me?’

Cahla
nodded.
‘Kancha ki,
leader Ey’an people - with you talk. Ey’an people
and dying sun about.’

Jenner
released a breath, staring into the tribesman’s green eyes. He decided that
there was no reason why he could not leave the station - it was the perfect
opportunity not only to look into what had happened to McKenzie and Patel, but
to speak face to face with the leader of the Ey’an people, an honour never
before accorded to his team.

‘Very
well, Cahla. Tell him, yes. I’ll go. I’ll ready a flier and we’ll set off in .
. . say one hour.’

Cahla
turned to the tribesman, repeated Jenner’s answer. Makhabi stared at Jenner,
made a quick karate chop on the floor between them.

Cahla
flinched.

‘What
now?’

‘Say
he, flier no! Flier evil. Up river in his boat go.’

‘Very
well. But we’ll take my boat. Is that okay?’

Makhabi
listened to Cahla, reluctantly nodded.

‘I
need to collect some things, food and water, a tent.’ He hesitated, looked at
Cahla. ‘Will you come with me, to translate?’

On
the few occasions that Jenner had seen the river from the air, it had appeared
as a series of sluggish, serpentine loops and bends, the only interruption in
the jungle which extended to the horizon in every direction. Seen from the boat,
its speed reduced to walking pace by rafts of algae, the river was a
claustrophobic avenue flanked by overhanging trees and often covered
completely, a twilight tunnel in which everything, the heat, the animal cries,
the very oppressiveness of this environment, was emphasised. From the air, the
alienness of the jungle could be ignored - it might have been any tropical
jungle, anywhere - but steering the boat upriver, passing grotesquely torsioned
plants and trees, Jenner could be in no doubt that he was on an alien world a
hundred light years from Earth.

Makhabi
sat on the very prow of the boat, blow-pipe raised, his torso as erect as some
primitive figurehead. The tribesman’s own boat was tethered to the stern by a
length of plastic rope.

Jenner
was at the stern, attending to the tiller. Between them sat Cahla, facing
Jenner, her long legs outstretched. Before setting off, Jenner had erected an
awning over the back of the boat. They were spared the full force of the sun,
though nothing could be done to reduce the heat, and the humid air was as
unbreathable as steam.

He
glanced at his watch. They had been travelling for half a day. It was still a
couple of hours from sunset. Ahead, the disc of the sun could be glimpsed down
the channel of encroaching jungle. Tongues of flame licked from its
circumference, and Jenner thought that it resembled those quaint illustrations
of Earth’s own sun, drawn by ancient astronomers.

From
time to time, great flying insects flickered from nowhere and alighted on the
boat as if curious. Sometimes Cahla would put her face close to the
magnificent, multicoloured creatures, admiring their beauty. Occasionally she
flicked away the insects, her sour expression suggesting they were poisonous.
Once she quickly plucked an insect between thumb and forefinger, pulled off its
wings, removed its head and popped the resulting delicacy into her mouth.

Jenner
sat back and watched the girl who over the course of the past three years he
had come to love.

He
often thought back to the day she arrived at the Station.

It
had been almost a year after Laura’s disappearance, a year in which Jenner had
become ever more withdrawn, unable to open up to those members of his team he
had formerly considered his closest colleagues: Bob McKenzie, Chang and one or
two others. He had been torn by the desire to leave the Station and Tartarus
altogether, remove himself from the cause of his pain, and yet at the same time
to remain there in the ludicrous hope that one day Laura might return.

Then
one morning Martin Chang came running across the compound and into the
operations room with news of the discovery. Jenner and a medic had followed
him, leaving the compound and entering the margin of cleared jungle between the
Station and the river. They had hurried down the timber walkway to where a
tribal canoe was lodged in a tangle of reeds at the river’s edge.

The
sight of the little girl lying in the canoe had taken Jenner’s breath away. Her
resemblance to Rebecca was remarkable; the same fair hair, oval face, slightness
of limbs. But perhaps what affected Jenner even more was that, laid out in the
narrow confines of the canoe, she brought back memories of the very last time
he had looked upon his daughter, at rest in her coffin on the day before the
funeral.

He
had left Chang and the medic to revive her, returned to his work, and tried to
put the girl from his thoughts. She was taken to the infirmary, washed and
examined and pronounced fit and well. Jenner heard from Chang that most
probably the girl - Cahla, she called herself - had been fishing in the boat,
had fainted and drifted downstream.

Jenner
resolved to take no interest in the girl. He would detail one of his team to
take her out on the next field-trip and reunite her with her tribe.

Then,
one night, the cumulative loss of his wife and his daughter became too much,
and had to be quelled in some fashion, with drink or drugs, or human contact.
He crossed the compound to the infirmary, slipped inside and sat by Cahla’s
bed, staring at her as she slept.

In
the days that followed he had shied away from becoming involved with Cahla. She
would be leaving soon, returning to her people, and to allow himself to get
close to her would be folly. But the tribes approached by Chang claimed no
knowledge of Cahla, and as the weeks turned to months, and Jenner found himself
becoming involuntarily drawn to the girl, he ordered off the search for her
people, claiming that his teams had better things to do. Not a day passed
without his spending an hour or two in her company. He taught her to speak
English, played simple games with her, showed her around the Station. Her
savagery, her elemental nature, seemed at odds with the restricted environment
of the Station, and yet she never made any move or request to leave. After a
year with Cahla around the place, it came to Tenner with a sudden
heart-stopping jolt of realisation that he could no longer contemplate life
without her. She had ceased to be a replacement, a substitute for his daughter,
but had become an individual in her own right, a person with her own
characteristics, moods and temperaments. He decided that, when he left
Tartarus, Cahla would leave with him.

And
what cheered Jenner was that Cahla had taken to him; not with any demonstrative
show of affection or emotion - hugs and kisses were not part of the way of life
of the tribal peoples - but in her own, calm, neutral way, the way she followed
him, watched him through her fringe, was always by his side when he talked to
his team in the briefing room.

The
first time she disappeared, Jenner thought that she had finally had enough of
this strange new life, had decided to return to her true existence in the
jungle, and despite the intellectual realisation that this was for the best, he
still could not help mourning his loss.

Then,
three days later, Cahla returned, the waist-thong of her loincloth hung with a
dozen frogs, a furry monkey-like creature slung over her shoulder like a
backpack. She carried a blow-pipe, fashioned from a bamboo-analogue, clutched
in her small fist.

From
time to time she would disappear like this, be gone two or three days, or
sometimes longer, and then reappear - and Jenner’s guilt that he had perverted
the course of her life was assuaged by the evidence that she could still
function in her own environment.

The
sun had set, but the sky still glowed with flickers and pulses of orange light.
Makhabi gestured that they should pull into the shore for the night. They made
camp on a broad curve of sand. Makhabi moored the boat to the trees while
Jenner erected the dome-tent and Cahla broke out the rations. They ate in
silence, seated outside the dome, Jenner drinking water to replace the fluid
lost during the day. When it came to the sleeping arrangements, Makhabi
insisted on remaining outside, sitting cross-legged with his blow-pipe at the
ready. Jenner shared the dome with Cahla, opaqued the membrane against the
flickering night, and soon fell asleep.

He
was disturbed only once during the night, and even then he was only
half-awoken. He heard some small sound within the dome, and realised that it
was Cahla, nestling close to him. She was crying quietly, inexplicably. Jenner
put an arm around her, and after a while she ceased her sobbing and slept.