koilungfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
koilungfish) wrote2008-04-19 03:40 pm
koilungfish) wrote2008-04-19 03:40 pm
Entry tags:
080419 - Furthermore, Still in a Swamp
30/3/08 - Ill
31/3/08 - Day Off
1/4/08 - Ill
2/4/08 - 854 words on Taste of Empires
3/4/08 - Ill
4/4/08 - 6/4/08 - Holiday
7/4/08 - Ill
8/4/08 - Fail
9/4/08 - Commission work
10/4/08 - Fail
11/4/08 - Commission work
12/4/08 - Ill
13/4/08 - Ill
14/4/08 - 1945 words on Stormhangar
15/4/08 - 548 words on Stormhangar
16/4/08 - Ill
17/4/08 - Day Off
18 /4/08 - Ill
19/4/08 - Furthermore, Still in a Swamp
"Where are we going?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the Swamp Bug through unfamiliar twists of swamp-grove.
"Village," Manuel said. "Need to speak to a few friends of mine about the palace. Wouldn't want it to spread."
Brad felt his heart thump against the inside of his ribcage like a dog jumping up at a meaty bone at the mention of the village. The village was safe, the village had solid ground, the village had women ... the village had Ellie.
The Swamp Bug left the groves, breaking out onto a broad stretch of river, and Manuel actually put the hovercraft into fourth gear for the first time Brad had ever seen. He could feel something approaching a breeze picking up from the speed.
"Hey," Brad said, looking around at the river - thirty feet wide or more, the colour of wrinkled tinfoil dull under the cloudy, humid sky. "Don't you get the big congapedes in the open water?"
"Not here," Manuel said. "This one is too narrow for a big king. They are all downstream, in the big delta past Panabella. Hasn't been a big king here since the flu epidemic."
"Flu?" Brad asked.
"Flu," Manuel replied, nodding energetically. Brad suspected he must be looking incredulous. "When the people came here from Earth - from Brasilla?"
"Brazil," Brad said.
"There," Manuel said, shrugging. "They found that the king congapedes could get the flu from humans. Couple of other diseases too. But not the cold."
"The what?" Brad asked, looking back. The river slithered away behind them into the grey and green trees.
"The cold." Manuel pulled the Swamp Bug back into third gear. Ahead was a thick band of trees, thick-trunked and heavy-branched. "It was a disease people got a lot a eighty years ago. My mother told me about it once. Something to do with soup and chickens. But the kings wouldn't get it. That's why people came here, to study the kings."
"And then?"
"They found a cure, and went away again, and some people were left behind here." Manuel tipped his hat back. "My mother said it was dried then. When the kings all died, they stopped eating the river bugs, so the river bugs ate all the river grass and the trees got everywhere, until everything was silted up." He scratched behind one ear. "It took a few years for the little kings who'd survived to grow up, but they were all immune to the flu, so once they were back they were back. They ate the bugs, the grass grew, the saplings died, the rivers washed the silt away. Washed a lot of villages away when the rivers really started to rise again. Washed most of the people back out of the swamp."
"Ever been out of the swamp?" Brad asked.
"Mhm, mhm." Manuel nodded. "I go to town on the bus once or twice a year. Buy some of this, some of that."
"Why'd you come back?" Brad asked, looking up at the clustered branches dangling over the river.
"I live here," Manuel said. "It's my home."
The river forked around the band of trees, left and right, and Manuel turned the hovercraft into the right fork. The landscape snapped into shape for Brad, and he recognised the village.
It was built around a platform of concrete half a mile across - a broken ring of wooden houses on tall stilts. The stilts were webbed together with branches and weeds and all sorts, and that got thick with silt. A silt-bank had formed, boomerang-shaped around the upstream side, and the tree-bank had grown up on it.
Manuel brought the Swamp Bug right up onto the concrete platform and parked it politely in the corner, well away from the big yellow circle in the middle. There were a few women standing around, leaning on the platform's rusted rails. Brad realised it must be Thursday; they were waiting for their children to come home from school.
"We going to drop these leaves off while we're here?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the engine off and jumped out of the hovercraft.
"I'll speak to Fernando," Manuel said. "Perhaps he will store them until Monday. But it doesn't matter much. We'll be going home tonight either way."
"What about burning the palace?"
