Four, 18 November

In clearer water

Oct 08, 2024

Dronikus, a novel set on a burning planet called Earth.

Swimming to freedom

Zola swam for hours, his head down, his body moving smoothly through the water. He was used to the prolonged immersion doing his daily search for shrimp in the muddy swamps. He had abandoned his tank and other gear soon after leaving the immediate surrounds of his island. At times, he rested, floating on his back, letting his body be carried by the quick brown waters. He had to take care to avoid the rocks and logs and large clumps of detritus cluttering the waterways.

He stopped once and looked back across the swamps to his handiwork – a column of black smoke that snaked into the sky. The significance of the pyre registered as a tightening of his face, in resolution rather than regret. He put his head down and took up his strokes.

She had come into his room at night; it was the first time he had seen her in four years. He was awakened by her arms enfolding him. He heard her voice – ‘Zola’ – and swung his head round to see her, outlined in the dark. He reached and clasped her to him. ‘Leilu, Leilu, Leilu.’ They held each other, for what seemed to be forever, their tears streaming.

His steady pace had taken him a long way from his island. The channel gave way to shallow, torpid waters across the delta. He abandoned his flippers as he was now forced to crawl through waist-deep furrows, the mud so familiar to him. It stuck to his body and weighed him down. His progress slowed.

By late afternoon he came to a tributary entering the swamp. It was brackish but less polluted. He walked a shallow reach of the stream until he found deeper water. At first the swimming was easy enough until he came to a narrows where the onrushing water forced him to struggle forward. Finally, he reached a low rocky ledge and climbed out of the water. He worked his way round and climbed high above the river, the rapids and cascades now far below.

As the sun dipped behind hills, rain clouds gathered. Zola paused at the mouth of a long narrow canyon. Its sheer cliffs rose high above him and plunged down into a deep black lake which snaked away into the darkening distance. The water here was still. Hardly a ripple showed on its surface. In the failing light he scanned the canyon. He had never seen a lake like this. It was as if it were alive. He dived in and swam the length of the lake, enjoying the caress of the soft, cool water on his skin.

All thoughts, all extraneous emotions banished, his body moved urgently through the water, stroke upon stroke, until he reached a small beach at the top of the canyon, where he pulled himself onto the sand and happily collapsed, exhausted.

He fell into a deep sleep, impervious to the warm heavy rain that had started to fall, washing across him.

‘Why did you leave?’

‘Why did you not come with me?’

They both knew the answers to these would have to wait. They lay next to each other, relaxing, giggling, and joking, overjoyed to have this moment together, re-establishing the deepest connection that either had ever known. And the next question – ‘why are you here?’ – was also unspoken, also needed an answer but that, too, would have to wait. There were other issues that needed addressing.

And thus they began to talk, circling round the hurt and the anger, until he blurted it out:

‘The plane crash?’

‘We did it.’

‘You?’

‘I said “we”.’

‘Yes, but you?’

‘We make decisions together.’

‘Hey, Leilu! This is me, Zola, your brother! Tell me: did you do it? You, Leilu?’

‘I told you.’

‘Are you happy with what happened?’ he asked after a pause.

‘No, I wasn’t. I’m not. No, I deeply regret it. If I could have stopped it, I would have. I feel guilt, remorse.’

Those are words he had held onto through all the years since then. Regret. Guilt. Remorse.

In the bed he lay back, reassured.

‘But we acted well within the rules of war,’ she said, almost whispering. ‘We sent messages of warning, messages threatening punitive acts if they did not stop doing what they were doing.’

Zola opened his eyes to a still, black night. He was lying where he had collapsed on the sand. Despite his dreamless sleep he awoke with a sense of Leilu on his mind. She lingered, the way a sweet flavour lingered on the palate. The rains had gone. He sat and watched as a handful of stars emerged from a mass of cloud, and he wondered at the magnitude of what lay beyond this inconsequential and benighted planet.

He listened into the silence. The remembered sounds of dronikus faded into a quietness he could barely believe. His mind drifted to what had happened at Shangdu. To how his sister had died. He baulked, knowing well what came next: that he’d been instrumental in her death.

They had lain together, reconnecting, reliving the vivid memories of their childhood, reaffirming their sibling love after the years apart.

‘Why have you come?’ he had asked finally.

She sat up in the bed but said nothing.

‘Well?’ he said.

After a moment she turned to him. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

‘OK. What is it?’

‘As you probably know, the company is developing a new bio-digital surveillance system. They’re saying that it is for combat situations but of course it is designed to help suppress urban uprisings.’

Zola nodded. He knew about the project, even though he himself was not involved in it. The company was about to deliver prototypes to government, leading to its mass production.

‘We intend to destroy the sectioned computer system that houses all the designs and production data. It won’t stop them, but it will…’

‘What do you want me to do?’

