The Gradual (27 page)

Kan slipped my stave into her belt and said, ‘I will be outside Shelterate. We can adjust time gradient there.’

‘Why don’t you want to be paid for this?’

‘No charge on Demmer.’

She slipped away. I made no move to follow her, or even to try to see where she went. I had tired of that futile pursuit many voyages ago.

The ship shuddered as we came alongside the quay and grated against it. Whistles blew, hawsers were thrown and secured, cargo cranes started making their roaring, whining noise. I went below-decks to retrieve the rest of my luggage. A familiar process lay ahead.

I stepped ashore and at once I realized something was wrong, something was different. I stood still, regarding the terraced town, the busy harbour, the cranes along the quay. Demmer Insula looked like a pleasant town, probably cultured and almost certainly with local music activity – I could not see anywhere that looked like a concert hall, though. It was late afternoon, the sun at its brightest and the air at its hottest, although the shadows were deep and starting to lengthen. There was an oppressive feeling in the atmosphere and when I looked back across the strait behind me I saw what must be the reason. A huge thundercloud was darkening the sky. It was so low that it appeared to be scraping the sea itself. A vast black anvil shape soared into the stratosphere, reaching out. Winches turned and the cranes were working but I realized that no insects were rasping, no seabirds hovered. A hot breeze lightly lifted the brim of my hat.

Thunder rumbled, a long low growling, still at a distance.

I walked across the quay, heading for the familiar sight of the Shelterate office, wanting to be done with the formalities so that I could find my hotel before the storm came ashore. The building was back from the main harbour, beyond a small warehouse. I climbed up a flight of stone steps to reach it.

Only Kan waited outside. She stood under the canopy, away from the sun, my stave in one hand and her knife hanging by its thread. But alone.

Where were the others?

She handed my stave back to me, but at a glance I could not tell if she had already etched a new line.

‘No detriment,’ she said. ‘The gradual of Demmer is neutral.’

‘Have you scored the stave?’

‘The gradual is neutral. No need, no charge on Demmer.’

Thunder growled again – louder, closer, more of a thudding bang. The air was still, sweltering. I felt perspiration running down my neck, between my shoulders.

Kan was one of the youngest of the adepts and whenever I had seen her in the past she had seemed to hang back, allowing the others to deal with the time gradients. I glanced past her in the direction of the coming storm, but a harbour building blocked most of the view.

‘Are you sure about the money?’ I said.

‘What worries you?’

‘The detriment – if it is not removed it could start accumulating. And where are the others?’

She pouted her lips, made a dismissive sound.

‘Take the stave in there,’ she said, tipping her head back and towards the entrance to the Shelterate building behind her.

Another heavy roll of thunder. The sun was quickly occluded by the cloud. I wanted a better view of the sea, so I took a few steps to the side. When I looked down and across the harbour I saw that in the short time I had been talking to Kan the storm had moved much closer. I could see sheets of rain falling in the near distance, blocking most of the visible sea. A strong wind was arriving with the storm cloud. Waves were breaking hard against the harbour wall. Inside the harbour, men and women were working swiftly to secure the small boats and yachts in the private moorings to the side. In a few moments, the hot tranquillity of the town had been transformed by the shade of the thundercloud into a dark, shuttered place.

A pink-white sheet of lightning flashed four or five times. I did not see the fork, but I had never seen brighter lightning before. A second or two later the thunder sounded again, this time a terrifying crash followed by echoing rolls. Within a few moments the rain had reached us: it swept in, pouring down heavily. I looked towards the Shelterate building with its open door, a few metres away. I was tempted to dash across, but I was closer to the adepts’ canopy, so I hurried beneath it, next to Kan.

Someone inside the Shelterate building slammed the door closed, and moments later the windows were pulled shut too.

