Walking to the Stars (23 page)

The screech was eerie and shrill, going right through Nick's head, sounding like something undead was coming for them, which was always possible.

Samuel squeaked, and Talgerit said, “Nick?"

Nick hitched himself back over the tree root, and slid down, into the slimy leaves and humus, nowhere near as quiet as he would have liked. Something whispered beside him, as Talgerit followed him, and a rock disappeared from in front of Nick, meaning Talgerit had picked it up.

"Monster?” Talgerit whispered, as another cry rent through the early morning.

Something glimmered in Nick's memory, amongst the ancient fragments of history from when he'd been a student on campus, hidden in the campus-lore about the tea-bag lined ceiling in the library cafe and AC/DC playing the campus tavern, decades before he was even born. Something about the Faculty of Arts...

"It's a peacock,” Nick said. “They lived in that building, in front of us."

"What are they?” Talgerit asked. “Monsters?"

"Birds,” Nick said, standing up and gesturing for Samuel to join them. “It's a really loud bird."

"Good eating?” Talgerit asked.

"Like emu,” Nick said, and Talgerit's culinary anticipation was still detectable, despite his invisibility.

They walked past the shattered windows of the Arts building, Nick keeping an eye on the sky above them, and listening for any more choppers. Behind him, Samuel said, “About peacocks..."

Nick looked back, and Samuel was holding an enormous, muddy and trampled peacock tail feather, that would be easily taller than himself if it was unbroken.

"My experience of peacocks is only as a literary and cultural reference,” Samuel said. “I had no idea their feathers were so long."

Another screech ripped through the morning air.

"They're not supposed to be,” Nick said. “Let's move."

He led them, as fast as the rough ground and tall weeds would allow, between the Arts building and the restaurant and function building he'd never been into, down to a car park. They kept moving past the rusted cars, to the tangle of reeds and mud that marked the edge of the river.

Nick scanned the river, steely gray in the overcast morning, but no boats were approaching the bank.

Why this was so became clearer when the Wagyl swooped down on their right, landing out in the middle of the river without a splash, then disappeared underwater.

"Yacht club is this way,” Nick said, pointing to the right.

"Why do you know about a yacht club?” Samuel asked. “Didn't you have to study too hard for boating?"

"The yacht club had a bar,” Nick said. “This was important."

They pushed their way through the bushes. Burned-out cars lined the road, where the river had left it intact. Apart from the peacock calling behind them, the air was silent.

Nick shifted the bag he was carrying to his other shoulder and wished he had some drinking water left. “Not far,” he said to Samuel, who was looking even more tired and wretched than he had been the night before.

"It's a long way,” Samuel pointed out. “To get home."

The dog yipped, up ahead of them, the sound muffled and muted, and Talgerit said, “Stop, before there's kissing. Steal a boat."

The sun barely moved in the sky in the time it took them to walk down the open, curving road lined with charred vehicles, to the ruins of the yacht club. There were more wrecked vehicles, then they found the clubhouse itself, every pane of glass broken and the walls falling in.

"The sheds,” Nick said. “Down by the moorings."

The jetties were rotten, claimed by the river, and the yachts left in the water were hulks, river water lapping at caved-in hulls and toppled masts. The storage sheds, built out of sheet metal with rust-proof frames and no windows, had fared better, and the sight of the doors standing solid and closed made Nick run up to the first shed to pull at the handle.

He grabbed the door and dragged on it, Samuel beside him tugging as well, but nothing happened.

"Talgerit? Can you help!” Samuel called out, and Nick couldn't stop himself from reflexively looking around for Talgerit.

"Sure,” Talgerit said, on the other side of Samuel from Nick, then shouted in dismay, his voice echoing and hollow, on the other side of the metal door.

"Talgerit!” Nick called, shaking the door.

"Dr. Nick!” Talgerit called, definitely from the other side of the door. “Help!"

"Did you walk through the door?” Samuel asked.

"No, unna?” Talgerit said. “Can't do that."

"If you're in there, then you either walked through the door, or you blinked and appeared in there,” Samuel said, in what Nick knew was his Be Reasonable Voice. “Which was it?"

"Walked through,” Talgerit said. “The dog has, too."