"Too late in the day. Tomorrow, maybe, or Saturday. Even Sunday. Better Sunday. If anyone gets hurt they can go on the bus on Monday morning." Manuel resettled his had a bit. "Don't wander too far, Brad."
Brad didn't plan to. There wasn't anything much to see here, just people's houses, and the few women standing around. But it was nice to get out of the Swamp Bug and walk up and down on firm ground - on concrete of all things - for once.
He heard the buzz and the barking together and stepped well back, right up against the hovercraft, before looking around. He knew the hovercraft and its owner and its owner's dog all from just that sound.
The big hovercraft slid up out of the swamp and came to a stop right in the middle of the bus's landing port. One of the women gave the driver a nasty look and was ignored.
Earl Sawney, Brad thought, watching the big man climb out of the high seat on the hovercraft. His mastiff, Crusader, jumped out of the hovercraft and lunged about, yanking at the heavy chain anchored to one of the hovercraft's cleats. Behind Crusader, Tinker Sawney - Earl's brother, a lean and hatchetty man where his brother was massive and fleshy, quiet and mean where Earl was loud and mean - threw a metal trap over the side. Brad recognised Earl's other dog, Bobby, a wretched collie type, wet and shivering inside.
Cloe Coller, Earl's cousin, was the last to get off the hovercraft. Brad didn't know much about him, he was just a guy - middle build, middle height, middle age - but he was the one carrying the guns.
"Didn't hit nothing, Cloe?" Brad called.
"Didn't find nothing," Cloe yelled back. He wore large sunglasses and had a moustache, always wore a shirt. That was about all Brad could say about him. "Some days they just hear us coming."
Earl spat over the edge of the hovercraft. "Didn't help none you got us lost. I'm telling you, you can't navigate for shit."
Cloe shrugged one shoulder. Nobody ever spoke back to Earl. Nobody spoke to Earl if they could avoid it at all.
In the cage at Tinker's feet, Bobby risked a whine. Tinker kicked the cage. "Aw, shut up. Damn dog."
"Reckon you should feed him more," Brad said. "Maybe he's too thin to be bait." It made him sick to say it, but it wasn't like Earl or even Tinker would give a damn about the dog otherwise.
"Listen, you son of a pig," Earl shouted. Brad looked up at the man, all pink skin and bright red Hawaiian shirt. "That's my dog there. I'm the only man in this damn swamp who can keep a dog alive for more than a day, so don't you lecture me and mine none. You don't know nothing son." He tipped his head forwards, glaring at Brad over his sunglasses. "I know what happened to your dog, boy."
Brad raised his hand as if tipping his cap. "Yessir," he said, and shut up. The third night he'd stayed in the village, Earl and kicked the bejesus out of him for trying to pat Bobby. He'd been lucky not to lose teeth.
Cloe came back from Earl's house - the biggest, the one with barred windows and a bit like a boat's platform on the top so Earl could shoot things from home - and turned Bobby out of the trap. The collie-mix slunk back to the house, belly almost on the floor, ears pinned back, looking around fearfully. Crusader snapped at him as he went past.
Bobby glanced at Brad as went, tail tucked between his legs.
Man, if dogs could cry ... Brad thought.
The door of Earl's house opened and Ellie came out onto the stoop, all tired in the face. Her hair was all mussed and wet, almost black with water. Brad knew she dyed it red; he wondered if that was what she'd been doing.
"Woman!" Earl shouted, still busy in the hovercraft. "What the hell you playing at taking a bath at this time of day? Get my damn bath ready! If my bath water's cold I'll turn you out into the river!"
Ellie rolled her eyes and went back into the house. Brad watched her arse as she went. Bastard, he thought, wondering what the hell Earl Sawney did to deserve her, except win some crumby lottery in some country Brad had never heard of. Who the hell'd win all that and spend it coming out here - brother, cousin, cousin's sister and all - just to live out some crazy quest shooting congapedes?
He thought about why he was there, right in the middle of the Punando swamps, as far off the net as you could get without going to Alpha Centauri. Proxima Centauri was a good planet to hide - the swamps, the desert, the frozen waste near the north pole. Hell, if I wanted water I could've gone and hidden in the south ocean for ten years.
He looked over his shoulder at the swamp, full of leechwood trees and palace spiderettes and pipette flies and king congapedes that could chomp your head clean off, the endless scummy water and the fragments of squishy ground and the incestuously tangled trees.