The rain turned rapidly to hail: a terrible downfall of white marbles, crashing unrelentingly on the concrete apron. I wondered if the canopy would be strong enough to withstand the violent deluge, but Kan saw me glancing up and shouted something I could not hear, over the noise of the hailstones.

The hail was accumulating on the canopy, making it sag down towards us. Kan reached up and prodded the fabric, and a new cataract of ice balls rattled deafeningly on the ground around us. I ducked, stepped away, went too far and nearly backed into the hailstorm on the other side of the shelter. A cold and sharp wind blew around us, bulging the canopy roof and ejecting more of the captured ice balls.

Then the hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Thunder was roaring almost incessantly, and the lightning was forking with terrible energy across the sky and down to parts of the town which were visible from where we huddled, but the hail stopped. An uneven sea of ice spread across the concrete. Overhead, the underside of the massive cloud was dark grey, streaked with red. It was flashing like an immense, faulty light bulb.

I felt warm air blowing up from the sea.

Kan said, ‘Don’t move! It is still dangerous.’

As she spoke, a second storm of hailstones began falling from the sky. If anything these stones were larger than in the first shower and were rattling down more intensely, but the fall was over more quickly, in less than a minute. The thunderstorm continued above us, around us, frighteningly close and deafening – some of the thunderclaps felt as if they were shaking the whole of my body.

The warm air brought again the familiar feeling of tropical humidity sweeping in behind the storm. It was not over yet, because a drenching fall of rain quickly followed the hail, a hard, insistent cloudburst. Almost at once so much water began to accumulate on the concreted area that the hailstones floated, drifting away as the rainwater flooded to one side.

To my surprise Kan stepped quickly out from the shelter of the canopy and walked into the heart of the cloudburst. The rain drenched her clothes and hair, but she stood still, her face tipped up to the sky, her eyes closed, her mouth open, letting the water pour all over her. She stood there as the storm began to abate, moving away noisily towards the interior of the island. The lightning and thunder continued and the rain flooded down, but it was obvious the worst of the storm was over.

The doors to the Shelterate building opened abruptly, and three officials emerged – two women and a man. They too walked into the open area outside the building into the full flood of the cascading rain. They stood close to Kan, circling themselves around, their faces and arms raised to the sky, soaking up the cleansing water.

Beyond the area where I was standing, in the street that ran down to the harbour, many more people emerged from their houses and stood, fully clothed, to embrace the downpour.

When the sun came out and the rain finally ceased, the return of the tropical heat was like the sudden opening of a furnace door. Great waves of warm air flowed up from the direction of the harbour.

Kan shook her head to make her wet hair fly out, then she swept it back with both hands. She eased the front of her shirt to separate it from where it was clinging to her body, and without even glancing in my direction walked away down the short flight of steps and along the quay. The officials returned to their building. The people in the street dispersed. Water flooded rapidly along street-side gutters, gurgling and bubbling as it coursed away.

I waited to see if Kan was going to return but finally I gathered up my things and opened the door to enter the Shelterate building. The officials were waiting for me behind their counter, their hair and clothes still soaked through. Water sloshed around our feet.

An hour later I emerged, shaken up by what had happened in the office, angered and humiliated by the officials who had insisted on searching every part of my luggage and person, but also, now that I had left and when I had calmed down a little, concerned at what underlying meaning the incident might have. I had grown to expect the Shelterate interview to be a slightly mystifying but banal encounter, soon over. Why was it different on Demmer? What had aroused their suspicions about me, and what were they looking for? They looked at first comical to me in their wet clothes, but there was nothing at all funny about the interrogation and intrusive search that followed.

With my property intact I walked through the evening heat in search of my hotel. It was close to sunset. The air was humid, steamy, but the ground everywhere had dried out within a few minutes of the passing of the storm. In most places it was if no rain had fallen: everywhere looked as parched as before. I was deliberately trying not to think about what had happened after I disembarked from the ship – the intrusive search by the officials was one thing, but what had Kan meant by saying the gradual was neutral in Demmer?

