Konsk:The Great Takeover of the Place

36. Surprising Medical intervention.

The first night on the ground, they camped around a small fire and ate paste and a feral goat that Annest had killed with a projectile weapon. It tasted good, though Trueman was troubled by the image of the young woman, so completely focused on her task and the ease with which she had then butchered it.

Later Annest had cried briefly while Nonna held her hand, first regretting the murder bitterly, then remembering an episode from her childhood when she had cut a worm in half before she understood the concept of death. Thus she separated the emotion coupled to the first event from the second and burst out laughing. Finally, she concluded rationally that the goats death, though not strictly necessary in terms of food, had been a valuable preparation for any violence to come. And it would taste nice.

Nonna congratulated her warmly. Then, while Annest watched her with a look of adoration in her eyes, Nonna regaled Annest for her lack of empathy with the natural world and her complete disregard for the sanctity of life in an outburst laden with personal abuse. She then recalled an incident from her own past when an aunt had ridiculed her desire to keep a goat as a pet, rather than a dog. This allowed her to transfer the abuse from Annest to the misguided aunt and caused considerable laughter on both sides.

Nonna then judged that in this landscape, feral goats were one of the primary limits to re-vegetation, as they ate all the tree seedlings and anyway, this one would inevitably have been torn to pieces and eaten alive by the packs of dogs that now roamed free. She added that when she got back to the Old country she would go to see Parga Norn and get a little goat for herself. The two then relaxed and ate the roasted meat with Trueman and Jodi. It did taste good.

Jodi had not taken part in the exchange before the meal, preferring to sit apart cross legged, her shaven head gleaming as the moon rose above the eastern horizon. Trueman could not tell whether her eyes were open or closed but she made not the slightest movement save for the gentle rise and fall of her abdomen and chest as she breathed slow and deep. From where he huddled by the fire, her appearance seemed to morph backwards and forwards between that of an enlightened monk and a vicious skinhead.

Trueman had found the descent from the dirigible utterly terrifying and spent the first few seconds screaming as he fumbled for a non-existent rip-cord. Jodi’s voice had sounded inside his helmet, coolly advising him that there was nothing to worry about as an altitude detector would open his pack at the correct height. He attempted to slow or at least steady his headlong descent by flapping the new body’s arms and legs whilst in a spread-eagled position but kept whirling around and flipping over.

The others manoeuvred themselves expertly not far off, occasionally plummeting to catch up with him. Nonna folded her arms and swooped closer, even grabbing hold of his shoulders to stop him spinning, grinning right into his faceplate.

In his opinion, he was disturbingly near the ground when the pack finally opened. The diminutive sail that burst out did little to reassure him. More like a damn kite, he thought worriedly. However, it appeared to work and he realised that Jodi was piloting him in. The four landed within seconds and metres of each other. He didn’t even fall over but stood, rather embarrassed at the fuss he had made, as the others smiled, looked quizzically at each other and said nothing.

Now he was down he wished he’d taken the time to observe something of the landscape. All he could recall was a grey-brown blur as he had tumbled out of control through the air. Once on the ground, sight was restricted by surrounding, undulating hills which seemed pock marked by depressions and tree stumps.

“Craters,” Annest had informed him, “And be careful. Don’t pick up anything that looks interesting. This whole area has been heavily mined.”

Trueman commented that there was little of interest in this landscape, observing dispassionately the monotonous grey and brown dust that blew low across the surface, even in the slight wind.

“Destroyed soils,” she said. “The humus has long since burned off, first ploughed away then any vegetation that’d grow, grazed off. All that grey is from the mineral rich layers, no nutrients left. Its an old story. Cut the forest, plough for cereals till the soil’s exhausted then grazing animals, all the way down to desert. Devolution.”

Trueman could see that her eyes were wet.

“Still,” she brightened, “we can sort it, eh? We’ve done it before”

“Why don’t you know all this?” came a cold voice. “What has happened to you?”

Trueman was caught by Jodi’s, expressionless stare, unrelenting. He began to shake. Annest took Jodi’s arm, speaking quietly, almost as if to hide the words from Trueman, which was plainly not possible.

“He’s INCO. You know that, he’s messed up. Let him be.”

“Inconsistent,” Jodi muttered and turned away.

“Inconclusive,” Annest countered.

Nonna grabbed Trueman’s upper arm, gave him a little shake to break the moment. When he looked down at her she stretched up and planted a kiss on his chin.

“Inconvenient,” She said. “Don’t worry, It’ll all work out, somehow. As it does.”

They had then walked for three hours, in single file, Annest leading with her eye patch pulled down, staring intently at the ground immediately ahead, followed by Jodi who watched the horizon, carrying what Trueman assumed was some form of automatic weapon. He came third and Nonna brought up the rear. They kept well spaced out, some 10 metres between each of them.

“Means if one of us steps on a mine,” Annest had said, “It reduces the risk of the rest of us loosing a limb.” This was explained in a tone that Trueman thought was intended to sound reassuring. It wasn’t.

At times as they walked steadily onwards they crossed wide areas of blackened debris, their feet raising dust and the smell of soot and burnt wood. With the lowering sun at their backs, the camouflage suits did their chameleon trick and Trueman found it difficult at times to make out Annest who blurred and merged with the landscape. In his internal Heads Up Display, small glowing triangles hovered over each of his companions.