I should've gone to the desert.
31/3/08 - Day Off
1/4/08 - Ill
2/4/08 - 854 words on Taste of Empires
3/4/08 - Ill
4/4/08 - 6/4/08 - Holiday
7/4/08 - Ill
8/4/08 - Fail
9/4/08 - Commission work
10/4/08 - Fail
11/4/08 - Commission work
12/4/08 - Ill
13/4/08 - Ill
14/4/08 - 1945 words on Stormhangar
15/4/08 - 548 words on Stormhangar
16/4/08 - Ill
17/4/08 - Day Off
18 /4/08 - Ill
19/4/08 - Furthermore, Still in a Swamp
"Where are we going?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the Swamp Bug through unfamiliar twists of swamp-grove.
"Village," Manuel said. "Need to speak to a few friends of mine about the palace. Wouldn't want it to spread."
Brad felt his heart thump against the inside of his ribcage like a dog jumping up at a meaty bone at the mention of the village. The village was safe, the village had solid ground, the village had women ... the village had Ellie.
The Swamp Bug left the groves, breaking out onto a broad stretch of river, and Manuel actually put the hovercraft into fourth gear for the first time Brad had ever seen. He could feel something approaching a breeze picking up from the speed.
"Hey," Brad said, looking around at the river - thirty feet wide or more, the colour of wrinkled tinfoil dull under the cloudy, humid sky. "Don't you get the big congapedes in the open water?"
"Not here," Manuel said. "This one is too narrow for a big king. They are all downstream, in the big delta past Panabella. Hasn't been a big king here since the flu epidemic."
"Flu?" Brad asked.
"Flu," Manuel replied, nodding energetically. Brad suspected he must be looking incredulous. "When the people came here from Earth - from Brasilla?"
"Brazil," Brad said.
"There," Manuel said, shrugging. "They found that the king congapedes could get the flu from humans. Couple of other diseases too. But not the cold."
"The what?" Brad asked, looking back. The river slithered away behind them into the grey and green trees.
"The cold." Manuel pulled the Swamp Bug back into third gear. Ahead was a thick band of trees, thick-trunked and heavy-branched. "It was a disease people got a lot a eighty years ago. My mother told me about it once. Something to do with soup and chickens. But the kings wouldn't get it. That's why people came here, to study the kings."
"And then?"
"They found a cure, and went away again, and some people were left behind here." Manuel tipped his hat back. "My mother said it was dried then. When the kings all died, they stopped eating the river bugs, so the river bugs ate all the river grass and the trees got everywhere, until everything was silted up." He scratched behind one ear. "It took a few years for the little kings who'd survived to grow up, but they were all immune to the flu, so once they were back they were back. They ate the bugs, the grass grew, the saplings died, the rivers washed the silt away. Washed a lot of villages away when the rivers really started to rise again. Washed most of the people back out of the swamp."
"Ever been out of the swamp?" Brad asked.
"Mhm, mhm." Manuel nodded. "I go to town on the bus once or twice a year. Buy some of this, some of that."
"Why'd you come back?" Brad asked, looking up at the clustered branches dangling over the river.
"I live here," Manuel said. "It's my home."
The river forked around the band of trees, left and right, and Manuel turned the hovercraft into the right fork. The landscape snapped into shape for Brad, and he recognised the village.
It was built around a platform of concrete half a mile across - a broken ring of wooden houses on tall stilts. The stilts were webbed together with branches and weeds and all sorts, and that got thick with silt. A silt-bank had formed, boomerang-shaped around the upstream side, and the tree-bank had grown up on it.
Manuel brought the Swamp Bug right up onto the concrete platform and parked it politely in the corner, well away from the big yellow circle in the middle. There were a few women standing around, leaning on the platform's rusted rails. Brad realised it must be Thursday; they were waiting for their children to come home from school.
"We going to drop these leaves off while we're here?" Brad asked as Manuel turned the engine off and jumped out of the hovercraft.
"I'll speak to Fernando," Manuel said. "Perhaps he will store them until Monday. But it doesn't matter much. We'll be going home tonight either way."
"What about burning the palace?"
"Too late in the day. Tomorrow, maybe, or Saturday. Even Sunday. Better Sunday. If anyone gets hurt they can go on the bus on Monday morning." Manuel resettled his had a bit. "Don't wander too far, Brad."