My wristwatch was showing the correct time, something I confirmed as soon as I arrived at the hotel and checked in. In my room I changed my clothes, then ate a light meal in the dining room and took an early night. I left the large window open, letting the breeze pass across my body as I tried to sleep. The room felt stuffy and airless, even so. I was restless all night long, hearing the sounds of the town around – some people were talking and laughing at a dinner table on a terrace somewhere outside, below my room, and they continued into the early hours of the morning. Even after they had left I was disturbed by the low roaring noise of the ventilator and somewhere outside my room the intermittent, jarring sound of the hotel elevator. People seemed to be riding up and down all night long.

I finally drifted into sleep but when I awoke it was already close to mid-morning.

I had booked to stay in the hotel in Demmer Insula for two more nights, but by this time I was so disliking the place, although for no good reason, that I decided to leave early. It turned out not to be possible: the hotel would only cancel the rest of my reservation if I paid a substantial penalty. Later I discovered at the port that there were anyway no more ships heading westwards until the one for which I already had a reservation.

I walked around the town, trying to understand why I disliked it so much. I came to the conclusion the tiredness was probably in me: I had been travelling too long, visited too many islands. Demmer was no more or less attractive than most of the islands I had passed through – I could see that objectively, but still I felt frustrated by being trapped there for two more days. I was set on reaching Temmil as soon as I could.

I decided it would make better use of the time if I set off to explore some of the interior. I found an island map in one of the shops on the seafront. It showed paths, villages, areas of woodland, viewpoints where scenery could be enjoyed, and so on. I set out immediately after I had eaten lunch, and in spite of the heat and the unrelenting glare of sunlight I enjoyed the day and slept well that night.

The next morning I set off early, striking out in the opposite direction, where the terrain was less hilly. I knew that several small villages lay along the coast. I passed through three of them, stopping in the third to have a drink and a meal in one of the inns. The air was still, with no sense that there might be another storm of the magnitude of the day before. The fields and hedgerows were vibrant with the sounds of birds and the rich scents of wild flowers drifted around me. Few cars or other vehicles passed me.

I soon reached the fourth village, intending at that time to have a brief look around, then turn back and return to Demmer Insula. I had walked a long way. But as I went down a curving lane towards where I could see the village houses ahead I came across a pole barrier set across the roadway. I hesitated, not sure what the barrier meant, nor how I was supposed to react. As it was a single pole it would have been a simple matter to scramble beneath it but something warned me not to try.

I stood there, thinking that I had walked far enough and I might as well turn back, when two young men in military fatigues emerged from trees by the side of the road. They came towards me. They were both carrying automatic rifles. Instinctively, I raised my hands.

‘What do you want?’ one of them said, tipping the barrel of his rifle in a threatening way.

‘I’m on holiday – walking,’ I said. The soldier looked like a teenager. His uniform fit badly and it seemed to me his hold on his weapon was unsteady. My heart was suddenly racing with fear of him, because of his immaturity, because he looked so nervous. How could anyone so young and slight be in control of such a deadly looking weapon?

‘Where you going?’

‘Down to the next village. I – don’t know what the name of it is.’

‘Then what do you want there?’

‘Nothing. Just walking. I will go back now.’

But the other one had moved around to stand behind me. He looked even younger than the first.

They were both wearing a strange kind of cap, or helmet – it was difficult to see exactly what it was, but the size and shape of it was bizarre. It looked wrong, not only on these youths, but also in the gently green surroundings of this country lane. The caps were narrow and tall, made of, or covered in, some kind of intensely black matt material. The cap was four-sided, worn straight on the top of the head with one of the angles over the forehead. There were no marks or tags to identify which unit they were from, and the caps looked impractical for armed soldiers engaged in some kind of operation. The rest of their uniform was much as I thought military fatigues should be, but the strangeness of the tall caps they were wearing was unnerving. What was signified by them?