She hesitated before she spoke. ‘We need access to that part of the building.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Would you get the access codes for us?’

He could not refuse her request, despite his reluctance and apprehension. When the raid came some weeks later, the rebels found themselves caught in an ambush and were decimated. All the rebels, including Leilu, were killed, it was said.

At first light Zola slipped into the silken water of the lake. He looked up at the waterfall cascading from the top of the escarpment and began to move again. He swam, walked, and crawled through sets of rapids, heading ever upwards until he finally reached the base of the waterfall.

It took him some hours to climb the steep rocky cliffs onto higher ground. The river was relatively wide and fast-flowing here. He swam, his progress slowed by the strength of the current.

He came upon a disused pump station on a concrete barrage damming the river, which fed into a wide canal. He cautiously entered the decaying concrete structure and, hidden on a platform built above the intake pipes, he lay down, exhausted. Below him, tons of debris had clogged the river. The canal was part of a network that zig-zagged across the flat lands, having formerly brought water to crops and grasslands. Zola knew that he need only follow the canals to find his way to his destination. It would be a journey of many days, but this was the safest route, where he was the least likely to be detected.

Once rested he left his concealed spot in the pump station and plunged into the canal. Swimming in these waters was a relief compared with the river, as there was hardly any current. He swam for many hours passing through abandoned farmlands alongside the canals.

Late in the afternoon he entered a narrow canal. As he moved along its edge he saw a clump of withered trees in a gully. Risking exposure in the short gap between the water and the woods, Zola crept warily over the canal bank and dashed into the small grove. He stood tight against a tree. He scanned the empty and desolate landscape around him and chuckled at his nervousness. Then he laughed, shouting out, ‘calling all dronikus! This is Mr Tertius. Dronikus, where are you?’

He found some berries that he recognised, shrivelled on a tree. He ate them, knowing they were the bitterest of bitter fruit. The equally bitter and shrivelled face he made as he forced the berries down added to his mood. So this is what freedom tasted like.

He sat on a log, and his mind wandered to the brasselleur and how its arrival had signalled the end of his exile. He had been comfortable as a prisoner; he acknowledged this again. Sitting in this barren wasteland, his island in the swamp way behind him, the city far ahead of him, he felt again the impulse, the feeling of urgency, sparked by the bird. He wasn’t sure what it meant and where it would lead, but it was there. Somehow it connected to Leilu and to Roberto’s message that she was still alive.

The sun had not set. He moved deeper into the thicket and decided to lay up in the gulley for the night. He looked for something edible to accompany the meal of bitter berries. In the deepening shadows he saw plants that, he was sure, were his old favourite, the sticky weed. He pulled a few leaves and ate them; they tasted familiar, so he had a few more. But then he spat those out, not convinced they were sticky weed after all. They left a noxious taste in his mouth. In the elbow of a tree he found water and sipped it.

He pulled grasses and leaves to make a bed of sorts, and as the sun set and night fell like a thick blanket across the world, he lay down, staring into the darkness, one he was so familiar with: the clouded skies, no sign of stars or moon, nothing but pure blackness. When the rains came he embraced them.

He still carried in him the lightness of spirit he had felt earlier. Although he had been isolated for 16 years, he nevertheless felt that he was part of the wider world. Watched by the dronikus, people knew of him, where he was, and what he was doing. Here, he was truly alone. He felt a deep pleasure, a rich harmony of his mind, his spirit, his soul. No one on the planet, not the dronikus, not the rators, not even Enrike, knew where he was. He was the only conscious being for miles around.

He lay back, his arms and legs outstretched. ‘Six foot by three foot of pure happiness,’ he chuckled.

His mind roamed. He began to feel that he knew who he was now, why he was here, and what the brasselleur was sent for. It was a challenge, a call to follow his destiny. He could feel a strength seeping into him, a sense of purpose and direction. He felt bold, ready to embrace his sister, ready to pick up where they had left off.

A faint but growing pain in his gut pulled him back from his reveries. He tried to ignore it, reasoning that it was an attack of anxiety given the momentous stuff going on in his head. Real pain came quickly however, and he could dismiss it no longer. His body convulsed, spasm after spasm, stronger and stronger, as if his guts were being ripped open. He managed to get to his knees and crawl in the dark, away from his makeshift bed until he bumped into a tree and fell down in agony. He pulled himself up only as far as a crouch. His stomach, his bowels, and what seemed like his whole body, exploded through his sphincter, his innards burning like bubbling hot oil. He collapsed where he lay.

At first light he staggered to his feet, weak and confused. He found the tree where he had taken water and drank what remained in the hollow. This would either kill him or save him. He didn’t care which.

Hey, what's that sound?

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