"I think you're phase-shifting,” Samuel said. “In terms of physics, anyway. Try and relax, be a Featherman, and walk back out."

Something banged against the other side of the door, and Talgerit grumped to himself.

"Featherman,” Samuel said. “Invisible, silent, moving without footprints."

The door shifted slightly under Nick's hands, and Talgerit said, right beside Nick, “Featherman worked. Thank you, Samuel."

"Phase-shifting?” Nick asked. “What?"

"Talgerit is kind of at a hundred and eighty degrees to the rest of the world,” Samuel said, taking the screwdriver out of his pocket and pushing the bag he was carrying between his feet, leaving both of his hands free. “Atoms are mostly empty space. Talgerit is just utilizing that space."

Samuel dug at the lock mechanism on the shed door with the screwdriver, and Nick said, “How?"

"Magic,” Samuel said. “Or, some really weird physics. Don't ask me, I'm neither a physicist nor a magician. Maybe I could hit the lock?"

Nick held the screwdriver steady, and Samuel bashed at it with the shifter, but nothing happened except that they made a lot of noise, the metal of the shed door ringing with each blow, the sound loud in the silent morning.

"Corroded solid?” Nick suggested, and Samuel nodded.

"It's going to be easier to take a panel off the shed,” Samuel said.

"I can do this!” Talgerit called out, from inside the shed once again, and the dog's yips echoed metallically.

"Can you open the door as well?” Samuel asked.

Nick and Samuel stepped back from the door, and Nick looked at the screwdriver in his hand and tried to remember something that was niggling at him...

Talgerit thudded and banged inside the shed, and Nick asked, “Why can't we see Talgerit's clothes?"

Samuel blinked and twirled the shifter around on his finger.

"And,” Nick continued, “when Talgerit picked up a rock, it disappeared."

Samuel nodded slowly. “That would explain the dog, too."

"It would?” Nick asked.

Samuel shrugged. “It's something Talgerit does, rather than something he is."

"So he could stop?"

"Probably,” Samuel said. “Though, he might need to talk to either a clever man or a physicist first."

The door to the shed swung open, creaking and groaning on its hinges, and Nick managed a grin at Samuel, who pocketed his screwdriver and hitched his bag more securely on his shoulder and nodded back.

The shed was stacked with moldering boating gear, racks of engine parts, and rolled sails, all gone with time. Some things, however, were corrosion and mold resistant, like fiberglass and aluminum.

Nick craned his neck, looking up at the rafters of the shed, three meters above their heads, and said, “Who here knows how to paddle a canoe or kayak?"

"What?” asked Talgerit, from somewhere behind Nick.

"Does it involve electric motors?” Samuel asked. “Or something I might have learned on the freighter?"

The rafters held a couple of aluminum dinghies, and what looked like a fiberglass paddleboat from underneath.

"Probably not. Let's get these boats down, find out what still floats,” Nick said.

"Where are we going in this boat?” Samuel asked. “Are we paddling all the way to Albany?"

Nick shook his head. “Ocean is too rough for that, at least it was when I was a child. We're going up the Canning River, to the main road south. Then we're going to steal a military vehicle of some kind."

The dog yipped, and bounded past, chasing something small that flickered in the corner, hopefully only a rat, and Samuel said, “I can see the dog!"

The dog was definitely visible, and that was definitely a rat it had just caught.

Nick and Samuel both swung around, and Talgerit was visible as well, smiling and inspecting his hands like they were new.

"Look!” Talgerit said.

Nick's gaze dropped to Talgerit's feet, checking for injuries, and despite years of practice at hiding concern and surprise from patients, he still made a noise of dismay.

Samuel said, “What?” and Talgerit gasped, because where previously Talgerit's feet had been encased in a pair of increasingly mangy and dirty boots of emu feathers, now the feathers were clean and evenly layered, pressed tightly against his feet...

"I have feathers,” Talgerit said, sounding less surprised than he possibly should be. He lifted his foot up, to rest it on a workbench beside a collection of rusted shifters and ruined power tools, and the three of them inspected his foot.

"May I?” Nick asked, and Talgerit nodded, so Nick touched the feathers, spreading them apart to see how they were attached to Talgerit's skin.