Annest would occasionally point out something nearby as she passed. Trueman, thinking she had spotted a mine, tensed up as he neared the spot but was unable to see anything resembling unexploded ordnance and was baffled by Nonna giving a little gasp that suggested delight. It was only on the third occurrence that Trueman realised Annest was pointing out flowers poking up, a sudden splash of colour in the apparent devastation.

It reminded him of his surveying walks in the landscape around the Little Big Farm and how Dawn had continually interrupted his work by insisting on him looking at some plant or bug or something. It had been most annoying at the time but thinking about it now he felt a sudden yearning for his old home. He plodded on, feeling slightly light headed and his left leg a little stiff.

The women’s voices sounded occasionally from speakers embedded in his helmet, Nonna in particular, telling him first to keep up, then remarking on her view of his rear and how his buttocks looked nice and taut until Annest requested an end to unnecessary chit-chat on the cans.

It was shortly afterwards that the feral goat made its appearance, calling rather plaintively, Trueman thought, from the crest of a low rise, brightly lit by the setting sun. It looked quite picturesque for a moment, just before Annest brought it down with a single, almost silent shot from a small hand gun that she conjured in an instant.

She called a halt just over the next rise, setting a small device on the crest and extending what appeared to be an aerial before leading them down into a shallow depression. She looked warily in the direction they had been travelling and Trueman realised that what he had taken to be rising thunder-heads were in fact dense palls of black smoke arising from what must have been intense fires over the horizon.

After they had eaten, the three women spoke little, appearing to know what was required, arranging to split the night into three watches with just monosyllables. Nonna took the first stint, climbing the rise to the device Annest had left. The others bedded down around the embers of the fire, the kites doubling as sleeping bags that were decidedly warm even in the chill night air.

Trueman bundled himself up and lay on his back watching the stars. He felt occasional vibrations through the ground beneath the new body and could make out a glow around the rim of the horizon, as if of a distant town or city. Yet this glow seemed to rise and fall and to change its colour. Once he thought he saw a sudden thin arc like fire, rise above the landscape, momentarily illuminating the numerous craters and ravaged stumps of trees. After the fire had died down and all was silent save for a singing wind that carried fine particles of sand or dust and drove them pattering against the thin skin of the kite, he could almost make out a spatter of far off gunfire.

Once more he was drawn to consider his situation and how it had spiralled out of his control, again, if he had ever had any. He could not quite make out why he was here, with these three people, three Amazons, rather than with the bulk of the Support Tribe and the intervention. It had obviously been arranged carefully, but what did they want of him? What was expected?

He did not have any answers. Indeed, all he had were more questions and speculations. For example, Laurence had clearly indicated the original occupant of his new body as being involved in atrocities. Surely then, at some point, this new body’s crimes would face justice? Would that then mean that he, Trueman, would suffer as a result of the appalling deeds of this unknown other? He seemed to have little option other than to just hang on and see what happened, hoping things might make sense at some point.

At some point he was roused from this depressing reverie by a pale green light and a figure rising from where the fire had been, Jodi he guessed, going to relieve Nonna. The thought of these women reminded him of Dawn. He remembered her appearing at the door to his flat, just prior to the final move to the Little Big Farm, in his greatcoat that she had borrowed. She had clutched the collar to her throat, enveloped in it, standing in her bare feet that were just visible below the hem, and offered to return it to him, there and then as he suddenly realised that she was naked beneath it.

And he had said no, thank you! He groaned. She’d gone back to her own flat, below and he’d heard that Spicer roar up on his motorbike, the clump of heavy booted feet on the stairs, slam of a door and then, after only a seconds pause it seemed, the rhythmic thudding of furniture. He cursed himself for thinking of it. Another failure, another missed opportunity? Think of something else.

That Rhia, she was nice, though perhaps a bit young. He stopped himself; why did he think that? Was it some hangover from his old body, which was indeed old, or at least older? Surely Rhia was not that young but a mature woman. So why did he think of her as a mere youngster? He shook his head in confusion, feeling thoroughly miserable. INCO, they kept calling him; what did that stand for? Incompatible? Incognito?

Overhead, the darkness was almost complete, just the many pin pricks of stars that vanished in the eastern hemisphere of the sky, presumably obscured by the billows of smoke from the burning city. He drew a hand from the warmth of the kite cover just to verify that he could not see it in front of his face. He could almost make out where it was from the eclipsed stars as he moved it about. Then he felt the fingers touch something, the contours of a face.

The new body jerked as though with an electric shock and his mind momentarily stopped operating. Then, as the strong heart hammered in the chest, a soft blue light emitted from the rim of her suit’s collar illuminated Nonna’s face. She was grinning and raised a finger to her full lips.

“Medical intervention,” she whispered. “All part of your therapy.”

He felt a fumbling at the kite cover, a sudden chill as it was opened to the night air followed by a delicious sensation of the soft warmth of her body sliding in. He just had time for a delighted, disbelieving smile before she kissed him, open mouthed, her tongue slithering wetly in.

Afterwards, when she had slipped as silently away, he lay gloriously alive, though he knew not the where or the why and even, come to that, the who or the when. All thoughts of his past had receded from him, the future a simple blank page that would inevitably be filled in. Yet now, at this time, Trueman felt fully happy and content, united with this body. The only thing that nagged at him was a dull ache in his left thigh.

Later, he dreamed of Learner’s mad dog, rushing through the gorse and bracken in the hills above the Little Big Farm. In the dream, it burst out of the undergrowth, suddenly, and bit him on the leg. His left.

Please feel free to comment, criticise, suggest, complain, devise, declaim or otherwise. Many thanks. Hwyl! Chris.