Mortals

Salvaged weapons and ammunition were being sorted in the area just in back of Kerekang, and certain items were being brought to Kerekang’s attention from time to time and he was nodding in precisely the same manner to each item presented for his reaction. He was an automaton.

Ray went up to him. He bent down and touched Kerekang’s shoulder, to get his attention. The armed men bristled and one of them put the barrel of his rifle in Ray’s stomach. He had white legs. He was a newcomer, from the pan. He wouldn’t necessarily know about dilau, that he was dilau. Kerekang said something rapidly and the rifle went away.

Ray said, “Rra, excuse me. Listen, this burning of bodies… Listen to me, you have to let me find Rra Wemberg. He is among the dead and I know you know the man you love him you loved his wife Alice, and Dwight needs to be buried with his wife, rra. I can take him, you can give him to me. I will do something. And do you know where my friend is, the doctor? He will agree with me. Do you know where he is?”

The men surrounding Kerekang, which Ray couldn’t help thinking of as a chorus, were saying something, chanting something, and it was Setime. Ray thought he knew what was up, which was that he had to use the right term of address, which was Setime, bringer of fire, fire-thrower, whatever it was.

Ray began again, “Setime, man, please tell them to stop until I can find our friend.”

Setime nodded, mechanically, not looking up.

Ray was at the pile of bodies.

The pile was smaller.

Anything can happen, he thought, and he was thinking a body he might find would be Morel’s. The king on the throne was just nodding, Kerekang on his washtub.

He thrust his hands into the mass of dead bodies, pulling the topmost ones aside. He wanted to see if Quartus was there, but he didn’t care what happened, now, to his body. He needed a better framework for what he was doing, because it was too terrible. The bodies had been piled midway between Kerekang and the building, and that had been a mistake. Because Ngami Bird Lodge was dying in a roar, the fire was a roaring thing, a beast. Every window was sprouting horns or prongs of fire. The conflagration was tending in one direction, to the east, coming to a furious point to the east. Another clutch of explosions went off. He was getting bloody again. Whoever had cleaned him up had wasted his time. He was sorry not to know more about the dead he was pushing out of the way, but he only wanted one thing, he was sorry to say. The original team of body-tossers had withdrawn because of the heat. That was sane of them. He saw a white foot, a white leg. It was Wemberg. He was on the bottom tier.

He needed help, but where was help? And where was Morel? That was next, after this.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Morel said. Morel was there, had found him.

“Help me, man. This is Dwight. Help me.”

They worked as one and got Wemberg’s body free and together dragged it back out of the blasting heat. The side of the building came down. Bits of burning stuff fell on them. It was the body of an old man, someone not far from death in his original life, that they had rescued. It was the naked body of an old man. Ray’s face was cooking. He was afraid for his eyes.

“Where have you been, by the way?” Ray asked.

“Man, I was looking for you. I lost track of you. Also I was being sick.”

“So you were off puking somewhere.”

“No I was looking for you.”

“Well so you were doing both things.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Then okay. And have you drawn my bath?”

“Not yet.”

Ray took Wemberg’s body by the ankles and dragged it as far as he could. He was weakening. He collapsed onto the ground. He made himself sit up. He had to get his bundle. It was exposed.

The men who had been feeding bodies to the fire had followed him. They were taking Wemberg’s body by the arms and starting to drag it back toward the fire.

Ray attempted a howl as he threw himself on Wemberg’s body. He had almost no voice. He was in despair.

These men were as strong as devils. He was being carried along. No notice was being taken of him. His right arm was scraping the ground, the arm that was under the body. He needed help.

Morel was helping. He was pushing his way between the devils and pushing one of them to the side.

Ray’s progress toward the fire stopped. He could say that he was ready to go into the fire with Wemberg except that that would be a lie.

The fire was lunging out at them. Everyone needed to be away from where they were or they would all just constitute a disposal problem for some other group yet to appear on the horizon.

Morel had been knocked down. If what Ray had seen was correct, Morel had pushed at the devils and then swung at them with his doctor bag, which he had been keeping close by him, and it was funny, to Ray, Morel using it as a weapon, like that. It was like a woman striking a criminal with her purse. And he was so grateful. His wife’s boyfriend was a physician and he was not supposed to injure anyone and there was all of that.

It was too hot for the devils. They were dropping the project. And they were not devils they were his friends.

He smelled a certain smell. It was meat roasting, and another smell that reminded him of hair burning. He touched his head. It was someone else’s hair, not his, burning.

He got himself to his feet and began dragging Dwight Wemberg’s body back to safety. His arm was dripping blood. Morel was not helping him, he was lying still. He was lying on the ground, back there.

He dropped Wemberg’s body and ran to see about the good doctor. He had a strange feeling as he ran, which was that he was running on a sheet of glass or on some thickness between himself and the ground, a thickness he could run on forever and that he would never tire of running on if he had to. He was probably using up vital forces from his what, his bone marrow or his coccyx or somewhere. It was connected with something, a line I staggered banged with terror through a million billion trillion stars. I can step on anything and not fall, he thought.

What was left of the building was heeling over in their direction. Morel was conscious, but he was stunned. Ray seized him by the belt. Morel felt weightless to Ray, a slight thing he could pull along after him on the glass, a thing that could slide like those things on ice, hockey things.

The building was singing as it came down, or something within it was.

Morel got to his feet.

They kept moving back. Morel was helping him with Wemberg’s body yet again. He was strong.

With a harsh, giant sigh the building came all the way down, thrusting out billows of flame and burning debris.

He stopped. He had to get his bundle. His vision of things was showing perforations, black perforations.

He had his bundle.

The perforations were expanding.

Kerekang was approaching him. He had been sitting with maps open in his lap and he was standing now and the maps had fallen to the ground and he was coming over.

“I have to lie down,” Ray said to Morel.

“Okay,” Morel said.

“You have your bag?”

“I’m okay. Yes, I do.”

We must look strange, Ray thought. He had hold of Wemberg’s left wrist and he was clasping Strange News tightly under his other arm. And Morel had Wemberg by the right wrist and with his other hand had a death grip on his medical bag, which was not completely understandable because it had been rifled, as he recalled, emptied of anything useful except Vaseline and Mercurochrome and witch hazel. It was going to feel peculiar going back to a world where business was conducted by decently groomed and normally dressed people not at their wit’s end every minute. He was confident he would be back in such a world. He didn’t know why.