Half Discovered Wings (14 page)

When the
message was transcribed, the armoured man read it back until the
other was satisfied. Then Dysan said:

‘
There’s a messenger outside city who has a horse. His name is
Henrique. Send the bird to him with orders to pass the message on
immediately to the addressee.’

‘
Yes, Regent.’

Outside,
Kinneas untied the jess from his arm and then fastened it around
the rolled up scroll. The bird clutched it tightly in one talon and
flapped its wings in anticipation of flight. Delicately, the large
bear-like man stroked the bird’s downy chin, patted down its wings,
then launched it into the air and watched it go.

The falcon
called to him once, wheeled three hundred and sixty degrees above
the city, and then vanished over the water.

~

The bird flew for two hours in the night, faster than any man
or animal could have run. It made its way over the water of the
Lua, following the coastline. The longwing then swung around over
the trees of the forest, the highest leaves just a metre or so
below its yellow claws. The messenger was familiar to it by sight,
and it had his location as thoroughly memorised as it did its own
roost in the falconry.

The courier was known to the Regent as Henrique Unger, but
his real name was Henrique Martínez. A native of New Castile, he
had migrated further west and overseas to find a place that was not
so caught up in civil war. After living in São Jantuo as an artist,
he’d been mildly successful before leaving to live in an abandoned
camp he’d come across halfway around the Lual, and joined the group
of men that lived there.

Since then the
group had grown and they were now scavengers – in a non-diminutive
sense, of course – that sold bits and pieces left over from the
great Conflict. The privateers had often sailed over the sea-like
lake looking for water-bound wreckage, but found nothing but ghouls
and time-forgotten notes of distant music, rolling in through the
thick mist.

The falcon descended and set itself down on the perch planted
there for that purpose, rigged so that the bird’s weight activated
a small electronic buzzer further within the camp. Henrique came
out, took the message in his work-worn hands, and smiled as he
patted the bird.

‘
Good lad,’ he said. ‘Move along home, now.’

The falcon blinked its round eyes and took off into the
darkness, calling in parting. Henrique returned the call perfectly
with his hands curled around his mouth. He unrolled the parchment
and ran an ore-stained hand over his ten days’ worth of facial
growth. The old energy-blades were tough to come by in recent
years, and unappealing straight-razors were all that were left.
Henrique preferred not to shave at all.

‘
Hmmm.’

It was another message from the Regent, but the preliminary
note said it wasn’t for him, and his eyes weren’t permitted to read
the rest. He read it anyway.

As he passed through the large open gates of the former POW
camp, he was treated to the smell of steam-powered hydraulics and
the accompanying rhythmic sounds. His ears had grown used to the
racket after all these years.

His hands were
dirty, so he put the scroll under his arm (which he admitted
probably wasn’t the cleanest place to put it) and walked briskly
through the wide open square of the yard, over the bridge that
spanned the narrow-but-deep mining gully, getting himself
soot-covered in the process, and finally to the entrance of the
camp proper.

It took three knocks to get him in, but he was a familiar
face so the password wasn’t necessary. Henrique nodded to the
doorman and found himself in the filthy corridors of the inner
camp, lit only by twenty-watt bulbs because more would cost too
much electricity, and the decrepit holo-lights had powercells that
could only be recharged with extinct power couplinks. Well,
Henrique thought with a smile, they had people working on that.
Soon this place would be powering itself, at minimal cost, and they
could spare more money on the mining, which was what paid for the
men and their meals.

He got to his room and shut the door. The machinery clunked
and prattled in the background as he inspected the scroll more
closely, then began making his routine copies. One for the archive
– Henrique Martínez was know as the Last Bureaucrat by the others
at the camp – and one more for the other party that may be
interested.

Henrique made more money than anyone else in the camp, though
he didn’t talk about it. He was a messenger and cook, and as far as
everyone else knew, made a messenger and cook’s wage. Only he and
his dying potted plant knew otherwise. He made thrice the messenger
and cook’s wage, which was almost twice as much as even the head
excavator made.

The reason was this: Henrique Martínez was a spy. He
preferred to call himself an
agent of
espionage
, but he could never tell anyone
to call him that, because of the nature of his work. He was paid by
various parties to copy interesting messages he received through
his work and pass them on. It was a simple life, yet a luxurious
one, and all the more interesting for being
top secret
. Only the other parties
knew, and they knew nothing of each other.

It was an uncomplicated system, and all the more lucrative
because of it. Not many people knew the name Martínez, so he wasn’t
in any danger. They all knew where he lived of course – the falcons
and runner-hounds had to know where to deliver the messages – but
if they did try an offensive he could escape into the mines easily
enough, and the other inhabitants of the reclaimed camp would lead
them in the wrong direction until they got tired or died of carbon
monoxide poisoning.

With the copies made, Henrique did three things: firstly,
filing away his personal copy, for security; secondly, rolling the
second copy and tying it with green twine, then fastening it to his
belt; and thirdly tying up the original with
blue
twine and it to the other side
of his waist.

With that done, he checked the time, estimated that there was
enough time to be finished by noon (it was still barely past
midnight), and left a note for one of the others recording his
departure and estimated time of return.

He left on horseback, and made his way around the Lual toward
Smugglers’ Run.

~

Smuggler’s Run was an old transport system from before the
Conflict that had been used for fast shipping between the towns
Milaca Duos and Goya, which was further west. Where Barreiras once
was, the Lual now rested, and the original opening of the Run –
then called “Transitway TW-409” – became flooded, having cracked
during the bombings. However, a second line had been installed
coming to the Northeast of Barreiras, and just happened to join
half a mile up from the crack. It hadn’t been finished by the time
the warheads hit, and the privateers, upon finding it, had dug the
last few hundred yards to the join and found it travel-worthy. Even
the rails were usable and free of rust.