Brad didn't plan to. There wasn't anything much to see here, just people's houses, and the few women standing around. But it was nice to get out of the Swamp Bug and walk up and down on firm ground - on concrete of all things - for once.
He heard the buzz and the barking together and stepped well back, right up against the hovercraft, before looking around. He knew the hovercraft and its owner and its owner's dog all from just that sound.
The big hovercraft slid up out of the swamp and came to a stop right in the middle of the bus's landing port. One of the women gave the driver a nasty look and was ignored.
Earl Sawney, Brad thought, watching the big man climb out of the high seat on the hovercraft. His mastiff, Crusader, jumped out of the hovercraft and lunged about, yanking at the heavy chain anchored to one of the hovercraft's cleats. Behind Crusader, Tinker Sawney - Earl's brother, a lean and hatchetty man where his brother was massive and fleshy, quiet and mean where Earl was loud and mean - threw a metal trap over the side. Brad recognised Earl's other dog, Bobby, a wretched collie type, wet and shivering inside.
Cloe Coller, Earl's cousin, was the last to get off the hovercraft. Brad didn't know much about him, he was just a guy - middle build, middle height, middle age - but he was the one carrying the guns.
"Didn't hit nothing, Cloe?" Brad called.
"Didn't find nothing," Cloe yelled back. He wore large sunglasses and had a moustache, always wore a shirt. That was about all Brad could say about him. "Some days they just hear us coming."
Earl spat over the edge of the hovercraft. "Didn't help none you got us lost. I'm telling you, you can't navigate for shit."
Cloe shrugged one shoulder. Nobody ever spoke back to Earl. Nobody spoke to Earl if they could avoid it at all.
In the cage at Tinker's feet, Bobby risked a whine. Tinker kicked the cage. "Aw, shut up. Damn dog."
"Reckon you should feed him more," Brad said. "Maybe he's too thin to be bait." It made him sick to say it, but it wasn't like Earl or even Tinker would give a damn about the dog otherwise.
"Listen, you son of a pig," Earl shouted. Brad looked up at the man, all pink skin and bright red Hawaiian shirt. "That's my dog there. I'm the only man in this damn swamp who can keep a dog alive for more than a day, so don't you lecture me and mine none. You don't know nothing son." He tipped his head forwards, glaring at Brad over his sunglasses. "I know what happened to your dog, boy."
Brad raised his hand as if tipping his cap. "Yessir," he said, and shut up. The third night he'd stayed in the village, Earl and kicked the bejesus out of him for trying to pat Bobby. He'd been lucky not to lose teeth.
Cloe came back from Earl's house - the biggest, the one with barred windows and a bit like a boat's platform on the top so Earl could shoot things from home - and turned Bobby out of the trap. The collie-mix slunk back to the house, belly almost on the floor, ears pinned back, looking around fearfully. Crusader snapped at him as he went past.
Bobby glanced at Brad as went, tail tucked between his legs.
Man, if dogs could cry ... Brad thought.
The door of Earl's house opened and Ellie came out onto the stoop, all tired in the face. Her hair was all mussed and wet, almost black with water. Brad knew she dyed it red; he wondered if that was what she'd been doing.
"Woman!" Earl shouted, still busy in the hovercraft. "What the hell you playing at taking a bath at this time of day? Get my damn bath ready! If my bath water's cold I'll turn you out into the river!"
Ellie rolled her eyes and went back into the house. Brad watched her arse as she went. Bastard, he thought, wondering what the hell Earl Sawney did to deserve her, except win some crumby lottery in some country Brad had never heard of. Who the hell'd win all that and spend it coming out here - brother, cousin, cousin's sister and all - just to live out some crazy quest shooting congapedes?
He thought about why he was there, right in the middle of the Punando swamps, as far off the net as you could get without going to Alpha Centauri. Proxima Centauri was a good planet to hide - the swamps, the desert, the frozen waste near the north pole. Hell, if I wanted water I could've gone and hidden in the south ocean for ten years.
He looked over his shoulder at the swamp, full of leechwood trees and palace spiderettes and pipette flies and king congapedes that could chomp your head clean off, the endless scummy water and the fragments of squishy ground and the incestuously tangled trees.
I should've gone to the desert.