"Do you know any stories, unna?” Nick asked, looking up at Talgerit again.

Talgerit shook his head, then grabbed at his chest, and pulled his jacket open. The Wagyl scale had gone, leaving just the cord dangling around Talgerit's neck.

"The Wagyl took the scale back,” Talgerit said.

"The new feathers smell better,” Samuel said. “And I say that in a supportive and loving way."

Talgerit put his foot back down again and slapped Samuel hard on the back, in return.

"What about your shoulder?” Nick asked.

Talgerit slid his jacket down, and Nick peeled the dressing off. The sutures fell out, fluttering down from the dressing, and the skin and muscle underneath was completely healed, new and smooth.

"You're healed,” Nick said, rolling up the dressing into a ball and tucking it out of sight, on a shelf.

Talgerit looked up, at the roof of the shed, and said, “I can hear something..."

Nick concentrated, and nodded. “Another chopper."

"Won't a boat be a bad idea?” Samuel asked. “With the helicopters around?"

Nick gripped Samuel's arm, and squeezed it gently. “I'm going to get a boat down, somehow. And you're going to teach Talgerit how to phase-shift all of us, and a boat."

"I don't know how,” Samuel said.

"And I'm far too old to be climbing around shed rafters with rope, lowering boats,” Nick said. “Or we could ask Talgerit how much being shot hurts."

Talgerit looked up, from fluffing the feathers on his feet. “Hurt more than the marron."

Nick clambered up on to the workbench, then tested the strength of the racks that held the rotten sails, and pulled himself up onto a rack, two and a half meters above the ground and level with the nearest aluminum dinghy. Below him, Samuel was talking quietly and quickly to Talgerit, something about gauge transformation and degrees of freedom.

The dinghy was chained in place, rather than roped, which explained why it hadn't fallen, and Nick tried not to think about how, at his age and with his patchy lifestyle, his bone density probably wasn't up to an impact injury as he leaned out and unhooked the chain holding the dinghy in place, and lowered one end of the dinghy down carefully.

The other end of the dinghy dropped easily, too, until it was suspended a meter above the ground, and Nick sent silent thanks to the people who had packed the boatshed, a quarter of century before, and had done it right.

Lowering the fiberglass dinghies involved more swearing and hanging from overhead rafters, but they were rigged the same way as the first dingy, so didn't smash to pieces on the floor, just swung wildly around, colliding with each other, the workbenches, and Samuel.

While Samuel rubbed his head and swore in a language Nick didn't recognize, Talgerit helped Nick lower the boats to the floor of the shed.

"I don't understand Samuel,” Talgerit said. “Not even his words."

Nick paused to listen to a chopper circle around, maybe kilometers away.

"I don't understand Samuel's words either,” Nick said. “But sometimes the story makes sense anyway."

Talgerit nodded.

"You listen, I'm going to get water for us,” Nick said.

The shed provided several clean-enough buckets, so Nick slipped out of the shed, into the daylight, and checked for military vehicles, then picked his way through the hulks of boats and wrecked jetties, to where the river lapped against the shore and he was mostly hidden from sight by pylons and fallen walls.

His memory said the river was salty down at the yacht club, but he didn't want to even test that without boiling the water first.

He filled one bucket, discarded it because it leaked, and filled another, then looked up to scan the river and shore again in case someone was planning on shooting him.

The Wagyl was watching him from a couple of hundred meters out, bobbing on the water, sleek and dark, and Nick felt his scars tingle in response.

"Thank you,” he whispered to the Wagyl, then filled the buckets that worked and carried them back into the shed.

"What's the plan for purifying the water?” Samuel asked, when Nick put the buckets down and pulled the shed door closed.

"I was going to boil and distill the water,” Nick said. “Because of the salt. But, on a hunch, I'm going to taste it first."

He poured water over his hands, to wash some of the grime off them, then cupped them together and lifted his hands to his mouth.

The water was as fresh and clean as the rainwater from the tanks on the farm, and was certainly not river water.

"It's safe to drink,” Nick said. “Probably cleaner than anything we've had before."

While Talgerit drank, Samuel said, “We're not making progress. I don't think my inadequate understanding of quantum physics and his world view are ever going to intersect."