Unfortunately, however, the Transitway was reasonably new
compared to the rest of the country, and used hover-technology that
had died following the Conflict. But the rails were adaptable – or
rather, the cars were – and soon they had it running off simple
electricity. The privateers laid claim to it, charged the few
people who knew about it, and protected it the only effective way
they knew: weapons and security systems.

The electric Transitway ran at a maximum of three hundred
miles per hour, but was rarely used at that speed to save on
maintenance. The current acceptable speed was two hundred miles per
hour, which meant just over an hour’s journey. This was fine by
Henrique, considering the distance, meaning he could deliver his
messages and be back at the camp for lunch. No problem.

Ninety minutes of riding got him to the entrance of the
Transitway easily and with no trouble at all from the forest’s
less-sociable inhabitants. Yet Henrique worried about leaving his
horse by the mouth of the tunnel, despite the fact that she would
be protected by Phillip, a friend who now watched Henrique approach
with a blade of grass between his teeth.

‘
Yo!’ he called out amiably. ‘Off for another ride? You keep
long hours, Henri.’

‘
Not as long as you,’ he replied. ‘Will you ask me for the
password?’

‘
No need, my young friend. Travel safely. Speak kindly to our
allies on the other side, okay?

Henrique strapped his horse to the pylon that Phillip
indicated, patted her muzzle and whispered:

‘
Don’t you worry now,
señorita
, you’ll be safe here with
Phillip.’

The entrance was wide but partly collapsed. It hadn’t been
cleared for fear of discovery. Phillip had his pistol there anyway,
if the
Caballeros
or sanguisuga came by.

Henrique walked confidently into the cave mouth and down the
gentle gullet of stone, finally coming to the control console that
had been specially made to replace the broken-down electronic
touchscreen. He keyed in some commands, allowing himself thirty
seconds to lie down comfortably on the car before it
activated.

The electric car started with a jerk, and built up in speed
until it was going at the preset two hundred miles per hour.
Henrique lay quietly in the depression in the centre of the
platform, unnerved as always by the rush of air over his face. He
tried to rest despite the horrible gut-wrenching feeling of
movement and the wailing noise of the tunnel’s stale wind blasting
past.

He ignored the rushing stalactites above him, instead closing
his eyes and thinking of his adolescence: fifteen, out of school
long enough to move and get a job with his uncle on a small farm,
paid in the native currency that he barely remembered the name of.
His pennies had gone toward a packet of sunflower seeds that he had
been assured would grow, even in the roasting Castilian heat. They
hadn’t, and after a year he had dug up the dried seeds and put the
largest in a plastic clasp, fastened it to twine and hung it around
his neck. The clasp now rolled against his chest as the car roared
down the passageway, a solid symbol of freedom.

He must be under the water now: he had felt the jerk of the
car switching tracks, the join where the new tunnel was connected.
He was on his way directly to a small town just a few hours’
horse-ride from Goya. Henrique didn’t allow his eyes to open, but
thought about the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, which had
changed his life.

Leaving from the port of Lisboa at eighteen, with only a
small backpack and the tiny seed around his neck, he had joined the
crew of merchants that sailed regularly between Spain, the Gulf,
Brazil and Foundland. He could give them nothing for the trip,
which earned him a sour look from the first mate.

‘
The next journey is to St. John’s,’ he had told
Henrique.

‘
I don’t know where that is,’ he replied. He felt pathetic; how
little he knew of this world.

‘
It’s in the Foundland. After that we sail to Recife, where you
wish to go, yes?’

‘
Yes. Where the artists and poets are.’

‘
Then you can work on our vessel until then, from here to St.
John’s to Recife. Then you may leave, and you’ll have paid your
fare. How’s that?’

The bearded man with the greasy-looking skin – not unlike how
Henrique’s was now – had smiled then, and shown him his silver
tooth. It was the most wonderful thing the young Henrique had ever
seen, and, dazzled, he agreed without a second thought.

The captain had been a little angry at the first mate for
offering such a deal, but saw the zealous young man on the deck
before him, grinning. He smiled back, clapped him on the shoulder,
and said, ‘Welcome aboard,
pequiño
amigo
! You’ll be our new
swabber.’

Henrique hadn’t known what that meant then, but soon found
out, and tired of it almost immediately. After the trip to St.
John’s, where they had been delivering fine cloths made in his own
country, he had been allowed to work in the kitchens with the
Russian cook. Gregory had taught him about food and told him how,
whenever he wanted a day’s shore-leave from the captain, he would
pour five thimbles of moonshine vodka into his soup and ask him
twenty minutes later. The cook always got his
shore-leave.

Some months later they berthed at Recife, where he had said
goodbye to the captain and the first mate, and Gregory the cook,
who winked and offered him a drink of the vodka, which he kindly –
and wisely – refused. Three weeks after that he stumbled across the
mining camp, where he stayed for a year until moving on to São
Jantuo. He’d heard about the lights of the Lual that played over
the water all the way from the party-town of Goya, bearing through
the mists to make the sky appear a canvas of colours. His first
sight of that had been one he would never forget, though his four
years in the service of the Regent had been equally
memorable.

A shot of pain rolled up his spine and he was spun suddenly
to his left, hurting his face on the floor of the car. He hurtled
over the lip of the depression and sliced open an inch of his cheek
on the sharp metal. The car had stopped dead. Was the hour up
already?